#In my line of work- I am frequently confronted with some of the most extreme ideas

[canichangemyblogname]

Went to vote yesterday, and I was about two booths away from a father and his very young daughter. She couldn't have been older than five, so she was getting a little squirrelly as she waited for her dad to vote. At one point, she was kinda poking around at things, namely, her dad's shoelaces. I then hear him say, very gently and very quietly, "Hold on. I'm almost done, sweetie. Gotta make sure I protect your books."

I smiled.

#In my line of work- I am frequently confronted with some of the most extreme ideas #(Anyone who was following me during the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and COVID-19 travel restrictions might remember my rants) #So. It was nice to hear a genuine person with genuine concern for his child's future

[mymelancholiesblues]

No, Mia isn’t  "low-tier" compared to Ada (morally speaking, or w/e) – a measured answer?/essay

So, a couple of Ada haters tried to put up a false symmetry between both of these characters there on twitter, and it inspired me to put my own thoughts down in a more articulate essay as to why that's (Ada's somehow being morally worse than Mia) not sustained by canon in Resident Evil.

standing there, killing time

can't commit to anything but a crime

all the good girls go to hell

'cause even God herself has enemies

and once the water starts to rise

and heaven's out of sight

she'll want the Devil on her team. ⁕

First things first: let us debunk the false symmetry that they tried to establish between these two characters with extremely distinct archetypes – and worse, the following replies to this false symmetry and its poor arguments trying to validate it, pointing out that, in fact, no, character B (that would be Ada, btw) – which is so evidently and ridiculously different from character A (and that would be Mia) – is, in fact, WAY WORSE than character A, and then proceeding to assert some unsupported propositions about misogyny in Resident Evil (which, tbh, definitely IS a recurring problem in the franchise, but that in this case particularly, little or does not apply AT ALL) and how Ada contributes to "the perpetration of a biological cold war".

Starting with what differentiates Mia from Ada grotesquely: we know NOTHING of Ada's true alliances in RE's world. Mia, however, canonically worked for a group that participated in the importation and exportation as well as the manufacturing, testing and marketing of biological weapons: "The Connections", a CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which, amongst other things, was also involved in money laundering, assassinations as well as weapons and drug trafficking. I don't care at all about Mia, so I don't intend to waste much of my time going on about her role in the plot, but people should've already realized by just that much how infinitely dishonest is to try to put these two characters as "similar" ones, or argue that Ada is somehow worse.

Another detail that shouldn't escape anyone's attention too, are the origins and nationalities of both – and yes, I intend to briefly bring up racism against eastern-Asian looking characters (a silent plague that takes form by each passing day in all fiction fandoms) and anti-China xenophobia, but for now, hold this tea there just before I drop it: Mia is canonically American, and previously a Texas-state resident; meanwhile, we have no confirmation of Ada's nationality except for her pretty evident Chinese ancestry. But, as I said, hold it there for a while.

i) espionage — the job

red so silent

wait a minute

or just a little while.

what are you looking for? ⁕

At all times that Ada's "job" was brought up in this franchise, in ALL of her cameos, she has NEVER been called a mercenary in the original Japanese. She's always referred to as a SPY. Even in RE2R, the most recent title in which she's featured in, the original text of the game makes a point of labelling her as a SPY (and not a mercenary) in the dialogue that transpires between Annette and Leon.

It's the North-American translation and correspondent localization that now and then falls for the equivocal use of this other term. This distinction is important since espionage NECESSARILY implies operating in an organized service for, perhaps a country, or a political cause, or a class/group, or a corporation, or whatever. While a mercenary is someone who's acting per their self financial interests, indiscriminately selling their specialized "labour" and skills to anyone who'll offer more.

Ada's not a mercenary, she's a spy. But Mia, in addition to being hired to a canonically criminal company, was also the handler personally assigned to Eveline. I don't care how exactly Mia got in that predicament but the fact is: Mia was canonically employed by a company that profited over illicit activities and directly watched as a family was destroyed and toyed with by this new killing machine (Eve). Yet, we can't state for sure that we know to whom or to what Ada is truly affiliated with.

ii) sources — check them

who's a heretic now?

am I making sense?

how can you make it stick?

and I'm on a trial

waiting 'til the beat comes out. ⁕

This fandom should put a little more thought into which translation and localization of the game texts, dialogues and files they are using to support their arguments. I know that in some cases the United States people have a bit of an inclination to think of themselves as the owners of the planet and deem English as the only language that matters in this world, but let's not forget that RE is a Japanese franchise (wow, insane, right?!). Therefore, the most valid script, with the greatest amount of details, and highest credibility, is the Japanese original. Throughout these years, there have been several errors in translation and localization of the Japanese original to North-American English. And, believe me, curiously enough, plenty of those concern Ada, since she's often mentioned or referred to in a very vague way – without the use of pronouns or adjectives or adverbs that could help in indicating gender. This ended up causing those details and mentions to her to get overlooked, even though in the Japanese text it was a clear reference to her character (per observation of context).

iii) the good guys — one of

head in the dust

feet in the fire

labour on that midnight wire

listening for that angel choir

you got nowhere to run

careful son, you got dreamers plans

but it gets hard to stand. ⁕

Yes, as much as haters try to minimize it, it is SIGNIFICANT that Ada saved so many important characters and stood for unquestionably heroic actions in so many moments - like stopping everything she was doing so she could help completely random Chinese civilians with the helicopter she managed to pilot in that chaos in China (yeah, I know you haters love to forget about this, but it happened, it's there in canon, and no, it wasn't her direct OR indirect responsibility what was going on in China: REPLAY RE6 and for the love of GOD, never again argue that what she did was somehow "the equivalent of evacuating a city after selling a WMD to destroy that same city". It's a case of pure intellectual dishonesty to say such a thing. It's canon that Carla was the one who caused what happens in China, PLEASE, PLAY RE6).

Furthermore, Ada shows compassion on some occasions even for characters who are directly putting her in harms ways, like Annette (in RE2 OG, right after - in order to defend herself - she slaps Annette leading her to lose balance and collapse over the sewers fences, Ada makes an effort in trying to pull Annette back and prevent her from falling) and Carla.

Replay RE4 and pay attention to it, pay attention to her solo campaign: getting involved with Leon's journey in Spain hasn't brought any real benefit to her mission or herself: Ada deviates from her main path several times due to worrying about him and trying to help him and almost ends up dead in several of these occasions over her insistence in doing so: by saving him from Bitores Mendez, by helping him and Ashley against Sadler, by confronting Krauser and stopping him.

It's so lazy to only read/listen to a file in which she says in English that "Leon might be useful to her plans" (this is way more nuanced in the Japanese original of Ada's Report), and ignore everything that was SHOWN in the game: every effort she made to ensure that Leon could rescue Ashley, remove the parasite from his and her bodies, and escape from that hell-island.

The jet-ski she left for their escape was ALREADY there before she was captured by Sadler (or you think she arranged it while she was caught?). Leon having to intervene and save her from Sadler WASN'T her plan. It WASN'T her plan to take the sample from Leon's hands. She wanted to help him get out of there with Ashley and she guaranteed he could do so, she wanted to get the sample by herself and escape too while sending that hell to kingdom's come. But, because she chose to help Leon rescue Ashley right in front of Sadler, she ends up captured.

On her end, Mia never did anything minimally compared to that, and all of her "selflessness" or self-sacrificing actions involved a much, MUCH smaller scope than Ada's: wanting to help her husband and HERSELF is not at all comparable to saving a few dozens of unknown Chinese civilians. So no, they aren't "cut from the same cloth". They don't come from the same place, nor do they share the same intentions or goals, and their contributions to the RE storyline are quite different.

iv) unknown true purpose (shades of grey)

lining up in the background

waiting for the crowd shot to be seen

in the shadow of the big screen

everybody begs to be redeemed. ⁕

In databooks, Ada is recurrently described as "a Chinese spy with extraordinary physical abilities, vigorous health and composed mind and spirit, capable of coping with grim situations and handling even the most difficult requests without losing composure". If we are paying attention to the storytelling ingame, however, we know that this isn't always the case: Ada did let her mask of unswerving emotional and physical strength fall and showed a very fragile side under strenuous circumstances a couple of times already.

Also, in these databooks, they often point out that "she has her own 'true purpose' and has FREQUENTLY betrayed organizations and clients to achieve it". Huh, we can AGAIN, by this only, see how completely different she's from Mia, who personally watched an entire family being driven to insanity by Eveline's hand.

Furthermore, in these databooks, it's often said that "this true purpose is still obscure and whether she truly cared for anyone or simply used her charms to manipulate people that crossed paths with her isn't ever clear". If people are willing to be open-minded and exercise their text comprehension skills, though, they'll see that in multiple occasions of emotional confrontation it has been established time and time again that yes, Ada DOES care. She wasn't capable of shooting Leon and there has been a couple of other times that failing to choose a cool, sociopathic calculation and pragmatical demeanour over empathy and humanity towards others has put her in harms ways: nonetheless she still chose it.

v) positive impact

I'm gonna break the cycle

I'm gonna shake up the system

I'm gonna destroy my ego. ⁕

To this point, RE's plot systematically leads us to believe that Ada has been covertly acting behind the scenes of multiple biological incidents COLLECTING INFORMATION (the job of a spy, who would've thought! lmao), that is valuable to numerous organizations, companies, groups and different contexts, but at the same time of allegedly offering to handle this knowledge for the right price to the big players involved with bioterrorism and clandestine trading of bioweapons, she's also working to sabotage said players.

This is evident throughout the franchise: she intended to hurt Umbrella's business. She outwitted and deceived Wesker multiple times. She even undermined Simmons, someone who was in a position of power in the US government and actively using that position to lead bioterrorist ventures on the parallel side.

There's no concrete evidence or hint as to what she does with the information she collects, and for all purposes and effects, I can presume that she's gathering this knowledge to assist in the discovery of countermeasures and vaccination studies. I might as well argue that she is a Chinese spy who is working against European and North-American capitalism and the imperialism that creates such monsters like the biochemical and bioweapons industry and that her real objective is to dismantle the market for bioweapons and bioterror supported mainly by the USA (see: Simmons and The Family).

That is, as long as it is unclear what her true purpose is, I have the freedom to surmise whatever the heck I want and that all of what she's been doing was for the sake of the greater "good" - and I'll even have canon moments to support this reasoning as it's clear that she regularly sabotages her customers (customers that are unquestionably established as playing for the "evil" side, with perverse intentions) - throughout the franchise. She did this on RE2, RE4, RE6 and Damnation. It's there, transparent in canon, people just choose to ignore it.

She laughs in the face of whoever she's talking to by the end of Damnation, saying she doesn't intend to deliver the Plaga; she scoffs at Simmons; she betrays Wesker and kills Krauser. She had been sabotaging Wesker for so long, that he sent Krauser to be the main agent in the mission in Spain, and Ada was just a "side effect" that he didn't have in control and had to keep an eye on, so he ordered Krauser to keep tabs on her. It's not a mutually beneficial dynamic. Ada doesn't want Wesker to succeed, she despises him; this is clear in the games in which they interact. There are even files that indicate that she was trying to double-cross and get in the way of his plans for at least 2 years before Spain, and he was constantly catching up with her. See here and here.

On her end, Mia was employed by and consciously working for a criminal syndicate.

vi) a (secretly) helping hand

oh, I'm a master pretender

just felt more alone

the further I'd go

but I'll stick around

I'll be your master defender

yeah, I'll stick around. ⁕

Ada approached characters such as John Clemens and Luis Sera, and both had a canonical intention to, in addition to putting an end to their connections with the criminal companies and organizations they've been working for, also expose and denounce them for their crimes. It's in this context that Ada comes into contact with them. And why is that?

Check John's background: he had made up his mind about disclosing Umbrella's crimes to the public. Check Luis' background: Ada went to Spain to assist in his extradition since he feared for his own life if he resolved to turn his back on the cult of Los Illuminados, and also dreaded the consequences of the liberation of Las Plagas on an international scale.

Keep in mind that Ada handed over to Wesker a USELESS Plaga sample. Wesker only got the sample currently circulating in the underground market because he went after Krauser's body. We don't know what Ada did with the master Plaga sample she obtained. We only know from Ada's Report and the Plaga Recovery file that she didn't deliver it to Wesker, and he needed to go out for a plan B to get it.

Even the G-Virus sample that fell into the hands of the clandestine business, it's possible to argue that Ada's involvement in it was flimsy, since Simmons CANONICALLY made over a thousand laboratory tests in Sherry, and, as we know, he was a leading figure in bioterrorism and bioweapons trading with the aid of his position in the US government.

But, guess what, Ada clearly is a non-white character with obvious Chinese heritage and Mia is white, so of course, OF COURSE, someone can so nonchalantly affirm that Ada, this "vile bitch", is somehow WORSE than Mia. The same Mia who watched the Bakers being destroyed. Right.

Also: trying to validate one's point by claiming anything related to the misogyny present in RE franchise, while IN THE SAME BREATH AND TWEET reducing Ada's entire character arc to that of "a sociopathic bitch cured by the magic dick of her love interest" is supposed to be a joke, right? No, really. Joke.

conclusion and a word against misogyny

we are waiting on a telegram to

give us news of the fall

I am sorry to report

dear Paris is burning after all

we have taken to the streets

in open rejoice, revolting

we are dancing a black waltz

fair Paris is burning after all. ⁕

To any Ada fan that has been reading this so far: PLEASE, I ask to consider refraining to use the "oh yes, Ada did some bad shit, bUT" take to defend the character because that isn't sustained by canon in RE, lmao. She didn't do anything evil that had an indisputable bad impact on the plot and other characters arcs. For one, I myself do love some villains, but that isn't the case with Ada.

She did do some unconventional shit yes, since she's a morally GRAY character and an anti-heroine, but by the end of the day, each and every action of hers had a positive impact on the journey of other characters and main plot. Just pay attention to it.

Like idk man, Black Widow, Elektra Natchios, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat from Marvel, Catwoman from DC, Yennefer from The Witcher (some pop culture examples that come to mind).

Saying that this is an "extremely selfish prototypal bad bitch except when it comes to the magical redeeming dick of her love interest" it's a grotesque reduction of a complex female character, and, in its attempt to critique the misogyny present in RE's franchise an expression of misogyny in itself.

Remember: Ada has actions and impact on the franchise ASIDE and IN ADDITION to her romantic involvement with Leon.

#Resident Evil #Ada Wong #Leon x Ada #Ada x Leon #Aeon #Leon Kennedy #[mine] #[meta] #// #Aeon fandom

[autumnslance]

((Shadowbringers 5.3-5.4. I wanted to have this done by the 15th of January but didn’t quite manage it because these two idiots are wordy as heck, and I initially started in the wrong place and POV. I wrote roughly 8000 words total and only ended up using half of them. There are letters and pining and admitting things happening here.

Below the cut as usual for those who prefer Tumblr to Ao3, but the formatting may work better on that site.))

Aeryn stepped through the mirror and into the familiar space of the Ocular, taking a moment to reorient herself after the rush of journeying between worlds. Once the vertigo had passed she left the Tower, the Crystarium guards greeting her as she crossed the Exedra. It took some questioning before she was finally pointed to where Ryne was currently; training with Captain Lyna just outside the city gates.

She simply watched for a time as Lyna tried to keep her distance while Ryne tried to close in. Aeryn did not announce herself, simply noting how Ryne’s bladework had improved, at least one new trick learned since the last time Aeryn had watched her fight.

“That is enough for now,” Lyna said as they reached a breakpoint in their dance. “And the Warrior of Darkness has waited long enough,” she continued with a wry smile in Aeryn’s direction.

Ryne started, then turned with a grin, hurrying over to give Aeryn a hug. “It’s good to see you! Oh sorry, I’m all sweaty…”

Aeryn laughed, brushing damp strands of hair from Ryne’s reddened face. It was still winter in Eorzea, but in Norvrandt spring was on the horizon and the morning was warm. “Not to worry. Hope you don’t mind the interruption.”

Lyna waved them off. “Go on; we can catch up later.”

Aeryn nodded, knowing the captain wanted word of her grandfather, and G’raha had given Aeryn a small package to deliver, but that would wait until Lyna was off duty and had readied herself. There was an order to such things with the stoic woman.

Instead, Aeryn turned back to Ryne and smiled. Had she gotten taller? “I have a question, if you’ll indulge me.”

“Of course!” Ryne answered as they walked across the bridge into the city. “What is it you need?”

“I have a note from Thancred; he and Urianger are currently on a mission, but he left me instructions for tod--well. The day it is back on the Source.”

“I see. What are the instructions?”

“I’m to ask you about the black willow box he kept in his room here.”

Ryne paused, a little sharp breath escaping. “Ryne?” Aeryn asked.

“Sorry! It’s just I was under strict instruction never to open the box, though I have the key now, of course; I still didn’t dare. It’s where he kept,” she hesitated.

“Kept what?”

“I’ll show you; it’s a good thing--I think--that he wants you to see. Come on!” Ryne dashed toward her apartment as if she hadn’t just completed a long practice session with the captain of the guard. Aeryn picked up her own pace to follow along after.

It did not take long for them to reach the apartment Ryne used to share with Thancred. As the girl opened the door, Aeryn realized it was the first time she had returned to these rooms since the Scions’ departure from the First. It was much as she remembered, though lacking Thancred’s continued presence. Evidence of Gaia’s frequent visits were visible instead, from lipstick-stained coffee mugs at the sink to dark ribbons left on an end table to a book that did not seem to be to Ryne’s taste on a sofa cushion.

Ryne paused in front of the door that had led to Thancred’s small room. “I haven’t been in here since,” she trailed off, shaking her head. “Gaia and Taynor sorted most of it, actually, so only a few personal things remain. I should probably move to a smaller suite to let someone else use the space…”

“Maybe you need a roommate,” Aeryn suggested. “Perhaps Gaia could stay with you.”

Ryne reddened. “We’ve considered it, but I’m just…” She gave a helpless little laugh as she shrugged, looking up at Aeryn apologetically. “I’m just not quite ready, I think. It’s silly, but there’s a part of me that keeps hoping they’ll find a way--a safe way--to return. Even just for a little while.”

Aeryn squeezed Ryne’s shoulder. “It’s not silly,” she said quietly. “And I keep hoping that, too. Fairly certain Y’shtola has it at the top of her projects list.”

Ryne laughed, truly this time. “She would!” She looked at the door again. “The box should be on the shelf above the writing desk,” she offered Aeryn a small key. “I’ll let you see for yourself.”

Aeryn nodded, taking the little key and entering the room.

It was familiar, yet unfamiliar. Always small, it had kept from being cramped mainly by virtue of Thancred’s own minimalist tendencies with his added reluctance of accumulating things on the First that he would have to leave behind in the end. Even so, the room felt barren, many necessities and items missing, given away to be used by others in need among the Crystarium’s residents; naught went to waste while still usable.

The bed was neatly made; her eyes lingered for a moment, recalling a handful of pleasant times curled up together in it. They had often met in her own chambers for privacy, especially when feeling the need for more than simple closeness. There was a bench under the shuttered window; he used to clean his gunblade there, storing materials and parts in a chest beneath the bench. Nothing remained but the seat.

The writing desk was really a tall square table, a stool for the chair, in a corner of the room. Two simple shelves hung on the wall above it, some of Thancred’s personal effects that remained neatly placed upon them. The black willow box was a simple but lovely piece of old Nabaath make. It was familiar only in that it was a part of the room, always upon the shelf above the desk, a background decoration.

She had to stretch a little to pull the small box down. She unlocked it, pondering what it could contain for one last moment before opening the lid to find out.

Neatly folded pages, Thancred’s familiar handwriting covering them, five different bundles marked by Vrandtic dates in Eorzean lettering. The earliest one was dated five--no, six years ago now, in the midst of Thancred’s first year in this world, just after the Vrandtic new year. The second bundle was dated a year later. Then the third, then a fourth. The final bundle broke the date pattern, written...She shivered. The dates would have been the time after they assaulted Mt Gulg and before seeking Emet-Selch and the Exarch in the Tempest, when she had lain in a Light-induced fever for days in between.

All of the letters, long and detailed, were addressed to her.

Aeryn carried the box to the window and opened the shutters, letting in the natural light of day. She sat at the bench, picked up the first letter, and began to read, brows already rising at the first line.

My Dear Aeryn,

It’s been roughly half a year, to me, since I arrived in this world. We search for a means to send me back, but given the dangers, it’s difficult to say if we shall ever be successful. I hold onto hope, given we have made the impossible happen more than once—particularly when you are involved.

I know so much less time is passing for you, even as time is difficult to track beneath the eternal Light, but the people still mark the hours and days as best they can--perhaps better than we do in the Source, reliant as we are upon the sun and stars. So as the calendar year turns to a new page, I find myself confronted by reminders of you at every turn, my own mind noting the dates, as if counting down to your nameday in truth.

Violas grown in the Hortorium call to mind your favored hair decoration and your scents carried with it. The heather meadows and clear mountain springs of Il Mheg make me think of the taste of your magic. Treasure hunters in Mord Souq unearth duelist rapiers reminiscent of your combat style. The grey waters of a lake, shifting in color and tone under the burning sky, remind me of your eyes and ever-shifting moods.

I think of our new situation, how fragile it all still seems, our duties as Scions, the distance between Ala Mhigo and Doma keeping us apart more often than I liked. Especially after already having denied my own interests for far longer than I care to admit.

I fear now, not knowing when I may return to your side--in whatever capacity--that I am forgetting important things, and I very much do not want to. So indulge me as I list your various qualities that I admire, to remind myself why I allowed myself to maintain my impossible infatuation for so long, even as you became one of my dearest friends...

Aeryn eyes widened as she turned to the next page, then quickly checked the several pages following; Thancred had indulged his bardic habits, writing in verse and engaging in wordplay. Even the most innocent descriptions and memories of moments together, professional and extremely personal, were laden with puns and innuendo--not entirely unexpected from him.

She was mostly through the verses, trying to parse every dedicated line, when a knock at the door startled her.

“Aeryn?” Gaia called. “Everything all right?”

She cleared her throat. “Fine; I’ve quite a bit of reading to do, though; I may need some water.”

The door opened, Gaia appearing with a tray already in hand. “Ryne thought you might--are you all right? You’re redder than I have ever seen, and that’s saying something.”

Aeryn pressed a hand to her warm cheeks. “I’m fine. Just...wasn’t expecting some of what I found so far.”

“Is that good or bad?” The girl asked, setting the tray on the nearby side table in easy reach. There was a small tea service and also ice water, bless them. 

“It’s...Better than good,” Aeryn replied. “I may be awhile, though.”

Gaia shrugged in her nonchalant, pretending-not-to-care way. “Doesn't matter to me, but I was going to drag Ryne out for a while, just so you know. You’ll be fine here by yourself--won’t you?” A little genuine care came through in the last two words, despite her attempts to seem otherwise.

Aeryn nodded.

“All right. Enjoy your reading, and we’ll see you later.” Gaia gave a little wave before leaving, quietly closing the door behind her.

Aeryn cleared her throat again, sipping the cup of minty green tea--bless those girls again--and set the first letter aside for now. She would get back to that later; alone in her own room, where she could bury her face in a pillow and shriek like a schoolgirl when overwhelmed by his words, godsdamn him. For now, the second bundle had her curious.

My Dearest Aeryn,

I almost let the date slip by, I am ashamed to say. So much has happened in recent weeks...

She read through two pages of his recounting Minfilia’s story and the reincarnations that had followed, offering a small hope to Norvrandt; of Urianger and Y’shtola’s arrival, his anger at the spell’s failure and yet relief at seeing Urianger again; and their shift in focus upon learning of the Eighth Umbral Calamity.

...Urianger’s vision of the Calamity, of our deaths, is a sobering thought. The idea of you fallen especially freezes my blood. I cannot bear the thought.

So I redoubled my efforts to rescue the girl bearing Minfilia’s name and appearance. She sleeps now on a cot in this Mord town as I write. She can’t be more than twelve or thirteen summers; a frail little thing with no skills aside from reading books thicker than she is, and asking innumerable questions. They taught her nothing, simply locked her in a windowless cell under the waterline. For at least ten years, that is all the child’s known. If the fate Urianger saw for us makes my blood freeze, her situation makes it boil again. Should I chance to meet Eulmore’s General--the man responsible for her “care”--I will let him know exactly what I think.

Tomorrow Minfilia and I shall attempt to reach Nabaath Areng, the site of the Flood’s halting; the girl says she must go there, as if pulled. I have a hope I dare not voice yet. The Blessing of Light does work in such interesting ways.

But that is on the morrow; tonight, though a day late, I wished to write to you as I did last year. With the date in mind you have also been in my thoughts--when I’ve had a moment to think, at least--and I find myself recalling more and more often the little things. Simple things. Things I fear I may forget, having been here for years now, years without the way you tilt your head when you have a question. It initially annoyed me actually, you were so quiet but now, gods I would give much to be in your silence again, to see that quizzical look. Anything to see the little furrow between your brows when you’re thinking. When you prop your chin on your hands as you stare out a window, tea forgotten in your hand. How you unconsciously wriggle and make faces as you read, reacting to the pages, lips silently moving as you devour each word...

“Oh I do not,” Aeryn muttered--realizing in the same moment that she was doing that now. She sipped her tea and kept reading, noting how he wrote, as much as what; the moments where he had scratched out words, or underlined others. The splots where the pen had sat on the page a moment longer than normal as he thought of what he wanted to admit to. The way the letters slanted in places where he was eager. There was no poetry this time, fewer puns and word play. He had written when tired and possibly injured, given the shakiness of some lettering.

There were places where he couldn’t remember clearly--what perfume had she worn on the day of a particular memory? Was she wearing her red coat, or a blue dress in another? He wasn’t certain.

The letter wrapped up several pages later.

...I must get some sleep, given the long trek across the Amber Hills awaiting. I don’t know what will happen when we arrive, but whatever it is, I’ll keep the girl safe. Taking care of her is the only thing I can do, lacking the skills of the Exarch and our colleagues. Particularly now that we have abandoned the idea of going home--yet. I still don’t know how I feel about that, having struggled to find a way back for so long now, but there must be a home to return to. To save ourselves, we must save this realm. Forgive me; as much as I yearn to see you again, I wish for you to live far more. Despite everything, I still remain

Yours, Thancred.

Aeryn drew in a sharp breath; the previous letter’s signature had been much simpler, after all the floweriness of the verses. This simpler, newsy, reminiscent letter had such a different feel to it, so much changing for him in that year. Her eyes kept drifting to that closing.

It took a few moments before she was able to refold that bundle and open the next.

His next year in the First; this one another detailed description of events he survived, and quite a lot about Ryne, still only known as Minfilia at the time.

...I actually began this letter yesterday, as we rested in a small inn at the edge of the Greatwood. I thought of seeking out Y’shtola, but am unfamiliar with those dark and twisting paths, and was low on ammunition. Minfilia was exhausted, unable to fight or imbue cartridges, and I won’t risk her more than our constant travels already do.

It was she who reminded me that I had been writing, before she made me take my rest as well. I’ve never told her about these letters, but she’s a bright girl and I have told her of you. Sometimes it’s simply because she is curious about you, and the hope that you’ll come here and save yourself, as well as the rest of us. Many times though I don’t mean to say anything, but the stories simply come, like a slumbering spring awoken by new rains, bubbling up and overflowing the riverbanks.

It’s something about her, I suppose, that makes me remember, and so I must speak before the memories fade back into the dustier corridors of my mind. Perhaps an effect of her unique Blessing? Or perhaps simply her childish curiosity drawing it out of me.

There’s a selfish part of me that wants you to meet her. It would mean that you’re here, for one, but also I think you two would get along. She’s a good girl--with her moments of petulance and stubbornness, as many youths are wont, but she’s come such a long way already, has learned so quickly.

I fear influencing her. The choice she must make is so important, and it must be hers.  You would be a much better role model; you inspire others to do what’s best simply by your presence. I’ve felt the lack of you more keenly this last year than ever before...

Aeryn read through, noting he wrote it more like a conversation she had yet to answer. Memories of their adventures and companionship were woven through the words more naturally as he spoke to her. She smiled as he spent a good chunk of the letter not even realizing how he had gushed about Ryne and all she had learned and how she had grown in that first year they spent together, as if he were trying to ensure Aeryn would love the child as much as he so obviously did--even if the foolish man hadn’t been able to tell the girl so until it had almost been too late.

But then, that was Thancred; locking his thoughts and feelings behind stoicism, snark, and literally in a box on a shelf.

She traced her nail along the letters of his name--again signed “Yours”--before tucking that bundle away and picking up the fourth.

By this time the twins were somewhere in Norvrandt, though Thancred had no opportunity to see them as Eulmore’s hunters were ever close. He wrote to Aeryn of his frustration with how many Scions had come to the First but she was still so far away and still in so much danger, alongside the rest of the Source and this shard itself. If she couldn’t come to Norvrandt to break the Light’s hold over the realm then the girl would have to make her choice sooner rather than later--and perhaps face the same fate as all of her predecessors.

He admitted that he feared both of those outcomes. He seemed to have begun to cross out that line, but had stopped himself.

...A nasty part of me believes you will never receive these nameday letters. That these are simply my way of remembering yet another important woman in my life I will never see again. I try not to dwell on such thoughts, try to keep busy, but you know me. Perhaps better than anyone since our Minfilia. How I wish I could speak with you again; patrolling through Mor Dhona, lunch at Rowena’s cafe, stargazing on the roofs of Ala Mhigo, reading in the Waking Sands’ dusty library. Simply holding you until we fall asleep, those few, rare moments we had. You always made me say more than I ever meant to; you’ve a way of drawing me out despite myself—and failing that, of simply being there as a brilliant, warm presence.

There are places here I want to show you, things I want to share. Yet I fear your coming, what it will mean. What changes I’ve experienced. What we had was...comfortable, and felt right, after so long, and yet it was still so new and fragile. I used to be confident in my ability to be delicate, but these last few years with this girl have made me feel boorish and clumsy. And I know I have changed, not just because of her, but everything in this hard world. Will you recognize me when we meet? Will you still want me, when you were already so uncertain before?

I suppose I shan’t know until you’re here, or we find a way home. Given the Exarch’s record, the former seems more likely. And it still worries me, much as I know it’s the better course to preserve all we hold dear...

Aeryn stared out the window for a long moment; she had known of his doubts, his fears; when she had arrived and finally found him again, it had been difficult. Yet despite everything, they had gotten past it.

She eyed the final bundle, slimmer than the rest, those dates seeming so heavy though she had no conscious recollection of them, given her state at the time. Having finished the tea, she poured a glass of water and began to read.

Aeryn,

Ryne assures us you will still be Aeryn when you wake; her wards hold for now. I pray long enough to find a cure for what those bastards did to you. What we did to you, unknowing. Will you be pleased to know I have not struck Urianger for his part? I was too tired and injured as we returned, and occupied with carrying you besides. Now I simply am too weary in heart and mind to conjure that initial anger, and he has had time to explain how the Exarch coerced him into his confidence.

I am still not happy about it.

For five years I waited to see you again, thought about you through many days and most nights--such as they are, here. It’s funny what one can become accustomed to in time. Finally seeing you again was a jolt to every one of my senses as the missing you had long since become more real to me, much as I longed for your presence.

And as I feared, you hesitated. I don’t blame you; I know this place changed me. What we had back home was still so new, despite the prior years we had known each other. So I tried to be content to merely be in your company once more. We had rebuilt our friendship once, we could do it again. I had been a fool to think I deserved more.

Then you sought me out in Rak’tika. Do I need to tell you how you intoxicated me that day? I hope I was a comfort, both in words and in the release you needed. The distance still felt too great, but this much, at least, I could give. I thought it would be enough, to simply be what you needed in the moment.

I know now that I was once again fooling myself.

These last few months traveling and fighting and just being together have been a strange mix of stress and relief; our mission had been dangerous and difficult in so many ways, and yet working together, it was hard not to get caught up in the optimism, in the feeling that things would turn out, that we would find a way.

And you were here; your quizzical headtilts, your faces when you read, the white flowers in your hair. Your silences, your laughter, your strength in combat and your helping with every common chore in the vicinity. I thought I could simply be happy to bask in your steady light.

But now, seeing it tear you apart, it is not enough; it never was, and never will be. I can live with it, should that be your wish. My wish, however, is to continue what we had once begun. To hold you close not only occasionally but always.

Aeryn felt a hard lump in her throat; there was a decent space between the lines, the ink thick where he had hesitated, the initial letters shaky. Still he had written them:

I am in love with you, Aeryn.

It’s taken me time to collect myself after rereading what I just wrote and fighting the urge to burn the whole page. A part of me fears that you will scoff, though the greater part of me knows--hopes--better of you.

And the gods know you deserve better than me, but if you’ll have me, I certainly won’t complain.

I know after everything with Ryne I ought to say it to you aloud. That it may already be too late to do so. I pray that isn’t the case. I pray I find the courage and the words both to say what you deserve to hear. Even should you never reciprocate; if that should be the case, you shall never hear another whisper from me on the matter.

But I hold out a small hope, that you will, that you do. That we will have the chance to discuss the matter further. That you survive.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I only know I’ll be at your side until the end; there’s nowhere else I can be.

Ryne is calling; hold on just a little while longer, darling.

Yours always, Thancred.

She covered her face with her hands, emotions and memories flooding over her. There were words before finally confronting Emet-Selch in his memory of Amaurot. More than words on returning to the Crystarium, bodies twined together in relief and comfort.

Then she had returned to the Source to report their success. She came back to the First as quickly as she could, though; not only was there still much work to do, but he was here, and things were...not exactly different, but not quite the same, either.

As she reread the last page, she noticed a swiftly written addendum on the back. She turned it over.

I carried these letters all the way to the Tempest, thinking if I failed to say anything I might at least give them to you--they are yours, after all. But of course no time seemed right, and with a screwing of my courage (and pointed prodding from Urianger), at the last I was able to say what I wished. Miraculously, you said it too.

And now here we are, you peacefully asleep while the night sky wheels overhead and I still hear the celebrations outside despite the ungodly hour. I’ll rejoin you in a moment, but I needed some time to attempt to process the last few days. What happened in the Tempest. The fact you’re alive, and healthy, and claim to love me in return.

I’m not entirely certain why, but I won’t complain, either.

Rereading these letters, I’m not sure I’m quite ready to hand them over yet. They’ll return to their box for now, and perhaps in a few days I’ll be ready to show you.

Aeryn laughed lightly; of course he had hesitated to share them. The letters showed all his vulnerabilities behind the serious, confident facade he had developed. And with everything in the Empty, and then Elidibus, it was no wonder the letters had fallen to the wayside.

Until her actual nameday on the Source had come around, his note delivered with her breakfast by Tataru per Thancred’s instructions while he was on his latest reconnaissance. It wasn’t as if he could have brought the letters with him, after all--nor given them to her in front of the rest of the Scions in the Ocular, nevermind how public their relationship was now.

She rubbed her face--she had cried more than a few times while reading--and replaced the letters in the box. She locked it, and pocketed the key.

The girls were still out so it was no trouble to take the tea service to the sink and clean it, along with the other dishes, giving her time and activity to settle. She finished by washing her own face, removing some evidence of her emotion.

Since the first year she had joined the Scions, they had given each other gifts; she had discovered his nameday from Minfilia, gifting him the orchestrion roll of a song she knew he liked from a favorite minstrel. Her own first nameday as a Scion had been missed due to Lahabrea and Baelsar’s schemes, but Thancred was certain to make up for it. Sometimes they were late, or even early, but they always managed a little something, even as friends.

Aeryn took the box with her as she left Ryne’s apartment. She still had a few people to see while here on the First--starting with Lyna and the messages from G’raha--but then she would retire to her own suite in the Pendants and do a bit of rereading.

And maybe a bit more once she returned home, too; after all, if she timed it right, it would still be her nameday, and the best time to reread her present.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Writing #Shadowbringers #Thancred Waters #Thancred x WoL #Shippy Nonsense #Aeryn Striker #Pining

[stillness-in-green]

Idk if anyone told you but the MVA OST leaked, with themes for both the League and the MLA. If you haven't listened to it yet, please do! And if you have, what are your thoughts? I think Mine Woman and RE-DESTRO slap for 2 characters that got shafted hard by canon so I appreciate them a lot.

I have listened to them, and I like several of them! I feel like I need to lead with that, because I'm about to add some criticism about my previous responses to BNHA's score for context, so it's important to know that I genuinely do enjoy quite a few of these.

So, I haven't listened to a lot of Yuki Hayashi's scores, but he's definitely done work I've liked! He composed the music for several of the more recent PreCure shows, including their movies; I particularly loved his finale for the 15th anniversary film, which prominently featured a truly delightful medley of every team's opening theme. I'm also very fond of some of his pieces for Kiznaiver and Welcome to the Ballroom.

His BNHA work, though, I feel like suffers from two main problems: the tracks are too short to work up a good head, and yet, despite that short length, they sometimes feel exhaustingly over the top. (Did Shigaraki's theme really need crying children to get across the point that he's bad news?) I've long felt that the BNHA anime wants me to feel like everything is way more Epic and Stirring and Dramatic than I actually find the material to be, so curiously, the music winds up having a distancing effect rather than drawing me in. This is frequently compounded by placement choices that feel so staggeringly poor that I'm often left wondering whether the staff chose the music out of a hat! (Seriously, why does a fairly rote test of character in Nighteye's office warrant doom choirs?)

As to the MVA tracks specifically, I wish there could have been tracks that sounded a bit more fun or heroic, given that the League in MVA really are the heroes for the arc, complete with Shigaraki suddenly having access to Shonen Nakama Tropes and getting all these little comedic reaction takes. It'd be nice if the music could cue in and let the League have some aural triumph without being all doom all the time ("Oh, no! The villains are winning!" Yes, they are; let them have this for one arc, would you?)

But that said, I do rather like most of these! There are some that I do suspect will fall prey to the This Is Too Much Drama, Would You Please Ratchet Back? problem, but there are also some that I can imagine playing better in the context of the show than they do in isolation, and some that feel like they could even be exactly what I was dreaming about, if they go where I hope they will. For some individual thoughts, see below:

The Mission of the Stealth Hawks: A reasonable enough little tense atmospheric piece. Doesn't jump out at me.

Different Ability Liberation Army: I always approach the MLA as styling themselves as an army, but in reality being more of a sect--far more cult than militia-- I appreciate that if they can't have a good dramatic march despite having Army, like, right there in the title, I'm glad I could get church bells instead. On the whole, though, this is a good example of the first problem I mentioned having with Hayashi's work for BNHA--his pieces tend to be pretty short, and it takes them so long to land on a melody that by the time they find one, there's hardly any time to develop it before the song ends. Even a lot of the hero pieces are like that, and the villain songs, even more so. That said, I do like the horror strings that creep in around the 1.25 mark, blossom at 1.45, and float on through 2.10. I just wish they went on longer. Admittedly, "erratic church bells and horror strings" is still not the choice I would have made for the MLA's main theme. I really would have preferred something with a more militant air; as it is, this sort of feels like it scores a creepy prologue that plays before the opening credits kick in and then the episode proper starts. Which isn't a bad description for the way the dinner scene played in the manga, but thanks to the anime's decision to reshuffle everything, I don't think that dinner scene's going to maintain that feeling of "prologue" when we finally get to it.

My Villain Academia: Better on the melodic front; I enjoy the drama at .43, the dancing tension at 1.05, and particularly the minor strings from 1.25 that just keep climbing until everything else drops out around 2.10. I do wish it found a better place to end rather than noodling on for a further thirty seconds, but the melody will get a more central, and more bombastic, treatment in the final track, so it's probably okay for it to trail off here. (It's also apparently a reprise of a villain theme from the very first season's OST, which is rad. More on that in the Track 11 blurb.)

Second Coming: This is a bizarre one because, while I complained that Hayashi's BNHA tracks are usually short, this one is a full six and a half minutes--except that it falls clearly into movements of about a minute each, with clear lulls in between. I wish it was twelve minutes and everything was twice as long! As it is, I'm highly doubtful that we're going to hear this one played in its entirety anywhere, since I can't imagine what scenes would require this specific sequence of musical passages at this length. 0.00 - 1.01: I love that the song kicks in comparatively quickly; the first minute's passage has a great, thrumming drive that very nearly hits major key towards the end. 1.02 - 1.53: The drive picks up pace in the second minute before the chorus arrives, and for once, I am very prepared to love a BNHA choir piece. I hope this is what plays when Deika's going up in ash. 1.54 - 3.01: I love the melodic line being carried by the intentionally hard to distinguish violin and whatever brass instrument the violin's trading off with in the third minute. It's bit out of place with the rest of the track, but I like it quite a bit on its own, and it does have a similar sound as some of the "dirty" brass in RE-DESTRO and Mine Woman. It's probably too long for RD's childhood flashback, but I wonder if it'll play for an MLA character somewhere? 3.02 - 4.07: The fourth minute has some very fun drums, but otherwise doesn't jump out at me as much of the rest of the track. I'm very curious to know when this will play, though. 4.08 - 5.32: The fifth minute, god bless, has some proper march drums--I like this passage a lot, particularly when it come back in the sixth minute accompanied by the choir. I like this because the key is minor but it's not "oooo scaaaary" minor; it's more dramatic, a bit tragic, but triumphant too--pretty much perfect for Re-Destro, Spinner and Machia's moment of revelation in the crater. I wish it were longer. 5.33 - 6.36: And here for the end we're back to the driving guitar and some fun low-thrum strings and percussive chain sounds. Like the fourth passage, it's fun, but jumps out at me less, particularly as the song's finale.

Gigantomachia: This is an extremely boss kaiju song. Seriously, that brass in the opening could come right out of a Toho flick. Extremely good walking calamity number, love that distorted synth stuff towards the end. It's going to sound great when (if) it plays over Machia leaving the villa, the hand rising up through the floor behind Toga, Momo and the other students surveying the desolation left in his wake, and so on. (I know that's all Season Six material, shhhh. I hope they use this piece there.)

Mine Woman: This is so fun. And so extremely superior that that awful Christmas insert song! I'm glad Curious got this at least, and I love the moment the beat drops at the one-minute mark, and that interwoven sax. So good. It's hard to imagine the fight between Toga and Curious being paced to this song, mind, but it's real good, anyway.

TOGA's Nature: This one showcases the other problem I have with Hayashi's BNHA work, especially his stuff for the villains: it feels very on the nose in a way that tips over into being Too Much. The birdsong, I think, is on the nose but in an effective, playful way, with the natural beauty of the birds undercut by the lovely but ominous piano/synth melody. I am considerably less kindly disposed to the creepy child laughter, which just feels on the nose in a thuddingly obvious way--though I do like the way it slides in when the birdsong fades. I like, too, the sort of cloudy roaring reprise of the melodic line that kicks in around the 1.10 mark. It feels like an effective echo of Toga--cute but creepy as a young girl, and then, after she snaps, creepy in the same way but now you can't ignore it.

Symbol of Fear: The beginning doesn't do much for me, but I enjoy the howl that gives way to the organs at 1.15; while it's too action-heavy to be Tenko, the transition does still put me in mind of Tenko wandering the streets, internally crying for anyone to help him, and the person who finally does is--well. I like that the organ nurtures that howl into something considerably more dire, though you still get a return to that guttural cry periodically. While it is, again, difficult to imagine this scoring the scenes between AFO and Tenko's first meeting and Tenko being formally named Tomura--it's much too bombastic--it does still feel like an excellent representation of AFO sculpting Tomura's formless, aimless rage into something that really could tear down the world.

I Don't Kill My Friends: It would have been really nice if they'd let the most significant, unadulterated personal triumph of the arc sound actually fun. Why does the Sad Man's Parade song sound so upset?? @aysall predicts that it'll play over Twice's confrontation with Hawks and death scene, and I can see it working extremely well there, but it's a pretty weird call for the Dead Man's Parade bit, if that is indeed what this is intended to evoke. Quibbling about the title aside, I do like the way this pulses and throbs, something like an exposed wound, which is not a bad description of poor Jin's mentality. I still hope this isn't what scores his breakthrough, though. As I said previously, the villains are the heroes for just this one arc, and it'd be nice if the score could reflect that at least a little.

RE-DESTRO: I like this one a lot. I love the interwoven layers of that dirty sax and the Big and Dramatic orchestral strings + brass, but both of them undercut with that regular, machine beeping that could almost be a heart monitor, but mostly isn't--right up until the long beep at 1.52/1.53. It feels like a strong illustration of the titular character's different personas--his attempts at casual, friendly villainy (like menacing Giran or chatting with Shigaraki on the phone), him when he's thundering full-volume about the weight of his legacy at people (THE BLOOD OF DESTRO FLOWS THROUGH THESE VEINS I AM RE-DESTRO), and, beneath it all, the constant little thread of stress that Rikiya can never escape (right up until Shigaraki). I probably wouldn't love it so much in isolation, but I'm easy to win over with the right character association. XD

Paranormal Liberation Front: Very fun grubby guitar intro. It also has much the clearest melodic throughline, which inclines me towards it. What inclines me to it even more is the knowledge (per @aysall again) that it's the same main melody as the track Villains Theme from the very first season's OST. That track already having used its allotted Doom Choir quotient, this track makes do with less synth and a lot more orchestra and chunky bass backing, which is much to its benefit, I feel. I do wish it had any of the MLA's theme in it, to represent the merger, but admittedly, it'd be hard to make that very audible when the MLA theme has…next to no central melody, percussive rhythm, etc. Still, as an evolution of the League to something bigger, classier, and far more dangerous, it's real good--just long enough to develop into itself and explore its central leitmotif. Probably my favorite track simply on its own merits.

Thanks for the ask, anon! I'd listened to the tracks once driving around for work, but sitting down with them properly gave me a greater appreciation for them, and now I'll definitely have an ear out for them when we get to this material in the anime…

….whenever that winds up being. *sob*

#bnha #music #stillness answers #my villain academia #reviews? #league of villains #meta liberation army #shigaraki tomura #yotsubashi rikiya

[nikkoliferous]

"Loki brought it all on himself"

Ok, we need to talk about this frequent claim that Loki deserves all the bad things that have ever happened to him.

Firstly, let's just get this out of the way. The amount of gaslight in the assertion that Loki “broke his family's trust” is unbelievable. As in, I literally cannot believe there are people who genuinely think this. They turn canon completely on its head. Loki's family betrayed his trust—by kidnapping him as an infant, lying to him for his entire life, raising him to despise the Jötnar while knowing that he was actually one of them, and chronically mistreating him—long before he took on any villainous behaviour. Loki’s story is very much one of what can happen when you push even a good person too damn far.

The worst thing Loki can be accused of having done prior to the complete mental collapse he suffers upon learning his life has been a lie, is letting a handful of Frost Giants into Asgard to crash Thor's coronation. He does this partly—in his own words, and he has no reason to lie about this to Laufey of all people—to protect the kingdom from Thor's foolishness and immaturity. And he is not alone in his belief that Thor is not ready to be ruler of Asgard. Odin himself, in a scene that did not make it into the film, expresses doubt about this, and Frigga, interestingly enough, reassures him by reminding him that Loki will be by Thor's side to counsel him and, for lack of better phrasing, keep him from doing too much damage.

So I think we can dismiss that action as a "betrayal" of his family's trust—and even if one does want to consider this a betrayal, it certainly isn't one on a scale that merits spending thousands of years enduring psychological torture (which is what solitary confinement is).

Another assertion frequently made is that Loki manipulates Thor into going to Jötunheim to confront Laufey. Loki most definitely manipulates Thor—but at no point does he suggest doing that. Thor comes up with that harebrained scheme all on his own. The most Loki does is attempt to manipulate the rift between Thor and Odin by playing into Thor's sense of righteous anger and his resentment at being shut down. Not only does Loki not suggest at any point that they should confront Laufey, but he actively takes steps to prevent them from reaching Jötunheim. He tries to talk Thor out of going; he orders a guard to inform Odin of their plans, expecting they'll be intercepted in time; he takes the initiative to speak for them to Heimdall, very likely because he knows Heimdall dislikes/distrusts him. And after all of that fails, he attempts to talk Thor down from starting a war once they're standing in Laufey's court. Interestingly enough, I never see anyone claim that Thor betrays his family's trust by reigniting a war with the Frost Giants, endangering the lives of his family, his friends, and his would-be subjects. It's almost like all the accusations of betrayal that people level at Loki aren't based on any sort of objectivity or moral high ground at all and are merely rationalizations by people working backwards from the conclusion that Loki is “evil”, simply because the narrative has framed him as a villain.

We also need to reckon with the fact that Loki did not "steal" the throne. Thor was stripped of his power and banished to Earth (which was not Loki's doing) when Odin fell into the Odinsleep (also not Loki’s doing). After Thor, Loki is next in line for the throne. That's literally just how the royal line of succession works. With both Odin and Thor incapacitated in one way or another, the responsibility of ruling falls legitimately to Loki. Frigga herself names him regent-king. Loki neither banishes Thor from Asgard nor forces Odin to go napnap, nor indeed does he even attempt to manipulate Frigga to pass the role of regent onto him—if anything, he’s shocked when she does so; therefore, it is completely unreasonable to accuse him of having "usurped" anything.

It’s equally unreasonable to claim that Loki “arranged for” Thor’s banishment, yet I see people say the same time and time again. Let us just recall that 1) Loki attempts to intervene when the fight between Thor and Odin begins to escalate

and 2) This is Loki’s face upon Odin’s inexplicably extreme punishment.

Look, I know Loki is known as being a liar, but if you think his shock here isn’t genuine, I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.

Now, I could stop right here because the claim is that Loki betrayed his family’s trust first and thus brought everything on himself. And as I’ve clearly demonstrated, any villainous actions Loki takes, be they in the first Thor film or thereafter, come after learning the truth (aka having his trust broken by his family). But because I know how much people love to move the goalpost when it comes to Loki, let’s just go on to address why none of his actions are truly villainous in the classic sense of the word.

Every wrongful action Loki takes in this film, outside of the aforementioned interference with Thor’s coronation (which we’ve already established may have been ill-conceived but certainly was not a “betrayal”) is a reaction to various betrayals against him or a result of paranoia fueled by a complete emotional collapse.

“Trying to kill” Heimdall is not a betrayal because Loki is defending himself from Heimdall who is attempting to commit regicide. (Also, if Loki had wanted Heimdall dead, he would be. The fact that he’s not, is a demonstration of Loki’s benevolence, not his ruthlessness).

Lying to Thor about Odin being dead is cruel, but it’s not borne of a desire to hurt Thor. Both the lie and, later, sending the Destroyer are borne of desperation, because as Tom himself has stated, Loki believed Thor would kill him if he made it back to Asgard and learned the truth. This is a moment that, if there were any justice in the MCU, ought to have haunted Thor for the rest of his life:

That’s one Jötun who definitely fears him.

This goes far beyond the claim that he betrayed his family, but I’ll address it anyway: tricking the Frost Giants by inviting them into the palace under false pretenses is not a betrayal because there is no established relationship of trust between Loki and the Jötnar. You can’t betray a trust that doesn’t exist.

And attempted genocide is definitely not a betrayal of his family’s trust because genocide is literally what this family does. Genocide is their entire legacy. Despite claims to the contrary, this was an established fact well before Ragnarok. (”So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me?” “I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god, just like you.” “[What of the lives you took on Earth?] A mere handful compared to the number Odin has taken himself”). If anything, trying to destroy Jötunheim was an attempt to live up to the family name. It was misguided and wrong, but it was in no way out of line with what Loki and Thor were raised to do. Asgard is a warrior culture; killing their enemies is not perceived as immoral, but honourable. In fact, one of the reasons Loki’s actions were likely seen as dishonourable is because he used the power of the Bifröst rather than engaging the Jötnar in direct warfare. (Though it is possible, given the state of Svartalfheim, that this was also done in the past to wipe out the Dark Elves). But what was it that Odin said when he was yelling at Thor in the Observatory prior to banishing him?

Odin: “Do you realise what you’ve done? What you’ve started?”

Thor: “I was protecting my home!”

Odin: “You cannot even protect your friends! How can you hope to protect a kingdom?”

At no point does Odin state that killing the Jötnar is wrong. But he does criticize Thor for putting his friends in danger by going to confront Laufey. (This is still not the catalyst for Thor’s banishment. That comes later, when Thor calls Odin “an old man and a fool”). Loki, however, conveniently knows a way to destroy the Jötnar without risking any Asgardian lives. And since a condemnation of killing their enemies is not a part of Odin’s diatribe, he has no reason to believe that Odin disapproved of that part of Thor’s misbehaviour. So now he can say, “Look, Father. I did what Thor couldn’t!”

Thor: “Why have you done this?”

Loki: “To prove to Father that I am a worthy son. When he awakens, I will have saved his life. I will have destroyed that race of monsters and I will be true heir to the throne.”

Only, as we all know, it's in vain.

There’s only one moment in the entirety of the first Thor film that I would class as a genuine betrayal of his family’s trust, and that is that he puts both Frigga and Odin in harm’s way when he invites Laufey into Asgard under the false pretense of allowing him to slay Odin in his sleep. This was very short-sighted of him; what if he’d been too late and his scheme had gotten Frigga killed before he’d arrived to intervene? Betraying his family was not his intent here, but in his highly emotional state of mind, he did endanger them needlessly— much like Thor needlessly endangered his friends and his brother by going to Jötunheim and starting this whole mess to begin with. (However, I never see fans criticise Thor for this. And they should. My point here is not that Loki should not be criticised for endangering his family, but that there needs to be consistency. If you’re going to call out Loki for endangering his loved ones, you need to call out Thor as well. If you’re going to call out Loki for mass slaughter, you need to call out Thor as well).

In short, I think my favourite thing about the vast majority of Loki antis is their blatant disdain and lack of empathy for the mentally ill and the abused. And by ‘favourite thing’, I of course mean that it disgusts me.

(Tagging @magicmastered​ and @just-another-human-2019​ because you both expressed interest in the post 😘)

#thor (2011) #loki meta #loki #thor #lady sif #the warriors 3 #heimdall #odin's a+ parenting #frigga's b+ parenting #mcu #loki derangement syndrome

[girlandgeese]

Artist ask thing!

I was tagged by @kourvo​ and I am a big baby who is afraid to tag even my mutuals so if you see this I WOULD like to read your responses and please DO tag me if you fill it out. :’-)

What is the character you’ve drawn the most (Can be original or fanart) Other people’s Lavellans by about a mile.

What colour do you often use? I like muted and muddy colors. Give me those soft tonal shifts!!

Any colour you are bad at using? Bright and poppy shades. It isn’t in my programming.

When drawing people, where do you start? Jawline, then nose, then eyes, then mouth.

What is a character only your eraser will love? I’ve accepted that I’ll never draw Solas and that this will be why I never climb to the top of the DA art fandom.

Which of your works took the longest time? Almost definitely this one for @teknon​ who put a lot of faith in me, haha. This is still one of the most ambitious concepts I’ve ever actually completed. 🥺🙏

What techniques do you use when you want to improve in drawing? Eugh... I really haven’t actively tried to improve in a long time. Any of my improvements have been through sheer repetition, like taking on two dozen portrait commissions inevitably makes me better at faces. A lot of times I will burn out, stop drawing for a few months, then be slightly better when I get back at it. It’s a mystery. 💦

What do you think of the art of the person who gave you this ask meme? Their art is so lovely and striking and distinctive!! Extremely strong and emotive portraits. Wonderful use of light and dark values. When I read in their response to this that they don’t often use reference, I was like, “...?? How is this possible?”

What art tools/media are you good with? All my digital work is Procreate + iPad. Whenever I’m traveling I’ll bring a sketchbook (Leuchtturm is the best) and some ink pens.

Art tools/media you are bad at? Pastels, watercolor, charcoal. Messy things.

What do you think about your own art? ... Honestly I’m not a fan, haha. Occasionally I’ll make something that I’m proud of, but the vast majority of the time I’m just frustrated. This probably means I need to make some changes to my approach. But. Y’know. There’s currently a very large gulf between where I am and where I would like to be.

Do you consult references for your drawings? Every time for every thing. You haven’t lived until you’ve got eight tabs open of searches for “old man stern”, “old man angry”, “old man frown”, “old man face downward angry”--

What do you like about your art? I like my line work. I like how I render different planes and edges on a face.

What habits do you have while drawing? Planning to do something quick and then accidentally overworking it.

Are you good at drawing faces facing right? I think so.

How frequently do you draw? Not at all, then a TON for a short period of time. This is maybe my worst habit.

What do you do when you have artist’s block? I wait six months to several years. I do “junk food” art like drawing an easy portrait to build my confidence a bit. Photo/master studies.

What must you have when you draw? I have to have some noise, and my workspace has to be free of clutter. 9/10 times I will make a hot drink to have beside me; 7/10 times I forget about it.

Do you have a lot of stray lines (messy lineart)? Nah. I’m pretty economical.

What is drawing to you? Something I’ve been doing for a long time. A place where I have put most of my skill points but not enough of my attention and dedication.

Your art goal from now on? Make things that are unrecognizably mine. Confront my insecurities. Draw for no audience whatsoever.

Artists you’ve had influence from? See next.

Artists you like? Akihiko Yoshida, John Singer Sargent, John William Waterhouse, Ivan Bilibin, Even Amundsen.

Which is easier to draw, humans or animals? Ha ha. Humans.

Show us an old drawing. This is my favorite one to peddle out.

What is the charm-point of your art? Nice faces that are pleasant to look at. Chiseled cheekbones and numerous elf ears.

What is the first thing you would draw if we’re talking about fantasy? Elves, unsurprisingly. If I were just doodlin’ it would be outfit and armor designs for various adventurer types.

Please draw your most beloved character: I have spent literally 100% of my artistic energy on donation drawings so here is a year-old Lavellan that I still like a lot, to represent Elves as whole.

When thinking of characters is it mostly female? male? or androgynous/no sex? I think it’s a mix, at this point? When I was younger I would only draw girls.

What did you draw yesterday? Donation drawings! Last one was a nice OC. :-)

What is the most fun part to draw? Eyes and brows. Hair is fun to draw but miserable to paint.

What part of other people’s drawings do you notice first? Line work, color theory. Mark-making.

Regarding backgrounds, what is your method of making it easier to draw? Simply do not draw a background.

What colour coordinations do you like? Zorn palette, baybee.

What character did you last draw? Attractive male-presenting OC with long white hair and a nice skin tone.

What part of drawing do you pay most attention to? Line work requires the most active attention. You cannot save a bad drawing with good painting. I have learned this. I may spend more time painting, but it doesn’t ask as much of me mentally.

How do you feel about drawing adult art? At any moment I am ready to sell out and be paid large amounts of money to draw NSFW content.

Do you like criticism from others? When I solicit it and when it’s from someone whose opinions I value. That sounds like “no”, but it’s more that many people don’t give good, actionable criticism. Luckily I am my own harshest critic. 🤡

How many people do you normally draw per artwork? 1/6 of one humanoid.

#ask gg #kind of #thinky thoughts #long post #thank you for tagging me!! this was really fun to think through

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Hiccanna--100 OTP Questions, Part 2

So I said I would finish this OTP question meme someday--and I decided, entirely on random impulse, that “someday” is today!!! My Hiccanna-centered account has not been producing enough Hiccanna content lately, and this simply WILL not do.

QUESTION SOURCE: https://the-moon-dust-writings.tumblr.com/post/159857601812/100-otp-questions

LINK TO PART 1: https://hiccanna-tidbits.tumblr.com/post/635744326176129024/hiccanna-100-otp-questions-meme-part-1 51. Does either of them know how to fight? I mean...canonically yeah, they both do??? Lol I mean Hiccup has his fire sword and obviously would know how to fight with the weapons he makes/invents, and Anna literally just instinctively grabs a sword to protect her buddies in Frozen 2 and I mean we all really love Sword Anna anyways and also she PUNCHES A MAN OFF OF A BOAT so long story short yes they can both fight 52. What do they do for Valentines Day? Anna rents a rom-com and pulls Hiccup down onto their couch to watch it with her, and he kinda internally groans because he figures it’ll be something super sappy and cheesy and Anna will just be squealing with delight the whole time. Legit as soon as the first scene begins, Anna begins brutally roasting the main couple. Turns out it’s a really terrible rom-com and Anna rented it solely to make fun of it. Hiccup is like “aight this definitely wasn’t what I was expecting but I’m on board” Also Hiccup gets Anna like 3 boxes of fancy chocolate because...do I really need to explain? Anna gets Hiccup a particularly aesthetic floral arrangement for their kitchen table, something she knows damn well he secretly likes but would never admit XD 53. Who swears more? Anna, for sure. This tends to surprise people, but Anna is actually a notorious pottymouth when she gets comfortable XD Hiccup has a pretty big and borderline pretentious vocabulary, and so he tends to express his frustration in more...articulate ways when things don’t go his way. Like he’d stub his toe and just say “wow, I’d literally rather saw off my other leg than have to deal with this right now” while Anna, in the same situation, would let loose every curse word known to man XD 54. Who has the better comebacks? Hiccup, absolutely. His smart-ass comments to every conceivable situation on earth go absolutely unmatched. Anna can’t help but envy how he can almost instinctually pull out a near-perfect snide remark within seconds, whilst she, at best, thinks of the ideal comeback in the shower 3 days later. 55. Who would start a fight with another parent at a bake sale? I feel like Anna would seek out the most passive-aggressive, bitchy, entitled Karen and just wait with barely-concealed anticipation for her to say something super awful so Anna can just nail her in the face right in front of all the other moms Hiccup and their kids, meanwhile, can’t help but be awed at their wife/mother’s impressive Right Hook 56. Who reads buzzfeed? Anna. Hiccup keeps being like “you know half the stuff on there is total bullshit, right?” and Anna just shrugs like “who cares? It’s entertaining!” 57. Who is the hopeless romantic? Anna, good god, ANNA. After the whole Hans debacle I imagine she’s a bit more subdued about so openly showing this part of her personality, but at heart she just can’t stop being a romantic. Once Hiccup catches wind of this, he naturally makes a point of frequently surprising her with Grand Romantic Gestures and such, which makes Anna’s entire face go bright fuckin red as she cries out “NO STOP WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS YOU’RE TOO NICE” 58. Do either of them know how to do a handstand? Nope! They’d both fall on their faces and it would be hilarious. 59. Who can rap better? I love the idea of them both being looped into a rap battle somehow and Anna just dreading it immensely because she figures they both really suck and then when it’s their turn Hiccup comes out and busts out the BEST, MOST SAVAGE RHYMES Anna has ever heard COMPLETELY ad lib and the poor girl just goes completely catatonic with shock for like 10 minutes. 60. Do either of them want to go sky diving? See initially I was gonna say Hiccup definitely would not because it would give the poor boy an anxiety attack, but then I remembered he basically skydives in canon??? And Anna strikes me as a bit of adrenaline junkie too, so fuck it--yeah, I think they’d both enjoy it. 61. What do they usually text about? They talk a lot about movies, games, books, and shows they both like, I imagine--Hiccup especially likes to overanalyze them to ridiculous extents and Anna thinks this is adorable. The rest of the time, they send each other dumb memes and talk about random animal fun facts. Anna likes to brag that her boyfriend knows more lizard trivia than anyone else on the planet, and how many lizard facts does YOUR boyfriend know? Probably little to none, you big loser. 62. Who is the dramatic one? Anna is INCREDIBLY dramatic. Although Hiccup certainly does have a “dramatic flair,” as he puts it, I still think Anna can out-dramatic him, at the end of the day XD Although perhaps admittedly not by much. 63. Is either one confrontational? Anna certainly can be. She’s usually pretty friendly, but if she ever feels like she’s being challenged, demeaned, mocked, or generally not taken seriously, she’s ready to go to WAR. She certainly not as soft as she might look! I imagine there’s situations where someone is being a dick to either Anna or someone else and Hiccup has to physically hold her back to keep her from just decking them XD 64. What is their favourite cuddle position? Probably just good old-fashioned spooning. Hiccup actually really loves being the little spoon (because Anna just makes him feel so damn safe), but he is loathe to admit it. They also have one I like to call the “Needy Cat,” where Anna just goes and completely drapes herself over Hiccup when he’s sitting on the couch. He’s usually in the middle of doing something else, and is forced to find ways to play video games/read his book/watch his show around Anna XD 65. Who are their favourite musical artist(s)? Hiccup has exactly 3 music moods--pretentious classical stuff (to listen to while working on inventions), obscure underground 90s hipster bands no one’s heard of (to play air guitar to when no one else is home), and some more well-known emo/alt rock stuff (to sing along to in the car dramatically). I can see him liking Panic! at the Disco, The Killers, Fall Out Boy, Linkin Park, that kinda stuff. Anna, meanwhile, likes the trashiest, most generic-sounding pop music and refuses to apologize for dancing to it in the car XD She is most DEFINITELY a Swiftie, no question. She also likes some “edgier” bands like Paramore and Hey Monday. She went through a hardcore Avril Lavigne phase in middle school and she still totally listens to her but is embarrassed to say it. Also I feel like Anna would be into 90s/early 2000s boy bands??? She relates to the boys’ endless pining and just flips the genders in her head so the songs are about Hiccup (before they start dating obs) XD I AM DEFINITELY NOT SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE HERE, NO SIR 66. What are their parenting styles? Anna would probably be like...kind of stern, when she needs to be, but intensely nurturing as well, if her relationship with Elsa is anything to go by. Hiccup would be a pretty laid-back, chill dad who would probably try too hard to be cool and make no end of absolutely horrible dad jokes XD They both lowkey seem like the kind of parents who would end up letting their kids get away with a lot though lmao 67. Who would be the more laid back one? Hiccup probably. I mean, he IS the pacifist/diplomat guy, besides have you MET Anna??? Girl absolutely has NO chill. 68. Who listens to more vulgar music? Anna, surprisingly! Hiccup just kinda enjoys what he enjoys and doesn’t really feel the need to “prove” anything by listening to songs that swear a lot. Anna purposely listens to vulgar music to feed her hidden rebellious side and because it makes her feel badass XD She honestly kinda hates being written off as 100% wholesome and innocent all the time and will readily pull out the “I’M NOT A SWEET LITTLE FLOWER I SANG ALONG TO THAT SONG THAT JUST SAID FUCK SEE” line whenever given even the slightest chance XD 69. Do either of them have secrets even the other doesn’t know? Kind of depends on when in both their timelines they meet. If they meet in the middle of HTTYD 1 or Frozen 1, they probably wouldn’t tell the other right away that they have a dragon and an ice-powered supersister, respectively XD I definitely think they would as they came to trust each other, though. Also I read a headcanon that Hiccup has burn scars from the Red Death incident where he lost his leg, and that’s why he wears so much armor and generally long sleeves--and I kind of love that. So maybe Hiccup would be cagey with Anna about how he lost his leg and that whole incident for a while before he finally opens up to her about it. Other than that I feel like they’d be pretty honest with one another, other than maybe trying to hide the more embarrassing parts of themselves to impress the other person XD 70. Who is their go to couple for a double date? Jackunzel, obviously! They’d probably all go to an arcade or an amusement park or something else pretty fun and high-energy. 71. Do they tip the waiter/waitress on their date? I mean yes, they’re not huge assholes????? 72. How do they work out a fight? I imagine Anna tends to get more worked up and yelley and loud, while Hiccup doesn’t raise his voice much at all but can say some damn cutting things if he wants to. Since Anna probably gets angrier, I imagine she apologizes first, whether or not the fight was actually on her or not--it’s just kinda this girl’s default to apologize for everything XD She’d probably say sorry for yelling and probably overreacting, while Hiccup would also be EXTREMELY apologetic if he realized he crossed a line with one of his jabs at her. I imagine a lot of what they fight about is Anna doing some impulsive Dumb Shit^TM and Hiccup just being like “oh god DAMMIT that’s DANGEROUS you can’t just go WORRYING me like that!!!” and Anna getting offended because she kinda views this as him being a little overprotective and not trusting her to make her own decisions. Ironically, Anna occasionally also gets mad at HICCUP for doing Impulsive Dumb Shit, so he’s not always nearly as much the Voice of Reason as he thinks XD Hiccup also sometimes gets mad at Anna for not taking better care of herself (take it from a fellow ADHDer--we tend to Wallow in Despair sometimes, or straight-up forget to do basic care things like eat lunch XD)--I have an IRL friend who reminds me a lot of Hiccup and he’s ALWAYS getting on my case about not eating enough, not drinking enough water, constantly berating myself, stuff like that. I imagine Hiccup sometimes slips into Mom Mode with Anna when she gets in a bad spot, which she appreciates after the fact but kind of annoys her at the time because she wants really badly to be independent and all that. Basically TL;DR most of Anna and Hiccup’s fights can be resolved by Anna and Hiccup agreeing to next time Use A Brain Cell before they do a thing, or Anna agreeing to take better care of herself XD 73. Who brings home an illegal pet? In literally every AU possible I like to think that Hiccup brings home some variation of illegal pet XD I mean, it’s probably just a dragon (”just a dragon” is never a string of words I imagined myself using in that order like what do you mean JUST a dragon lmao) in a standard crossover timeline, which he basically does in canon, but I do love the idea of a modern AU Hiccup showing up to their apartment with some kind of weird exotic monitor lizard from Bali and being like “I found him in an alley, he’s gonna live with us now” and Anna is like “D: Is someone gonna arrest you???” And Hiccup is like “Nah, no cops followed me home” and Anna’s like “Okay!!! :D” and then goes to PetSmart to buy a big fluffy bed for her new scaled friend XD 74. What side of the bed do each of them sleep on? I honestly don’t think either would care much, and they usually sleep in a tangled-up mess anyways so by morning you can’t really tell who started on which side XD 75. What is their favorite photo of them two together? One from before they got together: I’m just imagining a big group photo with the Entire Squad (Rapunzel, Jack, Merida, Moana, etc.), and Anna has her arms laced around Hiccup’s neck and her chin on his shoulder and a GIANT smirk on her face. Meanwhile Hiccup is laughing and trying to push her off, but his cheeks are BRIGHT fucking red and he’s trying really unsuccessfully to hide it because he’s a pale boi. Anna loves it because you can so CLEARLY see Hiccup’s blush, and she loves to tease him about how flustered he got around her. Hiccup loves it because it reminds him of what was probably the first time Anna was THAT openly cuddly with him, and how exhilarated and giddy he felt the first time he had her that close to him. 76. Who takes longer in the bathroom? Probably Hiccup, if only because I HC him as a bit of a germophobe who is a tiny bit obsessive about washing his hands sufficiently. 77. Who has more songs on their ipod? Anna, mainly because literally every time she hears a song she likes she’s like “!!!!! Gotta download it!!!!” LITERALLY EVERY TIME. And she wonders why her ipod is always running out of space XD 78. What movie did they first see together? As of the Modern AU Hiccanna one-shot I wrote ages ago, Revenge of the Ancient Dragon Masters! XD If we’re talking movies that actually exist, I imagine it would be a Marvel movie, a Star Wars movie, or some super-fancy-CGI high fantasy epic. 79. What do they like to see each other in? You mean like...which of the other’s outfits would they find the sexiest??? Aight, I’ll take a stab at this. Anna gets literally SO fuckin thirsty every time Hiccup wears his dragon rider outfit (the one from HTTYD 2), like it shows off his cute skinny body in the most perfect possible way whilst making him look like a badass and oh how Anna DREAMS of feeling him up in that! (One day, she finally gets to! XD) She’s also very into the scale armor from HTTYD 3 when she’s in...a very different kind of mood XD As for Hiccup, his favorite outfits of Anna’s are probably her coronation dress and her queen dress, mainly because he loves how she looks in green. He also really likes her travel outfit from Frozen 2, mainly because it’s sexy AND practical and damn, he’s gotta admit, that’s a nice shade of purple and she absolutely SLAYS in it XD 80. Who makes jokes during inappropriate times? Honestly both of them??? Like neither are great at picking up social cues, and Anna canonically DOES do this in Frozen! (Remember her comment about ice-selling being “a rough business to be in right now”???) I can see both of them attempting to lighten a tense mood by making an ill-timed joke, hoping to make things less uncomfortable, and they end up making everything MORE uncomfortable XD Honestly sue me, I love the idea of these two idiots bonding over how terrible they are with social cues in general 81. At what age do they discuss the possibility of children? I imagine not til like...their early 30s, if ever. Like I mentioned in the first part of the questionaire, I actually am not sure if they would even want to have kids at all, but if they DID decide to, it definitely wouldn’t be until they’re older and have settled down a bit, and have (somewhat) gotten both of their lives together. 82. What do they love about each other the most? Hiccup loves Anna’s energy and optimism, and how she’ll basically cheer him on and believe in him with all her being no matter how high the odds are stacked against him. And oh boy does he LOVE how hard she can kick ass when push comes to shove, and how goddamn overprotective she is of him. The sword skills and the general willingness to punch problematic people in the face are definitely up there as well. She’s like the perfect blend of fun and badass, and there’s never a dull moment with her for him. Anna adores Hiccup’s connection with animals and general animal skills, especially with the more less-loved and “scary” of the world’s creatures (i.e. dragons lol). She also loves and admires the shit out of his intelligence and inventiveness, and wishes she could make contraptions half as cool as what he turns out. And, of course, she loves that he’s a pretty humble dude who's actually pretty insecure about his accomplishments, and isn’t some cocky guy wanting to shove them in everyone’s face. And, of course, she loves his sarcasm and his dry sense of humor, and few people can make her laugh as hard as Hiccup can. Before she met him, she had no idea pessimism could be this entertaining XD 83. Who is the one that sees the big picture, while the other focus’s on the small details? Hiccup is very detail-oriented--he has to be, in order to make any of his contraptions work! Anna is very much focused on the big picture and gets stressed and exasperated trying to keep track of details--she figures she’ll either sort through the details as she goes, or Hiccup will help do it for her XD 84. What would they write on their partner’s social media’s for their anniversary? One of my IRL friends wrote “Happy anniversary bro, you’re pretty great” on his girlfriend’s instagram for their anniversary, and she wrote back “Happy anniversary, you’re a good buddy, I love you” and I just XD That’s the EXACT kind of weird dorky nonsense I can see Hiccup and Anna doing for their anniversary tbh 85. Who is bad at math? Anna, bless her soul, needs a calculator for literally EVERYTHING. Hiccup kinda trained himself to be decent at doing math in his head, since he often has to calculate measurements for his inventions and whatnot, but Anna is absolutely atrocious at it and generally would like overly-complicated numbers to not be anywhere near her. 86. Who googles everything? Probably Anna, mainly because she’s pretty forgetful and doesn’t trust her own memory half the time so she feels the need to verify everything on the internet XD 87. Who does stuff on impulse? Anna 100% canonically does, although Hiccup has some shades of this too more than he would ever admit, in fact, for someone claiming to be the Voice of Reason 88. How do they comfort each other when they are helpless to do anything about the situation? Hiccup’s approach is probably just to try and distract Anna and take her mind off of it, which he’ll do by either trying to make her laugh, telling her a story, or explaining one of his inventions to her (which she never gets bored with btw, because everything that boy gushes about is fascinating to her <3). Basically he figures if he entertains her enough, it’ll take her mind off of whatever is freaking her out and she won’t fixate on it as much. Anna’s approach is more to accentuate the positives in a bad situation (although like I mentioned in Part 1, not really in a condescending “count your blessings, it could be worse!” kind of way, but more in a “I hope he’ll feel better if he focuses on happy things” kind of way, if that makes any sense?) and also focus on when Hiccup DID do great and utterly kick ass and tell him he’s always better than he thinks he is. 89. What is an inside joke they have? If anything, him calling her “Tiger” as a pet name (which I think I mentioned briefly in Part 1??? Can’t remember) is this, because in my mind it developed because whenever Anna is about to do some Dumb Shit, or punch someone she really shouldn’t in the face, Hiccup has to physically hold her back like “Whoa, slow down there, Tiger!” This happens so frequently that eventually it just gets shortened to him nicknaming her “Tiger” and all their friends are kind of baffled as to why XD 90. Who makes the other smile with almost no effort at all? Hiccup barely even needs to start talking in funny accents or imitating his dad before Anna is just DYING laughing. She thinks he’s the funniest damn person on earth. He honestly gets a kick out of her impressions too--she can do some pretty amusing ones, if that deleted coronation dress-up scene from Frozen 1 is anything to go by. So the feeling is mutual!!! They’re super good at making each other smile and laugh with little to no effort!!! 91. What is their favourite holiday? I feel like Anna especially would get REALLY into Christmas/Yule, mainly because of how much Elsa can spice it up with her powers. And judging by the OFA short, Arendelle gets very hyped for the holidays in general, so it’s probably hard NOT to have a good time. Anna probably also like Mayday a lot because the dancing, the spring cheeriness, and the flower-related festivities are definitely to her taste. Hiccup just likes the energy and general vibes, and would rather sit back and relax and watch Anna dance around and have fun XD Also dun best believe they BOTH get hella into Halloween, because they’re dramatic motherfuckers who loves to dress up, and it gives Anna an excuse to buy a shitton of chocolate and eat all the leftovers XD 92. Who is the one that is calm and collected while the other is angry and destructive? Lmao Anna is definitely the “berserker” of the two of them. She DOES tend to get destructive when she’s angry, if being ready to fight a giant-ass snowman and smacking a wolf in the face with a lute is anything to go by. Hiccup is definitely the calm and collected one, and very rarely gets genuinely angry. 93. What is their favourite board game to play? Does Dungeons and Dragons count??? I can totally imagine Hiccup being hyped up over that or some other super nerdy RPG game and being so enthused to show it to Anna, who just falls even more in love with him after seeing how EXCITED he gets about it. Of course he’s super eager to teach her, and TBH Anna has a really hard time getting it at first because DAMN these rules are COMPLICATED, but after she finally gets the hang of it, she realizes she absolutely LOVES DnD and RPG games in general (I mean...have you SEEN OFA??? Girl gets just a little TOO into reminiscing about her old play-pretend toys XD) and she and Hiccup constantly geek out about it together. 94. Who accidental sets something on fire? Anna, 100% also this is an ever funnier question if applied to Hiccanna in my Fire!Anna AU 95. Who has the car ready while the other is robbing the store? Anna is waiting while Hiccup robs the store, if for no other reason than that Hiccup is much better at Stealth Mode than Anna is XD Anna’s uncoordinated ass would probably knock over like 5 shelves’ worth of merchandise before reaching what they were actually trying to rob XD 96. What artist/group did they go to for their first concert? I M A G I N E  D R A G O N S lmao Look what can I say Anna likes the Imagine and Hiccup likes the Dragons 97. Who sleep talks? Hiccup. He mumbles about dragons a lot. Sometimes he jolts awake randomly and just yells out “THE DRAGONS ARE IN TROUBLE!” and Anna has to calm him down after she dutifully manages to not burst into laughter at this. Doubly funny if this takes place in a Modern AU. 98. Who is the more social one? Anna! Hiccup generally prefers to either keep to himself or hang out with animals. 99. What are their karaoke songs? For some reason I feel like anything by P!nk??? Idk why, but I can see them like rocking out and singing along to p!nk songs together and getting really into it. Also basically anything by The Killers and, at Anna’s request, The Chainsmokers (Hiccup thinks this is very basic music indeed but goes along with it for her sake XD). AND “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons. And they sing it LOUD. 100. Who would get up on stage and make a fool of themselves just to make the other laugh? Highkey both of them??? I kinda feel like Hiccup moreso though, if his little comedy routine imitating his dad in HTTYD2 is anything to go off of. He definitely wouldn’t be averse to making an idiot of himself to amuse Anna, especially since she’s so damn cute when she laughs. Anna, for her part, loves returning the favor, and is all about trying to do all sorts of Goofy Antics to amuse her boyfriend. And she’s overdramatic af, so she gets WAY too into it XD

#hiccanna #hiccup x anna #anna x hiccup #hiccup #anna #otp questions #hiccupxanna #annaxhiccup #rotbtd #rotbtfd #httyd #frozen #crossover #hiccup haddock #princess anna #queen anna

[therealkatekane]

My Journey

At the tender age of thirty-five, I have discovered anime. Don’t get me wrong, I first watched Princess Mononoke at sixteen. It was my first exposure to Eastern thought, and it blew my tiny adolescent western mind, and I loved it. But outside of Ghibli movies and Voltron (which I don’t count), I’ve never sought it out on my own.

As a previous post might indicate, I am obsessed with Godzilla, so it isn’t as if I’m closed off from Japanese media. Most of the video games I play are Japanese. (Fire Emblem, Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, pretty much anything Nintendo.) One of my partners is even a Pacific Islander of Japanese descent, who lived in Japan, who speaks Japanese. And we’ve been together seven years. But all of the sudden, now I’m on this quest to make up for lost time and consume all the anime I can.

(Note: If you have suggestions, I would love them. But I would prefer if they were queer. I want women in love with other women. It doesn’t have to be overt, but I don’t want any heterosexual romances, and would prefer as few male characters as possible. I’ve seen enough male-driven storylines, thanks.)

But today, I am here to word-vomit all about the queer extravaganza that is Senki Zesshou Symphogear. Because I am addicted. I’ll start with this picture.

And so begins our journey...

The show starts out the gate being super gay. Tsubasa (Blue) and Kanade (Red) are each a half of the singing duo Zwei Wing. They refer to one another as partners and there is a lot of “We can do anything as long as we’re together” and “I’m going to sing with you forever” type stuff.

Then there is Hibiki and Miku:

Friends since childhood, they are the core couple of the show. Hibiki is the main character who typically discovers she’s not just a normal girl and has the ability to wield a Gear, which allows her to become this adorable badass superhero. Miku is her anchor in the mundane world. She is frequently the one person or thing that can reach/inspire/motivate Hibiki. She is what drives Hibiki.

Hibiki calls Miku her sunflower, the place where she is warmest, where she will always return to. 

Which brings me to the point that they share a bed. Despite having bunk beds, they always sleep together. Except when they’re fighting, then they go to their respective bunks. It’s just so cute.

The characters are delightfully complex. Hibiki is as pure as the driven snow but she isn’t naive. Usually, pure characters are oblivious or ignorant to the danger or evil around them, but Hibiki isn’t. She knows fighting is dangerous. She knows people can be evil, but those things never deter her. It makes her incredibly brave, even when confronted with someone she knows is malicious, she extends her hand in friendship because she chooses to believe the best in others. It is nice to see a character who is sweet and pure without being an utter dumbass. 

We’ve all seen it. The sweet, precious hero is surprised that the bad guy who has been trying to kill them for an entire season won’t be their friend. Hibiki is NOT like that. She always gives people the opportunity for kindness without expectation, with the full awareness that it might be rejected.

Miku is the sweet, somewhat demure, nurturing one. She is the caretaker character. You might initially think she’s the standard timid and meek best friend stock character. But nope. She does not suffer fools. She is not an enabler. She is not afraid to call anybody out on their bullshit, regardless of who they are. She does what she thinks is right which also makes her very brave. She wants to protect Hibiki as much as Hibiki protects her.

Their dynamic is just lovely. Hibiki can kind of be a mess sometimes. She’s absent-minded, never on time, doesn’t prioritize school work. Miku is always there to pull her back down to earth, to center her. If she feels Hibiki is losing focus or deviating from who she is, Miku will always be the one to ground her. She truly is Hibiki’s anchor, her safe place. And I love it.

Oh and there is my dear Yukine Chris. I won’t go super in detail, but I will leave you with this:

It is exactly what it looks like. A queer D/s relationship. Unfortunately, it’s toxic and unhealthy. A whole lot of “I’m the only one that can love you” and “You have to obey me or I won’t love you anymore” and “I’m angry so you have to let me take it out on you” and so on. It’s all taken directly from the Abusive Relationship Handbook.

But worry not, we are not subjected to the toxicity for terribly long, and Chris gets the kindness and love she deserves from her new friends and senpai. I’d go more in depth, but y’know... spoilers.

Now, let us march forward to season two where our Roster of Queerness is completed by three additional characters. Two of which are so cute I cannot even fucking stand it. 

I call them my Precious Gay Babies.

Kirika and Shirabe are two little baby gays that grew up in an orphanage with only one another and Maria, who is like a big sister to them. But oh my fucking god they are so precious I can’t even handle it.

Kirika is the more animated of the two. The sweet, cheerful ray of sunshine. And Shirabe is the quieter, more solemn of the two. They literally have a fight where they are shouting back and forth at each other how much they love one another. If this show was only about them, I would watch it. They are just way too cute.

Shirabe can be a little possessive of Kirika, and Kirika knows who she belongs to. If another girl touches her, she knows Shirabe will put the stomp down on it. I usually find behavior like that kind of squicky and toxic, but in this instance it isn’t too gross because I think it’s rooted in their background. They’ve only ever had one another so they’re extremely protective of each other.

I mean, just look.

Look at my Precious Gay Babies!

LOOK AT THEM!! 

They are so cute and precious and I love them.

Let me wrap this up with Maria.

I won’t go too in depth with Maria because I don’t want to be spoiler-y. But 1) She’s fantastic. 2) No, I don’t know what’s up with her hair. 3) She is totally queer for Tsubasa, and I’m sailing on that ship. 

I am midway through the fourth season. So, I haven’t caught up to the most current season (5) but holy hell. I am invested.

It’s just a bunch of girls (oh! And there is even a genderless, sexless character who is precious and I love) being in love with other girls and fighting monster things.

I fucking love this show. Right now, it’s kind of vying for top spot with Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid. Which may only be my number one because it’s a little more overt in its women sleeping with other women thing. It’s equal parts “fuck yes!” combined with “am I high right now?” That’ll be my next post, I digress.

If you are in the mood for some light but surprisingly good entertainment featuring a strong line of female characters who all fall in love with one another, then I cannot recommend Senki Zesshou Symphogear enough. It is fan-fucking-tastic. It doesn’t require too much thought, but it makes up for it by giving you a ton of warm, fuzzy feels.

And if you can recommend me anything similar. Or anything that heavily features queer women, I would be forever in your debt.

Oh, and PS there is a mobile game, which is how I found the show in the first place. Downloaded the game, played it, then got all fucked up on the anime. Worth it.

#symphogear #senki zesshou #tachibana hibiki #hibiki #miku kohinata #yukine chris #kirika akatsuki #maria cadenzavna eve #tsubasa kazanari #shirabe x kirika #amou kanade #zwei wing #hibiki x miku #precious gay babies

[eoseowa-bangtan]

Hello! I would like to request a astrological pairing with Kim Namjoon. 03/11/2001 Columbus, Ohio 6:47 am

Disclaimer — All opinions are my own. My interpretation of Namjoon and his natal chart is just that: an interpretation. I do not know him, nor do I claim to know him or how he would act in real life. I am still learning about astrology and how to properly read a person's chart. If you believe I have misinterpreted a specific aspect, please know that all of this is all just for fun and entertainment's sake.

NSFW below the cut.

Synastry readings are based on certain aspects of both people's birth charts. These aspects are how each of your planets angle against each other on your charts. Each aspect has a different degree of separation between them. There are five total aspects: 0° (conjunction), 60° (sextile), 90° (square), 120° (trine), and 180° (opposition). Each of these means different things.

In brief, conjunctions are the best to have in a synastry; they represent mutual understanding and blended energies from your planets. Sextiles are also good in high numbers, as they give happy and harmonious energy in a relationship. Squares are a stressor in a relationship, and you want fewer of those than conjunctions, but they can offer some push towards action and room to grow. Trines are also a good one to have so long as they don't surpass the number of conjunctions; they give positivity and good luck and can balance out an overabundance of squares. Oppositions can be tricky; sometimes opposites attract but the energies can be so foreign that they can cause major problems if in certain parts of your charts.

Now that we got that explanation out of the way, here's the breakdown of your synastry with Joonie. You have 4 conjunctions, 6 sextiles, 6 squares, 4 trines, and 4 opposites. In brief, this is kinda a tricky one as there are more squares than conjunctions, the same number of opposites as conjunctions, and not enough trines to compensate for the high number of squares. However, you have a higher number of sextiles, which is a good thing, and your conjunctions are extremely powerful in your chart! Out of all of these, the most important ones are explained below.

Namjoon's Sun (Virgo) opposites your Sun (Pisces)

This one is a doozy. The Sun sign is the most powerful in anyone's birth chart. To have two people's Sun signs in opposition can be the start of your problems. A lot of energy may be wasted on having to explain yourselves to each other. Misunderstandings can be frequent and draining. Even if your relationship starts out on good terms, over time it can turn disharmonious if you aren't careful. This is especially true if neither of you respects the other's life choices. I can definitely see this being an issue, as Joonie is an idol and his lifestyle can ask a lot of him. If there is no effort or compromise, the relationship will be very difficult. However, don't give up hope! While this Sun-Sun opposition can be challenging, this can be softened by other positive aspects in the charts.

Namjoon's Mercury (Libra) conjuncts your Moon (Libra)

This is a great thing for couples! This tells me that you and Namjoon have lots of interests and projects in common. But more than that, with the communication planet Mercury and emotional ruler Moon both in Libra--the sign of fairness and equality--the two of you understand each other very well. Sometimes it can seem as if you two read each other's minds, especially to those outside the relationship.

Namjoon's Moon (Sagittarius) sextiles your Moon (Libra)

You feel instinctively comfortable with each other and know how to comfort each other. There's a feeling of safety that you both have when around the other person. This can tie back to you both knowing how to interpret each other, understand each other, and translate silent communication. This is a peaceful aspect of your relationship, one that definitely balances out and subdues the negative aspects. Both of your Moons are in sync.

Namjoon's Moon (Sagittarius) conjuncts your Mars (Sagittarius)

Your relationship is filled with lots of physical passion. Sagittarius is a fiery and sensual sign, and with Namjoon's emotional Moon and your action-oriented Mars in conjunction, sex is never just sex. It's a way to express your powerful emotional bond. These placements bring excitement and energy to your lives. You both desire each other always and feel immense warmth due to this physical connection. I can promise you that this will never fade.

Namjoon's Mars (Cancer) squares your Moon (Libra)

However, that passion may lead to turbulent conflicts. A Cancerian Mars and Libra Moon can often have miscommunications and misunderstandings. These can lead to shows of passion, but those times might be focused on releasing emotional aggression onto each other. It's not makeup sex so much as it's releasing pent-up frustration. These instances may not end with healing; it may just come to an end with the root of the problem still intact.

Namjoon's Mars (Cancer) squares your Venus (Aries)

The love you have with Joonie, being particularly based on physical understanding, has both its ups and downs. It's passionate but has all the negative side effects: possessiveness, jealousy, aggressiveness. If your relationship does weather the storm, there can be a lot of hurt feelings and confrontations. Cancerian Mars needs a lot of reassurance and peaceful situations to be at ease; an Arian Venus can be a bit too upfront and spontaneous for the other's liking. The sexual attraction is strong in the beginning, but the disagreements often have a major impact on your sex life.

Namjoon's Moon (Sagittarius) conjuncts your Pluto (Sagittarius)

Again, the passion is there due to a fire sign holding both Joonie's Moon and your Pluto, and it can be uncontrollable and lacking thought. Jealousy and possessiveness also show up here, along with a need for the other's presence 24/7. Something that will help you and Namjoon greatly is building trust. When trust is in place, both of you will appreciate that your relationship is growth-oriented and far from a lifeless routine. Your feelings for each have evolved and will continue to evolve over time. You learn from each other on an emotional and mental level. Your experiences together, both good and bad, have helped you level-up. This fact is a treasure. It may take time, but you both will see that the love you have is transformative. Sometime down the road, when things have settled down, you will look back and see that you've become newer, better people through your relationship.

Namjoon's Mercury (Libra) sextiles your Mars (Sagittarius)

Part of that growth is in the area of creativity. Namjoon's communicative Libra Mercury and your expressive Sagittarian Mars are a perfect match for creative ventures. They stimulate each other to be more thought-provoking and forward-thinking. You both learn a great deal from each other. More than just creativity, you understand each other and like to discuss things with each other. You have a great intellectual and creative understanding. This leads to a plethora of joint initiatives, perhaps in some areas of art?

Namjoon's Neptune (Capricorn) sextiles your Sun (Pisces)

This reading has gone over a lot to do with the physical expression of love in you and Namjoon's relationship. Those points are still valid, but the way his Capricorn Neptune sextiles your Pisces Sun reveals that there is an attraction to each other beyond the physical. There is a level of forgiveness and mercy in the chemistry between you that dances across the line of spiritual. This is a wonderful thing to see in your chart, especially with the conflicts you may have in certain areas of life. Always know that if you have trust and communication, there will always be forgiveness offered to both parties. More than that, the two of you share your dreams with a sense of freedom and security. Tolerance exists between the two of you, which is a very soothing and settling quality. Earlier we talked about emotional safety and how you know when and how to comfort each other. This aspect only multiplies that ten-fold.

Namjoon's Pluto (Scorpio) squares your Mercury (Aquarius)

However, be wary of this square. A freedom-requiring Aquarian Mercury can often be stifled or made uncomfortable by the Scorpio Pluto's intensity. Namjoon may have the tendency to want to direct your thoughts and ideas. He may read too much into what is said and what is not said, and you may not feel free to express your ideas when Namjoon is off-kilter. This isn't as negative as the aspects above, but it is something to be wary of.

Namjoon's Uranus (Capricorn) sextiles your Sun (Pisces)

This sextile is an unconventional one. You will be enriched by your relationship with Namjoon, which will lead to the discovery of a new world, original and full of change. You both go well together, but Namjoon may resist marriage, at least on a formal level. In some cases of a Capricorn Uranus sextile Pisces Sun, the relationship works better when the bond is not formalized. Even if simply for the sake of the Capricorn Uranus' sense of freedom.

Namjoon's Jupiter (Scorpio) trines your Lunar Node (Cancer)

You and Namjoon are made for each other. You go well together, have intellectual understanding and confidence in each other, and are an overall harmonious couple.

Namjoon's Mars (Cancer) conjuncts your Lunar Node (Cancer)

This is one indicator that suggests the relationship will endure. Despite the conflicts, the miscommunications and misunderstandings, the hurt feelings and emotional struggles you may go through, your love and passion will grow and last for a lifetime if both of you put in the work to keep the relationship alive. Given time and space, trust and freedom, comfort and forgiveness, there is nothing that you and Namjoon cannot weather together. Remember that the greatest strength you have is each other, and never forget why you fell in love in the first place. Even when struggles come, even when you feel lost or confused, even if you begin to wonder if it's still worth it, know that his planet of action and your True North are in the same emotional and loving sign.

#bts #bangtan #namjoon scenario #namjoon imagine #astro reading #eoseowa namjoon astro scenario #eoseowabangtan #eoseowamadi #namjoon fluff #namjoon astrology #astrology #namjoon #kim namjoon #bts astrology #bts namjoon #bts fluff #bts rm #rm #rm fluff #bangtan sonyeondan #bts imagine #bts scenario #astrology reading #bts drabble #rm imagine #rm scenario #rm drabble #eoseowa request #synastry reading

[astrohawritings]

I Have Your Heart (part one)

Rating; Fluff?

Warning ⚠️; None

Pairing; Moonbin X reader

Plot; (credit to _writing_ideas_ on Instagram) "You know I wear my heart on my sleeve."

"No! You know..you know it's not yours. It's my heart and you took it."

"I'm sorry you still feel that way."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'You know I wear my heart on my sleeve.'

'No! You know... You know it's not yours. It's my heart, and you took it.'

'I'm sorry you still feel that way.'

To anyone else, this simple exchange of dialogue would bring one answer clearer than the others; You had been in a relationship and had broken up, but you still harboured feelings for the man before you.

But they would be wrong.

The man before you- Moonbin - and yourself hadn't broken up, nor had you ever dated in the first place. You hadn't even really been friends before the..incident. But, you had lived in the same neighbourhood as children. Your families had been friends and frequently had dinner at each others houses. You had spoken a few times though, and you could hazily remember telling Moonbin that you wanted to live forever. And he had remembered.

When he was approached by some unidentifiable supernatural being, telling him that he would be spared (from what, he still doesn't know) and could live forever, but he had to chose someone to bear the burden with him, he instantaneously thought of you. The catch of the offer? He had to take their heart and wear it on his sleeve forever.

Moonbin decided that either way you would be the one he chose.

So, one day, he confronted you with a few other people you'd never seen before, apologising softly. Then, with a noise and a jolt of pain, your heart was out of your body, a quickly healing wound on the left side of your chest the only thing clueing you in to what had just happened. Your jaw hung open, looking at your heart, now sitting on Moonbin's sleeve.

There were no words for the apologetic look on his face as the other people outlined what your life would be like, you’d stop aging, yadda yadda. Then they dismissed themselves, leaving you both in silence. After countless moments of glaring from you and meek blubbering from him, you spun on your heel. 'I'm going home.' You snapped, not giving Moonbin time to speak. But as you got home, you found that you had no way in, and nothing was working.

Your keys fit the door, but they were useless in unlocking it. The back door wouldn't open no matter how much you willed it. The phone line cut out just as you were telling the locksmith your address.. And it did so everytime you tried. Slumping down on your front step and ignoring the stubborn tears wetting your cheeks, you yelled in frustration. Then, you allowed yourself to cry.

But it was different this time. Because unlike other times, where you could feel your heart hammering against the confines of your ribcage, there was an extremely apparent absence of that pounding. It didn't hurt, and there was no evidence of you literally not having a heart. No scar, no mark, no nothing. And you were still alive and functioning. Was all of this a fever dream that you'll wake up from soon? You sure hoped so. Just as you were muttering about how it'll probably rain soon, that it's just your luck, a certain man wandered up, head turned down, and tall body slouched in something like fear.

'What, Moonbin?' You snapped, covering your face with your hands. 'Listen, I'm sorry. But they, they approached me. They told me that I'd be spared from something if I obeyed and chose someone to live with me. You always said you wanted to live forever, so I though of-' Your sigh cut him off to see you standing up, peering at him through teary eyes. 'Spared? They? Live forever?'

'I don't know!' He wailed in frustration. 'It sounded bad, so I agreed. I-I should've asked you, but I got caught up in the moment and-'

'Shut up.' You sighed in defeat. 'What happened...happened. It's over now.' You glanced around, throwing a glare over your shoulder at your door, still stubbornly closed. 'I'd ask if you'd like to come in, but my door has decided that it will not open today.'

Moonbin, feeling that you were in a bit of a better mood (or so he thought), and wanted to try something. 'Did you offer the door a puppy?' You squinted at him, brain drawing a blank. 'Huh?'

'A Puppy. Did you offer the door a puppy? If I were a door, and someone offered me a puppy, I'd do whatever they wanted me to.' Moonbin explained, moving the stray strands of hair tickling his eyelids away while talking. You couldn't help but laugh, ending it with a sigh. With a shrug and a sudden urge to humour him, you turned toward the door a bit more. 'Jeez. I didn't think of that.' Softly so that you wouldn't alert any of the people wandering by, but loud enough for Bin to hear, you offer your inanimate front door, a puppy. You offered the cutest puppy to the door, yet it stayed closed.

'Huh. Usually works for my door. C'mon, I'll show you if you want.' Seeing as he didn't live that far away, you nodded, hesitantly gathering your things and following the man. 'I really am sorry.' He muttered, glancing briefly at your heart, still resting on his sleeve and beating away softly, as though it never left it's warm enclosure. You shook your head. 'Stop it. It's done now, and I guess I'll just have to get used to not having one. God forbid something happens to me and they need to find my pulse.' After a pause, you spoke again. 'Bin, the people said that neither of us will age after this, right?'

Bin nodded, tucking his hands into the pockets of his loose work out pants. 'Then what about dating? You can't date someone for too long. It'll get weird if they're aging and you're not.' It was like you were Bin's young child, asking your father about the world, and deep in thought as you trailed behind him, kicking at the concrete beneath your feet with each step.

'You'll trip yourself up if you keep doing that,' He murmured, wistfully looking into the distance. 'And I suppose that's true. Dating will be hard from now on. So will life. Every lifetime where we would die, we'll have to change our identities. Or..maybe not. We'll just have to see.'

You smirked at him, picking up both your speed and your feet. 'What if we dated each other. I mean, we both know what's going on and if we have to change identities, perhaps it would be easier to say we're married. It'll make it easier on both of us if we are. Then we're not looking at other people. Only at each other.' You were playing, to a certain extent. But you were also serious. Bin seemed to pick up your seriousness but not the playfulness, stopping and staring at you. 'You want to marry me? The person who just made your life- Fine. Let's date, then marry. You have a point, after all.' His sweet smile made its appearance, eyes softening into little crescents.

You spluttered in a flustered manner, gulping in air like a fish out of water. You hadn't expected Moonbin to take you seriously. He started walking again, pushing open the little gate that separated the footpath you'd just been following and the dainty little walkway that lead up to his front door. Your legs took over when he looked back at you, still holding the gate. 'Are you coming in?' You recovered, clearing your throat. 'Why'd you hold the gate? I can open it and let myself through.' You mumbled. Moonbin chuckled. 'My apologies for trying to be a gentleman. It won't happen again.' He mocked, holding the rim of an imaginary top hat between his thumb and first finger, tucking one leg behind the other and bowing.

His laughter bubbled out again when you shoved at him, pulling a face. Bin pulled out his keys, unlocking his door with ease. To humour you, as he did so, he murmured to the door about a puppy. The cutest puppy ever, he called it. Turning back to you, he shrugged. 'Told you the puppy thing worked.' He smirked, raising an eyebrow teasingly. 'Well, thank you for showing me.' You sighed heavily. 'God, this marriage thing is going to be fun!' You groaned, brushing past him and into his house.

The house hadn't changed from when you were kids. The only thing that had changed was that the house had been moved to Moonbin's name, in case something happened to his parents. 'It still smells of warm chocolate and honey.' You murmur, memories of simpler days popping into your mind. Bin smiled, leaning down to your height. 'Really?'

You smile at him. 'Yeah. But it smells better without your cologne invading my nose.' Bin laughed, straightening up and wafting air toward you. "I'm sorry m'lady. Here, some air smelling of warm honey and chocolate.'

'Warm chocolate and honey. It's your house, how did you mess that up?' You poke his stomach, surprised at the amount of muscle that flexed beneath your finger. He was never a squishy kid when he was younger, always tall, thin and good looking, but he definitely wasn't the most muscular. It seemed that things had changed.

It was then you found yourself studying what you could see of his body; his thighs, straining against the soft material of his Adidas sweatpants; the slight bulge where his bicep engaged beneath the long shirt covering his torso. And of course, the apparent abdominal muscles. His soft laugh was beautiful, eyes closed again in soft crescents. His voice was soft as well. Not what you'd call very deep, but deep enough to tell you that he had hit puberty. His voice didn't squeak anymore, or so you could tell, and it honestly was something you missed. You were positive Bin didn't miss it though.

You quickly snapped yourself out, mentally scolding yourself. Bin hadn't noticed your staring, too busy moving this and that, chattering to you as he calmed himself down. He flopped down on the couch beside you, arm resting on the back of the material, and switching the television on. 'Really? No drinks? No food? What kind of a host?' You mutter at him, standing up. 'Mi casa es su casa.' Bin murmured in a soft whisper. You paused to send him a glance, unable to hold back from smiling.

"Mi casa es su casa", meaning "My house is your house" was something you learnt at a young age and parroted to him a few times when his family was over for dinner. To know that he knew it, even if he himself had heard the phrase and didn't remember you telling him all those years before; even if he was simply repeating it, it made you feel a certain way.

You turned away again, leaving him to stare at the television, busying yourself with raiding the well-kept kitchen, gathering snacks and drinks. To tease him further, you waltzed out of the kitchen, placing a bowl of chips in front of him, patting his head as you left to go and get the rest of the snacks. 'Don't touch them, darling.' Bin hummed, still staring at the movie playing on the screen.

He was still staring at the tv when you came back, a blank stare, as though deep in thought. 'Bin, you okay?' You ask, leaning forward to put yourself in his range of vision. He simply gestured to the tv, or so you thought. The two people who had been with him when he first told you what had happened just a few hours prior we're standing just beside the tv. The woman smiled, stepping forward.

'We forgot to tell you,' She started, looking between the two of you. 'but you must stay together. If you're apart for too long, y/n's heart will start to slow down and it will stop eventually. Which, you know. Wouldn't be good.' Bin groaned softly, resting his head in his hands. You sough and leant back against the settee, turning your head to look at Bin. 'But,' the man standing beside the woman spoke, flicking his eyes between you both. 'clearly, you've both already worked that out, yes?'

'I guess.' You muttered softly. 'Were you the ones who-' 'stopped you from getting into your house? Yes. As we said, you both must stay together. It won't kill you, but it will affect you in other ways. It's within your best interests to stay with Bin. If you must be apart, make it only for a short time.'

With warm wishes, they left again, leaving both of you in silent contemplation. There was nothing to say, and so you both stayed silent, watching the tv and softly crunching on chips. As bedtime drew nearer, you searched Bin's house for a blanket and stole a pillow from his bed. He watched as you placed the pillow down on the sofa and laid the blanket out, laying beneath it and closing your eyes. He then copied you, stretching his long body out and shutting his eyes, listening to the sounds of the tv as he drifted off.

#arohanet #writeblr #astro writing #astrohawritings #astro kpop #moonbin #i have your heart #moonbin fanfic #kpop imagines #kpopidol #bin fic

[incomingalbatross]

More Holmes Meta

Okay, so, actually serious version of "Holmes faked his death because Drama Brain" because I keep thinking about this and I have a New Take now. (I mean, probably not NEW new considering the extent of Holmesian fandom, but I've never seen it.)

1. To start with, I'm pretty confident that Holmes has some bipolar-adjacent mood disorder--cyclothymia seems the closest to what we see in canon, from my very basic knowledge of the subject.

Cyclothymia, as I understand it, fluctuates more frequently than bipolar disorders proper, but doesn't normally reach full-blown manic or major depressive episodes. We see Holmes go into hypomanic states during cases fairly often, I'd argue, and his depressive episodes after/without cases are explicitly canon (although both his hypomanic and his depressive stages can also show up without an obvious external trigger).

2. Given that, I think there's an argument to be made that he's in a hypomanic state for at least the last bit of "The Final Problem", and that that affected his actions and decision-making.

He doesn't quite seen like he is at the start, but he's definitely not all right:

Shows up at Watson's door EXTREMELY scattered, explains what's going on all out-of-order

Watson says he "looked even paler and thinner than usual," and "something about his pale, worn face told me that his nerves were at their highest tension." He's wound tighter than his violin's E string.

As said above, hard cases often seem to trigger a hypomanic episode, and he's been working for MONTHS on this, the hardest and most intense case of his career. (Especially interesting is the case mentioned at the start of "Reigate Squires," where he A) didn't sleep for FIVE DAYS at one point, and B) collapsed into "the blackest depression" as soon as he'd finished.) So he's probably at least been hypomanic recently, and neglected his recovery.

(Makes some situationally-inappropriate jokes... but it's Holmes. Not sure that can be classified as anything but his inability to NOT be Witty In The Face Of Peril. He's a loser like that.)

Anyway, while he seems to be low-key holding himself together with duct tape and willpower in the first part, it's after they get word Moriarty escaped that his mood really becomes questionable.

We get one (1) really serious moment from Holmes: on receiving the telegram, he "tore it open, and then with a bitter curse hurled it into the grate." (Note: this is not incompatible with hypomania, but it's also not an unreasonable reaction--so not evidence on its own.) He then shows a genuine awareness of danger for... the last time in the story, yep... As displayed by his immediate attempt to send Watson home.

After that, though...

Absolutely assured Moriarty's going to catch up with them: DESPITE this, however, Watson "can never recollect having seen him in such exuberant spirits."

Holmes. Buddy. I know Moriarty is really evil and having brought him down is really cool but HOLMES. PAL. THAT'S NOT HEALTHY.

SMUG about apparent murder attempts, because they show All Is Going As He Has Foreseen.

Keeps going on and on about how catching Moriarty is a Fitting Close to his career and he can't imagine continuing as a detective after this.

Spends most of his time hiking in secluded places, with only Watson and maybe a guide, instead of making a solid plan; deliberately sends Watson off when he sees his enemy is trying to trap him alone in a secluded location.

Writes the note to Watson, which boils down to "Yeah, so I'm about to die... Sorry, Watson, I guess this'll upset you. But it's the COOLEST thing I could do at this point, right? Isn't this a cool ending? I'm good with it, don't worry. :) 👍"

I mean... I don't think Holmes had a death wish, per se. But he wasn't trying very hard to stay alive!! And he was HAPPY with that, so!

My opinion, informed by basic mood disorder research (though I am NOT an expert):

He was in a hypomanic state at this point, whether he had been before or not. And Hypomanic Imagination was caught up in the grandiose drama of the approaching Final Confrontation, of him sacrificing his life to take down Moriarty for good, without being able to really process the consequences. Like, you know, being dead.

But ALSO I think some depressive elements were joining the mix at this point (as bipolar disorders can apparently give you a mixture of both ends at once?? Delightful). He knew he'd just done the coolest thing he'd ever done... and that there was probably a worse depressive episode than he'd ever known before lying in wait for him, just waiting for the current crisis to be over. And I think he may not have been able to face the idea of sticking around to go through that, either.

So... Yeah. That helps me feel I've got a handle on Final Problem.

And then the parts we learn about in Empty House? I feel like his brain stalled out on the fact of his Plan Not Happening, when he survived, and immediately had to latch onto a new plan. (He says he'd come up with "faking his death" before Moriarty hit the water, so at least that much is true.) The new plan partly made sense, partly existed to fill his need for drama... And may, partly, have been a way to avoid returning to the parts of life he'd been planning on getting out of.

He climbed the almost-impossible ledge, which was an incredibly reckless decision and--with the rest of it--makes me wonder if his manic episode had just gotten a boost. (Can it work that way? I'm honestly not sure...) He lay there, while Watson found the evidence and brought others to look at the scene--an indicator of extreme confidence in his plan, BTW, to sit there while Watson's mourning him right there--until nightfall.

Then Moran showed up. And we got a very interesting line...

"I scrambled down on to the path. I don’t think I could have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult than getting up."

He'd CLIMBED TO A LEDGE HE COULDN'T GET DOWN FROM. That is NOT planning. That's impulsive, overconfident self-endangerment!

Then, he says, "I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I found myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me."

... I have questions about this. Google Maps says it takes six days to walk from Reichenbach to Florence--was he on foot the whole way? Did he have a goal, or was he just trying to hide, day-to-day? Why does he cut out that entire week, as though it was a purely transitory period?

...Given that he says he "found himself in Florence," I'm tempted to say he doesn't know all the answers to those questions. Pronounced manic episode after Reichenbach? Or did everything catch up with him somewhere in that week, and send him spiraling into the depressive end so hard that he lost track of the outer world?

I don't know, but I don't think he was entirely rational for that post-Falls week.

As for why he kept up his death, after that... Well, at that point he'd already been "dead" for at least a week. Moran and Co. might easily believe he'd died in the mountains in that time. And, well... The harm of his death was already done. He might at well commit and stay dead until he had something to show for his Plan, right?

(The answer to that is probably "no," but Holmes is ALSO an idiot who underestimates the importance/impact of emotions--his own and other people's--and since he WAS safer while presumed dead, that, like.... objectively outweighed Feelings-related concerns, right? Right?)

As I said, I'm not an expert on cyclothymia or related disorders... So if you know more and I got something wrong, please let me know!

#Sherlock Holmes #Holmes #meta #the final problem

[moviegroovies]

oh my go d i swore to myself i would stop until at least tomorrow with the headcanons but now that i’ve opened up the floodgates they just keep coming so here we go, part 2!!!!

out of all the lost boys (other than michael, obviously), paul is the one who would get along the best with sam, if the vampires and the emersons ever figure out how to make peace with one another. in fact, they have pretty similar interests; paul’s into mtv, too, and he hangs around stores with tvs all night trying to catch a glimpse of it, probably running into sam once in a while without even noticing when sam’s out doing the same. plus, he’d never admit it, but he thinks sam’s clothes are pretty cool...

not that he’d give up his rocker style for it

or that david would LET him ruin the group’s aesthetic by giving up his rocker style for it dshgfdhg

in general paul’s pretty good with kids, but in like a “fun uncle” way. he’s DEFINITELY not suited to be a child’s main caretaker, but he likes things they like, so he’d be good at having fun with them: taking them out for ice cream or the arcade, palling around, that kind of thing. he’s probably the kind of guy who dares kids to do dangerous shit without ever considering whether or not they’ll, you know, be okay.

dwayne on the other hand is intensely cognizant of that stuff, to the point of anxiety; even if he doesn’t actually stop the goings on he’s just Super Aware it’s happening and he won’t relax until the kid’s feet are on the fucking ground, thank you. 

which isn’t to say that kids don’t think dwayne is fun. really, all of the lost boys (including star) are more suited to be fun uncles + aunt (or more accurately, fun older sibling types) than actual parents. the whole group is mostly about having good times forever, so it’s not like them to get bogged down in responsibility and adult stuff. that’s not on their radar. 

marko and paul goof around together a lot. you know how i said paul would unthinkingly dare human children to do dangerous stuff? IMAGINE the kind of shit he tries to get an invulnerable immortal to do. half the time they spend with each other is just spent trying to think of increasingly awful things to wish on the other until one of them finally backs down from a dare, which can take weeks.

other people can get dragged into these battles; dwayne is the most frequent victim until michael shows up and does so many dumbass things because he doesn’t quite realize he’s being hazed. 

david HATES it

he thinks they’re all being dumb and immature as hell, but at the same time, he’s no more mature than they are, no matter how much he likes to act it. if one of them goes “i triple dog dare you,” he’s going to hold out for about three seconds before his pride gets the better of him and oops, there he goes, off to do the stupid thing

michael figures this out about him fairly quickly, and one such dare is the way he finally gets his revenge for getting tricked into giving up his mortality and that whole incident with the train on the bridge

one fought shark and two weeks of watching david regrow partially missing limbs later, nobody fucks with michael anymore. go figure.

ok honestly i have even less to go on with jasper than i do for the rest of the lost boys, which is already fairly sparse, but i want to think about him so I Am.

based on the lost boys: the beginning script (what little there is of him in it, honestly--he’s definitely got the least lines, never mind that he isn’t even in the real movie), my characterization of him would revolve around him being a bit of a dandy. kind of thinks of himself as a gentleman thief, the montparnasse of the group, if you get what i’m saying. he’s not actually all that slick (never mind the bad poetry he writes), but he tries to dress a little better than the others, and they let him think he’s a wine connoisseur when they really suspect he’s just teetering on alcoholism. 

underneath the prettyboy poet thing, he has the capacity to be kind of nasty if the opportunity presents itself (on the sliding scale of control to bloodthirst from my last post, i’d put him below dwayne but above marko, making him semi-controlled, but still liable to go vicious on a hunt), but when he was human, he mostly preferred to run from fights rather than fight them--he was the fastest of the group (after his death, david briefly took that place, until star showed up), and had the best hands for pickpocketing.

he’s also a little bit of a dork underneath it all. when he’s had a little too much to drink he’s liable to gush about his affection for his friends, or a stranger, or anyone who gets within gushing distance. everybody gave him a hard time about it, but once he’s gone, they secretly feel like they should have appreciated it more when he was around.

on the other hand, he could be somewhat prone to bouts of melancholy. 

dwayne said Gay Rights. 

when jasper was alive, the two of them were the closest, having a pretty steady (though not entirely monogamous) relationship over the course of about a year of their human lives and around three or four solid decades of vampirism. the other guys knew, naturally, but apart from some mild teasing, they mostly just let it be. it’s not like any of them are particularly straight--if anything, they were probably just jealous that they found each other and had a relationship that made them that happy. not that they’d ever say that, of course.

the end of the prequel script almost made me think that jasper died then, somehow? but then he said something new a few lines after the line that made me think that, so i’m just going to work off the assumption that he lived through that and died later.

instead, i think he was killed by grandpa emerson and some other vampire hunters when grandpa was in his prime.

in the wake of jasper’s death, the whole gang kind of falls apart. even after all these years of killing, none of them have ever dealt with real loss, the loss of a blood brother (or, in dwayne’s case, a dude he’s been in love with for a much longer stretch of his life than the part where he wasn’t) before. the only thing they can all agree on is that they have to get revenge immediately. 

even though he’s never been on the front lines of these hunts, it’s a unanimous agreement that dwayne lead the charge to find the hunters who killed jasper. for once, when they get to the group, dwayne isn’t feeding, he’s just annihilating every single person even tangentially involved. the only person who escapes the massacre with his life is grandpa emerson, who just barely makes it out unnoticed in the aftermath of the thing, when david finally has to physically remove dwayne from the corpses and take him back to the cave for his own good. even then, he’s in no condition to hunt vampires for months, and even when he recovers, he never gets his full health back. instead, he lies low, the thought that the vampires will one day realize what they missed eternally ringing at the back of his mind, and moves his wife and young daughter outside of the city limits, staying away from santa carla as much as he can. 

that’s pretty much it on hunting for grandpa emerson. at least, for the next few decades, that is...

after a few years, things go more or less back to normal for the lost boys, except with the loss of the relatively quiet, subdued jasper, the group’s dynamic takes a little bit of a turn for the worse. dwayne’s more nonverbal than ever, and also a little wilder, a little more inclined toward violence when he remembers the last humans who got too close to their dwelling. marko, seeing the opportunity, tends toward more extreme violence in those days, and paul, who gets easily drawn in by the smell and sight of blood, tends to follow suit. even david finds himself lost in the kill sometimes, coming to hours afterward and realizing that he’d been clumsy, even reckless, in his hunting the night before.

they’re all making mistakes and egging each other on, and david doesn’t like it. he’s got the presence of mind (not to mention the eternal protective instinct regarding his friends) to realize that they’re spiraling, and if they keep it up like this, more hunters are going to rise in the place of the ones they killed. this starts a search for a more level-headed member of their group to replace jasper, a search that, naturally, leads him to star.

her inclusion to the group definitely helps things. the guys, having lived in pure testosterone for some 60 odd years, are a little awkward in her presence, and for the first year or so, they’re quieter when she’s around, trying to impress her. 

they all go out and get the canopy bed especially for her (they do like her, from the beginning) when it becomes obvious that star’s penchant for long skirts will only make things awkward if she tries to sleep upside down with them, not to mention their mutual unease regarding a co-ed bat cave. 

they have no idea what girls, especially girls in the 70′s, like, but they try to dress it up and they’re very proud when they present it to her.

from the beginning, star doesn’t trust marko all that much--she refuses to be alone with him, and forms a habit around being on the other side of the room from him in group settings. it sort of pisses marko off (mostly just because he doesn’t understand why), but david sees this and understands, intervening in such a way that leaves marko no room for argument whenever he tries to confront her about it.

star doesn’t like david, either, mostly due to the growing resentments she builds over the decade and a half she spends with them for him letting her become a vampire. her hatred, given that it was her decision (that she’d asked him specifically to make her a vampire) pisses david off a lot, but he lets her get away with a lot, too, because he remembers how much he fought against being turned, and can understand her moral dilemma. 

star feels the safest when dwayne is around, but she had some fun times goofing off with paul and dancing to the radio. those times were probably the ones where she regretted her decision to join the lost boys the least. 

dwayne’s residual anger and bloodlust from the incident with jasper finally starts to fade when she shows up, which david notices and appreciates

still, her inner conflict over joining them is obvious and leads to a different kind of tension in the group, so he has to keep searching for another member to cool things down. 

hence: laddie

honestly i can’t tell what i think about the origin of his inclusion. part of me thinks it could be a claudia in iwtv situation, where david tries babytrapping star, banking on the idea that she won’t be able to leave if she knows there’s a little kid there that she has a duty to protect. on the other hand, david intentionally condemning a little kid to a kind of stunted half life where he can’t grow up and is taken away from his parents sort of conflicts with the david that unrobbed a dude because he saw that the guy had little kids relying on him, and anyway, up until this point, david had only known star as a somewhat reckless teenage girl; banking on her having a maternal instinct he’d seen no proof of seems like an awfully big gamble. 

so what i’m thinking is more like: david kept looking for a sixth member, but he was looking at the young adults in their age range on the boardwalk, not children. instead, some unforseen event happens around the same time as he’s looking (i’m thinking maybe the boys go too far when hunting one night and laddie got seriously injured in the crossfires, leading dwayne or star or david to take him back to the hotel for blood to save his life), and bam: sixth member.

i think his inclusion kind of does what david wanted it to do and kind of Doesn’t. 

like, as soon as he shows up, star completely lets go of any notion of leaving the group and running away, which is good. at the same time, though, she resents david even more for turning laddie, even if it saved his life (naturally, it was the boys’ fault that laddie was in danger in the first place, so she kind of has a point) and now she’s always preoccupied with questions about turning back and she spends a lot of time mourning her humanity.

so david is still fucking looking for another person to even this new mess out.

i think laddie and star both have instincts on some level (or, if laddie doesn’t, he’s guided by star, and star does) about the safest place to be in the semi-volatile vampire den at any time. like, star visibly doesn’t get along very well with david, but she still knows that he’s got the most self control and at least some semblance of a moral code, so when it comes down to it, she hovers around him. they’re definitely not dating, and never were, but it could easily seem that way to an outsider; on the boardwalk, when she’s with the boys, she sticks as close to david as she can, and if she’s riding on the back of anyone’s bike, it’s his (she also only lets laddie ride with either david, if she’s not riding, or, more often, dwayne. paul and marko are strictly off limits). 

david is also possessive of her, because to david, she’s one of them, and he can tell that half the guys he’ll find her with (the way he found her with michael), she’s just throwing herself at because she wants out of the group, away from the lost boys, and he feels like he’s got to remind her where she belongs. 

it’s pretty toxic, really. over the tense year or so the group exists as we see it at the beginning of the film, david, dwayne, marko, paul, star, and laddie, things only get worse as david’s temper starts to heat up and star clashes with him at just about every opportunity. things are getting to the point where they HAVE to break, and finally they do:

michael moves into town.

at first, david sees him as just another escape for star (the same way star sees him, really). when david issues a challenge and michael responds to it, and not only that, for a split second, he’s winning, beating david’s bike despite being indisputably outclassed, though, david starts to see potential... a potential which shines through when michael shows his anger, picks a fight (and what passion!), and still follows them back to the cave, not because star is going to be there, but because david is. 

on the way there, he decides that michael is the final missing link they’ve been needing. he doesn’t know, yet, about max’s infatuation with lucy, or the plan to put the blood sucking brady bunch together. he just knows, in that moment, that his boys are teetering on the edge of irreconcilable dysfunction, and michael is the final piece he needs to fix it: he’s calm enough that he won’t add to marko and paul’s mania, but still fiery enough that his voice will come into play in favor of more thought-out decisions. plus, he can tell the boys are starting to like him (of course, they like anyone who takes a swing at david, even if they’d be tearing the perpetrator to pieces in seconds if they thought the swing was taken with legitimate malice behind it), and he knew from the first second that star did. michael is one of them.

with this thought in his mind, david is the one who becomes reckless in his need to convert michael. he gets sloppy.... but, since these are my headcanons and i get to choose the rules, i’m just going to say that eventually, things work out, michael becomes the final member of the gang, and everyone lives happily ever after.

holy shit, i just wrote a goddamn timeline.

i mean. wow, i think i’ve written less intricate fanfiction, fuck.

well, if you’ve made it this far, i’ve got a few more fun and low-stakes (ha, ha) headcanons as a reward for you, before i give this post the mercy killing it is begging for

david likes movies.

not just good movies.

david and the gang sneak into the cinema pretty much every time they get something new, and no matter how cheesy the dialogue or how predictable the plot twists are, he’s totally entrenched. it makes sense on a certain level, probably, if you consider that when he was growing up even silent films weren’t so much as a whisper on the horizon, but still, there’s a definite element of cognitive dissonance involved in watching the strict and intimidating leader of their gang clap and cheer at the end of every shitty b-movie that comes to their local theater. i mean, really.

it’s after he goes on a few of these movie nights with everyone that michael finally starts to really warm up to david. he wants to still be mad about the way things went down, but at the end of the day... it’s kind of hard to be scared of a guy you’ve seen cry at the end of working girl. 

marko and paul really like action flicks; paul gets into action-adventure, while marko is more into the slasher genre (although secretly, he’s more than a little intruiged by pretty, indie movies they show in the art house... not that he’d be caught dead there in a million years). dwayne, on the other hand, goes to those movies with them, but in his heart he just really likes comedies. they’re fun. sue him.

david would say he prefers horror, but it’s only barely the truth. he does like horror movies... but at the same time, he likes every other genre and practically every other film he’s ever seen. vampire movies are always his favorites, though, for personal reasons. 

star doesn’t go to the movies with them a lot, but she enjoys the occasional blockbuster with the guys, and she takes laddie to see more family-oriented films when he asks. 

michael..... likes romances. he’s always so embarrassed to be there with all the ladies his mother’s age, but there he is in the audience, hiding his face behind his hand, totally fucking loving this. hey, at least david is there too,  throwing popcorn at the horny couples making out in the row ahead of them and getting just as horrifyingly into the plot as he is. 

they never talk about those movies after they’re over. what happens in the santa carla movie theater stays in the santa carla movie theater. 

not that this is any particular place for a good end for this post, but this is the last thing i have for now: when michael moves into the hotel with everyone else, he elects to sleep in the canopy bed with star, rather than hanging from the ceiling with the guys. they start ribbing on him constantly for this--saying that the main room of the cave must be reserved for women and children--but the joke’s on them, in michael’s opinion--not only is he not hanging by his feet from the alcoves, but he’s also the one who sleeps holding a beautiful girl every day. things could be a lot worse.

#the lost boys #text post #headcanons #paul #sam emerson #david #dwayne #marko #star #michael emerson #grandpa emerson #laddie #jasper #man what do i even have left to say i've SAID IT ALL #this is everything i've got #take it or leave it gfdshgfh #just kidding i'll probably be back with more tomorrow

[absinthc-blog]

(  kim  seokjin,  cismale,  he/him,  26.  )  —  CHOI  MINWOO,  better  known  to  the  authorities  as  PROMETHEUS,  has  been  working  for  the  kumiho  for  around  SEVEN  YEARS  as  a  COORDINATOR.  rumor  has  it,  they  can  be  ADAPTABLE  &  CONCILIATORY  but  also  HAUGHTY  &  MATERIALISTIC  which  is  why  crystal  champagne  flutes,  black  cards,  cigar  smoke,  and  tailored  suits  makes  me  think  of  them. 

okay  first  and  foremost  i  want  to  say  a  genuine  THANK  YOU  to  each  and  every  one  of you  for  showing  interest  in  this  group  !  truly,  it's  been my  baby  for  a  while  now  &  i'm  so  glad  i  was  able  to  (  with  help  from  ness,  obviously  )  bring  it  back  for  all  of  us  to  enjoy !  words  can't  express how  grateful  i  am  for  all  of  you  &  for  the  out  pour  of  love  and  support  we've  received  for  kumiho  !  now...  onto  the  usual  intro  stuff  !

hello,  i'm  gem,  i'm  21+,  i  go  by  she  /  her  pronouns  and  i  live  in  the  cst  timezone  !  i  absolutely  love  pain,  angst  &  ruining  my  characters  lives.  i  also  tend  to  use  memes  all  the  time  so  if  we're  talking..  just  prepare  for  memeage.  also  a  fun  fact  that  literally  know  one  asked  for  but  i'm  giving  it  to  you  anyways:  i  cried  the  first  time  i  ever  saw  a  corgi  in  real  life  &  proceeded  to  run  across  a  busy  street  to  be  able  to  pet  it  !  okay  now  for  real,  onto  the things  you're  really  here  for  !

this  dude  right  here  is  minwoo,  he's  a  tiny  bit  of  a  trashy  mess  but  honestly  i  can't  seem  to  play  characters  that  aren't  a  mess  ?  his  backstory  is  still  a  work  in  progress,  but  below  the  cut  is  basic  stats  /  bullet  proof  bio  /  personality  traits  /  basic  wanted  plots  &  a  few  more  random  things  !

if  you'd  like  to  plot,  feel  free  to  add  me  on  discord  (  𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾 𝕆𝕆𝔽.#9330 ),  im  me  or  SMASH  that  little  heart  button  &  i'll  come  to  you  !

                                 GENERAL  INFORMATION.

full  name:  choi  minwoo. nickname(s): min,  woo,  minnie. date  of  birth:  tbd. age:  twenty-five. nationality:  korean. spoken  languages:  korean,  english,  chinese,  japanese,  thai,  french,  spanish,  german  &  russian. gender:  cismale. pronouns:  he / him / his. sexuality:  bisexual. faceclaim:  kim seokjin  (  jin  )  of  bts. BACKGROUND. hometown:  daegu,  south  korea. current  residence:  seoul,  south  korea. financial  status:  upper  class. occupation:  coordinator. family  connections:  tbd.

                                       EXTRA  INFORMATION.

myers  briggs:  entp-a. (  the  debater.  ) enneagram:  seven.  (  the  enthusiast.  ) temperament:  choleric. moral  aligment: neutral evil. hogwarts  house:  slytherin. sin:  gluttony. virtue:  pride. zodiac:  tbd. element:  fire.

                                                BIOGRAPHY.

born  and  raised  in  daegu,  south  korea.

parents  were  both  incredibly  well  known.  one  being  a  lawyer,  one  being  a  ceo  of  a  multi-million  dollar  corporation.

they  weren't  around  a  lot  due  to  how  busy  their  schedule  was,  so  minwoo  was  mostly  raised  by  the  nannies  /  maids  that  were  always  around.

there  was  a  tiny  bit  of  resentment  that  minwoo  held  towards  his  parents  for  never  being  around  that  he'd  take  that  out  on  the  nannies,  so  much  so  they  had  a  hard  time  keeping  a  full-time  nanny  hired.  they'd  constantly  quit  their  jobs  due  to  how  minwoo  treated  them.

after  a  while,  though,  the  choi's  were  able  to  find  one  nanny  in  particular  that  didn't  take  minwoo's  attitude  personally  &  didn't  allow  it  to  effect  their  job.  in  fact,  they  started  to  reprimand  min  for  the  way  he  was  acting  out.

at  first,  of  course,  minwoo  didn't  take  well  to  that  at  all.  he  got  more  angry,  started  getting  more  of  an  attitude.  but  after  a  while,  he  grew  tired  of  it..  finally  breaking  down  &  it  was  then  that  the  nanny  figured  out  why  he  was  lashing  out  at  every  person  that  happened  to  be  doing  the  job  his  parents  were  supposed  to  be.

minwoo  started  to  calm  down  after  that  day,  finally  starting  to  realize  that  it  wasn't  the  nannies  fault  that  his  parents  were  always  working  and  couldn't  be  around  to  raise  him  like  he  really  wanted  them  to  be.

it  was  then  that  his  grades  started  to  get  better,  attitude  improving  almost  completely.  sure,  there  were  days  where  it  still  got  to  him,  but  for  the  most  part  he  stopped  taking  it  out  on  everyone  but  the  people  actually responsible  for  the  way  he  felt.

his  school  days  after  that  went  really  well,  acing  all  of  his  classes  and  staying  at  the  top  of  his  grade  the  entire  time.  things  got  different  around  high  school,  though.  his  parents  started  breathing  down  his  neck  about  either  becoming  a  ceo  or  a  lawyer.

neither  of  those  things  is  actually  what  minwoo  wanted  to  do,  fully  unsure  of  what  he  wanted  to  do  with  his  life.  but  he  didn't  want  to  let  either  of  them  down,  so  in  his  free time  he  ended  up  studying  for  both  things.

completely  letting  his  'free'  time  go  in  order  to  please  both  of  his  parents  caused  him  to  start  building  up  his  aggression  &  resentment  once  more.

he  couldn't  take  it  for  much  longer,  his  parents  constantly  yelling  at  him  to  get  his  shit  together  caused  him  to  hate  school,  hate  studying  for  both  things  that  he  doesn't  want  to  do...

so  one  day,  he  snapped.  his  father  bursting  through  his  room  as  he  was  taking  a  break  only  to  start  yelling  &  instead  of  falling  back  into  line,  minwoo  got  up  &  got  in  his  father's  face  and  began  yelling  back.  telling  his  father  that  what  his  parents  wanted  him  to  do  wasn't  what  he  wanted  at  all.

his  father  didn't  take  too  kindly  to  that,  basically  telling  minwoo  that  if  he  didn't  want  to  do  either  of  the  things  his  parents  wanted  him  to  do,  he  could  move  out  and  deal  with  life  on  his  own.

to  prove  a  point,  that's  exactly  what  minwoo  did,  moving  into  his  aunt's  house  as  he  finished  high  school,  finding  multiple  part-time  job  that'd  pay  the  bills  he  needed  to  pay  as  well  giving  his  aunt  some  for  rent  just  because  she  willingly  let  him  in.

those  were  also  something  he  didn't  want  to  do,  but  he  did  them  anyways  just  to  be  able  to  have  some  sort  of  income.

after  he  graduated  high  school,  he  had  tons  of  colleges  that  wanted  him  to  join  them  just  because  of  how  good  his  grades  were,  but  that  also  didn't  seem  to  be  something  he  wanted  to  do.

he  declined  each  and  every  one  of  them  with  little  to  no  regret,  his  aunt  supporting  the  decision  even  though  she  wanted  to  see  him  do  something  better  with  his  life.

those  words  stuck  with  him  as  he  finally  moved  out  of  her  home  &  into  a  small apartment,  busting  his  ass  to  constantly  be  able  to  pay  bills.

it  wasn't  until  he  met  someone  at  the  bar  he  worked  at  that  his  life  started  to  take  a  turn  for  the  better.  the  mastermind  happened  to  frequent  the  place  he  worked,  always  giving  minwoo  a  hard  time  about  doing  better  things  with  his  life, only  for  minwoo  to  brush  it  off.

but  one  night,  min  finally  got  curious,  asking  the  mastermind  what  that  meant.  that's  when  the  offer  to  join  the  kumiho  was  set  in  place.  the  mastermind  had  seen  how  determined  minwoo was,  overheard  min  talking  about  the  four  shitty  jobs  he  had  to  work  in  order  'survive'  just  because  he  didn't  want  to  even  touch  the  money  his  parents  constantly  kept  sending  him  just  out  of  spite.

minwoo  actually  started  out  in  the  kumiho  as  a  runner,  getting  things  that  the  crew  needed  &  hiding  in  plain  sight.

however,  the  second  that  the  mastermind  found  out  about  minwoo's  studies,  they  were  quick  to  suggest  something  more,  explaining  the  difficulties  of  being  a  coordinator  &  explaining  why  they  thought  minwoo  would  be  perfect  for  the  job.

minwoo  was  skeptical  at  first,  though  it  only  took  a  few  days  of  debating  with  himself  before  he  agreed  &  ever  since  then,  he's  done  his  best.  he  wanted  to  make  sure  that  the  mastermind  was  proud  of  the  choice  they'd  made.

                                            PERSONALITY.

most  of  the  time,  minwoo  seems  pretty  cocky  &  sarcastic.

can  be  extremely  blunt  when  it  comes  to  certain  things,  even  if  his  words  might  happen  to  hurt  someone  else.

extremely  selfish  for  the  most  part,  always  looks  out  for  himself  before  he  looks  out  for  others...  but  he  does  still  care  about  others,  even  though  he  barely  shows  it.

also  loves  to  "one  up"  others,  it's  the  competitive  side  of  him  but  he  usually  does  so  in  a  playful  /  teasing  way.

he's  deep  down  really  goofy  &  loves  to  have  fun.  loves  to  explore  &  goof  off  whenever  possible.

has  the  tendency  to  hate  commitment,  so  whenever  feelings  start  getting  involved,  his  knee-jerk  reaction  is  to  run  &  avoid  it  at  all  cost.

is  one  of  those  people  who  pretends  to  hate  everything  &  be  really  serious  but  will  dance  around  his  room  in  his  boxers  when  he  thinks  no  one  can  see  him.

a  very  two-sided  person  but  not  in  a  way  that  could  be  seen  as  fake..  he's  just  got  a  very  serious  side  of  him  vs  the  goofy,  fun  loving  one  that  doesn't  get  to  be  seen  as  often.

extremely  serious  when  it  comes  to  his  job,  though.  will  call  people  out  on  the  smallest  of  mistakes  if  he  thinks  it'll  effect  any  of  the  heists.  he  really  has  no  issue  with  confrontation  &  will  do  so  if  he  thinks  it's  needed.

absolutely  loves  to  cook,  picked  that  up  when  he  was  living  with  his  aunt.  he  started  cooking  dinner  and  meals  so  that  his  aunt  didn't  have  to  whenever  she  got  home.

also  a  tiny  a  bit  neat  freak  so  he  gets  a  tiny  bit  stressed  out  whenever  headquarters  is  a little  bit  messy  and  will  either  just  clean  up  the  messes  or  get  snippy  with  everyone  until  he  figures  out  who  did  it.

loves  fashion,  constantly  is  seen  going  to  fashion  shows  to  try  and  keep  up  with  the  latest  trends  &  constantly  is  buying  clothes  &  accessories.

also  loves  cars,  will  buy  the  latest  and  greatest  models  of  each  and  every  sports  car  that  comes  out.

his  'socialite'  side  comes  out  the  most  during  events  where  he's  around  a  bunch of  people,  creating  new  ties  with  whoever  he  can  knowing  connections  like  those will  help  him  gain  new  followers  &  things  like  that.

known  for  modeling  &  his  instagram  /  social  media  posts,  gaining  a  following  just  because  of  his  'ootd'  posts  as  well  as  the  snapchat  videos  he  posts  about  his  daily  life.

                                                  PLOT  IDEAS.

bad  influence.  (  on  your  muse.  )

best  friends.

brotp.

confidant.

current  hook  up(s).

drinking  /  party  buddies.

drunken  hook  up.

enemies  that  used  to  be  friends.

exes  who  ended  on  bad  terms.

flirtationship.

will  they  /  won’t  they.

friends  with  benefits.

good  influence.  (  on  minwoo.  )

hate  sex.

one  night  stand(s).  (  past  &  present.  )

partner  in  crime.

past  hook  up(s).

ride  or  die.

trouble  makers.

unlikely  friends.

#kumiho.intro #— ⟢ paging captain dumbass ⦂ ⋰ * ✧ out of character.

[fullregalia]

chef’s kiss (from daddy).

Like a sad sack Kendall jonesing for something better than park coke, I am already missing the presence of Succession in my life and so blogging and discovering the Vanity Fair podcast will have to stave off my season finale withdrawal. Upon listening to Slate Money’s Succession podcast season finale episode with guest Tamar Adler, I felt like I wanted to think more about the role of food in the show in general. “Thank you for the chicken” may just be the most iconic Tom Wambsgans line Succession has had so far, and there are so many (uncut) gems to choose from (“Just checking the till here, Mark, and it seems you're short a few million,” and who could forget this poetry: “king of edible leaves--his majesty, the spinach.”) The way the show traffics in excess, while also showing us how the Roys eat, but are never truly nourished, is a fascinating lens through which to see how these characters live. [Ed. note: I started writing this all the way back in October, and got sidetracked with school--in the interim, Eater published a great article ranking the dinner scenes in the show.]

If you were to ask me what the stand out food scene in season one is, I’d immediately answer Tom and Greg’s dinner with the ortolan course. It’s such a nouveau riche flex (but maybe it’s an old money flex too? I don’t hang out with ortolan eaters of any socioeconomic status!) and a silly one at that, but it’s fitting that Tom and Greg--of “you can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Greggs” fame--are the ones to make a big deal over an elaborate dinner, because they’re the outsiders. While many of the show’s episodes are centered on a grand meal as set piece, it shows how commonplace formal, catered dinners are for the Roys. When you’re a billionaire, going out to dinner is probably more of a nuisance if you could just eat something decadent prepared for you in your own home.

By season two, it’s almost as if every episode plays some sort of food-as-metaphor role as the grand meals function as plot points more frequently. From episode one, “Summer Palace,” we start off with Logan trashing an entire seafood feast to order a bunch of pizzas (that don’t even get touched) at their Hamptons house. To the Roys, this kind of waste doesn’t upset anyone, and what’s even more interesting is Logan is totally fine with the idea of ordering pizzas. This weird highbrow/lowbrow liminal space that the Roys occupy is so fascinating to me. Billionaires are out of touch and weird, sure, but they act so artificially chummy, like the way Nan Pierce presents herself, for instance. While rationally I understand Logan demanding that his staff order a bunch of pizzas, I also cannot imagine a billionaire being like, “order a bunch of pizza instead of this lobster!!” (Clearly this is a bit of shades of Warren Buffet garbage palate happening here, billionaires: they’re just like us! #wealthtax.) 

But Logan is in no mood to waste neither food nor time in episode three, when they all go hunting and we are introduced to the world’s most insane Exterminating Angel cosplay also known as Boar! On! The! Floor! (!!!) No sausage gets left behind as this dinner party devolves into yet another opportunity for Logan to humiliate and belittle his family and colleagues. As Troy Patterson notes of Logan Roy, he’s carnivorous in every way. Lest you forget, though, the Roys love their beverages more than they appreciate food, and in this episode Connor introduces us to hyperdecanting and Logan views Roman out of touch with the common man because he can’t say how much a gallon of milk costs. Another highbrow/lowbrow moment: this season has made the clash of Logan’s upbringing with his children’s lifelong privilege much more of a thematic presence. (Do we think Shiv has ever ordered pizza delivery? She has worked on political campaigns, but strikes me as a “no thanks, I don’t have time for lunch” kind of staffer.)

Food waste runs in the Roy family, it seems. There’s this funny little moment when Roman goes to management training, picks up a sad looking danish, takes a bite, is disgusted, and puts it back. Oh Romulus, you are such a jerk, but I love your weird ways. One of the things I noticed this season about Roman on his “leadership journey” was that he seemed to teetotal more and more--perhaps as a result of witnessing his brother’s substance abuse issues--it seems as though as he becomes increasingly serious about taking over the job of CEO, he’s been drinking more Perrier and green juice.

As the season continues, the meals keep coming: when the Roys dine with the Pierces at Tern Haven, Nan has this bizarre moment of performative hostess mode when she presents a roast her housekeeper made to the guests as her own? It was such a weird scene, and so telling of who Nan Pierce is: she loves to appear as a homespun, generous person, but clearly is not just a “simple billionaire” who gets her hands dirty in the kitchen. The façades continue to crumble as the evening goes on as the Roys snap at one another, though somehow the disastrous dinner isn’t enough to halt the deal from happening (yet). It takes a weekend in Argestes, with lunches not eaten and dinners walked out on, for that deal to fall apart.

While the big set pieces of season two’s grand dinners reveal to us the cruel and illusory tendencies of our characters, the most revealing--and effective--use of food (or lack thereof) was Shiv and Roman’s visit to their mother in “Return.” We know that the younger Roys’ mother is cold, but in this episode we see just how withholding she is. Before we get to Lady Caroline’s, Roman makes a joke about eating muddy trout and filling up on mustard; on the plus side, we have a funny scene at a convenience store with Roman and Shiv looking completely confused by how normal people snack. It’s clear that Caroline does not have a healthy relationship with food--Harriet Walter says that was part of her backstory for the character--and she serves them pigeon with shot and feather not cleaned off. She cannot nourish her children, literally or emotionally. (lol at my *extremely incisive* commentary and psychoanalysis.) Later in the evening, while talking to Kendall in the kitchen, she cannot bring herself to have a heart-to-heart with him. In the New York Times’ review of the episode, Noel Murray says: “That’s one powerful symbol for life as a Roy. One parent hollers for protein. The other serves inedible meat.” These rich kids just can’t catch a break from their parental nightmares!

Succession shows its characters’ damage through their total lack of intimacy or vulnerability. It is not your usual HBO show with gratuitous nudity; besides Roman and Gerri’s .... situation, there’s not really sex on this show. The only way that the Roys derive pleasure is from money and the flashy status symbols that come with it (hello, mega yacht!). The scenes with food become the most emotional because it’s the closest they get to physical or emotional closeness in many ways. But the Roys don’t do emotional closeness; I think one of the cruelest--and funniest--examples of this is when Shiv, Tom, Roman, and Tabitha have dinner together and all Shiv and Roman can do is dunk on Tom for his bad suits (Roman: “You look like a divorce attorney from the Twin Cities,” and: “I’m sorry but like, what the fuck? You look like a Transformer. What’s wrong with your body, man?”).

All this brings me to the denouement of Season 2, in which we also reach the apex of Tom’s frustration with his terrible in-laws mistreatment of him, and the aforementioned “thank you for the chicken” line. First: Logan Roy is out here on a MEGA YACHT eating a chicken wing with some big Ricky Rozay wingstop energy. Second: Tom cannot bring himself to confront Logan, even if he finally vented his frustrations to Shiv; all he can do is stuff his face (it’s not love, Tom!! I learned the hard way!!!) and walk away. Third: all the yacht meal scenes are great--just a complete pile-on of courtiers backstabbing and badmouthing each other (Tom calling Karl a “sausage thief”) with a few genuine moments of emotional honesty. Connor drinks wine at breakfast. Greg, accustomed to quaffing rosé, fears he will be sprinkles on the sundae of a Tom sacrifice. Roman defends Gerri! The look Roman and Kendall exchange when the sacrifice is made. Roman, who is “widely known as a terrible person,” in general becoming the MVP of the latter half of the season, even asks to talk to his siblings “normally.” A request that they summarily mock him for. Succession season finales have major “Water, water, every where / Nor any drop to drink” vibes. 

We end the season with Kendall giving daddy Roy a (Judas) kiss after a figurative last supper on the boat, and what’s next is ripe for further scenes of familial drama. Let’s hope there’s similarly rich protein for us in Season 3, I’m already hungry for more.

#succession #food #lol #tv #demi you genius #kiss from daddy

[ener-chi]

This is going to be a long personal post, so if that’s not your thing, feel free to scroll past it.

I was born and raised into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, aka The Mormon Church. My entire family, and my entire extended family, on all sides, are also mormon. For almost the entirety of my youth, i was completely absorbed into this religion, and it actually meant a lot to me. I was always a smart kid, and i loved to delve into the scriptures and learn about the history of the church, and to participate in the church meetings and classes.

By the time that i had reached high school, i was very knowledgeable about almost every aspect of the church. It was also a big part of my life and my identity, and i held many leadership positions in the church, as well as actively tried to reach out to others to try and convert them; I was very involved.

This all changed when i was 15. It’s a bit of a long story, but in one of my history classes a single thought struck doubt into my mind about the church and about the validity of God. This led me to a very long month spiral of constant analysis and questioning and research and confusion, about both the Mormon church as well as God himself. At the end i decided to do a test of faith, and for a week straight i lived the most holy way i could, casting aside everything non-church related and basically engulfed myself in a week of scripture study and prayer, praying to God for an answer about himself and the church. At the end of the week, i still hadn’t received an answer. The memory is still so clear, me on my knees, praying, begging, for an answer, and no answer came... and then the realization dawning on me that maybe i was praying to nothing, maybe... God just, doesn’t exist.

This completely shattered me. My entire life, my entire identity, up to this point, was based in my faith and in the church. And in a moment, it was all gone. I laid on the floor, my mind spinning as my entire being was just nullified. And then i was hit with the insignificance of my existence, and i was face to face with the nothingness beyond death. And in that moment, i had to decide whether it was worth it to eke out a meaningless existence or not. 

Of course, i decided that i might as well live. But from there, i had to completely rebuild my entire view of the world, of my morality, of myself, of everything. And it was absolutely horrible. I went through a very tough time as i tried to figure things out in a suddenly strange and unfamiliar world. I won’t dig any further into this now, as this isn’t the point of the story (and also my beliefs have radically changed since then anyways).

On top of trying to rebuild my world, there was the problem of church. I didn’t believe in the Mormon faith anymore, let alone God, so what was the point of going? But, i realized, i actually didn’t have a choice. I had to keep it a secret; i wasn’t sure exactly how my family would react, but i knew that it wasn’t going to be good.

And i was right. I was able to struggle through church for a few weeks, but my parents read through some of my texts and confronted me about it. I came clean, and i told them, and i begged them not to let me go to church anymore; it was painful. And they told me no; they were going to force me to go to church every Sunday, as well as all of the church activities during the week. They also expressed their anger and extreme disappointment; my father called me an error. My mother refused to look at me. My siblings didn’t speak to me, and neither did any of my prior Mormon friends. My already rough existence was plunged further into hell.

Fast-forwarding here, my relationship with my family was completely ruined. They shunned me, and i hated them for forcing me to go to church, which was hell for the 3 years that they did. It was a very hard time in my life, and i was convinced that after i went to college, i would never speak to them again. But i gradually phased out going to church, and from there, things immediately began to improve. I went to college, and my relationship with my mom had gotten better, and i could tell that she had kind of come to accept my change in beliefs. My father had softened a bit, but he was still distant and i could tell that he still expected me to come back to the church. Fast-forwarding to today, my relationship with my parents is actually excellent, we have a wonderful bond, and i think we were able to form a relationship despite our differences in beliefs.

So why do i share this story? It’s all context for what has been happening the past couple of weeks for me. So since that all happened a couple of years ago, i’ve actually basically completely healed from the whole thing, from being forced to go to church, to the dejection from my family, everything; i don't harbor any bad feelings towards anyone.

But what’s interesting is that like 2 weeks ago, i noticed that old memories of my days in the church and from those times started to cross my mind, and pretty frequently at that. Also, i work at a doctors’ office, and when i pull up a patient, it shows their religion, and i started seeing more and more patients that were Mormon, much more than normal. AND THEN on top of that, about 4 days ago i started getting emails from Mormons in the local ward, and i found out that my father had transferred my records out here, presumably to get them in contact with me in hopes of them reconverting me. I guess my father really never fully accepted my change after all.

Anyways, all of this was happening, and i knew that it must mean something. I don’t believe in coincidences, at all; literally everything happens for a reason, so I was just kind of watching all of this Mormon stuff recur into my memories and into my life, just waiting to see what the universe was trying to do.

And then - yesterday, it happened. I was scrolling through tumblr, and an ad for QuitMormon came across my dash. It is very difficult to leave the Mormon church. It is a very long process that has to be done in person, and they make it long on purpose to give them time to try and change your mind and reconvert you. But this ad for QuitMormon, which was the first time i had heard of it, advertises free legal services from ex-mormons to get out of the Mormon church without all of that in-person hassle, and it has really good reviews and testimonials.

So i saw this ad, and i just laughed. I laughed really, really hard. This is what the Universe has been building up to for the past 2 weeks. I’ve struggled for a long time, and i’ve been continuing to be harassed by the Mormons for a while, and all of the sudden, i have my out; if i wanted to, i could withdraw my records and be officially done with it.

I didn’t do it. I’ve completely healed from my traumatic past from the church. Do i still get calls and visits from the church? Yes. Is it annoying? A little bit, yeah, and i wouldn’t mind putting an end to it. But this isn’t about me; it’s about my father.

As annoyed as i was initially when i found out that he had transferred my records here, i recognize that it’s actually him showing that he cares about me.  He still thinks about me, and looking out for my eternal salvation is his way of showing that he still is looking out for my best interests, even if i don’t agree with his beliefs.

I’ve completely accepted my differences with my parents, and i’m not exactly sure where my mother stands with it, but i’m pretty sure she’s accepted it as well. But my father... my father still has a very long time to go before he accepts that i am on my own path. If i were to officially leave the Mormon church, it would make it more difficult for him to accept this, as well as probably drive a little bit of a wedge between us. So even though i am given the opportunity to leave, and even though i will still have to deal with the occasional harassment, i will decline.

It is still blowing my mind, though, that the universe set all of this up. Like the amount of synchronicities that lined up was enormous, and i watched as it built up and up, just wondering where it was going, and i wasn’t expecting the final destination. It was one hell of a test, but i smile knowing that i passed it. 

This is the second time that the universe has put such a large synchronicity in my life, and it’s just... so crazy to me. Like it is just such a huge affirmation for the path that i’m on, and it really helps me rest easy knowing that the universe really does have my back; and for that, i am eternally grateful.

If you read this far, wow! Thank you for reading! I’m writing this mainly for me, so that i can look back on it and record it in my journal, but i hope that you also gain something from it.

Blessings!

#mine #about me #journal #7.11.19 #synchronicities #mormonism #mormons

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, LINA! You’ve been accepted for the role of TROILUS with an FC change to Henry Golding. Admin Rosey: I am absolutely HOWLING. So, when I was writing Troilus, I was having an amazing time -- he’s so nuanced and seemingly superficial, but there are so many detailed facets that contribute to his happy-go-lucky attitude. He’s so utterly disarming and charming that, from the interview alone, I couldn’t help but swoon over him. Your development for him promises so much, from the sought-after revelation of Celeste’s infidelity to turning him into a hollow and hungry creature. I’m absolutely over the moon to be putting my precious boy into your hands, Lina. By all means, ruin us all. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Lina. Age | 26 Preferred Pronouns | She/her Activity Level | 5 – Med school honestly wipes the floor with me most days, so I can’t promise daily activity but as I’ve said before, I promise consistency and communication. I’ll request a hiatus if needed, and I won’t disappear or drop-out without warning.   Timezone | Finally back in EST (UTC-5:00) Current/Past RP Accounts | —

In Character

Character | Tomas Sabello -> Could I request an FC switch to ether Henry Golding or Godfrey Gao? I love Bob Morley to pieces but I’ve used him as an FC for long enough that I really struggle to dissociate him from the role I played. I think Henry fits Tomas’ gentle disposition best, but Godfrey has more versatility in terms of acting roles/expression which seems more in line with the mood in Verona and what he may eventually become… I dunno! I’ll leave it to you guys to choose the preferred alternate FC in the event that I do get accepted. I’d be happy working with either one.

What drew you to this character? | I really liked how opposite he is to Viv, honestly. He’s so enamored with emotion, and despite the fact that he’s an actor by trade, he’s an open book when it comes to anything that inspires feeling within him. I think Tomas loves the idea of love to such an extreme that there’s no thought to guarding himself from it. No amount of pride could keep him from offering his heart up, not even the threat of rejection. He takes and he takes, but he also gives to the people around him, indiscriminately; even to the most insignificant of passersby who’ve touched his life or inspired his creativity in some brief, ephemeral way. While Viv absorbs and safeguards whatever light she finds, Tomas reflects it freely back into the universe, and I really like that dichotomy.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

*∆* - Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s oblivion: I’ll keep this point short and sweet; I want Tomas to find out about Celeste’s infidelity and for his heart to get absolutely shattered in the process. It could be sooner, later or whenever, but I think we’re all holding our breaths for that to happen in the story, and I’d love the opportunity to portray that.

*∆* - To fight one’s nature is a losing battle: This is a plot contingent on the arc of his relationship with Celeste and details pertaining to their marriage (how long it takes for him to find out she’s cheating on him, what they do with that information, if they divorce, etc.). But essentially, I’d like to show Tomas’ struggle with his own fidelity because in his bio, he strikes me as the sort of character that doesn’t settle on one lover easily. And he loves Celeste with every inch of his being and right now that’s what’s keeping him faithful, but I think that even if her infidelity isn’t revealed, eventually Tomas will start to feel the strain. He’ll notice the little signs along the way that hint that she doesn’t quite love him the way he loves her. I think those would put cracks in the marriage even if Isabella wasn’t in the picture. I’d like to explore those, and how little micro-tensions crop up in chronic relationships when one partner feels like they’re pulling all the weight. I want to dig into that and cast the lens on a quietly troubled relationship, and I want to see how far it pushes Tomas in response. Does he grow colder?  Does he seek intimacy elsewhere? Does he fall into the same temptation and cheat on Celeste, whether physically or emotionally? Let’s find out!

*∆* - Any way the wind blows: I’ve always imagined Tomas to be the unsettled sort, in all senses of the word. His loves have always been transient and fleeting, his decisions (both in leaving Rome and marrying Celeste) seem rash and impulsive… I think capriciousness is a trait of his that extends to all facets of his life. So one headcanon I have for him is that now that he’s on sabbatical from acting, he’d want to try his hand at something new. Activities or careers that he gets excited by every few weeks and actively chases until something changes and then he drops the ball and moves on, certain he’ll find his luck elsewhere. I think it’d be interesting to see him get into all sorts of mix-ups while catering to this instinct, and maybe unintentionally making himself a nuisance to other characters in their line of work in the rp. Just this over-excited dude picking up positions and then dropping them as if life’s his own picnic… It’s definitely going to rub some people the wrong way and I’m here to see it happen!

*∆* - The hardest of hearts:  … I’m intrigued by Tomas’ deep resentment of Roman Montague. His bio implies that it’s his acting experience which primes him to look at Romeo as if he’s also an actor, playing a part he doesn’t deserve. But I think it goes deeper than that. I think canonically, even, Tomas’ character seems to have a lot in common with Romeo from Shakespeare’s original, or at least, the earliest version of Romeo that we see. Lovelorn and lackadaisical, an innate predisposition for goodness, and yet undoubtedly leaving lovers a little carelessly in his pursuit of love, etc. So the way I see it, beyond his judgment of Roman as being unfit to rule, I think Tomas doesn’t like him bc he sees in Roman all of the same flaws he recognizes subconsciously in himself. It’s always easier to see our flaws through a mirror. I’m interested in seeing how far Tomas would go to spite Roman in order to avoid having to confront himself. The fact that Celeste is still tied to the Montagues would also be a continuous dilemma for Tomas, who dislikes both mobs. Depending on what plots come up, I might even entertain the thought of getting Tomas tied up in Capulet business, with the singular goal of bringing down Roman Montague.

*∆* - … Destroys itself in the end: In his bio, it’s alluded that Tomas took from both his parents when it came to his nature. He loved as frequently and as persistently as his mother, but destroyed those in his wake as surely as his father; leaving his path littered with broken hearts. I want to see that side of Tomas again. Except this time, instead of it being an accident of youth and of too much ignorance, I want it to be intentional. I feel like heart-break would leave him hollow and hungry, and I want to experience that side of him. I think his capacity for hurt is almost equally potent to his capacity for love, and that’s what makes him such a compelling character in my eyes.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Through a well-developed plot, yes.

In Depth

These interview chairs are always so stiff that Tomas has to wonder whether it’s intentional. Maybe it’s to keep him from falling asleep, but he’d never do that. He likes giving interviews for the most part. Of course, it was easier in his early twenties; when he had very little in the ways of a filter but was blessed with the circumstances in life that permitted him to get away with it. Oh, and an adoring audience. That always helped of course. These days, as a married man in a new city, he has to be more careful with his tongue.

That doesn’t make him any more careful with his smiles, however. And right now he’s aiming one of his most brilliant at the interviewer who’s already started asking him questions. They’re three minutes in, but she hasn’t returned any of his good cheer so far, and that’s uncommon. He’s remembered all his pleasantries, he’s been considerate enough in opening doors and waiting to be seated - but still, nary a smile. He doesn’t mind too much, but it makes his job so much more enjoyable when they do. And as a result, Isabella Gagliano is both a damper and a challenge. But before Tomas can engage her into lowering her defenses, she’s presented him with the next in a series of fan-chosen questions.

“What is your favorite place in Verona?”

”The Two Gentlemen. Certainly the best bottle of pinot grigio that I’ve ever had.” Tomas tells her, lips pressing together as sweetly as the juice from those sticky wine grapes. “You wouldn’t be remiss either if you tried the risotto al tastasal. That’s a real recommendation, you know?” He stage-whispers with a grin, “Off-the record.” But if Isabella takes note, he can’t tell.

The truth is, it’s a lie. A white lie, he consoles himself, because sometimes, the truth is too heavy a price to pay. The truth is that his favourite place in all of Verona is the recently abandoned Multisala Rivoli. It’s a cliche, he knows, an actor finding his second-home inside of a rundown movie-theatre. But it isn’t for the movies that he goes, nor out of any misplaced vainglory. Rather, it’s the promise of nondescript privacy that draws him like a bee to to honey. There, he can meet his new friends beyond the prying eyes of the media. There, he has a clandestine spot to escape the humdrum of the city for a few hours, alone with his thoughts. But it’s not a truth he’s ready to share, and moreover, the Montagues will like this answer better. It’s a nod to their territory; a little more promotion for their best-boasted restaurant. He refuses to join them, he refuses to share in their cause, but maybe sliding in such harmless tips will convince them to lay off of Celeste’s case and stop pressuring her to pressure him to join. Truth and politics don’t mix. Every time a video begins recording, Tomas is well aware of that. But above all, an actor must always remember his part.

“What does your typical day look like?”

“What, like a twenty-four hour play-by-play?” He asks playfully. “No one’s that interesting,signorina, I promise. I remember I was asked a similar question in an interview two or three years ago. I think it was for Sorrisi e Canzoni? Or maybe GQ…. Either way, it was a much more exciting answer back then. Plays, parties, private jets… ” Tomas reminisces fondly, but not fond enough to want to trade it in for his present. “I hate to disappoint, but it’s not the same anymore. I’m a married man on sabbatical now, remember??” He says, directing the question towards the camera before letting his gaze find Isabella once more. His life is quieter now, but happier too. “Not that it’s boring by any stretch. I’d recommend marriage, actually. I know it’s done wonders for me! But if I start talking about her and all the ways she’s changed my routine everyone will be rolling their eyes and complaining about cavities before this interview’s over.” Tomas chuckles, thinking of the myriad of ways his daily life has become synonymous with Celeste. What time she wakes, what time she leaves, when she comes home or when he gets to persuade her out of the house on little dates… He has a life outside of Celeste to be sure, but it’s only around her that he’s really reminded of what he’s working towards. Like Eros and Psyche, he thinks. He loves, but she sets fire to his love and gives it true sustenance. A future, a family, a very happy ending - That’s all he wants these days.

“What has been your biggest mistake thus far?”

He laughs at that, taken aback by the girl’s directness. “Is that really what it says on your sheet??” He cocks a brow, leaning forward as if to sneak a peek. “Damn… That’s harsh.” Sometimes, his fans seem like tiny mosquitoes; hungry for every teeny-tiny drop of his blood as they submit questions as invasive as these. “I have to think about that one…” Tomas admits with a bemused shake of his head. “I try not to think of my experiences as mistakes. Even the ones that might feel like it initially. Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? Don’t you believe that?” He looks to his interviewer as though hoping to coax another answer out of her, but she doesn’t indulge him. He’s always preferred dialogue to monologue, despite his choice of career. It takes an exchange of ideas to see the world through new lenses, and he can’t do that while talking continuously about himself. But another pensive, stolen glance at Isabella tells him that she probably won’t care what his answer is, so long as he gives one. He could make it up right here on the spot - something like ‘I’ve started a third gang in Verona to spite the Mobs‘ or ‘I kicked a dog once’, and she probably wouldn’t bat an eyelash. He wonders why. He wonders why she’s so determinedly expressionless.

“Do you play Poker?” Tomas asks without warning. He hadn’t meant for that to come out of his mouth but somehow it does and it takes another laugh and a wave of his hand to dismiss it. “Sorry. But you could! It’s impressive actually - in a good way. To answer your question, I think I’ll have to keep this one to myself.” It’s apologetic but firm, because his biggest mistake is failing his parents. Of all the roles he’s played thus far, that of ‘son’ has always left him most wanting. He couldn’t fix their marriage. He couldn’t inspire their divorce… To this day, his adulterous mother and destructive, ill-tempered father remain tethered to each other. Two rusting anchors, weighing themselves down to the bottom of the sea-bed… Most days, Tomas tries hard not to think about it. But there are some moments, moments when he’s feeling low, that he wonders if he’s responsible for their unhappiness; wonders if he couldn’t have done more to help them find happiness, along the way. Today is one of the predetermined no-thinkdays though. The days he’s giving interviews always are. “Sorry about that… Got anything else on your nifty list?” He prompts her, hoping to move on to a happier topic.

“What has been the most difficult task asked of you?”

This question too, gives him pause. More than he’d like. There’s the shadow of fleeting suspicion as he steals a glance at Isabella, wondering if they’re posing these questions on purpose to throw him off. But what cause would a reporter have to do that? You’re being silly,he chides himself, mulling over the question. Again, he knows the real answer.

Commitment.

It isn’t easy to choose a single person in this life, Tomas thinks. To narrow his expansive romantic inclinations and promise them to one individual and one individual only. But it’s a choice he reminds himself of every morning when he wakes up, when he cracks an eye open only for his gaze to fall on the familiar comfort of Celeste’s blazing red hair, like a halo around her cherubic face. It’s a choice he must remember when he’s comparing paintings with Juliana and hears the clear-bell tone of her laughter echo in the museum. A choice he must remember when his fingers find the soft, unwritten skin beneath Santino’s wrist as they look for stars in a midnight sky. A choice he recalls even as he listens to Paola recount the tales he’s missed in her life; eyes dancing with ferocious passion and he thinks what if, what if…

… But it’s a struggle he dares not reveal. It would insult his beloved wife, it would make a mockery of the vows they took in front of that altar, all those months ago. Worse still, it would surely garner derision from the audience, especially from his most die-hard fans; some of who still count on the failure of his marriage in order to regain the bachelor fantasy they’d attached to their idol. But idols were effigies of gold and silver. He was not an idol, he was a man of flesh and blood and feeling. Do you understand?… You will never understand me like she has, he wants to rebuke them. But there’s an old fondness that he can’t help when it comes to those who loved him first. And so his countenance softens as he answers the reporter’s question. “The most difficult task for me, has been leaving behind all my loved ones in Rome. My friends, my family, my fans…” He presses his fingertips to his lips for a moment before waving them towards the camera, sending the kiss to those who’ll hope for it most, when the interview airs tomorrow night. “I send my love, and I’m humbled by your continued support.”

“What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?”

“It’s-… It’s insanity.“

Now the Montagues won’t like that. But he feels the answer so strongly, and with so much conviction that he thinks the glassy brightness in his eyes would betray him anyway. Some lies are too big to swallow, even for an actor. “Brutal and unnecessary - do they even remember what they’re fighting for?” He asks Isabella, though he thinks she’s probably no closer to answering that than the other Veronesi. “You know, the stories say that it’s been so many decades now that no one knows any more… Isn’t that silly? To fight over something that you can’t even remember?” But deep down, Tomas knows it’s not that simple. Because mobs don’t need an impetus; not when there’s so much profit to be made in criminality. All the rest is just stories, to play on the sympathies of a winsome public. He should know… He played on that same, guileless sympathy, night after night after night on a front-lit stage. But art is one thing, war is another. And Celeste is tied up in this war, much as he hates to think about it.

“Maybe I’ll go back to Rome one of these days,” Tomas announces abruptly, shifting upright in his chair. There’s an ardent gleam in his eyes because he likes thinking in maybes. They’re so much more satisfying than the limitations of what is or isn’t strictly possible. “I’d like to take my wife with me. She’s never been… Can you believe it?? Never been to Rome… We could start there, then maybe a tour of Europe. Maybe a second honeymoon. I’m sure she’d like that.” He doesn’t know if that’s true, he doesn’t know if he can ever return to Rome, but it has a romantic ring to it nonetheless. And when has Troilus ever been able to deny the sweet-nothing whispers of romance, even as a city tears itself apart around him?….

Never, he thinks… Not even then.

——————————————-

(Thank you for Reading!!)

#accepted #accepted: troilus