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sometimesrosy · 3 years

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Hey. It's been a long time since I had a question. Maybe the 100's demise was the reason.

Now coming to my actual query. This past year I have binged numerous shows ranging from American to korean dramas or Turkish dizis. There is certain thing that I have felt and noticed throughout i.e., the woman characters aren't given even a slight leeway by the audience. If the even make a slight mistake, the audience remembers it always to stand against that character. Whereas if there is a male villain, people gets cheerful seeing even a slight bit of humanity in him. They even wait for its redemption.

Let me take an example of a Turkish show "kara sevda(black love)". A one line synopsis can be put like- two leads who love each other endlessly but can never be together. So, the villain in that show is beyond redemption. That character has fallen so far off that there is no coming back. But still when he is playing with a baby, people's comments are like 'best moment of the show.' 'see he is such a good person'. 'the female lead should accept his love'. Am like what?

And if I tell you about the female lead. She is a good person at heart who is sacrificing love for family. And she is labelled "selfish" by audience. 'She doesn't deserve the male lead' etc. And you know I too felt like that for the majority of the show until I reached the point of self reflect.

Even Clarke from the 100 faced so much hate that there wasn't any visible backlash when in the end the makers made her a villain. The backlash was for Bellamy death and stupid end instead.

Looking through tv series, it's so easy to see why tv or films doesn't have female anti heroes. Male anti heroes are so easy to find and also widely successful like Damon from tvd or Klaus.

What is your take?

Yup!

Yes.

Definitely.

You are absolutely correct. The leeway for female characters to show human imperfection is very, very thin. Meanwhile, a guy can literally blow up a planet, kill his beloved father, have temper tantrums with kicking and screaming and torture the female main characters and fandom-- and the creators-- think that makes him a hero. And the requirements for his redemption, if there are any at all amounts to:

WOOPSIE! I'M SOWWY.

I simply do NOT understand that phenomenon.

I mean, I get the need to relate to darker characters, morally gray characters, to explore our own negative impulses...but the whole tendency is, for me anyway, given a more sinister light when you compare how the audience tends to treat these outright villainous male characters compared to even SLIGHTLY morally gray female characters. Maybe just flawed.

It also interferes with satisfying redemption arcs. Because YES watching someone face their dark past and attempt to become better and be redeemed is a great story... but if male characters only have to wear a cape and be hot to be redeemed.... then that's not a satisfying redemption arc. And if women can't do ANYTHING to be redeemed because they are considered irredeemably selfish or whatever for the same flaws someone's Hot Dark Badboy smirks about and isn't even sorry for? Then we barely even get redemption stories for women.

And that's part of the problem, isn't it? Women aren't allowed the same representation as men... even as flawed characters.

The point of good representation is not to represent only the best, most perfect, most desirable, most successful type of people. The point is to allow everyone of any sex, race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, ability, etc to take part in the full spectrum of humanity in our stories, good and bad and mediocre. A female Mary Sue is just the female version your general male hero. One is considered bad storytelling the other is taken as The Way It Should Be.

Women are not allowed to have flaws in most of our pop culture, or women are ghettoized into only women's fic or romance or YA, or women take backseat to male villains, or whatever.

I'm writing a book where the woman abandoned her child, and she sleeps around and cons people and avoids commitment. I purposely wrote her to be unlikable.... or rather, she's not unlikable, she's clever and funny and weird, but she has characteristics that women aren't supposed to have. She essentially acts like a male anti-hero, until her call to action and she is forced to face her past mistakes. But I know that these are things that audiences say are irredeemable for women. Abandon her own child?? No. Not allowed. Even though plenty of male characters go off on adventures leaving wife and child behind and it isn't even considered a character flaw, just... a male adventurer. Or honestly, just a guy. Sure one who's imperfect, but that old ball and chain was probably the worst, right? He had to move on and now he has a tragic backstory and complexity and oh the audience will probably either want to be him or want to be with him, because, that's how these things work.

Not saying that characters shouldn't be dark, do bad things, have flaws, be anti-heroes, have redemption arcs, or have a deep, multilayered villainy.

But I am saying we might want to be a little more critical about what we consider irredeemable for certain people and what war crimes and abuse we let some characters get away with in the name of bold (white) masculinity.

IS the nature of being a (white) man we look up to someone who destroys other people?

I think that toxic masculinity IS seen as sexy. Unfortunately, that's one of the reasons it's seeped into our culture. Manly (white) men who abandon kids and kill without remorse, but with muscles. Manly (white) men who murder whole regions because bad things happened to them, and smolder while doing it. Manly (white) men who commit genocide regularly, but fall for the heroine and save her once. Manly (white) men who are serial killers but with an intriguing depth.

tbh there's lots more to say on the topic, some of it very controversial. These are the stories we like to hear and the characters we love. And it might be rooted in the toxic masculinity that our society has been selling to us as propaganda for decades, if not centuries-- but we don't like to be told to examine our biases, our tastes, our preferences, or our beliefs. It's threatening to our sense of self.

However, that is how you unravel all sorts of toxic belief systems, from misogyny to racism to homophobia to bigotry of all kinds. I added the (white) to this post after I read through it, because I realized non white male characters are not allowed this leeway, either. So this phenomenon is generally (not always) limited to white men. Why?????

my theory? we're still making the colonialists the heroes of the story, friends.

#misogyny #toxic masculinity #media #anti heroes and villains #colonialism #pop culture #fandom #redemption arcs

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pynkhues · 5 years

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Brio: 22, 82, 99

#22 “I don’t care if you live or die.” (rearranged, haha) / #82 “Do you have a problem with me?” / #99 “I’m not okay.”

Set in The Centre and Circumference / Domestic Fic universe

There’s a sliver of light working its way beneath her heavy eyelids, making her wriggle down into the mattress, clench her eyes shut, try to steal away from the glare. It’s no good though – once she’s awake, she’s awake, the throbbing ache in her head only dulled by the heavy, bruising pain in her back, and she rolls slightly, swallows heavily, and instantly regrets it. The mothy taste of last night’s liquor sitting heavy on her limp tongue, her throat feeling scratchy even to the breath.

With a moan, she turns over, pushing her face hard down into the mattress and blindly swinging an arm out, colliding with a clammy, naked body beside her. Beth frowns, peeling an eye open to see a long, leonine, torso that can only be Rio’s, and god, she clenches her eye shut again. The last time he’d caught her this hungover, it was after a girls’ night and Annie had finally quit Fine & Frugal and maybe a few drinks had turned into a lot of drinks and maybe it had culminated in them burning Annie’s uniform in Beth and Rio’s fireplace. He’d spent the morning alternating between being a smug, annoying asshole, and flagrantly judgemental, and, at worst, both (“There’s testin’ limits and there’s ignorin’ ‘em, darlin’,” he’d said, standing at the foot of their bed, drinking some sort of horrible, healthy green smoothie, dressed for tennis with Gretchen. “You’re grown, you should know the difference.” She’d thrown a pillow at him, or tried to at least, and he’d only been more judgemental when she’d missed him by at least three feet).

Only - - she blinks her eye back open to take him in - - only she remembers drinking with him last night.

As soon as she thinks it, the night comes back to her too quickly, memories flooding her aching head. They’d had a meeting with a potential new client, one Rio had been trying to land for longer than she thinks he admitted to – a woman for a change, Dr Nora Simmons, who ran a sleek women’s and family health clinic for those who could afford it, with a free outreach program for those who couldn’t. She’d wanted the cheap pills to use for both (charging the former to subsidise her costs on the latter), but she had little experience with crime, a distrust of men, and apparently had gotten cold feet the last time Rio had tried to make something work.

It had been almost too easy for Beth to lean in and tell her about her friend’s daughter, her sister’s son, about the lives Nora could save, the ones she could help, in no small part because Beth believed it too. They’d closed it – she’d closed it

And just - -

They’d gotten home, and the kids had been at their respective Other Parents, and maybe Beth had been in the mood to celebrate, and for once Rio had raised his glass with her.

A few glasses.

A lot of glasses.

She sucks in another breath, finally opening her second eye and instantly regretting it when the room starts to spin. With a grimace, she raises her heavy arm again, dropping it this time on Rio’s chest, just to hear him grunt, and then peel his own matted eyelashes apart to look at her too.

He looks completely awful, she thinks, a little more gleefully than she cares to admit. Sweaty and sunken eyed and his lips are weirdly red and it takes her a minute longer than it should to realise that it’s the remnants of her lipstick from the night before and then her back aches again and she’s flooded with a whole different range of memories.

Namely of falling on her ass on her way up the stairs towards their bedroom, giggling as she looked up at him from the step, her lip already bitten raw, and Rio just looking at her so - - so contently and then so - - and god, even the thought makes her blush, but lustfully, and then he’d followed her down, latched onto her neck, fucked her there, the steps cutting into her back as she’d desperately clutched, one-handed, to the railing to try and give herself any control – and - -

Well.

That explains her bruised and aching back.

And who knew closing a big deal together was a huge turn on for both of them? (“Literally everyone,” Ruby will tell her later, sipping on a mug of hot coffee while Beth tries to peel herself off the couch to get her own off the side table. She’d never have told her, but Ruby had stopped by, and both Beth and Rio just that wrecked, the evidence is there for anyone with eyes.)

“I can’t move,” Beth says in lieu of good morning, her voice hoarse, and Rio just stares back at her, his forehead furrowing before he shifts, wincing a bit as he does. She lifts her arm just enough to drop it on his chest again. “Can you go put the kettle on? And get me some Advil?”

When he just stares at her, Beth lets loose a whining noise, raising a foot high enough to push at his thigh with it, trying to shove him off the bed.

“I’m not okay,” she cries. “I need coffee.”

The next time she kicks at him, he yanks her by the ankle, pulling her leg up over his belly, closing his eyes again to go back to sleep. He moves his other hand to clutch at her thigh, holding her in place, and Beth whines again, self-pitying, as she flops onto her back again, and oh, god, that was a bad idea. It is not a time for yoga twists.

She looks up at him instead, taking him in, moving her hand to wedge between his neck and the pillow beneath it. She curls her hands up, cupping the back of his neck more out of habit than anything else. He makes a noise of irritation, looking back down at her, and it’s only then that she thinks she is probably at least 20% still drunk.

“Rio,” she whispers, leaning over. “Look at me.”

Rio makes a long, gravelly noise which might be words? She’s not so sure. Either way, she can’t make out any, and she sidles a little closer in the bed, her chest pressing into the side of his arm.

“Rio,” she says again. “I might die without coffee.”

“I don’t care,” he tells her, his voice little more than a rasp, and Beth opens her mouth, outraged.

“I’m sorry, do you have a problem with me?”

It’s enough to make him squint over at her, and then, too suddenly, push her off him, shoving her to the other side of the bed, and then attempting to roll over, only to hiss, and Beth just - - she gasps.

Because there’s blood all over the sheets beneath him, and for a moment she thinks something terrible has happened only - - only then she sees his newly-revealed back and the blush finds her cheeks before she can stop it. Because he is covered in fingernail scratches, the skin torn in many spots – one in particular deep enough to have made the bloodied sheet stick slightly to him, and Beth just - -

“I should probably cut my nails.”

It’s enough to make him snort, leaning away from her again, burying his head back in his pillow, his body relaxing back down into the bed, away from her. She watches him for a moment, and, before she can help it, reaches out to draw a line with the pad of her finger down one of the scratches, and he really must be hungover or still drunk, because he shivers.

With a mild grin, she scoots a little closer, running a finger down another one, feeling him start to tense, and then a third.

“Elizabeth,” he rasps back at her, and she keeps going, a fourth, then a fifth, and then a - -

She yelps as he suddenly rolls over, shoving her onto her back in the bed and burying his face in her breasts like he’d just done the pillow, and he bites one, a little harder than necessary, and when she kicks underneath him, he shoves one of his legs between hers.

“Nooo,” she whines, because she really does want coffee and Advil, because her back hurts, because Rio is all post-sex-clammy still and a little bloody, and she hates that that has somehow pooled hot in her, but she kind of likes the fact that it has in him too, if his half hard cock against her hip is anything to go by.

“No?” he asks, deliberately dragging his bottom lip against the swell of her breast as he lifts his head up to look at her, and she squints down at him, as if to say touché.

“I want coffee after,” she tells him, and he raises an eyebrow.

“I want breakfast,” he replies. “Bacon, eggs.” He hums a little. “Those tomatoes you do with those herbs and shit.”

“That is an uneven distribution of - - ” she gasps when his hand slips between her legs. “Of labour.”

“You think?”

“It’s me doing 70 to get 30,” she insists, her hand falling back to clasp the pillows as his thumb finds her clit.

“Hm,” he agrees. “How about we trade, yeah? I could do my 70 now?”

She hums, biting her lip, writhing up off the bed, and he blinks up at her, amused, and god, he really does look like shit, she thinks with a grin, pushing him down.

“Fine,” she says, settling back against the pillows. “I accept your terms.”

And she really thinks she got the better end of the deal when he makes her come twice, first with his mouth and then with his cock and his fingers.

Thinks it right until she’s pressing her forehead to the cool of the counter, bacon spitting too-loud in the pan on the stove as she tries to find the will to cut tomatoes, Rio sitting at their kitchen island, a shit eating grin on his face.

#stay tuned for more dr nora in future parts!#she's going to be in part 3 #for Reasons #but good reasons haha #because C&C is positivity and happy endings guys #anyway #beth x rio #nbc good girls #welcome to my ama #my fic #ask meme

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ilgaksu · 7 years

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this is the opening of a sequel to a kingdom where nobody dies, which i started as soon as i finished the first one and am only just looking into finishing up now bc Life Happened. for those joining us just now, andrew is a obscurial, neil is a pureblood wizard from a grindelwald-supporting family on his father’s side, both of them are on the run from MACUSA. probably read the first fic?? it’ll make more sense that way.

(also friendly reminder i am currently taking prompt commissions!)

Andrew stands in the doorway, eyebrows raised, and says, “I suppose this answers the question of what you told your uncle.”

“Stuart,” Neil corrects absently, rolling his eyes without looking up, and Andrew snorts under his breath.

There’s an interconnecting door between their bedrooms, set into the wall. It’s lockable from both sides. The rooms, vast and looking out on the rolling vistas of pleasant and manicured green, each have a bed that could fit Neil three times over and an adjoining water-closet across the hall, tiled in a pearlescent teal that undulates unsettlingly in the copper light after months at sea. Only Neil’s bed has been turned down. As far as implications go, it’s not slight. When Neil does look up, Andrew is watching him silently from the doorway still, hands braced either side of the doorframe like a penitent halfway to being flayed alive, like a woman carved into the bow of a ship to replace all the wives left behind. Andrew’s posture is a question. Neil says, “I didn’t say anything outright.”

(And he hadn’t. When he’d called in the favour Stuart had owed him, linked inextricably to his mother’s dying breath hot on Neil’s face, it had been after seven years of silence. The static on the transatlantic line, bespelled against eavesdroppers, crackled and stuttered like kindling, Neil rubbing absently at his own face until Stuart had finally, tonelessly gone, “Will you be bringing Minyard with you?”

“I go where he goes,” Neil had replied, keeping the worst of the defensive note out of his voice. That Andrew came up hadn’t surprised Neil in the slightest: he wasn’t stupid enough to think Stuart hadn’t kept tabs on him, even and especially after he cast aside his old name. He also wasn’t stupid enough to believe Stuart might be opening his arms in Mary’s name as some kind of substitute Madonna. It could be a trap for Andrew, set by foolish men who thought Andrew could be honed into a weapon with their hands in control, when Andrew’s own pulse was a fucking hairline trigger.

“Yes. I’d heard something of the sort. You’ll have to travel as brothers, of course.”

“He won’t like that,” Neil retorted, a little irked by Stuart presuming to lecture a professional runaway on travelling incognito, and then changed the story to cousins out of sheer spite.)

“Didn’t you? Well, then. Good to see subtlety’s a family trait on both sides,” Andrew mutters, the closest to disbelieving he gets, assessing the rooms again. “I worried we’d left all the basilisk’s blood dramatics back,” a pause where someone else might give in to saying home, “in Carolina.”

He’d been tense since they met the chauffeur at the station; a pretty, dark-haired woman who’d been quickly relegated to the backseat when Neil had noticed the glint in Andrew’s eyes and figured out the best way to settle Andrew’s sea-frayed nerves. It’d relaxed Andrew some to drive, but it’s only now that Neil makes the connection between the tension leeching off Andrew like an extra shadow and the blatant wealth of the Hatford estate. Andrew, with his nails kept clean as knives and his driving gloves, can’t disguise the scars on his knuckles. He’s got an orphanage boy’s soul.

“I’m not gonna clean up after you,” Andrew warns, his eyes tracking an invisible arc and landing on Neil’s discarded key - the one for the adjoining door. Neil shrugs and leaves his key thrown over his own shoulder, glinting in the thick of the carpet where he’d pitched it as soon as the maid had handed it over, unshed fear glimmering under the gather of her eyelashes when she looked to Andrew.

“Good job I didn’t ask then,” Neil bites back, bitchy with exhaustion and the strain of smiling at Stuart Hatford for the first time in nearly a decade. “Lock it if you don’t want me with you. You know I won’t mind.”

“You say that like a door can keep me out.”

“You say that like you don’t know where to stop.”

It’s an old argument, honed down to beach glass over five consecutive years. Neil sighs, the tiredness a dusty itch under his skin, infecting his blood and making it flow slower.

“Did you call Betsy yet?” Neil asks, “I’d say send an owl, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get her back. There’s storms out on the Atlantic the next few weeks.”

“Betsy has a telephone,” Andrew replies, “You know, they’ve only been around forty years or so, pureblood.”

“The day we catch up to 1927, it’ll be another thirty years,” Neil points out. “Kevin Day will drop dead at the indignity of it all.”

“Can I watch,” Andrew mutters, halfway out to the hall in search of said telephone. He glances to where Neil sways on his feet and pauses, his expression the closest to conflicted Neil’s seen it get. Andrew often puts him in mind of the Medici Fountain statues, last seen by Neil when he was twelve and answered to Stefan with a Parisian accent: blank-eyed, beautiful, unmoving in the face of strangers, looking at these singular things that form the orbit of their world and never away. They can’t help it, of course. They were carved like that.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” Neil says. He falls back on the bed and pushes himself up on his elbows, all the better to see the frown Andrew sends his way. “Lock the door, if you feel like it.”

Andrew slams the door shut, leaves it unlocked, and Neil imagines his own laughter following Andrew down the hallway.

When Neil was twenty, he walked through the morning, light made beautiful, walked all the way to Renee Walker’s doorstep, and rang her doorbell; ignored Allison hovering behind Renee in a raspberry slip, hips and mouth like fruit, ignored everything but the steady dark heartbeat of Renee’s gaze.

“Help me,” Neil said to her. “I’m losing him.”

The words caught in his throat. Renee’s eyes didn’t waver. She opened the door wider and stepped back.

“Hello, Neil,” she said, quietly, so quietly it felt like gauze, something deceptively strong, something binding. “I think we should talk.”

Neil went to her because, despite the silver of the cross winking at her throat and the way her voice tasted like promises, tasted like something unfaithful, they both fundamentally believed there was something to lose. That there was always something more to lose. That, for all she read Eliot, Renee had always dared to disturb the universe.

“Allison,” Renee said, soft, without looking away from Neil. That was all she said. Allison looked between them and made an annoyed noise.

“I’m going back to bed,” she said, and stomped back up the stairs, the satin of her slip a shedding skin undulating in the light. “Send the monster my regards.”

“Don’t expect any back,” Neil snapped, and Allison cackled and disappeared from view.

“Ignore her,” Renee said to Neil, as he passed her passing through the doorway, feeling the faint displacement of magic as he slipped through the wards. “It was Seth’s anniversary yesterday. She was drinking, and she’s got a sore head for it.” Sore head as shorthand for she’s wounded right now.

“I thought Seth died in March,” Neil says, surprised. Renee nods.

“Today was the day she got the letter. Postal delay.”

There’s always something more to lose.

“I can come back tomorrow,” Neil tries to suggest, and Renee fixes him with an eloquent look.

“If you leave now,” she says, eerie in her accuracy as always, “You won’t ever come back, will you? We both know that. Do you take tea?”

“Please don’t look in my head like that.”

“Please stop thinking so loudly then. It’s like you’re shouting at the moment, and you’re the most opaque person I’ve ever met, apart from Andrew, so,” Renee pours herself a cup of tea, the faint warm colour stirring something in Neil like soothing, “There’s not a great deal I can do on my end, unfortunately.” Her eyes flash to his, sudden and knifelike. “Tell me about Andrew.”

“He hasn’t talked in two days,” Neil admits. Renee hums and takes a sip of the tea. “I don’t think it’s a Charm, but I’m not going to check.”

He doesn’t say I would rather die than use magic on him less than five days after we got back from New York, but he doesn’t have to. He finds that when Renee and him look at each other their eyes meet hollow, with the sort of bleak and total understanding it would be preferable to live without.

“I see,” she murmurs. She hands him a cup of tea. He takes it on automatic.

“Don’t read the leaves,” he says, also on automatic. The scent of it is soothing. She doesn’t bother to reply.

#tfcnet #tfc-net #this indiscriminate dust #tfc #tfc fic #own writing #fbawtft au

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lolcat76 · 7 years

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This is definitely not Mia and definitely not a request for a Bill/Laura vampire au. But you should write one anyway. NOT THAT YOU HEARD IT FROM HER.

Ok, anon who is definitely not @okaynextcrisis, have some vampire fic.

The worst part about being undead in Los Angeles was thefood. Oh God, the food. It had been centuries since Laura first claimed a homein the dusty settlement of Los Angeles, and in that time, she’d seen an entire,sprawling city of immigrants sprout up around her. Each neighborhood rich withhistory and flavor and culture, and the spices…they perfumed the air, anise andchipotle and basil, and a hundred other spices she’d never had a chance totaste.

She walked through the streets of Koreatown, Little Tokyoand Echo Park in the early evening, stopping before nondescript storefrontswhere people stood in lines for local favorites. She could have gone to BeverlyHills to catch a whiff of the latest celebrity chef’s newest vanity project,but it was the local haunts that drew her in. Sometimes she wandered for hours upand down Highland, waiting for the Hollywood Bowl to let out and the hot dogvendors to fire up their makeshift shopping cart cooktops, the scent of grilledonions rich and heavy in the air.

If she tried hard enough to remember, she could almost taste it.

That’s the part they always left out about becoming avampire – eternal youth and beauty were all well and good, but blood tastedlike blood, thick and salty and metallic, no matter who it was from or whatthey’d eaten for dinner. If she knew then what she knew now, she’d have justdied of smallpox like the rest of her family and taken her chances in theafterlife. She bet Heaven had hot sauce, at least.

***

She left the Cinerama Dome after the late showing of thelatest girl power movie. Sunset Boulevard, this late at night and this fareast, was sketchy at best. The only people on the streets were the homeless,trying desperately to get comfortable for the night in the doorways of closedsouvenir shops, and the creeps drifting from one strip club to another.

She was hungry – the lingering scent of buttered popcornclinging to her hair was almost enough to drive her mad – but she wasn’t monsterenough to kill someone who society had already done its best to destroy, andshe just didn’t have the stomach to get close enough to the overly cologned,greasy assholes with a wad of dollar bills in their pockets that were stumblingout of the Seventh Veil.

She’d just have to skip dinner and head home. Laura strolledup Cahuenga, sharing the sidewalks with the other poor, unfortunate souls whowere forced to walk, rather than drive. Most of the people she passed didn’t botherto make eye contact. LA was, even in broad daylight, a cordially unfriendlytown, and her ivory skin – far too pale and cold for Southern California –marked her as enough of an outsider that people gave her a wide berth withouteven giving much thought to what exactly it was about her that made them shiver.

Funny that they consider her the stranger, since she’d livedin Los Angeles before California even gained statehood, but it had been decadessince she let that bother her.

She made her way up Cahuenga, past the fancy hotels andhipster bars that were still going strong. Past the CVS and the 7-Eleven (she’dalways wondered what a Slurpee tasted like), past the few people she’d knownfor generations who were just looking for their next meal. She nodded at them,and they nodded in return. They had an unspoken agreement – she stayed out oftheir way, and they stayed out of hers, and the bodies they racked up were foundfar from their neighborhood.

Of course, the vampires who took up residence in the Valleyprobably had a problem with that, but that’s what they got for settling in the armpitof Los Angeles.

She was just coming up to Franklin, just a block from therent-controlled walkup where she’d lived for decades (and thank heavens forslumlords who never bothered to knock on her door when it came time to renewher lease), when she caught a whiff of cumin in the air.

A heady, fragrant aroma, cutting through the reek of cookingoil. Mmmm, Mexican food. There was no shortage of Mexican in LA, but somethingabout the little shop on the corner drew her in. Why where they still open at2am?

Unlike the cheap pizza places on Hollywood Boulevard, theshop didn’t have a line. She was far enough into residential territory that shewas fairly certain that the bulk of tonight’s menu was being prepared fortomorrow’s breakfast rush. Still, it smelled almost heavenly, and she hadnothing else to do with her night, so she went in.

The seating area was bare bones at best – cheap plastictables and chairs, but the floor plan was open enough that she could stand atthe counter and watch the cook flip meat on the grill and pull fryer basketsout of the hot oil. His face was heavily scarred – could have been from acne,could have been from spending years standing in front of a deep fryer. She usedto have scars too, once upon a time, but now her skin was perfect, a completelyblank canvas.

She wanted to know what stories those scars would tell.

“Menu’s on the counter,” he said.

Food, right. She could order something, take it home, andbreathe it in until the smell of rot overpowered the cumin and cilantro. Or,when she got home, she could give it to Gina, the woman who lived in a tentjust outside her building and babbled about the end of days.

Or, she could forget about the menu altogether and sample adifferent kind of food. He wasn’t young, but he looked healthy enough. He wasclearly strong, but he didn’t have the wiry build that got stuck in her teeth.He was solid. Comfortable, shethought, before she brushed the word away.

Comfortable was her sheets and the mattress she’d stolenfrom a producer that was too drunk to notice that she didn’t want to screw himbefore she drained him of blood. Comfortable was things, not people.

“if you see something you like, let me know.” He flipped thechicken on the grill. “We’re closing soon, but I could be persuaded.” He tosseda grin at her.

So many men had used variations of the same line, so manytimes, and so many of them had ended exactly the same way. She made a show ofpatting her pockets. “I can’t find my glasses, and I can’t read the menuwithout them. Can you help, Mr….?”

“Adama. Bill Adama. Sure,” he said. The part of her thatused to be alive envied how easily he came to the counter, leaning into her ashe pointed out the house specials. He had no fear of her. Didn’t even noticethat her mouth was watering as he talked.

Oh, to be a man.

He was just launching in to his description of his family’srecipe for menudo when she struck, lightning fast. She sank her teeth into thethick cords of his neck.

Just as quickly, she pulled back and wiped at the stingingon her lips. Garlic. Good God, did the man bathein the stuff?

He brushed at the side of his neck as though he was swattinga fly. Didn’t even notice the two tiny droplets of blood forming.

“Garlic,” he said pleasantly. “Good for the immune system.Keeps you alive, or so my abuela told me.”

“Smart woman,” Laura conceded with a huff. She crossed herarms and glared at him, and he mimicked her pose.

“So, I guess you’re not here for the food?”

“Well, not anymore.”

His lips twitched.

She was over three hundred years old, had killed countlessstronger, younger men, and he was laughing at her. She was half tempted tobreak his neck out of spite, or to drain him anyway and let the garlic knockher out for as long as it took to work its way out of her system. She lickedher lips again. Garlic, yes, but underneath that, a hint of cumin and…was that…cinnamon?

“God, you’re delicious,” she whispered before she could stopherself.

His grin became a full-on belly laugh, and because Laurastill had a sense of humor after all these years, she laughed with him. Helaughed until he couldn’t breathe, and Laura, who hadn’t drawn a breath since thedays of Junipero Serra, patted him on the back until color finally came back tohis face.

“Been a long time since a woman told me that,” he said.

“I’m sure,” she said demurely. It had been a long time sinceher dinner had flirted with her, but he was most definitely trying to charmher. She hated to admit it, but it was working. “Garlic, huh? Your abuela musthave had some interesting stories.”

“Not nearly as many as my abuelo. Came back from the GreatWar a changed man, to hear him tell it.”

The bell over the door rang, and Laura glanced over hershoulder to see a very familiar, if unwelcome, face. She was still on the fenceabout killing Bill, but she wasn’t going to let this smooth-talking upstarthone in on her territory. Again. “Lee.”

“Laura.”

“Abuelo.”

Laura’s head snapped back. What?

Bill shrugged and grinned at her again. “LA. What can I tellyou? It’s a strange town.”

#spaceparents fic #lolcat fic #Laura Roslin #Bill Adama #spaceparents au #who doesn't love a story about food?#Anonymous

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successwize-blog · 7 years

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5 Places Where You Can Fulfill Your Disappointing Fantasies

If you grew up in a nice environment, you probably spent your childhood being told by everyone from your parents to your teachers to the Muppets on Sesame Street that you could be anything you wanted when you grew up. And now you probably work in an office, because it was a lie; they all knew it was a lie, and they told it to you anyway.

The first man to ever disappoint me.

But even though you never got to be a spy or a princess or the next Mick Jagger, now that you are grown up you can solve that problem the best way we know how: by throwing money at it. If you can afford them, these camps for adults can let you live your dreams in a not-at-all-sad manner that no one is judging you for.

#5. Become James Bond Or Jack Bauer

If a good spy does their job correctly, you will have never heard of them. That's why we've told you before that James Bond is basically the worst spy ever. But if you refuse to accept reality and want to live out the Hollywood version of international espionage, Mission X has what you need.

First, you need to have what they need, which is $19,500 per person, minimum. So in order to pretend to be a spy, it might first help to be an actual bank robber. If you can afford it, you will start in London where ex-SAS officers give you your "mission briefing." From there you travel around Europe, conveniently hitting some of the continent's most beautiful cities instead of the dangerous ones this kind of thing would actually go down in. Watch your SAS officer companions try not to laugh as you meet with "suspected weapons dealers, assassins, drug lords, and rogue agents." Once you arrive on the French Riviera, you might consider saying fuck it to all the spy work and just lie on the beach.

After all, there is precedent.

If a five-day, multi-city European adventure is out of your price range, they also offer a New Zealand alternative. For just $1,900, Mission X promises to show you "every corner of Auckland" while you work to protect "important domestic secrets." Important domestic secrets. Of New Zealand. If that isn't the plot of the 25th Bond film, the world will be missing out.

But if luxury yachts and hot nightlife are too soft for you, Mission X also offers a Jack Bauer-esque counter-terrorism alternative. Just get yourself to Jordan, where you will have access to the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center. There you learn how to deal with plane hijackings, assassination attempts, and camouflaged snipers, all tips that should be useful in your day-to-day life. And you can have all this for only $20,000, unless you want fun extras like tactical aircraft usage.

And, really, what is the point of making the trip if you don't jump out of at least one helicopter.

Mission X promises that the missions you go through will be so intense and extreme that "the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred." But considering you are in the Middle East, you could probably just walk a few miles in any direction and have just as extreme an experience for free.

#4. Learn How To Act Like A Princess

If, like me, you grew up wanting to marry Prince William and therefore hate Kate Middleton with the power of a thousand burning suns, learning how to act like the perfect princess is a depressing second place.

First lesson: Pinkie up when stabbing your voodoo doll.

Since the British royal family is the most famous in the world, you have to go to London for most of these classes. For an undisclosed amount (aka, if you have to ask, you can't afford it) you can attend the International Etiquette & Protocol Academy of London. Their five-day International Finishing School will turn you into Cinderella with classes in posture, personal image, and ballroom dance. Of course, you wouldn't be the whole package without also learning up-to-the-minute skills like the "art and elegance of personal stationery and correspondence," "elegant gift wrapping," and flower arranging. They will also help you fill any gaps you might have in your education, just in case your college didn't cover wine tasting, opera appreciation, and how to play polo.

Combining two of the three is graduate-level work.

Maybe you want to be taught by an actual royal. Then head across town to Nicholas Veitch. There you can learn etiquette not only from a former butler to Prince Charles but also from Princess Katarina of Yugoslavia and Serbia. You might have noticed she's princess of a country that doesn't exist anymore, which might explain why she has time to teach you how to be "the perfect host and hostess." If you want to take your education to a new level, you can sign up for a 20-day course on becoming the perfect butler for the low, low price of $15,000.

But no matter how well you can talk about art history or know which fork to use for the fish, you ain't shit until you know how to throw the perfect afternoon tea party. In fact, given how important this seems to be, you might be able to ignore all the other stuff, as long as you know how to eat a scone without getting clotted cream all over your face.

Putting on your O face is also frowned upon.

#3. Attend Cowboy College

Do you ever feel like you were born in the wrong century? Is there far too little livestock in your life? Then look no further than the Arizona Cowboy College. For a mere $2,250, you can spend six days pretending you belong on the open range.

Since most people have never been on a horse in their life, first you need to learn how to stay alive while on and around them. Horses are 1,200-pound prey animals, with the brainpower of a 3-year-old. And, like toddlers, they throw tantrums and get scared all the friggin' time. The difference is that they can totally kill you when they get moody. Keep that in mind while you are learning to pick stones from their hooves.

Other animals trying to kill you: wolves, snakes, and gophers.

Even if you get on the horse with no issues, the college "doesn't guarantee you won't fall." And it is a long, possibly neck-breaking way down. Once you actually get riding, be prepared for a world of pain. If you manage to gallop, your butt is gonna slam against the saddle over and over again. After just a few hours, prepare to feel bowlegged, wobbly, and aching. And you stupidly signed up for six days of this.

Once you have mastered the basic cowboy skill of not dying on a horse, you finally get to do what you came here to do: be John Wayne. Except John Wayne was usually a sheriff or something cool like that. Cowboys, shockingly, do a lot of stuff with cows. So, at best, the next few days will involve riding around scorching desert, looking for cattle to round up. Yes, that is the best-case scenario. See, you signed up to be a 21st-century cowboy, which means you do whatever the ranchers in the area need done when you are there. And that could include castrating bulls, fixing fences, and getting grazing permits. You might even have to cull some of the animals, which is the less sad way of saying killing them dead.

And you don't even get to eat them afterward.

It's about the time that you are doing administrative work that it might occur to you: You should be getting paid for this. Not only did you not need to shell out two and a half grand, you simply could have showed up pretending you needed work and they probably would have given you money to do it. Forget pretending to be a cowboy -- then you could have put it on your resume.

#2. Find The Perfect Wife

People go to fantasy sports camps all the time and live their childhood dreams of being around perfect athletes. So why not build the same kind of camp, only for being around the perfect wife?

That was the idea Alan Lindenman came up with, admittedly after a few too many. But even after he'd sobered up, he decided that there was a market for his crazy idea. So he started the Marriage Fantasy Camp and promoted it by word of mouth to his fellow Met's fantasy campers. He promised them five days over which they would achieve their fantasy relationship.

Not with their actual wives, obviously; that wouldn't be any fun. So he hired a bunch of local strippers to act like "ideal" women. And what was his version of the perfect marriage? It involved "home-cooked meals, pleasant conversation in which the 'wives' took a high degree of interest in the men's work, no talk of anything stressful, daily golf, and, of course, a lot of sex."

Because if a woman isn't putting out, why is she even there?

It turned out to be a lot of other guys' vision of the perfect marriage as well, because even at $7,995 per camper, it sold out in two hours. Soon there was a 450-person waiting list.

But the first rule of Marriage Fantasy Camp should have been not talking about Marriage Fantasy Camp, because one guy ruined it for all sleazy husbands out there when, while in a bar, he bragged too loudly about his time there and was overheard by a journalist. The journalist went on to write a story about the camp, and it was brought to the attention of prosecutors. See, even though Alan had tried to cover his tracks, at the end of the day he was taking money from people to let them sleep with his employees. In other words, he was a pimp.

The outfit wasn't helping his case.

The camp has now been shut down while he awaits trial. To the guys on the waiting list who lost their deposit: Maybe you should learn to make your own fucking dinner.

#1. Become A Huge Rock Star

This is how you live out what could have been, man. If only your high school band had never broken up. If only you'd dropped out of college to concentrate on your music. If only dad bands weren't totally depressing.

At Rock 'N' Roll Fantasy Camp you can go through the entire process of becoming a star over the course of a few days. If you can't play an instrument for shit, someone will try to teach you. If you have some talent, you can help write and record a song. Then you can compete in a Battle Of The Bands. If you are really lucky, you might even get to perform onstage with actual, past-their-prime rock stars like Roger Daltrey, Paul Stanley, Todd Rundgren, Robby Krieger, or Ace Frehley. But don't get your hopes up too high; the fine print reminds you that they can't guarantee it since "this isn't 'Rent a Rock Star.'"

The inevitable drug addiction is also not included.

How much of all of this you get to experience depends on the package you buy. And Rock Camp knows how to hit sad, wannabe musicians where it hurts. For $8,999, you can enjoy everything they have to offer as part of the Headliner Recording Package. For just $4,999, you can live out your dreams as a songwriter or vocalist in their respective packages. But if you aren't willing to shell out thousands to be a cool kid, the camp puts you in your place with their $799 Groupie Package. That's right: You are not even good enough to be a bassist.

Couldn't they at least have gone with roadie? Do they not exist in this fake rock universe?

And if you want your depressing attempts at living out your dreams recorded for all eternity, just add $499 for the Paparazzi Style photography package. Then you can go home and complain about how some cameraman would just not get out of your face. It will be the most realistic celebrity thing you did all week.

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-places-that-let-you-live-out-your-dumb-childhood-dreams/

#article #blog

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djsamaha-blog · 7 years

Text

5 Places Where You Can Fulfill Your Disappointing Fantasies

The first man to ever disappoint me.

#5. Become James Bond Or Jack Bauer

After all, there is precedent.

And, really, what is the point of making the trip if you don't jump out of at least one helicopter.

#4. Learn How To Act Like A Princess

First lesson: Pinkie up when stabbing your voodoo doll.

Combining two of the three is graduate-level work.

Putting on your O face is also frowned upon.

#3. Attend Cowboy College

Other animals trying to kill you: wolves, snakes, and gophers.

And you don't even get to eat them afterward.

#2. Find The Perfect Wife

People go to fantasy sports camps all the time and live their childhood dreams of being around perfect athletes. So why not build the same kind of camp, only for being around the perfect wife?

Because if a woman isn't putting out, why is she even there?

It turned out to be a lot of other guys' vision of the perfect marriage as well, because even at $7,995 per camper, it sold out in two hours. Soon there was a 450-person waiting list.

The outfit wasn't helping his case.

The camp has now been shut down while he awaits trial. To the guys on the waiting list who lost their deposit: Maybe you should learn to make your own fucking dinner.

#1. Become A Huge Rock Star

The inevitable drug addiction is also not included.

Couldn't they at least have gone with roadie? Do they not exist in this fake rock universe?

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-places-that-let-you-live-out-your-dumb-childhood-dreams/

#article #blog

0 notes