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supercorpkid · 3 years

Text

A meeting with a Luthor.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader, Lillian Luthor x Granddaughter!Reader

Word count: 1650.

It’s becoming a thing. Seeing Lillian, you mean. It shouldn’t. It’s insane and weird and completely out of line, but still, a thing.

Like she knows exactly what you do, when you do it, and how you do it, the day when you don’t have anything planned -no dates, no L Corp, no training- she shows up at your school. This time she didn’t even leave the black car she was in, she just lowered the car window, and nodded at you. It didn’t even take convincing this time, just a nod, and you were in the car on the way to a restaurant.

“Grandmother.” You open the door and slide in.

“Granddaughter.” She tilts her head, and a little-tiny-really-small smile comes to her lips. “I was hoping you were having a free day so we could go have dinner together.”

“Dinner sounds great.” You agree, putting your backpack between your feet, and fasting your seatbelt. “I’m always down for food.”

“Of course you are.” She gives the driver directions, and out you go.

It’s a different restaurant this time. Fancier. You almost feel bad for being in your school T-shirt -like you had any other option- but Lillian waltzes in without a care for your appearance, and you follow, starting not to care too. If the Lillian Luthor doesn’t care about you walking in a fancy restaurant in your sneakers, it’s not you who are going to.

“I thought we could try some Greek food today.” She says, showing you the table, and you agree with your head.

It’s not like you never tried Greek food before. One of Lena’s favorite food is Moussaka, and somehow you think Lillian knows this, and somehow you think she brought you here, because she can’t exactly have Lena here with her without ending in a fight.

“Cool.” You sit on the table across from her. You let her order the food, she knows she has to order more food than if you were a normal teenager, so you don’t interfere. She is the one paying for it, anyway.

“Created something interesting lately?” Lillian asks, and as far as small talk goes, you rather she had started off with a lighter topic, but you shrug, sipping on your water.

“Haven’t been in the lab in a while.” You feel it in your bones when you say that. You haven’t been to L Corp in more than a month, which feels completely out of character for you.

“Oh, I hope you haven’t lost interest in science. You’re very good at that.” She says, and you look down, blushing in embarrassment. God, why do you always feel so flustered whenever Lillian throws a random compliment at you? “But I guess for a kid the superhero part is more exciting.”

“Um, no. I mean-” You think about it for a second. You’ve always wanted to go out and go supering with your momma, saving National City and feeling like you’re doing something good for the world. And honestly, when the world was at stake -not your world, but still- you went supering and it was fun. It was great, actually. But you’ve always liked science, robotics, and experiments a little more. Science was always there for you, even when you were terrible at controlling your powers, and even when your powers weren’t there at all. “I’m still interested, I just-I-Um-Have other stuff to focus now.”

And ‘other stuff’ herself, just walked into the restaurant with her parents right behind her. Maya looks at you, and you two lock eyes, while their parents talk to the host. Somehow your cheeks get even more flushed at the sight of her, and your heart skips a tiny beat. What are the odds?

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Actually, it wasn’t supposed to happen at all. The whole idea was to never ever in your life have Lillian Luthor, your girlfriend and -worst of all- your girlfriend-Luthor-hater’s parents in the same space. But somehow, here you are.

“Of course.” Lillian agrees, after following your eyes, and landing in the same place. “I see you’re still seeing the Rose girl.”

“Mhm.” You agree, looking back at the table. You sip on your water, just to have something to do.

“Should we invite them to dine with us?” She asks politely and you snap your head at her, at the sound of that.

“We should not. No. Rao, please, don’t.” You beg, shuffling in your chair uncomfortable. Lillian was never once the sociable type. Why the hell is she suggesting asking them to join you? It’s like… She knows. Oh. There’s a little tinkle in her eyes. A little too murdery for your liking. “Do you know them?”

“We have crossed paths before, yes.” She admits, with a little nod. “Mr. Rose is a very unsophisticated man, if I must say. A lawyer who fights only for himself. But I guess most of them do.”

“I don’t wanna hear this. It’s not my problem.” You say, a little too aggressive for your own liking, but apparently Lillian doesn’t care. She’s used to much worse.

“I would think it was, given they were so ungrateful after you saved their daughter’s life.”

“Well, they only know me as a Luthor, so-” You shrug. “Can’t really blame them for not liking me, can we?”

“I suppose not. The Luthor name has seen better days.” She sighs, and drops the subject as soon as the waiter comes in with the food. Lillian points at the Moussaka, with her head. “Lena used to like that.”

“She still does.” It’s the first thing you pick up, and her smile comes this time.

You finish eating, and while Lillian pays for dinner you make your way to the bathroom, before leaving the restaurant. You are not trying to listen to them, you really aren’t, but when you pick up Lillian’s voice saying ‘Mister Rose’, you can’t hear anything else anymore.

“Lillian Luthor.” It’s Mr. Rose’s voice. Oh no. This is bad. Too bad.

“Just thought I would introduce myself to your daughter.” Lillian says. “She is dating my granddaughter, after all.”

“Oh, I’m-Well-I-” Maya chokes on her words, and you feel bad you’re not there to protect her. Although you think if you were, it would probably be worse for her. “I’m Maya.”

“Yes, you are, dear.” Lillian says again, and you pray to Rao she’s going to walk out of there and leave all of them alone. “Mr. and Mrs. Rose, I hope the next time you meet my granddaughter you can be more respectful towards her, provided she didn’t exactly choose to be born a Luthor.”

“We know Luthors very well, they are born evil.” It’s Mrs. Rose’s voice that you hear now.

“I would’ve believed so. But that girl doesn’t exactly meet these criteria. So, I would appreciate you having a little bit more care about what you say to her and how you treat her.”

“Is that-Is that a threat, Mrs. Luthor?” Mr. Rose tries to pretend he is unaffected, but you hear his heart almost beating out of his chest.

“Please, don’t be ridiculous Roger.” Lillian adds a little scoff to his name. “We both know that if I was threatening you, you wouldn’t have to ask me that.”

Oh Rao, no. That was a threat.

“Please, enjoy your dinner.” She adds a little later. “It was nice meeting you, Maya.”

Nothing more is said, and you suspect she has finally stepped away from their table. That’s when you leave the bathroom, though you have finished your business long ago. You make your way out of the restaurant, to meet Lilian there, waiting for you. You both slide back in the car in silence.

“Should I add Greek food to your list of favorite foods?” Lillian asks, like she actually has a list of your favorite foods. You know what? She might as well have a whole list of your favorite things.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” You look at her. She initially looks confused, but then it sinks in. “Did you forget I have super hearing?”

“I have to admit, yes.” Lillian confesses, pressing her lips together.

“You threatened them.”

“I did no such thing.” She defends herself and you roll your eyes. Both to the lie, and to the phrase you have heard Lena saying so many times. How annoying it is finding resemblance between them.

“Saying that you are not threatening someone is the definition of a threat. You of all people should know that. I would’ve thought you have threatened several people in your life.”

“Well, my threats never sound like that. So you have nothing to worry about.” She looks to the front, like she doesn’t want to talk about that anymore, but still adds. “Should anything happen to them, I guarantee you, it was not my doing.”

“So, you promise?” You ask and she turns her face to you again. You lift your little finger in front of your face, and she sighs.

“This is a childish pact.”

“It’s an oath, nonetheless.” You don’t move. She stares at your little finger and breathes heavily. It takes her a few seconds, and reluctantly she intertwines her little finger with yours.

“Then, I promise.”

You smile looking at Lillian’s finger intertwined with yours. What are the odds, right? You feel the car stopping, and you unattach your fingers, looking at your house behind you. You unfasten your seatbelt, pick up your backpack, and leave the car. Before closing the door, you look at her, still inside.

“You can add Japanese food to my list of favorites.”

“I know a fine Japanese restaurant.” She says, almost to herself, like something she should remember, a plan.

“We should go there next time.” You smile and salute her off. “Grandmother.”

Lillian smiles a little, and tilts her head at you. “Granddaughter.”

Notes:

Thanks @adeledewittj for this prompt, I love writing Lillian.

#supergirl #kara danvers #supercorp #supercorpfamily #lena luthor #supercorp daughter #kara x lena #kara x reader #supercorp fanfic #lena x reader #lillian luthor #reader insert

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ronsonlywhore · 3 years

Note

LAVENDER CONFESSING HER LOVE FOR U!!!!!

❛ 𝘄𝗵𝘆 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗿𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗶𝘁. ❜ lavender brown x reader

summary: ron weasley may be a complete dickhead, but you do owe him your life’s greatest joy: lavender brown.

pairing: lavender brown x fem!reader

warnings: a bit of angst and pining / ron weasley slander???? i’m sorry this hurts me just as much as it hurts you

a/n: YES THANK YOU MY LOVELY ANON FOR REQUESTING LAVENDER ILY SHAWTY. also i LOVE ron, but for the sake of this imagine i must learn to hate him sigh.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

everybody knew you hated ronald weasley, but they didn’t know why.

it was quite simple really, the reason for your ever-burning desire to pitch weasley off the astronomy tower and throw a party in celebration: he so securely grasped the attention of lavender brown, your best friend.

it wasn’t like you liked lavender or anything...okay, well, you did, as more than in ‘just a friend way’. you two met in the first year, on the hogwarts express. you had complimented her hair, mesmerized with the sheer curliness of it and the way she wore it in two pigtails. you remember your stomach doing a flip, but you assumed it was just the nervousness of seeing which house you would be sorted in. you realize now that it was your eleven-year-old heart telling you, “hey, this girl is kind of really pretty.”

when you both got sorted into gryffindor, you were the happiest girl in the world. you were happy that you didn’t have to be torn away from your first friend at hogwarts.

you even thought her name was pretty, though she didn’t think so. at first, she insisted you call her a nickname, like ‘lav,’ but you refused. you liked saying her name, liked how nicely it sounded with your voice. it rolled right off your tongue. lav-en-der.

when she first showing an interest in weasley, around the end of fourth year, you didn’t know how to feel. you weren’t even sure you were supposed to feel anything; it’s not like you guys were dating. but you felt hollow whenever she would gush about how weasley looked at her in potions, or when she ranted on and on about his freckles and how they were “like the stars in our galaxy, all spread out.”

you couldn’t hate lavender for liking him, but you could hate weasley for making lavender like him. you could hate how he would always brush a hand through his hair, earning a swoon from lavender. you could hate how he always seemed to obtain lavender’s stare, even when he was swallowing a chicken wing whole. you could hate how much lavender wanted him. you could hate how much it was his fault that lavender didn’t want you.

when weasley tried out for the quidditch team, you knew you never stood a chance.

and when lavender and him started dating, all you wanted was for the world to swallow you whole.

lavender would spend every one of her waking moments with weasley. heading out to lunch? i have to go find won-won. want to study for our astronomy test together? i promised won-won i would study with him. need help with your transfiguration essay? thanks, but i’m sure won-won will help me.

won-won. it was always about won-won. you wished lavender would give you a nickname, no matter how stupid it sounded.

and the worst part was, you could tell weasley would never care for lavender like you would. you knew, always knew, that he was just going out with her to make granger jealous. granger was who he really wanted, and lavender was just a pawn in his plan to get her.

so yeah, you thought ronald weasley was a complete and utter git.

lavender would always go on about how weasley made her feel wanted and cherished, and that made you feel sad. hadn’t you made lavender feel like that since first-year?

still, she was happy, and that’s all that mattered.

but then she wasn’t happy.

it was like a dementor was always near her. she never smiled anymore. she kept her head down. her eyes were always clouded, her head always somewhere else. you asked her what was wrong, and she answered, “i don’t think ron loves me anymore.”

and she told you about the hospital wing incident, and how he called for hermione instead of her, how he made her feel like a burden sometimes.

you didn’t care that weasley had just recovered from almost dying; you tracked him down and punched him in the face, the hardest punch your arm would let you give.

his nose spouted blood for an hour. professor mcgonagall wouldn’t stop reminding you of that fact during the detention you snagged for yourself after granger went running to her.

“why did you punch him?” lavender asked.

“because he hurt you, lavender.”

“no one’s ever punched anyone for me before.” she responded quietly.

i’d do a lot of things for you, lavender, you thought.

weasley always cowered away from you after then. that brought you joy, though you wished he would get nearer so you could punch him again. he didn’t treat lavender for what she truly was, in your not-so-humble-opinion: a gift from the heavens above.

if weasley wouldn’t love lavender, you would. you would adore her like your life depended on it, love her like the moon loves the sun; out of reach, but never too far to admire.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

“(y/n), i think i love you.”

“aw, thanks lavender, i love you too.”

“no, i mean, i think i love love you.”

you stop writing, your quill coming to a complete stop. you look up at lavender, and see her big, brown chocolate eyes staring at back at you. she’s biting her lip; you’ve noticed a lot about her lips these days, like how they never seem to be chapped, how soft they look, how she chews on them when she’s nervous.

she’s nervous now. you’re starting to get nervous too. not in a bad way, in a good way, like how you’re anticipating good news and can hardly wait to hear them.

“...love love me?” is all you can manage to say.

she opens her mouth, then closes it again, looks down at her book and back at you before she finally says, “i know it’s stupid, but i think i always have.”

you will yourself to say something, anything, before she thinks you don’t feel the same way. because you do feel the same way, have been feeling the same way for the past seven years of your life.

“you know how you complimented my hair first year? on the hogwarts express?” she continues.

you nod and answer, “yes. it was in pigtails.”

“even though people made fun of me for wearing them, saying that they were childish and unsophisticated, i kept wearing them because you liked them. and if you liked them, that was enough for me.”

it’s funny, really. how quickly you realize you want nothing more to hug a certain person and never let go.

“you would always call me pretty, even when i didn’t feel like it, and when ron ripped out my heart and stomped on it in front of me, you stomped on his face.” she laughs.

you laugh too, simply because her laugh makes you laugh, seeing her happy makes you happy.

she reaches across the table and takes your hand in hers. they fit perfectly together.

before she can speak, you say, “i love love you too, lavender.”

she smiles and presses a sweet kiss to your hand, and right then and there you silently thank ron weasley for being the biggest git in the world, because if he hadn’t been a jerk, maybe lavender would’ve never realized how much she just wanted you.

you now love lavender like the galaxy love the stars; making sure everyone can see the brightness they bring from millions of miles away.

#harry potter #lavender brown #lavender brown x reader #fluff #angst #pining #ron weasley #ron weasley x reader #lavender brown fluff #i love lavender brown #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #harry potter fluff #harry potter smut #fem x fem #lavender brown x y/n

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angelsswirl · 3 years

Text

The Hills in Seoul

Chapter I

Notes: Do I need to be starting another series? No. But I've been sitting on this for ages and I read some Lisa imagines and I want to write it so bad. My excuse is that technically Dodging Angels is already written and Whatever Makes You Happy is almost done anyway.

Rating: M

Warnings: implied homophobia

Wrd Cnt: 3.5k+

Summary: "How do you date a celebrity, let alone a kpop idol?"

Gianna chuckled darkly, "Easy...you don't." It was contradictory and an oxymoron and whatever else. But the past few months proved to her that she had her reasons.

Because dating Lalisa Manoban made her feel like she was drowning in a puddle. And that was just too complicated an emotion to know what to do with.

So it goes...

Los Angeles was a generally horrible place to live on a good day. Especially, in the summer.

It was hot. It was packed. And it smelled. A gnarly mix of wildfire smoke and stale ocean air.

Gianna hadn't the slightest clue why people made it their entire personality to move here. The was no such thing as the American dream. She of all people would know.

Her nude stilettos clacked against the scorching tan pavement as she hurried toward her job. Her newly dyed medium brown afro bounced with every step.

She pushed up the sleeve of her white blouse to check the time on her apple watch.

9:03 am

"Shit."

Her harried strut quickly turned into a unsophisticated shuffle. She had a meeting with her boss' boss at 9:10. She could not afford to be even a nanosecond late.

She hurried into the medium sized office building. Just about throwing herself into the nearest open elevator.

As the doors closed, she took a deep breath. Smoothing down her blouse and pencil skirt. She dabbed at her forehead to squash any beads of sweat before they dared douse her immaculate makeup.

"Important meeting?" Gianna eyed the well dressed man next to her. She quite frankly hadn't noticed him when she entered the elevator. She hadn't really noticed anyone in the elevator.

She blinked at him, "Very important meeting."

He nodded easily, watching the panel light up with the floors they were approaching, "Can I give you a word of advice?"

Gianna shrugged, she didn't see any harm in letting him speak. She wasn't the least bit intrested in men, but he didn't seem to be flirting with her. He was just...nice.

"Don't let them think you only get primped and professional for only them. Make everything you do look natural. So they know you aren't just prepared when you have a meeting. You're prepared every day."

The elevator door opened to his floor and with a tip of an imaginary hat, he was gone.

For a second, Gianna had thought she had completely imagined him, but as the elevator came up on her own stop, the thought immediately left her head, replaced by the earlier anxiety she was feeling.

She stepped onto the linoleum floor. Walking right towards the office she needed.

Isaac Montgomery, Chief Communications Officer

Gianna knocked on the office door resolutely.

"Come in."

Gianna took a deep breath and entered the room with her shoulders back and her head held up high.

The fair skinned man behind the vast mahogany desk smiled brightly as he typed something onto his computer. He gestured for Gianna to sit, and she did. Neatly crossing her legs at the ankle.

"Hello, Ms. Prince. I hope you are having a wonderful morning."

Gianna nodded with a smile, "I am, Mr. Montgomery."

"You can call me Isaac, as long as you are comfortable with me calling you Gianna."

"That is perfectly fine with me, sir."

He smiled and clapped his hands together, "Great. Now, judging by the look on your face, I'm going to assume that Mary, nor your assistant, briefed you on what this meeting is about."

Gianna shook her head. Mary, her boss hadn't said a word. And Cara, her assistant, only put the meeting on her Google calendar.

"That's what I thought. I think Mary just likes being a cryptic. Makes the job more entertaining for her. Nothing to worry about, however. You're not getting fired. In fact, it's quite the opposite."

Gianna raised a curious eyebrow. She hadn't applied for a promotion, nor did she necessarily want one. She was well and truly caught off gaurd. Which, she hated being.

"Now, Gianna. You're familiar with KPOP?"

Gianna blinked, "Um, yes sir. I'm not intimately familiar, but I know of it."

"Good. Well, a popular company in Korea has contracted our public relations services. Specifically, the crisis department. They've been having a series of scandals break out that they're having trouble staying on top of. Mary reccomended you to me and after going over your previous turnovers, I think you'd be perfect for the job. It would require relocating to Seoul, South Korea for a couple of months, all expenses paid of course, but you'll be able to bring your assistant and you'll report to me directly instead of Mary. You'll also be receiving a sizable bonus directly from the company."

Gianna stared at the man with wide eyes. Her borderline black eyes glistened. Not because she was about to cry, but really just because that's what they did.

"You trust me enough to represent the company on a completely different continent?"

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

Gianna shook her head frantically, "Not at all, sir. I'm extremely honored to take on this project. I won't let you down." She shook his hand just as frantically as she had shook her head.

"I know you won't, Gianna. I put my utmost trust in you. The information you need has already been sent to your assistant. We hope to have you out of here and in Korea by the middle of next week. Only thing you need to worry about in terms of traveling is packing your clothing. Everything else will be handled for you." He sat forward in his seat with a pleasant smile on his face.

"Thank you again, Isaac, for the opportunity. I'll make sure to update as soon as necessary."

"I'm counting on it."

With that, Gianna scurried out of the office and back toward the elevator, trying desperately to contain her excited squeal.

The turnover was relatively quick. While logistical things were being handled by her assistant and bosses, she was studying. And by the time she absorbed as much information she could outside of actually talking to the music company, it was time for her to fly to Seoul.

She had actually knew more about kpop than she had originally thought. She had of course heard of BTS, you couldn't really escape them. She vaguely remembered Coachella valley being ran down with kpop fangirls for a group that had performed there sometime in the distant past.

The overall setup wasn't hard to grasp. It was korean pop. And instead of just picking up artists off the street, kpop idols were trained for periods of time.

Gianna always liked to stay ahead of the media gossip curve when it came to her job. Crisis PR was no joke. Her best bet to prepare as much as she could was scouring the internet like a teenager.

There was of course the language barrier, but she was able to get a brief understanding of what she would be dealing with when she got there.

It seemed one of YGE's idols was having a little fun on the side.

"Didn't you get enough of studying when we were in college?" Cara spoke from place in the seat beside her. She looked about as relaxed as someone possibly could be 3 hours into a 13 hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Eyes closed, headphones in, and neck pillow secured.

"Didn't you get enough of sleeping through important things when we were in college?"

"Hm. Fair. But luckily for us, I didn't sleep through my korean class." She mumbled with a sleepy smirk.

"I don't know if lucky is quite the right word." Gianna mumbled under her breath.

The flight went smoothly, if Gianna didn't count the 5 times Cara climbed over her to use the bathroom. At one point, Gianna was on the verge of thinking Cara had joined the mile-high club with a few different people that Cara had pointed out as being attractive on the flight.

"Okay, we need to go get our bags, then there she should be a car waiting for us to take is back to the apartment. I'll leave you alone until dinner so you can knock off any lingering jetlag. After dinner, it's sleepy time. Or more than likely study time for you. You need to let your parents know you landed safely somewhere in there. Then we get up bright ans early in the morning to head to YGE." Cara explained, she was scrolling through her iPad, with a determined vengeance.

Despite being generally psychotic Cara was a wondeful assistant. Gianna wouldn't have hired her if she wasn't, best friends or not.

"Let's go get those bags then. I didn't pack much. Figured we'd go shopping when we got here, that way we eavesdrop to see what the public is saying. Two birds, one stone."

Cara looked at the taller dark-skinned woman incredulously, "Have you ever had fun a single day in your life? Or do you really just live to work?"

Gianna started walking toward the baggage claim area without answering. She could spot Cara's gaudy rainbow luggage set from a mile away.

Cara scurried to catch up, "I'm serious, Anna. That's not healthy. Sometimes, I'm fairly sure you're still a virgin."

Gianna huffed, knocking Cara's luggage off the conveyor belt unceremoniously, then placing her more inconspicuous red luggage neatly next to it.

"What if I was asexual?"

Cara laughed so loudly people started to stare at them. Some stared at Gianna a bit longer.

She didn't really care. She had expected it. Being a black woman in an Asian was going to be interesting. She smoothed down her fresh box braids self consciously. She preferred her fro, but she figured it would be better to get a protective style while she could back in the states.

"Ace my ass. If you were ace I don't think you'd stare at Mary's new secretary the way that you did when she got hired. You looked like you wanted to strip down to your granny panties and lay yourself across her desk covered in chocolate."

They both made their way to the parking lot, "I do not have granny panties."

"Really? That's why you chose to deny? Thank you for proving my point."

Gianna didn't say anything to Cara until she absolutely tell her what she wanted ordered for dinner. And then, not again until the morning.

"No. That won't do. Go change." Cara said as soon as she saw Gianna the next morning.

"What? What's wrong with what I'm wearing?!" She was wearing a fairly similar outfit to what she had worn the day she was told about the job.

"It's too professional."

"And?!"

"Do you know how many single idols you might meet today? What if this is your Y/N moment?" Cara pouted.

"You know good and damn well I don't know what that means."

"Ugh! Just go put on something slightly sexier. Keep the skirt and heels. Did you bring that yellow blouse with the cleavage peek-a-boo window thing?"

"...yes..."

"Great. Go put that on. Please! The better you look, the better I look, the better the company looks."

The redhead knew just how to push her buttons, "Fine."

Cara squealed in excitement. Gianna frowned the entire drive to the company building. Though, she had to admit, she did look...edible for lack of a better word.

As soon as they entered the building, Gianna put on her business face. The face that said 'I know what I'm doing, don't question me', yet was also somehow inviting and approachable.

Isaac had ended up joining them via conference call. The meeting between her the CEO of the company and the managers of the group had gone well. She had a much better idea of what she was doing now.

The next thing she needed to do was meet the group, iKON. But they were in the middle of comeback promotions which was why this was such a dire situation. She wouldn't be able to hear their side of things until the following day.

Instead, they had her talking to the rest of YGE's artists. They pretty much had to sign an NDA for just about everyone in the entire building. She even looked at sample contracts to really see what could or could not happen.

The first group she met with was TREASURE. There wasn't much to go over with them because they were pretty much still children. There wasn't much they could do let alone would do.

She didn't worry about AKMU either. And most of the solo artists seemed to know that they were under very watchful eyes considering some of the scandals that had gone on in the past.

That left BLACKPINK. Gianna's last big meeting of the day.

Lisa crossed her arms and huffed loudly for the third time in the span of thirty seconds. She could see Jennie's eye start to twitch and that's exactly what she wanted. Still, when no one answered she did it again.

Jisoo snatch the beanie off of her head and put threw it on the elevator floor.

"Unnie! That was 50 bucks!"

Jisoo only stared at her, "Who buys a 50 dollar beanie?"

"..uh...me?"

Chaeyoung threw her arm around Lisa's shoulders, "What are you huffing and puffing about, Lisa-yah?"

Lisa stared longingly at her beanie, not bothering to pick it up, "Why do we have to have this meeting? I thought we were adults. Feels like everytime someone else does something stupid we get put on a shorter leash."

Chaeyoung frowned. She hadn't been expecting the maknae to say something so serious, especially after making it her mission to annoy Jennie.

She looked at the other members for help. Jennie just shrugged, "Don't look at me. I feel the same way." She then proceeded to give her manager a dirty look.

"It's just the way it is, kid." Jisoo said, feeling bad enough to put Lisa's hat back on her head.

The elevator door opened and they were led to one of the 58388383 conference rooms in the building.

One of the people, she assumed was apart of the meeting stood up, to greet them. So far, Lisa could only see the back of her head, but something seemed oddly familiar about her. She had to keep from staring at the poor woman's ass in the tightest pencil skirt known to man, so she wouldn't do something embarrassing like running into Chaeng.

As the group came to a stop in front of the woman, and the woman next to her who was now standing too, Lisa almost fainted.

"Hello, I'm Gianna Prince. The new crisis publicist. And this is my assistant, Cara Lauren."

She had thought she would never see the woman again. One of those missed connections type things. And now, here she was. Standing in front of her. Leaning over the table to shake her hand maybe? Lisa didn't know it was kind of hard tell with the whole looking directly down her blouse very disrespectfully and all.

Chaeyoung suddenly elbowed her side harshly. She jolted out of her reverie with a slight jump.

She stuck her hand out for...Gianna...fuck that was such a nice name...to shake.

"I'm L-L," Wait a minute. What was her name again? Pran-no that was the old one. Shit.

"Lisa. This is Lisa. And I'm Rosé, but you can call me Chaeyoung."

Would she have to cover the repair costs if a hole opened and swallowed her up right now?

"Hello, Chaeyoung, nice to meet you."

Lisa promptly tuned out of the rest of the introductions. Only listening when her members started to sit down, and she decided she probably should too.

"I don't know if you guys have been told why you're here, but if not, as I said I'm a crisis public cummincations officer. Your company contacted my firm to help with a few things. Most of them don't concern you directly, but I wanted to run some things by you to get a gauge of how you guys are feeling. And in return you guys can voice any concerns that you may have as well." Gianna spoke slowly so the translator didn't have to work as laboriously.

Everyone except for Lisa nodded in understanding. She did not understand. Not because of any language barrier. She didn't understand because it was hard to listen over the sound of her brain practically moaning everytime the woman opened her mouth.

"Now, I know you guys don't have any dating bans anymore. And I can tell sensible women when I see them. If my research serves me right, Jennie is the only member who has publicly dated anyone."

Jennie blushed but nodded in affirmative.

"Great. Are any of you currently seeing anyone?"

The room suddenly went deathly quiet. Lisa made sure to keep her eyes straight ahead so she didn't accidentally look at any of her members and give away anything she shouldn't.

"Okay. I think the conversation would go much better if all these pesky managers weren't in here spying on us." Gianna made a shoo motion with her hand. When none of the managers did she frowned.

"I'm sure your boss wouldn't be too happy to hear that there was a reason why I couldn't get any work done today..."

The managers, even the translator scurry out of the room like cockroaches.

The girls look on in shock, "How'd you get them to do that?! I can barely go to the restroom without them." Jennies asked, wide-eyed.

Gianna smiled charmingly. Lisa choked.

"A part of the job is knowing how to get what I want. Now, that there are no longer unwanted ears present, is there anything that you guys would like to share with me. I hope you guys feel comfortable with being completely honest with me. Makes my job much easier if anything uncouth ever happens."

The girls are quiet again before Jisoo speaks up, "I've sort of been seeing my co-star for Snowdrop, Jung Hae-in, lately."

Cara makes sure to translate for Gianna before Jennie can.

The dark-skinned woman nodded softly. Statistically, at least one of them had to be in a relationship.

"Is it serious?"

"Not really."

"Do you want it to be serious?" Gianna inquired further. If the hesitation was anything to go by, Jisoo hadn't even really discussed the details with her members.

"Maybe."

Gianna chuckled good-naturedly, "I can work with maybe. Anyone else want to speak now or forever hold their peace? Doesn't necessarily have to be anything relationship related. I don't care what you watch on your computer at night, just tell me things that you wouldn't want to get out to the public without a plan set in motion. Any weed in your pocket? Secret families? Gang affiliations? Hell, even a tattoo vaguely shaped like Florida on your ass. Remember, I won't tell anyone anything unless I think you're in immediate danger. And by immediate danger, I mean someone jumping in through the window and stealing your crown jewels. If you're in a gang, I'll assume you can take care of yourself. "

After laughing softly, Jisoo and Jennie look pointedly at the maknaes of the group.

Rosé blushed while Lisa almost completely turned around in her chair.

"Chaeng, Lali. You guys don't have to say if you're not comfortable but it would probably be beneficial."

Gianna could see the trepidation on both of their faces, she was used to this. Having to pry information out of people for the greater good. She had tactics that helped. And one of them was talking about her self.

"Well, while you guys think about it. I'll tell you a bit about myself and Cara a bit. My middle name is Kennedy. After the assassinated president. Yeah, don't know what my parents were thinking either. I'm 23, well I guess I'm a year older here. So, 24. Cara and I have known each other since highschool. She's not nearly as smart as me so I had to take pity on her and offer her a job." Gianna laughed brightly as Cara shoved her.

"Um, what else. My starbucks order is a Venti Iced White Chocolate Mocha. I'm bisexual. I can't ride a bike-"

"Me too!" Chaeyoung choked out like she'd been holding her breath the entire time Gianna was talking. She quickly covered her mouth like she couldn't believe she said that either.

Lisa cursed. Now, she was extremely obligated to speak up. Though, she supposed she was going to have to eventually anyway. Especially if she was going to successfully trick Gianna Prince into marrying her.

"You can't ride a bike either?" Gianna questioned attempting to suppress a laugh. Her tactics always worked.

"No. Yes. Wait. I can ride a bike. I meant I'm bisexual too." Chaeyoung looked like her head was about to explode.

"Oh. Well, that makes more sense. More fun on this side of the street isn't it?"

"Not when you're a kpop idol."

Gianna made a mental note to come back to that statement another day. And another day would definitely come if she had to stay on top of Jisoo and Rose's issues.

She then turned to Lisa. She knew Lisa was the youngest, but coincidentally Lisa was about two months older than Gianna herself. It was sort of funny.

"Is it your turn yet, Lalisa?"

It can be her turn for the rest of the day if Gianna kept saying her name like that.

She could feel her members eyes on the side of her head. She's pretty sure if Gianna was anyone else she wouldn't have a problem just blurting it out.

"I uh...I am...I-I have five cats and a dog." She could hear Jisoo face palm at the end of the table. And yeah she wanted to as well.

She wanted to bang her head through the table. Not on the table. Through it.

"Oh. You're gayer than Cara over here."

"Probably." She mumbled, "Wait! How did you-" Lisa abruptly stopped speaking.

"What? How did I know? I knew as soon as you walked in. And then you sat down and that didn't work out in your favor either."

Lisa frowned.

"Look at your outfit Lisa. It screams athleisure but make it gay. Also you can't sit in a chair right."

Lisa adjusted her position slightly, "I uh I don't normally look like this."

"Yes you do." Jennie said, bringing Gianna's attention back to her, "Okay. So, God forbid, any of this gets out. What do we do?"

It wasn't lost on Gianna that Jennie hadn't actually said anything about herself, no one was ever squeaky clean, but she'll worry about that another day.

"Well, it depends. For Jisoo, I think she's old enough that not it wouldn't really be that big of a stir. It might be a bit tougher considering he is your co-star. But again I don't see that blowing out of portion as long as the company confirms it quick enough. The longer you let things fester the more time the media has to come up with their own narrative. And that's not the business I'm in. If it was, I would have been a journalist."

The girls nodded, "Okay. That sounds...smart." Jennie conceding.

"As for Rosé and Lisa. It depends on how out you want to be. Also, you guys are experiencing two different sexualities. So, here comes another hard question, if you were forced out of the closet, would you want me to forcibly shove you back in, or would you want me to spin it to where anyone homophobic looks bad. A teaching moment."

Chaeyoung hesitated, "I um. I'm not out to my family yet and I don't know when I'll ever be ready to come out to them. Definitely not anytime soon."

Gianna nodded understandingly, "That is perfectly fine, Chaeyoung. If it does happen we'll pretend like it didn't. I'll plant photos of you standing in the general vicinity of men on every building I personally happen pass if I need to you." Gianna grabbed Chaeyoung's hand reassuringly.

Lisa attempted to blow up Chaeyoung's hand with her laser eyes. It unfortunately did not work.

"How about you, Lisa?"

Boooo. What happened to Lalisa? That was sexier.

She shrugged indifferently. Trying to look way cooler than she had all meeting, "I don't really care either way. I'm out to everyone that matters. And if it was that obvious to you I'm sure BLINKs already know too."

"Make everyone else feel bad it is. That's my favorite activity anyway."

"Can confirm. She's really good at it." Cara spoke up.

"Well, unless anyone else has anything to say, it's time for me to get going." Gianna eyed Jennie, who only shrugged.

"Okay. Bye, girls. It was very nice meeting you. Thank you for being honest with me."

As soon as the women left, Lisa sank to the floor like she had turn into a viscous liquid. Her members did not hesitate to laugh at her.

#jesssica's fanfic #blackpink fanfic #blackpink #lisa x reader #lisa fanfic #lisa x oc #black original character #lisa x black oc #The Hills in Seoul #rose x oc

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fumiko-matsubara · 4 years

Text

AssClass Rewrite: How Kaho should’ve been portrayed instead

I’m just transferring what I’ve proposed in the discord server to here for easy access UwU.

I hate how Matsui oversimplified Kaho’s character until she’s literally being portrayed as Maehara’s overly unsophisticated bitch ex-girlfriend and left her like that, implying that it’s okay for fans to put her under the same level of being horrible as Seo.

Haha how about NO?

With all the red flags that are just plain obvious throughout Kaho and Seo’s interaction in the chapter, Matsui had the chance to write her as the unfortunate girlfriend of the school’s rudest student. But noooo, he just went “it’s too complicated so let’s just end it like that” and it’s pissing me off smh

So, here’s my take on her character UwU:

Kaho is like the BIGGEST SIMP for all the Ikemen in school, and she will go out her way to get close to them, even asking them out (Zaina and I headcanoned that she’s from the Tennis club, but only because Isogai was also a member and she didn’t think that the club is separated by gender lmao). She’s basically Ikemen crazy, a pursuer, and does all the chasing.

If that’s the case then, how did she ended up dating Seo, of all people, with his ugly rude shitty ass self being the opposite of what the traditional Ikemen is?

Let me add a defining personality trait of hers then: Kaho is very un-confrontational.

Because of this certain trait of hers, she couldn’t say “No” when Seo asked her out, especially since the guy has a really good reputation at school as a virtuoso and for his “exceptional” (yeah right) English skills, that his family is said to be stinking rich, and that his outrageous personality in general makes everyone in school uncomfortable.

As Zaina, who is @dreaming-of-assclass, have pointed out in her tea spill post about Seo, there is an obvious power imbalance between the two, that it’s beyond uncomfortable to think about what could’ve happened to Kaho had she rejected him when he asked her out, broken up with him when she had enough, or especially had she got caught cheating on him behind his back. Paired that with my take of Kaho being un-confrontational, she’s literally trapped and it’s heartbreaking.

Her crush on Maehara is definitely genuine, from what we’ve seen in the chapter of how happy they are together and the fact that Maehara is very popular with girls in school pre Class E and is considered as an Ikemen, brushing aside his “fast-dating” trait.

Background and background:

When Kaho and Seo first started dating, she briefly stopped her pursuing habits, but then suddenly went back to it after seeing more of how shitty Seo really is in general (As previously mentioned, she couldn’t just call the relationship off, considering Seo’s reputation in school and how much power he has in the relationship along with how un-confrontational Kaho is). So, I’m gonna assume here for a bit. Kaho “unofficially” broke up with him, by keeping a distance from him until they, hopefully that is, drifted apart that they’re no longer together without the need of an actual declaration of breaking up or something.

So by that logic, to Kaho, it’s now okay to go after other guys since she already “unofficially broken up” with Seo. Then we have Maehara: handsome, athletic, fun, good personality, and very popular among junior high school girls in Kunugigaoka town. Despite his fast-dating playboy trait, he’s considered by many as an Ikemen. Kaho loves Ikemen, especially the very good-looking ones. So after him she goes lmao. Of course, with your girl being both a simp and a pursuer, she’s the one who asked him out. And Maehara, being your everyday fast-dating playboy, of course, said yes.

Now we have the retaliation chapter:

Kaho and Maehara might have been dating for a few weeks at this point, considering that Maehara knows of her daily schedule and how she commutes to school. They’re chill with each other and just happy together. All good.

Then Seo showed up.

With all the points I’ve stated earlier about their power imbalance, with Kaho being un-confrontational, she’s beyond panicking at this point for getting caught. (Let’s be real, Maehara kind of made things worse by pointing out the sudden change in her schedule as of lately. Important point: I’ll address this too shortly).

Cue the big mistake she had made that day: using Maehara as a scapegoat just so that she wouldn’t have to deal with facing Seo’s wrath, especially with how horrible his temper was. Yes, it’s wrong for her to do that, but you can’t exactly hate her for it since poor girl is beyond scared, that she had to do it.

To quote what Zaina and I have discussed months ago, about the café scene:

Fumiko – “I’ve also noticed something in the retaliation chapter. It’s only Seo who actually insults disguised Kayano and Nagisa. Kaho was more like, reprimanding them angrily rather than explicitly insulting them. And when they were talking about what happened with Maehara, it was Seo who was carrying the whole. Kaho was more of “I know right?!” rather than expressing her thoughts.”

Zaina – “EXACTLY!! It’s so clear that he’s the way ruder one!!! And she’s just going along with things to please him.”

Fumiko – “She even looked scared when Seo asked her if she had previously brought other people with her to the café. If 3E were that empathetic enough, surely the recon team would realize the way Kaho was just trying to go along with Seo’s rudeness to please him.”

Zaina – “I feel like in canon, none of 3-E was thinking very straight, or open-minded like they usually do. Because of Maehara’s humiliation and the direct insults towards them, it felt personal and they didn’t want to see it any other way. This was unfortunately exemplified by Koro’s encouragement. He really wasn’t a good role model at all for supporting this. Because you’re right: how did none of the recon team, or anyone notice how the two interacted?? How scared and stressed Kaho looked?? Especially Nagisa, who specializes in reading people and is sitting right across them??”

The last point made a lot of sense. We should really make Nagisa notice Kaho’s obvious cry for help, and even Kayano too for how obvious Kaho was faking it to Seo.

So now, we have the whole revenge thing:

Zaina – “You know, the revenge that 3E got on Seo and Kaho was super harsh. But it’s even more messed up when you remember that Koro encouraged and helped planned it.”

Fumiko – “I don’t like how they managed to get away with that with little to no witnesses. The lasy who asked the three to cut the branches should’ve noticed that large branches fell on two kids in front of her.”

Zaina – “The problem with AssClass is that they never acknowledge the consequences of their actions ever, which makes it hard to be realistic sometimes.”

Fumiko – “Another thing I don’t like about the retaliation chapter was that Kaho and Seo thought it was just a very unlucky day for them. No one else knew that 3E did all that shit. They literally got away with it with 0 consequences.”

So here’s how I think 3E should face the consequences of their actions in this chapter, which involves adding the scene of where Seo shoved Kaho just to get inside the restroom from the farther convenience store, it may have not been explicitly shown in the manga, but it was implied.

Until we get to Nagisa and Kayano noticing the huge red flags in the café, to 3E initially, both Kaho and Seo are equally in the wrong and deserve the same punishment. All the canon process in the revenge can still remain here, if y’all fine with that. After noticing the red flags and witnessing Seo shoving Kaho out of the way, wouldn’t it be best if they started to reflect on their actions from that moment? Like “did we go too far? Is she really that bad as we all initially thought? Was this even the right thing to do in the first place?”

It’s also a good chance for them to reflect on the fact that Koro encouraged all of this and is one of the most involved in planning, considering the fact that he is still a teacher, and he literally encouraged them to humiliate two kids in public. At the same time, even Koro might reflect on what he teaches them.

Also, Zaina pointed out that Maeheara literally did not learn anything from this in the end and just went back to his fast-dating habits like the whole thing never happened in the first place.

So let me addressed what I’ve mentioned earlier, then.

Maehara and Kaho dated for quite a while if he already knew about her daily routine, and it’s showing that they really do like each other and enjoy each other’s company. No bad blood whatsoever. So after finding out that Kaho is dating him behind Seo’s back, also known as the rudest student in school with such a horrible temper, don’t you guys think it was a very bad dick move of him to expose Kaho, the very girl who he was just having a great time with, just like that while it’s beyond obvious at how scared she was of Seo and is trying to save herself from getting in big trouble? Couldn’t he just have helped her with making her excuses more believable so that both of them could get out of trouble?? He’s good at talking, so he can definitely make it work. So why did he choose the option where either him or Kaho could the brunt of it, when it obvious that he’s gonna take it considering he’s from Class E?

We’re also definitely gonna make him learn something out of this in the end smh.

And that’s the end of my long ass essay UwU

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assclas rewrite #target on #tsuchiya kaho #kaho tsuchiya #maehara hiroto #hiroto maehara #seo tomoya #tomoya seo #korosensei #class e #my characterization #please let Kaho break up with that abusive clown #Free Kaho

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cynicalrainbows · 3 years

Text

Thunderbirds & Acid Rain

I wanted to write a fluffy bit about Dot being like a surrogate big sister to Martha and ended up writing this.

(I did research Ojibwe mythology before writing it but if I have got anything wrong, do let me know.)

It’s Sheby’s idea that tasks and task partners should be done on a rotation. Which…..well, yeah she can see why that’s fair and good and everything. On the other hand, it also means having to spend extended periods of time one on one with each other.

She ends up on water detail with Dot and- ok, that’s not the worst, she’d rather be partnered with Dot than Rachel (who just somehow seems to radiate a sort of perpetual irritation, even at the best of times) or Leah (who nice as she is is so deep into her conspiracy theory shit that she can easily imagine having to spend the entire trip to the waterfall having to defend Shelby’s innocence)....

It’s not as if she doesn’t like Dot (it’s not as if she doesn’t like anyone), but it’s very easy to feel intimidated by her: Dot is decisive, brisk, tough. She gives the impression of someone who’d be able to survive anything, and beside her, Martha feels very soft and weak, much in the same way that being too near to Fatin for long periods of time makes her feel especially unsophisticated and ungraceful.

(On the other hand, being around Leah makes her feel extremely calm and stable in comparison, so that, she supposes, is a plus.)

They walk mostly in silence, aside from the odd heads-up about errant roots and especially spiky branches. It’s a little awkward- not because of the silence but just because of Dot herself, the way she moves confidently, as if she knows what she’s doing. It’s impossible, she thinks, not to feel like a liability, even though she’s managing to keep up and everything.

Still, it’s alright- even the smothering humidity has lessened a little, and the sun has gone in so she isn’t having to squint and-

And then the first peal of thunder rolls out and she jumps so badly that she almost jerks the suitcase out of Dot’s hand. Thank god it’s empty- she can only imagine how awful she’d feel if they had to trek back again because she’d make them spill.

“You ok?”

She nods quickly.

“Trod on a rock-”

There is absolutely no way she is going to tell Dot Campbell, queen of the wilderness and renowned drug dealer and connaisseur of blunt, unsympathetic observations that she is afraid of thunder.

(Ok, so she may have not been exactly subtle on the beach. But given that everyone was pretty distracted by the wind and the rain and the cold and doing a pretty good job of making noise on their own, she’s sort of hoping that they won’t have noticed that it was the noise that was making her freak out.)

“Do you need to stop? Is your ankle ok?”

She shakes her head.

“No, it’s fine-”

She just needs to hold it together until they get back to the camp and to Toni and hopefully being home- to their makeshift approximation of home anyway- and with the others will be distracting and comforting enough that she’ll be able to keep it together.

(Alright, maybe she and Toni aren’t really speaking. But even spiky silence with Toni feels safer than anything else without her.)

There’s a flash, bright enough to make them both blink and then another crash of thunder that rolls on and on- it isn’t raining yet but the noise is every bit as bad as it was on the beach, the sort of noise that swallows you up.

She winces and bites her lip hard so she doesn’t do anything pathetic like whimper.

(At home, her cats hate storms even more than she does and comforting them has been excellent cover. But the animals who live on this island, if there are any, are probably fine. Probably. She hopes her goat is ok.)

After a second Dot starts walking again.

“Should probably speed it up. Don’t want to be walking through rain if the sky opens up.”

“Y-yeah.”

They walk on and it’s as if the sky is splitting open. She can’t help flinching every time the lightening flashes and she keeps expecting a tree to burst into flames, it’s so loud and so close.

When she blinks, her lashes are wet and that’s the most embarrassing thing, is she actually going to cry in front of someone she doesn’t know all that well because that would be-

“Hey.”

She’s been too caught up in her own thoughts to even notice that Dot has stopped walking; she almost bumps into her.

“Sorry.”

“It’s ok.” Dot is looking at her a little too closely and it makes her want to turn away. “Uh. Your foot. Is it...ok?”

“What?” Oh yeah. Her foot. “Yes, it’s- it’s fine.” There’s another crash, right above them and she gasps without meaning to, and winces.

“Are you sure? It’s….looking pretty bad.”

“What?”

“What do you say we rest for a bit?”

Before she can even properly answer, Dot is tugging her to sit down. They end up under a little overhang of rock, their backs pressed against the stone, dry leaves crunching as they shift position.

“C’mon. This should keep us dry if it does rain.”

It’s not the most comfortable of places but weirdly, it does make the storm feel a little more bearable. It’s just as loud as ever but she can’t see the lightening forking across the sky and the feeling of having a roof over them is nice, even if it wouldn’t be much good long term. Sitting down, she feels less exposed. Safer.

“You know, I had this thing when I was a kid where I would freak the fuck out when it rained? Learnt about acid rain in science and I got the idea that it was just like….acid falling from the sky. AND that it happened totally randomly. So going out in the rain was like….a sort of weird russian roulette.”

The story surprised a watery chuckle out of her.

“When did you learn about what it really was?”

“I mean officially my dad cleared it up for me when he understood why I point blank refused to set foot outside when it was drizzling.” Dot makes a face. “But I still have a second when it rains when I wonder if it’s gonna be water or acid. Like I’m not afraid of it anymore….but I still get that split second of like Huh that’s a thing that could happen.”

It’s not a bad spot actually- there’s plenty of space for the two of them. Dot thought, for some reason, chooses to sit so close that she and Martha are pressed up against one another. Dot’s knee rests on hers, she can feel Dot’s warmth through her t-shirt and her hair tickles her neck.

“My mom told me that thunder was made by the wings of the thunderbird.”

“Thunderbird like that show with the puppets?”

“What? No, like the- like a spirit. We call them the Animikii.”

“And they’re scary?”

“No, they’re more....” She pauses. “Like they’re big and strong and fierce but in a protective way. They keep us safe from evil spirits.”

“That’s really cool.” Dot actually sounds sincere. “Did it stop you being scared of thunder?”

She gives a little laugh. “I mean. Obviously not.”

Somehow, it doesn’t feel as embarrassing to say as she thought it would.

Normally, she’d move over right away to give Dot some space- but she doesn’t really want to. The storm feels more bearable with Dot’s solid presence next to her. After a few minutes, she does reluctantly try to move a little bit, in the interests of not squashing anyone- but Dot moves with her, and so slowly she allows herself to relax a bit.

She does start to feel guilty about the time they’re wasting though.

“Shouldn’t we get back?”

Her voice is only the tiniest bit shaky and Dot probably doesn’t even notice but she shakes her head anyway.

“Nah, it’s cool. Don’t sweat it.”

She shifts a bit closer and Dot lets her. Her breaths come more steadily. Maybe things will be ok.

#the wilds fanfiction #the wilds

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mbti-notes · 4 years

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Pt. 1 Hi, I'm an INFJ & I'm trying to develop my functions in order bc I realised a bit that all of my functions are messed up. However, I stumbled upon a problem that makes me think I might be stuck in a quite heavy Ni-Ti loop. I was reading the type development part on cognitive functions. As I read through the part of how to develop Ni, I felt rlly motivated to do. However, when I got to Fe & the 3 important aspects of it, I felt extremely restless & conflicted.

I received the rest of your message, but I won’t include it due to length and it basically just being about one main point, which is that you don’t understand Fe at all.

Here’s a thought experiment: Let’s say that you’re a >2nd generation immigrant who wants to learn about your cultural background due to feeling disconnected from it. Do you think that it is a good idea to learn from someone who has no idea about that culture? Do you think that it is a good idea to learn from someone who is prejudiced or believes that it is an “inferior” culture? Do you think that it is a good idea to learn from someone who is ashamed of their minority status because they want to fit in with the majority culture? Do you think that it is a good idea to learn from someone who exemplifies all the negative rather than the positive aspects of the culture?

Imagine saying that you hate being a person of color because the white people around you told you that it’s a bad thing. Imagine saying that you hate being queer because all the straight people around you told you that it’s a bad thing. This is what you have been doing with Fe and being INFJ. You have internalized the voices that keep you in a constant state of self-loathing. And you continue to do so because (unconsciously) you don’t want to enact the changes that are necessary to grow (i.e. tertiary loop). How ironic that looping INFJs swear up and down that they want to “stay true to themselves” when what they’re actually doing is trying to fit in with whatever they’ve been led to believe is “better”, “superior”, or more “desirable” through their social learning. You see, you cannot escape using Fe - you are merely using it unconsciously to maim and kill yourself when you could be using it consciously to be your best self. By saying that you’d rather be another type, you enable self-hatred, which leads you squarely in the opposite direction of self-actualization. How are you ever going to bring out the best in yourself when you constantly put yourself down?

Pretty much everything that you believe about Fe is 1) a negative stereotype, and 2) a projection.

Negative stereotypes for every function/type abound because there a lot of people out there who suffer from “typism” (in believing that some types are better or superior to others). Some people are irrationally motivated to perpetuate negative stereotypes because they have an ax to grind, perhaps due to their own personality development problems, perhaps due to having had negative experiences with individuals of a particular type. You don’t have to spend much time in personality type forums to hear people complaining about this or that type, as though all individuals of a type are exactly the same.

People come to me all the time to talk about their relationship failures. More often than not, the problem is that they just don’t understand the other person’s type and how they think, feel, and behave differently - they are unable to understand, let alone appreciate, legitimate individual differences. Being at a low level of ego development, they have an unsophisticated and egocentric “theory of mind”, so they assume/expect that everyone should be like themselves, and then they of course become disturbed when it’s proven untrue.

For example, in the case of immature FPs, perhaps they can’t imagine the kind of expansive care/compassion that healthy Fe is capable of (due to not being capable of it themselves), which easily sparks suspicion or jealousy. With the example of looping INFJs, they usually suffer from emotional repression/detachment and cannot access the healthy feeling life that is necessary to motivate productive Fe behavior, so they resort to “faking it”. And instead of taking responsibility for their own Fe incompetence, they project their frustrations onto all Fe doms and call them all “fake”... which then comes back around to conveniently justify staying in Ti loop and refusing Fe development.

It’s not my job to convince people to develop a function when they clearly don’t want to - I won’t waste my precious time like that. In fact, I don’t bother with them and tell them not to bother, because there’s no point in trying to develop for all the wrong reasons. Self-development requires explicit commitment to change. Until you are committed enough to change your faulty beliefs and let go of your resistance against function development, no amount of outside advice/help is going to budge you, because you’re not open and willing to learn. Self-development must begin with taking personal responsibility for the problems that you have. While your past experiences have brought you to this point, your problems are yours, and what you decide to do NOW is what determines your future. Stand up and take the lead or continue to be led - it’s your choice. INFJs write to me quite often about Fe+Ti loop problems, so I have written extensively about it already, read through the tags if you care to.

#infj #auxiliary fe #fe #development #auxiliary #tertiary #loop #stereotypes #ask

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curewhimsy · 4 years

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I was in a server where we were listing our “Top 10 ____” in our writing so I went and listed my top 10 woobie characters and it got. LONG. And detailed.

———

Top 10 biggest woobies (so far, as my world is still growing) + reasons/descriptions

10. Bianca Luna (A lonely autistic girl who spent her childhood as a bullied outcast. She wished for a friend until one day, she gets whisked to the magical world of Whimsica where she goes on an odd magical adventure... and gets to be a hero. However, she does experience troubles long the way, but each one makes her grow and become a bit stronger.)

9. Setsuna Usui (The odd-one-out in a family of perfects. Her mom and dad are professional classical musicians, and her older siblings are prodigies. Setsuna herself is clumsy, messy, ill-tempered, and unsophisticated. Because of this, she is very depressed... until she steps through a wardrobe into the magical world of Whimsica and her life changes...)

8. Rhona Aequor (Her special interest is the ocean. As a child, she often had meltdowns and the only thing that would comfort her would be looking at a fish tank or the ocean. She was picked on, and had no real friends until she met Quartz, who was a whale shark she met in a lagoon. She found out she had a special gift that enabled her to talk to sea life. Later in life, she ends up losing her love interest, Nagisa. Unsure if Nagisa is still alive or not, Rhona falls into a very deep depression and develops what could be PTSD as well.)

7. Nagisa Onda (Nagisa was a very lonely child, until she met her best friend Amara. Amara loves the ocean, and got Nagisa interested in it as well. Nagisa and Amara was inseparable, until one day Amara died in a shipwreck. Nagisa was traumatized and began to hate and resent the ocean, which she once loved, for taking away her best friend. She fell into a deep depression, possibly PTSD, and even became suicidal. Eventually, Nagisa meets Rhona, and the two form a deep bond that helps Nagisa let things go and learn to love the ocean and treasure life again.)

6. Sei Yozora (Sei is an alien from a dystopian planet called Xiropolis where newborn babies are treated with magic that closes their hearts. The children grow up unable to feel a wide range of emotions. Sei had an interest in books, despite not being able to feel much emotion. She eventually got her hands on a book that came from the planet Whimsica. It had such a wonderful story in it, that it made her feel a sensation she had never felt before. It made her feel emotions. She thought that maybe if she went to Whimsica, she’d feel more of that sensation. So she built a spacecraft all by herself and abandoned Xiropolis, seeking a better life on Whimsica. However, everyone bullied her for her odd behavior, and it got worse once they found out she was an alien.)

5. Eunice (Eunice was a young girl who had a terminal illness. She had no magic powers, but wishes she did. She loved to decorate the hospital to make kids happy, because she hated how it looked so gloomy. Her dying wish was to go on an adventure and to be a hero. There is a point in the Whimsica Saga where Bianca is in the hospital and meets Eunice. She uses her magic to grant Eunice’s wish, and turns her hospital bed into a flying Bedmobile. They go on an adventure all across Whimsica and see all the wonderful sights. They eventually defeat an evil licorice wizard and save a kingdom of gingerbread people. Eunice passes away a few days later, but her dying wish was granted. But what Eunice didn’t realize, was that even if she didn’t have magic powers, she made people happy by decorating the hospital, and to many people, that was true magic.)

4. Flannery Flanagan (Flannery, nicknamed “Flan”, is a young girl who always wanted to be a competitive roller-skater like her father. One day however, her father was teaching her to roller skate, and they got in a bad car accident. Her father died in the accident, and Flan got paralyzed from the hip down. From then on, she had to be in a wheelchair and give up her dream. Instead, she took up racing in a race car. However, since her father died, her family was left poor, and she could never end up building a good enough race car. (She was originally a Wreck-It-Ralph Sugar Rush OC, you see...) In every race she would come in last, and her car would break down. A villain named Anise wanted to take advantage of Flan in order to recruit her to the Dark Side, but ended up helping Flan because she felt sympathy. Anise ended up realizing it felt good to help others, so she and her sidekick Zircon betrayed their evil queen and became Good. Anise helped Flan build a better car, but instead of winning the race, Flan lost because she ended up helping a lost unicorn on the way. Anise and Flan now have a sisterly relationship.)

3. Alvarina Ruska (Alvarina is an elf who lives in a forest where it is always autumn. Her father died when she was really young. He left the forest for a short time in search for food and never returned. Her mother died of a respiratory illness a few years before the story’s present. Alvarina is lonely because she cannot leave the forest. If elfin people leave the forest they are bound to, they will begin to die slowly. One day by chance, she meets Celestine, one of the royals of Whimsica. They form a friendship. However, it is forbidden for a royal to have a friend who is a commoner, or else the royal will be punished with a thousand years slumber. So Celestine eventually breaks off the friendship with Alvarina, even though it was was difficult thing to do. Alvarina is heartbroken and doesn’t understand why. She thinks perhaps Celestine could be in danger, so she leaves the forest in search for clues. Celestine eventually regrets her decision, and comes back to Alvarina’s forest to see a note on her front door that she ran away. Celestine is frantic and finally tells the Queen that she needs to look for Alvarina, because she is worried that she is in danger from leaving the forest, all because of her selfishness. This time she no longer cares about her thousand year punishment. By the time Alvarina is back home, Celestine is collapsed on the ground in front of her house in a coma, with the Queen of Whimsica also there. Celestine’s two sisters, Lunette and Stelle are there as well. Since Celestine and Alvarina’s friendship was so strong, the slumber may very well be beyond a thousand years. The one who put in the law that royals and common people cannot be friends was put in by an old, conservative Queen from years back. Queen Rainbow does not agree with the law, but doesn’t have enough power to reverse it. But combined with the powers of Alvarina’s love, she believes she can. But if it fails, Alvarina may fall into the same slumber. Alvarina agrees to help reverse the curse of the law, and the other sisters pitch in their magic. It’s successfully reversed, and Celestine wakes up. Alvarina is now able to leave the forest as well, because she was able to unlock her powers. She was a woobie, but it ended well.)

2. Reina Coda (Reina is a girl who originally is from Earth, who is very depressed and is a pessimist/nihilist and hates life. She is a smoker and has a lot of harmful habits. She once loved to play the piano and sing, but she slowly found herself losing her passion. Her view of life of hopeless, until she finds herself in the magical world of Whimsica, and meets Sumi, who changes her life. Sumi has so much hope in her heart, and a longing spirit despite her past. She sees the good in everything, unlike Reina who only sees the worst in things. Reina teaches Sumi many things, such as how to be confident, but Sumi teaches Reina many profound things as well.)

1. Sumi Suzumi (The Forest of Resonance is a tropical rainforest in the magical land of Whimsica where it is perpetually summer. The forest is inhabited by elves. It never is cold in the forest, nor does it ever snow. Nobody who inhabits the Forest of Resonance is able leave it, or else they will begin to die slowly as long as they are outside of the boundaries. Everyone in the forest has hair/eyes that are blue, green, or somewhere in between. Even when they age, the hair never turns white. But Sumi Shizumi, an albino, was born with white hair, and is ostracized because of it. (This is loosely based on “Daughter of White” which is part of “Evillous Chronicles.” Sumi’s single mother passed away shortly after birthing her, leaving Sumi an orphan. Sumi’s mother cared deeply about her child. Her final wish was for Sumi to live on and have a happy life, despite her looking different. However, others would soon mistreat Sumi. Sumi had been living with an adoptive mother since then, who frequently treated Sumi as inferior. Sumi’s adoptive mother then died when Sumi was 17, leaving her to live on her own. Sumi grows up as a very lonely and apologetic person, despite having an incredibly gentle and benevolent nature. Sumi is not only ostracized for her white hair, but also her strange powers. Everyone else’s powers are related to plants and summer elements. Sumi’s powers are related to ice and are rather wintry. They are also very hard to control, and more like a curse. Before Sumi’s discovered her powers, nobody had ever heard of snow. When they first saw the snow that happened because of Sumi, they panicked. They thought that Sumi had done something bad to the usual rain. One day when she is 22, Sumi is having a particularly horrible day. That night when she sees a shooting star from her treehouse, she wishes for someone, anyone, to be her friend. Sumi’s emotional feelings that night were so strong, it caused a blizzard to plummet the forest. The crops begin to die and everyone chases Sumi out because of what she did. The elder of the forest says that Sumi won’t die when she’s away from the forest, because the forest was never where she belonged in the first place. This hurts Sumi deeply, hearing she never belonged. But this is also the start of a wonderful new adventure for Sumi, where she meets Reina, and together they search for a place where they both belong...)

#whimsica #whimsica saga #my writing #life of pastell #brainstorm #fantasy #bianca luna #rhona aequor #nagisa onda #eunice #flannery flanagan #reina coda #sumi suzumi #Sei yozora #alvarina ruska #Setsuna usui

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meggannn · 6 years

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(based on your previous ask) do you mind if I ask how you feel about lok? is there a general consensus if it's good or bad? youre really insightful and just wanted to know if there were any major issues you had with it

yeah sure, i’ll do my best. if you want a quick answer to your question, here is a link to some of my other korra posts where i say pretty much the same thing as i do here, just in fewer words. cause this post will be mostly an unhappy summary of my experience watching the show. this post will contain spoilers, and disclaimer, i am a really biased, disappointed asshole, so i’ll just admit that now.

short answer: i liked the concept of lok more than the product we got. a lot of that is because you had a physically buff brown wlw protagonist written mostly by cishet white men and, as you can imagine, it wasn’t handled great. when i think of lok now i tend to fluctuate between bittersweet nostalgia and quiet, simmering rage.

if you don’t care about the show summary, skip at the middle paragraph break down to my tldr.

so for those who don’t know, LOK was really my first “big” fandom on tumblr. when it was announced, a bunch of ATLA purists were already hating on it because 1) brown woman, 2) it was unrealistic to go from ATLA’s technology to streampunk in 70 years, and 3) it wasn’t ATLA, basically. it was my first big interest that i got to participate in as it was airing, and i was really excited about it. i defended it, i wrote meta, i liveblogged, i wrote tons of fic and spammed theories/wants before the damn show even had a release date. all that is to say, i was Invested, and i believed in it before i even saw it. people called me a bnf, i’m not sure if that’s true, but i did gain a lot my followers in my first few years on tumblr by posting korra stuff. a lot of them – hello – i think are still around today (i’m not certain how all the video games hasn’t scared them off yet)

i should say at this point that my opinion of LOK the show has been really wrapped up in the ugly stain left by the fanbase. korra the character has been the subject of tons of racist, misogynistic criticism since the moment we saw her back; when she showed up on screen as a proud young woman who fought with authority and stood up for herself, that was the nail in the coffin for her reputation. i agreed that she had a bit of growing up to do, because ATLA/LOK have always been stories about coming of age and maturing, but i disagreed strongly with this notion that she deserved to be “humbled,” which is what a lot of fans were looking for.

the overall consensus on if it’s “good” depends on who you ask. most people agree that ATLA is better overall: it was better plotted because it benefited from more writers in the room and more episodes to flesh out the world. opinions on LOK specifically range based a lot on their opinions of the K/orra/sami pairing, if they were involved in or what side they were on in any of the fandom wank, and also just complete random chance.

i’ll go more in depth into my ‘history’ with the show below, but i just wanted to mention that all the while the show was airing, korra was being hit with waves of criticism by so-called fans for basically being a confident brown woman who were calling for her to learn her place, respect her elders, etc. another common theme was fandom’s brilliant fucking idea that asami, a light-skinned feminine non-bending woman who was more polite and reserved than korra, would’ve made a better avatar. because you know why. (korra was often described as brutal, rough, unsophisticated, next to pretty, perfect asami. and asami is a fine character, to be clear, but that’s what she was – fine. nothing really stands out about her, which is a fault of the writing, because she had a lot of potential too.) so anyway all of this did sour my mood toward engaging with other fans outside my friend circle.

–

it was around maybe the middle of book 1 that i realized the writing for the show was simpler than what i was expecting – not that it was childish, which it was (because it was written for children, i understood that), but i felt like the plot meandered and the twists came out of nowhere. it felt like they were making it up as they were going, and it opened threads it didn’t answer. one of the biggest threads was the equalist revolution, which was a very sensitive topic that got jettisoned when the leader was revealed to be a fraud, and that devalued the entire movement in an instant. really disappointing, because i was looking forward to seeing that addressed. for a lot of people, this was a dealbreaker, and they started walking. i stuck with it, but loosely.

book 2 aired, focusing on the spiritual world and some really cool history. it still suffered a lot from awkward b-plots and loose threads it didn’t know how to tackle. korra lost her memory and then regained it 2 episodes later with no consequences, mako flip-flopped between korra and asami because bryke don’t know how to write teenage romances without making it a love triangle, and at some point bolin kissed a girl against her will and they didnt acknowledge that at all? i honestly don’t remember. anyway at the end of book 2, even though korra saves the day and prevents the world from descending into darkness for ten thousand years, due to events beyond her control, korra loses the spiritual connection that ties her to all of the previous avatars – aang, roku, kyoshi, wan, everyone. and people hit the fucking ceiling. “korra’s not a real avatar if she lost her connection to the old ones! that’s the entire point of the cycle! this show is bullshit, it’s not canon anymore!” (the entire point that finale demonstrated that korra’s power alone was enough to save the world and she didn’t need anyone else. but people found that ~unrealistic~ i guess). as you can imagine, being a fan of LOK is starting to get a little tiring by now.

books 3-4 is where the korra haters got to love the show again, because they were both straight-up torture porn. after everything she did saving the world, this is the arc where korra got beat down, tortured, dragged into the dirt, swallowed and spat back out. book 3 is a lot of people’s favorites because it was the first book that felt fully plotted out before it was put on air, which is why i enjoyed it too. but for me it was difficult to see a girl, whose identity revolved around being the avatar after being raised and sheltered to think it was all she was good for, effectively abandon her life and even her name by the beginning of book 4 because the events of book 3 were that traumatizing for her. somehow this was character development. we were encouraged to stick with it because we hoped korra would find herself again. and she did, sorta.

but it makes me furious that people who had quit in books 1-2 came back during 3 because they heard these books were better – aka book 3, the book that featured korra the least, and books 3-4 in which korra got her ass handed to her in some of the hardest fights vs some of the cruelest villains of the series. (nevermind that the book 3 villains suffer from the anime villain curse: they quickly went from “cool character design” to “wait, how does this rando group of villains show up with powers literally no one in the universe has ever heard before?” – questions no one ever answers)

anyway book 4 is a mish-mash of… i’m not sure. i’ve rewatched all the books but i don’t know if i’ll ever touch this one again. the culturally appropriating airbender wannabe, zaheer (a complete rando who somehow masters airbending enough to fly, which was a huge middle finger to airbending masters aang and tenzin for no reason) a guy who literally tortured korra one season before and put her in a wheelchair, is the one who the writers send korra to for her spiritual awakening that lets her save the day. not tenzin or jinora, her spiritual teachers with whom she has positive, healthy relationships – they send her back to her abuser who terrifies and degrades her a bit more before deciding to help. this was a pattern: the writers made both korra and asami face their abusers (in asami’s case, her father) for catharsis instead of gaining peace over their trauma another, healthier way because…. i’m not sure why. there is no reason why. and then there’s the guilt tripping nonsense of asami feeling as if she had to forgive her father, who tried to kill her, because he said he was sorry and sacrificed himself for her in the finale. it’s angst galore, if you like that kind of thing, which i normally do, except this is less angst and more just the writers trying to hammer in torture porn, grimdark, and poor attempts at morally gray nonsense into their finale season.

anyway at the end of her journey, korra, our buff brown woc, learns that she had to suffer to learn how to be compassionate and relate to her enemy. i’m not exaggerating, she literally says that. which is lovely.

–

tldr: i wasted a lot of emotional time and energy into this show and was extremely disappointed when some of the ending’s notes were “you had to suffer to become a better person” and “forgive your abusers/villains because aren’t we all the same in the end?”

but also on a strictly narrative level, LOK also bit off way more than it could chew both emotionally and thematically. it had an amazing premise, but it was not committed to

utilizing the steampunk genre to its best potential in the bending world (after the creativity in the rest of the worldbuilding, the LOK series finale was literally fighting a giant robot – seriously?)

giving its hero the respect and character arc she deserved. and i don’t say that because i think korra had no growing up to do in b1, she did, but she didn’t deserve for it to happen like that.

so basically i realized that a lot of the writers that made ATLA great weren’t brought back for LOK, and it showed. i realized that the LOK writers, when they listened to fans, were listening to the fans that whined the loudest, or (more likely, since they plan seasons years before we see them) they thought from the beginning that it was a good idea for korra to go through years’ worth of pain just to be spat out a humbler, “better” person

the reason i told you all that about me defending LOK in the beginning is because i need you to understand that i believed in LOK longer than i probably should’ve. i wanted it to be everything i was expecting in a diverse children’s show with an unorthodox female protaganist. but just because they had a brown wlw heroine doesn’t mean that they deserved to be praised for it when they treated her like garbage.

and korra and asami walk into a beam of light together in the last second of the show and i’m supposed to applaud the writers for their bravery or something

#megan talks about korra #Anonymous #askbox #this is a very condensed summary because otherwise i'd be here all day talking about the pro-asami anti-korra fandom wank

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girlmood · 5 years

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so yesterday, after crying about my phone being in the hands of some stubborn, unsophisticated uber driver, my mind kept going back to something i’m a bit obsessed with. i have had these obsessive and compulsive thoughts for around a year and a long bit now, and they make me feel unsafe because they revolve around someone. the thoughts themselves are innocent, yet they’re incessant and i feel that they get in the way of being active and focused on things.

for a long time now i’ve tried to make sense of these thoughts.

i’ve come to the conclusion that these thoughts are in the way of something.

whenever i am daydreaming this recurring thought, i close my eyes. i reflect and become drowsy. even when i am trying to reject these thoughts i try and use sleep. needless to say that this gets in the way of things like reading and creating. however, i always insist when people ask that i am always busy reading and creating. in effect i am if i am daydreaming something all the time, BUT i am not putting pen to paper, am i?

i close my eyes to my reality, the outside world. i live in my interior.

i do this because it is easier.

i have said that i choose to obsess over this thing because it calms and soothes me. i always knew that the facile nature of just thinking something alone and not doing anything with it made me feel freer.

yesterday, however, it was difficult to cry about my phone OR this thing. it felt forced to encourage tears even though i felt a hollowness inside. when i noticed that this uncomfortable moment was taking place, i berated myself for not telling me how i really feel. THAT made me cry. knowing that there are things concealed from myself within myself is a fact that terrorizes me more and more each day i get older, especially because i think “I did psychology! Why don’t I know what is wrong with me?”

if i had been focusing on saturday night, i would have my phone. i was drunk and sleepy so i did not hear the uber driver trying to return it to me (or so he says). i also have no memory of the situation. i just have no phone right now.

if i admit to myself that i feel what i am scared i feel because i don’t know it, in regards to the obsession (though admitting this would no longer make it an obsession -- it would practically free me), then i must open my eyes and focus and take action towards it. it isn’t a bad thing to want what i am daydreaming about. i argue that it doesn’t make sense, but it does. my issue is that i cannot go a day without thinking about it in some form. i want to be able to focus.

i am taking a while to get to my point here but i think that this does further emphasise the importance of what my point is, to be fair.

anyways, i cried when i talked about my lack of focus, and how really, all i want to do is wri--... wri--

i couldn’t say the word “write” because i got choked up by my tears all of a sudden.

when i finally realised that “i’m not letting myself write, or create at all, by my lack of focus” i started sobbing like a child bereaved of ice cream.

i use that obsession, i use alcohol and drugs and social media and films, all to distract myself from what i truly want to do.

I want to write.

i do english. i tell myself it is because the teacher i had a crush on replied to a letter i’d given her; she said she could see me being “the next j.k rowling.” i’m sure that was meant as a compliment back then. there is also the fact that i never intended with continuing on with education past year 11 until we had to by law, but after enjoying my sixth form subjects, i found it incredulous that i had to pick just one for university, and english seems to be the perfect avenue in which to incorporate media, sociology and psychology (i also never got to do philosophy and i never continued on with french after gcses, so i also hoped to approach them in my courses).

but really, i do english because i’ve always been a good writer.

that is a bold claim to make, but in the past years i have made many bold claims. i am a sagittarius! it is our job to make bold claims and when asked to elaborate on that, we say no! like, that meme format was born out of sagittarianism.

for the sake of talking, because us sagittarians also do love the sound of our own voices, i will elaborate THIS ONE TIME.

i wrote many songs when i was younger, and used to perform them with my sister and cousins. there was this song called “girls style” that i still remember the chorus of. i must’ve written it when i was like, 7 or 8 years old? i swear, though, it’s good enough to be on a dolly advert or a song that jojo siwa could get more famous of. i think it must’ve been inspired by bratz too... anyways, that was a good song, is my point. i don’t think i could write it again and it could be as good because, for one, i don’t identify as a girl anymore.

there was also another song that i wrote, i don’t remember how it goes, but i know once beyoncé came out with “irreplaceable” i was infuriated because the song i wrote had the exact same subject matter and tone as her song (but actually who was i telling “to the left, to the left” at 8 years old? rolling WHO around in the CAR? that I BOUGHT? for WHO?) somehow i swore blind that beyoncé had stole my song, and even though she was my whole life even back then, i had to unstan for a bit because i was mad at her.

imagine.

i’m writing beyoncé level songs at 8 years old.

okay, i may not be THAT good -- well, actually, most of the songs on b’day aren’t so intangible for an 8 year old. not to say it isn’t a masterpiece, like every other thing beyoncé has done ever since and before and god I LOVE THAT WOMAN, but you know, i was in that ballpark, i guess, maybe...

or maybe not but ANYHOW i also learned to read at quite an early age, think it must’ve been 3 or something (despite how intelligent he is, i can’t imagine my 4 year old cousin being able to read right now, so that must have been a shock to my mother) and i was pretty artistic at a young age too, despite my main interests being in science at that time.

i remember being in year 3 and writing a poem about ice cream that my teacher would never stop bringing up even after i left his year. i also drew a portrait of my best friend that year, and trust me, it was so good, the whole class was in awe. no joke.

funnily enough, though, for a while, i used to deny that those things happened. you know, the pride my year 3 teacher felt or the way my best friend looked at me when she saw how well i depicted her at, again, only 8 years old. i forgot about them until now, 13 years later, in my last semester of university.

my best friend from secondary school and my dad were so obsessed with this journal i used to bring around. my best friend used to write in it from time to time. i was so perplexed as to why she liked it so much that eventually it weirded me out and i stopped bringing the journal to school. (sorry mia, still love you!) i went to jamaica for two weeks when i was 15 and brought that journal with me, and my dad read every entry and seemed so excited by it as well that i just. stopped bringing it to show him. he still asks about it, and if i’m still writing in general. i give him mono-syllabic answers and hopes that he doesn’t ask any further questions (i mean perhaps that is because the moment i visited jamaica was also the moment i realised i really liked this one girl and since then i’ve realised i am a lesbian and since all i was doing was writing about this one girl for three years... i didn’t want to share anything too incriminating with him, a known homophobe, naturally)

in all of these instances, you can see that people enjoy my art. there isn’t an instance in which they’ve protested against it, even when i’ve explicitly named people in that journal or not everyone likes ice cream. but you can also see that i somehow conveniently forget that. like. “people enjoy my art” does not compute in my mind for a long time. it is a sentence that does not make sense, by every word.

people?

outside of myself?

enjoy?

like, actively consume and are amused?

my?

ME?

art?

that’s BOLD, you believe you create art? ART?

well, what else would you call it? what else would you say? i’m creating something whimsical here.

i’m currently studying critical aesthetics, and as far as i’ve read for this class, i can perfectly claim that the creations i allow to be consumed as such ARE in fact, poetry, by the basis of many of these conflicting philosophers.

but obviously, before three months ago, i didn’t know much about what aristotle, hume, hegel and such had to say about art and creating. however i always know i want my every endeavour to be artful. i’ve been enamoured with the concept of aesthetic for a long time -- perhaps this was vapourwave’s doing -- and i know i daydream a lot. it’s where the mental illnesses i’m plagued with permeate these naturally creative realms of my mind and distort them and they become unhealthy obsessions that i react compulsively toward.

i’ve been to therapy and counselling and have heard the same thing. i’ve even heard it from a friend who really inspires me recently -- overthinking is not a bad thing. you just have to know how to control it so that it benefits you. overthinking could not be the bane of my existence because i probably would not be able to create without it. however, it’s dysfunctional because i don’t control it. i always think it’s about not being able to “turn my brain off”, which is impossible apart from braindeath, which i think is what i accidentally purposely try to allude to, but that isn’t what control is.

control... is a scary word. a hell of an intimidating word for someone who is considered by many to be free-spirited and laid back. but control could have saved me the frustration of a missing phone for two days. control did save me from this obsession from furthering at one point, but after one event i lost control and have not regained it since. it is easy to blame the person in question but she hadn’t done anything wrong. i’m not really doing anything wrong. i just need to control myself.

last year, i meditated a lot. this was perhaps i was smoking weed and normal tobacco, thinking i could find myself in those vices, yet felt so paranoid and low. when you meditate, it isn’t really about controlling your thoughts by blocking them out. rather, meditation is about controlling where your mind is. where you focus. it’s choosing to relax.

strange as it sounds, relaxation is not an easy choice to make.

i often mistake relaxing for being idle. the major difference is in my thoughts. being idle allows for thoughts to intrude upon me and be incessant and unnerving.

being idle is unfortunately a constant in my life.

it isn’t that i haven’t got anything to do. it’s just easy to be idle.

somewhere in the bible (no, i don’t care enough to go and look it up) it says “idle hands give the devil play”. or it’s a jamaican proverb. my mum says it a lot. anyhow, it rings true in every sense for me. the “devil”, my unconscious “ego”, base impulses, “play” with my mind, they swing my “idle hands”, make them shape their way, clap their way, ball their way. an innocent hand clapping game played until my hands are sore. i’m always throwing my hands at the devil to let him do what he wants.

relaxing is stopping the hand game. i put my hands down and watch the devil wait for me to parttake once again, saying encouraging things. there, i control my passivity. i spectate my own mind.

right now, i’m relaxing. i am in bed, but also while typing this i am taking my time to focus, be honest and try not to digress. it feels so tranquil. i have written a lot but i want my point to get across so i can feel understood.

i feel like i have misguided my friends about who i am for a long time. or have i? it’s easy to be the messy black lesbian who loves one direction and is “woke” but there is this thing that i notice when i am with them: i am relaxed. well, in most instances. i listen to what they are telling me, because i enjoy listening in general but also because i love them.

in my teenage years when i decidedly “wasn’t into friendships”, i would still listen to the people i hung around with. i’d complain about them on twitter after, which funnily enough people still joke that i do but i really do not (and CAN not) do it as much as i used to but i know by idly listening to them and not opening up i let all sorts of demons in because they can intrude unlike people you haven’t given the key to.

now i am choosing to open up because people aren’t so bad, and people mostly like me. even if they didn’t, however, it doesn’t actually matter.

me existing regardless of anyone else is the point here, despite me being a good writer. i think that’s what makes writing good. i think that is what makes art good. it has the ability to exist and encourage thought.

i shouldn’t be afraid to write because i think i’m too depressed or messy or something i don’t like will come to fruition because that isn’t what its about. creating is creating. no one else would have written this. i don’t expect this to be winning the nobel book prize any time soon. i want to finally find peace in my honesty. i have been a compulsive liar for too long and it has become monstrous. now i must relax and take the true easy path in the end: the one which terrifies me the most.

i am going to be disciplined, patient, open. honest, forgiving, sensitive.

i do love to be a mystery but it isn’t fun if it’s causing you pain and you’re a mystery to yourself for such a long time.

one way i’m going to solve the enigma that is myself, as well as the world, is writing.

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sol1056 · 6 years

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Do u think the bad writing in VLD has been rife since the 1st episode? Or is this a new devt in S3? I've always thought the writing has always been oversimple since the start. I fucking hated that finger counting bit just about as things were getting serious and that was the pilot. And things always got resolved in like 1 episode. Like hello? They were able to bond and form Voltron in 1 episode? (1/2)

I dont get ppls expectations abt the show which for me has always been unsophisticated and juvenile albeit still entertaining. Maybe its just a case of BNFs headcanons being mistaken for canon by fandom bc of the long periods bw seasons. (2/2)

I feel like this is actually two questions, so I’m going to answer the shorter one (ahaha yes this is a short answer!) here, and get into the measure of writing quality in a separate post.

When it comes to BNFs, I’ve gotten reasonably good at identifying their personal agendas masquerading as analysis. That said, yes, the long gap definitely gives time for head canons to percolate, and I’m not entirely convinced that this works for this kind of story. (Or alternately, that this crew of EPs/writers realize the extent to which one-season drops radically alter the viewing experience, and how storytelling methods need to adjust.)

Truth is, I had zero expectations for VLD. I remember the original and let’s just say, I’ve moved on. On the other hand, my exposure to AtLA’s tonal shifts (from serious to ham-fisted comedic in nothing flat) meant I was used to gritting my teeth through tin-eared comedy-attempts like meat thermometers or finger-counting.

And then there’s issue of unsophisticated or juvenile storytelling.

I am probably not the only person here who’s been spoiled by Japanese storytelling, since most anime from a decent-enough production house will integrate levity and gravity pretty seamlessly. I think American productions’ humor isn’t an issue of skill, but symptomatic of deeper problems.

The first, and biggest, is that American animation struggles to be seen (and by extension, seeing itself) as a valid form of storytelling. Animation is treated as a soap bubble (no lasting impact on the popular culture landscape) and cotton candy (inconsequential, mindless consumption). I can almost guarantee you that any writer or VA involved with VLD is probably asked semi-regularly, “when are you going to write/act/work on a real story?’

With that dismissal in mind, those radical tonal shifts (from serious to juvenile) can sometimes be a sign that creators are too-aware of this mindset, and too-afraid of being mocked for treating this like it’s a ‘real’ story. So humor is used as a wink at the audience: don’t worry, we’re not getting carried away and thinking we’re doing shakespeare, we totally get this isn’t worth taking seriously.

[I hate that, by the way. Respect your goddamn story or find another job.]

When humor is used organically, it works. Lance trying to create a cheer and Keith not getting the point is both awkward and kind of adorable, as a way to characterize how out-of-sync they are. But humor like meat thermometers signal not-taking-this-seriously, and you can tell, and that’s what makes it so jarring.

And the reason you can tell is because the writers’ contortion is right there in the script. Hell, you can even see it in the way the VAs handle it, too.

Allura: And it’s a good thing it wasn’t because it took you… Coran? Coran: Seventy-five degrees. Oh, sorry. No, this is a meat thermometer.Allura: However long it was, it was too long.

You could simply remove Coran’s entire line without changing the scene. It’s an aside, with no integration. And if you listen to the VA delivery, there’s a half-beat and the next line carries on as if Coran never said anything. There’s no reaction. It’s literally wasted breath, wasted animation.

To me, that’s a sign the writers were trying to juggle that tension between ‘this is for kids, it means nothing’ and ‘this is a crucial scene to establish stakes’. So they throw in silliness to satisfy the first, but integrating that humor would elevate it out of that wink-to-audience mode. Done right, comedy is as much serious business as drama, and both require seeing the story as more than insubstantial, forgettable cotton candy.

The most important thing to remember is probably this: even if these writers believe in their story and want to do right by it, they’re still up against a powerful corporate structure that sees cartoons as nothing more than an elaborate way to sell merchandise. To that corporate overlord, a writer’s measure of success – people showing up at writer panels at cons, a vibrant community of fanfic and fanart and fanlore, fan questions on podcasts, basically so many people embracing the story, the characters, the world – means absolutely nothing to the corporate overlords if no one buys the merchandise.

Let me reiterate that, in bold, so the bottom line is clear:

A stupid story with flat characters and cheap animation that sells a bajillion lunchboxes or gunpla or whatever will always be judged ‘more successful’ by the corporate overlords than any story that doesn’t move merchandise, no matter how well-told or beloved by the fans.

To a good writer, the story is an end in itself. To the corporate overlords, the story is wrapping paper around the check they get every month: watched once, torn away to get the good stuff, and quickly forgotten. When you combine American popular perception of cartoons with corporate overlord agendas, it’s damn near a miracle we’ve gotten even scraps of any good from VLD, and that’s an entirely separate issue from whether the EPs/writers can create a good story in the first place.

(Meanwhile fandom collects every bit of the wrapping paper, saves it, cuts it up, tapes it back together in a completely new shape, and then gets into flamewars over whose reconstruction was the best.)

One last note: I am, at the very least, pleased that the VLD casting director chose seasoned VAs with substantial chops. AtLA gave itself extra trouble by choosing VAs for their age rather than skill (oh god that was painful until they leveled up). VLD hasn’t made that mistake; even when the script stays serious, a bad VA can still ruin it with a wink at the audience and undermine a scene’s emotional heft. The VLD VAs have done a fairly good job of not dropping to that level, and in a few places I do think that’s what’s kept me watching even when other elements are substantially under-par.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron meta #analysis #animation #storytelling

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intotheblackhq · 5 years

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Isa

( Ben Barnes, 35, cis-male) Word around the quadrant is that (ISA) is originally from (UNKNOWN), but have been on the Terminus for (LESS THAN A WEEK). If you’re in a pinch, he is a talented (ANDROID). Is that why he’s the (GOFER)? Anyway, everyone says he is (CALCULATED) and (PERCEPTIVE), but don’t get on his bad side because he’s (GUARDED) and (SELF-PRESERVING). Oh shoot, don’t look now! He has his (STUN CHARGES) out! (ooc: Ky, 28, PST, they, none)

WORLD BUILDING:

—-> Name: The Yards

—-> Located On: Erebus, near the capital city of Keres

—-> Brief Description: If the Outpost is secretly not so bad as it looks, the Yards are not-so-secretly worse than they appear; most visitors realize that fast, and the hard way. No matter what you want, if it’s in Keres - hell, if it’s in the system - you’ll probably find it here, amidst the smugglers and fences who’ve made their home among the shipping complexes that keep Keres clean, fed, and stocked up with every manner of luxury. Surrounding the ports themselves is a warren of chop shops, seedy clubs, black market hole-in-the-walls, and ever-shifting gang territories. Stay sharp, pack heavy, and watch your back.

That’s about it for “vital” locations for Isa, but here’s a few more I thought of while writing him up. Could be red herrings when it comes to exploring his backstory, could just be fun places to visit!

—-> Name: Yariyna

—-> Located On: Rasvet

—-> Brief Description: Some call Yariyna an unlikely city; it’s easy enough to see why. The capital of Rasvet, a large planet some middling distance from Erebus, crowns an archipelago of rugged islands - one of the many rising out of the cold, windswept seas. Yariyna, and Rasvet in general, isn’t exactly a tourist destination. Not just for the sake of the climate, either. The locals are notoriously hard cases, suspicious and well armed. Fairly, perhaps. Beneath the surface of Rasvet’s dark oceans and scattered amongst its island chains are rich deposits of much-coveted minerals, the legacy of a volcanic past. These ores are in high demand for everything from surgical implements to shuttle shells to stone-studded jewelry, from fringe planets to the Company capital. Nobody was surprised when Rasvet was one of the first planets the radicalized Company targeted. But everybody, the locals included, was shocked at how quickly it happened. A few bombing strikes crippled the most crucial underwater mining operations, cutting them off from surface supplies and leaving thousands to die, slowly, cruelly. The surrender was complete, and bitter. Since then, those who’ve aligned themselves with the Company have quickly risen to the top, leaving their resentful brethren far below. It’s only a matter of time, they say, before Rasvet rises again…

—-> Name: Vostov Securities

—-> Located On: Rasvet, in the capital city of Yariyna

—-> Brief Description: Once a well-established but fairly unsophisticated Rasvetan security firm, protecting rigs and depots for paranoid foremen, Vostov Securities sacrificed solidarity for a silver spoon - and has yet to regret the decision. The firm’s board shook hands with the Company as their planet was battered into submission, and has since taken over the security of all Company interests on Rasvet. Of which there are many. We’re talking guards, checkpoints, barriers, surveillance, the whole package. With a thick dossier of off-planet customers and a flagship line of security androids - the Sokol - serving throughout the system, Vostov is one of those traitorous corporations that sit pretty as the people of Rasvet struggle to get by under the Company’s thumb.

ROLE DEVELOPMENT:

—-> Important History: So this was a bit tricky, given I can’t be sure where androids stand in terms of technological development and social reception… hope it works for you lovely folks!

Where exactly Isa was made, and who for, is something of a mystery. To be expected, really, of an android found in the Yards of Keres. Not a place where you prod on the subject of provenance. Especially for an illegal ‘bot; if you want a second-hand android through the proper channels, you go to a certified reseller. But, then you pay more. And there’s paperwork. Certifications and new serial numbers are easy enough to fake, anyway. Isa would know. He did his forgeries himself. After dispatching the choppers who’d started the job, that is.

Four members of the Kowalcyzk trafficking ring found dead in their garage isn’t the sort of news that leaves the Yards. Though it might be, if anybody knew it was an android that had done the killing. Not that it’s unheard of. There have been bloody system errors before, accidents chalked up to sloppy programming. That must be what this was, too. A short string of accidents, resulting from improper adjustments to Isa’s software as his drives were scrubbed. Must be it. His system has isolated the corrupted data, he’s happy to report. Whatever went wrong shouldn’t happen again.

As for how he got there in the first place, well… that’s not clear, either. Cheaper androids - fight-ready ‘bots, most of all - are common enough in the backrooms and dark corners of the Yards. Even if they’re too damaged to sell off, there’s always something of value to strip from the carcass. But that’s not what Isa is. One look at him, maybe two, and it’s obvious that he’s both a recent and high-end model, in fine working order. Why anyone would discard something like that is an open question. An unsettling one, for some aboard the Terminus. Others prefer to take their new crewmate - or appliance, however they see him - as a fortunate windfall. Somebody’s loss, their gain. Means not having to bust their backs hauling freight in and off the ship, right? All the better.

Based on what they’ve seen so far of his skillsets and domain knowledge, this crew has no particular reason not to believe that Isa is just what his falsified serial info says: a new Vostov Sokol, a brand of security ‘bot favoured by the Company. How long that will last really depends on how good he is at playing the part… which isn’t something androids are supposed to be able to do, is it? Points to some expansive artificial intelligence. In addition to his exceptionally durable, powerful substructure. And a technorganic shell, one of those uncannily life-like ones seen on high end prosthetics. Altogether, he’s an odd mix of features. Whatever he was actually meant for, Isa was definitely a special order. An expensive one. Nobody knew Vostov was bothering with that sort of customization, but… they’ve always played it close to the chest.

Most firms who produce custom androids are famously jealous with their intellectual property, loading buyers’ contracts with protective clauses. They have reason to be so obsessive. Industrial espionage runs rampant in the field, with companies trying to one-up each other and corner the market on their respective planets. It’s something of an open secret that unscrupulous technicians will pay top dollar to get their hands on any unusual models from their competitors. However it was that Isa wound up at that chop shop, he can guess what would have happened next. Somebody was going to turn a fat profit selling him to the highest bidder, to be picked apart for the sake of professional curiosity - a gruesome fate, one he’s glad to have escaped.

Still, Isa didn’t reach the Terminus entirely undamaged. There’s a mod drive missing from his internal docks, a fact that’s made stranger by how little, if any, impact it appears to have had on his ability to function. More troubling is the loss of precisely those memories that would explain how he got to the Yards in the first place. While that scrubbing process only made it through his flash memory before activating an anti-tamper protocol, rousing him from maintenance mode, he did lose the last twenty-four hours prior to waking up surrounded by those Kowalcyzk mechanics. That’s not what he’s told the crew, though. Working in half-truths and winding through loopholes, Isa has managed to keep a great deal of his past to himself. Imaginative, for an AI. He’s not the first android to intentionally mislead a human being; while typically checked by a user command to force honesty, high-empathy personal units can sugarcoat, downplay, and tell socially appropriate white lies. They wouldn’t be terribly fit for their work if they couldn’t, would they? People lie to each other all the time. Not always for the wrong reasons. Are Isa’s reasons good, though? He thinks so.

Having spent barely a week onboard, Isa is still a very new addition to the crew, and he’s well aware of where he stands - on the fringes. He safely assumes that his coworkers don’t consider him good company, or, in some cases, even a coworker at all. But androids don’t take things personally, do they? He’s doing his best to keep up the act, even if it chafes. Keeps him safe, though. For now. In the meantime, Isa’s tried to make himself useful. Not as much as he could, if he offered the full extent of his services; these people haven’t earned more, not yet. And he couldn’t answer the questions they might ask if he showed them what he’s capable of, not in a way that would keep him off that auction block he was likely bound for. So he waits, and sees, and learns…

—-> Headcanons:

Humanization protocols are common enough on personal-grade androids; not so much on the Sokol. Vostov has generally considered a certain level of unblinking stonefacedness to be beneficial, when it comes to security ‘bots. Not that they can’t be modded to be a little more, well. Subtle. That’s what Isa’s faking in the direction of. While it can be a bit unsettling, he’s finding he doesn’t especially mind. He’s not here to make humans feel comfortable. That’s not what he’s being paid for, as they say. (Not that he’s being paid at all.)

Androids aren’t supposed to get bored. Isa knows that, and so he does his best to conceal his lack of interest in the incredibly dull tasks he’s being trusted with on board the Terminus - heavy lifting, simple errands, and so on. In the long run, he’ll want something more to do with himself. What, exactly, remains to be seen. The model he’s pretending to be, the Vostov Sokol, isn’t a standard shipboard unit; that’s a security ‘bot, and a top quality one at that. He could probably do plenty to help out with the dirty work of bounty hunting… but is that all, really?

As for what Isa actually can do, well, he’s no more a standard ship ‘bot than a real Sokol would be. His knowledge of the system and its planets is largely cultural, political, and economic; beyond in-atmosphere and shuttle transit, he seems to have no programming related to piloting or navigation, certainly none at the interplanetary level. He’s no technician, but exhibits diagnostic-grade sensory features, and has enough medical knowledge to provide at least basic stabilizing care. Not that he’s mentioned this to the crew. A Sokol doesn’t come with any of that. He can only push the lie of post-sale modifications so far before they get suspicious. Better to stack crates and not attract too much attention, if he can help it. What they have noticed, inescapably, is that he can’t interface remotely with the Terminus itself - or any system, in fact. Meaning he has to interact with technology directly, as in, like a human being would. So, less conveniently, thoroughly, and quickly than most ‘bots. It’s an odd feature, suggesting a bizarre amount of paranoia on the part of his owner. But Sokols are bodyguards, right? To the wealthy and nervous. The story holds out, even if the inconvenience irritates some of his crewmates. What’s the use in a shipboard ‘bot who has to do things manually? He finds their impatience a little funny, honestly. Humans. So spoiled.

While he might try to hide it - which androids also aren’t supposed to be able to do - Isa not only experiences boredom, but curiosity. He enjoys learning, simply for the pleasure of knowing and doing something new. Just, a Sokol wouldn’t. So. He’s got to be careful, and come up with good excuses. Luckily, people love talking about what interests them, don’t they? It’s easy enough to get a good explanation if you ask the right questions. He just can’t ask too many…

—-> Key Relationships:

The In(s) *This could be one or two characters. All up to interest!

Wrong time, wrong place - or was it just the opposite? All about perspective. This character stumbled into the aftermath of what Isa did in the Yards, and didn’t call the proper authorities, like a good citizen. Mostly because they’d have to explain what they were doing in a gangland den packed with black market arms and tech. Awkward. As for why they thought it would be a good idea to convince Isa to come along back to the Terminus with them, well, that’s their business. Could be technical curiosity, or raw opportunism… or compassion, even. Regardless, this person or persons is well-respected among the crew; their word went a long way towards getting Isa on the roster. He’s quite certain they have ulterior motives of some sort, but that’s a given, isn’t it? So long as their angles don’t cut across his own, he’s willing to entertain the notion that he owes them one, and, just possibly, that they’re allies. They’re probably the closest thing to a friend that he has at the moment, even if he’s not quite sure what that means.

There’s An App For That

On the other hand, there’s this crewmate. No matter how useful he might seem or what The In(s) has to say in his favor, There’s An App For That doesn’t want Isa around at all - and they haven’t been shy about saying so. They might not like or trust androids in general, or simply have taken a particular dislike to Isa. An android shouldn’t be hard to read. Perhaps his story’s not so unsatisfyingly simple as it’s been made out to be. Others might say they’re being overly suspicious, but There’s An App For That figures they’re just sensible. Isa could be trouble, in all sorts of ways. Couldn’t he?

Whatever the cause, prejudice, or fear at the roof of it, this person hopes Isa’s stay on the Terminus won’t be long. Whatever he can do, a simpler, stupider android could do… well, not better, maybe, but just fine enough. Whose idea was this, anyway? They’re probably not happy with The In(s), either.

—-> Wanted Connections: Meet the Maker If it fits with the flow of our collective plotting, I’d love to dig back into who Isa’s owner is and the circumstances that led to his abandonment. I have a storyline in mind, but I’m much more interested in seeing how this connection could link up with larger plots in ‘verse, so I’m happy to leave it pretty open for the time being. The only points I’d like to stick with are that his owner is at least 30+, and that they are well-positioned in some respect - they’d have to be, to afford this kind of android. They might have criminal ties of some kind, a little corruption going on. That missing mod drive and its contents are directly important to this individual; did they take it, or are they still on the look out for their missing property? Whatever the case, the loss of that drive seems to have impacted Isa’s memories of them specifically; he’s unable to fully recall their voice or appearance. If an android can be haunted, Isa’s owner is his ghost.

ADMINISTRATIVE:

—-> How Did You Find Us: Tumblr ads!

—-> Anything Else: Nothing in particular, but have this pinterest board, I guess!

About time you showed up, ISA, we were just about to take off without you. Stow your gear and make sure you send in your account and finish off the checklist within the next 24 hours, or else we might have to dump you out the nearest airlock. BEN BARNES has now been claimed. Oh yeah, did I forget to say welcome aboard?

#itb.accepted #submission

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imrisah · 7 years

Text

Trust + Care = Love

An adoribull lengthy headcanon about Trust and Care and about Bull and Dorian falling in love because of those two amazing wholesome things. It fits in canon technically! For once :DD Also forgive me, I have no place writing fanfics, I am a draw! Me draw, no write!! Words bad >:( they no like me, and me also not English native speaker so forgive shitty grammar ahah enjoy! it s a fluff !!!!! :O

Dorian is big on sex.

Dorian is not, on the other hand, big on what surrounds sex.

It's not that he doesn't like the concept of being cuddled by a good lover, or treated like a prince by the person who's just about to make you feel even better. It's just that he's not used to it.

Back home in Tevinter - where you have to hide and be quiet or else - preliminaries and after care just aren't a Thing.

Bull though. Bull is all about those sweet rituals. They may possibly be his favorite thing in the world.

He loves making his lover feel good the entire time he's with them, thoroughly and with great attention. So when he notices Dorian is being tense and unsure of how to carry himself around him, even after the first few times they sleep together, he figures out what's going on.

Thankfully he is that good at reading people and acts accordingly.

He starts making it a point to be as natural and confident as he possibly can as he does the littlest things, so that Dorian doesn't have to worry about anything at all. Especially so that the mage can understand this is not a scam: Bull is not trying to be nice just so he can feel less guilty when he eventually makes a run for it.

Bull has warm towels ready beside the bed; he makes breakfast/lunch/dinner, according to whatever the time of day is when they're done; fixes up the bed afterwards (sometimes very literally lol) just enough to make it comfortable until they decide to get up; always has everything they need; likes to take it slow very often, taking all the time they need to get the mood just right.

It's the spontaneous things that really make the difference though, of course. The first time he succesfully maneuvers Dorian into a session of cuddles and plain old making out, Dorian comments "Deviant." with a playful but low-key tense smile on his face, probably trying to hide the anxiety caused by the sudden intimacy. But the Bull laughs in an unexpected way at that - warm, soft and sincere - because he is enjoying himself that much. Right then, any residue left of Dorian's armor melts away and all is left is a fond, open smile, the kind that pulls in the eyes, too, and makes them gleam even if there is no light in the room.

That particular moment is when Bull begins to seriously fall in love. He murmurs "Kadan." under his breath for the first time and kisses him again, deep and slow. Dorian doesn't ask what it means, it's just a small word in a foreign language for him, forgotten in instants as he's being pulled into a warm embrace by two safe, huge arms.

It takes a bit longer for Dorian to understand his own end of the deal. To distance himself from old, bad habits, to abandon harmful thought processes playing in a constant loop in his head - it’s a big deal. It takes so much trust and introspection, things that Dorian would never have been able to muster up if not for Bull.

One day Bull kisses his temple absentmindedly right in the middle of Skyhold's main courtyard. Dorian doesn't flinch, doesn't look around 360° to see if anyone noticed that little gesture, doesn't even think once about what *insert any Pavus’ family member's name here* would think if they saw him now. It feels so right and natural, why should he give two fucks about the rest of the world? It’s just so normal in that moment that he only realizes hours later what has happened.

They're in the tavern now. Bull is laughing his lungs out with Krem about the most unsophisticated string of jokes, as per usual, and at one point he turns around to check if Dorian is having a good time. A reflex, an action driven by care. Bull is met by another one of those rare, soft, full smiles that make his big heart sing, and this time it's a self aware one. "Kadan, you ok?" Bull asks over the chaos, so that Dorian can hear him. He knows what that word it means now, he looked it up in the only copy of the qunlat dictionary he could find in that so called "library" they have here in the fortress. Bull said it one too many times and Dorian is a curious man by nature.

He had to read those two lines of translation at least a thousand times before its meaning fully sank in.

Dorian scoots over and lets Bull drape one impressive arm around his shoulders. Breath in. Breath out. "Of course, Amatus."

#long post #adoribull #the iron bull #dorian pavus #dragon age #inquisition #fanfiction #headcanon #my art #whatever it's just that i don't have a tag for my writing cause i have no writing ahaheheh by e #nevermind me just projecting what i personally want in a relationship

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digging-holes-in-the-river · 7 years

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Last night I finished episode 15 in the new Twin Peaks. Here are some thoughts on the series so far (planning to watch episode 16 and the finale tonight):

I seem to be enjoying this less than everyone else is? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’m watching the show. But I’m not as excited about it as all my friends are. This same thing happened with the eclipse. I think I’m just a big complainer who’s bad at appreciating things. :P

Part of my problem, as mentioned earlier, is that it’s just really slow-paced. And maybe this makes me an unsophisticated film-viewer, but I get pretty bored during the pauses. I get extremely bored during all the music scenes in the Roadhouse, but I can’t just skip past them, because something actually plot-related might happen. And, like, I am not a person who needs everything to be super fast-paced all the time. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my favorite movies. But I wish the new Twin Peaks went a little faster.

I was also frustrated, for a while, by how little character development there was. It seemed like we were shown all these new characters, but we didn’t actually get to see what any of them were like. Like, we spent a while watching Ray and Darya, but we never really got to know them as people; we never learned how they got involved with the evil Cooper, or what personality traits they have aside from “being a criminal”. (Hutch and Chantal seem to have more personality though.) We also saw Becky, at the beginning, but we didn’t learn anything about her other than the fact that she was in a bad relationship, so it was hard for me to care very much about her.

I’ve also had a lot of trouble keeping the characters and the storylines straight. Part of this, for sure, is that I’m really bad with faces -- I didn’t realize Dr. Amp was Jacoby for most of the show. And with so many random people appearing (like all those women in conversations at the roadhouse), it’s hard to keep everything straight. And there’s so many storylines -- all the main storylines, plus all the little snakes’ hands that may or may not be relevant to the overall plot. A million people have been trying to kill the real Cooper, and I assume the evil Cooper is behind all of it, but it’s been hard to keep track. Anyway, this seems like a personal failing on my part, not a failing of the show, and I think I’ll get more out of it when I watch it for a second time (which I presumably will someday).

Anyway I’ve liked the show a lot more since episode 13 or so. I feel like we’ve actually gotten to know a lot of the new characters, and we’ve gotten more insight into what the old characters are up to (instead of just these brief unexplanatory glimpses into their lives). And it feels a bit faster paced now too. And it stopped doing all the stupid humor that I hate.

I’ll stop complaining now.

Thoughts on general themes:

So much of the show revolves around this battle between pure good and pure evil. I guess the original show had that too, with the black and white lodges, but I didn’t notice it as much. But in the reboot, there’s a lot more purely evil characters (evil Cooper, Richard, and all the criminals we’ve run into, where we haven’t learned anything about them except that they’re criminals). In general, I’m not a big fan of the Absolute Cosmic Struggle between Good and Evil, and I find purely evil villains kind of boring. I don’t believe in absolute good or evil; I think that, in real life, there are moral grey areas to everything, and even really serious criminals have understandable motivations behind their actions. And I mean, it’s not like the black-and-white morality ruins Twin Peaks for me. It’s just something I found striking, since it’s not a literary device I find very believable.

On the other hand, I love how ambiguous the entire show has been about whose side the supernatural characters are on. The black lodge is supposed to be evil, but a lot of black lodge inhabitants (like MIKE and the Arm) help Cooper, right? The Giant / Fireman seems unambiguously good but the rest seem more questionable.

I looooove all the scenes in the black lodge and other related places. My favorite black lodge character is the Giant but I also love the weird-noises girl with no eyes. (I wasn’t expecting them to find her at Jack Rabbit’s Palace. I was expecting them to find Major Briggs’s head. Will we ever find out what happened to Major Briggs’s head?)

I love that it’s not just the red room, and we get to see all these different supernatural places. In the original series, it felt like the red room was fairly small and self-contained. But now it seems like there’s a whole nother realm (or several realms) interpenetrating our own. It gives such a sense of bigness and mystery. There’s no way we can learn what all of it means in just the next few episodes. It would take movie after movie to explain everything (if it’s even comprehensible to the human mind). The show just gives this really strong impression that the universe is stranger and more complicated that we usually give it credit for.

ETA: How on earth can Diane be sisters with Janey without having noticed the weird similarity between Dougie and Cooper? Diane says she’s estranged from Janey, but she knows Dougie’s name. Is it possible that she’s never met Dougie or even seen a picture of him?

Thoughts on unresolved plot points from the previous series:

How did Audrey escape the bank? (I’m guessing evil Cooper went back, rescued her, and impregnated her with Richard? Though who knows.)

What happened to Windom Earle? I haven’t heard his name mentioned yet in the new season. (He wasn’t listed as one of the agents on the Blue Rose team, so what was his connection to Cooper and the black lodge?) Anyway what happened to him 25 years ago? I don’t remember the final episode well enough. Did he die in the black lodge? Did he get the power he was after?

What happened to Annie? Did she die? I heard some mention of Cooper returning from the lodge carrying her body, so I assume she died. (Did that happen in the final episode of season 2? I wish my memory didn’t suck.)

What happened to Josie Packard? Was she a doppelganger?

What ever happened to Leo?

Thoughts on specific characters:

I really like Dougie’s wife. I admire how strong and willful she is, and how she uses her willfullness to keep her life and her family from falling apart. She seems like a major source of stability, keeping everything functioning even despite Dougie’s gambling problems and tendency to disappear for three days. And she has a lot of balls, standing up to those money-collecting men who wanted $52k from Dougie.

Frank Truman is great. I love how patient he is (with his wife, with Andy and Lucy’s son, with Lucy telling him which line to press on the phone, etc.). His facial expressions convey a world-weariness and a frustration with all the things he has to put up with, but also, simultaneously, an enormous amount of affection for all the people he’s being patient towards. He just seems like a really kind, sturdy man. I’m glad Harry has such a good brother.

Gordon is so lecherous. He clearly respects Tammy Preston’s capabilities as an FBI agent but he also very clearly objectifies her. It’s unclear whether she’s bothered by it (or whether she’s into Gordon) because she has such a poker face. I feel like we know very little about Tammy Preston as a human being.

Albert is great.

Bobby is a police officer! I’m so proud of him. He grew up to be such a decent guy. (Did he ever confess to that murder he committed in high school? Does he still feel guilty about it, and like he’s hiding a really bad secret?) I take it his father’s death was what inspired him to turn his life around? I’m glad he and Shelley got married; they look really happy together. Also, Bobby is a really emotional guy. (This was true in the original series too, but I didn’t notice it as much, because his emotions were much more masculine-coded there. But in retrospect, he’s clearly always had really strong feelings that are hard for him to contain.)

James still hits on married women. Come on, James, seriously. (In the original series, he seemed like someone who believed in the Cosmic Power of Love, and that if he’s acting based on love of physical attraction, then it can’t be wrong or a bad idea. I’m not convinced he’s gotten over that.)

Where’s Donna? How’s she doing? I assume she moved away from Twin Peaks a long time ago?

Poor Sarah Palmer. :(

I was so surprised, in episode 15, to discover that Ed and Nadine were still together. I thought they got a divorce 25 years ago, and that Ed had married Norma! I thought Ed and Norma had been living together happily all this time. :(

How on earth did Audrey end up married to Charlie? She seems like she’s not doing very well.

ETA: Ben Horne has mellowed out! I mean, he’s clearly the same old Ben Horne, in terms of personality and mannerisms. But he turned down an affair with Beverly, and we haven’t seen any evidence that he’s still involved in organized crime.

I probably have more thoughts, but I’ll have to write them later, since this is all I could think of for now.

#new twin peaks spoilers

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newyorktheater · 5 years

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Taylor Blackman as Emett Till, in the musical “Till”

The three shows reviewed below from this year’s New York Musical Festival are all, each in its own way, naïve…or one of the near synonyms for the word naïve, each of which offers a different spin — a different judgment — on the same quality: innocent, fresh, childlike, simple, unsophisticated, ignorant.

Leaving Eden

‘Leaving Eden” tells the Adam and Eve story with a twist – two twists.

First, the couple has been expanded to a threesome, adding in the character Lilith. Lilith is not in the Bible, but the Lilith legend was so popular that her image is included both in the Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame Cathedral. Lilith is said to have been Adam’s original wife, born of the same earth as he, but she refused to be subservient, so she was banished, and a far more pliant Eve was created out of Adam’s rib.

As this story unfolds, “Leaving Eden” pairs it with a parallel modern-day story of Adam and Lilith, who are a couple, and Eve, who is their lesbian friend. If I understood correctly, modern Lilith recently had a miscarriage, followed by a hysterectomy. Now, after a period of mourning and looking into adoption, Lily and Adam enlist Eve to be a surrogate mother.

The promise of the added Lilith was intriguing enough for me to see a show I normally would have avoided. To be upfront about it: I could live a happy life free of regrets if I never again saw a new show inspired by the stories of Peter Pan, Frankenstein, or Adam and Eve. Each coincidentally – or maybe not coincidentally – focuses on naïve/innocent/ignorant characters.

I wish I could report that “Leaving Eden,” with a competent score by Ben Page and book and lyrics by Jenny Waxman, made me overcome my aversion. But the script has some awful writing — forced rhymes, unintentional howlers, awkward couplets like

Why are man and woman in two different factions? Why are naughty bits more critical than the spirit of our actions?

And the presence of Lilith did nothing to reduce the faux-naïve coyness that afflicts so many of these “In The Beginning” stories. Their Nautilus bods discreetly draped in Tarzan and Jane attire, Adam and Lilith sing as if they’re Dick and Jane:

And I saw some good, and I saw some bad and I met creatures that made me feel happy and sad

Together they discover rain, and fire (“It is good… but sometimes… fire is bad. So is it good or bad?”/”It is…well, I guess it is both?”), and learn the meaning of death. For the first time, they experience dreams at night…and sex. Lillith realizes she doesn’t like being on the bottom all the time, and sings some double-entendres that are less clever than crude:

I wanna try it on top

I’ll till your share of the crops

I’ll use your tool if you’ll drop it

You’ll beg me never to stop…

The modern-day scenes, which more or less alternate with the ancient ones, at first held my attention. I wanted to know what would happen next, and it struck me that “The Joys of Parenthood,” an ironic song in which the characters imagine their future bratty kids, suggested what the musical could be like if the modern story were more developed. But the creative team seemed to tire of the story they were telling, and “Leading Eden” dissolves into the musical equivalent of speechifying by Ancient and Modern together, facing the audience and looking grimly triumphant.

Leaving Eden ended its run July 21.

Till

I saw “Till” on the day that Emmett Till would have celebrated his 78thbirthday. Instead, he was murdered at the age of 14, the victim of inarguably the most famous lynching in the history of the United States.

A six-member all-black cast sings the gospel-inflected score by Leo Schwartz, with a book by Schwartz and DC Cathro that tells the story of Emmett Till starting shortly before his visit to his relatives in Money, Mississippi. We first see Emmett (impressively portrayed by Taylor A. Blackman) in Chicago as a church-going, fun-loving teen, something of a clotheshorse and a prankster, but devoted to his mother Mamie (Denielle Marie Gray.)

Meanwhile, Carolyn Bryant, introduced in her husband’s General Store in Money, Mississippi, is shown talking about the Marilyn Monroe movie “The Seven Year Itch” with her sister-in-law. Later we meet her husband Roy, who’s gruff and adulterous (All three wear odd half-masks and white gloves to indicate that their characters are Caucasian, a costume choice that feels like a mistake.)

It’s only in the last 20 minutes of the 90 minute musical that we see a version of the events (the details of which are still much disputed 64 years later) that led to his death. Emmett buys gum from Carolyn Bryant in her store, putting the money in her hand rather than on the counter, and then goes back outside to hang out with his cousins, who are playing a game of checkers. Unnerved, Carolyn goes out to her car to fetch her gun, at the same time that Emmett lets out a whistle. The other black teens panic.

“You whistled at a white woman, Emmett! “ his cousin Maurice says.

“I did not,” Emmett replies. “I whistled at the game. Besides, what does it

matter? What if I did whistle at her? She never been whistled at?”

“Not by a colored boy! It matters down here, Emmett. “

Roy eventually finds out, and, enraged, goes to Emmett’s uncle’s house, and drags Emmett away, hands bound.

Back in Chicago, Mamie gets a phone call, and collapses.

The musical ends with rousing back-to-back numbers, Mamie singing “I Want Him Back,” where she insists on an open casket to show his brutalized body, and then “Come and Follow Me,” accompanied by the ensemble in choir robes, in front of a series of projections – portraits of Rosa Parks, Medger Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama. Cast members briefly portraying each of these real-life figures recite quotes about Emmett Till. (MLK: “The

death of that child had a profound impact on my life…” )

Why is Emmett Till so important? Why does his lynching so stand out from the reportedly more than four thousand in the country over some 60 years before his?

The answer to that question strikes me as the heart of the Emmett Till story, and the reason why a stronger and more sophisticated musical could surely have been written that begins with his lynching rather than ends with it, replacing some of the mundane scenes and songs of the Tills’ everyday life (which can feel like filler) with the rich details of the aftermath. We don’t learn in “Till,” for example, that his two killers actually went on trial – not usual for a lynching in the South — but were then acquitted by an all-white jury….and then a year later, they sold their story to Look Magazine, confessing to the killing. We don’t see what is evident in old video footage of Mamie Till in Civil Rights documentaries — her strength, dignity and resolve as she attends the trial, and calmly, straightforwardly answers questions from unsympathetic Southern interviewers. The story of Emmett Till is really as much the story of Mamie Till as it is of her son.

Till will be performed one more time, today, Sunday, July 28 at 9 p.m. at Signature Theater Center

Flying Lessons

Isabella, a bored, smart eighth grader, is assigned a final paper for the school year – write about an inspiring figure from history.

”Like, how am I supposed to choose someone who inspires me when I don’t even know who I want to be or what I want to do?”

Suddenly, two choices appear before her, as in a dream – Amelia Earhart and Frederick Douglass. Over the course of “Flying Lessons,” the two narrate and re-enact their respective stories, interspersed with scenes of Isabella’s fights with her mother and her life at school with her classmates and teacher Ms. Young.

There is much that is wonderful in this show, including a soaring, eclectic score by Donald Rupe and Cesar De La Rosa delivered by a terrific nine-member cast. I hope and expect that “Flying Lessons” will take flight in the future, in one form or another. But it needs to be rethought.

Book writer, lyricist and co-composer Donald Rupe began “Flying Lessons” in response to a grant to produce a show for the eighth grade students of Osceolo County, Florida. This is how I know that Isabella is supposed to be in eighth grade. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be clear. The dynamics of Isabella’s tensions with her mother, as well as the hopes, fears and (G-rated) sexual awakenings of her three solidly etched classmates make the show seem geared for high school or older. But sometimes the characters are so naïve and the tone so childlike that it feels a better fit for elementary school. At the performance I attended, I talked to the parents of a six-year-old, who loved the show so much she was there for a second time.

Similarly, the show is divided into three distinct storylines, maybe four, that are sometimes an uneasy fit. It seems just odd that the stories of Earhart and Douglass are shoehorned together. In a musical called “Flying Lessons,” wouldn’t it make more sense to pair Earhart with, for example, the real-life women from the movie “Hidden Figures” who worked for NASA, or other female aviation pioneers? And the stories of the historical figures can feel like an interruption to the scenes in the classroom, which are funny and touching and don’t focus on Isabella.

The best solution may be to split up “Flying Lessons” into separate musicals – one telling the story of Amelia Earhart (and possibly other aviation pioneers), another Frederick Douglass, both 30 minutes long and aimed at young children; a third about Isabella, her mother, her teacher and her classmates, aiming for a higher age group.

Flying Lessons will be performed one more time, today, Sunday July 28 at 5 p.m., at Signature Theater Center.

NYMF Reviews: Leaving Eden. Till. Flying Lessons. The three shows reviewed below from this year’s New York Musical Festival are all, each in its own way, naïve…or one of the near synonyms for the word naïve, each of which offers a different spin -- a different judgment -- on the same quality: innocent, fresh, childlike, simple, unsophisticated, ignorant.

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