#and then i tried to put it in context. like ok she's been isolating herself from him for weeks. maybe months

[collecting-stories]

I Feel it all Over - t. 04 - JJ Maybank

Summary: Kiara surprises you at church and you spend the day with her, JJ, and Pope.

A/N: If you haven't ever listened to them...can I just highly recommended listening to The Maine (whose album You Are Ok this is based on)? They’re music is amazing...You Are Ok, American Candy, and Pioneer are probably my favorite albums of theirs. Plus they did an incredible cover of Watermelon Sugar...if you’re a fan of Harry Styles. 

You Are Ok Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

✞ I swear to every god I feel everything tonight with you ✞

New patrons to the church were usually whole families that came to services, whose fathers or mothers agreed your father’s lesson and felt drawn to the “community” of the Baptist denomination. They responded to the clickbait phrases and did feel lost in their everyday life. It was very rare that any new member, or anyone testing the church out for the first time, would be a single person, a teenager far removed from the beliefs and traditions of the church. But there was Kiara, walking up the few steps into the vestibule. She wasn’t here because of any lost feelings; she was here because she wanted to get to know you more. What JJ had told her, and what she had seen for herself on Friday, was someone that she definitely wanted to be friends with.  

She had no bet to dictate how or when she became friends with you. She slipped into the line of people entering the church, catching sight of you standing by the door handing out pamphlets for that morning’s service. Making sure she was at the end of the line, she waved as she approached, happy to see you.  

“What are you doing here?” You asked, glancing into the church before giving her a quick hug. If your parents or any other family saw they would ask how you knew this complete stranger and why you seemed so friendly with someone who had never been to the church before.  

“JJ stole you on Friday,” she shrugged, “thought maybe we could hang out after church?”  

“Yeah,” you nodded, a story already formulating in your head to tell your parents. Your mother always said that a lie was the devil on your tongue and the first time she’d said it you were convinced that the devil had taken out real estate because you lied constantly, and with ease. Sometimes just to see if you could get away with it. “That would be amazing.”

As far as friends went, you had very few. Your main source of companionship had come from your brothers and sisters, other friends were just acquaintances from youth group or church retreats that you never really felt any deeper connection with. The further away from the fold you felt, the less you found a community for yourself. You had been doubting for so long now that anything within the church felt like a show you were putting on for other people’s amusement, the emotions weren’t real and niether were you.  

JJ wasn’t the first boy you had ever let yourself like but he was the first person you had ever felt comfortable being yourself around. There was no fear of judgement or rejection with him, nothing you said was turned into a weapon to make you feel guilty or unworthy, you didn’t have to pretend to be someone you weren’t. You had been nervous to meet his friends, feeling so different from them, but Kiara and Pope had been nice, welcoming, and all you felt was ease. Even now, seeing Kiara had put a more genuine smile on your face than seeing your family visiting for church.

“I wore my best ‘church’ outfit,” Kiara said, gesturing to the maxi dress and sweater she was wearing. The dress was backless and strappy but it was the only thing she owned that wasn’t short. She’d thrown a sweater overtop, hoping she could play off the dress better.

“You blend right in,” you laughed, “I’m relegated to sit up front...I don’t know if you wanna sit with me up there?”

“Lead the way.”

The “peace be with you’s” weren’t too bad and you lied to your mom when she asked how you knew Kiara, telling her that you had met at Heyward's and invited Kiara to church because she was interested in the tract you had. Your mother’s love for testimony and her conviction that people really did want to be approached on the street and harassed about their faith were enough to convince her that your story was solid. It was enough, even, to give you permission to go to lunch with Kiara after service was over.  

Kiara hadn’t been to church since she was thirteen and her mom decided that she was old enough to choose whether or not she actually wanted to be there. That sort of power and responsibility had been all Kiara needed to ditch Sunday service altogether and spend her mornings out on the waves with the pogues, worshipping a different sort of force. She was a lot less religious and a lot more spiritual now though she listened intently to your father preaching. The opinions were hogwash, nothing to bat an eye at, but the actual teachings were interesting. You seemed relatively invested in those parts too, your notes, Kiara realized, looked a lot more like a theology lesson than a preacher’s condemnation of society.  

“You know a lot about the bible,” Kiara mentioned once you were out of church and back at her house, changing into jeans and a shirt of hers.  

“I like studying religion, theology,” you clarified, “my grandfather knew a lot about the texts. Not like my dad, he’s just...got his own ideas. My grandfather knew the Greek and Hebrew translations and spent years studying other religions as well. It was so cool to talk to him about it. I like that part, the history, the context, more than the ‘fundamentalist/evangelical crap’ my dad touts.”

“Is that something you’d study?” She asked, pulling a tank top on over her bathing suit, “like in college?”

“My parents won’t let me go to college.” You replied.  

“That’s so crazy, my parents would kill me if I didn’t go.”

You spent the drive to Kiara’s dad’s restaurant explaining your parents future plan for your life, including telling her about the boy that your parents wanted you to marry. When she asked if JJ knew you admitted that he did and that you weren’t really sure what was going to happen when you turned eighteen. You knew what your parents wanted, for you to get engaged and then quickly married, but that wasn’t what you wanted at all.  

“If I say that though...there’s a good chance I’d be ex-communicated. Not just from the church but from my family. One of my cousins defected and no one speaks to her anymore.” You said, “it’s like a massive stain on her family’s reputation.”

“Yeah but if she’s happy, does it matter?”

“It’s...it’s not just that I haven’t worn jeans or drank a soda,” you said, following Kiara out onto the back deck to eat, “it’s that I don’t have anyone outside my family. It’s not just being sheltered, it’s being isolated. And I know that, and I hate it but...it’s all I know.”  

“None of your siblings have done it differently?”  

“No.” You shook your head, “I think I would’ve been fine coasting too...I was pretty much set that this was it ya know? But then...JJ asked me out.” You admitted.

Kiara frowned, “yeah but you don’t know what’s gonna happen with JJ in the future.”

You shrugged, “it’s not just about him...it’s me, feeling happier and more confident.”  

“Talking about me?” JJ’s voice came from behind you and you turned around, watching him and Pope walk up to the railing of the deck. He put his hands on the railing, pulling himself up so he could lean over and kiss your cheek.

“I should’ve known you guys would crash.” Kiara said, rolling her eyes as JJ climbed the rest of the way up, hopping over the railing onto the deck.  

“What’re you guys up to?” Pope asked, staying on the other side.

“Kie mentioned taking the ferry to Chapel Hill.” You replied, “I have to be back before dark though.”

“So what’re we waiting for?” JJ said, grabbing your soda and taking a sip.  

-

The four of you rode the ferry over to Chapel Hill, standing on the back deck the whole time talking. Kiara suggested shopping the moment you got off the ferry, telling you that all she wanted was to see you pick out an actual outfit.  

“Nothing hand-me-down or borrowed, just like a real, honest outfit that you pick out.” Kiara said, taking your hand in hers as she pushed open the door to one of the small stores along the main road.  

JJ followed you to the back of the store where the sale racks were, skimming through clothes, holding up different things that were still a little too far out of your comfort zone. You shook your head at a spaghetti strapped mini dress, pulling a crossover out to show him, “I like this one.”

“Try it on.” He shrugged.  

“Where’s the changing area?” You asked, looking around the small area.  

JJ grabbed your hand, “over here.” He led you to the curtained off stalls, pulling you into one of them and hanging the dress up.  

“I have a very strong feeling that if anyone caught us we would be in massive trouble.” You whispered, biting your lip to stop from laughing as JJ moved so that you were looking in the mirror and he was behind you, hands on your hips. He rested his head on your shoulder, nudging his face into the space between your shirt and your neck, kissing the exposed skin.  

“Yeah but you’ve never been shopping so what do you know?” JJ replied, as if it was obvious and he wasn’t just bullshitting you to stay in the changing room.  

You turned in his arms, putting your hands over his, “I’m not changing with you in here.”

“Fine,” he groaned, “If I leave will you try on something for me?”

“Fine.” You mimicked. You kissed him, initiating it for yourself this time, before pushing him into the curtain. He gave another exasperated sigh as he swept the curtain out of the way and left you to change.

Alone in the dressing room, you changed out of your clothes and tried on the floral wrap dress. It tied off at the waist, cutting a deep V and a slit up to your thigh. It was a dress but not like any you had ever worn before. You pushed the curtain enough that you could peek out to see JJ. He was slouched in the chair, texting, while he waited for you.

“I thought you were picking something out?” You said, looking over at him.

He shrugged, “I’d rather see what you like then pick something out for you.”  

“Thanks,” you nodded.  

JJ watched you as you pushed the curtain back and stepped out of the changing room. “Holy shit,” he mouthed. “Wait, don’t move!”

“What? Why?” You asked as he lifted his phone in front of his face.  

“I wanna picture of this.” He replied. Sure, he had seen you in a dress before but he had never seen you in a dress like this, one that actually fit you well, that wasn’t trying to hide your figure but accentuate it. One that you looked so incredibly happy in.  

“So I take it I don’t look half bad?” You joked, stepping further out when he had stashed his phone and stood up.  

“Half bad? You look...incredible.” JJ replied. Deciding it was worth mentioning, he added, “you look really happy.”

“I really like this dress. I’ve never really...liked anything I’ve worn before. Like, it’s just always felt like, clothes. This is different.” You admitted.

Your clothes were just whatever hand-me-downs fit you. From siblings, relatives, church members, it was never your stuff, you never chose it, never got to say what you liked or disliked.  

“Oh my god!” Kiara exclaimed, coming over and interrupting your moment with JJ, “you look so pretty.”  

“Thanks.” You nodded, smiling at her, “I think I’m gonna get it.”  

“Let me.” JJ piped up and you looked over at him.  

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” He insisted.  

There was little further discussion to be had about it, JJ purchasing the dress for you and the four of you wandering around the rest of Chapel Hill, heading in and out of a few different shops. Pope talked to you about his future college plans and you listened intently. Being with JJ was amazing but being able to be friends with a guy, just sitting with Pope and not having to consider anything other that friendship, was so underrated in your life. You had never been friends with a boy either.  

-

Kiara drove you back to your house after you changed, just getting inside as your sister Praise was setting the table. “Hi! I’m so sorry I’m late!” You apologized, “Kie and I were just chatting and I lost track of time.”

“That’s okay Ace, mom was just telling us about Timothy’s visit. Are you excited?” Praise asked, wrapping her arms around you in a hug.  

You hugged her back, “I’m very excited.” You lied.  

Robert gave you a hug as you walked further into the house, handing off a baby and soon you were outside, supervising kids while your other siblings sat and chatted with your parents around the table. You were only two years younger than Robert but he was married with a kid and another on the way and that automatically made you still a kid. Though you felt less and less like a kid every day.  

Your parents talked about Timothy’s visit and their own upcoming trip, ignoring anything that actually had to do with you or your interests. Even Praise, in talking about your upcoming nuptials, mentioned that her dress was still in good condition if you needed one.  

“Oh, wouldn’t that be amazing Ace? You could wear Praise’s dress?” Your mother mentioned from across the table, smiling at you as if all her dreams were being realized right there at the table.

“Amazing.”  

-

The sound of tapping at your window startled you as you sat on the bed, reading before sleep. You walked over, lifting the blinds to see JJ standing there. He waved as you opened the window for him.  

“What are you doing here?”

“I missed you, I wanted to see you.” He replied, leaning into the window space.  

“You just saw me earlier.” You pointed out.  

“I also wanted to know if you wanted to go for a ‘midnight swim’ with me, Kie, and Pope?” JJ said, “we’re taking the HMS out. John B and Sarah don’t feel like going out and I figured you might.”

“I’m lucky no one caught me last time JJ,” you replied, “I don’t know if I can risk it.”

“That’s fine,” he said, “you don’t have to.”

You bit your bottom lip, glancing back over at your door. Your parents were asleep for the night and the thought of getting to spend more time with JJ was just too tempting for you to say no too. You were sure your dad had some bible verse to offer for you as proof that this was an evil infatuation but you could care less, agreeing to go and grabbing the swimsuit that JJ had given you. “Just let me change.”

“Can do.” JJ turned around, back to the window, and you almost laughed.  

You changed quickly before climbing out the window, “I better not get in trouble for this.”

JJ led you through the woods to John B’s house, just like the night of the kegger, taking you down to the jetty. Kiara waved when she saw you and Pope helped you onto the HMS.  

“I can’t believe you let him sneak you out.” Pope joked as JJ boarded the boat.  

He drove you out on the marsh, parking in an open area where they couldn’t be seen by lights at the edge of anyone’s yard. The HMS didn’t have lights itself and they banked on that to keep themselves mostly out of trouble. Kiara lit a lantern in the middle of the boat but otherwise it was dark as they jumped in, JJ hanging back with you.  

The two of you sat on the bench together, in your own little world seemingly. “Can I try a sip?” You asked, holding your hand out for the beer he was drinking.  

“You sure?” He asked.

“Yeah, positive.”  

He passed the beer over, laughing when you took a big gulp and then practically spit in out. “Oh my god, that’s horrible!” You cried, sticking your tongue out.  

“I warned you.” He laughed.

“Not enough,” you replied, “that’s really gross.”  

“Sorry babe,” he wrapped his arm around you, pulling you against him and kissing your cheeks and then your lips. “We’ll stick to soda for now.”  

“Yes please.” You replied, kissing him back.

“Quit macking on each other and get in the water!” Pope shouted, grabbing on to the side of the boat and pushing himself up so that the HMS would rock slightly.  

You grabbed onto JJ more, laughing as the boat swayed.  

“What the fuck Pope, we’re coming.” He grumbled. “I’m trying to spend time with my girlfriend.”

-

taglist: @heavenlymama @vindictive-hearts @alexa-playafricabytoto @dontjinx-it @randomficsandshit @niamhobrien @strangerthanfanfiction713 @tovvaa @freckled-and-daydreaming @harleylynn @bibliophilewednesday @dpaccione @bolaurel @poguestyleskye @beautyandthebleh @under-a-canyon-moon @stevie-buck @bijleegiregi  @vitaminekabc @minigranger @teamnick @just-smile-darling @obxsummer @damonsalvawhore27 @isqbella @tomzfrog @fangirlvoice @phantompogues @98starkeys @ilovejjmaybank @lemur46 @khiaraaa-in-spacee @babygal-babygal @niya-savage @divvrx @princess-of-the-fandoms @thecaptainsgingersnap @jenjie @yourprincess-maybe @outrbanks @mendesmaybank @thehomeiknow @minnie-bby @katiaw2 @2kayla64 

#jj maybank x you #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank fanfic #jj maybank fanfiction #jj maybank fic #jj maybank imagine #jj Maybank x y/n #jj imagine #jj fic #jj fanfic #jj fanfiction #jj x reader #jj x you #jj x y/n #outer banks imagine #outer banks fanfiction #outer banks fanfic #outer banks fic #outer banks au #obx imagine #obx fanfic #obx fanfiction #obx fic #collecting stories imagine #you are ok series

[gayregis]

Hey! I love your opinions on the books :) I’m having trouble grasping some of the characterization of the book characters, so maybe you’d understand better xD. What would you say the main characters’ flaws are?

omg i love this... ok for context these “flaws” do not necessarily equate to “qualities that are bad to have, make them bad people, and need to be fixed” but rather “qualities that are their character flaws in the narrative and contribute to the story”:

main characters, like the main 4 characters:

geralt: geralt is defined by insecurity, self-doubt, and self-loathing which stems from him being abandoned by his biological mother when he was a child and becoming a witcher, which is a reviled profession and caste and makes others shun him and dislike his company. he is also affected by being a witcher because he is morally opposed to killing, but his job is to kill, so he carries a lot of inner guilt and more self-loathing from this. this cocktail of nsecurity manifests mostly in him leaving people who care about him a lot and need his presence, and also in him shunning the company of others who want and need to be with him (leaving and shunning are different in my opinion... in leaving, he’s already been with them for some time, in shunning, they are trying to join him). examples of this are things like leaving yennefer in a shard of ice, leaving ciri in the sword of destiny, and not wanting to accept dandelion, milva, regis, and cahir’s company in baptism of fire. he basically thinks that he can only bring misfortune and death to others, so by being around them, he puts them in danger... he’s self-isolating...

yennefer: yennefer is also defined by insecurity, but to her, she herself isn’t the source of peril - others are. because she suffered such horrible child abuse and really had no one to sincerely trust and form extremely close relationships with as she aged (sorcerers and sorceresses are infamous for their cattiness ... as we see with someone like sabrina, i feel like her life on thanedd island was more like a bad high school experience rather than a good one. thus, yennefer is hesitant to truly let people into her life, because she doesn’t want to be hurt. she has “a heart of ice” - of course, not really - it can be “melted,” so to speak, but she’s “frozen” it to protect herself. she as a sorceress also experiences some antagonization (and she can’t even often find comradery in her colleagues unlike geralt who can go back to his brothers at kaer morhen), so she’s kind of stuck. i would say both geralt and yennefer also suffer from a little immaturity, especially regarding their relationship, because they’ve just simply never really had a relationship like theirs before and so it’s difficult to understand how to make it work past the honeymoon stage.

dandelion: dandelion’s flaws are that he has no flaws ... or so that he’d like to think. it’s important to separate character flaws from generally looked down upon qualities when it comes to dandelion. he’s filled with qualities that are less than desirable in a person, but are comical to the reader: he’s a glutton, he’s lecherous, he’s arrogant, he’s liable to spend all of his money on beers and new clothes than paying rent (if he had... a place he rented). as geralt says in a little sacrifice, he’s a whoreson, a cynic, a lecher, and a liar. a more neutral way to summarize dandelion is that he seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, he’s a hedonist. which isn’t of course necessarily a bad thing. earthly pleasures, those of food, alcohol, sex, dancing, entertainment, music, art, literature... it’s extremely human. and to avoid violence, killing, and death is only smart when you’re not skilled in those aspects. so, his love of pleasure is not really a flaw... more of just a neutral trait. his arrogance and raptness to make fun is one main character flaw, in the sense that he’s liable to go too far when he makes jokes. he gets into trouble mainly by teasing people so much until they get aggressive and want to strangle the life out of him. he gets torque to attack him and geralt in the edge of the world for precisely this reason, and he gets the foresters in four pines before a little sacrifice to attack him and geralt for this reason, too. this is classed as arrogance because he’s so self-absorbed that he doesn’t recognize the other person fantasizing about cutting his head off. he’s impulsive as well, which gets him into trouble with things like opening the amphora of the djinn. his other character flaw is flightiness, noncommitaliality, the inability to stay grounded or loyal. he develops over the course of the series in regards to this, as every main character does in regard to their character flaws. but the other way he gets into trouble is by cheating on his partners, cucking the partners of his partners, not upholding promises (not paying bills) ... he really just does what he wants and what he wants seems to change every day (asides from singing and writing poetry). this flaw gets him into trouble with mainly the women he cheats on or the men angered by him cucking them... as with vespula in eternal flame, and the duke and duchess of toussaint...

ciri: ciri has a few character flaws which develop with her over time. the first character flaw for ciri is arrogance. she immediately demonstrates this to geralt in the sword of destiny when she states that she is a princess and that she’ll have him beheaded... she believes that she deserves the very best and that no one could take her down, and this comes into play later when she joins the rats and bonhart starts on their trail. in her time with the rats, she actually does allude to her rank as a princess when she demands a jeweled brooch off of a girl, saying that they, as the wife and daughter of a baron, have no right to deny her what she wants. the second character flaw is vengeance, which i suppose is related to her arrogance. she becomes obsessed with getting vengeance for being abandoned by not only her parents, but her morals and virtues which she had ascribed so much to. when those leave her, she seeks illogical vengeance by cutting down innocents. then, she wants vengeance for mistle and the rats, as well as the way she was treated. this vengeance isn’t wrong, but it begins to consume her. by the end of the series, she learns how to control her thirst for vengeance and she gets her retribution.

hansa members because i like analyzing them too:

milva: milva suffers from insecurities related to her circumstance - from being a peasant woman. this mainly shows itself during her talk with geralt in baptism of fire, when she is torn up about being pregnant and tells geralt that even though he had thought different, it turns out that she’s no good for anything, “a typical bloody woman.” she has a lot of issues compiled from how she was raised and treated in her society which present themselves in insecurity, which she desperately tries to make up for through showing off her great skill. she feels like she has to compensate for being a woman and for not being educated, that she has to earn her place amongst the company or others, when it’s simply not the case sometimes in which she is loved just for being herself. milva is also quick to anger and impulsive, but these are not really flaws for her, they’re more neutral in relation to her character, they don’t really hurt her or others at all throughout the books...

regis: arrogance. i know i already said arrogance for dandelion and for ciri, but regis also has arrogance, and all of their types arrogance express themselves differently. dandelion suffers from arrogance in the way that he lacks self-awareness, that others might not love him as much as he thinks they do. ciri suffers from arrogance in that she feels the universe owes her. regis suffers from arrogance in that he thinks he’s always right. regis does demonstrate modesty and humility in the books, because of course he does, he’s been working on this same character flaw for 4 centuries, so i hope he’s improved on it somewhat. but he is still affected by the same character flaw which got him killed a century ago, which is that he believes he’s right and no one can take him down. in baptism of fire, tower of the swallow, and lady of the lake, he gives geralt some pretty stupid advice on various occassions, but he’s completely assured as to his own accuracy, so that he never actually intends to lead him astray, but just doesn’t think maybe he could be wrong. he advises geralt to pass through ygsith, which, if they did so, would have been incredibly dangerous. he advises geralt to go speak to the druids, who don’t help them at all and actually hurt them instead. and he dismisses ciri’s horse tracks on the sansretour pass, thinking that they’re unremarkable. in all of these times, he was wrong, but he never entertained that idea. his arrogance also demonstrates itself during conversation as he tends to speak like “a sage instructing small children” and interrupt people before they finish asking their questions, with the answers to their questions as well as the answers to their next questions. he’s always-omniscient. which he really isn’t, because he can’t possibly be. but he adopts the manner of acting like it, and that’s a flaw because it’s dangerous. his arrogance also leads him to impulsitivity and violence, especially when combined with when he is drunk. during the assault on castle stygga, he says that he thinks he could lay waste to the entire castle. he dies due to his arrogance - he could have chosen any other way of strategy to kill vilgefortz, but he chose to immediately rush him after swiping his face with his claws in flight. he should have bewared, but he thought he could kill him immediately because he was so assured of his powers.

cahir: cahir is an idealist and loyal to the point of detriment. he believed in imperialist doctrine for a great portion of his life, or rather was persuaded into at least following what imperialist doctrine wished for him to become, to please his family and the expectations set for him. he believes that he was doing the right thing, that he would bring honor to his family, even when he was sent to do something like kidnap a little girl. even though he thought the order was strange, he wanted the honor for his family, because he is loyal to them, more than anything. his idealism and loyalty also affect him once he joins the company. the fact that geralt told him to fuck off but he followed the company from a distance anyways, for miles, demonstrates his loyalty and his propensity to follow. he was guided by his ideals of setting things right with ciri. and he was guided by these ideals, unable to recognize the dangers surrounding him, right into stygga and towards bonhart’s blade.

angouleme: angouleme is a teenager. enough said... she is impulsive, violent... she gets the least screentime of all of the hansa so her true colors didn’t really get to show themselves as she didn’t get a lot of deep character development, but from my own ideas about her, i feel that she suffers from low self esteem due to the circumstances of her birth and is prone to distractions in the form of detriments. she agrees with the practices of crime and banditry because she was never told that she could ever aspire to anything better. she’s careless, she is quick with her knife, tongue, and powder, because she struggles to focus on the situation that is her entire life. she doesn’t want to face the hand that life has dealt her, so she makes the best of it by surviving and having fun when she can. i feel like her low self esteem affects her in that she doesn’t believe others can truly want to love and protect her, so that she is always looking out for herself and doesn’t accept goodwill for its face value. 

#ask #anon #the witcher #geralt #yennefer #dandelion #ciri #milva #regis #cahir #angouleme

[arrestmebobbygoren]

Queer Theory Song Analysis: ‘A Place In This World’ by Taylor Swift

Taylor’s debut album is deeply queer. So far, this has been most evident through her gender-neutral pronoun usage and her tendency to wax poetic about her female characters while not bothering to offer any characterization to the supposed men in her stories. But her fourth track on her debut album stands out in that it is queer in theme.

I use the term “queer” here in both the broadest and narrowest sense of the word.

In the broader sense, this song is about a young person who feels lost but not distraught. She does not yet know who she is (she hasn’t met the real me yet), and she doesn’t yet know her place in the world, but she is optimistic about the journey she is on.

The idea of being an outsider looking in is central to queer theory, in which the world is examined outside of the typical lenses we are born and socialized into, and therefore, might not even realize are impacting our view. These lenses reflect dominant viewpoints, such as assuming that the world is heterosexual, patriarchal, able-bodied, and / or white.

The lyrics of this song suggest that the narrator does not want to, or is not able to, just accept the world as it appears to her. She knows that breaking away from the beaten path will make for a tougher journey. Nothing will be handed to her. She will have to make choices, and she is going to make mistakes.

But she also doesn’t have a choice to live an unexamined life. And this is where I think the narrower sense of the word queer becomes clear.

The song is set after the narrator has already embarked upon the road less traveled. Often, this choice will be made for us if we find that we don’t fit completely into the dominant buckets that society tries to put us in.

In the case of Taylor’s music, I think that many of her songs suggest love that falls outside of a heteronormative world view; and I will argue that the reason the narrator in this song has broken away from the main road is because she has realized at a young age that she is queer.

As the song begins, we see that the narrator doesn’t yet know what this realization means for her life, though it is clear that she can’t turn back. And though this new insight about herself has significantly disrupted the life she thought she would lead and has obscured her view of the future, she continues to put one foot in front of the other.

[Verse 1] I don't know what I want, so don't ask me Cause I'm still trying to figure it out Don't know what's down this road, I'm just walking Trying to see through the rain coming down Even though I'm not the only one Who feels the way I do

What’s particularly interesting is that even though the narrator knows there are other people like her – that is, queer people, or people who fall outside of socially erected binaries and dominant narratives -- she also acknowledges that the journey she is on is hers and hers alone. It is deeply personal and also deeply isolating.

[Chorus] I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know I'll be strong, I'll be wrong, oh but life goes on Oh, I'm just a girl, trying to find a place in this world

In my queer analysis, I try to just focus on the lyrics on the page, rather than incorporating context from Taylor’s public life; but I will just note here (since the lyrics classify the narrator as ‘a girl’), that trying to make it as a young female singer / songwriter in the old-boys club music industry, in a male-dominated music genre, in the conservative south, would make for an incredibly isolating journey in and of itself; and that this feeling of isolation would only exponentially increase were this individual to discover any ways in which fell outside of the dominant ideology.

[Verse 2] Got the radio on, my old blue jeans And I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve I'm feeling lucky today, got the sunshine Could you tell me what more do I need And tomorrow's just a mystery, oh yeah But that's OK

The narrator is aware that the path forward will involve a constant push and pull between who she is (the girl in the old blue jeans) and who she will need to be (or present as) in order to be successful on her journey. She wears her heart on her sleeve because she is vulnerable to the opinions of the music industry, her fans and society at large.

[Chorus] I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know I'll be strong, I'll be wrong, oh but life goes on Oh, I'm just a girl, trying to find a place in this world It is worth noting that the lyrics do not indicate that the narrator is trying to find her place in this world, but rather, a place. I suggest this is evidence toward a queer reading of the lyrics. The narrator is not dreaming of one day finding her place in the world as she knows it to be, because she knows that fitting in is not possible for her. Rather, she is longing to carve out a place where she can be herself, and for the world to embrace her for who she is.

[Chorus] I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know I'll be strong, I'll be wrong, oh but life goes on Oh I'm alone, on my own, and that's all I know 'Cause I'm just a girl, trying to find a place in this world

#taylor swift #song analysis #sapphic #wlw #queer #lgbtq #lesbian #music #original content #a place in this world #queer theory #gaylor

[chikkou]

someone probably asked this already but would u feel like writting on your thoughts on dingalings opinions/statements about buddy? i never got to around to play the lisa games after the first one but im getting the context both from the stuff uve written on it and my gf who played the game and she seems like the best character in the game imo

well im glad u asked.... (does a gay little walk over to the keyboard)

ok so as was mentioned by the last lisa anon i got, buddy is austins least favorite character. i cant recall if he ever specified why exactly in public, but i have seen an interview that he did shortly after the painful came out, so i think i have a LITTLE more context for his thought process (and please remember this is all conjecture, i literally dont know this man LMAO)

so first, for some background: buddy was adopted by brad when he found her abandoned as a baby, but her birth father is dr. yado, the man who created olathe (with buzzo!). she bears a notably striking resemblance to lisa, especially as she gets older - in fact, i think thats part of why brad chose to keep her. for reference, heres lisa, and heres buddy. obviously these are sprites and not indicative of their exact appearance, but this should make it pretty obvious what i mean. note that, even though brad knows how unsafe it is for buddy to “look like a girl,” he still keeps her hair long like lisas was. buzzo noted the similarity between them in the joyful as well. brad also treats her in a similar (but NOT the exact same) manner that marty did to lisa, but i will get into that in another ask i got LMAO

now, as to why austin doesnt like her. so, this may be reading into things a little too much, but i know for a fact that brad is austins favorite character, AND that austin based brads character and experiences on that of his own father, whom he had a sort of mixed relationship with by his own admission (and i believe his dad was also named “bradley” skjfsds). i dont know any details about this at all, but to my understanding, austins dad also wrestled with addiction, and had a bit of a “rough” personality like brad. austin mentioned in that interview dealing with resentment toward his father for a long time, but that he eventually realized that his father was doing the best that he could in spite of his own upbringing, and even though it didnt excuse the shitty stuff hed done, it made austin somewhat more understanding of the difficult position he was in. so, if brad is austins dad.... well, its not that far of a leap to speculate who buddy likely represents. and it colors a lot of the way he depicts her actions.

the painful, for all its amazing content, sort of dropped the ball on showing why buddy hated brad so much. the only things we know about buddy and brads relationship in that game come from the intro or directly from buddy, and since she never goes into detail (which is fair in-context since brad clearly knows the intricacies of their relationship LMAO), it makes it seem like the worst thing brad has done is forced buddy to stay inside and occasionally passed out from substance abuse. however, as we learn in the joyful, that is not true at all. brad insulted buddy (called her an idiot for asking about brads estranged son), forced her to kill at least two innocent men because, and i quote, “my daughter will not be weak,” and tried to isolate her from the only other people in her life (her uncles, rick, sticky, and cheeks) after they DARED to tell her a small tidbit about brads past. brad may not have been anywhere near as abusive as marty, but if i described all of these things together and asked a random person if they considered them abusive behaviors for a parent, i think id be likely to get an affirmative response.

now, this is not to say that austin doesnt make it a point to show brad mistreating buddy in the painful proper - in the marty scene, brad literally punts buddy across a room because she begs him not to kill him, and then when she throws herself between marty and brad to get him to stop, brad doesnt hesitate to beat the fuck out of her until she has to withdraw. remember too that buddy is not an adult, by any stretch of the imagination - austin confirmed on twitter that she is nowhere near 18. i personally put her age in the 10-12 range, but ive seen people go as high as 14 or 15. in either case, though, this is a fucking CHILD, and beating her like he did is no different than what marty used to do to both him and lisa.

even in spite of this stuff, though, fans are so much more willing to forgive brads behavior than buddys. there are a few reasons for this, but in a more meta-sense, theres a pretty clear reason why buddy is less sympathetic - because we spend WAY less time with her. in the painful, buddy is not on screen until maybe 5-10 hours into gameplay, and we dont even get any real time with her until the games second half. the joyful, in addition to that, is an EXTREMELY short game; the painful is about 20-30 hours, but the joyful runs about 5 hours max. it was a kickstarter stretch goal, and i honestly wish austin hadnt made it a stretch goal and had spent more time working on it, because while it does some really interesting stuff story-wise, it is severely lacking the run time to make buddys story as compelling as brads.  

primarily, though, i believe its because brad gets freudian excuses that at least EXPLAIN his behavior and also show just how many demons he has been fighting. while buddy has just as good of a reason to be the way she is, we never really get to SEE this stuff point blank like we did with brad. we witness him being hurt and mistreated as a kid, and more still as an adult in flashbacks. we get almost nothing from buddy, even though it is obvious that she is suffering in a very unique way. 

so, circling back to your question - why is buddy austins least favorite? i think, quite simply, he seems to identify with her character in the context of buddys relationship with brad, and that actually makes him like her LESS because he has the benefit of hindsight and experience-based wisdom to empathize much more with the brads character and experiences than buddys. so even though brad and buddy are the same in many ways, where he can see brads actions as understandable (if a bit extreme), he cant see buddys in quite the same way. it would be fine if he just felt that way privately, but unfortunately it leaks into the games themselves and leads to many fans not being able to see her perspective and empathize with her, either. and it really does suck bc buddy is definitely one of the most interesting video game protags ive ever seen LMAO

tl;dr austin probably dislikes buddy because brad is based on his own father, and the relationship between brad and buddy is very likely based on his own relationship with his father. there also wasnt enough time in buddys game for her to become more sympathetic, so if ur not really paying attention, it seems like shes just being a bratty teenager instead of, u know. a victim of abuse on a massive scale. so yeah 

#long post #lisa the joyful #lisa the painful #anya's replies #amigarobot #i cant even apologize for this honestly im just having too much fun talking abt lisa LMAO #abuse #lisa

[cranehusbands]

null and voided

Crypto | Park Tae Joon/Wraith | Renee Blasey; voidwalker timeline; hurt/comfort; voidwalker/whitelisted; apex rarepair week; 1563 words

a/n: and here’s where i show you just how unhinged i am.

SO. FOR CONTEXT. me and a friend (it’s mr tumblr user the-goolings, nate) have an au/plotline for the voidwalker timeline seen in wraith’s original story short, with voidwalker being... voidwalker, and her guy in the chair helping her out is crypto, who is originally in his hired gun skin variant before being captured by the syndicate and like... half-cyborged? before he escaped to wait for her while she went about with her revenge. it’s fucked! but anyways they make me feel and they’re in LOVE. please ask me more about this au if you’re so inclined i have. a lot

a very late day 6 for @apex-rarepairweek, hurt/comfort! 

likes < reblogs, any comments in the tags are appreciated

ao3 mirror in the reblogs!

Preview: Renee pushed away some of the schematics for the parts in his chest cavity, folding her arms across the dining table and resting her head on top of him, turning to keep an eye on him as he was sleeping… no, as he was shut off. He was hardly human, he’d said so himself, he didn’t sleep. ...But that wasn’t right, was it. He still lived, and felt, just as she did, and although he didn’t breathe and eat he still existed by her side like he always did, and that was as human as it got, right? [...] “God, Tae, how did this happen?” 

The only sounds echoing through the apartment were the loud contact of metal on metal, small curses and larger ones, and electricity crackling between two loose wires with a frustrated grumble. Old Chinese food boxes laid strewn around the apartment, old clothes discarded without a second thought, a blanket thrown over the couch like a makeshift bed, and the dining table taken over with tools and schematics, first person pronouns littering the notes of parts and functions. The radio at one end of the table quietly played the news, news of wars and violence that was just white noise against the gentle scraping of metal.

 Renee cursed to herself again, slamming the screwdriver back down on the table as she sat up and rolled her shoulder, scowling a little. She was learning this as she was going along, which was hard when the handwriting on your only guide was illegible most of the time. Running a hand down her face, her fingers parted for a moment, and she dared to steal a glance down at the body resting on the sofa that she’d dragged into the dining room, at the way the metal reflected the synthetic lights, how peaceful he looked, like a… fucked up, cyborg sleeping beauty, eyes closed and chest wide open, exposing the wires and components that kept him alive. How her friend, her partner, her lover, Taejoon Park, was sitting there, half human and half machine, and how she was repairing him for the third time that week.

 Getting back to their timeline had been a mess. She’d done what they’d been fighting for all this time, saving herself from another dimension in her place, barely surviving by the skin of her teeth. Sometimes she could still feel the blood of the man who had ruined her life splashing onto her face, remembering the feeling of his skull as it marbled in her grip with every bash against the wall, and she couldn’t tell if that felt good or not. But what didn’t feel good was stumbling back into their own quiet, secluded apartment, practically tripping through a portal, delirious from blood loss, leaning a shoulder up against the wall as she shook off the heavy gear and dragged her blood along the paint, and seeing a man who seemed so familiar but still so strange rushing to meet her, staring at her as if he was an illusion. She wondered if that was just what he was - he looked like Taejoon, looked at her like he used to, lips parting in the same way as he brought a hand up to her face to hold her, but his touch was cold, metallic and unwelcoming, but all the same, it was him, surely?

 The way his nightmares haunted him, and the way he gripped for her in his sleep as if she would leave him, all but confirmed it.

 It was the Syndicate, he’d said. Got to him when he was gone. Tortured him, barely kept him alive, involuntarily entered him into a simulacrum program, where he escaped with the last of his humanity and had been living in isolation for months before she’d gotten home. He didn’t sleep, or eat - he didn’t need to, not anymore. He just listened to the sounds of his own parts functioning, and wondered what it would be like to hear them stop. He’d taken down all the mirrors, covered the windows and any other reflections, making sure that he didn’t have to see himself, and what he was forced to become. Tried to find Mila by himself, he’d said, but he kept flipping between hopelessness and sheer mania, trashing the apartment before fixing it again to trash it again. All while she was dimensions away, totally unaware that the man who helped her get this far was barely hanging on, waiting for her to come home.

 It wasn’t her fault. Not by any means, and Taejoon had told her as much. But now that what she’d made her life’s purpose was just another page in the book of her personal history, it was all she could think about. Renee pushed away some of the schematics for the parts in his chest cavity, folding her arms across the dining table and resting her head on top of him, turning to keep an eye on him as he was sleeping… no, as he was shut off. He was hardly human, he’d said so himself, he didn’t sleep. ...But that wasn’t right, was it. He still lived, and felt, just as she did, and although he didn’t breathe and eat he still existed by her side like he always did, and that was as human as it got, right? She let out a sigh, shaking as she did so, biting her lip as her eyes started to well with tears, continuing to watch him and remembering the times he’d fall asleep, just like this, at his desk, working for hours for her sake and his own, as she’d wrap a blanket over his shoulder and ruffle his hair with a gentle kiss to the temple-

“God, Tae, how did this happen?” She whispered to herself, breaking down and turning her head away to sob against her forearm, unable to stop herself, her whole body shaking with the force of it, bottled up day in and day out of repairs. Had she let him down? What had they become? Zombies, searching for truth and revenge, the syndicate one step in front with a knife behind their back. She’d gotten revenge in one dimension, but what about the countless others she saw in her sleep, the voices that followed her everywhere and the void that beckoned for soulless company-

 She held in a breath at the familiar whining sound of servo’s releasing locked up air, fans kicking in as a single robotic eye looked around, making noise with every movement. Renee rubbed her eyes against her arm before she sat up, forcing a light smirk. “Hey. I’m not finished, why’d you-”

“Forced startup. Syndicate slave code.” Even now, it was hard to get used to the slight crackle in his voice as he spoke, as he moved his hand to point to the back of his neck.

“We gotta get that fixed.”

“...Have you been crying?”

She froze. “I- no, it’s nothing-”

“Renee…”

“Don’t ‘Renee’ me, Tae.” She almost snapped, not wanting the pity, before she felt herself deflate. “I said it’s nothing, OK?”

She listened to the way his cybernetic eye moved to look her up and down, moving his hands to support himself as he slowly sat up. “Wait, no, I’m not-”

“Quiet.”

“What- no, let me finish my work first.”

He closed up his ribcage with a light click, looking up to her as she rolled her eyes. “There. No more work.”

“That’s only going to wreck itself later, and you’re going to complain, you know that, right?”

“I don’t matter right now. All that matters is you.”

Though she slightly softened, Renee opened her mouth to speak again, only cutting herself off as he put a hand against her cheek - it was cold, but still so warm, and full of love, as he ran a hand across her cheek.

Taejoon moved his hand up to across her freshly shaven (another bad episode with the void, instinctive) head - the metal was cold against her skin, enough to make her flinch a little, but she stayed, almost leaning into it like a cat would, as he gave her a tired smile, moving his hand to hold her face, fingers still stroking what little hair was above her ears. “Kiwi…”

Renee paused, opening her eyes and cocking an eyebrow as she held onto his wrist. “Did… you just call me a kiwi?”

“Mhm… you’re soft and fuzzy.”

She looked at him, chuckling and scoffing a little, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you. Remind me never to cry about you again.”

“Noted. I would never want you to, regardless.”

“But you know I will. We’re just made that way.”

Taejoon hummed, looking down, almost defeated. 

She sighed and pressed her forehead against his, touching what little of his skin was left, listening to the way his eyes closed and gears kicked into overdrive at the soft physical contact, chuckling to herself. “I love you, Tae.”

“Yeah… yeah. I love you too.”.

 “We’re gonna be OK, I promise.” Her voice was quieter now, only for her entire world, as she opened her eyes to look at him, almost blinded by his as he looked back at her.

“As long as we’re together, I don’t think we’ll ever be OK.” Despite himself, Taejoon laughed, her voice gaining that familiar crackle to it as he moved his hand down from her head to her shoulder. “But I suppose… that’s just fine with me.”

Renee moved herself back a little to go in again, moving in to plant a kiss against his lips, slow and deliberate. He was cold to the touch but warm with the love and care for her he felt with every fiber of his being, both what little of him remained and everything that had been replaced, as he returned the kiss, the bells and whistles all going off in harmony as she chuckled into the kiss they shared, feeling a gentle slap against her arm.

#apex legends #apex rarepair week #cryptwraith #crypto #wraith #apex legends tag #dahl.doc

[harrysdimples]

evermore track by track review (reaction?)

you know what time it is babieeeeeee......

willow

lovely little plucky guitar. I like the piano arrangement in the background. her vocals sound really lovely in the chorus and in the back of the second verse. i’m going to try and judge this as a separate project from folklore because it’s supposed to be just a complementary project but inevitably there will be comparisons. the 1 as an opening track is probably my preference over this I think on first listen. the bridge (?) is probably my favourite part of the song before the 90s trend line lol (just takes me out the song, kinda like the tweet line that’s in the lakes) but her vocals and how mature her voice sounds are just really light and airy and it’s nice to hear. but this is a lot more rhythmic than most of folklore which is something I appreciate and has enough dynamics so that you’re not bored, although the outro could’ve maybe been shortened a bit (but that’s a nitpicky thing lol). that’s her man!

ok I realised half way through happiness that I HAD PUT THE ALBUM ON SHUFFLE BY ACCIDENT WHICH IS BLASPHEMOUS AND SOMETHING I HATE DOING. I apologise sincerely lmao every song after this is in order with the album track list.

happiness

love a synth. ‘I can’t face reinvention’ ok bitch call me out ??? the lyrics are very lovely, as always. what’s/who’s this about ? lmao. it’s very pretty but not sure it’s going anywhere? more instrumentation could’ve maybe elevated this song just because I feel the lyrics are so flowery and beautiful that they deserve to either be in complete isolation (like from the dining table’s production) or some grandiose orchestral arrangement to properly show off how great and genuinely heartbreaking they are. I have no doubt at some point i’ll lie in the dark at some point and sob to this though loooool.

champagne problems 

ah bitch. the opening line already got me. again, the lyrics on this one are cutting me deep and I really like the production in the second half of the song, it really picks up the song when I was worried the production wasn’t going to be for me. the background vocals and harmonies are lovely. I think the lyricism of this song is so important and reminds me of what jack said in the long pond sessions about people with mental health issues never receiving proper recognition for just doing as okay as they can be because to other people, it’s either not enough or they just don’t get how difficult it is to maintain that level of ‘normalcy’. The idea of people dismissing things as ‘champagne problems’ is so poignant when you think of the fact that so many people disregard mental health issues until they’re directly affected by it in some way and treat others as outsiders/bad apples/something to only remember as a cautionary tale and to be forgotten otherwise. the numbness of trying to feel things (like going on the train) and participating in life and trying to believe that you deserve something good, a relationship, love etc but knowing that people are only waiting for you to fail so they can inevitably move on is so sad. my favourite out of the 3 tracks so far.

gold rush

good old jack antonoff production. girl how many people are wanting to get with joe ???? I really like the lyricism again, and the ‘what must it be like to grow up that beautiful’ bit kinda reminds of olivia’s instrumentation for some reason lol. I wish this hit a little harder because it’s on the precipice of greatness but doesn’t get quite there for me, kinda like the archer. loved the production, but I had anticipated it to have this big build up which it didn’t quite hit for me. I am listening to this currently at night with my blinds shut but I know that when it’s in the daytime/sun this will sound so good, so i’m excited to replay this one. update: it’s the next day and I LOVE this.

tis the damn season

hm. this one was pretty middling for me i’m ngl. I don’t think i’ve had enough love/life experience to really relate to this that much (which isn’t taylor or the song’s fault obvs) but I found it hard to ~connect to and the production didn’t really excite me enough to feel too passionate about it. very much enjoyed the “So I'll go back to L.A. and the so-called friends, Who'll write books about me, if I ever make it” line though lol!

tolerate it

I really like this. really encapsulated the feeling of trying your hardest to meet someone’s expectations of you/your relationship and fitting yourself into parameters to suit their needs/what they want and yet you’re still considered on the outskirts of their life. Trying desperately to make that person care as much as you do for them, but in reality your actions just further the reasons why they don’t want you and why your actions are ignored/silently belittled. Feels like this is a good companion piece to a lot of the folklore tracks and could’ve fitted on that album yet is still different enough to stand out. will def be coming back to this.

no body, no crime (feat. HAIM)

ok so taylor’s having her before he cheats moment?? someone should be working on a mashup asap. you know i’m a sucker for country yeehaw bops so i’ll definitely be playing this on repeat lol, so far probably the most upbeat track along with gold rush and this is probably my favourite track so far. the storytelling through the lyricism is fabulous and I really love the little production elements like danielle saying “she was with me dude” lol, I don’t have a lot of experience/references for “real” country music so if this is a little corny idk but I like it anyway lmao

dorothea

this was a sweet song, might be completely off the mark with this interpretation, but I sort of viewed this as taylor speaking to her younger self and telling her how she can always go back to who she was after becoming too enchanted with fame and the troubles that come with it/experiencing the consequences of fame, and that inevitably it’ll be okay in the end. a nice reassuring, pleasant song. not sure how much replay value it’ll have for me personally but I appreciate it :’)

coney island feat. the national

I like this for the most part. I think it’ll be a grower but I can see this moving up in my ranks once I listen to it a bit more. the second half of the song after the bridge is definitely better than the first and I really like it, but the first half isn’t my favourite. I think within some of the lyrics there are some clunky lines and I’m not sure how well the dueting partner works (idk if that’s aaron dessner or someone else?) but I think another softer (?) male voice could’ve gone better with it, or just taylor herself. the instrumentation and production on this song is fantastic though and I really love the bridge (although the idea of joe and taylor coming together to write about all of taylor’s exes makes me lol)

ivy:

the chord progression really reminds me of like 80% of folklore and idk if this track was “necessary” even though she’s perfectly entitled to her art obvs. but in the context of the album idk if this was needed, probably the most filler-like of all of them so far (for me personally). it’s sort of like a long poem to me and the subject matter of infidelity is always interesting when taylor covers it, but idk, this didn’t do too much for me on first listen

cowboy like me

this feels like a movie or video game soundtrack song, I always appreciate a good guitar solo and the instrumentation in this song is great. I don’t know how much this goes anywhere until the bridge but I love the line “now you hang from my lips, like the gardens of babylon, with your boots beneath my bed, forever is the sweetest con”. I think this has the potential to be a major grower on me though purely bc of how melodic it is and how “vibey” it is.

long story short

yeah this wasn’t really for me. I can appreciate it’s objectively a well produced song with some good lyrics, it just didn’t really click for me sadly upon first listen.

marjorie

yeah so this made me sob. as some of you may know I lost my grandma two weeks ago suddenly so...yeah, this song just really hit me. this is a beautiful track.

closure

what is going on here on this day lmao? reaaaaaaallly not a fan of the production and the synthetic (?) drums that were used on this track and I don’t think the use of repetition in the chorus’ lyricism really works that well here. idk it just feels a little unfinished to me

evermore feat. bon iver

I think this is too lyrically dense for my brain to properly intake after the long road it took to get to this track lol so I think i’ll need some time with it. I don’t think bon iver’s addition works as well as exile but I like the second half of the song which he’s in, in comparison to the first half, it does kinda feel like two songs put into one though. taylor’s vocals sound nice though. 

in conclusion:

favourites: tolerate it, gold rush, champagne problems, no body, no crime, marjorie

in between/grower: cowboy like me

meh: tis the damn season, willow, doreathea, evermore

didn’t really like: ivy, long story short, closure

I feel like i’m going to be crucified for saying this but this feels like a lover-fied version of folklore ajfkhsas if that makes ANY sense to anyone but my own brain. I said when I did this same kind of post for folklore that the album did what the concept for lover tried to do (the love letter to different kinds of love) 10x better and I was happy to see this kind of direction from her. I still love folklore and I think it’s a true piece of art and it ranks high in my tiers of taylor albums, but this just kinda misses the mark for me for the most part (on first listen). It’s very lyrically dense, which is nice, but much less accessible than folklore to me in terms of melodies and the overall structure of some of the songs, which is again, fine, but not necessarily what I had anticipated going into this album and generally usually isn’t my thing. for all that i’ve said about jack’s production in some songs on previous albums of taylor’s, his presence here is missed imo. I’ve expressed that I don’t particularly enjoy long albums because eventually the flow of the album is lost, and that is true here. around the ivy/long story short stretch it kinda loses ground which is a shame because there is some beautiful lyricism in there, but it’s even more susceptible to risking being brought down by the sequencing when it’s a sister album to another project and will end up being compared to that and the tracks there. given the style of music this is in, the fact that it’s a sister album and so long, it’s got a lot against it and I don’t know if it manages to overcome those hurdles for me personally. It’s like what harry said about sequencing, the track listing is so important imo to the purpose and arc of the album that you want to tell and I feel like there could’ve been a lot more “editing” of this project to make it stand up to the highs of folklore imo, or potentially editing down folklore to combine it with some of the really strong tracks on evermore like goldrush, no body no crime etc. I don’t know if the narrative of this album is unique enough to stand against folklore and some of taylor’s other albums for me. I will be returning to these songs for sure, but the sequencing and overall structure of this album kinda lets it down. I can’t help but ponder if this album will age well in comparison to folklore, or both albums will age well with the narrative fuelling it being created in quarantine and as a product of boredom. if folklore wins AOTY at the grammys (which it seems it’s secured to at this point), it’s going to be tied to the “corona year” so it’ll be interesting to see where these projects end up and how well received they are in years to come vs taylor’s other projects and how they’ve aged. we’ll see! i’d probably give it a 7.5/10 in comparison to the 9/10 for folklore. 

#ruth rambles #taylor swift

[scripttorture]

I came across your Torture in Fiction tab where you reviewed a Doctor Who episode and mentioned your love of the show so I'm going to mention exactly what I'm writing. It's basically a Bill/Heather story after they leave together and I'd like to accurately take into account the type of consequences (short term and long termr) of the entire turned into a cyberman ordeal. So any input would be highly appreciated.

Anon, I think I love you. Lesbian romance in the stars with one of my favourite characters, you are too kind.

 Let’s start at the beginning.

 For those unfamiliar with Doctor Who, the Cybermen are a recurring foe. The idea behind them is that they are people, cybernetically enhanced people with all the ‘unnecessary’ bits removed. Like the ability to feel pain or hope or love. The ultimate aim of the Cybermen is to make everyone else like them. They believe that not having emotional connections makes them superior.

 And in one of Bill’s stories she gets turned into a prototype Cyberman. Except due to some unique circumstances the programming doesn’t quite take. Bill is left with a Cyberman body but her thoughts, personality and ability to feel are intact.

 Through more unique circumstances (which depending on your interpretation may include Bill dying and being resurrected-) Heather restores her body as it was pre-Cybermen.

 We’re never told exactly what happens to Bill. But it’s clear from the context that the procedure is painful and not consensual.

 We do see Bill for a few days afterwards. She struggles to accept that she’s a Cyberman and doesn’t seem to know how to process what she’s been through. She seems more or less OK, but given the short time frame we see her for it’s difficult to say if this is a bad portrayal or not. For some people it takes a while for things to sink in and for symptoms to become apparent.

 Going forward I’m going to assume that’s the case for Bill.

 I’m going to make a couple of other assumptions because there isn’t anything in reality which lines up that well with the Cybermen.

 There is not anything that can really 'take away' all emotions. Some drugs can result in emotional blunting as a side effect, but less intense emotion is not the same thing as no emotion. The intense, invasive surgical procedures that are implied to make a Cyberman are completely fictional, and probably wouldn't be survivable in reality.

 It's a scenario that you'd expect to be traumatic: an extremely painful, invasive act that re-structures the entire body and is done without consent. Given the particular circumstances in Bill's story, it's tempting to compare it to non-consensual medical procedures.

 As a black, lesbian woman who is aware of both modern politics and history it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume Bill can make the same comparisons I have. Black women have been subjected to forced sterilisation and used for medical experimentation within living memory (see The Immortal Life of Henreitta Lacks for a discussion of unethical experimentation in the recent past).

 Heather is less likely to be aware of this history and these issues.

 As I said there isn't anything that lines up exactly; I keep thinking of forced sterilisation, though this often doesn’t cause lasting physical pain. It also brought to mind some of the… less ethical ‘treatments’ and ‘experiments’ in recent history.

 We’ll assume that Bill has a realistic memory of what happened, that the experience was traumatising and that she isn’t in physical pain.

 I’d also make the argument that turning someone into a Cyberman could be considered torture in the legal sense. It’s done by a group that effectively controls territory, to people who are under their power. It causes suffering and in Bill’s case it is arguably done to punish the Doctor.

 You’ve read the blog before so you probably know the drill when it comes to the common long-term symptoms of torture. Here’s the Masterpost should anyone else want to have a look. I’ll get back to symptoms in a moment.

 In the short term I think that it’s likely Bill would experience something similar to modern survivors of ‘clean’ tortures.

 ‘Clean torture’ is a term Rejali uses to describe techniques that don’t often leave obvious external marks. These are no less dangerous then other methods; people can still be seriously injured, disabled or die because of clean torture techniques.

 But the lack of obvious marks makes it harder to prove a person was tortured. And when the public perception of torture is that it always leaves scars many survivors find they’re dismissed, belittled and denied services.

 People don’t believe they were tortured. Because we are taught that torture ‘must’ leave marks.

 And Bill has just come out of the Cyber-conversion process unscarred. In a world where most people believe that turning back once you’ve been made a Cyberman is impossible.

 This is likely to be a factor if she tries to get professional help as well as in everyday interactions.

 Bill herself might assume that her symptoms are overblown or somehow put on; that they’re not warranted because her body has been perfectly restored.

 When it comes to more long term symptoms, the right choice will always depend on the characters and the story you want to tell.

 Personally I wouldn’t want to give Bill suicidal tendencies or an addiction because I feel like those are symptoms that could shift the story away from the central relationship. I think they’re symptoms that usually demand more focus and that can make balancing them with the central story more difficult.

 I usually suggest that authors try to include memory problems in a realistic way and I think they’d be an especially good fit here. (The Masterpost summarising the most common forms of memory problems survivors have is here).

 Essentially I think that you could use memory problems to highlight how Bill’s time as a Cyberman has affected her mind. So much of our identity and self-image is rooted in our memories. Finding flaws in them, especially around important things, can shake our sense of self.

 And that ties in to the way Cybermen are consistently used in Doctor Who to denote the loss of self. All of the common memory problems could be used to raise these philosophical questions and tie Bill’s symptoms more firmly to the plot.

 Insomnia is a symptom I always find a little difficult because it has so many knock on effects.

 The worsening of reaction times, alertness, coordination, combined with the pain and shakes and occasional visual hallucination or micro-sleep means that insomnia isn’t a symptom I’d recommend for a character like a superhero. If you want the character to consistently win fights then it’s not a good pick.

 Similarly the long term effects on creativity, reasoning, concentration, emotional processing and learning mean it’s a bad pick if the character is supposed to be an inventive genius.

 One of the nice (but underutilised) things about Doctor Who is that the way the stories are typically structured means that not every character has to be exceptional at everything. Bill’s strengths were not superhuman physical combat or exceptional genius (even though she was incredibly intelligent); they were compassion and her ability to form fast, strong friendships with just about anyone she meets.

 Insomnia could fit your story but I think it depends on what you want the characters to do on a regular basis.

 Chronic pain could be a good fit.

 The conversion process radically changed Bill’s body, a change that she more or less refused to accept was real during the story. In those circumstances physical pain can be an interesting addition: it simultaneously acts as a reminder of what Bill suffered and ties her to her restored body now.

 And since chronic pain in torture survivors can be psychological, or a combination of psychological and physical, there’s no reason why Bill’s body couldn’t be perfectly healed while experiencing chronic pain.

 This is also a symptom that characters can be more proactive about. She can try things and find solutions much more quickly then she might be able to for something like depression. Stretches, exercise, mobility aids, organisation, painkillers and forward planning can all be helpful. And early success could help you to show the character feeling more empowered, reclaiming her body.

 I’m not sure if difficulty relating to others would be a good pick, considering Bill’s canonical strengths. However social isolation could be interesting as an obstacle to gradually overcome.

 Going beyond the usual symptoms- Have you read any of the Doctor Who comics? Because I keep thinking of The Flood, which was a Cyberman story with the Eighth Doctor.

 It had a rather wonderful Cyberman design and had the Cybermen attempting to persuade large numbers of people to volunteer for Cyber conversion. They did it by chemically manipulating the emotions of an entire city; making feelings unbearably intense and then offering the conversion process as a solution.

 Bill kept her feelings but she would have known she was supposed to lose them. And she’d go from that to having incredibly intense feelings. Because she’d have developed trauma symptoms.

 She might be tempted to view her symptoms as the ‘natural’ consequence of regaining full capacity for emotion, rather then due to trauma. Latching on to a physical, rather then psychological, difference.

 I’d also consider whether all of this changes Bill’s relationship with her own body. Relief at getting it back might be accompanied by a heightened awareness of changes, even natural ones.

 I think if I was writing this I’d be tempted to add in little details, triggers or self-soothing behaviours tied to her body.

 The Cyberman chest unit for that design looks heavy. Does compression around her chest make her panic? Do rubber gloves feel horrible? Does the sensation of something going over her face, like the ‘mask’ on these Cybermen, prompt intrusive memories?

 The ‘handles’ on the head were supposed to suppress emotion in this version. Could Bill reassure herself that they’re gone by touching her own hair? Do short sleeves feel ‘better’, because she can feel the sun, wind or rain against her skin? Does she wear her earrings more often, because the weight of them and the way they move is comforting?

 Good luck with your story. I hope this helps. :)

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#writing advice #tw torture #tw medical abuse #tw suicide mention #doctor who #sci fi ask #writing victims #writing recovery #choosing symptoms #clean torture #insomnia #memory problems #chronic pain

[ziracona]

The tendency in fandom to take every white girl with short hair, regardless of the status of their canonical interest or lack of interest in women and explicit interest and/or sexual history with everything but, proclaim them a lesbian queen, and then ignore or absolve them of every single horrific act they take in fiction because of this. Is not doing feminism. Women. Lesbians. Or anyone. Any favors. It’s just bad.

Somehow. Some people really do apparently need to hear that...being any specific sexuality...is not a personality trait.

And also. Women aren’t inherantly less vile than men (or anyone non-binary, agender, fluid, etc, else), and whatever bad deeds they do should be judged based on just that—on the deeds, and their context. Not their sexuality, imagined sexuality, or their gender. Becuase none of those things effect whether committing murder is bad. At all. Not even a little. And none of them. Is even a personality trait. Affecting the character’s value as a person.

It’s cool, and good, to see characters with minority identities. And it’s real nice. When it’s whatever you are. But them being whatever. Is not a personality trait. Just a fact. And sometimes. People of any type. Are not good. Pretending any minority status—gender, sexuality, race, disability, neurotype, etc—is a get out of jail free card? Is not. Doing them. Or anyone. Any favors. Personality disorder. Doesn’t make you bad. Also doesn’t make you good. Your actions do. Acting like Amy from Gone Girl did nothing wrong when she date rapes her boyfriend & then frames him for doing that to her & ruins his life, then blackmails her husband who is terrified of being murdered by her into staying with her for the sake of the child she made at a fertility clinic with his sperm without his consent, bc she’s a woman. Isn’t good. Men aren’t more deserving of violence than women. Neither is anyone else. Jane. Left an infant child in an unheated car in subzero weather in a snow storm with zombies around that easily would hear it cry and go eat it. So she could lie and say she already let zombies eat it to bait a man with easily triggerable PTSD who had just lost his family to zombies for the second time into starting a fight. Because he was injured, unarmed, weak, down an eye, and 50, while she was fit, mid 20s, healthy, and armed with a hunting knife. Because she wanted an excuse to kill him without looking bad, because she wanted the 11 year old girl she was co-parenting with him, all to herself. And her immediately responding to the dude throwing a punch by stabbing him in the stomach to escalate the fight from brawl to life or death, then losing her knife, and instead of telling him the baby was alive & she’d made it up to start a fight which could have at any point ended the fight, begging the 11 year old child to gun down her oldest surviving friend with her own hands in cold blood so that she’d get what she wanted? Is evil. As is crying on the 11 year old and using pity as a weapon to get her to stay with her if she gets mad and wants to leave when she realizes Jane staged the whole thing for an excuse to murder, and so is after realizing like a month later that she is pregnant, committing suicide, and leaving the 11 year old that she just manipulated into killing her oldest surviving friend/completely isolated on purpose so she could have her to herself, totally alone in the apocalypse to care for an infant. Jennifer’s Body? Is a fantastic film. And Jennifer didn’t deserve any of what happened to her. But not one single boy she kills during the course of that film deserved it—and explicitly so. Even the guy who could easily have been a meathead jock bully is outside alone crying becuase his best friend just died and he loved him before she decides to lure him off and eat him alive. And acting like it’s totally fine & Needy should have just let her keep eating boys instead of killing her? Is fucked up. None of them deserved to die. And no one deserves death innately more because they are or are not something that is just a factual designator of their makeup as a human. The exchange student was scared and alone and nice, the catholic kid was sweet and Needy’s friend, Chip is a bad boyfriend but he meant well and being stupid doesn’t mean you deserve to die. And this girl ate them alive. That’s not funny. Or cool. Or fine becuase they were dudes. Gertrude Robinson? Chose again and again to betray people who loved her, or trusted her—sold out victims of awful trauma to their worst nightmares. Killed friends in the worst possible ways, like it was nothing. Michael loved her, and trusted her, and tried to care for her, and she without faltering fed him to his worst nightmare and forced him to become it. There is nothing excusable about that action.

Jude Perry? Has 0 redeeming features. Didn’t even stay faithful to her poor gf & was creepy obsessed w Agnes. Literally murdered her co-worker friend just because he was happy, and she wanted to destroy things: that’s it. She didn’t even dislike him. Murdered him because he had a wife and kid and house and it seemed fun, then burned down his house, took his wife’s money, and now checks in on his kid every so often in case he ever recovers from the trauma she inflicted enough to be fun to kill. There is literally nothing good about this woman. Yes. I mean that. Because being a lesbian? Is just a thing. There is no g/b tag, there is no tag at all. Amanda Young? Got kidnapped and tortured and forced to choose between killing a man who couldn’t resist but was conscious to watch her, and letting herself die, and she killed him. Then, instead of responding to that trauma with guilt or responsibility or anger at her captor, joined up with him and started helping him kidnap people just like her. She was not forced, she was not lied to. It does not matter if John was manipulative; she is a grown ass woman and like all grown ass adults, responsible for her own actions and choices. She did not get manipulated pitifully into this—she did not go unwillingly. She volunteered, with a happy vengeance, became obsessed with John and in love with him, despite his complete lack of interest. And she did not even just do what he did. She decided on her own that no one deserved redemption, & she killed them for fun in traps that wouldn’t let them go even if they did whatever awful thing the trap demanded as a price for life, just for the fun and power trip of watching them die helpless & in agony. That was all her, & her alone. She sat in a house full of people slowly dying from organ decomposition over the course of a few hours, for no crime worse than drug addiction—the thing she of all people should have been most sympathetic to—knowing full well at any time she could have saved them and stopped the game, and did nothing. She held a woman in her arms and stroked her head lovingly while she let her die in one of the most inhumane ways possible for the crime of having not been able to break an addition. She got saved by a 16 year old child multiple times, who had done nothing more than shoplift, and stood by while he had to watch a man get his brains blown out, another burn to death in an oven. As his organs slowly dissolved too. Watched the kid kill another human being & massively traumatize himself to save her life. And responded to that by attacking & knocking him out, tying him up, locking him up for days in a tiny safe bound and gagged with an oxygen supply to keep him alive, to be a piece in another game. Left his father, who had shown up to try & save him, to starve to death in chains in a horrible abandoned rotting room, & never even told him his son was alive. Let every other addict die horribly, let that kid sustain permanent damage to his organs that will kill him young, antidote taken or not, took his dad from him, & went back to torturing without a second thought. Kidnapped a woman whose worst crime was being a doctor & dating someone while maybe separated instead of divorced from her husband, put her in a trap that would take her head off with shotgun blasts, threatened her for fun, & then killed her even after she did everything she was asked, because it was more important to her that the old man she was obsessed with think she was special and great, than for the other woman to get to stay alive another day & go home to her daughter. There is nothing sympathetic about Amanda. She’s just not only evil, but too spineless to take responsibility for her own choices & actions, & tries to hide behind a “UwU I am sad & lonely & damaged & having trauma means I can literally torture people to death to feel special & it’s really tragic and sympathetic about me, not evil. Uhm. Some people??? Commit torture-murders?? To cope??” And acting like she’s somehow a victim in this becuase she is a pretty white girl with short hair? Is fucked. Up.

But every. God damn. Time. I see this. Please. It needs. To stop. People go: “UwU pretty girl short hair want” & I go “Ok. I see where u. Come from. Indeed.” But then. They go. “Girl pretty I like. So she was blameless. For this atrocity.” Those words...

Every day. I wake up. Thinking of Janic saying. Iconically. “At least me and Regina George know we’re mean,” and I weep inside. Because I cannot fathom. Or stomach. The lack of responsibility. I will kill. Characters who cannot admit they are bad. Myself. But somehow. They become. Flames. To moths. Of the “UwU pretty white girl short hair. We stan. Victim. Queen. Love her. Never done wrong.” Boy. We all done wrong. Even all my faves. At least once. I think. ...not if we count dogs probably, but people, yes. Ok. Anyway. All this is to say. Characters. Should be judged. Based on what they did. And why. And the aftermath. Not a grouping tag. I don’t mean any of these. Make bad characters. At all. Amy is a great character. So is Jennifer. So are most of them. I have quite affection even. For Jeneffer specifically. But you can like. Character. Without proclaiming. Them perfect humans. Who never did a thing wrong. Or their acts somehow. Justifiable. And ok. And you better stop saying. Ok. Because done. To men. Men do not. Deserve violence. Any more. Than anyone else. No one deserves violence defacto for factors. Outside their control. Wtf. Really people. It’s ok too. For character. To do much bad stuff. And still like character. Villains. And often just complex characters. Sometimes just characters. Do stuff. That is bad. It’s not supposed to be not their fault. Or ok. Also. Women are not a sisterhood. Of flawless beings. Who never hurt anyone or do any bad stuff. They can. And are. Often purpotrators. Of awful acts. And when they are. It is still. Very bad. Still. An awful act. Same level. Even. Of awful. Wild.

In conclusion.

Having short hair. While a girl. Doesn’t make her a butch queen. Who is absolved of all responsibility for that murder she committed. It just makes her a girl with short hair. That did a murder. I’m gonna. Kill someone. Too. And if I chop my hair off. I guess I can get away with it.

#personal #*dances wildly to abba music while delivering speech* #some of you all apparently really need a girl to come fuck up your life bc the lengths to which some of y’all so devotedly seem to believe #women are less evil is astronomical. and let me tell you. from personal experience? a girl can ruin your life. just as easily. and with as #little pity. guilt. remorse. or afterthought. as a man. and it aint any more ok. & you know what? so can a fluid person. or a nonbinary #person. legit anyone. can be bad. or good. and do bad. or good. theyre not defacto worse for coming from X starting point. and theyre also. #OuO not. better. #not everyone who likes or is sympathetic to these specific characters even be like that either like u know what? its possible to both be #sypathetic to a character & not excuse & atand their actions. I like & feel bad for Jennifer. a lot. one of my bros in college loved Jane #from twdg. Not bc she thought it was totally fine she’d been super evil though. its *dances* not that hard actually #also nothin against lovin evil lady characters or evil characters in general. just me or anyone else loving them does nothing to make their #evil deeds suddely ok or vanish into the mist #people have some real trouble w nuance huh. folks like a character & assume that means stanning everything theyve ever done. hate a charactr #and suddenly forget how to factor any outside factors into their view of said person’s actions. its a wild bad ride yo #like i get it. im a girl & ive had plenty of men ruin my life i truly get it. but is there anything truly more detrimental to feminism & to #just treating people decent in general than the WomenDoNoWrong mindset & apologism thrown up like its actually a decent counter t patriarchy #? probably actually yeah im sure there are worse. but its still REALLY not good!! feminism is just a stance that all people deserve equal #treatment & an investment in pursuing that reality. if youre excusing people of horrible actions bc girl & treating violence against non- #women as fine youre not a feminist u actually just suck generally as a person #i also lose my mind how half the characters i see get this treatment aint even lesbians & often explicitly like men yet get both assigned #that & treated like that sexuality is a hall pass for human rights violations. im dyin #this entire thought rant was prompted by reading a post earlier today about bi-phobia & gettin mad about how bi people get treated idk how #spagheti brain exactly went there to here so /fast/ but anyway. same brand of problematic. & i am v tired :] of this :] specifically :] #every time i see that post abt women killers in horror i am like ‘OP hiw are your points so good but all your examples so /terrible/.’ rip #i guess this is just life. and i feel excessively better after screaming jnto the void of my blog #also i get it gertrude robinson wanted to stop the apocalypse but fuck gertrude robinson she has no excuse. nothing could justify what she #did to people who loved her. and shes a well written and layered character whonisnt like just pure evil but she is VERY bad and i WILL kill #her (again) myself if given the chance & i have every right to. #spoilers #again. great charcters. amanda an iconic saw villain. gertrude fascinating. etc. but also. they be doing mad evil deeds & tis not ok

[seddm]

Blood Moon Dance

I’ve said enough about my reasons to dislike the recent events in the show, and the apparent shift in writing and style this season suffered (so far at least, fingers crossed for a change). Time to put some good vibes on this blog with a quick, absolutely not needed, and extremely self indulgent (and as such not necessarily fully objective) breakdown of the dance in Curse of the Blood Moon. A moment that, if we forget about its less than thrilling consequences, is probably (definitely, in my opinion) the best expression of pure Starco love, and that strongly tugs on my heartstrings.

In this moment, Star and Marco are alone with each other. Sure there are like eighty demons around them, but they’re just memories from the past, not actually there. Similarly to Booth Buddies, the two are pitted alone with their feelings.

They both entered this knowing what the goal was, separating their souls and their weird romantic feelings, so it’s expected for both of them to dance and reenact the moment that they thought was the one that bonded their souls, and started it all. And yet Star gasps happily when Marco sweeps her away to initiate the waltz, just like in Blood Moon Ball. Obviously it’s mostly a reference, but as I said this is going to be a very self indulgent post, so I want to assume that it’s super cute for her to react that way to something that she knew was coming & that was supposedly part of a ritual to erase that night.

(she’s smiling more now, too)

At first they don’t take the dance too seriously: they joke around as they always do, acting like the best friends they are. This should be a somewhat somber moment to them, since they’re trying to erase feelings that, as painful as they were, accompanied them at the very least since Booth Buddies, at least in the current form and intensity, but all the anxiety they displayed while listening about what the Stone would have done melts away once they start dancing.

Again, self indulgent and not very objective post that purposefully tries to poke at the heart of any shipper who might be reading, but this is not a Star who’s thinking about the ritual, it’s a Star who’s having a lot of fun with her best friend, and who reminisces small details from something that happened more than one year ago in-universe and that she still fondly remembers.

Then they get to the new part of the dance, the one they didn’t get to experience because Tom interrupted it. And things start changing a bit, the banter stops for a moment, as the music gets faster, and they just just while smiling like idiots (I mean Star is, harder to tell for Marco given the mask but he surely is, too).

Then the music gets slower and enters a “little warmer, and even more intimate” part, and Star starts feeling hard, and thinking.

And she starts getting worried, because this dance, her first chance (shown to us on screen, at least) after... well, Booth Buddies, to truly let herself sink into their friendship, had two effects on her: plant the seed of doubt, and make her wonder if these feelings had truly been caused by the Moon, and realize that she doesn’t mind them at all. That she never acted on them for all these months for a number of certainly good reasons that aren’t made explicit nor important here (scared to leave Tom, scared to start a relationship with a friend risking to ruin their relationship should something go wrong, something along these lines). The moment she’s isolated from all the noise going on in her life, and it’s just her and Marco, she understands what she really wants, and Marco does as well (I’m talking mostly about Star in this post because the episode focused on her the most, but that’s just because she’s the main character, and because Marco’s feeling were already plenty clear since Lava Lake Beach, and the beginning of the episode already focused on them quite hard).

And sure, she’s still worried about the curse, because she doesn’t like the idea of her feelings being forced by some external force, but at the same time she loves what she is doing right now, with Marco. And she’d like to keep doing that. I have no doubts that had the Severing Stone somehow no worked, leaving their memory intact, Star would have broken up with Tom as soon as the vision ended (ok maybe not literally there in front of all their friends, but very soon after).

THIS is when Star and Marco first fell in love. All the feelings up to this point were strong already, and clearly built attraction between them, but this is when I feel confident in saying they went from “We like each other but it’s confusing” to “We love each other”. And that’s why the Severing Stone acted in this instant, because as Relicor said it required the memory of the first moment they fell in love as a price to remove the curse.

What does this tells us about Star and Marco then? I don’t want to make predictions about what’s to come in this post, but the message is clear, and it’s consistent with what we saw in Booth Buddies already: Star and Marco’s lives are confusing, they are confused teens struggling with magic and love and monsters and politics. But when they get a rare moment of calm, and they can truly think about the nature of their relationship and what they feel deep inside, we get a kiss, we get them falling in love for the first time. Guess we gotta wait for another moment like this, and this time there aren’t going to be magical rocks severing memories around.

Lastly, a focus on the sweetest moment ever, the hand holding.

Star gently but firmly holds Marco’s hand while her voice actress delivers an exceptional line full of love that spells “Screw the curse and being worried about what might happen, this is what I really want”, and Marco takes a moment to reciprocate, because he’s a Marco and he’s unsure and he’s worried that the curse might be somehow responsible for this, but ultimately understands his feelings as well. And BAM, fall in love.

To truly conclude, an even more personal consideration that isn’t necessarily important in the episode itself, and maybe not even done on purpose by writers and boarders: in this context this scene is about thirteen times better than a kiss. Being effectively part of the dance, it’s more intimate relatively to the moment at hand (hah), it’s seamlessly included in what was already happening but perfectly displays a change in Star and Marco’s mind, an important decision being made. And this allows the scene to be strongly characterized as something unique and sweet, as opposed to what a kiss would have done, with all the implications already seen in Booth Buddies that it’d have inevitably brought with itself. 

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #starco #svtfoe spoilers #seddm ramblings

[fae-fucker]

Shatter Me: Chapter 1-2

Oh God please no. Yes, finally, the book you’ve all been thirsting waiting for. 

I have to preface this by saying that I know that the protagonist has been in solitary confinement for super long and I know her narration is supposed to be terrible unconventional.

But! It doesn’t mean that this works, or that I have to like it. Just because I understand what the author was going for does not automatically make it good. 

And as someone who has an extremely low tolerance for purple prose, I can safely tell you that I took a quick peek at the mess narration near the end of the book and it was still garbage not great. 

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

Chapter 1

I’ve been locked up for 264 days. 

I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven’t spoken in 264 days of isolation. 

6,336 hours since I’ve touched another human being.

Our protagonist tells us that The Reestablishment (yes) has locked her away because of something outside of her control, which, based on the book’s tagline, must have something to do with her ability to hurt people through physical contact. 

I only know that I was transported by someone in a white van who drove 6 hours and 37 minutes to get me here.

Her being able to figure out how long it’s been since she’s touched someone and how long the van drove implies that she knew she had to start counting right after it happened, which idk how much sense that makes, but ok. 

I know my parents never bothered to say good-bye.

I didn’t do that btw. This is this book’s “thing”. It’s supposed to be deep and show us how conflicted the protagonist is, how she actually thinks one thing but forces herself to ignore it in favor of something more “acceptable”. 

Again, I get what the author was going for, but this quickly becomes a one-trick pony, and the trick is kicking you in the face with how deep it is.

In this particular case, it just becomes weird. If we remove the crossed-out words, we don’t even get a complete sentence! It doesn’t make sense in context either. What a mess. 

I know the sky falls down every day.

When you’re writing a super deep YA novel, you probably don’t want the reader to think about Chicken Little.

Anyway, the protagonist angsts about how the planet is fucked, so that’s fun. Some generic attempt at post-apocalyptic worldbuilding for ya.

She’s supposed to get a cellmate but falls asleep before he arrives.

My eyes open to 2 eyes 2 lips 2 ears 2 eyebrows.

Would you say that it is, perhaps, a face of some kind?

Supposedly the narration gets more ... er, lucid, eventually, but this is still very bad and I hate it.

Anyway, turns out that her cellmate is!!! 

A BOY!!!

Dear God. 

They’re trying to kill me. 

They’ve done it on purpose.

I’m not exactly sure why she’s freaking out over this? Like I honestly can’t tell if she’s afraid of him, or if she’s so Very Heterosexual™ and so unable to control her goddamn self that she’ll just touch him all over and kill him? 

I honestly can’t figure it out. Maybe she has limited meta knowledge and knows that this guy will be driving the plot forward or some shit. 

The guy is obviously

Gorgeous Dangerous. Terrifying. Horrible.

because we can’t have anything else. I also love how she’s supposedly weird in the head after being in solitary for 264 days but is still somehow able to go “omg he’s HAAAAAWT” instead of just going “OMG ANOTHER HUMAN!! ANOTHER HUMAN!! ANOTHER HUMAN!!” 

But what do I know.

The guy tries talking to her but she’s having a BSOD.

He glances at my bed. Glances at his bed. Shoves them both together with one hand.

[...]

He’s stolen my bed my blanket my pillow.

And also your commas, apparently.

Chapter 2

Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too. 

I always wonder about raindrops. 

I wonder about how they’re always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It’s like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn’t seem to care where the contents fall, doesn’t seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors. 

I am a raindrop. 

My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.

I honestly have no words. I think this speaks for itself. 

I could pick apart this entire metaphor, because that’s what I do to purple prose, but then I’d have to do this to every stupid metaphor that shows up in this book and that means I’d be stuck here for years. 

And for someone who can’t put a few commas in her sentences and whose narration is supposed to sound incoherent, she sure can conjure up extremely intricate shit like this. She’s somehow not lucid enough to understand that a face is a face, but finding/making up similarities between her own fate and the weather? That she can do.

He’s wearing a navy blue T-shirt and khaki cargo pants tucked into shinhigh black boots.

Fashion disaster.

Cellmate looks at protagonist and she blushes. Because after not seeing another person for 264 days, she still somehow feels shame when a pretty boy looks at her and she feels that she's not hot enough to be looked at, like she’s in high school or something. 

I catch the rose petals as they fall from my cheeks, as they float around the frame of my body, as they cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage.

Ah, yes.

...

What.

“They cover me in something that feels like the absence of courage”? 

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN AND WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT FEEL LIKE?!

He shifts and my eyes shatter into thousands of pieces that ricochet around the room, capturing a million snapshots, a million moments in time. Flickering images faded with age, frozen thoughts hovering precariously in dead space, a whirlwind of memories that slice through my soul.

Holy shit. What have I gotten myself into?

Cellmate tries talking to her again but food arrives. 

My throat is tight with something familiar to me, something I’ve learned to swallow.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Cellmate tries to get the food but burns himself because the tray is hot. Protagonist warns him after the fact, and cellmate gets reasonably cranky. 

Protagonist’s response is to go stare out the tiny window in their cell.

There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. There will be a bird today. It will be white with streaks of gold like a crown atop its head. It will fly. There will be a— His hand.

On me. 

2 tips

of 2 fingers graze my cloth-covered shoulder for less than a second and every muscle every tendon in my body is fraught with tension and tied into knots that clench my spine.

Despite this, she gets over it right quick.

Sometimes I’m so desperate to touch to be touched to feel that I’m almost certain I’m going to fall off a cliff in an alternate universe where no one will ever be able to find me.

Cellmate asks if protag is hungry. She lies and says no.

His lips are only barely parted, his limbs limp at his side, his lashes blinking back confusion

His lashed have their own eyes now. Talk about body horror. 

Protag realized that there’s something ~*~familiar~*~ about his eyes. 

My eyes break open. 2 shattered windows filling my mouth with glass.

Ok.

Protag starts writing in her notebook.

These words are vomit.

You’re not wrong.

Protag tells cellmate that he can’t touch her. 

Please touch me, is what I want to tell him.

But things happen when people touch me. Strange things. Bad things. 

Dead things.

Cool. 

Touch this book.

#eff reads: shatter me #book rants

[bakurapika]

haha okay i love jd, i really do, yes i’m one of Those People

BUT i really want to show the masterpiece of manipulative behavior that is the reprise of “meant to be yours” (which veronica thankfully outsmarts)

(i talk about this a lot but i think about this a lot so???)

this is gonna be LINE BY LINE yall

oh and side note this is so fun for voice/acting practice because of the bajillion emotions and crescendos in this frickin genius song

All is forgiven, baby! 

JD’s introducing himself as the gracious, forgiving party that was wronged in their previous encounter (which, if you haven’t watched through the whole musical, was him intimating the murder of Heather Duke... and his extremely reckless use of a firearm after promising that he was a changed man). This is putting Veronica in an awkward position of guilt from the get-go.

Come on, get dressed. You're my date to the pep rally tonight!

More of JD assuming that he’ll get his way from Veronica without her having a say in the matter.

You chucked me out like I was trash

Placing all the guilt from their encounter on Veronica’s cruelty and senselessness. Avoiding responsibility for anything he’s done thus far. Painting Veronica in a heartless light that would normally inspire pity and apology. 

For that you should be dead—

More evidence of JD’s recklessly erratic behavior and roller coaster of emotional extremes. Though I definitely think JD has a lot of mental illness issues on his plate, I (as an unprofessional run of the mill armchair diagnoser) don’t think this is a symptom of any of them. It’s another sign of abuse--that JD’s mood varies so wildly that Veronica would have to walk around eggshells on him. That this idea popped in his head is enough of a red flag; that he tells Veronica this while trying to make up is nothing less than an implicit death threat. 

For context, remember that JD’s already set plans in motion that would make it very, very easy to fake Veronica’s suicide at his own hands. This wasn’t just a passing idea. This is a noose he’s already wrapped around her neck.

But! But! But! Then it hit me like a flash What if high school went away instead?

This line is definitely more of a mental-illness issue (or at least unhealthy thinking) than the previous ones. JD’s getting paranoid now in his search for somebody to blame besides himself or Veronica for their breakup. 

Those assholes are the key!

JD’s extending an olive branch here, at least in his own mind. He’s not forgiving Veronica for their fight, though; he’s saying that it’s not her fault, since she’s being controlled by a malicious third party. Not only is this insulting--it’s insinuating that her judgment and decision-making is impaired (and that JD is the one to make her decisions for her in the meantime).

Keep in mind that he’s not just talking about the jocks and Heathers, though. He’s talking about every single other student--including Martha and Heather McNamara, whose wills to live Veronica’s been fighting tooth and nail to save. JD may not have meant this line to be a threat against Veronica, but it functions to further drown out her opinion and isolate her from anyone besides himself.

They’re keeping you away from me!

Now JD’s making up barriers. He and Veronica didn’t “break up” by her choice anymore--there’s just an obstruction in their relationship that needs to be overcome by force. This is simplifying the issue even further than before. 

They made you blind, messed up your mind

Completely robbing Veronica of any power here. Even if Veronica tried to talk down JD at this point, he could discount anything she said as being the product of her brainwashing by the other students.

But I can set you free!

Classic manipulation--introducing a problem (whether or not it objectively exists) and putting forward the desired action as the only solution. Black and white thinking, false dilemma, whatever you want to call it--JD’s crafting a situation You left me and I fell apart

Having given Veronica an “out,” a way to escape the conflict between the two of them, JD goes back to playing the pity game. Veronica supposedly was the one who caused JD’s emotional breakdown. JD’s not letting himself be blamed at all here, and he’s definitely nowhere near an apology.

I punched the wall and cried—Bam! Bam! Bam!

This is, again, an implicit threat. If Veronica claimed to feel threatened, JD could honestly say that he said no such thing, she’s being emotional, etc. But this introduces a very immediate, physically violent threat. JD’s “lost control” and started hitting things before, and he seems like he’s in the mood to do it again. 

Then I found you changed my heart and set loose all that truthful shit inside!

Further defending his actions as the right thing to do, while painting Veronica as the guilty party. This isn’t much better reasoning than the stereotypical “you made me abuse you” line. 

And so I built a bomb Tonight our school is Vietnam! Let’s guarantee they’ll never see their senior prom! Ramping up the physical threat from mere punching to action, large-scale murder. JD is still seeing himself as the rational person here, and he expects Veronica to agree with him.

I was meant to be yours! We were meant to be one!

The soft singing and sudden waltz tempo of these lines is important, I think. JD’s using a stick-and-carrot for Veronica. He’s just finished introduced the sticks--possible physical abuse or murder of Veronica, Veronica being guilty for JD’s mental breakdown, the ending of their relationship--and now he’s teasing her with the carrot. Their relationship used to be so good, and it could be again. Not only that, it’s meant to be. This isn’t a choice for Veronica anymore--it’s her fate, and she has no say in the end result.

Don’t give up on me now!

JD’s reminding Veronica of the emotional investment she’s put in this relationship. Not only does the breakup represent her failure, now; it represents her giving up on someone she cares about.

Finish what we’ve begun!

And Veronica’s not an accidental accomplice to JD’s murders, in his mind. This was something they started together.

Sadly Veronica is, at least, affected by this reasoning, as we hear in the Dead Girl Walking reprise. She considers herself as guilty as JD in Heather, Ram, and Kurt’s murders, and she does believe that it’s her destiny to end this chain of events by JD’s side. 

I was meant to be yours!

So when the high school gym goes BOOM with everyone inside—Pew! Pew! Pew!

In the rubble of their tomb

We’ll plant this note explaining why they died!

OK I’m not even gonna analyze this one for manipulation, because this is so batshit ahahahah. Heathers is full of dark comedy and I consider this one of the examples of gallows humor. 

Like the cops are just gonna be like “welp, this explosion destroyed countless human bodies................... but hey look a stickie note survived”

(Westerburg cops might, but you’d think the FBI or something would get involved. Like.......................JD didn’t even laminate the note. wtf mate, what are you expecting to happen) We’ll watch the smoke pour out the doors Bring marshmallows We’ll make s’mores! We can smile and cuddle while the fire roars! Painting a vivid picture of their relationship being “all better,” while JD still seems to be under the mistaken impression that Veronica will stop caring about her dead classmates immediately afterward. I was meant to be yours! We were meant to be one! I can’t take it alone! Finish what we’ve begun!

You were meant to be mine! I am all that you need!

Reinforcing the isolation of the victim. If Veronica actually went along with this--god forbid she had any other close personal relationships. JD would consider that absolute betrayal. 

(His motives for this are worth thinking about, though not here--he has very polarized views of the people in his life. He worships Veronica, and at this point he expects that attitude to be reciprocated)

You carved open my heart! Don’t just leave me to bleed!

Veronica’s the cruel, bloodthirsty person in this relationship if she refuses to answer him. JD’s heaping the guilt on her. Veronica, open the—open the door, please Veronica, open the door

Now he’s trying a foot-in-the-door (ha!) approach. Opening a door is a very tiny request, but if she agrees to it out of pity, she’ll feel more obligated to agree to his much bigger demands.

The frantic repetition is making this tiny request that much harder to ignore.

Veronica, can we not fight anymore, please Can we not fight anymore

JD’s trivializing the issue, turning it into a run-of-the-mill couples spat that can be fixed with a single conversation. He’s trying to get Veronica to question her judgment. 

After all, it would be so much easier at this point for her to go along with them. And then they could be happy again together.

(in the off-broadway recording JD’s voice breaks so beautifully here. I consider it a nod to the audience that JD’s not just making this up for the sake of manipulating Veronica, even if that is his desired end result--he’s really, genuinely confused at why this is such a big deal to her, and why they can’t just be happy together again [on his awful terms].)

Veronica, sure, you’re scared I’ve been there. I can set you free!

Trying to wrap up this one-sided argument by once again setting up himself and Veronica as allies in the fight against the world. He’s relating to his victim, making the issue in their relationship seem temporary and dependent on her own flawed state of mind.

This also echoes the short talk Veronica got from her mother in the previous song. While her mom was genuinely caring and trying to relate, JD is saying the same thing for much more sinister purposes. Veronica didn’t like it the first time nor the second.

Veronica, don’t make me come in there!

Again--the “you made me do it” abusive line of reasoning, with heavily implied threats and an act of physical violence.

I’m gonna count to three!

Putting a time limit on something is a great way to convince people to do it. (See: limited-time flash sales.) JD’s demanding an immediate answer from Veronica, or else. 

He’s also still setting himself up as a disciplinary adult figure--making decisions for her, scolding her, relating to her, helping her, and even trying to get her to open her bedroom door by the count of three, like she’s a five-year-old.

One! Two! Fuck it!

And I think it’s really important to note these last couple of lines in JD’s one-sided argument. He set up a time limit, but still barged in ahead of time. This wasn’t in the interest of getting inside as fast as possible, of course. This was done specifically to take Veronica off guard and find her in an even more vulnerable position while still sounding like the voice of reason. After all, he did warn her that he was coming in, and she refused to answer him, so of course he came in, who cares that he got bored of counting.

He’s making his mood unpredictable and dangerous whenever he doesn’t get his way. 

aaaand haha holy fuck i’ve written almost 2000 words on this short song and i still think i skipped over bits on accident

i’d love to hear ur thoughts tho guys if anyone read this

#jd #heathers #jason dean #meant to be yours #character analysis

[faelapis]

so i’ve had these jasper asks in my inbox for a while... and it’s about time i addressed them. i’ll be focusing especially on that last one and the idea of “deserving” redemption, + some of my own general thoughts to talk about the su narrative, jasper, her relationship with peridot, trauma, steven, and where we go from here. 

it’s time for another jasper post under the cut. 

steven universe is pretty loyal to the rousseau was right-trope, which basically means that while yes, people are accountable for their actions, everyone are born as a moral blank slate and drawn towards doing what they perceive to be right - if someone is “evil”, it’s because of outside influences, not because they were ‘born’ weak or selfish or cruel. it also implies that anyone has the chance of redemption and renewal. 

one of my more radical stances in fandom is that i don’t think jasper is a bad person. partly because she’s dedicated to a cause she believes is just, and partly because i don’t think any gem is supposed to be “bad”. i think she’s rather selfless - a “neutral good” within her own mind - and to her, the people and places she’s loved are more important than she is. she holds herself to just as high standards as anyone else, if not higher. her views on defects and corrupted gems are incredibly similar to peridot and yellow diamond, and this seems to be the general rule within the yellow sector - your “use” is very much the focus. 

for this reason, it’s deeply unfair to compare her to, say, blue’s quartzes: gems who have spent the last 5000 years with a loving support network of fellow quartzes with and without defects, playing daycare for the zoo humans, not living to fight, under a diamond who wants them to grieve, love, and feel their emotions to the fullest. 

i think it’s also noteworthy that despite living a completely different life, i don’t actually think jasper’s so hardcore against defects as people give her beef for. not really - at least no more so than peridot, who trash-talks pearl and corrupted gems alike. 

jasper’s treatment of peridot herself is the main example of this, and works as an important contrast between how jasper treats gems with defects VS. how say, someone like holly blue treats them (because yes, actions still matter, even if the why makes sense): 

jasper never lays a finger on peridot, insults her, or otherwise mistreats her. in “the return”, she sounds outright bored, because she believes peridot can handle herself when it’s just a handful of gems. she doesn’t define peridot by her defects. peridot, in turn, feels comfortable around jasper - enough to argue with her, roll her eyes or whine (”we can’t leave yet!” “ugh, fine”), and talk shit in a casual way. she doesn’t think jasper will punish her, hurt her or do anything more than argue back.

holly blue seems to terrorize gems on homeworld’s side, physically and verbally. it’s part of her job, but it’s also out of her own perfectionism and impatience, to keep them in line and remind them to defer to superiors. this is before they do anything wrong, and she’s very much wrong to do so. by contrast, peridot can mess up, or even depend on jasper’s help, and the worst jasper will do is tell her how to attack with the ship, or that they gotta get back to homeworld - she’s stressed, but she doesn’t say either in a demeaning, harsh or cruel way. 

jasper is cruel to amethyst, yes, but there is a very important key difference here: amethyst is a crystal gem. jasper doesn’t fight her for shits and giggles, to keep her in line or “just” because of a superiority complex - she sees her as The Enemy(tm). this is such an important difference, because jasper doesn’t treat gems on her own side this way, even when their defects are blatantly obvious. 

peridot, without her enhancers, is basically “useless” - she’s a crystal gem, and she can’t do her job properly without her screen and fingers... but jasper is outraged at what the crystal gems did to her - taking her enhancers, her status, her dignity. she still wants to reason with her, and doesn’t take any shots (physical or verbal) at peridot the entire time - she may have been told someone like peridot no longer has a use, and she does repeat some of yellow diamond’s rhetoric... but a part of her resists that mindset, because jasper’s a very emotionally-driven person. like pink diamond, peridot is in a box labelled “people i care about”, and so anything bad that happens to them is unfair. it’s not what they deserve... and peridot wants to help her. she tries, genuinely, to explain what’s so great about earth. 

this is what i mean when i say jasper holds herself to higher standards of usefulness than anyone else. above all, jasper’s fatalistic mindset is a combination of the “yellow sector” ideology and how she copes with trauma. her base response is that if she didn’t do enough to prevent it, she deserved it. she pities herself, but she sees herself as worthless if she can’t do her job - protecting/avenging herself and others.

she also serves to hold characters accountable, in a way that is reminiscent of lapis in “mirror gem/ocean gem”. jasper’s treatment of the crystal gems seems excessively rude and violent at first, but the show dances a very long dance around her motivations. a lot of the point of jasper’s big episodes is to play with your assumptions - even a relatively straightforward episode like “crack the whip” is really about setting up “beta/earthlings”. not just to show what an empathetic and growing character amethyst has become, but to show why jasper was so desperate for revenge. we got to see her actions before her motivations, so when you find out that oh boy did she have reason, it’s a gut punch. it puts everything that just happened in perspective. 

there’s a reason the show lets steven think jasper is “mean” or “terrible” for a while - and it’s not because she is. it’s because steven, at that point, is holding on to this idea that if jasper’s angry with people he cares about, she’s wrong. everyone he loves are Good. when jasper says something about wanting to beat up rose, or how pissed she is at lapis, that’s just Bad. he “got away” with this mindset with peridot, because peridot was young and didn’t really have any serious beef with the crystal gems. she was “easy mode” - not necessarily a better person, but younger and less cynical about her enemies. 

“why do i never ask follow-up questions?!” is a great line steven says to himself, because that’s exactly how he treated jasper - he eventually tries to help her, but it’s out of wanting to “fix things” more than understanding her. that’s why it needed to fail. steven needed to hear her speech, and to learn the whole story without assuming the other side is evil... and of course, that’s part of what jasper was punished for, too, because that’s how she’s lived her whole life. 

jasper was right about one thing, though - steven only helped after she was declawed. he didn’t care about any of the things she said beforehand. he took every situation at face value, and never considered that maybe she had reason... because that would mean taking a hard look at the crystal gems, his friends, and his worldview. jasper, with her parting words, sort of saved steven from becoming like her - completely entrenched in his own views, never questioning his “side” or the people he cares about. (she wasn’t alone in that, and the whole "bismuth -> bubbled” run was mainly about steven facing hard truths about the people he thinks of as ‘good’, but i digress.)

all of that so he could be punished for not knowing, for assuming, by the show delivering him a failure after harsh truth after failure when trying to help people. jasper being among them, she had to corrupt - a horrible situation born out of assumptions on both sides (that steven is rose and must be held accountable for her actions, that jasper is “bad” and that rose/lapis/ect were right to hurt her). the best way for the show to hurt steven is by hurting others, making him feel both like it’s his responsibility and like he’s helpless... so steven and jasper are a bit alike, in that one, particular self-blaming way.

ok, i’ve gone on and on, but all of that just leads to the current question: where do we go from here? 

after reaching a truly low point, steven had to slowly recover and build himself up again. starting with small human relations - “onion friend” and “future boy zoltron” were both about this, (which is why i’ll fight anyone who says they were just filler). so was “gem harvest”, letting him connect with family he didn’t know he had... and now, after slowly recovering from some pretty harsh trauma, he’s started to explore. he’s asking questions, finally, about the gems on his side. about rose, pink diamond, and about why the crystal gems won’t just tell him everything. this took him to space, to characters he can still help, if he tries to understand them - which is probably gonna be a part of the road ahead.

but then what about jasper? 

...we can’t know for sure, but i think she’ll be back. i really want her to. corruption is still one of the bigger mysteries of the show, as is the whole situation around pink diamond. jasper is the character who is most obviously involved in both of these, so it’s hard to imagine she won’t pop up in either context. by my own view of redemption - which is redemption in the narrative, through learning that she’s a person and not just a “bad” gem - she’s already achieved that. my main focus is really healing, and i think that’s possible. steven wants to help, and he actually understands her now. 

in the same interview we got this gem about jasper, rebecca sugar also talked about wanting to focus on self-love outside of relationships going forward. as someone who’s been alone, isolated and felt completely unlovable, jasper is a great candidate. that doesn’t mean she’ll never get to connect with anyone or have meaningful relationships... but as with steven, she has to recover first, and focus on herself, too.

#steven universe #su theory #jasper #gifs / #peridot #steven #long post /

[change-the-rules]

FROM ONE PIKACHU TO ANOTHER sidenote do they play pokemon in the au do they have fave pokes. also i can't wait for alex and maggie to meet and realize they're soulmates and to be like "ok but i'm still mad about the trex and feathers thing" and then forl ucy to come in like "guys theyve been dead for years"

oh oh dude okay so I hadn’t really thought about it in context of the soulmate au specifically so it hasn’t been mentioned and it probably won’t be but they totally do and on valentines day when Magie is like 6 she doodles a pokeball and some cheesy shit like I choose you to be my soulmate and it’s adorable.

Also that is totally like an ongoing ‘fight’ Alex and Maggie have, like Maggie actually took some paleontology classes for funsies and as an adult she actually thinks it’s really cool the kind of strides we’ve made in science and the hows and whys T-Rexes probably had feathers but then there’s the little kid nostalgia and Alex gets so worked about science facts so Maggie just ‘nope 15 years later and it’s still lame’ and they bicker endlessly about it 

And when Lucy is like ‘guys guess what? they’ve been dead for years, technically none of them have feathers anymore.’  

Maggie looks up at her with the biggest saddest eyes and Alex pouts because she was going to get Maggie to see reason this time but now look at how sad she is and Lucy is just jfc how did I end up with such nerds for soulmates and she has to go put on Jurassic Park 2 and cuddle with them(Jurassic Park is Maggie’s go to comfort movie but Jurassic Park: The Lost World  is Lucy’s ‘I fucked up by saying the dinosaurs were extinct to end an argument so now we have to watch a T-Rex rampage through San Diego to balance it out).

Sooooo….I got so carried away with various pokemon hcs that I had to put it under a cut….

I have so many poke hc’s for them in general but like I tend hc Maggie as a gamer, little Maggie growing up and she can’t afford to collect the cards but she loves the anime and eventually saves up enough to get a gameboy color. Her first game is red and she plays it so many times she practically wears out the cartridge. She’s the first person (and only for awhile) in blue springs to catch Mew. She eventually collects and plays all the games and she’s a complete expert on all the glitches and secrets. 

Alex was more of a casual fan she watched the anime sometimes but Vicky liked playing the games so Alex asked her parents to buy her a gameboy color and trading pokemon on the playground is probably the most social Alex ever was without alcohol.

She did really REALLY get into collecting the cards though and at one point Maggie and Alex visit Eliza in Midvale and Alex’s room is as she left it. Maggie is having fun poking around and teasing Alex for her Xena memorabilia and Dana Scully and BtVS posters(seriously Danvers, Faith is practically eye-fucking the camera in that one across from your bed how did you not know)  when she finds the three thick Pokemon card binders and freezes. Alex notices and grabs them like I totally forgot I had these and she starts flipping through one reminiscing and handing another to Maggie and Maggie almost shits herself because Alex has a first edition base set holo Charizard, she has all the starters, she has all the original 151 cards in various editions from different series and collections , She has holos, she has Japanese cards, she has shining cards. Kara ends up stopping by because I could hear Maggie’s erratic heart rate from National city and ‘holy shit is everyone okay?’ 

Alex’s attachment to the cards is more nostalgia than anything so she’s like you can have them if you want, Maggie almost has a heart attack. Of course she refuses those cards are worth more than she makes in a month but Alex brings them back to National City and they just kind of end up ‘Maggie’s’ anyway.

Lucy collected the cards too but she actually played the trading card game. Being an army brat could be isolating but pokemon in the 90s was inescapable and it was something to do on any base, in any school she ended up in for awhile. Lucy played to win and for keeps and she ended up with her own pretty decent collection of cards even though hers aren’t nearly in the kind of mint condition Alex’s are in. Maggie still hyperventilates sometimes if she catches sight of the 5 card binders on the bookcase(Alex organized Lucy’s collection from an old shoebox into binders of their own). 

For her birthday Lucy and Alex get Maggie an unopened special edition pokemon gameboy color from the yellow bundle. She cries because she had wanted that one more than anything as a kid but couldn’t afford it and they spend the night cuddled up together playing pokemon on their gameboys like the nerds they are. 

Maggie and Winn stay up all night outside gamestop for the 20th aanniversary red and blue 3ds bundle.  

Maggie’s ultimate fav is Bulbasaur she remembers watching the anime and wishing she had one to protect her from the bullies and eventually she gets older and decides she may never have a Bulbasaur but she can be one for others. 

She has a bunch of favorites though including pikachu (she will physically fight anyone who says something about anyone not being a ‘real fan’ because pikachu is too famous or popular a pokemon), Aerodactly, Kabuto(her first body on the beach she sees a horseshoe crab and has to try really hard not to lose her shit because she’s from landlocked nebraska, and she is looking a kabuto and basically it’s an effort to remind herself that she is a newly promoted detective that needs to get her shit together) Tauros, Nidoqueen, Donphan, Tyranitar(basically if it’s vaguely dino-like she has a soft spot but dragons can go either way stemming from her childhood belief they arent as cool as dinos), Mightyena, Groudon, alright I’m going to stop but she develops favorites in each gen.

Alex meanwhile is staunchly first gen and she and Maggie bicker about constantly. 

Alex tended to favor water pokemon but not exclusively some of her faves Lapras, Vaporeon, Porygon, Starmie, Dratini, Ninetails, Abra/Alakazam and Onix. She also has a secret soft spot for Togepi as well as Espeon and Umbreon who she thinks of kind of like her and Kara, sun and moon and argues that they still technically count as 1st gen because they’re eevee evolutions. 

Lucy is mostly only really familiar with the first gen and some of the second but she doesn’t really care either way and will choose sides based on maximum amusement for the moment. Some of her favs include Squirtle/Blastoise, Arcanine, Pidgeot, Nidoking, Machamp, Lickitung, Gyarados, Flareon.

And well Alex is a BIOengineer and she studies alien physiology and genetic engineering and if anyone was going to ‘accidentally’ create real life pokemon it would be her okay.

(mostly I just really think J'onn needs a Ditto…..)

And I was talking about this with nerdsbianhokie ages ago and they pointed out that Alex has seen Jurassic Park enough times to know to not create large creatures that can kill humans and would probably go with the mini-zoo variety and then they blessed me with the mental image of a tiny little Ditto riding on J'onn’s shoulder.

Vasquez would end up making obligatory pocket size jokes that they don’t even pretend aren’t about Maggie and Lucy. They’d only stop when Alex threatens to withhold the actual mini pocket monsters from them and even then only when They’re within ear shot of Alex.

The spacefam ending up with mini-pokemon protectors. Maggie gets her fucking Bulbasaur and everyone cries. 

And then my dude I have not even touched on pokemon go hc’s

Kara blowing an entire paycheck on upgrading her pokemon storage because she can’t bring herself to turn any of her duplicates into candy and she needs to catch every single pokemon she sees. She has like a thousand pidgeys at this point.

Nerdsbianhokie was like but Kara being upset that she flies too fast for the app.

And Alex/Maggie/Lucy? Pokemon go would be terrible and awesome for those competitive nerds. They have zero shame.

Lucy exploits her military contacts, her and Alex abuse DEO resources, Alex makes Kara fly her around the world to get the region locked pokemon. 

After Lucy came back from a ‘work trip’ in Asia with a Farfetch’d,  Alex made Kara take the day off and wouldn’t let them go home til she had multiple Farfetch'ds, Kangeshkans, and Mr. Mimes. 

Maggie tries to keep up but detecting only gets her so far. She does have a network of ppl who are the type to text the location of a Lapras at 3am.When Kara realizes the edge Lucy and Alex have she starts exclusively helping Maggie. 

Alex is completely overdramatic like my own sister, MY OWN SISTER pretending to pretend to make a huge production about loyalty. And Kara’s just like ‘I’m just being fair besides Lucy and Maggie are my sisters too at this point’ and Alex just melts. She also gets Winn to build her a long range Jet pack into the kryptonite suit in an attempt and get back on top of the game but she’s melty while doing it. 

Winn Mr.tech genius manages to get himself banned from ‘suping’ up his account and has to start over at level 21. He cries.

As repayment for not commenting upon the melty-ness during the jet pack building Alex takes his phone with her on flights since he had to start over. Of course, being Alex she doesn’t actually say this she just sort of punches his arm in thanks, steals the phone and drops it back into his lap later with a few eggs hatched, some new pokemon and a full items inventory.

Lucy realizes she’s the only one currently unable to fly which oh hell no so she starts scheming. 

‘Director Lane, did you requisition military resources for a video game?’  'Of course not, it’s an app.’ (via nerdsbianhokie)

Vasquez is the first to get the original 151….All of them… no one understands, they have no obvious hacks, seemingly haven’t left North America, Ditto is still a spoty rumor at that point and Mewtwo is confirmed as not yet available or even programed and yet… Vasquez has them. When anyone asks They deflect and says you should see my wife’s.

Erin is level 48 way too early in the game.She has a Mew. Everyone is kinda of scared of them after learning about it, the true power couple.

No one ever figures out how they did it. 

J’onn just wants his agents to behave like professionals and bans non-related phone use during working hours after seven agents ran away from their posts to catch a Charizard. He’s in the middle of lecturing them when Lucy and Alex stroll in like did you guys see that Charizard?!

(Kara downloaded the app to his phone and J’onn totally caught the Charizard)

James takes pictures of the gang doing absolutely ridiculous things while trying the catch pokemon and it becomes a meme.

There’s a gym (The D.E.O was also accidently made a gym what no Vasquez and Winn had nothing to do with that what are you talking about) accessible from Alex’s apartment and it’s a bloodbath because they’re all on different teams, Maggie-Instinct, Lucy-Valor and Alex-Mystic.

Just yea……uhmmm this all got away from me *shrugs sheepishly*

#yokothetypo #asks #skin canvas soulmate au #hcs #holy shit this ran the fuck away from me #director sanvers #pokemon nonsense

[duckybeth99]

#Bethany's life #ghosty beth #ghosty blogging