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howlingday · 2 months

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What if Jaune was a Xiao-Long? Does he either inherit Tai’s puns but are actually good, or Summer’s obsession with weapons, specifically swords.

Well, let's talk about the changes that would come with Jaune being born a Xiao Long. I'm assuming that he's Raven and Tai's son and Yang's twin brother, since him being Ruby's twin would potentially give him silver eyes and take away Ruby's role as the innocent and pure soul that she is, since she'd have to share the big hero spotlight.

As a Xiao-Long Branwen, Jaune's eyes would be red, blue, or purple, which is a choice of colors I love. Like, Yang isn't red like her mothers or blue like her fathers, but a lovely mix of purple to show she is both her mother's and her father's child. So Jaune also being born with these would be nice, though him having either Tai's or Raven's colored eyes would be a nice contrast to Yang. Also, fourth option, just putting it on the table so it's there, Jaune being heterochromatic with red and blue eyes. But to be honest, that feels a little too OC for me. Honestly, I'm leaning to Tai eyes since it would give Raven more reason to not stick around.

Jaune would grow up with Yang and help raise Ruby, but I could see him acting more like a brother than a father with her. He plays video games and reads comic books with her, while Yang is acting more as a mother-figure, filling in the space Summer left. I can also see Jaune having a Luigi dynamic to Yang's Mario, with him being the more timid and cautious twin of the two. Like, I'm imagining the three leaving to look for Summer with Jaune making constant whines like "Yaaang, we should go back!"

Now, with Jaune's weapon, let's address the goliath in the room. Crocea Mors? Not a thing. There's no family heirloom for him to take from the wall to attend Beacon. Instead, since he'd attend Signal and Beacon with his sisters, he'd make his own weapons. What weapons? Ooh... That's... Oof... If you're familiar with my Ru-Ja-Gun-Con series, you know that there are A LOT of weapons Jaune could choose and be inspired by. I even hinted at one being a solid choice for me if I had my way, BUT that was Jaune in canon. This is an entirely different Jaune. However, since this Jaune is still, essentially, Jaune, I would still like to keep the Jaune Arc style, so I'll let him keep the sword and shield and say he was inspired by the fairy tale stories he would read to Ruby, and yes, it is the Rusted Knight. However, I'd also like to borrow from the Joan of Arc inspiration and give Jaune something from her arsenal. I'm thinking a sword and shield/sheath that can be turned into a crossbow! But wait, there's more! Since both Ruby and Yang use theirs for combat AND mobility, I'd like to suggest Jaune has a rappelling line/bolt that he can slide on. Neat, right? Now we just need a name... How about... Juniper Rose, named after his favorite character from his favorite fairy tale.

"But what about his semblance?!" The voice in my head cries, mimicking what I think is what you're asking. Well, since he is heading off to Signal and Beacon with his sisters, it would only make sense to have Jaune unlock his aura and his semblance, but instead of coming up with something wild like Juniper Rose, I'd suggest keeping Aura Amp as his semblance BUT obviously have it unlocked sooner. I'm imagining a scenario during training where Ruby or Yang got really hurt, so he rushes over to help them and uses his semblance to quickly heal them.

But yeah, there's my Jaune Xiao-Long for you.

#rwby #rwby au #jaune xiao-long #jaune arc #ruby rose #yang xiao long #my answer #my thoughts

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yuurei20 · 4 months

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In honour of Christmas and the coming new year, was it ever said in the game or by the guys themselves where they go or what they do during the holidays/ winter break??

Thanks a ton of you get to this ask!! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! And an advanced Happy New Year!! <3333

Hello hello! Thank you for this question, and my apologies for the delay in answering! Happy new year ^^

For the winter break: Trey mentions not being able to visit Riddle as he is not allowed at his house, inviting Riddle to see him at his family's patisserie, saying, "I'm sure Chenya will drop by to hang out, too."

Riddle says, "I'm going to try talking with Mother some. I don't know if she'll listen, but even so."

In Book 5 Chenya says, "You never did drop by over the holidays" and Riddle responds, "I appreciate you reaching out to me," insinuating that Chenya might have tried to get in contact with Riddle over the break, but Riddle was ultimately not able to see him or Trey.

Trey says that "winter is the patisserie's busiest time of the year," so it is possible that he spent at least part of the break helping his parents with their shop!

Cater says that he would rather go home with Trey than to his own house (because of his sisters) but after Trey threatens him with "running (him) just as ragged," Cater ends up going to his own home, instead.

Ace says there wasn't much to do at his house during the break besides play video games, and I'm not sure we hear anything about what Deuce had been doing when they were called back to NRC by the prefect.

Leona goes home reluctantly with nothing but his wallet and smartphone, saying that "homework can wait until after break."

Ruggie talks about bringing home frozen food and other items near their expiration date that he got from the school cafeteria in order to distribute it amongst the kids in his neighborhood: "Gotta make sure my grandma eats well over the holidays."

He also says that "the holidays and New Year's are major hustle opportunities," so it is possible that he works part-time jobs when off from school, also saying that he can work as a ski instructor in the winter.

Jack declares that he will be doing his homework, unlike Leona, and afterwards he says that he spent most of the winter break skiing.

Jack also says, "I spent my last holiday at home pulling a sleigh in wolf form" and "I got a part-time job at a restaurant in Craneport during our last vacation," but as these lines were during events I'm not sure if he means winter holidays or different holidays, and they might not count.

Floyd says he gets tired of spending every new year with "the same old suspects," and he seems to mean Jade and Azul: the twins explain that ice floes compromise their ability to visit home in the winter, so they spend winter break at Octavinelle.

Jamil says that his family has plans to travel during the holiday, and while we do not know what exactly Epel did over the winter break, we learn from Vil that it involved skipping rehearsals for the VDC.

I'm not sure we get too much information about what Diasomnia did during the winter, but Lilia appears at Ramshackle mid-winter-break before the rest of the students have returned, talking about how Malleus is annoyed at not being invited to any parties.

As travel seems complicated for Malleus, and Silver and Lilia are father and son, it is not impossible that they remained on campus like the mermaids, possibly with Sebek (but I don't think this has actually been confirmed anywhere).

Crowley says that he intends to spend winter break "expanding (his) investigation area to a tropical land (he's) never visited before" as he diligently continues searching for a way to send the prefect home: "Escaping winter's frigid bite to kick back in a hammock and sip coconut juice while gazing at the transquil ocean waves...I have NO such refined and indulgent vacation plans whatsoever, I assure you."

The new year's events are conspicuously occurring during New Year's itself (the very middle of winter break), and the game seems to be asking for some suspension of disbelief concerning the timing.

They are very careful about not having any of the characters mention attending class or going home for winter vacation as they all announced at the beginning of Book 4 that they were going home and at the end of Book 4 they return, saying "Happy New Year," as though it is their first time seeing the prefect since before New Year's eve.

(Interestingly the prefect and Grim--who have no where else to be but the school during winter break--do not appear during the New Year's events.)

If you are wondering what the characters were up to during the winter break for maybe fanfic purposes, I think this is what we can say for sure:

1) Chenya was unsuccessfully inviting Riddle out 2) Ace was playing video games 3) Jack was skiing 4) Azul, Jade and Floyd were at Octavinelle 5) Epel was not rehearsing 6) Crowley wants people to believe that he was looking into a way to send the prefect home :>

(Or he said he was planning to investigate while letting people think he was trying to cover for a tropical vacation, but the tropical vacation story itself was actually a cover for something else?! But that gets into theory territory 👀)

#twstask #twisted wonderland

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self-loving-vampire · 2 months

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While on that subject, one of the stories about abuse that resonated the most with me (besides Tsukihime, which is also about a ton of other things) is the short manga titled May My Father Die Soon.

Part of this is that it avoids the "perfect victim" narrative I complained about the other night (although not to the same extent as some other characters I know).

Spoilers and discussions of child abuse (including a couple of personal things) below the cut.

Asuka is obviously the sympathetic party, but the abuse coming her way is not depicted as just random outbursts with no rhyme or reason like in some other stories. Abusers like that do exist, to be clear, but my experience was more with violence as a tool to coerce and attempt to shape behavior.

The abuser often has some kind of excuse for what they're doing. Something that helps them convince themselves that what they are doing is right and proper, maybe even necessary. It doesn't mean their behavior is good, but it means there's a logic to it that the victim comes to understand and navigate.

The first time we really witness what Asuka's home situation is like is when she neglects her chores to play video games with her sister.

Hitting children for not doing the laundry is wrong, but it is something that a lot of abusive parents would find to be justified. They think they are teaching their children discipline and virtuous behavior when they do that. They think they are preventing their children from becoming spoiled and lazy.

Sometimes people are even abused after doing things that are legitimately wrong, but this does not justify the abuse. It's a type of nuance that is missing from depictions in which the abuser is just a gleeful sadist who just hates their victim and enjoys hurting them.

A lot of these parents think they are doing the right thing and use violence as a means rather than an end. After stomping on his own daughter he refers to what he just did as "discipline" and acts as if it's just a burdensome duty he has to deal with rather than an act of violence he inflicted on an actual human being.

He is also quick to pull out the "I give you food and shelter so be eternally grateful and always obey me" card.

Which is, again, something I have heard expressed by multiple authoritarian parents both in my personal life and online. "I pay the bills so they must do everything I say" or "I am a good parent because I do the legal minimum to provide for them".

I also like how Asuka does not react to her abuse in a perfectly meek and submissive way like the "perfect victim" archetype usually does. She not only eventually contemplates patricide out of desperation but also shares her sister's anger even if she tries to put on a more "role model-like" front about it.

She hates how she's being treated, and she even lashes out against her sister and feels disgusted with herself afterwards. It's very different from the depictions where the victim only has "nice" and endearing symptoms like low self-esteem.

The scene in which she tries to get help from the law only for her to be dismissed (her father is a respected and influential person) and punished for it also carries a sort of despair that I'm very familiar with.

One of the times my mother came to sleep in my room because my father was being violent (I used to protect her from him) I naively suggested calling the police. She said it would only provoke him into potentially lethal escalation and that the police would not act unless he did something extreme, like killing or hospitalizing someone. Hearing that from an experienced lawyer would have been pretty chilling if I had not already been dissociating for years at that point, but the information and its implications sank in regardless of how I felt about it.

He was a rich business administrator and CEO considered a good and successful person in the adult world. He once even mockingly dared me to call the police on him, knowing nothing would come out of it.

The only reason I still bothered to fight back against him physically is because I did not care about myself enough not to at that time. Might as well inconvenience and hurt him if I'm fucked either way.

Her father then proceeds to draft her into his company (hey that seems like a very specific and unusual thing but it also happened to me!) in a way that further highlights the way in which his behavior is actually in accord with authoritarian parenting norms.

His reasoning is that he's not going to just give her handouts. She needs to work for a living. This sounds reasonable to a lot of people, who worry about "spoiling" their children by being too generous in providing for them without demanding effort, but here we can see the ways in which it tightens the leash.

She can't decide on her own future and is impeded in independently financing her escape because her finances are going to be dependent on him and his approval.

This is something that a lot of people actually miss when thinking about the children of abusive but wealthy parents. You don't actually have free access to your parents' resources. You have purely conditional access that relies on pleasing them and conforming to their wishes. Meanwhile, they have an increased level of reach, resources, and respectability to prevent you from escaping.

Another heartbreaking bit is how the abuse has become so life-defining for her that she doesn't really know what she wants to do with herself. The one wish she can think of is just not being abused anymore.

She is eventually forbidden from freely leaving the house entirely, and while sexually abusing her again he once again makes it explicit that he considers her property...

And when the subject of Hotaru (Asuka's younger sister) comes up, he goes on a monologue that those of us who defied authoritarian parents may be familiar with.

The whole "I have been too nice but it only made you spoiled (as proven by your defiance) so from now on I'm going to hurt and control you more" thing.

And he also drops this line.

To an authoritarian parent, disobedience of any kind to any degree is a deadly sin that must be beaten out of children as if they were dogs in training. If you read conservative parenting "experts" like James Dobson you can even find them saying this kind of thing explicitly.

I also like that Hotaru provides a different, also resonant exploration of how someone might react to abuse in addition to Asuka. Even after being hit to the point of bleeding by her father, she remains willful and tries to hold on to her own independence even if obedience would hurt less.

And, like Asuka, she's not a Perfect Victim either. She is the one who helps finish her own father off after all (after being given a lecture on rehabilitation no less). The conversation she has with her sister regarding worker ants also shows she is interested in her own autonomy and leisure to a degree that would be considered "spoiled" by a lot of people. She should aspire to be a hard worker who pleases others at the cost of her own happiness like her older sister was raised to do, right?

I especially like that she's wearing an "I love myself <3" T-shirt during the scene in which she rejects the efforts to beat her into submission as well as Asuka's recommendation to give in and obey. Kind of heavy-handed, but cute.

I also like the flashback that shows that there was once a time Asuka's parents were kind to her and she sincerely loved them.

Children are in a situation where they are strongly predisposed towards loving their parents by default and need to be loved back. It often takes a lot to change that. Some people, like Hotaru, change pretty early on while others try to cling to this need for a lot longer.

This is complicated by the fact that the parents may start out "kind" until their children start disobeying them, at which point they turn increasingly violent and controlling.

Asuka eventually realizes that she will never be truly happy if her life revolves around being her father's property. That even if she was to hollow herself out into exactly the kind of obedient doll he wants her to be she will be miserable. With no options left to escape, she becomes suicidal.

This leads to a panel that is like... pretty much straight-up an exact conversation I have had before.

"I provide. I have money that you benefit from. Your life is way better than that of poor people. You should be grateful and do everything I say." again.

Like paying the bills mean they own you and can do as they please.

It really feels like a good understanding of not just the victims involved but also of this type of abuser as well, and even now I get the impression that if I had failed to think of a plan for how to escape them my own situation could have also ended up with a murder, a suicide, or both even though I'm not a violent person at all. The desperation as all of your peaceful options are cut off is very real.

I'm really happy it did not come to that in my case, but I still did many things that a "perfect victim" would not be allowed to, like becoming manipulative and deceiving my parents for the sake of escaping. I don't feel guilty about it either, and eventually lost much of my sense of empathy (oddly, this happened after I had already gotten away).

So even though I did not actually kill my abuser I still relate to characters who end up doing that, because to me it feels like a bad ending I was this close to getting despite not really wanting that to happen.

Anyway, I feel really seen and understood by this story to a much greater degree than I do in more sanitized, black and white stories about abuse in which the victims never do anything remotely bad and the abusers are moral aberrations who just enjoy hurting people for fun.

#long post

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imaginecolby · 1 year

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kiddie days || c.b.

summary: you, colby, and your twins spending special dates with each other

requested by anonymous.

being parents was something that you and colby dreamed of since being together. you got married after a number of years of dating, and by the time you hit your second wedding anniversary, you were already pregnant.

your pregnancy was not without challenges, especially after you found out you were having twins. but the day your babies were born, a little boy and a little girl, you and colby were over the moon. they were the lights of your lives, and you couldn’t have asked for two greater children. they changed your lives in the best way possible, and you wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

as your kids grew up, you and colby fell into a routine of monthly father/son and mother/daughter dates. this weekend were your monthly dates, and you and colby were up and getting the kids ready after breakfast.

you were in the bathroom doing your daughter’s hair when your son came totting in. he climbed up on the stool next to his sister.

“mommy, brush my hair too?” he asked, pointing to the top of his head.

“of course, honey. let me finish with your sister first.” you said, and he nodded. you finished with your daughter’s bubble braids, per her request, and let her run off before focusing on your son.

you combed out his hair as he leaned into your belly. you looked at him in the mirror, the striking resemblance to your husband still taking you by surprise. the same blue eyes, round face, dark brown hair. he was the spitting image of colby, and you loved every part of it.

once the kids were ready, as well as you and colby, you made your way out for your respective plans for the day.

you and your daughter made your way to your favorite nail salon for duo manicures and pedicures. you sat with her while she got her pedicure done.

“that tickles!” she giggled in the chair next to you, causing the nail tech to laugh along with her.

the two of you ended up getting matching colors painted on your nails, and afterwards you went out for lunch while your nails finished drying before doing a little bit of shopping.

your boys, on the other hand, made their way to the arcade for video games, laser tag, and pizza. they played a few games of laser tag, colby making sure that he covered for your son as much as he could. the two of them ended up winning most of the games they played.

after a few rounds of laser tag, they ate some pizza and played the arcade games until they racked up enough tickets for the biggest prize in the store.

"daddy, i want the big one!" he cheered, pointing to the big stuffed koala bear sitting on the top shelf."

"oh, it looks like we have just enough tickets." colby said as the worker took it down.

as it was nearing dinner time, you all started to make your way home after very busy days out. you and your daughter loaded your shopping bags into the house and you started on dinner. just as you finished cooking, the boys came in from their day out, your son lugging koala bear through the front door.

“mommy, look!” he called from the kitchen entrance.

“oh, what’s that?” you asked, turing to him.

“a new teddy!” he grunted, throwing it on the floor.

“baby, that is is big as you are.” you laughed, colby moving into the kitchen behind him.

“it was the biggest one there, and the only koala, so of course we had to get it.” he laughed. he moved behind you and pressed a kiss to your temple before moving to the table to sit with your daughter. “what did my girls get up to today?” he asked her.

“we went and got our nails painted!” she cheered, showing colby her hand. “me and mommy go matching colors.”

“oh, that’s so pretty!” he said to her, holding her hand in his. her brother climbed into the chair next to her, complimenting the color as well.

while you ate, your son told you more about the day he and colby had, while your daughter shared pieces of the day you and her shared. your heart was full getting to spend the time with your family. you loved these three more than anything in the world.

you loved your special dates you shared with your daughter, and you loved that colby and your son got to have their own dates as well. but nothing would top the family time that the four of you are able to share with each other.

#colby brock #colby brock imagine #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fanfiction

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whois-miki · 2 months

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my name is the only thing they can’t take.

Chapter 1 of Bloody Ballerina:

“my name is the only thing they can’t take.”

warning : none

“Azalea!”

Alanna called out to me, snapping me from my trance. Her auburn hair was twisted into two french braids that laid over her shoulders.

My hands fell from my knees to the dewy grass beneath me. I look into her irritated eyes and she says, “get up, it’s reaping day.”

My hands clench the grass that i was sitting on, like i was a small child trying to hold on to what i had left. My eyes find the fresh meadow again and i felt a sudden realization wash across me.

Reaping day.

The day where my name has a 1/100 chance of being pick. Or it could be Reed, or Allana.

They took so much away from me already. My mother, my father, my home, my twin brother. My name is the only thing they can’t take away from me.

……

I stand up with a shaky breath. Allana notices this and softly takes my hand in hers to lead me back home.

The walk from the forest is long. I can feel the rocks beneath me, from my worn out shoes.

When we get to our house, i shed my clothes and take a much needed bath.

The water felt cold and dunking my head under made it much worse. i sat there for a while, in the ice cold water, thinking about my twin brother screaming out for me to help him. I remembered just standing there as two peacekeepers drag him away. I remembered him freezing to death in the tundra arena whispering one word to his ally before passing.

“Azalea.”

I wondered if the icy water is what he felt as he took his final breaths. I wondered if i would ever be able to look in the mirror again without seeing him.

“Azie! get out and get dressed! we only have an hour!”

Reed shouted from the outside of the locked door of the bathroom. I stepped out of the cold bath, and shuddered at the blast of cold air. I dried off my hair and body before changing into my reaping dress. It was a light blue dress that had dirt stains along with grass stains near the bottom. I tied my hair up into two braids and squeezed my feet into my too tight dress shoes.

……

I joined my older brother and sister outside and we walked another mile to get to the Hall of Justice. I whispered a small ‘love you’ to my brother, and walked into the line of girls along with my sister. The peacekeeper pricked my finger and pressed it on a paper, like a stamp. i winced at the pain and joined the other 13 year old girls.

I zoned out as the video played, it talked about the war and how the hunger games brought the districts together. The whole video felt like a distant memory that had been played over and over.

“Now that is just a wonderful video!” Clementine spoke into the mic, a short feedback echoing into the crowd. “Now, as always, the girls go first.” she said with her squeaky voice.

“Azalea Ampere.”

I felt a wave of shock wash over me. My wide eyes flickered up from the floor. I had the urge to scream and cry on the floor, but i knew that if i did what Andrew did then i wouldn’t survive long.

“ah! there you are, sweetie! come up. up up up!” the escort said to me in a sweet tone. I walked up to the stage and i desperately look to my sister, almost pleading for her to volunteer. But she just looked down in shame knowing that she couldn’t bring herself to it.

“the boys, next!”

“Reed Ampere. now what a coincidence, two sibilings. brother and sister, wow!” Clementine said, rather excited. I felt two hand on each of my arms pulling me away from the stage and into a train.

……

Cold sweat drips down my face as i realize that it was just a dream. more like a nightmare. I look around and realize something again.

this isn’t my room.

this is a compartment in the tribute train.

and it wasn’t a dream. it was a memory. something i didn’t want to be true. I thought they could take my name away. i guess i was wrong.

————————

😭i’m so sorry this is actually a horrendous first chapter. i literally don’t know how to start a chapter 🤧

comment pls bc i’m bored and i need a reminder that i exist and people notice me. 🙏

#the hunger games #thg series #thg #district 5 #finnick odair #johanna mason #jenna ortega #charlie bushnell #walker scobell #xander hale #xander hawthorne #azalea ampere

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iralthegreat · 3 months

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//vent

Istg I'm so insanely jealous of people whose fathers are in good health. Like something will happen to him, and suddenly I'm back to being that little girl asking my mother why our family isn't normal, or why my dad was breaking yet another promise. I know damn well why he's breaking yet another promise, but it still hurts sometimes yk??? And sometimes, I look at my father, and I can only see that person who spent all day yelling at video games to a point where I was scared to leave my room. I was 3 years old, I didn't understand why he was doing that, only that he was doing it. And sometimes it feels like my parents don't remember certain things because it wasn't a big deal to them, but it was a massive deal to me. I remember when I was 9 and locked outside of my house during winter because my parents put the wrong information into my school schedule, and I sat on my doorstep and cried for 30 minutes. And then when my dad got home I was blamed for it because "we told you we'd pick you up" but that wasn't what they wrote down. Or when I was punished for asking my dad why he always made me empty the dishwasher when my mom asked him to do it. Don't get me wrong, my parents are good people and my dads been better since he got on proper meds but there's still certain things you don't forget easily when you were a child, yk? Like my mom literally once forgot me on a rock. She thought I had walked home already bc she didn't see me, and she took a while arguing with my sister on which path to take going home. I had to go to a random woman, crying, to finally get home. I was like 6. I love my parents, I really really do, but I kinda wish that they'd apologise for things like these, or at the very least remember them. Like how are you gonna down play leaving your 6 year old on a rock??

#vent #I'm going a little insane again lmao :3

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16lies · 1 year

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message: saw jin seulki in seoul. they were playing tennis and sipping overpriced cocktails. i think they’re a graduate law student now? a lot of people say they’re kinda ruthless but they seemed super ambitious to me, tbh. they really look like moon gayoung and remind me of blair waldorf though wtf. thought you might want to know because i remember your post about them that said there’s a leaked sex tape of her threesome with her ex-boyfriend and his best friend on the internet. still can’t believe that happened six years ago.

hi, everyone! max here, with your neighbourhood ruthless bitch, jin seulki! ‪♡‬ a relentless and incredibly petty overarchiever, with a shaky moral backbone~ blair waldorf DUPE!

anyways, you know the drill - like this if you're down to plot and we can exchange discord tags (my preferred channel of communication)!! onward we go!!

tw: mentions of unconsensual sharing of explicit material

; basics

jin seulki, twenty five years old, currently a graduate law student (i know that law students are busy and would probably not have the time to engage in illicit activities but please suspend your belief for her)

graduated with a degree in political science @ korea university, now a first year law student in snu

scorpio sun, cap moon, scorpio rising

inspired by gg's blair waldorf & georgina sparks, gg reboot's monet de haan, mean girls' regina george - basically any scheming manipulative mean girl

lawful evil, estj

the prodigy, the hellkite

gossipgate subplot, blackmail skeleton

; background

youngest daughter to a politician father and a socialite mother

her father is old-gen rich, to the point that he doesn't really need to work for the rest of their lives so being a politician was more of a passion project. something to keep his lives entertaining and fight for

her mother, on the other hand, was from a middle-class family (think tom & shiv from succession), so she spent most of her life learning how to fit in with the elite

honestly, seulki hated her mother. hated her pathetic and desperate she was - all she ever wanted was the attention and everything she had was dependent on her husband and his money

so she swore to never be anything like her mother. wanted to make sure that she would never be in such a powerless position

doesn't matter if people get hurt or someone else suffers as long as she gets what she wants, as long as people remember she's the one in power

she plays hard too though, because who wouldn't when you have life's finest things at your fingertips

it catches up to her, however, when she is fourteen and she gets caught grinning and downing tequila shots in that infamous gyeonggi girls’ high school video

honestly, most people (her elder sister included) felt vindicated when seulki had gotten caught. a taste of her own medicine, they whisper, about time she gets humbled

everyone celebrates a little bit more when she doesn't manage to weasel and scheme her way out of it, because her parents see and hear about the video before she does. as a punishment, she gets sent away to some rehabilitation center while her father attempts to do damage control

she's lucky she's just a freshman, and she plays up the i've never done anything like this in my life i just wanted to be part of the cool kids story and manages to avoid any criminal proceedings

(does, however, manage to conspire up a way to leave the rehab center earlier than planned, because she shows up at her father's event, with her half-brother - a secret her mother doesn't know about. continues to leverage that over her father for the next few years)

gossip girl truly terrorizes her life for the next five years, and seulki learns to play the game. uses it to blackmail others, sends false tips about herself to throw them off her scent. she doesn't, however, try to find out the identity of gossip girl becuse she knows a vicious bitch when she sees one and gossip girl is one fucking vicious bitch she doesn't want to mess with

she thinks that the drinking scandal is the worst that could happen, until she falls in love with a boy and after a particularly wild night, agrees to a threesome with him and his best friend. and agrees to film it.

the video gets leaked, unsurprisingly and seulki breaks up with him. pays someone to get it removed from the all corners of the internet but gossip girl finds out about it

she denies denies denies because there is no proof of the video but shes deeply afraid that one day someone will manage to find it. even bad bitches have their kryponite and for miss seulki it's this video, a living reminder that love causes nothing but trouble

anyways she celebrated wildly when gossip girl disappeared but now that she's back... seulki won't let gossip girl ruin her again. not when she's this close to achieving all that she wants. she's survived it once, she'll survive it again

; personality

positive: ambitious, charming, calculating, relentless, determined negative: petty, insincere, vicious, nosy, insecure

ruthless bitch

obsessive overachiever with a shaky moral fiber

will smile to your face and stab you in the back - she has no qualms about that

not a fan of attention, which is ironic because she is a frequent feature on gossip girl. is a fan of her reputation of being a bitch tho

deeply enjoys inciting fear in people - she lives and breathes the motto 'you can't make people love you but you can make them fear you'. gives her a sense of power, which is what she has worked for her entire life

can be very petty. the smallest thing can set her off, hates the feeling of not being in control. will take it out on others just to get that sense of control and power back lmfao a little bit more dangerous now

she's very deeply insecure though; when you base your whole life on whether you can control others... it's not a good look lol

passive aggressive as fuck - i wouldn't say that she's outright spiteful and mean but rather, a lot of fake smiles and "your skirt is so cute" "that is the ugliest fucking skirt i've ever seen"

always up in people's business just cause she likes to have an arsenal of information with her

she can get be charming if she wants to

her biggest weaknesses are (a) her insecurities - very desperate for love she has never known. doesnt know how badly she wants or needs it until she gets a taste of it and she loses all rationality. then regrets it. then does it again. ironic because she spends her whole life trying not to be her mother, only to be just like her (b) how tightly-wound she is; the moment she lets loose, she goes absolutely fucking wild. she's very extreme lmfao either she's poised and calm or she's going absolutely feral

that's how she gets caught in situations like a leaked s*x tape and the drinking scandal (normally, she has enough blackmail to clean it up but there are times where even she can't save herself)

; wanted connections

familial

older sister - i don't have their dynamics down but we could either have a fun rivalry going on OR something where the older sister is the dark sheep, seulki never stops to rub it in her face

younger half-brother - hced that her father had numerous affairs, one of which led to her secret half-brother. should be around four years younger than her, seulki used to threaten her father with his presence lol could potentially be the only person seulki feels ~ protective ~ and affectionate towards

friends

ex boyfriend who was in the video with her

ex boyfriend's best friend who was in the video with her - would be fun if he was like in love with her lolz

bestie - someone she actually loves and would commit crimes for ‪♡‬ (probably a childhood friend, only open to one person)

the plastics - fellow gossipgaters who ruled the school together! (not that seulki would be the regina george, she'd be a little bit too young)

fellow gyeonggi girls high school student who knows that seulki isn't as innocent as she keeps portraying herself to be, that she willingly drank and partied. thinks seulki deserved worse punishment

frenemies - give me a blair/serena, rory/paris situation! forced to get along but secretly always competing with each other <3

rivals - plz be in an academic/tennis rivalry with each other!! not a frenemy thing but a straight up i'll fucking destroy you kind of thing. maybe seulki even tried to do so too? but failed? and that makes her hate you even more lol

fwb - but in a transactional way. having specific timelsots for each other, meeting at specific places, no feelings attached hehe

someone who did something v small and irrelevant to her but she was having the worst fucking day so she.... sent in a tip to gossip girl (fake/real) with her name attached ‪♡‬

#( ; ooc. )#( bit the bullet n posted first mwah )

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notrailers · 1 year

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Let me start off this review by saying I think may be my film of the year (definitely between this and Banshees of Inisherin). What is puzzling is that this never got a true wide release. At most, it showed in around 600 theaters. For reference, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever played in over 4,300 theaters. A filmmaker as famous as Spielberg probably deserved more showtimes, but audiences are not flocking to non-franchise films.

The Fabelmans is an autobiographical look at Steven Spielberg’s life, from his introduction to filmmaking, to his family dynamic and how he got to the inspiration of why so many of his films include broken families and missing fathers.

The immediate draw is his love of cinema. It it what was sold about the movie. And we explore every aspect from Sammy (as Steven) getting his first camera to being tasked with directing his high school’s beach day. Filmmaking is the entry point, but it leads you to the deeper theme.

That theme is the dissolution of marriage and learning to cope with a fracturing family. Real-life Steven created this film as a way to sympathize with his father (Burt in the film), while his character and the film itself sided so firmly with his mother (Mitzi). This obviously came from a realization later in life of the sacrifices his father made and the burdens he had to shoulder.

This is, I guess, where I get into spoilers.

Mitzi fell in love with Burt’s best friend, Benny, who the kids call Uncle. Benny is played by Seth Rogen and I suppose this is a good time to start talking about performances.

Seth Rogen as Benny: I have heard people say and thought to myself while I was watching this in theaters that this is literally just Seth Rogen. He never becomes the character. It’s like when you’re playing a video game and it goes to a cutscene and your character looks wildly different from anyone else around. What really takes you out is when he does his trademark laugh. I wanted to like him and I think an actor like him was a good casting choice, but not Rogen specifically.

Michelle Williams as Mitzi: She is eccentric, quirky, a wild spirit and is a perfect foil to Paul Dano’s Burt. She has an artist’s heart and loves to create and explore. She just wants to have fun and play things dangerously, this is what draws her away from Burt and to Benny. Benny is the class clown who doesn’t take anything too seriously. He is the less stable of the two men, but that is not what Mitzi is after. Williams puts on a performance that excels in balancing the love she feels for her kid, her husband, and what she truly wants from her life.

Paul Dano as Burt: Paul Dano is one of my favorite actors and his ability to command the screen while not being boisterous is top tier. He can mold into any role. The Fabelmans is no different. As believable as he was as the Riddler in The Batman, he is just as believable as Sammy’s father. The entire emotional arc hinges on Dano’s ability and he does not disappoint. He has to become the bad guy of the family, but because Spielberg has become sympathetic to his family’s situation, he does not come across as evil and is not shown in a bad light. While Sammy’s parent’s divorce was the result of Mitzi, Burt took the blame out of the love he felt for his wife.

Gabriel LaBelle as Sammy: Steven Spielberg himself. I can’t imagine the weight he had to carry playing arguably the most famous director alive. There was an authenticity from the actor and honestly this whole film hinged on it. Sammy had to be conflicted about his ability, his social standing, and his religion. He had to balance out his parents, his sisters, and Uncle Benny. He was sufficiently awkward and a genius filmmaker by high school (the special effects for the war film were a stroke of creativity that I don’t think I could conjure in my lifetime).

This was the best film of the year and I feel like nobody has seen it. The Fabelmans has so far been a box office bomb and the death of original filmmaking continues. It is nearly impossible for a non-IP like Top Gun or Marvel to do well that has a $50-$100 million budget and even then Black Adam was a box office flop, but DC feels like an outlier for big studio performances.

The man who made E.T, Close Encounter, Jurassic Park, on and on, could not release a successful film about his life. To me, that is incredibly sad and concerns me for the future of theatrical releases. I adored everything about this movie and it was perfect. Please go see it if you can.

Rating: 5/5

Would I Recommend? With my whole chest.

#the fabelmans #steven spielberg #paul dano #film #film review #movie review #letterboxd #cinephile #cinema #movie

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gertstarlight · 2 years

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I've been thinking a lot about Rick at the end of season two of Stargirl.

I mean, he's been put into a really bad spot. Not only does he have to fix the hourglass (which is tragic in and of itself) but he?? Has nowhere to live? He beat his uncle and put him in the hospital. It was only very convincing words on Pat's behalf that kept him from pressing charges, and Rick still spent like, a week in jail. No way is his uncle going to let him live back in the house with him. So where does he go now?

I have thoughts. A) he doesn't tell anyone and is just homeless, sleeping rough, searching for shelter and all that until the others figure it out. B) a group home where a bunch of other people like him live, people with shared expenineces and troubled pasts and the like. However, my favourite scenario out of the bunch; is option C) he lives with the team. Sure, Beth would probably love to have him over, but I don't know how comfortable he would be with that- he'd probably feel as if he was imposing, with everything her family is going through, with the diverse and the recent JSA discovery and all that. Yolanda's parents would never allow it, especially not a guy they've never met after what happened with her picture and Henry, especially not notable town delinquent Rick Tyler. My vote? He lives with the Witmore-Dugans. Pat and Courtney basically gang up on him and don't give him much of a choice when Mike and Barbara agree with them. He sleeps on an air mattress on Courtney's bedroom floor, and they stay up to all hours of the night chatting. He hangs out with Mike, playing video games and hanging out with Max, helping him with his homework when he can. He works on his homework and the hourglass and his dad's journal on the dining table while Barbara makes dinner. He rides with Pat to the Pit Stop and helps him during work, working on cars and putting his skills to use. Because 2/4 of them are there, the JSA hangs out and has sleepovers at the Whitmore-Dugans and does homework in big groups and sits around while Pat tells them stories about the old JSA days.

Just... Rick learning what it's like to be loved, maybe not in the way that he has always wanted to be loved, by a mother and a father who was taken from him too soon, but by a sister in Courtney and a brother in Mike and his best friends who might as well be family in Beth and Yolanda and a maternal figure in Pat and a maternal figure in Barbara, and he slowly stops being so angry and scared and starts to feel happy and loved instead, and he finally gets everything that he's been missing all his life, and the Witmore-Dugan's help him make up for the lost time.

I just... I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about my boy Rick Tyler

you're right though !! we didn't get to see his living situation after he beat up matt (who's in the hospital so ??) but i love the concept of rick moving into the whitmore dugan house! i love everything u said cuz it's so accurate and rick would finally have a family that loves him 🥺

i just want him to experience happiness and have the family he always wanted like it's what he deserves 🥰🥰🥰🥰

#oh i love starting my morning in tears 🥹🥹#and i wish we saw more of rick's living situation in the end of s2 #stargirl

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hotasfahrenheit · 4 months

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i don't think i have 15 people to tag but i'll still answer these 15 questions and with answers that are probably way too long to make up for it 🌟

1. are you named after anyone?

not that i've ever been aware of, tho all three of my siblings -both younger and older- are named after family members or family friends. i've never heard a story about where my name comes from, so my assumption has always just been that it was chosen because mum's family was Polish Catholics (Mia is short for Maria but i'm very far from being anything other than a white girl)

2. when was the last time you cried?

it's Sunday today yeah? so probably like Thursday or Friday while having too many emotions about *something*. i am a giant crybaby and get emotional and cry about things all the time honestly so it's not that big of a deal when i do and not worth taking note of 🤣 Saturday i spent at work for 9 hours then immediately on a 7 hour road trip where i slept a bunch so no crying yesterday but before that it could have been any time really.

3. do you have kids?

only friends that i've adopted. going from the nickname Mia to lots of friends calling me Mama Mia was entirely too easy and i'll mom at them all 💖

4. what sports do you play/have you played?

the only time i've ever willingly been on a sports team was when i played youth soccer in elementary school, it was just teams of kids from mixed grades all from my school and we got free tshirts and there was an ice cream social at the end of the whole program and honestly those were my motivating factors for playing (and i was bad at it)

5. do you use sarcasm?

who me no never

6. what’s the first thing you notice about people?

their general attitude and vibe

7. what’s your eye color?

hazel, in the blue/grey/green variety, and they look like they change depending on what colours i'm wearing

8. scary movies or happy endings?

happy endings for sure, i will like... read plot synopsis of scary movies sometimes but i don't like watching them, my brain is too visual and repetitive and scenes get stuck in my head and it's not fun

9. any talents?

lots of general art things, like i can draw some and sew things and do leatherwork etc etc.

10. where were you born?

in the northeast United States but i moved away long ago

11. what are your hobbies

playing video games, listening to kpop, watching Asian media, LARPing, making things primarily for LARP stuff

12. do you have any pets?

an elderly gentleman bastard cat, Xanatos, and a trash gremlin cattle dog known commonly as Poops

13. how tall are you?

taller than my sisters and my mother but shorter than my father

14. favorite subject in school?

well i have a bachelor's degree in literature with a minor in history so those

15. dream job

theoretically i was doing that for a while where i was working for myself making things (sewing, doing applique, dyeing fabric, doing some leatherwork, etc) on commission, but i struggle with self and time management, plus my income was incredibly inconsistent and variable so my bills just weren't getting paid. so really i guess a dream version of that would be one where i was getting paid better and had the ability to stay on task 🤣🤣

thanks for tagging me, @callipigio 💖 i think most people i would tag already have been so if you see this and wanna do it and you haven't been, pretend i tagged you and do it anyway 🌟

#survey things #mia answers things

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sulietsexual · 1 year

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i know you wrote it literally 4 years ago but as i revisit some of your videos i wanted to see what other meta or analysis you had written about charmed and your scenario of how paige would fit into the sisters's lives if prue had lived and breakdown of each dynamics was awesome but i got to thinking some more about parallels between phoebe and paige

both phoebe and paige grow up without knowing their mother and although both have caretakers, people who love and care for them there's that hole in both their lives, something missing and it's what drives them both to act out and get into all sorts of trouble. phoebe never became an alcoholic like paige did in her teens but she was reckless and in with crowds that were dangerous and hyde school reunion gives us a glimpse of that

in your what if scenario with the paige/phoebe dynamic you emphasized several times that they'd be partners in crime and bond over their rebellious youths but i honestly don't think they would because both of them aren't proud of that part of their lives and it was a dark time for both. phoebe was essentially an outcast, her whole look and demeanor was designed to drive people away and it always screamed defense mechanism to me

i think it's easy to look at both teen!paige and teen!phoebe and think they're just teenagers being rebellious because every teenager has that phase but i always thought for both of them it was rooted in something else. phoebe grows up never getting to have a normal sisterly bond with piper or prue but especially prue because prue is the sister and the mother and the father, she puts it upon herself to play those two missing roles in their lives because while their grandma lives she needs help

so even though we don't get to see little phoebe i'd imagine she wasn't often playing with her sisters like we see prue and piper doing in "that 70's episode" both because of the age gap between the three of them and because even if her kid sisters wanted to play with a baby or a toddler once victor left and penny died the home life probably changed a lot, i imagine the time for games had kinda passed, all their childhoods were affected not just prue's

and i also imagine there must have been a huge level of pressure for phoebe that maybe she put on herself to be worthy 'cause she's the baby the one who needs the most attention and with no one to rely on but penny both prue and piper have to step up to help raise her instead of just getting to be carefree kids, i imagine she felt there were unspoken expectations she could never live up to

and in that i see another parallel with paige. paige feeling she could never live up to the memory of prue and how brave and good she was and phoebe with this mother she didn't get to know, that she doesn't even remember but the knowledge from her sisters and grams that she was an amazing woman, the simultaneous sense of loss and wanting to make her proud, wanting to make everyone proud but not knowing how

i apologize for all these messages, the novels i sent you there i was getting hit in my paige/phoebe feels and wanted to share i guess feel free to tell me if you think i'm off about any of the points i brought up. i love reading or seeing good charmed meta/analysis and yours are always great!

Wow, that's a lot to cover Nonnie! Always happy to hear other's thoughts though.

When I said that Phoebe and Paige would bond over being trouble makers, I didn't mean that either was proud of their pasts, just that they have that in common and could probably find common ground over being "black sheep" and that would bond them. Even out bad periods/experiences can bond us with others!

I disagree that Paige had a hole in her life due to missing her biological mother - she had two wonderful parents whom she obviously loved, and while she did seem to have the normal curiosity about her lineage that a lot of adopted kids do (myself included!) I don't think that the absence of a biological mother affected her all that much, again, since she had such great parents who loved and raised her well.

Also disagree with the notion that both Prue and Piper had to give up their childhoods to raise Phoebe. We know canonically that only Prue had this responsibility - Piper herself says in the Pilot that she and Phoebe got off easy and that the two of them were allowed to have a normal childhood, while Prue had to sacrifice her childhood to help raise them. So I definitely think that Piper and Phoebe were close growing up and I don't think that Phoebe was isolated from her sisters at all.

Thanks for the ask and glad you enjoy my Charmed vids and meta!

#answered #anonymous #charmed

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sainteya · 1 year

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the monsters under the bed disappear (but they are replaced by the cruelties of reality)

Growing up, I thought adulthood was glamorous. I have been stuck on this notion that being an adult meant I would never need to worry about anything, hakuna matata, as Timone and Pumbaa once said. I thought that moving out and stepping into the world as my own person would be easy and would open up an endless universe filled with possibilities right in front of me. I was so fixated on growing up and moving out of my childhood home that I never paused to think just how lonesome it could be.

I moved out of my childhood home on the 18th of February, excited to finally be able to live a life by myself where I wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding my parents’ disappointed looks whenever I go home late. My first thought upon moving into my new place was how I could maximize and balance my time so that I could hang out with my friends after work. I thought about decorating my new space with all the things I brought from home, never thinking twice if I would actually last in this place or if I would cower down and run back home with my tail tucked between my legs. When I packed my bags and set off for the glitz and glamour of Tomas Morato, I was completely blinded by the idea of finally living on my own and getting to do what I want.

Except, I was wrong. It is a given that adults must pay the bills, and still give extra cash for their families if they get some (or perhaps that’s just another part of my culture that’s never shared with the entire world). While I had these in mind, I never thought that it would be so grueling and lonesome that I would wish to go back to my hometown on a Friday night instead of going out with the new people I’ve become acquainted with.

Before Tomas Morato, I would be stuck at home, desperately wishing to go out of the house just for a new environment to explore, or to go to a familiar place to experience something new with other people. I wanted to move out, to be able to see my boyfriend and friends without thinking about how my parents would be annoyed if I ask them to go out once more (because even at twenty-one, I still needed my parents’ permission to go out). Now, I go home to an empty studio room on the thirty-third floor of a high-rise condominium with no one waiting for me other than my laundry.

I used to go home to the sound of my sister screaming over her video games, the smell of my father’s cooking, my mother’s endless talk about her work, and the heart-melting sight of my cats just being cats. My dad would ask me where I’ve been, who I was with, and what we were up to. My tone always depended on his’. If he asked me with that domineering and annoyed tone, I would give him short and quick answers with an air of nonchalance — sometimes they would be laced with half-truths because my dad could never know that I’m the type of girl to go out day-drinking.

The same routine follows. I’d take my shoes off, haphazardly throw my sweaty socks on the laundry basket beside the single bathroom, and I’d place my shoes on the stairs above my sister’s pair of shoes that was originally mine. (She borrowed it, but never gave me a chance to wear it again.) Upstairs was different. My little sister would always rush out of the door just to greet me and ask about what I’ve been up to. Thankfully, I’ve grown out of my phase where I never wanted to do anything with my sister — though it took eleven years after her birth before I finally came around to realizing that my little sister is, in fact, my best friend. She would ask me endless questions that would sometimes go unanswered. Nevertheless, answered or not, my sister would always go back into her room satisfied with our interaction.

There’s white noise in the form of the television in the other room. My mother is on the bed scrolling through Facebook on her phone while an old movie plays on one of the HBO channels on the cable. I would take a peek inside the room, and my mother would either notice me or not. When she does, she would always ask me what I did when i went out, or how my job went. I never initiate a conversation with my mother about my day unless something good happened. Perhaps it’s the fucked-up metaphor of daughters and mothers being mirrors of each other that stops me from going to her first, but I never wanted to bother my mother with something that wouldn’t be worth her while.

I never realized how much I took that familiar routine of going home for granted until now. Despite all my grievances against my parents and what broke my childhood, it still feels different knowing that there’s someone waiting for me whenever I go home. I had romanticized the thought of living by myself so much and prepared myself for it, but I never expected willingly working longer hours just to avoid going home to an empty space and no one to talk to but myself. The thought of wanting to stay behind at work until ungodly hours occurred so much because I desperately want to avoid the silence of my own place that always makes me want to scream.

My favorite professor told me that adulthood mostly meant paying for my peace of mind, and I understood that. In fact, I had wholeheartedly accepted that advice and went with it when I moved out of my house. But she never told me about the deafening silence of being alone, or the feeling of being so small between the four walls of my own place because there’s no one to turn to but myself. I don’t know if she purposefully left that part out, or if she’d forgotten about that part already.

I wasn’t so isolated growing up that I don’t have many friends. It’s the opposite, actually. I have so many circles of friends that it’s hard managing my time between them. It would have been easier to see them if they weren’t so far away from me, living so close to my childhood home that I miss so much. There was no one within reach here in the city (except perhaps for my friend who lives seven floors down but is hardly there because he prefers his hometown). Being apart from my family is already isolating in itself, but being apart from all of my friends just makes the loneliness even more unbearable.

Most days, I would casually ask my boyfriend to come over. It’s mostly because I miss him, and partly because I couldn’t stand the emptiness that greets me whenever I open the door to my unit. Three days ago, I stopped trying to ask him if he would come over on his day off from uni. While our cities sit right beside each other, our timelines never seem to match. He’s out there busy trying to graduate, and I’m trying to make it through the weekend without feeling like work has beaten me into a pulp — a shell of the bubbly and outgoing person I used to be.

My days used to be filled with endless stories and connections that are always there. I would never need to seek them out whenever I need someone to talk to. Now, my days are filled with worrying about bills and desperately trying to forget about the mishaps at work. I would think about whether I should go to work on a cab or walk several blocks just to ensure that I have enough money to last me the next week until my paycheck.

I knew adulthood is hard, but I never thought that it would mean being stuck in an endless cycle of going home to an empty space, working myself to death for a salary that couldn’t even meet most of my needs, and going to bed feeling emptier than I had the night before. It feels like the world I used to live in has thrown me out to another, harsher, world that seeks to eat me alive. While my friends are out there regularly seeing each other whenever they feel like it, I am forced to decline their requests because of geographical reasons that I could never seem to fix. While my family goes on with a single daughter in their home, I am stuck here wishing I never took living in my childhood home for granted.

I may have outgrown my fear of monsters coming out of the bed or the closet, but my fear of being left alone as the world goes on remains. At this point, I’m just hoping that whoever said the words ‘this, too, shall pass’ is right.

#writing #p #this is word vomitm #i have never articulated my thoughts about being so alone until now #and now i can't stop crying lmaoooo #maybe getting a cat would fix this

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arabellaflynn · 1 year

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Advent Calendar 01: The Beginning (For Me)

Greetings, and welcome to Advent Calendar 2022! This year we're being self-indulgent and rambling about video games.

As usual, the Advent Calendar is also a pledge drive. Subscribe to my writing Patreon here by December 15th for at least $5/mo and get an e-card for Ratmas; subscribe for $20/mo (and drop me a mailing address) and you'll get a real paper one!

I hope you're all having a happy winter holiday season. Let the nerd rambling commence!

Some of my earliest memories are of video games. I'm told that when I was very little, my parents had a COLECOVision, a console largely eclipsed by the Atari 2600 at the time, largely remembered by retro enthusiasts today for its most excellent home ports of the arcade games Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. The family tells stories of my parents staying up late to play the Smurfs game, toddler-me and my baby sister asleep on the couch between them, carping at each other with, "Honey, it's my turn! You died!"

The COLECOVision is perhaps more recognizable as a descendant of Pong than as the ancestor to the Nintendo Entertainment System, what with all that swanky early '80s styling and the permanently-attached joysticks. I'm not sure what kind of buttons were under the number pad, but I do know the joysticks had four actual clicky switches inside, which in our house stood up to being repeatedly opened and re-soldered. (My father is built like a Wookiee, and apparently Smurfs: Rescue In Gargamel's Castle is very frustrating.)

The earliest I actually remember is the NES. My proudly Nerd-American parents are generally in the second-wave of "early adopters" -- not the very first to buy a new thing, but quick to jump on it once the first true killer app comes out. In their case, it was The Legend of Zelda, released in North America just in time for Fall '87. That Christmas, they shelled out for not just the console and game cartridge (first-edition gold, of course) but for the full Deluxe Set, which also included the (reasonably fun) Zapper and the (ambitious but ultimately useless) R.O.B., the Robotic Operating Buddy, plus a game that used each of the accessories.

youtube

The whole bundle would have cost the equivalent of almost $600 in 2022 money. Which was a lot, but they did use the hell out of it. I was six at the time, and I'd been introduced to the school schedule of "two weeks off at Christmas". My father worked as an engineer at a place co-located with their manufacturing plant, which closed between Christmas and New Year's. The combination of that, plus new video games, kicked off a long-running family tradition: Living on takeout and convenience foods for the last week of the year, while we played a console RPG through to completion.

Well, "we". My father had the controller, my sister and I kibbitzed from the floor in front of the TV, and my mother had a pad of graph paper on her lap so she could map out the dungeons and give Dad directions. Nineteen eighty-seven was well before the advent of printed guides and GameFAQs, and if you got lost the only recourse was to call -- like, on the phone, with your voice -- the Nintendo Hint Line, a number which was not toll-free, and only to be used as the last resort.

I thought the game looked fairly easy. What I did not realize, until I got up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, was that my parents were pre-playing through the dungeons on a second save file so my mother could have a map ready for the demonstration-play we kids watched the next day. I caught the two of them in the dark, hunched over the 5" portable TV at our kitchen table. One of the earliest snapshot memories I have of home life.

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im-jelly · 2 years

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Me, myself and I

Allow me to introduce myself to you, my dear reader. As said in my previous post, I'm 26 years old. I live in the Netherlands, in a town close to Amsterdam with my Russian dwarf hamster called Dexter (yeah after the serial killer). I come from a family of 5, mother, father, a younger brother and sister. I'm currently in my second year of my IT Bachelors degree. Besides studying I have a 20 hour job, I like to get drunk with friends, visit techno parties (man there are good parties here) and play video games. So now that I told you the super basics about myself, let's start this story where everyone's story starts: at your family home. Growing up my parents never showed affection towards each other, as a kid this seems normal because they are your parents and you don't know any better. As I grew older I started to think about it a bit more and found it a bit weird. My classmates were frequently talking about them walking into their parents having sex and how gross that was. Well my parents didn't, ever. In the spring of my 17th year on this planet they asked us to join them in the kitchen one morning. You can probably already feel what's coming, they were getting a divorce. For me this wasn't a very big surprise and felt like the right thing for them to do. On my siblings it was a lot harder tho, due to them being a bit younger than me and not feeling weird vibes around my parents all the time. I later found out that my dad wanted to leave my mom for about 5 years already before actually growing a pair and doing it. This of-course scarred my mom for life, she had the feeling she wasn't good enough and that men can't be trusted. Now, 9 years after they split, she is still not over it and I will never forgive my father for doing that to her. This experience for my mom and what that does to my current relationship with my mom will be important later on in my journey to try and get to know myself a bit better. Why am I telling you all of this? Well at some point I figured out it was quite hard for me to show and give affection to someone else. I mean I wanted to, I just never got thought how. Of-course I can't blame my parents for this, they are humans as well, we all make mistakes. But still, this is the first lesson I never got thought, how to love someone. Telling your parents or your siblings that you love them wasn't a thing we did. As you can imagine, that scars a young human being, everyone wants to be loved. The big question for humanity has always been; "What is our purpose?" or "Why are we here?". While I can't answer either of these question in a way that would please everyone, I can tell you what I think. I think your purpose is to love and be loved, make other people feel important because they are who they are and you want these people specifically in your life. Even though I know that now I didn't while growing up, my parents both are nice people but in this regard they weren't a good example for their kids. It's harsh to say but in this regard I now feel like they let us down by not showing us what's part of being human. Love yourself and to love someone else.

Any feedback or thoughts are always welcome of-course!

Jelly

Part 2/x

#broken heart #questions in life #im-jelly #thoughts of a wallflower #from the heart #welcome to my life #pick my brain #broken home #growing up

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zivazivc · 3 years

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Pinocchio AU

Okay people want the explanation for this comic so here it goes. It’s long and complicated and MESSED UP because of course it is, this is me. I’m going to write in points because my small tired brain can’t handle good english atm but basically to sum up the Adrien was a sentimonster theory or Pinocchio AU as I like to call it:

Young married Emilie and Gabriel can’t have kids. Gabriel reluctantly accepts this fate and even brings up adoption as a possibility once, but Emilie doesn’t want to hear any of that. She’s a bit of a Marinette in the sense that she pictures this romanticized ideal life for herself and a child—her flesh and blood—HAS to be in it.

They keep trying to get a baby while other young families Emilie knows keep growing. She feels left out and hurt and depressed, then her newlywed twin sister announces she’s expecting a baby too and something within Emilie just unhinges.

She eventually lies to some of her friends, who she was out for coffee with, that she’s pregnant too. She mostly does it just to see their reaction and feel what it would be like but it quickly spirals out of control where she just starts pretending she’s pregnant until you can’t even tell if she believes it herself.

Gabriel is confused at first because he hears the news second hand (a friend/family member congratulating him) so he’s apprehensive when he approaches his wife but she convinces him that they really are getting a baby and Gabriel is ecstatic.

It’s only later at a doctor’s check up that Gabriel learns that she indeed is not pregnant. The doctor even speaks to him alone explaining that his wife is in denial and that he should make sure she goes to see a psychiatrist, something she definitely wouldn’t do alone.

Gabriel is unsuccessful with that because he’s not entirely persistent, doesn’t want to be the guy with the crazy wife having to tell everyone she lied about being pregnant, and hopelessly believes she’ll just get over it eventually.

That is until her “pregnancy is near due”—her sister already had Félix in England a few months ago—and he stumbles on her transformed with her peacock miraculous (they already have both of them) creating a sentimonster newborn.

They have a huge fight about it but because Emilie refuses to destroy it, won’t tell Gabriel where the amok is, and Gabriel can’t just hurt the baby with his hands, Emilie just… wins. Fucked up, yeah?

Now she tried creating kids before this one, using her imagination to try and blend her and Gabriel’s looks but it just wasn’t working. So she decided to copy of photos of baby Félix because he already looked almost like a copy of his mother, and Amélie and Emilie already looked alike so it’s not so weird?—is what her mind was telling her.

She didn’t dare alter his looks but she decided to give the baby Gabriel’s eye color to include the “father” in some way. (Yes in that comic I made I gave Adrien a mix of green and gray but that was mainly to get the point across to the perceptive readers)

Now we got Adrien, a normal baby boy to the whole world except for Gabriel who’s forced into his wife’s fantasy through social expectations.

Why are we only at this point and this post is already so long AAAAAAAA!!!

Adrien physically basically grows in a way where Emilie just keeps changing his appearance to match what Félix looked like a few months prior.

Mentally he’s like a robot just taking in information without really needing to learn it. So Emilie decides when he says his first word, she decides when he learns to walk,… He knows how to walk, he just wasn’t given the command to do so yet.

But even so he does develop a personality over time, just slower, because unlike a normal child who’s always testing his boundaries, how far they’re allowed to go until they’re in real trouble, Adrien just can’t misbehave. At all.

But he does have his favorite foods and favorite toys, and jokes that make him laugh the most. The problem is just that Emilie could just decide that his favorite food is strawberries and he’d just start acting accordingly, rewiring his belief.

He also isn’t allowed to argue or be mean to others which is why Félix thinks he’s a goody two-shoes weirdo while Chloé the brat adores him.

This behavior isn’t so hard to hide with a toddler who’s fickle but it’s harder and harder as the kid grows. Which is why the family becomes very secluded over time.

Gabriel always keeps distance with his “son”. He’s not Dad, he’s Father, he doesn’t do hugs and cuddles, he doesn’t say I love you. But Adrien knows he loves him because his mom told him so and he loves him back unconditionally because Mom said that’s what families do.

Now even though Gabriel is traumatized by this whole ordeal and knowing Adrien “isn’t real” freaks him out he does soften a bit over time. I’m going to give an awful example but like someone who hates cats softening for a cat that their partner/roommate decided to get/had from before. Continuing with this example: But still becoming appalled when the cat starts acting odd/unusually.

Okay I think you get the gist. Let’s move on…

Emilie loves her son more and more as he grows and his sentimonster behaviours start bothering her more and more too. She hates being reminded that he’s not a real boy by people mentioning he looks young for his age because Emilie forgot to make him grow for a while. She hates when he does everything like he’s told. She hates that he has no real friends because they’re afraid to expose him to the outside too much and without supervision. She hates to think about his future.

Her desire for him to be real keeps growing and is what drives her to search for a solution in the miraculous spellbook.

She cracks the script after years, when Adrien is nearly a teen, and finds a way to transfer the creators soul into a sentimonster.

It’s a long process that takes time and while she falls ill to everyone around her, Adrien becomes more real.

Gabriel starts realizing what’s happening when he notices Adrien hesitate for a second when he’s playing a video game and Gabriel wants him to do something, groan when he gets bothered watching TV, huff, complain, have slightly opposing opinions to his and Emilie’s, when he argues with his mother when she tells him she’s feeling fine; when he notices his son’s eyes are greener. Or is it all in his head?

He confronts his wife too late, when she’s extremely ill already, her normally vibrant eyes dulled match Adrien’s bluish gray, and he pieces together in his head what she’s doing.

Before Gabriel could properly think what to do to stop the love of his life from turning into a lifeless doll, in a fit of panic he tries to take her wedding band (where he knows Adrien’s amok is) to get rid of Adrien instead, but is unsuccessful in getting it off her so he snatches her peacock brooch instead (which she needs to complete the spell obvs) and breaks it. (Heyoo! broken peacock miraculous. things are coming together)

Because the spell was almost complete anyway it’s Emilie who falls unconscious. But she doesn’t disappear because she’s not a real sentimonster, she just becomes dormant like one.

This is the point in the story where Gabriel makes it seem like Emilie ran away or something like that—basically disappear. Now he’s living knowing he has an almost sentimonster wife in the basement, knowing he almost killed his son (or her), and having to care for a son that suddenly became much more alive, questioning, arguing, angry, screaming, not accepting, crying, grieving, staring at him with Emilie’s eyes.

Instead of becoming a real parent, Gabriel shuts him out.

Soon Adrien evolves desires for socializing, company, getting away from the suffocating home which eventually leads to him going to a public school.

He slowly starts to live life freely without the restrictions that were put around his thoughts.

Gabriel has an even stranger relationship with Adrien now because he still loves him in a way but also holds resentment toward him. But mostly he sees him as something valuable.

The show happens here… And now finally we get to the comic…

Gabriel gets a hold of the ladybug and black cat miraculouses. (There’s no epic fight in his lair as you see there’s no Ladybug in the comic but that’s not really important)

What’s important is that Gabriel had deciphered the miraculous spellbook with the help of Emilie’s notes and had decided to use the unification’s “wish” power to awaken Emilie.

He’s aware he’ll need to sacrifice something for the wish to come true and he’s certain Adrien should be enough because the soul inside him is literally the one thing Emilie is missing.

✨Adrien (poor boy just lost his miraculous) is taken to Gabriel’s lair, where he finds out his father is Hawk Moth, sees his mother, learns he’s a sentimonster, and that he’s going to become a sacrifice ✨

Of course the last part is not what happens. It’s Gabriel who ends up being sacrificed.

I can’t decide if Gabriel ends up sacrificing himself because he changed his mind in the last moment while Adrien was screaming for him to stop, OR because he didn’t love Adrien enough for him to be considered an equal exchange for his wife… O.O

But anyhow…

Emilie wakes up with Gabriel’s soul within her (hence the bluish gray eyes in the comic).

Adrien is traumatized for life.

This took me hours to write… I knew there was a reason why I didn’t want to do it. I hope I didn’t forget anything and my brain made sense of it all

Well there you have it, peeps. The Pinocchio AU. It’s as messed up as my sleep schedule. Good night.

#and they all lived happily ever after. the end #ml #miraculous ladybug #sentimonster adrien theory #sentimonster!adrien #adrien agreste #emilie agreste #gabriel agreste #pinocchio au #answered #my art

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