#the fierce and broken

[topazy]

The fierce and broken

Pairing: Raven Reyes × reader

Warnings: Mentions of smut, swearing

Chapter: 3.01

Soon as the door to your room is closed, you peel the sweaty vest top from your body and toss it to the side. The whiteness of it had long faded into a light yellowish stain, no doubt due to your body dripping of sweat at the end of each shift and the stour that seemed to constantly cover everything in Arkadia.

“Hey.”

You turn around to see Raven coming out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel. Although she’s smiling, you can tell she’s in pain by how her jaw tenses. It was a short distance between the bedroom and bathroom, but it took a lot out of her to walk it without her brace. Since the explosion at the dam three months prior, the pain in her hip had increased, but Raven was in denial about how bad her injury was and was refusing to talk about it. She sits on the edge of the bed, the wetness from her long hair dripping onto the bed. Although she was smiling, Raven appeared exhausted.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, just tired.”

“Raven,” you sigh. Your girlfriend was the most stubborn person you’d ever met, and point blank refused to admit how much pain she’s in while walking. You step in front of her and ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She grins, “well…” She hooks her fingers into the loop of your jeans and pulls you forward. “I can think of a couple of things that might help us both feel better.”

“Raven,” you moan as she starts to rub at your groin, putting pressure on all the right places.

She pulls you down and captures your lips with hers. She unclasps your bra, pulls it off your shoulders, and then tosses it to the side. Raven kisses your neck down to your breast and wraps her lips around one of your hardened nipples. She reaches for the zipper on your trousers, but you catch her hand. “Slow down, Reyes,” you giggle. “I need to shower before we go any further.”

She smirks, “I can join you.”

You do your best to plaster a smile on your face. Your girlfriend was the most beautiful person in the world to you, and we wanted her to join you in the shower, but we’re worried she’d hurt herself without her brace. Knowing that mentioning the pain in her leg would only piss Raven off, you kiss her on the lips and say, “You could or you could get comfy in the bed while I quickly wash the medical smell off me.”

Raven pauses slightly but shuffles up the bed. “I’ll wait, but don’t be long. You know I hate waiting.”

You both laugh at her response before quickly going for a shower.

—

You kiss Raven's bare shoulder. She was leaving soon to travel to Sector 7 for a mapping mission, but the thought of her going scared you since it was so close to the ice nation border.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“I just… This is going to sound stupid, but I feel things have been going well for so long. I guess I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Raven brushes your hair out of your face. Since Mount Weather, you had become inseparable, Murphy was gone, Jasper was constantly wasted, and Bellamy was still trying to find his role in Arkadia since he was no longer a leader. You had developed a fear that something terrible would happen and you’d lose Raven as well. The only time you were focused on anything else was when you were working or training with Bellamy.

Raven sighs softly. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No,” she snorts. “But we can get through whatever bad shit happens as long as we have each other.”

—

You spent most of your day tending to minor medical issues, including coughs and colds, removing stitches, and dealing with contraception. You had been so busy that you hadn’t had the chance to find out exactly what had happened to Jasper on the mapping mission. Octavia only told you that they ran into three ice nation warriors, and Jasper made the situation worse, resulting in Raven and Miller killing the warriors to save their people. Hearing what happened made you feel physically sick.

Octavia also told you that the Ice Nation was looking for someone called Wanheda.

Seeing Jackson about to follow Abby, who was chasing a drunk Jasper out of the medical bay, you call out to him. “Jackson, hey!"”

He looked more stressed than usual and had large bags under his eyes. “Something wrong?”

“We are running short of supplies.” You pull a list and hand it to him. “I went through all our stores earlier, and we are dangerously low. We only have enough stitches for two minor cuts; there are hardly any painkillers left.”

You had reported this to Abby days prior, but she was so preoccupied with finding Clarke that she hadn’t noticed. Jackson rubs at his face. “What else do you still have to do?”

“I have four more implants to remove, but nothing to replace them with.”

“Okay, once you’ve finished, I want you to go around the camp and pull all the resources you can together. I’m going to need to talk to Kane about organizing another supply run. Thanks Alba.”

It looked like you’d be working another late night.

#the 100 #raven reyes x reader #raven reyes x you #Raven Reyes #the fierce and broken #the 100 fanfiction #raven the 100 #the 100 smut #the 100 x reader #raven reyes smut #raven reyes/reader #raven reyes/you #Raven Reyes x fem reader #the 100 fanfic #Raven Reyes fanfiction

[morethanwonderful]

Out of all of Wei Wuxian's traits, one of the ones that fascinates me the most is how incredibly casual and chummy he is with corpses. All the other cultivators are a bit desensitized to the dead by nature of their profession, yes, but Wei Wuxian in particular treats the dead very much the same as he treats living people, and I think it's simultaneously one of his best and most concerning attributes.

On the good side, the way Wei Wuxian treats the dead is absolutely an extension of his overall goodness and empathy. He stands on the side of those that are looked down on, and nobody faces more discrimination that the dead. He treats the dead like people because they are people, and they deserve to have their voices heard. That's what Empathy's for, and that's why he revives Wen Ning to stand as witness to his own murder. Wen Ning is not a thing! And even when Wei Wuxian is raising armies of dead Wens to fight on his behalf, we get illustrations of him giving a helping hand to a weak old corpse that can't stand on its own.

Wei Wuxian is painted in very deliberate contrast to Xue Yang, who treats the dead as tools and deprives them of agency. His closeness with them is a symbol of his kindness.

However, beyond treating the dead decently and like people, there is a point where his chumminess with them starts to get unsettling, and that's the point where it becomes a reflection of his loneliness and trauma. In particular, I'm thinking of his cuddliness with the ghosts he uses to torture Wen Chao and the corpse girls he's hanging out with when he invites Lan Zhan to drink with him. Because treating the dead with respect is a very different thing from having a corpse lay in your lap as you stroke its hair. And fierce corpses by definition do not have personalities (with Wen Ning as the exception that proves the rule), so treating them as companions to socialize with is rather concerning behavior.

So why is he like this? Isolation and trauma!

It's easy to understate the trauma of Wei Wuxian's three months in the Burial Mound, especially given that we don't see them play out but do get details about so many other horrible moments. But those three months? They Fucked Him Up. In particular, beyond the trauma of the near death experience (or presumably many many near death experiences in a row), he spent the better part of three months without seeing a single other living human. People are not meant to do that.

So what is a person gonna do when he spends three months in Worse Solitary Confinement? And when that solitude is spent on Fierce Corpse Mountain? He's gonna get really weird about corpses. He's gonna turn into the kind of man that would let a murderous ghost he's controlling lay in his lap as he strokes her hair, because for an extended period of time, that is the closest thing to human contact he's had access to.

And later, post-sunshot-campaign, Wei Wuxian does regain access to living humans and society, but he's still incredibly isolated. Just about everyone besides his siblings and Lan Zhan hates and/or is scared of him by the time we hit the scene of him and the fierce corpse girls throwing flowers, so it's no wonder he's hanging out with dead people. He already picked up the habit of replacing company with corpses once, so of course he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe they're there as bodyguards, maybe he's just extremely lonely and doesn't have any human companions to drink with him, or maybe (probably) it's a mix of both. But in any case, it's a pretty clear expression of a horrifying degree of both past and present isolation.

That's why, though he doesn't lose his respect for the dead or his desensitization to touching corpses, we never see him just Hanging Out With Mindless Ghosts in his second life. It's a substitute for real companionship, not a healthy behavior, but lack of company is no longer an issue he has after being resurrected.

He doesn't need an entourage of corpse girls, because this time, when he wants company, he's always got Lan Zhan.

#see also: xy spending years with sl's fierce corpse as his only companion #his fierce corpse that he was controlling completely #respect for the dead is good #but Hanging Out With Corpses You're Controlling is pretty deeply unhealthy #and it's a good habit for wwx to have broken #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mdzsposting #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #oh and this is why I'm so mad that the donghua cut out that creepy-ass scene of the Wen Chao torture #Wwx being a fucked up little guy with trauma that makes him Weird About Corpses is deeply important to me #and important to his character #and the donghua really nerfed his fucked up little guy levels #(and I'm guessing cql did as well. but I haven't actually watched it) #wei wuxian #wei wuxian my beloved #english major hours #long post

[halfyearsqueen]

THE PRINCESS LEFT NO ONE IN DOUBT OF HER HERITAGE. dressing dramatically in targaryen red and black,

and though viserys had not one, but two male heirs, the princess continued to sit at her father’s feet at the base of the iron throne.

#scopophobia tw #aes. quick to anger and never forgot a slight #something something rhaenyra always sitting at the foot of the throne surrounded by the twisted and warped blades #the way she very slowly started to become a nuisance to those who felt like their power was threatened by her continued status as heir #the way she was so beloved before that point that the questions #it was fine for her to be heir when it was a choice between her and daemon and she was a girl who could be led #she was a girl not a dragon and then she had brothers and she had to prove ? she was worthy of the legacy of the burden of being queen #even though she’s broken records and mounted her dragon at seven she was still just a girl in the eyes of the court #and that’s why she adored visenya so much because she was #so fiercely unashamed of herself and did represent a duality in nature rhaenyra wanted to master

[bitter69uk]

“Faithfull’s voice, raggedly notched and erratic, sometimes starts flat or strikes a note that’s like a bald tire hitting a patch of glare ice. But what’s there all the time is this ripping knife of an alto, rueful and accusing and strangely vulnerable. What is in this voice? Only a few notes perhaps but a gallon of prussic acid, a season of tropical cloudbursts, the grittiest pale Northern skies, the emptiest grey hotel rooms. And endless, sleepless flights, thousands of cigarettes, Remy Martin, sex that’s the nostalgia of sex and happiness that’s just the memory of happiness. Hope that if you die before you awake you really won’t be aware of it. And the most unexpected sweetness.”

/ Gary Indiana reviewing Marianne Faithfull’s concert at the Bottom Line in NYC for The Village Voice on 15 December 1987 /

Happy birthday to exquisitely ravaged, resilient and timeless gravel-voiced art-rock diva of broken hearts (and the woman Tom Waits describes as “the aunt offering you a cigarette at a wedding when you’re 11”), Marianne Faithfull (born 29 December 1946). The closest equivalent we have to a present-day, post-punk Dietrich, Piaf or Holiday turns 77 today. Pictured: portrait by Wayne Maser, circa 1995 (around the time of her A Secret Life album). Read my 2011 interview with Faithfull here.

#marianne faithfull #marlene dietrich of punk #punk diva #punk chanteuse #lobotomy room #art rock #girl on a motorcycle #broken english #kween #fierce #diva #decadence #post punk #gay icon #chanteuse #gravel voice #raspy voice #husky voice

[rex101111]

I think in the Insomniac Verse, that during senior year of high school MJ Peter and Harry managed to bullshit their way into getting a bunch of really cheap beers, the ones that come in "value packs" and taste like shit but hey booze is booze when you're a teenager and Going Through It(TM) like those three are. They find this quiet spot and just drink. Too much. way too much. Peter is the last to get to drinking because he feels like he's kinda disappointing May here but MJ has a fresh bruise on her cheek and Harry had a screaming match with Norman and Uncle Ben's funeral is coming up so fuck it, Spider-Man has the fortitude to resist temptation but Peter Parker needs to Not Think for a couple hours.

Turns out that all three of them are giggling drunks, and they start talking about their plans for the future, MJ talks about traveling the world and exposing every dark secret she can find, Harry talks about saving the world in a way that doesn't make his dad a single red cent, Peter...talks about making Ben and May proud. The other two go quiet for a second, before lunging at him and hugging him so tightly Peter can't breathe but to hell with it. Peter says, sleepily as they each stumble their way to the nearest bus-stop, that he wants to get married one day too. Cause May keeps bugging him about girls (or boys i ain't picky and neither should you Peter) and giving her grandkids, but mostly she just wants Peter to find somebody that makes him happy and to stick with 'em. Peter Parker, one hand over MJ's shoulder and the other over Harry's, thinks he might just have found 'em.

#insomniac spider man #these three interacting in the third game and CONEY FUCKING ISLAND has me in a vice grip #trio of people who are broken in some ways but love each other fiercely. gotta be my favorite gender

[galamurphy]

"He stalked across the room like he wanted to wage war, but he kisses me like I'm the most delicate thing in the castle."

"A Heart so Fierce and Broken" by Brigid Kemmerer

#fantasy quotes #fantasy books #a curse so dark and lonely #a heart so fierce and broken #book quotes #fantasy #inspirational #romance quotes #ya novels #brigid kemmerer #fairytale #fairy tale book #fairytale twist #fairy tale twist #romance #young love #love quotes #literature quotes #treat me like a princess #romantic #intimate #passionate #passion #lovers #the cursebreaker #cursebreaker #harper and rhen #rhen and harper #emberfall #beauty and the beast

[hellverse]

the way dean says “and i forgive you, of course i forgive you” with the heavy emphasis on “of course” like it shouldn’t ever be a question. because at the end of the day, he will always forgive him. pain pain pain

#the whole thing actually feels like a dagger to the heart #dean pouring out every single drop of emotion in his heart for cas #opening up to him #so broken that he has to get down closer to the ground #sounding so fierce when he says he forgives him #as if not forgiving simply isn’t an option #talking nonsense #those two

[rapha-reads]

After sending the summer dissecting A Curse So Dark And Lonely (amongst a corpus of other novels) to study contemporary rewritings of Beauty and the Beast, now that the thesis is done, I went and read the sequel, A Heart So Fierce And Broken.

I think I love A Heart more than A Curse.

Grey and Lia Mara have something so agonizing that Harper and Rhen lacked. Or, to say it otherwise, Harper and Rhen, for all that they are very modern versions of Belle et la Bête, are still constricted by the role they must play. The story, their story, has already been written, and they must play their part until the end, no matter the side quests on the way.

Of course, because A Curse is a play on B&tB, it's a variant, a critical adaptation, so reducing Rhen and Harper to just their motif is a bit mean. I honestly really love A Curse. I might be biased against it after months of learning about the og tale inside and out.

Meanwhile, Grey and Lia Mara occupy spaces of their own. Academic deformation or thesis post-trauma stress, I'm trying to think but I can't find the tale-type they'd belong too. They're not fairy tale archetypes developped into Fantasy characters, they are Fantasy characters exploring their own as-of-yet-unwritten story (all the stories have been told, but also, all the stories are still waiting to be told).

They are honestly fascinating, the guard turned long lost heir and the princess discarded who turns out to be the real power. There's so much anguish in them. So much self-sacrificing, self-effacing. Gods I should have included the book in my thesis, I could have drawn parallels between Rhen stuck in his role of Beast and Lia Mara in her role as the spare, Harper as the Beauty and Grey as the unwilling Prince... Dammit I'm having ideas now. Oh, well, let's keep them for when I'll give the PhD a try. Some years down the line.

Quote, because that passage made me weep a little. The weapon boy and the quiet reading girl. Oof. If that's not exactly my kind of favorite dynamic!

Also I'm a sucker for messy yet intense sibling relations and I'm soooo here for Harper and Jake, Lia Mara and Nolla Verin and especially Rhen and Grey. That's totally my jam.

#a curse so dark and lonely #a heart so fierce and broken #brigid kemmerer #beauty and the beast #the cursebreaker series #spoilers from the book but the fact that lilith is back and if she hadn't been there rhen and grey could have an actual brother relationshi #i'm yelling #rapha talks #rapha reads #books #literature #book recs #so i might be a bit traumatized by my thesis so what

[books-in-a-storm]

Today is just going to be a lazy day after all the walking I did yesterday at Comic Con.

#mybooks #booklr #bookblr #sock sunday #books #funko pop #funko and books #brigid kemmerer #a heart so fierce and broken

[magnusbae]

I watched all the trailers and I watched the interviews and I was in for a rude awakening re: how Ken was treated 😔

#Here I thought it'll be all sweet and endearing and little wrapped gifts and cherishing and loving— #and what I've gotten was a broken sweetheart who only exists in the warmth of her gaze.... and she's not even looking. #I knew it wasn't going to be romance but I genuinely thought they'd be fiercely loyal friends..... #And yet. #I am heart broken. #All I wanted was a Margot/Ryan BarbieKen interactions is it too much is it TOO MUCH. #The barbie movie #Barbie #Barbie Ken #The barbie movie spoilers #Barbie spoilers #margot robbie #ryan gosling #buns.txt

[topazy]

The fierce and broken

Pairing: Raven Reyes x reader

Warnings: Mentions of death, blood and violence

Chapter: 2.12

You stare down at the ground, trying to contemplate what to do next. Things had drastically gone from bad to worse. You started with Maya as she sobs over her father’s dead body. He’d been shot and killed by another Mount Weather guard.

A lump formed in the back of your throat as you thought about your own parents, and how your mom was killed for helping someone. You knew the pain she was in, but you also knew that nothing anyone said or did would help.

Hearing a clattering noise, you lift your head up and start to walk in the direction it’s coming from. You stop when Bellamy grabs hold of your shoulder and gives you a puzzled look.

“You hear that?” You whisper.

He nods, stepping in front of you and leading the way until you reach a door that requires a keycard to get on the other side. You share a look with the older boy, “What do we do?”

“See what's on the other side,” he says as he hands you the keycard and points his gun at the door. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to check in with Monty and Jasper. “Ready?”

When they all nod, you swipe the keycard, unlocking the door. You expect to see Bellamy firing his gun at an enemy, but instead you see Octavia leaping through the door and hugging him.

When she pulls back from her brother, she hugs you next. “I’m so glad you're okay.”

Your eyes land on Clarke and you notice how displeased she looks. “What the hell happened? Where’s Lexa? Where’s her army?”

“Gone.”

Before you can ask anything else, Maya enters the room, and you notice Octavia’s happy facial expression twisting into one of anger. “It’s alright, she’s with us.”

Maya gives you a small nod. She was truly good; you just hoped there would be some way to keep her safe as well.

“Okay,” Bellamy says, getting everyone’s attention. “We need to talk to Dante. Maya says he's in quarantine.”

As Clarke and Bellamy try to come up with a plan to save your people, Maya’s oxygen tank begins to beep. You look at how much is left in it and say, “I thought this was a new one. It says there's only half an hour left.”

“We did just change it,” Jasper confirms.

You gulp down. You’re running out of time to save your people and Maya didn’t have much left. “I think we should split up,” you say, and everyone looks at you. “That we can find Dante and get Maya another oxygen tank.”

“She’s right,” Clarke says, pausing for a moment. “Octavia, you should go with Jasper and Maya to get another oxygen tank, while me, Bellamy, and Monty go look for Dante.”

“What about you?” Bellamy asks.

“I’ll go with you guys.”

—

You tense up on the spot when you hear fast approaching footsteps. You, Bellamy, Clarke, and Monty were heading towards Dante’s office, but the mount weather guards were starting to close in on you.

Bellamy’s fingers reach for his gun, but you stop him before he pulls it out of his holster. “Don’t, it will only waste time. You guys go ahead, I’ll hold them back.”

Monty looks at you as if you’ve grown a second head, “How?”

“Uh…”, I look into one of the other hallways and notice a mop and bucket lying in the hallway. “I might not be able to stop them, but I can definitely distract them.”

Getting the guards to follow you instead of them was a suicidal move, but you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if innocent lives were lost and you didn’t do everything you could to help.

Clarke grips your arm, “You don’t need to do this.”

“Yes I do. Just make sure you save our people.”

Two guards turned the corner and began running towards you with their guns drawn.You held your hands up in the air, showing you were unarmed, because you had nowhere else to run and hide.

A muffled voice came through the radios on the guards' uniforms. You couldn’t make out what the voice said, but both guards put their guns down. The one closest to you pulled his electric baton out and hit you on the legs with it twice. You screamed as the pain shot through your body, as you fell to the ground.

—

You are dragged into a room that reminds you of your cell on the Ark, except with more people. Your eyes lock with Wick’s. He mouths something to you, but you don’t make it out. Everyone in the room was chained to the wall, including Abby, Jasper, Harper, and Kane.

You feel your heart break as you look down at the table in the middle of the room and see Raven strapped to the table in the middle of the room looking lifeless. “Raven?” You try to get out of the grip of the guard that’s holding you back, “Raven!”

The guard throws you roughly against the wall and chains you to it. You yell at the doctor who’s hovering over Raven, “What are you doing to her?” When he doesn’t answer you, the guard chaining you up sniggers. You collide your forehead with the guard's nose, “Let her go asshole.”

The guard stumbles back and grips his nose in pain, before grunting and punching you in the face with his free hand.

Tears burn your eyes as your vision becomes blurry in your left eye. No doubt you’d have a large bruise, but you didn’t care. Out of your good eye, you can see the blood dripping from Raven’s leg, and you let out a sob as an anger you’ve never felt before travels through your body. Raven was already in so much pain from being shot that the doctor was taking bone marrow from her that it would kill her. “You’re killing her! Stop! Let her go! Take me instead. I won’t fight you; just let her go!”

Dante’s son Cage, the man who was behind all of it, ignores you and points to Abby, “put her on it.”

Both Abby and Kane begin to protest, but it does no good, as Raven was tossed aside and Abby was strapped to the table. You lift your head and look at the camera looking over the room. This was personal. Cage was hurting Abby to get at Clarke, which meant he knew she was watching at that moment.

The room is filled with Abby’s screams as the doctor begins to drill into her leg.

—

You are not sure how many agonising moments have passed when an alarm captures the attention of Cage, the doctor and all the guards in the room. When the guards start to cough heavily, Cage takes off running out of the room.

Radiation.

Clarke, Bellamy, and Monty must have found a way to save your people by letting the outside air in.

“Alba!” Octavia rushes into the room and unchains you from the wall. The moment she does, you rush by her and kneel beside Raven, who is groaning in pain.

You brush a strand of long brown hair out of her face, “hey Reyes. Long time no see.”

“Hi,” she says weakly.

Once he’s unchained, Wick helps you get Raven to her feet. When she’s up, you help her stand as you make your way through the mass hall of Mount Weather and are horrified to see all the dead bodies laying on the ground. men, women, and children. Including Maya

—

You feel a wave of relief wash over you when you finally reach Camp Jaha. You never thought you’d be glad to see it again.

“Wait, Jasper,” Raven says as she reaches into her backpack and pulls out his son's old goggles, which she hands to him. “I almost forgot.”

“My goggles, thank you.”

He looked so broken. You step forward and hug him. “I’m so sorry about Maya. She was good, and deserved so much better.”

Jasper said nothing but embraced your hug, which Raven joined.

—

“Hey.”

You remove your head from your hands and look up to see Raven limping towards you. Since you’d returned to camp, you’d been assisting Jackson in medical to the best of your ability, but you simply didn’t have enough supplies to take everyone who was tortured in mount weathers pain away.

You sigh, knowing Raven was ignoring your medical advice in order to keep you company; “You should be resting.”

Raven rolls her eyes playfully and sits down beside you. “I didn’t want you to be on your own.”

Your mind immediately goes to all the dead people in mount weather, and you wonder how many of them died alone. When you blink away the tears that were threatening to spill from your eyes, Raven links her fingers with yours.

You continue to sit in a comfortable silence as you both come to terms with everything that has just happened. The knowledge that keeps you from falling apart is that no matter how bad it gets, you still have each other.

#the 100 #raven reyes x reader #Raven Reyes x you #the 100 fanfiction #the 100 fandom #the 100 rewrite #Raven Reyes #raven reyes/reader #Raven Reyes/you #Bellamy Blake #Octavia Blake #Clarke Griffin #the 100 x reader #the fierce and broken

[roses-red-and-pink]

I am STRUGGLING through this sequel. The main characters from the first book have been turned into background characters. And from the new main characters pov they are only making bad choices and it’s super hard to sympathize with them. I keep reading hoping for a glimpse of the characters I love. Just trying to get to the next book because apparently they play more of a role and make less bad decisions.

#my life #a curse so dark and lonely #a heart so fierce and broken

[walkedlegacy]

WHERE DO YOU HOLD YOUR LOVE?

IN YOUR TEETH.

love has uneven edges but it is something you sink your teeth into. with love you give all of yourself over and feel everything as it happens- good and bad. for you love can be a fight, whether it's hard won or hard lost (or hard to hold on to), love has a way of leaving it's impression in your skin. it's not that it hurts, it's just that it knows your tender spots and seems to hit those first.

TAGGED BY: stole from @thefixer. TAGGING: anyone who wants to do it!

#· ˚ ⋆ is this some kind of game to you 『 dash games. 』 #and now i am broken #thats it #anya and i are done #but man is this her #she's fierce with everything #including love

[rastronomicals]

2:04 PM EST February 5, 2024:

Paul Newman - "The Cup Is Fierce" From the album Machine Is Not Broken (March 6, 2000)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

File under:    Postrock bands named after Hollywood icons

#Paul Newman #Machine Is Not Broken #The Cup Is Fierce

[bitter69uk]

“During her absence the mood and attitude to music had completely altered. People did not want practiced perfection and the musical snobbery of old was all but gone. The audience wanted honesty; the true to life version of a performer, not the all-singing, all-dancing cardboard cut-out with an ironed-on smile. Marianne gave them what they wanted and more – she was the epitome of the spirit of punk. She could no longer sing without her voice shattering, and gripping the microphone stand was often the only way to stay upright. The band was loud, occasionally chaotic (but not incompetent, which many were) and the fans loved every minute. Punk was about crude art without intellectualism or pretension, and Marianne understood it completely and through it found an ingenuous way to abscond from her fatigued image … Ian Birch at Melody Maker was one of the first to discern the New Marianne. In her studded leather choker and Lana Turner-style wraparound, he dubbed her “the elegantly ravaged outsider” and remarked that she appeared to be moving in the Edith Piaf direction, a point that was to become reinforced later with tedious regularity. Marianne was set to become a euphemism to illustrate someone wasted, wrecked, tortured, experienced, soiled, obscure, unsung, ignored, misunderstood, and she believed in her new status as a purveyor of Art from Life; revelling in self-crucifixion, with drug abuse, dead friends, sexual infidelity, attempted suicide, and an uncanny talent providing the nails from which she could she could hang for the macabre to gawp.”

/ From the biography Marianne Faithfull (1991) by Mark Hodkinson /

Pictured: Marianne Faithfull performing at The Music Machine in Camden, 1978. Faithfull’s stark embittered post-punk masterpiece Broken English was released on this day (2 November 1979) forty-four years ago.

#marianne faithfull #broken english #post punk #punk diva #punk chanteuse #new wave #marlene dietrich of punk #edith piaf of punk #lobotomy room #fierce

[bingus35]

Mephisto somehow went from my most hated character to my 2nd favorite character after W. Maybe I’m just too fickle or emotional or not exposed to enough media with the same character archetype, but idk anymore man chapter 8 got me bawling my eyes out for this little shit.

(Its not like all the hate went poof tbh. I can’t forgive him for the crimes against humanity. The fact that even in Reunion everyone fucking hates him is a testament to his horrid personality. Part of me still wants the bear girls and probably 10k other victims to take turns smacking his smug face. But thinking about him just makes me so sad??)

He had a shit life. His family abused him, other slum kids bullied him, someone shoved a radioactive rock down his throat and gave him arknights cancer. Faust was his only friend and he would do anything to make him happy, even if he was beaten up even worse for it. Even after getting power, his first act of defiance (which is uh. killing his family by mind controlling the slum kids) was prompted by his bestie and not out of his own will. Then they got sent to the mines and almost starved to death. Then the first adult he ever trusted was possessed by some ancient evil guy and encouraged him to kill people, so he did just that. He didn’t even know it’s wrong until Faust basically killed himself. Then he wanted to die but couldn’t because Faust wouldn’t want that, so he turned himself into lugia funniest shit I’ve ever seen tried to wipe his memories to start over. But of course he failed and instead turned into an eldritch abomination that only caused more and more harm.

After everything I can’t even feel mad anymore, just… hopeless. The environment fucked him up so bad he sees no value in anyone’s life except Faust and Talulah. Then he fucked up so bad that everyone he knows is either dead or wants him dead, and who can blame them. At the end the only thing left is one broken kid with no self-worth, no dreams, no will to live, only the blood of thousands on his hands.

I know trauma isn’t an excuse to commit war crimes and other characters also have fucked up backstories but didn’t turn out like him. But I feel like most of them at least had some kind of guidance (through family or education) at some point of their lives. Mephisto’s guidance is terrorism. No surprise his moral compass is so fucked.

Tldr arknights got me depressed over the smug war criminal I’m deleting this fucking game >:’(

#dont wanna go ‘nooo he just a bby leave him alone’ but seriously at the end thats all he is #a broken and misguided kid with no future #i just want them to be happy #i would normally read fanworks or discussion threads to cheer myself up #but fandom reception towards mephisto is. fierce to say the least #at least on reddit where the ​cishet men who want to skewer his ass and give him the most miserable death reside #and the other side is cn/jpn artists who are terrifying for a different reason #god I wish my arknights blorbo was someone cool like silverash or ch’en or skadi #instead of this 13 year old terrorist who makes me sad everytime I think about him