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carebooks · 4 years

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alright i watched the whole third season of House of Anubis

I first have to say how much I enjoyed the leads: Eddie and KT. They have such a good chemistry and they’re honestly hilarious together. As I mentioned before, I did ship them together when I was younger and first watched the show but with watching it again, I would keep them as friends. Best friends. (especially since KT is hella gay I don’t care what anyone says) They totally give me Cloak and Dagger vibes, especially in terms of partnership. At the start of the show, they were alone, they had no one to confide in, no one to be with, Eddie was torn about letting Sibuna know about Nina, still not over Patricia. KT just lost her grandfather and came to England on a quest with some key and vague warnings, she was hella confused but still did so out of loyalty to her grandfather (this baby is too precious and good for this world, i swear). And next thing you know, fate and Osirian visions bring them together. They form a partnership, they snoop around the Gatehouse, they form a bond. And I love it so much. What I love especially, is that at the end, when the sinners are everywhere and even the Sibuna members are taken as sinners, it’s down to Eddie and KT, just like the beginning. Sure, they get help from Willow and Harriet, but they lose Willow pretty quickly, and right at the end, Harriet sacrifices herself so they can get the other key and lock away the evil for good. And together, Eddie and KT join the keys and lock the evil as one. They started together, and they ended it together, and I think that was really poetic. I know that the Osirian and the Chosen One are meant to be the pair and the Ying & Yang, but in this particular case, Eddie and KT were a bond formed by friendship and hardship rather than destinies planned or written in the stars by the gods, yes fate brought them together, but only because they knew they could only accomplish their tasks with each other. I especially loved when they took down Ammut, and Robert tried a last ditch attempt to get KT to feel guilty over doing this, telling her that he would die if Ammut was locked away. It brings in KT’s loyalty to her family, even when it’s bad, but then Eddie yells during the commotion, “Don’t trust him, trust me!” And I think it really brings a full circle what a great partnership and bond they have.

Other than that, it’s really just random stuff I liked

i liked that Willow could sense bad vibes that Robert had whenever he was around Anubis House, as well as sensing the bad vibes that sinner!Victor and sinner!Patricia gave off. I kinda wished they could’ve looked more into that. Like she was naturally sensitive to these things or something.

Her relationship with Alfie was a nice touch, seeing him with someone who liked the same things that he did was real cute. Especially seeing them happy.

Victor and Sweet playing that card game gave me life.

Joy’s new attitude and look were certainly appreciated

While I preferred the Jerome that developed in S2 and won Mara over (especially over the course of the first season and second, i mean talk about a slow burn done right) and rather he didn’t cheat on her and Willow, the Joy+Jerome ship wasn’t terrible. I much prefer the developed S2 Jerome, I’ve said this twice now, but again, it wasn’t terrible. (but real talk? KT and Joy should’ve happened)

Amber being the one to bring Sibuna and the pair Eddie & KT together because *Amber Millington voice* “Hello people! Isn’t it obvious? Work together.”

Like that girl knew what was up. Well, she did invent Sibuna, not surprised.

Alfie was perfection this season, leave him be. Also, highlights of him:

“Crypts are for dead people!” “I’m afraid of everything.” “Guys, go! Get out of here! Sibuna! SIBUNNAAA!!”

I already talked plenty of Eddie and KT being the best, so yeah. But imma do it again anyway.

I have a theory that Eddie focused his primary Osirian instinct of being protective over the Chosen One to being protective over KT. Like he reffocused his powers to someone else for the time being. Nina wasn’t there, and when KT showed up in his vision it was almost like the house was telling him “You need to help her now. Keep her safe.” And I really like that.

It was especially shone a lot through out the season, and the last episodes too.

When sinner!Patricia and sinner!Fabian had KT and wanted to exchange an artifact that Eddie had discovered, she told him to run and get away, like they did when Alfie told them to leave him behind. And he says, “That was Alfie, this is you.”

And when Eddie, KT, Willow and Harriet went to get the sun key from Caroline, and she managed to take KT and Willow and turn them into sinners, Eddie says, “Not KT,” very worriedly. Later on he’s hard on himself, “I can’t believe they got to KT.”

It was interesting that half the season was awakening the man in the tank and the other half was releasing evil into the world. Like a different feel for half the season, not many shows do that.

I kinda despise the fact that the things I didn’t like are probably going to be longer.

Let’s go paragraph first so, how about that plot? First off, the whole thing is very weird for Sibuna. The first two seasons were about riddles and thinking things through. They were real mysteries. In this, it was more direct, they had an obvious problem, they had to stop the bad guys from waking up a bad guy, and then literal evil converted their own friends against each other. It sounds super interesting for a Vampire Diaries or Teen Wolf or even My Babysitter’s A Vampire plot line (or just one episode) since those shows were more active based. This season barely had any hidden things or riddles, and half of it had Sibuna paranoid and working against each other which I’m sure no one really loved. Not to mention that the action mainly happened at the Gatehouse rather than the actual Anubis House, the center for two of the last mysteries. Now I know, I know, the new season couldn’t just be a copy, and having a third mystery with hidden compartments over the house would certainly be a lot for Robert and Louisa. But I mean, didn’t Het Huis Anubis have four seasons? They couldn’t just do their version of that? I’m guessing that they did something different (I really hope so, because if not, this is embarrassing)

things i did not like at all about this season

the fact that they twisted Mara’s character up in their new ‘messed up girl obsessed with a boy’ like Joy in S2. just- why?

the fact that they undid a bunch of Jerome’s development.

or how about the fact that all Jerome got to do this season was be part of a love triangle cheat fest and then a love drama with Joy. In S1 he shoved himself into Sibuna and Rufus and it was bad for him, but he was involved. And S2, he was just amazing, they managed to connect his family and his family troubles with something that Sibuna would’ve needed for the Mask of Anubis: the Frobisher Gem. It all came together perfectly.

we didn’t get anything of Mr. Sweet telling Eddie about his Osirian thing or their family history.

The way they treated KT when they thought she was evil. It was so messed up, honestly, that poor baby. (though I did appreciate that the other residents noticed, like at breakfast when she sat down and no one looked at her, and he said, “Good morning, KT.” and he just noticed something was wrong. And then Joy and Mara noticed. I just really feel like that was the moment where Jerome and Joy coulda been more involved with Sibuna again- wait what am I saying)

No, when they and Patricia and Alfie were at the Gatehouse and they tried to warn them about the ceremony is when JOY AND JEROME SHOULDA GOTTEN INVOLVED IN SIBUNA AGAIN. Or like, at least be more aware, I mean come on?? Joy, you’re better than this. And Jerome, you’ve seen enough weird stuff to know when it’s Sibuna-related and usually that means deadly-related so you’re whole having two girlfriends thing can wait for a while.

Caroline Denby sucked. (And Caroline Forbes from TVD is a fan favorite of mine and not to mention that MY NAME IS CAROLINE so imagine that).

the fact that we got rid of the real Victor was kinda just wrong for me. I mean, Victor has always been a pain in the ass with the kids, and he’s usually wanted what they were after as well but he’d never resort to murder or anything like that, so when he got turned into a sinner and lost his friggin soul (yes, they said that, this is true) we truly lost Victor and I didn’t like that at all.

Season 1 was all about a mystery but also partly conspiracy, there was a moment between all five of Sibuna where they got proof and realistic statements after Joy lied to them (at the insistence of her dad) they were starting to think that the mystery wasn’t real and almost backed out of the search. Remember? Nina said, “You guys aren’t giving up on me, right?” Anyway, that was that. It was all about finding more information about what really happened and what’s really going on. About finding answers.

Season 2 was darker, it was a race against time because unlike the mystery of the first season, this one was more about saving themselves. Nina’s life and her friends and Gran would’ve died, it’s a great motivator to go through the tunnels. And there were moments where we see just how serious this is, there’s one shot where Nina is in a dream sequence in the house and all her friends are running away from her, terrified. And even when Victor sees her, he backs away in fear and hides himself in his office and then in the mirror it’s revealed Nina’s dressed and appears as Senkhara. And then when Senkhara freezes Vera, Victor knows it’s time to back away, he’s scared, he’s worried, so we see him do what he has to do to get Vera back. And when he’s playing the game? With Sibuna as his game pieces on the huge board? When Alfie disappeared, he backed out, he knew when to stop and almost considered calling Mr. Sweet to do something about it.

Meanwhile, Season 3 was all dark evil stuff, run for your life or your literal soul will be taken. It’s the end of the world if they awaken this sleeping dude, we need heroes to stop the bad team. Oh no, he’s awake, now he’s going to unleash hell and evil and it’s the end of the world, only now everyone’s converted to the evil and it’s real bad, we need heroes desperately.

This season might’ve been more dark or good vs. evil type of thing but it just didn’t feel right for HOA. The show has always been subtle, it’s quiet and the kids solve the mystery and they do everything very hushed and private, this season sort of felt like WHOAH PIE IN YOUR FACE GUESS WHAT IM A SIBUNA what with turning the whole school into sinners, I just didn’t like the whole school being this active. but that’s me personally.

Robert Frobisher-Smythe being the one in the tank is ridiculous considering wE SAW HIS FRIGGIN GHOST AT THE END OF S1. And honestly, bringing him in and saying that he’s going to bring forth a darkness to make people evil and bring the apocalypse is just a really bland plot. It’s no mystery, it’s legit good guys vs. a villain. It’s a ‘save the world’ plot, yeah like we’ve never seen that before.

We love the mystery, where was it? oh right, nowhere.

When the four descendants of Robert’s expedition party were revealed: Patricia, Joy, Alfie and Jerome, there could have so much content.

The four of them speaking in unison while they sleep should’ve been used more.

Remember the childhood lullabies they were supposed to use to find a random artifact? Those lullabies were riddles and other than that cylinder that KT opened using her synesthesia, it was the only thing that made it feel like good old days of House of Anubis.

again, making Robert the man in the tank and then evil was just stupid. im not gonna approach the fact that he took the punishment meant for his expedition party and that’s why he’s cursed, and now he’s evil? oh gods

again, seeing the three OG Sibuna gang members evil and not on Sibuna kept killing me.

that ending bugged me

like oh no! everyone’s gone insane, we gotta shut this thing down before it devours more souls. TWO HOURS LATER and now it’s time to enjoy fireworks and Fabian and Mara and flirting and its so unnecessary, whyy??

Leave Mara with Jerome (in which he didnt cheat) and Willow is happy with Alfie and KT and Joy are out there being gay as hell. Those are the ships that shoulda happened.

Honestly, when I think back at S2 and Amber and Nina are there, it just brings back such good vibes. S2 really is the best season, but I stand by my love for Eddie and KT. Friendship goals AF. Like I said before, the third season was in your face, it was loud and it was telling everyone ‘end of the world’ and when you think about it, it’s perfect for the characters they introduced. S1 and S2 fit so well for Nina, because she’s like that, she’s quiet yet badass and is about riddles and mysteries. Meanwhile, Eddie is loud and wants to get this over with, LET’S BREAK INTO OUR TEACHER’S HOUSE BECAUSE I HAVE A HUNCH. YOU WANNA SEE THE SLEEPING MAN’S FACE, FABIAN? LET’S REMOVE THE GLASS. LET’S STEAL THE TANK WITH THE SLEEPING MAN IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. LET ME JUST BARGE INTO VICTOR’S OFFICE TO TAKE YOUR KEY BACK, KT. LET’S DO WHATEVER IMPORTANT TASK OR MISSION WE NEED HAVE TONIGHT. LET ME BANG AGAINST PIPES AND BRICKS REALLY LOUDLY. And let me tell you, it just makes me laugh how into it he gets, like “why not?” it’s just so funny for some reason. Anyway, I think they decided to make this season fit what they wanted Eddie to be and that’s what they did. I loved Eddie’s performance, I loved him so much, I loved KT more. But I just didn’t love this season.

#carebooks #house of anubis #eddie miller #kt rush #my opinions #season review #this isn't an analysis

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morbidoptimisim · 4 years

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Why do you ship Jinx and Raven? The reason is that I ship BBRae and StarfireXRaven (Well not in Teen Titans in Alternate DC Universes)

TLDR:

-I’m a lesbian, that’s why.

Long answer:

( THIS IS NOT A BASH ON BB/Rae SHIPPERS, U JUST ASKED FOR MY PERSONAL OPINIONS;; )

-Beast Boy is afraid of Raven & her powers and uses his goofs to power through that instinctual? response. While he demonstrates far more maturity in some of the older comics (which I approve of well enough), he’s not equipped to handle a relationship with Raven in the cartoon. Even in fanworks, the only time he comes across with any centering, is when he’s depicted in animal form; I find that incredibly telling. -I can’t get behind shipping their original cartoon counterparts, since I’m personally NOT a fan of the “annoy the girl till she likes you” tropes that a LOT of media push into het relationships. the whole “opposites attract” thing is… not an excuse? If they weren’t part of the same crime-fighting team, I doubt Raven and Beast Boy would have any shared interests AT ALL, which leads me to believe that Raven is more of a victim of heteronormativity than anything else. You can’t look at her and tell me she’s not composed of queer coded markers, lol. & Admittedly a lot of my dislike for this ship boils down to my absolute hatred of the “loveable douchbag” trope forced down everyone’s throats since the 80′s/90′s. Don’t get me wrong, I Iike Beast Boy as a character and he works well as a friend, I just don’t see the Raven/BB “no really! he’s her ‘missing half’! He’ll ‘change her for the better’ and ‘get her out of her shell’!” appeal.

Personally, I feel that out of all the Titans, Beast Boy is the one most affected by Raven’s demonic aura. That he can smell the unsettling demonic signature in her body & it sets the animal instincts off within him to be exceedingly wary around her, which he feels guilty about, and is why he tries so hard to come across to Raven as though it doesn’t actually bother him, and like he’s completely fine with her and her ‘creepy’ bits; not knowing that his denial and good intentions, actually make it harder for Raven to trust him & feel comfortable around him, as his forced joviality sets off her empathic warning bells. There isn’t much either one of them can do about the state of things however, so they try to ignore it best they can, though Beast Boy feels like Raven’s biting sarcasm and passive aggression is a silent challenge for him to work harder around her and Raven mostly just feels tired.

*Coercing a girl into saying yes just cause she’s tired of saying no & she thinks everyone expects her to give into him eventually anyways, is NOT a fun ship dynamic for me.

-Starfire & Robin I ship together, but as they grow into Kori and Nightwing I actually headcanon that they keep an open invitation for Raven to join them; both Starfire and Robin/Nightwing handle Raven’s abilities and personal boundaries a lot better, especially in the older comics. I don’t think Raven would join them as a permanent fixture of their relationship, but I imagine its a fun exploratory period for the three of them for a brief handful of times.

I see Robin/Raven specifically not so much as a sibling dynamic as an adopted-guardian and their troubled-ward dynamic; essentially: they’re doing their best to cope with their semi-awkward positionings. -Robin is both her team-leader AND mind-linked ‘sounding board’. Raven meanwhile, is always the ‘tragic little girl’ that Robin feels he has to 'Save’.

She uses him as her gage for human/Earthly morality, and he knows it, and they both know that it puts a lot of pressure on him; so he usually ends up attempting to give her he thinks she wants. -Which is difficult, since Raven usually doesn’t know what she’s looking for, and doesn’t often inform him of any results or formed opinions that occur afterwards.

She shares a similar relationship with Starfire; being the stand-in for a true connection with Blackfire that Star could never have but always desired.

Raven/Robin would never work out because they’re too similar and would feed into each other’s negative habits too much; never sleeping, diving too much into work, ect. Theyre good work partners, not good dating partners.

Raven/Starfire is cute, but Starfire is IN LOVE with Robin. Starfire/Robin is one of the few m/w canon ships I actually enjoy. I’m not breaking them up, even in headcanon. So it’s threesies or nothing, lol.

-Jinx:

Okay, so; remember when I said Beast couldn’t handle Raven?

well, what about a girl who HAS MAGIC and KNOWS WHAT ITS LIKE FOR THAT MAGIC TO BE INHERENTLY VOLATILE. Jinx walks down the street, six people are getting struck by lightning, tripping, or having their parking meters expire, and other such ‘bad lucks’; she knows what having an unsightly power is like. She’s fought with Raven before, and *beaten* her in battle before. She knows what Raven is routinely capable of. she went to SCHOOL for STUDYING HEROS and how to defeat them. She grew up in more of a real-world setting?? Like;; Jinx might be the ONLY QUALIFIED person to help Raven with her situation? Ex: “Hey, maybe you ever think instead of demons… its also PTSD? Let me google some shit and ill hook you up with something for that”

and she’s a TOP STUDENT. she LEADS A TEAM. She’s smart, resourceful,, she’s capable of taking things seriously and having fun without being scared off by raven’s power or cynical moodswings. I feel that Jinx would be one of the few capable of tempering Raven’s behaviors constructively. -The girl’s dealt with the Hive all her life. she’d be able to withstand Raven’s bluffs and threat displays, no sweat while also remaining unadmonishingly instructive.

And Raven meanwhile, can show Jinx that having dangerous powers doesn’t make villainy her only option WITHOUT sacrificing the capabilities having those powers or past experiences bring (*cough unlike how kid flash dismisses them cough cough*) (I HATE Jinx/Kid Flash but i’ll save that rant for now)

They could help each other out with their traumas, theyre more likely to have common interests,,, (types of books and music preferences, spellwork, ect)

There’s just a lot more potential for exploring their personalities and moralities together. ^^

The “enemies to friends to lovers” trope is especially gay, which I, a homosexual, vastly approve of;;

-I ship Raven with a lot of “darker” themed girls. Jinx. Ace. Ravager, Blackfire would be fun; Cassandra Cain maybe. Lady Death. Rogue.

#draginkyleezeke #about me #just rambling #teen titans #raven #jinx #raven/jinx #long post

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miss-m-calling · 3 years

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Chocolate Box 2021 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me!

I’m Miss_M on AO3. For all requests, I am asking for fic.

My requests this year are: American Gods (TV), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV), Starred Up (2013 movie), Witchblade (TV), and Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

General likes:

-pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories

-character-driven as well as plot-driven stories

-fics which mix humor and angst/serious business (when this fits the canon)

-characters at work and play

-group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too

-irony, snark, humor, angst -- all arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in

-linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories

-hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, “everything is awful but you’re here and maybe I don’t entirely hate that” endings

-worldbuilding

-spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, tough characters with (maybe not so well) hidden vulnerabilities, characters who are their own worst enemies, characters who manage to get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other, characters who may not be exactly friends and may well irritate one another but manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise/reluctance/discomfort), characters who just cannot get along with each other or find common ground

-workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters get to be competent

Shippy and smutty likes:

-(where it fits the characters) banter

-competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved)

-”oh god why did it have to be you what did I do to deserve this“

-”come here and say it to my face/do that again/kiss me, you motherfucker”

-bickering yet loving couples

-characters who are serious about their romantic interests

-characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are

-characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed

-fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping

-characters who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, or there has been betrayal!!!), and while they love and/or want each other, they’re not willing to change sides or abandon/compromise their identity/beliefs for the other’s benefit

-I don’t know how better to phrase this than: smut which fits the characters; how does their canon dynamics spill over into hubba hubba stuff?

-sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves

-sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition or antagonism

-"this is a bad idea but we’re going for it hammer and tongs”

-not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not

-characters getting way more into the sex or being more affected by it than they thought they would

-quick and intense sex, slow and intense sex, rough yet willing sex (when it fits the characters), unexpectedly emotional and/or tender sex

-masturbation while thinking of the other half of the ship (or not wanting to think about them only oops there they are in the fantasy!)

-first time sex

-established relationship, we-know-each-other-so-well sex

-”we’ve both wanted this and now we both know it so here we go diving in headfirst” sex

-for het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) -- all is good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

Ship/smut DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting D/s, formalized BDSM, painful sex, hard kinks (holding someone down playfully, hair pulling and such like, the odd spank are a-OK) scat, watersports knife/gun/blood play incest deaging/infantilization, mommy/daddy kink under-16yos in sexual situations humiliation body distortion/horror (feeding/weight kink, come inflation, vore, etc.) unrequested ships/pairings soulmates and soul marks pregnancy and children (can be mentioned if canon, just don’t make the whole fic about them) wedding setting/theme secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job xeno, tentacles, bestiality noncon/dubcon

Other DNWs:

torture and abuse (this and noncon/dubcon can be mentioned, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it) descriptions of vomit, shit, and piss (”He pissed up against a tree” and the like is fine), toilet humor lots of gore/blood (mention it, yes; lovingly describe it, no), cannibalism, serious illness or injury character bashing genderswap/genderbent characters, characters as kids/young teens issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons death of requested characters hopeless, unrelenting gloom/angst/horror RL holiday setting/theme, RL religions as a major theme (invented fictional holidays and rituals are fine) reference to RL current events 1st and 2nd person POV unrequested crossovers or fusions AUs which have nothing to do with canon fic written in lapslock

FANDOMS:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.

Even if some of my prompts are about stuff that’s addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam, as are missing scenes and post-canon stories! Also, I’ve read the book, so feel free to riff on that if you want.

Canon-specific DNWs: Laura as Essie or Sweeney's wife's reincarnation/descendant or lots of comparing her to them, Sweeney staying dead, any S3 spoilers.

Exception to blanket DNW about blood/gore/bodily fluids: describing the physical decay of the living undead (undead? there but for the grace of magic coins dead?) is fine!

Prompts:

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?

-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!

-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans?

-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes of S2? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?

-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence – but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it. Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma (he did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?

-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and then she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want – in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty. They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self. Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?

-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, and true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-They’re both so complicated and contradictory and spiky, but they also start to care and rely on each other - and react really badly when they (think the other one) betrayed them. I would like to see those nuances explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have – or have left from when he was Lugh? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce & Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. Shippy or platonic, I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with L/M/S or L&M&S or L/M & M/S – so, if you go the shippy route, either a V-shaped triad or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… If you want to keep it platonic, True Companions all the way, always there for each other, even when they want to strangle each other. And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history.

Canon-specific DNWs: explicit sex (so nothing above M rating for sex), pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on, Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – but I don’t want him dying if your fic is set in 1966 or after.

Prompts (most of these are from before S3 dropped, feel free to work with canon or diverge however you see fit -- I am all caught up with S3):

-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?

-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, or after Shy fires Midge, Midge and Susie cobble together a Midge-only tour of America and keep crossing Lenny’s own touring path, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.

-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…

-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.

-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.

-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.

-More radio work to make ends meet in between gigs: hilaribad period ads, hilaribad radio drama, running all over town to be on time, getting paid in all kinds of dubious merch…

-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.

-More of Susie being the hypercompetent manager we saw especially in S3! (And please don’t dwell on her gambling problem, I was not a fan.)

-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.

-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.

-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.

-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…

-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.

-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)

-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died and Susie took it worse than she does in canon, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.

-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio and then his “let me introduce my wife or maybe my sister” in Miami – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first. Or, nice hotels ca. 1960 weren’t very big on letting unmarried couples, let alone threesomes stay in rooms together – pretending to be family might make that easier; forgetting what they’re meant to be to each other, or mixing up their backstories might make it harder. This could also work platonically, if they’re trying to save money by only getting one room, there only being one free room in the hotel, or for any other screwball reason you can invent.

-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.

-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.

-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”

-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”). If you prefer to keep it platonic, most of this would work if they’re just sharing a double bedroom on tour (I leave the reason for why Lenny is bunking with the women up to you).

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is a-okay! If you decide to go there, my preferred flavors of dubcon for this canon are: power differential makes it a bad idea but they do it anyway; “I know you want this”; “if the answer’s no/you’re only doing this for a dare or to prove a point, then why are you enjoying this so much [as am I]?”; no no yes a.k.a. starts as dubcon (or one of them thinks they’re dubconning the other), becomes enthusiastic consent.

Also, if this is relevant or makes you nervous about writing for me, Eric would be 18-19, and Oliver is maybe 10-12 years older – and I like it!!! (The actors were 22 and 31 when the movie was made, FWIW.)

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Or how about this: Eric gets out, relationship happens or is in the process of being negotiated, and while physical intimacy is a whooooole neeeeeew woooorld, you know what else would be cool? Phone sex. Yep. Or even, Eric gets himself one of those secret prison burner phones (preferably hidden somewhere that’s not someone’s arse), and… phone sex after lights-out and lock-down. Maybe nothing (much) has happened physically (yet), so phone sex can be a building block to that or one facet of that deepening intimacy.

Witchblade (TV) Sara Pezzini/Danny Woo

Sara Pezzini & Danny Woo

I used to love this show back in the day, and loved it again in all its hokey gloriousness when I rewatched it recently. Sara figuring things out and being a principled badass, but maybe out of her depth with the Witchblade, and her dynamic with Danny, whether he's a ghost or alive, it’s all catnip to me. Sara is not extremely quippy, she has a job to do dammit! and don’t look at her vulnerable side, just don’t look at it!, and I love that about her (she’s much harsher in S1, after Danny’s death, than in S2); ditto that Danny is somewhat softer than she is, but still can hold his own thanksverymuch (well, when the plot doesn’t require him to get nabbed by bad guys) and has a bit of a deadpan snarker side too. I’d love something that plays around with their canon dynamic from either season, or uses canon as just a starting point. Gen is good, shippy (incl. porny) is good. Some of my prompts lean dark or horror-y, so don’t be shy about going there; I’d also enjoy a story in which the Witchblade itself ends up not being very significant (say, they start to investigate a possibly mystical case and then nope, plain murder). BTW I really like Conchobar too, so if you want to include him (that means also Conchobar Lives AUs), his relationship (current or past) with Sara, or his canonical death somehow, go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: Irons and any version of Nottingham appearing (you can mention them if you need to).

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is fine (see first prompt).

Prompts:

-The Witchblade is more parasitic than symbiotic, and instead of Sara learning to control it, its feeding on Sara affects her more and more over time. Or, the visions and dreams ramp up into full-blown paranoia and/or disassociation. The Witchblade's POV, maybe (it is sentient)? Asking for help is the hardest thing for someone like Sara, but what are (more than) friends for? I’d also enjoy a dubcon scenario where Sara really shouldn’t be having sex when her head is all messed up by the Witchblade’s influence, but… well… they do. The Witchblade canonically enjoys violence and bloodshed perpetrated by its wearers, so it stands to reason that it might lower other inhibitions too.

-Witchblade v. mythological monsters. In S1, even with everything else that's going on, Sara absolutely scoffs at the possibility of vampires. So of course I want: Witchblade v. vampires! The scarier and more feral, the better. Or, it's implied that the Witchblade was forged from a meteorite, so it's basically an eldritch artefact from outer space. Yes, please lean all the way into the Lovecraftian tropes! (The moon is turning red, the Old Ones are back, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but Sara’s got her partner by her side.) Or something from Chinese mythology, so Danny can kick extra ass. Or, for a silly take on Chinese culture: Sara and Danny in the world of Big Trouble in Little China (another old fave of mine, the entire plot of which revolves around… a woman with green eyes and an unwanted connection to the supernatural).

-The Witchblade has a reputation for abandoning its wearers just when they need it the most. True to form, it slips off of Sara’s fist, leaving her and Danny to save themselves with good old-fashioned guns, fisticuffs, martial arts, and of course having each other’s back.

-More of the psychedelic-ness in many of Sara’s fight scenes, where now she’s a woman in a leather jacket with a gauntlet on her arm, now she’s a knight in armor! Now her opponent is human, now he’s a wolf-shaped spirit of evil and hatred! Playing around with the characters’ senses and perceptions – yes!

-Instead of seeing only Danny and needing him to play intermediary for Sara to talk to other ghosts, the Witchblade makes Sara see ghosts all over the place, and it's getting to her. Ghost!Danny may or may not help with that. Or, ghost!Danny is basically always around, whether Sara can see him or not. He manifests when Sara is masturbating, and you can't really feel guilty if the ghost of your dead partner whom you’ve always had a thing for helps you out, and anyway you’re probably going crazy and none of this is real, so it doesn’t count anyway... right?

-Case fic/stakeouts and banter. Flirting/ribbing/joshing to pass the long and stressful days at work.

-Quick and guilty sex because Danny's married. Slow and intense sex if handwave he's not married but “oh noes we’re partners, we shouldn’t be doing this, but somehow we keep doing it anyway.” Hooking up in the car. I've always headcanoned that they had a thing pre-canon which ended for Reasons, but they both kinda wish it hadn't, hence the hand kissing, and the “I can’t even touch you,” and the coffee bringing/stealing, etc. So feel free to play around with that.

-Undercover as married, undercover as a gangster and his moll (LOL at Sara as a moll, or have Sara as the gangster and Danny as her arm candy), undercover as “they think we’re fucking, better fake it real good for the people listening in, oops shit got real fast, careful don’t say each other’s real name or you’ll blow your cover.”

-More timey-wimey shenanigans with the Witchblade. Maybe it allows Sara to manipulate time more than once. Maybe she starts doing it way too often, throwing the continuum out of whack (something non-linear would be very interesting). Maybe she and/or Danny remember some or all of what happened in S1. Something about all the multiverse versions of them, possibly splitting off from a dramatic moment. Time loops and feelings are a combustible mix.

-Apart from the pretty obvious shippiness, what I like about S1 especially is how Sara rolls with the weirdness the Witchblade has brought into her life, instead of reaching for rational explanations. More of that (I can't think of a better way to put it), and double extra brownie points if alive!Danny figures out at least some of what's going on with Sara's bracelet and somehow gets in on the action. Maybe a Danny saves the day divergence? Or how about a loophole that allows a man close to the Witchblade's wearer to wield it temporarily, but There Is a Price to Pay.

Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

Dardan Berisha/Petrit Koci

Skënder Berisha & Petrit Koci

Teuta Berisha/Petrit Koci

Divna Dukić/Petrit Koci

Petrit Koci/Marija Perić

Petrit Koci/Uroš Perić

My longest of long-shot requests! If you already know and like this canon, yeeees come sit with me. If you don’t know it, here’s a quick intro: this is a crime drama, one 12-episode season so far, produced in Serbia and created by Tony Jordan of “Hustle” fame. Set in (and with a cast including actors from) several ex-Yugoslav states, the story follows three main characters: a Serbian family man and regular joe who accidentally kills the daughter of a major Kosovar Albanian crime boss in a car accident; said Albanian crime boss who coerces his daughter’s unwitting killer to start working for him as an assassin; and a half-Albanian, half-Serbian Interpol agent (Petrit Koci) who’s after the crime boss but starts investigating the regular joe turned assassin as well.

The show has a twisty plot, gritty and handsome visuals, excellent performances, and a great through-line of deconstructing Balkan machismo and patriarchal culture. All three of the main characters have an image of themselves as MEN who Provide and/or Take Care of Business and Put Family First, each in their own way, and all three end up compromising on all their principles by season’s end. The women in the show’s ‘verse sometimes become collateral damage but also assert themselves in unexpected ways, which is great. The title refers to the Albanian (but more broadly, Balkan) cultural concept that one’s promise/vow/word of honor has to be kept and carried out no matter what, at peril of losing face, dishonoring both oneself and one’s family, even death. This gets deconstructed five ways from Sunday too, and it is awesome.

If you glance at the pairings I’m requesting, I think you can guess who my favorite character is. :-) Koci is so committed to being the “good sheriff” and carrying out his professional duty regardless of whom he has to piss off along the way, but is also often quite ineffectual because the local police forces with which he has to cooperate tend to resent both his attitude and his ethnic background – not to mention that when everyone’s corrupt and compromised, the man who refuses to play the game makes lots of enemies. He’s also a real hard-ass who made a conscious choice long ago to have nothing in his life but his work, is a bit of a bastard, has a huge blind spot about gender which comes back to bite him, and ultimately is driven by a desire for personal vendetta more than an abstract commitment to justice (I love a character who is super focused on their goal and presents themselves as invulnerable, yet whose insecurities and traumas are always just beneath the surface of what drives them). And yes, by the end of the season he’s presented with a Faustian bargain and gets a huge target on his back. There’s a lot to unpack there!

I will eat up any local color you want to throw in. Ditto, the canon is super intense, but if you find a way to bring in some vintage Balkan pitch-black humor, I’m here for it. If you wanted to include some dialogue or phrases or hey write the whole fic in any variation of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian, I’m here for that with bells on! (Unless you’re writing smut – I just can’t with E-rated prose in Slavic languages, sorry.) Alas, I do not read Albanian, but if you want to include dialogue/phrases in it, go for it, so long as you tell me (in parentheses, in footnotes, whatever works) what’s going on.

Canon-specific DNW: soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations (the characters can clash about this, use stereotypes, etc. – I just don’t want the fic to be an excuse for the writer’s hot takes, ‘kay?)

Exceptions to blanket DNWs: RL current events being mentioned + dubcon *but* for M/F ships I want both characters to be motivated by anger/revenge/general existential bleakness/whathaveyou instead of or as well as lust, so just no M/f dubcon, please!

Prompts:

-Any of my requested pairings in any kind of casefic, either a divergence, something pre- or post-canon, or a side investigation spinning off from the canon’s central plot. Anything that requires Koci to again traipse all over former Yugoslavia, butt heads with everyone, interrogate people, and do that soft-spoken “you don’t want to give me what I want but you’ll do it anyway” thing he does along the way.

-Something that requires Koci to use his knowledge of Albanian language and culture even more than in canon. I love how the canon depicts the existential discomfort of never fully fitting into – or being accepted by – either of the cultures/communities to which one has a connection, and how a person can become antagonistic and volatile as a result. Leaning into that would be wonderful.

-Koci has devoted his whole life to bringing down the Berisha clan. With the help or hindrance of any of the other requested characters, he finally gets his wish. Now what?

-Maybe the other character has to turn to Interpol for help/becomes a material witness/gets arrested/enters witness protection, or otherwise has to do teeth-clenched teamwork with Koci. For / pairings, the shippiness doesn’t have to be overt -- antagonism, barely finding common ground, something that reads more like gen or shippy gen than explicit shippiness is fine! If the relationship turns porny, the antagonism (I keep using that word because it fits!) and complicated dynamics and maybe a reluctant recognition that they’re not so different would perpetuate themselves in the porn too, and I’m here for it.

-A few words about the other characters and how they (could) fit with Koci:

Uroš Perić – the regular joe turned assassin, who gets multiple chances in the course of the show to seek Koci’s help and doesn’t because he gets in deep and wants to be the guy that protects his family and takes care of everything himself. I keep thinking back to their very first scene, when Koci gives Perić his calling card and tells him to get in touch, and Perić could have done that before he committed his first murder but… didn’t. And then at the end, there’s that huge spoiler setting up S2. Despite becoming a murderer several times over, Perić is a much softer character than Koci, but he doesn’t like getting pushed around either. How would they work together, how would they clash?

Marija Perić – Uroš’s Croatian wife, who has the thankless role of being married to the guy who’s keeping her in the dark about major plot developments, but makes up for it with how she reacts to the hints she gets of Uroš’s continuing troubles as well as getting on Koci’s radar. She’s scared and out of her depth, but she’s also angry and, yep, antagonistic when she thinks Interpol is harassing her for no reason. I love the scene where Koci interrogates her and she lashes out and won’t give him an inch even when he blindsides her with evidence of her husband’s activities – more of that kind of thing, please! Or what if she decided to protect herself and her kids by cooperating with Interpol, or maybe thought she could help Uroš by turning on him?

Divna Dukić – Koci’s Interpol colleague and maybe the only character that likes him. Their dynamic is both very professionally respectful and yet… “flirtatious” may be too strong a word. They pretty obviously have a little thing for each other but choose not to act on it for a whole mess of reasons (he’s an emotional disaster area, she has enough on her plate as a single mom with a shitty ex, they work together). Also, I have a theory that Divna, while seeming loyal, may take her marching orders from one of the criminal elements or maybe from the more corrupt parts of Interpol or the Serbian police. I would love any or all of that to get explored more.

Dardan Berisha – the grieving crime boss and main target of Koci’s obsession (even though it was actually Dardan’s old uncle Skënder who had Koci’s father killed decades earlier). They’re both such hard, intense men, in part because they’ve had to be, and the narrative sets them up as mirror images of each other (while Uroš Perić is more a study in how someone becomes hard when circumstances push them to it). Yet while their conflict underpins the whole show, they rarely share a scene. Put them together more; let them fight or y’know *waggles eyebrows*.

Teuta Berisha – Dardan’s wife, who first loses her daughter, and by the end of the season her family is totally blown to smithereens, in part because of how she chooses to assert her agency within the super-patriarchal context in which she lives. She was ambivalent about her marriage before we meet her, and I love how canon events bring out her anger, grief, and quiet steeliness. Also, that moment at her daughter’s funeral when Koci gives her his condolences really hit me – they know they are enemies, but there’s that moment of standoffish respect between them. What if somehow they had to work together? Or what if she took over as the head of either the Berisha or the Sokoli clan (or both!)? A divergence from the end or any part of S1 would be very welcome.

Skënder Berisha -- Dardan’s uncle who still wields enormous influence in the Berisha clan and was behind the assassination of Koci’s father decades earlier. I only want this as a & pairing, but the character dynamic is still one of difficult shared history, knee-jerk antagonism, goading humor, not being at all intimidated by each other, and yet recognizing something familiar in each other. One of my favorite scenes from the whole show is their conversation at the hospital, in which they cover both present troubles and the past. Skënder is one of the few characters who can and does consistently run rings around Koci, and I want more of that as much as I want the tables turned.

#chocolate box 2021 #chocolate box fic exchange #dear author letter

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mwagneto · 5 years

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1, 30 & 36

1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie.

oh god you're braver than any us marine ok so instead of what everyone expects I'll do a detour and start with the honourable mention that is rdj sherlock, i was super depressed (and I mean like. incredibly so) after sherlock s4 because it just sucked so bad, like i was deadass in ruins and i was trying to find ANYTHING to take my mind off it and by the end of February I watched and read pretty much all Sherlock media there is except for rdj because for some reason I thought it was bad?? but then I noticed the first movie was downloaded on my laptop so I went ok fuck it and watched it on the 26th of February and HOLY SHIT I fell in love with RDJude's dynamic literally immediately their chemistry was so fucking good and the plot and the script and the setting and the music and- point is I fucking loved it so I watched the second movie on the same day and Mother of FUCK it was somehow even better and gayer and sweet Jesus I've been obsessed with them since

NOW onto the real deal, light of my life and my reason for living....Rocketman

Jesus Christ I don't think I've ever been this hyped for a movie in my life

I saw the first trailer on November 11th but I wasn't into it at all mainly because I saw it in theaters and they played the censored version and made it look like some het movie about an imaginary person

But then I saw it trending when the second trailer came out and I scrolled through the trending tag and watched the trailer and boy I was HOOKED

And holy fuck the wait was Agonising especially since the fandom on here consisted of like. Me and 3 or 4 other people and then some ppl who didn't post but reblogged stuff - point is the fandom just. Didn't Exist

By the time carpool came out there were a bit more but still basically nothing, hell in my desperation I even looked at stan tw*tter a few times but I regretted it each time and thankfully I don't remember anything specific

But anywayS so the movie is supposed to come out on the 31st of May but for some reason they release it on the 18th in the UK and then turns out it won't come out until the 5th of June here???

I was so fucking mad my friend and I literally almost went to Wien to watch it

Worst of all, the big cinema chain that's in my city didn't even put the tickets out

And when they did they only put them out for Thursday and only the dubbed version

Which, ew, but I was like I don't care I'll take what I can get

But THEN I went into the city one Saturday and I was just riding the tram listening to the soundtrack when in passing I saw a theater that had a big ass Rocketman sign on the front

It was literally like a 0.1 second glimpse because the tram was going fast but I immediately went rabid and found it online and turns out not only were they showing Rocketman on the 5th of June, they also have the original English version

So I booked two tickets immediately and waited because I still wasn't sure the usual cinema wouldn't put their tickets out

So I stayed up every night until midnight to see if there were tickets but No

Finally they put them out on Tuesday midnight so a day before it's supposed to be released but only for Thursday so I was like ok fuck you I'm going to the other one

Oh yeah by this point I've been logged off Tumblr for weeks because i didn't want spoilers so I didn't have Any Rocketman content at all, I didn't even dare to look at YouTube videos or anything because I was scared the recommended section would spoil me

So yeah I was absolutely content deprived

Fucking FINALLY the 5th of June rolls around and we get to the theater and wait for it to start and jesus fukingn

I'm gonna be honest I literally don't even remember much because I was so high on "oh my fucking god I'm finally watching it" but holy SHIT IT WAS JUST. SO GOOD.

I do remember a few things

I know I screamed out loud when Richard first appeared during crocodile rock (even tho I knew he was gonna be there at some point but it was still so sudden I fuckin lost it)

Also I held my friend's hands during tiny dancer like my life depended on it skdnd

And I've told this story a million times but tmttp shocked the soul out of me coz I knew what it meant scene wise and I didn't think they'd play it so fuckign early skmfsk I had like a full body convulsion and drew my hands back and my calf muscle cramped so hard it hurt for a whole week afterwards

anyway I didn't cry

somehow

I thought I'd be sobbing like mad but I didn't and I still haven't

Idk for some reason I just can't cry over this even tho I SHOULD and I want to

my friend did sjsnfjd

we were fucking. spent dude I don't think I stopped smiling until I fell asleep

Anyway after she somewhat finished crying and we exchanged a few words we somehow got up from our seats and left

She had to print a few things so we walked to a photocopier and talked about the movie but it wasn't anything more coherent than just verbal keysmashes

Literally it was so smfjsjjdsjdn i felt high

I was so fucking HAPPY bro it was so fucking good and everything I expected and way more like we were over the fucking moon

I brought food coz I like to eat during movies but I didn't even dare to look away from the screen during this one

While she got her printing sorted I logged back into Tumblr and checked the tags (they were still disappointingly empty😔)

We then went to a park near the tram and ate the food I brought and talked abt the movie till it got dark at which point we headed for the train and talked there some more before she had to get off at her stop

I spent the rest of the ride smiling like an idiot listening to the soundtrack and texting her & other people

I went for a bit of a walk on the mountain I live on to clear my head but I was literally so happy and giddy I couldn't stop smiling hhh I'm losing it just thinking about all the stuff I felt

By that point I was super low and empty coz of school stuff and irl stuff so to feel so many emotions after months of feeling absolutely nothing was a LOT

Anyway I got home by...idk, late, and blasted the soundtrack on full volume for a while before booking her and myself tickets for Thursday so we could watch it again

And we did

And it was just as amazing as the first time

And then on impulse I watched it again on Friday

And then I went to watch it again on Saturday and as soon as it ended I ran to a nearby theater and watched it again immediately

Then again on Wednesday

After watching it on the 5th I lost my appetite both for food and for water, and also my need for sleep, so until I gained it back after watching it next Wednesday I basically didn't eat, drink or sleep for an entire week but it didn't take a toll on me, somehow

The Rocketman power

Anyway we watched it again on Saturday and Sunday (the girl I mentioned came with me both times then and on Saturday so did another girl)

And then I had exams, a class trip and a family vacation so I couldn't watch it for an agonizing two weeks

but then finally watched it again on the 3rd of July with another friend (a 3rd one)

And then on the 6th of July with the original girl

And then on the 7th and the 9th at home alone and them on the 12th with yet another friend (4th one)

Then I went to watch it in theaters alone again on the 18th

And then one more time with the first girl on the 24th

Then on the 3rd of August alone

And then the first girl came over on the 9th of August and we watched the deleted scenes and the extras and then the extended movie

Then I was once again busy so I couldn't watch it until the 25th

And I took my laptop to the hotel I'm staying at for two weeks rn so I watched it here on the 30th

And now here we are

Jesus fucking Christ I'm so sorry for making you read all this

This took me like an hour to type

Anyway! Peace and thanks for asking skdmsmcmsmmd

30: Talk about what turns you off.

I don't have any turnons or turnoffs tbh skdndn I'm. not about that sorta stuff

36: Talk about your guilty pleasures.

sometimes I hateread awful old fanfics on Wattpad because they make me wanna die but like in a good way

#rocketman #i got mail!

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celinamarniss · 5 years

Photo

Trivia Tuesday:

these are the days of miracle and wonder

This one got a little long, but there's a lot going on in this story.

I hate weddings. I attended my sister's wedding shortly after I wrote this fic, and didn't enjoy it very much. But even I can't resist the drama or fun of a fictional wedding. There's so much potential for shenanigans! All the things that I find unpleasant about weddings in real life—the heightened emotions and intense stress—make for great drama.

I'm not interested in any of Jaina's male love interests from the books, and I wanted to pair Jaina off with a lady. There should be more queer ships in star wars! I love the idea of lesbian or bisexual Jaina and I feel a little guilty that I don't write more queer pairings. The star wars ships that I love the most are het ships and focusing on those ships doesn't give me much room to explore the characters' queerness (even if I do headcanon some queerness into those ships—all of the Skywalkers are bisexual disasters who end up married to bisexual disasters is where I stand on this issue).

The problem was that I wasn't familiar enough with Jaina to know which lady she should end up with. I asked frangi for ideas, and she suggested Mirta. I loved the idea, because what would be more awkward and hilarious than Jaina marrying Boba Fett's granddaughter?

...but that meant I had to write Boba Fett into my story. I hate that guy! He's the worst! He's this flat action figure that's cast a long shadow over the star wars franchise, and when you get to know him a little better as a character, he's awful.

You know who else is the worst? Kathy. Tyers. Fuck her! Unfortunately, for me, Mirta's her OC. I read the Mirta sections of LotF and ended up using a lot of details from LotF: Bloodlines for Mirta's backstory. The events of LotF don't happen in this EU, however. Mirta's mother and grandmother are dead, but she and Jaina don't meet during a revenge quest to kill Jacen. I don't know how they met. Maybe they met in a club.

Boba obviously has a normal human lifespan in this fic. I'm not sure how that happened either.

Lots of extremely self-indulgent cameos from various members of the extended Skywalker/Solo clan in this fic. And a very tiny Rebels nod.

I lot of things in this fic are drawn directly from my childhood. I grew up in a small community like this one, having the run of the houses of lots of uncles and aunties that weren't actually related to me by blood. (Omi should probably be using "auntie," but I just couldn't bring myself to write "auntie Mara," so everyone's an aunt). I was definitely the kid who say nearby to listen as the adults talked on the porch for hours.

Graceland is one of those albums that played in the background of my childhood, and remains dear to my heart. I just really wanted to title a story based on The Boy in the Bubble. Elements of the song began to weave into the story. “The way the camera follows us in slo-mo” became the paparazzi cameras that follow Jaina and Mirta. While Omi's world is filled with “miracle and wonder,” the melancholy and paranoia of the song is closer to Boba's perspective of the world passing him by.

There's a part of me that wants to write a story about Jacen and Tanel Ka's over the top Hapan wedding. I'll never have the time to do it justice.

I had a lot of fun writing overlapping conversations in this fic. I also loved making up outrageous stories about Mandalorians.

I really annoyed me to discover that every single "official" illustration of Mirta directly contradicts her description in the books, and ignores her mixed-rage heritage. (Most "official" illustrations of Tenel Ka hide the fact that she's disabled, too!)

I ended up treating Boba Fett with a lot more kindness than I expected in this fic, because that's what the Skywalkers would do.

The idea that Mara runs an infamous research methodology class was frangi's.

“There’s always something that doesn’t go according to plan during a wedding,” Aunt Mara said. “Sometimes more than one thing.” ALWAYS. Have I mentioned I hate weddings? hate them.

Mara and Han as bros is one of my favorite dynamics to write, and this story is a bit of a companion/finale to the Drinking Buddies series.

I reread through the fic as I wrote this list, and I STILL found mistakes to correct. Ugh. I fixed them, but ugh.

I also changed the tiny detail that Boba calls himself a “Jedi killer.” The Jedi killer stuff is from Tyers, I think. I don't think Fett kills any Jedi in canon, does he? Most of them died when he was still a kid! Now he just calls himself a bounty hunter.

There's a longer, slightly more detailed detailed discussion on Tyers in the comments on ao3.

I discuss the other two stories in this series here and here.

#my stuff #meme #trivia tuesday #retirement

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noalarms-and-nosurprises · 5 years

Text

Do you ever just sit back and think "How the fuck did things get here?"

I used to have this legit bff; this girl I met in high school. Actually we didn't have much time together because she ghosted me many years ago, but we found our way into each other's lives. And oh, when we did, it was truly beautiful. We were on opposite sides of the world, but somehow we didn't let that affect it. I used to feel like I could take on anything because she was there. It was nice knowing that there was at least one person in the world who really, truly cared about me.

But she was in a bad place. She was half the world away from everyone she loved--her friends, her family, her girlfriend. And it took its toll on her. She did actually make new friends there, and I was truly happy for her. I was even jealous that she was starting to replace me as her bff with this guy. But I loved her like fam, and I was just happy she was getting the attention she needed there. Sometimes it really hurt for me because they would do things she and I never got to. She kept assuring me that I was still her legit bff, but I knew she was just rationalizing.

All that distance can really take its toll on you, i guess. Before, she was clingy af. Like whever we didn't talk for more than a few days, she would make up some reason to. Like send me some random photo of a hotdog in a tux that she took ealrlier that day but was waiting for me to text first. Or tell me she needed me to design her some tattoo. One time, out of nowhere she was jealous that if i found myself a girlfriend, I wouldn't have time for her. But nah, she was always gonna be my number 1 girl.

But like i said, the distance, the cold--it took het. All that affection and love just kept fading and fading. Especially since she had new people there with whom she could bond with for real. It sucked so much for me, like eventually she just stopped giving a damn about my life. There were times she just used me to make herself feel better and then throw me away when she was done with me, like some damned Kleenex. Or when she found someome more convenient. By the end, she couldn't even stand to have those random conversations with me that we both used to love so much. But no matter how much it hurt me, no matter how toxic that friendship got for me, i knew that it was the distance that got her, so I sucked it up and fought to hold on. It killed me, but I loved her like fam. I thought, if I held on until we saw each other again, it would recharge things. And it wasn't just me, things with her girlfriend got a little rocky too.

It wasn't like I didn't make my mistakes too. There were a lot of times i didn't handle it well. I got fazed, I got confused, I didn't know how to deal with it. I was losing my best friend in the whole world. I wish I did know how to handle it. I wish I didn't give her so much drama, I wish I could give her what she needed. Goddammit, I tried.

And you know what, she wasn't always the best person. Oh, she had pride like the Great Wall of China thay would never falter. She had communication issues like you wouldn't believe. I never romanticized her, though. I loved her and of course I wanted her to grow, but I never held this idealized version of her. I always knew what she was. I recognized that she was toxic to me, too. But I loved her all the same. After all that, i still saw her as my best friend. I was still as excited as I always was to share things with her. But it was too late. She just ran out of fucks to give. And I had to accept that. It wasn't like I had a choice; I realized couldn't make her care about me.

She was toxic to me, but you know what was worse, she was SOOOO toxic to herself. That pride, those communication issues--I was always afraid she would end up alone. She was the kind of person who fed herself so much bullshit everytime she felt bad about something. Her defense mechanism for guilt was being angry at people who made her feel bad. Sometimes I tried to fight that side of her--I couldn't stand to see her destroying her life,but sometimes I didn't handle it very well. Which I was always so guilty for because I was always someone who made her feel safe. Maybe I even unnknowingly give her pressure by wanting her to grow. And she actually hid parts of herself from her other friends. Little did she know, i always saw right through her. I always tried to be there, but I didn't always know how. I wish I did. Like I said, sometimes I was a really bad besy friend to her, but it was always her who was so toxic to herself. She would always avoid her problems so much that it kept piling up and it kept getting out of hand when it caught up to her. The drama always came back to her. She even wondered why it was me and her girlfriend who gave her so much drama. I don't think she ever realized she was thing we had in common. We did give her drama, yes, but she was also the source of it.

Oh and she had this other friend, a guy we knew in high school. God, I hated that guy. I tried so hard to keep her from being toxic to hersel; real friends call you on your bullshit, not validate them. I legit cared about her, you know. Not just her physical and emotional wellbeing, but I also cared about what she did with her life, and what kind of person she would become. I always wanted to push her to become a better person because I believed in her. I loved her. But good fucking lord, this guy just kept validating her bullshit. Like after i try so hard to save her from herself, there was this fucking guy who just kept telling her what she wanted to hear. And naturally, she kept coming back to him. Of course, I couldn't fully blame him; like I said, she did have the tendency to hide the nasty parts of herself from her other friends. But god, that guy. Just ugh, fuck that guy. I personally blame that guy for whispering all this crap in her ear, like break up with her girlfriend. And me. To be fair, he might have had some points, but validation is sooo dangerous for people who are toxic to themselves. So she took his advice, and took it her way. She broke up with the two people who always knew what she was, but wanted to stay.

I did make my mistake too, though. Before she broke up with me, she told me that she broke up with her girlfriend. And I was already sooo hurt by her that time that I didn't see her as my best friend who needed me. I saw her as someome who hurt someone else the way she hurt me. So I just did my version of yelling at her. Of course, she did drive me to that point, but still. As mad at her as I was that time, I still wish I could've been there for her. I know, I'm an idiot.

So I let her be for a while. But the few couple of months came and she finally got the chance to come to our home country. At this point, I knew we weren't gonna get everything back, as beautiful as our friendship was. But I did want to make peace with her. I wanted her to have peace too, after everything. But no, she wouldn't even give me a chance. She had this habit of thinking she knows how things are gonna play out. Maybe she thought i would try to crawl back into her life, i dunno. But no. You see, for a while now, we haf this BFF plan to hike to this mountain to this indigenous tribe, and get traditional tattoos from them. It was our BFF goal. A few days ago i found out she had taken that trip with that other guy i was talking about.about and it crushed me like nothing has ever crushed me before. I can't even begin to describe how devastating that feels. It's one thing if it was just a trip, but they have this permanent reminder of it. I fucking sucks. It feels like not only does she not give a damn about me or.our friendship anymore, but also like everything we've ever been through means absolutely nothing to her now. It just fucking sucks. Everytime i think about those goddamned tattoos, it hurts. I loved her like fam. Like nothing else in this world. What's sad is we never even got to do things normal bffs did because of the distance like hang out at each other's house and eat ice cream together. We barely even have any pictures together. It's just so unbelievable how we got here. I can't believe it.

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cumahinut · 6 years

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67, 92 and 100 :D

thank you!

67. Which character would you never want to meet in real life?

haiji towa no doubt about that, if i ever meet him i’ll report him to the police immediately

92. Least favourite Monokub?

i really don’t like any of them at all, maybe monophanie because she calls monokuma daddy and there’s incest jokes with her

100. Opinion on all the Protagonists!

okay! ill do dr1, sdr2, drae, dr0, and ndrv3 since i haven’t seen the rest of the franchise

Naegi Makoto - i actually liked him during my first watch of dr1 (when it was airing) and then dr3 destroyed him for me because of what they did about kirigiri being his trophy but after rewatching and playing the game long ago i warmed up about him, he’s refreshing in a way that even though he’s basically a type of main character that’s a projection from the viewer/player he has unique qualities that make you adore and admire him, it takes a lot to have a high fortitude and mental strength, even though he’s more emotionally proficient that physically or skilled, he’s not that wee helpless thing that needed to be saved every time or had to depend on everyone all the time, sure he depended on kirigiri for her skills but in return kirigiri relied on him for his strength that makes him a balanced character, dr3 is trash but his moment of confronting munakata (locks the door and told munakata THEY HAVE TO TALK) is such a great move and very him, he grew on me a lot during my stay in this fandom

Hinata Hajime - i love this sassy yet kind boy!! i don’t normally relate to characters and point out similarities between them and me but hinata’s problems just hit home for me, it’s so real for me and i know his struggles, but moving that aside because i’m most certainly not gonna talk about me right now i loved his development, even though it was flunky because of nanami’s involvement (they could have done it better) this guy is so ambitious and refuses to be mediocre that he sold out his own body to be a man of full of talents and lost his humanity, it’s a big leap from naegi’s chill life who just owns up his normie interests, but his character also showed that talent is not what defines you, no matter where you study, if you don’t believe in yourself. sdr2 really did bad on him with chapter 6 because it’s basically a nanami showdown for me so i prefer his development in talent development plan more

Naegi Komaru - i adore this girl a lot! she’s been through so many hardships within a week, she got thrown in a world she knows nothing about and suddenly she had to fend for her life?! i think she has the most solid and straightforward development among the protagonists, i loved her development from her struggling to survive to wanting to help other people, like that sounds common in this kind of series but it’s a feat for her because we’ve seen how terrified she is from the start, she just wanted to escape and get out, she thinks she’s just a normal girl who can’t do any greatness until she learned that even though she’s normal she counts, she found strength with touko by her side and thought she can fight all odds if it’s with touko and they can make a difference and bring change.

Fukawa Touko - had to put her because she’s also a drae protag!! so i wasn’t really impressed with her development in dr1 but i still liked her a lot??? so i’m eternally grateful, drae as fucked up as it is wonderful, gave her a stellar development and showed us a side of her that isn’t just lusting over togami, and even gave her a moment when she chose this girl she just met over him a couple of times! the girl she initially chose to stay with because of togami who then became her very first friend and sought her inner strength and made her confident of herself, it’s just so precious!! this pair is really amazing and how they found strength by being each other’s side

Matsuda Yasuke - yes please let’s not forget dr0 is a thing and a wonderful thing it is because of him, i love him so much there’s no enough words to describe it, his story is so interesting and if i didn’t know better reading dr0 would be a different experience because of the process of unveiling him?? like the things he does behind the scenes, his relationship with junko/ryouko that is actually the only het thing i accept because it’s really not romantic in nature from his side, i really loved his line about it, she’s not a lover but she’s as important to him anyway, junko had him in shackles for since his childhood because of his need to be needed and omg i’m talking in shambles right now but yes, how his initial goal was to protect junko from herself by isolating her from her memories and then it went to attempting to killing her while in ryouko to boot to save himself, it’s a power move. also he’s one of the most accomplished students in hpa i love that about him, he’s prickly yet extremely caring to a fault, his jagged appearance, aaaa everything about him is adorable and sad i want more ppl to give attention to him ;;;;

Otonashi Ryouko - lol the actual protag of dr0, i surprisingly loved her?? when i heard about her i was mild about it because i’m not a big fan of genki girls but learning her situation being amnesiac it makes so much sense for her to be? and in a fucked up way i mean, she didn’t choose to be cheerful when she forgets every instance of her life except for matsuda, that’s saddening and fucked up. there’s this one scene she and matsuda had a fight, and matsuda gaslighted her and she was forced to choose between matsuda and her notebook, that compiles every memories of her with 100% accuracy, and then it went abrupt because matsuda had to go somewhere but after he felt guilty about it and wanted to apologize to her, she already forgot about it and went back from being cheerful?? that’s fucking sad. i don’t remember much about dr0 anymore but she’s a really tragic character from start to finish, just before she went in a fit of despair killing matsuda, her final moments were heartbreaking, thinking it had nothing to do with her and all that, it’s a fresh break from the usual junko

Akamatsu Kaede - actual protag of ndrv3!!! so there’s nothing much about her background that pushed her motivation, the thing about her is mostly by her assertive personality which i loved, it’s the first time they made a protag that’s a leader type and takes things to her own hands, it’s amazing! despite all things she still had flaws, and showed how her naivety and pushy attitude could affect everyone and it was pointed out harshly that she felt that she’s pushing others too much during that time underground, and then she learnt the possibility a traitor is among them and working together isn’t gonna work out so she took things to her own hands and hid her plan from everyone, it didn’t work out but she did her best, she was pushed to resort to murder and she took responsibility for that, it’s tragic and it’s compelling for her part. i don’t believe anyone who says that her being framed by tsumugi proves her innocent, it doesn’t change anything, her plan just failed but her intent to kill was still there and not erased. so while i’m disappointed she died so early i’m not sure how her character will go in the long run? i wouldn’t have worried about it if only she was replaced by a better protagonist 😒 😒

Saihara Shuuichi - meeeh, honestly can’t remember the latter half of ndrv3 that well but i remember not liking him at all, even disliking him for some reason i don’t do well with this type of characters, it’s not fresh, his angsting is just aggravating for me and he overused kaede as a crutch and his manpain so hard i wanna punch him, so yeah sorry this sounds halfassed compared to my earlier comments but i dislike him and me forgetting about him is self care because i’m probably gonna be more annoyed being reminded by him

Danganronpa: Ask Meme

#thank you for the ask!#asked #anonymous #ask meme #character hate in the end #Anonymous

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ksbwnotes · 3 years

Text

Chapter 2

1. Oof

I’m sure, even after being told about this ‘relative’, Sangwoo kept it cool and didn’t tip off anything to the police, acting like “OH RIGHT MY RELATIVE THAT I HAVEN’T SEEN IN A FKKN DECADE”. It comes to show that he is incredibly calculating and intelligent, able to keep a facade on to an artform. This was probably something he has been able to do ever since he was a child, as we’ll later witness in his flashbacks.

Later Sangwoo says “you might as well have said you were my brother”, which is meaningful because Sangwoo doesn’t have one. So every relative Sangwoo knows is just as nonexistent as his nonexistent sibling.

2. I find this important to note

Bum obviously is prone to putting people on pedestals, only seeing them through the rose tinted glass he wants to see them in.

3. Why this though?

I find it very interesting that, because he doesn’t want to die, what he yells out is “I FELL IN LOVE!” Why this? I’m sure he’s also used this an excuse for the others he has stalked (I wonder if Sangwoo ever realized that Bum also stalked women and how he felt about that), but it most likely never worked with them.

Bum was just spouting whatever came to mind, so the fact that the word ‘love’ is what jumped out of him says a lot of how much it has been consuming his every being, even in the face of death.

4. s;jgio;sejro;gisejro;igerj wtf sangwoo

...I...well. I mean, it’s a great parallel, I think. Bum’s desperation for love making him yell that as his last words, while Sangwoo’s desperation for that same love making him stop in his tracks and even...fucking pet Bum??? I dunno, lonely or not, that wouldn’t be the first response of a completely not-gay-straight-as-an-arrow man. But obviously, Bum is a cutie pie and can appear feminine, which is why Sangwoo didn’t automatically kill him. If Bum looked like a ‘man’, then there would seriously be no saving Bum.

And I’m sure Koogi meant to emphasize Bum’s feminine attractiveness in that petting panel, maybe as a way to show what Sangwoo was seeing. I love how it’s purely white and blank behind Bum, as Bum is all Sangwoo is seeing. The fact that it’s white rather than black can suggest that Bum could be a new beginning, something pure and untainted.

I do kinda wonder if Koogi had Sangwoo as straight as a way to mitigate the stigma against homosexuality??? As a way for her to say “just because the story is between two men doesn’t mean this is supposed to be representative of homosexuality itself”.

5. Wow, the whiplash of mood and quick thinking

Boy didn’t even fkkn hesitate to destroy Bum’s legs, goddamn.

However, this does show that Sangwoo is very aware and his mental faculties are intact, even during times like these. You think he’d be fkkn furious and lose it, beating Bum to death automatically before Bum could even say anything. But Sangwoo doesn’t. The moment Bum says “love”, he stopped. He wasn’t in a haze of fury...maybe excitement (especially with that goddamn terrifying smile as Bum runs up the stairs), but even that was controlled.

In away, Sangwoo just seems...tired. He’s moving only because he knows he has to.

Also, the moment he says “not with your legs the way they are”, Sangwoo sees Bum the same way he has seen the women who’ve also been in the basement. The CEO daughter girl also had broken legs, so obviously the first thing he does is ruin their legs so they don’t run away...which...yeah, smart. I actually haven’t seen that even with Criminal Mind. xD

So that does show that Sangwoo seems really set in keeping his prey with him. Not to ‘chain’ them or anything, but to keep them from leaving him.

6. Double homicide

Ooooh 3 years ago?? Okay this is interesting...conscription age is 18 (or 17 since Koreans add that one year). I’m confused because, technically, Bum should’ve met Sangwoo first in the military, then in his college days. So did Sangwoo go to military later at age 20? Could be since his mom is...yeah. And his dad...sure.

Also, Bum and Sangwoo are four years apart. So say that Sangwoo went to college first, so Bum met Sangwoo when he was 22...then while Sangwoo was 20 and Bum was 24, they went into the military later. Since Sangwoo is 24 now (or 25 in Korean age jfc), that means he was 21 when his parents were killed.

Sangwoo also seemed to have needed to be discharged early, most likely because of his sick mom, which would explain also why he was in no position to befriend Bum.

Anyways, so that means Bum knew Sangwoo and was in love with him for about 6 years.

7. Wow

No wonder Sungbae is like this. He sees the eyes of every person he chased in Sungwoo’s dead-eyed stare. But he’s actually wrong about this, lol. Sungwoo’s mom is the culprit, technically, even though she was also a vicitm.

8. UHHHHHHH

HEY, SANGWOO, HEY, WHY IS BUM FKKN NAKED TO HIS UNDERWEAR WHAT THE HELL. WHY DID YOU UNDRESS HIM SANGWOO. HEY.

Oh my god, wait, was that really Bum’s underwear or did Sangwoo put that on him??

Also, wow, Bum’s hips. He seriously has a feminine body. Like...pear body shape lol.

Also, seriously, Sangwoo is treating Bum right off the bat like the other women. Rather than completely heterosexual, Sangwoo is more demisexual. And rather than femininity, he more prefers ‘weaker’ bodies, so that he doesn’t feel threatened by them. That is automatic towards females.

9. Hmmmmn....

Ah, for this to be the first thing you fucking wake up to, jesus christ. xD

I wonder though, why did Sangwoo cut her hair short? There’s probably multiple reasons for it...but one theory I would find interesting is that it’s because he met Bum.

Maybe he wanted to see how she looked like with a male haircut, how it would look like and compare how it felt like to see a pretty girl beside a pretty boy. He compared the two physically and made his decision that Bum was worth more than her.

I really do find it interesting that Sangwoo truly chose Bum over her, despite her being voluptuous and beautiful and actually a woman, which...you know...important for het men right.

But Sangwoo chose Bum because even though Sangwoo went straight to beating him with a goddamn bat, Bum yelled “I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU”.

If the choice was between what’s between the person’s legs vs the person themselves, Sangwoo will choose the person.

10. Interesting insight

Into why Sangwoo killed her and his thought process. Again, interesting, the fact that he kept emphasizing how stupid she was.

Her screaming for help and stuff is a very natural reaction and no one should ever blame her for that. But, for Sangwoo, it was ridiculous because she should’ve known that would piss him off more rather than make him feel guilty.

Part of it is how he learned to survive growing up--by reading his parents’ moods and figuring out how to respond. And on a smaller scale, how to respond to other people so that they see nothing but a charming, handsome man. The fact that she can’t even do 1/100th of that is fucking infuriating...and on a personal level, I can understand that frustration.

The other part is that her begging for mercy is obviously NOT what he wants. He wants someone like Bum, who’ll respond to him with loyalty and desire. Who won’t be afraid of him and will still stay to ease his loneliness.

11. Uh

What kind of half-baked excuse was this, bro. You spared him only because of what he yelled out to you and you just don’t want to admit it to yourself...or maybe just don’t want to say it to Bum, so that you can control him better.

12. Women have hair too, asshole

Sangwoo really does try to feminize Bum throughout the whole story. So obviously, yes, his instinct is more hetero. If Bum were burly like a guy rather than delicate like a girl, there would be no saving him. Sangwoo has his preferences. And Bum fits the most important aspect--and that most important part isn’t Bum’s genitalia.

I also do think it has to do with social construct. Sangwoo most likely grew up internalizing misogynistic and homophobic belief systems, whether or not those are what he truly agreed with.

13. The first time Sungwoo snaps

Notable to mention that it’s because he sees Bum trembling in fear of him. Sangwoo doesn’t like being reminded of the monster he is. He doesn’t take pleasure in it. But because he knows that he’s unforgivable and can’t go back, he just makes the situation worse by further slipping into the skin of a monster.

Honestly, this might be more indicative towards what he witnessed with his father. He’s emulating his father’s qualities because he knows that he’s no better than him, and can’t handle that fact. He’s also locking up his women THE SAME WAY HIS FATHER DID TO HIS MOM.

But, honestly, I think it’s because his mom is just as bad as his dad, that’s why he’s doing the same things as his dad.

14. You beat the girl

This is indicative of the fact that Sangwoo would be willing to be with Bum despite being a guy. And also suggests that, again, he really was comparing them and decides that Bum, with all his ‘loser’ like qualities, is still worthier than her. Heterosexual first, but demisexual overall.

And again, I think he’s doing the same things he has seen his father has done, pouring the food over Bum’s face like that.

15. First reward

Ah, here comes the training.

Also, I can see how differently Bum responds compared to every single person he’s seen, including his mom. They all will feel humiliated and resentful, hateful towards Sangwoo, seeing him as a monster, or being completely defeated. But Bum, instead, responds exactly the opposite. This is exactly why I think Sangwoo decides to kiss Bum.

Because, despite Sangwoo calling him a retard, that is exactly what Sangwoo wanted to see (but at the same time, not...Sangwoo doesn’t want someone as messed up as Bum, but he knows that only someone as messed up as Bum can be with him, and more than anything, he doesn’t want to be lonely).

If Bum reacted with fear rather than desire, Sangwoo would’ve never kissed Bum.

This is also a huge catch-22 that will end up blowing up on both of them. Bum reacting like this will make Sangwoo feel better about his actions and like he was able to find the person who’ll be able to accept him for who he is. But in the long term, it will reinforce this behavior and truly make him into his father. It will also keep him from truly dealing with his past.

16. Oh goddamn

Great insight into Bum’s mentality. It’s amazing, also, that he sees this as a sign of ‘dating’.

What I find telling is that Bum is thinking this DESPITE SEEING PROOF OF HIM BEING A MURDERER. I do get that it could be from his dissociation from real life, so he doesn’t quite understand what is going on. But at the same time, really, if Sangwoo treated Bum better, then Bum would’ve been absolutely fine with him being a serial killer and even join him. I honestly do believe Bum is more of a natural-born murderer than Sangwoo (though Sangwoo is probably more of a natural asshole lol).

17. Why are you also mentioning the word date!?!?

And I’m not sure if Sangwoo senses that those are Bum’s thoughts, but he also is thinking about dating in this context??

I can see how Sangwoo could’ve ‘read’ his prey and responded in a way that would’ve messed with their heads, but at the same time, it could be that Sangwoo is looking at this situation in just as much a twisted way as Bum is. But rather than Bum’s “I’m disgusting, yet he’s kissing me” mentality, he’s more likely thinking “Kissing him isn’t disgusting, so he passes round 3″ (round 1 is the first time with the bat, round 2 is the one where he kills the girl instead of Bum).

The thing is, since Sangwoo didn’t find Bum’s kisses disgusting, it reinforces his desperation to keep Bum with him. If he didn’t like kissing Bum, then I truly believe Bum would’ve died right here and now.

Also, interesting: “You’ll be the only one that ends up hurt, you know?” So, obviously, Bum having one working leg increases his chances of escape. So this is Sangwoo’s way of saying ‘if you escape, then I’ll make sure to hurt/kill you because of that’.

18. Here comes the sledgehammer

This is an interesting parallel. Looking back at chapter 1, it also seems like only one of the girl’s legs are broken, like how Bum’s leg was after falling down the steps.

So to keep the girl from escaping, Sangwoo just most likely tied her up. It’s not full-proof and it limits her movements, but Sangwoo probably doesn’t give a shit because with how she’s acting, she wasn’t going to live much longer.

But for Bum...with Bum, he’s planning to let him live much longer. He doesn’t want to restrict Bum’s movements because that makes him less appealing. Instead, Sangwoo takes it personally--takes it upon himself--to actually break Bum’s legs. This is a much more permanent fixture, reflecting how he’s planning to keep Bum with him for a much longer time.

Also, now that I’m looking at this, I think Sangwoo doesn’t actually rape his victims. Yeah, he has molested the girl’s dead body, but I think that’s more of a curiosity towards a dead body than actual sexual interest. It’s natural after seeing his mom’s corpse in front of him and all that...screwed up as fuck jazz lol.

I think he has sex with them in the beginning and that’s probably when he snaps because...his mom raped him, so. After that, he tortures them according to their reaction to him. But he probably doesn’t actually touch them more than that. In the case of hypersexuality, Bum fits this much more than Sangwoo does at this point. Sangwoo seems to just use it as a weapon, while Bum does it because he wants to be fucked.

This makes sense because it seems like Sangwoo was raped once by his mom and probably molested the other times, while Bum was frequently raped.

Furthermore, Bum--as we’ll later see--is most likely the only one he truly does rape.

#chapter 2 #volume 1

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ol-razzle-dazazzle · 6 years

Note

All the gay asks bc you made me do all of them

OWO thank you I love you1. describe your idea of a perfect dateAll of them??? Kakhiwkdkalgr walking around the beach or going to a bookstore or maybe a forest to chill or an abandoned place for a spooky date??? Movie date??? Ocean date??? Marriage date??? All good!!! Crab catching would certainly be on the agenda though. The oceans the best2. whats your “type”My type? Uhh anyone that’s nice to me lmao. Someone i can joke with and I know that cares about me. Quiet on the outside but like, nurturing and fun when you get to know em. Someone that doesn’t let people treat em like garbage because i yearn to be like that. On a side note I’m not sure why but most people i used to tend to have crushes on were ISFJs (or ESFJs) probably because they fit the criteria above. I don’t really like people that are totally my personality, and I think it’s important to not surround yourself with yes people or people that vehemently disagree with you. And communication! V important In terms of looks though? The kinds of girls I’m attracted to vary a lot actually. Buff girls soft girls tall girls short girls thin girls medium girls big tiddy little tiddy it’s all good. I guess I tend to prefer girls that aren’t white (not in a fetishistic way of course it’s just most girls that I’ve had crushes on or knew that were gay that were white just had really bad personalities and that brand of White Feminism™️ sorry if I worded this poorly) brown or black hair I guess? Just someone that doesn’t look like me adjnrujbslltgbk. Also someone I can squish and hug nicely. Of course I think there’s a lotta bullshit with people limiting themselves to only a few criteria and the racism or body type discrimination is total bullshit. Fetishisation is just as bad. There’s just so many cute girls out there why be a shitlord to people y’know? 3. do you want kids?Later on in life, if my partner would then yeah sure why not. I hate babies though so I would...4. if you do, will you adopt or use some other form of child birth?Adopt definitely. I’d personally prefer to adopt a kid that’s older, because they have a less chance of being chosen and I want them to be raised in a loving environment. 5. describe the cutest date you’ve ever been onI’ve never been on an actual date ;v; but tbh any date I’d have with my gf would automatically top the list6. describe your experience having sex for the first time (were you nervous? or was it easy peasy?)I’ve never had sex so I got no gosh dang clue aside from fantasies, which I would be nervous as heck but ultimately want to be as adoring as possible and kisses everywhere7. are you a morning time gay or night time gay?Mornings when you don’t have to go to things are amazing and beautiful but otherwise afternoon or night time gay. Anything that isn’t midday is good though8. opinion on nap dates?I’d be down for it. Sleeping is great, but cuddling and sleeping? Even better! Doesn’t matter for how long but yes! Good shit!!! 9. opinion on brown eyes?Only the most beautiful thing ever??? Brown and black eyes being ugly is a government lie, they are gorgeous. Black eyes just have that deep obsidian stare and like an adoring cat with dialated pupils you just want to hug, and brown eyes??? When the light hits them or you’re staring into them? Beautiful galaxies my dude. 10. dog gay or cat gay?I love dogs but I would never own one unless my partner wanted one. They’re just not a companion I prefer to cats. Cats are very good and fluffy and compact in comparison to dogs. Dogs are amazing though and I need to pay every one I see. 11. would you ever date someone who owned rodents or reptiles?Dude we already planned to live in a pseudo-barn to have crabs, rats, bats, cats and lizards 12. whats a turn off you look for before you start officially dating someoneSomeone who’s very ‘my way or the high way’. (My mum’s a lot like this and it’s caused me to try to constantly be appeasing. But with my mental illness I’ve gotten a lot more irritated by it.) Or someone that is a bit too mean I’m joking about people to the point where you don’t know if they’re serious. (I have this problem a lot with ‘friends’ and it leads to a lot of doubts and depression.) Also highly argumentative people who want to seem better than you and debate everything you say. (Just...ew.)13. what is a misconception you had about lgbt people before you realized you were one?I live in a homophobic family, so I used to think gay was a swear word lmao. I was told that we were unnatural, burning in hell, hypersexual, all that shit. Issues on trans people were even worse, and back when I considered the possibility of me being a trans man (while I experience dysphoria In my body I don’t think I would ID as a man- at the time I didn’t know what agender identities were) I was made to feel like it was the worst thing ever or that it didn’t exist that everyone was just straight and ‘normal’ 14. what is a piece of advice you would give to your younger selfDon’t pretend you’re aroace to hide who you are, you’re autistic but that’s okay just don’t overwhelm yourself, try to do things to the best you can. Also toxic feminity/masculinity is bullshit don’t feel guilty about wearing anything. You’re gay it’s so much easier now and don’t let people dictate of make you defend yourself 15. (if attracted to more than one gender) do you have different “types” for different genders?Lmao nah. There is always that awkward moment when you think you see a hot butch but then he’s a twink. Bamboozled again. 16. who is an ex you regret?A few years ago I was forced into a relationship with some rude ass dude who ignored that I ID’d as aroace at the time. I guess at the time I had some comp het so I think that’s why I went along with it? It was kinda some toxic shit like nothing nsfw but he was just a huge dick that went off at the slightest disagreement and I’m glad I got rid of that trash lmao17. night club gay or cafe gay?Cafe gay by far!!! Well I’ve never been to a night club, but I’m someone who gets overwhelmed by loud noises and people, so it wouldn’t be the place for me. Cafes are relaxing18. who is one person you would “go straight” forNo one lmao, The only possibility of slightly me becoming straight is like a fictional character19. video game gay, book gay, or movie gay?Books and video game gay! There needs to be more gaymes, but books are good I just have less time to read them as opposed to gaymes which I can do whenever 20. favourite gay ship (canon or not)Probably RenMerry from Touhou! These two mean a lot to me, and got me into the series that helped me realise I was a lesbian! These two just work so well together that I strive to have a relationship like that- a slightly bickery old couple with the freshness of new adventure tied together with a love that will never fade away even as it transcends borders~21. favourite gay youtuberDon’t really have one. I’m not really into the British youtuber scene and the ones that I do sub don’t really talk about their sexuality or not (I think sailor j might be bi? But that’s about it) I usually watch comedy channels or vocaloid covers. Actually Oktavia’s Gay, yeah let’s go with her. Her voice is amazing and made me realise how much I love deep voices22. have you ever unknowingly asked out a straight person?Ahbkowejkboesh I’ve had crushes on straight people that I’ve wanted to hang out with but no of course not I’m too shy for that shit23. have you ever been in love?Yes! And I’m still doing so right now! 24. have you ever been heartbroken?While in a relationship? No. But like the whole ‘falling in love with a straight girl senpai and then everyone tells her that you have a crush on her which causes you to be distant to each other leading you to cry copiously at her graduation and never truly repairing your friendship which is all you ever wanted and never being able to talk to her again?’ ...y yeah 25. how do you determine if you want to be them or be with someoneHonestly I try to make a distinction between ‘people I have crushes on’ and ‘people I would date’ bc yeah someone might be cute but dating is another story. I’m someone who varies a lot in style (as someone who may possibly be gender fluid or agender but hasnthad the opportunity to explore that for family reasons) 26. favourite lgbt musician/bandUhhh Queen I guess? Idk I need more gay shit recommend me please. Queen is quality shit though 27. what is a piece of advice you have for young / baby gaysDon’t ever feel the need to apologise or defend you being gay. Be happy even if other people aren’t about you. If you’re autistic chances are you’ll question your identity, don’t worry about it and just love who you love. If you’re a lesbian especially don’t apologise or feel you have to be in a certain role to ‘be truly gay’ and also please ask people out otherwise you’ll never get anywhere- all lesbians are useless and I got lucky shjgowkgowlgr. But above all, don’t feel guilty and have fun exploring yourself and fleshing our who you are, even if you can’t always show that out loud. 28. are you out? if so how did you come outI’m not out to any family member (I say that I’m aroace but they believe I’m straight despite jokes on the contrary) but pretty much everyone that isn’t a complete stranger knows. I can’t help but talk adoringly over my girlfriend so it just happens. Otherwise I go on some spheal about homophobic bullshit dropping hints that I’m gay before saying I’m gay. It’s led to some shittalking and other various bullshit but I don’t give a fuck anymore 29. what is the most uncomfortable / strange coming out experience you have Believing I was aroace and my friends saying that i was in denial of being gay. I was like ‘lmao Domi’s just a friend I lowkey have a crush on her but she’s just being nice :^)’ then like a week later burst through the door like BITCH GUESS WHOS GAY FOR HER GIRLFRIEND 30. what is a piece of advice for people who may not be in a safe place to express their sexualityEvaluate the consequences of coming out. While I live in a homophobic family, Australia is somewhat accepting and there’s no conversion therapy to my knowledge at least (there are highly fundamentalist Christian groups but I’m not sure if they include forms of violence) Especially if you are in an anti-gay country or an area where you could be persecuted, I think it’s important to be out to at least one person you know who supports you. It could be online or a friend that you know you could trust (if you don’t know if you could try subtly bring it up and see their reaction, but better safe than sorry.) because it’s hard to go through this entirely alone. While it’s important to be unapologetic of who you are, it’s more important to protect yourself- this doesn’t make you wrong, but the people who make you feel wrong wrong.

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shadowtearling · 7 years

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Jane Steele by Lindsay Faye

Details

Goodreads Rating: 3.93 Genre: Publisher: Headline Review Published: March 22, 2016

*side note: left photo is US Hardback cover & right photo is UK Paperback cover

Summary

Reader, I murdered him. A Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre. Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors.

A fugitive navigating London's underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding the noose. Until an advertisement catches her eye. Her aunt has died and the new master at Highgate House, Mr Thornfield, seeks a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate's true heir, Jane takes the position and is soon caught up in the household's strange spell. When she falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him - body, soul and secrets - and what if he discovers her murderous past?

My Thoughts

My Rating: none

Bear with me here, but this is going to be a long and complicated one. I’ll be splitting my review into non-spoiler and spoiler because I want to hash out all of my thoughts.

Non-Spoiler

This was a great read. As a fan of Jane Eyre, I really enjoyed the sprinklings of the classic within this retelling. The writing style emulates that of Brontë’s, and it does so wonderfully. I was engaged the entire way through, I felt sympathetic to our main character, I found the romance in this one better than in Brontë’s (the age gap doesn’t sit well with me), and I love all the revelations—the layers—to the story. I love the parallels with Jane Eyre, but I also love that it took so many different routes, and each change felt true to the story Faye was writing.

Some of the criticisms I’ve seen are in regards to the feeling of redundancy. I’ve seen a lot of people claim that Jane Steel too often mentions how much she adores Jane Eyre. It’s true and a valid criticism, but I think that if you really love a book, to the point of seeing your life mirrored within, really relating to the heroine, shutting up about it would be difficult. I sure as hell never shut up about my favorite books. There’s also the complaint that she dwells too much on the fact that she’s a murderess and how much of a horrible human being she is. This is also true, but it’s important to note that these are her self-reflections. Part of who Jane Steele is is this struggle to figure out who she is, and oftentimes, it leads to questioning her morals and obviously, murdering people isn’t what a good person does. Thinking about her actions are merited though redundant.

Faye also brings out a different aspect to this retelling by including Sikh characters and an entire storyline with their history included. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the representation of that culture, as I do not belong to it. BUT there is a point in which her inclusion of POC in this story becomes problematic. Essentially, one of the villains is a character of color. (More in the spoilers section)

The other piece that could be considered problematic (and which I’ll discuss further in the spoilers section) is the gay character in the novel. It’s unrequited love and ultimately used as a plot device/something brushed over/used to further the narrative of the straight character.

Trigger warnings: abuse, attempted rape, domestic abuse, violence, suicide, drug abuse

Spoiler

I definitely have a lot of feelings about this book, and I’m finding that I can’t give it a solid rating nor can I say whether or not I recommend this.

I really loved the murder aspect of this book. Every single man Jane murders is justified in dying. Her list of reasons include attempted rape, abuse (verbal and physical like starvation), domestic abuse, and general nastiness. She’s not meant to be seen as a cold, heartless woman. Instead, we see her as someone who kills for a reason, and it is often to benefit women or others around her, particularly loved ones.

Growing up, she was deprived of love. She experienced all sorts of torture when she went to school at Lowan Bridge because of Versalius Munt (victim #2). He was cruel, let the girls starve, loved embarrassing the students (by revealing actions of their parents of which they are not guilty), and does everything in the guise of religion and repentance of their sins. Her aunt hated her. She never knew her father. Her “cousin” tried to rape her (he’s victim #1). Her mother killed herself and left Jane at the age of 9. So all her life, she thought herself unloveable.

Which is where Rebecca Clarke comes in. Near the end, it is revealed to us that Clarke was in love with Jane this entire time (yes in a lesbian sort of way). I loved that instant where they kiss, but then I realized I spoke too soon in voicing that approval. This is the last we will ever see of Clarke, and she’s cast aside for the rest of the novel. Instead, Jane/Faye use this attraction of Clarke’s as a way to make Jane feel good about herself. All this while Jane thought herself unwanted and undeserving of her love (especially in the case of Mr. Thornfield), but then she sees that Clarke loves her. So maybe Jane’s het love life could now flourish. If Clarke could love her, then maybe Thornfield can, too. That... stings a little. While I certainly understand what Faye was trying to do, I don’t think she went about it in the right way. She could have given Jane the validation she was seeking but not at the expense of the little scrap of LGBT rep (never explicitly stated if lesbian or bi). What this comes across as is Clarke just being used as a plot device and a way to further the het relationship.

The other thing I wanted to touch on is POC rep. I cannot comment on much beyond what I know (aka very little). So, in regards to how well Faye portrayed the Sikh culture, I can’t tell you if she did a good job or not. You’d have to look to Own Voices reviewers for that. What I can say is this: the novel could have done without the villainizing of a WOC. What we find out in the end is that Garima Kaur is essentially the person behind all the problems and trouble Thornfield and Sardar experience. All in the name of love. Then she dies after being found out.

With this as the backdrop of Jane Steele being the hero to save the day, who is very much white, it really adds on to the stereotypes and harms us POC by depicting us as violent and Up To No Good™. It doesn’t matter that Jane Steele is a murderer. She’s made it clear they were equal in that part, but then to have Garima commit the final act of treachery, kidnapping the child, lowers her standing against Jane. Then of course, Jane is the one to save the child and thus becomes the hero against a VOC (villain of color). Garima is depicted as selfish and full of anger. The cherry on top? The white villain, the Sack guy, gets off without a scratch. He just loses his job and will probably end up homeless. But he’s a man and alive. He’ll be okay. In a book about murdering heinous men, you’d think Sack would be dead, too, but nope. He gets off free. Not even jail! Come on!!

Overall, my relationship with this (such as with Jane Eyre) is complicated. There were some parts I absolutely loved, and some that I hate and are harmful to me (and potentially to others). But I don’t hate it. Maybe I’ll come to resent it in the future, but right now... it’s a solid “I don’t know.”

Thanks for reading! If you’ve read Jane Steele, let me know what you thought about it!

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petergriffinhateblog-blog · 7 years

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Your bringing up the DDADDS dads raises a good question. Should dad ratings be influenced by the ethicality of the media they exist in? Like DDADDS is nothing more than a game designed to make money off of people who don't know better, for straight cis YouTubers to laugh at and play because it's ~weird~, and for the Game Grumps to (falsely) claim that they aren't racist or homophobic because they took part in a game with a lot of representation. So should that affect the dads' ratings?

this question has multiple points i need to address:

1) please be careful about the tone you use when addressing media that others on this site watch/enjoy. while i agree with you that the game grumps are flawed people and have QUITE a list of problems they need to address, i don’t agree with wording it in such a way that those who watch the content feel guilty for doing so. (especially today of all days..........)

2) ddadds is a flawed game as well, but it was half made by a “queer gal” (self identified as such, those are her words) as queer representation. the discourse that was in the series- the “demon ending” with joseph, isn’t even.. in the game (yet). it’s in the coding, and i think it was in development to be Possibly a halloween ending- which would explain the whole “demon” thing in the first place.

anyway the actual content isnt important, what i meant to say there is that it wasn’t made by Just Cis Het Males, it was made by a member of the LGBTA community. flawed or not, don’t erase that she was like ~50% of the work in this- game grumps, as far as i know, contributed voice acting, pay rolls, and marketing, and not the actual writing. think what you want about the game, but don’t erase that the flaws included were due to more than just Cis Het White Men.

3 AND MOST IMPORTANTLY) i believe in separating the author from the work. i don’t personally know justin roiland (rick and morty), butch hartman (fairly odd parents), akira toriyama (dragon ball z), etc, and i don’t think it’s fair to judge the ddadds based on the creators behind them when i can’t do the same for every other character. i entirely skews the system, so i am judging based off the media itself and what knowledge is readily available within it to keep it even.

also... despite what the game was made for, the dads are still pretty good dads. it being a dating sim or Made For The Views doesn’t change that the dads involved still seem to be good parents for the most part.

#ddadds warning #ddaddscourse #is that the tag #fuck if i remember #not peter griffin related #q slur warning #in case someone's sensitive to that #ddadds spoiler warning #anonymous #peter griffin hate mail

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convndrums · 7 years

Text

here the FAWK she ( the semi-finished masterlist of all my characters ) is ! took way too long but hopefully as you proceed to click on the linque below you’ll know why smh but yep ! i’ll be adding their pages on my account when i’m done with them soon i hope and maybe come back with a bunch of connections for each character but for now this is all i got & smash this like or im me for plots i’d love to get on those finally xx

reintroducing amanda wheeler; intro & info page.

queen of irony. rich post- faux country gal who’s a loud homosexual and writes hetero fics/has an indie het smut for the absolute shits and giggles. dates a married woman she’s utterly in love with and will pull the life support cord for. said to be possessed by a possessed flapper. cute and knows it even though she looks like a republican. socially open & everywhere. morally grey.

reintroducing imogen yates; intro & info page. ( tw violence )

the grey area between your mom friend and your drunk aunt. happily vegan & owns a vegan restaurant called the fork, alt. the vegan cult’s lair. won’t kill you, but will convince you she really wants to. local brat tamer. minds her business via minding others. clashed head-first into nature’s very own reset button: amnesia. used to be satan and traumatized everyone. disgustingly active and accomplishing.

reintroducing ethan holland; intro & info page. ( tw suicide )

he is a sk8r boi, she said see ya later boy ( and meant it. they’re dating now. hey lourdes ! ) a nice person, so nice he doesn’t realize how fake he sounds/is. a certified headass. previously a bully/bully enabler, current guilty fuck. #torn. does the most for his loved ones. doesn’t remember his own birthday. googled foot fetishes once. trolls stan twitter with his fake selena gomez stan account when tumblr crashes. burned a sue of cide note with his name scribbled on it.

reintroducing sebastian miller; intro & info page ( tw violence )

kazimer sokolov whom. russian ex-cult member well-adjusted into a mundane life via lies, a fake canadian accent he’s ‘trying to get rid of’, being a twilight saga aficionado and a dickwad, a lame record store and a tumblr blog to keep himself sane by maintaining a general aesthetic and shitting on people and every discourse out there. knives/books sniffer. allegedly fucked a moose. probably kinkshames as a way to deal with his own “kinks” aka please keep the dead bodies away. ( im kidding i swear but [redacted] )

reintroducing prudence zima; intro & info page ( tw death )

parents died in a fire when she was two months old and it shows. idolizes avril lavigne & her favorite movie is lords of dogtown for aesthetics references. dude. social leech or effortless networker ? both. remains in her lane regardless. cry-types probably. here for a good time, not a long time. steals your stash and smokes you out with it. avid dick connoisseur. minimum effort lifestyle. either on her way to become a manager of some one hit wonder band that finds it’s demise in a freak accident, a drug dealer or god forbid, a guidance counselor; depends. mild cool girl syndrome.

reintroducing jennifer meade; intro & info page ( tw death, violence and abuse )

bi/pussy muncher and proud misandrist, first and foremost. remembers killing her brother very fondly. the one girl in a room to call when you want to kill a bug and you’re relieved until she kills it with her bare hand. tops. unstable & chaotic evil, respectively. the ginger devil. biased and has her minion whom she invests a great deal of her time in brain washing and obsessing over. supposedly here to make amends but that’s not happening any time soon.

reintroducing margot williams; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

deserves better. very gay. all her friends are heathens xtra, take it slow. corrects typos in the gc. a nerdy editorial assistant daydreaming about publishing houses instead of the magazine she works for. lowkey shy and she’s angry about it. goes off if she must. jacks off to #knowledge and yuri anime. helps with homework and essays and takes the kids out. deadpan because we’re original but she swears it’s just the face & unresolved trauma. stans her therapist. unofficial older sister.

reintroducing chandler accardi; intro ( re-written ) & info page

needs to do better. dropped out of college for culinary school then dropped out of that too. was engaged to an absolute goddess he ultimately wronged ( with her damn best friend, bitch disgostin* ) and got kicked out to the curb. currently residing in the couch of his sister until things are resolved. thot-by-default & annoying. has like three ( 3 ) redeeming qualities. has never been told to shut up and it shows. works at buzzfeed.

reintroducing abel gautier; intro & info page

french and “confused”. lives a minimalist n’ expensive life. if american psycho & french kiss were the same movie. wine sniffer. the devil bakes croissants. will watch you die. takes grudges to the afterlife. gets attached but either ruins it or ruins it to spare everyone, himself included. falls in love a lot but knows how to calm the fuck down. very giving, fortunately. manipulative but isn’t too wild about bending everything to his will.

reintroducing simini gale; intro & info page ( tw abuse, violence & mental illness )

token white actress & character in rosie’s show. [ britney vc ] its me.... against dissociation. a loud mess with an intense mental state and anger issues dulled out by her prescribed meds and whatever pill she got in the bottom of her manager’s purse. dependent and distraught about it. grocery shopping for garbage food and attending comedy stand up shows half drunk as a hobby. stable ? where. very nice and super flighty. heels are hot. wishes she could fight someone without feeling the urge to actually fight someone.

reintroducing calvin o’shea; intro & info page ( tw mental illness )

it’s not just the depression more than the incredible self hatred. walks into rooms with his bad energy, grumpy mood and cunty attitude. graduated college just to shut his dad up. wants to die harder than edward cullen. just doesn’t give a shit. has a baby named freddie mercury ( also known as the antichrist, with alanis, his mortal literal enemy whom he absolutely despises and will not hesitate to put his dick back in again lbr ) who will probably grow up to talk shit about his parents whom he also mentioned in his tell-all book on ellen. works at his family’s bookstore that sucks the life energy out of college students nearing a mental breakdown.

reintroducing isabel pavia; intro & info page ( tw drug use )

contemporary dances her feelings away. too ambitious for her own good but knows what she’s doing. in a goth ass secret society ( here ) a.k.a her new found purpose. knows everything eventually. oddly trustworthy. doesn’t know what speaking loudly is, let alone yelling. loves the moon & has that moon app. had to take painkillers when she twisted her ankle very badly and would take them for a while for stress and performance reasons, but has stopped. a quiet angel.

reintroducing anastasia zeller; intro & info page

ambitious/multi-talented asshole. horror trash & an emotional/mental maze which translates well into her weird works on no sleep reddit and current horror comedy podcast. ( click here for info ). needs a therapist according to a friend, whom she dropped for saying that. will bite your head off. obsessed with her works to an unhealthy point. would love to establish a company and stuff out of it and is working on that. healthy relationships are a semi-foreign concept.

reintroducing morgan booker; intro & info page ( tw death )

vape-curious and takes photos of ghost towns and abandoned-everythings because #vision. had a roadtrip phase like the fake deep idiot he is. morally grey. genuinely here for a good laugh and spreading joy in the form of hover-friendships and taking lit candids of his friends. knows shit and comes off as a creep sometimes but does he really care. knows your mom’s name. lives in a disused hospital bc he’s marinating on that aesthetic.

reintroducing bowie harmon; intro & info page ( tw drug use & abuse )

part of a duo in a web series as the anxious n’ cackling mess. showcases her depressión & anxieté by her colorful wigs n’ new hair dyes. painful receptionist at a tattoo parlor. recovering addict who advocates for drug use. thinks tattooing a ruler on someone’s dick one day would be the peak of her accomplishments as a tattoo artist. daily bad decisions. “ it’s complicated. ” when asked about literally any relationship she has with anyone in her life. traumas include her failed singing career. an ex viner-by-association.

reintroducing shaheen bin baz; intro & info page ( tw violence & mental illness )

the physical deception of going through hell in a short amount of time with zero mental durability to begin with during midterms. trigger-anxious. will shoot your toes off your foot if caught off guard. aided in criminal operations with the brilliance of his mind in codes. would not mind dying. seasons your food. waters his crops in his balcony garden. the grey area between a super laidback dude and a crackhead with violent tendencies. nearing a mental breakdown probably.

reintroducing minka abbott-santos; intro & info page ( tw abuse )

defeats the evil stepmom stereotype one breath at a time. the human embodiment of a deer. gothic angel. alarmingly gets black swan. type to wake up to her staring at you from an armchair across the room, but lovingly, with a book she was reading in hand and two hot cups of tea; she was waiting to start the day with you. spooky until you get to know her and even more spookier when she’s ( note: calmly ) pissed but that’s extremely rare. gentle voice, soul and everything.

reintroducing reuben faulkner; intro & info page ( tw abuse & violence )

rekt hell prince. lived in an amish community with his family until he got kidnapped away from home when he was seven into an awful living situation. doesn’t remember if the gas leak that happened five years later and killed everyone was his doing or not. knows where his real family is after months of tracking them down but. blood kink under investigation. shady bouncer at a shady club. has issues he has no care or time to diminish. fights for the shits and giggles. leaves texts at read. leaves you alone for your own good and his own sanity.

reintroducing alexandra turunen; info page

wants to do everything and be everything and doesn’t know what to do with herself ( read: post-graduation identity crisis ) currently investing in a motorcycle for no reason. essentially jobless. a “retired” kathryn merteuil who “outgrew” her cunning ways since highschool but really only found new socially destructive interests. appears to be self-possessed but she’s #shaken. doesn’t care about how well she presents herself anymore after getting rejected by four universities and refusing to accept her father’s offer to pull some strings to get her in one. sleeps a lot.

reintroducing giuseppe del vecchio; info page ( tw death & drug use )

goes by pepe because well. son of italian oil peeps & is extra. said to be in a cult when all he’s in is this extra ass dining club that does the most for initiation ceremonies. ready to fall in love with you. goes to the king’s college in london and studies business & changes his minor way too often for everyone’s liking. into everything and will be down to do whatever. faux deep. mischievous shit. incredibly unbiased. had his rawrk n’ roll phase that died along with someone in a club literally. still has it but he knows god now & less drugs.

reintroducing kelian scott; info page ( tw death & drug use )

a father/father figure who tries™. runs a mechanic shop/chop shop because bad decisions and dire needs ( had his son to send to school and his daughter who passed away due to a disease he couldn’t afford to treat even after turning his shop into a chop shop. his wife then left him ). stares into the distance. wants the best for the kids but one of them is a junkie ( he doesn’t know yet ) and the other -- his niece -- is an orphan he’s worried about. thinks ahead 24/7. needs to pull out of this dull n’ depressing daily routine he has fallen into like the basic ass divorced dad he is.

reintroducing sal presley; info page

smexy trace & fingerprint detective. talks. the perfect illusion to bring home to your parents and friends. gets shit done which is both a good thing and a bad thing. looks calm, collected n’ well-rested but isn’t. his actual name is salvatore but no. knows how to mix drinks and more; used to showcase his multi-talented ass to make his ( currently ex ) fiancée look good now just himself. was engaged three times; two of those times with the same person. obsessive; gets into his job a little too intensely for no reason but #justice and maybe something else whom knows. loses sleep at least two nights a week as a habit at this point. has an extended family back home he misses occasionally. wishes he could calm down truly.

#smoke:intros #FINALLY RISING HOLY SH-#ill do some plotting n hopefully get on replies soonish hell yea lets GO!

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