#not for his status or money or any of that superficial shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hologramcowboy · 5 months

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A hill that I will die on , the prequel was 100 % her idea , Jensen never thought or spoke about producing he only was interested in acting, that was her way to insert herself in to the fandom and his business and he agreed to give her job , she is the same woman that asked him to go back to work and call kripke when J wanted to take long vocation after working nonstop for 15 years ( which shows she only care about the money and status not Jensen himself) , she is the same woman that admitted she run the ship or whatever that vulgar thing she tried to imply, ppl underestimate the power of control a narcissistic can have, she and her family had Jensen on a leash since day one and any hope of him running away was vanished when she sealed the deal with the twins , if Jensen wasn't a superficial frat boy who was only thinking of his dick , I'd probably feel more sorry for him as he literally got nothing out of this marriage, the family image and the children he would have gotten that by marrying noncelebrity , she doesn't contribute to income since she doesn't work , nobody outside the fandom knows who the fuck she is , her past carrier? I'm mean if it's for the fact that Jensen had to be asked about her naked scenes once in a while and pretend to be cool about it then sure , her face is plastic and even back in the time when she used to be more natural she was an average bimbo and her slutty attitude is probably what got him he thought he was hot shit since she cheated on her bf to be with him and that elevated his ego, she had no personality outside slutty mean girl which got expired quickly since she is older now , what more painful yet funny is seeing the mess during the Winchester promotions he always had shut her down or corret her stupid ass since she is never been truly interested in art itself, the fact that he negotiated her in to the Amazon deal , Jensen is truly done for , he will always pay for his mistake, he will never be free from her and if he ever did it would be too late

She manipulated him into creating one of the worst "prequels" in the history of television so the joke is entirely on her. 🤭

Her desperate attempts to revive her career and star through Jensen began long before she "married" him. Before that she manipulated Riley and his mom into giving her a career so there is an established pattern.

You're right, no one outside of Jensen fans know who she is and that won't change because she has zero to offer. Won't make any difference to her because she is set to ride Jensen's coattails indefinitely, it seems.

#anti danneel #anti jenneel #anti danneel ackles #anti elta graul

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hungryyheartarchive · 1 year

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👋 - A Friend

"edith currie," he says. maybe that's a slap in the face to the likes of roy huntley, who he had known since the third grade, but the heart wants what the heart wants - or wanted. "she was... her and her friends were the clique in high school. the untouchables. at least for the likes of me."

and he laughs, like anything's changed since then. fangs and the ability to sniff out every rodent within a one-hundred-mile radius does not a popular kid make.

"we were in the same english lit class, which was my favourite. i dunno if i believe in natural gifts, but it was the one subject that i knew i had a chance of proving myself in, so long as i put in the work. i didn't care so much about how i fared in biology or math, but i had to do well in english. it was important to me. i was passionate about it, and passion about anything other than boobs and the who isn't cool when you're fifteen. i know most kids thought i was - hey, if they even thought of me at all, you know, but they thought i was very serious and very busy. a square, basically. i think that was the general consensus they agreed on. there was this writing competition i won... they printed my story in one of the local papers. some kids made fun of it. usually just in the hallways, they'd shout out a line at me but some adjective would be replaced with schlong, but someone brought it up one day in class and even before mr. lopez could get a word in, she whipped around in her chair and told them that if they broke her concentration she'd break their teeth. but she said it with this - she had such a sweet smile on her face. her oracy was unmatched. it was excellent. it was horrifying. it was so damn cool. and she gave me this... look, afterward, like: you're welcome.

"she joined the debate team the year i made co-captain. i could see why - she had a natural way with words. that's how we got to talking, at the start. but then she'd stop and say hi to me by my locker. or at lunch, even on the days we didn't have practice. i knew what her friends must've thought about it - oh, god, i've seen some messed up shit in my life, but one of my most harrowing experiences is the look on their faces when she invited me to go to a party with them. she never seemed to be affected by any of that status stuff. i never really knew why, exactly, i thought she was miles ahead of the rest of us - why all of that clique felt like that. maybe just because they had hit the jackpot when it came to looks, and personality, and being born into the right families, and all that stuff but that's all superficial. she had the sort of - i-don't-care-what-anyone-else thinks that you only really start to master when your frontal lobe isn't squishy anymore. i really think i was - inspired by her, more than anything else. of course the fact she smelled good was a nice touch. and the way she styled her hair, and she had this one blouse...

"anyway, just before the summer, we won a debate tournament, and the school gave us money to go out and celebrate. so long as it was a family-friendly celebration. took a while for everyone's schedules to align. when it did, we went bowling. bowling was big back then. do people still bowl anymore? it was fun. it wasn't anywhere near as awkward as i kept telling myself it would be. even when miles brought out his thumb protector. and i didn't ruin it the way i kept telling myself i would. i walked her home, because i'm so chivalrous - right on the cusp of july. felt like the sun was gonna keep on setting forever without ever reaching the ground. that was when she gave me her home phone number, and i spent the rest of the summer being too chicken to actually call her. oh, i had plans. big plans. and i'd guard the hallway where the phone lived in our house, and i'd toss pintacks at my brothers and sisters when they got too close. then i'd spend the whole night looking at the wall, wishing i had the guts and hating myself because i didn't. what's the use in being the smartest guy in english lit if you haven't got any guts? i knew what was scaring me: was it enough just to make her laugh? can friendships really be sustained on that? what would happen when she found out that was all i was good at? sure, i could spell acquiesce, but... i never felt like i could be the whole package. not even just to edith. to anybody.

"i saw her again, when school started back. i couldn't believe it when she asked where i had been. i made up this ridiculous story that my uncle took me to the bahamas out of the blue. by the way, my uncle wouldn't pee on me if i was on fire. he never forgave me for spitting up on his birthday cake when i was two. and i didn't think she would've minded - she probably regretted giving me access like that. now here she was, telling me that there was things she had wanted to go to that her friends had no interest in - can you believe her friends didn't want to go see the re-release of smokey and the bandit? - she thought it'd be perfect for us. for us? there was an us? that gave me all the guts i'd ever need. too much, actually. maybe it was a good thing that life, uh, took a turn for me. i know i would've made a complete ass out of myself asking her to that fall dance. and it's better to have the memories i do have, instead of one catastrophic disaster overshadowing all the rest of it."

he didn't realize he had this much to say about edith. the sudden awareness of this makes him fidget. funny how you never know how much you've got bottled up until someone pops the cork out.

conrad clears his throat and straightens his slouched back. he's still got the same awful posture he had back then. "i miss her." there's that laugh again, and his eyes cast downwards as his knuckles rub underneath his chin. " and you know what. we would've had a lot of fun at that dance, i think." he smiles. his frontal lobe will always be squishy, so maybe he's unable to commit to it, but he knows that it's okay to feel good about yourself sometimes, and say it out loud. "even though i would've been astonishingly sweaty."

#headcanons.#asks.#bewitchingbaker

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redxblueihateloveyou · 3 years

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I'm surprised people see Tadashi as the victim in his relationship with Ainosuke, when it's Tadashi the one who time and time again takes away Ainosuke's agency, without being able to see that he is throwing him unto unhappiness. I can't help but think that if Tadashi was not working at Shindo's house, Ainosuke would have maybe left or broke with the family. But he can't do that if he wants the relationship with Tadashi going on, seing how Tadashi is set on enforcing the family rules...

Hmm.. I def agree with the fact that Tadashi is not what most fandom makes out of him, my man (I mean, Adam’s man) is a 100% Slytherin. But I disagree with blaming him for this, after all the revealed info. The environment they were both raised in made their situation complicated.

I like Tadashi a lot, he’s probably my fav thing about this anime, bc he’s a dark horse, and I’m once again surprised, that so little ppl see him for who he really is, portraying him as an innocent puppy, which he is definitely not.

Now to why I think both Tadashi and Adam are victims of the dad and aunties in this situation.

We can of course say “if only they told each other how they really feel...”, but like we can say it about any love story really. Every author knows it’s no fun. The truth is that yes, they both hurt each other, and yes, if they were honest about their feelings things would’ve been different, but as I’ve already wrote under that “toxic” commentary on YT, lets look at the whole situation from both of their point of views:

We know that Adam when he was little always treated Tadashi as an equal, he never ever thought of him as someone lower than him and after their fall out, the only reason for this “harsh” treatment (well, besides their confirmed kink) was that Adam tried to get a reaction out of him, so Tadashi would stand up for himself, bc Ainosuke got mad about Tadashi caving to his dad’s wishes and abandoning him, when he needed him the most.

But now, knowing the fact that Tadashi was his dad’s secretary and was under his control, let’s see it from his perspective: Tadashi wanted to stay by Adam’s side, Adam’s dad implied that if Tadashi did say smth, he’s gonna be.. well, dismissed and they won’t see each other ever again. That’s what caused Tadashi to stay silent in that moment. Ainosuke instead saw this as a “he’s not on my side” thing, well, because. Tadashi won’t tell him his problem, bc dad and aunties control everything, so even if he does tell him, what a teen would do really? He didn’t have any powers back then to make his dad do anything.

And that’s when it all gone to shit, since they both were hurt for their own reasons. It’s easy to say leave the family, but 1stly nobody explained to Adam still that he’s physically and psychologically abused by his family, he sees it as them “loving him” and sadly also loves them, bc nobody told him, that love wasn’t supposed to be like that really. He definitely feels that smth is not right and feels emotionally exhausted there bc of this treatment, but did he ever consider leaving? I really don’t think so. He feels obligated to be worthy of a family, who “loves” him.

Do you think, for example, that Akashi Seijuro hates his dad for what he did to him? No. Does he understand that he wasn’t at fault for what happened to him and that his dad instead of comforting his child after his mother’s death, who was his only safe haven, made everything worse? I don’t think he does. Like his mom gave him basketball, an escape from all that family’s obligations and strictness. After her death, it was the only thing left that brought him joy, but his dad ruined even that, saying that if he’s gonna be bad at it/lose, he’d take it away from him too. Does Akashi see this as emotional abuse? No, he sees it like “well, I have to be the best bc I was born in such powerful family, so if my dad says that I must be best at everything, then I must.”

I personally hate such parents a lot. To me it doesn’t matter if Adam’s dad didn’t know about aunties hitting his child. Like if he was too busy to notice this and have no time for his kid and made his childhood miserable, it doesn’t make it any better really.

Same as with Akashi’s dad. Some are like “he was probably also grieving about his wife”. Emm? He was like this from the beginning, bc he treated Akashi not as his son, but as his heir. And yes, that’s different things. Same with Endeavor and Todoroki. Your child is not your post production thing.

2ndly they were too young, even if they knew about each others feelings and he didn’t feel obligated and told everyone to fuck off, they’d be on the streets now, but also Adam’s dad doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave them alone really. Also eloping seems very romantic, but I don’t think it is, esp when you’re teens. Did you want him to sell some expensive watch and go live on Hawaii or smth? Bc finding a decent job there would be difficult at this age, esp with everyone knowing who your dad is. Chen Ke from “Antidote” survived bc he was 27 and had connections and some great friends. Adam was in high school, where would he go exactly?

Now let’s go back to now. Obviously all this time it didn’t even cross Tadashi’s mind that for Ainosuke he comes first and that he would throw everyone under the bus to make Tadashi stay with him. As we see at the end, he legit believed that Adam was planning to send him to jail and didn’t get that he said it just to shaken he up and that he knew who he’d set up for this from the beginning.

To Adam obviously it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a quarrel or not, he would never him go. Yes, he’s mad at him, he’s angry and hurt, but Tadashi’s still the person he needs the most, he’s still the person who brightens his days, even tho he deliberately behaves like he annoys him. He always looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, but then hisses smth to hurt him. Bc he knows that he needs him, but he also hates that he needs him, bc he thinks it’s unrequited.

And that’s how their classic romance goes in hellish circles. No one wants to talk as usual. Adam is mad Tadashi is like that bc his dad turned him into a slave with no opinion, while Tadashi is scared that Adam would be taken away from him bc of his ugly family.

Now I still think that no one and I mean no one can take Tadashi from Adam now, he is his precious. So my plan is... if Tadashi made aunties do smth against him or to get rid of him, aunties will go for sure. The problem is Tadashi still doesn’t get that he comes first, so we’re stuck in this hell still.

So anyways, my point is Adam’s heart basically sings “you got a hold of me, don’t even know your power” to Tadashi, but he doesn’t hear it, bc of his insecurities, the way he was raised and his status. But yes, he holds all the power. He’s both Adam’s sanity and insanity. No matter how cheesy it sounds he was basically his only ray of sunshine in the darkness, if you take it away, that’s what it leads to, that’s why Ainosuke-sama needs more ppl who care for him. I don’t want anyone to die next time, just cause Tadashi and Adam fought about where to put their new couch lmao. I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. And kill the aunties, pls seriously, we need to be free.

Also ppl need to remember that like lots of animes/characters are parcially inspired by some other animes/characters, also the chosen seiyuus are also very important, there are lots of stuff like jokes and references, that creators use, from characters being fully inspired by smth like “Assassination classroom” characters based on KNB, to little stuff like Levi dressed in Akashi’s uniform in chibi AOT bc Hiroshi Kamiya. Utsumi already said before stuff like she sometimes think of a perfect voice for the character and then fully forms him, we also know her clear love for sports animes. So yes, I doubt Tadashi/Kuroko thing is a coincidence and even tho someone was like “zone? is this knb or smth?” I was like no, zone is actually a common thing in sports, even tho most associate it with KNB including me, it’s not like its their invention, but there were things inspired by this for sure, and from other sports animes too and no, I don’t mean the basic sports anime tropes, I mean, like way too specific things, some character designes, too. And yes, Langa appearence and personality wise is a rinharu child for real, I can literally split his scenes in “that’s Haru”, “that’s Rin”.

That’s why I’ve said that this situation in fandom reminds me of Kuroko/Akashi situation a lot, bc same as here in KNB ppl for some reason automatically thought that Kuroko is this innocent sheep and Akashi is the wolf (but also like it was Akashi who chose to dress as red riding hood, while Kuroko was a wolf lmao), not even seeing who is in reality more dangerous and who can easily control who. It just buffles me bc it’s not some deep analisys really. I mean once again there’s a reason for the saying that the sub holds all the power over the dom.

And like just bc someone yells or threatens ppl constantly doesn’t necessarily mean he is a psycopatic killer, and just bc someone is quiet and doe-eyed, doesn’t mean he isn’t. I didn’t think we needed to explain this to someone, but aparently we do?

And it honestly kills me just how superficially ppl are watching things these days. It really gives me war flashbacks to stuff like the last mdzs s1 episode, where ppl started to comment things like “how LZ can be so heartless” lmao. Or that anonymous ask “do you think haru misses rin?”. Like you don’t see thing at all? Grey substance no needed, while watching things?

P.S. I also would die to see Adam vs Tadashi race just bc I for some reason can bet all my money, that it’s the same situation as with Akashi refusing to ankle break Kuroko, no matter how mad he is. I just can’t imagine Ainosuke hitting Tadashi in the face with a board. Like 100% sure he wouldn’t even try tbh.

#answered #anonymous #tadaai #tadashi kikuchi #shindo ainosuke #adam x tadashi #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #anime #this is what i think about these two at least

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fritae · 3 years

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The Missing Piece : Chapter 1

Gang leader! AU / Corporate! AU

Characters: Dabi x F/OC

Status: Ongoing

Summary:

Rina Aoki is the secretary of one of the world's biggest broadcasting stations - only she hates her job and wakes up everyday asking herself if this is all there is to life. Then, she meets Dabi: a man of overpowering confidence and many, many secrets. But beneath all that confidence is a wounded soul and years' worth of repressed anger. The two struggle with fear, ambition, vulnerability - but eventually learn that life may just be better when you don't have to struggle alone.

A/N:

There are no quirks in this story. I tried to give it a real world spin. But it will explore dynamics between good and evil, right and wrong, and feelings of family, friendship, love and belonging. I'm super excited about the story and I hope you enjoy it!Chapter 1: the meeting

Chapter One: The Meeting

It was raining.

I hide my tote under my coat out of fear for my laptop. If it gets wet, I'm done for. My boss isn't exactly the most considerate person out there. If anything were to happen to the highly coveted files on it, I might as well hand in my resignation.

I sigh with relief once the bus arrives, and quickly hurry inside.

As I find a seat, I lean my head against the window, not caring for germs or the subtle tremble of the glass. It feels cool against my skin, and not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. But more importantly, it is distracting. It'll give me something else to focus on during the ride.

At least I hoped so.

But within minutes, it becomes clear that my mind has no intention of being distracted. The thoughts creep in and suddenly the soft hum of the engine is no match against the throbbing in my head.

Of course not.

Distractions simply don't last long these days.

So I surrender to the thoughts as I stare at the passing streets, feeling increasingly empty by the minute.

I hate my job. I hate everything about it. Working as a secretary for a broadcasting company is a dream for many. The salary isn't bad. I have access to exclusive events and frequently coordinate with the biggest names in the industry. I know the ins and outs of selling an idea and making it resonate with millions.

But I quickly learned all the people in this industry are insufferable. The whole premise rests upon the art of manipulation, taking something that may very well be worthless and conning people into thinking it will fill a hole they didn't even know they had. The people are superficial, be it actors or other famous personalities. Everyone is so obsessed with images. How to best put on a show to gain the love and admiration of millions.

But what use is their love if it's built upon the distortion of reality?

I shake my head before burying it in my palms.

No matter, I tell myself.

As frustrating and unfulfilling as the work may be, it pays the bills and keeps me busy.

A little too busy...

I get up once my stop arrives. I say a quick thank you to the bus driver before hurrying out.

The cold makes me shiver and I pull my skirt to cover more of my thighs before plastering a fake smile onto my face.

The fake smile is part of the uniform here.

My heels click together with attitude as I make my way through the building. The noise hits my ears immediately. Loud chattering, blaring music and upbeat announcements stand in sharp contrast to the calm of the rainy world outside. I blow kisses as my colleagues call out my name from the studio floor.

My friend and roommate Aliyah takes off her headset to wave me over. She left home extra early today owing to her busy schedule as floor manager. The glaring lights tell me they're about to start shooting but as much as I want to help her with final preparations, I have more important things to worry about right now.

"Can't talk now, Al!" I say apologetically. With one point to my tote bag, she understands. "Good luck!" she shouts back, before returning her attention to the production crew.

I sigh.

I will definitely need all the luck I can get.

I take the elevator up to the highest floor of the company. While our studios are bright, loud and fun. The offices are formal, professional and characteristic of a multibillion dollar company. I knock twice before heading into the largest office at the end of the hall, where my boss is waiting for me. The letters NNTV adorn the walls in an elegant gold print behind him.

A pair of glasses sits on the bridge of Mr. Lane's nose as he reads over today's reports.

"You're late, Ms. Aoki." He says without looking up.

"Apologies, sir. It was unexpected."

"Do I not say to account for the unexpected in your planning, Ms. Aoki?"

"It won't happen again, sir."

He offers me a *tsk* in response.

"Our ratings have gone down this month. Much more than we anticipated." Mr. Lane grumbles.

"CBS' new reality show has attracted a lot of viewers, sir. It's competing with our usual broadcasts at-."

"Then why have you not found a program to substitute whatever we usually air at that time?"

I bite back a sigh. "The current schedule is the most optimal, sir. If we switch around any programs we risk affecting the viewership of The Midnight Show and Killer."

"Well then figure something out!" He barks. "That's what your job is, isn't it?"

"We have a team for a reason, sir. Perhaps we can consult them today? I can schedule an emergency meeting to address this."

I say this knowing the rest of the team won't alter the schedule. The nature of the industry is ratings fluctuate all the time. To change our scheduling at every hint of a drop will only harm our future ratings.

He waves me away. "Schedule it for two hours from now. Cancel anything else I have at that time."

"Yes sir." I confirm, before turning around.

My nostrils seethe as I suddenly hear him mutter *Useless* under his breath.

The rest of the day is spent taking more orders and backtracking on Mr. Lane's previous decisions. Just as I'd expected, the board decided it would be better to simply wait out the next two weeks until the current programs are finished before rearranging any of the schedules. I make a mental note to consider what might be a suitable alternative in the meantime.

The hours drag on. I should have been done at 5, but 7 o clock hits and I'm still taking phone call after phone call. It isn't until a quarter to 9 that I can finally go home.

I sigh as I pass the much quieter studio floor on the way out. I don't find Aliyah among the crew, but I'm sure she's taking care of her own things at the moment. The Midnight Show is scheduled for well, midnight, so she's probably taking a final break before her last project of the night.

Once I am outside, I let out a deep breath I didn't know I was holding in. Instead of taking the bus straight home, I find myself walking toward Café Du Monde. It sits a few blocks away from the NNTV building.

The smell of roasted coffee beans and fresh pastries greets me as I enter. The soft jazz is welcomed by my ears after a day of nonstop chatter and corporate debate.

As I stand in line, I remind myself to pick up coffees before I leave for the crew working late tonight. Hopefully Aliyah will be back by then.

---

"Shit," I hear the man ahead of me in line mutter. "I think I forgot my wallet back in the office."

He checks his pockets again, but finding them empty he looks up at the cashier. "Sorry man, I'll be back another day."

But before he could walk away, I step up to the register. "It's okay, I got it."

He glances at me. "Nah, don't-"

"It's nothing. Can you add another coffee to the order please?"

The cashier punches a few numbers into the register and I hand him a 20.

---

The man tips his hand in thanks. I nod back at him and walk up to the roof.

With a coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I sigh. Now to get the day out of my system...

"How can I repay you," A smooth voice says behind me.

I look over my shoulder to see the man walk up to the ledge with me. He has electrifying blue eyes, a head of thick dark hair, and the kind of walk that signifies authority.

"You good at conversation?" I ask.

He thinks for a moment. "How about I let you be the judge of that?"

I pass the man a cigarette. "Then distract me."

"You don't look like the type to smoke." He comments before accepting it.

"Looks can be deceiving." I shrug.

"It feel good or something?"

"Or something." I confirm with a smile. "Just reminds me to breathe in," and with a soft easing in my chest, "and breathe out."

He leans back against the railing. "Hm. You know breathing quality isn't exactly what people would associate with cigarettes."

I roll my eyes. "You know what I mean."

The man chuckles. "Yeah. Although I think rearranging a few things in your life would help more than smoking. Don't want to grow reliant on an outside source for relief now."

"Well, well. Wasn't aware I was speaking to a mental health guru."

He seems amused by that. "That's not what the people working for me would say but it's nice to know their sentiments aren't universal."

"Ah. So you're a shitty boss."

"I'm just a boss." He corrects. "What people think of me has nothing to do with me."

"Must be nice to believe that." I sigh, taking another puff of my roll.

"No reason not to, eh? Letting others' opinions matter to you means you lose power over yourself. There's nothing you could want from them that you can't do for yourself."

"Money?" I suggest.

"That's easy. But it depends on how willing you are to work for it."

"Work quite a lot." I scowl. "...starting to wonder if it's worth the headache, to be honest."

The man leans closer to me, his breath warm against my ear. I try not to focus on the scent of his cologne, musky with notes of amber and cedar wood. "Then what you want isn't really money. Sounds like you want more."

"More?"

"Yeah. Money by itself isn't satisfying," He says matter of factly. He leans away to take a sip of his coffee. "Only when it's coupled with a goal."

"Hm."

"Money doesn't take you anywhere; it's just a means to an end." He continues. There's an air of mystery behind those turquoise eyes of his. "Your goal is what guides you. Where do you want to go?"

Someone in this neighborhood that doesn't live and die for money? I almost want to laugh. What goal guides him then? What does he stay alive for?

But I keep those questions to myself. I shouldn't get too close to a man I'll never see again.

"I want to be my own boss." I say with a soft smile. Be my own boss. Wouldn't that be nice? No more waking up with Mr. Lane's voice already echoing in my head. No more plastering fake smiles and maintaining that "professional" semblance for hours on end. "I'm tired of taking orders from other people."

I almost miss the sudden gleam in his eye.

"Now that's more like it."

---

I leave the cafe with a box of donuts in one hand and a coffee tote in the other.

I said goodbye to the stranger, happy to have shared these thoughts with someone. It strikes me that I didn't even ask his name.

I shrug. Perhaps that's the magic of moments like these. The universe puts us in places we don't expect to be in. Brings two strangers together and they realize maybe this meeting was just what they needed today. The man got his coffee and I...I was able to let my thoughts run freely.

At least for a while.

"And now we abandon the fantasies and return to reality," I mutter with a sigh. I hook my pinkie with the large glass double doors of NNTV and pull the handle toward me.

There's a small audience present now, the guests for the Midnight Show. I walk around them and smile when I find Aliyah, arms crossed and eyes trained on the set, trying to catch any faults before we air.

"Al!" I call out in a whisper. She immediately looks my way, face lighting up at the sight of the coffee.

"Oh, you're a lifesaver!" She says excitedly as she takes the sweets from my hand. "Hey Joe, set this up for the crew, will ya?"

An intern shuffles forward and takes the bags anxiously to prepare a little station for the team.

"How'd you know I needed the coffee?" She smiles at me.

"Because I needed the coffee," I say with a laugh. "And you've been awake far longer than I have."

Aliyah laughs and rubs her eyes. "I forget how much time I spend here sometimes. No matter - you staying for the show tonight?"

I smile apologetically. "You know I'd love to, but I can barely keep my eyes open. I've got a long day tomorrow, I'm gonna need all the sleep I can get."

I say goodbye to the rest of the crew, smiling sheepishly as they spout *thank you*s for the late night coffee and donuts, and make my way home.

Later that night, as I lay in bed with my eyes trained on the ceiling, I feel a sudden urge to whisper these words out loud.

Please let my life be worth more than the value I add to a company.

#dabi #dabi x oc #dabi x female reader #todoroki touya #dabi fic #dabi fanfic #dabi angst #dabi fluff

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tricky-ghoul · 3 years

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What would happen, if women knew the true extent of misogyny and how men don't see them as equals no matter what they do?

*Sorry but need to vent. Very disappointed at the realization of misogyny and how liberal oversexualized culture is not working. Have so many questions. This is not a poem.

This also doesn't include men who have found "their one" or genuine loving men, because men in love or good men act very differently from other men. And have a feeling that once a man crosses a line or boundary, they can never be redeemed(semi-religious, but feels true). Like if he r@pes or is a pedo or violence, those are just crossed lines between good and cruel alr.

How would women react

If they realized most men only use them for sex

And most times their w*orship and servitude too

Without any commitment from his side

What would happen if women realized

The #1 cause of misogyny

Is men thinking they're "better and superior than women as a gender" in every way

And most men(even leftist men) will actually cape and want male supremacy

Why male supremacy?

Because it helps men max benefit from getting what they want from women, and let's them get away with it even if women suffer or it causes hurt for women.

When will women realize

Most men aren't benevolent, generous, or magnanimous(especially those Playboys only temp nice to girls they want to fuck)

They are quite selfish and predatory

Sometimes sadistic, destructive and r@pey

Why do men like to force chemistry/sexual connections on every woman they're only attracted to superficially? And when she doesn't play into their fantasized role of her accepting him, he gets angry and violent? Why?

Why do men think that just "by virtue of being a man", they are better than women and should get more stuff than women and can shit on/mistreat women for it?

Its very weird how

Most men's primary goal in life is sex

And how most things they do has a motive for sex

Even when it's supposed to be good things like making money and gaining status

Take a lot of men in power for instance

In most cases they just 'pump and dump' lots of young women or do r@pe, assault, other things

Men in power always reveal more of their true colours

How do men think their red flags and dangerous flaws are just "small things" and "little imperfections", when those habits are usually addicktions, abusive, or very derogatory and hurtful? And they expect women to accept these flaws but when she has one thing they don't like they just dump her?

What happens when most women realize,

Most men don't see them as fellow people

Even when he has and did a lot with female friends

He mostly still believe women are "half sentinent window dressing, limited, passive creatures lower than men".

They only ever have a fixed thought mold for all women, and it seems to be "the opposite of all the great things man is".

Worst realisations of all:

- Sometimes when very drawn to men or attracted, there have moments of bias and it can really screw one's judgement and crazy urges to be a pickme again, even though it's known that couldn't work out.

- Nothing one can do will ever force or coax a man to suddenly love them, if he doesn't he doesn't. Even if they're the bestest young virgin wife who bears sons, like PRNCS diana, can still get kicked to the curb. Very sad. Disappointed.

I would hope that if/when more women start seeing these things, we could all have the power to protest. I don’t see men changing anytime soon. They have no reason to, and women are the only ones who could give them a reason to change.

Men are soooo much weaker than they’d ever care to admit. They might have physical strength, but in every other way possible they are weak. They haven’t been socialized to be empathetic or dissect their emotions like the many women have. And when they encounter their own abusive situations, they also don’t have the same sort of inner outlets that women have. They don’t understand the emotions they feel, nor know how to talk about them. It’s scary and emasculating to even try. They don’t learn themselves like women tend to do. Women do the emotional labor men are so ill equipped to handle. They could learn if they wanted to, but most don’t because there’s no point. They’ll find a woman to do it for them. Men compartmentalize their emotions and pack them away, and allow those boxes to fester and seep into everything else. They could change if they wanted, or if they realized they won’t get the benefits of being with a women unless they do.

Society, porn culture, pop culture, and the foundations previous generations laid for us have led us to this. Men have everything they could want at their fingertips. Why behave when you can have it all anyways? Women are the only ones who could press for change. We carry the goods (sex, labor). What would happen if women knocked their standards through the roof and expected men to learn how to examine their emotions, instead of just reacting, before they’d ever allow themselves to be touched?

As for good men, I agree. They’re few and far between, they might put on a good front but it’s quickly gone and the truth comes out. Out of all the men I’ve ever known, only one isn’t addicted to sex and/or porn, and many of them are way down the “kink” rabbit hole, and always cheating on their wives or girlfriends. ONE out of soo many men I’ve met. Friends, clients, or otherwise. When I say former sex worker I mean I’ve seen it all. I was involved in the kink community, mostly as a femdom, for almost 10 years. I trained “sissies.” I did amateur custom porn, all sorts of requests there. Tried doing cam stuff for a while. Stripped at a local club for a few months which turned into a few awful situations outside of the club. I’ve seen what men are all about in so many ways.

The few that aren’t like that are so incredibly different it took me almost 3 years to actually believe it was true. What on earth could have made him different? Some heavy trauma. He was treated in ways so many women are all too familiar with, starting at a young age. Before the internet blew up and porn was so accessible. Everything that’s happened to him over the years turned the dial way down on his libido. He just doesn’t think about sex as much or in the ways most do. For 3 years I was convinced that because he was different, it must just be that he’s good at hiding whatever he’s actually doing to fulfill that need. He can’t just not have that need, why would he be any different? He must have some embarrassing kinks and doesn’t want to tell me, something! But now it makes sense. And it’s sad that abuse is what made things different. But I know trauma definitely doesn’t change everyone in positive ways, this is a bit of an anomaly. It’s just sad that a sweeping majority are porn sick and/or sexually deviant. It shouldn’t be so prevalent. It says a lot about humanity, really. We’re still animals. Preening and peacocking and fighting for reproductive territory, taking control whenever wherever for the sake of fulfilling (mostly selfish) needs. It’s all quite animalistic.

We need a revolution and I’m not sure that’s possible. Women will have to demand the changes needed, and so many things need to change. Men, and many women too, need to gain emotional intelligence. A lack of emotional intelligence is just more fuel for the fire. Whatever happened to mindfulness? Where did that trend go? Unless *mass* amounts of women start speaking up and setting the standards, I imagine things will only get worse. The sex industry and sexual content becomes more and more mainstream every day. I blame it for so much of these issues. Until everyone cares enough to start shutting things down, it’s just going to escalate. Misogyny, sexism, perversion, it all runs so deep. From our peers, families, media, government, and judicial system… who and what can you trust? Victims are not believed, and the perpetrators livelihoods hold more value than the well being of their victims. It’s hard to see where we could even begin to find light at the end of the tunnel.

I hope this was on topic. I don’t know, there’s so much to it all! I wrote a response over the course of a few days with all kinds of crazy things going on irl. But I think with any problem, you gotta find the roots and address them or it all comes back.

#submission

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lanajvmeson · 4 years

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emerges frm a field of corn slinking in w a faux mink shrug dangling around my elbows n a strand of wheat between my teeth..... farmer eleganza.... hlo! my name’s nai. i am bt a humble ghoul arrived to haunt ur home. 23 n she/her pronouns n i live in manchester. fun fact my friend’s neighbour used to b harry styles PE teacher. i played delilah yrs ago as carlson young (n even cara delevingne at one point what the fk) which feels so weird n ancient to me nw bt i missed her a lot so decided to spruce her bk to life.... ANYWAY delilah’s pinterest is here n i’ll jst leap right into things without further ado

(NICOLA PELTZ, CIS-FEMALE) - Have you seen DELILAH ASTOR? LILAH is in HER JUNIOR year. The POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR is 21 years old & is a CAPRICORN. People say SHE is BEGUILING, BLUNT, CUNNING and APATHETIC. Rumors say they’re a member of CALLOWAY. I heard from the gossip blog that SHE WAS IN A REHABILITATION CENTRE IN SWITZERLAND INSTEAD OF DOING CHARITY WORK LIKE HER SOCIAL MEDIA CLAIMED. (NAI. 23. GMT. SHE/HER.)

HISTORY

their family is kind of modelled off the sedgwick family like old money n pretty dysfunctional bt all abt keeping up a seamless facade of perfection... with a pinch of the kennedy’s in there. her dad’s high up in politics n his dad before tht ws in politics n it’s just a long prestigious line of clones in expensive suits as far as delilah’s concerned. her dad i picture as like.... nate archibald’s grandfather in gossip girl.... personality wise.

for as long as she cn remember she’s found this cookie cutter white picket fence life boring. stifling. to delilah it’s like being hemmed in a stuffy room n forbidden frm opening a window. it’s all vry Rich People Problems i wnt lie bt <3 she feels everlastingly bored. All The Time. plus her family hs always been a focal point fr tabloids etc which doesn’t help this feeling of not rly Living but just being the focus of a spectator sport. they’re lowkey a bit of a household name so they get a bunch of scrutiny n......... well. new bullet point alert! cue a powerpoint transition

(self harm & depression tw) frm being young delilah always knew there ws sort of. a white noise inside her where everyone else saw a technicolour movie screen. it rly hit her at like 12 i’d say as she was jst coasting towards adolescence. it ws pretty obvious frm her behaviour i’d say bt her parents only became Aware it ws a problem when she stuck a fork into a socket n short circuited the power in the house. she got shocked unconscious n when she woke up she told the in house dr they’d called (to keep it under wraps frm outsiders) tht she just.... couldn’t feel anything. she’d been reading frankenstein (she’s always liked gothic literature) n thought it’d zap her to life like the monster

her parents got her on medication n figured that wld fix everything. they didn’t like to talk abt things and that was that. it wasn’t to be mentioned again

delilah’s parents r just very.... sterile. family is abt appearances. they’ll be all smiles n flowing conversation when ppl are around bt it feels like being an actress n reading frm a script. being a toy in a dollhouse

she had two siblings: an older sister named clara & a younger brother named elijah. clara ws always like.... the Dream daughter. did everything right. amazing grades. america’s sweetheart. LOVED by the press. did sm charity work. elijah was fine/kind of a slacker compared bt coasted by on athletic prowess (captain of the rowing team). delilah hs very much always been the anomaly in this idyllic line-up. middle child effect! altho having said tht she’s always ran w the popular crowd of her age group bc Rich + Pretty = Status. it’s all quite superficial n delilah’s attitude on the matter can b summed up w this photoset. having said tht there was Some merit in constantly being paraded around as “such a pretty thing” bc a few modelling agencies attempted to scout her bt delilah found that boring. she wants to b called brilliant not beautiful. her mother called this her “not playing to the advantages that god gave her”. with a tight-lipped smile and a “god forbid i use my brain”, delilah only disappointed her further <3

(drugs & ed tw) delilah gt pretty heavy into partying fr the sake of trying to Feel something. intense on the drugs front (coke n prescription pills). rarely eating. she got a silver broach of a swan tht she pins to most of her clothes n u can unscrew the swan’s neck n pull it out to reveal a little powder spoon. still wears this today. clara n delilah were always super close n clara wld cover fr her a bunch. making up lies n jst having her back to their parents if they ever asked where she was / she ws in trouble n needed to keep it under wraps. when delilah hd an article in a tabloid pretty mch like this one clara talked their parents dwn frm sending her to a rehabilitation centre in switzerland. they gt it pretty much scorched frm existence bt delilah kept a clipping bc honestly she thought it was funny hw pale her mother went abt it

(car accident & drunk driving & death tw) at a fancy benefit the astors were all attending among 4857925974 uppity families delilah wound up heading off w some of the rich kids n one thing lead to another n a couple of them gt arrested fr a coke scandal. delilah used her phone call to contact clara n fr once clara hd let loose a little n hd something to drink bt still drove to the station to bail delilah out n try n fix her mess bt.... skipped a red light n crashed. she died upon impact.

(hospitalisation & drugs & addiction tw) this made delilah spiral massively obviously.... she clung on by the skin of her teeth fr a while bt she rly was just getting quite out of control doing an extremely excessive amt of coke to get by at this point so her parents actually did.... end up shipping her off to switzerland for rehabilitation. they didn’t tell anyone this tho n as far as ppl were/are aware she was doing charity work with habitat for humanity in trinidad. her parents literally........... hired ppl to take photos of things there n a social media team posted them to her instagram account jst. the most elaborate lie.... it’s a lot.

delilah jst pretty much went along w whatever they said at the facility bt didn’t absorb any of it too much.... she did get sober there bt it was vry much bc she had no other choice rather than a want to......... she even pretended to “find god” while she ws there n memorised bible lines to recite w a coolly detached smile. in her head she ws probably thinking abt hw her mandated therapist cld gladly eat shit and she’d be happy to watch. it was just like.... everyone there was RLY hideously overpaid bt did they actually Care abt their work or patients? debatable. wasn’t the most healing experience thru delilah’s eyes bt... maybe it’d work better if she’d actually opened her mind to it bt anyway...... <3 cornelius fudge voice: she’s back. the dark lord.....

PERSONALITY:

nw tht her history is out of the way i’ll leap like a flea off a shaggy dog’s back into personality! aesthetically she almost ALWAYS wears white/cream. reminds me of the woman in white frm sharp objects. rarely she’ll dabble in silver or gold or like..... vry pale green bt.... always muted tones. usually white or cream. big white sunhats. white sunglasses. white pussybow blouses w a little white skirt n a pearl barrette in her hair. she even smokes white sobranie cigs tht r imports like it’s a lot she’s truly committed to the aesthetic.... paired w like. classic patent mary janes.... she tends to flutter around the place like a silk moth. likes lace too. hs a very put together image n even demeanour like she’s very lithe n graceful n drifts like a ghost which kind of contrasts w... who she is at her core bt in the astor family it’s all abt appearances <3 the only deviation from this is she sometimes wears dark blue mascara once in a blue moon n if ppl comment on this she’s like. idk what ur talking abt? glides away like a ghost in a haunted mansion n is never seen again.

very perceptive. incredibly observant. yrs of early life media training n being born frm politicians means she’s an excellent liar. she knows ppl n knows what makes them tick bt she’ll only use this when necessary. she isn’t a terrible person bt she knows how to b Very mean n will equip this as a weapon shd a situation call fr it. also more prone to lashing out since her sister......... she hs sometimes played chess games socially fr kicks

dark n biting sense of humour. rather frank abt things. VERY ruthless when scorned bt she isn’t particularly?? emotive abt it??? her bf cheated on her once n when he told her she slapped him rly hard in front of sm ppl he knew n then jst walked away. blocked him on literally everything. removed him frm the face of the earth as far as she ws concerned. had him blacklisted frm every event n told ppl they’d be cut too if they continued to associate w him. goodbye sir <3 u are the weakest link <3 needless to say he regretted it <3

very loyal to u until she isn’t. finds it very easy to cut ties if need be. once her trust is broken it is gooooone baby goone.... the trust is Gone. selective in who she cares abt

vry cavalier abt sex. she doesn’t sleep around hugely i dnt think??? bt when she does it isn’t often tht emotionally invested she’ll jst out of the blue very nonchalantly blow out a wisp of smoke n b like. so u want to fuck me then? cool. proceeds to get up as if she’s walking to leave n then looks bk n is like what do ur legs not work? follow me. n leads them somewhere

nothing rly.... moves her particularly. she isn’t very animated. it’s like she jst finds the entire world thoroughly unimpressive. it’s difficult to stimulate excitement from her. it’s like that hugh laurie quote where he realised he had depression bc “boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars”.

has a pet swan bk at home she’s named lilith inspired by satan’s offspring. lilith bites ppl if they get close n is honestly an abomination of a bird. delilah finds her funny n throws her bits of croissants sometimes bt even she isn’t immune to her pecks. in some ways they’re similar...... hv a graceful surface appearance / aesthetic bt a darker attitude beneath the surface

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

exes: the ex bf tht cheated on her n she got blacklisted from 94872347 social events cld be a fun thing to explore..... delilah wld be EXTREMELY cold towards him n honestly want him dead. wouldn’t show any shred of caring abt him at all she’s very gd at stoning her emotions n keeping them inside. hasn’t cried since her sister died as an example of how..... withdrawn she is from confessing her innermost thoughts n desires. maybe an ex bf before tht that she rly didn’t take seriously at all..... typically she just isn’t interested/invested in romance she’s vry apathetic abt it all

party friends: those tht run in similar rich kid circles tht she would have smuggled off with at fancy events so they could let loose.......... ppl tht r completely her opposite who she finds interesting bc they represent everything she always wanted outside the oppression of her strict regiment family....... mutual bad influences tht are heavy into drugs n always enable each other...... u name it!

hook-ups: she doesn’t have a HUGE amt of these bt.... maybe a select handful.... some she wld have hooked up w once n never again n just been like >_> if they implied they shd as if it was preposterous n she was thoroughly over it.... some maybe she’d find interesting enough to extend beyond tht...... none she’d invest in if she cld help it altho? maybe someone as an exception to tht rule cld be fun

friends of her sister: (death tw) clara was universally well liked for being rly sweet n well intentioned n she attended yates only two yrs delilah’s senior so she might have some connections here still somehow??? cld be angsty to work with

i won’t lie i’m rly hungry as i write up these wcs so my brain’s going blank n i’m gna have to sprint to get some toast bt <3 roommates, enemies, competitive friendships, resentments, angst, chaos, drama, strife, u name it n i am dwn!!!! hits post n takes off galloping dwnstairs

#yatesintro #drugs tw #ed tw #depression tw #death tw #grief tw #car accident tw #drunk driving tw #addiction tw #cowabunga chim chimmeny cheroo it's a tw extravaganza <3 #hmu fr plots go crazy go stupid

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ntshastark · 3 years

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ok, I’ve finished watching it so here it goes:

Bridgerton final impressions

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Daphne: I love her!!!!!!!!! I loved her on the book and I loved her on the show. My only complain is..... The Scene........ The way they changed it up made it so they could’ve easily swapped The Scene for a confrontation. I guess they didn’t want Simon to be the only asshole of the two but then they never addressed how Daphne was wrong too??? They just use the Whistledown voice-over to basically say “oh she’s desperate so it’s understandable” and then kinda shift all the blame onto Violet - and, don’t get me wrong, her sex talk is shit and she should know it, but what Daphne did was already after Rose really explained her how sex really works, so ignorance isn’t really an excuse....

Simon: I love him!!!!!!!!! I loved him on the book and I loved him on the show. My only complain is how they handled his daddy issues arc’s resolution. Like, Daphne just tells him he doesn’t need to be perfect to be loved and! Just like that! He is cured! Childhood trauma? I don’t know her! They don’t even address the real problem, which is Simon going from living to please his father to living to spite his (dead) father, and the book just handled it SO WELL, I really don’t understand why they changed it in the show.

I hope Simon and Daphne don’t get brushed off to the side now that their book’s story is over. Simon and Anthony’s friendship still needs a little patching up; there’s the Will and Alice storyline that, if they choose to continue, Simon will likely be involved in; and Daphne is pregnant during Anthony’s book, so they can do something about that too, and maybe about her helping out Eloise during her first season... I know they won’t be the focus of the story ever again, but I just hope they keep showing up like ABC and E did on this season, and aren’t just mentioned to be doing their own thing off-screen like Francesca was.

Anthony: .......................................................Sigh. I don’t know who that incompetent, irresponsible, lovesick idiot is, but it’s sure as hell not Anthony. They literally took everything about his character, cut into pieces, made a nonsensical collage and called it characterisation. The real Anthony has an incredibly strong sense of duty and responsibility to both his title and his family, because he feels he has to do it as good as his father would - which, in his head, is perfection. He doesn’t skip and/or arrives late to important events because he’s fooling around with his mistress, and he wouldn’t just wave away his responsibilities to his brothers - especially because they are also his responsibility. The real Anthony cares deeply about the happiness of his siblings, and does everything to secure them the Happily Ever After he himself doesn’t believe he’ll ever have. He would never force one of them to marry someone they clearly despise, especially with no serious reason. The real Anthony was a rake who jumped from bed to bed without letting himself create real attachments, because he deeply believes he’s going to die young and can’t bring himself to make someone go through the same pain his mother did when his father died. He simply wouldn’t remain seeing a woman if he thought he was developing feelings for her - and that only changed when he was forced to marry Kate - and he definitely wouldn’t ask someone to run away with him when he’s finally free of society, jesus fucking christ what the hell even was that?????? And so they - knowing he was going to be next season’s protagonist, mind you - took all of the characteristics Anthony developed in the 10 years since his father’s death, largely because of Edmond - both in how he raised him and in how his death traumatised him - and said “hey, what if we make all of this happen in like 3 months, and be all about that opera singer he kissed once in the book!”

Violet: I love her, but I feel like they sacrificed a lot of Anthony’s character for her sake......... The Nigel thing is a great example of that: The way she solved it was amazing, but for that to happen they had to make Anthony cause the problem in the first place, which was so ooc it physically hurt. And the way she’s constantly reminding him of how much he sucks as a Viscount, and even straight up saying that his father would’ve been much better was icky tbh

Eloise: Loved how they explored her relationships with Daphne and Benedict - and the queen thing was funny - but that’s about it. She’s so incredibly entitled holy fuck. Combine the fresh-faced feminist who just learned the buzzwords and now thinks sexism is the single biggest plague to ever walk this earth with the spoiled rich girl who wants the entire world to bend to her whims and refuses to do anything she doesn’t want, and that’s how you get show!Eloise. But, tbh, I don’t really mind. She’s a teenager, that’s just how teenagers are. We didn’t really see that much of her before the time jump in the books, she has a long way to go until her story takes center place, and I’m perfectly ok with us watching how she becomes the woman we see in TSPWL. Basically, not that big of a fan of her characterisation, but she is in a spot where she can spend some time turning into the woman from her book - unlike Anthony :)). My big issue is actually how her going from vehemently anti-marriage as a teenager to happily married and with a bunch of kids as an adult is going to feed such a tired trope...

Penelope: I love her, obviously, but oh boy is she fucked. I agree very much with this post re: what she did to Marina. I guess, because LW was initially just a writing device to allow for exposition, the show is gonna go WAY deeper into how the things that happen to Penelope (and her being a teenager) affect what she writes, and into the consequences of doing what she’s doing, but honestly? They might have overplayed it...... I really don’t see how in the fuck they’re gonna make the ending of RMB work in the show’s universe - and I already thought the books glossed over the consequences way too much. So, uh. Good luck I guess.

(Also, I wonder what they’re gonna do about that heir cliffhanger. I just assumed Penelope was gonna do what she does in the books and find a way to give part of the Whistledown money to her mother. Gotta admit it never occurred to me that, with all the Featherington children being women and their father being dead, the title and what comes with it technically belonged to a uncle or cousin or something)

Marina: I fucking hate them for making me get attached to her knowing what’s gonna happen. This poor girl, jesus christ. And, ok, a lot of times she seemed rude and ungrateful but 1. Her situation was fucking terrifying and 2. She was suddenly thrown into this world of pampered, superficial, and naive girls, and that can test anyone’s patience. Also, yeah, the whole manipulating Colin thing was not cool, but, again, it was either that, an elderly likely-abusive husband, or a life of shame on the margins of society, so uhhh.

(Also, that scene when she said she would love for her, Penelope and Eloise to be sisters........ And I thought Eloise becoming Oliver and Amanda’s mother couldn’t hit me any harder......... Imagine an AU where George survived and he and Marina get married and Eloise marries Philip and Penelope marries Colin and they’re all sisters-in-law to each other and I cry my eyes out)

Colin: Gotta be honest with ya, chief... I don’t think he passes the sexy lamp test. Missed his and Daphne’s special relationship, missed his love of food, missed his sense of humour... At least he and Penelope were cute. I’m actually already shipping them more in the show than in the books.

Benedict: I think they’re trying to mirror him being in a relationship with a woman of no status (now Genevieve, then Sophie) with being gay and hmm. Really not sure about it. He does seem bicurious to me but I think they’re hesitant to give him an arc focused on exploring his sexuality when we know his love story is gonna be with a woman (but then again, they weren’t afraid of giving Anthony an arc about having a relationship with a woman of no status when we know his love story is gonna be with a perfectly respectable one, so *shrugs*). Once again, very glad they decided to make him and Eloise so close from the get-go. It’s going to make that scene on TSPWL where Benophie’s son gets sick so much more meaningful and painful, I can’t wait.

Siena and Genevieve: They’re both amazing women with an incredible friendship. Benedict and Genevieve have the relationship I was hoping Anthony and Siena would have, from the trailers.

Francesca: Glorified cameo. Disappointing. I know she doesn’t show up much in the books other than her own, but that should just have been seen as an opportunity to do whatever they wanted with her! Not make her disappear for 6/8 episodes! Hope they show more of her on the next season.

Gregory and Hyacinth: They’re baby. The scene where Gregory makes both Anthony and Simon fall on the water should’ve been there. Loved Hyacinth acting like she’s Simon’s BFF. Loved that they cut Hyacinth’s “wait for me” scene bc it reminded me too much of my annoying little cousin and made me not like her for the longest time.

Lady Danbury: 10/10. Please hit me with your cane. Am currently entertaining the idea of having her and Violet get together.

Barry B. Benson: A cold-blooded murderer

Overall: This didn’t fit into any character, but oh god........... the lack of chemises............ But I loved the show, even if some things annoyed me, and I can’t wait for season 2 AND MY GIRL KATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

#spoilers #bridgerton spoilers #the bridgerton spoilers #f: the bridgertons #s: bridgerton #t: talk post #mari rants

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ironundcrneath · 4 years

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✦ ▓ AND WHO GOES THERE? oh, it’s just [ ROSALINE PEAKE ]. some say [ HER ] resemblance to [ HOLLIDAY GRAINGER ] is almost uncanny, but the [ TWENTY-NINE ] year old has been in the capital for [ TWENTY-NINE YEARS ]. many suspect that they are the notorious [ SURGEON ] of the [ BARATHEON ] family: perhaps that has made them [ BITTER ] && [ SUSPICIOUS ] of late, when they used to be so [ RESILIENT ] && [ TENDER ]. during the daylight hours, [ ROSALINE ] can be found working as a [ ER & TRAUMA NURSE ], but when night falls over king’s landing, they are best remembered listening to [ BLACK HOLE SUN BY SOUNDGARDEN ]. may the gods be with them in these dark streets.

A B O U T ;

Long ago the Peake name carried weight, they were the family that people answered to before the Tyrells came rolling in. Any crime in the Upper West Side was done by the Peakes or in their name, and nothing happened without their say so. It was practically a century ago, but her family still talks of it as if it were yesterday, as if any of them had a part in the so called glory days of the Peake name. They didn’t and they refused to let it go.

Many relatives had tried ‘taking it to the man’, attempting ill planned coups (could it even be called that if it had no chance of succeeding?) against the Citadel since they took over some 50 years ago, where the only the only thing overthrown were their bodies over the bridge and into the river. For every failed attempt or drunken rant in a pub about the Peake name being restored, the Peakes fell further and further from grace. By the time Rosaline was born, the Peake name was a joke, they were dirt poor, and on the Tyrell shit list (not a place one wants to be).

Titus and Margot (née Lannister, a far flung cousin of the noteworthy ones) Peake were not in a happy marriage. They had gotten married when she had gotten knocked up with their first child, Roland, and never bothered to divorce, no matter how unhappy either were. By the time Rosaline came into the picture, their house was one of hostility, broken promises, and fragility. All the emotional labor Titus had put on his wife, she put on Rosaline as soon as she was old enough to carry it. Many have told Rosaline she was a natural born caretaker, but sometimes she wonders whether it was nature or nurture.

Despite her family no longer being a ‘crime family’ they were still a family drowning in crime. None of them seemed to be able to hold a job that wasn’t in somehow illegal, and preferred fast, get-rich-quick schemes and easy money from a night’s work (after all, it only takes, what, an hour to knock over a liquor store?). Much of her youth was spent patching up her brother, her father, cousins and uncles. Her 16th birthday was spent minting her brand new junior’s driving license by driving her bleeding father to a hospital, with a wound she couldn’t take care of herself, and left the back seat a grisly mess.

But Rosaline’s father, Titus, was different than most Peake’s. While he desired to return the Peake name to one of status and greatness, he was no fool, and knew trying to usurp the Tyrells was a stupid idea if there ever was one. He strongly believed in the saying of ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’. Very much the patriarch of their family of misfits, extended or otherwise, he instructed that the family’s new goal was to find greatness within the Citadel syndicate itself, to gain entry into it’s ranks and become important members. But with many of their names on the Tyrell shit list, this was no easy task, so many of the Peake family members found themselves pulling increasingly difficult and noticeable jobs (crimes) in hopes of gaining the attention of the Tyrells, in hopes that some of them would be allowed to join their ranks as initiates.

And despite being surrounded by crimes and the fast money way of life, Rosaline never felt the pull and refused to be involved in anything more than stitching people back up. They had tried to convince her (’we just need you to drive, that’s it’), they had tried tricking her (which promptly got their asses left with bag in hand standing outside of the gas station), but she refused to budge. Cruel words and rude jokes were made at her expense (‘what, do you think you’re actually gonna go to school? who’s going to take you?’). Despite being a hard worker who, if she put her mind to something, generally succeeded at it, she was constantly told she wouldn’t amount to much.

So, it came as a surprise to her family when she was accepted into King’s Way. It was unsurprising that she chose to attend their nursing program, though. She was put on a fast tracked course, and found herself graduating in three years rather than four. The entire time, her new found knowledge was put to work, patching up family members more and more often as they continued their quest in gaining the attention and possible favor of the Tyrells and the Citadel.

Eventually, and inevitably, they did go too far. Her brother, cousin and uncle made the mistake of going after a shipment of guns. And made the mistake of not finding out who those guns belonged to. They were Stag guns. The trio were lucky enough to get pulled over by police amidst their getaway, and were brought into custody. Because if they hadn’t, they most definitely would’ve ended up losing their lives. Ours is the fury, after all. And while getting arrested saved their lives, it also in a way, cost Rosaline hers.

With the guns and perpatrators in law enforcement custody, the Stags had no way of retrieving stolen merchandise, and had to find another way to recoup costs. They also somehow had to make an example, and that is how they ended up on Rosaline’s door step. To make a long story short, having already been working at North Wall as an ER and Trauma nurse for some years, Rosaline had run ins with members of many different syndicates, including the Stags, and had treated all of them with skill and care. So when the connection was made between the perpetrators of the heist and herself, Rosaline wasn’t so much recruited as forced to be a Baratheon surgeon.

She has been such for 2 years, they keep telling her that she’s close to paying off her family’s debts to the Stags, but she was never given any definite details of how long she’d have to work it off. And to be frank, she has no idea how much longer she can keep it up. No one outside of her immediate family knows of her new affiliation with the Stags, and she’s scared for anyone to find out, unsure of what that would mean for her or her family’s safety. Both the Stags and the Citadel have far reach, and she’s growing more and more paranoid by the day. Her life in the past years has completely fallen apart due to holding this secret. Rare nights off from the hospital are spent traveling to dark parts of the city to patch Stag men up, family and neighborhood gatherings are avoided due to the fear of running into Citadel men and associates (as her father had gotten his wish and despite son, brother and nephew in prison for a crime committed in pursuit of his goal, he did accomplish gaining the attention of the Citadel, and some family members had been taken in as associates). Her engagement had been ruined as she couldn’t explain where she was rushing off to in the middle of the night (he had accused her of cheating, and too scared to tell him the truth, she lied and said he was right). Leaving her completely and utterly isolated from loved ones and friends, with her only interactions coming from co-workers and Stags that she interacts with.

While she has not lost her gentle touch, her sunny disposition has begun to wane as clouds of paranoia and bitterness over her situation have rolled in. Surrounded by powerful people who treat her life as no more than a pawn to be played, Rosaline is starting to realize she needs to take control of her own life, to turn her backbone into one of iron, and to replace her soft curves with sharp edges.

W A N T E D C O N N E C T I O N S ;

THE STAGS ; Members or associates of the Stag syndicate that she has gotten to known over the past two years. Perhaps they like each other, or perhaps they don’t. They could have also been one of the people who had a hand in forcing her to become a Stag surgeon. This is a super open connection that we can either just use as a superficial way of the two knowing each other or could plot out something deeper.

THE CITADEL ; Growing up in Tyrell/Citadel territory, and now with some of her family members either associates or initiates into the syndicate, I picture Rosaline having lots of connections to current members/associates or those adjacent to the syndicate. Childhood and high school friends, ex boyfriends, etc. As of right now, no one but family knows she’s working for the Stags, so these two would have probably drifted apart in the two years since she has started, if they had been close at the time. Once again we can either play this as superficial way of knowing each other, or could develop it into something deeper (they’re suspicious of her allegiances, or she tries to use them in some way to hide her current situation, etc).

EX-FIANCE ; Within the past two years, Rosaline’s engagement ended. He was rightfully paranoid when she would sneak out in the middle of the night or wouldn’t return phone calls for hours on end when he knew she was off shift, and when questioned had no real explanation or ones that didn’t make sense. Finally he got the guts to accuse and ask her if she was cheating. Knowing that him knowing the truth would only put him in danger, Rosaline took the out and told him she was. She’d rather see them both in pain than dead. (could be a neutral party or really anyone from any syndicate, as prior to being forced to work for the Stags, she didn’t care much about ‘party lines’ so to speak)

CO-WORKERS ; Anyone who would work within the hospital or as a first responder that she could interact with on a fairly regular basis. At this point, Rosaline pretty much only interacts with patients, co-workers and members of the Stags, far too paranoid to have a life of her own at this point. While she is a very friendly and bubbly personality, she’s starting to master the art of knowing much about people, but people not knowing much about her. The only exceptions would probably be people she’s known for more than two years, before her working for the Stags. And while she’s infinitely more comfortable with them, she does clam up when talking about her life currently.

BEST FRIEND ; We can decide if the best friend knows or not, but if the latter it was probably one of those situations where they said ‘i get you can’t tell me, but i’m gonna be here for you anyways’. I’m completely open to plotting pretty much any and everything about these two out: how long they’ve known each other, just how tight they are, etc. Could also fill the connection below!

ROOMMATE ; Could also fill the connection above. But pretty much, what’s on the tin. We can plot out if they’re close or not, or whatever. They probably notice her coming and goings at odd hours (unless they also keep odd hours 👀), and either mind their own business or after getting BS answers enough times have stopped asking. Could also be really interesting to do someone in a syndicate opposed to the Stags or in the Citadel, but neither of them knowing of each other’s affiliations!

#( me? using a lyanna quote for an unrelated semi-oc? more likely than you think. )#vixere:intro

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fckember · 4 years

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{ +･ﾟ✧ ALEXA DEMIE, SHE/HER/HERS | there’s no way the killer doesn’t know who ( CATALINA ROSE) is. even i know they’re a ( JUNIOR ) studying ( MEDIA) and known as ( the sybarite). they’re ( 21 ) years old and i think everyone knows they’re the ( member) of ( GAMMA ZETA ) . one time their phone went off in class and it was ( Alone) by ( HALSEY). }

+charming, quick witted ,confident, honest, independent,determined

-quick tempered, self-centered, impulsive, jealous, judgmental, materalistic

Hi guys! I’m Bunny and this is my little socialite Catalina. I warn ya’ll now. She’s…like…so much. If you like what you read, give this post a like and I’ll magically be summoned into your messages.

Before Bella Nova

Catalina Rose was born in Tabernacle, New Jersey December 8th 1999. along with her “twin” brother Emilio. Her mother was from OLD money, while her father ran a successful tech business, rivaling those like Apple & Microsoft. So it goes with out saying that Cat never really “wanted” anything. Superficial items were nothing but a card swipe away for her, and after all, no one told Catalina Rose no.

As she grew older, the assumption that she would “peak” in high school was made of her. She was the prettiest she’d ever be, the town eating out of her hand and the hottest guy was in town was completely head over heels for her. She didn’t have any real future goals. She didn’t care for school, let alone college. She just wanted to live her life and basically, as Euphoria said do what she did without all the bullshit. So that’s exactly what she did.

After graduation she and her boyfriend had a huge falling out, breaking up after almost 8 (on and off plus does pre highschool even count?) years together. She was devastated. With no one to talk to, she turned to the internet, going on a live stream rant and telling their tragic love story to the camera. Between the dramatics of her story telling and her socialite status, the video instantly went Viral. It was then she realized her true calling and her YouTube career began.

Bella Nova:

Catalina followed her family to college, getting into her mother’s sorority. After the success of her youtube channel she decided to major in Media Studies to help further her career. She filmed herself doing challenges, giving advice, and as of later, her documentaries on her socialite acquaintances. Her first documentary “The 1%” gave her viewers a look into the life of the richest of rich in a raw, un-photoshopped feel (think shane dawson x jeffree star) and her views shot up. Since then Her viewers had been begging her from something similar. She needed something new. Something that hadn’t been done as of yet. But it’s hard when you’re trying to juggle classwork, a social life, and your career at once. She’s been wearing herself thin and is trying to keep up. And to top it off now there’s a murder? Well....it’s going to be a hell of a story.

Wanted Plots:

There’s a plot page here as well, but here are my MW

The BFF - Pretty self explanatory. But basically someone who’s been Catalina’s go to their entire lives. They can be similar or Polar Opposites, so long as they are loyal.

The Ex. - The one who broke her heart. Are there still feelings? Maybe. Will they be shown? Only in the most unhealthy of ways. Will there be tension, drama, and jealousy? Absolutely.

The Fan ♥ - So I really would love someone to be like a huge fan of her channel. Maybe Catalina takes them under her wing and let’s them help out?

The Assistant - BAsically someone who can take her shit and does for reasons we can plot out. Low on money? Wants to ruin her? Needs connections? The options are limitless.

The Rival - Bitch 1. Meet Bitch 2. Fight!

Mr.Almost - a really good guy friend. Everyone always thinks they are dating but they aren’t. Much to -insert charrie name-’s chagrin. The timing isn’t ever right and Cat is always too hung up on the ex.

#shark.intro

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jinjojess · 5 years

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Jess Talks FE3H

I had a Thought the other day that I shared on my Twitter, and @goldstarzzz asked for some elaboration on it. Since Twitter sucks for nuanced, long-form discussion, I decided to type it up on my blog instead (though the draft I was working on during my trip home on the train has been lost twice because of annoying reasons I don’t want to get into now).

Be forewarned that I’m gonna be verbose here, so this shit will be long.

Obviously, we’re going to touch on some FE3H spoilers, so be aware of that.

I haven’t finished any of the routes yet, but there’s something that I want to discuss about the game--namely Edelgard and how if you aren’t on her route you get very little in the way of context for why she does the things she does.

While on one hand, I like how realistic that restricted perspective is, since in real life you don’t know the motivations and past experiences that have shaped a person unless you actually do make an attempt to engage with them and get to know them, and it fits in nicely with the themes in Three Houses of how history is written by the winners, everyone is the Hero of their own story, and conflicts are not Good vs. Evil so much as clashes of worldview/agenda between groups of fallible individuals.

However, the fact that you don’t get any context at all from the other routes does Edelgard dirty as a character, and is where we get these tiresome, dumbass takes like “Edelgard is literally Hitler” and “Edelgard just does things for no reason” from fandom members who are only engaging the narrative on a superficial level.

(As an aside, there’s nothing wrong with just taking a narrative at face value, but you do have to give up any claim to commenting on its non-subjective quality if you do that.)

And I mean yeah, if you’re on one of the other routes then it does kind of seem like Edelgard’s heel turn comes out of nowhere, rather than a steady, uneasy build to an eventuality. In a game where you couldn’t get close to her beforehand and see the dominoes lined up along the fault line, as it were, this would be Bad Writing (e.g., Monica/Chronia), but you can take the time to hear Edelgard out and listen to her justification before that happens. She’s a playable character with an actual route, which is a big departure from the usual villain.

The things Edelgard is fighting for are objectively good: eliminating the aristocracy; disrupting the Church’s unquestioned authority; dismantling obsession with crests and fate and birthrights. She’s a trauma survivor who wants to help people who have been hurt and destroyed by the machinations of the Rich and Powerful.

Her methods may not be ideal, but honestly, is she doing anything any different from anyone else in the game? It’s possible she does and I haven’t seen that yet, but so far the things you do on her route aren’t much different than the things you’ve been doing all game already, just under the banner of Seiros. Sure, you have no emotional connection to the NPCs from the East or West Churches, but that doesn’t change the base fact that you’re still going out to exterminate them at the behest of someone who outranks you.

Edelgard and her route’s existence is a challenge to the status quo of Fire Emblem--it makes the player question the usual set up of Good Guys vs. Bad Guys, makes you stop and wonder if hey, maybe all these brigands you’ve been hacking through have the same level of interiority and charm as the characters you’ve been playing as.

The problem with this is that Three Houses is still a Fire Emblem game. Yes, what you’re fighting for is ostensibly different, but the way you get there is identical: kill off the Enemy until they run out of guys on the map. So even if the point is that Edelgard’s goals are lofty but her methods are unacceptable, the entire theme goes belly up since Claude and Dimitri are basically using the same methods. Unless they have some mechanic I haven’t heard about where you can diplomatically resolve conflicts, they are functionally identical to Edelgard with regards to what they actually do.

This dissonance between the themes and the mechanics reminds me a lot of Pokemon BW, with N and Team Plasma. They’re positioned to address the elephant in the room re: Pokemon’s base premise, but then because they’re restricted by the mechanics, every dispute is resolved with a battle, which kind of undermines the whole thing. Even N, who is depicted as the one who most sincerely believes in pokemon autonomy and rights, still battles you to prove that battles are unethical.

Is this realistic in that many real people will use noble goals as a smokescreen for their actual, more selfish agenda? Sure! But while that applies nicely to Ghetsis and his little cult, N feels more like he’s intended to be an anti-villain, someone who Has a Point Actually, and you should critically examine your actions in-game. It’s far more powerful when the antagonist isn’t actually wrong, just different from you, and it’s a shame that N had to sacrifice some of his integrity as a character to fit into the format of a Pokemon Game.

Going back to Edelgard, while I’d 1000% percent be down to be able to play from the perspective of someone who’s manipulating people under the guise of social reform, that a) doesn’t seem to be the intention, and b) doesn’t really fit with the other themes of moral relativity. If you make Edelgard a Bad Guy but Claude and Dimitri Good Guys (or Neutral Guys, even), that doesn’t really say much about the nature of conflict.

So it seems like Edelgard should be just as sympathetic as the other two leads, yet there’s some really troubling things in the way.

For one, the fact that she’s a noble herself and the heir (later Empress) to vast resources, including a military that unquestionably heeds her, makes her crusade feel more like condescending Noblesse Oblige rather than a revolutionary uprising. There’s a kind of scummy appropriative element to it that is difficult to ignore, especially since you have Dorothea right there, who’d make a much better figurehead for this movement than the heir apparent to a goddamn Empire.

(Side note but Edelgard also has the misfortune of being a literal Imperial, which in today’s society is not a connotation neutral thing. Being from a “kingdom” or an “alliance” is quaint, but “empire” has become such a staple trope for villains that it’s not even surprising that she’s the one who heel-turns. Add in the fact that Hubert is presented the way he is, and it becomes really obvious which of the Three Houses is going to be the Problematic One. Fire Emblem just can’t help being itself, even when it’s toying with more mature themes.)

But on an even more general level than that, Edelgard’s convictions get a bit undermined when her goal is “stop the powerful from using the less fortunate as pawns” but all of her victories happen thanks to...putting her social inferiors in mortal peril.

Like yeah, right after you choose to side with her (and she manages to get over the vapors that induces), she has that moment where she appears to be cognizant of the paradox, but I somehow feel like her route isn’t going to end with her dissolving the Empire and handing off all the power to the populace.

She can’t, because this is a Fire Emblem game, and in Fire Emblem games, you win the war at the end. There’s a heavy cost, of course, and we’re all going to have a moment of silence about it, but there’s still a victory and a happy ending when it’s all said and done.

Obviously, if this doesn’t happen at the end, and all four routes (including the Church one) close on a Pyrrhic victory or something, then I will stand corrected and be very pleased. However, my money is on the standard happy ending that conveniently ignores that the common folk are going to be feeling the effects of the war long past any of the privileged, powerful people in your game.

So yeah, that’s my thoughts on how I think Three Houses took some really interesting steps toward being more nuanced, but still gets tripped up on its identity in some ways. Given the way the narrative is set up, this ends up affecting Edelgard way more than the other characters.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

#FE3H #FE3H spoilers #long post #meta #having to write and then re-write this three times really messed with my structuring #so sorry if this is hard to follow #it ultimately ended up just kind of being stream of consciousness

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gavillain · 5 years

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So I saw the 2019 Aladdin... It's not the worst thing I've seen, but it wasn’t good. But like... I have to talk about Jafar and how bad he was. Yes, his actor is shitty and monotone and completely lacking in any charisma or emotion. But like... that’s not the biggest problem. People keep defending the writing on him because "he's a good foil to Aladdin." And... no, he's really not. They take this route where Jafar was once a streetrat who climbed the ranks of power and hates being second. He's supposed to be a version of Aladdin who didn't know how to stop and who never learned that when wishing for riches, enough would never be enough. That's a line Genie warns Aladdin about. But like... that's NEVER a part of Aladdin's character. He doesn't become a prince out of ambition. He's not even remotely ambitious. He's just in love with this girl. We never even get a moment where Aladdin starts getting an unending appetite for more or anything. He just gets that same moment from the original where he doesn't think he can keep up the illusion if he frees the genie. Aladdin doesn't NEED the "never enough" warning. It's not part of his character. Jafar displaying that trait is only there to give life to a cautionary tale that Genie brings up, but that tale never comes to play in Aladdin himself. So the only thing that Jafar foils to Aladdin with is that they're both streetrats. But does that go anywhere? No, no it doesn't. It's just there so that people can point and say "Jafar is a dark counterpart to Aladdin, that's cool." It's a novelty. It has nothing to do with either of their character arcs or their rivalry with each other. Compare this to the original: Aladdin is the Diamond in the Rough. He's a poor thief (the rough) with a heart of gold and compassion (diamond). It's what makes him special enough to enter the cave, and it's the value that Aladdin is tested on and has to prove throughout the film. Jafar, on the other hand, is a wealthy aristocrat who dresses in diamonds and fineries, but ultimately is rotten to the core. They're direct inverses of one another. They are ACTUAL foils. And it all ties back to the Peddler's warning in the beginning of the film: "Do not be fooled by [the lamp's] commonplace appearance. Like so many things, it is not what is on the outside, but what is inside that counts." It's basically the same theme as Beauty and the Beast: the measure of a man's worth is his heart. Whereas BatB had to do with superficial appearances, Aladdin has to do with wealth and status. That's why masquerading as a prince is a thing. Making Jafar into someone who was poor but climbed out of poverty defeats that, because so much of his entitlement and hunger for power came from the fact that he's a rich man who's never known poverty or had to live through what Aladdin has lived through. In a way, his wickedness and cruelty makes the Sultan's neglect of the kingdom and Jasmine's naivety as to life in Agrabah more palatable because we can see they're being shielded from the true state of Agrabah by a fellow blue blood who is actively malicious. Jafar being a streetrat who climbed ranks, however, just kind of comes off as "the actual rich royals were fine until some poor dude who doesn't know his place tricked his way in there." And that's kind of insidious to me. Also Jafar being a military expansionist is pointless and goes nowhere. Like... why did we even bother adding it? Just to say "military expansionism is bad y'all" without actually showing us why or doing anything with it in the story? It's pointless and doesn't serve his character or anyone else in the movie. Also, his attempts to marry Jasmine just come right out of left field in the final act and they completely cut his subplot about plotting to marry Jasmine from earlier in the movie. So it seems like Jafar just gives up his scheming after he loses the lamp until after he figures out Ali is Aladdin which... okay? So much of the things they add to Jafar just feel like it's window dressing designed to create the illusion of depth whilst ultimately being pointless. The writing for him is such a mess, and without a really charismatic actor in the role, there's nothing to hide how clunky it is.

I love the classic Jafar and I was really hoping this version would be at least an interesting alternative on some level, but no. He just sucks =/

#Jafar #anti 2019 aladdin #anti 2019 Jafar #Disney villains

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sponfawn · 5 years

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MTH - Mrs Morbucks

Mrs Morbucks is such an interesting and well-written character, and she honestly seems pretty underrated in the fandom. But lemme tell you. Sbj is a genius.

Let's go over her development through the readers' eyes. Her first appearance is in picking up Princess. She's just returned from France, unannounced, and already we can see she's a commanding woman. She immediately cows Princess, a feat very few can manage. I mean Princess did time and bossed other inmates around when she was a 5yo. If her husband was mayor, shed be Ms. Bellum. Highly competent, intelligent, good with people, efficient at cleaning up others' messes, beautiful, and organized. I really wasnt sure what kind of role she would play in the story, and even thought she was a "good guy" in an evil family. Her next major appearances involve her conversations with Brick and Blossom about her charity event, and even their combined stubbornness is no match for her persuasive techniques. She knows exactly what they each want, exactly what will be just enough to make it worth it to them. From that same conversation, we know that she at least has connections on the side of evil, since she'd had tabs on Brick for a few years. But it was still unclear if she was just a neutral party or not. The nature of her character is like a creature in murky water. We see just a blurry glimpse of her, and as we get closer, she begins to take more shape. Another aspect to her nature is revealed when she agrees to finance his brothers' lifestyles in exchange for connections to JS once Brick stages his coup. Even moreso when she makes it clear in no uncertain terms that he owes her. But we don't know precisely how evil she really is, until she disables the barrier for Townsville, and sets a horde of monsters on Brick. In fact, even now she is mysterious, as we still don't know what her motives are, nor what she’s scheming. But honestly, I think she is one of the most insidious and terrifying villains in More Than Human. And that's because she is so realistic.

Mrs Morbucks is the kind of evil Brick wishes he could be. She is not another Mojo or Him, with their ostentatious schemes and obsession with defeating the Powerpuff Girls. She is the puppeteer behind the scenes, an elaborate stage of philanthropy and appreciation for the arts set as a pleasant, gracious coverup for whatever corrupt shit she's up to. Shes basically the billionaires of the world who are actively contributing to its destruction and the suffering of millions, who donate a fraction of a percentage of their income to charity to mask their tax fraud, but with actual aspirations in the literal industry of evil. Brick is a prodigy poster child of evil. And she is running circles around him. She is experienced in handling, manipulating, and maintaining relationships with people at the executive levels of this industry, with all its inner politics, double dealing, and chess games. Probly at the international level, on top of that. Her facade is so masterful, that despite her direct connection to Princess and Mr. Morbucks, and her references to Brick’s past and his benefactor, Blossom isn’t at all suspicious of her. Blossom, who scrutinizes others’ body language, and hardly ever lets her guard down. Maybe she was simply too busy keeping an eye on Brick, but you don’t get to Penelope Morbucks’ level by being sloppy and transparent. She is experienced, and that has given her a major advantage in her dealings, especially with Brick. Despite his own experience, or perhaps because of it, he is overconfident in his own abilities and underestimates her, playing right into her hand.

In literary terms, Penelope Morbucks is very interesting to look at as a foil character to both Brick and Blossom. Perhaps not as a directly opposite foil, but as a partial, more balanced foil. She is very similar in certain ways to the Reds. Blossom, Brick, and Mrs Morbucks are all highly competent, talented, red-headed leaders, with brilliant strategic minds, and an appreciation for the arts. In some ways, she is the best of Brick and Blossom fused into a single, accomplished adult. She shares their core defining personality traits that they share, and a little more of each of them, things they don’t share with each other. But these similarities serve to highlight all of their differences even more.

In seeing her philanthropic efforts, we are implicitly told of her skills in designing, organizing, and directing impressive and large projects, while maintaining an eye for detail. We are similarly made aware of Blossom’s volunteer work, her skills in teaching and directing dance classes, and her complex choreography, comprised of many small moving parts in a cohesive whole. They are both superficially warm to the general public and professional acquaintances, comfortable public speakers, and excel in less-than-casual settings. They are beautiful, with an elegant style, and a commanding yet pleasant presence. From an outside perspective, they are at an unattainable status, extremely accomplished and excellent at balancing an impossible number of activities and responsibilities. Well-rounded does not begin to describe these two. The similarities stop there, though, at their external, public faces and activities. Where Mrs. Morbucks is comfortable in her own skin, internally confident and self-assured, Blossom struggles with intense insecurities and self-doubt. While Mrs Morbucks seems to have a social ease with people of all ages and status, Blossom struggles to connect to her peers, and many see her as unapproachable due to her more formal and polite demeanor. Where Mrs Morbucks has very gray morals, Blossom’s are quite black and white. She does her volunteer work because she genuinely wants to make a difference and do active good in the world, not as a cover for evil intentions. While Mrs Morbucks knows her precise strengths and influence, Blossom is much less sure of how influential she is. She is aware of her strengths in quantifiable areas (ie grades, dancing, etc) and based on others’ comments, but doesn’t recognize her beauty, charisma, popularity, or how her approval/actions/moods can affect other people’s. This may come with time and growing confidence, but she is definitely not a master manipulator.

On the opposite end, Brick’s similarities with Mrs Morbucks are more internal and private. They both have darker sides that they are hiding from the “civilian” public, and it is in that side that they share more of their similarities. They both are well-rehearsed in navigating the complex and subtle dance of diplomacy, rhetoric, and intimidation within the world of evil executives. They both are excellent at negotiating exchanges, understanding their strengths, getting more, and refusing to give out free or underpriced favors. They are skilled at networking and doing their research on potential adversaries. Based on Princess’ reaction to her mother’s return, I believe that Mrs Morbucks just as authoritarian and keen on discipline as Brick is (though not necessarily with the same techniques). Of course, they also share a very relative view on morals, yet an unyielding demand for loyalty, in private. They both have a sense of overflowing confidence, even cockiness, particularly in their dealings with potential clients/colleagues. While Brick does have some insecurities, he is extremely good at ignoring and/or hiding them (at least in most situations - with Him and recent events with Blossom, he’s been slipping up a bit more). By contrast, Brick’s external, public presentation is completely unlike Blossom or Mrs Morbucks. He is sullen, rude, and antisocial, actively warding people off with glares and threats - he’s also unattainable and unapproachable, but for completely different reasons. He is able to be charismatic, but often opts to ignore or intimidate others rather than engage with them. In Townsville, and as a professional, he tries to keep a low profile in public awareness, rather than draw attention with large events, magazine articles, or press conferences. He does what he needs to for his classes, but generally tries to hide his full potential and intelligence. He doesn’t even do any extracurricular activities unless literally bribed to. He is quite public about his cynical view of human nature, and doesn’t even attempt to look like a “good guy” through charity or philanthropy. And that’s where his inexperience really shows. Penelope Morbucks knows that it’s not enough to keep a low profile when you're on top, you have to use misdirection and put effort into your public mask if you’re in it for the long run.

If Brick and Blossom are 2 sides of the same coin, Penelope Morbucks is both sides of an antique coin of the same kind. And that is exactly why she’s such a brilliant and intriguing villain. She has all of the natural talents and learned skills of our 2 most overachieving characters, with much more experience, more money, more connections, and superior manipulation tactics. Dunk her in chemical X and she’d be unbeatable.

#sbj more than human #mrs morbucks #penelope morbucks #meta #chillin with the villains series

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mayhvms · 5 years

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we interrupt your regularly scheduled program to introduce -- moi :)))) i’m isa, your resident dumbass libra, 21 and from the gmt+1 tmz, with pronouns she/her this here is my child mitsuha yes i named her after the your name character bc that movie owns ! my ! mf ! heart ! who also goes by the name luna so feel free to call her either one of those ! if you’d like to plot ( my discord is that queso 🧀 #2155 ), feel free to message this and i’ll come hound you for possible connections ! ok so let’s get down to business

sO for now i only have her stats/profile page up HERE but i should have a plots and bio page up ….. hopefully this week ??

but !! here we have miss minamoto mitsuha – or luna minamoto, whichever you prefer – born on august 10th as the love child of two adults in love, who were unfortunately not married to each other

in short: her dad – heir to one of japan’s biggest bank holding companies, already engaged to a woman of similarly high social status – fucks up and falls in love with mitsuha’s mom. the child is the price of their love – of thinking they could conquer society’s disapproval. the girl and her mom live comfortably – being the dirty little secret of a company ceo comes with a lavish lifestyle and anything they could ever ask for, and he stays for as long as he can without raising suspicion. it’s not long until his wife finds out and, humiliated of being the second choice, threatens with divorce – and with it, more than half of everything he has to his name, as well as airing out all his dirty laundry -- unless he forgets all about his other family. her dad, terrified of losing his money and reputation, stops visiting and cuts off all contact with them. half a year later, he comes back despite his wife’s ultimatum, but limits his visits to once a month. her mom’s overjoyed, mitsuha – not so much

so mitsuha grows up watching that fucked up cycle that her parents ( mainly her mom ) call love – this fills her head with the completely wrong idea of love and now she doesn’t really believe in it :/

moved to the usa when she was 20, used her dad’s money to buy an apartment in baltimore, took out a large enough sum to keep her comfortable for the next couple of years – and then cuts herself off from his bank account now, she’s on the hunt for a proper job. don’t be surprised to see her talking to herself, or pacing up and down a hallway – she’s probably practicing for an interview

she can honestly be pretty fake ?? the type of person to make you believe you’re best friends when in reality she couldn’t care less about you. mitsuha learns how to change her entire personality depending on who she’s around, in order to get whatever it is she needs – so she’s almost always around people, but most of the friendships she has are superficial bc of this

doesn’t actually like forming any sort of romantic attachment bc of what she’s seen happen to her parents so bring on ALL the one night stands and fwbs – but at the first sign of something more, she will most definitely ghost and avoid you for as long as possible

lowkey a sugar baby

in general, she’s a fun person to be around – v sociable, v charming – but she’s also got a very bad temper! can turn into a vindictive bitch if she really hates you

will offer fashion advice at any time of the day whether u ask her or not

VERY competitive and always willing to prove you wrong. you say she can’t do smth ?? just watch her as she does EVERY SINGLE THING in her power to try and succeed. ESPECIALLY if its smth small and insignificant

also LIVES for the adrenaline rush. speeding on a motorbike in the middle of the night with music @ full volume ? sneaking into the highest floors of buildings bc the view is amazing ?? almost getting arrested for pulling all this dumb shit ??? SHE’LL DO ALL OF IT AND MORE

is actually a p good cook but 90% of the time she can’t be bothered – so she basically lives off instant ramen and takeout food ://

the way to her heart is through snacks or constantly listening to her complaining about some tiny incident that had happened an hour ago that she’s already half forgotten but just let her SPEAK please

#soundintro #I HATE TAGGING ON MOBILE #it rly fucked up my whole intro huh #thanks tumblr ur a gem #anyWAYS i rly hope this makes sense #if not pls forgive

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bluewatsons · 5 years

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Karen Bettez Halnon, Heroin Chic, Poor Chic, and Beyond Deconstructionist Distraction, 11 Consumers, Commodities & Consumption (2009)

While scattered examples of Poor Chic can be found historically in North America and Europe, the controversy of it, but never named generally as such, did not surface in any major way in public consciousness until the early 1990s. Even during the 1970s, with the Sex Pistols' frontman Johnny Rotten (named for his decaying teeth) singing about privileged people taking a "holiday in other people's misery" and the ironic subsequent fashion of torn up and tattered punk clothes (worn by Rotten originally as necessity), poverty chic was still in a relative state of immaturity. It was not until the 1990s that public awareness increased, with moral and aesthetic critics condemning Seattle’s “grunge” music, with its “dirty” guitar sound and angst-filled lyrics, most notable in the mainstream by Kurt Cobain’s band Nirvana that climbed the charts in 1991, and by Pearl Jam, shortly thereafter. The disheveled Cobain look, that matched his apathetic and defeated view of life in general, soon caught on as trendy grunge style: ripped jeans, flannels, Doc Martens, an affinity for loud guitars and teen angst, and at least a voyeuristic familiarity with heroin. Grunge fans learned of the more intimate lethal realities associated with the drug, as they mourned the tragic suicide that claimed the life of Cobain in 1994, a suicide that some say was a choice Cobain made over facing the brutal truth of selling out, going mainstream, and thus losing subcultural "authenticity” (Heath and Potter 2004).

A year later, heroin—a drug shortly before strictly associated with street junkies—would surface in Hollywood as a style in its own right, or as “heroin chic” (Scheerer 1996). A "good reading" article in Playboy explained the fashionable and economical use of heroin among what it labeled as "Ph.D. heroin snorters:"

You can get high now without going the more dangerous IV route by smoking or snorting the drug. Until you get your habit up, there are no messy rigs, needle tracks, blood or threat of AIDS. All the pleasure and mystique of heroin ingestion, and less of the risk. A kind of Naked Lunch lite (Ehrman 1995).

One informant explained of similar celebrity use,

The young actors and musicians have the money to have parties in their own home or hotel suite, so they have a secure environment…Basically, everyone gets together and starts doing junk. You play music and you watch Drugstore Cowboy over and over. Some times some chick throws up and that's that (Ibid).

Mark Ehrman explained further that at the end of their weekly gatherings the 'chipping' professionals returned to their high status jobs, and socially distanced themselves from ‘real’ addicts.

Beyond its glamorization in film and carefully guided use among high status professionals, heroin gained further cultural legitimacy through "mother of heroin chic" photographer Nan Goldin’s work that was featured in 1996 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The same year singer Fiona Apple gave greater exposure and respectability to heroin through her music video "Criminal." Harold (1999) claimed that this video was the epitome of heroin chic.

While academic, fashion, and/or art worlds were more accepting of the aestheticization of heroin addiction, many in the mainstream media during the mid-1990s criticized films such as Trainspotting (1996) and Basquiat (1996) that provided unflinching insider perspectives. The gist of the complaints was that such films transformed addictive heroin use into fascinating and voyeuristic ‘other’ world adventure and exotica.

More controversy emerged in September 1996 when Calvin Klein introduced its infamous “heroin chic” advertising campaign, where supermodels posed as emaciated, strung-out junkies. The cK Be cologne campaign featured photos of supermodel Kate Moss and Felix DeN’Yeurt, Vincent Gallo, and several other unknown models, that appeared in wide-readership magazines such as Vogue, Elle, and Arena, and Marie Claire. The original twelve-page advertisement in Details advertised with the slogan: “to be. or not to be. just be.” Subsequent ads promoted with the slogans: “be good. be bad. just be.” and “be hot. be cool. just be.” The photos depicted being pale, disheveled, dirty, tired, strung out, starved, scratched, pierced, and tattooed.

While these explicit images provoked critique, what was more disturbing (at least to this author) was the placement of Moss (or in other cK ads, another straight-looking male model) at the end of pictorial sequences of junkie-looking models, and under the slogan “just be.” Moss and other end-positioned models appeared anorexic thin, but otherwise strikingly normal/straight looking compared with the other models. The end-models’ difference, their conventionality in the midst of a series of vivid ‘junkies’, had the effect, as the critics, including President Bill Clinton, rightly charged, of glamorizing the lifestyle, or at least a very superficial pretense of it. Placing straight/normal-looking models at the end of pictorial sequences promised predictability when playing with or upon one of the tragic material realities traditionally associated with poverty. Playing at the “hotness,” the “coolness” or the “hipness” of being a “bad” junkie—the dangerous exotic other—was thus produced and consumed as safe and familiar consumer play. Calvin Klein’s commodified promise was that one could emerge unscathed when traveling to and through radical superficial otherness, emerging with conventional identity intact. The latter would become one of the most basic themes of Poor Chic in the years to follow, in numerous forms, from socially distanced and culturally upgraded HMMWVs (into Hummers) to ‘shit-kicker’ work boots (into Timberland ‘Tims’).

Calvin Klein's notorious advertising was short-lived. But the fashion world has since offered a number of trendy equivalents, such as Dior’s "Addict" cologne, with the slogan "Admit It." Washington Post writer Robin Givhan (2002) described the “Addict” Internet trailer film that featured "a sweaty and anxious model who appear(ed) to be craving a fix…of Dior Addict lipstick." Givhan concluded sardonically that the model's "jones (was) satisfied by the film's end when she smear(ed) bright red gloss on her pouting lips." Gaining less attention or criticism was competitor designer Yves Saint Laurent's perfume, Opium.

Around the same time, Americana: The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture (2001) was also commenting on the endurance of heroin chic. Its “Style” section argued that heroin chic was not subsiding but becoming even more pervasive and severe. The article read as follows:

Not only is heroin chic again appearing in print advertising, as if to seek revenge on those who forced those images off of pages and billboards, as if to prove Susan Faludi's backlash thesis, the new heroin chic knocks women on their backs and spreads their legs in a pose that either reveals a recent rape or invites one--as the drug-induced femme is in no state to say no. These unprotected positions are compounded in that these ads often place the women in public, unprotected spaces; we see them draped down staircases in an inner city apartment house or across busy, flowery carpeting, the kind we most often see in hotels. And each time, the underside of her arm is exposed as if waiting for the next shot. The eyes show us that indeed it would not be the first…

While Heroin Chic and related fads and fashions have been condemned for glamorizing addiction, some postmodernist-spirited writers, such as Harold (1999) (referenced rather innocuously above), interpreted high fashion models posing as anorexic junkies as a way of teaching the public how to be deconstructionists. In other words, the assertion was that heroin chic promoted the realization that standards of beauty, fashion, death, and the body are arbitrary constructions, or that there is no intrinsic meaning in them. More specifically, she suggested, against allegedly conservative critics, that heroin chic offered to “broaden and reshape the public sphere” by letting in the “abject,” or what she said is “radically excluded and draws me to the place where meaning collapses” (Julia Kristeva quoted in Harold 1999). Still another way of expressing this lofty idea is that lifestyle shopping, such as heroin chic, promotes a more open, inclusive, and fluid notion of identity, one aimed at shattering the inherently meaningless boundaries between normal and stigmatized. What is apparently missed or dismissed in such arguments is the sociologically understood point that arbitrary constructions are frequently lived as compelling and consequential ‘realities’.

In sum, the critical view expressed here is provocatively suggested in Anselmi and Gouliamos’ (1998) critique of Canadian media representations in Elusive Margins: Consuming Media, Ethnicity, and Culture. There the authors explain how media representations fragment and fetishize the materiality of subjects and their lived experiences. Their critique focuses on “technologies of exclusion” in representational forms. The authors seek to decode Canadian media structures that obscure the lived inequalities of the present through representations of an imaginary “nostalgia for the future,” or a deceptive image of “pluralistic equality.”

This short note, culled from a much broader study of fads, fashions, and media that make stylish, recreational, and often expensive ‘fun’ of an array of symbols of lower class statuses, aims at critical interrogation of the exclusionary features of popular consumer culture’s representational forms and of often untenable assertions of the (“medium is the message”) breakdown of status categories through so-called “lifestyle” consumption.

References

Americana: The Institute for the Study of American Popular Culture (2001). “The Return of Heroin Chic.” Style Section. Retrieved 9/1/06 at http://www.americanpopularculture.com/archive/style/heroin_chic.htm.

Anselmi, William and Kosta Gouliamos (1998). Elusive Margins: Consuming Media, Ethnicity, and Culture. Toronto, Canada: Guernica

Heath, Joseph and Andrew Potter (2004). Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. NY, New York: Harper Collins.

Ehrman, Mark (1995). “Heroin Chic.” Playboy, 42:5, May.

Givhan, Robin (2002). "Christian Dior's Addict: 'Admit' a Problem?' Friday, October 25; Page C02. Washington Post. Retrieved on line 9/1/06 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A14425-2002Oct24&notFound=true

Harold, Christine. (1999) “Tracking Heroin Chic: The Abject Body Reconfigures the Rational Argument.” Argumentation & Advocacy. Fall 36, 2 (part 2): pp. 65-76.

Scheerer, Mark (1996). “Is ‘Heroin Chic’ Sweeping Hollywood?” CNN.com. Retrieved 7/2/05 at http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9608/02/heroin.chic/.

#fads #fashion #culture #heroin chic #style #affectation #poverty #authenticity #consumption #drug culture #media

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amairawrites · 6 years

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Writing your opening scene

A functional first scene in any story needs to accomplish a few things.

Introduce your protagonist and their current situation

Kick off the plot, create the major conflict, and/or introduce the antagonist

End on a note that makes the reader want to keep reading

Behind the cut, I’ll go into more detail, using To Be Vulnerable as my primary example, along with Splanky by @ladymac111 and for the things you tame by @decidedlysarah (many thanks to both of them for allowing me to use their stories as examples), and explaining why a light touch often works the best. Heads up, this will be really long. And, in keeping with my usual style, it’s just a bunch of barely-organized rambling.

Introducing your protagonist and their current situation

The goal here is not to describe your protagonist so well that the reader knows everything about them, or to bombard your reader with every facet of your protagonist’s inner struggle. Rather, you want the reader to care about the protagonist. Superficial detail, like hair color or parents’ names or favorite food, bog down the flow of the scene and distract from the reader’s focus on the protagonist. These things can be left out entirely until they are directly relevant.

Here’s how I approached Keith’s introduction in TBV:

Hands in his pockets, Keith shuffled down the nameless streets of the run-down city he reluctantly called home. The sky was dark with an evening sun obscured by clouds, threatening a cold winter rain, but business had been slow the past few weeks and, well, he needed to eat eventually. He had $20 in his pocket, though, from a quiet customer who only wanted a handjob.

Obviously, as the writer, I knew everything about Keith’s life and character at this point. I had to select the detail that was the most appropriate and made the most sense. Keith “needed to eat eventually,” so he was food insecure, and occasionally prostituted himself when he got desperate enough. He had no real attachment to where he was living. He walked in a way meant to draw as little attention to himself as possible.

As the scene unfolded, I dropped a few more details about Keith when they became relevant. He didn’t own much of anything. Despite being an occasional prostitute, he was uncomfortable with doing anything beyond oral sex.

Shiro’s introduction in for the things you tame was much more violent and bleak.

This was probably the day he died, Shiro reflected. If he was lucky. If he was unlucky, he would die sometime in the next week after several more days of torture. Sure, he could draw it out—feed the Don's goons some bad information, stall for time. The force might—might—negotiate a deal for his release. If they were smart, they'd wash their hands of him. He wasn't worth it; just a low level cop who got caught undercover. He'd fought for time for his partner, Matt, to get out, and that was worth it. He could die silent and with his honor: no regrets.

We got a few clear details about him, chief among them that he expected to die. His characterization there, as someone who was at peace with that because he believed he was doing the right thing, made him a very sympathetic character right off the bat.

@decidedlysarah then jumped straight into making the reader’s heart hurt even more for Shiro: he’d been whipped, he was in intense pain, and he was so close to blacking out that he could barely hear.

One of the advantages of fanfiction is that the reader base already knows who the characters are. @ladymac111 used this to her advantage in Splanky, with a short and heavily dialogue-driven opening scene that introduced everything via text messages and friendly snarking between siblings. There, the focus in introducing Pidge as main character was on setting up what we didn’t already know about her from the show.

Pidge's phone whistled in her pocket, a familiar riff that never failed to make her smile every time one of her dancing friends texted her.

"Ugh." Matt flopped over dramatically and put his feet in her lap. "There's nothing interesting in your life since you broke up with Kate."

"Good riddance to her."

We could glean just from this that the main characters from VLD were recast in a group of friends who all danced together. Also that Pidge had dated women in the past – that becomes relevant later in the story.

In all of these stories, the protagonist’s introduction is short, simple, and effective. Details appeared as they become relevant: Keith’s clothing in TBV when he changed his jacket and Shiro’s clothing when he noted the suit sticking to his wounds. Pidge’s religious beliefs when she and Hunk were shown playfully respecting each other’s.

But none of these stories are plotless character studies, so the authors all need to do something with them.

Kicking off the plot, creating the major conflict, and/or introducing the antagonist

This is often referred to as creating the significant situation. Something has to happen to make the story move; that is what you want to trigger here. Again, simpler is better. If there’s a political intrigue, lay out just enough to shake up the protagonist’s corner of the world; after all, they won’t necessarily know everything else that’s going on. If there’s a romance, introduce it without delving into the love interest’s life story – or even consider the Pride and Prejudice approach, where Mr. Bingley is mentioned only in name and rumor long before he meets Jane, but his possible influence is undeniable.

TBV has multiple aspects to it, and the opening scene is quite long compared to the other two examples.

Keith was immediately thrust into a sense of upheaval when he discovered his hideout was no longer private.

Another pile of rags indicated that another vagrant had taken up residence against the opposite wall.

Keith sighed. He’d have to move again. He’d need even more money to tide him over until he could build up a new customer base.

Back on the street, then.

With the loss of that stability, he went back out to work the streets again, where he came across the antagonist. The antagonist was the second character introduced, though Keith already knew him and his status as antagonist (rather than throwaway character) wouldn’t become clear until much later. He was pushy with Keith about sexual acts –

“Been a while, Pretty Boy,” the driver said, blue eyes narrowed. “What’s on offer tonight?”

Keith scowled. “Same as always. Handjobs for twenty and blowjobs for fifty.”

[...]

“And for, say, three hundred?”

“A lot of blowjobs or handjobs,” Keith answered flatly.

The guy waved a dismissive hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Blowjob. Get in.”

– eventually to the point of attempted assault to get what he wanted.

He yanked Keith off of him and nearly threw him against the passenger seat. A hand clamped down on Keith’s neck, sending his heart racing. His limbs ached with the panic flooding through them.

“I’ve been patient, and I’ve been generous. Now, Pretty Boy, you’re going to give me what I really want.”

Keith trembled. “No.”

A meaty hand pawed at his jeans, then unzipped them. “Don’t worry, you’ll be compensated fairly.”

These traits will hold true later, even as his character develops into something more complex.

The attack left Keith scared and unsure, another layer of upheaval. He retreated to the only place he considered safe (Vinny’s), and there he saw an advertisement for the Garrison and came to a decision about what he wanted to do.

Keith looked up from his gyros, staring at the commercial in confusion. Uniformed teenagers and adults alike stood in the desert, leaned over airplane cockpits, sat in classrooms filled with all manner of technical charts. A shuttle launched. A team of fighter jets wove complicated patterns through the sky.

“Go to one of those military schools. They’ll straighten your shit out.” He turned up the volume enough for Keith to hear the tail end of it.

“– at the Galaxy Garrison in Garrison, Arizona. Together, working for a brighter future.”

Strips of meat slid out of the pita and onto the plate, but Keith barely noticed that his next bite was all bread and onion. Arizona was only one state over; he could jump on one of those long-haul buses and be there the next day, if he wanted to.

An odd, heavy feeling that had nothing to do with the gyros settled in his gut.

Working for a brighter future.

He could use a brighter future.

That choice, that decision, kicked off the rest of the story.

The opening scene in for the things you tame is much shorter, as it is a short story (22k words, rather than my estimate of 150k for TBV when it’s eventually finished).

Shiro’s situation was already examined in the previous section. He expected to die; he didn’t expect to be saved from that death by someone dangerous.

But he recognized the voice, didn't he? He tried to focus. That one, just now, was the Don's son. Lotor? But he was talking to... Kay. Shit.

Kay was standing next to him now. He had a knife and he used the tip to force Shiro's chin up. Kay's lips curled in a dark smile.

“Can I keep him?” he asked. This to Lotor.

Shiro couldn't hear what Lotor said, but he definitely caught Kay's response: “He won't turn me down this time.”

And thus the plot burst into being: Shiro was afraid of Kay (implied by the internal reaction of ‘shit’ when he recognized the voice), and Kay wanted to keep him.

It’s not all dark, depressing, and violent. Splanky is an adorable story of friendship growing into love. There’s little in the way of direct conflict, and no one is an antagonist. So in the first scene, @ladymac111 had to drop just enough detail about the coming relationship growth for the reader to pick up on it. As Hunk texted Pidge:

Question for you. So you know I'm teaching the beginner drag blues class at Lindyfest this year like I always do, but I need a partner.

Pidge's heart thumped weirdly in her chest. Shay isn't doing it??

And, after getting a few more details, Pidge responded and then worried about her word choice:

"You're weirdly quiet," Matt said.

"Shut up." She stared at the phone for a little too long before she could will her thumbs to move. That sounds good. I'd love to teach the class with you. Shit, shouldn't have said love.

Between the racing heart, staring at the phone, and the immediate concern about using the word ‘love,’ it was clear that love was something Pidge tended to overthink in relation to Hunk. And, more specifically, the idea that she would love slotting herself into the role usually occupied by Hunk’s girlfriend. At no point is any of that openly stated; it was implied, simply and cleanly, by the minimal details around their text messages.

@ladymac111 even dropped a hint of the secondary plot arc, the different religious beliefs characters held (all treated incredibly respectfully throughout the story, so major props for that), as Hunk wished Pidge a happy Hanukkah.

But these stories are all more than just their first scenes, and now that they’ve drawn the reader in, they all need something to keep them.

Ending on a note that makes the reader want to keep reading

By the end of your first scene, your protagonist should have changed from who they were at the start, and the world should be just a little different to them. If they’re exactly the same, you wrote a character study and not the beginning of a story. If there is no remaining conflict, if the antagonist is already defeated, or if the plot has no direction by the time the first scene is over, you just wrote a one-shot and not the opening of a larger work. Readers only want to keep reading if there is something still at stake, something still on the horizon.

All three opening scenes built up some kind of dramatic tension: in TBV, it’s the huge and ambitious change that Keith was faced with; in for the things you tame, it’s Shiro’s expected death sentence being commuted into some unclear servitude to Kay; in Splanky, it’s Pidge taking on a role in Hunk’s class that she hadn’t before.

And all three had an open ending, where the choices and changes were left unexplored, and the reader would want to keep reading to see what happens next.

Keith considered leaving for the Garrison, but the scene ended before he actually did so.

Shiro blacked out before he could hear any more, and before his internal perspective could process Kay’s comment of “He won't turn me down this time.”

Pidge distracted herself from her internal conflict by snarking with Matt, thus avoiding thinking on the feelings long enough to make sense of them.

And in all of those, there’s something new at stake, something the reader wants to know more about.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and I definitely recommend you take a look at the fics I referenced here!

To Be Vulnerable – by yours truly

for the things you tame – by @decidedlysarah

Splanky – by @ladymac111

#ramblings #to be vulnerable #story development #fanfic #splanky #for the things you tame #writing tips

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