#like the statues imply vanity with his appearance it just

[davekat-sucks]

Eridan is the most heterosexual man in Homestuck.

Despite his vanity to look awesome in front of his others due to his status as a highblood and a funny if wweird looking art of him crossdressing for a calendar, Eridan is actually the straightest guy in Homestuck in general. He probably would have beat out John Egbert if it weren't for his "i am not a homosexual" line.

Eridan is said to be creepy by the cast and the fandom. If Homestuck were around today's current gen, he would rightfully be labeled as an incel. Eridan is desperate for connections, with love in particular due to his home planet putting emphasis on quadrants being an important part for his life. That if he doesn't follow it, he gets culled as punishment for remaining asexual as an asexual species. Now let me ask the fandom this, has there been a GAY incel ever?

Most would only call out incels to men who are only interested in female companionship. And who fits this bill? That's right, Eridan. Most of his important moments had always come from being around with another girl. In one of Eridan's earliest appearance via Pesterlog, he's talking with Kanaya, a WOMAN. The first relationship as kismesis is with Vriska, another WOMAN. His pale mate is also a female, whom he had a crush on for so long. Beliving that she and her are superior because of their blood color and sea dweller status. And he would be the server client for Nepeta in Blue Team, whom he tried to flirt but was rejected.

He would then try to rile Rose Lalonde to get her to be pitch with him. Eridan challenges Rose on her use of dark magic. She mirrors Eridan in a way that both have an interest in wizards and magic. Then he would proceed to try and give Jade his rifle. A rifle that would find its way to the bunny that Jake gives as one of its weapons. She also noted that he was one of the trolls that always hit on her and implies he has been doing this for some time prior to the Beta Kids starting the game. She even teases him for his failed attempt for flirting with Rose.

Sure he would have a male friend like Karkat, but it's only for shared interest about gossiping quadrants from there other friends, with Kanaya being the one he mentioned when speaking directly to her. Then we get to Sollux and people would say that shows he is gay or bisexual. The only notable moment between him and Sollux were only two duels they had. But it always come back to Feferi having to step in to stop and chastise Eridan. Sollux was also willing to KILL Eridan for good this time to stop him from getting Jack to find the trolls. Neither Sollux or Feferi thought about of how would Eridan even reach Jack in the first place without method of transportation or the fact that it would technically be Vriska herself that lead them to their deaths instead.

Eridan wins the duel by knocking down Sollux, but it's not as significant as him killing Feferi. The top potential heiress troll. An heir. A future queen. Her death would be and is taken more seriously because she is the troll that is above everyone on the meteor. Even with her ideals of equality and change, Feferi would still be one that decides what is good for the people. And that's one of Eridan's worst crimes. Not him killing lusus to feed for a bigger lusus. Not him being racist towards lowerbloods. But him killing a lady who would have to be future ruler.

His next big moment would also be him destroying the Matriorb. He would get his wish for success in genocide. Genocide being killing all hope that his kind would ever get to repopulate. We don't know if Jack would have found and destroyed it if Eridan wasn't the one to do it. But it likely he would have destroyed it or the Matriorb would be lost and forgotten after Kanaya's death. Some could say that Eridan destroying the Matriorb was a mercy kill. Since this Matriorb was also something that The Condesce needed to bring her race back. If the Matriorb had been around by the time the meteor shows up, she could have just taken the Matriorb with ease and her plans would have succeeded much earlier than expected. In a way, Eridan getting rid of the Matriorb was a good thing if it meant in the future, the bigger bad couldn't get it and forced her to find an alternative method to get it. Which means he also indirectly had been involved in another woman's plans. A woman that started and was the root for his ideals of racism. The caste system he looks up to and was molded by.

And when he is technically brought back as Erisolsprite, he does nothing with Jake despite their shared Hope aspect.

Overall, Eridan's important or great moments had been because the presence of a female with him. Even at times when it is not depicted as flirtatious, he is known because of his actions towards a woman. Directly or indirectly. His connections have been mostly been tied with a girl.

#homestuck #homestuck fandom #Eridan Ampora #Feferi Peixies #Vriska Serket #Rose Lalonde #Jade Harley #Kanaya Maryam #Sollux Captor #Karkat Vantas

[lullabyes22-blog]

Dating Silco - Headcanons - 🦈💕💀

So: you want to date a drug kingpin funding a guerilla army for a bloody revolution?

Sweet Janna. You dope. You chump. You dumb bi-

I mean, blessed fortunate choice.

TW: for sociopathy and narcissistic features. And drug use. And some uncomfortable realities of Silco being Silco, I guess? Mild NSFW but nothing wild.

General Silco Headcanons are here and here! 🦈

Also Sevika the Dragon Mom  🐉

Jinx the Batshit Baby Bombshell  💣

First off, don't expect to simply approach him and begin chatting it up. Our man is insulated by his crew when out in public. Or Sevika watches his back. Or Jinx skulks in the rafters. Either way, that's a fearsome barrier to break through.

You're welcome to try. Just don't expect to leave with your limbs intact.

However, if you catch his eye, it's impossible to remain oblivious. Largely because, instead of looking through you, he'll look right at you. Not in a sweet way. More as if he's sizing you up before going for the kill.

Man has a black-belt in the art of the eye-fuck, paired with a general aura of predatory stillness. *Jaws Theme plays*

His approach is slow, methodical, and chillingly effective. It also varies according to his target and what he perceives is their secret vanity. If you like flattery, expect the priciest drinks to be sent your way. Meals on the house; backstage passes to the Drop’s musicians; your requests forwarded to the DJ. The works. If you like directness, you'll be issued a polite invitation to his private booth for a one-on-one.

He's a patient bastard. The first meeting might simply be drinks and an intimate conversation. He's also a wicked opportunist. If things heat up, he's got no qualms sealing the transaction with a quickie right there in the VIP booth, with the crew standing outside the door. (And eavesdropping.)

He's a man of varied tastes. But certain qualities are sine qua non for him: 1) Be confident, 2) Be intelligent, 3) Be interesting. Or if you can't, then at least be mildly amusing.

The man is master of the scalpel-edged mot juste. If you can match him repartee for repartee, you've already initiated foreplay. Congratulations.

He doesn't have lovers. That implies predictability - and predictable men are vulnerable men. Instead there are categories for people he sleeps with.  At the bottom are his 'Tarts on a Tea Tray.' Floozies, flunkies and flings. Higher up are his ‘Fleeting Fancies.’ Boys or girls he takes a shine to, for an hour or a week. Directly above that are his 'Assets.' Individuals worthy of serving Zaun's cause. He takes a personal interest in their welfare and grooms them to his satisfaction - businesswise and in the bedroom. Rarest of all is the elusive ‘Main Squeeze’ - someone he'll break bread and make plans with. Don't expect to reach that spot without making a huge sacrifice for Zaun.

He's not picky about physical appearances. He is, himself, unconventional-looking by Piltover standards. With that in mind, scars and imperfections won't bother him. On the contrary, if there is a story behind them, he'll respect them as part of your survivor's spirit.

He does, however, expect you to be well dressed. Especially in public. First impressions can make or break. If you're playing a role in his life (asset, arm-candy, amour), then he expects you to look the part. He also doesn't mind if you express yourself through fashion. Heck, he's encouraging of sartorial eccentricity. Just as long as you're courting the right attention, not looking like a clown. If there's one thing he won't abide by, it's tackiness.

Regardless of your status in the sexual totem pole, you will always remain secondary. Zaun is his be-all and end-all. And within Zaun's crux: Jinx. The sun rises and sets with his little one; she can do no wrong in his eyes.

A pity, because Jinx is possessive of her Papa. And will do you wrong every chance your paths cross.

Sevika is always his shadow. This might irritate you, or make you jealous. He also seems to trust her implicitly with day-to-day mundanities in a way that can come off as extremely 'old-marrieds.' 

He’ll expect you to get over it. Sevika is the solid structure to Jinx's empowering spark. If you expect him to esteem you likewise, prove yourself by improving Zaun.

He respects independent thinkers, wild cards and innovators. If he sees promise in your work, he will finance it. Tools, information, equipment. Everything will be bought and paid for.

He's an excellent listener with a sharp mind for detail. Talk to him about your work. He'll show keen interest and pepper you with questions. Your success is his success - and Zaun's. The more determined you are, the higher his esteem for you. Be ambitious. Be clever. Be cutthroat. 

But don't ever be disloyal. Otherwise he will bury you alive.

As Zaun's premier kingpin, he has access to all sorts of Shimmer-related drugs - medicinal and recreational. In a generous mood, he'll let you trip on Shimmer during a rave or during sex, or send medication to your family if they're in need. But if you end up hooked or even dependent on Shimmer, he will boot your ass to the curb. Nothing personal. Junkies are unreliable, business-wise. (Hypocrite.)

Assuming you're not the feisty enterprising type, yet manage to attract his notice (how??), it will help if you've got a touch of old-world class. You don't have to be moneyed - who in Zaun is? But poise and a dash of cool impertinence will appeal to that scruffy, down-on-his-luck sump-rat in his subconscious. Think the Yamato Nadeshiko-type trope - with a razor intellect and a spine of fucking steel. It will challenge his ego. And he enjoys a good challenge.

Has a secret weakness for home-cooked meals. You don't have to be a domestic whiz or a five-star chef. But if you whip up something for him (after proof it's not poisoned), he will be charmed by the gesture. If he begins making requests for certain dishes, you have the man wrapped around your figurative little finger.

He's got a high libido and a fiendishly creative mind that strays far from the conventional. BDSM is a given. So is voyeurism and exhibitionism. He’s also very easily bored. Expect to switch up your sexual repertoire if you plan to keep up with him.

He's a busy man with a sprawling operation, and a hundred people to run. He’s also a control freak. Your sex life will be unpredictable - and dictated on his terms. Out of nowhere he might summon you to his office for a quickie, or cancel plans at the last minute. Sometimes you'll have sex four or five times a week. Other times it will be a nonstop orgy, leaving you dazed and bowlegged afterward.

This isn’t by accident. His raison d'etre - Zaun - is an island of focus. But in all other dimensions of his life, he sows chaos and instability - a twister designed to keep everyone but himself on tenterhooks.

He’s not big on kissing. A bit too personal - and he’s got that lidless eye to worry about. If you enjoy makeout sessions, you may need to pluck up the courage and introduce the activity slowly, not unlike a food the other party finds ‘meh’ to mildly revolting.

He also bites. A lot. Hard. 

Water is his natural element. Suggest sex in a bathtub. Or by a river. Or somewhere you can hear the sea surf. You’ll definitely be treated to a softer - if not necessarily romantic - side of him. 

He’s not easily roused to petty jealousy. But he is possessive. He enjoys conquest over a partner others lust after; it’s proof of his prowess. But if someone gets untoward with you, or roughs you up... Kindred help them. Nobody touches what’s his.

If he breaks the relationship off, it will seem sudden. But if you compare notes with others he’s broken it off with you’ll notice a pattern: a sharp drop in sex, physical absence and cruel detachment  - then the kiss-off.

If you do manage a clean break, and he's still fond of you, he'll write you a big fat severance check, get you solid job references or maybe buy you a nice upscale apartment. A wild ending for a wild beginning.

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane lol #arcane headcanon #arcane silco #silco lol #silco #silco meta #silco headcanon #silco headcanons #silco and jinx #arcane netflix #arcane sevika #sevika #silco x reader

[darkpoisonouslove]

Brandon and Stella for the ask game?

Can I say everything about them? Because everything. But okay, let's see.

1) I love that they have so much depth. Great examples of that are 1x24 and 3x04. Brandon's worry that Stella might not like him if he's not royalty may seem to work against the relationship. After all, it seems to imply that Brandon himself believes that Stella would be shallow enough as to reject him just based on his social status. But I think this has less to do with Stella and more with Brandon's self-image. We can easily infer that Sky's parents treat him badly despite him risking his life for Sky. His very "job" is based around the fact that he is expendable compared to Sky, that he is inferior because he's not royalty. Sky himself is sometimes inconsiderate of him and his safety. Anything Stella has to contribute to this is maybe bragging too much that she's dating the prince of Eraklyon but she's so quick to reassure him when he shares his concerns. She doesn't hesitate to bring up her own pain (her parents' divorce) to really emphasize her point. And on the flip side, Stella's obsession with her looks can easily be brushed off as an exercise in vanity but in 3x04 we learn that Stella bases her whole sense of self-worth on her appearance and losing her beauty is an equivalent of being lonely for her. Yet, Brandon is right there for her (and basically proposes by gifting her a family heirloom) because he's seen under the surface and finds her nothing but perfect for him. It all conveys the depth of their feelings for each other and I am eating it up.

2) I HATE the Downland arc for how horribly it treats my babies but they remain so true to each other in it and I can't not mention it. Brandon is practically traumatized by the whole experience but he still chooses to do everything in his power to protect Stella. Even if it means sacrificing his whole future, and not just his chances of being with her. And Stella doesn't care about the literal knife at her throat if she can't be with Brandon - the love of her life (oh, and she jumped off a cliff for him even though she had no guarantees that she won't splatter on possible rocks below). I am not saying that the other couples had to go through something this scarring in order to prove themselves but Brella did and they are superior for it.

3) Unpopular opinion perhaps but I like the s5 Brella stuff. Of course, I am not a fan of how infantilized Stella is but a toned down version of her behavior could have been perfectly in line with her tendency from the first three seasons to be inconsiderate of others sometimes. I particularly like how Brandon handles the situations. Brandon doesn't get a lot of character development of his own which is the reason why I adore how he doesn't compromise with himself when he disagrees with Stella. He tells her his honest opinion without being harsh about it. He also makes it clear that he's still there for her even if his views differ from hers. If he was interacting with the mature Stella from season 3, this would have easily been the best subplot of the entire season.

send me a ship and I’ll tell you three things I like about it

#winx club #winx stella #winx brandon #brella #stella x brandon #ask #stellasolaris #winx ships

[sealrock]

send REMINDED for a scene from my muse's past in which they encountered something that reminded them of a difficult experience / trauma

ask meme

cw: references to drug and alcohol abuse, implied disordered eating

Cold water splashed against his stubbled face—once, twice, thrice. Water rolled down his bare forearms and onto the cramped vanity, but most ended up splattered against the cracked tile of the dingy bathroom. Finally, he's awake.

Evander slowly dragged his hands down his face to expose bloodshot eyes from another restless night hugging the cold porcelain of the lavatory, void of emotion other than stark ennui. He quickly looked away. The mirror had spiderweb cracks this way and that, the point of origin shaped into a fist. Evander was on a binge one night that he couldn't remember, and he could only surmise that he didn't like what he saw. It took longer than he wanted to delicately clean and wrap the wounds of his knuckles once he came down from the high.

Evander gripped the vanity and allowed his eyes to roam anywhere but his face. The yellow tint of the cheap lights cast his hollow face in a sickly hue, his tan skin taking on an abnormal shade, and made his unkempt black hair more greasy than usual. The severe dips in his collarbone and the bumps of his ribs are more prominent in this unnatural lighting, the shadows growing darker by the day. His trousers were looser fitting if his shrinking waist was anything to go by. He lost weight again. But that's normal to him. Evander admits he doesn't give his body proper nutrients; with a diet of imported cigarettes, illicit drugs, and hard liquor, this lifestyle wreaks havoc on anyone with a feeble constitution such as him.

His blue eyes, a scourge of his genetic makeup, were tinged green with unmistakable envy. Evander pulled his puffy eyelids away to get a closer look: if he could just pluck out his eyeballs and replace them with any other color, everything would've been different. He'd seen it done with taxidermy, replacing the lifeless orbs of a dead animal with bright, glassy eyes without the reflection of sheer terror in the act of being slaughtered. But that's an animal, a base creature with neither the intelligence nor complex language man possesses.

But in some species, animals are constantly reminded of their social status and rank, sometimes harshly with violence—much like Evander had to endure growing up. Blue in Dalmascan society has negative associations that change with each passing century: the poor could only wear blue, blue is seen as bad luck, and it's a color of mourning. Evander doesn't give credence to local superstition or wives' tales, not when science can answer many of the world's mysteries. But his grandfather—and many other oldheads of the family—are profoundly traditional.

They saw Evander as a bad omen from the start. Infidelity is also one of the reasons why they hate him, supernatural causation be damned. Appearance and status kept this family on top for so long in this city. For the daughter of one of Ul'dah's elite, the top of the food chain, to be involved with a lowly street urchin was something to gawk at. To have a child with him, only to try and pass off said child as your husband's, would make you the laughingstock of smoke-filled saloons long after you're dead.

Evander's mind began to wander back as he meticulously shaved the unruly stubble away with his straight razor. His grandfather never lived down the embarrassment of having a bastard grandchild, but to attack a little boy just because he didn't have the eyes of the family was cruel and unusual punishment. Evander could recall the hurtful words the old man would sling at him like knives.

Filthy child.

You're just like your father, a hoodlum.

You brought nothing but shame to this family.

Don't look at me with those foul eyes.

Evander winced when the razor nicked the skin of his neck. He went too deep into his memories and became distracted. He heard someone, a taunting voice inside his mind say:

Such a fool. You're not seventeen anymore, you should know better.

"Get off my back," Evander hoarsely said to no one. He staunched a growing pearl of blood before it could trickle down his neck with a washcloth. He needed a cigarette. Despite what his head doctor would say, this is not healing. To be reminded of everything like this does more harm than good. Evander hates looking into the mirror because the mirror shows him what his grandfather would see: the face of the man who betrayed his trust. The sins of the father will haunt the son, the grandson, and the sons hereafter.

Evander blinked. He had been staring at his reflection for so long his eyes stung from the stale air of his apartment. He finished shaving, this time paying closer attention to the glint of the razor as it glided across the hairs of his neck. Evander is thankful that he didn't need the mirror to see how to do his hair, as it was a simple matter of pulling it into a low ponytail. Now, Evander could start his day. His clothes, neatly pressed and layered, contrasted with the organized chaos of clutter and junk surrounding his tiny living space. He reached into his pocket for his cigarette case. It would be easier if Evander could conjure up a simple flame, but a matchstick is good enough.

He couldn't stomach the idea of breakfast right now, not after last night. There was nothing edible in his pantry either way. Evander took one last look into the broken mirror before heading out. He saw a skeleton of a man dressed in his finest. Evander would never leave the house without his shaded spectacles. It acted like a child's security blanket, for Evander disliked the stares he would get from strangers because of his haggard countenance.

You can't hide from me.

A thinly veiled threat. Evander took a long drag of the cigarette before exhaling. He didn't offer his crooked reflection a response this time. He switched off the light and left for his day job, he had to make up for lost hours if he wanted to eat a hot meal this time around.

#inbox #anonymous #writings. #<-- new tag alert #writing from evie's pov this time. not as long as my other drabble but long enough #he's god's silliest little soldier #q.

[princeescaluswords]

I posted 1,138 times in 2022

113 posts created (10%)

1,025 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lumi-of-the-universe

@momentofmemory

@spikeface

@brydeswhale

@teenwolf-meta

I tagged 406 of my posts in 2022

#scott mccall - 157 posts

#scott mccall defense squad - 63 posts

#teen wolf meta - 63 posts

#teen wolf fandom problems - 33 posts

#stiles stilinski - 31 posts

#teen wolf fanfiction - 29 posts

#teen wolf - 26 posts

#allison argent - 22 posts

#alan deaton - 21 posts

#kira yukimura - 20 posts

Longest Tag: 111 characters

#ninety percent of dumb scott reactions are due to the fandom not even trying to put themselves in scott's place

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Calm Down, Please

I wish people wouldn't jump to conclusions that Derek having a 15-year-old white son means that Braeden and he are broken up. It doesn't tell us much about the time frame either. It doesn't say anything about the writing either.

Alternatives other than Derek and Braeden are broken up:

1. Eli is Kate's child. (Ugh, but possible.)

2. Derek had sex with a woman during the six years between the Hale Fire and the beginning of Season 1.

3. Derek and Braeden adopted a child.

Considering that I don't think they're going to have Scott be in his early thirties, #2 is most likely the correct answer.

Jumping to conclusions is being pretty overly dramatic.

91 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#4

EVERYBODY LOVES DANNY

This is an exploration of the role Danny Mahealani played in Teen Wolf for the first four seasons. It was inspired by an anonymous correspondent who described him as a token. Danny was not a token. Instead, he was a foil for both Stiles and Allison, and his friendship with Jackson was a parallel with the friendship between Scott and Stiles and his romantic relationship with Ethan was a parallel with the romantic relationship between Allison and Isaac.

To me, a token character appears in a movie or story to serve one purpose and one purpose only: to be seen as what they represent. If Danny was the Token Gay Character, he would be on the screen only to be the object of Scott's accidental flirting or to serve as a sounding board for Stiles's insecurity or to remind the audience of Jackson's vanity. Once that purpose was served, he would vanish. Yet, effort was spent on Danny's his emotions and decisions concerning friendship, social status, and the supernatural. He is definitely a minor character, but he's certainly not a token. A token wouldn't be missed as badly as he was in Season 4. The obvious hole he left still puzzles people to this day.

In the first season, Danny's role serves as giving us a necessary look at how the rest of Beacon Hills High sees Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski. He's not as intensely involved with Scott as Stiles, not as hostile as Jackson or Lydia, and he's not a new girl unsure of her footing like Allison. It is an absolutely necessary role to reinforce Scott's complaint of 'sitting on the sidelines.' Danny treats Scott with benign indifference, the way you would treat a nice kid in your science class to which you don't actually talk. Danny doesn't get Jackson's hostility to Scott's rise on the lacrosse team, and he verbally expresses it, but he's just happy to have another good player on the team that helps them reach the state championships. Danny tolerates Stiles because Scott is first line, and he's shocked by Scott's insistence on dancing with him at the Winter Formal, but he does dance with him, reluctant but not repulsed. Danny gives us the average student's view of Scott.

We also get the build up of Jackson's and Danny's friendship, which plays a much larger and more important role in Season 2. Jackson and Danny like each other as much as Scott and Stiles do, and there is a level of implied closeness matching each relationship. Danny can be just as sarcastic as Stiles toward Jackson, "If I come back and you're lying dead underneath a pile of weight, I'm taking the Porsche" and they discuss topics as sensitive as mutual sexual attraction and Danny is concerned because Jackson doesn't answer his texts for a week. The major difference is that Danny respects boundaries in a way that Stiles doesn't, and that is shown by the production -- regardless of my own personal taste -- as a detriment when Jackson decides to go after the bite and suffers the curse of the kanima. Stiles willingness to intrude on his friends life is shown as crucial in Scott overcoming not only his initial transformation but also his evolution into hero. To be fair, Jackson does not seek out Danny's help in the same way that Scott does to Stiles, which is also shown as a problem.

In Season 3, with Jackson's departure, Danny's focus shifts to Ethan, but he still serves as the same foil for Stiles and, now, Allison. No matter how talented the three of them are, no matter how much Danny is a survivor, they are still human in the world of the supernatural. Danny keeps his boundaries, so he's either a pawn of the alpha pack or a bystander to the action -- symbolized by him being present in the room when a chaos fly possesses Ethan and being unaware -- but on the other hand, he does survive and he does it with minimal trauma, not counting the Darach attack.

Stiles gets involved and stays involved, and he will have to deal with the consequences of the nogitsune possession for the rest of his life. Allison choose to become involved with werewolf, even knowing how dangerous in, and she gets involved and stays involved, and it costs her life. Danny chooses to become involved with a werewolf, it being revealed that he wasn't doing it ignorantly, but he keeps himself out of the action.

The audience noted Danny's absence in Season 4, precisely because he had become an important part of the story. He did have friendships, he was involved, but it also made sense that the characters wouldn't experience the same sense of absence, because Danny had drawn relatively firm boundaries around that involvement. He would be involved in things in his own terms.

The audience mourned his loss in Season 4, because of the Dead Pool plot, but I feel, that if we thinking about it enough, we should have mourned his loss in both Season 5 and Season 6. Danny's presence could have helped us understand Stiles's actions more effectively. They could have even had conversations about feelings of alienation between friends. Danny's presence could have been even more important in Season 6B, exploring how boundary setting is not the same as giving into fear.

A character with his much impact can hardly be classified as token.

108 notes - Posted January 9, 2022

#3

Corey Bryant is a Hybrid Ghost Rider

This is for the Meta Monday: Monsters

I thought it would be obvious to the fan who is a casual observer, but there are many people who assume that Corey is a chameleon hybrid, but I don't think that's true. It's an understandable mistake, as several characters call him a chameleon, but as Season 5 and 6 goes on, we get more and more evidence that Corey's abilities aren't actual camouflage, but in reality the ability to shift matter into another dimension -- the Wild Hunt's dimension. Here are my arguments:

The shape he took reflected the person that he was. When the Doctors experimented on their chimeras, they often selected traits to graft onto others that coincided with their natures, in line with the oft-quoted supernatural principle. Tracy had traits of a kanima because, similarly to Jackson's impostor syndrome, her night terrors left her unsure of who she really was and what she was really doing. "She thinks she's asleep; she thinks she's dreaming." Hayden shared some qualities with Kate, though to a far less unhealthy degree, so she was grafted with traits of the nagual. "I'm not angry, Liam, I'm vengeful." Corey, similar to the Ghost Riders, was someone who felt that they could be in the center of the room and not be noticed. "My parents barely noticed the first time I died."

The Ghost Riders could project matter into another dimension, and Corey is able to perceive them and reverse it. While it seemed that Corey's major power was blending into his surroundings, he exhibited no other lizard-like traits. Instead, he was able to notice the Ghost Riders. He was able to locate the relic in the library. He was able to pull a Ghost Rider out of his dimension. In addition, the Surgeon, whose powers allowed him to perceive "frequency and vibration" was able to pierce Corey's invisibility without any difficulty on more than one occasion, even though they were abled to miss people hiding.

The Doctors had access to the "genetic" material of the ghost riders, due to the infected wound on Douglass. There was a whole sequence demonstrating that in Season 6A, when the lowenmench was hit by a whip and "infected" and then a shot when, after Douglas was placed in the tank, the greenish fluid was shown entering the tank.

Douglas himself immediately after acquiring the Outlaw's pineal gland, made capturing Corey his first target. He said "something I've been waiting to do a very long time" by which he meant turning the Wild Hunt into his army, and his next step was taking Corey. He also used Corey to bridge the Wild Hunt's dimension and Earth's dimension. He very specifically chose Corey, and it makes sense if Corey was, through the Doctors' science, part of both dimensions.

While people assumed from the start that he was a chameleon and several characters used that word to describe him, Teen Wolf often had people make mistakes in identification, and not only teenagers without occult training. Jackson passed Derek's test, and the pack assumed the Oni were going after only supernatural creatures.

117 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

#2

161 notes - Posted January 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

When Disappointment is Not Disappointing

This is about Obi-Wan Kenobi, Episode 3:

When I first watched the fight, I was disappointed. It was clumsy. Awkward. Beautifully shot, but the fight was nothing compared to other light saber fights, and Darth Vader clearly letting Obi-Wan get away.

And then I suddenly smacked myself with the Clue Bat. Of course. That was the point.

Obi-Wan Kenobi has not wielded a light saber for maybe ten years. Both he and it have sat decaying in the desert. He doesn't sleep well, he has a mindless menial job where he must let cruelty happen on a daily basis, so he can go home where his only social interaction is being cheated by Jawas and emotionally flagellating himself by fixating on a ten-year-old boy that he can't even talk to.

He had to be asking himself -- what the hell am I even doing here. I told Bail I couldn't do this. I told him!

And then there's Darth Vader. He starts out killing innocents because that will make Obi-Wan come to him. Only it doesn't. What the hell is that? Then he draws his light saber and Obi-Wan runs. What the hell is this? He tried to provoke his old master with bullshit "I am what you made me" and "You should have killed me when you had the chance" and Obi-Wan doesn't lecture him about the Force. He doesn't say a single word! And then when they fight, he does it one-handed, and every ounce of Hayden Christensen's body language screams disappointment. What the hell is this?

Anakin Skywalker didn't spend ten years in the Imperial Brooding Chamber in his Castle Commemorating His Defeat on his Impressive Stone Throne of Angst, plotting his revenge like the Pettiest Most Dramatic Bitch in the Galaxy, for nothing.

This was supposed to be his Validation, and he ends up fighting a terrified hobo in a strip mine.

So, of course, he stops burning him. This isn't what he wanted at all. He lets Ben go, because maybe if he does so, the Force will stop yanking his chain and give him the round two he always wanted.

And the best part? It will. Deborah Chow has slowly, meticulously showed the re-emergence of General Kenobi, the best of the Jedi, poking through ten years of loneliness and mourning. It will come back, it will come out, but Darth Vader might not like the result.

Why?

"The Jedi Code is like an itch. He cannot help it!"

1,003 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

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#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

snake | myg

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Your parents have no qualms on doing whatever they can to climb the social ladder. That includes assigning you a betrothed you've never met, an offering to the crown prince. You, the one the gossipers whisper under their breath... the Snake Princess.

warnings: implied parental emotional and physical abuse; language; non-idol!AU - prince!Yoongi x aristocrat!reader, ft overprotective (but secretly soft), tattooed, little brother!JK; based on this

–

“I don’t care what our father said, you’re not marrying him!”

You scratched your ear, partly shielding it from the loud voice of your brother.

“He’s an asshole!”

“You don’t know him?” you offered, affixing your earring, somewhat annoyed. The yellow gold wasn’t quite your style. Your parents liked such gaudy, ugly things.

Both in fashion and tradition, unfortunately.

“Do you?” your brother shot back, throwing himself up from your bed where he was yelling at the ceiling about nothing he could change. It was a favorite past time of his, along with following you around like a talkative shadow.

“No, that’s why I’m meeting him today,” you replied dryly. You switched to the other ear, adding the dragon-shaped ear cuff above the gold earring. Your parents hated it when you added such aggressive accessories – they’re not womanly, they would say – but if you were going to be betrothed to some guy on the sole basis that they had ambitions and he was the man who so happened to be the next-in-line for the throne, you weren’t going to lie about what kind of woman you were.

“Aren’t you pissed?”

You shrugged. “Is it so bad?”

“Yes!”

You sighed and flickered your eyes to the mirror, seeing Jeon Jungkook’s furious expression, long black hair tied back with lingering strands framing his high cheekbones, his black and gold robes wild, poorly tied and revealing half of his tanned, toned chest. His dark brown eyes flashed, pressing his cherry-painted lips together, jawline sharp and defiant. That’s how Jungkook always looked, messy, undone, borderline furious.

Everyone called him the Reckless Prince.

You just called him little brother.

“Noona…”

“Hmm?”

You saw him frown and you looked away, running a hand through your hair, browsing your hair accessories. You used to have an aide to help you at one point, but you told your parents to get rid of them, preferring to get ready by yourself. And besides, Jungkook liked to burst in and interrupt you with his relentless tirades about how unfair your arranged marriage was. There was no point in having hired help when you could coerce your brother into doing things as you put up with him.

“Can I brush your hair?”

“You have arms and hands, so you’re physically capable, yes.”

You heard him click his tongue in annoyance and smirked, shifting your eyes to the mirror. He was behind you now, face no longer visible. It didn’t matter. You already knew his cross expression quite well. He snatched the ornate comb from your vanity, the black snake head clearly visible on the side of his right wrist, inked near his thumb. Your parents scolded and beat him for getting it, but Jungkook could care less, breaking the wooden paddle with ease, right out of your mother’s hand.

You hadn’t said anything.

The rumors called you the Snake Princess.

Quick-witted, sharp, vicious. Not to your face though, because that was just foolishness. It wouldn’t be only your wrath they would be evoking.

Jungkook ran the comb through your hair, gently separating the strands, careful not to pull too hard. He was better than any aide anyway. They merely yanked and pulled you into their standard of beauty, ignoring your opinions or input, always citing that it was important to not look like a peasant, important to always look above your status, using your beauty to save face.

Saving face.

You hated those words.

“What if he’s a horrible person?” your brother asked quietly, tucking the strands away from your eyes only for them to slip back stubbornly.

“Then he’s a horrible person,” you replied, applying your makeup. “And you’ll probably do something about it.”

Jungkook made a noise between an aggravated bear and an injured tiger.

“If he so much as puts one fingertip on you, I’ll kill him.”

You snorted. “I’d hate to tell you what marriage entails, Jungkook.”

The comb in your hair paused.

His anger subsided, just like that.

“You’re really going to do it?” he asked softly. “Really, really?”

You heard the pain in Jungkook’s voice.

You recalled when you received the news many years ago, silent fury as your parents gave you away, turning you into a transaction to raise their own reputation and status. Your reaction was nothing to your little brother’s, him running to your room and crying in your arms, distraught and upset that you were leaving him, declaring he hated your parents, everyone, and everything.

“You’re supposed to protect me,” Jungkook had sobbed, already too big for you to hold like this but you did anyway, patting his head and wiping his tears with your sleeve. “You’re supposed to be here, with me, forever and always.”

He had taken your hand, tucking his fingers in yours, pressing your pinkies together.

“You promised me.”

And you had, from the very beginning, the shy kid always following after you and making you speak for him, your parents yelling and scolding him to be a man, but you defending him, taking the slaps meant for him, sneaking him sweets when he was hiding his tears, telling him it was okay to cry and that noona would stay here and listen to his worries, no matter if it was as stupid as a butterfly flying away or the teacher once again reprimanding him for his poor scores.

The amount of pressure they put on him just because he was the son was immense.

“I wanna play,” he had cried softly. “I don’t have to study anymore.”

“You want to be stupid?” you had teased, patting his head. “What if I had my lessons with you? I can make that happen.”

“R-Really?”

So, you made it happen, telling your parents and tutors that it would be better for him to be exposed to more complex concepts earlier rather than later and watching someone learn would improve his own scores. You made yourself a better student for his benefit and he, in turn, followed obediently, doing what you did, always overjoyed to hear your praise.

You and your snake tongue could made anything happen for him.

“This servant is bothering me.”

You found some questionable information on that servant and they resigned rather quickly.

“I don’t like the girl our father introduced me to.”

Suddenly said girl was no longer interested in Jungkook. For… reasons.

“I wish I could go on vacation, even for a couple days.”

That one got you both beaten for your three-day adventure to the sea, mostly because you had to run away from your duties to do it. But it was worth it to see the smile on Jungkook’s face.

Then Jungkook became a teenager.

You might have taught him that rules were for old people, for the generation too uptight.

He wanted to do a whole lot of things and you made it happen. Getting him out of those sticky situations was a bit tough, but nothing unmanageable. And now Jungkook was a young adult who did not care about anyone’s opinion other than yours, getting tattooed and spending all of his time with his friends, lackadaisical and free, your parents giving up and calling him a disgrace, relying on your marriage to restore the reputation they valued so much, the face they themselves ruined with their own poor decisions, taking out their frustrations on you and Jungkook, sometimes without warning.

You stayed home, playing good daughter so Jungkook could be the bad son.

Ah, maybe it was your fault he was the Reckless Prince.

You turned, looking up at him now from the corner of your eye, up his loose robes and exposed collarbone, up the line of his jaw that was similar to yours, his lips not quite as full, his round brown orbs that were actually much more innocent and purer than he liked to admit, similar to your eye shape.

But not the same.

Because your eyes were sharper, cold-blooded, predatory.

Even with Jungkook, there was no mistaking the power behind your gaze.

“Do you think just because I’m married to some man that he can control my life?” you said with a sly smile, your lips painted lush red. “I’ll come visit you whenever I want. You can come whenever you want. You can live with me if you want.”

You turned back, sweeping your hair and twisting it in place, deftly and quickly pinning it back, leaving some strands loose and messy that your parents would highly disapprove of, but why did that matter? If this man was to be your husband, then he would see you completely undone at one point, so he should get used to it.

Your parents wouldn’t approve of the black and dark green combination you had chosen either, but that’s why you learned how to sew to dress yourself as you liked. You have to be a lady. You were a lady. Just your version of a lady and not theirs. They tried to gatekeep you by saying that the pink and yellow fabrics were all they could afford. They had a tendency to underestimate your craftiness.

No obstacle was too high for the Snake Princess to slither over.

“Really?” Jungkook asked as you stood up, smoothly adjusting the tie at your waist.

You chuckled at him as he began to follow you out of your bedroom.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll do it for you.”

-

“You brought your brother.”

“I don’t bring him anywhere. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

Jungkook was sitting behind you, arms crossed, glaring at the dark-haired man sitting in front of you. You had mildly fixed his appearance before entering only from him to push up his sleeves so he could reveal the entire snake tattoo wrapped around his arm, a black snake surrounded by thorned vines.

“Hmm.”

This man had requested to meet you first, alone, without the parents. Untraditional, but as long as his father agreed to the request, it was done. Your father had no say in the matter, although he did protest rather loudly and uncouthly.

You had poured the tea for your future husband and you.

Neither of you were drinking it.

The man before you had a piercing gaze, cloud-white skin, shapely lips. Somehow, he surprised you by being dressed in black and gold as well, although he was much neater than Jungkook, black hair tied back in a the usual, curated traditional style.

“I intend in marrying you, you know.”

He had a deep, rough voice, reminding you of dead leaves and winter.

“Is that not the point of this meeting?” was your dry response.

A dark eyebrow lifted.

Jungkook clicked his tongue dismissively.

Those shapely lips curved into a slow smirk.

“I thought I wouldn’t like you,” the dark-haired man mused, reaching over to the teacup and pulling it to him. “I was fully prepared to refuse this proposal and put your family more in the dirt than your brother has already put them into.”

“You bas–” Jungkook hissed, but you held up a hand, cutting him off.

You kept your eyes on those dark brown orbs, cat-like and predatory. He took a deep inhale of the aroma of the tea, letting out a satisfied, smokey sigh.

“I thought you would be like the others. Prim, proper, begging for me to take your hand.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What do I need to beg for? You either will or you won’t. It has nothing to do with me.”

A dark chuckle. “Indeed.”

He took a long sip of the tea, savoring it. You watched him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing, tongue flickering out to lick his lips. Slowly lowering his head, scrutinizing gaze on you. He made you wait for his words.

“And besides, snakes can’t kneel, can they, Snake Princess?” he purred.

“Don’t you dare call her that!”

“No, they cannot,” you replied calmly, ignoring Jungkook’s outburst, staring into the eyes of the man who was going to decide whether or not you were going to be his wife.

“They can’t pray either.”

The dark-haired man tilted his head, intrigued.

“I have no need for gods to be able to live the life I want, Min Yoongi,” you said quietly, venomous edge to your voice. “The ties you put on me cannot restrain me from living as frivolously or ambitiously as I like.”

Min Yoongi, the man who would decide whether you would live an honorable or disgraceful life, the man who was next-in-line, the crown prince. You were meant to be his, but, unlike you, he was free to refuse. Unlike you, he had nothing to lose. Unlike you, he could destroy your life in a heartbeat with a simple no.

“You believe that?” Yoongi questioned, daring you.

You didn’t back down, small serpentine smile on your lips.

“I do not need to believe when I know.”

Silence.

Then Yoongi’s shoulders shook, raspy laughing bubbling from his throat, smirk on his lips.

“You want me to refuse. You want to ruin your parents’ lives.”

You didn’t say anything, your smile fading.

“Ah, but the problem is, I really do like you, Snake Princess,” Yoongi hummed. “You sharp tongue and you even sharper mind. A simpler man would have been tricked by you.” He tapped his long fingers against the table, keeping his feline poise directed at you. “I did not want some placid, useless little thing but a real woman, someone who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. Why have a trophy when you can have a weapon?”

He placed his chin on the back of his other hand, clicking his tongue thoughtfully.

“What shall we do then? You absolutely must be my wife.”

“You–” Jungkook hissed, rising up behind you, glaring at Yoongi over your shoulder. “You know she doesn’t want to marry you and yet you’re going to do it anyway?”

The dark-haired man raised an eyebrow. “She doesn’t want to marry me because she wants her parents to pay for using her so carelessly to further their status. However,” he added with a sweep of his hand on the table, palm upward towards you. “Has she actually said she has no interest in me as a person? During this entire meeting, has she declared that I, the crown prince, am not to her liking?”

Yoongi gave Jungkook a sharp look.

“Do you think she would hide her disdain for me if she had some?”

Silence.

“N… Noona?”

“Yes, Jungkook?”

“You don’t like him at all… right?”

Silence.

You let out a deep breath, slow and controlled.

“Hmm, you are very intuitive.”

Yoongi grinned. “You know we would be a good match, you and I. Here,” he murmured, pointing to the table. “On the throne.” Pointing outside, indicating the land. His cat-like eyes locked with your snake-like gaze, lips forming his next words slowly and deliberately.

“In bed.”

Your eyes trailed from those glittering dark eyes to his pleased smirk. Not a malicious expression somehow. An exciting one. You fully expected to be walking into this room to tear down an arrogant, gaudy man with grandiose self-centeredness.

Instead, it was Min Yoongi.

He ticked his chin to Jungkook, now right next you instead of behind you, clutching your arm tightly.

“Do you want him to be with you? That could be arranged. I can make that happen.”

You really thought you would hate Min Yoongi and yet it seemed as if you were being drawn closer and closer to him. You pursed your lips, not ready to give up yet. He continued.

“And, of course, there’s no reason for your parents to enjoy luxuries that they didn’t earn, is there?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. Yoongi smiled, calm with an underlying slyness.

“That would reflect on you if you treated your in-laws poorly,” you responded coolly.

Yoongi shrugged. “And so? I still have you.” He tilted his head. “Why take a wife if you’re not prepared to do anything for her?” He nodded to himself, tapping his fingertips on the table once more. “Whatever you want, I can make it happen. Be it your brother tagging along, your parents’ lives in ruins…”

Yoongi’s eyes found yours and there was a kindness, already knowing your and him were meant to be.

You weren’t so sure.

And yet.

His next words made you fall in love.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll do it for you.”

--

masterpost

#yoongi x reader #yoongi scenarios #bts fanfic #yoongi x you #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi x you

[yandere-daydreams]

Twelve Days of Christmas - Day Nine

Prompt: Gifts.

Pairing: Yandere!Malleus/Reader (Twisted Wonderland).

TW: Emotional Manipulation, Implied Imprisonment, Burning, Threats of Bodily Harms, and Slight Marking.

“Lilia claims it’s a human tradition.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at Malleus’ tone, his usual composure infected by something playful, a childish lilt that only grew more jovial as appeared behind you, his larger form soon draped over yours. Sitting at the vanity he’d provided, your arms resting on the wooden table-top, you could see his reflection in the circular mirror, a soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth, one that was soon obscured as he pressed a soft kiss into the edge of your jaw, then your cheek while you bit back a laugh. You’d never expected him to be so affectionate, behind closed doors, but you couldn’t say you minded. Not when it came to Malleus.

You couldn’t complain, either. You were his guest, here, in the Valley of Thorns, in the castle he’d insisted on whisking you away to after your graduation from Night Raven. It was sweet of him, honestly. He’d given you a room for weeks, let his servants dote on you as they did him, so it was the least you could do to tolerate the sudden change in his demeanor, to grin as you felt gloved fingers brush against your neck, followed by something metallic and warm to the touch. You didn’t look, though, not yet, keeping your gaze fixed on him. You wanted it to be a surprise, even if Malleus didn’t seem to remember part of your ‘tradition’. “You’re a few days early,” You started, more out of habit than anything else. “And it really isn’t necessary. I already feel like I’m leeching off of you, more jewelry probably isn't going to help.”

“Then think of this as a present for me.” If nothing else, you adored his sincerity, how genuine the fondness in his voice seemed - so sweet, you thought you could’ve been sick. Without thinking, you leaned back, letting your head come to rest against his chest as he fiddled with something above the nape of your neck. Malleus was many things, but he wasn’t unpredictable. Already, you could feel the shape of a necklace, weighted down and pulled taut. You could feel it getting tighter as he messed with the clasp, but you didn’t say anything. If it needed to be resized, you could bring that up later, assuming Malleus’ attention didn’t jump to his next gift first. “Your company is all the repayment I need.” You rolled your eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or, it did little to dampen his mood, at least. “Anything I can do to make your time here that much more enjoyable, I’ll do. It’s not like I’m at a loss for resources in my own kingdom.”

It was a jarring reminder, despite how casually he brought it up. It was easy to forget about his status when there was so little to remind. From what you could gather, the fae hierarchy was steep, and although Malleus didn’t try to keep you away from his guards or his staff or any of the other nobles, they kept their distance on their own. It was traditional, you guessed. You weren’t his partner, not officially, but it would’ve been easy to assume you were. It wasn’t like Malleus ever made an effort to address the rumors.

There was a soft click, the scrape of metal against metal. “You can look, my love. I know you’ve been avoiding it.”

Well, you couldn’t say he was wrong.

It was a necklace, you were right about that. A band of intertwined silver threads, braided loosely into a pattern of dipping and rising strings, all joining together to hold a row of small, rounded emeralds in place, all perfectly cut, all perfectly sized, all perfect. It was just the kind of thing you’d come to expect from Malleus, but there was something else to it, a shine that was just a bit brighter than it should’ve been, a level of quality that no craftsman would’ve been able to achieve naturally, regardless of their talent. Subconsciously, you leaned towards your reflection, trying to get a better look, but the necklace didn’t shift as you moved, every stray coil remaining still, as if it’d been fixed to your skin. Your smile dropped, but Malleus didn’t seem to hold a similar concern. He only let out a breath of a laugh, his hands soon settling on your shoulders, too busy admiring your reflection to realize that you might not be doing the same thing.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” The question was innocent enough, but there was a hollow ring to it, something that fell between rhetorical and purposefully one-sided. You didn’t answer, you didn’t even try, but Malleus didn’t seem bothered. “I may have actually been a little selfish with this one, in all honesty. I knew it’d make you look stunning, and I couldn’t resist.” You couldn’t tear your eyes away from the mirror, from the chocker slowly growing warmer around your neck, but you could feel Malleus kiss the top of your head, his lips lingering longer than they should’ve, as he went on. “It’s nothing you’ll have to worry about. I just noticed you don’t put my gifts to use, very often. I’m not angry, but the jeweler guaranteed that this piece would come with a certain enchantment to help with your forgetfulness.”

You didn’t need him to explain further. “I can’t take it off.”

“You can’t take it off without my help,” He corrected, gently. “If you want to try, I’m not going to stop you. But, I promise, it won’t be--”

You were tearing at the chain in a moment, clawing at the cords, doing anything you could to get the damn thing off of you, but your resistance didn’t last long. As soon as you made contact with one of his glowing, distorted emeralds, the entire necklace seemed to start to burn, smoldering with a heat so intense, it was all you could do to pull away while just your fingertips were singed. It felt like sticking your hand into a hearth. It felt like having someone drip molten iron onto your collar. Like the gems were coals taken from the pit of a fire, and Malleus was suddenly sadistic enough to string them around your neck and insist it was supposed to be a gift.

You buckled before you could catch yourself, jerking forward and relying on Malleus to catch you. Your whole body was shaking, still trembling with terror and dread and pain, but if he noticed, and he had to notice, he didn’t care. Instead, Malleus occupied himself with the necklace, bringing up a hand to toy with the band of silver, never once hesitating as you flinched and tried to pull away. If anything, he only seemed more confident, more affectionate. “Don’t act so disappointed. This is a present, after all, and a rather thoughtful one, at that.” He paused, waiting just long enough to smother his chuckle, just long enough to pull you much closer than you ever wanted to be to him again.

Just long enough for you to catch the edge of his grin, as it flashed across his reflection.

“I could always resort to an uglier method of teaching you to appreciate my charity, if you don’t want to accept it.”

#yandere #yandere love #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere prompts #yandere imagines #yandere oneshot #yandere scenario #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland imagines #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere twisted wonderland imagines #twst #twst imagines #twst x reader #yandere twst #yandere malleus draconia #yandere malleus #malleus x reader #malleus draconia x reader #yandere fantasy #yanderecore #yancore

[ootori-sibs]

Kyoya's second shot

Episode 1: The shadow plan

Hello everyone! This is a new fic that I think you'll enjoy if you enjoy the summer camp fic! It picks up immediately after the anime, with of course a break for the host's to spend their summer holiday. It's not connected to the summer camp fic but has similar themes. Enjoy!

"So? Do we have a deal?"

Kyoya hummed in thought, slowly nodding at the woman on the other side of the screen. He'd spent a long time deliberating over this, months even, practically the entire summer holiday. It had been seeing his friends all happy and put together that pushed him to make this decision; if they can be so wonderful and happy then why couldn't he?

The woman nodded, a smirk playing on her lips. "And I'll get my company?"

"Of course, you'll be the primary advisor for him. Only after he becomes my husband, that is our deal." He clicks his pen and writes in his little notepad. "So that will be all hm?"

23:38 - Eclair has agreed to our deal, I will write up a contract soon to make sure there's no attempt at a breach of contract.

The woman- Eclair nodded, a vindictive smile on her face, an expression that sent shivers down Kyoya's spine. "Of course, Ootori. That's what we agreed on, not that I agree with your-" She looks him up and down, silently scoffing. "-lifestyle. But I do adore this plan of ours. Do tell me how you plan on seducing a taken man? Or did you forget about that little detail?"

Kyoya let a little growl at that, clenching his fists instinctively. "That's not for you to worry about, you're not exactly an example of purity in that regard, Eclair." He sighed, putting his note book down. "I will write up a contract for you, you'll see it soon. Au revoir, Eclair."

He ended the video call and sighed, flopping down onto his bed. God he felt awful going behind his friends like this- especially talking to Eclair of all people. But it had to be done, he simply couldn't take this kind of pain anymore. Something had to be done or he was literally going to lose his goddamn mind.

The first day back at school was going to be hell, Kyoya knew this from the moment the holidays had started, a month into the break he'd stopped agreeing to go on club outings with the group. He'd used so many excuses they'd even come to his house once to make sure he was alright. He felt so guilty for this, but he just couldn't do it- he wasn't strong enough. He'd definitely spiralled since the end of his second year- he barely had the strength to argue with his brother these days, Akito had begun to call him weekly to make sure he was alright, Akito never showed that much care.

The moment Kyoya woke up on Monday, he knew he had to get right to work. He sat at his vanity, staring into the cold, dead eyes that had viewed the world so coldly before the hosts came into his life. He sighs, it'll all go back to playing happy families once he does what he needs to. He's only hurting himself feeling guilt like this. He takes his little palette of makeup, making sure to hide any signs of tiredness or stress with concealer and foundation. He capitalised on the sharpness of his eyes with some eyeliner, only a hint of the lightest purple eyeshadow he could find and just a little bit of blush. He made sure to do his lips in a nice deep and dark plum shade, he'd only ever worn makeup twice before, but he knew a little from watching Fiyumi do her magic. Not to mention he'd done his research.

He had brought a small flask to school with him, just a little one, stolen from his father's office. It wasn't anything too strong, just some honey whiskey, he didn't even know what was in the flask until he'd taken a sip. He sighed heavily and stepped out of his limo and through the gates of the school, instantly there were eyes on him, he wasn't sure if it was because of his host status or his makeup. If it was the latter he couldn't care less if they judge him, they've seen him in worse.

He slowly made his way to his classroom, taking out his notebook to take notes on anything interesting he notices.

7:39 - Seika Ayanokoji has a new bag, likely bought for her by her father. It's one of the new lunar releases from the twins mother, I notice she doesn't appear to have the matching heels- but it's possible that she simply chose to not wear them to school. Further investigation will be needed.

7:43 - The one dubbed 'Princess Teacup' has been spotted on the phone with her fiancé, near the window opposite her classroom door. They're discussing his roommate owning a glass tea set, nothing too much of note, but the idea of a glass tea set sounds like something the club should invest in. I will discuss this with Tamaki.

7:50 - Kuze and his friends are blocking the corridor, he's bragging to his friends about something or other that his fiancée did for him over the holiday. Unfortunately I will have to go the long way around, I may even arrive after Tamaki does.

When he finally got to the classroom, Tamaki was already sitting there- just as Kyoya had predicted. Kyoya closed his eyes, bracing for whatever Tamaki may say- because he knows it's going to be extra. He's instantly proven right as Tamaki rushes at him, hugging him tightly and muttering words in both English and French, only settling back into Japanese when he's calmed down slightly. "Kyoya, Mon Ami! Are you alright?? Feeling better? Come on Kyoya, let's sit down."

He drags Kyoya over to their seats, staring at him in worry. He's clearly waiting for Kyoya to say something, but Kyoya just sighs- causing Tamaki to interrupt him before he could even begin to speak. "Kyoya, please speak to me… we were all so worried about you…" Yet they'd only elected to visit him once, only once over the entire summer holiday had they cared enough to come and check on him- even his brother cared more than that. Sure, Kyoya loved Tamaki with his entire heart, but he could still feel bitter and hurt for the neglect of the care Tamaki was trying to imply.

"Apologies, Tamaki." Kyoya didn't want to apologize, he had nothing to apologize for. But he knew he had to keep Tamaki happy, that was the most important thing here- keep the king happy. But for some reason this made Tamaki frown, guilt in his eyes. Kyoya didn't understand it, he'd stepped down from any argument that might arise, he'd let Tamaki's words hit without any fighting back, and Tamaki was sad?

"Why are you apologising?"

To placate you. That was what the truth was, but Kyoya knew he couldn't just say that. He sighed for the second time this morning, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "For the mild amount of concern I appear to have caused you and the others." It was honest, when they'd come to visit that one time- Kyoya had gotten angry at them; how dare they care when he is so unable.

Tamaki sighs, for one of the first times, he looks tired. "Alright Kyoya, just remember you can always talk to me. Alright?" Kyoya just nodded in response to that, taking out his notebook.

8:14 - Tamaki appears to be expressing worry towards me. He lies about the entire club worrying and seemed almost surprised when I chose to apologize in order to placate him.

Up in the club room, they were getting ready for the first session of the year. When each club member walked in, the first thing they did was ask Kyoya if he was feeling better, it was highly disorientating. But it wasn't until Haruhi walked straight up to him and said; "if you're having mental health issues, senpai- I can recommend a couple of resources," with a caring smile on her face, that Kyoya realised why they were being so considerate of his presence…. They were trying to show the care that Tamaki had implied, and Haruhi even had the nerve to assume she knew what Kyoya's problem was.

It was disgusting. How dare they care so much, where were they when he was actively spiralling? Off doing whatever nonsense they were up to. Now he actually had a plan to get what he's always wanted, they decide to care about him? They had two whole years to care, they don't get a third chance. Kyoya simply sat in silence when the others were doing their hosting, just writing his emails.

To: [email protected]

Cc:

Subject: Meeting.

Nekozawa, I have a proposition for you. I would like to meet with you and some others in the second school hall at around 7 pm this Friday. I have some things to say that might interest you.

Until then,

Ootori Kyoya.

He sent almost identical emails to the head of the newspaper club, the head of the karate club and then began to write a version for a certain someone they'd met in the spring half term: Arai. Now Kyoya didn't know the guy's email, he didn't even know the guy's last name. But it only took an hour to find it, he knew enough about the guy after all.

To: [email protected]

Cc:

Subject: Meeting.

Hello Arai, you don't know me. I don't believe we've even spoken directly. But I'm one of Haruhi Fujioka's friends, the name's Kyoya. I'm writing to offer you a unique opportunity, especially for a commoner. At 7 pm Friday, you were invited to attend a private meeting in Ouran Academy's second hall. As well as myself, there will be three people in attendance. I do recommend you come, it will give you a huge opportunity you do not want to turn down.

Thank you very much,

Ootori Kyoya.

He knew he had to use gentler wording with the commoner, from what he'd seen, Arai is a softer gentleman, with just as much of a moral high horse as Haruhi. He in no way wanted to scare the boy off, he knew more business minded manners tended to catch commoners off guard. It was a lot more gentle with the commoner's email than with the others, for the others knew what he was like, and had no qualms with it. He sighed after sending the emails, leaning back in his chair slightly.

Of course the first day was fairly harmless, nothing truly important happened. But Kyoya did notice how Haruhi still wasn't completely affectionate with Tamaki, what an ungrateful girl.

13:27 - Haruhi doesn't deserve him. She refuses to give him the love he so deserves, she must be dealt with.

At the end of the day, Kyoya packed up his bag, kind of irritated that no one pointed out his immaculately done makeup, at least not to his face. The twins hopped over the moment he thought that, ready to say those exact words; "why are you wearing makeup? We've been wondering all day."

Oh that is wonderful, Kyoya felt pleased now, the idea that his little attempt at makeup had the club fashionistas pondering it the whole day was highly pleasing. Especially when Kaoru added on to what they'd said with; "you look really good by the way, is that violet eyeshadow or mauve and white?" Oh that might not have been who he was trying to get the attention of, but the fact he got someone's attention still cheered him up significantly.

"Actually it's magenta with some violet shimmer." He adjusted his glasses so they could see better. "I'm glad to hear you like it."

The twins nod, humming in approval. "Why are you wearing it though?" Hikaru repeats the question, the same question Kyoya had purposely avoided.

He sighed, moving his head slightly so the light glints off of his glasses. "Does it matter?"

"Considering that brand of lipstick is specifically marketed to attract people, I'd say it's curious you chose that one specifically." Kaoru spoke with a devious smile on his face, instantly hitting the nail on the head. Kyoya wasn't even sure how to proceed, they'd caught him already, and he was furious at that- can a boy not be wickedly homosexual in peace?

"Well is that really any of your business?" He raised an eyebrow, challenging the twins, did they really want to be that brave? Clearly they didn't, from the way they raised their hands in surrender and left the club room.

Kyoya let out a soft sigh of relief, his eyes drifting over towards Haruhi and Tamaki… they were cuddling on the chaise lounge, kissing occasionally too- not a care to the fact he was remaining in the room. He felt the rage growing in his core, he could just throttle that commoner.

16:30 - The happy couple are showing off their affections finally, it makes me sick how they care not for how I may judge them. I was under the impression Haruhi cared not for these frivolous affections.

#ohshc #kyoya ootori #kyotama #tamaki souh #tamaharu #haruhi fujioka #kaoru hitachiin #hikaru and kaoru #hikaru hitachiin #nekozowa #kyoyassecondshot

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 46

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother,  but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 46: Packing Up Again

The pressure behind your ear was there again, as was pressure on your lower stomach. You woke up to Kylo kissing and marking that spot again, both of his hands rested on your lower stomach, threatening to drift even lower. “Good morning, Kitten we have a lot to do today,” as he said this, his hands added more pressure. “First we must go to training.” And his lips moved to kiss your ear. He pulled you up along with him, to get ready for the day.

You dressed in a simple boat neck top with cropped trousers and flats. Seeing as it was something simple and similar to your minimalist old wardrobe. The top showed off most of the dark lovebites Kylo has left you, you thought no one this morning would be too shocked to see them, and you were too lazy to find something else to wear.

This outfit choice seemed to please Kylo, while you finished getting ready in front of the bathroom vanity he took the opportunity to darken some of the fading spots all while his hands groped and finally rested once more on your lower stomach. His lips came to your ear, “You look beautiful Kitten, but I am afraid it is time for us to head to my training.” You quickly finished up the last few touches you needed to do before his arm wrapped around your waist and led you out of your chambers. You gave your usual greeting to the lieutenant on the way out.

Somehow you felt better than you had the day before, last night’s dinner and sweet dreams had put you in an overall better mood. On the walk over, Kylo’s lips kept finding ways to kiss your ear and hair. Apparently he was in a better mood too. You entered the room and Kylo stopped to put you in your usual place next to Phasma and Hux, but before he let you go he placed a kiss on your lips. This being the first time both showed such affection in front of anyone. The room seemed to stop around you, everyone stared. He then turned and proceeded to work with the knights.

The room then filled with chatter, people whispering and conversing with those around them. You had no doubt they were all speaking about you.

“I see my advice worked then,” said Phasma, the first to break the silence in your group.

“It did, and I must thank you,” you responded with a small smile. You could still feel the warmth of his lips on your own. And for a few moments, you could feel the buzz of the Force around you.

“Are you prepared to leave m’lady,” asked Hux.

His words shook you out of your happy state. You were leaving, and not returning for who knows how long. You would be confined to the metal walls of a spaceship, surrounded by strangers.

“Yes, for the most part. I still need to pack,” you lied, well you partially lied. You were not ready to fully leave your home, but in many ways, you knew that your home had already said goodbye to you. Your people forgetting themselves and soon, you would too.  Leaving parts of yourself all over the galaxy. You would transform fully into a woman whom you did not know. This scared you, this unknown change that you were undertaking. When would it stop? Who would you become?

“Of course m’lady, I have received instructions that the Steadfast will approach Mars during your usual lunchtime, we will disembark and you will take your lessons with your new ladies-in-waiting as they help you unpack. You should find your chambers onboard the Supremacy to be much better than those of the Steadfast ,” said Hux.

The lieutenant appeared with your usual cup of Stimcaf made just right. After taking a sip you asked, “how much better are they?”

“Well, they are much larger, there is a personal bar in your chambers and large sitting room. A large kitchen and dining room. The Supremacy is the largest of our ships so these chambers are your castle m’lady. I believe the Supreme Leader also has some surprises for you,” said Hux.

“Surprises, I suppose you can’t give me any hints,” you ask.

“No m’lady I think it wise if I did not,” replied Hux. As he said this you could see Kylo focus on you for a moment before returning back to fight.

“Will you two be joining us on the Supremacy,”  you asked looking between them.

“We will m’lady, we are always at the Supreme leader beck and call, so it is easier to be near him than halfway across the galaxy unless he is the one who sent us there,” replied Phasma. As she was saying this you saw General Pryde saunter over to your group.

“M’lady I am afraid this will be the last time we shall see each other for a while,” said Pryde. His voice laced with something that you could not put your finger on, but you could see his eyes drift over the marks that Kylo had left and it made your stomach roll with disgust.  

“Watch your self Pryde,” you heard Hux cut in quickly. He was watching the general look at you and you could see it on his face that he was not pleased with the situation.

“But sir I was only coming over here to bid farewell to Lady Ren, and to offer her and the Supreme Leader a congratulation.” His eyes sweeping over you once more before meeting Hux with a deceitful smirk.  

Hux asked the question for you with raised brows, “what congratulation would that be? Is it one that you have been reprimanded for before?”

You could see Pryde swallow back fear, before he bowed and walked away without another word. “That’s what I thought,” said Hux. “If I could have had that man executed ages ago I would have, but he always seems to just barely keep himself out of trouble. If he was as minutely honorable as his former colleagues he would have been dead by now.”

You were glad to know that Hux disliked him, it made you feel safer. “Why does the Supreme Leader keep him around?”

“Because some of the old empire sympathizers want someone of his status still around. If we were to get rid of him, it may make our relationships with them more difficult,” said Hux. “If we can get you to be a good enough diplomat there shall be no more need for him.”

This perked you up a bit, now you had a reason to care about your lessons, a bit of true motivation. If it meant that man would be gone you would gladly take the most boring lecture classes available. You could see that Hux noticed this too and gave you a small nod and smile.

The training was wrapping up and you could see that it was your time to go. Kylo came to your side and stole a kiss from your lips before wrapping his arm around your waist and guiding you back to your chambers. You ate breakfast together hand in hand before he went off to shower and go about some of his duties.

After Kylo kissed you goodbye Ap’lek and Vicrul entered the room to keep a watch on you from the inside. They removed their helmets. “Good morning, sweetheart,” said Ap’lek with his usual drawl.

“The boss wants us to keep a close eye on you,” said Vicrul with a smirk. They both then put their helmets back on, just before the seamstress, that was to assist you packing, arrived.

The seamstress, yourself and the lieutenant went into the bedroom and started to pack. You should really thank Phasma for reminding you to get the largest luggage set they had available, as you were seeming to need every single bag, trunk and case.

The seamstress made sure every garment was packed away properly to prevent damage and wrinkles to any of them, the lieutenant read off what a garment was, and filed away what bag it was put into. It took you about four hours to fully finish packing everything. The seamstress made sure to put in scented sachets and tissue paper to make sure everything stayed nice. You mostly helped put away the accessories and your toiletries. Once everything was packed away you called on some stormtroopers to carry your things down to the hangar where they would be loaded onto the command shuttle.

You only had about 10 minutes before Kylo was to return for lunch, you dismissed the lieutenant so he could go pack his own belongings to join you on the Supremacy. You were left alone with the two knights once more. They took off their helmets once everyone had left.

“Got enough stuff sweetheart,” asked Ap’lek you could see a playful smirk on his face.

“Don’t tease the girl, she is taking the boss for all he’s worth. And I don’t blame her,” said Vicrul who lightly punched his fellow knight in the arm.

“I was told I needed to look like an empress, so I have acquired items to do so. I was also not given any budget so I ran with it,” you explained. “And Phasma gave me the idea to do so.”

The smirk on Ap’leks face turned into a frown, “I once saw her as a formidable opponent, but she has a lesson to learn after what happened to you sweetheart.”

“She is not responsible for what happened to me, both times she was following my direct orders and if you remember, she broke one of those orders to save my life.”

“As is her duty, but we would have never have let that happen,” responded Vicrul placing a hand over his heart.

“You will forgive her. I have unless you wish for me to ask your boss to do so?” As you said this the door opened and Kylo stepped in.

“What are you asking me to do,” asked Kylo still with his helmet on, the tone feeling more menacing than he probably meant it to be.

“Tell them to forgive Phasma, she was only following my direct orders, and she still saved me. They believe they would have done better, that it would have never happened but we can’t know that can we,” you pleaded to Kylo. You took his arm under your hand.

He removed his helmet, his eyes staring into yours, “have you forgiven her?”

Your face was painted in confusion, “She didn’t do anything wrong.” Why was he asking this?

He squarely faced you now, his eyes hypnotic and peering into the deepness of your soul, “have you forgiven her?”

You answered him, “yes.” Still confused as to why he was asking, surely he did not hold her accountable still?

He turned his head to look at his two knights, “She is forgiven.” With that, both knights nodded, donned their helmets and left.

Kylo’s eyes searched your face for a bit, what they were looking for you hadn’t the slightest clue. His hand then came up to caress your cheek and bring your lips to kiss in a gentle sweet kiss. Once you two had broken the kiss Kylo led you to the dining room where you awaited your lunch. There was something different about him that you couldn’t place your finger on, he was in a different mood than this morning you were sure of it.

“We will arrive outside Mars within the hour. We will then embark on the command shuttle to take us to the Supremacy. Both of your ladies-in-waiting will be there to help you unpack and to take your lesson,” said Kylo as your food arrived.

It hit you just at that moment, the Steadfast was moving. Here you had thought foolishly for a time that it was unmoving, yes you knew it to be a great ship, but for the entire time you had been on it it had been stationary just outside the Earth’s orbit. More of a base than a moving ship. You wondered when it was that you had finally left Earth, and how far along were you now to Mars. The planet of your planet’s dreams, the one so many Sci-Fi movies were made about, the one where NASA had plans to explore, the one your people hoped to one day colonize.

You were leaving Earth behind for a hopefully better future, at least if Kylo continued to treat you well and not like a songbird. You looked forward to a better future, one that you could dream about.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo x reader #kylo x you #Star wars soulmate au #star wars #first order #star wars imagine #sw first order imagine #star wars first order #a soul to mend his own

[aion-rsa]

From Bridgerton to Hamilton: A History of Color-Conscious Casting in Period Drama

https://ift.tt/2IQI6Ak

Note: This Bridgerton article contains no book or series plot spoilers.

Bridgerton is a unique mix of Shonda Rhimes’ dedication to Black representation on American television and the British period drama tradition. White critics may dismiss this trend as unnecessary “pandering” to Black and POC viewers, but the number of productions designed around reforming all white-casting has increased over the past 10 years—and has only added to the success of the genre. The number one reason driving demand for diverse period dramas is from Black and POC fans of the genre. The impact of seeing an actor that looks like you can’t be measured in ratings or clicks online. Despite facing years of content and fandom overtly or covertly claiming that the universal themes in period dramas are not “for us”; the tide is starting to turn as fans use social media and the power of ratings to ask for more representation. 

A quick overview of recent Regency England-set productions leaves much to be desired. Although the 2018 Amazon Prime/ITV miniseries and the 2005 movie adaptations of Vanity Fair left in West Indian and Jewish heiress Miss Schwarz, she is one of many supporting characters. PBS/ITV’s Sanditon, on the one hand, improved representation by prominently featuring Georgiana Lambe. However, her story was a huge disappointment to Black and POC fans who expected her plotline to end happily or at least have her conflicts resolved. 

There have been three paths traditionally towards increasing diversity in period dramas: 1) blind casting (also called racebending), where Black and POC actors play traditionally white characters adding original Black characters to existing fictional works, and 2) Own Voices, where Black and POC writers share their own stories. These two are not mutually exclusive, but, in the world of British period drama, the former is more frequently used, as the bedrock of the genre is adapting existing novels and plays by white authors.

The theoretical framework for inclusive casting begins in the world of staging period drama at the theater. In Shakespeare’s day, men played women’s roles as women were not allowed to appear on stage. The genre evolved in later centuries to allow women to appear on stage, but the tradition of having actors who didn’t match the original descriptions remained. This is even true of his history plays where real women royalty were characters. Ira Aldridge in the 1840s was the first Black actor in Britain to play traditionally white roles on stage. Later on, in the 19th century, several stage adaptations of Jane Austen’s works had all-women casts. 

Fast forward to 2015, when Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton redefined what it meant to cast inclusively in modern period dramas by using actors descended from slavery and colonialism to play the Founding Fathers. Every aspect of the musical was designed to reframe the existing narrative of early American history. The costume design also reflected the identities of the actor by featuring braids, locs, and textured hairstyles over 18th century white hairstyles. Rap lyrics conveyed to the audience the names, dates, and other descriptions of the Revolutionary War. The old adage that someone must “look the part” to play a biographical role was thrown out the window.

Hamilton proved that many of the old excuses used to sideline diverse period dramas no longer held to be true. Millions of white people listened to the cast album, brought tickets, or streamed the movie on Disney+. UK theater patrons flocked to the West End cast of Hamilton, as well, before the pandemic. Memes, parodies, and more on social media proved that white audiences can conceptualize historical figures as fictional characters while also knowing the real figures looked and acted quite differently. Fans of the show pushed Ron Chernow’s biography back onto the bestseller lists as they wanted to read what really happened. 

The first clear impact the show had on the genre of British period drama comes from a mystery. Daisy Coulam, Grantchester’s head screenwriter, cited reading an interview with Miranda as the inspiration behind the exit plotline for James Norton’s character Sidney Chambers. UK crime dramas  For those unfamiliar with the series, Grantchester is a mystery procedural based on a series of books about a 1950s crime-solving Anglican vicar by James Runcie. Norton’s exit plotline in Season 4 generated an original to the show character named Violet who was the daughter of a visiting African-American preacher. Violet was an original character who forced the audience to consider that the US civil rights movement indeed reached their treasured vision of the lily-white British countryside. Coulam already laid the groundwork for Violet in earlier seasons by abandoning large sections of the original novel timeline and but keeping the case of the week focused on addressing 1950’s social issues. Fans heavily criticized Coulam’s writing for style and pacing, but her imagination clearly indicates that Hamilton’s proven formula for disrupting established historical aesthetics can just as easily be applied to fictional depictions of the UK’s past as blind casting a biography-based series or depicting real figures of Black British history. 

Other period dramas released in recent years share traces of Hamilton’s impact but in a more thematic and less direct different way. Some shows turned real Black British figures into fictional characters. Lina (Stephanie Levi-John) and Oviedo (Aaron Cobham) on The Spanish Princess are composites of Catherine of Aragon’s servants and several famous Black Tudors. Catherine “Kitty” Despard (Kerri McClean) in Poldark Season 5 was a forgotten Black British figure added in to expand the world outlined in the novels. Victoria featured Ira Aldridge (Ashley Zhangazha) mentioned earlier, plus spotlighted the Queen’s adopted daughter Sarah-Forbes Bonetta and Cuffay (C.J. Beckford) as the leader of the proto-socialist Chartists. Lucille Anderson (Leonie Elliott) on Call the Midwife was not mentioned in the original memoirs, but she was added to represent the Caribbean nurses from the Windrush Generation of UK immigrants.  

Racebent casting also increased. Dev Patel’s role as the title character in the movie The Personal History of David Copperfield proved that Dickens adaptations could indeed include POC casts without changing the fundamental plot and message. PBS/BBC’s Les Miserables miniseries also extended the Broadway tradition of casting Black actors in traditionally white coded classic literature characters. Hulu’s The Great featured Sacha Dhawan and several Black actors as Russian nobility, politicians, and courtiers. 

All of these series, however, carefully attempted to stay grounded in recreating the original source material or invested in faithfully replicating the era they were set in. Bridgerton radically expands upon Hamilton’s formula by divorcing inclusive casting from any desire to accurately recreate historical events, eras, or figures. Romance, fantasy, and social/familial drama are universal themes that don’t depend on having a white-dominant vision of society. Quinn’s original novel series sparingly referred to historical events during the Regency Era. Her focus was on creating a world where the most important events were balls and weddings. More Dukes and other holders of inherited titles exist in her vision of the Ton (the most elite members of Regency society) than in reality. Historians would likely dispute her characterization of the elite social season as well. Characters’ internal dialogue is in modern English peppered with regional accents and slang. They rarely lampshade or criticize the way of society beyond their romantic desires and family obligations. Readers see the physical intimacy on the page Austen never mentioned. This literary environment is ripe for inclusive casting on screen. 

The most critical flip in characterization is Simon, Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page). His character is the romantic hero of the first book in the series The Duke and I and is the character that set fan expectations high for future novels. Simon having visibly African features and yet being an object of desire is incredibly subversive in a genre where white beauty standards dominate hetero and homosexual fiction.

Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), Simon’s godmother, is an elder stateswoman and a twist on the battle-ax aunt trope popular in period dramas. She isn’t as caustic and insulting as some other famous widows and spinsters but she commands authority and a mansion filled with people to perform all the hard labor. Lady Danbury is even implied to be slightly higher in status than her white counterparts with children of marrying age Lady Violet Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) and Lady Portia Featherington (Polly Walker).

Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuve) being played by a biracial woman is actually a subtle Easter Egg to existing history debates. Many have debated if her portraits were airbrushed to disguise African features. A few years ago, a documentary established her African ancestry is via the Portuguese royals. All of her scenes involve petting her Pomeranian, demanding to know the latest gossip, and manipulating the gentry into doing her bidding. 

The miniseries doesn’t end the racial diversity with those at the highest social rank or even at the lower orders of domestic servants. Marina Thompson (Ruby Barker) is a cousin of the Featheringtons and represents the “poor relation” character popular in stories based on the British gentry. A Black modiste (dressmaker) trained in French fashion makes all of the dresses the characters wear. Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe) is a boxer, likely a reference to former slave turned bare-knuckle boxer Bill Richmond. Alongside the characters with plot lines viewers follow, there is a conscious effort to hire Black and POC extras to fill in crowd scenes at balls, park scenes, and other public events. The viewer sees people who look like themselves in every class level of society and can feel like they too can become part of their world. 

Read more

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How Bridgerton Can Avoid Outlander’s Mistakes

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

Books

Bridgerton: Cast Announced for Shonda Rhimes Netflix Series

By Alec Bojalad

Attire is a critical part of upholding the fantasy and cultural diversity Bridgerton and also in communicating to the audience the series isn’t your aunt’s neutral tone Austen adaptation. Marina and Lady Danbury would never be caught dead in a plain white muslin frock. All of the popular Regency hairstyles for women have been modified and reworked for natural textured hair, braids, and locs. Some of the Black male extras even have modern African hairstyles left in tact. The only Black characters who wear the traditional white wigs are older men or servants in full formal uniform. Queen Charlotte’s Black courtiers and servants wear a mixture of extravagant 1770s and 1780s attire and Regency court wear to create a physical separation between them and the rest of the ensemble cast. These style decisions are right out of the playbook of Still Star-Crossed, Shondaland’s first foray into period drama. Although that series took place in 1300’s Italy, the priority was on blending fantasy and Black fashion aesthetics over catering to white costume enthusiasts and reenactors.

In the world of Bridgerton, slavery and colonialism are directly or indirectly referenced exceedingly sparingly. One reference is to Lord Dunmore’s army of emancipated and runaway slaves during the Revolutionary War proclamation. (Hercules Mulligan’s Black troops referenced in “Stay Alive” is the Patriot equivalent of Dunmore’s forces). These sparing hints make it clear to the viewers that class, family, and personal family drama is the root cause of joy and pain in this series.  

Since Bridgerton is completely ignoring the physical descriptions of the characters in many cases, the set design carries the bulk of the attention to historical detail. The series hired Dr. Hannah Greig as a historical advisor to ensure these details were as close to 1813 as possible. Greig has previously acted as a consultant to the Sanditon, Poldark, and The Duchess cast and crew is likely where the Easter Eggs in character references come from. Lavish mansions and castles and the more humble spaces ground the fantastical plot details in historical reality. Several previous period dramas have recreated the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, but these scenes in the miniseries are elevated to the next level thanks to Netflix’s budget.

Read more

TV

Noughts + Crosses: Why You Should Watch This Afrofuturist Alternate History Romance

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

TV

World on Fire Returns People of Color to the Dunkirk Narrative

By Amanda-Rae Prescott

The success of Bridgerton applying color-conscious casting to a fantasy/romance series has implications far beyond potential future seasons. Studios especially those in the UK have been hesitant to utilize recent historical romance books for screen adaptations. Modern historical fiction by Black and POC authors (called Own Voices fiction)  which is crucial in the fight for increased representation. Novelists such as Beverly Jenkins, Courtney Milan, and Alyssa Cole have written romances set in the Regency and other eras of American and British History that can easily be transformed into movies and miniseries. Some of these novels recreate existing history while others lean into escapist fantasy. The ultimate goal in period drama representation is for Black and POC creatives to tell their own stories covering all the ranges of emotion, not just historical trauma.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Critics can keep attacking period dramas for being “too woke” (a term that was stolen from anti-racism activists) for remembering that white people aren’t the only inhabitants of the British Isles and America, but series like Bridgerton are here to stay. Black and POC viewers and readers of period drama and romance fiction always existed, and viewership will only grow if more inclusive period romance projects are greenlit in the future.  

The post From Bridgerton to Hamilton: A History of Color-Conscious Casting in Period Drama appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[mst3kproject]

The Manster

Who has two thumbs and is back on terra firma with working wifi?  This MSTie!

As for my chosen subject this week… I don’t think I have to justify this one.  It’s called The Manster, as in a portmanteau of man and monster.  It was directed by a guy who mostly made cheap-ass jungle movies, and stars a bunch of embarrassed actors who don’t know how they ended up here.  It’s old and it’s dumb and it’s often pretty funny though never on purpose, and the perfect stinger moment comes very early in the film… you’ll know it when you see it.

So we have Dr. Robert Suzuki, who lives on top of a volcano.  When people have ‘Dr’ in front of their names and live in isolation with a bunch of blinky light machines, that’s usually a pretty good clue that they’re mad scientists. Tragically our hero, Larry Stanford, is not that observant (Larry’s obliviousness would have been a constant target for Mike and the bots and he would have deserved all of it).  He’s a reporter who wants an interview about Suzuki’s theories on the causes of mutations, but too bad for him, he arrives just as the mad doctor has run out of family members to experiment on.  Under the influence of Suzuki’s injections he’s soon devolving into an animalistic frat-boy, drinking, carousing, and murdering… oh, and he’s growing a second head. Will that be a problem?

So basically this is a werewolf movie with a fake mustache on… or perhaps a Jekyll and Hyde movie of sorts, as discussed in the denouement.  It wants to explore the dichotomy of good and evil in every one of us, using the very silly device of a two-headed man.  I have to say, I understand the metaphor, but it wasn’t put to nearly good enough use.  The movie would have been ten times more fun if we’d gotten to see Larry and his second head arguing over whether or not they’re going to kill somebody.  Not better, mind you, just more fun.

As far as just being a movie goes, The Manster is better than a lot of things I’ve watched for this blog.  The characters have names and look different enough that you can tell them apart, the story makes sense on its own terms and everything that happens is relevant to the plot.  Photography is honestly pretty good and the actors are competent.  All this happens to be in the service of a really silly story with awful special effects (I love Larry’s rubbery second head bouncing as he runs) but it’s engaging enough that you want to keep watching.

What I really like about The Manster, however, is that it offers a lot to analyze.  I’m not sure much of it is intentional.  The Jekyll and Hyde side of the story is elucidated in an ending speech, as Larry’s friend Ian tries to reassure Mrs. Stanford.  He says there was good and evil in Larry, and they’ll just have to wait and see which side wins.  This is not a very satisfying ending, really.  We’ve just seen Larry’s evil side plummet to its death into a volcanic crater… and the surviving good side is under arrest as a serial killer.  Dr. Suzuki and his assistant, the only people who could testify that Larry was not responsible for his actions, are both dead.  This guy’s going to jail.

The really interesting thing in the movie, though, is one that comes up by accident.  Dr. Suzuki’s work is on evolution – his theory is that cosmic rays can induce mutations, producing new species more or less overnight (this is called ‘macromutation’ or ‘the hopeful monster theory’, and lurked on the edges of the mainstream in the 40’s and 50’s) and he hopes to induce the same effect chemically.  When he tries, however, his efforts invariably produce monsters.  Emiko, his wife and former research partner, turns into something resembling the closet monster from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die.  Kenji, his brother, turns into a yeti, and a similar fate awaits Larry.  These mutants cannot understand human speech, and their behaviour is irrational and violent.

This implies a couple of things.  We hear vague mentions of Dr. Suzuki experimenting on fungi, but his heart is mostly in his human experiments.  That tells us that his goal is to speed up the evolution of humanity, and one presumes that this is intended to improve us somehow. Of course, this is not how evolution works.  Evolution does not make things better – this is why biologists have mostly dropped the descriptions primitive and advanced in favour of the more neutral basal and derived.  Dr. Suzuki’s quest is therefore quite misguided, as illustrated by his monsters. In no way could they be considered ‘better’ than humans – in fact, they’re significantly worse at surviving and reproducing (the thing natural selection selects for) than ordinary people are.

There’s another layer here, though.  ‘Evolution makes things better’ is a misconception that’s been around since Darwin, and dates back to even earlier ways of organizing the natural world.  When Linnaeus created the classification system for living things that we’re still saddled with today, he did it under the believe in the Great Chain of Being – the idea that you can order everything that exists into a hierarchy with mold at the bottom and god at the top, and that after god and the angels humans are the best thing that exists (as proved by our being the only creatures able to create classification systems).  It’s an idea that appeals to human vanity and to our need to impose order on the natural world, and it isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.

With that in mind, perhaps there’s another reason Suzuki’s experiments fail.  If you believe that humans are the best living thing around, particularly if you believe we are the image of god on earth, then maybe it’s not possible to improve on us.  Any change you make to people that takes them away from humanity will automatically make them worse.  This idea does appear to be manifest in the fates of Emiko, Kenji, and Larry, all of whom become more apelike, less ‘advanced’, as they change.

In that case, what does The Manster think makes for a good human?  We see a little of Larry before he starts to mutate, so we can compare that with what he becomes.  Rather surprisingly for a movie of this vintage, the fact that Larry is white seems to be pretty incidental.  He is a foreigner in a faraway place, but this serves mostly to drive a wedge between him and his wife Linda.  Except for a couple of rather troubling moments, the film does not present Japan in an exotifying light.  We do see things like a bathhouse and a geisha bar, but these represent Larry’s personal slide into debauchery, rather than the country as a whole.  We also meet normal working people among both the Japanese and the American expat community – reporters, police officers, and even priests.

There’s a very nice bit, actually, where Larry comes upon a Buddhist priest praying, and when he realizes this man doesn’t speak English, Larry takes the opportunity to unburden himself.  It makes him feel better to talk about his moral quandaries aloud, and the fact that the priest doesn’t understand him means he cannot judge him.  This is a very relatable and human moment, one of the best in the movie.

Unfortunately, it also segues into a couple of the most distasteful things in the film.  As I’m sure you’ve guessed, Larry does murder the priest, but before he does, he stares at a particular statue in the shrine – a representation of a three-eyed, fanged being that I am in no position to identify, although it looks a bit like Vajrapani.  Before Larry grows a full second head he sprouts an extra eye in his shoulder, and the implication is that the three-eyed statue draws his attention to the monster within himself. I don’t know much about Buddhism but I do not like the idea of casting another culture’s religious figures as symbols of monstrosity.  The west has done plenty enough of that.

But back to the question of acceptable humanity. We watch Larry get drunk, violent, antisocial, lazy, and promiscuous, which tells us that the ‘good’ man is the opposite of these things: sober, peaceful, friendly, hardworking, and chaste. The film pays particular attention to how Larry relates to women.  The fact that he’s been faithful to his distant wife is established early on, and one of the first symptoms of his devolution is his willingness to discard her.  First he makes out with a couple of girls at the geisha bar, and later he takes Dr. Suzuki’s assistant Terra (who has a tragic backstory but we frustratingly never find out what it entails) as his mistress. On the phone with his wife Linda at the beginning of the film, Larry tells her he loves her and promises to be home soon.  Later, when she comes to Japan searching for him, he shouts at her and makes a show of preferring Terra.

One conversation he has with Linda is particularly revealing.  He tells her he has no desire to settle down in one place and wile away his time drinking coffee and playing bridge when there’s a big wide world out there.  She asks him what about her plans, and he declares he will ‘put her in her place’ and ‘slap her down’.  Since this is when Larry is the opposite of what a good man should be, we can take from it that a good man respects his wife and takes her opinions and needs into account.  For the late fifties, this is actually kind of surprising – I’ve seen films from a decade or two later that were far more backward about this.  So hey, points for that.

All things considered, The Manster is a pretty well-made movie.  It’s dumb and full of clichés, such as the man scientist destroyed by his own creation, the femme fatale who sacrifices herself for the hero because she’s fallen in love with him, theremin music to represent the monster’s appearance, etc etc etc… but it’s competently put together and whether intentionally or no, contains a lot of interesting material. It’s the sort of movie I can watch repeatedly and always find something new in.  Definitely recommended viewing for the 50’s Monster Flick fan, although with the caveat that there is a scene in which one character urges another to commit suicide.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the manster #guys in gorilla suits #tw: suicide #50s

[spiteweaver]

previous | next

(Note: this story takes place in October of 2019!)

--

Of all the dragons Achilles had expected to show up on his doorstep out of the blue, Yọmí was the absolute last. Yet, there he stood, shivering in the early autumn chill, and looking very much like a sheep among wolves. The dragons of the pleasure district, patrons and proprietors alike, paid him little more than a curious glance now and again, but if you’d asked him, he would have told you they were leering at him, biding their time until they could sink their wicked teeth into fresh meat.

“We don’t bite,” Achilles said.

Yọmí gave a violent start, and scrambled to appear as if he wasn’t petrified. “N-no,” he stammered, “no, of course not, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Oh, don’t be so polite, darling,” Achilles cut in, “it makes me weak in the knees.”

“I don’t—I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Never mind.” Achilles turned, motioning lazily over his shoulder for Yọmí to enter. “Come along,” he said, “and explain to me what an upstanding young drake like you is doing calling on a courtesan at this late hour. I can’t imagine you’ve come to buy.”

“No,” Yọmí confirmed as he shuffled into the Nightingale’s dimly-lit foyer. “Actually, I’ve come to speak with you about a—a personal matter.”

Achilles arched a brow. “Oh?” he hummed. “Well, you’re lucky you caught me. I was about to head out for the Lighthouse District. The grand opening is next week, and the boys and I have hardly made a dent in the packing.”

“It seems a shame,” Yọmí said thoughtfully. “The Nightingale is—it’s a very beautiful building.”

“Want it?” Achilles asked. “It would make a mighty fine manor for a mighty fine architect!”

“O-oh no,” Yọmí replied, “I wouldn’t know what to do with so much space.”

“Get married,” Achilles suggested, “have a kid or thirty.”

The quiet hitch of Yọmí’s breath catching in his throat confirmed Achilles’ suspicions. There could be only one thing an aristocrat of his disposition could possibly want with a drake in this line of work. Sighing, Achilles braced himself for a long night. “So this is about all that then?” he inquired.

“Yes,” Yọmí mumbled after a split second of hesitation.

“I had a hunch,” Achilles said, and then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Darling! Dear!” he called. “If Arroyo or Jean-Baptiste come looking, tell them I’ve already gone down to the pier, would you?”

Another drake appeared in the doorway to their right. Yọmí thought he had seen the stranger before, recognizing his dark, mottled skin and smart dress, but wasn’t sure if he was Darling or Dear. “What should we do if they don’t buy it?” the drake asked.

“I’ll leave that to your discretion,” Achilles replied.

“Delightful,” the drake purred, and noticing Yọmí at his employer’s side, gave a short bow. “Lovely to see you, Master Architect!”

“You, uh, you as well.”

The drake departed, and Achilles led Yọmí up an unexpectedly modest staircase. He had imagined the staff quarters to be every bit as ostentatious as the rest of the building, but the third floor looked like it could have belonged to any of the houses in the capital. The drakes of the Nightingale were so famous for their showmanship, in fact, that when Achilles halted in front of an equally unobtrusive door, Yọmí stared at him as if waiting for him to go on.

“This is it,” Achilles said. “You did want to speak in private, didn’t you?”

Yọmí shook himself from his daze. “Er, yes,” he said. “I’m sorry, this is—it’s a first for me.”

“If I had a gold piece for every time I’ve heard that one...”

Achilles’ private chambers were more in line with what Yọmí had anticipated. Though lacking the rest of the building’s over-the-top decor, they were dressed in the deep purples and reds their inhabitant was so fond of, and Yọmí doubted a single item within was made of anything but silk, velvet, or lace. The intimacy of the space made him second guess himself, but Achilles appeared entirely nonplussed, moving immediately to pour his guest a drink from his exceedingly expensive stash.

“Sit—” He waved to the plush couch at the opposite end of the room— “start talking, and don’t be your usual bashful self. If you’re going to vent, do it right.”

Yọmí hurried to oblige his host, sinking so far into the cushions that he felt they may swallow him, but his mind was suddenly, inexplicably blank. “I don’t know where to begin...”

“You were a courtesan before you came to us,” Achilles supplied. “Start there.”

“That’s just it,” Yọmí said, “I wasn’t a courtesan. I wasn’t a—a—”

“A whore.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Achilles silenced him with another wave. “Don’t apologize,” he insisted, “it’s not an insult, sweetie, it’s what I am. I’ve been called far worse by far less charming drakes than you.” With a small, reassuring smile, he offered Yọmí a goblet of rich red wine. “What’s eating you then? I thought you were worried about that ugly ex of yours spilling your dirty little secret, but that’s obviously not the case.”

“I am,” Yọmí said, accepting the wine with a gracious dip of his head, “sort of. It’s complicated.”

“Try me.”

Yọmí stared hard into his glass for a moment, and then, to Achilles’ astonishment, drained it in a single gulp. Achilles was glad he’d thought to bring the bottle with him. “My father arranged my marriage to Abaeze,” Yọmí went on, “because he found out I’d been seeing other drakes behind his back. I was lonely. Without my siblings, father was all I had, and he wasn’t very much. I started seeking solace in the arms of my peers, wealthy bachelors like myself who understood and respected me.

“I knew it was wrong; I was meant to be saving myself for marriage, for the sake of our house. That’s why father was so insistent that I marry Abaeze. Abaeze knew I was spoiled, but he wanted me regardless. Marrying into royalty would cement our family’s influence in Dragonhome after father’s exaltation, so he made all of the necessary preparations without even consulting me. I simply awoke one morning to find that I was engaged to a prince, and father was gone before I could think to protest.

“Then when Abaeze turned up here, he—” Yọmí’s words stuck in his throat, coming out as a strangled sob— “he humiliated me in front of my clan. Now they all think I’m some kind of harlot who will spread his legs for anyone, and I can’t tell them any different, because I was, Abaeze is right, and—”

“Stop.” Achilles pressed a finger to Yọmí’s lips. “Breathe.”

Yọmí did as he was told as Achilles leaned forward to light a stick of incense on the low table in front of them. It smelled of lavender, and Yọmí found his eyelids growing heavy all at once. There was a gnawing fatigue in his bones that he hadn’t noticed until then, with a goblet of wine in his belly and a beautiful drake’s hand against his cheek. Unable to fight it any longer, he allowed his head to be guided down to rest in Achilles’ lap.

“There,” Achilles murmured, “now slow down, take your time.”

“How do you do it?” Yọmí asked.

“Do what, love?”

“Deal with it.”

“Ah—” Achilles ran a hand wistfully through Yọmí’s wild curls— “that. Well, I don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It isn’t about ‘dealing with it’,” Achilles elaborated, “there’s nothing to ‘deal with’.”

Yọmí didn’t find that a very satisfying answer, nor much of an elaboration. “What about what others think of you?” he pressed. “What about your reputation? Your status? Your family name?”

“Why should consensual sex between two drakes tarnish any of those things?” Achilles retorted.

“Because it—it isn’t done—”

“Stop,” Achilles said again, “breathe.”

“I just—” Yọmí took in another deep breath to steady himself, but his next words came out soft, barely audible and hoarse with emotion. “I just want to feel normal, like everybody else.”

“Oh, sweetheart—” Achilles bent to press a tender kiss to Yọmí’s forehead— “what did they do to you in Dragonhome? You’re such a darling thing, and still so young. Drakes your age are supposed to wear their hearts on their sleeves.”

“I’m two cycles already,” Yọmí said, a bit indignantly.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Achilles, evidently ignoring his guest’s displeasure, “come with me to the Lighthouse District tonight. It sounds to me like you’ve been taught an awful lot of awful things by the aristocracy, and if you ever want to get that weight off your shoulders, you’re going to have to unlearn them.”

“Un…?” Yọmí tilted his head back, so that he could catch Achilles’ gaze. “Unlearn them?”

“That’s what I said!”

“How?”

Achilles smiled, and Yọmí felt a peculiar stirring in his chest that he had not felt for longer than he cared to quantify. “Little by little,” Achilles replied. “It won’t happen overnight, but if we can start by changing your view of the world, perhaps we can change your view of yourself.”

“Will that really work?” Yọmí asked.

“Well,” Achilles said, “it certainly worked for me.”

“You…?”

“Do you think confidence like mine springs up out of nothing and nowhere?” Achilles scoffed, pinching one of Yọmí’s cheeks playfully. (The teasing gesture brought heat rushing into them, and Yọmí was glad then for his dark skin.) “I had to work hard for my vanity, darling, and a boy like you, with such low self-esteem, will have to work even harder. That’s why we ought to get started ASAP.”

Perhaps it was the wine, or the stress, or simply Achilles’ skill as a courtesan, but without really even looking for it, Yọmí had found his courage. Reaching up, he placed a hand on the back of Achilles’ head, and dragged him down into a kiss—the first kiss he had shared with another drake since leaving Dragonhome all those aching, longing eons ago. Achilles tasted sweet, like wine, and honey, and something Yọmí couldn’t name, but that made his entire body warm with desire.

When they parted, it was breathlessly, and Yọmí didn’t let Achilles wander far. “I am not,” he said, “a boy.”

“Evidently not,” Achilles conceded. “My, when you decide you’re going to do something, you commit! Here I had you pegged for a bottom, but that was raw, visceral top energy right there! I’ve got goosebumps!” Then his sly smile returned, indescribably beautiful beneath the pale pink color of his blush. “Are you certain you aren’t here to buy?”

“O-oh, n-n-no, I c-couldn’t—”

Well, so much for courage.

--

@nostlenne

#flight rising #fr #zach writes #clan feldspar #feldspar lore #c: yomi #c: achilles #in which yomi is gay for achilles #they aren't a couple or anything #but hot DAMN did achilles get yomi's blood pumping again #achilles: all according to plan >:3c #as an aside #i am already working on the time loop arc #but i have some backlog from the months prior to it that i absolutely need to get through #such as aurelius and halcyon's arrival #and absolom confronting wolf and isaiah #BUT THEN #THEN THE REAL DRAMA CAN BEGIN

[advernia]

fic: coloring inside the lines

— as they say, you always need to keep your eyes on the prize. - queen of hearts/alice the second.

1: a bit late, but here’s a happy birthday to one jonah clemence! ◦°˚\(*❛‿❛)/˚°◦

These are a couple of the many things he just learned about the place she calls London:

Women, regardless of their status, are expected to maintain their elegance and decorum whether it be in thought, speech, or deed,

Another commonality, though not openly admitted, would be the pursuit of preserving natural beauty - whether rich or poor, any lady would put in some effort to maintain or enhance her appearance for her own purposes (and through her own means), but;

While makeup - powders, lotions, creams, rouges, lipsticks, you name it - was admittedly a valuable aid to the relentless pursuit, the sheer fact that it was masking one’s true beauty led to the use of makeup eventually frowned upon.

So maybe, just maybe gifting her an elaborate makeup set was not appropriate - oh no, it was totally fine if just not to upset her - never mind the fact that he just spent at least five painstaking hours in the finest cosmetics shop of the Diamonds Quarter, selecting from shelves and shelves of exquisite products with only her in his mind, urging him to focus on picking the most charming of colors and the most suitable of scents that were perfect complements to her loveliness. 

It was just eight bottles of cream and lotion, three different powder jars, six varied shades of rouge, three lip salves and two lip glosses. Not a big problem at all.

True, she hardly needed the aid of any makeup to make herself even more dazzling than she already was in his eyes (though any more effort on her part was something he’d always appreciate), but in Cradle, a man giving a woman makeup as a gift carried different implications:

To give powders, lotions, or creams suggested a budding interest, for the items were for the lady’s daily use. It gave off messages along the lines of ‘remember me’, or ‘I support you’, for example.

Lipstick and rouge had more intimate meanings as both items were applied to the woman’s face - gifting the latter implied that the man was drawn to sight of her and if worn in return, it meant that she was also interested in him and was open to the notion of courtship.

The former was applied to the lips, so this was more of a confirmation: if she wore it, it meant that she accepted his affections entirely and was ‘claimed’ by him; but if not, it meant that she couldn’t reciprocate his feelings, and finally;

Giving a personal and complete makeup set carried all the messages and implications of the aforementioned items but even more than that, it also signified that only he was worthy enough to influence the beauty of his recipient; a clear cut sign of a romantic relationship in bloom.

… Well, it’s not like he wanted her to know that and maybe it’s better if she didn’t; for what truly mattered was her opinion on the subject: did she frown upon the use of makeup as well? Now that he mulls it over, her vanity was spotless, save for the bottles of perfume he gave her in the past and a vase for flowers. 

Or rather than frowning upon it, was she not accustomed to using makeup? She was a confectioner, so perhaps she didn’t bother buying herself any of the sort when she already knew that she’d be too busy in the kitchen all day with little to no chances to mingle with her customers at all.

During their so-called dates the month she landed in Cradle, she didn’t look like she put any trace of makeup on, either. Then again, they were still on… unsavory terms back then, so… 

… Did London also place meanings into certain gifts? If yes, did she ever receive an item conveying -

Jonah Clemence scowls, shaking his head in an attempt to get rid of any more trifling questions in his mind. To vacillate is not characteristic of a Clemence, and if he had any more time to fret, then he might as well head over to her and hear what she had to say about the matter herself. 

                                He gets his answers that night:

Contrary to his fussing, no, she wasn’t upset receiving a very ornate case filled with his five-hour exhaustive effort of fine makeup choices. Instead, she was flustered and taken aback, but after some convincing she takes the box into her hands with a winning smile that makes all those five hours worth it,

She didn’t disapprove of makeup at all and if anything else, she was honestly curious about the whole thing: she tells him that she thinks of it as some form of painting or even decorating, similar to what she did with cakes and pastries - the sudden reference to food was very like her and he snorts at that,

She had a bit of knowledge on how to use certain types of makeup thanks to her friends but true to what he thought, she admitted to rarely using makeup because her job aside, there wasn’t much reason for her to frequently use it in the first place, and;

Yes, London also attached meanings to certain gifts. When he surly asks her if she had been offered gifts with special intentions, she twiddles her thumbs and she stutters, so -

- pinning her against the wall and watching her cheeks flush a shade of pink akin to the rouge he picked out for her, he lowers his lips to the shell of her ear, intentionally allowing his breath to fan over the flesh before whispering in a low voice:

… Were those gifts so wonderful?

Teeth nipping onto her ear, she lets out a small whimper.

                    … Ah, yes, he did get his answers that night.

                                She finally, finally makes good use of his gift for her appearance in the Red Army’s annual ball as his official partner, and he takes it upon himself to observe her in the art of applying makeup on herself.

He did ask her beforehand if she required professional help, but the sheer twinkle in her eyes when she told him that she’d try doing her makeup on her own was an… unfair move, in his book. How was he to say otherwise when she looked at him like that? Well, he’d like to believe that she really did have an inkling on how to use cosmetics, but just to be sure; he insisted in watching her in case she needed help - thankfully, she accepted without question.

Now, seated in the couch of her room where he could also see her reflection clearly in the vanity’s mirror, perhaps he didn’t need to be so critical of her skill at all.

He wasn’t able to properly see her process when she started with the exposed skin of her collarbone, but he’s left staring as her fingers cheerfully and repeatedly traced the curve of her neck to apply a fair amount of the vanilla-scented cream thoroughly, then followed immediately by patting it down lightly with some of the lavender dusting powder. He raises an eyebrow when she extends the same treatment to the nape of her neck - the wavy updo of her hair did leave that part visible to prying eyes…

Next she went about applying rouge onto her cheeks, and he quietly hums his approval upon seeing the color of her choice lightly dust her cheekbones: he had to hand it to her, out of the six rouges in her set, the pastel pink shade was the most suitable pick to complement both her dress and the overall image she was exuding so far - a youthful yet elegant look, the former defined by the light colors of her whole ensemble while the latter through the style of her outfit paired with her tasteful selection in jewelry.

And last but not the least she began to paint her lips, the tip of her index finger somewhat hesitant as she dipped it into a small jar. He sees the fingertip leave the jar tinted with a light crimson stain that she brings up to her parted lips but to land on one corner of her bottom lip, dragging slowly to a center point - she does the same for the other corner and he’s transfixed on her reflection, or rather the way that her finger moves oh-so carefully, oh-so gently across the smooth curve of her lip.

When she smacks her lips together, pulling her lips inward for a brief moment only to release them with a pop, he hears himself swallow a lump down his throat.

He’s still entranced as she continues to add some paint to her upper lip and before he knows it, she was already done with her makeup and had turned around on her seat to face him.

… What do you think?

Eyes snapping back into focus, he did his best to study her from head to toe: lengthy blonde hair tamed into an updo held up by lovely butterfly-shaped adornments, light pink cheeks a nice contrast to the vivid blue of her eyes, a complexion that still appeared natural even under the light, dangling earrings and necklace with beautiful pearls similar to those sewn on the front of her bodice, a tailor-made dress in varying shades of pastel peach flattering her curves in a most discreet manner, dainty feet slipped onto pristine white heels.

Yet…

He rises from his seat to stalk over to where she sat, briefly looking into those expectant eyes gazing back at him before looking down - back down, to those crimson lips.

… Unbelievable.

He barely gives her any time to react when he takes hold of her shoulders and swoops his head to capture her lips urgently in his: a little noise manages to escape her when he presses the tip of his tongue to that same corner of her lips where she first applied the lip salve, then drag slowly to trace the curve of her lips carefully like how he had seen her fingertip do earlier.

If he recalled correctly, the shop owner absurdly stated that the crimson lip salve was a delicious new product made out of a magically brewed concoction of plant butter and oils, then mixed with in with an organic blend primarily made out of strawberries - he dismissed it as nonsense but true enough, what tickles his tongue is a tart, so pleasantly sweet taste as he keeps his lips pressed to hers.

But as delicious as it was, nothing could ever compare to the taste of her so he coaxes her to let him in and she readily complies - as she received the taste of her own lips, he’s again reliving the taste of her mouth.

                                And she’s still as perfectly sweet unlike anything else in the world.

                                When they part for air, their foreheads are pressed together and their heavy breaths mingle, lips only a small distance apart - she meets the heat of an amber gaze with the haze of her of blue, but she does manage to lift a hand up and tenderly touch the delicate skin of his bottom lip with her thumb; wiping away at the faint crimson stains she saw there.

Voice a breathy whisper, she asks:

… Too much lip salve?

                    He laughs softly before setting her hand on the back of his neck, then leans over to kiss her again.

                    2: an interesting survey distributed in the office yesterday listed some… specific turn-ons, and this is one of them lol - it’s phrased as: taking a keen interest watching your partner apply makeup on themselves… weLL… lowkey spicy times, amirite ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ 3: on that note, makeup isn’t my thing but studying victorian era makeup was pretty fun and so was giving some meaning to cradle makeup, lol! thought those on the top of my head, and i think jonah would probably be the type to be hung over the meanings of certain types of gifts given the occasion + recipient, haha!

#ikemen kakumei #ikemen revolution #ikerev fanfic #jonah clemence #ikerev alice #edgar or kyle in the bg probably: #makeUP jonah not makeOUT smh

[princeescaluswords]

EVERYBODY LOVES DANNY

This is an exploration of the role Danny Mahealani played in Teen Wolf for the first four seasons. It was inspired by an anonymous correspondent who described him as a token. Danny was not a token. Instead, he was a foil for both Stiles and Allison, and his friendship with Jackson was a parallel with the friendship between Scott and Stiles and his romantic relationship with Ethan was a parallel with the romantic relationship between Allison and Isaac.

To me, a token character appears in a movie or story to serve one purpose and one purpose only: to be seen as what they represent. If Danny was the Token Gay Character, he would be on the screen only to be the object of Scott's accidental flirting or to serve as a sounding board for Stiles's insecurity or to remind the audience of Jackson's vanity. Once that purpose was served, he would vanish. Yet, effort was spent on Danny's his emotions and decisions concerning friendship, social status, and the supernatural. He is definitely a minor character, but he's certainly not a token. A token wouldn't be missed as badly as he was in Season 4. The obvious hole he left still puzzles people to this day.

In the first season, Danny's role serves as giving us a necessary look at how the rest of Beacon Hills High sees Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski. He's not as intensely involved with Scott as Stiles, not as hostile as Jackson or Lydia, and he's not a new girl unsure of her footing like Allison. It is an absolutely necessary role to reinforce Scott's complaint of 'sitting on the sidelines.' Danny treats Scott with benign indifference, the way you would treat a nice kid in your science class to which you don't actually talk. Danny doesn't get Jackson's hostility to Scott's rise on the lacrosse team, and he verbally expresses it, but he's just happy to have another good player on the team that helps them reach the state championships. Danny tolerates Stiles because Scott is first line, and he's shocked by Scott's insistence on dancing with him at the Winter Formal, but he does dance with him, reluctant but not repulsed. Danny gives us the average student's view of Scott.

We also get the build up of Jackson's and Danny's friendship, which plays a much larger and more important role in Season 2. Jackson and Danny like each other as much as Scott and Stiles do, and there is a level of implied closeness matching each relationship. Danny can be just as sarcastic as Stiles toward Jackson, "If I come back and you're lying dead underneath a pile of weight, I'm taking the Porsche" and they discuss topics as sensitive as mutual sexual attraction and Danny is concerned because Jackson doesn't answer his texts for a week. The major difference is that Danny respects boundaries in a way that Stiles doesn't, and that is shown by the production -- regardless of my own personal taste -- as a detriment when Jackson decides to go after the bite and suffers the curse of the kanima. Stiles willingness to intrude on his friends life is shown as crucial in Scott overcoming not only his initial transformation but also his evolution into hero. To be fair, Jackson does not seek out Danny's help in the same way that Scott does to Stiles, which is also shown as a problem.

In Season 3, with Jackson's departure, Danny's focus shifts to Ethan, but he still serves as the same foil for Stiles and, now, Allison. No matter how talented the three of them are, no matter how much Danny is a survivor, they are still human in the world of the supernatural. Danny keeps his boundaries, so he's either a pawn of the alpha pack or a bystander to the action -- symbolized by him being present in the room when a chaos fly possesses Ethan and being unaware -- but on the other hand, he does survive and he does it with minimal trauma, not counting the Darach attack.

Stiles gets involved and stays involved, and he will have to deal with the consequences of the nogitsune possession for the rest of his life. Allison choose to become involved with werewolf, even knowing how dangerous in, and she gets involved and stays involved, and it costs her life. Danny chooses to become involved with a werewolf, it being revealed that he wasn't doing it ignorantly, but he keeps himself out of the action.

The audience noted Danny's absence in Season 4, precisely because he had become an important part of the story. He did have friendships, he was involved, but it also made sense that the characters wouldn't experience the same sense of absence, because Danny had drawn relatively firm boundaries around that involvement. He would be involved in things in his own terms.

The audience mourned his loss in Season 4, because of the Dead Pool plot, but I feel, that if we think about it enough, we should have mourned his loss in both Season 5 and Season 6. Danny's presence could have helped us understand Stiles's actions more effectively. They could have even had conversations about feelings of alienation between friends. Danny's presence could have been even more important in Season 6B, exploring how boundary setting is not the same as giving into fear.

A character with this much impact can hardly be classified as token.

#danny mahealani #scott mccall #jackson whittemore #stiles stilinski #teen wolf meta #twmetaweek2022

[hxtties]

AU: The Masquerade

An AU that takes place in the Vampire The Masquerade setting. Each of the muses listed below has been sorted as a member of a clan associated with the Camarlilla: the holders of the status quo, with the intention of maintaining the masquerade and masking the existence of Kindred (vampires) and hiding it from the world. Each clan is a family of sorts with their own quirks, weaknesses and distinctions. Threads in this verse probably won’t have much of a smut focus (despite the general nature of this blog I know I do other things too y’know ;) ) but it wouldn’t be out of the discussion. 

Ventrue (7): The politicians and executives. The leaders and influencers. The Warlords. The top dogs. They are considered the mind of the Camarilla. They are the authority. The blue bloods, so to speak. They take charge when needed, tend to see themselves as a necessity to maintaining both order and the masquerade, regardless of whether or not that’s true.. They tend to be adapt at management and leadership and as such, their lives tend to revolve around such things. A kindred won’t even be welcomed into Ventrue society until they prove themselves in said area of expertise, establishing their own domain of influence without aid. Their biggest weakness is their palate. Each Ventrue is only able to feed off specific targets and can only ingest blood from said targets alone (can only feed off of young men, can only feed off of rich women, etc.). They can’t have any other kind of blood, even when starving and in desperate need to feed.

Sophia Andrews (an agent, focusing on management. can only feed off of women)

Evelyn Vasco (Businesswoman, owns a club. Can only feed off of virile men)

Rhys Chapman (Businessman, owns a luxury hotel. can only feed off of women)

Dwayne Phillips (businessman, deals with electronics and energy, can only feed off of women)

Persephone Sweet (an agent, focusing on public relations, can only feed off of executives)

Electra Syren (businesswoman, owns a tech company, can only feed off of young adults (see Amber A) )

Isabel Delgado (a universal agent, focused on business, can only feed off of men)

Toreador (7): The artists. The social elite. The beautiful people. If the Ventrue are the mind of the Camarilla, the Toreador is said to be the soul. One of the most influential clans in the Camarilla as they have the greatest ties to the mortal world through social and cultural interaction. They can host anything from a high society dinner to children’s theater. As implied by the description thus far, they can most embody the idea of the vamp, one who can get by on sheer sex appeal. They tend to be up on the latest trends, when they aren’t the ones setting them themselves. By nature, art is the cornerstone of this clan. Of course, as per usual, the definition of what could be considered art varies from kindred to kindred. It could be a martial art, if could be painting, writing, graphic design. They could consider their body to be art in of itself. They can also be expert marksmen, incredible musicians, etc.. However, they can also be cult leaders, preachers, evangelists and the like. Their weakness is their fixation with beauty. They can find themselves distracted by something they find exceptional beauty to the point where it could be hazardous to their unlife. Their vision and sensitivity can hurt them as much as it can help them. As such, they can also find themselves prone to falling for mortals and other vampires. It can also keep them from reaching perfection in their art, which could cause them to lose interest in it. Despite this, they aren’t as brainless as one might assume and they aren’t to be underestimated.

Regan Kensington (her art is her body and beauty)

Rachel Hallsy (her art is her beauty but she also takes part in a number of things from painting to dancing)

Caitlyn Bridges (her art is botany)

Soraya Mousavi (Toreador are known to be talented investigators, which she was even prior to being embraced)

Karen Sofer (her art is her body, by way of dancing, camshows and “mingling” with others)

Raul Gallo (his art is cooking)

Calvin Moss (he doesn’t really dedicate himself to art, appreciation for it aside. instead, he’s put his newfound “gifts” toward a goal he had before his embrace: becoming a cult leader. he’s organized his own flock of followers, all too eager to allow him to use them as a blood source)

Claire Simcova (her art is her body. a former model turned personal trainer. so you could argue that her art is fitness)

Malkavian (3): The madmen. The pranksters and lunatics. The seers and the oracles. They are bound by strange compulsions and perceive and articulate things in a manner different than most. Their jokes can range from silly to sadistic. Somehow, they’ve managed to remain as one of the oldest surviving clans, even being among the founders of the Camarilla. Barely a clan on the surface, a large number of them probably aren’t even aware they belong to one. Hell some aren’t even aware they’ve sired anyone! They tend to be tolerated at best, and even so, probably when they have enough self-control to refrain from violating the masquerade. While being embraced by a Malkavian guarantees insanity, they tend to embrace those who were halfway there to begin with. IF you see them muttering to themselves, they might be talking to theirself, or they can be in a conversation with another Malkavian, as they are all connected by a psychic link. Their madness of course, tends to be their biggest weakness. They are always guaranteed to suffer at least one derangement. That said, they can inflict horrible, debilitating insanity just as well. Be wary of the Malkavians. Dementation can destroy your very soul. 

Molly Frye (disorder: dependent, derangement: overcompensation/dependent personality disorder)

Aline Seidel (disorder: paranoid, derangement: memory lapses, paranoia)

Jacqueline Logan (disorder: borderline, derangement: antisocial personality disorder, berserk)

Brujah (6): The rebels, the anarchists, the poets and freedom fighters. A founding clan of the Camarilla, you can be forgiven for writing them off as just a bunch of thugs and street punks. You’d be wrong...for the most part. They’ve a lot more going on then given credit for, and they’re always willing to rally under and fight for what they consider to be a worthy cause. Some prefer to follow charismatic leaders, others prefer individualism. They’ll be glad for a chance to speak their mind, just as they will be a chance to wreck something otherwise. Their weakness is a hair trigger temper and propensity for being wrathful, which means it’s easier for them to fall into a frenzy. There tends to be little organization among them, and they tend to sire whoever they want, for whatever reason they want.

Kyle Bridges

Deacon Wells

Juliana Rouco

Christina Fonseca

Mikaela Banes

Shannon Lawton

Katherine Logan

Chelsea Moore

Tessa Slater

Diora Frye

Gangrel (3): The beasts. The nomads. They prefer to be closer to nature. They prefer the thrill of the hunt. They were a founding clan among the Camarilla, but eventually, they got fed up with them and struck out on their own and now serve as an independent clan. Upon being embraced, they are subsequently left to fend for themselves in the while for a short period of time. The reasoning being that if they can’t survive on their own, they can’t hack it. Those who can survive are welcomed into the clan formally. They are the least social, and most predatory of the kindrid, prone to being territorial. They are shifters, among other things. Their biggest weakness, is the effects of their frenzies. Any time they hit frenzy, they can grow more monstrous and beastall in appearance.

Ken Logan

Lucio Vasco

Clair Morgan

Rosemary Morgan

Kimber Horne

Gisela Krieger

Miri Irvine

Nosferatu (3): The outcasts. The ugly. The spymasters and information brokers. They know your secrets. Perhaps among the most underappreciated, underestimated clan of the group. Perhaps best known for their appearances, which tend to be horrifying, grotesque or plain ugly. Often to the point where they have to reside in and travel through the sewers just to maintain the masquerade. Just approaching a moral can be considered a violation in of itself. But they are also adept at crafting and stealth. They can tame the animals that reside in the sewers. They managed to form their own society among themselves. That said, their mastery of obfuscate can still allow them a number of advantages, as well as a means of attempting to remain among society. They tend to embrace one of two groups. The first, is those looked down upon by society. Those who are down enough on their luck where being embraced by a Nosferatu would be considered a step up: the mentally ill, the homeless, vagrants, etc., out of a sense of kinship. They also will embrace as a means of punishment. Don’t be surprised if you run into a Cleopatra: a Nosferatu who was embraced as a means to punish them for their ego and vanity. They value clan loyalty immensely, often dependent on being supportive of each other. The embrace is very painful, harmful to their body, as their deformities would attest to. It’s lucky if they even manage to survive the process. The weakness should go without saying at this point.

Vita Sommer (an information broker before her embrace and a more effective, illusive one after it)

Celine Beauchamp (was embraced when she was homeless during a harsh winter. physical pain from the shift to unlife aside, she’s managed to adjust well enough. she’d devoted a fair amount of time to tending to “plants” and animal life in their territories. in this case meaning mushrooms and other fungi, rats, dogs, cats and the occasional sewer gator. very helpful with security for one’s haven)

Rhosyn Ravenwood (was embraced in part her sire wanted to prevent the Tremere from getting to her first.)

Lilith Cameron (was embraced as her sire had taken a liking to her. she’s since continued working as a blogger (though a different, more low key kind, and has taken steps towards being an information broker in her own right)

Elizabeth Sage (resentful of her current predicament, has developed a bit of a disproportionate dislike for the Toreador, wishing she had been embraced by them instead)

#hxt verses #wanted plots #AU: The Masquerade #hxt muse notes

[oflgtfol]

hm see i dont really care for the idea of grievous being like. vain? with the statues of himself or what the fuck ever? like idk it’s just weird 2 me. as always the root of it is that 2003 grievous is god tier and that’s what i always fall back on and 2003 grievous just doesnt give a shit about anything except killing people

#Zhdoahdka #aorry i just read grievous age of republic issue #and the like. note at the end #called him a vain maniac and its just like #LIKE IDK ? vain??? #idk see i can see him being. arrogant perhaps #in that he doubts the force / thinks he alone can overpower ppl etc #but i feel like theres a difference between like. overestimating your abilities. and beinf VAIN #i guess #like the statues imply vanity with his appearance it just #like whaaat hdoahdka #like y would he care abt that BDOAHDKSJS #like the actual comic itself i think got it right #he showed zero reverence for the force temple and was like wahh i dont need u #like THATS i guess his issue #perhaps its semantics but i feel like thats more arrogance than VANITY #so the written note at the end is just like. huh #brot reads sw comics #but also i will always claim that i care more abt grievous like. aesthetically than as an actual character w personality #so perhaps im wildly off base bc i dont know anything abt him really LMAOO