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disgruntledspacedad · 3 years

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The Rules of Engagement (3/5)

The Better Love Series

pairing: Javier Peña x fem!reader/ofc (Ears)

summary: (slow-burn, sexual tension, angst, a little bit of h/c in later chapters) He’s a DEA agent. You work for Centra Spike. Peña’s not your boss, exactly, but you’ve been fwb long enough that certain people are starting to think of you as An Item, and that just won’t do.

words: 3.4k

warnings: 18+ for alcohol, language, smut, violence, body horror, general trauma. Please, please heed the warnings on this chapter, guys. It gets pretty intense.

a/n: Unbeta’d. I know I said this was going to be three chapters, but I lied. Sorry, my dudes - this one got away from me. Inspo credit goes to @tiffdawg, as always.

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

MASTERLIST

Well, fuck. You bite back a massive sigh.

You really, really don’t want to walk through that door.

It’s been a month, and you life has changed profoundly.

For one, you’re not at the office as much anymore - Stechner had made good on his promise to consider you for more flyovers, and boy, has Centra Spike been busy. Some new vigilante group is terrorizing Medellín, and while it’s not Search Bloc’s priority to go after them, they’ve undeniably kept Pablo and his sicarios busy. The radio frequencies are hot right now, and you’ve been doing eight, sometimes ten flights a week.

You absolutely love it. The hours are less predictable and definitely more shitty, but listening to a radio from the cockpit of a plane is much more fun that listening to a radio in a stuffy basement office, so you consider it a fair trade.

It keeps your brain busy, too.

Your social life has taken a massive kick to the nuts. Ana is back at university, and you miss her more than you thought you would. You’ve reverted to communicating with Emilio with gestures and smiles more than words. It’s nice because he’s nice, but you miss actual conversation, stilted as it was. Ana wasn’t all that bad, either.

And then there’s Javi.

You haven’t spoken to him since That Morning, not even a polite 'how are you?' in the hallway. Granted, you’re not seeing him as often anymore, given your new position and hours, but then again, you haven’t exactly sought him out, either.

The memory claws at you every time you relive it - and you relive it often. That anger, that wounded expression. The slammed door, his retreating footsteps. Each time you’re in that building, the walls seem to close in on you, and you have to stop yourself from looking for him, actively keep your gaze from roaming straight to his desk.

God, as if you could make it more awkward.

You’d had one nasty conversation with Murphy about a week after the incident - you’d told him in no uncertain terms that he could either mind his own business or fuck right off, you didn’t care which. He’d left you be, throwing his hands in the air and muttering something about how “you two deserve each other.”

Asshole.

Still, that aborted conversation haunts you - so many aborted conversations haunt you - and you wonder what would have happened if you’d just taken the bull by the horns and addressed the issue with Javi head on.

I’m sorry you caught me rubbing one off on the morning after you almost died, Peña. I can assure you, it won’t happen again. Your friendship means the world to me.

Yeah, right.

God, though, but you miss him.

You miss him so much it aches, a gaping hole that reaches right down to the core of you, but there’s nothing to be done about it. You’d fucked this one completely and thoroughly - any chance of restoring your friendship had drained away with the shower-water, and the more time you spend fretting over it, the more awkward - and pathetic - it would be to say anything.

So, you’d cut your losses, held your head high, and tried not to waste too much time wishing you’d have just kept your fucking fantasies to yourself.

Now, though, you’ve got no choice.

You’d been on Centra Spike’s early morning flight, just another routine scan over Medellín. The shift wasn’t intended to be more than a training run for you, but as luck would have it, the Medellín cartel’d had a busy night, and you’d been caught in the crossfire.

Your plane had just touched down half an hour ago, and now you’re standing on the front steps of the embassy building, fingering a shoebox cassette player loaded with a freshly taped recording full of juicy intel destined for the desk of DEA Agent Javier Peña - an entire, private conversation featuring none other than Verdugo himself.

You’d know that voice anywhere. You’ve studied it for hours, what few snatches you’d been able to glean from the embassy archives. It’s almost as if Verdugo is smart enough to steer clear of the city, or to just avoid phone conversations all together, the absolute fuckwad.

Until early this morning.

On the plane, you’d intercepted a new signal and tapped in on a whim, intending to practice your Spanish more than anything, but what you’d overheard was a fucking gold mine of information.

Verdugo is in Medellín. The sicarios are getting ready to move Escobar. He didn’t say where - fucking bastard knows not to spill all of the beans in one conversation - but apparently the plan requires a rendezvous in El Centro first. Verdugo is en route, and will be there until the next morning.

You’d worked frantically all night, tracing and retracing the signal, triangulating potential addresses, then back-tracking to account for environmental distortion. Each calculation had led you to the same place - an unassuming little house right smack in the middle of Medellín.

Bingo.

“You take it in, Aarons.” Torres had declined your offer to do the honors. “It’s your intel.”

So here you are, bleary-eyed and running on less than two hours of sleep, cassette player clenched tightly to your chest, summoning up all of your courage just to go speak with your ex... well, ex whatever-the-fuck Peña is.

‘This is your job,’ you remind yourself fiercely. ‘You can do this.’

As pep-talks go, it isn’t very effective.

Fuck it. You toss your head back, wishing you’d had time to at least grab a cup of coffee on the way in, and breeze around the corner.

“Agent Peña.”

He glances up lazily, thoroughly uninterested in whatever you have to say. When he realizes it’s you, he blinks once, dropping his cigarette in the ashtray and sitting up to eyeball you with a wary expression.

"What can I do for you?” he asks cooly.

You remember him saying that once before, but the context was totally different.

You shake it off. “Centra Spike has new intel that you’ll want to see right away.”

He purses his lips, tilting his head to indicate the growing pile of bullshit on his desk. “You can leave it here.”

Oh, so that’s how it is, then?

“I can’t.” You pin him with a stare, and he meets your gaze evenly, raising his eyebrows in silent challenge. You clear your throat and clarify. “I won’t.”

He scoffs as you carefully rest cassette tape on his desk, along with a map of El Centro. “We intercepted a four minute conversation with Verdugo this morning. He’s here.” You point to the safe house on the map, which you’ve already circled in red ink. “Feo and Limón are with him. They’re leaving early tomorrow.”

Peña frowns down at the spot where your finger rests. “And can you corroborate that information?”

Oh, the motherfucker. “I verified his voice personally, Peña,” you say carefully, doing your damndest to keep the annoyance from your tone. It’s well within his right to ask questions, after all. “It’s a direct match for the audio samples we have.” You tap the tape for emphasis. “You’re welcome to listen for yourself.”

He doesn’t make a move for a long time. Something hot and painful burns in your gut as you wait.

God, he knows you, knows you better than anybody else in on this goddamned continent. He knows that you know your shit, that you want to catch Escobar as desperately as he does. And this evidence that you have spread across his desk, recorded on tape and marked plainly in red ink, is irrefutable, undeniable - it’s a huge break. He knows that, too.

His apathy is palpable, and it’s driving you up the fucking wall.

When he finally glances up at you, it’s with a doubtful little smirk on his face. “Hmm.”

And oh, wow, you’re shocked by just how much that hurts.

All your life, from the moment you were born into a family of brothers, you’ve had to fight tooth and nail to be taken seriously. It was a fact of life as early as you can remember - ‘look after your sister,’ or, ’she’s just a girl,’ or ‘wow, you’re really great at math, for a woman!’ You’d settled on your career as an analyst because you’d wanted it, not because you’d had something to prove, but still, the military is a male-dominated field, and from the start, the odds had been stacked against you. Landing this CIA gig had been the achievement of a fucking lifetime. Still, the bar is set high in the Colombia, and it’s set that much higher for a woman. You’re well aware of this; you’re reminded every single day.

Point being, you’re used to defending yourself and your abilities; it comes as natural as breathing.

But until now, you’ve never had to fight this battle with Peña. He’d taken you at face value from the moment he'd laid eyes on you, treating you like just another operative. Sure, he might take a crack at you every now and again, but that's all in good fun, and you’ve never been one to shy away from a laugh.

Christ, you never realized just how much that respect meant to you until suddenly, it’s gone.

“If you have something to say about my skills and qualifications, Agent Peña, then I suggest you say it.” You lean over his desk, speaking quietly, enunciating each syllable with deadly precision. “Otherwise, I think we both know that it’s in the best interest of Search Bloc and the Colombian people that we collaborate quickly, so we can put boots on the ground and land this motherfucker behind bars where he belongs.”

Peña’s eyes narrow, and he cocks his head, studying you. You meet his gaze, biting back a snarl. You won’t back down. You won’t allow him to intimidate you.

When he nods sharply and reaches for his phone, you know you’ve won.

♠

Ten minutes later, you’re situated in a conference room with Peña, Steve Murphy, Martinez, and a couple of the other higher ups of Search Bloc whose names you haven’t memorized. Your maps are spread over the table, your tape displayed for all to see, and every eye is on you.

“Verdugo is here,” you say, leaning over the map to indicate the marked house. “He and his entourage arrived late last night, and they’re planning to leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Plenty of time to get a team together.” Murphy interjects, glancing between you and Peña with open curiosity.

You narrow your gaze at him. Drama-mongering bastard.

Peña’s not moving. He’s standing with his hip cocked toward the desk, frowning down at the map with his fingers curled to his chin like he’s totally oblivious to everything happening around him.

You know he’s not, though. That’s Javi’s thinking face, the one he makes when he wants people to shut the fuck up and forget about him until he can work something out. You’re pretty familiar with that one.

The others are babbling in Spanish, discussing logistics and the likelihood of this being another trap.

It’s not. You know this deep in your bones. You’d heard that conversation in real time, had translated, triangulated it.

This is legit.

You’ve just decided to leave them to it when Javi snaps his eyes open.

“I agree with Aarons,” he announces out of nowhere. You’re startled by the confidence in his tone. Curious, you glance up, but it’s difficult to get a read on him. He’s pinning every person in the room except you with a hard stare. “We need to move out now.”

Several of the others make noises of protest, but Peña shuts them all down, one by one. Finally, his eyes flicker up to meet yours, just for a brief second, but there’s something different in his gaze, something new and heavily guarded.

You think it might be an apology.

“Let’s end this.”

♠

He’s on a plane to Medellín within an hour, wearing that stupid bullet proof vest. For just a split second, you wish that you were going, too. You don’t have enough experience, though - you’re not an agent; you haven’t handled a gun since basic. You’d be useless in a real fight, a liability, even.

Still, you feel some ownership in this operation, today more than ever. You don’t even try to kid yourself about Javi anymore, either. Those fucking feelings haven’t faded in a month, not a bit, not even after the awkward conversation you’d had in his office.

‘But he stood up for you, too, afterward,’ something whispers in the back of your mind. You replay that little glance in the conference room over and over as you watch Search Bloc board the plane.

He’s looking for you this time, standing on the ramp with his eyes shaded like he knows you’ll be waiting. He doesn’t nod and you don’t wave, but you make eye contact for a lingering moment, and again, there’s something in his expression that you don’t recognize.

Then the plane takes off down the runway, and you feel as if your heart is swooping away with it.

♠

You volunteer for the late shift at work, monitoring the radio lines in case something comes up. It’s an unusually quiet night, as if all of Bogotá collectively holds its breath, and you mostly spend it watching the clock, calculating the hours in your head.

One to land in Medellín. Two more to mobilize the men. Another half to get in location.

From there, your speculation gets fuzzy. There’s no way to predict the outcome once Verdugo is engaged. Javi’s told you a million stories, each more unbelievable than the last - car chases and rooftop shootouts, standoffs in the street, a fistfight in a church sanctuary, bodies of children littering dark alleyways… you cut off the recollections. They aren’t doing you any favors.

Verdugo is a dangerous man. Anything could happen.

By seven am, your brain is mush and your eyes are hyper-focused in that bleary way that happens when you’ve gone too long without sleep. Your third cup of coffee has gone cold, and people are starting to trickle in. You wave half-heartedly to Torres as you slip out of your headset, rubbing your fingers over your scalp to ease the tension that comes from wearing heavy earphones all night. A shower sounds nice, you decide, and maybe a quick nap afterward.

Somebody will page you with news.

Getting out of the building does a lot to wake you up. There’s something oppressive about the CNP headquarters that seems to abate when you step into the streets of Bogotá. The city buzzes with life even in the early morning, and air is warm in a way that seems to energize rather than sedate. Optimism is easier to invoke as you walk down the street in broad daylight.

Javi had looked at you, at least. He’d listened. He’ll call in to the office as soon as he can. Your intel was good, and they’ve flushed out the rat, he’d promised you that.

Everything will be okay.

You round the corner of CRA 70 and Circular, waving to Emilio, who is working the register of the pharmacy today.

“Orejas!” He shouts, reaching below the counter to hold aloft another bottle of aguardiente. “¡Mira! Solo para ti!”

You grin back at him, raising your voice to shout a greeting, and then, with absolutely no warning, the store explodes.

A loud boom.

A whoosh of impossible heat.

A massive orange fireball billowing from the windows.

Your body flying, flying through the air.

Bright blue sky, and then darkness.

♠

You find yourself lying flat on your back in the middle of the street. Your ears are ringing. There’s a pat-pattering in the air, soft like falling rain.

You blink hard.

It’s not rain, you realize dizzily.

It’s fucking ash.

The air is dark with it, hot and heavy. It coats your tongue and stings your eyes. It’s hard to catch a breath. Your throat hurts, your chest aches. You cough weakly. The smell is terrible, acrid and bitter like burned metal. You can taste it on your tongue.

Slowly, you tense your muscles. Your chest is still burning, but there’s nothing sharp to suggest a serious injury. Your back is sore, your head fuzzy.

You sit up, wincing a little, relieved to realize that you’ve just had the wind knocked from you. You’ll have some bruises tomorrow, but that’s all.

Sound slowly filters in. The hiss and crackle of flame. A shout in the distance. Further away, a wailing siren.

Reality slams into you all at once.

Emilio!

You stand, wobbling more than you think you should, but you push past it. Reality seems to pitch and roil, as if the ground is hitching its breath beneath you. Rubble coats the street, dust clouds the air.

Oh god.

A gaping, smoking crater is all that’s left of Emilio’s pharmacy. The windows are blown out of the businesses on either side, their outer walls bowing under the pressure. Your apartment on the top floor is demolished, the roof caving in, flames licking at the the collapsed floors.

You gasp one long, shuddering breath, taking it all in, and then you’re running, sort of, picking your way through hunks of concrete and twisted metal.

“Emilio! Emilio!”

Your voice is hoarse, the world hushed. Nothing sounds quite right. Your legs are shaking and you can’t catch your breath. Some of the rubble is hot to the touch, and you feel like you’re moving underwater, slow and awkward and stupid.

You approach what’s left of the store, and the smell hits you first. Like cooked meat - charred, greasy, heavy.

You press your hand to your mouth to stifle a scream.

You found Emilio. He’s pinned beneath part of the collapsed roof. You look away quickly, but not before you catch a glimpse of blackened flesh, of bone, blood, and pink frothy tissue.

Acid rises in your throat, and you stumble to your knees, stomach clenching painfully into your ribs as you vomit onto the street. It goes on and on, over and over for an eternity, tears and snot and bile and ash leaking mingled down your face until there is nothing left in you to expel.

The encroaching wail of a siren draws you to your senses. You glance up, suddenly painfully aware of your situation. The ceiling is arching above you, just to your right, and it’s creaking ominously. The fires are still burning, and your shirt is clinging painfully hot against your back. You stagger to your feet once again, dizzy, almost drunkenly. A small crowd has gathered, pointing and gawking, calling out to you in Spanish that you are far, far too overwhelmed to translate.

Gasping, you raise your hands and side-step away, careful of the debris that litters the street around you.

A firetruck arrives on the scene, squalling to a stop between you and the onlookers, and you leap at the opportunity, ducking down the nearest alleyway before anybody can follow.

♠

You aren’t sure how much time you waste in the alleyways of Bogotá.

Seconds?

Minutes?

The time after the explosion is all a blur, and you run until you literally can’t anymore, until you’re doubled over and wheezing, coughing, hacking, panting.

Some primal survival instinct clicks in your brain then, and suddenly, your mind is clear. You glance around, swiping at your cheeks and brushing the ash from your shirt.

Now what?

You take a shaking breath and think.

Okay, first order of business, you’re absolutely disgusting. You need a shower before you can even think about doing anything productive.

Your bathroom just went up in flames, along with all of your clothes. Your heart clenches as you think of Ana - she’s at university, so that’s out. The embassy has a nice bathroom, but no showers that you’re aware of.

There’s only one place you know to go, and that’s Javi’s apartment.

You glance up at the sky. The sun is still pretty low - it can’t have been more than an hour since you’d left work, and that was around seven am. Javi obviously isn’t home, and you don’t have a key, but if you hurry, there’s still a chance that you could catch Murphy before he leaves his flat.

It’s a long shot, but you decide there’s nothing to lose for trying.

#Javier Peña x reader #javier peña #narcos #javi x you #javi x reader #javier pena x reader #narcos netflix #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fandom #narcos fanfiction #Javier Peña imagine #pedro fandom #the rules of engagement #better love #angst #slow burn #friends to lovers #hurt/comfort #smut

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peachcitt · 3 years

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shadow and bone netflix series analysis

what up besties i said as a joke that i wanted to do an analysis post on the changes made in the s&b netflix series from the grishaverse books, and then i realized i wasn't joking and that i actually wanted to do that

it's finals season, i am an undergraduate english major, i have had about five hours of sleep within the past forty eight hours, and believe it or not i am doing this analysis as a fun reward for finishing a research paper. i am putting this out here for you so you can decide if these are the kinds of vibes you want right now.

structure of the analysis will be vaguely as follows:

changes made, in chronological order (or as best as chronology i can do under the circumstances and doing absolutely zero fact checking)

analysis of change when looking at the themes of the books which will include my personal feelings

personal theories (if any) derived from the change for the trajectory of the netflix series

so, like, long post warning. also spoiler warning for the netflix series as well as probably most, if not all, grishaverse books

now let's get this baby started

alina's appearance and shu heritage

so the series starts right off the bat acknowledging alina's shu appearance and the in-world racism and prejudice she's experienced because of it, which was not in the books. however i found alina's shu appearance to be completely in line with the book's themes. alina was already isolated at keramzin and the army because of her sickliness, and she's isolated at the little palace because of her power and her awkwardness. so purposefully making her shu was, i felt, a nice world-building decision as well as a new and interesting layer to her character. also, it's always nice to see diversity in media, so i have literally no qualms with this change

in terms of the rest of the series, the grishaverse is a very politically-motivated story. there's a lot of in-universe politics that happens in the shadow and bone trilogy and especially in the king of scars duology, and i think if the series chooses to extend into/include the king of scars duology story (which, i really hope it will), alina being shu (or at least part shu) will be very interesting to see considering king of scars and rule of wolves deal with negotiations and treaties with shu han. i think also having alina be shu and someone who has experienced countless amounts of in-world racism become a saint, seeing how she and the rest of ravka navigate her identity and identity politics will be really interesting. generally speaking, i just really hope the later parts of the series really delve into alina's identity, what it means to be a saint and also "look like the enemy," and the ravkan people's mixed feelings about her

alina's sickliness/childhood relationship with mal

in the books, alina is described as thin, always having trouble sleeping, hardly ever hungry, and sickly looking because, as we learn later, of her constantly unconsciously repressing her grisha abilities. this is part of the reason she's isolated at keramzin in the books; she's sickly and awkward and no one bothers with her except mal - because they're the same age and mal is strong enough to defend her from the older orphans at keramzin. however, the show doesn't really delve into the effects of what suppressing her abilities do to her except for a few offhand lines (alina angrily saying "im never that sick" when mal suggests she say she's stick to stop from going into the fold, mentions of her larger appetite when they're on the run in the woods). instead, the show kind of flips alina and mal's childhood personalities; mal is depicted as shy and easily picked on, and alina is the protector.

i'll just say it: this change fucks so hard. i love it. i think it says such wonderful things about their characters, and i like that alina begins the series as someone incapable of turning a blind eye to bullies and someone who cares very fiercely for the people she loves (not that that isn't the case in the books - i just think this change does a great job of looking directly at it in the way that shows have to). i think it's easy to root for her, and it's easy to see how she will become a saint to the people. in addition to that, i love what this is saying about alina and mal's characters and how they grow up; that separation from alina caused mal to have to face his own problems head on in traditionally masculine ways (because that was what ana kuya criticizes him in the show for; for always running from fights and being too soft, and i think it's really telling that our first view of mal as a kid, im pretty sure, is gingerly holding a bunny which portrays feminine caregiving and then we jump cut to mal fighting in a dirty boxing ring in the first army, something gritty and masculine). masculine ways that he had to be indoctrinated into and that may not actually be in his natural disposition.

meanwhile, separation from mal meant alina no longer had to be a dominant protector, and she does not connect with anyone in the first army as strongly as she connected with mal, so she doesn't really feel the need to be as aggressive as she was as a child. however, you can see that quiet protectiveness spark up at times - notably when people other than herself are picked on, such as at the food line when she claims not to know the others in the cartography unit so they don't get penalized along with her. i do wish, however, elements of her sickliness had been emphasized a little more in the show because of grisha theory, which i will talk about in another section.

first entry into the fold

okay i will be honest. this change is probably the one that scared me the most when seeing it in the trailers, and i am kind of still iffy on it now. in the books, alina's first journey into the fold and the inciting moment for the entire series is just luck and orders. everyone in the first army has to go through the fold at some point, and it just so happens to be alina and mal's time to go through. however, in the show alina is not initially assigned to go into the fold, but mal is, and alina goes out of her way to make sure that she gets on the skiff so that mal won't have to go alone/without her. there's this level of 'choice' (or at least the illusion of it) in the show in terms of alina and mal getting onto the skiff and going into the fold; at one point or the other they both try to tell the other not to get on the skiff and just choose something else.

the thing that irks me the most is alina's stubborn "i'll make it" line that she tells mal after she's on the skiff. it screams 'fantasy dystopian protagonist' (divergent is the first to come to mind for some reason) in a way that alina never comes across in the books. alina never chooses to make her life more difficult - she's always given two terrible options and has to take the option that fits with her morals or her perception of the power she needs to surivive and win the fight. but i know the only reason alina goes out of her way to get on the skiff is because she's separated from mal, which aligns nicely with the protective nature the show has inscribed on her.

the thing that redeems this change for me is that when alina tries to get just herself onto the skiff (by burning the maps to ensure that she has a purpose there), she ends up endangering the lives of her entire cartography unit. this keeps with the theme of a whole lot of alina's later decisions throughout the books affecting so many more people than just her, and i like that this is a lesson that she learns very early on. this change also seems to be a trade out for the final entering-the-fold scene, but i'll talk about that later.

alexei

here he is, the lynchpin himself. in the books, alexei is dry and rude in a funny way with alina, and they have this really great banter at the beginning of the novel, and then he's, like, the first to get carried off by volcra. very harrowing in the book, i loved it. in the show, alexei's character is a little (a lot) different - he's naive and blunt in a silly way, and he very obviously has a crush on alina. instead of being carried off by volcra in the show, though, he jumps off the skiff and runs blind into the fold - committing what we think at the time is an act of suicide - which was extremely harrowing to see in a completely different way, and i loved it. even if they changed alexei's personality i still love him (and his death) dearly

so as previously mentioned, alexei acts as the lynchpin between the six of crows plot and the shadow and bone plot; he manages to escape the fold alive, and makes it all the way to ketterdam to tell a select few people the legendary sun summoner is alive WHICH. okay ive just decided that's my next topic. anyway back to alexei.

his death in ketterdam is awful because of the personality change, which is why i don't mind missing bitchy alexei from the book; his hopeful little "if i tell you, you'll set me free?" that pulls at your heart and also tells you immediately that he is going to die as soon as he tells everyone what he say is done so well. i also like that through treatment of alexei, we get some characterization of the crows; inej immediately gives him water and glares at the mercher in quiet rage on his cruel treatment, kaz doesn't flinch when alexei is killed but inej and jesper do. i also thought it was interesting to have the mercher (dreeson was his name i believe) to be the one to get his hands 'dirty' and actually be the one to shoot alexei because in six of crows, there is always the sense that the merchers are cruel and conniving, but that they very carefully keep the death of the poor and the grisha off their own hands. im wondering if this hands-on killing is a dreeson-specific trait, or if this more hands-on cruelty will be explored more in other mercher characters we meet, like van eck.

sun summoner legend

this change is so?? i don't really know what to think of it. narratively, it makes sense in the show to have this legend be in place so that alina's importance is immediately recognized by people across the different countries.

however in the books, no one really expected alina. her presence wasn't foretold or divine (at first) or fate in any way. she became a saint because i think in part people weren't expecting her, and once they saw what she could do, they wanted to believe in her abilities so bad they made her divine. this change was also weird to me having just finished rule of wolves where zoya (i think) reflects on amazing things that have happened throughout the story and she notes that alina was not some sort of legend that people were expecting - none of what happened was. everything that happened from alina to nina's miracles in king of scars to zoya's expanded abilities by the end of rule of wolves to the "age of saints." all of those things were just chance people being in chance situations that all slid together in a strange, amazing coincidence. they got lucky.

and i think, at the center of the books, is this kind of purposeful disillusionment of the saints and religion, what with the main character of the original trilogy literally becoming a saint and yet never truly feeling saint-ly or being perfectly divine. the sun summoner legend the show brings up seems to depart from this. it'll be interesting to see what the show does with the legend and how alina feels about it as she fulfills it, and im honestly hoping that we'll find out later in the series that the legend was actually just some poor guy a few hundred years ago making something up to give people hope.

the crows timeline/characterization

in the books, the six of crowd ice court heist happens three years after the events of the final book of the shadow and bone trilogy. but obviously the timelines are smushed together for the show to create a new and different direction for their story and also, as we see at the end of the season, a new and different direction for alina's story as well

ive also seen bardugo say that because of the converging time lines, the grishaverse story will not take seven seasons (one season per book in the grishaverse) to get through. for this reason, im thinking that the parem story/ice court heist will begin if/when we get season 2. given that parem is a big part of kos/row, i see a crows and nikolai interaction happening in season 2 that sparks a beginning discussion on parem.

but back to the crows characterization! the crows are completely in character for me in almost every way, and i found the interactions between kaz, inej, and jesper to be very in character. however kaz's plan to capture alina doesn't work out almost at all which is something that he definitely wouldn't have let happen in the books. im chalking this up to the converging timelines - these crows are baby crows. they're young, a little less experienced, and they haven't gotten their groove on heists (and they don't have the rest of their crew) yet. but i anticipate seeing more crows-classic successful heists in season 2.

there are a couple of things i want to talk about each crow, so it's subtopic time

nina and matthias

perfect. their interactions were almost always word-for-word from the book. i can't remember if matthias had actually been the one to actually catch nina in the book, but if not, then it was a nice touch. it was interesting to see that both of them were so willing to be traitors of their country for each other in the show, because even when they're in a romantic relationship outside of fjerda and ravka in the book, they struggle with even the idea of betraying their country.

i like how they changed nina and matthias' "escape" from fjerda to ravka, and how nina explicitly betrayed grisha she knew to their faces. im interested to see how they'll integrate her back into the second army, or if they even will do that. also, i like that fedyor slowed matthias' heart to make him pass out before he sees the other grisha, so it was easy to understand how matthias could've thought it was nina deceiving him all along. their confrontation in the boat was (chef's kiss), and the horror on nina's face as she realized that this situation she put him in won't be as easily solvable as she thought was just wonderful.

jesper

perfect. i love him. and the coy little hints that he's a fabrikator were so good. also the line in the very beginning where he asks for a demo man, which foreshadows wylan was very nice. the only thing out of character is one time kaz asks him to be a distraction and show jesper claims that being a handsome distraction is not part of his talents. it literally is, why did they make him lie.

inej

literally so so good. i love that we meet her while she still has her oath not to take lives; we get to see her develop and learn that sometimes death is necessary, but that she still isn't yet comfortable with killing. on some level, she never will be, and i think that was a perfect place to start her character. however, i am confused about the show giving her a brother. where is he. is he going to be important?? why is he here???? i can't even make any solid predictions about him because inej having a brother came straight out of fucking left field. here's one flimsy prediction based on nothing at all: inej's brother is grisha and is an indentured servant. may also be involved in the parem plot, or works at the white rose where nina will befriend him and connect with the rest of the six because of him. who fucking knows

kaz

i already kind of went over their disaster plan that still somehow worked out for him, but i love literally everything else they did with kaz. the refusal to show his bare hands was literally art!! we got that tease in the first episode and the camera pans up as soon as the gloves come off. that was perfection - as well as the intimacy and trust portrayed between kaz and inej without them ever touching. i also loved the hints and nudges for his story with pekka - the way he always says his name with obvious distaste, and when we see him interact with pekka for the first time on screen. how he asks if they've ever made a deal before and pekka just goes "nah" and kaz just glares at him. perfect. and i also think the show really leaned in to the soft parts of kaz that inej sees in him, especially when he basically said she (and jesper) meant more to him than any saint?? oh my GOD. i kind of like this honest departure from kaz's book "greed is my god edgy edgy blah blah" especially when he's afraid he'll lose inej. i also think it'd be funny if we hear kaz say "greed is my god" and be edgy about it with us AND inej knowing that is superficial because of what he told her. that would be hilarious.

pekka, tante heleen, per haskell

these three aren't part of the six, but they are part of the original six of crows story and i still wanted to talk about my opinions on them, so they're going here.

i fucking loved pekka, how ruthless he was, and his irish accent. that was wonderful. because of how fucking hands-on and brutal he was, though, i wonder if they're going to keep the jakob hertzoon piece of kaz's origin story the same, because this pekka was so good at being violent that it was hard to picture him even pretending to be a benevolent benefactor to orphans. he is a dilf, though. i am not afraid to admit that.

my only problem with tante heleen is that her actress looked too nice. like she might bake me cookies and offer me a ride home from school. total milf as well but not in the scary sexy way that she was in the books. she had smile lines, she was so dainty, she seemed so genuine. i want to see her be a little more cruel.

per haskell, the actual gang leader of the crows, is not in the show at all. it seems as though the show made kaz the official boss of the crows while he is only second in command in the book. this makes me wonder how they'll handle or if they'll even include that fucking awesome scene in crooked kingdom of kaz earning the gang's trust over haskell. it would be weird to introduce per haskell in season 2 when he wasn't even mentioned in season 1, but it wouldn't be altogether terrible considering the crows spent very little time in ketterdam this season. however, this makes me wonder if, when kaz was away on his little saint pilgrimage (i am calling it that specifically because i know it would piss him off) someone else stepped in as "boss" of the crows. in the show, kaz also leverages the deed of the crow club in order to be able to take inej with him, and presumably the jewels alina gives him will solve that problem, but what would happen if any of the crows find out he made that deal? would he still have to earn the gang's trust back in a show of power and respect like in crooked kingdom? much to think about.

mal

back to the shadow and bone story, ive already briefly (not really briefly) gone over mal characterization alongside alina, but i want to mention how the show includes his perspective alongside alina's and how important that is. the shadow and bone trilogy is told entirely from alina's perspective, and alina is in some ways an unreliable narrator. she tends to think of her relationships and feelings as one sided unless her friend/love interest is looking her in the eye and telling her exactly how they feel about her. the one exception is genya, and that sort of bites her in the ass until it doesn't, but i digress. the point is, the only mal perspective we get in the books is alina's perception of mal, and the bonus content of the "lost" letter he'd written to her while looking for the stag in fjerda. granted, that letter says a lot about mal and how he feels about alina, so if you didn't take the time to read the letter when reading the book, chances are you weren't so hot on mal unless you have sexy critical reading skills like me (or just really love the childhood best friends to lovers trope).

getting all the gritty, messy details of how hard mal is trying to get back to alina in the show makes him so much more of a sympathetic character than he may have seemed at first glance for the majority of shadow and bone from alina's perspective. the show really stresses that the bond alina and mal have is mutual and powerful, and i think that's fucking perfect, actually.

this point was really driven home during the episode we see that mal has a matching scar on his palm that is related to alina, just like how alina has a mal-related scar on her palm. that scene in the brig was so good, especially when they ask each other what they're in for, and alina says "the usual," and after a pause, mal replies "the usual" as well. he could be lying because he knows she would feel bad if she was the reason he chose to stir trouble to go to the brig, but he could also be saying that he usually actively chooses to be sent to the brig for defending alina or because alina is usually already there and he wants to be with her. knowing that and then seeing alina have the scar on her palm erased was. fucking devastating (in a good-ish way), and im kind of hoping alina either chooses to have the tailoring removed so she can see the scar again or injures her hand in a mal-related injury so they can match again :(

i have more to say about mal, but i'll save it for the grisha theory/amplifier section

the darkling

overall, darkling portrayal was very spot on, but i didn't really like how he just. gave alina his name so early on. in the books im quite certain he doesn't give alina his first name until the third book? regardless, he doesn't give it to her until they've fought and been enemies for a while. theoretically, kirigan giving his real name to alina so early could be a manipulation tactic (like his moments of 'vulnerability' and 'weakness' with alina in the book), especially because we lose that 'heart to heart' by the campfire after the darkling rescues alina from the fjerdans where alina first starts to see the darkling as human.

i also thought it was interesting that alina kisses kirigan first - in the books they're actually having a serious discussion (i can't remember what about, but when she realizes the darkling is Not Good, she remembers the first time they kissed as a thing he possibly did to distract her from thinking her own thoughts), and the darkling interrupts her with a kiss sexy enough for her to forget what's going on. the show however chooses to do a girlboss she-can-move-on-if-she-wants-to moment which is pretty cool and let's be honest, if you like men and ben barnes is right in front of you giving you Sexy Eyes a whole lot, you are going to want to kiss him. that scene where they get interrupted during a steamy kiss, and they laugh and kirigan leaves the frame just to rush back for one last kiss? that nearly fucking converted me. that was really sweet actually. the show does a fantastic job of showing how captivating kirigan's interest can be.

last note about the kirigan for this section - isn't kirigan the name of the guy who owns the guilded bog for nikolai in kos/row? i can't be sure because i don't have my book with me and i refuse to look up information when i have gone this entire post without looking anything up, but if his name isn't kirigan it's pretty fucking close. i don't know what that means, but i don't think bardugo is the type to name characters similar names for no reason. we'll know for sure if/when the guilded bog is introduced.

zoya

most of zoya's portrayal is really in line with her character and her development throughout the shadow and bone trilogy as well as king of scars and rule of wolves. i think the show did a great job of showing how zoya was in the darkling/kirigan's favor for a while before alina arrived and how she resents alina at first for causing her to not be the darkling's favorite anymore. in addition to that, knowing we find out she is part suli in row makes her casting so much better, and i like that we get to see a little more of her personality in the show than we do in the book shadow and bone. of course we see more of her in siege and storm/ruin and rising, but it's nice to have her become a sympathetic character through the knowledge that she has family in novokribirsk and that she purposefully mans skiffs to see them before she fully sides with alina.

the one thing that made me. just confused was zoya calling alina a "half-breed" at the little palace?? it was so out of place (that particular part of the insult; im pretty sure the other thing she said was very much exactly what she said in the book. some insult about orphans i think), especially knowing that zoya herself is a "half-breed," so that didn't make sense to me.

however, i was glad to see alina immediately embrace zoya as an ally - because she knows from the start of zoya's alliance that she had family that kirigan killed. in the books, alina's parentage is not at all important, and their deaths are never specified to matter, but the show points out from the very beginning that alina's parents were swallowed by the fold. i think this makes alina's immediate compassion and forgiveness of zoya make sense, and it was also very sweet and a little funny to see alina pull zoya into a hug that she so obviously does not expect or want to express as something she wants. it was perfect.

east vs west ravka civil war

i don't have much to say about this except it makes kirigan's actions at the fold seem a little better. not great, not by any means, but knowing that the leader of a growing coup was right on the other side really cements in the idea that kirigan is doing this for what he thinks is the greater good of ravka. im pretty sure in the original trilogy, there was also some tension between east and west ravka, but none of it comes to a head until the events of kos/row. great set up for future ravkan tensions in future seasons.

david and genya & fedyor and ivan

before we get into the last meat and potatoes of this post, i want to talk about love because it's a little bit of a break. take this time to stop reading, stretch, relax your jaw, straighten your back, drink water, etc. you've been here a while. you deserve it

okay so first fedyor and ivan. in the books, fedyor and ivan are just bros (i don't even remember them ever really interacting?) but in the show it is heavily implied they are dating. this is so funny to me, and i love it so much. especially because ivan was in a het relationship with marie in the books (but because the show kills marie off before she dies in the books, obviously that is not happening), so they really just decided that ivan and fedyor were gay for seemingly no reason. except i think ivan died on the skiff during the final battle in the show which is kind of a bummer because he lives through to ruin and rising and has an... interesting arc. fedyor, i think, dies in the battle of the little palace in siege and storm, but i wonder what they'll do with this relationship in next seasons. maybe fedyor will take ivan's place as grieving boyfriend with ptsd, but im not sure. i honestly don't even know for certain if ivan dies in the show, so we'll see.

as for genya and david, i would just like to point out the little hints of mutual affection. in the books, it's kind of implied that genya had feelings for david first and he didn't realize his own feelings until after she's scarred by the darkling, but in the show we see david actually looking at genya during the winter fete! like looking, appreciating the view! i loved the show choosing to include that small amount of mutuality, and after finishing rule of wolves it definitely made me feel some type of way. david and genya. i love them, they're perfect.

grisha theory/amplifiers

we're nearing the final stretch in this post, however, i have a lot to say about grisha theory and amplifiers, and i also have a lot to say for the battle of the fold so this "final stretch" will probably be. a very long stretch.

so obviously because of the nature of books and narrative writing, there was a lot of space within the shadow and bone book to go over the grisha theory alina was learning at her time in the little palace in great detail, however in the show we hardly even get any grisha theory at all. the little we get is actually from the apparat. im not sure if we get anything from bhagra. i don't even think we get the phrase "like calls to like" which is the most basic piece of grisha theory throughout the entire grishaverse.

i am definitely. bitter about this. i obviously didn't want huge long meditations on grisha theory in the show, but pretty much the whole time alina was at the little palace, i felt like she had so much time free time to wander around the palace, hang out with nadia and marie, daydream about mal and kirigan. don't get me wrong - those are all valuable activities - but i feel like it missed the point of alina's time at the little palace. she felt isolated there; yes, she had nadia and marie, but she couldn't share with them everything she was going through because she didn't want anyone to truly know how difficult mastering her abilities were. and because she was so isolated, she throws herself into grisha theory, especially during the times in which she can't summon her abilities by herself. this is when she learns about why she's been so sickly her whole life (because she has not used her abilities, and grisha derive some form of life force and energy from using their abilities), all about amplifies, and other really cool world-building for grisha abilities and culture. instead, it was difficult to tell (at least for me) in the show if the palace and the little palace were even different places while in the books the little palace was such a whimsical, ancient, and magical place for alina compared to the gaudiness of the main palace.

the collar

anyway, complaints about architecture and alina's subpar theory education aside, the little bit of grisha theory we get is from the apparat when he talks about ilya morozova and the three amplifiers he was attempting to make during his lifetime. when the apparat is describing amplifiers, it almost seems like amplifers - not just morozova's inventions - are super rare in the world of the show. amplifiers are relatively rare in the books, obtained by only some of the most powerful grisha (zoya, ivan, alina), but they still exist. from what we've seen of zoya and ivan, they didn't seem to have amplifiers on their person, so it looks like alina is unique not only in getting an amplifier from one of morozova's beasts, but also in just getting an amplifier in general, which is a little weird.

EDIT: thanks to @laelipoo for pointing out that zoya is actually shown to have what looks like a tiger’s tooth embedded in the skin of her wrist in the first episode! so okay this shows that powerful grisha still have amplifiers in the world of the show, but this probably suggests that instead of being pieces of jewelry like in the books, they act more as body modifications, which is really interesting. if im not mistaken, ivan’s amplifier is a necklace in the book, so maybe his show-amplifier would’ve been embedded in the skin of his chest. regardless, i’d still like to see more discussion on how amplifiers in the show work - which, now that we know zoya most probably has an amplifier, we might get to see with her becoming more prevalent of a character in the projected arcs of the show (both shadow and bone trilogy as well as kos/row)

i can't remember if morozova was ever referred to as "the bonesmith" (i feel like he has been, but not in the way the apparat refers to him in the show), but i feel as though that was a kind of. foreshadowing for how we would see the stag amplifier work later in the show. in the book, the stag's antlers are a literal collar around alina's neck that remains there until she loses her abilities, so the metaphor of being "owned" by the darkling is definitely there. it never stops being there until she loses the ability that makes her his mirror and his tool. however, in the show we definitely. do not get that.

so i've seen some people say that they hate the design of the stag collar, and i cannot say i was a huge fan of looking at it myself. but that just really cemented in the fact that kirigan forcing the collar on her is a complete violation of her body and her agency. the fact that the bones erupt from her skin and that her skin looks irritated where the bones puncture through her skin just reinforces the idea that this fusion is not natural and is not supposed to be pretty because kirigan taking control of her in this way is really really terrible actually. in addition to the collar, the show also gives kirigan a circle of bone embedded in his hand - which, hand versus collar, who has the most agency in this situation, his hand is quite literally around her neck, etc - but i feel like they made this change so that non-readers could see and understand the mutuality of the amplifier in a physical manifestation because the show doesn't expand on that theory at all.

i really liked that the show kept the reason for alina gaining control of the amplifier being her connection with the stag before kirigan killed it because that at least is consistent with the theory in the books, especially with the expansion of that same theory in kos/row with zoya's connection with juris and how true use of an amplifier requires mutual connection, understanding, and suffering between the grisha and the animal.

i also thought that the way the show portrayed alina taking back control of her power with the stag's horns absorbing into her own bones was a really effective way to show that the power is hers now, and that it is a part of her. however, i wish the show had kept some evidence of the collar because of how it quickly became a piece of her iconography in the books as well as a symbol of her power. seeing as how alina stabbed the circle of bone out of kirigan's hand (very sexy girlboss moment), i wonder if kirigan will still be able to control her abilities. if he can, i hope that any time he uses her abilities, the horns emerge from her skin again as a visual signifier that alina is being violated and that her own power is being used against her. OR even at the times in which alina uses kirigan's power against him (like if the show depicts the conclusion to the battle of the little palace where alina uses the darkling's merzost) to have the horns come out of her skin to show that she is reinforcing her bond with him. both would be really cool.

alina and mal

okay so in ruin and rising we learn that not only are alina and mal bffs and in love whatever, but also that they've been drawn to each other because mal is actually the host to the last of morozova's amplifiers. and then alina looks back at the times in which she's felt the most powerful or when they encountered morozova's beasts, and she realizes that all of those times coincide with when she had important moments with mal. this reveal is huge in the series, and without the build up, i fear it might seem like it would've come out of nowhere if the show chooses to go in the same direction.

for example, alina and mal in the book only find the stag after they kiss for the first time. however, in the show they don't kiss. they don't even move mal's "i see you now" speech to right before they find the stag. it's simply a jump cut to alina and mal in the forest looking at the stag. they might be talking, but i don't think it was an 'important' moment for them.

however, they've been setting mal up as a better-than-average tracker since the very beginning with ana kuya asking him specifically to hunt for dinner. mal also admits that when he saw alina's power come from the tent when kirigan is testing her power that he heard a 'high-pitched tone' and somehow intuitively knew that it was her or something like that. he also tells alina that he'll always be able to find his way to her, no matter what, which is really romantic of course, but it is also part of their connection as one of morozova's three amplifiers and the girl who will possess at one point in time two of the three amplifiers.

i also think that the scene in ruin and rising when alina kills mal for his power is supposed to directly mirror the scene in the shadow and bone book where alina tells mal before they find the stag that she wants him to kill her before she can be caught by the darkling; part of the reason she feels strongly enough to ask this is because she understands grisha theory enough to know what the darkling's plans for the stag and her are. when she's protecting mal and the stag from the darkling, she begs mal to kill her. but he doesn't. and in ruin and rising, when they're out of options during the final battle, mal tells alina to kill him. and she does.

but without alina asking to be killed paired alongside the lack of intimate mal and alina moment before they find the stag, i wonder if the show will be heading in the same direction as the books in terms of mal's status as the last of morozova's creations, or if they'll decide to do something different.

battle of the fold

i think the most obvious difference in the battle of the fold is that kaz, inej, and jesper are like. just chillin on the skiff. additionally, zoya is on the skiff (her presence there was discussed in the zoya section), and mal is not a prisoner in the skiff like he was in the book - he snuck on. for the six's presence on the skiff, i don't mind it and i actually like how they participate in the battle (inej throwing a knife into kirigan's chest and nearly ending his shit right then and there was something we always wanted but did not know we wanted. same with zoya and inej bonding during a fight), but the change in mal's freedom status on the ship is a little more complicated.

in the books, the darkling lets alina and mal spend one last night together (with bars between them) before whatever happens on the fold. i can't remember if he tells alina that he plans to execute mal in the fold, but regardless it becomes apparent that is his plan when he throws mal overboard, on the edges of alina's sunlight, and begins reigning in the sunlight so that mal will be consumed by the fold. it's the fact that mal is in danger that alina manages to gain control of her power once more, and she saves mal. the group of dignitaries from the various nations are still on the ship when she makes her escape, and she uses the Cut - a form of summoner ability that she has never used before and has only ever been used by the darkling. she makes the terrible and difficult decision to let the dignitaries die in the fold alongside the darkling, because she believes it's a worthy sacrifice to make, and she and mal escape together.

i think this sequence of events would've tracked really well in the show with how alina had previously been depicted as mal's protector, but the show chooses not to have alina save mal and kill the dignitaries. instead, the show has kirigan kill the dignitaries and also has mal have a homoerotic fist fight with kirigan which is. not exactly not in line with themes the show has put on, especially with how mal and kirigan have interacted before in the show.

in the books, we don't see mal and the darkling interact without alina as a buffer, and so a fistfight between them in the battle of the fold in shadow and bone wouldn't have made narrative sense and would've just ended up feeling cheap. however we do see mal and kirigan interact without alina in the show - when mal is showing kirigan where the stag is and kirigan learns alina's favorite flower through mal, and when kirigan gives mal that petty little speech about how he'll get alina eventually while mal grows old and dies.

there's an interesting phenomenon in certain kinds of love triangles; most of the time you see love triangles in the classic sense of Person B and Person C both being in love with Person A, who has to make the choice between B and C. however, that's not a true love triangle - there also needs to be a connecting factor between B and C. and, in most cases, that connecting factor is the ritual of masculine homosocial rivalry. so when applying this kind of love triangle to alina, mal, and kirigan, we see that both mal and kirigan have feelings for alina, but they also have a connection to each other through their rivalry, which is as much about rituals of masculine conquering (whether the person they are wanting to conquer is alina or the other man is a very interesting question to which the answer is yes) as it is about being the person alina loves.

do i personally like the kirigan/mal fight in the fold? no, i would've much preferred to see alina rescue and protect mal. however, i do recognize that the fight makes narrative sense within the show, and it was really funny to see kirigan get his shit rocked by mal's bare fists a couple of times. i would say i hope he's been humbled by the experience but we all know that's not true.

also remember when i mentioned that kirigan is the one who kills the dignitaries here instead of alina leaving them to die? and remember, way back in the beginning when i said that alina inadvertently getting her cartography unit killed in the show may have been a swap for some deaths in the battle of the fold? alina being excused from the deaths of the dignitaries in the show but responsible for the deaths of her cartography friends at the beginning is what i was talking about. like i said way back (or maybe i didn't say it but im saying it now), it makes narrative sense. i get it.

however, i think the choice not to have alina perform the Cut on the skiff when she regains control of her power is an interesting one. because, in the book, that was an ultimate show-off of power (even if it was a terrible moment for alina). no one else but the darkling can perform a Cut, and as soon as alina forcibly takes control of her power from the darkling she uses his own signature move to leave him for death? that's a power move. that's irony. that's a physical manifestation of alina being able to adopt and take advantage of some of the darkling's power and use it against him, which is definitely a main theme in the book as it happens every single time alina gets close to defeating him and also when she actually defeats him.

so the Cut is really important, and i want to see in what other situation the show might have alina perform a Cut of her own against kirigan, or if they'll even include that aspect of reclaiming of power. i really want them to.

conclusion

so what have we learned? i think, first and foremost, we have learned that i have so many opinions and should learn how to be sweet and concise with my words. we have also learned there were a lot of changes between the grishaverse books and the series, and these were only the changes that i remembered off the top of my head having watched the series almost a week ago and having reread the books over the past few months.

in addition to those things, we have learned that, in my academic opinion, many of the changes made to fit the story into the screen were positive changes or, at the very least, changes i am interested in seeing develop. in the end, i am just a fan, and regardless of what season 2 may throw at us, i trust bardugo's decisions because she has never let me down narratively before, so i'll probably end up loving things the show ends up doing because i am, at my core, a simple sort of person.

i had a lot of fun writing this all up, and i hope this super long post was informative or entertaining in some way. thank you so much for reading<3<3<3<3

#shadow and bone #s&b #shadow and bone netflix #s&b netflix #long post #alina starkov #malyen oretsev #the darkling #general kirigan #shadow and bone analysis #shadow and bone meta #peach stuff #jesus christ. if you read all this you are so strong. stronger than the us marines. i am so sorry im like this #you'd think during finals season my theory and analysis brain would turn off but no. apparently not #i did this as a reward. for finishing a research paper. i wrote and compiled all of this as a REWARD #also if my details are off or wrong in any way it's because i didn't do any fact checking <3 #im only human after all #and you can always comment or message me saying i fucked up and i'll edit this post #i haven't slept in. maybe 30 hours #i have gotten 5 hours of sleep within the past 48+ hours. i am having a great time #today is my break day though my next final isn't due until friday evening so i'll just. do it tomorrow and friday #anyways yeah. im so sorry for this. this also may be the best thing ive ever done

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ookamihanta · 3 years

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Fan jovillains! I was gonna make a fake screen shot with Anastasia and Josie too, but I got lazy -_-

Fan Jojos

Fan Jobros

First up is local spoiled brat himself, Aaron De Lisle. As stated in his trivia, he’s technically not the ‘main main’ villain, but he’s the main antagonist in Jordan’s story and therefore, is more important lmao. Aaron goes to the same high school as Jordan (and previously, Dallas) and in the same grade as him. The two start on the wrong foot, as Aaron has a very high sense of self and cannot fathom as to why people flock to Jordan when he himself is already more than enough for peoples’ attention. Long story short, Aaron declares them rivals and competes against Jordan at pretty much everything. It’s only later on when Jordan suddenly starts working at Disney did Aaron really start acting up. Ironically, they first bumped into each other at one of Disney’s parks while Jordan was in costume, so Aaron didn’t know he was in it. While in costume, Aaron was surprisingly kind and nice while speaking to him, making Jordan a bit confused as to why at school, Aaron was always rather arrogant and pretty much an ass. Tldr, when Jordan is revealed to be the one in the costume because an enemy stand user forced him out of it so he could save Aaron, Aaron is thoroughly surprised, and honestly, a bit pissed. Since the incident, the two have been head to head with each other.

Aaron’s All Star has the ability to control memories. Via contact with someone or something, he can alter one’s memory of anything, going as far back as to bring back up their memories as an infant or stages of an item previous to the one it has at the moment. Aaron typically uses his stand to manipulate other stand users into doing his father’s bidding (the ACTUAL villain of this story) and doesn’t like engaging in battle himself unless it’s against someone who he respects strength wise. Aaron’s father of course, is just using Aaron’s ability for his own gain and doesn’t actually love his child, neglecting him of all praise and affection. The only reason Aaron goes along with what his father wants is because he simply hopes the things he does for the man will one day earn him genuine love and care. Being able to do things to please his father, even if only for his father’s greed, is a form of affection for Aaron, so he can never go against anything he says.

Next up is Giselle Carter. I’ll need to explain her stand first for her story and motives to make sense. Giselle’s Black Parade allows her to shapeshift as well as shapeshift other nearby objects. Giselle is actually a succubus hiding in plain sight as a scout for night clubs and singers. She was summoned and brought to life by an idiot cult that thought they could bring back the Devil himself, but of course, they failed and simply unleashed a frenzy of demons and curses onto the country of France instead. Giselle was one of those demons and through pure coincidence, gained a stand. Now that Paris was filled with monsters crawling its streets, Giselle wanted to make sure she could go about her terrors in peace, so she takes up a disguise to roam freely. She never makes a move against Josephine specifically until she comes across the small pub the jojo worked as a singer, and immediately found herself enamored. Both as a scout and demon, Josephine had a certain flare that appealed to all sides of Giselle. Their relationship starts as Giselle trying to scout Josephine into her record label, but Josephine constantly refused, no matter how many attempts Giselle tried. This constant rejection wasn’t something the succubus was used to and took her frustrations out on the population of Paris. People were vanishing one by one and the other lingering demons and curses were rising as well. Josuke eventually recruits Josephine and Clara to help him get rid of all the demons summoned to France, but when they thought they’ve gotten rid of all of them, Giselle remained hidden and undetected.

One night, Giselle reveals herself to Josephine and nearly kills the singer, but Josuke comes to the rescue right at the last moment. Swearing to get her prey, Giselle decides to finish the ritual that had brought her to this world in the first place. TLDR. Josephine has to stop Giselle from doing so LMAO.

And lastly, is Anastasia Blanco. She’s both Josie’s childhood friend and sworn nemesis, as both of them see each other as backstabbers. Ana used to be in Passione as Josie’s right hand, the two fighting side by side, back to back, them against the world. However, as two grew older, their morals and sense of justice began changing. Anastasia, as much as she thought they were doing good in the Mafia, didn’t believe it was enough and wanted to change the system itself from the inside, as it seemed like the mafia’s efforts would never be enough for actual long term change. Josie disagreed, saying working from the inside was exactly what was corrupt and that nothing would change definitely if they tried doing something like that. The two had a major argument, ending in both of them severely injured and only stopping short of killing the other when other members of the mafia stopped them. Ever since, the two have been trying to take the other down in their game of justice. However, even with their opposing sides now, other mafia members can see the hesitation Josie has whenever it comes to fighting Ana. Everyone knows deep down, Josie wishes Ana will change her mind and come back to Passione, but Anastasia has no intentions to. Ana recruits other stand users into her ranks and since she knows Josie so well, knows just how to strike where it hurts most. When Anastasia first meets Griselda, she’s both shocked and appalled. Even though she had left Passione, it felt like Josie had replaced her with someone MUCH less worthy to help Josie run the mafia. This complex only worsens their relationship and adds much more drama between the trio.

Ana’s stand is named Be Like Water because Josie thought its cape was like the color of the sea. It simply stuck. BLW’s ability is basically best described as decay. Anything in her range will die and crumble away, as if it didn’t exist in the first place. If focused enough, BLW can also only decay something to a certain extent and keep an object in that form for as long as possible. A living object going through the decaying process can feel all of the pain of its cells dying, so Ana often uses her ability in interrogations.

#i am once again talking about my fan jojo ocs #jojo #jjba #jojos bizarre adventure #jjba oc #oc #original character #aj art #sketch #i keep forgetting to tag the characters #Jordan Josius #Josephine Jolicoeur #Anastasia Blanco #Giselle Carter #Aaron De Lisle #fake anime screenshot

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princessfbi · 3 years

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I know I already asked for Maddie, but after that take on eddie, I really wanna know about your vision on Shannon!

Well, honestly I'd love to read your take on every single character, but.... we'll get there 😂

OK this is so late and I'm so sorry. Our dearly departed: Shannon Diaz

How I feel about this character

I...

Ok, here's the thing. I don't like Shannon. But my dislike for Shannon doesn't negate just how important she is either.

Because I really, really LIKE my dislike for Shannon and here's why.

The really cool thing about Shannon is that she's one of the few morally grey female characters that we've seen in mainstream media. Often times with female characters (particularly the side characters) you find yourself looking at ranges of two types: The Angel or the Shrew. Both end up as a result of kind of lazy writing in my opinion and make characters into cardboard cut outs. It's an inherent form of sexist objectification to characters that aren't really supposed to be that important and are more plot points than they are characters.

And unfortunately, this is more apparent with female characters. Look at Ana for example. She borders onto The Angel end of the spectrum. The reason I personally don't see any chemistry with Eddie and Ana is because Ana is being (perhaps intentionally) put up on this pedestal as this Angel archetype. She's the dotting girlfriend who fits perfectly and causes no waves in the relationship. It's so jarring because, for the most part, 911 does a pretty good job about not falling too far onto this spectrum. Even Ali had a nice balance and I think even Tatiana, though closer to shrew, was written in a way that we at least understood her motives. This happens with male characters as well ie the dumb hot guy that always ends up being the butt of a joke.

But Shannon is grey. Shannon is complex. She made some bad, selfish decisions but that doesn't make her a bad person. It doesn't make her evil! It makes her deeply human. We see her pain. We see her struggling with guilt and being overwhelmed with what it means to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter all at once. Shannon was being pulled into a million different places and her biggest issue with Eddie was that she didn't feel like she was being heard.

There's something I think a lot of us could really get behind because at some point in our lives we also have felt like we haven't been heard.

Do I agree with her choices? Absolutely not. Do I think it was kind of childish to run away and stay away? Yes. Do I think she's an evil person? Not at all.

I like not liking Shannon because she's a well rounded character with flaws and strengths. She loved her family but she didn't feel loved in return.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

No one... cus she's dead. RIP.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

She be dead.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I don't actually think she and Eddie would've co-parented well had she survived. This goes back to what I said on my Eddie character analysis. Shannon desperately wanted a partner in Eddie (rightfully so) but I don't think she realized that she wasn't all that willing to be a partner to Eddie in return. I think in a lot of ways, Shannon is similar to Eddie's parents. She didn't listen to what Eddie was trying to say. She kept pushing him when he needed space (showing up to his work to discuss just because she knew it would put him in a tight spot). She's been pushing him for a while (as seen in Eddie Begins) and when he would finally push back, she would shut him down. She would lash out when Eddie would finally snap.

But I think the reason we have a hard time seeing those similarities is because unlike Eddie's parents, we see Eddie accept this lack of support from Shannon. Again not to bring back the Perks of Being a Wallflower quote but it's a good one: We accept the love we think we deserve.

Shannon didn't feel like she was being heard. She didn't feel like Eddie had her back (even though I think it's because he didn't make these big grand gestures to prove countless times that he did.)

But I don't think Eddie felt like he deserved to be heard either.

Shannon's needs were not being met and it was tearing her down but I don't think she was willing to meet Eddie's needs either. I think she got used to the fact that Eddie would often swallowed what he would need and move on. His inability to process his trauma but rather sweep it under the rug both frustrated Shannon but also gave her an excuse to lash out that I don't think she realized she was taking advantage of. Eddie could "suck it up" and I think part of Shannon's resentment was that she wasn't able to do that like he could. So, rather than saying, "hey let's talk about this" it became a point of contention between them.

I think the thing that Eddie and Shannon loved about each other the most was how much they loved their child. But they would've needed to do some serious work on how they respected one another to be able to be coparents because their relationship should not/could not survive simply on the shoulders of Christopher.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I think I wish we had gotten to see her acknowledge that Eddie was not completely at fault for the breakdown of their relationship. We got to see her realize that she needed to focus on bettering herself for the sake of her own sanity and to strengthen her ability to be a mother again but... Eddie feels so deeply at fault for the way things went. Shannon was so broken down by the end of Eddie Begins but I think Eddie is still sort of cracking. I think the way Shannon treated him (and the way his parents treated him) makes it hard for Eddie to feel like he deserves better. Had they had Shannon acknowledging her part in breaking Eddie down then I think I could've gotten behind the idea that they would've been good coparents but alas... we did not get to see that.

Give Me A Character and I’ll Break Them Down

#Eddie Diaz #Shannon Diaz #911 on fox #character analysis #Writing Talk #ask #imaginebuck #answered #this took me forever to get to I'm so sorry

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jay-the-angst-king · 3 years

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Hero Info Pages Part 2

Something I’ve always found interesting are the hero info pages for Overwatch characters. There’s a lot of details in these clips that either set up a trend that follows the hero’s character, a trend about the overarching struggles in Overwatch, or seemingly have no foundation in the lore but most certainly can be entertaining to think about how it could fit in the lore.

Part 1 can be found here.

Soldier is very straight forward, and we can see that in his Ultimate.

Tac Visor shows Soldier attacking Reaper first, then Widowmaker, then Hanzo. What I take from this is that Soldier prioritizes Talon above other criminals, and prioritizes Reaper above other members of Talon. I actually really like the composition of Reaper in front, Widow just outside of the circle, and Hanzo way off to the side, because this composition is half of why the clip is important.

For both the primary fire and the Helix Rockets, Reaper is the target. Soldier’s entire story and motivation is hunting Reaper down.

The clip for Soldier’s Biotic Field also confirms that he still has a sense of helping others and allies as he heals Tracer, Winston, and McCree. The location for all the clips is Dorado, which refers back to his cinematic, Hero, where he helped the little girl. Both of these things reinforces that Soldier is still a hero at heart even if he’s a “man on a mission” and that mission is Reyes.

Mercy’s hero info page is incomplete. That’s something to note. The clips are old clips and don’t change with updates to the game. Some abilities are not visually shown how they work. You just get a description and that’s it. For Mercy, there are no clips for her Ultimate Valkyrie, or her Resurrect ability.

With that in mind, there are still clips for her staff, blaster, and Guardian Angel which showcase other heroes.

Mercy uses Guardian Angel to fly up to Tracer, and she heals Tracer with her Caduceus Staff. When she uses left click, Tracer is attacking Reinhardt.

Now, I don’t particularly think that Angela has anything against Rein. I think this can be explained away as training or testing out new equipment because they are on Gibraltar.

However, I think that showing Roadhog rather than Reinhardt would have fit better for these clips considering that Mercy uses her Caduceus Blaster to shoot down Junkrat, a criminal.

Echo is the newest character in the game, and her hero info shows some interesting things.

Firstly, her Tri-Shot primary fire shows her attacking Tracer and Reaper. I can’t explain this as training since it’s in the same clip. Echo is not training with Reaper anytime soon.

So why is Echo attacking Tracer in this clip? Maybe it’s to show that Echo can lean one way or another depending on how she grows as a character. She is a constantly learning AI program. It can also be yet another metaphor for AI programs going rogue. Mina Liao, the scientist who made Echo, infused some of herself into Echo’s creation. Dr. Liao was also the one who created the omnics in the first place, and the omnics had gone rogue after years of mistreatment which started the Omnic Crisis.

Echo attacking both Tracer and Reaper could hint at more omnic uprising, or just another memory of the first Omnic Crisis and subsequent Omnic Uprising as seen in King’s Row.

Her Ultimate Duplicate is fascinating. From left to right, Echo is against Sigma, Doomfist, Tracer, Moira, and Roadhog.

Echo Duplicates Tracer, then shoots Roadhog for ult charge, and sticks Tracer to kill the other four. I’m not about to say that Echo dislikes Tracer. That’s just not what’s up here. Tracer is being used here because the community is very comfortable with Tracer, and Echo was new. They wanted to display this ult with someone they knew the community would understand.

That being said… What could this mean?

I think that we could read this clip as Echo accidentally killing or hurting a teammate. That would be awful and sad, but better than the second idea that Echo would sacrifice a teammate just to catch the criminals.

Her Sticky Bombs kill Sombra and Hanzo, and her Focusing Beam finishes Roadhog. This all takes place on Gibraltar, which I think helps accentuate that she’s new and learning. Route 66, where we first met her in the Reunion Cinematic, would have been a nice map to showcase her abilities, too, but they choose Gibraltar, probably to reinforce the fact that she is apart of the new Overwatch team thanks to the Recall.

Hey, Tracer, why are you shooting Zenyatta?

There’s two reasons I can place for Zenyatta being Tracer’s opponent when showcasing Tracer’s abilities. The first is the overarching theme of omnics versus humans, and that theme really permeates when shown repeatedly on King’s Row where we know Mondatta was assassinated and an Omnic Uprising occurred.

Her Ultimate only calls back to the Mondatta assassination as Tracer attaches a Pulse Bomb to Zenyatta, and it kills Widowmaker and Hanzo as well.

Widowmaker and Hanzo, you say? Widowmaker, the one who killed Mondatta, and Hanzo, another known sniper and assassin?

It seems to me that these clips are not meant to show Tracer’s allegiances, but more to continue the themes we see throughout Overwatch. These clips only hammer home the stories we already knew. A sniper killed Mondatta, a prominent speaker and activist, and King’s Row is home to omnic and human tensions.

Lucio has a whole info page about helping Overwatch, who will become his new friends. To start, Lucio uses Sound Barrier to gives shields to Tracer and Soldier.

There’s not much to say about that on its own, so let’s continue on.

Lucio uses both Crossfade and Amp It Up to heal and speed up Tracer, but he uses his Sonic Amplifier and Soundwave against Winston.

I think this is Lucio showing the Overwatch team his gear and how he can be helpful on missions with them. That would explain the full Overwatch hero cast in his clips. Lucio himself is a hero of his hometown, and we know with the upcoming Overwatch 2 that Lucio and the recalled team are buddies and working together. It makes sense that Lucio would take some time to show his new friends how his gear works.

Reinhardt is, thankfully, relatively quick to talk about.

His primary target in his clips? It’s Hanzo. Hanzo is a mercenary, an assassin, a criminal, but he’s not apart of Talon. The reason I say this is because Reinhardt is specifically attacking a criminal with no interest in Talon because Reinhardt was still working after leaving Overwatch. His work switched from fighting rogue AI and Talon to fighting regular criminals like Hanzo.

That’s doesn’t mean that he’s not going to attack Talon.

Reinhardt uses his Earth Shatter to stun Reaper, Hanzo, and Widowmaker, so he obviously will still attack Talon even if he’s no longer an Overwatch member.

Hardest thing to explain in these clips is the setting of King’s Row. Really, I think the only reason Reinhardt wasn’t placed on, say, Eichenwalde, was because Eichenwalde came out after the game’s release. So there just wasn’t a better map for Reinhardt at the time. Still, King’s Row isn’t a bad place considering that there was an omnic uprising there and Reinhardt was one of the heroes who went on that mission.

Ana... I love you, Ana, but what’s happening here? Ana’s clips are buck wild. I don’t know where to begin. I’ll add a Read More, since this is so long already.

I guess we start with Biotic Rifle. Firstly, she heals Reinhardt, and then she kills Soldier. When zoomed in, she heals Tracer, and only shoots Pharah twice, not enough to kill.

What a lot to unpack.

I think this shows that she’s good friends with Reinhardt, just as they have been for years. She is the only one of Reinhardt’s friends to apologize to him about faking her death after all. Attacking Soldier and killing him could be a sign that Ana and Soldier, though friends, do not share the same thoughts about something. My guess is that Ana thinks Soldier’s mission is too much for him, that she thinks he needs to stop before he gets himself killed. That does align with more recent releases where Ana is helping him but also checking him when Solder pushes too hard. Healing Tracer seems obvious since Ana is still a healer and Tracer is a well respected hero, but attacking Pharah is interesting. I think Ana attacking her daughter is actually a figurative way of saying that the two don’t get along. Ana doesn’t kill Pharah, just injures her, and I think this is there to show their strained relationship even though Ana still cherishes her daughter.

Much of everything after this is speculation. Like I said, Ana’s clips are wild.

Ana sleeps Zarya. Perhaps this is to show that Ana, an old soldier, is tired herself. I think targeting a younger soldier like Zarya implies that Ana thinks the fighting and wars are exhausting. Maybe this is Ana not so subtly telling the younger soldier that they need to take care of themselves, too, much like she gets on Soldier about him talking care of himself.

The Biotic Grenade is wild. She smashes the grenade at Lucio, Winston, and Roadhog to show the healing properties, but then uses it offensively against D.Va to show that Mercy can’t heal the mech. This entire clip has thrown me for a loop. I can’t particularly explain it.

Perhaps she heals Roadhog because Roadie was once a soldier in ALF, and she can not blame him or others like him who attacked omnics to defend themselves back in the day. Perhaps they might have met back then, which I think would have been interesting to explore. But then why hinder D.Va’s healing? Maybe she thinks D.Va, a 19 year old, shouldn’t be fighting on the front lines. Ana views her as a child, just like Soldier and Reaper do, and thinks that Hana shouldn’t have to fight wars for adults.

I think Mercy being the one healing D.Va is a reference to Mercy disliking how Ana uses Mercy’s research in a weapon like the Biotic Rifle. This puts them at odds with one another. On the other side, Lucio is likely there to show the amplified healing from the grenade, but maybe this also shows that Ana respects Lucio as a hero. Finally, Winston was an old friend.

Lastly, her Ultimate, Nano Boost. She Boosts Reinhardt, and Reinhardt kills McCree, Zenyatta, Tracer, and Soldier.

Ana deserves her own post at this point. Why are they attacking these four people? Ana just healed Tracer with her rifle not too long ago. For this bizarre clip, I have no reasoning, so lets see what this COULD mean.

I could explain this as Overwatch tearing itself apart. In this case, four of the five people in this fight are Overwatch members, and that only leaves Zenyatta. Maybe killing Zenyatta here is the representation of harmony and diplomacy being broken.

Perhaps this is more about Ana and Rein than it is about the opponents. Maybe Ana’s faked death made Rein incredibly upset. Maybe this clip represents Rein never letting it go. Maybe Rein, for a while, blamed Overwatch (represented by Soldier and Tracer) and Blackwatch (represented by McCree) for her death. Again, Zen’s death would represent a lack of harmony.

Overall, these are my thoughts on this set of characters. There are still over half of the cast left, and I think the remaining Talon members are next.

#Soldier 76 #jack morrison #angela ziegler #echo overwatch #lucio correia dos santos #reinhardt wilhelm #ana amari #Overwatch #overwatch meta #meta analysis

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gellavonhamster · 3 years

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shadow and bone season one

because I can’t liveblog for shit, here are all (or most) thoughts in the same post

it was... alright? The books are definitely better, and I think a lot was lost in terms of logic and not only, but overall it was entertaining and made me wish we could get s2 as soon as possible - if only to see the characters who weren’t in s1 yet

to elaborate on logic, I think it was the most obvious when it was first established that Heartrenders need to touch the person to affect their condition, but then starting from the Darkling’s flashback (if I remember correctly), it wasn’t necessary anymore. Like, if it was necessary for the plot for them to be able to do that without touching, why make Nina say that first?

I also do not understand how it was possible to build and maintain a railway, even if unfinished, in the Fold. It couldn’t possibly have existed before the Fold was created, because that happened centuries ago. How do you build a railroad, especially in secret, in a place swarming with bloodthirsty flying monsters?

and then there were some other things of that kind, like everyone in the Darkling’s flashback - which takes place, again, centuries ago - being dressed pretty much the same as in the present, but okay, enough of that

wait, no. Not enough yet. Because can I just say that THAT’S NOT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE “MOROZOVA”

THAT’S NOT HOW YOU PRONOUNCE “KOROLEVA”

THE FIRST TIME BEN BARNES SAID ‘MOYA TSARITSA” I THOUGHT MY EARS WOULD BLEED

like, I get that Ravka isn’t completely Russia, but these are Russian words and you’re pronouncing them wrong, and I, being Russian, cannot help feeling annoyed, even though I am used to this kind of things happening in the Western movies/shows

okay, rant over, let’s proceed

it’s amazing how the Crows’ storyline is a total filler (and predictably so, since their mission couldn’t have succeeded in any case - they can’t kidnap Alina, Alina already has two books’ worth of story on her own), and they still pretty much carry most of the show on their backs

seriously. Kaz? Perfect in his mannerisms and delivery of lines and everything; I particularly liked how it is often obvious from the way he carries himself that he wants to touch Inej, but he can’t. I’ve seen people say that he’s not ruthless enough in comparison to book!Kaz, but I think that might be because we haven’t seen much of him with his enemies this season (except for that one scene with Pekka Rollins, in which he was overpowered). I bet there’s more of that coming. Inej? Also perfect - brave, badass, principled. The scene when she has to submit all her knives before talking to Heleen was great. Nina and Matthias? The most book-accurate storyline so far, and both of them are so charming and have wonderful chemistry. Jesper? Stole the whole motherfucking show with his charm, sense of humour, friendship with Inej (especially Inej!) and Kaz. He really must be what I loved the most about this show. Also, there’s a lot of interesting blink-and-you-miss it foreshadowing re: his Grisha abilities

I am very curious as to how much Jesper knows about Kaz’s history with Pekka Rollins. He’s aware that Kaz wants revenge, but does he know why? I love the scene in Crooked Kingdom in which Kaz accidentally calls Jesper by his dead brother’s name; I wonder how it will look in the show if Jesper knows that part of the story (if it is included at all, of course)

the hints about Wylan! Oh don’t worry, Jesper, you’re gonna have a demo expert, both “you” as in “the Dregs” and you in particular

I think we can all agree that the emotional support goat was good. I, too, want to be able to hold a baby goat in stressful situations

seeing the Crows interact with the characters from the trilogy was surreal, but not in a bad way. I liked the interactions of Alina and Inej, and that in this version Inej’s Sankta Alina knife is actually given to her by Alina. I hope after Alina’s “death” in the show someone’ll inform Inej that it’s just a ruse

moving on to the Grisha Trilogy part, I am normally very much against adaptations changing the personalities of the book characters, but I appreciated all the changes about Mal. He’s much more likeable than in the books, and his relationship with Alina was very cute

Genya and David my beloveds <3 they’re so sweet

also Alina and Genya’s dynamic!

Fedyor and Ivan being a couple was not something I expected, but it was a nice touch. Also, loved Fedyor in particular, what a guy

the dead girlfriend in the Darkling’s flashback... how “””original”““

I am not entirely happy about Zoya’s portrayal, but then again, some things about it are probably not for me to judge about, and some are not that bad, so whatever. In any case, the actress is great, and I have hopes for the next seasons

love Nadia establishing already in what much be her third scene that she likes girls. Hang on love, we’ll get you a warrior gf soon

I’m so mad they didn’t rename Ana Kuya even though I definitely remember reading some interview in which Leigh said she was informed later that it’s a bad idea for a name for a character based in a Russia-inspired country... could’ve saved me and all other Russian viewers from facepalming, but alas, it didn’t happen

I always imagined the amplifiers as something one wears, not something growing out of one’s skin, so that was pretty terrifying - but impressive

ok so I’m running out of things I wanted to say, basically there’s room for improvement but overall I enjoyed it and look forward to season two

#shadow and bone spoilers #shadow and bone netflix #leigh bardugo #talk talk talk #gella talks grishaverse

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agathaarts · 4 years

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Spidersonas forever!!!!!! Though she’s become less of a Spidersona and more her own weird spiderspinoff at this point, complete with a name change.

Some more Itsy stuff outta basically nowhere! Her spider-human hybrid form is where she’s most “comfortable” and ultimately where she winds up resting most of the time, though she’s still a pretty competent were-spider-shapeshifter-sort. She has a number of different and modifiable outfits, perks of living with a seamstress, and....I also wanted to draw a bunch of her, uh, rogue’s gallery together, though admittedly the Black Cats could be considered friends before long. Or at least, associates.

This is far from all of them, but these are the guys I have concrete looks for at least! Maybe I’ll do one of her allies soon. As is, most of her issues stem from the monsterous OZCORP, the company that not only created her, but continues to create it’s own forces, meddling in the nature of reality to do so!

Tiny blurbs below the cut for each of them, and if you’d like to know more about any of ‘em...let me know! I have an unfortunate amount of ideas for this AU!

ITSY-BITSY AKA SPIDER-WOMAN aka Aggie Appleton. While working for the unscrupulous OzCorp, unlucky intern Aggie Appleton is caught in the backlash of an experiment that fuses her with unstable realmatter and the test subject- a hyper-adaptive spider created using the same unstable realmatter! Now, she fights to protect her city from OzCorp’s increasingly dangerous experiments and the beings created by their experiments as ITSY BITSY aka THE INCREDIBLE SPIDER-WOMAN!

THE GREEN GOBLIN aka Norma Osborne. The CEO and leader of OZcorp, Norma Osborne has sacrificed everything for her company and their work, being a gifted and brilliant scientist in her own right. It has cost her family ties, friends, her social life, and now- her sanity and stability of form. Able to transform into the corrosive GREEN GOBLIN, she becomes a destructive force of chemical reactions and decay, with no more limits standing in her way! At least, until that annoying spider shows up...

THE KLYNTAR, represented by units VENOM and CARNAGE ~ Inter-dimensional beings, symbiotes (or, perhaps, parasites) who feed off of living beings, the KLYNTAR are horrors from beyond who’ve made a deal with Norma Osborne: a place to stop and feed in exchange for OzCorp to poke and prod and take samples to use their unstable realmatter forms to create new techniques and horrors! Of course, once mold gets in....it’s almost impossible to get it out, even if said mold is far more than anything native to Earth!

BLACK CAT is a mystery. A force of corporate espionage, a cat thief, a rumor, and mystery, a funny joke to poke fun at unsolved thefts and leaked information- of course, it’s very hard to find Black Cat. They slip in and out of secure warehouses, files, and companies with nary a trace, virtually impossible to spot. Especially unless you know they’re not one person, but three. At least, that Itsy-Bitsy comes to know of...

THE BUGS are a group of ne’er-do-wells who took up an offer to be bonded with biotech armor by OzCorp, all for their own various reasons, and now they’re beholden to OzCorp...and on an impressive payroll, that motivates being guards, bullies, and thieves as necessary.

SCORPION aka Mac Gargan. Once a private detective of disrespectful status, Mac Gargan was hardly in a place to turn down OzCorp’s offer after befalling tragedy and desperation. Unlike his fellow bugs, he tends to question a lot of his commands, and is well aware of the quote “hinky crap” going down behind the lab doors of OsCorp- but the pay grade is nice. And the benefits, well, the benefits are killer. Besides, he’s gotten to know the personality of his symbiotic armor well...and wouldn’t abandon him back to OzCorp’s nonexistent mercies by quitting.

BEETLE aka Abby Jenkins. Previously an engineer with white collar criminal aspirations, Abby Jenkins was hardly in a place to turn down OzCorp’s offer after befalling tragedy and desperation. Having bonded well with her symbiotic armor, she’s enjoying the steady work and respect she finds with OzCorp, and gets to spend her spare time tinkering with projects amongst brilliant inventors she’d have never had a chance to rub elbows with before!

FLY aka Richie Deacon. A career small-time criminal, Richie Deacon spent most of his life in and out of prison, halfway houses, and shelters, and was hardly in a place to turn down OzCorp’s offer after befalling a particular tragedy and desperation. Now they don’t care much about the work they do, happy to do whatever OzCorp asks in exchange for living a cushy life, even if it means having to wear the gross symbiotic armor. Still, small price to pay to fly!

SHR- i mean -SHOCKER aka Herman Schultz. Another career criminal, Herman Schultz worked as muscle for a few crime families in various cities, before getting bounced out of almost all of them and directly into OzCorp’s loving arms. No tragedy or desperation needed to convince him to get into a suit of powered armor (even if it’s more or less a giant lobster as far as he’s concerned) and start breaking things at a whim! Besides, everything at OzCorp is so damn weird, he’s never been more entertained anywhere in his life!

ELECTRO aka Max Voltage. Once one of OzCorp’s many test animals, an electric “eel” cobbled together out of various types of electric fish and a hodgepodge of other animals, Max taking on human traits was, well...an accident, but a happy one. Now settled into a form distinctly human, with intelligence to match (though some would argue otherwise) Max is capable of incredible feats of electrical manipulation and sensitivity beyond any creature in it’s creation!

DOCTOR OCTOPUS aka Octavia Otto. Respected young researcher and lead scientist of many OzCorp projects, Octavia Otto was caught in the backlash of an experiment that ultimately fused her with a number of test subjects, hyper-adaptive octopuses...except she’s continued to mutate and change, in ways nobody else can quite pin down (but it’s okay, she’s keeping rigorous, detailed notes on the process! For science!) and has assisted OzCorp’s goals since, happy to have a constant source of supplies and test subjects to work with. Her and Aggie Appleton had...history, before this all went down, too, so that’s not awkward at all!

RHINO aka Aleksei Sytsevich. Arriving in America as Anna Kravenoff’s bodyguard, Aleksei found himself out of work before long as Anna hastily shucked her father’s protections of her and kicked him unceremoniously out of her life. Once OzCorp decided he’d make a fine test subject, well, he’s been a professional mook for most of his life and didn’t have many complaints about the improved size, strength, and toughness. Aleksei may put on a blithe, dopey exterior, but he’s far too controlled to be an actual fool...which makes him quite dangerous, even if he only does as OzCorp asks.

THE SPOT aka Joon-Woo Ohnn. The Spot’s creation is a sort of mystery, even to himself and to OzCorp. An experiment, a failure, and...Dr. Ohnn is still certainly alive and aware, but some sort of bizarre 3D shadow cast by, well, wherever he is. While unable to speak, Ohnn is still fully capable of serving OzCorp, with his ability to function as a series of wormholes and perform strange acts of teleportation.

MYSTER.IO aka Mysterio aka thecrystalball aka The Mystery aka ??? aka aka aka aka aka..... Myster.io is a digital character- either a face for someone distant and anonymous, or many someones, or perhaps some sort of self-aware AI, Mysterio’s story changes every time he tells it and that’s just how it should be! This bizarre digital being pops up on people’s devices and is an information gatherer and peddler, always happy to tweak reality to better suite someone’s needs for a price.

KRAVEN the HUNTRESS aka Ana Kravenoff aka Kraven Jr. aka Lady Anastasia Kravenoff. Kraven the Hunter was a star, a legend- a man who battled beasts and travelled to impossible places and rose to reclaim an ancient family legacy, he was famous and infamous alike, and regardless of if you loved or hated him- he was a household name across the globe. Ana would like that. Ana might have been shipped off to America to live a carefully tailored “normal” life by her father and his estate, but Ana has aspirations that greatly outstrip those of her brothers and a goal to match her father’s infamy someday! But until she can secure a show, she hunts monsters for YouTube and enjoys her modest cult following- especially since she’s found a way to attend college in a sleepy Midwestern City that just happens to have a lot of monster-related issues. Her current target? Spider-Woman!

#spidersona #itsy-bitsy #itsyverse #spider-woman #green goblin #venom #carnage #black cat #scorpion #beetle #fly #shocker #electro #doctor octopus #rhino #the spot #mysterio #kraven #ana kravinoff

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hoe-doroki · 3 years

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ana reads bnha ch180

previous chapter here first chapter here next chapter here

HERE IT FREAKING IS. MY BIGGEST BEEF IN THE SERIES.

I mean, obviously this hasn’t been Deku’s toughest battle. He’s coming out of this battle with nothing but a bloody nose and some bruises. All his other bad ones he had broken bones. I mean, I think it’s fair to say that his toughest fight was against Muscular. He should have freaking died in that one. And fighting Stain was tougher just for the fact that, even if Stain wasn’t going to kill Deku, just like Gentle isn’t going to, he was still going to kill Iida and Native. And he JUST fought Overhaul, like, a month ago, where his death was all but certain. There was no life or death to this scenario like his other fights. Then again, I guess Deku has difficulty differentiating between what battles he needs to put life and death effort into and which he can skip…looking at the sports festival rn…

BUT. Now I’m thinking something different, that would redeem this panel for me. Is he…lying? Is he telling a white lie to Gentle so that Gentle feels…important? Because leading up to this moment, Gentle asks this:

[”So, I haven’t yet measured up to the foes of your past?”]

because earlier Deku said that this fight wasn’t as hard as his past ones. And likely because La Brava mentioned feral School Festival Deku and Gentle would feel…slighted? If Deku didn’t bring that energy to this fight. So Deku clocks that it’s important to Gentle that he put up a good fight. Honestly, I’m not sure if Deku could lie, even a well-meaning one. But if not, he’s either convinced himself it’s the truth (because of the aforementioned inability to distinguish what’s actually life or death or not and his changing relationship to his quirk abilities) or he’s just stupid and every fight feels like the hardest one in the moment.

Also, I love that Gentle’s eyeliner is bleeding. That’s a great visual touch.

And this is why La Brava is lucky and Gentle is…almost a little surprising. Because the way that he talks online…he really does seem to have some of the vibes of a contemporary online cult leader. Wanting to give people a new purpose that aligns with his and seeming to want to recruit people into his ideology. But yet he’s able to be selfless here, even if it’s a bit belated.

Overall: Yeah, so this is my what the actual heck chapter. But now that I’ve talked through it…I’m torn. Because if Deku’s lying, then I actually kinda like that panel. But if he’s being genuine…then I really need to wring his neck. Although, I do now think that if he’s being genuine…that sentiment plays into his character better than I’d previously given it credit for, and it’s not just some oversight. So I’m not as mad as I once was! Haha, tis nice not to be mad. But yeah, now it’s just a question mark for me and I…don’t love that either XD

#ana reads the manga

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variety-toaster · 4 years

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OVERWATCH HEADCANON

In this headcanon, I believe I have finally unlocked the secret to solve the MASSIVE inconsistencies within Overwatch’s gameplay. Specifically, pertaining to Omnics.

I’m copy-pasting from my explanation to a close friend, thus the tone is sort of “I know you don’t play so here’s some basic explanation for things you wouldn’t normally understand.”

So, in Overwatch, there are robots called Omnics. They are basically "what would happen if robots got human-level intelligence or possibly higher." In Overwatch, there was an uprising called the Omnic Crisis, in which yah know, humans vs omnics for fair treatment and rights and basically a civil war. Now, humans technically won said war. But, many omnics became peaceful, and like, actually nice. There are even spiritual monks, like our boy Zenyatta. Now, here’s one of the biggest inconsistencies. See, in Overwatch, there's a lot of "healers." which, in their weapon names, say "bio". Implying they heal biological stuff. But, Omnics can also be healed. So, what gives? and how do u "heal" a robot?Now, in one of the cinematics, a terrorist sniper named Widowmaker from the terrorist organization Talon, shoots and kills an omnic monk who was a serious advocate for peace. People freak out! It's messed up. Anyway, he is, in canon, DEAD. But why? he's a robot. How did he "die" if they can just repair him? well he was shot through the head. But, they could just re-upload his memories right? Well, apparently not. So, omnics can be healed, but if they die, they're dead. We also see mention of them essentially having souls, especially given their spirituality, and Zenyatta is proven to be able to ascend, heal, and even just float midair like a fantasy monk! And, it's KNOWN that he IS NOT floating using some anti-gravity device (which does exist in Overwatch's lore, and is on most cars) So, they can be healed, repaired, but if they die they're dead, and apparently have souls. So, what does this mean? Let's go back to the "bio" title in most of the game's weapons.It is my belief, hear me out, that omnics are NOT made of regular metals. They are in FACT, made of some sort of BIO-STEEL. A material which is like metal, conducts electricity like metal, and HEALS like biological components. This explains why Torbjorn's mechanical turret cannot be healed, while bastion, an OMNIC turret, CAN. It explains why Genji, who is a cyborg, can heal, despite being covered in metal armor: it is made from the same Bio-steel. It explains why omnics can be put to sleep with Ana's sleep dart: You can't make a ROBOT sleep, but you can make an OMNIC sleep. You can't put Torbjorn's TURRET to sleep, but you can put ORISA or ZENYATTA, both omnics, to sleep! it also explains why you cannot bring the Omnic peace-talker person back from the dead; you cant just rebuild a brain! But, that begs the question: where do omnics come from then? Are they BORN then? or are they still built? Well of course they aren't BORN! Duh! They're BUILT, but USING bio-steel! now, what benefits does using bio-steel over building ordinary all-metal robots have? Well for one, they can be healed in battle, repair themselves (like Bastion's self-healing) without spare parts, but it also means that being somewhat ORGANIC in nature means they do, in fact, have souls, like humans or animals! Which is what separates them from some regular coffee-maker or a car! I think this is EXTREMELY important to Overwatch's lore, as it finally offers an explanation for all the 'strange inconsistencies' in the game! "why can you put a robot to sleep?" "how do you heal a machine that would need repairs?" "why do biotic weapons heal/hurt omnics?" "why can't you just rebuild the person Talon killed?" Bio-steel. It can also sort of explain why Sombra, who is the "world's greatest hacker" who can hack people in game to shut off their abilities, cannot completely shut down omnic heroes: if they're part-biological, sure, maybe you can mess with the computer part, but you can't shut them down completely; they’d be able to move biological limbs like humans!.There is only ONE exception to this rule I've found thus far. Ashe is a cowgirl sniper lady in the game, who's "Ultimate Ability" is to summon her butler, Bob, an omnic, to help in battle! Now, Bob can be healed, boosted, slept, all that, but, here's the only exception to my theory thus far: Sombra can hack Bob, and shut him down completely for a short while (and Bob only remains summoned for a short while as well, so, unfortunate). Now, she doesn't shut any of the other omnics down completely, Bob is an omnic, so how does she shut him down? For that, I have no idea. The development team just loves to make Sombra totally overpowered with her hacking and fun-police the game and I hate it. BUT, I think Bio-steel explains WAY MORE stuff than it creates an inconsistency for. Lastly, I believe that there are several different types of Bio-steel, which are used for different things: Armor, such as Rienhardt, Orisa, and Hammond's Wrecking ball are all made out of a type of bio-steel, which allows them to be healed and repaired.

I think MOST things in game, not including objects in the environment or bullets, are made of bio-steel!

Bio-steel explains SO much of the inconsistencies in Overwatch’s gameplay and lore, and yes, there is that one hiccup, but it’s better than the lore team saying “Well, things that are in the game aren’t necessarily canon, they’re just there for gameplay,”

TL;DR: Omnics in Overwatch are made of Bio-steel, which is why they are able to be healed or hurt by biotic weapons, why they are different from regular machines like Torbjorn’s turret when it comes to in-game effects, and why they have souls like human beings. Also, armor like Rienhardt’s and Hammond’s Wrecking Ball are also made of this bio-steel material which is why they can be healed in-game.

Let me know what you think of this theory, and let me know if you can think of other inconsistencies it creates!

#Overwatch #Overwatch Lore #Overwatch Headcanons #Overwatch omnics #bio-steel #overwatch zenyatta #overwatch orisa #overwatch bob #overwatch rienhardt #overwatch sombra #overwatch ana #overwatch widowmaker #overwatch talon

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heweightlossjourney · 4 years

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Introductions

**PRO ANA, PRO MIA, AND THINSPO ACCOUNTS DO NOT INTERACT**

Hello to anyone reading this. I’m H and I’ve started this sideblog to document my weight loss and keep myself accountable. Let me start with a little backstory:

I have been overweight for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been super active, though I was on a couple sports teams at various points throughout my school life. I always overate as a kid and I still do it now. Eating has been a coping mechanism for me my entire life, and I would say that I am addicted to food.

I have generally been okay being heavy, but bullying is a bitch and I know that other people’s perception of me affected me and made me a nasty bitch in middle school and high school. I wasn’t in a place to understand why I acted out until I was able to distance myself from my long term abusive boyfriend and my dad stopped drinking and got out of his abusive/toxic situation. Now, I understand the effects that the trauma in my life has had on me and I’m calmer and more level-headed, so I am in a good place to start working on my physical health in conjunction with my mental health.

I know that my self-image right now isn’t healthy, and I am aiming to love my body. I am trying hard not to think of the things I might want after this, like skin removal surgery and breast reshaping, but it is hard not to imagine myself with a little sprucing up. While I don’t want to scrutinize over every flaw I have, I think the best way I can motivate myself to keep it up is taking note of my body and how I perceive certain areas, so I will update this with my reflection on how my body looks every so often.

Over the time I have been not working because of COVID-19, I have gained weight, but I have also started keeping up with infamous obese youtubers like Amberlynn Reid and Foodie Beauty, and watching channels like Charlie Gold and Petty Kitten react to them. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t a kick in the ass to not become as big as them, but also a motivator knowing that I will never be like that, I won’t allow myself to be like them, and that I am a better person than they are. I know that thinking like that is mean and cruel, but I am here to lose weight, not monetize my addiction and appeal to feeders while maintaining an attitude of entitlement and oblivion.

While we are at it, let me just name a few of my rock bottom moments:

- my abusive ex boyfriend calling me “Whaley”

- being too heavy to ride horses

- being too big for a ride at the fair and having to get off it in front of a ton of people in public

- my brother swiping the back of m head like a debit machine

- my ability to polish of a lot of food in one go

- my lack of stamina standing, walking, exercising, being on top during sex

- crushing my boyfriend when I lay on him

- being too big to fit into 3x clothing on websites like dollskill that actually sell some interesting clothing for bigger ladies

Without too much more delay, let’s get into the facts:

Age: 18

Height: 5′11

Starting Weight: 333 pounds

Current Weight: 329 pounds

Total Loss: 4 pounds

BMI: 45.9

BMI Goal: 25

Current Goal: 300 pounds by day 30

Day: 4

Health Concerns: Morbid Obesity, PCOS and Insulin Resistance, Lactose Intolerance, Depression, Anxiety, Food Addiction.

Diet Plan: OMAD (one meal a day) and intermittent fasting.

The diet I have chosen to follow, OMAD, is one of many different diets I have tried over the course of my life. I have tried keto, I have tried vegetarianism, I have tried slimfast. The reason I have chosen this particular diet this time is because of the freedom to eat pretty much anything within the hour I set aside for myself to eat each day. It’s hard to fuck yourself up too much in an hour. After having done the diet for a few days, here is what I have noticed about it:

- I get hangry

- I am somewhat nocturnal and often sleep from 6am - 2pm, and it makes it so much easier

- The boost in energy after my feels like I am on top of the world, and the naps while digesting fuckin rock, sleepy is a good feeling when you have time set aside for it

- It is a lot of mental will power to look at my favourite foods and say no

- It is a lot of mental will power not to cram 3 meals into an hour

- It is hard to pick what I want for dinner

- Cravings hit hard

- Black Coffee is nasty

- It is easier not to consume dairy with OMAD, and not have diarrhea everyday is nice.

There are some things I have noted as well, like eating dairy at all is a big mistake. It is unpleasant to only feel full for a short period of time before violently emptying the contents of my digestive tract. The effects of lactose has on my body go so much quicker when it is the only thing I have in my body at the time. Lactaid is very hit and miss for me, and by the way the chewable tablets are actually the devil incarnate and I hate them. I have tasted vanilla in my life and that isn’t it.

I chose this diet because my boyfriend does fasting as his preferred diet method, and while I wish I could fast all day, my job requires me to have energy and I am not a happy hungry lady. I intend to do OMAD long term, but may change it up slightly if I start to struggle when I get back to work.

It should also be noted that I seriously do not recommend this diet to anyone who struggles with disordered eating (me), depression (me), anxiety (me), obesity (me), anyone who has an affliction that would make it safer for them to consume more than one meal a day (me), and people who have medications they need to take with food (me). This diet is not recommended by doctors for long term weight loss, my endocrinologist was frankly a bit shocked when I told her, and it can cause a host of problems included but not limited to:

- triggering of eating disorders

- lack of protein

- excess of carbs

- diarrhea (thanks, really needed more of that)

- nausea

- dizziness

- weakness

- extreme fatigue

So let me go ahead here and describe a little bit about my health issues, namely my PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. PCOS is a hormonal disorder. It can cause increased levels of androgen in the body, increased hair, insulin resistance, excessive hair growth, male pattern baldness, weight gain, irregular periods, fertility problems, increase risk of developing type 2 diabetes, increase risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol, acne and oily skin, depression, and sleep apnea, as well as increase the risk for endometrial cancers, and obviously, cause ovarian cysts. This disorder can be passed from mother to daughter, and I got it from my mom. I have been suffering with this for years.

The biggest effects on my body have been my weight, my depression, irregular periods and cysts. I currently have an IUD in place to help with the symptoms, but my periods are not even close to regular and are often brown in colour. Before hormonal birth control, I would have 2-3 periods per year that lasted about a month at a time. These periods were heavy and excruciatingly painful, and the clots I birthed were like jellyfish. I often lost enough blood to become anemic.

It should be noted that my PCOS has caused me to be resistant to insulin, and that can make it hard to lose weight and also cause some brown discolouration on the skin, which I have had on my chest and neck. I remember my mom used to scrub at my neck thinking it was dirty when my neck first started becoming discoloured.

I had my IUD placed in December of 2018, and the follow up ultrasound revealed a cyst on my right ovary that was 21cm x 21cm which required surgery. Due to that, a traumatic situation and my vegetarianism, I lost 30 pounds by March of 2019.

I have also struggled most of my life with depression and anxiety and used food to cope. I am currently on medication for that. I also take Metformin to help with the effects of the PCOS.

Here I will give a short description on the areas of my body that bother me and what I would like to see improve. I will try to be objective about what I don’t like and I will be honest about the reasons I would like to improve. I will say now that many of these reasons are cosmetic and not necessarily health related.

Inner thighs: While my legs are one of my favourite parts of my body and are in general strong and shapely, my inner thighs have a pocket of fat near my pubic mound, and I can see it when I stand up or I can see it in the mirror from behind when I bend over. I am self conscious about this because I don’t like the way it looks/hangs, and it makes it hard to be present and immersed when I am having sex or see myself as attractive if I take a picture for my boyfriend. The goal for this area is to have less hang so I can feel more relaxed during sex and any time I bend over. I also don’t particularly enjoy the thigh holes in my jeans, or that I have trouble with any sort of thigh high sock rolling.

Pubic mound: I’m not even gonna bullshit here: I just want a normal looking vulva. That’s it. I want it to be easier to access my clit, I don’t want such a prominent camel toe when I wear pants, I’d like it to be easier for my boyfriend to go down on me. I have a nice inner vulva and I want the exterior to match. I also find it hard to shave the areas between my mound and my thigh, as holding it open is not easy. That groin area is also prone to skin yeast infections and pimples and blackheads, and while I admit that they are fun to pop, it would be nice if I did not have to deal with it.

My stomach: My stomach hangs. Underneath of it is prone to those same pimples and skin yeast infections (canesten is really helpful for tinea cruris, by the way. Yeast infections are yeast infections.) and while I get some sick pops for r/popping, it isn’t attractive. My stomach is hairy and while that isn’t really totally weight related, it also isn’t cute. My belly button is often very hidden, and it would be nice to get down to a size that I could get it pierced like my mom has. The rolls of my stomach get pimples and the red marks from sitting all day are not cute and can get painful. I have the muffin top when I wear jeans, and while the look of my stomach in jeans is less than sexy, it actually doesn’t bother me all that much.I have trouble keeping up panties that are both too tight or too loose, and tights are always rolling down. If it doesn’t hit just above my waist while still being slightly tight, it isn’t even worth trying to wear at all. All my jeans and leggings are high-waisted, and a lot of them roll when I sit or bend over. As a nanny, that is a really big inconvenience, and I would like to be able to exist for an hour without having to pull up my goddamn pants/leggings/underwear/tights. God forbid I put on a garter belt. Clothes that are flattering are hard for find for obese women. I just want to wear pretty clothes and feel like a person. When I sit with my knees up, my stomach is Very Present, and I can feel it against my thighs and trying to press through the gap in the middle. It would be nice to not feel that way, and I hope that I can achieve a stomach that does not hang.

Rolls under breasts: These are real sons of bitches. Hot, hairy, red, pimply. The heat rash is real. About half to 3/4 the size of my actual breasts. They make finding a comfortable bra difficult, and I would be really happy if they got even half the size they are now.

Breasts: I don’t necessarily have a weight issue with my tibblies, but they are underdeveloped underneath and I don’t really like the shape of them so much. I am on the waiting list to see a plastic surgeon about my options. There are certain things about my chest that I don’t like that are the fault of obesity however, like the dark marks on my chest because of resistance to insulin, but I will get more into that in a bit. I also don’t love boobne, but hey, acne, amirite ladies?

My chin/neck situation: My ‘waddle’, as I so hatefully refer to it, is my least favourite part of my body. This makes me so upset. I think this is the only part of my body that I truly genuinely hate. If I could duct tape it back so I could look normal, I would. I often look at plus size and fat and obese women and think why do they have chins and necks that are ‘normal’ but not me? (spoilers: the answer is morbid obesity.) I would like to be able to wear a choker comfortably and without it being hidden by my neck. It is very hard to pop waddle pimples. I do have the insulin marks on my neck, and a dowager’s hump, which makes me feel weird if I look at it too long. I don’t like when it sticks out of my clothing, and it feels odd to look at it with a necklace on, or a choker or collar or anything like that.

My back rolls: You hate to see it, and it makes finding a bra in my size a pain. It is hard to hide them, and anything that is fitted to the boobs and then flares can exaggerate the look of them. I don’t look at them too often so it doesn’t always bother me, but they can be a pain with certain clothes. It also makes some clothes tight and restricting in a way they normally wouldn’t, like dresses or shirts that zip. Highly unpleasant, and I would like to have smoother back for cosmetic reasons.

The back of my head: I shave the underneath of my head. I’ve had my entire head shaven before, I’ve had just the sides shaven. It would be nice to get to a place where there wasn’t a roll at the back of my head. It would also be nice if my brother hadn’t swiped a card through it, but only one of those things is achievable.

My arms: I have pretty strong arms, my job requires lifting and I’ve never shied away from taking all the groceries in one trip. My arms are large but not huge. I would be happy with a little reduction in the ‘wing’ area and I would like to see my upper arms a little more streamlined when fully extended. I genuinely do have big bones, but it would be nice to be able to wear my bracelets more comfortably.

My hands: For the longest time I have been upset about the idea of ‘fat people hands’. I don’t have huge fingers, but it would be nice to fit rings on a little easier. I have large hands, because I am a tall woman, but not really fat or chubby hands like one might think of when thinking of fat people hands. My knuckles are fairly well defined, though they have dimples when my hands are flat, and have had since I was little. I think they are cute to be honest. I do not have discolouration on my fingers or knuckles.

My face: I don’t have a ton of fat on my cheeks actually. I do have a round face, but I have dimple-like indentations under my cheekbones that clearly define them. It would be nice to be a slightly slimmer face and defined jawline - any attempt at a contour is just awful. I would like to have a less prominent chin and cheeks.

So let’s talk for a bit about long term goals. I am trying to set goals for myself in chunks. I know that aiming to lose 100 pounds the first go around is highly unlikely to get me any sort of success and I know that breaking it up into smaller bits is less overwhelming and more motivating. I am seriously trying to be careful about rewarding myself with any kind of food.

Realistically, I would like to see myself get into the ‘normal’ BMI range by this time next year. I also know that to do that, I would need to lose around 170 pounds. With OMAD, you can expect to lose between half a pound and one pound a day. I do not see myself losing 170 pounds in 170 days. I do not think it is healthy to lose that much in under 6 months, and I don’t think my skin would appreciate it either, nor do I think OMAD is sustainable for that long. The idea is to try and hold out with OMAD for about 3 and a half months, and in that time, with upkeep, exercise and discipline, I could lose around 100 pounds, but I think the responsible thing would be to hope for closer to 75 pounds.

I would like to outline my goals here:

Current Goal: 300 pounds - 33 pounds lost - 41.8 BMI

Second Goal: 270 pounds - 63 pounds lost - 37.7 BMI

Third Goal: 240 - 93 pounds lost - 33.5 BMI

Fourth Goal: 210 - 123 pounds lost - 29.3 BMI

Fifth Goal: 180 - 153 pounds lost - 25.1 BMI

Final Goal: 160 - 173 pounds lost - 22.3 BMI

Knowing how much one can lose in x amount of time with OMAD, and assuming I kept with it for a year, it could take anywhere from 173 days to 346 days to reach my final goal. I know that I won’t lose the same amount every day, and I know that it will be hard to keep it off once I reach my goal.

I also know that I will need to take vitamins and supplements to make sure I don’t lose anything during this time.

I am trying not to set deadlines for when I would like to reach my goals, though ideally I would be losing about 20 pounds a month. There are some important dates that I am hoping to have lost a certain amount for, however, and based on how much I might expect to lose and some basic math, I have deemed it pretty feasible to do.

I return to work around July 6th. It is currently May 30th. In 37 days I am hoping to have reached my first goal of 33 pounds lost. I lost 4 pounds in 3 days, and I hope to keep up that pace.

The other date that I am hoping to have lost weight for is my birthday, which is August 31st. In 93 days I am hoping to have met my second goal of 63 pounds lost. I am turning 19 and very excited to celebrate.

For a little in-depth at what I am doing as far as my meal, I am eating a normal supper for me, a snack and a dessert. I am not counting calories. I’ll give some examples of what I have eaten at this time.

Day 1: Gnocchi bake with chicken, gummies, a chocolate bar, a little bit of bread and an iced tea. I made the bake with a package of sundried tomato gnocchi, one chicken breast, an olivieri package of rose sauce, like 2-3 tablespoons of herb and garlic cream cheese and onion. It was so good.

Day 2: I had the 4 bites of leftovers and some cheese bread, an iced tea, chicken strips, fries, a bite of fish, and some coleslaw. This day I felt sort of weak in the evening and so I had a fried egg sandwich with a cheese slice, mustard and mayo.

Day 3: I GUZZLED water all day long, like 4-5 bottles of water. I had crackers, the middle of a cinnamon bun, chicken strips and fries again, coleslaw and then some cake (I was celebrating a family birthday). My pee has never been so clear, let me just tell you.

One of the good things about this diet is being able to have whatever I would like as my meal for the day. I am an excellent cook (friend, family, teacher, boyfriend’s family and boyfriend approved, being fat has helped me master the kitchen) and I love doing it, so I can really get creative with my meal.

I come from a diet family, and so I am definitely supported on this diet, and my boyfriend is doing it with me, because misery loves company. Overall, I do feel hungry, but I feel satisfied with what I am doing and I have a lot more will power than I thought I did before, so I am proud of myself in that regard.

During my fasts, I try to only consume water and black coffee, which I take iced so it doesn’t nerf me with the flavour. Chewing gum is also quite helpful. My eating period is between 7p-8p, or 7p-8:30p, but that may change overtime as my sleep and activity schedule changes in the coming months.

I do not make promises on diets as a rule, but because of the nature of this diet I have made myself a promise that I will listen to my body. If I need a meal, I will eat one. If what is best for me is splitting my eating hour into two 30 minute eating periods a day for energy, especially while I work, then that is what I will do.

Like I said, the goal is to check in every day with what I ate, my general feelings and if I am changing anything, and then I will try to do a weigh in weekly, and every couple of weeks update any changes I notice in the areas I mentioned earlier that bother me as a fat person.

‘Til next time,

#weight loss #heweightlossjourney #diet #one meal a day #morbid obesity #may 30th 2020

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takemedancingmaine · 4 years

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Family Ties

I wasn't sure what I was doing here.

All I really knew was that I was only here for the day. I kept telling myself that no matter how bad it got, whichever way this went, I would be gone by 7 pm.

It was the result of a dumb impulse decision that I had made after self-defense class on Thursday. I had bought the tickets without properly thinking through just what I was going to say, or admitting to myself any consequences that could come up as a result.

When I woke up Friday in a post adrenaline haze I had been panicked. What had I been thinking? I couldn't tell my parents. There was no way. This was dumb. It was a dumb decision.

Yet for some reason, I brought myself to the airport this morning, went through security behind some of the most impatient tourists I had ever seen, and had gotten on a plane and flown to St. Louis. Truth be told, I wasn't sure if I was actually living this or if I was just having an incredibly vivid dream.

Either way, dream or real, I was now in a rental car on my way to my sister’s apartment near SLU’s campus.

When I said I didn't think this whole process through, I meant it. Neither Mehar nor my parents knew I was coming home. I didn't even know if they'd be around. But after telling my friends what happened I was inspired to tell everyone in order to really start healing, and that included my parents, my little sister. And I wanted to do it as soon as possible.

Hence my driving across St. Louis in the middle of the morning on a wintry Saturday in February to see my sister before I even knew if she was home. I thought about calling her, but whenever I picked up my phone to call her or even text her, I felt sick to my stomach. How do you bring something like that up over the phone? That was why I had decided to fly down in the first place.

My stomach was in knots. Telling my friends, telling Niall, had been different. This felt weightier, this felt like it was going to be so much more painful like it was going to be so much more impactful on my recovery, but that such an impact could go either way.

I sat in my rental car for a few minutes after pulling into the apartment complex my sister lived in. I was struggling to compose myself, and I was focusing on my breathing when my phone buzzed in the cup holder, scaring me into action. I took a breath and picked up the phone.

Cleo: You’ve got this. I love you.

And right when I was reading that, my phone buzzed again in my hand, two new messages coming through in quick succession in our friend group chat. It was the same group chat. I had assured my friends that it would only be more awkward if they were to create two new, separate chats now that Niall and I had split.

Louis: we’re all here rooting for you! Liam: [photo attached]

Liam had sent a photo of the whole group huddled around a table at a coffee shop: Harry and Ana, Louis, Liam, and Cleo. Harry in his Packers gear, no doubt to annoy Liam even though their season was over. Cleo wearing the scarf I'd gotten her that first winter we were friends. Louis had on the same jean jacket he always wore. It was negative temperatures with the wind chill, and he was still wearing that over a sweater instead of wearing a real coat. They all looked so normal to me that it filled me with warmth. I could almost pretend I was there with them.

They were all smiling, Harry and Cleo were giving me thumbs up, and Ana was toasting me with her tea. It looked like someone was holding the phone, that it wasn’t a selfie. I had one guess as to who was holding it.

I had my friends on my side, and no matter what happened with my family today, that family, my friend-family, would always be there for me. I took a deep breath and got out of the car, and walked up to my sister’s door where I knocked and waited.

“Ruby?” It was Ashley, one of my sister’s roommates.

“Is Mehar here?” I asked.

“Yeah, let me go get her,” Ashley said. “You can come in.” I followed her and waited just inside the door. Mehar’s apartment was cozy and reminded me a bit of Cleo’s with twinkle lights and candles everywhere and endless blankets in a bin next to the sofa.

“What the fork are you doing here?” My sister said as she came around the corner and stopped short when she saw me.

“I can't just pop by and surprise my little sister?”

“Not if you live five hours away you can't.” She looked at me skeptically.

“I just really needed to see you,” I let the words fall out in a whoosh as the truth pulled them from me. “I really needed my sister. So I thought I'd just... swing by. I’m only in town until my flight at seven.”

“What's wrong?” She took a step toward me. My sister looked like me, she was more slender, but we had the same features, hers were angular where mine were rounded, but they were the same nonetheless. We had the same nervous ticks, even though our stressors were different. We had the same ability to look at each other and be able to understand when it was no longer a joke or a jest, but when it was serious.

Mehar took one look at me and knew I wasn't here for anything light.

“Come here,” she said before stepping close and pulling me into her. I held my sister for a while. I held her, breathed in her familiar scent, and felt my whole body relax at her proximity. Mehar and I were always teasing each other, but when it came down to it, I'd do anything for her, and I knew she'd do the same for me.

Eventually, we pulled back from each other and she gestured for me to sit down at her breakfast bar.

“You wait here. I'll be right back.” I nodded and watched her disappear around the corner and into her room.

In the minute and a half it took her to return, I had counted the number of vowels on the grocery list on the fridge five times. There were thirty-two.

“I found this at mom and dad’s,” Mehar was saying as she strolled back into the room. It was a card. I could see that much. Mehar stood on the other side of the breakfast bar from me and gestured for me to open it as someone joined us in the kitchen.

He was tall, probably just over six feet, and he had stunning green eyes and short, wavy blonde hair. His athletic build was noticeable even under the SLU tennis T-shirt he was wearing. What I noticed first though, was the way he looked at my sister as he stepped up beside her and reached for a coffee mug.

“Andy, this is my sister Ruby,” Mehar began. “Ruby, this is Andy.”

I knew him from her descriptions of him, but what I didn't know was how he felt. That look I'd witnessed just now had me certain he wasn't just using my sister, that whatever she was experiencing for the first time, it wasn't one-sided. I looked between him and my sister and then smiled.

“Nice to finally meet you, Andy,” I said as I watched him blush at my words. He glanced down at his feet and then looked back up at me.

“You as well, Ruby,” he said. “I've heard so much about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” I laughed.

“Only good things,” Andy said back. “You're what she talks about most of the time.”

“I wouldn't say most,” Mehar half-heartedly defended herself. “A lot, but probably not most.”

“Oh, probably not,” Andy teased her, sliding his arm around her waist.

Mehar made a face and rolled her eyes at him. “Ruby, do you want breakfast?”

I looked at my watch. “Meh, it's 10:42.”

“Brunch then,” she amended with a shrug.

“I can do brunch.” I nodded, holding back my laugh.

“How do you take your eggs, Ruby?” Andy asked as he headed to the fridge. “I’ve been told I make a pretty good omelet.”

“I could go for an omelet.” I nodded and as he got to work with the eggs and Mehar got started on making French Press coffee after turning on some John Mayer over her speaker, I remembered the card in my hands. Looking down at it I realized that it was Mehar’s handwriting on the envelope. It wasn't sealed either, so I slid the card out.

The front was just sunflowers, no message, so I opened it and started reading. It was a graduation card from when I'd graduated high school. It was from Mehar to me, but I was fairly certain I had never seen it before.

I started scanning the text of the card and immediately was fighting back tears. She wrote about how proud of me she was, how excited for my future endeavors she was, and how she knew I was strong and brave and destined for good things.

I let a tear slip down my cheek before quickly wiping it away and re-reading the card before closing it and sliding it back into its envelope. When I looked up my younger sister was watching me, a freshly pressed mug of coffee in her hands, held almost to her lips as she inhaled the aroma.

“I found it in a book I had been reading at the time. I must've used it as a bookmark or something. I hadn't seen it since right before your graduation, but I felt so guilty having it and not giving it to you…. I was going to mail it, but you being here to read it works too.”

I just looked at her, at the card, and then her again, hoping that my look could convey just how I felt.

My little sister gave me a watery smile and strode around her counter and hugged me tightly.

“I love you, Ruby,” she told me.

“I love you too, Mehar,” I said back.

“So what really made you come here?” She asked now. Andy had just left to go to practice and we were on her couch together re-watching an old show we both knew well.

Andy hadn’t been kidding, he made so much food for us and everything was delicious. I was stuffed and happily so. He was also very kind. He and Mehar seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces: the two of them had inside jokes and were instinctive toward one another. At one point, he looked up at her and without a word refilled her coffee and added the proper amount of cream and sugar for her.

Seeing my sister in an easy routine with someone was like watching a little green alien stroll out of a spaceship and act as if everything was normal: something felt out of place, but maybe that was because it simply hadn’t happened before. Mehar said, for years, that she loved her lifestyle, and I know she still does like that lifestyle, but this feels different. Andy has been around for a bit, knows things about her that she’s not let other boys know, she didn’t seem hesitant to introduce us either, and I’d never before met someone Mehar had been with, in any capacity.

I know I kind of forced her hand by just showing up out of the blue, but she seemed completely at ease with the situation. My sister blew me away with her adaptability. Just a few days ago she was telling me that she actually liked a boy and that she wanted to change her whole life plan, but as was typical to my sister, she took the whole experience in stride.

I looked down at the mug of tea in my hands and then looked up at her.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Well, there’s a couple of reasons,” I said softly. When I had told my friends, my voice and resolve had been strong. Right now with my sister, I felt weak. I had spent all of my life protecting, or trying to protect, Mehar from the bad things in this world and telling her this meant exposing her to bad things as well as exposing her to my own personal darkness. It felt counterintuitive.

“Okay,” she nodded, compelling me softly to continue.

“I’m going to stop by mom and dad’s after this, because one of the things might just be easier to say to all of you at the same time,” I tell her. “I don’t know if after the week I’ve had I can relive it twice.”

“Ruby, you’re starting to scare me.” She leaned forward, toward me and put her hand on mine for a moment.

“Niall and I…” I trailed off. Even that phrase hurt to say. “We’re,” I started again. “I broke up with him.”

“You what?” Her voice that had been soft before was a little harsh when she asked that. I looked up at her and saw her eyes harden, too.

“I broke up with him,” I repeated it, feeling the sting of it, again and again, a thousand little cuts on my skin every time the reality struck me.

“He’s… Ruby, Niall is the best guy you’ve ever dated and you broke up with him?” She was incredulous, and just as I expected her questions started coming fast. “Why? Did he hurt you, like was he abusive? Did he cheat on you? What about Louis, are they still friends? How could you just… break up with him? He was in love with you.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed the lump that rose in my throat when she said that. “I know he was. I loved him, still love him.” I paused and took a breath, but nothing was making the discomfort in my chest recede. “He didn’t hurt me, in any way. He didn’t cheat on me. Louis is trying to figure it all out right now, but he’s still friends with both of us,” I answered some of her questions.

“Then how could you?” I flinched. “Do you even know how much he loved you, Ruby?” My sister was hard, I’d known that always. We used to have fights when we were younger, too. This though, this felt different. This wasn’t a superficial fight over stealing each other’s clothes or makeup. This was something deeper and more meaningful.

“That’s kind of why I had to do it,” I whispered.

“So were you just stringing him along?”

“No!” I shook my head rapidly. “No, of course, I wasn’t. I,” I opened my mouth and nothing came out, so I closed it and thought for another moment. “I’m just trying to sort myself out first. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on with me so that I don’t hurt him along the way.”

“You’re so selfish,” she said now and I recoiled like I’d been physically slapped across the face. My sister’s dark eyes were narrowed as they looked me over and I couldn’t help but feel the chill in the room.

“Probably.”

“So we’re going to Mom and Dad’s, now? And then you’re leaving at seven?” She asked, turning the TV off and grabbing my and her mugs, practically ripping mine out of my hands, before heading to the kitchen where she discarded them in the sink.

“I guess so.” I nodded.

“We should probably drive there separately,” she called from her room. “I mean, logistically their house is closer to the airport, so if you have to return your rental car I can still drive home.”

“Okay.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and wiped away the tear that escaped.

“Alright, see you there.” She came out of her room and swiped her heavy jacked off the peg by her front door, and then handed me mine before she opened the door and gestured to me to head out.

Numb, and not just from Mehar’s response but also from the fact that I was about to tell my parents what happened to me, I made my way over to my rental car and climbed inside, feeling like I’d just been in battle: all of me was tired and sore. I let out a sigh and watched as Mehar peeled off in her car and then made to follow her.

Now that I was standing in my parent’s foyer the reality of what I was doing came crashing down. I could hear them fussing in the other room over Mehar. My mom had been upset about my coming home, as I expected she would be. She was upset she didn't know ahead of time, upset I wasted money on just being here for a day, upset that I looked so muscley because then I would never find a man.

It wasn’t like I didn’t expect any of that.

“Ruby,” my father called my name as he stepped into the room. My parents never really approved of how I chose to live my life, but the most vocal about that was my mother. My father was upset I wasn’t closer to home, upset that I wasn’t making as much money as I could potentially be with my degree, but my father was softer than my mother.

“Hmm?” I hummed and looked over at him. He was greying around his temples, his reading glasses were up on top of his head, and he had one of the kindest faces. I remembered all the music we would listen to together, thinking about all that he taught me while Mehar and I were little, thinking about how this news would affect him.

“Your mother made tea,” he said.

“Okay.”

We slipped into the kitchen. Mom and Mehar were sitting at the island, sipping tea, and Dad joined them. I stood alone on the other side while I filled my teacup and stayed there, across from them.

I didn’t have Cleo there with me this time to be my rock. I had to be my own rock. I had to somehow get through this without her.

I wasn’t sure how to tell the story again, so I just sort of, started talking. I started with what happened and ended with how I was going to self-defense classes and getting into a healthier mindset. I left Niall out of it all, but I knew Mehar could tell I was leaving him out.

Once I was done talking, I settled in and waited for their reactions.

My mom, predictably, had a bit of a meltdown. She lectured me on how I should have told her sooner, how big cities aren’t safe, how she told me that over and over again and that she knew something bad like this was going to happen.

I stayed silent throughout it all, accepting it as her way of coping. She thought she was right, and I wasn’t going to change her mind. I knew better. I knew I just had to let it play out and that she would calm down to her usual level of distaste toward Chicago eventually.

My father was angry. Not toward me. Okay, a little of it was toward me. He argued that he could have done something, and was angry that nothing had been found in regard to the case they opened to find whoever did this to me. My father was headstrong. You have to be when you move across the world and have to assimilate and make a life for yourself. But I’d never seen him angry before. He stormed out of the room and my mother followed suit, leaving me with just Mehar.

“And I was such an asshole to you this morning,” Mehar breathed out. She looked shaken, and I felt a pang in my heart.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I understand why.” Truly I did. I wasn’t upset with her for being rude and upset with me. I understood it. I absolutely knew what I had told her was a big deal, and much like Louis, she had reflexively turned cold at my news.

“I’m your sister.” She shook her head. “I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Mehar,” I reached over to her. “It’s okay. I promise.”

“But what I don’t understand is why you kept this from me?” She sounded hurt. “I’m your sister, Ruby. I… I would’ve understood. I could’ve been there for you. I could have helped you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was scared,” I told her. “I was afraid that if I told you then the whole thing would control me and take over my life. I didn’t see that keeping it a secret was still enabling it to take over and control me.”

“Maybe I could have helped you realize that sooner,” she said.

“You? Probably.” I nodded. “You’re pretty strong-willed and incredibly smart. Especially now that you’re shifting to focus on research psychology.”

“I just wish I could have helped you. I wish I had been there for you.” She bit her lip. “I feel a little betrayed that you didn’t let me in on something as big as this. We tell each other everything, Ruby.”

“I made a mistake,” I admitted. “I don’t know why hiding it was my first instinct. I don’t know why telling everyone now feels so counterintuitive. I’m kind of flying blind here, Me.” I bit my lip and shrugged. “It’s not like you’re taught how to go through this kind of thing in school.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s not like you were prepared. But haven’t I been a good enough sister to you? Did I do something to make you think you couldn’t trust me?”

“No. You’re literally the best sister, Mehar. I love how open we are with each other. I love how much we give to each other and help each other. I don’t- I don’t know why. I know I can trust you. It wasn’t about trust. It was fear. I’m your big sister, Mehar. I’m supposed to protect you. How could I protect you when I’m damaged?”

“You think you’re damaged?” Mehar asks. “You think you can’t still try and protect me? I’m strong because of you, Ruby. How else do you think I came to terms with changing my future? I thought about what you would do, how fearless you are. I can’t- I don’t know how you don’t realize that I am who I am because of you. I would never judge you. I wouldn’t have thought less of you. And yes, I’m always going to appreciate you trying to protect me, but sometimes, I’d like to return the favor. I’d like to protect you. I’d like the opportunity to be able to help you and I never get that chance.”

I was at an actual at a loss for words.

“I’m not saying there’s going to be a next time of these proportions,” Mehar continued. “But next time anything happens, anything, Ruby, you have me. You have me to talk to. You will always have me to talk to.”

Our father came back into the room and without saying anything wrapped me up in a tight hug.

“Ruby,” my father sighed. “I’m really glad that you’re okay. I’m glad that you’re strong and that you’re going to those classes.”

He pulled back after another long moment of holding me, and kept me close, but looked into my face. “You’re happy, right? You’re still happy?”

“I am,” I told him truthfully. “I may have hurt the people close to me by not telling them what happened earlier, but I’m working on that, and I’m happy with my job and my friends.”

“That’s the important thing,” he said before pulling me into another tight hug. Physical affection was weird for my family, at least coming from my parents and aimed at Mehar and I. This though, this was somehow something my father knew I needed, and I accepted his hug gratefully.

“Mom’s never going to let me get on that plane tonight, is she?” I asked.

“I will talk to her,” he assured me. “She won’t be happy about it, but deep down she knows the city, your friends there, make you happy. She won’t like it, but she’ll let you go.”

“Thank you, daddy,” I sighed. I tightened my grip on him and then let go.

“Of course, Ruby.” He smiled and gave me a pat on the arm. “I’m going to go talk to your mother, then maybe we can get some takeout before you have to be on your flight,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said back as he stepped out of the room again and Mehar gave me a crazy look as she looked between me and where he’d just left the room.

“Who was that? That certainly wasn’t our dad,” she scoffed. “There’s no way. He must’ve been abducted by aliens or something.”

I barked out a laugh. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“That’s why you broke up with Niall then, isn’t it?” She asked, cautious to keep her voice down, wary of our parents possibly listening in.

I nodded.

“You kind of told me the events in reverse order,” she said. “I might not have been so mad at you if you’d explained why before you told me you broke up with him.”

“Well.” I shrugged, unable to explain myself. I’d done so much explaining this week.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m still really mad at you. You didn’t tell me about a huge life event and you also failed to factor in logic when breaking up with the world’s most perfect man for you.”

“If Niall and I are meant to me, then maybe it’ll happen when I’m healthy enough for it,” I explained. “And if not,” I stopped when my voice broke. “If not, then he taught me so much about myself and what I deserve and what a healthy relationship looks like.”

“I’ve met him,” she said with a smirk. “I’m sure he’d drop his entire life if it meant he could have you back.”

I laughed.

“I’m serious,” Mehar came over and wrapped an arm around me. “He’d be a fool not to. He’s also absolutely smitten with you, Ruby. I doubt even something like this would change his mind.”

“Healthy people move on from things, Mehar. I’m preparing myself for him to have moved on from me.”

“Healthy people do move on, but love is a funny thing, Ruby. I wouldn’t sell yourself short.”

“Alright crazy lady.” I rolled my eyes at her and laid my head on her shoulder. “Let’s talk about you and Andy some more.”

“You like him?” She asked.

“I think he’s great,” I told her truthfully. “Neither of you is trying to change the other, but somehow you fit together so well anyway. You seem to be in a really good place.”

“I am,” she said. “I think I’ll have to let mom and dad calm down from this a little before I tell them I’m moving away, going to grad school. I looked into graduate programs, by the way. Michigan State apparently has a really great program.”

She was baiting me. I knew it. I still took it.

“You can’t go to my school’s rival!” I gasped.

“It would only be for their graduate program,” she defended herself.

“Still, Mehar,” I groaned. “They’re actually the worst.”

“Their psychology program isn’t.” She poked me in the side.

“Are there any other schools?” I asked, desperate.

“Northwestern doesn’t have a masters, but they have a PhD track,” she shrugged. “Their undergraduate program is amazing though. Same with U Chicgao. Their master’s program has a pretty good reputation too, but if I wanted the best it looks like I’d be moving to North Carolina.”

“This sounds like it could be bad or really bad,” I complained.

“Carolina and Duke have the number one and two masters programs in the country. I realize that means it would be harder to get accepted, but I’ve started working with my professors on their research and I’m doing really well in all of my classes. I just have to keep working.”

“I have so much faith in you,” I wrapped an arm around her and sighed. “I’m excited for whatever comes next for you.”

“You too,” she told me. “We’ve got the world ahead of us, Ruby.”

“We really do,” I agreed.

In the end, our mother had come down and had dinner with us before I had to leave. She also told me she was glad I was okay but kept reminding me and dropping not so subtle hints that the city I chose to live in was dangerous. It was nothing I couldn’t handle.

Sitting on the plane on the runway I kept thinking about something Mehar had said. She had told me she thinks she wasted her potential staying close to home for undergrad instead of going to a harder more competitive school where she could’ve been pushed more, be better prepared for graduate school.

I argued that because of her decisions, she found friends, experimented with different walks of life to choose from so she was certain that she knew what she wanted, and she found Andy, who–if nothing else–was introducing her to a lifestyle she had never tried before. Something I assure her she would be able to keep up with if she moved to North Carolina or, hopefully not, Michigan.

I was thinking about it because we all end up on the right path somehow or another. Whether it's straightforward because we’re certain we know what we want, or whether the wrong paths teach us lessons that we didn’t even know we needed to learn, I don’t know.

What I did know was that my sister, who repeatedly told me she was still very much mad at me, would be okay. She kept trying to tell me the same thing, too. I knew she was right, but I was still working through the consequences of my decisions and that was going to take some time and was a lot less straightforward than I’d hoped it would be.

#I'm just going to post this #I'm not waiting for Sunday #I don't know why #But I also know there's a certain someone out there #who would kill for me to post this today #AAAANY way #this means there's only THREE CHAPTERS and an epilogue left #I'M SO CLOSE TO THE END #I'm feeling bittersweet #fic: only ticket home #fic: OTH21 #fic: OTH #niall horan fanfic #1dff

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