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frogtanii · 4 years

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hq boys as the crimes they’d commit

warnings: CRIMES, crackfic, probably many typos idk i’m so tired lmaooo, cursing, drinking ??? idfk 😩💦

an: and i did this for what?? inspired by hq hcs royalty @sugardaddykenma @hina-wit-da-glock (AJSKSJ SORRY FOR TAGGING Y’ALL IF YOU SEE THIS, IT IS DEF NOT UP TO PAR W Y’ALLS WORKS ILY)

karasuno

sawamura daichi- insurance fraud!! somehow this is such a dad crime to commit?? dadchi didn’t try (dumb excuse, how do you accidentally commit insurance fraud smh) to commit insurance fraud but at one point in his late-thirties, he was very very broke and was already working as much as possible so, he decided to fake an ankle injury, as you do, and filed a bunch of claims which made him bank. daichi kept doing it until he was able to quit one of his jobs and buy himself a really nice suit and a rolex (uhhh 🥵). he somehow never got caught tho and to this day, none of his friends know how he was able to afford a tesla on a cop’s salary (sorry daichi but acab 😔✨)

sugawara kōshi- child abandonment!! ok you can try and fight me on this but i feel in my bones that suga absolutely despises children. he can tolerate ages 10+ but anything younger than that, he will punt them into the next dimension. the thing is, people just assume he likes kids because of how good he is with his team which is why his aunt begged him to babysit his nephew taro. taro was being an absolute brat when suga took him out for the day and he was 👉👈 this close to snapping. he put taro down for like 3 seconds to pay for their ice cream and when he turned back, the demon spawn was gone. he panicked, running around the park looking for taro when it turns out, taro was just bent down behind the bench. some random karen called the police and suga has never craved murder more.

nishinoya yuu- arson!! you CANNOT tell me nishinoya doesn’t have a ~murder~ playlist that he listens to to get himself hype (me too noya, me too). one night, he got a lil too hype listening to start a riot by duckwrth and watching demolition videos on youtube. he snuck out of his house to an empty shed like 30 minutes away and maybe... lit it on fire while genocide by lil darkie played on a speaker nearby. what he did NOT anticipate was the absolute size of the fire so he freaked out and called the firefighters who promptly called the police. he didn’t want to get grounded so he called daichi to bail him out. daichi still told noya’s parents 😔.

tanaka ryūnosuke- vandalism!! tanaka had been on alt tiktok and saw a group of cool friends spray painting an abandoned building. he thought “that’s cool, lemme do that!” but then he realized he had no friends (AHDGS JK I LOVE TANAKA). he asked nishinoya who was grounded from the arson incident and he knew he definitely couldn’t ask daichi, suga, asahi, or enoshita so he decided to go it alone. that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake. he got the supplies, arrived to the building of his choice (thanks saeko :3), and decided to spray paint a huge p3ni5 in bright red paint. he finished “successfully” and zoomed back home. what he didn’t realize with his two-and-a-half braincells is that he signed his glorious piece with his full name. the cops were at his house the next morning...🧍

hinata shoyō- forgery!! hinata did NOT think that forgery was even a crime. how was he supposed to know that he wasn’t allowed to copy his mom’s signature on a permission form! all he wanted was to go to an overnight training camp 😿

kageyama tobio- attempted murder!! kageyama swears it sounds worse than was and he is absolutely incorrect. what happened was so much worse. he and hinata were having a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater (you can’t tell me they haven’t done some dumbass shit like this) and kageyma lost almost instantly (he has the tiny lungs of an asthmatic). he didn’t want hinata to notice so he held hinata’s head under the water for like 10 seconds. suga walked in though, saw hinata thrashing around in the water and immediately called the police. kageyama never forgave him.

tsukishima kei- cyberbullying!! first of all, i had no idea you could get arrested for cyber bullying!? that being said, neither did tsukishima who spent 80% of his time making fun of people online (and on his real account!! bold). eventually one of the people he bullied (hinata) reported him on instagram and his very lame account was deleted (pls don’t bully people online 😤).

yamaguchi tadashi- shoplifting!! andjksh this is so funny because this scenario has happened to me and i can just SEE this happening to poor tadashi. yamaguchi gets super late night cravings (and usually tsukki will walk with him at like 3 am 🥺 nEWAYS) so he’ll sneak out and walk to the mini-mart near his house. one night, he was so tired but also super hungry so he went onto his nightly routine and basically sleepwalked into the store. he picked out his favorite chips and candy bar (which are sour cream&onion lays and milky ways in case you were wondering 😌✨) and just... walked out the store without paying. the store clerk was mysteriously missing so yamaguchi made it all the way home, ate half the bag of chips and passed out without realizing what he’d done. once he did, he cried for 2 hours straight.

nekoma

kuroo tetsurō- telemarketing fraud!! kuroo originally did telemarketing fraud as a joke?? like he was trying to prank call someone pretending that they had lost their information and they actually gave it to him??? he was mildly concerned but even more excited. he did it over and over again but he never used the info for anything. to this day, kuroo literally has a notebook full of credit card numbers and bank account passwords but he refuses to use it because he believes it’s ✨wrong✨(but it isn’t wrong to take all that information in the first place under false pretenses, not realizing that once people find out, they are forced to close credit cards and accounts but go off self righteous king). once he brought the book up to kenma and he offered to sell it on the dark web. now kuroo feels less bad about what he’s done! :D

kozume kenma- computer crime!! pfttt this one seems kinda obvious but what do you expect from kenma :). he spends so much time on the internet, he’s definitely picked up some less than legal skills that still help him now 👀. kenma did little mini crimes like getting into other people’s wifi but his crowning achievement was when he hacked into the minneapolis pd website and had it so when you opened the page, a black lives matter screen came up. he never told anyone that it was him who did it but he thinks it’s the best he’s ever done.

yaku morisuke- racketeering!! yaku, the feral king, ran an underground gambling ring in the basement of nekoma (do they have basements?? who knows! i don’t!) during his third year. the only reason it didn’t get shut down was because coach nekomata took a portion of yaku’s profits whenever he won (which was literally all the time). everyone on the team has lost money to him which is why they never play with him anymore. they won’t even let yaku play monopoly 😔.

haiba lev- indecent exposure!! poor lev’s head is so empty, he tends to fall for whatever pranks his senpai’s do to him. this time kuroo had somehow convinced him that in order to grow his schlong, he had to run outside naked for 10 minutes because the moonlight had special growing properties. lev was a lil scared ngl because he was already superrr tall and didn’t need to grow his height (or his dick ((boy is hung)) but poor lev is insecure) but he did it anyway. long story short, an old woman saw him parading around the neighborhood naked and called el policia. 0/10 dick did NOT grow and had to spend a night in jail naked 😿

aoba johsai

oikawa tōru- prostitution!! KAKKAKA iwazumi made fun of oikawa for being so shitty and said that he couldn’t pick up anyone if he tried. flattykawa took this as a personal challenge and went out onto the street, asking people if they’d have sex with him. with the way he was asking (and the way he was dressed), people assumed he was a paid w h o r e and someone eventually reported him. iwazumi had to pick oikawa up from the station- he never let him live this one down.

iwaizumi hajime- battery!! it wasn’t technically battery but oikawa is a lil bitch and overreacts (at least in his words -_-). the amount of times iwa-chan has beat the absolute shit out of oikawa is uNREAL. he just can’t handle the stupidity sometimes so he just smacks the crap outta him. not for real for real but the way oikawa reacts, you’d think a murder was occurring. one time, shittykawa screeched so loud, they got a noise complaint -_- hajime hates it in these streets.

matsukawa issei & hanamaki takahiro- conspiracy!! issei and hiro have a secret blog where they discuss conspiracy theories and such but one day, hiro found an article that explained how jfk’s death was an inside job. he sent it to issei who began to theorize how HE’D do it. that devolved into a massive thread on their blog of how’d they murder a president which blew up and caught the attention of the cia who sent the a letter telling them to quietly delete the blog. they did because they were terrified but they kept the letter and now it’s framed in issei’s apartment.

kyōtani kentarō- assault!! baby is an angry little boy but for all the right reasons. he was at a bar (when he’s all grown up, duh) and he spotted an absolute drunk creep hitting on a girl who clearlyyyy did not reciprocate his feelings. kyōtani, being the respectful king that he is, went over to the guy, pulled him by the jacket and beat. the. shit. out of him. while the bartender was happy with the fact that the creep was out, he was not impressed with the damage to his bar. he just sent kyōtani out who casually adjusted his leather jacket and rings, and hopped on his motorcycle to ride away into the night. i am the FATTEST simp for this man ONG 🥴

shiratorizawa

ushijima wakatoshi- stalking!! poor ushijima has no idea how intimidating he can be. he was on a train late at night after practice and the woman sitting across from him left her purse sitting on the seat. being the gentleman that he is, he took the purse and followed her to return it. the only problem is that the closer he got, the faster she ran and when he tried to speak (yknow with his scary, deep, baritone voice), the woman screeched and called the cops on him because he was a “strange, big man who was following her home.” when the police showed up, ushijima was painfully confused and just held up this tiny ass purse in his massive hands. the cops laughed.

tendō satori- ???!! no one knows what crimes (or how many 😳) tendō has committed but each of his teammates have different ideas- ushijima: “i don’t believe tendou is capable of committing any sort of felony. well, maybe murder”; semi: “of COURSE he’s capable of crimes??! do you know how many times i’ve seen him come into the dorm with a suspicious stain of red on his sweater?? *shudders* if i end up dead, tendō did it...” in actuality, the only crime tendō has committed is ~drugs~ but he’s not bouta tell his friends that.

goshiki tsutomu- would be a VICTIM!! my baby tsutomu would NEVER commit a crime!!! i love this man with my everything and the only crime he’s committed is being too damn cute 😤🥺

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hello-yue-here · 3 years

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Jetko?

YESSSSS.

jetko my beloved.

out of all my atla ships i think these two have the most to overcome in order to be together. Zuko, who although only did these things because he was a misguided and abused kid who didnt know anything other than than the propoganda he was taught, was an imperialist and literally burned down at least one village. he upheld fire nation views all throughout book one and his actions did a lot of harm to the world. so out of all the issues jetko has working against him, fixing his past actions and unlearning propoganda is def at the top of the list. the fire nation hurt jet big time, and thats a HUGE obstacle for them to over come. Jet on the other hand has to work on channelling his outrage towards the fire nation and dealing with his own trauma in a way that doesnt involve... ‘harming’ civillians for lack of a better word. he was traumatized and was forced to be an adult and look after a boatload of children way too young. he didnt know any better so its understandable why he did what he did. theyre both teenagers. they are both children. neither of them really knew any better and they both need to learn and overcome these obstacles. and it kind of seems impossible to some people because many people believe that jet was hurt too much by the fire nation to ever forgive zuko and (my least favorite take) jet is racist towards fire nation citizens (FUCK OFF. LITERALLY FUCK OFF ppl who call jet racist piss me off so much. he was oppressed by the fire nation and fought for justice against them. the fire nation were literally oppressing p much everyone in the entire world. racist jet is the DUMBEST take right alongside homophobic katara. i will tolerate none of this jet slander in my blog. i love him alright?)

i got a lil sidetracked. where was i.

RIGHT. ppl who dont like jetko sometimes think that these afformentioned issue would hold them bsck from ever being a good couple and to that i say: haha no.

these two are two of the most stubborn characters in atla. they are the most determined characters and most proactive when it comes to getting what they want. they never give up. and when it comes to eachother? if they wanna be with each other than goddammit they will make it work. i hc them as having a rocky start. maybe being on again off again for a lil bit while theyre still growing and sorting themselves out and finding themselves as people. and yeah zuko being fire nation and jet being hurt by the fire nation is gonna be an issue, but i truly believe that they can overcome it solely based on how passionate and determined they both as as characters.

theyre very similar in the sense that they seek justice and fairness in the world. theyve both been traumatized by the fire nation (granted in very very very different ways) but i think they can grow and heal together.

and i think they can also just be themselves with one another too. when they first met jet bonded with zuko immediately because he could tell he was an outcast and they worked together so fucking well they knew what each other was thinking. they see eachother. and they understand each other.

i think they have such good potential and when written in a well thought out way they are one of the most amazing dynamics.

however. one of the WORST THINGS about the way jetko is written sometimes is the toxic ex jet trope (hello zukka nation i am talking primarily to you because this is where i see it the most because zukka is my top ship but lordy lordy do it got some issues. i love zukka but omg is toxic ex jet a problem here)

jet is not fucking abusive. lets get that straight. just because he fought zuko in ba sing se for (CORRECTLY) assuming he was a firebender (yeah he probs shouldnt have attacked him with swords in a public setting but also: he was traumatized and lied to and hes an impulsive teenage boy. that doesnt excuse the fact that yes jet also did some shitty things but like,,, it explains it. remember kids its good to critique your fav characters and you dont have to agree with me with anything i say this is all just my opinion) jet is not abusive, and using him to write toxic jetko fics or toxic past jetko is not only incredibly insulting to jet and the ship as a whole, but it often is used to reduce zuko to a little uwu-protect-me-im-soft-and-weak-and-cant-fight-for-myself boy. zuko is not that. not at all. ive said it once and i will say it again: the infantilization of zuko as an asian man is a racist take and we need to address it.

if you wanna make jet and zuko have a messy breakup for your fic GO FOR IT. i have no issue with that. but if the only way you can create the messy break up is by making jet an abusive asshole (sometimes even a rapist which WHAT THE FUCK??? why. just. why. what about jet would make you think ‘oh this guys a rapist’ literally goodbye. ppl r weird for that) than maybe you shouldnt be writing past jetko.

sorry for that messy rant oops

back to whag i like about them :) ending on a positive note because they deserve it

i believe that while they would probs have issues as teenagers, i think once they were older and reconnected and like, fully know who they are. they would be GREAT. their communication as seen on the boat was top tier and this would translate so fuckin well into a relationship.

i love jetko and i think jet gets too much hate from the fandom sometimes.

#ask game #jetko #tw rape mention #tw abuse mention #guys jetko slander will not be tolerated on this blog #this is a jet stan account #also in my zukka fic ive gotten SO MANY COMPLIMENTS on how i write jet that i literally keep giving him more and more #like i never intended for him to be a major character in that fic but now hes like... major major #jet my beloved #ig zukos cool too /j

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szynkaaa · 4 years

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I more or less watched The Boy!!! And by watching, I mean I skipped more or less through the jump scare parts because I cannot do horror movies at all. I haven’t watched one since 2015 and The Boy was like the first horror movie after five years

Full disclosure, the ONLY reason I started watching the movie was because someone posted a gif of Greta standing close to Brahms who was all sweaty and breathing heavily n I was like “oh shit who dat he hot” and here I am

Can anyone explain the sandwich scene to me? So Greta was scared shitless and locked herself in her room, but why did Brahms make her favorite sandwich for her?

I did some digging for interviews and generally what people have been saying about the movie, took some screenshots from youtube to put my thoughts and musing together too!

Can anyone explain the sandwich scene to me? So Greta was scared shitless and locked herself in her room, but why did Brahms make her favorite sandwich for her?

So first of all, let’s start with a low resolution photo I found on IG of James Russell without mask:

which brings me to my first musing/thought/question?

It’s all under the cut, very screenshot and text heavy, you can find more Brahms drawing at the bottom though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So at the end of the movie, we are shown a Brahms with a broken mask and his face being burned, indicating that he was in fact in the fire.

I assumed first that the fire was created by the parents to fake their sons death and then he had to live hidden inside the walls?

But I’ve also heard apparently it was Brahms who set the fire to fake his own death or maybe an eight years old kid really was trying to burn himself down??

My other theory is that his parents made the fire and tried to kill Brahms and it did burn him but he survived, and the parents didn’t wanna go to jail sooo to hide everything they made their son live in the walls

i mean the responsible thing would be to turn their kid in and have him treated and stuff;;; listened to a murder podcast about two cases where kids murdered enough kids and how they are doing now interesting read Brahms made me think of those two cases

I also do not think that the previous nannies were killed. Like, c’mon. You’d report a person missing and sooner or later it would go back to the Heelshire mansion and if the body counts piles up? Can’t look good and I doubt that the Heelshire wants the police investigating them close up.

Also, when the mom was like “He’s chosen you if you’ll have him” to Greta? Is it just me or the wording or does it sound like a marriage proposal/arrangement xD

Brahms is a brat and he sees the people around him as his possession or to toy around. But I also do think that he has some abandonment issues but not in the sad tragic kind of way lmao. Even if he was the one controlling and manipulating his parents from behind-the-scene (quite literally I suppose?), he was still told as a kid to live in hiding and that no one can know he is alive. I don’t know much about the human brain, but I can imagine how damaging that must be to his mental growth and set him back in some way? We don’t know too much about his relationship with his parents - but I assume that he must have still loved them in his own twisted way. Can’t imagine that he would have been indifferent about his parents suicide.

The scene before Greta manages to back out - first he uses the child voice to beg her to come back and promises he will be good. That’s his manipulating Greta, but when that doesn’t work and she tries harder to open the door, he becomes more desperate to keep her there and then completely loses his temper and threatens to kill Malcolm if she doesn’t return. I’m pretty sure homeboy would have killed him anyway. And then later when she returns and he is all heavy breathing and smelling her hair and then jumps up when she shouts Brahms? Idk I def think there is some sort of abandonment issue going on.

I don’t think he is a child stuck in a man’s body or manchild or whatever. I think that he does know how to take care of himself - but he just chooses to manipulate people with the facade of a kid to do his bidding and cater to his needs.

Anywhomst, but clearly Brahms is also a very manipulative and controlling person based, based on how the mother was reacting on the destroyed bedroom, she really seemed to be at the end of her wits and just breaking down with her “you promised you’d be good”. It was very heartbreaking to watch and also scary because it really makes you realize just how much power Brahms holds over them?? idk maybe it was just me.

Next point: the CGI mask + the burns

So according to some interviews with the director stated that at the first test streaming, people weren’t really scared of Brahms because he was too handsome so they had to slap a mask over his face. The face was done after everything was filmed. I’m thinking the face burns were also added post-production when they were adding the cgi mask. Otherwise, James would have needed to go through the makeup department for some wicked face burns and it would have been visible during the filming and test screening too? Which would imply that at first the fire was supposed to be just a cover story that their son is dead and it was changed later

Observation/thoughts on Brahms Heelshire

Love how he stands there with his hands behind his back and then nods when Greta tells him to go under the cover

James Russell is 191cm tall. So like. Brahms is really fucking tall. But I notice that most of the time he stands with a slight hunch. Could be due to him crawling through the walls and crawling out of places that requires him to do a lot of crouching. His bed in his hideout made me really sad, I’ll get to it later.

Since James didn’t get many lines in the ten minutes that he appeared, I do think that his eyes did all the acting. They stand out even more with the mask on, there is just this crazy look on it. I also noticed during my rewatch that he doesn’t seem to blink much or at all.

Oh yeah, he also peeped on Greta and Malcolm making out on the bed and then cockblocked them. We been knowing that he made a Greta doll and very likely jerked off to it. We also been knowing that he very very very likely wanted to bone Greta at the goodnight kiss scene still waiting for the maskeless kiss scene gimme gimme. I also highly doubt that Brahms has much first-hand experience with kissing n stuff. High key thinking he was trying to do copy Malcolm and do what he observed lmao

When I first watched the scene, I assumed that the hole behind the mirror has always been and it’s just another one of the hidden passages Brahms to slip in and out, but now that I’m looking at the shape of the holes, it seems to me more like the mirror and brick wall were broken at the same time?? If that is the case holy shit boy is s t r o n g. I mean, he also punched through the closet door like no big deal so really what have the parents been feeding him.

I’m also leaning toward the fact that he ran there because Greta screamed loudly. I don’t think he was in the room as them when everything went down there, it seemed more like he heard the scream and had to nyoomed over and then punched a way through to get out of the wall. And then went on to attack Cole. He must have known that Greta wanted Cole gone, since that what she whispered to the doll before going to bed.

Tbh, I fully expected him to murder Cole in his sleep, but Brahms wrote a warning message in blood to tell him to get out soooooo like. Cole you were warned and now you gotta live with the consequences ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Brahm’s sleeping corner

This scene was shown at the end after Greta and Malcolm escaped. We also see them briefly during the part where Greta and Malcolm are trying to find a way out and stumbled into Brahms’ hideout. I’m not sure why the rules are slapped on the walls. It seems to me that Brahms is very very very set on that the rules / routine should be followed. In the movie, he called Greta and suggested to her that she should follow the rules, to which she then started doing it.

I headcanon that that’s the routine that he grew up with as a kid and it’s just very very very very very hard to break out of it - not that he is trying to break the routine.

I’m failing to find a good way to put my thoughts into words, but I guess the rules and routine is sort of his coping mechanism?

I suppose if you had an OC that you ship Brahms with and want to change stuff around the house, the OC would have to very slowly introduce new rules and routines. Baby steps, yknow.

Brahms has a violin hanging there! Honestly I would be surprised if Brahms didn’t know how to play at least one instrument. The family also has an old ass piano/clavichord (?) and Brahms loves classical music soo yeah. Love me a boy who appreciates classical musical hehe

I suppose the egg boxes are there to soundproof the room more - maybe so he can play the violin?

There’s also music sheets hung around his attics, it’s not clear on the screenshots but when you rewatch the scene and shove your face close to the screen. Some are hanging next to the violin and there are some taped on the wall next to his bed and porn too

nice to see he has a fridge and microwave, I was concerned that he wasn’t well fed and that leftovers might not be enough, but then again. Dude is 191 cm so clearly he has been drinking his milk

Didn’t take a screenshot of his vanity, but there is a crocodile magnet stuck to the mirror hehe. I do think that he shaves and stuff, otherwise his beard would be much longer??

We can see more music sheets stuck to a pillar on the right.

Loving the christmas lights that he has hanging there above his bed. It’s cute.

On the shelf he has a bunch of tupperware and empty bowls. Most of hte things are neatly organized. We can also see some books and a pen

There’s some sunlight streaming inside - I do hope that Brahmsy stays warm during winters.

Here we can see more of the food that he has there - there is also a sink but I didn’t snatch a screenshot of it. I think those are potatoes in the pot? Maybe he does know how to cook some basic stuff, I do wonder if he has a functioning kitchen up there. Probably not for fire safety reasons lol

Yall see that thing on the note sheet covered pillar? Ngl, that’s a whole ass aesthetic right there.

He got a few potted plants up there. Took a closer look at them and it seems like they were healthy. So he knows how to take care of plants, which is nice to know I suppose?

Yes, we all know what he was doing with the doll and what the tissue balled up tissue implies. However, has anyone noticed the size of the bed???

If you scroll up a bit to the screenshot of Greta seeing the doll, it looks t i n y. The make shift doll takes up more than half of the space.

Yall. this breaks my heart. Dude is a beanstalk. I’m pretty sure the bed is from when he was a kid shoved by his parents to live inside the wall, does he have to sleep there in his adulthood too???

Even though Brahms strikes me as someone who probably doesn’t sleep much or during normal times, that bed must be so tiny for him. He must be sleeping with his knees bend and shit unable to stretch out :(((

Brahms: is a psychopath that smashed the skull of a girl and very abusive tormented his parents and then Greta Me: omg he needs a bigger bed that poor thing :(((

Brahms’ DIY corner

Ah yes, Brahm’s little DIY/creative corner.

Homeboy got lot of animal traps, cages and taxidermies hanging around, pointing strongly toward that it’s a hobby of it?

Also at the end where we see him fixing up the doll, we can get a better shot at his desk, and I gotta say the threads and stuff are all very nicely organized. Brahms’s table looks more organized than mine does lmao.

So we know he is a crafty boy. Not sure how difficult taxidermy is but I imagine it does take a lot of time to learn? Well he had all the time in the world anyway.

So yeah, that’s a wrap. Congrats if you made it to the bottom of my incoherent thoughts and ramblings, have a bonus drawing of Brahms wearing different masks:

#the ham talks #brahms heelshire #the boy #the boy 2016 #brahms #brahmbling

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notbecauseofvictories · 4 years

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Hi Sarah! My friend and I are starting a bookclub (as much as you can with two people who aren't pressed for deadlines) and I was wondering if you have any recommendations? (That is if you have time to rec anything!) We're starting off with Deathless and have Fitzgerald next in line somewhere but I def want to try to expand the genres we read and tbh from years of following you, I trust your judgement

I don’t...like giving recommendations? At least not directly, it seems like too much opportunity for getting it wrong. Everybody has their own tastes, after all, and even the best of friends don’t necessarily vibe with what you vibe with. (I’ve experienced this with multiple friends, so I know what I’m talking about.) Truly, one of the reasons that my whole “I’m going to get back into reading for pleasure!” push has been so successful is that I only bother with books that interest me, and stop reading when they fail to catch my attention.

But I’ve now read at least 60 books in 2020, which is approximately 60 more than I’ve read in the years prior, so I’m happy to share that. Below is my list of recent reads, beginning to end, along with a very short review---I keep this list in the notes app on my phone, so they have to be. Where I’ve talked about a book in a post, I’ve tried to link to it.

Peruse, and if something catches your interest I hope you enjoy!

2020 Reading List

Crazy Rich Asians series, Kevin Kwan (here)

Blackwater, Michael McDowell (here; pulpy horror and southern gothic in one novel; come for the monster but stay for the family drama.)

Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones (here; weird and thoughtful, in ways I’m still thinking about)

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (here; loved it! I can see why people glommed onto it)

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell (unfinished, I could not get past the first paragraph; just....no.)

Rules of Scoundrels series, Sarah MacLean (an enjoyable romp through classic romancelandia, though if you read through 4 back to back you realize that MacLean really only writes 1 type of relationship and 1 type of sexual encounter, though I do appreciate insisting that the hero go down first.)

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (here)

Dread Nation, Justine Ireland (great, put it with Stealing Thunder in terms of fun YA fantasy that makes everything less white and Eurocentric)

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (VERY good. haunting good.)

Tell My Horse, Zora Neale Hurston (I read an interesting critique of Hurston that said she stripped a lot of the radicalism out of black stories - these might be an example, or counterexample. I haven't decided yet.)

The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society, T. Kingfisher (fun!)

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell (some of these short stories are wonderful; however, Swamplandia's inspiration is still unreadable, which is wild.)

17776, Jon Bois (made me cry. deeply human. A triumph of internet storytelling)

The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey (deeply enjoyable. the ending is a bittersweet kick in the teeth, and I really enjoyed the adults' relationships)

The Door in the Hedge and Other Stories, Robin McKinley (enjoyable, but never really resolved into anything.)

The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley (fun, but feels very early fantasy - or maybe I've just read too many of the subsequent knock-offs.)

Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (weird little pulp novel.)

All Systems Red, Martha Wells (enjoyable, but I don't get the hype. won't be looking into the series unless opportunity arises.)

A People's History of Chicago, Kevin Coval (made me cry. bought a copy. am still thinking about it.)

The Sol Majestic, Ferrett Steinmetz (charming, a sf novel mostly about fine dining)

House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (immensely enjoyable read, for all it feels like fic with the serial numbers filed off)

The Au Pair, Emma Rous (not bad, but felt like it wanted to be more than it is)

The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo (preferred this to Ghost Bride; I enjoy a well-crafted mystery novel and this delivered)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin (unfinished, I cannot fucking get into Le Guin and should really stop trying)

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (enjoyable, but not nearly as fun as Ghost Bride - the romance felt very disjointed, and could have used another round of editing)

Temptation's Darling, Johanna Lindsey (pure, unadulterated id in a romance novel, complete with a girl dressing as a boy to avoid detection)

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (a strange, dark psychological portrait; really made a mark even though I can't quite put my finger on why)

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (slow at first, but picks up halfway through and builds nicely; a whiff of Gone Girl with the staggered perspectives building together)

Stealing Thunder, Alina Boyden (fun Tortall vibes, but set in Mughal India)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant; The Monster Baru Commorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (LOVE this, so much misery, terrible, ecstatic; more here)

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone (epistolary love poetry, vicious and lovely; more here)

The Elementals, Michael McDowell

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (didn't like this one as much as I thought I would; narrator's contemporary voice was so jarring against the stylized world and action sequences read like the novelization for a video game; more here)

Finna, Nino Cipri (a fun little romp through interdimensional Ikea, if on the lighter side)

Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (engrossing, even if I could see every plot twist coming from a mile away)

Desdemona and the Deep, C. S. E. Cooney (enjoyed the weirdness & the fae bits, but very light fare)

A Blink of the Screen, Terry Pratchett (admittedly just read this for the Discworld bits)

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (not as good about politics and colonialism as Baru, but still a powerful book about The Empire, and EXTREMELY cool worldbuilding that manages to be wholly alien and yet never heavily expositional)

Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (see my post)

Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan (didn't finish, got to to first explicit sex scene and couldn't get any further)

Prosper's Demon, KJ Parker (didn't work for me...felt like a short story that wanted to be fleshed out into a novel)

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (extremely fun, even for a reader who doesn't much like Napoleonic stories)

Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (fun romp - hard to believe that this is the same author as Time War though you can see glimmers of it in the imagery here)

A Scot in the Dark, Sarah MacLean (palette cleanser, she does write a good romance novel even it's basically the same romance novel over and over)

The Resurrectionist, E. B. Hudspeth (borrowed it on a whim one night, kept feeling like there was something I was supposed to /get/ about it, but never did - though I liked the Mutter Museum parallels)

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (he's a better ideas guy than a writer, though Hell Is The Absence of God made my skin prickle all over)

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fun, very much a throwback to my YA days of fairytale retellings, though obviously less European)

Four Roads Cross, Max Gladstone (it turns out I was a LOT more fond of Tara than I initially realized - plus this book had a good Pratchett-esque pacing and reliance on characterization)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (reading this after the Chiang was instructive - Link is such a better storyteller, better at prioritizing the human over the concept)

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips

Soulless; Changeless; Blameless, all by Gail Carriger (this series is basically a romance novel with some fantasy plot thrown in for fun; extremely charming and funny)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (got about 1/3 of the way through and had to wave the white flag; will try again because I like the plot and the worldbuilding; the tone is just so hard to get through)

Pew, Catherine Lacey (a strange book, I'm still thinking about it; a good Southern book, though)

Nuremberg Diary, GM Gilbert (it took me two months to finish, and was worth it)

River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey (I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did; would have made a terrific movie but ultimately was not a great novel. Preferred Magic for Liars.)

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (extremely fun, though more trippy than Gods and the plot didn't work as well for me - though it was very original)

The New Voices of Fantasy, Peter S. Beagle (collected anthology, with some favorites I've read before Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives", "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" "The Husband Stitch"; others that were great new finds "Selkie Stories are for Losers" from Sofia Satamar and "A Kiss With Teeth" from Max Gladstone and "The Philosophers" from Adam Ehrlich Sachs)

#from the bookshelf #Anonymous

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pewslight · 3 years

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Post July 4th Thoughts

Independence Day is my least favorite holiday. The only ritual I enjoy is watching Will Smith save us from the aliens. It’s hot as fuck for a holiday that is designed to be spent outside. We all gotta worry about our furry friends having heart attacks during hours of fireworks. I gotta take an anxiety and blood pressure pill to get through them myself. I much prefer cold, cozy holidays designed to be spent inside in front of a fire with a book.

All jokes aside, though. I’m very tired of people who complain about their American neighbors who criticize our country, government, etc. on issues of race and equality. It’s perfectly fine for y’all to have burned effigies of our president in the last ten years, and to storm the fucking US capitol when your fav lost the election, but when someone complains that it was harder for them to get where they are because of their race, then they should leave.

No. Y’all. You’re missing the whole ass point. The whole point of our freedoms and what supposedly makes this the “greatest country in the world” (y’all KEEP saying that and I don’t think you know what it means, but that’s another rant), is that we have this right. We have the right to protest. We have the right to speak up when things are unjust and unfair. We have the right to have our voices heard. That’s why we stay. That’s why we fight.

Also, the other good countries in the world def don’t want us, so we got nowhere else to go anyway.

I’m an American. The definition of patriot isn’t blindly accepting everything that your chosen leader has told you. People aren’t one thing. I’m both proud and ashamed of that. I’m proud of the way we come together and take care of each other in trying times. I’m proud of our black and brown neighbors who show up every single time for injustice, even when we fail to do the same for them in many instances. I’m proud of the new friends I’ve made that have proved to me that all white boomers aren’t the actual worst.

I’m ashamed of how we treat our neighbors, particularly black and brown neighbors. I’m ashamed that a Pride display in a public library so incensed some straight white lady that she misquoted the ALA, totally missed the point, and will be petitioning the director of the library, the town council, etc. because it violates “freedom of religion.” I’m ashamed that a bathing cap that doesn’t benefit white people but can help black folks take care of their hair has been banned from the US Olympics. I’m ashamed that it’s 2021 and last year, white nationalists took guns to the US capital and most will never face repercussions. I’m ashamed that we STILL can’t approach each other in humanity and caring.

We are all complicated bitches. There is no black and white. It’s all gray areas and we’d do well to think more critically about issues and not spouting off unfounded opinions after reading one headline.

The end. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

#'merica #'merican #American #4th of July #rant #Independence Day #Critical race theory #racism #tired #worn out #exhausted #summer #is it winter yet?#holidays #America #United States #Over it

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tamakiamajikistentacles · 4 years

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Please Don’t Leave {Eijirou Kirishima}

A/N: Please be sure to reblog, comment, review, and like if you enjoy! Feedback is what keeps me motivated! I tried something a little different with this story and having included a character we don’t know very much about was challenging. Writing this piece was interesting to say the least lol. This was partially inspired by the book/movie “If I Stay” and if you haven’t read/seen it I def recommend!

The silence was strange. Maybe it was just because it was there. Living with nineteen other teenagers could seem deafening at the best of times and quiet moments were rare. Her body felt strange too though, like she both could and couldn’t feel. One minute she felt weightless, comfortable like she was lying on a giant pillow, and the next she could feel a deep, pulsating throb in her head.

When the pain disappeared is when she opened her eyes to see grey all around her. It was dull and seemingly endless, and she furrowed her brows in confusion.

“Man, it’s gonna be nice to have someone to talk to!”

She jumped at the energetic words, blinking rapidly as she fought the sluggishness of her body to sit up. Below her she noticed what sort of did look like a large white pillow but also the smiling boy floating at her side.

He was tall and his fluffy light blue hair made him look even taller which may have felt intimidating if his blue eyes weren’t so friendly as they stared at her from above a white strip across the bridge of his nose. A blue aviator hat and goggles were visible below his hair and he wore a dark blue gi beneath a brown aviator jacket, dust and dirt clinging to the material.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Where are we, and why is everything grey? Are you sitting on a cloud? Wait, am I?”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s my quirk! I like to ride on them and when you started to appear I could tell you weren’t awake so I made you a cloud bed!”

“How—? Where—?”

“Oh, sure, sorry,” he said quickly. “I dunno where exactly we are but I’ve always called it ‘the in-between’ because we’re between life and death which explains the grey but probably sounds really scary and uh, it is? But at least we have each other! My name’s Oboro Shirakumo!”

She tried to process his rapid-fire words but the only thing she completely understood was his name.

In-between life and death? Why was she seemingly dying? What had happened? She couldn’t remember anything happening to put her life at risk, at least not lately.

“You look really confused and I get that, I feel bad having to give you such heavy news and you probably don’t remember much. I was the same way when I got here, but after a while you should be able to remember and it’ll all come back…” he trailed off, and when she realized the expectant look she said her name. He smiled and repeated it before continuing, “You’ll figure out what led you here.”

“Can I ask what led you here?” she asked quietly when silence stretched between them.

He smiled sadly. “I am—or I guess was?—a hero course student and a villain attack didn’t exactly go my way. Managed to save a class of schoolkids though, and my friend took out the villain all on his own. I’m guessing by your costume you’re probably in a hero course too.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I can’t imagine being alone for so long after all of that. You’re right that I’m a hero course student and my class has been through a lot, but we’ve always been together afterwards.”

“Well, I really don’t know if it’s been long,” he replied thoughtfully. “Time is strange here and being alone definitely doesn’t help. You know how you feel after a really good nap? Like you don’t even know if its day or night or if you were asleep for two hours or two years? That’s sort of how it feels being here.”

“January 8th is the last day I remember seeing on my lock screen,” she mumbled. “I saw it when I woke up and started getting ready for my work study. If something happened on patrol…”

“Not to interrupt but uhm, January 8th of what year?” he asked, eyes bugging when she answered. “There’s no way.”

“What, is it a long time after your villain attack?”

“Yeah. Fifteen years.”

Her eyes widened too. “You’ve been here for fifteen years by yourself?!”

He opened his mouth to reply but she couldn’t hear if he actually did, the searing pain in her skull returning as her hands flew to the back of her head. She pitched forward as tears gathered in her eyes and she cried out in pain.

Darkness surrounded her and from the heavy feeling of her eyelids she knew they were closed. She felt like she was floating again but this time she could hear voices, garbled and far away. She understood snippets but couldn’t follow the conversation and she couldn’t tell who was saying what.

“…brain… body can try…”

“Stop crying…”

“…class soon… you’ll… without you…”

“…another way! Someone…”

The pain was so much more intense even as she laid still, but then the blackness consumed her and the pain was gone.

Shirakumo’s hair was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes and was back in the in-between. Still disoriented, she could see that his mouth was open in surprise.

“What just happened?!” she asked, panic bubbling in her chest. “It hurt and I could hear people but I don’t—it was dark.”

“I think you tipped back towards life,” he murmured. “Whatever you heard, do you remember much? Sometimes it helps figure out what’s going on wherever your body is.”

She sniffled, wiping tears from her cheeks with her wrist. “I heard someone talking about a brain, I think? And a body trying to do something but I don’t know what. Do you think they mean me? My brain, my body?”

“Probably,” he said softly. “It can be really hard to hear things when your spirit leans back to life. Sometimes I remember things I never actually saw or heard. The memory itself is hazy, like there’s a dark mist over it so I can’t see much, but I can make out certain words or bits of conversation if I try hard enough.”

“There were other people though, saying to stop crying and asking for another way. I feel like I should know the voices.”

“The more you tip towards life the clearer it is, I think,” he shrugged. “All we can do is hope you move closer to waking up.”

She nodded, lying back on her cloud. If she was hurt badly enough to be suspended between life and death that meant her class was probably going out of their minds, her boyfriend most of all. Maybe he was there speaking to her, maybe he was one of the voices she heard. If he was she could only imagine he was asking for her to wake up. Kirishima was always a beacon of hope, one she was more than happy to follow and prayed would guide her through this too.

He didn’t mind hospitals for the most part, but long hours spent in various ones throughout the country in less than a year didn’t put them on his list of favorite things either. The waiting he had been doing for the last six days in an uncomfortable visitor’s chair was driving him mad and the lack of significant progress in his girlfriend’s condition was even worse.

Sure, she was in the best possible place for treatment and was monitored around the clock but she wasn’t awake. She wasn’t talking to him or poking his nose or kissing his cheek; she was just lying there in the hospital bed looking as if she was going to be swallowed by machines and wires. At least she could breathe on her own and there were no tubes down her throat—he wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to handle seeing that.

But still he sat by her bedside any chance he got. After classes ended for the day he took the train straight there, his uniform still on and bag carelessly left in the classroom at his desk. The bag always made its way to him though.

“Kirishima I swear if you don’t start bringing your shit with you you’re giving me money for the train to and from this place. Do your homework while you sit here,” Bakugo snapped at him like every other afternoon as the bag was dropped at his feet.

With a sigh he dug through his bag to find his assignments and opened his notes to work through the homework sheets because he was right, he needed to keep up with schoolwork. He had to be able to help her when she woke up, right?

“Oi, don’t start starin’ into space!”

“I’m not! I’m not, I’m just… this is hard, you know?” he said quietly. “I’ve never gone so long without talking to her and I miss her. She’s right in front of me but I miss her.”

Bakugo scowled. “No one ever said you should be smiling at the fact that your girlfriend had her head scrambled, hair for brains. This is the type of shit we have to deal with if we’re gonna be heroes but that doesn’t mean time stops for you to mope. Besides, didn’t the doctors say she’s doing better?”

“Yeah, they said the swelling’s gone down to the point where it’s really hard to see on the scans so that’s good. But they also mentioned that she’s still low on this coma scale thing, like she’s a six which is just one up from critical. Her only response is to pain and—"

“Tch, you’re just impatient. She’s gonna be fine once her body’s healed enough to wake up. Then the old lady’s gonna kiss her and shit’ll be back to normal.”

“I—

—really, really hope you’re right.”

“’Course I’m right, you idiot.”

The pain was still there but more a dull ache than before. It let her focus on the voices and she knew them, she knew her boyfriend and his best friend were there with her. She wondered what Bakugo should be right about. He probably was, whatever it is.

Her time in the in-between wasn’t terrible because Shirakumo was good company but she did look forward to the moments when everything went dark and she could hear everyone around her body. She heard her parents and boyfriend most often but her friends were there sometimes too. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she was awake, but she hoped she could open her eyes soon.

“You smile a lot when you snap back from tipping,” Shirakumo observed. He was sat on one of his clouds, elbow on his knee and chin in his hand.

“I hear my boyfriend,” she said with a grin. “It’s just really good to hear his voice, you know?”

“That’s nice,” he said quietly.

She furrowed her brows. “I know you haven’t since I’ve been here but don’t you tip towards life sometimes too? Don’t you hear your family? Your friends?”

“Nah, I don’t know anyone who’s speaking around me. Never recognize what I see through the haze either,” he explained. “I don’t know exactly what that means since it seems like with you, you hear what’s being said to your body. I rarely tip towards life anymore but when I do it’s like I’m on autopilot or something. It’s probably just a dream.”

“Well what do you hear or see?”

“Once I was in a hospital I think but that’s all I can remember, no voices and all I saw was darkness,” he said thoughtfully. “Another time I was in a dome, like a stadium almost. There was a lot of yelling and mostly I can remember shapes and colors. Black and red, green and orange, some white spots in the corner of my eye. Loud bangs like firecrackers were the last thing I heard before tipping back to the in-between.”

She listened intently, the details he described vague but familiar though she didn’t know exactly why.

“Other than those it’s just whispers while I’m in a black fog. It’s just snippets like I mentioned. A word or two here and there.”

“But never your family or friends?” she repeated.

“No, but I can’t really expect that if it’s been fifteen years, huh? My family had my little siblings to look after and my friends—well they’ve gotta be hotshot heroes by now. We wanted to start our own agency together, and I hope they did even without me. The dream shouldn’t die just because I did.”

“What were they like?”

“What’s your boyfriend like?” he teased.

“I asked first!”

“I’m older, respect your elders.”

She let out an exasperated sigh but smiled nonetheless. “His name is Eijirou Kirishima and he’s… he’s like a bright light in the dark. He’s brave even when he’s afraid and he wants to help people because it’s the right thing to do. He’s in the hero course with me and… shit, I miss him.”

“Bet he misses you too,” he said with a soft smile. “He sounds like a good guy, and I hope you can see him again soon.”

“Me too,” she whispered, then after a moment reminded him, “Your turn.”

“Ah well, my buddies were kinda opposite of each other—one loud and energetic, always the center of attention and the other quiet and introverted, sometimes had a tough time believing in himself. But they were both gonna be great heroes! All of Japan was going to know Present Mic and Eras—”

“—erhead,” she finished breathlessly, and Shirakumo grinned.

It had been eleven days since the villain attack that had put her in the hospital and Kirishima still saw her head slamming into the concrete siding of the office building so clearly it may as well have been playing out in front of him all over again. In reality she was extremely lucky that her skull hadn’t been cracked wide open, the only fractures being in her left arm from twisting awkwardly as her body met the building.

Her arm would be easy to heal thanks to Recovery Girl, but the head injury was more delicate and what really needed resolved first. It would take time for her body to recuperate which was the reason she’d fallen comatose; they’d been told that her body was pausing everything else so the damage could be repaired. Once that damage could be taken care of then the other injuries could be tended to. It wasn’t likely to last more than a few weeks but to Kirishima even a few hours seemed like an eternity.

Yet each day after class and on the weekends he waited that eternity, had done it eleven times over. It was difficult—near impossible—to make him leave even for a quick dinner in the hospital’s cafeteria which meant only one person could convince him, and he made sure to do so as crudely as possible.

“Do you fuckin’ think she’s gonna be happy waking up to your stomach growling at her like a goddamn beast? Get your ass some food. If you’re back in under half an hour I’m exploding your ugly fuckin’ face. She won’t recognize you and neither will your shitty mothers.”

It was tiresome to endure the constant yelling but it was true, he needed to eat. “Okay, okay, I’m going. But just make sure—”

“If she wakes up I call the nurse, then you, then her family, then your mothers, then the media, then go fuck myself, I know,” Bakugo finished as his eye twitched. “Get your fucking food, asshole.”

With a defeated sigh the redhead left the room, a glance over his shoulder lingering on his sleeping girlfriend for just a moment as he stepped out into the bright hallway. He let his mind wander as he walked. After eleven days he didn’t need to think of how to get to the cafeteria, his feet knew where to take him.

Bakugo sat back in the visitor’s chair Kirishima had been using as a table for his homework, scrolling through his phone mindlessly. He didn’t hate silence despite what many probably assumed, but this was he sort of quiet that was eerie and uncomfortable because of the circumstances.

“Wake the fuck up.”

Slow, even breaths were his answer.

“What, you embarrassed that you got thrown like a long dart into the side of an accounting firm of all things? Almost couldn’t blame you if that’s why you’re just laying here.”

Nothing.

“I know you can hear me. Know you can hear Kirishima too since—

—he never shuts the hell up. Probably heard him cryin’ over you too, huh?”

A steady heartbeat and no pain in her head, she breathed in deeply at Bakugo’s words. Of course she’d heard him, the few other times she had come back to her body clearer each time. Her heart broke to hear what she knew were quiet sobs and soared when he would relay the absurdity the class had gotten up to that day.

“It’s your fault he’s upset.”

She hated that he was right.

“Your tests n’shit say you should be wakin’ up any time now. They told him that two days ago and he’s holding on to that but here you are, not even putting up a fight to get back to him. The hell’s that about?”

It… she was trying. But it wasn’t easy when her body felt like it was tied to concrete at the bottom of the ocean and couldn’t possibly surface. She just wasn’t strong enough yet, that’s all. Tipping towards life was lasting longer and longer each time and soon she’d be at the point where she never went back to the in-between. It was just taking time.

“After you blacked out he froze. In the middle of a goddamn villain attack downtown he froze. It was only a few seconds but it coulda cost him, you know that. Then I’d have both of you idiots here probably,” he huffed.

Was that fondness?

“He kept fighting though. He fought until we won but I know he doesn’t think it’s a victory. If he can fight, why can’t you?”

That was the question wasn’t it?

“You better start fighting your ass off to open your eyes. Naptime’s over.”

She hadn’t tipped again since hearing Bakugo’s scolding guilt trip to wake up and while time seemingly didn’t exist in the in-between she felt like days, weeks, months, possibly years had gone by. It was terrifying enough to know that Shirakumo had been there alone for over a decade and never realized it but what if that happened to her too? What if Shirakumo tipped back to life and woke up to resume living or even took the final step towards death? Then she would be alone in the infinite grey abyss with only her thoughts.

What if she never tipped back to life again? She wouldn’t hear a goodbye or say one herself to anyone—not her parents, not her friends, not to the boyfriend who’s kept vigil for what had to have been two weeks by then at least.

“I know you’re scared.”

She looked up to see Shirakumo watching her with an unreadable expression.

“It’s okay to be, you know? This place is like the perfect definition of uncertainty, but you said that last time you heard that you should be waking up soon right?”

“That’s what Bakugo said,” she murmured, staring down at her hands. “But I haven’t tipped since then and now I don’t know if I will again.”

“You don’t feel it at all?” he asked.

“No, I haven’t heard anything.”

“Ah no, I mean you’re… when you go closer to life you look different to me. Like you’re… smudged?”

She stared at him.

“So I see you,” he tried to explain, “but then it’s almost like you’ve got a shadow around you? It—okay, you know how when you draw with an oil pastel you can blend it out? When you tip towards life you look like that.”

“Alright, but what does that have to do with anything right now? I’m not going towards life.”

He gave a weak smile. “Yeah you are. You’ve been smudged since you last heard your friend. It was faint at first but its lingered and now you’re sort of fading out. I think… I think that means you’re waking up.”

“How can I be waking up if I’m not hearing anything there? I’ve been with you this entire time!”

“I don’t know, I’m just guessing! It’s a good thing if I’m right, it means you’ll get to see your boyfriend and your friends and your family.”

“I just… I don’t want to hope and then it be for nothing,” she whispered. “Of course I want to wake up but that’s all I’ve wanted this entire time and I just don’t know how and it’s awful to know I’m causing all of them to worry over me and hope for something that may not happen.”

“Hey I get it, okay? It’s hard knowing that everyone there wants you back but you don’t know how to get to them. But heroes don’t get to lose hope. You can have your moments of weakness but you should never lose hope that it’s going to get better.”

She turned away from him, lip bitten between her teeth. Of course he was right—as heroes they couldn’t lose hope when they were the ones who brought hope to the hopeless in the times they needed it the most. But that also begged the question of how they kept that hope. Who inspired them in the darkest times?

It was an obvious answer once she shed the cynicism: family, friends, loved ones, the people they would fight the hardest for. Her family, her friends, her class, her boyfriend. They had hope for her to wake up and when they spoke to her they were keeping that hope alive.

“It’s okay to be upset,” Shirakumo said softly as he watched a tear make its way down her face. “But you’re gonna wake up, I know it. Just… take a deep breath and we can talk about something else.”

“Okay,” she whispered, turning back to him as she sucked in a breath and let her eyes fall closed.

He watched with a smile as her faded form grew even more faint, then disappear completely as she let out the breath.

The darkness was back. It enveloped her like always but there was no pain in her head. She felt cold, like the air conditioning had been dropped low and created a makeshift icebox out of the room she was in. She also felt stiff but that was both the cold and the fact that she hadn’t moved in what? Over two weeks by then?

There was shuffling to her right. She wondered who was there—was it her parents? Kirishima? The little chuckle answered that quickly.

“Your fingers always twitch when you’re asleep,” she heard him say. “When you fall asleep on me in the common room your little finger twitches tickle because they’re so light. I miss that.”

She never knew she did that in her sleep, and she wondered what made him bring it up.

“You’ve been doing it more and between that and the blinking the doctors say it should really be any time now. I… I miss your eyes. When you blink its so fast I can barely see them so wake up soon, okay?”

She’d been blinking and moving? Could she do that now? She tried to move her left index finger but she couldn’t tell if it worked. Maybe she was still too stiff.

“As much as I love your eyes I think I miss your smile the most,” he said quietly. “Seeing you smile after we confront villains has always been so important, even before we were together. When we saw each other after the USJ and you smiled at me… that was when I realized I had to tell you how I felt.”

He did, right before the sports festival took place. Afterwards he often joked that he advanced as far as he did to prove he was worth keeping around. She could only roll her eyes because he could’ve sat out every event in favor of eating from the food vendors and she would’ve kept him as close as possible.

“When I saw you get hurt I panicked but I knew I had to keep fighting. If nothing else we had to win so I could get to you and make sure you were okay. After we won I practically threw Ojiro and Todoroki out of the way,” he laughed lightly. “I apologized later but I still feel a little bad about it. At least they were understanding.”

Always worried about her, wasn’t he? The feeling was mutual though. She was worried even as he spoke safely from a hospital visitor’s chair just because of the occasional hitch in his breathing. She wanted to see him, to grab his hand, to reassure him.

“Was that finger twitch supposed to be disapproval? I said I apologized!”

Wait, had she really moved?

“They really were understanding though. Heh, probably because I was in tears honestly. Not seeing you smile after a win was just… it hit my heart, y’know?”

Yeah, she knew. He was hitting her heart right now.

“And then you wouldn’t wake up.”

The emotion in his voice was thick and she could picture the pinch in his brows as he tried to hold back tears.

“It didn’t look very good at first and that terrified me more than you could ever know. You barely responded to pain and the swelling took awhile to go down. I don’t know if you could hear me then or even if you can now, but I sat here with you as often as I could and I just kept hoping you would wake up. Well I’m still doing that, but in the beginning I really didn’t know if you would. I held your hand and I cried more than I want to admit just begging you not to leave me.”

How had she gotten so lucky to have him as a partner? What good deed had she done in a past life?

“Even with you moving like that and blinking and everything the doctors have said I’m still scared. They keep saying any day now but I just… when? I’ll sit here every day until you wake up, holding your hand and talking to you. If you can hear me you’re gonna have to get used to me begging even more. Please don’t leave me. I need you here smiling, okay? I want… I want to be a hero you can be proud to stand beside.”

A warm weight settled on her right hand and she realized it was his hand holding hers. She could feel him. She could feel him and she could hear him.

Her body was still so stiff and her eyelids felt like lead but she breathed evenly, gathering all the strength she had. It wasn’t much but it was enough to open her eyes just a bit, light flooding through her lashes and making her close them almost immediately.

Soothing circles were being drawn on the back of her hand and she wanted to see Eijirou smile. It sounded like he hadn’t in so long. She wanted to make him smile.

Her eyes fluttered open just a bit more on the second try but fell closed again at the light. Dammit, hospital lighting shouldn’t be that bad! She tried again, opening her eyes wider and only squinting at the brightness. She kept them open as long as she could before blinking quickly and fixing her eyes on the opposite wall’s small dry erase board; she couldn’t read what it said and she didn’t know if that was because of just waking up or from the injury but she decided to worry about that later.

She could feel the warmth on her hand still and from the corner of her eye she could see red but her head still felt heavy and even turning to the side seemed like an impossibly difficult task. After the fight to just open her eyes she could imagine it wouldn’t be easy. But she desperately wanted to see those red eyes and that sharp smile.

Well her fingers could move and that should be easier than shifting her head to the side, right? So she focused on her right hand and squeezed against the solid palm holding it. She did it once, and then again, and finally a third time. She felt the grip strengthen and soon her line of sight was filled with red hair and red eyes and a blinding smile. She tried to smile back, hoping that the small quirk of the corner of her lips would suffice for now.

In six weeks she had come a long way. After waking up she stayed in the hospital for an additional two days for testing and monitoring before being released back to Aizawa to go back to the dorms. Recovery Girl finished the healing process for her arm and things were, for the most part, back to normal.

Some issues from her time unconscious persisted but were able to be worked through to the point where she didn’t have many difficulties. Initially she had thought there were no effects but as she was dressing to leave the hospital she froze with the laces of her shoe in hand with no idea of what to do next. She knew how to tie her shoes and had known for most of her life, but as she stared down at the white laces in her grip she couldn’t even guess as to what she was supposed to do.

It was a small miracle that her parents were there with Aizawa as she was being discharged because she didn’t think she could handle her teacher having to tie her shoes for her. Relearning wasn’t terrible when she had the help of Eijirou and her friends. They were kind and without much teasing unless she initiated it first. With all the combined effort she was double knotting her laces within two weeks.

Slightly stranger was her perception of music she’d heard prior to her injury—everything sounded just a bit faster, as if it were half a beat ahead of where it should be. It was odd to experience because to everyone else it was normal and just as it should be so she avoided music for a few weeks to shake the uncomfortable feeling it gave her. After roughly a month Jiro convinced her to try listening again and when she started a familiar tune it was just as it should be, no altered speed. It was weird but at least it was over.

She was even back to full contact combat training in hero lessons which was all she had wanted the entire time Aizawa had given her alternate assignments. Most of the class were nervous to work with her even after she was cleared, but she was thankful when both Bakugo and Todoroki challenged her as if nothing had ever happened. That helped to get everyone else back to treating her like the fighter she was.

Eijirou was much clingier and more affectionate with her too. He’d been attentive before but when he’d said he needed her smiling, he had meant it. More than before there was always a hand on her hip, an arm around her shoulder, fingers intertwined with hers, and she enjoyed the increased contact. His goal of making her smile was met a thousand times over within the first two weeks alone, she was sure.

“I did hear you, you know,” she said one night as she laid against him on one of the common room couches. She had one of his hands in hers and traced patterns against his palm. The rest of the class was white noise around them. “I would fade in and out at random times but I heard you the most.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Whatever you heard, I meant it.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, “I know you missed me and my smile and you didn’t want to lose me. You’ve told me all of that since I woke up.”

“Of course!” he agreed quickly. “I was there every day and I just couldn’t imagine you not waking up.”

“I’m glad I woke up when you were there. I was fighting to get back to you just like Bakugo yelled at me to do. I’d heard how upset you were and I didn’t want you to cry over me anymore, I wanted to see you smile too.”

“So you remember a lot of what you heard while you were out, huh?”

She nodded. “There’s a lot I remember but I’m sure I’m missing some things.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, catching her fingers to lace them together.

“I think I want to talk to Aizawa about it more. There’s just some stuff Hound Dog wouldn’t understand.”

“Like what?” he asked, kissing her temple.

She sighed. “Just some other things I remember from while I was unconscious. I think he might have some good insight.”

Eijirou gave a nod of understanding and they fell into a comfortable silence.

She was so glad to back with her friends and boyfriend and seeing her parents again had been amazing. At first it felt like she had missed everything in the sixteen days she had been unconscious but they all worked to fit her back into normal life. Knowing they cared about her was heart-warming in a way she’d never experienced before and she was thankful beyond words.

A/N: Please be sure to reblog, comment, review, and like if you enjoy! Feedback is what keeps me motivated! I’m still a little unsure of how this fic turned out though that sometimes when I try something new. Also I know I put Kirishima through a lot of shit around here but I swear I love him and want the best for him! We love an unwavering and sturdy hero on this blog

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non-sequitura · 3 years

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Non-sequitura Disney in-depth analysis (after making a tier list)

Warning: SUPER longform. If you don’t know a movie well, you should skip the summary. I tried to be light on spoilers, but they’re there.

I went chronologically from favorite to least favorite. So S tier is, in order from fave to least fave, The Incredibles, WALL-E, then Zootopia.

S tier (Something I consider high quality AND a movie I greatly enjoy. I would love more Disney movies be like this.)

The Incredibles - one of my favorite movies of all time, possibly THE favorite. Rockin social commentary, epic action scenes, memorable characters, not a minute of screentime wasted, great take on the Fantastic Four, hilarious parts for both adults and children, an interesting villain, etc.

WALL-E - I love how social commentary was done here. Also skies above, what a beautiful love story. Really blazed a trail in non-verbal storytelling (especially given it was an animated kids film!) Robot animations are particularly delightful.

Zootopia - another social message delivered excellently and entertainingly. I love Judy and her persistence, I love the expressiveness of the faces and the epic city setting. I love Judy and Nick's banter. This movie deserves to be remembered longer than it has been so far. Admittedly, not one of my fave villains, which makes it my least favorite of the Ss.

A tier (either super high quality or something I greatly enjoy and deem of at least reasonably good quality)

Mulan - this movie did everything right. Truly feminist protagonist, an icon for strong Asian women, fairly culturally accurate (tho Mushu confuses me), GORGEOUS and iconic music. Lets a relatively natural romance develop. I frickin love the action scenes, I love the emporer. Sadly, this movie just didn't lodge its way in my heart as well as Pixar did. Pixar just has some magic, yo.

Cinderella - my gosh what an underrated protagonist. Her family straight-up abuses her and she never loses sight of her goals for a better life. Iconic visuals helped bring Disney out of bankruptcy. A gorgeous alto singing voice.

Wreck-it Ralph - alright alright ppl don’t crucify me for this. I honestly can’t think of much wrong with this movie. Vanellope and Ralph’s vitriolic best buds relationship is adorable, her forgiveness of him is heartwarming and (relatively) deserved, rockin’ Owl City song, epic visuals that mix together bc of all the different games. ALSO ONE OF THE BEST DISNEY VILLAINS NO CAP. One of the only twist villains I like. And we stan the romantic pairing.

Tangled - I’ve talked about this a lot, but Rapunzel deserved the whole world after what she’s gone through. That being said, Gothel is not some shallow monster she needs to escape from, but an intelligent, well-defined monster with backstory. I could totally see this story happening if the world of Tangled existed. Epic love story, hilarious dialogue. Music is… good but much of it is less memorable to me. Visuals are good but not quite at the level/creativity of many other disney films.

The Lion King - they really put Hamlet in Africa and pulled it off lol. But in all seriousness, no one took the premise of this film seriously at the time and it became sooo iconic. I love Scar and his eventual downfall, I love how Simba grows emotionally, I love the sad moments that don’t overpower the overall feeling of light goofiness. And music so memorable it was one of the first Disney musicals.

Coco - not a super unique story premise. But an incredible culture to explore with such creativity and sensitivity. I love the themes of death not being the worst and music being so central to the story. Twist/twist villain was memorable and not expected. And yeah, it did make me cry, so props there.

Ratatouille - the most recently watched of these films for me. This movie is soooo unique! Back when Pixar was truly super out there with their concepts. Super Parisian visuals and soundtrack. It somehow starts goofy (THE OLD LADY TRIES TO KILL REMY WITH A SHOTGUN WHILE WEARING A GAS MASK) but really drives home the message that you can truly do what you want regardless of who you are. Colette can get it. And the monologue by Ego at the end is one of my favorites in film.

Frozen - Anna is one of my favorite Disney protagonists. She’s so resilient and loyal. Elsa ain’t bad either but she experiences… less character development. The film is a tad too pleased with its own self-awareness for my taste, but there’s no denying how iconic the music and visuals were.

Inside Out - Alright, this movie hits home for me bc I tried to run away after moving. A super thoughtful, heartfelt depiction of (potentially depression? imo) with great moments of humor. Riley’s inner world is so creative and lovely. Also realistic depictions of Minnesota/California culture.

Tarzan - Jane! is! smart! and! adorable! Her scientific curiosity makes her very endearing. it’s so cute to see her and Tarzan learn from each other. Also Tarzan’s “found mother” is epic. Solid score. Solid film all around. To quote Lily Orchard, “This film is what Pocahontas tried to be.”

B tier (one of my favorites but has a few significant flaws that bring it down (or not quite as memorable to me, but consider good quality))

Peter Pan - Haven’t seen it in a hot sec, but I remember being super charmed by this as a kid. Just going out, having incredible adventures, and returning to a warm home at the end of the day. Tinker Bell is hilarious and beautifully drawn. Gets major negative points for the depiction of Native Americans tho.

Big Hero 6 - I was super charmed by the protagonist, his family/friends, and the setting. The plot/villain’s motivations are a bit of a mess, though.

Princess and the Frog - This movie has so much flavor to it! The visuals/music are lovely and unique. Tiana is incredible but it’s kinda annoying how EVERYONE keeps trying to shoehorn her into romance. The thing is, her goals are entirely reasonable. Focus on her restaurant, then look to settle down. But they’re like “nooo you’re ignoring the important things in life” smh. Also, epic villain, woohoo! The movie dragged significantly for me when they were in the bayou. Charlotte is delightful.

Winnie the Pooh - don’t remember it super well, but I think it was charming and occasionally dark, which is an addictive concoction.

The Little Mermaid - MAN ppl roast Ariel way more than she deserves. Visually, it was… fine. idk. This movie is good. I don’t have much else to say about it.

Snow White - the one that started it all. Visually, super impressive. Musically, lovely. I find the romance a bit… off. Well, more than a bit. What is it with Disney and kissing sleeping people?

Alice in Wonderland - a nerdy acid trip. Right up my alley! I also like films where ppl go on incredible adventures and return to the status quo, but THEY changed bc of it. Epic. SUUUUPER creative visual interpretation of Carroll’s book. Brave - gosh I loooove films where a parent and child learn to understand each other. Never got why ppl hated this movie so much. The Scottish flavor is present and fun. Merida made one mistake and made it up. The arrow scene is iconic.

Cars - a fun ride! (hahaha puns.) We love seeing Paul Newman as a car.

B-minus tier? (same as B, but problematic, or weaker story-wise.)

Hunchback - man… settings-wise, this film might be my favorite. I also love Esmeralda and Quasimodo as characters and as a duo (though the sexualized depiction of Romani ppl is not epic.) I also don’t find the discrimination against Esmeralda/Quasimodo jarring bc it matches the time period. Frollo is super interesting as a villain. The gargoyles are… def not necessary. Basically, this film doesn’t know what it’s doing with tone.

Sleeping Beauty - Aurora was my favorite when I was younger because I thought she was the prettiest, and that still defines how i feel about this, basically. Visually lovely - everything is kind of elongated and gothic. Maleficent is spiteful and epic. I have no issue with the fluffier parts of the movie, like the music or the fairies. RIP for lack of consent being a plot point, though.

Hercules - Megara is incredible. one of the only Disney “princesses” who acts like an adult and has cynicism as a major part of her personality. I love her and Herc’s progression where she learns to trust him (yes, he is genuinely that sincere, it’s not a front.) Muses are unique, whoever came up with them was high on something and I’m living for it. I just think the plot itself was somewhat unrealistic/ weirdly-paced. There are some memorable songs, some less-than-memorable songs. Art style is cool but I’m personally not a fan. EXTREMELY inaccurate depictions of the original Greek gods.

C tier (entertaining, but I don't consider it a great movie)

Bolt - I watched this like 11 years ago. It was fun! A cool concept about those put on a pedestal learning their worth even without celebrity boosting them up. Animation was… fine I think. not super memorable to me.

Frozen 2 - They really took any scrap of character development Elsa had in the first movie, threw it in the garbage and set it on fire. Anna deserved so much better. Songs are bombastic and impressive, have the occasional interesting lyric, but are really weirdly placed and none are quite as iconic as the first movie’s (except Aurora, she does great work here. Also the song Anna sings after she thinks Elsa died.)

Not a big fan of the vaguely homeopathic theme. Not a big fan of Olaf’s WEIRD character development. Not a big fan of the suuuuuper awkward dialogue and the animations that imply not only that Kristoff is into his reindeer but that Elsa and Anna are into each other (if you’re questioning if they did that, yes, they did, I can find screenshots of some really weird expressions/moments. THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO PANDER TO YOUR WEIRD FANS, DISNEY.)

The voice actors did great work, the animators did great work (look at the details on their clothes! Look at how Elsa’s posture changes to be more confident! look at how they're animated while they're singing!) Some weird costume/makeup choices that make Elsa look like an aging starlet, but she also has some gorgeous moments so eh. It’s a wash for me.

They really did not know what to do with Kristoff this movie, huh. The only thing that happened to him was singing a cheesy 90s ballad and marrying Anna, both of which were admittedly epic. Also, the trolls got 0 appearances despite being literally psychic. Probably could have helped with a lot. I'm not a huge fan of lore/worldbuilding, and thee was a lot of it here. Overall neutral on it.

Also a big theme in this movie I don’t love - **** TANGIBLE CONSEQUENCES TO OUR ACTIONS!!! The danger is Elsa’s death, the elements, colonialism, and Arendelle literally being destroyed. None of those end up playing out, so I was left at the end going “this film had literally no stakes.”

Monsters U - same as above - entertaining at the time! Not super memorable. The ppl we were supposed to dislike kept switching. Doesn’t really match the canon of Monsters Inc (I thought they were supposed to have known each other since childhood so why did they meet in college?)

Cars 3 - so apparently, everyone HATED this movie! Fun! I never watched Cars 2 (yes watched Cars 1 if you haven’t been paying attention to this list), but I didn’t think this movie was bad at all. Well-acted, some fun chase scenes, the scene where Lightning fails at driving in the simulation is genuinely hilarious, and some interesting perspectives on teachers getting the spotlight for their skills for once.

Incredibles 2 - I liked this film at first, but then it was… just okay in retrospect. I love me some good family dynamics. The plot here makes not a lot of sense. THEY BUILT UP THE UNDERMINER FOR NOTHING AND THEN FORGOT ABOUT HIM. I was surprised by the villain swap, but it happened so last minute I never really understood their motivations even after they explained them. Tried to tackle waaaay too many messages.

D tier (I didn't enjoy these or consider them mediocre)

Finding Dory - Maybe I should have put this higher? Like C tier at least. Ah well. Wasn’t a huge fan of the body/physical comedy (not my thing), but it was entertaining and awww finding family is heartwarming.

Finding Nemo - I remember nothing about this movie.

E tier (this film has significant problems)

Beauty and the Beast - *sigh*… I want to love this movie. The score is gorgeous. Visually, they could have made it more distinctly Rococo-era France but didn’t (why?) The voice actors did good work and I think Paige O’Hara is SUPER underrated here.

The Beast is emotionally manipulative with an awful temper that (for MOST of the movie. He doesn’t change.) That’s the main reason this is in E tier. This movie shaped so many generations of people thinking they can change the behavior of someone who treats them badly through the power of love. But you can’t. She learns to “love” the beast under coercion. It’s not Stockholm syndrome - it’s a trashy romance novel. Big fan of Gaston as a villain. He’s an archetype ppl can recognize and it’s so satisfying to hate him.

F tier (I think this film actively harms the industry and would rather it not have been made. Both the one in E tier could be considered harmful to the industry, but I think they had significant enough artistic accomplishments to scrape above that. I'm also generally a fan of "lack of censorship bc it's better to teach what not to do.")

Pocahontas - this movie took real historical events and romanticized them AND sexualized one of the only Native princesses they’ve had. Boo. Nothing wrong with animation!Pocahontas as a character, it’s just people put her in a story that doesn’t represent history well at all (and these historical events, unlike those in say, 14th-century Germany, had super relevant effects on people alive today.) And they portrayed the Native Americans and colonial settlers as equally in the wrong. (though I like Governor Radcliffe as a potential villain and love the line “see how I glitter.” I can’t NOT laugh when I hear it.) Lovely music, though. Nice animation, but the colors are weirdly… muted?

Bad Garbage (I don't wish this film had never been made, but I wish I never had to see it.)

Planes - this movie was ridiculous. I remember not much about it except that I kinda hated it and that it was super cheesy with tension one could see right through that immediately resolved itself via one twist or another.

Haven’t seen tier: Recess, A Bug’s Life, A Goofy Movie, DuckTakes Movie, Lilo and Stitch, Pinocchio (actually i have seen this but I remember nothing about it), The Nightmare before Christmas, Toy Stories 1, 2, and 3, Up, 101 Dalmatians, The Great Mouse Detective, Cars 2, Moana, The Good Dinosaur, Pete’s Dragon, Fantasia, Peter Pan Return to Neverland, Fantasia 2000, The Black Cauldron (read the book, though!), Bambi (or I did and remember nothing about it), The Rescuersm, The Rescuers Down Under, Planes Fire and Rescue, Bambi 2, The Fox & the Found, Oliver and Company, Atlantis, Treasure Planet (I want to, though), Piglet’s Big Movie, The Jungle Book, the Emporer’s New Groove, The Jungle Book 2, Chicken Little, Brother Bear, The Three Caballeros, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, Dumbo, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Aladdin (seen parts but never the whole thing), Strange Magic, The Sword in the Stone, James and the Giant Peach, Frankenweenie, Lady and the Tramp, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Doug’s 1st Movie, Monsters Inc. (want to, though), Meet the Robinsons, Dinosaur, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Tigger Movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, that pooh movie at the end without the title on it

-11/21/20

#blog #non-sequitura-blog #11/21/20 #november #2020 #longform #analysis #disney

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roleplcyheaux · 4 years

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Your name and pronouns:

asha! she/her pronouns!

Your favorite movie / tv show at the moment:

i did recently binge I May Destroy You and it was *chef’s kiss*. i’ve also been re-watching Girlfriends on Netflix too because Tracee Ellis Ross is truly worth it! if you haven’t watched it before i def recommend it though....yanno it’s an late 90′s-early aughts show so some of the jokes haven't aged well. last but not least i’ve been watching this K-Drama called Flower of Evil too and oh my gooooosh i couldn’t rec it more!!!! the plot basically centers around this couple where wife is a successful detective and the husband???? well he is the “missing” son of a serial killer ( daddy dearest killed like 10 people i think??) whose accused of not falling far from the tree himself ( when he was senior in hs he disappeared from his small town right after the sheriff was mysteriously murdered hmmmm ). but of course the wife doesn’t know that and now there is a copy-cat killer running around risking the husband’s new life AND IT’S WILD AND SO GOOD!!! also they have a daughter who is literally too pure and too cute for this earth!

Why are you interested in joining the roleplay?

i’m a sucker for the horror / mystery genre!!!!! which....if you know me you’d know is odd cause i’m highkey a scardy cat but like horror movies are completely different than books and rps okay?!?! okay! this place also seems so thoroughly thought out and i can tell how much love and thought went into this and i would love nothing more than to help frankie bring it to life!!! i’m not in any rps right now ( well one discord based one ) and i’d love to hop back in now that life has mellowed out!

Tell us a little about the character you’re thinking of applying for:

much like many of the fine people below me, i’m kinda stuck between two muses?!?! but i’m sure i’ll make my decision soon or idk maybe i can cop out and you guys can tell me who you’d prefer to see??

abigail ‘abby’ alby, twenty-six, aspiring novelist / manager @ spotlight cinema. the youngest of george alby’s grandchildren, abigail came into the world with a silver spoon hanging from her infant lips. she’s never needed for anything and essentially grew up coddled and protected from the world around her. very gullible & naive. glides through life in rose-tinted glasses. can and probably will cry at the drop of hat. is still waiting for harry styles to accept her marriage proposal tbh. known as a cursed hopeless romantic around town. leave a guy at the alter once and suddenly no one wants to date you :( :( :( [ definitely inspired by the only lovers left alive open plot! ]

isobel ‘issy’ bishop, twenty-five, dispatcher at pleasance fd. issy was left on the sidewalk in front of the fire station at three days old. no one knows where she came from or who her parents could possibly be. rather than following protocol and calling child services, the fire chief at the time allowed one of his firefighters to take the bundle of joy home. growing up with the bishops was chaotic to say the least but in the best way possible? issy grew up with seven siblings in total and four family pets. you could say her adoptive parents had a hard time NOT taking in those in need. most of her siblings have gotten out of pleasance but isobel’s curiosity keeps her within town limits. [ mayhaps issy could be involved in the mystery gang! but also i wouldn’t put it past her to work solo either so! ]

Do you have any potential wanted connections?

um um um if i decide to bring in abby i’d love some more albys lurking around for her to bug?? mayhaps her ex-fiancee that she left at the alter ( she definitely ghosted after the fact and still hasn’t really given him an explanation)??? i’d love her to have childhood friends who she’s remained close to!! or people who hate her family, i mean family feuds are fun! if i bring in isobel i’d definitely love to see her eccentric parents! and a couple of her siblings too! most of them left but i’m sure there are still a couple around for one reason or another! the bishops are a very mismatch family of misfits who dance to the beat of their own drum so and issy loves them all dearly even if they embarrass her/give her headaches sometimes!

Any self-promos?:

idk i don’t have anything to promo really?!?!!? but if you’re reading this ily and i hope you’re having a good day!

#phqtalk

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thisisnotacomp · 3 years

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R.I.P. MF DOOM

At around 1 PM Pacific on New Years eve I scrolled through twitter after putting my little dude down for a nap. I was looking to take a mental break after trying to keep my 20 month old occupied inside for 5 hours on a rainy ass winter day in Seattle. That is when I read the news of Daniel Dumile’s aka MF DOOM’s passing. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Of all the artists who I have closely followed MF DOOM has to be the most iconic. He was a singular talent that stood high above all but a few others in my book. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. This was not the mental break I was looking for. I took a few mins to digest the news, luckily I had at least 90 mins left of nap time to work through it.

Since reading the news I was a bit surprised to see the outpouring for this relatively obscure MC. That is not to say DOOM was an unknown figure, quite the opposite. Q-Tip summed it up best saying that MF Doom was your favorite MC's favorite MCs. I expected to hear quite a bit from the legends of the underground and NYC hip-hop community but was a bit taken aback from the articles published by NPR, The Financial Times and many others. Reading them has helped, it feels good to see DOOM get his do.

DOOM has been a constant presence in my life so long I honestly don't remember when I heard him first. All I know is that it was sometime in 2001. Over the past days I have been listening to a lot of his music and if I had to guess it was the track “Black List” off of Prefuse 73′s 2001 Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives LP. At the time hip-hop made up about 10-20% of the music I listened to. I was more into electronic and rock music at the time and 2001 had some great releases. Here is a short list:

Avalanches - Since I Left You Radiohead - Amnesiac White Stripes - White Blood Cells Herbert - Bodily Functions Jay-Z - The Blueprint Daft Punk - Discovery

But the top 3ish for me that year were: 1. Strokes - Is This It 2. Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives 3. Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein / Aesop Rock - Labor Days

To say there were a few good LP’s released in 2001 would be an understatement. But back to DOOM. I loved that Prefuse album, what he was doing blew my mind. I was also a huge fan of Aesop Rock who like DOOM is one of the best MC’s ever. Hearing DOOM rap on the cut up beat had to be my intro. Now remember this was before you could stream anything, and at a time record stores were over charging for everything. Also remember Napster and the other P2P services were in full effect so if you knew how, you could find just about anything on the interwebs. I did some digging, talked to a few friends and tracked down DOOM’s first LP “Operation Doomsday” and my world was never the same. I still remember hearing lines like: Clang! Crime don't pay, listen, youth It's like me holding up the line at the kissing booth I took her back to the truck, she was uncouth Spittin' all out the sunroof, through her missing tooth I was hooked. From then on out I have been following Dumile ever since. At the time I was in College and had more time than money. Listening to music filled a lot of that time. The money I did have started going to records in early 2002. Back then vinyl was cheap, as everyone was still buying CD’s. I figured if I could just burn a CD where was the value. I can still support artists by buying vinyl so that is what I did. To give credit where credit is due, my buddy Alex was a huge influence. One weekend he brought me to a record on 13th and Pine called Respect Records. They had a ton of underground Hip-Hop and I we hit that place up every time we were back in Seattle. I bought most of my Def Jux and Stones Throw albums from there. Its closed now and I really miss that spot. The owner knew us and what we were looking for. He held a white label copy of Madlib’s Stevie LP aside for me. At the time I thought I had found the holy grail. He also pushed me to Doom. I picked up a few singles there along with Take Me to Your Leader, Madvillian and Special Herbs 1 & 2.

The 2 MF DOOM releases that had the biggest impact on me were Operation Doomsday and Madvillian. The later is still my favorite hip-hop LP of all time and in contention for my favorite LP ever released. Its damn near perfect. I think what makes is so great is its timeless feel. If it dropped today I feel it would be just a relevant. It hasn’t aged a bit, or I should say nothing feels dated which is a rare accomplishment for a 16 year old release.

03/04 was peak DOOM. Between June of 03 and November of 04 he released what can only be described as an historic run of classic LP’s:

“Take Me to Your Leader” under the King Geedorah alias “Vaudeville Villain” under the Viktor Vaughn alias “Madvillainy“ a joint release with Madlib “MM... Food” as MF DOOM

Along with these LP’s he dropped another one as Viktor Vaughn and half of his Special Herbs instrumental albums. At the end of 2004 there was no doubt MF DOOM was one of the greatest MC’s of all time. In 2005 he released the Mouse and the Mask as a joint LP with Danger Mouse. The album was clearly a way to get DOOM some cash flow from the folks at Adult Swim but its a solid release in its own right. Up until 2005 everything Doom touched was gold.

After this point, his output slowed down. There was talk of a second Madvilian LP which we are still waiting for along with a host of other side projects. DOOM did a few guest verses here and there but overall things were quite. DOOM’s final full length “Born Like This” was released in 2009. It was a return to form and while it might not be a certified classic like his early works its damn close.

I put this together to get some thoughts out of my head. Honestly the news of Daniel Dumile’s passing was a gut punch. He was more than an MC he was an icon for so many. No one wrote rhymes like DOOM. No one in hip-hop has created a universe like DOOM. There will never be another MF DOOM. Here are a few lyrics to prove it.

“He came with more rhymes than molecules in air”

“What up? To all rappers: shut up with your shutting up And keep a shirt on, at least a button-up Yuck, is they rhymers or stripping males? Out of work jerks since they shut down Chippendales They chipping nails, DOOM tipping scales Let alone the pre-orders that's counted off shipping sales This one goes out to all my peoples skipping bail Dipping jail, whipping tail and sipping ale”

“Already woke, spared a joke, barely spoke, rarely smoke Stared at folks when properly provoked, mirror broke Here, share strawberry morning, gone an more important spawning Torn in, poor men sworn in Cornish hens switching positions, auditioning morticians Saw it in a vision, ignoring prison Ignoramuses enlist and sound dumb Found 'em drowned in cow's dung, crowns flung”

“Don't let the drama getcha In the only genre of music where the fans shoot the messenger Bitch niggas talk behind your back like a catcher Either M-Y-O-B or B-Y-O stretcher”

“Oooo my aching hands, from raking in grands and breaking in mic stands”

“Catch a throatful from the fire vocal Ash and molten glass like Eyjafjallajökull”

“Livin' off borrowed time, the clock tick faster”

“Ever since the womb ’til I’m back where my brother went That’s what my tomb will say Right above my government; Dumile Either unmarked or engraved, hey, who’s to say?”

R.I.P. MF DOOM.

#mf doom

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safflowerseason · 4 years

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veep rewatch 3.01

Some New Beginnings

aka - The One With the Book Tour

Richard! I love Richard. I love what he brought to the Veep ensemble and I love that the dumbest, purest person in the ensemble ended up as the sidekick to the other dumbest and most vile person in the ensemble. I didn’t mind that he suddenly had a doctorate in American constitutional law or whatever (it’s not like being an academic means you are a functional adult with practical life skills), and even though his rise to the presidency in S7 is patently stupid, I just love his bumbling, relentlessly positive, and super literal approach to life. Sam Richardson is great.

“I call it Some New Beginnings because it’s plural!”

Now begins the reign of Kathleen Felix Hager, who immediately injects more life into Selina and Amy’s business wardrobes. We won’t really see the change until the next few episodes—Selina always wears a red dress in the premiere, and Amy’s at a wedding where she can’t wear a monochrome skirt-suit or a shirt-dress—but still, it’s very exciting!! And KFH does manage a slight departure with Amy’s formalwear, which has previously tended to dark colors and conservative necklines. This turquoise dress is the brightest and lightest color we’ve seen on Amy so far, and she looks stunning.

As discussed previously, I appreciate that the costume team did not feel the need to vacuum-pack a clearly post-baby Anna Chlumsky into some Spanx underneath her dress, or choose a looser dress for her to wear. The dress is very well-tailored and they’re not trying to hide anything—every newfound curve is on display. Meanwhile, Dan looks very good in his totally-not-intentional matching suit and not at all like Amy’s boyfriend. It’s not like he’s standing next to her in pictures and sharing the cost of a wedding present and making jokes about the fact that they’re basically married. What a ridiculous notion.

Mike: See what everyone's gifting us? Some New Beginnings, Our Next American Journey. Dan: Really well written…by me. (He’s offscreen for this line, but I love this little aside…one day I’m going to write a one-shot where Dan writes Selina’s book. Ugh, Writer!Dan...so hot.)

Amy: Selina’s never been away without us this long before. Dan: I guess this is what it’s gonna to be like when our kids go to college too, huh, sweetie? Amy: Yeah, dream the fuck on, Dan. Dan: You know I'm only being nice to you because I know that Selina's gonna make me the campaign manager. Dan’s version of being nice to Amy is teasing her about their future children. I cannot. This whole exchange is just too much for my heart now. (Also, what a ballsy thing to say while Amy is ostensibly dating another man. Dan must be feeling very confident in his relationship with Amy at this moment.)

His unhinged impatience with Hughes not announcing is some neat foreshadowing that he’s going to be a terrible campaign manager.

I enjoy Mike and Wendy’s relationship…Kathy Najimy is lovely and funny, and she and Matt Walsh have a fun chemistry. She has a kind of smooth composure to her manner that’s a good contrast with the more frenetic energy of Selina’s staff.

I like to think part of the reason Dan snarks at Amy for not having a second phone is that he really just wants to be scheming with her at all times.

Selina: So, these rumors, right? I'm getting Maddox. What are you getting? Richard: I…I’m not getting a huge amount, if I'm being honest. Selina: Hey, Richard, no offense— Richard: None taken. Selina:—you’re a catastrophe.

In general, Iannucci Veep is better at marking time than Mandel Veep, but seriously…when is this wedding happening? We know it’s been two months since the S2 finale, in which both Selina and Amy appeared to be wearing clothes appropriate for mid-late D.C. spring (long sleeved dresses on both of them). So if it’s two months later, does that mean we’re in May-June? The end of June can be hot in D.C., but everyone is walking around outside dressed like it’s a pleasant spring day. Furthermore, the timeline is complicated by Episode 2, when it seems like we’re suddenly in early autumn…but also, Mike is on his honeymoon and Jonah has clearly just been fired! So WHEN is this wedding?! (Some of this confusion is obviously influenced by the uncontrollable dimensions of filming on location, such as weather…)

Love how Ben goes straight to the minibar in Selina’s suite.

Ben: So where’s the team? Selina: They’re all at Mike’s wedding…I kind of miss ‘em. *phone rings* Oh, it’s just Gary, press ignore.

Dan and Jonah’s scene in the bathroom made me actually kind of miss their DC bro antagonistic energy. I can’t believe they shared no scenes together in S7!

First mention of Bill Ericsson…considering how many political flubs/bone-headed campaign decisions Bill actually makes in the series, he doesn’t exactly live up the all-knowing ice-god of strategy reputation they give him in the beginning. (My blog is basically an anti-Bill Ericsson blog now, sorry.)

Dan: You keep a second phone there? Hypocritical…and horny. Love Reid Scott’s eyebrow arch on this line.

Jonah: “Team Veep goes into meltdown as Sec Def Maddox news breaks”….And upload the money shot. Sue: I hate how he learned English from pornography.

Richard: Ma’am, if you need any help with your campaign, I'm real good in a high-pressure situation. Selina: Really? In what sense “good”? Richard: Well, I was all over that book line thing.

It is intriguing how…active Dan is in this episode compared to Amy, or to be more specific, how his actions are highlighted by the script in a way that hers are not. He manipulates Jonah to get the ball rolling on the President’s announcement, runs back to the White House to witness/further exacerbate the fallout from that, actually asks Selina to make him the campaign manager, and in general is just furiously scheming all over the place. And it’s all explicitly tied to his desire to be the campaign-manager. Meanwhile, Amy is Hendrix-texting and presumably dealing with the Maddox news in some way, but we don’t really see her doing it. This will be a trend to follow in the first half of the season…some interesting gender dimensions to trace, for sure.

Kent: Don’t go interrupting any major sporting events! Unless it’s golf.

Jonah: I’ll be back! I’m gonna be back as the fucking President. Jonah Ryan, 2026! Staffer: That’s a midterms year, Jonah. Jonah: Well then I’ll change it!

I tend to think that Jonah’s career as a politician was a Mandel-era idea, but I do wonder with this line what Iannucci’s team of writers had planned for the character, if they also saw Jonah as an actual campaigning politician rather than just representative of the scuzzy underlings who populate D.C.

If it’s day six of the book tour, it makes you wonder how long Selina has been separated from her team. In light of Amy’s comment, it’s interesting to think about the logistical ramifications of it…six days feel like a stretch for Selina to be without her full staff, especially Gary and Amy. Not to mention Dan would want to gloat on the road about the success of “his” book. Were they just all on the book tour with Selina and then flew back to DC for a quick weekend wedding break? That would explain why they all appear to arrive together, at the very least.

“The seven foot mouth” is maybe my favorite Jonah insult of all time.

Amy’s drunk dancing is so cute! (In contrast, it is literally impossible for me to imagine Dan drunk dancing.)

#veep rewatch #3.01 #veep season three #some new beginnings #the seven foot mouth #dan x amy #selina meyer #dan egan #amy brookheimer

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telesthisia · 4 years

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(No reblogs! Make a new post please!)

|| The Basics ||

Name: Zelda of Hyrule Nickname(s): Zel, Zellie, Elle, Ellie Age: 19 Species: Human or well Hylian

|| Personal ||

Religious Belief: The three golden goddess + Hylia but... she’s known as the forgotten goddess in her timeline since certain legends faded away from the public’s knowledge but not at all the royal family’s. Sins: Lust / Greed / Gluttony / Sloth / Pride / Envy / Wrath Virtues: Chastity / Charity / Diligence / Humility / Kindness / Patience /Justice Primary Goals In Life: To create a brighter future for her people for generations on end, leading to the eventually famed Golden Age before the Hero of Time’s downfall... though Hyrule has recovered once she’s born there are still remnants of ruin from that era as such she wants to protect her people as well as make Hyrule safer, while she doesn’t do it within her lifetime because limited lifespan her dream does still come true years later aka LOZ and LOZ 2 don’t be fooled by the plot, Hyrule was in its prime during those games! Languages Known: Hylian Secrets: Well... it’s no secret among her staff but outside the castle, she keeps her poor health (heart condition and undiagnosed rare anemia problem) and near lack of magical stamina a secret since that can put her at a pretty bad disadvantage. She has plenty of enemies, namely those who align themselves with Ganon and the resurrection of him is still possible provided the person is a powerful mage with knowledge of doing that sort of stuff in the first place. And then there’s also court drama she has to worry about but that’s for another long lengthy headcanon post I should have out... soon... ish. Also while obvious with partners and in a meta sense and if you’re super observant but her guise Elle is, in fact, her, the princess of Hyrule so... ye... Quirks: Her birthmark of the Triforce is... certainly unique. But if we’re talking mannerism rather than physical then allow me to just ramble because hoo boy! When nervous or worked up, she often tucks her stray hairs behind her ears, even when she’s not feeling those emotions she’s always fiddling around with it (in her royal wear) often flipping it out of her face or trying to make it look a little neater. She has the Pendant of Courage, a gift from Link and often clutches on it when she feels the need to summon her courage if she’s feeling not that brave, often trying to recall Link’s courage during his many adventures. When using any of her PSI powers she tends to have a nose bleed, as such, she often carries around a handkerchief and tries to cover it up before going off somewhere to stop the bleeding. When laughing, she likes to hold her smile behind her hand... and when yawning she tries to cover her mouth. SHE IS THE WORST COOK TO EVER EXIST holy crap but can make mean cookies. When flirting (more like embarrassed flirting pft) she looks away to the side and twirls her hair around her finger trying to hide her red cheeks. Her romantic out view on life stems from the fact that she was constantly surrounded by death and history and art so there’s morbid beauty in the melancholy... this girl gets excited over Friday the 13th and samhain ok like... there’s a lot to unpack with that. THERE’S MORE BUT I’VE RAMBLED FAR ENOUGH!!! Savvies: Well... she bakes pretty good cookies BUT UH!!! YEAH she’s pretty proficient with her light magic! While she can’t do the amazing things other Zeldas can do because of limitations she’s not someone you would want to mess around with. She’s learned to work around those limitations and has great control over her powers. On top of that, she somehow knows how to use a crossbow so :’) while not the light arrows (she’s too weak to wield a bow) and it was a lucky shot she at least knows enough about how it works to fire it in the first place. She reads a lot, even as a kid she’d sneak off to the library to read the history about Hyrule or read maps and well she’s pretty knowledgable about her nation as a whole! And thanks to sneaking out she knows how to sneak past the guards and knows all of the secret passages in her castle like the back of her hand! Can’t forget her amazing political insight and ability to think outside the box! She has pretty innovative ideas for her times esp when concerning the common folk, but sometimes they don’t always go through because well... nobles.

|| Physical ||

Height: 5′0″ Weight: you never ask a lady her weight! >:0 Scars/Birthmarks: Has a cat scratch scar on her right palm which is also where the triforce is located! Abilities/Powers: Light magic, as the descendant of the mortal goddess she has been blessed with the Light Force. On top of that she’s come from a line of sages and has the Triforce of Wisdom so as you expect she has so much magic. She can heal, bless your weapons, smite away darkness, sense darkness (As a matter of fact she’s pretty sensitive to it and it makes her lowkey sick if it’s too much) and then there’s her PSI abilities which includes clairvoyance and telepathy! And then... her connection to the spirit realm. Restrictions: AHAHAHA SO MUCH, she’s a glass cannon which is why she’s so, so, so easy to kidnap in the first place. She may put up a fight but not for long, as such her tactics are always to make a distraction and then escape. But she has poor stamina and just a poor heart, she can’t really overexert herself without a) causing pain and b) passing the hell out which was common in her younger days. Using magic takes up a lot of stamina as shown in ALTTP esp with the more powerful spells, you need an amazing reserve to cast all of that and sadly while she has good control she doesn’t have good reserves. SOOOOOOO to fix this she always has to take medicine of magic. Mana blockage is a thing that can happen, more often than she’d like to admit which causes pain once again and makes using magic pretty hard. Now onto her telepathy and clairvoyance. While they sound useful there are restrictions on those as well, for one with telepathy while she can contact anyone so long as she finds their signature subconscious she doesn’t have to worry about distance too much so long as they are within her range which is... maybe more than 200 meters? I need to think about the range more because there are certain places where she can reach you and cannot but there’s def a range limit. She tends to get nosebleeds and headaches from using telepathy. Her clairvoyance is where she can see bits of the future, but they are very vague and hard to decipher and there’s always a chance of the future changing or not changing. As for her connection to the spirit realm, pretty much she can see dead people... in her dreams and there’s no way of shutting this power off she’s gotta deal with the horrors that is this realm. Now seeing spirits isn’t anything new in LOZ but contact to the spirit realm is something that’s implied that only royal family members can do... as implied by Zelda’s words in BOTW where she said her mom (or grandma??) could hear the voices of the spirit realm.

|| Favorites ||

Favourite Drink: Rose tea Favourite Pizza Topping: Basil... Favourite Color: Blue! Favourite Music Genre: She pretty much likes slow and relaxing music, piano comes to mind but *kayne shrug* Favourite Book Genre: Romance aHEM as a princess she doesn’t have time to read cheesy romance novels and fantasize about the day where someone riding on a white horse will sweep her off her feet and they ride off into the sunset never having to bear the burden of her heritage and responsibilities hahaha..... but history and folklore. She likes tragic stories that have bittersweet endings. Favourite Movie Genre: Fantasy, tragic tales, suspense, romance flicks Favourite Season: Spring Favourite Butt Type:

Favourite Swear Word: "Goodness me!” Favourite Scent: Forest scent, the fields, that ancient scent you smell when visiting old places, the smell of book pages Favourite Quote: “Time has stopped for me long ago.”

|| Fun Stuff ||

Bottom or Top:

Sings In The Shower: Yes!!! Well... rose soaked bathwater because she’s spoiled stupid by her castle staff and Impa but she’ll hum a tune here and there! Likes Bad Puns: Of course! She has the playfully innocent attitude so puns is right up her alley! Morality: Lawful / Neutral / Chaotic / Good / Gray / Evil Build: Slender / Scrawny / Bony / Fit / Athletic / Herculean / Babyfat / Pudgy / Obese / Other. Favourite Food: APPLES!!! Namely baked apples and more importantly apple strudel! Her nation is famous for having delicious apples that can help cure fatigue and even rise up stamina a bit! She’s very much a follower of “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” esp if that doctor keeps giving her bitter medicines. “Boss” Theme Music : Excuse me for using a sad track... but... sAD MUSIC HONESTLY SHE’S DEPRESSION PERSONIFIED!! It reflects her hidden melancholy for like everything. I feel like if you have to fight her as a boss it’ll be more of a beautifully sad moment than something epic like that boss fight with puppet zelda which slaps honestly. Their Opinion On The Mun: “Does she thrive on my pain?”

Was tagged by: no one

Tag 15 People: wHO EVER WANTS TO DO THIS

#OK THIS TOOK LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE #because i ramble so much listen i have a lot of headcanons #dash games.#about.

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ginnypotterlightning · 4 years

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Ranking of the Harry Potter Books based off my Reread

For anyone who is not aware, this is my 4th or 5th time reading the Harry Potter books (I honestly don’t know). I started rereading it during my senior year of college, read the first one and then stopped in the middle of the second one, sometime, the following year I finished the Chamber of Secrets, I have no idea when I started Prisoner of Azkaban, but I didn’t seriously start rereading them until the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. It took me a little bit to properly get back into reading, where it was enjoyable, and I could sustain reading more than just reading a few pages before putting down the book. And luckily I can now say I have repaired my relationship with reading that college oh so nicely damaged, anyways now on to my ranking.

For this ranking I want to focus more on how enjoyable it was to read each of these books, and less on how much I enjoy the storyline of each of these books, I feel like another reread will be required to properly reform my list, but it does feel like it has changed.

Starting from the bottom:

At 7th Place is

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

While this book has always been one of my favorite books of the series I did not find it as enjoyable this time. Since I read HP1 and started HP3 in 2018 I feel like they are unfairly placed at the bottom, 1) because they were read during a different time period 2) They were read at the beginning of my trying to fall back in love with reading (the question is could I finish a Harry Potter book in 2 or 3 days like I used to, maybe, but now I feel too anxious if I’m not cleaning, going to the gym or what not on a down day)

(I remember 2 things about my rereading, in 2018 thinking ????? when I was reading a Lockhart scene, and in 2019 finishing the book on an overnight when I think I was the only other *** and Au was the nurse on)

in 6th Place is

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone

This book has always been my least favorite book in the series because it has been the most difficult for me to read, I find myself consistently losing my attention span around Platform 9 and 3/4. If I’m not mistaken I did not find this re read as difficult, and I definitely cried at the end of rereading it.

in 5th Place is

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

This book has always been my favorite, it may have fallen because of my expectations for it, but I think it had to do more to do with my lack of expectations, or more like me forgetting plot points in books 3-5 which enhanced my reading of the book.

So far I’ve mostly been talking about the negatives about the book, in part because I don’t remember my reread of the 1st two books, but here is what I like about the Half Blood Prince.

The Half Blood Prince has always been my favorite book because it gives you a little bit of everything, the trio, the classes, Quidditch, Harry at the Dursleys, love interest, friendship, Voldemort, harry’s relationship with Dumbeldore, and a good balance of our antagonist.

This book is interesting because Voldemort isn’t in the book, and yet a decent portion of the book is about him. The memories weren’t quite as amazing as I remember them being, I particularly found the Marvolvo flashback difficult to read. When best sellers like Harry Potter come out, once you read the big storylines, it’s not as easy to forget them, and as this has been my favorite book it could’ve been harder to forget these parts, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if my head wasn’t quite at the same place as books 3-5. And then again, maybe I don’t want to admit to myself I’m not as in love with book 6 as I used to be, anyways.

Ginny and Harry and beautifully written in this book, Ginny’s character development starting in book 5 is enjoyable to read. I think reading this book, and 7, made me more uncomfortable with Ron and Hermonie, it just kind of happens, and it doesn’t feel as natural, but then again were in Harry’s head and not theirs.

After having read HP5, I think I was disappointed in the length of this book because I wanted more, I especially loved reading about the classes, and the story of the Half Blood Prince, and while at the beginning I just said I enjoyed having the many storylines, I wish there was even more emphasize on the classes, and what Harry needs to do to become an Auror.

in 4th Place is

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Unlike HP6, I find this book to be perfectly paced. I was surprised when we were suddenly at Hogwarts, I for some reason thought there was more time before jumping off the dragon and apparating to Hogsmead. I didn’t cry as much as I have in the past while reading this, but I think it was in part from taking a month to read this book and continuously changing locations to read this, and COVID, that defs slowed down my reading.

The second half of the book is, ofc where the book shines, as we find out a lot of information, everyone is coming out of isolation and fighting, and there is more action. My one disappointment is where the book ends, I enjoy the epilogue, minus the kids names, but the final chapter left me wanting more. Like yes I wanted to see more about the aftermath of the war, but with the final last few words saying that Harry wanted to sleep and hoped Kreacher would bring him a sandwich didn’t quite hit the heart strings. But I do like that the epilogue brings us to the place where it all began, and where we now know, that Harry is happy, and no longer has this hurt he has carried with him for years (not to say the boy didn’t have PSD).

While they mention the flaw of Harry never trusting in others, or relying too much on Dumbledore, at times it was frustrating at the lack of information he gave others, it’s like you could just say youre on a secret mission as to end voldemort, but then again I guess it might have made it easier for voldemort to figure it out the more he talked about it. I hated reading the Lupin scene I cringed so much.

I forgot that Dean was captured by the snactchers, and was upset they couldn’t have added this ti the movie, but I also get it, kind of

I’ve never understood the hate for the camping scenes, they really aren’t that bad, but youre also not wrong that they’re not the most exciting scenes in the book, because ofc theyre not

in 3rd Place is

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I picked this book up at the beginning of the year, starting from the place I had left off on weeks (or months) ago. It took me a few chapters before I was fully submerged back into the wizard of world of Harry Potter and I was soo happy.

There were elements that I forgot such as the extended backstory of the maururders. I wasn’t a huge fan of the chapter focused on scanners and crookshanks, by I also wasn’t mad at it.

Reading 3-5, as I progressed from book to book I loved what I was reading more and more.

in 2nd Place is

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I was surprised by how much I had forgotten in this particular book including the rolls or Ludo Bagman, Winky, and the killing of Bart Crouch.

Ron being upset at Harry didn’t feel as drawout as I remember (compared to the movie, that is always a question when it comes to thinking about the book, am I actually thinking about it or am I just thinking about the movie?) and SPEW wasn’t as annoying as I remember it being. This book has a different storyline as it’s following the twiwizard tournament so naturally I feel like most people find this book more exciting. The book creates the perfect building blocks for the next book, something in which the movies fail to do, but even with that, I feel like they could have done a better job at joining together the two stories even it it was coming from OOTP

in 1st Place is

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoniex

People always complain that this book is too long but I found it perfect. Right after this random event happening at hogwarts we need normalcy, we need hormonal relationship, and we have that foundation of politics which leads the book. My hatred for the book is what made me enjoy the book the most upon reread, because it really wasn’t that bad. I have been watching a booktuber review the books after I have finished each consecutive book, and Inthink she said it well in that, when you are younger you don’t understand the book as well, I’ve now experienced loss, and forms of depression. Not on the level of Harry, but on enough of a level that I can understand. I now know the intensity of your teenage years. And now emphasize with his anger at the government, and more people should be upset, he should be more upset, and again as this youtubers said Ron and Hermonie let him know when he was becoming to much or when his anger became misleaded and directed towards them but it was not in fact them who he was mad at, especially when given the full facts. I believe this is the book that I cried like the last 100 pages. The dialogue at the end of the book is brilliant.

*when comparing the books to the movies, 5-7 had the worst adaptation of the battle at the end. I was never a huge fan of OOTP battle, but the half blood prince battle made me the most upset, and everyone said that David Yates did the action scenes the best. I’ve just never been a big fan. He did a decent job at the l dealthly hallows but 5 and 6. 👎🏽

#hp1 #harry potter and the order of the phoniex #harry potter #harry potter and the chamber of secrets #harry potter and the socerers stone #harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban #harry potter and the goblet of fire #harry potter and the half blood prince #harry potter and the deathly hallows #hp5 #hp2 #hp3 #hp4 #hp6 #hp7 #this entry could defs be cleaned up but 🤷🏽‍♀️

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geekofmanyforms · 5 years

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New Beginning Chapter Six

***This chapter has been edited by my Beta Casey. Please review!***

I woke up as the sun peeked in through the blinds. I covered my face with my pillow and grumbled.

"Stupid mornings. Stupid sun."

I wasn't in the mood for the day to begin yet. After the horrible dinner last night, and the realization that Katherine was in town planning on starting trouble, all I wanted to do was stay in bed and hideaway.

And not to mention, the death of Mr. Tanner.

It had been a fun realization to come home to, Damon killing someone. I knew he'd changed, that he wasn't the same Damon I fell in love with, but I had hoped he wasn't this far gone. I should've never told him and Stefan what was to come. It was a stupid idea, now I had two angry, volatile vampires on my hands.

"Someone is still not a morning person..."

I pulled the pillow from my face and lifted myself up. Rebekah sat on the other side of the bed, smirking at me.

"Ya know, Bekah, Most people would think waking up in bed with the ghostly figure of their best friend a bit odd. But not me, ya know why? Because this happens every damn morning — Can't you haunt Nik, instead?" I whined.

Rebekah frowned at me and hopped off the bed.

"You know Nik can't see me, but for some reason, you can. Sorry sis, but until I'm undaggered, this is where I'm gonna stay," she said.

I gave her the finger and stepped into my bathroom to shower. Once I was done, I slipped on a pair of jeans and a band tee — Def Leppard, to be exact. They were my favorite band. I ignored Rebekah's gasp of horror at my outfit and headed downstairs carrying my grey converse. Jenna sat on the couch, hissing at the news anchorman on television.

"Scumball — Scumbucket,"

I sat down beside her and slipped on my shoes. "Who are you talking to, Jen?" I asked with a smile.

She looked at the screen with pure hatred.

"Him." she spat.

I laughed, earning a glare from her as Elena stepped off the stairs.

"The news guy?" Elena asked.

"Also known as Logan "Scum" Fell. Did your mom ever tell you guys why I moved away from Mystic Falls?" Jenna asked pointedly, looking at us both.

I held in a gasp and stared intently at the man on the TV. He had brown hair and an angular chin. He wasn't terrible looking, but definitely not good enough for my current Aunt.

"Oh, no way — you and him? He's cute." Elena said, looking at Jenna and then back at the TV.

I smiled at her and shook my head. Sometimes I forgot that she was basically a normal teenage girl, and didn't have as much life experience as I did.

Jenna scoffed. "He is not cute — there's nothing cute about him! Wait, what are you doing with that?"

Jenna eyed the family heirlooms Elena was packing up. I noticed the gold pocket watch that was meant to be handed down to Jeremy and frowned deeply. As if he knew exactly what was happening, Jeremy came bounding down the stairs just as Elena and Jenna were discussing our Great Grandmother's wedding ring. Neither Jenna nor Elena noticed the way his face fell for a moment before being replaced with anger. He was about to make Elena pay for her thoughtlessness.

As I headed towards the kitchen, I overheard him ask how much the heirlooms might sell for on eBay. I cringed; that conversation wouldn't go well. I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, still eavesdropping until the doorbell rang and broke my focus. I smiled as the familiar aura of Stefan washed over me. I made my way back to the living room just in time to see Elena pulling Stefan up the stairs towards her room. I laughed at his carefree smile and shook my head. I had to admit it was nice seeing him so happy, even if I thought it would never last. I knew they would both be spending a while succumbing to their teenage hormones — even if one of them isn't technically a teenager — so I decided to head out. There was no way I wanted to accidentally overhear whatever they were doing.

"I'm heading out Jen," I called to Jenna as I grabbed my car keys, "I'll be back later!"

At her hollered okay, I headed out the door. There wasn't much to do in such a small town, so I decided to head to Caroline's. I was sure she needed help picking out her dress for the Founders party anyway.

I slid into the car and made my way to the Forbes' house. The closer I got to the house, the angrier I became. I could sense him there with her — and he wasn't supposed to be. I thought I had taken care of that problem, but apparently, this was going to be harder than I thought. I growled in frustration and gripped the steering wheel tightly, making my knuckles turn white.

Damn Damon Salvatore! Damn him to hell!

I jumped out of the car as soon as my keys were out of the ignition. I stomped towards the front door, going through all the ways I knew to kill a vampire; they were plentiful. I had asked him one simple thing — to stay away from my friends and family, and yet here he was. I slammed my fist on the door repeatedly. I could see the Sheriff was already at work, so I didn't need to worry about freaking her out.

"Caroline Forbes! Open the damn door, NOW!" I hollered, staring daggers at her white front door as if it was the vampire I was pissed at.

I cast a silent spell over her house to make sure he couldn't try and escape before I got to him. I smiled evilly as I felt the power of it blanket the home. The door swung open to reveal an irritated Caroline. I pushed my way inside and ignored her protests.

"Look at me," I said, pulling her pale face towards mine.

I held her still and peered into her blue eyes. When I found no new empty spaces in her memory nor anything fuzzy, I frowned and let her go.

"Why. Is. Damon. Here? I asked through clenched teeth, enunciating every word.

She huffed loudly and crossed her arms in protest of my question.

"He's here because he is my boyfriend," she said.

I closed my eyes and took a deep calming breath. I grabbed the scarf that was still wrapped around her neck and removed it. There, exactly where I knew they would be, were several faded bite marks. I grimaced and wrapped the scarf back around her neck.

"You have no memory of how you got those, do you?" I asked.

Caroline fidgeted with the scarf and started blushing furiously. "Damon says we use to "play" a bit roughly," she whispered with a giggle.

I stared at her for a moment before I sighed deeply. I spun around and marched up to her room and found Damon sprawled out on her bed reading, one of the Twilight novels.

"What's so special about this Bella girl? Edward's so whipped," he said.

I leaned against the door frame and rubbed my hands across my face as Caroline walked past me, towards her closet. She picked up a blue dress and stared at it.

"You have to read the first book first. It won't make sense if you don't," she said, lifting the dress and shaking it in my direction.

"You look better in yellow Care, you know that," I said, eyeing Damon with distaste.

"Ah, I miss Ann Rice. She was so on it," he said, ignoring me.

"How come you don't sparkle? And how do you know about him, Ellie?" She asked curiously.

I almost forgot how much I hated the after-effects of compulsion. It would be excruciating for me to wipe away the fogginess and bring back Caroline's memories, and I didn't want to put her through that. At least I knew everything she was doing now was of her own free will.

"How about you tell me how you are okay with all of this, Care? You know what he is and what he is capable of, yet you still wanna date him? That doesn't sound like you ."

I stepped towards her and crossed my arms. She still held the blue dress in her hands and was looking it over. I pulled the dress away from her and tossed it on the bed, where Damon was staring at me intently.

"I don't know, Ellie. I'm not afraid of him," she said, shrugging nonchalantly.

My mouth snapped open, and I turned towards Damon.

"You didn't!" I shouted.

If I hadn't been so angry, his obvious discomfort would have made me laugh, but at that moment, I found nothing funny about what was happening. He had compelled my best friend to have no fear. I knew I should have checked her previous compulsion before feeding her the vervain. I jumped onto the bed and started hitting any part of him I could get my hands on.

"Are you completely insane?! She could get herself killed this way, Damon!" I yelled while hitting him on the shoulder.

He tried to escape my swinging fists, but I sat on top of him and pinned him down. My red hair flew around wildly, looking almost like the fire I felt inside of me. I knew if he wanted to, he could easily escape me, but he appeared to be attempting to keep himself in check.

"Ow, woman! get off me!" he hollered.

I slammed my knee into his stomach and rolled off of him, ignoring his humph of anger. I pointed a shaking finger in his face, fighting to control my rapid breath.

"You will fix this, Salvatore," I said sternly.

My voice stayed firm, despite the hilarious shocked expression he held. I pulled Caroline from the corner of the room where she had hidden herself during my outburst. I smiled warmly at her and gave her a playful laugh.

"Sorry Care, I have some history with Damon here, and it's not pleasant," I explained.

Her eyes widened, and her face became stiff and cold as she eyed Damon.

"What did he do to you, Ellie? I'll kill him!" she spat.

I almost cried at her determined and faithful expression. She was such a good friend, even in the face of all this craziness.

"It's in the past. So, wear the yellow dress tonight and meet me at the Grill later, okay?"

I grabbed Damon's hand and pulled him off the bed. I pushed him out of the bedroom door, calling back to Caroline.

"I'm gonna borrow your boyfriend for a bit."

"Okay, just don't break him!" she hollered "I don't wanna go solo tonight!"

I pushed him down the hallway and out the front door. He shook me off and straightened his black leather jacket.

"So, you gonna tell me why I was trapped in there until now?"

I pulled my hair into a high ponytail and narrowed my eyes. The wind whipped past us, making his dark hair sway in the breeze. I ignored the jolt I felt in my stomach and let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

"I used a spell. I didn't want you escaping before I could kill you." I said plainly, with a sly smile.

He squinted his eyes at me, amusement evident in their blue depths.

"I think you just wanted an excuse to get on top of me," he said, smirking.

I started towards my car, and he walked silently next to me.

"Damon, we both know I wouldn't need an excuse," I said slyly, sliding into the driver's seat.

He leaned into my window his arms placed above him on the roof.

"Oh Elandra, you know you always have permission to straddle me," he said, his signature smirk still glued to his face.

I put my keys in the ignition and leaned towards him, my eyes never leaving his. For a moment, I could see uncertainty flash in his eyes. I knew, even after all these years, that he still saw me as I used to be. The proper lady who he was preparing to marry. The woman who he needed an escort just to be able to spend time with.

He needed to remember that I was no longer that woman. I had lived so many lives since then. I have loved and lost and was just as capable of these silly flirtatious games as he was. My warm breath fanned across his face filling the air between us with the sweet smell of peppermint. His long lashes brushed against my nose as he looked down at my pink glossed lips.

"Oh, Damon, you have no idea what I could do to you. You forget I'm not Elandra anymore. I'm not some sweet innocent girl you can make melt with a few words."

I brushed my nose against his, smiling as his breath hitched. I pulled away and started the car.

"See ya later, Damon,"

I gave him a salute and pulled away from the curb. As I drove away, I watched him in the rearview mirror. He stood staring after me for a moment, before vanishing in a quick flash. I bit my lip and leaned into my seat. What the hell was I getting myself into? Flirting with Damon was a terrible idea. Our past should stay exactly that — the past. Getting involved with anyone would prove to be very stupid. I couldn't bring someone into my life only to break their heart. I shook my head and pushed the thoughts away. Now wasn't the time to think about it.

—-

The doorbell rang as I was going through my closet later that day. I tilted my head to the side as the warm aura of Tyler Lockwood wafted over me. I could feel the presence of his dormant wolf and knew if Jeremy opened the door, we would have trouble. I hopped over the rainbow of clothes covering my closet floor and jumped down every other step in my rush to get to the door. I halted right before the door and tossed my red hair back over my shoulder before yanking it open.

"Hey, Lockwood," I said, upon seeing his bright smiling face.

I've never had a problem with Tyler. We had always had a friendly relationship, and apart from Caroline and Matt, he was the only other person in Mystic Falls I would actually call a friend. Bonnie and I got along to an extent, but Tyler and I hit it off as soon as we met. If it weren't for the fact that his temper was always fluctuating — due to his dormant wolf — then we would have hung out a lot more. Well, that and the fact that we had lost our virginities to one another, one drunken night when we were fifteen.

A dark memory had just resurfaced, one that always caused me a lot of pain, and Tyler (along with a large bottle of Vodka) was there when I needed someone to just help me forget. After the fact, we both felt kind of awkward around one another.

"Hey El, I'm here for my mom. I'm supposed to pick up a box of stuff," he said, running a hand through his hair.

I grinned at his nervousness and ushered him inside. "Yeah, I think I saw Elena messing with that stuff this morning," I said, looking around the living room. "Elena!"

Elena and Jeremy started down the stairs, the latter with an angry and betrayed look on his face. Elena pulled on her green top anxiously as Jeremy approached Tyler. I stepped between the two hormone-ridden boys.

"He's here for his mom," I said casually.

Elena grabbed the box from the closet under the stairs and handed it off to Tyler.

"Its right here. Please be careful."

Jeremy pushed past me and looked Tyler up and down. "Yeah, be careful, dick," he spat.

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought I might lose them. "Hey! Not now, okay, guys? Please," I said, pushing Jeremy back.

Tyler laughed behind me, sneering. "Its okay Ellie, he's just a punk,"

I huffed loudly as I used all my strength to keep Jeremy from attacking him. "Ty, seriously. Just take the box and go."

I used one hand to push Jeremy towards Elena, and the other to push Tyler out the door. Once I knew Elena had ahold of our brother, I followed Tyler out the door.

"God Ty, do you have to bait him? You know what Vick means to him right now."

Tyler set the box of heirlooms in the back of his truck.

"Would it help if I said I actually like Vicki?" he sighed.

I leaned against his truck and gave him my best 'are you serious' look. He laughed at me and sighed.

"I really do, El. I just...you know me. I have trouble expressing myself, and sometimes it's like I can't control my attitude. I can be such a dick,"

He sighed heavily, seeming to have trouble explaining himself. This was the side of him that many people missed out on. He was always trying to be the stereotypical jock, and with a father and mother like his, its something I could completely understand. Tyler had a rough life; yeah, it wasn't the typical rough that a lot of people suffered through, but that didn't make it any less raw. It was a life someone like my brother would never understand.

"I get it, Ty, you don't have to explain yourself to me,"

I punched him in the arm, and he leaned his head against my shoulder briefly before switching back to his usual distant self.

"Okay. Thanks for the old junk. I'll tell my mom to be careful with it," he said, winking.

I shook my head at him and stepped away so he could pull out of the driveway. I waved him off and then headed back inside to resume my search for a Founders day outfit. As I passed my sister's room, I could hear her and Bonnie debating what color nail polish to use. I was just about to pass by when I heard Bonnie bring up Katherine's name. I paused and listened quietly to Bonnie explain Stefan, Damon, and Katherine's past relationship. I almost laughed at Damon's immature way of trying to get in between his brother and Elena. I ignored the sting of jealousy that flared up inside me at the idea that he was still hung up on Kat, and walked into my room. My phone buzzed to life just as I shut the door behind me. I pulled it out of my back pocket and smiled down at the text from Matt.

Hey, odd question. I need a date for the Founders thing, wanna come with me? It would make seeing your sister with that new guy a lot easier to swallow.

I laughed loudly at his awkwardness and sent him back a quick sure. I tossed my phone on my bed beside a lounging Rebekah and headed back into my closet. Once again, I groaned in frustration as I tossed hanger after hanger onto the floor, struggling to find a suitable dress.

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kallypsowrites · 5 years

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Game of thrones: Conquest and Rebellion

I’m a happy camper this Christmas as I finally got Game of Thrones season 7 for myself. And I was surprised when it came with this beautiful little DVD that contains an over 40 minute history of the Targaryens in Westeros, narrated by several of the characters in Game of Thrones including: Viserys, Varys, Euron, Peytr Baelish, Sansa, and Jaime. I say characters and not actors because it is clearly supposed to be from the perspective of the characters and what they have learned about the history of the Targaryens.

Now, I was intrigued to watch this because I am actually midway through a big ol’ post on unreliable history in Fire and Blood. The basic thesis is that by telling the history of his world through the eyes of someone in that world, he makes it unreliable and biased and this is very much by design. I have my ideas about what is exagerated vs what is real in Fire and Blood, but I wanted to see how this video compared. Especially since it contains what the SHOW views as the most important notes in the Targaryen conquest.

And boy did it confirm my suspicions about unreliable history. In fact, hearing individual characters bring in their bias illustrated my thesis perfectly. But let’s talk about some of the highlights. Because I was surprised to see how the Targaryens were represented her.

1. Viserys suggests that the Targaryens may have left Old Valyria because of a court mishap and not the prophesy from ‘The Dreamer’. I have had my suspicions about some of the “prophetical” motivation behind the Targaryen conquest, because in large part it seemed like stories written to justify Aegon’s conquest. Like it’s his “destiny”. However, I never thought to question the idea of the dreamer foreseeing the doom of Valyria. Now, if this was from any other character’s narration I might call it unreliable and an attempt to discredit the Targaryens but this is Viserys, “number one Targaryen fanboy”, “my family is the best and like GODS among MEN” Targaryen. Even he thinks that perhaps the vision is just a story. At the very least, the vision wasn’t super clear as the Targaryens left a full twelve years before the Doom. Already the show seems to be calling attention to the fact that the Targaryens are just like everyone else.

2. This continues with the implication that Aegon conquered for resources and knew he could win because of dragons. This is also Viserys’ implication. He also makes a statement about Aegon “teaching the squabbling families the meaning of greatness” and it sounds very villainy. Again. This is Viserys who later on calls Maegar the cruel, “the wise” and says the title of cruel was slander! Viserys is 100% team Targaryen and yet he does not begin to make Aegon’s intentions sound noble. Even though the Targaryen history books are FILLED with that kind of thing. Viserys also calls them “strangers” to Westeros which follows the narrative of this being an invasion. in fact the next section is even TITLED ‘invasion’

After this, we switch to Varys’ narration. As a narrator, he’s probs the most trustworthy as he is the most neutral. And HE adds in the suggestion that Aegon used the hands of the envoy sent to him by Argilac the arrogant were just a PRETEXT for the conquest he’d been planning for a long time. He wanted to rule the seven kingdoms and was just looking for an excuse to attack. He also suggests that Argilac the arrogant was surpassed by Aegon in arrogance. Not a great picture painted of Aegon.

3. “Before he was done, the rivers fields and skies would turn red” -- Varys on Aegon the conqueror. Continues to speak of this man like a villain. in sharp contrast to the ‘noble conqueror’ painted in Fire and Blood. Speaking of which, Aegon is the one who comes up with the words ‘Fire and Blood’ according to this video, which definetily makes him seem like he was hoping for some casual mass murder.

4. Obviously, Harren the Black and Argilac the Arrogant sucked. Totally not coming to their defense. But how are their deaths portrated. Well, Euron is given the chance to describe the death of Harren and he is CLEARLY turned on by the destruction of his ancestors which is a bad sign. It’s description is horrifying and the animation is dark. Obviously if Euron likes it, its supposed to be kind of freaky.

Argilac, however, is given a heroic final battle seeming almost noble. Orys Baratheon, the most humanized of all the conquerors, seems to respect him enough to take his sigil and words “out of respect”. We’ll talk more about how the characters are drawn later, but there’s a big difference between Orys and Aegon.

5. Jaime describes the field of fire and he himself looks VERY MUCH like Lorren Lannister. He stresses that Aegon had “no mercy”. But its no surprise that he hates Targaryens cause they have a bad history. But still, the Field of Fire is shot like a horrifying war scene and the Targaryens are again depicted as the villain. Thousands return home as “scarred monsters”.

Favorite line “Aegon had a fetish for collecting swords”.

6. Sansa narrates the bits about House Stark and House Stark is indisputidly depicted as heroes. Now, this isn’t surprising. Sansa is loyal to her house. But she implies that the north was different than the other kingdoms because they were focused on survival not power. There is focus for a lot of time on the white walkers and how it is a Stark problem to deal with and they are a greater threat than dragons.

She puts emphasis on how Starks are willing to make alliances for survival, regadless of pride as well. She seems to respect Torrhen Stark’s decision to kneel saying ‘he had no choice’. Aegon was offering a very ‘kneel or die’ message after all. The Starks would have died if they did not bow. But their swords are still taken for the throne!

The most ominous bit is this:

“The swords Aegon took from them were not twisted or mangled” - Sansa

“Yet” - Viserys, very ominously

What an ominous thing to throw in there Viserys!

7. Most unsettling display of Targaryen villainy happens in the Eyrie, narrated by Littlefinger. Queen Arryn arrives to see that Visenya is with her son, next to her dragon. Visenya doesn’t say it, but she is fully threatening the boy. You can see it by her smile which is just...oof. It’s scary. She clearly intends to kill him if his mother doesn’t give the crown. She has “no choice” and Littlefinger describes him as a “poor boy”. Visenya is clear villain in this. This is in HUGE contrast to the two women apparently relating and connecting with each other in Fire and Blood.

8. Viserys mocks the “religious” reasons for old town’s surrender suggesting that they knelt because otherwise everyone would die. This once again undercuts the idea that the septon saw some grand purpose for Aegon which is suggested in Fire and Blood. The septon is just afraid, again, according to Viserys the number one Targaryen fanboy. Bonus: calls the north savages because Targaryens are better than everyone~~ He even calls the Targaryens the "Greatest dynasty ever.” when Aegon is crowned.

9. But after Aegon’s victory, the neutral Varys comes in to remind us of the Dorne failure. Rather than making Rhaenys seem unflapable and invincible as Fire and Blood did, Varys suggested that the yellow toad of Dorne SCARED Rhaenys. And later on, of course, Rhaenys gets taken down. Dorne really is painted as the heroic underdogs of this scene. and emphasis is placed on the fact that Aegon and Visenya set every city on fire except sunspear. If there HAD been people there, they would all be dead. Fire and Blood indeed.

10. We skip right from the conquest to the Dance of Dragons.

“With no enemies left they started fighting each other.” - Viserys

This defs doesn’t sound like the centuries of peace and prosperity that Dany talked about. This video is focused ENTIRELY on the wars of the Targaryens and not the good things or building of infrastructure. No mention of Jahaerys the concilitator at all. Instead we focus on Aegon, Maegar, the Dance, Aegon the Unworthy and the Mad King. All the very worst Targaryens. And there are lots of good things the Targaryens did! But instead of focusing on that, the show focuses on the war, which means they know that Dany’s line about “centuries of peace” is wrong.

Bonus, we have more of Viserys arguing for blood purity and that Targaryens are SPECIAL and that they would have been fine if Aegon didn’t legitimize so many dirty half breed bastards.

11. The greatest Targaryen threat, however, is madness (according to Jaime who saw the Mad King first hand). We bring up that line again: “Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin”

“We put up with Aerys hoping Rhaegar would be better but then he also proved mad when he took Lyanna Stark”

This does not place Rhaegar as the sane, good sibling most people do. Instead, it also paints him in a negative light. Which, this is Jaime, so take it with a grain of salt. But he actually never hated Rhaegar so yeah...

12. Jaime is so bitter about Ned condemning him and it’s kinda funny. I love Nikolaj narration

“I saw what Ned Stark couldn’t. Robert was ashamed of the bodies of the children... and more ashamed at his relief. Glorious heroes didn’t kill children. They simply didn’t punish their murderers” - Jaime being smart with one of my fave lines.

He clearly sees things as they are. He doesn’t like the Targaryens but he also doesn’t elevate Robert as a god. Jaime doesn’t believe in heroes and it shows here.

13. Then we end with a particularly ominous note.

“One day I’ll return and repay all traitors with the only coin my family knows. Fire and blood” - Viserys.

These are the last words in the video. A threat. It really does not paint the Targaryens as tragic characters pushed out of their rightful throne.

And this is where I want to talk about the character drawings. Every pose from the original three dragons (Aegon and sisters) is the most villainous thing in the world and the music behind their conquest is intense and dark. Their faces are often lowered but with their eyes glaring up and shrouded in shadow. Their smiles are sharp. Their body language is arrogant. It is victims of the conquest like Lorren and Torrhen who are given more humanized designs.

On the Targaryen side of things, the most humanized design belongs to Orys Baratheon who has much kinder eyes and a more open expression. And the there’s Viserys and Daenerys at the end who look like scared children more than anything. But the Targaryen dynasty that is their birth right doesn’t appear to start out on a great foot.

This kinda all backs up my point that if Daenerys wants to break the wheel, she will have to reject and correct the legacy of her family. The show clearly does not view Aegon as a great hero. So if they mean for Daenerys to be a hero, I hope they have her recognize the history and take steps to correct it (maybe even destroy the iron throne, plz?) And if she doesn’t recognize her history or tries to emulate Aegon, she could be headed down a bad path.

I love the Targaryen family because, like lots of my favorite Westeros families, they are SCREWED UP and have lots of interesting characters, and I look forward to exploring them more in my Fire and Blood post. But if anything, this video just backs up my thesis about unreliable history and what Dany will have to do if she wants to be a good ruler. Break that wheel! It was forged in fire and blood!

#game of thrones #house targaryen #fire and blood #daenerys targaryen #Jaime Lannister #Varys #viserys targaryen #sansa stark #Aegon Targaryen #game of thrones season 7 #game of thrones season 8 #game of thrones meta

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