#comic relief 2005 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

partypoisonzz · 2 years

Text

clean me off (i'm so dirty, babe) (frank iero x reader)

Kinktober Day 9: Period Sex/Shower Sex

Reader Pronouns: She/Her

Era: Revenge (2005)

Content:

- Implied pre-poly (Frank/Reader/Gerard)

- Some vague details regarding menstruation/cramps (not graphic though... but the point of the oneshot is that y'all get it on during shark week)

- You cuddle with Gerard and then Frank rails you a few hours later! Aah!

Word Count: 3,743

Disclaimer: This explicit story was written by an adult for consumption by other adults only. If you are under 18, please do not read or interact in any way.

You fucking hate this.

If you could opt out of your period, you absolutely would. In fact, you tried to do just that.

Your doctor told you that you could skip your placebo pills to put it off until next month. You figured there was no harm in trying it out during the tour. You were going to be on the road with the band for four weeks. How convenient would it be if you didn't bleed during any of them?

It would have been extremely convenient, if that was the way that it turned out.

Much to your chagrin, you get your period anyway, — right on schedule, in fact. It isn't pulling any punches this time, either.

Not that it ever does.

You're extremely pissed off by the way this whole thing has played out. Not only are you bleeding, but you have to spend most of your time stuck on a bus or backstage at venues with a bunch of guys. A bunch of loud, sweaty, obnoxious, annoying guys. You love them all to death, you really do. But their energy levels and your hormonal state do not play nicely together.

Luckily, you've pretty much hit the lottery for tonight. You'll be able to end your day in a hotel room with just one of those loud, sweaty, obnoxious, annoying guys, — the one that just so happens to be your boyfriend.

You and Frank will have an entire bed to stretch out in, rather than being crammed into his bunk like sardines in a can. Better yet, you'll be able to get an actual shower. The mere thought of such a luxury makes you want to cry with relief.

Of course, you will only be able to reap this reward if you survive until after the show tonight. By the way that your day is going, you aren't quite sure that will be happening.

Right now, you're curled up on a couch backstage, feeling like you're moments away from death. As per usual, the guys are all over the place, grabbing snacks and taking smoke breaks and talking endlessly about what-the-fuck-ever. You just want your painkillers to kick in or to fall into a deep, peaceful sleep. Whichever comes first.

Alas, neither of those things seem to be coming to fruition. Evidently, you can't even have the couch to yourself.

Gerard settles into the spot next to you without so much as acknowledging your presence. He's throughly distracted, — a Starbucks cold brew in one hand, the latest volume of some comic in the other. You pull your knees into your chest, grumbling to yourself as you listen to him flipping pages and slurping from the straw. You sort of want to scream at him for no particular reason other than existing in your general vicinity, but...

He glances over at you, pulling back from his drink. "So," he starts. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing," you respond curtly. "Why?"

He frowns. "Just wondering if you're okay, s'all. You don't seem like you're feeling too great."

You don't know why your eyes are welling up all of the sudden. He just showed you a bit of concern, — the bare minimum, really, — and yet, in your current mess of a state, the sentiment is deeply moving.

Unfortunately, your overly-emotional response only serves to worry him even more.

"Hey." He places his hand on your arm so delicately, like he's worried you're going to fucking explode or something. "Tell me what's going on, for real."

"I'm fine." You chuckle awkwardly, reaching up to wipe your eyes. "Just... having a bit of a rough time right now." You turn to meet his concerned gaze, smiling sheepishly before quietly offering your explanation. "You know. Girl stuff."

The realization seems to dawn on him instantly. "Oh." He nods. "Yeah, yeah. I've gotcha."

Silence settles between the two of you. Instead of bringing peace like you hoped it would, it's just awkward.

Finally, Gerard speaks again. "Do you want me to, like... hug you, or..."

You laugh despite yourself. "You're stupid," you mutter, scooting closer to him.

He wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his side. You bury your face in his shoulder. As per usual, he smells like a mixture of sweat, coffee, and cigarettes, but you don't even mind. He's warm, and he seems to actually give a shit about what you're going through, and he's just... So fucking good. You couldn't ask for a better friend... Or whatever the fuck he is when you consider the excessively blurry lines between you, him, and Frank.

He rubs your shoulder, so gentle that you could cry all over again. "I'm sorry, sugar," he says. "If it would make you feel any better, I could get Brian to let you into the bus and you could go lay down in there. Can't believe that Frank didn't try and get you to stay back, if you were feeling bad..."

You shake your head, not bothering to look up. "Didn't tell Frank," you mutter into his jacket.

"You didn't tell Frank?" he echoes. "Why not? You told me, for God's sake..."

You sigh, shifting against him in an attempt to find a more comfortable position. "You could tell something was wrong," you point out. "If I try to keep something from you, you figure it out, anyway. Frank's not like that. He's less of a mindreader and more of a... Lovable, excited puppy?" You chuckle at your own metaphor. "He can't tell what's happening right in front of him sometimes."

You pause, allowing your mind to wander. Of course, given your predicament and the current topic of conversation, it winds up in some not-so-pleasant places.

"Oh, well," you continue with a sigh. "Guess he'll figure it out tonight, anyway."

"What do you... Oh." You look up at him, only to find that his face has gone bright red. Just as you expected. "Jesus."

You nudge him lightly, grinning. "What? Talking about my period isn't too much for you, but thinking about me and Frank having sex is?"

He shakes his head. "No, no, it's not that it's too much," he says. "It's just... I'm thinking..."

You giggle, shifting until your head is resting in his lap. "Knowing you, I'm not sure I even want to know what you're thinking." You look up at him, smiling slyly. "Don't get excited, Gee. We probably won't even end up doing anything."

"Oh." God. You wonder if he can turn any redder than he already is. "Have you ever tried it, though?"

You laugh, swatting idly at his thigh. "What business is that of yours, pervert?"

"I'm not trying to be perverted, I swear!" He holds his hands up in surrender. "It's just... I've heard that it helps..."

"From who?" you press.

He stays silent, fixing you with that deer in the headlights look.

Oh.

"Oh my God," you say. "You have firsthand experience, don't you?"

He turns a darker shade of red. And there it is.

You clutch your stomach as you burst into hysterics. "Holy shit," you manage between howls. "I should alert the media. Hell, I should bring it to the fucking fan forums! Let everybody know that Gerard Way has his red wings..."

"Shh!" Your eyes go wide as he claps his hand over your mouth. "It's not like I want everybody to know. I just thought..."

You push his hand away, still laughing. "If this is some kind of proposition, then no way," you tell him. "We might be closer than most, but I don't know you like that."

He shakes his head fervently. "It's not," he insists. "I just thought it might be good for you to know..."

You snort. "Thank you for your service to womankind, Gerard," you say. "I owe my life to your empathetic ass."

"What gift has he given to humanity now?" You look up to see Frank grinning down at the two of you.

If you were any other three people, your current position might result in obvious jealousy from your boyfriend. Yet, this is just how it is with the three of you.

Still, Frank can never resist a teasing remark. He raises his eyebrows, nudging Gerard's leg with his foot. "Any particular reason why my girl's head is in your lap, Gee?" he asks. "I wasn't about to miss a show, was I?"

"Absolutely not." You sit up, detaching yourself from Gerard, who is still blushing like a fucking virgin despite the fact that he just shared some of the gorier details of his sex life with you.

"Gerard was just telling me a really funny story." You shoot Gerard a sly grin before meeting Frank's eyes with a sweet smile. "You should ask him about it later. It's an absolute riot."

"I'll get around to it." Frank leans down to press a kiss against your lips before pushing a warm cup of coffee into your hand. He pulls back and smiles at you. "Just figured I'd bring you that. You seem like you could use a little extra pick-me-up."

"That's sweet of you, babe. Thank you." You take a sip of coffee as Frank settles in the open space between you and Gerard.

Despite the fact that you have absolutely zero personal space, you feel ten times more alive now than you did an hour ago, thanks in equal measure to the caffeine entering your bloodstream and the men that you're sharing the couch with.

By the time that the show ends that night, you feel like you've been dragged to hell and back.

You're fucking exhausted, though you know you aren't the only one. The guys are all disheveled and half-dead-looking, in their usual states of post-show disarray.

Ray spends the entire ride back showing everyone his newly acquired finger injury.

"Look at this shit!" he exclaims. "There was blood spurting all over the place during "Venom." Thought I was gonna pass out for a second."

"Meh." Frank shrugs, wearing his usual shit-eating grin. "I've seen worse."

"Inflicted worse is more like it," Mikey chimes in.

"Yeah, Frankie." Gerard elbows him in the side playfully. "You're just bitter because you weren't the cause of tonight's biggest injury. Hurts your pride."

"There's still time, you know," Frank shoots back, reciprocating his shove.

You roll your eyes as the four of them carry on, laughing and pushing each other around until Brian calls for them to knock it off.

For the love of God, you think to yourself. Please get me off of this bus with these boys.

Mercifully, you get your wish soon enough. The bus stops outside of the hotel, allowing the group of you to pile into the lobby to collect your keys.

As soon as you drop your bag onto the pull-out couch next to the bed in your hotel room, you heave a sigh of relief. You unzip the bag, collecting your pajamas and a maxi pad. "I'm going to take a shower," you inform Frank as he flops down onto the bed face-first.

He rolls over, looking up at you. Despite his obvious exhaustion, there's a familiar spark of mischief in his eyes.

No. More than mischief. He looks... Hungry.

"Can I join you?"

Dammit.

You sigh. "I mean, yeah, you can, but..." You turn around and head for the bathroom. "Don't get your hopes up, okay? I'm fucking tired. And let me get the water warmed up and stuff before you come barging in."

"Whatever you say, baby," he calls after you.

You hear the static of him flipping through the TV channels as you strip and turn off the faucet.

This is ridiculous, you think. He's totally gonna notice that you're bleeding if you shower together. He'll probably be even more grossed out if you don't tell him beforehand. Maybe you should have vetoed the shower suggestion to begin with. The more you think about it, the worse of an idea it seems to be.

Of course, it's too late for that by the time that he pulls the glass shower door aside and steps in with you a few minutes later.

As soon as his arms snake around your waist, you decide to just come out with it.

"I've got my period," you blurt out.

Frank just chuckles, seeming wholly unphased. "Okay?"

You blink, face burning. "Does that not, like... freak you out at all?"

"Why would it?" he asks. "We've been together for almost a year, babe. It's not like I didn't know it happened."

"I just thought, y'know... Since you wanted to join me in the shower, that you might want to..." You look down at the white tile floor. "Screw around or something."

"Well, not if you don't want to, of course," he replies easily. "But, in the off chance that you did want to... This would be the place."

You blink at this suggestion. "In a hotel shower?"

"Easy to wash away all the evidence." He leans down, pressing a kiss against your neck. You shiver slightly at the feeling of his lip ring pressing against your skin.

In all honesty, you aren't opposed to the idea at all, even less so as he continues to mouth at your neck. It's just that... Well, you hadn't expected this.

"Promise me you won't get super weird about it if it turns out... Well, gross?" you ask, just to be sure.

"I swear," Frank replies. "Not much freaks me out, babe."

"Alright," you reply. "So, how's this gonna work? Like... From a technical standpoint."

"I was thinking..." You let out a yelp of surprise as Frank pushes you back against the shower wall. "Like this?"

You hesitate with a frown. "This seems... Slippery," you say. "The last thing I want is to fall over going heels to Jesus in the shower."

"You won't," Frank assures you. "Just... Wrap your legs around my waist."

You blink at him. "Frank Anthony," you start. "If I end up knocking myself out, I am going to personally kick your ass as soon as I wake up."

"You won't," he repeats. He wraps his arms around your waist, holding you against the wall with a surprising amount of stability as you instinctively wrap your legs around him.

You swallow hard, feeling your heart beginning to speed up as you shift against the wall, getting reasonably comfortable. "Yeah," you mutter quietly. "Okay."

He gives you a soft smile, reaching out to gently tuck a lock of wet hair behind your ear. "Don't be nervous, babe," he tells you. "I've got you, see?"

As soon as the words leave his mouth, you feel his hand brushing against your inner thigh. "Frank." His name breaks up from your throat, edged with much more desperation than you expected. "Please..."

His lips brush lightly against yours before he pulls back again, his eyes boring into yours with that spark of intensity that drives you wild every time. "You want it, angel?" he asks. "Want to fuck yourself on my fingers?"

You nod, feeling the cold tile pressing against your skin. "Yeah," you say. "Yeah, I do."

"Thought so."

Your head falls against his shoulder as he shoves one finger inside of you, immediately going all the way up to the knuckle without any resistance.

You let out a soft whimper as he thrusts his finger in and out of you, setting a quick rhythm. "So easy," he says. "All wet and open for me..."

You wrap your arms tighter around his shoulders. "More," you manage weakly.

"You need more, huh? Need to be stretched out?" He adds another finger, keeping the pace he set before. "How's that?"

It's all you can do not to throw your head back against the wall. "Feels so good, Frankie. Fuck..." Your eyes fall closed as he continues to thrust his fingers into you.

You're so much more sensitive than usual. The feeling seems... Magnified, somehow, albeit being edged with a dull ache that isn't usually there. Despite the fact that your cramps are usually the absolute bane of your existence, you don't actually hate it. In fact, it's almost pleasant.

You gasp as his fingers press against a spot deep inside of you, causing your legs to tighten around him. "Right there, Frankie, oh my God..."

"So needy," he comments, repeating the action all over again. "My pretty girl, begging to come all over my fingers." He leans it to kiss you again, — long and deep this time, with teeth and tongue.

He's moving his hand even faster now, fingers hooking against just the right place, occasionally grinding the heel of his hand against your clit. It's all so overwhelming and so fucking dirty. Your head spins as his name breaks up from your throat, broken. "Frank..."

"Fucking do it." He presses his fingers up into you and holds them there, causing you to tense around him. "There we go... That's my girl..."

You clench around him, muffling your moan into his neck as you come apart. Your thighs tremble violently. You aren't sure if it's because of the position that you're in, or just the fact that everything feels so much more intense than usual, but it feels like it takes forever for you to stop shaking and come back down to earth.

You whine as Frank pulls his fingers out of you. Despite the fact that you just had one of the most intense orgasms in... Well, maybe ever, that burning ache is still there, heavy in the pit of your stomach.

You want more.

No. You need more.

You wrap your legs tighter around Frank's waist, gripping him like your life depends on it. "Need you to fuck me."

"Oh, yeah?" He meets your gaze, eyes flashing. "Tell me how bad you want it, baby."

If he wants you to beg, that won't be a problem. Not at all.

"Need it," you whine, gripping him tighter. "Need you to make me come again. Need to have you inside of me."

He groans. "Oh, Jesus," he mutters before lifting you up the slightest bit higher and pushing inside of you.

You let out a shrill, desperate sound as he fills you up, already clawing at his back. "Do it hard," you plead. "Please, Frankie."

He keeps his arms around you as he bucks up into you, crushing you against his chest so as to keep you from hitting your head on the wall.

"My fucking dirty girl," he says. "Wanted this so bad, but couldn't even ask for it."

"Didn't... didn't think you would... Oh, fuck..." Your attempts to explain yourself are cut off by your desperate whimpers as he fucks you at a bruising pace.

At this point, your belly isn't cramping so much anymore, but the angle ensures that your legs and back do. You can't even bring yourself to mind, however, as Frank fucks you. He's hitting all the right places, and it feels like every nerve ending in your body is awake and buzzing,

"Didn't think I'd what?" Frank asks. "Didn't think I'd want to touch you, just because you're bleeding? Fuck, baby... I couldn't care less." He looks down at your face, smiling slyly.

"Wish you could see yourself right now," he continues. "All blissed out and desperate. You're so..." His mouth moves down your neck as he drives into you, even harder. "Fucking... Beautiful..."

"Frank." You turn your head to the side, feeling your face burn as he continues mouthing along your neck, surely leaving behind a pattern of angry red marks. "Gonna come again..."

"No, no, angel. You gotta look at me."

Slowly, you turn back towards him, meeting his eyes again. That just makes it all the more intense and... Fuck.

You come around him with a high-pitched moan, digging your fingernails hard into his shoulder.

"So fucking pretty. Fuck, baby." Frank throws his head back as he follows you over the edge, coming inside you with a deep groan.

You stay pressed against the shower wall for a while, weak-kneed and lightheaded.

"Hold still," Frank tells you.

You let out a sigh as he slowly pulls out of you. You're afraid to look down and see the mess that you've made, but you can't stop yourself.

You cringe. It's just as bad as you expected. "Sorry about... That," you manage weakly.

Frank shakes his head. "We're in the shower for a reason, right?" he asks. "C'mere. Let me help you get cleaned up."

You slide down against the wall, forcing yourself to stand on shaking legs.

Once you're under the shower's spray, you realize that the water's gone cold. Still, you close your eyes, giving a shaky but contented sigh as Frank washes your back with the hotel soap.

"Can't believe you did that," you mutter as he passes the bar soap over to you so you can return the favor.

He chuckles. "Does it really surprise you that much?"

"Honestly, yeah." You put the bar of soap down and move on to the shampoo bottle, lathering the suds into his hair. "I mean, I wouldn't be so surprised if Gerard did it, but..."

"Hey, now," Frank cuts you off. "Are you really talking about Gerard after I gave you not one, but two mind-blowing, cramp-relieving orgasms?"

You laugh. "Don't even act like you haven't immediately started talking about Gerard after sex, too," you say. "He's constantly there, in the back of our minds. We can't get rid of him."

"I guess so." Frank leans back into your touch like an affectionate puppy before speaking up again. "You wanna know something?"

"What?"

"Gee was the one who actually, uh... Put the idea in my head."

You stop massaging the shampoo into his scalp, feeling your face burning. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"I wish I could," he replies solemnly. "He told me you were laying all over him because you had cramps. Said that you deserved, uh... A chance at natural relief, or something like that?" He shakes his head. "I dunno. More and more lately, I get the feeling that he must be into some weird shit."

You laugh. "Well, that weird shit helped," you say. "I guess I really am indebted to him now."

"Yeah," Frank agrees. "Might as well give him a big ol' kiss next time you see him as a thank you."

A smile spreads across your face. "I will, if you don't beat me to it."

Taglist (Ask to be included!):

@mysunfishpeedinmyroom @xocasper @clichedlovers @yachiiko @enchantinghouseofwh0res @dangerouslittlefairy

#frank iero x reader #frank iero x reader smut #frank iero smut #frank iero fanfiction #my chemical romance fanfiction #my chemical romance x reader #mcr fanfiction #mcr imagines #mcr x reader #my chemical romance smut #my chemical romance imagines #kinktober 2022 #my writing #frank iero x female reader

363 notes · View notes

livejournallegacy · 1 year

Text

Coheed and Cambria primer for L.S. Dunes fans

Travis Stever and Claudio Sanchez are the two core members of Coheed and Cambria and have been since the bands inception in 1999. Coheed primarily makes concept albums based on Claudio's sci-fi comic series The Amory Wars.

The basic plot is that Coheed and Cambria Kilgannon are fighting against aspiring dictator Wilhelm Ryan, who started The Amory Wars with the goal to rule over the solar system Heaven’s Fence. Their son Claudio (we love a self insert) is a seemingly normal kid dragged into the fight, who may turn out to be the prophesied saviour.

"But what do they sound like?" Coheed mixes elements from a lot of genres and are most often described as prog rock. I would personally be more inclined to classify them as power metal or like, prog emo (emo used as a sort of catch all term for various pop influenced rock, metal, punk and hardcore music styles of the 00s). If you like Dunes there's definitely something in their discography you'd enjoy, especially given how similar Claudio and Anthony's vocals are.

You don't need to follow the storyline to enjoy their music though, here's a few of their more radio friendly songs I would recommend a new listener to start with:

Favor House Atlantic - every 00s band has at least one pop punk song

Ten Speed - slightly more prog influence, still pretty pop punk

Welcome Home - it's their most popular song for a reason

Shoulders - newer song, hard rock/metal vibes

Bonus: Jesse's Girl 2 ft Rick Springfield - Claudio wanted to write a sequel to Rick Springfield's 1981 classic Jesse's Girl, so he did.

If we define 'rock bands from the New York Metro area 1999-2002' as a scene, Coheed and Cambria were right there in the trenches with bands like Midtown, Taking Back Sunday, Thursday and My Chemical Romance. They were tour with these guys and most of the other "bandom" bands (The Used, Fall Out Boy, AFI etc.) and were hanging out in the background somewhere for a lot of iconic moments, like Warped 2004 (featured in LOTMS).

For example, you have probably seen a few photos of Adam and Gerard from backstage at the 2005 Concert for Tsunami Relief:

The handsome guy on the left is Claudio Sanchez ☝️

Or the 2003 Thursday/Thrice/Coheed tour which gave us some of the worlds most important images courtesy of Justin Borucki:

In a roundabout way Coheed is actually responsible for giving MCR their first big break. In 2002 they were opening for Jimmy Eat World and had to cancel a show last minute, they were replaced by MCR who had only released Bullets a month prior.

From Dan Ozzi's Sellout

So from what I can tell Travis has known Thursday and MCR since at least 2002 and Anthony since at least 2005 (Coheed/Thrice/Circa Survive tour). More recently Travis played with Thursday for their Signals V2 livestream (2021) and Coheed opened for MCROKC (2022).

I know I missed heaps of stuff but I hope this helps at least one Dunes fan understand Travis a little more! His connections to the band go just as deep as any of his bandmates but are a lot less straightforward.

#this took an embarrassingly long time to make 😭😭 im literally a STEM girlie i never learnt how to string a coherent sentence together #inspired by the tireless work of the thursday tumbrinas especially the dissertations provided for us by geoffrard #travis stever #ls dunes #l.s. dunes #coheed and cambria #travis #dunes #coheed #long post

167 notes · View notes

freddieraimbow74 · 2 months

Text

ON THIS DAY In Queen History - 12 March

QUEEN: 1974 Dagenham Roundhouse; 1975 Municipal Auditorium, Atlanta, GA;

1976 Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, LA; 1977 Portland Paramount, OR;

1986 Princes Of The Universe/A Dozen Red Roses For My Darling released US.

BRIAN MAY: 1993 Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Canada.

2005 Wrote about Comic Relief appearance.

Q+PR: 2006 Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, Long Island.

QUEEN: 2013 2DVD “Queen Live At Wembley Stadium – 25th Anniversary Ed” released US/Canada.

BRIAN: 2016 + Kerry Ellis Congress Center, Gellertberg, Budapest.

PLEASE READ MORE FOR DAY: https://brianmay.com/on-this-day/on-this-day-in-queen-history-12-march/

#freddie mercury #j’adore #queen #music #brian may #roger taylor #jhon deacon

10 notes · View notes

thealogie · 3 months

Note

David Tennant has been regularly involved in Red Nose Day and children in need from 2005-2006ish in various roles and has actually been co-presenting comic relief the last few years

Sir Lenny Henry actually said he would like DT or Ncuti Gatwa to take over presenting when he leaves after this year (he also mentioned Dave Chapelle but we don’t talk about that)

But yeah it’s hilarious how the British try anything to get him in TV when they can

That’s so crazy that Lenny Henry named two of the coolest most trans-ally celebrities out there and then was like “also Dave Chappelle”? but DT or ncuti gatwa is also who I’d want

18 notes · View notes

neu-apostolisch · 5 months

Note

As for Gale Discourse Cont., I think it’s also necessary to point out that he’s written as a Comedic Relief character. He unironically says stuff like “pish posh” and is voiced by a well-known (in England) comedian. Unfortunately, because this is a DnD based game, every character you interact with the most needs to be complex and have a tragic backstory and I have a theory his romance arch is heavily derived from Mr. Darcy from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie. I mention all of this because I am absolutely a Galemancer, and I had a bit of a turmoil about the interview myself until some other tumblr user (I can’t remember who) made a post about this. Seeing Gale through the lens of “oh he’s a silly little guy made to be the butt of all jokes but surprise! he has so much depth anyway” helped me take a breather and have fun with it again. Sorry this got rambley.

ok if you're rambling then i must be reading the dictionary. i think this is a good point to make, especially as an addition to the concept of how the writers view gale. and crucially, i don't think it really undermines people who found more depth in his character. because on some level this is true for every character in this game-- they're all an awkward trope and they grow as the game continues forward and you learn more about them. i'm glad that this perspective helped you re-enjoy the game!

a view of him as The Comic Relief Guy (and Arrogant Wizard) aligns with how the writers are talking about him, and a lot of characters can be viewed chiefly as narrative tropes. so, if galemancers and gale fans can bear with me here, i'll poke at that idea for a bit and why i think it's a good point to make within this long winded thesis i've been developing for two days.

wyll is probably the most obvious to start with in this trope analysis. he is objectively in the party, the voice of reason and a Good Guy. he will unambiguously support whatever the most like, goodhearted, positive, hero-type outcome. so we can classify him that way. i mean, his background is folk hero. then, you travel more with him and his story winds off in its own direction.

astarion is that foil to lawful goodness, and is presented as such. however, astarion also serves an important role in that he introduces one of the first instances of a potential party conflict to you. managing and understanding his vampirism is important to his character and to your party cohesion, at least in a roleplay sense. astarion is also meant to be a character that can frustrate you. think about the people who take bloodless, which is a literal stat negative, for him to be happy. that's an interesting trade that the writers are having you make, and in order to cure bloodless you have to use a spell slot. mechanically, this is the role he serves in the party narrative, and it's up to you the player to decide what you want to do with that. and then his story goes off in its own direction.

i could go on and position other characters in this stripped down way, but it's probably unnecessary.

with these two examples in mind, looking at Gale through this lens, i think he has a bunch of really important functions in the narrative and in the party dynamics. and similar to wyll and astarion above, you can come to view him beyond his initial trope. the biggest hurdle to his development is that his story is fundamentally integrated with the plot of the game. so, on some level, the narrative is unable to develop further on him because he still has that role to play. he has to still be able to kill himself even when the player has convinced him that his life matters because he is stuck in that narrative structure forever. he IS supposed to be the annoying guy who takes your stuff and eats it. you're supposed to have those moments of "oh no, what are supposed to do about this" just like lae'zel in the creche or with kithrak voss, breaking wyll's pact with mizora, and astarion's deal with raphael to kill yurgir. sometimes your companions make you do things that are really annoying.

but-- and this is the key-- gale's story doesn't have as much freedom to move beyond that, which is a fair complaint, even if there's not actually that much to be done about it in the grand scheme of things. (and i think this applies to lae'zel too, i just don't want to get too off-topic. and unfortunately i am not as familiar with her story, which is orin's fault.)

hopefully this comes across as me using your ideas as a springboard for my own, and not me twisting your words or hijacking something you said. i think that's an interesting perspective and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

#gale dekarios #gale bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #asks #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #larian critical #bg3 critical

19 notes · View notes

denimbex1986 · 6 months

Text

'“What? …What?” were David Tennant’s first words when, to everyone’s surprise, including his, he regenerated out of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, and not Ncuti Gatwa, as we all expected. For three episodes the 10th Doctor is back as the 14th, before Gatwa takes over at Christmas, and in his first proper episode – after a neat appearance in a Comic Relief sketch – he has moved onto “Why?”

Allow me to help you there, David: falling ratings.

Oh, you feel bad for Jodie Whittaker, a great Doctor unfortunate to be trapped in a wormhole of so-so episodes and constantly under attack from galactic sized fury-bots, slamming down their GB News mugs (filled with good, white tea, love) and taking to the social medias to cry about the bloody woke mob at the BBC filling our children’s heads with stupid ideas about tolerance and being nice.

But really, the problem, to my mind, was that while showrunner Chris Chibnall threw everything at Whittaker’s Doctor, he didn’t truly hit upon a transcendent stone-cold classic episode, and the whole thing felt like it was trying too hard; it lacked a bit of easy-to-watch magic. Something which is immediately back with “the one in the skinny suit”, under returning showrunner Russell T Davies.

As Dr Who’s 60th anniversary approaches, this should turn into something of a celebration of Davies, the man who kickstarted the new Who back in 2005 with Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor, before hitting absolute gold with Tennant. While Chibnall was working on multiple meta-levels leaving us all trying to keep up, Davies pitches this first episode as more like E.T. in Eastenders. This sense of bringing things down-to-earth is helped further by the return of Catherine Tate as Donna, easily the funniest of his companions.

Taking place in London – and I do love Davies’ London, he was a pioneer in showing positively, and accurately, a city remarkable for its peaceful diversity (don’t believe the hype) – The Star Beast sees a cute little Furby-like alien called The Meep ‘crash’ into the city, which falls under the protection of Donna’s daughter, Rose, as some other ant-like aliens hunt it down.

The Doctor is back to help, with the catch being that he has to prevent Donna from remembering who he is, otherwise She Will Definitely Die. Without getting too bogged down, the last time we saw Donna, she basically had to have her mind wiped for her own protection, after she took on Time Lord powers that were too strong for her human body – her tragedy, heartbreaking at the time, was that she’d have to live her life without remembering her time with the Doctor.

However, as we all know in post-Marvel entertainment, there’s always a way around She Will Definitely Die – but the particular way this episode plays out is really going to upset the Woke Police. For Donna’s daughter Rose is trans, people – cue GB News mugs smashing against flat screens – and her trans-ness is very much central to the plot as well as the thematic ideas of identity crises and Otherness (not least with regards to the Doctor) and what do we do, attack these people or rally around them. Oh boy, is it going to drive people mad.

It's actually an almost touching move by Davies in the way it backs up the seriously upfront progressive humanism of Chibnall’s tenure, and comes in defiance of those who thought featuring Rosa Parks in an episode was the end of the world. What people seem to forget about Doctor Who, both the Woke Police and those other furrow-browed joy deniers, the Fanboy Police, is that it is a family show, designed to be watched with kids.

Yes it should be clever and mind-bending but it’s not supposed to be careless or cool. You need a bit of Horrible Histories, you need a bit of future thinking around humanity, because, well, this is science fiction – it’s the nature of this game even more than dressing up as Klaatu.

Anyway, the truth is this episode is a little bit thin, the big twist around The Meep pretty obvious (though not to my shocked 8 year old), and the saving of Donna does end up being really quite clunky. But it doesn’t really matter.

It’s about the magic: the chemistry between Tennant and Tate is winning, the laugh out loud moments hit double figures (I particularly like Donna’s repeated disses to the cutesy Meep – “space rat”, “ferret from Mars”), the Tardis has had a rather natty Modern House renovation, and the Disney money now coming into the show is well spent on set-pieces that manage to be Spielberg-ian in uniting the spectacular with the suburban.

It’s a hoot, and as a way to drum up attention and goodwill towards the series in the run-up towards Gatwa taking over, it’s quite irresistible.

Gatwa will certainly have a lot to live up to, mind. For Tennant truly is the best Doctor ever. Yes, yes, I know you liked Tom Baker when you were a kid, but really, you're wrong: Tennant is the best. Like a Tex Avery cartoon trapped inside Camus’ Meursault, he’s an existentialist hero for all the family. Saturday night must-watch TV is back, and it’s Woker than ever, folks...'

#David Tennant #Jodie Whittaker #Catherine Tate #Donna Noble #Ncuti Gatwa #Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #the Meep

7 notes · View notes

0nlythrowharrybeaux · 1 year

Text

Wonderful World - Part 2^

Part 2 is here! This one's got some heavier topics discussed, so please be mindful of that! I did throw in a little bit of comic relief, but still it's going to go into the bullying that Celeste is enduring.

Series Masterlist

Warnings: bullying, mentions of homophobic slurs, physical acts of aggression, grief and loss, cheating/infidelity suspicions

WC: 12k

Diana woke up gasping for air and immediately sat up with a hand over her chest. She could hear her heartbeat pounding loud and fast and her palm could feel the steady rhythm thumping of her heartbeat against it. She could feel a sort of a cold and somber air engulfing her and it made her feel so alone and sad. Her skin was covered in goosebumps and she closed her eyes to try and take a few calming breaths, like she tended to do when these nightmares would make appearances. She actually hadn’t had one in a few years now… that was probably why she was probably having a hard time shaking the feeling.

It was probably because Harry had brought up Celeste’s dad, Wesley. He had likely been stuck in her subconscious and of course, she had to dream of him. It’s not that she didn’t think of him ever, he was her daughter’s father, but what happened to him had messed her up for a while. And with a lot of therapy, hard work, and time she had learned to focus on the good things and moments that they had. She had been able to heal from losing him so abruptly, but sometimes the bad things would creep in. Grief was a long journey, the void a person leaves can never really be filled, no one is replaceable, each person is unique and their light is their own. And truly, no one could replicate or replace the person that Wesley was.

Diana’s tears started to stream down her face and she bent her knees against her chest as she cried quietly, letting herself feel the hurt of loss. After crying a few minutes she switched on her bedside lamp, got out of bed quietly, and made her way into her closet. She had a box with her memories from school, yearbooks, notes, photos… she pulled her little step-stool out from under her hanging clothes to get it off from the high shelf in there and pulled it down before setting it on the bed. As she opened it up she looked through the year books and grabbed the one from her senior year in high school. Diana climbed onto the bed leaned back into her pillows as she opened up the cover and smiled immediately as she saw the big note Wesley had signed onto the cover. She read over his sweet message, promising that no matter where life took them, he would always love her. She would still get butterflies when she thought about the night he verbalized that he liked her; she had been too oblivious to see it at first. She smiled as she let herself remember the night - it had been a good night.

March, 2005

Diana was squeezing her hands together as Wesley anxiously opened up the envelope from UCLA. His parents were hovering over him, also anxiously waiting for what the letter inside would say. He had also been in contact with one of the football coaches, so if he got accepted into the school he would certainly be given a try-out, he hadn’t started the recruiting process until late due to an injury he obtained in the middle of the season, but the Bruins still wanted him after seeing him play his Junior year. He was tall, lean, and exceptionally fast - all great attributes of a wide receiver. His friendly brown eyes met her own and she smiled and nodded, urging him to open up the envelope. He took a deep breath and pulled out the letter. The tension was high as he unfolded the letter and started to read. He didn’t even have to say anything before she squealed with excitement, the sparkle in Wesley’s eyes said it all.

“I got in!” He exclaimed with a bright smile and his mom jumped up and down as his dad hugged around his shoulders, rocking them a bit. After his parents congratulated him he reached his hand out towards Diana’s and she took it as he squeezed it with a bright smile as he shook his head in disbelief.

“Thank you.” He said and she shook her head.

“It was all you. I just help you get a little organized.” She shrugged.

“You did much more than that, honey.” Wesley’s mom, Gloria said as she came over and hugged Diana from behind, this made Diana giggle, “Tell your parents that you’ll be late, we’re going out to celebrate! I’m going to get changed!” Gloria said excitedly before heading out of the room, “Darell, change your shirt! It’s ugly!” Gloria called from somewhere else in the house and Darell shook his head before heading out.

“Diana Beltran…” Wesley smiled and she grinned.

“Wesley Benoit?” She said inquisitively with a smile.

“Seriously, if you hadn’t tutored me all last summer I wouldn’t have gotten in…” He said and she shook her head.

“Football, Wes. They want you.”

“They’ll only give me a scholarship if I kill it in tryouts. After what happened with my knee in October they need to make sure I can still play. And well, if I don’t get on the team then it’s fine, I can still go to UCLA with Micah and Sione.” He said of his best friends, “And that wouldn’t be possible without you. So thank you.” He said and she smiled.

“I was happy to help.” She assured.

Truly, Diana and Wesley were from completely different worlds. He was a popular football jock and she was one of the shy, brainiac, choir geeks. Despite his status, Wesley wasn’t an asshole, none of his main friends were actually, so having to tutor him wasn’t all that hard. From the beginning, his GPA wasn’t bad, Wesley was smart, but his academics didn’t really stand out and in order to get into UCLA without football he needed to have an advantage. So he was taking college transferrable classes over the summer before senior year and he needed help when they were a bit more rigorous than he anticipated. Diana was on track to being valedictorian, so naturally, she was the one he reached out to for help. After spending countless hours together over the summer they became friends and well, he had kissed her over Christmas break, when they met because he had gotten her a Christmas gift. It hadn’t happened again though and well, Diana did like him. He flirted and was sweet and considerate of her and she certainly had a crush on him, but once he didn’t make a move again she had figured it was one sided.

Soon they were heading off to eat and dinner had been great. There were lots of laughing and talking and more importantly, there was an air of comfort and love that she didn’t really feel at home, especially after her brother left to Carnegie Mellon. This was one of the many things that she loved about being around Wesley, being around him and his family was like being in a big hug - so warm, loving, and accepting - all the things that she didn’t really get from her own parents. Eventually, they were dropping her off at home and she was thanking them all for their kindness before getting out of the car.

“Baby, walk her to the door! Be a gentleman!” Gloria said to Wesley and he smiled at Diana who was blushing.

“I was going to anyway.” He said as he undid his seatbelt. And soon he was leaving her at the door as he hugged her tight. He was engulfing her in his embrace, he was 6’1” and she was a mere 5’3” - well 5’2.5” but who’s counting? As they broke apart he smiled down at her, there was a look in his eyes that made her smirk.

“If you thank me one more time I’m go-”

“I was actually wondering if you wanted to go on a date with me?” He asked and her smile dropped.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’d get it if you don’t want to-”

“Wait why? I mean you never…said anything.” She mused and he chuckled.

“What do you mean? I kissed you! You’re the one who never said anything.” He smiled and she shrugged.

“I thought it was just a fluke or something.” She said as he grabbed her hands in his large warm ones.

“Not a fluke. Fully intentional. I like you, Diana. I like you a lot. Please go out with me.” He said and she smiled.

“OK.” She whispered and he laughed happily as he hugged her tight and spun her around a few times before kissing her forehead.

“I’ll plan something and let you know, OK?”

“Sounds good.” She grinned with excitement, “Thanks again for tonight and congrats.”

“Thank you. When does Columbia send their letters?”

“April.” She said and he hummed.

“Well when you get it, we’ll also do something nice for you, OK?”

“OK. Night.” She said as he started walking backwards towards the car.

“Night!” He smiled brightly before getting back in the car and as soon as she let herself into her house they took off. Diana felt her entire heart pounding and her stomach doing flips. Wes liked her! He liked her! And they were going to go on a date.

****Flashback over****

There were a couple tears streaming down her face that she quickly wiped away as she thought about their first date. They had gone to one of those conveyer belt sushi restaurants and they sucked at it, but they had had a lot of fun. And that’s really all it was, though their relationship had only lasted four short months, it was fun and filled with so much joy. It was the first time that she had ever really been happy for that long, without anything being able to burst her bubble and it was heaven. She giggled as she continued flipping through the yearbook, sputtering a laugh through her tears as she saw a picture of them at the senior ditch day, where they were asleep beside each other on their backs, surrounded by a flock of seagulls because their friends had laid out a bunch of snacks around their towels and of course, the class photographer had taken a picture of the insane moment. Then she moved on to the pictures of the senior prom and the graduation…she was in a lot more pictures after she and Wes started dating. Diana had always thought that she’d only be in the portrait section and group photo for the school choir, but Wesley taught her to enjoy life too and once she learned that balance she was able to continue achieving it all the time now. Eventually, her eyes started growing heavy and she was soon fast asleep again.

“Mom?” Diana heard Celeste’s voice and blinked her eyes open slowly, they felt heavy and her vision was a bit blurry.

“Yes, what’s wrong?” She asked pushing herself up to sit.

“Nothing, your alarm has been ringing for the past five minutes.” Celeste said and then looked at the box at the foot of the bed and yearbook that was beside her mom, “Are you OK?”

“Yes, cariño. I was just missing your dad a little bit last night.” She explained and Celeste nodded. She had never really asked a lot about him because she never knew him or even her grandparents from his side. She was used to it just being her and her mom.

“Can I see?” She asked and Diana nodded as she reached for the yearbook and flipped through it, landing on the picture of them from the prom and handing it over to Celeste who immediately smiled.

“He’s so tall!” She smiled.

“Now you know where you get it from.” Diana said quietly as her daughter took in the photo before her, “You’re like a perfect mix of us. You kind of look like me, but you’ve got the same gorgeous smile, one of his best features.” Diana said as she tucked a strand of hair behind Celeste’s ear.

“What was your favorite thing about him?” She asked before looking to her mom, taking full advantage that Diana was being this open about him. Wesley was not someone she talked about all that much, it made her sad and angry for so many reasons, she didn’t like to get caught up in fighting a battle that his family had unfortunately lost. Her need for justice was so great and it made her angry for a really long time, she still hated the man who had so recklessly taken his life and for a long time every time she thought of Wesley it would get clouded over by that and that’s why she was so reluctant to talk about him. She didn’t want to remember him and remember a tragedy all the time.

“He was literally the nicest guy on the planet. I’ve never met anyone with such a gentle heart.” She explained to Celeste, “He was one of the most popular guys in school but he never used that to make other people feel less than him. He was just the brightest light.” Diana smiled, “I don’t know if I’ll ever meet anyone like that again.” She said and Celeste smiled.

“H-how did he die?” She asked carefully.

“It was a car accident.” Diana said and Celeste frowned.

“I’m sorry, mom.” She said as she grabbed Diana’s hand.

“It’s OK, it was a long time ago.” She swallowed thickly, “It just still hurts sometimes.” She explained and Celeste nodded in understanding, “And I know that I don’t really talk about him, but if you have questions about him or us you can ask. I’ve never said it before, but I don’t want you to feel like you can’t ask if you are curious.” Diana said and Celeste nodded, “Also, your therapist might ask about your dad at some point so you can ask me things if that’s something that comes up.” She said. Diana knew Harry might ask Celeste about this since he had asked her and she had completely ignored his question. It might not be all that professional on his end to get information about him from Celeste, but the curiosity would get the best of her if she were in his position, so she would understand.

“OK. I love you, mom.” Celeste said softly, her pretty brown eyes focusing deep into her mother’s.

“I love you too, mamita. Now, we need to get ready for the day.” Diana sighed and Celeste nodded and shut the yearbook before handing it over and soon they were separating and going about their routines for the morning.

*********

Celeste was glad that her mom had opened the door to the topic of her dad. She had never done that before, she had talked about him a few times and she knew that he had died, but not how - she still wanted to know more. What about his parents? Did he have any? Did he have siblings? How long were her parents together that it was still hard for her mom to talk about him? There were a lot of questions brewing in her mind and because of that she had been distracted and didn’t notice that the girls who had been giving her a hard time in school lately were all against the wall of lockers nearest to hers and before she knew it she was tripping and landing roughly onto the ground.

“What the hell, Megan?!” Geri reprimanded the girl laughing with her little clique of friends after tripping Celeste as Oswald, they called him Ozzy, helped Celeste up.

“It wasn’t on purpose!” The girl creased her eyebrows down in offense at being called out for her malicious behavior.

“Sure.” Geri rolled her eyes and Megan just turned around and laughed as she and her friends walked off, “Are you OK?” Geri asked Celeste and she nodded despite the slight pout that was on her face.

“I’m fine.” Celeste grumbled as she proceeded to open up her locker.

“Did you tell your mom about what they did on Monday?” Ozzy asked and Celeste shook her head.

“Girl…” Geri said with concern and Celeste shook her head.

“It’ll be fine, I got a therapist now and he can help me deal, OK? He promised he won’t say anything to my mom unless I give him permission and-”

“That’s not how it works, if you’re in danger they can say whatever they want to your mom!”

“I’m not in danger, guys. She just-”

“Violently elbowed you in the ribs during PE!” Geri said and Celeste sighed.

“We were playing soccer and-”

“You were on the same team! And you have a bruise.” Geri reminded and Celeste sighed.

“I don’t want to make it worse. Maybe I accidentally did something to her and-”

“When?! She came from another middle school! There’s no way She’s just a bully and who knows what she will do next time!” Ozzy added in and Celeste sighed.

“Look, I will talk to my therapist about it and see what he says about it.”

“How is anyone supposed to do anything about it if no one knows?”

“It’ll be fine. Please, just drop it guys.” Celeste shut her locker and rushed off to class.

She had no idea why this girl was so set on being mean to her. It started about two months into school and it was weighing her down. She would find mean notes in her locker, with hateful slurs written at times, around October the notes stopped, but the aggressions started becoming physical and were sporadic. But now, twice in one week? Celeste was scared and worried about what would happen if they ran into each other in the hallway or bathroom alone. What was this girl capable of? And her biggest question of all was why her? It made her blood boil, but she knew better than to do anything back, though deep inside she wanted to retaliate sometimes because it wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to stoop down to Megan’s level, her friends wouldn’t even let her if she tried thankfully, but it was challenging to not feel like exploding sometimes.

All day, there were these micro-aggressions aimed at her whenever their paths would unfortunately cross, Celeste felt that her day couldn’t end sooner and finally, when the last bell rang she was walking over to the bathroom when Geri rushed over to her.

“You don’t want to go in there.” She said tugging Celeste towards the lockers instead.

“Why?”

“Because they wrote something about you in the stall. One of the girls in my class just posted it on instagram.” Geri said with a frown, “I’m on there too, but it’s better not to give it importance. That’s why they’re all rushing in there.” She explained as more girls kept rushing in.

“What did it say?” Celeste asked.

“Just that we’re together-together but in the derogatory kind of phrasing.” Geri said and Celeste’s eyebrows creased together in confusion at what she meant to say, “Rhymes with the word ‘hike’…” Geri said lowly.

“Oh…I was thinking of the other one.” She said, “OK, I mean that’s not insulting, you’re gorgeous.” Celeste smiled at her friend and Geri smiled. Geri wasn’t all that feminine in her physical expression, since about 5th grade she just didn’t like things that are traditionally considered feminine so it had been a longstanding thing for people in school to just assume that she wasn’t straight. Geri wasn’t sure what she was yet - she hadn’t ever really paid much attention to attraction - Celeste nor Ozzy cared about it, that was Geri’s thing to figure out and they cared for her regardless. But again, people were just mean when they didn’t understand things and now they had started a rumor that she and Geri were together, but that didn’t bother Celeste nor Geri.

“Why thank you, so are you.” Geri grinned and they looped arms as they headed off to their lockers together. As soon as Celeste’s locker came into view Megan and her little posse were seen just a few feet away waiting. Geri’s locker was just across the walkway from Celeste’s. “Do you want me to go up with you?”

“It’s OK, you’re just across the hall, it’s fine.” She assured and Geri nodded before they split up. Celeste exhaled as she walked up to her locker and just got to working on the combination.

“So it’s true, you and the freak across the hall are together…” Megan said as she walked up to Celeste’s open locker.

“Don’t act like it wasn’t you who wrote it, Megan.” Celeste huffed out in irritation.

“Oh no, that wasn’t me! But whoever it was had to have seen something between you two. That’s wrong, you know? It’s gross.” Megan said and her friends agreed lowly and the rage that had been at a steady simmer all day was getting to its boiling point in Celeste’s body and she turned to Megan and scoffed.

“You sound stupid saying something so discriminatory, Megan, so just shut up.” Celeste seethed and Megan smirked.

“You wouldn’t be this upset if it wasn’t true.”

“Any human being with compassion and a brain would be upset for you saying something like that about how or who people should love. It’s ignorant. Now if that’s it, please leave.” Celeste huffed and turned back to put her books in her locker.

“Did you just call me ignorant?” Megan asked and Celeste rolled her eyes as she continued moving things in and out of her locker, “Hello!? I’m still talking to you!” She pushed again and Celeste continued ignoring her, Geri was now making her way through the people walking past and to Celeste’s locker, “I said I’m still talking to you!” Megan growled and slammed the locker door shut and Celeste gasped as her eyes started welling up when the metal harshly crushed her fingers before it bounced back.

“Oh shit!” Megan’s friend, Carleigh gasped and they started laughing as they hurried away.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Geri shouted after them as Celeste’s tears started to fall as the pain started radiating through her hand, “Hey, can you bed your fingers?” She asked Celeste who tried and winced as more tears fell down her face and she shook her head.

“Hardly.” She swallowed as she sniffled.

“C’mon, let’s go to the nurse’s office.” Geri said and helped grab the last thing Celeste needed from her locker and then they were off to the nurse.

“Oh my god, what happened?!” The woman asked as Geri escorted a crying Celeste in.

“I accidentally slammed my locker door closed on my hand.” Celeste sniffled and Geri looked at her.

“Celeste.” She said with disappointment and the nurse frowned at the interaction.

“Did someone do this to you?” The nurse asked Celeste and she sighed.

“No. It was an accident.” Celeste insisted.

“Hon, you can be honest with me. If someone did this to you-”

“It was an accident.” She assured through her tears and the woman nodded and proceeded to check out her fingers. They were getting swollen and apart from wrapping them up there was nothing she could really do but give her some pain medication and ice them.

“You’ll probably need to get them x-rayed to make sure they’re not broken.” The woman said and Celeste nodded and was soon hurrying out of the office with Geri on her tail.

“Celeste!” Geri rushed after her, calling her name, “Hey! Why didn’t you say anything? What was that?!”

“Geri, I don’t want to make it worse! Megan is just a bitch!” Celeste cried, not really concerned for having said a curse word.

“She might have broken your fingers! How are you supposed to play guitar or do your homework or-”

“Please, Geri, just drop it!” Celeste shouted and turned around and walked off.

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you guys everywhere. Where’s Celeste going? We have jazz combo.” Ozzy asked with confusion.

“Megan slammed her fingers with her locker door but she told the nurse she did it herself by accident. Think she’s gonna call her mom to pick her up.”

“Oh my god, is she alright?”

“No, she’s pissed. I called her out on it so I think she needs a little space, you can call her later. C’mon.” Geri said and Ozzy spared one more glance to Celeste before he followed Geri off to the band room.

**********

“So they’re not broken?” Diana asked the doctor at the urgent care once again.

“No, the knuckle is likely bruised though, so you will be swollen and in pain for a few days at the very least or a couple weeks at the most.” He told Celeste, “Just continue taking medication and icing them. Elevate them when you can,” He informed them and Diana nodded. “I would encourage you to try and minimize movement as much as you can. I’m going to tape them now and mom, I’m going to show you how to do it, OK? Pay close attention.” The older man said and Diana decided to just record to ensure she didn’t get it wrong. “The first few days here will be the worst of it, so as long as you’re in pain wrap them up. There shouldn’t be pain after a week, if it persists we’ll need to take another look.”

“How long until she’s fully healed? She plays guitar.” Diana shared.

“Typically 2 to 4 weeks, depending on how well you’re looking after yourself. The longer you let ‘em rest the sooner you can get back to your guitar.” The man said and Celeste nodded. After another fifteen minutes they were getting back into the car and heading off.

“I’ll call Justin when we get home and tell him no guitar for a few weeks.”

“Yeah…” Celeste sighed as she rested her head on the window and Diana frowned.

“Ay mi amorcito, you’ll be better soon. Don’t be so hard on yourself, it was just an accident.” Diana confronted her.

Upon hearing that though Celeste’s anger started to flare up again because it hadn’t been an accident at all. Megan had meant to harm her and it was her fault that she had to cancel guitar. That was her favorite part of the week! She had never felt so enraged or helpless in her life and it made her feel so overwhelmed because all she wanted to do was be mean back, but she knew that, that wasn’t a good solution! That wasn’t going to help anything and it made her so upset because she felt stuck. She could tell, but she was scared of what would happen. What more Megan would do to her if she told and she didn’t want this to get worse.

*********

The week had finally come to an end and because Celeste couldn’t do guitar lessons their weekend had started early and Diana decided that a nice late lunch with Grace would be just the thing to get her weekend started. Celeste wasn’t in the mood to go out and Geri planned on spending the night, so before she would get stuck playing host to her teenage daughter and her friend, Diana wanted to spend time with Grace. Grace liked attention and Diana had not been great at giving it these last few weeks so as she settled into the seat across from Grace’s, she was immediately prepared for the gab sesh.

“Girl, I have so much to tell you.” Grace grinned and Diana smiled.

“OK, share away!” Diana giggled and Grace went off about some new gossip from her apartment complex and about her work and everything else that she could think of as Diana just nodded and listened. They were both now sipping on on their drinks and cheering to some accomplishment of Grace’s and then she went a little quiet, which was definitely strange for Grace.

“Ummm…I’m also…kind of seeing someone.” She said more timidly and Diana’s mouth dropped open in a shocked smile.

“YOU?! Dating?!” She asked in shock. Grace had an aversion to dating, she had always said she wouldn’t get married. The idea of it bothered her and she didn’t like answering to anyone for anything. She tended to just hook-up or have little flings with people and that was all.

“Ah! I said seeing, not dating!” She corrected and Diana rolled her eyes.

“Same. Fucking. Thing!” She exclaimed and Grace’s face went all pink with a blush, “So tell me about them! How did it happen?” Diana questioned her excitedly.

“His name is Henry, he is one of the doctors in the building. An optometrist actually from the clinic a floor beneath my office?” She said and Diana grinned, “His family is also Chinese, so that will make my grandmother very happy.” She smiled and Diana didn’t want to butt in about how she was already thinking of introducing him to her family because that was a huge deal, “And we just ran into each other in the elevator sometimes and ummm we would like awkwardly greet each other and ride up in silence, you know? He was so cute, so I would always look forward to running into him. But them ummm, I accidentally dinged his car one afternoon and-” she said and Diana squinted her eyes in suspicion.

“Wait. Doesn’t the optometrist’s office have name plates to reserve their doctors’ parking spots?” She asked as she faintly recalled Grace mentioning that because it irked her that she had to park far away sometimes and then Diana gasped, “Did you hit his car on purpose?!” She asked with a laugh and Grace groaned.

“No! I mean, I saw that a day before the super had removed the old nameplate and he’s new there so I figured I would learn his name from the nameplate and I got a little too close as I drove by and just lightly…hit his…lovely Tesla.” She recounted, feeling completely bashful and Diana laughed lightly at her friend’s mishap and Grace just covered her face in embarrassment.

“Oh my god….” Diana mumbled, feeling her own cheeks heat up with some secondhand embarrassment, “You couldn’t have checked their website?”

“I did! They hadn’t updated it yet, OK?!” Grace said and Diana giggled, “Well, I had to go tell him… I was thinking of leaving a note, but then he’d probably review the footage because those fucking cars record everything! And I didn’t want him to see that I was snooping, you know?” She explained herself, “So I did the nice thing and went up there and embarrassed myself…I specifically made a joke about how he didn’t need to review the footage to see why there was a slight scrape on his car. Like turns out it was literally minimal damage, my paint rubbed off on his, it wasn’t even scratched.” She explained and Diana nodded, “But I didn’t know that then, I was freaking out. So we swapped contact info and I let him know that I’d file the claim and that it should all be handled and he was so sweet about it. So the next morning we ran into each other in the elevator again and well, we said our good morning, as we usually did when we’d ride up together and there was just so much tension. Like you could just feel it! You know I don’t get nervous, but I was so nervous!” She shared and Diana pouted with endearment, “And then out of nowhere he’s like, “So is there a reason why you were driving so close to the parked cars?” And I wanted to die!” She said and Diana started laughing, “I swear it felt like I was in a sitcom and I just went pink and he laughed a little as I asked him why he went back to look at the footage after I hinted at him not too. Anyway, he missed his floor and rode up to my floor with me as we laughed about it for a bit and then I just told him I wanted to know his name and I figured it would be on the nameplate and so that led to more laughing… I mean, I could’ve just asked any time… but I don’t know, it was…different.” She said with a smile and Diana nodded and smiled.

“Yeah, I get it.” She agreed and Grace exhaled and she shrugged.

“So we officially introduced ourselves and went about our days and then he texted me later that night to see if I wanted to go out for drinks with him some time and we did and it’s been…maybe almost a month? We’ve gone out three times…and he’s really, really cool and I really like him. We haven’t even fooled around, like no more than making out…like I want to, but I also don’t want to just water it down into a hookup without knowing what potential it has, you know?” She said and Diana hummed in understanding, “He and his friends do like escape rooms like once a month, because they’re all nerds.” She said and Diana giggled, “And he wants me to go to meet them, so that’s happening next week on Friday night.” She shared.

“I love this for you, Grace. A literal rom-com could be written about how you guys met!”Diana said and Grace laughed softly, “Are you nervous?”

“I am…yeah. He had originally wanted me to meet them at this Lunar New Year dinner he had planned, but I promised my mom I would go to their celebration since I didn’t last year and I couldn’t go. So I’ve kind of stalled it and now I feel more anxious about it.”

“Well, be as nervous as you want, but they’re going to love you.” Diana assured and Grace cooed.

Their hangout ended up extending well into the night with Grace also deciding to have a sleep over - they decided to make mocktails for them and the girls and did some karaoke in the living room. Diana had mentioned Celeste’s accident to Grace and just how bummed out she was about not being able to play, so they wanted to do something to cheer her up and it seemed like it worked. Or at least Diana hoped it had.

*********

Celeste had been miserable all weekend without being able to play guitar; it was what she did all the time at any given chance, she loved to practice and she was so great at it. It helped her deal with all of the pent up anger and frustrations in her life, it made her feel happier to play. And things that made her happy were in short supply these days. Her mom, Grace, and Geri were able to distract her on Friday night with mocktails and karaoke, but as soon as that was over she was back to feeling blue, especially now. She felt so miserable going back to school, she wouldn’t even be able to take notes as her fingers were still bandaged up. The day only seemed to be getting worse because as soon as she, Ozzy, and Geri walked in people started whispering about them, some even came up to them to make their crude remarks. So obviously, the weekend had done nothing to give these cretins she called her peers something better to talk about.

“Just ignore them…” Ozzy said and they both nodded. Geri was great at keeping herself calm and collected, of course hurtful things impacted her, but she wouldn’t get as worked up about it as Celeste did. Celeste didn’t understand why and that’s what pissed her off. Why were people so cruel and so focused on everyone else instead of looking at themselves for a change. It made her blood boil and even more, it made her wish ill on them sometimes. She never went into specifics about what she hoped would happen, all she would think in her mind was that she hoped they got what they deserved or that karma would kick their asses and despite that being quite a normal reaction, she felt like a really shitty person for it and she wasn’t sure how to cope with that, she had never felt that way before.

Thankfully Megan was nowhere in sight and right before the bell rang they hurried into the bathroom and unfortunately she had used the stall where they had written that thing about her and Geri, but she found that there were more things written about her on the wall, that’s probably why they had all rushed in after classes, to add to it. She came out of the stall jaw tense and eyes locked hard on her hands as she washed them.

“God, looks like you’re gonna break a tooth!” Geri said and Celeste sighed.

“They added more to it.” She said and Geri frowned, “…not about you, about me.” She said.

“I’m sorry, if we tell the janitor he’ll come paint over it.” She said and Celeste sighed.

“I’ll survive. Thankfully I have therapy this afternoon so hopefully that’ll help me keep it together.” Celeste said in relief and Geri nodded with a smile. However, they had no idea that one of Megan’s friends was occupying the stalls and listening to everything that they had just talked about.

*********

Much to Harry’s simultaneous disappointment and relief, Diana hadn’t come up to his office to drop off Celeste. And without him even asking, she informed him that she had to go find a parking spot and would be up at some point if he needed to talk to her again. Harry assured her that it should be fine and he grabbed his notepad and sat in his usual seat and Celeste sat in the center of the couch this time, not so far, but still keeping some distance there. She seemed tense and very in her head today from what he observed and as he tried to gauge her mood from her body language he saw the wraps over her fingers on her right hand.

“That’s new, what happened?” He asked and she looked up to him.

“Oh that…” she said of her fingers and he nodded, “Just an accident, slammed them with the locker door.” She explained and he winced.

“God, that must’ve hurt.”

“Yeah.” She said and grew quiet again. Silence was something that Harry had become comfortable with as a mental health professional and it seemed to rattle most everyone else. People didn’t know what to do with the silence and it seemed that Celeste felt the same and just cleared her throat before looking up at him expectantly as he just doodled some flowers into the notepad, “What’re you writing if I’m not even talking?” She asked and he smiled as he looked up to her turned the notepad over to show her his little doodles and she scoffed through a laugh, “Nice.” She said with a hint of irony, “I’m sure my mom’ll be so happy to know she’s paying you to doodle flowers.” Celeste mumbled lowly and Harry’s eyebrows raised in slight shock, it was amusing to him and he almost wanted to laugh at her sass. The sweet and shy young girl he had encountered a week prior seemed to be locked somewhere far away inside of her.

“Whoa, sensing some hostility there.” He said instead and she crossed her arms, “What’s going on?” He asked and she sighed. Now that she was here she felt like she could just express her frustrations and let them be and she hadn’t meant to be snippy with Dr. Styles, but there was so much pent up inside of her that she just needed to get it out and unfortunately it had been him who got the brunt of it. She had been short with her mom too on the way over, but her mom was well, her mom, and Dr. Styles was a stranger and he just wanted to help her, “I get paid to listen, by the way and I’m listening to your silence but I’m also not a mind-reader, I don’t know what’s going on unless you talk to me.” He reminded her and she sighed.

“I’m really…angry.” She finally said and he nodded.

“OK, describe it to me. What does anger make you feel?” He asked and she started explaining how she felt like she was just swelling with it. How it made her feel impulsive and spiteful and completely helpless, which was an interesting feeling to be combined with anger. He carried on with that, her feeling helpless in her anger, “And why do you feel helpless about it?”

“Because I can’t do anything about it!” She finally let out a sob and he frowned as he quickly reached for the tissue box on the little coffee table before them and she grabbed it from him and dabbed at her eyes carefully, “I’ve never felt anger like this before.” She explained.

“Do you mean you can’t express it?” He asked.

“I think I am expressing it now…” she said and he nodded, of course she was, “But it’s just not how I…want to express it. It’s not that kind of anger.” She sighed in exasperation as she tried to explain what she meant without feeling completely insane and evil.

“I feel like you know what you want to say but are skirting around it. Do I have that right?” He asked and she nibbled on her lip and cast her gaze down to her shoes and away from his face, “I’m not here to judge, Celeste. I’m here to help.” He said calmly and she looked into his eyes and she sighed, not really believing that she was about to tell him what exactly she was feeling like.

“Have you ever just wanted to…take revenge?” She asked.

“Is that what you want to do?” He asked and she sighed.

“Sometimes.”

“On the girls that pick on you at school?” He asked and she nodded.

“I know that it’s wrong and mean of me to wish that something bad happens to them, but if that would just get them to stop…” Celeste explained through her tears, “I just don’t know why me and it makes me so mad, Dr. Styles!” She vented as more tears started to fall. He could just hear the frustration in her voice, “I’ve never done anything to any of them! It’s not fair!” She wept and he frowned as she just started to get it all off her chest. Everything they had done the week prior she shared, minus the fact that it had been Megan who hurt her and he listened attentively, “I know Geri and Ozzy mean well, but I’m tired of hearing them say to just ignore them. It’s not doing anything!” She finished her rant with so much defeat in her voice.

“Well realistically, what are some things that you could do to see improvement?” He asked and she could really only think of one thing.

“I could…tell someone.” She said and he nodded.

“Right and Celeste, I think you should really consider that option. Say that one day you are so fed up that you retaliate and you’ve never told anyone or reported anything, whose gonna be the one who ends up in trouble?” He asked and she sighed as she realized the truth.

“M-me.”

“Right and that wouldn’t be fair. You’ve tried everything you can possibly do to get through this without involving anyone else. You’ve stood up for yourself, you’ve had your friends help, you’ve tried ignoring it…the next step is just to tell someone who can do something about it.” He said and she looked at him nervously.

“I’m scared it’ll make it worse.” She explained with a tone of concern.

“Yeah, that’s always a possibility.” He said and she sighed. He didn’t want to lie to her and tell her everything would get better, because it might get worse before it got better, “But how is anyone supposed to help if they don’t know what’s going on?” He asked and she nodded along. He was right, she knew she had to the next time that Megan or one of her friends did something to her. Most of her feelings of depression stemmed from this situation that she was facing, he knew that it was something that she had yet to share with Diana, at least about how bad it actually was, “I know that you’re still a little concerned with telling her, but maybe if your mom knew she could speak to someone at the school.” He suggested.

“I don’t want to worry her, Dr. Styles.” She explained.

“Let me tell you something about parents, it doesn’t matter what you do, they will always worry for you. Not because they don’t trust you, but because they love you.” He explained kindly.

“How do you know? Do you have kids?” She asked and he shook his head.

“No, but my mum told me that.” He smiled and she bit her lip as she gave it some thought.

“She’s gonna get mad that I didn’t tell her…I tell her everything…well, almost everything.”

“Do you think she’ll be mad at you?” He asked and she thought about it for a second.

“I don’t know, maybe a little bit…but mostly that people are picking on me.” She reasoned and he hummed as she gave it some more thought, “She’s never been that kind of parent to make me feel bad when I make a mistake.” She explained.

“And you think it’s a mistake, that you didn’t tell her?” He asked and she shrugged.

“I guess it feels like it.” She explained.

What it boiled down to was that Celeste felt guilty for not telling Diana about what was going on at school. She knew that despite how calm about everything Diana seemed, that deep down she was worried and probably saddened over the fact that Celeste was struggling. Harry helped her process that and gave her tips on how to deal with that guilty feeling that often came in tow with depression, Celeste was open to getting better, which was one of the biggest things. A lot of people wanted to get better, but sometimes they just weren’t ready to, but she was ready and willing to try anything. She felt so unlike herself and it was admirable how resilient Celeste seemed to be. So as their session came close to time Harry made sure to tell her how proud he was of her and that he could see that she was really working hard and well, Celeste really needed to hear that.

“Thank you, Dr. Styles.” Celeste sighed and he smiled at her, “Ummm…before I go…I need to tell you one more thing.” She said, looking away from him and down at her shoes. She was nervous.

“OK, what is it?” He asked and she sighed shakily, feeling even more nervous now because she had lied about it at the start.

“Th-the injury to my fingers wasn’t an accident. It was the girl that’s been picking on me, Megan.” She said looking up to him and he frowned.

“Celeste, that, I need to tell your mom.” He informed her and she sighed, feeling all nauseous and anxious now, “Did you report it at the school?” He asked and she shook her head, “OK, it’s alright. But your mom needs to know, if you want to tell her, I can be here for moral support, but she needs to know because this has escalated to far more than just mean names. You do understand that, right?” He asked and she nodded, her eyes were welling up again.

“Can you just tell her? Maybe you can talk her down before she talks to me…” she said, voice quivering and he sighed.

“I can, but she’s still gonna talk to you about it.”

“I know, but maybe she won’t be as upset that I lied about it after talking to you.” She explained and Harry bit his lip. He understood where she was coming from, but being around her was hard for him. His mind drifted to her for days after they had coffee, but that was gone now and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to be around her again one-on-one, “Please, Dr. Styles.” Celeste begged with tears welling up her big, brown eyes and he just couldn’t say no, he had a huge soft spot for kids, especially when he knew that they were dealing with hardships that they were still too young to comprehend - much like she was and before he could overthink it he nodded.

“OK. C’mon.” He said as he stood and she was so rigid he smiled at her, “Deep breaths, it’ll be OK.” He assured and she inhaled deeply and exhaled before they headed to the door. When they opened up the door Diana looked up from her spot on the couch, she had her laptop on her lap and she closed it quickly as Celeste approached.

“Ready to go?” She asked Celeste with a smile and she just glanced back to Harry who cleared his throat.

“Actually, can I talk to you for a moment, Diana?” He asked and her eyebrows creased in concern.

“Uh, yeah.” She said as she put her laptop in her tote and headed over towards him.

“Oh mom, here!” Celeste said, handing her the money that she was supposed to leave to Harry as payment, “I forgot, sorry.” She said and Diana smiled and grabbed it before following Harry inside his office.

She bit her lip when she heard the door shut behind them and she assumed that he wanted to ask her about what happened the last time they had talked at the cafe. She was mentally preparing to say that she didn’t think it was any of his business but that he also didn’t need to apologize for it because, how would he know that it was a touchy subject for her and as she was rambling on and on in her mind Harry found himself distracted as he walked passed her to have a seat. It was in passing, but her perfume was absolutely intoxicating, cherries, is what he smelled. It was absolutely delicious and warm and inviting and he just wanted to hug her and inhale it all off of her skin. It made his mind so fuzzy that he didn’t even notice that she too was really in her head about something. It wasn’t until they both realized that they had just been sitting quietly for a few moments that they focused back on whatever he had called her in for.

“Sorry, I was a bit distracted.” She said, “What ummm, did you need to talk to me about?” She asked and he sighed.

“It’s about Celeste.” He started and Diana immediately frowned, “She just told me that her injury wasn’t an accident.” He said and he just saw the look of concern completely wash over Diana’s face.

“Someone did that to her?” She asked again, still not fully believing what she was hearing.

“Yeah, so…some girls have been picking on her for a while. Mostly just name calling and teasing, getting under her skin that way, but now it’s escalated to this and well, I told her that we needed to tell you about it because she could be in danger of getting hurt again and-”

“Why would she not tell me about this?” Diana asked with a frown and Harry rolled his lips together as he saw Diana’s eyes start to well up.

“She didn’t want to worry you and well, she wanted me to tell you now because she was worried that you would be upset at her for lying about it when it first happened.” He explained and Diana shook her head as she reached for a tissue from the box before her on the little coffee table and dabbed at her eyes briefly.

She understood what that felt like, being afraid to be honest with your parents, everyone feels that at some point. Her parents, especially her mom, was particularly awful and hard on her, so she hid a lot of things from her. When she found out she was pregnant the first thing she told herself was that she would never be like her mother.

“Has she said anything about…” she started and stopped, she knew that he couldn’t very well tell her what they had talked about all the time but now she was worried about how she might be doing as a mom, “Let me rephrase that, is it something I’m doing? You know, that made her feel like she couldn’t come to me?” Diana asked and Harry shook his head right away.

“No, not at all. She was just scared that if she told and the girl got in trouble it would just make things worse for her. It’s not you.” He assured her and Diana sniffled and nodded, “I think you should talk to someone at the school about this. If that girl is capable of something like this…I mean, what more is she capable of?” He said and Diana’s tears fell faster as she nodded.

“Fuck…” she whispered as she set the tissue down and placed her hands on her knees and looked straight ahead, “I can’t even begin to think about that, Harry.” She said with a quake to her voice and he reached for her hand, he hadn’t really thought about it when he did it until he felt her warm hand under his and the way that it seemed to shoot a bolt of electricity through them and they both looked down at their hands and he pulled his away quickly.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized immediately and she shook her head, ignoring that feeling it gave her, she figured it was very one-sided, he was just trying to comfort her.

“It’s alright.” She assured him, but that didn’t do much to make him feel better about his lack of self-control, “Is this the first time that something like this happens to her?”

“From what she’s told me, yes. I wouldn’t want anything to happen again, you know?”

“Right.” She agreed and then took a deep breath to compose herself before she walked out to see Celeste. She was so angry and hurt at what her daughter was going through, she wanted to fix it somehow. She felt helpless because she couldn’t do anything but leave this other girl in the hands of the school and after what Celeste had told her about the counselor she truly had very little confidence in their ability to deal with this appropriately and that scared her.

“Are you alright? Can I get you water or anything?” He asked and she nodded.

“I’m fine, I just…wasn’t prepared to hear that.” She explained to him, “I ummm…” she paused and shook her head, “I thought you were going to bring up what happened at the cafe, with Celeste’s dad, again.” She explained, “I was like super weird about it because it’s kind of a touchy subject for me.” She explained.

“Yeah, I noticed.” He responded with a slight smile and she nodded with a smile as well.

“I…dreamt about him after that and I was able to talk to Celeste about him. I don’t bring him up much because it’s still hurts sometimes…he died.” She explained and Harry nodded with a frown as he listened, “But I did talk her about it so it’s not some mystery to her and I know she may bring it up in here at times, so you can ask if it comes up.” She explained and he nodded in understanding.

“OK.” He smiled and she nodded before it went quiet between them again for a moment, “Do you still love him?” He asked her. Harry hadn’t even thought it through, he just wanted to know.

“I mean, he was my first love, I think a part of you always has a little love for your first love, but no not like I used to.” She explained and he hummed, “But he was the first person who made me feel strong and special and who just loved me for me. He made me feel good about me, you know?” She explained and he nodded and then she chuckled and rolled her eyes, “I mean… I’m sure it wasn’t that deep. We were kids, so maybe I’m playing it up too much…” she dismissed what she had said before and he shook his head.

“No, I don’t think you are. I mean, we love so purely when we’re young. Especially the first time around.” He said and she looked into his eyes, “It’s your first time feeling that way,” he smiled, “so you love with your whole heart, no limitations.” He explained, “You’ve never experienced heartbreak or betrayal in that sense, so you have no fear of it, you know? You give it your all and that’s…a hard feeling to replicate as we get older I think.” He reasoned and she nodded, not able to take her eyes away from his own, her brain was completely captivated by him, especially from up close, the patterns in his irises were so beautiful, “It makes sense that we remember that for life and that we hold on to those people in some way, especially if it was going really well.” He finished and she smiled at him and he smiled as well and looked down at the space between them a bit bashfully, “Sorry, we’re way off topic here.” He mumbled and she nodded.

“Right. That’s my fault, I’m sorry. But thank you for telling me about Celeste, I’ll talk to someone in admin tomorrow and see what can be done.” She said before standing and he followed suit.

“Yeah, hopefully they can be of some help.” He said and she nodded. Before she left she paid him and then she walked out but he didn’t follow, which she was grateful for because being near him made her mind go all fuzzy and out of whack. He was her daughter’s therapist for fuck’s sake, she couldn’t think of him as anything more than that. He wasn’t her friend or buddy just because he was working with her daughter; she needed to limit their interactions to Celeste’s matters and nothing more.

“Vamos, cariño.” Diana said quietly with a smile to Celeste who nodded and soon followed her out to the elevator. They rode down in silence, but Celeste was leaning on Diana’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before.” Celeste spoke quietly and Diana shook her head.

“I get it, sweetie. I was a kid at one point too. I know it’s hard to talk to your parents about some things and I know you’ll want to keep some things private and that’s perfectly fine, but if someone is hurting you physically, emotionally, mentally, I don’t care about anything else, please know that you can trust me and I will never make you feel guilty for finding the right way and time to do that.” She said and Celeste’s eyes welled up with tears as she hugged her mom tightly and Diana sniffled as well, “I love you. We’re gonna figure this out, OK? Gonna talk to admin tomorrow.” She said and Celeste nodded.

“Just…don’t go crazy on them. I never reported the girl, Megan, so they don’t know about anything.” She said and Diana nodded.

“I won’t, I swear.” She agreed and Celeste smiled.

***********

It was getting hard for Diana to keep her promise to Celeste as she sat in the school office waiting to talk to the principal. Especially when she could hear the VP and someone one else in there giggling and chatting about some wedding someone had gone to over the weekend. Diana had informed the receptionist that she had to report some bullying towards her daughter, she wasn’t sure how that wasn’t a pressing matter to these people. She was losing her patience, it had been 15 minutes of waiting around and tapping her foot as she stared at the door labeled Principal Whittaker. Diana got up from the chairs outside of the principal’s office and rounded the corner to the reception desk again.

“Hi again,” she told the young man at the desk, his name was Ethan according to his plaque, “Did she say how long of a wait?” She asked Ethan.

“I’ve tried calling her a few times and sent her an IM, she hasn’t answered either.” He said and Diana nodded.

“Thank you, Ethan.” She said and he nodded before she rounded the corner back to the principal’s office and sat down, this time on the edge of her seat as she debated between being patient or knocking on the lady’s door. And then she heard them quietly say that Ethan was calling again, someone called him incompetent and that he always had questions and that’s when Diana’s patience had reached it’s limit. She stood up and knocked on the door a few times and there was some laughter before the door opened up and whoever had opened the door was not expecting it to be her.

“Hi, may I help you?” The woman asked and Diana smiled.

“Yeah, I’m the parent that Ethan’s been trying to call you about.” She said looking past the woman at the door to the principal who was sitting at her desk and her eyes went a bit wide, “I’ve been hanging out, out here for the last 15 minutes or so?” She said and the woman at the door just walked out without another word and the VP smiled and walked past her as well as Diana just made her way inside towards the principal’s desk.

“Well thank you for your patience, what can I help you with?” The lady asked.

“I’m Diana Beltran, my daughter, Celeste, is being bullied and I’d to report that and for it to be investigated.” She said as she just took a seat and the woman’s expression changed to one of concern.

“Oh, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.” She apologized immediately.

“I just want to ensure that my daughter can be safe here.” She said and the principal nodded as she started asked what happened. Diana explained everything Celeste had shared with her, how Geri had witnessed it and how she had been scared to come forward about it when it first happened, “From what I understand there have been other aggressions towards her since the fall, but they just started to escalate to physical ones and I would hope that this is the last occurrence of it’s kind.”

“Certainly, Ms. Beltran. I will launch an investigation and begin interviewing all of those involved.” She explained and Diana nodded.

“What if the other girl denies it?” She asked.

“We have camera’s in the hallways, we will begin reviewing the footage to see what happened. Don’t worry, Miss Beltran. We take these allegations very seriously here and I promise you that we will get to the bottom of this.” The principal ensured and Diana nodded before leaving.

Obviously, she was worried about what would happen next, she knew that things might get a little bit worse before they got better. Bullies tended to vengeful and might want to retaliate, but she hoped that having some sort of disciplinary measures enforced would at least throw this girl off of her game so that Celeste could be at peace. She was prepared to hold her hand through this fight and well, she knew that Harry was helping. He was able to help her work up the courage to fill her in on what was going on and from what Celeste was explain to her about their session, he also helped her learn to cope with her frustration and anger. Much like her, Celeste had a taste for justice and it was hard sometimes to not take matters into your own hands. As she got into her car and she debated on what she was about to do for a moment and then just decided to call Harry’s office before taking off. The phone rang a few times through the bluetooth as she made her way to the university and after a few moments it stopped.

“Styles Psychiatric Practice, this is Dr. Styles, how can I help you?” His voice came through the speaker.

“H-hi Harry, it’s Diana.” She spoke with some uncertainty at first.

“Diana, hi. Is everything alright?” He asked right away.

“Yeah. I just left Celeste’s school, was able to submit a report for what happened and they’re gonna do an investigation. I’m just a little worried that this other girl will try to retaliate and it might get a little rough for her this week. If you have an opening on Friday can I just make an appointment for her just in case she needs a little extra help? She seems to really open up to you and I want to make sure that someone can hear her out.” She said.

“Yeah, of course. I’ve got 11, 4, or 5 open.” He said.

“I’ll take the 4pm.”

“Perfect.” He said.

“Thank you for your help with all of this. I appreciate it.” She said.

“Of course. If anything comes up sooner just let me know, OK?”

“I will. Thank you, Harry.” She said once more before they hung up.

*********

All day Harry had been thinking about Celeste, hoping that she was at peace with the decision of having Diana go and report what was happening to her at school. He had never been victimized, personally, but he could only imagine how scary it might be to go about life knowing there’s a target on your back, being filled with uncertainty about your safety. It wasn’t something any child should have to deal with and if there were anything he could do to just put an end to all of that, he would do it instantly.

“Hey babe, are you alright?” Rebecca asked Harry, forcing him to zone back in from being lost in his thoughts.

“Hmmm?” He asked in confusion.

“You seem really in your head.” She said as she stabbed some veggies on her plate with the fork in her hand.

“Oh, just a client of mine, that new one I told you about. Well she’s being bullied at school and just told her mom, she was gonna go talk to the principal today and I was just wondering how that went.” He explained and Rebecca nodded.

“Oh, well hopefully well. It’s the best thing to do. What happened?” She asked and he nodded.

“Yeah, I think so too. The girl bullying my client slammed my client’s locker door closed on her fingers.” He said and Rebecca frowned.

“Oh my god…” she exclaimed in shock and he nodded.

“I know, poor girl was terrified of what would happen to her if she told someone.”

“Rightfully so! And well, if this one doesn’t have a happy ending you can always refer her mother to me.” Rebecca said and Harry scowled as he looked up from his dinner plate to Rebecca.

“Why would you say that? God, Becs…” Harry shook his head with disapproval.

“I didn’t mean it like that! I meant badly as in if the school doesn’t do anything about it or the girl retaliates against your client or something.”

“Oh…It didn’t sound like that.” He explained and Rebecca shook her head.

“I know I can be opportunistic, but not to that extent, babe.” She said and he hummed with a chuckle as she smiled.

“Oh babe, Henry texted me earlier about the escape room for Friday, wanted to get a headcount before booking.”

“Yeah, I’m in. If you don’t mind, can we add one more? There’s a new lawyer at the office, he just finished school last summer and got hired out here and he doesn’t have many friends around here yet. He’s pretty chill.” She said as she collected some sauce on the broccoli she was about to eat.

“I don’t see why not. Let me text him now.” Harry said as he pulled out his phone and texted Henry. He and Rebecca were just having a quiet night in at his place after what seemed like a long time of not seeing each other, they at least tried for twice a week, it was their rule of thumb, but that hadn’t happened.

Rebecca had been extremely busy over the last week and even had to cancel their trek to the farmer’s market, something they did typically every Saturday morning just to have everything prepped for the court appearances this week. She was still doing a lot of leg work for the partners of the firm or filing paperwork to the courts, so it wasn’t exactly her dream job, but she was meticulous and smart and Harry understood why any of the lawyers in her firm would want her to be the one to help them with case prep. Lately, Rebecca seemed extremely overworked though, but she wasn’t as agitated like she normally was, so that was good. Maybe she had taken his repeated advise to get some help. But knowing Rebecca, it was more that she just put her mind to not complain about work that she had agreed to do. Before she would be in tears from the pressure sometimes and the way she would explain it to him was that it would be stupid of her to turn down an opportunity to learn and network with people in better positions than her…if Rebecca was anything, she was ambitious, tenacious, and reliable, traits that were surely admirable to people in her line of work. So he just stopped trying to get her to taken on less a while ago.

“You’re doing it again. Froze up mid text.” She giggled and he sighed and shook his head.

“Geez… sorry, this time I was thinking about you, I swear.” He said with a smile and her grin widened.

“Oh really? What about me?” She asked and he set down his phone.

“Just how hard you work and how proud of you I am.” He said simply and Rebecca smiled before continuing to eat and Harry got back to texting Henry. They were clearing up the dinner plates when he texted back that there was a change of plan, “OK, so Henry says Grace is bringing her friend too. So it’ll be six of us and Henry took that as an opportunity to book a harder room.” He shared with Rebecca.

“OK, should be fun though. Eddie would like that, that’s the new guy who got hired.” She explained and he hummed, “That way he won’t need to third-wheel us!” She said excitedly and he hummed.

“Good thinking! Alright, so dessert…you can choose between ice cream or…” he said looking through the freezer as if searching for something more, “We can just…skip dessert.” He said suggestively as he turned around and she smirked.

“You are speaking my language.” She said as Harry rounded the counter to get to her and he dipped her down in a playful kiss, “Mmmm, wanna have a quick body shower.” She mumbled against his lips, “Gonna grab my overnight bag from the car and hop in.” She said and Harry let her go.

“Oh, staying the night are you? That’s a surprise.” He said excitedly and she playfully rolled her eyes.

“I bailed on you last week so I owe you.” She reminded and he chuckled.

“You don’t owe me, I get that you’re busy, love.”

“I appreciate that you’re so understanding about this, H. I know it might be annoying to schedule and reschedule, but I really just want to advance quickly at the firm and I hope I can soon.” She explained and he hummed.

“M’sure you will. Now take your time, baby. Gonna load up the dishwasher and pack up the left overs.” He said and she kissed his cheek before hurrying off. He heard her come back in and head to his bedroom as he continued packing the left overs. He then heard a phone ring and it wasn’t his, so he peeked over to the table and saw she had left hers there. He rounded the kitchen island once more and just before he got there it stopped. He was gonna take it to her because it could be work and as he picked it up a text came in from an Eduardo Zamora that read, “Hey are you still coming over tonight or are you gonna stay with your boyfriend?” And that made Harry’s stomach flip uncomfortably as Rebecca rushed out.

“Hey, I heard my phone ring!” She said and he turned with it in his hands, she was wrapped in a towel already.

“Yeah, here. Was gonna take it to you.” He said handing it over and deciding to not jump to any conclusions. He trusted her; everything about this relationship was open and it worked because they were very verbal about what was good and what wasn’t and if she wasn’t happy she would have said it a long time ago. Rebecca looked over her phone and panicked internally when she saw Eddie’s text on the screen and she glanced over to Harry who was now back in the kitchen, “Hey H, that text-”

“What text?”

“I know you saw it, it’s on the screen.” She said and he hummed, “Eddie had some prep work to do tonight and I had told him that if we ended up just doing a quick dinner I would go over and help him with it. It’s for one of the partners and she’s very particular about how she organizes things.” She said as she came up behind him.

Harry wanted to believe her, whole heartedly, but she never went on and on like this. And if she had intended to stay over with him why didn’t she just bring her overnight bag down when she arrived and surprise him then? And why did she plan to go help Eddie if she intended to stay the night with him? It wasn’t adding up. There were a lot of big things here that were so out of character for her and his gut was telling him that she was lying to his face. But Harry also tended to jump to conclusions and see what wasn’t always there, so he just turned and nodded.

“I believe you, love. I’m not upset.” He assured her, swallowing down that feeling in his gut that made his stomach turn.

“OK. I love you.” She said and he smiled.

“I love you too.” He replied and she hurried off again with her phone this time.

---- Tag List ----

@sunshinemoonsposts @matildasatellite @sad-avocado @angelbabyyy99 @gurugirl @jessitpwk @sunflovverharry @reveriehs @justlemmeadoreyou @daphnesutton @cherrysulewski @permanentllyharry @here4thefanfics

#wonderful world #wonderful world series #harry styles fanfic series #harry styles fic series #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry fan fiction #therapist harry fic #theraparry #therapist harry styles #therapist harry #harry styles x oc #harry styles slow burn #harry styles forbidden romance #harry styles flulff #harry styles angst #harry styles writing #writing #0nlythrowharrybeaux

30 notes · View notes

aragarna · 3 months

Note

Oooh, fun ! SO ! Zorro OR White Collar ? Sergeant Garcia OR Corporal Reyes ? Don Alejandro OR Captain Monastorio ? DW!Bernardo OR 2024!Bernardo ? Cats OR dogs ? TV Series OR Films ? Books OR adaptations ? Star Trek OR Star Wars ? Annnd I'll stop there or I'll write so much more. As I said before... FUN ! x) Thank you, and take care !

AAAAAH how dare you attack me like that? XD

Zorro or White Collar? I'm afraid I'm gonna have to say White Collar. It was, is and will forever be my #1 show. I've loved it dearly, I still have just as much pleasure rewatching it, for the millionth time. I've lived some amazing times, which are unlikely to happen again - I've been to the set, met other fans, made friends, met the crew, and of course, met the cast. It was such a great experience and I'll cherish it forever.

Garcia or Reyes? But they come as a pair! Would you separate Laurel from Hardy? Asterix from Obelix? Peter from Neal? But I suppose, if you force my hand, I'll say Sergeant Garcia. He's a bit more developed as a character, while Reyes is mostly just there for comic relief. I do like Sergeant Garcia. He's often put in a complicated situation, stuck between a tyrannic boss and a jokster outlaw who makes fun of him. But he is truly a good man.

Don Alejandro or Captain Monastario? Alejandro I suppose. Monastario is a great villain, a great opponent for Zorro, but he's a terrible human being.

1957!Bernardo or 2024!Bernardo? Hmmm that's a tough question. I honestly can't say. I love them both, they both have a lovely relationship with their respective Diego. Maybe I'll go with 1957!Bernardo, cause I like his cunning way to use everyone's stupid prejudice toward his handicap against them. Oh he's deaf and mute, he must be stupid. He's harmless. Fools, all fools!

Cats or dogs? Indifferent, to be honest. Not really a pet person. Shocking, I know, sorry!

TV shows or films? Fun facts: for the longest time (until 2005-ish) I rarely watched any TV. But I have to admit that lately it seems TV has become more interesting, more daring, that the US film industry. French industry is blooming though. I'd say films, for the appreciation of the real art of filmmaking. TV shows for comfort and quiet obsession.

Books or Adaptations? Most of the time, books, though there has been cases of good adaptations (The Martian, for instance), or even, adaptations that were better than the book (Minority Report)

Star Trek or Star Wars? I'll go with Star Wars, mostly because I'm more familiar with it. Because I grew up with the prelogy. Because Obiwan and Andor. While I've only seen the 2 JJ Abrams Star Trek movies...

Sorry I took so long to answer. I had a long week (and you asked a lot LOL). Also, would love to know who you are, Anon, so that I can ask you back. ;-)

#a meme!#about me #sorry for the late answer #also you're supposed to give me one specific “or”#to make me choose #and i'd make a gifset

2 notes · View notes

fromxxthexxashes · 1 year

Text

My thoughts on Supernatural if it were on different networks/platforms.

ABC: No gore. No brutal murders on screen. So much melodrama. A lot more characters. Many love triangles. Maybe Destiel, but if it was leaning that way they would have had a complicated on and off thing. It would probably play second fiddle to an over complicated romance for Sam.

HBO: More gore and darker themes. More explicit content (lots of seggs). Also F-bombs. Mostly from Dean. Dean’s alcolism and Sam’s demon blood addiction would have been highlighted more and it would be way darker. Destiel would be a thing and they would probably get together pretty early on.

Amazon: So much more blood. Like all the blood and all the gore. Hard core seggs. Also SO SO SO many f-bombs and other taboo curses not allowed on network television. Again, most of them from Dean. Just watch The Boys. It would basically be that, but switch the supes for monsters.

NBC: imagine if supernatural had a baby with a procedural cop/hospital/fire-fighter show. It would basically be monster of the week all the time, with some more romance. Destiel is like a fifty-fifty chance (in the later seasons when the general viewers are less afraid of gay people), but if they were together they wouldn’t get as much attention as Sam’s romance, which would probably be Eileen and everyone would love them, but still.

FOX: It would have gotten canceled after season three.

Netflix: Possibly better VFX, depending how popular it is. Shorter seasons, so way less filler episodes. I feel like it would be way more dreary or way more action packed. They would certainly queer bait Destiel, but I feel like they would be more into it than the cw (Byler vibes yk). Seeing as it is a mostly male show with mostly white leads and no sapphics in the leading role - it would not have been canceled after one season. Also seeing as Netflix wasn’t making their own shows in 2005, the time-line would have been pushed WAY up.

CBS: Less gore. It would be a procedural, monster of the week thing. It would still have its long run time. Way more drama and more suspense. Probably less humor. The only humor would come from some flat jokes or like a beloved comic relief character. Probably lots of copoganda.

Disney channel: No gore at all. Also no death, except rarely mentioned things in the past. John would probably be written as a better father. Dean and Sam would be high schoolers. They wouldn’t kill the monsters, they just put them in monster jail or some shit. Think Wizards if Waverly place (there would probably be a cross over tbh). Sam would definitely be a monster fucker dater. Him and Madison would probably be endgame. Destiel would 100% be a thing, but that’s because they’d make Cas a girl. Cas would still be an Angel, with fluffy white wings and white clothing. Also, no demons, just vampires, ghosts, and goblins and shit like that.

Nickoldian: A) An incredibly overdramatic show on teennick. Think soap opera for teenagers. They would probably make Cas a girl and there would be a love triangle with Sam and Dean. They go to like a private school for monster hunters or something. Horrible ratings. Would barely make it to 2 seasons, but it would a have a very small, but devoted fan base. B) Deeply unserious. It would probably involve Sam and Dean befriending most of the supernatural creatures. It would involve minor comical injuries mixed with mild adult humor (like Icarly and Victorious). It would be Dan Sch*ender era, so, you know, f**t.

Cartoon Network: it would be a cartoon (duh). No blood or onscreen deaths. Either a spin off of Scooby-Doo or very reminiscent of it. Either way, it would have the vibes of Mystery Incorporated. They would definitely lean more into the “Sam is a nerd” thing. If it was made during recent years, they would incorporate more magic, and Dean and Cas would be together and sickeningly adorable.

Freeform: It would be during the ABC family era technically. They’re teenagers but they’d be played by people in their late 20s. So much melodrama. Way less gore. Lots of dead bodies, but no gory deaths. PLL but instead of stalkers it’s monsters. A lot less humor. Inappropriate relationships.

BBC: it would probably be pretty much the same, except they’re, you know, British.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #Destiel #random thoughts #I don’t know why I made this #this was made out of pure boredom #there is probably so many grammatical error but I didn’t really bother to try #anyway

19 notes · View notes

helioshellion · 1 year

Note

wait i’m new round here can you expand on your kiwami hatred? i’m interested to hear the thoughts because i haven’t gotten round to watching/finding a way to play the originals yet

i feel like the kiwamis are extremely derivative remakes. my dislike is geared mostly towards kiwami 1 for setting a precedent for the rest of the series regarding majima's character. I dislike how they reused 2005 animations on models from 2015 resulting in a massive uncanny valley with both facial and body animations. I think everything is so fucking GREEEEN like theres some nasty color filter over the whole game. Majima everywhere ruined majima's position in the fanbase and now the perceived majima "personality" is kind of dogshit because the big consensus of yakuza fans is "0-Kiwami" fans. Majima Everywhere ruined the point of majima's character being a character who is built upon surprise and shock, who rarely shows up, and so making him effectively a joke, when the character had never been a massive comic relief, makes it so people think of majima AS a joke. not to mention the homophobia and transphobia in majima everywhere. basically i think kiwami sucks and the original has so much charm in it. the original game is where you get the old man who texts you in old 2000s internet speak like "HAI!!! ^.^" and it makes me smile everytime. I think the animations in the original look so much better because they work with models that FIT those animations. Kiryu has excellent facial animation that speaks volumes for his character, especially in a year like 2005 where we didnt get a lot of games animated quite like it. Basically Yakuza 1-2 shouldve had the HD collection released worldwide. My standpoint is the kiwamis should never be treated as "replacements" for the originals, as the originals has a lot more to offer. yakuza 2 literally has a whole part of sotenbori removed in k2. yakuza 2 has host kiryu as a minigame that they removed because they thought cabaret club from 0 was better (k2 cabaret club is somuch worse than 0 cabaret club)

BOTTOM LINE SPEAKING OF 0. the Kiwamis to me feel like expansion packs to 0. They can never be their own games because so much of their existence is tied to 0, because they never try to move past it. Majima Everywhere exists because 0 was popular, cabaret club is in k2 because 0 was popular. Makoto was in Majima Saga because 0 was popular. I mean these things are necessarily BAD things, but how they were executed was. We get it....0 was a good game. But we dont need it beaten like a dead horse. But the Kiwami era is over and yakuza doesnt really do that anymore which thank god i love you ichiban cant wait for gaiden.

23 notes · View notes

nono-bunny · 11 months

Text

I tried watching the 2009 K-drama of Boys Over Flowers, but unfortunately by the fourth episode I decided to drop it because it just felt like a bad attempt at recreating the 2005 J-drama while also attempting and failing to create a new backstory for Tsukushi. I tried to write a post about why exactly I didn't like it, actually, but I shelved it because honestly, it was difficult to put into words why everything about it felt so wrong, but like. It did, and I dropped it

Anyway, I went on to try the other HYD adaptation on Netflix, which is the 2018 Chinese Meteor Garden. Going into it, I mostly just knew it was gonna kinda write out the bullying thing, and also that apparently Yoko Kamio really likes that version in particular anyway? So like, I didn't really know what to expect... But ngl, I was not expecting to like and respect it as much as I do

First of all!!! It is undoubtedly the adaptation with the most true-to-manga version of events, which. While I actually really enjoy the weird timeline mashup of the J-drama, after reading the manga I definitely really did wish to see a version that didn't cut out Kazuya and Kinsan, among other things, but yeah honestly I just really wanted to see these two lmao

It also??? Does a fantastic job at creating new things (they might have been in the OG Meteor Garden but I didn't watch that so,,) and adapting to the weird censorship around the instigating events of the story in a way that's genuinely so fun, while also managing to find ways to keep the characterizations of the characters that very easily could've been lost when taking out the whole malicious and violent nature of the F4. It does GREAT character work in general!! Li Zhen being a Makiko-turned-Sakurako as opposed to just erasing Makiko (which I still find hilarious considering the manga literally acknowledges that) by introducing Sakurako in her place is such a unique and fantastic solution to get around the bullying again while giving her a new, sympathetic motivation that feels much more in tune with this less extravagant (as in, making it just slightly less about the class disparity lol) version of the story, and!! As much as I love Sakurako, I feel like I appreciate Li Zhen just as much for like,, losing herself over her jealousy, and coming out of the whole ordeal as a much more confident person who's able to be a better, more proactive friend. Their motives and backgrounds are different, but the results end up roughly the same, and! I'm fine with, heck, I actually rather like Li Zhen not being the cackling narcissistic love rival (as much as that's probably like, my favorite trope), it works well for the story and she's portrayed really well by her actress!

Also, as expected, I love Qinghe, he's my boy!!! God fr I simply do not understand why Kazuya is only a part of the Meteor Garden adaptations of the story, he's so fucking great and it's heartbreaking that he got taken out of most of the adaptations when you can see how much he adds to the dynamic. Like, fr, Kazuya and Tsukasa competing over fishing is so iconic, it's such a dumb, joyous thing they do, like, peak of what "boys will be boys" should be, and!!! As expected it's SUCH a fun thing to see adapted

Kazuya being the loveable loser comic relief added so fucking much to the manga, because like, fr, both of the versions that I've seen that cut him are infinitely more depressing to watch!! He's so important to preserving the emotional balance of the story, not to mention how much better the story feels when Tsukushi DOES have an actual, genuine friend that goes to Eitoku with her. J-drama Tsukushi hangs out with Yuki and Okami A LOT to make up for the lack of any supportive people in her school life outside of F4, and without Kazuya around, ultimately, Tsukushi is definitely less close to the F4 than she is in the manga where his hijinks allow them to genuinely become friends, and the K-drama just didn't have any fun(ny) characters to replace him and it made it so difficult to watch!!! But Qinghe is such a bro, he's just as fun as I expected him to be if not *more*, and! Him being included makes such a huge positive difference

So far, the K-drama is obviously my least favorite adaptation, but I'm genuinely having trouble deciding whether I like the Japanese or Chinese one better, because both offer very different things and I actually love both!! The Japanese version is definitely like,,, the easier version for me to connect to, just because I already know the character names, and the jokes and most of the plot is consistent with the tone of the manga because it's the same setting (my very basic knowledge of Japanese definitely helps too lmao), but. The Chinese version is more fun to watch by virtue of being less depressing (fr, Kazuya makes ALL the difference), which also in a way makes it easy to get invested in it

Overall I'm actually very happy with what I've seen from Meteor Garden so far (I'm about halfway through it rn), and it's great to have another version of the story to cycle through because HYD has very quickly become one of my comfort media

#boys over flowers #hana yori dango #meteor garden 2018

4 notes · View notes

the-rewatch-rewind · 11 months

Text

Happy Christmas in July!

Transcript below the break.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies in a 20-year period. Today I will be celebrating Christmas in July by discussing number 18 on my list: Liberty Films and RKO’s 1946 holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra, written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra, and Jo Swerling, based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern, and starring James Stewart and Donna Reed.

George Bailey (James Stewart) has always had big dreams of traveling and building things, but instead he’s stuck in his small hometown of Bedford Falls, New York, managing the family building and loan business. When his absent-minded Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) misplaces $8,000 of company money, George feels that he is worth more dead than alive and plans to end his life on Christmas Eve, when he is stopped by Clarence Oddbody, Angel 2nd Class (Henry Travers) who has been sent from heaven to save him. George tells Clarence he wishes he’d never been born, so Clarence shows George what the town would be like without him.

As I’ve mentioned before, my family didn’t have a VCR in the ’90s, but we did sometimes watch movies together when they came on TV, so we caught It’s a Wonderful Life pretty much every year. I don’t know exactly how old I was when I first watched it, but I do remember being confused that it was in black and white. Once we finally got a VCR, we taped it one year so we could watch it whenever we wanted, and then eventually we got it on DVD. At some point we decided that it made a good Thanksgiving movie in addition to a Christmas one, since it’s about being grateful for what you have, so I tended to watch it once or twice a year for a while. I’d probably seen it about 10 times before I started keeping track, and then I saw it once in 2003, once in 2004, twice in 2005, once in 2006, three times in 2008, twice in each year from 2009 through 2012, and then once each in 2013 and 2014, and then once in each year from 2020 through 2022. I don’t remember exactly why I took such a long break after 2014, and I think it was probably a combination of factors, but I do remember reading an article probably around then arguing that Bedford Falls actually would have been more fun without George and that he should have gone to jail anyway that kind of ruined the movie for me a bit. While I recognize that there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the story and message and other details (such as the nonsensical decision to make AS2 the abbreviation for Angel Second Class), for me, the good definitely outweighs the questionable.

For one thing, the acting is superb. Everybody’s at the top of their game, with character actors such as Ward Bond, Frank Faylen, and Beulah Bondi doing some of their best work, and some very impressive child acting, particularly from Bobbie Anderson and Karolyn Grimes. Thomas Mitchell knows exactly when to play Uncle Billy’s memory issues for comic relief and when to reveal how devastating they can be. Henry Travers similarly gives the audience a perfect balance of chuckles and tears. Frequent femme fatale Gloria Grahame makes the initially shallow Violet Bick surprisingly sympathetic. The character of Mary Hatch Bailey is also deceptively simple on the surface, but Donna Reed brings her to life with so much warmth and depth and complexity that it takes several rewatches to fully appreciate her. Lionel Barrymore perfectly embodies the evils of capitalist corruption as Potter, in one of the most diabolical villain performances of all time. And then there’s James Stewart. My man Jimmy. I’m kind of surprised I haven’t had an opportunity to talk about him on this podcast before now, since he’s definitely one of my faves. His performance as George Bailey is SO. GOOD! Just thinking about it gives me chills. We see George go from a young man full of hopes and dreams to a frustrated, drained, broken middle aged man at the end of his rope, to a man trying to make sense of the reality of his non-existence who ultimately learns that he’s a better and more important person than he thought he was. It’s a major emotional roller coaster, and Jimmy Stewart absolutely nails every moment of the ride. It’s rare for a Hollywood film to let a male protagonist get anywhere near as emotionally raw and vulnerable as George Bailey is at several points throughout this film, but Stewart was clearly not afraid to cry on screen, and it’s beautiful to watch.

The sets and visual effects are also beautiful and noteworthy. Falling snow on film used to be created with cornflakes painted white, but a new snow effect using fire extinguisher foam mixed with soap and water was developed for It’s a Wonderful Life. Using this allowed the sound to be recorded live, which had been impossible with crunchy cornflakes, and I feel like it enhanced the performances to not have to record the dialogue separately. The Bedford Falls set was one of the longest sets that had ever been made for an American movie, and the streets and buildings do an excellent job of bringing the audience into the town. Apparently three different cinematographers worked on this movie (they kept getting fired due to disagreements with the director), but the look and feel of the film is remarkably consistent and unique. Plenty of movies set in small towns were made during this era, but somehow none of them feel quite like this one. That could just be my own nostalgia, since this was the first one I saw, but there’s just something about Bedford Falls that sets it apart from other movie settings, and that’s a big part of what I love about this movie. The sets and the lighting and the performances are so engrossing that no matter how many times I rewatch it, I still feel like I’m part of the town, and like I’m interacting with the characters, in a fresh and unique way.

It's interesting that I’m talking about two 1946 movies in a row because I think that, like Notorious, It’s a Wonderful Life could really only have been made that year. James Stewart had left Hollywood to fight in World War II and was considering giving up acting for good when Frank Capra asked him to star in this film. Capra had spent the war making documentaries and propaganda films, and this was also his first post-war movie. Now, I’ve never fought in a war, and my parents are baby boomers so I definitely wasn’t around for World War II, but it stands to reason that their wartime experiences significantly impacted the people involved in making this film and were still fresh on their minds. Stewart apparently said that his PTSD and depression from the war helped him relate to George Bailey, and that acting out George’s anger and frustrations was cathartic for him. The US was also at its most anti-fascist at this time, as James and I briefly discussed last week, which I assume is what allowed this movie to be so blatantly anti-capitalist. Building and Loan associations don’t really exist anymore, but based on my understanding of the Bailey business from this movie, they seem kind of like mutual aid mortgages. Because George holds onto this institution, the people of Bedford Falls are able to afford to buy decent homes for themselves. The alternative that Potter wants is everyone paying him exorbitant rent. By capitalist standards, George is a failure, and was incredibly foolish for turning down Potter’s lucrative job offer in the middle of the movie. But the film portrays him as a hero precisely because he values people over money. When he’s at the end of his rope, Potter has the power to save him (especially because he’s the one who has the cash that Uncle Billy lost) but he refuses; it’s George’s friends and family who rally around to help him. And that sounds like something that would have been considered dangerously close to socialism in the McCarthy era. The Hollywood blacklist started in 1947, so I feel like It’s a Wonderful Life couldn’t have been made even a year later than it was without significant modifications.

One of the main focuses of the story is the romance between George and Mary, but I feel like even that is used as a demonstration of the shortcomings of our capitalist society. They are clearly drawn to each other, but George initially tries to pretend otherwise, in large part because he doesn’t feel good enough for her. She has a college education; he does not. Their wealthy friend, Sam Wainwright, is interested in Mary, and George feels like she would be better off with Sam, even though all she wants is George. They spend all their honeymoon money on supporting Building and Loan clients during a bank run, at Mary’s suggestion, but George later regrets that he couldn’t afford to provide for both his clients and his wife. Mary is perfectly happy with their life, but George feels like a failure by society’s standards and can’t see anything else, so he needs Clarence’s reality check to show him that he has always been enough for her. If George wasn’t constantly being bombarded with the message that he should be making more money, that he should have been able to leave Bedford Falls and make something more of himself, that he should be able to buy his wife and children extravagant things, maybe he could have been happy without divine intervention.

But also we need to talk about what happens to Mary in the alternate reality when George doesn’t exist because I have some very mixed thoughts about that. Earlier, right after George turned down Potter’s offer, he asked Mary why she married a guy like him and she replied, “To keep from being an old maid.” So when George doesn’t exist, she is an old maid. I remember as a teenager who didn’t know that being aroace was a thing and didn’t want to examine why I only ever had “crushes” on celebrities who were already dead, thinking that Mary’s attitude made perfect sense: if you can’t marry Jimmy Stewart, why get married at all? The part that has always confused me is when George begs Clarence to tell him where Mary is, and Clarence says, “You’re not going to like it, George.” Wouldn’t he like it less if she had married someone else? Isn’t it good that she’s consistent with her assertions that he’s the only man for her? I like to think that Mary is on the aromantic spectrum, and feels romantic attraction so rarely that if she hadn’t met George she would never have felt it at all, but even I have to admit that the movie isn’t really trying to say that. It seems to be implying that Mary ending up a librarian with no husband is the worst possible fate for her, which is an infuriatingly amatonormative attitude for a story that otherwise encourages resistance to societal pressures. But overall, I give George and Mary’s romance a pass, because I do think they have a fascinating dynamic, and also because the movie focuses a lot on community and other non-romantic relationships too.

There’s a lot of emphasis on family relationships, and the brotherly bond between George and Harry that is slightly tinged with envy is particularly well done. Harry gets a lot of opportunities that George wants, but George chooses to be happy for and supportive of him rather than resenting him too much. And Harry’s toast at the end – “To my big brother, George, the richest man in town” – is one of the moments guaranteed to make me cry every time. When George is young, he kind of looks down on his father, but finally starts to appreciate him shortly before his death, although not quite enough to understand that it’s good that he follows in his father’s footsteps. His relationship with his mother is very sweet, and the part when she doesn’t recognize him is perhaps the most devastating moment in the movie. I really wish we got to see George interact with his children a bit more; we mostly see them when he’s taking out his work frustrations on them, which doesn’t seem like a typical interaction. His scene with Zuzu and the flower is adorable though. And then there are all the friendships. I don’t know if the Sesame Street characters were named after them, but Bert the cop and Ernie the cab driver have a fun relationship with each other and with George, and I appreciate that we get glimpses of how miserable they both are in the alternate reality. Violet is another interesting character, and at some points it almost seems like she’s being set up as a romantic rival for Mary, but she and George remain a rare good example of male/female friendship. And there are so many other great interactions between the townspeople; it feels like a real community. And it is that community of friends and acquaintances that come together at the end to help George and show him that he’s not alone, and that he has made a positive difference in all their lives. Granted, it’s very clear that Mary is the most important person to him, so the movie does reinforce the relationship hierarchy established by amatonormativity, but at the end, what does Clarence write in the book? “No man is a failure who has friends.”

I want to talk a little bit about representation in this film. There is only one black character, Annie, played by Lillian Randolph, who is, predictably, a maid, and while she is a pretty awesome character, she’s not in very much of the movie, and all the other characters are white. Disappointing, but not surprising for a 1940s Hollywood film. Similarly, while we get a few fabulous female characters, there are a lot more men than women. However, I feel like this movie has better disability representation than the average 2020s movie. It’s a Wonderful Life shows that it’s not that hard to incorporate an actor’s disability into a movie without it being the main focus of the story or the character. They really said, “You use a wheelchair? Awesome, your character uses a wheelchair now.” Of course, they were probably willing to provide more accommodations for the legendary Lionel Barrymore than they would have for an unknown disabled actor, but even he had been replaced in the 1938 film version of A Christmas Carol, in which he’d been slated to play Scrooge, because he couldn’t walk anymore. So I really like that It’s a Wonderful Life showed how effectively he could play a Scrooge-like character without walking.

I also really appreciate that It’s a Wonderful Life is very similar to A Christmas Carol, but kind of flipped. A Christmas Carol motivates the wealthy miser to change his behavior by showing him how happy people would be without him; It’s a Wonderful Life motivates the poor man to change his self-perception by showing him how unhappy people would be without him. A Christmas Carol’s message is that nobody is beyond redemption, which I do believe, but It’s a Wonderful Life responds with, “Let’s be realistic: the extremely rich aren’t going to change their ways; we need to do what we can to limit their power.” Which is a message that, if anything, has only gotten more relevant in the last 77 years. Most of my top 40 movies are fun, silly, entertainment that I use to escape the harshness of reality, but while this movie does have some fun moments, it’s less of an escape and more of a reflection of that harshness. I watch movies like Emperor’s New Groove and Mamma Mia and Bringing Up Baby and Ella Enchanted when I need to laugh; I watch It’s a Wonderful Life when I need to cry. Sometimes I have trouble regulating or understanding my feelings, and a big part of what I love about movies is the way they let us experience deep emotions in a relatively safe and controlled environment. It’s a Wonderful Life has been scorned by some film critics as overly sentimental, and perhaps it is, but I guess I don’t see anything wrong with being overly sentimental every once in a while. Sometimes you just need to feel feelings.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies. Next up is the shortest in a 4-way tie of movies I watched 22 times in the last 20 years, which is another one that I had seen many times before I started keeping track. As always, I will leave you with a quote from that next movie: “This is yet another example of the late neoclassic Baroque period. And, as I always say, ‘If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!’”

#it's a wonderful life #james stewart #donna reed #lionel barrymore #frank capra #the rewatch rewind #finally caught up on posting these!#sorry i got behind

3 notes · View notes