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stlazarus · 30 days

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[ * ] … IT'S INSIDE ME NOW: below is a quick and comprehensive post detailing information about The Entity ( or The Pride Sin ). please note that this is simply a post meant to give a general idea, and any content here is subject to change. all information here has the potential to be referenced in threads, so please browse this carefully before interacting with this blog.

[ 01. THE ENTITY ] + first, let me describe The Entity to the best of my ability. ever since henry's conception, this aspect of his story has remained unchanged. i've always appreciated the concepts of an "other" and "vessels." so, from that point forward, henry grew as a character. with that said, i've always had a shaky concept of the entity. however, with this new revival of henry ( and some newly watched films ), i've finally pinpointed how i want to attack and describe The Entity. again, please be aware that anything written in this section is subject to change and is still being explored. the biggest thing to note is that henry is meant to be the real-life personification of the Pride Sin and how it manifests in humanity/human beings. now, please let me know if you see something wrong, would like to add suggestions, or have any questions !

HOW WAS THE ENTITY CREATED ? according to scholars, the first documented transgression against divine law was the existence of Pride. The Entity was created during the creation of the universe. it's said that on day one, god created the existence of light. the two creations, darkness ( already in existence ), were separated into day and night with the order of evening before morning, signifying the liturgical day. unbeknownst to god, Pride waited, hiding in the darkness. after finishing the creation of the universe, Pride took its moment and began to roam the universe freely.

DISCOVERING THE ENTITY. from then on, Pride mainly went undetected until it caused the "destruction" of Eve and Lucifer. with such a grand violation, it was only a matter of time before god finally became aware of its presence. embarrassed by his grave mistake, god took to finding the Pride entity. once found, god decided to place the entity in a host. god moved it from host to host ( usually an angel or something of similar power ) to prevent the entity from becoming accustomed to its host. however, god realized this wasn't sustainable or productive, especially for his angels, so he decided to try something new.

WHAT'S ITS PURPOSE ? the overall purpose of The Entity is to spread chaos across the universe and remove all of the good in humanity. this includes, for example, humility, charity, and kindness. when there is too much pride, there is a sense of entitlement and false ego. to accomplish this feat, The Entity thrives best within a host. once inside a host, it can learn every detail concerning the host's overall personality. by knowing the host's personality, it can pick out the traits best suited for it to accomplish its plans.

WHAT'S NEXT ? enter the protagonist of our story: henry. god decided to test out a human host to finally rid himself of The Entity. by placing The Entity within henry, god enacted a type of "divine punishment." this punishment was established based on how henry chose to act during his human life ( aka exhibiting every sign of being an overly prideful human ). from then on, god has monitored henry and The Entity.

[ 02. THE ENTITY AND HENRY ] + now that i've outlined some "basics" regarding The Entity, this section will explore the relationship between henry and The Entity. among that, i will also continue to supplement more info regarding The Entity.

for The Entity, any host is usually a means to an end. once inside a host, The Entity looks to pinpoint any openings that it can use to its advantage. however, after being placed in henry, things were different. The Entity felt a sense of stability and ease inside henry. his body had no push-back or adverse reactions despite the inherent resurrection sickness once he was resurrected. despite The Entity's overall desire to use its host, that was absent with henry.

WHAT IS THE ENTITY ? for the most part, The Entity has remained genderless. anytime it is referenced ( outside of with henry ), it is usually referred to as it/its. however, after residing within henry, it began to feel female-aligned. this aspect is still being explored, yet the best way for me to describe it refers to a relationship with the jujutsu kaisen universe ( loosely think yuta and rika ). the idea is that The Entity has developed more than a host-parasite relationship with henry. it develops a romantic inclination for henry, therefore taking on female-aligned pronouns. she becomes equally possessive and protective over henry. she tends to react within henry ( to which he can feel or sense ) whenever he is threatened or when she feels jealous. their bond is only strengthened the longer she remains in him and after they merge.

a quick note: they can and do, occasionally, communicate with one another. it's usually silent, but the one way you can tell when henry is speaking with The Entity is based on how quiet he gets or if he's staring into a specific space for an extended period. initially, henry ignores the entity, but the longer she stays, the more they communicate. after a while, she slowly brings comfort to henry, especially in times of stress or anger.

ultimately, the bond between henry and The Entity deepens the longer the two remain intertwined. although The Entity means no harm to henry, its nature begins to take hold. slowly, it starts to consume henry from the inside. due to this, henry attempts to find a way to separate them. however, when he comes up short, henry embraces The Entity. slowly, they become one, and there is no sign of where henry ends and The Entity begins.

[ 03. POST-MERGE ] + this section will be relatively short and sweet. considering this is still being explored, please take everything written here with a grain of salt. i will list the most important things or the things i know that won't change. however, if, when writing together, i say something contrarian to this section, just roll with it. i a) have yet to explore Henry post-merge and b) haven't written out what i want to happen post-merge, so it's completely experimental. again, if you have any questions, feel free to just ask.

WHAT HAPPENS TO HENRY ? henry still appears very much the same when the merge or "resurrection" is complete. as noticed in annihilation, lena and kane's eyes seem different. while lena's time with The Shimmer permanently changes her DNA, the real version of kane dies and is replaced by the version created by The Shimmer. with that said, the only noticeable difference in henry after his merge with The Entity is the change in his eyes. they appear a freckled hazel with amber rings around the iris, a sign of him being other ( especially to other supernatural creatures ).

overall, henry still looks the same. however, now that he has reached a state of transcendence, he has to learn how to appreciate the simple, "human" life he lived as an immortal. there are moments when he will be quite apathetic, especially toward humans, simply because of his new state of existence. as for powers, henry only retains some from his time as an immortal and takes on all of The Entity's abilities.

#henry #meta

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thegirlwhowrites642 · 2 years

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What are your thoughts on Ginny's relationship with her each brothers? (You can share your headcanons too)

(I know you are busy please answer this question when you have a free time no urgency here, your metas are worth the wait)

First of all, thank you <3

Now, let's get to the ask.

(Also, I found some very cool gifs so I gave an artistic twist to this analysis)

Bill starts to go to Hogwarts, and is therefore away from home nine months a year, not even a month after Ginny's birth. In a way, you could say that, just as Charlie, Bill is more of a glorified cousin than a sibling to Ginny.

Nevertheless, Ginny seems quite attached to him, and by the time she is fifteen, she has a realistic view of her brother.

In GoF, she defends his long hair against their mother, and she laughs at his antics with Charlie. In HBP, we all know how judgmental she is of Fleur because she doesn't think she really loves her brother, just like Molly, she is quite protective of him. Yet she is the only one that seems to understand clearly why Bill is attracted to the veela. Ron, a bit superficially, is simply focusing on Fleur's beauty, Molly views Bill as a down-to-earth guy and so thinks Fleur is not for him, but Ginny understands that Bill likes a bit of glamour in his life.

Also, Bill and Ginny are the two "cool" (and conventionally good-looking) siblings. I don't mean it as in my personal opinion, but for how they behave and are generally perceived by others. This is certainly a type of connection in their attitudes that makes it logical for Ginny to admire Bill. Yet, Ginny is already someone that keeps a lot of things to herself, and with what little time Bill spent at home since she was born, I have a hard time believing Bill would be someone Ginny confides in.

For my headcanons, I always imagined Ginny as Victore's godmother. A bit because I like the idea of Ginny and Fleur eventually becoming close, maybe Fleur taking the role of older sister Tonks seemed to have for her, but also because I simply liked the symmetry of Ginny being Victore's godmother while Harry was Teddy's godfather.

Also, I've always thought that despite being the oldest, he was pretty chill about Ginny dating. He just gives off those vibes, I don't really have anything to sustain it. It's just that he is in that spot where he's at home enough to not be too traumatized by Ginny growing up, but he's not around enough to have the fact that Ginny is dating constantly in front of him.

We don't really have any relevant interactions between Ginny and Charlie. Honestly, Charlie always seemed to me like a character that originally was meant to do more (the whole thing with the dragon in PS) but then just became a character JKR was forced to maintain despite having nothing for him to do.

Just like Bill, he is a bit of a glorified cousin more than a brother to Ginny. The difference between Bill and Charlie though is that Bill has a sense of responsibility towards his family that Charlie clearly doesn't have.

Ginny probably admired how unapologetic Charlie is about following his passion. She had to keep Quidditch hidden for so many years, and she probably hoped she would be able to confess her passion one day. Ginny, though, is also very family oriented, so it's not surprising that she seems to look up to Bill and not really to Charlie.

What may connect Ginny and Charlie is the fact that Ginny is an animals-lover and Charlie clearly loves dragons. It may be a direction Charlie pushed Ginny in when she was little.

I do headcanon that out of all the brothers it was Charlie the one that contributed the most to Ginny's admiration for the Boy Who Lived. He seems the one who would enjoy coming up with stories about a little hero defeating dragons and going on crazy adventures.

This one is really interesting.

Percy is Ginny's real older brother. I've talked before about how Percy is fundamentally the one with all the responsibility of the older brother but none of the glory, this happens due to his age gap of four years with Charlie.

Percy is the brother who notices there's something weird with Ginny during CoS, and at the start of PoA, we see them arriving at the station together. He definitely shows the typical approach of a significantly older brother who is used to taking care of his little sister.

Ginny, who in spirit out of all her brothers resembles the twins the most, finds Percy a bit... funny? Like when there's that scene with Penelope and Ginny shares a look with Harry, laughing together at her brother's behaviour. But, once again just like the twins, she also takes Percy's betrayal very strongly as we see from what happens at Christmas in '96. This is very telling of her personality for sure but also of how much Ginny cares about Percy. As much as they make fun of Percy, the twins are the closest in age to him and care a lot about him. Fred is the first to forgive Percy when he comes back.

This affection for her brother can be seen all the way back to the end of CoS, when Ginny asks the twins to not tease Percy after she revealed he has a girlfriend.

Ginny is not really someone who harbours resentment, especially towards the people she loves, so I have no doubt she didn't have any problem forgiving Percy after the war.

From the early books, I would have said that if there was a brother Ginny would go to for advice, it would have been Percy. But Percy does lose a lot of essential years of Ginny's life. He leaves home when she's a young teen and comes back to find a young woman. And I don't know if that's a gap that can ever be fully fixed. Harry does avoid Percy in the Epilogue, so I doubt he was often at the Potters.

Ginny's spiritual guides.

While she has far more compassion and general common sense than the twins, Ginny does resemble them a lot. We even know that when she's angry she sets her jaw in a way that highlights her physical resemblance to them.

She likes jokes like them and she uses her strong sense of humour to lighten up people just like the twins do. She also admires their determination.

Fred and George kind of take her under their wing in a way, but this is a vision created more by Ginny being younger than she actually ever acting as their helper. If you think about when she goes to them to solve Harry's problem with Sirius, it can be seen as them being her helpers. In short, there's simply more of a partnership. She definitely seems to spend a good amount of time with them. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, she even dances with their friend Lee, the implication being that they're quite familiar.

The twins are no better than Ron when it comes to Ginny dating. They do respect her strength far more than the rest of her family, though. They bring her with them at the Battle (even if I doubt there was any room for argument there) and they are the ones that tell Harry in OotP how powerful she is.

I've always imagined that after the war, it was Ginny the one who made George take the first step toward healing. After George, she was probably the one that missed Fred the most, if you can even compare that type of hurt anyway. Books in hand I would have said that Ginny became the closest sibling to George but Ron ended up working at the shop, so it was probably him eventually.

I'm really attached to Ron and Ginny's dynamic, probably because I have a brother close in age, and I think it should've had more space in the books. Honestly, someone can just give me the seven books from Ginny's pov?

With the obvious exception of the twins, Ron and Ginny are the closest Weasley siblings in age. And while Ginny is very attached to the twins, when it was only the four of them at home, it's pretty easy to imagine that Ron and Ginny ended up teaming up against the twins. Then they also spent two years alone at home. I'm pretty sure I've talked before about how Ginny going to Hogwarts and realising her brother had other friends and didn't want her around probably contributed to the insecurities that made her so vulnerable to the diary. Not that I'm saying it's Ron's fault, crazy Horcruxes aside, it's a pretty normal situation. [I'd like to specify that this is simply a deduction based on how these things work in real life]

Nevertheless, Ron is very attached to Ginny. While it's only Percy that acknowledges Ginny's weird behaviour in CoS, it's Ron that goes to save her (admittedly helped by the circumstances). We all know how protective he is of her when she starts dating and even when it comes to Harry, who is definitely Ron's chosen partner for Ginny, Ron doesn't let him get away with potentially hurting his sister. When Ron gets angry at Harry and Ginny's kiss in DH, he's not simply acting like an overprotective caveman, he's genuinely concerned for Ginny's feelings and he seems the only one in the family aware of what Ginny has gone through in the previous weeks. In the tent, when Ron and Harry have the fight, Ron throws to Harry's face that he doesn't care about Ginny. If I can give my personal interpretation, I've always thought that was mainly because, while Ron is happy with whatever keeps Ginny even a little safer, he feels deep down that if he had been in Harry's position he wouldn't have broken up with his girlfriend if he really loved her.

Ginny, while fully embodying her role as the annoying little sister (as she should), cares a lot about Ron. It's Ginny who is there for Ron when he embarrasses himself in front of Fleur. And I would argue that her making fun of Ron is actually a way to show affection (she imitates Harry too). We know that the twins' jabs at Ron don't help his self-esteem, but Ginny's ones are completely different because she is the younger one, the "power dynamic" allows Ginny to behave like that, it is expected of her. This is like: stuff you understand only if you have siblings.

Ron and Ginny seem to kind of lose each other a bit during the first books and then become close again during OotP, maybe helped by playing Quidditch together, which is actually a pretty normal progression for siblings close in age, but it might also have to do with Ginny simply being around Harry more and therefore him seeing more of Ron and Ginny together. By the end of OotP, Ron is praising his sister's hexing skills, which considering Ron's self-esteem issues is very valuable coming from him, and by suggesting that she should date Harry, he is pretty much inviting her into his group of friends, showing a lot of growth since PoA when he shoved her away.

When they fight with each other they absolutely go for the kill, there are no boundaries. And again, it's completely normal because they are siblings very close in age. Ginny and Ron's relationship is maybe the most unapologetically realistic one in the entirety of the books.

During the series, Ginny is definitely the sibling Ron is closer to. And they definitely remain close during the rest of their lives. Ginny marries Ron's best friend, Ginny is close with Hermione, and Ron is James' godfather. But Ron goes to work with George so he eventually probably becomes closer to him.

For my headcanons, well... it's actually quite supported by canon, but Ginny is canonically excellent at doing impressions, and when they are at Malfoy Manor, a super underpressure Ron imitates Wormtail's voice, so I like to imagine that there's a story there about some childhood game.

#ginny weasley #ron weasley #fred weasley #george weasley #percy weasley #charlie weasley #bill weasley #harry potter #thegirlwhowrites642HPmeta

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yandere-toons · 2 years

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Hi I don’t know if asks are okay and/or open but I wanted to ask if you got any tips and advices for new writers who want to write yandere headcanons

I‘m a bit confused and overwhelmed with how I should start and how I should portray them :[

Questions like these are always welcome! Here is some of my process for writing yanderes:

There are many ways that a relationship or person can be toxic. These range from violent tendencies to manipulation to neglect to clinginess. No one is the same, so know that you're not doing anything wrong if one character seems much milder than another. It's more a question of understanding the character's personality and imagining their behaviour if their worst qualities were amplified.

That said, finding similarities between writing for different characters does not mean you're repeating yourself. It means you're seeing behaviour patterns, and that's good!

The yandere genre typically has a lot of gore and sexual themes. If you aren't comfortable with these topics or are simply uninterested, you don't have to write them. You're free to apply your own preferences and style to your writing. I, for one, am partial to dialogue and sustained interactions between characters that build tension and provide greater insight into a yandere's perception and worldviews.

Determine both the character's flaws and virtues, and then ask yourself where each one may go wrong in a relationship. For example, are they a hero who likes to protect others? Maybe their saviour complex has them devote themselves to someone who neither wants nor needs to be protected.

How does the character respond to rejection and acceptance? What are their goals and fears? Furthermore, how can these qualities be developed or abused by real-life traumas, toxic friends or stressful situations?

For me, headcanons are a summary of the character. I write a key point, explain how it applies to the character's personality and give an example of the behaviour in action.

A nice place to start is one of your favourite characters since you know what you like about them and most likely have a good understanding of their attitude.

However, writing about a character you don't think much of can be helpful when you're running low on ideas because it exposes you to new traits and perspectives. It also challenges you to break ingrained thinking habits.

I hope this helps! If not, please let me know.

#Writing Reference #Yandere #Yandere Headcanons #Writing Tips #Writing Advice

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tethered-heartstrings · 11 months

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also for the emoji ask: 🥺👀🤗 (sorry if you’ve answered these!💕)

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels? - specifically regarding Will and Hannibal, I like when they are soft, choosing that softness over violence. Deciding to heal instead of harm. Washing each others hair, cutting their hair, being tender. They have been plenty violent, but they now choose to touch in a different way, rewrite the pain of their past with something sustainable.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please! - Writing a post-fall porn with plot. Will struggles with being intimate with Hannibal because of their past and internalized homophobia. some of the porn is angsty too because I like to cause agony <3

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started? - write what YOU want to write. Most important thing. write for *you*. Other people liking it is nice but not a requirement, no fic will suit everyone. And there is no such thing as "this has been done before/too many times". every writer is different, and every writer has different life experiences, desires, and goals for a story. No two people will approach something the same way or even write the same way. Having a beta reader is not required but from my experience, it has helped me put out better work, build my own confidence as a writer, and just become a better writer. Find what kind of exchange you want from a beta (can be cut/dry grammar, spelling, punctuation all the way to giving ideas to help a scene be more complete). don't set harsh deadlines because it makes writing harder. write what you can when you can, and keep your tenses straight! and dialogue tags.

send me fic asks <3

#lectersdesign #the curious clown

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jojaqualityheadcanons · 3 years

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SDV's 1.5 update contains content that plays into racist, colonialist, and imperialist myths and beliefs.

Disclaimer: I loved SDV (which is a given, considering I have an SDV sideblog lol?), and I'm not writing this post to get people to boycott the game or stop liking it or whatever. I just want people to understand why this content is harmful, how it might be affecting your biases and beliefs, and think of how they can engage with this media without exacerbating the harm that it does. I'm Filipino, and I don't speak for all POC or all brown people, but I felt deeply hurt and betrayed by the content update. Please keep that in mind before you interact with this post. Explanation under the cut because of 1.5 spoilers (obviously) and because this got long.

(I will block people who clown on this post. Keep your opinions to yourself unless you also have firsthand experience with the issues I describe.)

Background

I was already wary of the 1.5 content update because of how the previews featured ~tropical~ and ~exotic~ stuff, but I decided to give it a shot because maybe I was being too hasty with my judgment.

I wasn't. I made a new save to play with the 1.5 content update, and at first, I was having a great time! The new special orders made gameplay more exciting and varied! I could finally get rid of the nursery from my house without mods! The remixed junimo bundles made me change my usual game strategy. And then, I finally unlocked Ginger Island.

It seemed cool at first, but I had a sinking feeling growing in the pit of my stomach as I kept playing. It got to the point that I started nursing a stomach ache and lots of anger that took me days to shake off. I know SDV has never been a shining example of racial/ethnic diversity and sensitivity (I mean... there's a reason why mods like Diverse Stardew Valley and a bunch of other diversity mods exist lol). But while the lack of diversity in the pre-1.5 content is more of a missed opportunity, the 1.5 content is just... actively harmful and hurtful, imo. Here's a breakdown of the issues with the setting and the characters:

The Setting

Ginger Island, along with the Fern Islands in general, is a tropical island that is clearly based on islands in the Pacific. Its features include fertile soil and an abundance of natural, foragable resources. And for some unknown reason, it has no native human population.

Many islands in the world are uninhabited by humans, and there's always a good reason why. The island's environment may be too hostile, it could be too small to sustain human life, it could be sacred or otherwise culturally unacceptable to live there, or some disaster may have occurred to wipe out the local population or cause them to flee. Some uninhabited islands are nature reserves or privately owned. The point is that if an island is habitable, people are bound to call it home.

Writing Ginger Island as an uninhabited "tropical paradise" feels like a copout. It's as if the game is saying, "don't worry, you're not colonizing this land because no one really lives here! You're not stealing this land or anything because it's up for grabs and is just waiting for the right person to come along to develop it and turn it into a resort for other people who don't live here!" But that claim rings hollow when there are so many signs of civilization there, such as literal computers and ancient structures. And the canon reason for the existence of these things is that dwarves, non-human creatures, lived there once. I just think it's ridiculous and harmful that the game completely ignores and erases the existence of the people who lived and still live in the places that Ginger Island is based on and goes even further to use non-human creatures as stand-ins. I don’t think I have to explain why this isn’t good, considering that people of color have been compared to animals and treated like animals to dehumanize us and justify our oppression for ages.

To really hammer in my point about whitewashing and erasure, all the human labor on the island is done by a flock of parrots that you pay with golden walnuts (i. e., resources that you get for free from the island they live on). There's even an anthropomorphized bird who's a shopkeep! I get that creating a whole cast of human NPCs to fill a town would have been way too much work for a content update, but CA didn't need to use a bunch of animals as stand-ins for non-white human characters. There’s a troubling trend of creators prioritizing animal characters over characters of color, and CA plays right into it. He seriously chose to create more anthro characters instead of adding characters of color to the game in a setting that in real life has populations that are primarily made up of brown people. The game includes brown people's land and cultures, but it draws the line at brown people themselves.

The erasure of brown people and the portrayal of our lands as wild and untamed have been used to sanitize the narrative of colonialism for centuries. Pretending that our lands were wild tropical paradises that were ripe for the taking is pretending that colonizing forces didn't use violent, dehumanizing means to subjugate or wipe out countless peoples and cultures in order to make these lands available. Ginger Island's erasure of brown people just perpetuates this colonialist myth, and the context in which it does so disgusts me: the farmer, who already runs a successful farm that was inherited from their grandfather, goes off to a tropical island they have no personal connection to and uses its natural resources to expand their business further. They also open up a resort on the island for the enjoyment of other privileged people from their homeland, and going there is treated as a luxury. This is a classic colonizer narrative, and I cannot believe the game forces players to colonize an island in order to win.

The Characters

I'm honestly amazed that the amount of feedback about the lack of diversity in SDV didn't prompt CA to create characters of color. I'm amazed that he chose the setting he did and still didn't bother to create any characters of color. The fact that all three of the new human characters who live on this tropical island are white makes me go a little apeshit, to be honest! I hate all three of them for a variety of reasons, so I'll go over them one by one:

Birdie

My reasons for not liking Birdie are primarily related to misogyny (lady spent literal decades in isolation on this island moping over her dead husband?) and ageism (if you tell her to live her own life, she tells you that she's too old to???). Sooo they're not really related to the rest of my discussion here, and I won't get into them further. Moving on!

Professor Snail

White historians, archaeologists, and paleontologists have been stealing and plundering artifacts, relics, and fossils from colonized lands for centuries. These white scientists would send their “discoveries” back to their homelands with little regard for the people they stole from. I’ll acknowledge that Professor Snail doesn’t bring the bones and fossils off the island, so his character isn’t as awful as it could be, but he still canonically has this line:

I really just don’t understand why it was necessary to make this character white when making him a character of color could have easily prevented the uncomfortable real-world implications of a white man coming to a foreign land to plunder fossils without asking anybody for permission. If he he’d been created as someone who traced his ancestry to Ginger Island and wanted to study the island’s biological history, his character could have been so sympathetic and even admirable to me! But his character as it is just makes me think of this meme:

Here are some links for further reading about colonialism in paleontology and other social sciences: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Leo

I had a hard time figuring out how to write about this character because the way CA wrote him is arguably one of the most racist parts of SDV. So many aspects of his character left me speechless and appalled because I cannot believe people are still writing shit like this in the 2020s.

I’ll start off with his storyline: this white child gets stranded on an island and is raised by animals. When the farmer meets him, he speaks in broken English to show how “wild” he is:

As the farmer continues to interact with him, he begins to speak more “proper” English:

Wow... he’s becoming more “civilized” because of the farmer’s influence!

As his story progresses, he reveals that he’s lonely because he doesn’t fit in among the other birds. Eventually, he leaves behind his non-human family and assimilates into a primarily white, Western-coded society because that’s supposedly where he belongs.

This whole storyline is made possible by the problems with the setting that I mentioned earlier. Leo wouldn’t feel so lonely and out of place if there were people on the island. He wouldn’t be depicted as wild and animal-like if he had an adoptive family made up of humans instead of parrots. But because CA chose not to have native human characters on this island, Leo can only be around other people if he leaves his home and family behind. As a result, Leo’s story has very uncomfortable parallels with how colonizers have historically separated indigenous children from their families and cultures and forced them to assimilate into the dominant colonizer culture because they considered indigenous cultures to be savage and barbaric (1) (2).

Leo’s whole narrative unintentionally implies that a good life in a good community can only be had in civilized white Western societies. I’m honestly having trouble with further explaining why Leo’s whole character makes me feel so gross, so just read up on the White Man’s Burden, The Jungle Book and other works by Rudyard Kipling (1) (2) (3) (4) (5, PDF download link), and even Tarzan (1) (2).

Leo’s character is also used to further whitewash non-white cultures:

Poi is a Polynesian dish. Mango sticky rice, which is also a recipe that Leo teaches you in-game, is a Thai dish. In the letter, Leo says that the dish is from his home and enjoyed by his non-human family. Considering that he probably learned these recipes on Ginger Island, and that the only “people” who could have taught him this recipe are literal animals, including these recipes in the game in this way just reinforces the equation of brown people to animals. I’m not Polynesian or Thai, but I know that if CA had included a Filipino recipe in the game and not only had it taught to players by a white character, but also passed off as something from the white character’s culture, I’d be angry. I’ll repeat myself: The game features brown people's food and cultures, but it draws the line at brown people themselves.

I don’t think there’s any way to tweak or edit Leo’s character to fix the issues I described. No matter how we change things, he’s still an orphan raised by animals coded as indigenous people, and he assimilates into the dominant white Western culture. The only way to address these issues is to completely redo his character and even the setting of Ginger Island. Here are some options that I’ve thought of:

Leo is related to someone in the Valley and stays with them for part of the year.

Leo lives with his human family and community on Ginger Island.

Leo’s parents are specifically from Stardew Valley/Pelican Town and he wants to visit in order to reconnect with his heritage.

This list isn’t comprehensive, but it does show that there are so many alternatives to having yet another Mowgli story in Stardew Valley.

Conclusion

I don’t think that CA had bad intentions when he made this content, but the fact is that he did create this content. I’m not calling him a bad person. However, he does have a lot of racist, imperialist, and colonialist biases that he has yet to unlearn. Considering the setting and subject matter of the new 1.5 content, he really should have hired some sensitivity readers to avoid creating harmful content. The man’s sold over ten million copies of his game, and he certainly has the resources to put together a sensitivity team.

I can’t look at Stardew Valley the same way I did before 1.5, but I’m not going to condemn the game as a whole. I might play the game again someday, but I absolutely won’t be going back to Ginger Island. If you’ve enjoyed the Ginger Island content, then good for you! Please just keep all that I’ve written here in mind and accept that that content hurts some people like me.

If you’re a content creator, I urge you to get sensitivity readers if you’re featuring cultures that you’re not a part of to avoid making the same mistakes that I’ve discussed here. Creating from a place of understanding and respect can only make your work better and more accessible to a wider audience, especially to the people whose culture you’re borrowing.

#stardew valley #sdv #sdv leo #sdv birdie #sdv professor snail #racism cw #imperialism #colonialism #blabbering #ids for images are in alt text btw!

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mrsgiovanna · 3 years

Text

Between the devil and the deep blue sea (Yakuza!Josuke x Reader x Don Giorno)

If you're looking for cinnamon bun Josuke and cinnamon roll Giorno this is NOT it. The reader is a courtesan in this instance, and the Duwang gang (heh) are actually a branch of the Yakuza. (Just a darker, criminal Jojo AU)

This request took way too long, @rubyninja1 here you go love, I hope this is what you were envisioning.

All characters are aged up as this occurs many years after Giorno becomes Don.

TW: Very OOC, yandere behavior if you squint, yakuza x mafia au, suggestive content.

Word Count: 1.7k

Minors please DNI with this post and block the n/sfw tag

You stared at your reflection in the misty mirror, wiping off the steam in one swipe. You had a very important engagement to get ready for, and for the first time since you entered this business, you were nervous. Ever since Giorno became the Don of Passione, the drug trade came to a grinding halt. The rules were adapted to suit his ideals and keep Italy’s youth safe from drugs. But there remained one problem- the activities of the former execution squad… at the best of times, the income brought in was meagre, not really being enough to support all of the assassins, and with the new regime, even those jobs had all but dried up. You had to get creative to generate a livable income, and after many conversations and playing to the Don’s affections for you, you were able to persuade him to allow you and an elite group of escorts to run your business while still being under the protection of Passione.

Under normal circumstances, Giorno would not have allowed you to do something like this, but you had asked him to give you just one month to prove that you would be able to protect yourself while doing the line of work you had proposed, him hoping silently that you would grow tired of that life in favor of a more mundane activity, however, in that short amount of time, not only had you established your business, but you had become the most requested companion, which meant you could accept and deny requests at will- suddenly money was no longer your motivation. It was an intoxicating feeling… being that desired, it was altogether euphoric watching them crumble at your sweet rejections. It was fair game for any man, deciding your rules according to your latest whims, although, one man was above all of those games, being in a superior league all on his own. There was no waiting, or appraising when your presence was requested by Don Giovanna. Most times he would request for you to entertain his associates, close to him so he could keep an eye on you- one of many guardians that you had collected over the years.

Moving into your adjoining room you put on the beautiful silken embroidered outfit and hair ornaments sent to you by Giorno- tonight was a special night as the Don wasn’t just hosting any old Mafiosi, these guests were his esteemed associates from Japan. Over and above the usual treatment doled out to those who met with the don, this visit was more important than most. The head of the visiting group was a relative of Giorno’s, so there was no room for error. You wondered about his convoluted bloodline, hearing murmurs about his origins, but nothing was ever confirmed or denied other than the fact that his mother is Japanese, and nobody dared to push further for answers, not that it mattered in any case, by this time, Giorno had rearranged the entire structure of Passione, and for all intents and purposes it worked, sustainably generating copious amounts of money with minimal bloodshed.

Right, mascara and I’ll be done you mused as you applied the finishing touches to your makeup. No sooner had you finished primping your lashes did you hear a knock on your door.

“It’s open…” you called out from the seat in front of your mirror.

“(y/n), they’re ready with the car downstairs, whenever you’re ready to go…”

“Thank you Ris…” the words left your carefully painted lips, barely acknowledged by your capo when he turned to leave. Well, referring to him as Capo was now redundant seeing that you were an entity in your own right, but old habits die hard, and you still respected him in the same way. He always worried before you set out on these types of missions, remembering a time when you used to be sent out on missions by him. Nonetheless, those days were over now, and you had a new role to fulfil.

There was nobody downstairs when you left, so you exited quietly and steeled your mind on the drive to the private cigar lounge.

“Fugo, I’ll be in my study, please alert me when Higashikata and his associates are here. Also confirm with Risotto if (y/n) is on board for this evening,”

“Of course Giogio, excuse me, I’ll also follow up with Mista on the status of the Capos he’s in charge of- I’ll have feedback for you in an hour,” with a small nod of acknowledgement Fugo took his leave and Giorno went back to examining the documents sent to him beforehand about the strange occurrences in Morioh, Washington, and now Naples. This was the start of something ominous, having a nagging feeling that this wasn’t the last time he would have to meet Josuke. It’s highly unusual for organisations like Passione and the Gokudo to interact in this manner, but this situation was exceptional, and when Jotaro had made contact with Giorno explaining the situation, he couldn’t turn a blind eye, and as such, Josuke was sent in his stead to meet with the young Don.

“Giogio, we should leave now if we want to get there before Higashikata’s group, Mista will meet us there,” with that, the Don and his consigliere had left to receive their guests.

Scents of old leather, expensive tobacco, and even more expensive cologne filled the air when you sauntered in. A handsome man with a pompadour, donning a designer suit, shirt opened a few buttons too low displaying the elaborate patterns adorning his chest offered you a wicked grin from across the room. Just next to him, another ruggedly good looking man with scars across his face nursed a drink while emphatically making conversation with a white haired young man who had a beautiful raven-haired woman draped over him.

“Ah, (y/n), there you are, come on, take this to Don Giovanna and Mr Higashikata,” Maria the head hostess, pushed a bottle of cognac into your hands, the Mafiosi already having gone through a couple of rounds before your arrival.

You approached the rowdy table, offering apologies for the delay, nestling yourself between Giorno and Josuke with a flirtatious giggle.

“Well dollface, it seems good things come to those who wait, so I’ll overlook it… this time,” You were surprised with the fluency at which Josuke spoke Italian- perfect Neapolitan dialect.

“Your Italian is impeccable Higashikata-sama,” you commented, remembering the honorifics you read about. Josuke looked impressed, cocking an eyebrow, taking a sip of the expensive liquor that remained in his glass, readying himself for you to pour him another drink. Watching the exchange, Giorno downed the rest of his drink as well, and took care of the formal introductions, not that it mattered in any case. You were being pulled in all to quickly by the magnetism exuded by the young man, being lulled by the dulcet tones of his voice. I guess this runs in the family you thought to yourself, recalling your first encounter with the don. Giorno continued his conversations with the rest of Josuke’s associates, discussing the occurrences that had brought them all the way to Naples, but kept one eye on you at all times. He wasn’t sure if it was Josuke’s brazen attitude, or your fawning, but the entire situation had annoyed him, which didn’t make sense even to him seeing that you were acting on his instruction… although by this point, you weren’t really acting.

“So Higash…”

“Please, call me Josuke,”

“Okay, Josuke, those are some interesting tattoos you have…” you say, delicately tracing the patterns on his chest with a manicured finger.

“Wanna see the rest of it?” not really waiting for an answer, Josuke unbuttons the rest of his shirt to show you the elaborate design on his back, a large stunning dragon sprawled menacingly across the taut skin, stopping just shy of star-shaped marking on his shoulder.

“Hey, that looks like the same mark on the don’s shoulder…” the young man pulled his shirt and coat back on and eyed Giorno knowingly, to which the don wordlessly replied with a smirk as he raised his glass. Giorno wasn’t always that condescending, but he had the urge to make it known that hewas the one who had been acquainted with you first. Not that any of that had bothered Josuke, he wasn’t one to fall for minor acts of derision when he had set his sights on something he wanted, and right now, that was you. Missing that entire interaction as you refreshed everyone else’s drinks, you returned to the table, however Josuke wanted to take your conversation to another location, somewhere quieter.

You lead him to one of the private meeting rooms, slowly sliding the door shut. Turning around to face him, you noticed the look on Josuke’s face changed, eyes darker, expression demanding your attention, which you were unable to avert regardless of your efforts. This feeling was exhilarating to you, for so long you had mostly been in charge of your encounters, only ever yielding control to Giorno when you were with him.

“Y’know, your don was doing his best to make it known that he’d been here first… I don’t much care for the conquest or doing things first, all that matters is doing it right…” inching closer towards you, a pair of strong arms placed you on the table, hungry lips captured your own, your hands attempting to go into his hair when you were gently reprimanded. As much as this was a job for you, evidence of your excitement pooled in your lingerie and left your lips in muted moans as deft hands and lips skillfully worshipped your body, bringing you to the precipice of ecstasy so many times before allowing you to fall in.

“Good girl… look at you, barely able to think…” Josuke spoke into your shoulder, resting his head there while he waited for you ride out your climax.

Outside your little slice of heaven, your absence was obvious, Giorno having concluded his business, had started to take his leave, not before catching a glimpse of your slightly disheveled form exiting the room. You didn’t see him watching you with a scowl, already having set in motion a plan for your future in both his life and the organization… for now the moment though it seemed ignorance truly was bliss.

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cabensonsgirly · 3 years

Text

👼These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends (Multi-char)[NSFW]👼

Multiple SP characters x fem!reader

Xandra, Billie-Dean, Ally Mayfair, Anne Gillette, Audrey Tindall, Wilhemina Venable, Ellie Staple, Diane Sherman, Mildred Ratched.

👼Slice 1👼

Co-authored with @billiedeannovak even though she’ll deny it.

👼Wordcount: 3111👼

👼Published on AO3: Read Here👼

👼Content (some for later parts):Super AU, Dubious consent, slow-burn, manipulation, face-slapping, drug-use, alcohol, smut, cunnilingus, strap-on, cum, choking, degradation, sex-work, court, mentions of murder-suicide, descriptions of violence, bruises, choking, spit, mommy kink, humiliation, public sex/teasing👼

👼D.A. Novak: What was the reason for the altercation?

Clark: There was a customer that had been trying to… Pressure Ms. Gillette into giving him information about how she is able to obtain such wonderful pieces for her gallery. She had asked him numerous times to leave but he didn’t. Instead he had grabbed her wrist and tried- tried taking her to somewhere out of view but she had punched him and broken out of his grasp. The man retaliated by pushing her causing her to fall in which she twisted her ankle and fractured her wrist. She was able to get up with my assistance where she then punched him with her uninjured hand. 👼

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

ANNE GILLETTE

Court: Members of the Jury, Anne Gillette has been charged in two counts with the crime of murder in violation of Penal Code §187. The information alleges that on or about December 17, 2010, in Manhattan, New York, the defendant, Anne Gillette, did kill Bert Gillette and Elaine Gillette, in violation of Penal Code §187. To this charge, Anne Gillette, has entered a plea of not guilty.

Court: District Attorney Casey Novak you may call your first witness.

D.A. Novak: Your Honour, the People call Adeline Clark.

CLERK SWEARS IN THE WITNESS

AND HAS WITNESS STATE HER NAME.

D.A. Novak: How are you employed, Miss Clark?

Clark: I am employed as an assistant at Ms. Gillette’s Art Gallery.

D.A. Novak: Back in early April, 2010, did you call the police to the gallery because the defendant, Anne Gillette, had injured and been injured in an altercation?

Clark: Yes, I did.

D.A. Novak: Do you remember which officers responded to the call out?

Clark: No. I wasn’t introduced to them once they arrived. I had been tending to Ms. Gillette’s injuries.

D.A. Novak: Do you remember what the altercation was about?

Clark: Yes, I do.

D.A. Novak: What was the reason for the altercation?

D.A. Novak: How did you manage to call the police so that they would arrive before the perpetrator fled?

Clark: I was able to call the police with the earpiece we have to take calls while we are away from the phone so that was how I was able to help Ms. Gillette get up. The man had been knocked back and looked like he was a bit surprised by Ms. Gillette’s actions so that’s how the police arrived before he was able to make a run for it.

D.A Novak: Is this the first time that Ms. Gillette has been involved in some altercation while you were present?

Clark: No. There have been a lot of people that harass her while we are out and about. I am usually able to stop them from getting to her but sometimes they get too close.

D.A. Novak: Were you with Ms. Gillette the day of Bert and Elaine Gillette’s murder?

Clark: I was.

D.A. Novak: Where were you both between the hours of two and five am?

Clark: We were getting ready to go to Paris to meet connections in the art world so that we could get a wider variety of pieces for the gallery.

D.A. Novak: Did Gillette leave at any point during those three hours?

Clark: No.

D.A. Novak: Do you see Ms. Gillette in court today?

Clark: I do.

D.A. Novak: Could you please point her out for the jury?

Clark: She’s sitting right there. (Pointing to the defendant)

D.A. Novak: No further questions, Your Honour.

Court: Defence Counsel Rita Calhoun, you may cross examine.

Defence

Counsel

Calhoun: So Ms. Gillette is often subject to unwarranted harassment while you both go about your day?

Clark: Yes she is. I have tried convincing her to get private security, but she insists that it isn’t necessary.

D.C. Calhoun: Do you have an opinion as to whether she has done anything to warrant such treatment from the public?

Clark: She has done nothing but try and run her business. She has me send ten percent of profits to charities at the end of each business month.

D.C. Calhoun: By the way, Ma’am, who provided Gillette the funds to start her gallery in the first place?

Clark: Her parents, Bert and Elaine Gillette.

D.C. Calhoun: She had backing by her parents?

Clark: Yes she did. They hoped that she succeeded at something for once in her life.

D.C. Calhoun: Now, when you were at her residence the day of the alleged murder, are you positive that Gillette did not leave the property?

Clark: Positive!

D.C. Calhoun: No further questions, Your Honour.

Court: Miss Clark you may step down. Any additional witnesses on behalf of the People?

D.A. Novak: Your Honour, the People call Nigel Prestwick.

CLERK SWEARS IN THE WITNESS

AND HAS WITNESS STATE HIS NAME.

D.A. Novak: How do you know the defendant Ms. Gillette?

Prestwick: She had been accused of stealing money from the Prestwick Foundation, making donations to recipients which supposedly were her. However, the case was closed due to the money being replaced.

D.A. Novak: Despite this, recently you decided to press embezzlement charges, correct?

D.C. Calhoun: Objection! Mr. Prestwick was put under duress and blackmailed to press charges by Detective Olivia Benson and Detective Ashok Ramsey.

Court: Objection sustained.

D.A. Novak: Requesting permission to approach the bench, Your Honour.

Court: Granted.

D.A. NOVAK AND D.C. CALHOUN

APPROACH THE STAND.

Casey runs her lithe fingers through her hair as she lets out a frustrated sigh, glaring at Rita as though the woman herself had committed the murder. Rita simply quirked a brow, an amused smile tugging slightly at her lips, “What is the issue, Novak? We both know that Prestwick was blackmailed into pressing those charges by Benson and Ramsey.” The Judge gives Casey a look of disbelief “Is this true?”

The red head supresses the urge to roll her eyes and cuss Rita out and deny it, but she was under oath and getting caught out in a lie wouldn’t end well for anyone. “It’s hardly blackmail. Benson and Ramsey just took a photo of Prestwick in a compromising position and said that he either go ahead with embezzlement charges or they show the videos of him to his wife. At least it’s not fuc- At least it’s not murder” she hisses out angrily.

Rita shakes her head and looks at the Judge “Can the witness be removed from the stand because of this, Your Honour?” The Judge nods and motions for them to return to their respective places. A thoroughly perturbed Casey makes her way back and scribbles something down on paper, throwing one last glare at Rita; The older woman returns to sit beside the defendant, whispering in her ear “the Judge is going to dismiss the witness. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you are found not-guilty.”

Court: The witness, Nigel Prestwick is dismissed due to unscrupulous methods being used in order to get charges pressed against the defendant.

Court: Mr. Prestwick you may step down. Any additional witnesses on behalf of the People?

D.A. Novak: Your Honour, the People call Detective Ashok Ramsey.

CLERK SWEARS IN THE WITNESS

AND HAS WITNESS STATE HIS NAME.

D.A. Novak: Detective, how do you know the defendant?

Ramsey: I have been investigating her for a while now for tax evasion, and embezzlement.

D.C. Calhoun: Objection! Relevance. We are here because the defendant has been accused of murder, not tax evasion and embezzlement where the charges have already been dropped.

Court: Objection sustained. Change line of questioning or dismiss the witness.

D.A. Novak: Fine. The prosecution rests.

Court: Defence Counsel Calhoun, do you wish to cross-examine?

D.C. Calhoun: No, your Honour.

Court: Detective Ramsey you may step down. Any additional witnesses on behalf of the People?

D.C. Calhoun: The defence calls the Chief of Detectives, Muldrew.

CLERK SWEARS IN MULDREW AND

ASKS HIM TO STATE HIS NAME.

D.C. Calhoun: Fancy seeing you here, Chief Muldrew.

Muldrew: It has been awhile, Ms. Calhoun.

D.C. Calhoun: You have had previous encounters with my client where you, and a previous witness Mr. Prestwick-

D.A. Novak: Objection. Relevance, what does this have to do with the current case?

D.C. Calhoun: There will be a follow up question, your Honour.

Court: Overruled. Get to the point, Calhoun.

D.C. Calhoun: As I was saying… Your previous interactions with my client have been in regard to previous charges being dropped, yes?

Muldrew: Yes, that’s correct.

D.C. Calhoun: Is it true that with this case, you said to Olivia Benson, Ashok Ramsey, and Elliot Stabler that unless they can prove definitively that my client, Ms. Anne Gillette was the culprit, that they would be on their own?

Muldrew: Well…

D.C. Calhoun: Is it true or not, Chief Muldrew?

Muldrew: Yes it is.

D.C. Calhoun: Did you think that there was enough evidence that pointed towards Ms. Gillette before the investigation had begun formally?

Muldrew: It was hard to say at that time-

D.C. Calhoun: It’s a yes or no question, Chief.

Muldrew: No, I didn’t.

D.C. Calhoun: Upon finding out that Ms. Gillette was in the company of Miss Clark, whom I might add has no criminal record, the time Ms. Gillette committed the alleged murder, did you think that your team was desperate to get her behind bars seeing as she has gotten off previous charges?

Muldrew: …yes.

D.C. Calhoun: My apologies, Chief Muldrew, I didn’t quite catch that, could you repeat yourself a bit louder into the microphone please?

Muldrew: Yes I did- do think that the detectives were just wanting to see Ms. Gillette put behind bars because they were unable to get her on prior charges.

D.C. Calhoun: Were you aware of the methods the detectives used in order to get Mr. Prestwick to go through with pressing charges?

D.A. Novak: Objection. Relevance.

D.C. Calhoun: It was during this current investigation that Mr. Prestwick was blackmailed. The question is relevant.

Court: Overruled. Might do you some good to pay attention, Novak.

D.C. Calhoun: Chief Muldrew, your answer please.

Muldrew: No, I was not aware of it until today.

D.C. Calhoun: Were you also unaware of Ms. Gillette being set-up so that a confession could be coerced out of her in unusual and stressful circumstances?

Muldrew: No, I wasn’t aware of that. By this point I did not see enough solid evidence to link Ms. Gillette to the crime, so the team were off on their own.

D.C. Calhoun: Were you aware of what Detectives Benson, Ramsey, and Stabler were up to, would you have let them continue on their warpath?

Muldrew: No, I wouldn’t have. There is a right way and a wrong way to go about investigating crimes, especially ones as high-profile as this.

D.C. Calhoun: No further questions, your Honour.

Court: District Attorney Novak, you may cross-examine.

D.A. Novak: No thank you, your Honour.

Court: Chief of Detective Muldrew, you may step down. Defence Counsel Calhoun, does the defence wish to call any witnesses?

D.C. Calhoun: The defence calls the defendant, Anne Gillette.

CLERK SWEARS IN MS. GILLETTE AND ASKS HER TO STATE HER NAME.

D.C. Calhoun: Ms. Gillette, prior to the incident, how was your gallery doing?

Gillette: It was doing well thanks to my assistant.

D.C. Calhoun: When did you hire Miss Clark for that position?

Gillette: It seems like so long ago. I think it was roughly around mid-January.

D.C. Calhoun: Why did you decide to hire Miss Clark as an assistant after unsuccessfully trying to run galleries in the past?

Gillette: My- My parents they… thought that I deserved one more chance to do something that I was- am passionate about. I didn’t want to disappoint them again because that’s all that I seemed capable of doing. So… I looked around and discovered that most successful gallery owners have assistants to help them.

D.C. Calhoun: Has Miss Clark met the deceased before?

Gillette: She has.

D.C. Calhoun: Was she aware of you being the sole heir to the estate?

Gillette: She was not until my parents brought it up in conversation one day.

D.C. Calhoun: Was she, Miss Clark, aware of how strained your relationship with your parents had been?

Gillette: No. I didn’t think the past would be beneficial towards the future of my business as well as re-building the relationship with my parents. I wanted her to have an unbiased opinion of them.

D.C. Calhoun: Were your parents still happy together?

D.A. Novak: Objection! The defendants answer would be hearsay.

Court: Objection sustained.

D.C. Calhoun: Did you have concern for your father’s mental well-being before he killed your mother before himself?

Gillette: Of course, but I- I didn’t- I never thought he was capable of… killing my mother… He was your typical man, didn’t really like discussing mental health but I knew that he would occasionally see someone. I- I don’t know what changed in those twenty-four hours…

D.C. Calhoun: Why was the trip postponed until the day the deceased were found dead?

Gillette: I suggested that they wait another day because my mother was still recovering from the flu. I didn’t think travelling at the time would be a pleasant experience due to her still being ill. I know from personal experience that traveling while sick is absolutely miserable, so I only wanted both my parents to enjoy their time.

D.C. Calhoun: ��Were you and Miss Clark actually packing at that hour for a flight to Paris?

Gillette: Yes we were. We had done an online check-in for the flight so that by the time we made it to the airport we wouldn’t need to stress over running late.

D.C. Calhoun: No further questions.

Court: Cross examination, District Attorney Novak?

D.A. Novak: Ms. Gillette, you have a history of failure and criminal charges, correct?

D.C. Calhoun: Objection. Relevance to the current case as no charges were successfully pressed.

Court: Sustained. Change line of questioning.

D.A. Novak: You spent all the money you were given in your trust fund from your parents, correct?

D.C. Calhoun: Objection. Relevance.

D.A. Novak: There will be a follow-up question, your Honour.

Court: Overruled. That question better be relevant, Novak.

D.A. Novak: Thank you, your Honour. Ms. Gillette, your answer please.

Gillette: I did, yes.

D.A. Novak: Is it true that you were upset that your mother had been discussing whether or not to remove you from their will?

Gillette: I was, but-

D.A. Novak: Did you threaten to kill your mother if she did not keep you on the will?

D.C. Calhoun: Objection. Leading question.

Court: Sustained.

D.A. Novak: Why was your name still on the will if your mother had reason to remove you from it?

Gillette: How would I know that?

D.A. Novak: Miss Clark said that you often find yourself getting involved in altercations, is this true?

Gillette: Yes. She said it under-oath so why would she lie when the consequences would be more severe than just telling the truth?

D.A. Novak: I’m surprised you know the consequences, Ms. Gillette, but it’s not entirely surprising seeing as you have had run-ins with the law before-

D.C. Calhoun: Objection. What is the point?

Court: Sustained. Hurry up and get to the point, Novak.

D.A. Novak: Your history of run-ins leads one to believe that you are rather volatile. Have you ever hit or injured one or both of your parents?

D.C. Calhoun: Objection. Relevance.

Court: Overruled. Novak, continue.

D.A. Novak: Thank you. Ms. Gillette?

Gillette: No. I haven’t.

D.A. Novak: I find that hard to believe, Ms. Gillette seeing as, if we are to believe what Miss Clark has been saying is true, you often react physically when an altercation arises.

Gillette: I act in self-defence. I have never gone out of my way to deliberately injure someone! You can’t blame me for my parent’s death when I wasn’t even there!

D.A. Novak: Yes, Ms. Gillette, I do blame you. No further questions, your Honour.

Court: Ms. Gillette, you may step down. Defence Counsel Calhoun, any further witnesses?

D.C. Calhoun: The defence rests.

Court: We will now hear closing arguments of counsel. District Attorney Novak you may proceed.

D.A. Novak: Members of the jury – the evidence is undisputed that the defendant, Ms. Gillette brutally murdered her parents. The evidence shows that Ms. Gillette has a history of run-ins with the law as well as physical altercations. She also is clearly incapable of being smart with her money, and seeing as she is the sole heir to the Gillette Estate she has more than enough motive to commit this atrocious act. Ms. Gillette’s mother had been contemplating removing her from the will which, the defendant admitted, upset her considerably. The detectives investigating this case have reason to believe that this was indeed a homicide committed by Ms. Gillette and not a murder-suicide committed by Mr. Bert Gillette!

Court: Defence Counsel Calhoun, you may proceed with your closing argument.

D.C. Calhoun: Members of the jury. My client, Ms. Gillette, is not guilty of this charge. The investigation was unjust from the start; Ms. Gillette was coerced into her confession under rather dubious circumstances, and Prestwick was blackmailed into pressing charges. The detectives have been gunning for Ms. Gillette to be sent down from the beginning. We have even heard from Chief Muldrew that he thought the detectives were out of order and were behaving inappropriately considering how high profile that this case is. Miss Clark and Ms. Gillette were at Ms. Gillette’s residence preparing for their flight and we have heard in Miss Clark’s testimony that Ms. Gillette did not leave the premises between the hours of two and five am. It is clear that there is an unfair bias towards Ms. Gillette which has narrowed their perspective. Bert Gillette had a history of mental health issues and unfortunately it seems that they got the better of him resulting in the untimely death of Elaine Gillette before he took his own life. Ms. Gillette did not kill her parents. She is not guilty.

Court: Court is adjourned while the Jury retire to deliberate.

As soon as the Judge has left the room as well as the Jury, the courtroom is filled with the sound of people talking, only just able to be passed off as aggressive whispering. Rita lets out a breath she felt like she had been holding since Anne took the stand but surprisingly, she held her own and didn’t have one of her notorious outbursts. She sorts her papers out and puts them in her folder, a somewhat cocky smirk on her face, “I have a good feeling about this, Ms. Gillette.” Anne laughs lightly and stands up alongside Rita “I would expect nothing less from you, Ms. Calhoun. You are one of the best after all.”

#Anne Gillette x reader #Wilhemina Venable x reader #Ally Mayfair x reader #Billie Dean x reader #Audrey Tindall x reader #Xandra x reader #Rita Calhoun #Casey Novak #Olivia Benson #svu #ahs cult #ahs murder house #ahs roanoke #ahs apocalypse #Ellie staple x reader #Diane Sherman x reader #Mildred Ratched x reader

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oshaviolater · 4 years

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Can we collectively agree to stop the trope “despicable villian dude is actually a child abuse victim pls feel bad for him” like please stop

#👏👏👏

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aaron-despair · 3 years

Text

In her arms (Maria Hill x Fem!Reader)

A/N: I don’t own any of the characters on this fic, they belong to Marvel.

Warnings: mentions of blood.

Request: Hello! Your writing is so good! Could you pls write a Mari Hill x fem!reader (or gn whichever you’re comfortable with!) Where they get into a pretty big argument right before R has to go on a mission and during the mission, while Maria is giving R orders through the earpiece, someone sneaks up on R and hurts them pretty bad but R fights them off and Maria had to listen to the whole thing terrified that she would lose the love of her life, when R comes back from the mission Maria clings to R and just breaks down and they apologize to each other while crying and holding each other, idk this is specific asf I’m sorry! You can do what you think is best with this prompt! Thx!

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I hate you.

Those words seemed to haunt Maria. She didn't mean to say that, it was an absolute mistake.

The brunette couldn’t recall the reason for the argument, but she still very clearly remembered the utter shock and absolute hurt written on (Y/N)’s face. And then she stormed out of their shared apartment, leaving Maria frozen in place in the eerily silent room.

You had been dating for two years now, and it was clear to everyone how in love you were with each other. So when you left after she let the sentence out, no words leaving your mouth, it scared her.

It’s only been a day since the argument, but you two barely talked. Whenever you two were in the same room, it felt awkward and tense. Which led you to your current situation…

“A mission together? Just the two of us?”

“Yes. Is there any problem, Agent (L/N)?” Fury asked, silence his only answer. “Good, and if there aren't any more questions, I suggest you get going ladies. You know what to do. Agent Hill, you’ll be directing the whole operation from here.”

“Yes, sir.”

********************

“Where now?”

“Keep walking forward and take the second door on your right.” Maria guided, watching intently the images of the security cameras. She watched as you peeked around the next corner before walking confidently along the empty hallways. After some minutes of complete silence, Maria decided that it was enough. “So, can we talk?”

“Talk? I thought you made it clear that you didn’t want to be around me anymore…” You answered, sneaking inside the lab.

“That wasn-”

“Save it, Commander Hill.” You nearly snarled, managing to make Maria freeze. It was unsettling how cold, harsh and distant you were acting. Almost like you were a completely different person.

“Okay…” She mumbled, focusing on the task ahead. Things were going smoothly until the monitors started going black. “What- (Y/N), can you hear me? Something is messing with the signal.”

Maria waited for your reply, but the comms were also failing.

“C...de… re’s… rong…” Your words were incoherent by now, and it was getting on the brunette’s nerves. Knowing that you were alone and that you could be in danger was too much to handle for her.

Suddenly a bloodcurdling scream, the only intelligible thing that came through the comms, made Maria flinch violently.

“(Y/N)!!” She gripped the keyboard tightly, so much that it surely would break. Maria didn’t get an answer. The brunette could just hear your grunts and cries of pain. “(Y/N), can you hear me?! You need to get out of there!” But every attempt was futile. The comms went static again, this time for good it seemed, and she started to panic. “No. No, this can’t be happening!” Maria tried to focus on her breathing, knuckles white as she released her grip, letting the keyboard fall back and rattle against the desk.

She numbly stood up. Maria hoped- no, knew, that you would escape. But she needed to see it. To assess the wounds you sustained. To see you alive.

Maria ran out of the control room, desperate to find the rest of the team and praying that you would be fine.

************************

“What do you mean you didn’t find anything?!”

“Maria, calm down.” Nat squeezed her shoulder, trying to comfort her somehow. “There was nobody when we arrived there, no guards, no prisoners... nothing.”

“There were clear signs of a fight, though. I’m sorry, but I’m not sure how it could have ended.” Steve added, clearly upset about the fact that they didn't know anything.

Maria just ran a hand through her hair, and started pacing again across the room. It’s been three days since you went missing and it’s been draining her. Not only that, but it was also affecting the whole team.

“Hey…” Another voice croaked out, and they lifted their gaze to find your bloodied and exhausted form leaning against the wall.

“(Y/N)!” The brunette launched herself into your arms, backing away immediately when she heard you hiss in pain. “Are you okay?! What happened there? Are you hurt?!”

“Will you just stop fussing, please? I’m fine.” You mumbled, not sure how to react. You looked up to find Steve and Natasha watching the interaction, before he motioned to the redhead to leave you both alone.

Once you were the only ones left in the room, you let yourself relax slightly, thinking about how to approach the topic that had been on your mind these last few days. You opened your mouth, but closed it upon seeing the tears streaming down Maria’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry... “ She whispered. You noticed that she was shaking, and sobs started wracking her whole body. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry that I let my anger get the best of me. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do anything to help you get out safely. I-”

“Shhh. Come here.” You pulled her into you again, this time in a much softer embrace, holding her as she cried on your chest. “It was also my fault. It was a silly argument and I overreacted instead of talking to you. I’m sorry too, Maria.” You stroked her back soothingly, trying to calm her down. “And you couldn’t do anything about what happened at the enemy base. I don’t blame you for that.”

“Are you hurt?” Maria asked again, hearing the wince you let out when she tightened her hold a bit.

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” You reassured her again, swaying a bit until you both managed to lay on the couch. “I just need you here with me right now…”

“I’m truly sorry. I love you, (Y/N/N).”

“I know, and I love you too Mar.” You smiled, kissing her forehead.

You stood there for some more minutes before going to the medbay. You only sustained some minor injuries that wouldn’t take too long to heal, which made Maria stop worrying so much.

She clung to you the whole day and through the time of your recovery, but you didn’t mind because, finally, you were back in her arms.

And that’s all that mattered.

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Taglis (let me know if you want to be added!):

@natasha-danvers @imnotasuperhero @rooskaya-yelena @marvels-writings @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @trikruismybitch @neversatisfiedwithlife

#maria hill #maria hill x reader #maria hill x fem!reader #agent hill x reader #marvel

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shimmershae · 3 years

Text

My thoughts on Episode 6--On the Inside

Very appropriate title by the way. Works in a multitude of ways.

As always, my randomness is going beneath a cut again to spare the eyeballs of those of you that don’t want to see it at all and also? Help those of you that have somehow stayed spoiler-free in this brand-new age of early release episodes. It is still so wild to me that I’m a full episode ahead of half the fandom. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we get to the final episode and they decide to make us all suffer together--because somehow I do feel they will do exactly that after spoiling us for the first 23 episodes. It is going to be agonizing.

Anyway. Without further ado, Shae’s stream of consciousness review (of sorts).

Not fair, Angela. Opening the episode with that shot of that big ass spider. I hate those suckers. So naturally, they’re an easy sell for setting the horror scene to me, lol.

Okay. Who the hell’s chasing Virgil and Connie? Walker No-See-Ums?

Barely a minute in and the atmosphere for this episode is moody AF.

What is this? Tara Jr. The Walking Dead? LOL. Where’s the Scarlett for this mini plantation house? Anyway. First three minutes of this episode? Just as attention grabbing as the first five episode openings this season. I don’t think people out there are giving our writers enough love for that. Every episode so far has opened like a mini movie.

With the way the Walking Dead logo keeps crumbling away with each successive episode, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Carol and Daryl spinoff was eventually titled The Living and had flowers growing out of each letter, lol. I mean, there would be a certain sort of life-affirming symmetry in a show that’s been promised to be much lighter in tone doing just that.

More Carol and Aaron? Yes, please. I don’t necessarily like Carol staying at home and sitting the sidelines like a figurative happy little homemaker in the B story while the rest of the mains are trying like hell to sell the A story, but if she’s going to be totally prohibited from the main storyline until it’s time to blow shit up? I’m going to continue enjoy getting to see her do what she should have been doing for seasons--interacting with others in the community, especially Aaron and the ladies.

Truly. I really am loving my girl getting some quality Aaron and Rosita time. It’s so long overdue.

Bless sweet Kelly. Riding off to her sister’s rescue.

Why isn’t Lydia shown as part of these plans? For someone that could barely read last season, I doubt that big ass map was a piece of cake for her and it’s all just guesswork anyway without her guidance. I mean, why does it feel like they are cutting some of this stuff that might not seem like much plot-wise but would go a long way toward establishing different character beats? Personally, I would have loved to see her involved in the search and sharing scenes again with Carol and bonding with Kelly.

Virgil be having that “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” feeling. Don’t you hate that, lol?

“You haven’t slept in days.” But how many days, Virgil? I’m going to need a number because I’m confused AF about this timeline at this point. What we’re seeing and what different pieces of dialogue is telling us is not exactly lining up. I’m going to find it awful hilarious if it hasn’t even been two weeks since the cave in. For reasons.

Connie’s spidey senses are clearly tingling.

Alrighty, then. She’s clearly got PTSD. Understandable. They’ve all had it. Some have been treated more sympathetically than others, though.

I mean, it never seems to cross anybody’s mind how Carol probably sees Henry’s head on that pike, Mika’s pale and bloody body, Lizzie crumpled face down in a bed of yellow flowers, Sophia with a smoking bullet hole through her undead head whenever she closes her eyes but whatever.

Okay though. But what if Connie had really shitty, impossible to read handwriting? AKA doctor’s handwriting. What then?

Leah’s face honestly twists my insides whenever I see it, lol. It’s quiet a visceral thing. No, that does not make me a horrible person. Not everybody wants or has to drink the awesome, great, redeemable villainess Kool-Aid. IMHO, she’s got a face meant for a Walker. Perfect makeover idea. Eh. Mostly it’s her expression and the deadness of her eyes.

Anyway. Why is it always the fingers? Eff that.

Listen. If ya’ll can’t tell Daryl’s conflicted AF with the situation he’s landed in, you don’t know how to read NR’s face and eyes. He’s not a masterclass like MMB but he’s pretty darn good when he wants to be.

I honestly feel sorry for Redshirt Frost.

“You do what you gotta do.” Frost knows what’s what and he’s willing to walk the walk for Maggie. Impressive loyalty. I’m left wondering how the current, colder incarnation of Maggie inspired it because I’m still struggling to see it. Anywho. My point is the dude knows the score and just gave Daryl the okay.

Daryl taking off his angel vest before stepping into the role of torturer/interrogator=him shedding the persona/the man Judith and RJ and Lydia and Carol know him to be. Pushing away his man of honor status so he can just survive somehow.

Pope never quits chewing whatever the hell he’s got in his mouth. It’s kind of distracting.

Ohhh. We’re back to the Haunted Mansion. I mean house. Where are the Hitchhiking Ghosts?

All the eyes scratched out of those creepy pictures=spooky.

The good old fogged up bathroom mirror shot. Somebody’s been watching and studying their horror movies, lol. Not gonna lie though. I’m legit bracing myself for the jump scares I know have to be coming.

I’m loving the music/score in these scenes.

Truthfully, I could care less about these Reapers. But they are hella attractive, lol. Listen. Angela knows what she’s doing.

Kelly’s horse is so pretty. Prayer chain for that baby.

More dead horses? Why?

Connie’s slingshot? Sorry. I maintain, no matter how much I like these two, that they have the lamest weapons ever. Endless supply of Virginia rocks or not.

So. Did Virgil and Connie enjoy a little equine for dinner? Did they kill it before the Walkers fed? What monsters! Yeah, no. Not if they were starving even if I personally could not have. The more probable story is they fled the camp in a panic and left the horse behind and then it went down. Sorry. I didn’t exactly study the wounds on the poor animal because it is so traumatizing to me to continue to see them meet such dastardly ends on this show. I don’t know who the hell has such a score to settle with horses but stop it.

Days. It’s only been days. Not weeks. So many times with all that Daryl and Company have had to contend with since the cave in? Those do not exist, lol. They’re just a convenient, appeasing piece of dialogue thrown at a fanbase primed and ready to read everything into not much of anything. There’s just not been enough time for it to happen unless Daryl has literally been up 24/7 for all of them. You know, strategizing how to attack the remainders of Alpha’s horde, figuring out how to defend Hilltop before it fell, healing from the wound he sustained at Alpha’s hand, sitting on that log all damn night with Negan waiting on Carol to come home, having a lover’s quarrel with his best damn everything, taking care of the Grimes babies and Lydia, being the reluctant leader. Kang, why you playing them like that? Daryl’s a super guy but he’s not a superhuman with clones. So many times my ass.

Seriously. Who been watching Connie and Virgil? The MIA Oceansiders? Beta’s Fee Fi Fo Fum Ghost?

Nice. A Michonne mention. Maybe the truth will start to trickle out.

LMAO at Connie’s “I’m not staying here.” Me neither, girl. I would be outta that house so fast.

They really “Quiet Placing” this episode. Honestly? I’m kinda loving it.

WTF was that? I know she can’t hear but you telling me all the little hairs on her arms, legs, and neck didn’t stand the fuck up and say fuck this shit, I’m gone? Pardon my language, lovelies, but that moment had my heart kicking up several beats.

Okay, okay. To be fair to Connie, every hair on her body been doing that since the front door closed. Maybe they’re desensitized.

Gollum’s chasing Connie!!! He/She wants their Precious!!!

The knee jerk reactions about this episode sight unseen are OTT, honestly. And I mean no disrespect by saying that. I can understand completely where they’re coming from because we’ve been burned so long in this fandom. But it’s obvious the spoiler source has their particular biases and reads into things in such a way that don’t line up with what’s actually being shown onscreen. Daryl’s loyalty in this episode and all along quite clearly lies with his family and his community. He’s been playing Leah since the start and is truly just trying to survive somehow.

Awful thought. The Reaper that’s so suspish of Daryl--haven’t quite caught his name or really cared to. I feel like he might try to get to Daryl somehow. When he realizes that Daryl cares no more for Leah than any human would care for somebody (they thought) they used to know? He’s going after Dog. Or Carol should she finally join this story.

I refuse to believe Carol isn’t going to be a part of this story. Because they messing with her mans, lol.

“You’re ever with us or you’re not.” Now where have I heard those words before? I wish I could find that Daryl gif because that had to be one of the funniest things ever, lol.

Unrealistic suggestion to Daryl, Leah? Breathing oxygen seems to piss off Carver. Oh look. He finally has a name for me, lol.

I love how all three of the ladies--Carol, Magna, and Rosita--look at Kelly with such indulgent, adoring “little sis, you alright?” eyes.

They are seriously the most beautiful quartet of characters. I mean all of them are lovely but Carol and Rosita this season? Ugh. The unfairness of the pretty.

Human bones. Terminus callback, lovelies. How it all would have eventually gone down if Gareth and Co. hadn’t met the business end of Rick’s red machete.

So many horror movie homages in this one.

Virgil’s like “let’s leave this Texas Chainsaw Massacre behind.”

Connie and Virgil have obviously bonded, ya’ll. I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying their scenes together when the character mostly got on my nerves with Michonne. He’s a good actor and the core of his character is sympathetic, but I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t super enthused when he was the one that rescued Connie because I didn’t know how their scenes would play out. But there’s a nice synergy there.

Okay. Does Carver want Leah for himself? Because I’m sure Daryl at this point would love to scream “take her, I know where I fucking belong!”

Daryl’s digging in deep because Carver has shown him Leah’s potential weak spot. Nuance is truly lost on some people, LMAO. He cares about Leah as a human being probably. He’s Daryl, after all. The sweet one. But he sees her as his way outta this and he’s going to exploit it.

It’s nice to have a silent Negan for once, lol. I can pretend he didn’t take my baby Glenn away from me and enjoy JDM’s pretty.

So. These cannibal people were the watchers? Hmm.

I’m really digging Virgil 2.0. Yeah. Nobody’s surprised more than me.

Sweet, sweet scene between Virgil and Connie. His determination to reunite her with her family brings back the sympathy I felt for him when he told Michonne “I promised her flowers. Every day.”

Damn. How many of those creepy crawly cannibals are there?

How brave of Connie to confront her fears to save someone she’s obviously grown to care about.

The Kelly/Connie reunion gave me chills and made me cry. Thank fuck Angela didn’t cheapen that moment by having it focus on literally anybody else. Kelly is the most important person in the whole world to Connie and vice versa. Just like Carol is the most important person in the whole world to Daryl and vice versa. Angela fucking knows. Everybody does. Except the people busy building castles out of sand while the waves of Carol’s and Daryl’s converging stories keep crashing closer and closer to shore.

Such a beautiful moment given to us by Angel Theory and Lauren Ridloff. So authentic and sweet. Kelly and Connie are home to each other.

Poor Frost. That’s all I gotta say about that.

WTF, though. Was Mel just not available or what? I want to see more of the ASZ characters that I care about, not the Reapers. Like I’d be fine with the story if all the characters not named Maggie, Negan, or Daryl weren’t surviving on crumbs during it. Especially the 2nd billed actress on the entire show. Angela. Please. Fix this.

One last WTF. Seriously. WTF has Maggie done to inspire Pope’s obsession? It better be juicy after all this shit.

Overall impression of the episode--

One of my favorites of the season so far. The horror aspects were fantastic, IMHO. I truly didn’t expect to like Connie and Virgil’s scenes as much together so that was a nice surprise. She got the reunion that felt most true and earned for the character and her story and I thank Angela from the bottom of my heart for that.

I would have loved more Carol but I always want more Carol. I’m okay with her taking a backseat because ultimately? This was Kelly’s moment with her sister. Carol and Connie will eventually have their time to sit down and talk. And pick back up their blossoming friendship because I truly do not feel Connie blames Carol at all.

I do wish Lydia had been included with the girl group. Last episode felt like it was leading up to that.

The Reaper storyline continues to be the weakest link because every time we see them the dialogue and interactions feel totally recycled from the time previous. I feel like it would have totally been helped by a tighter focus and less stretching out because 8 episodes of this is really diluting what I feel like Angela and Co. are going for. I’m not here for Leah being redeemed or being a bigger focus in any of the episodes because she does nothing of interest for me. I’m just peeking in on that story for the Daryl of it all.

Speaking of the Daryl? You lovelies out there gotta stop taking that spoiler source’s recaps at face value because it’s obvious to me at least that there’ some bias at work. Every action and word coming from Daryl is coming from a place of loyalty to his family and wanting to protect them, no matter how he has to dirty his hands. Leah is just a means to his ultimate end. She’s not his future. She never was. His future’s already spoken for and 2023 can’t get here soon enough. But like Daryl, we have to just survive somehow.

Oh goodie. More Maggie and Negan next episode and looks like no real follow up on Connie and the ASZ reunions. Hopefully, this is yet another instance of the previews being deceiving but I’m not holding my breath.

Until later, lovelies.

Hope my word vomit didn’t bore you too much.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #for reasons #ignore all the typos #with something this longwinded?#LOL #there's bound to be plenty

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rpbetter · 3 years

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Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!

#rp advice #rp problems #rp help #muse loss #dead fandoms #rp better #Anon E. Mous #answered

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

Note

Hey Vy! 📚🌻 Here!

How is your week going? My roller skates just got here and I'm so happy omg! My protective gear haven't got here yet so I'm trying not to fall but a almost hit my face so many times- i have to stop for some time now because I need to clean my room :_: but here's your three words of this week: Paradise, curly, radio

A lot a lot looot of loveee,

📚🌻.

Hi darling 📚🌻 !

Please be extra careful until your protective gear arrives, I'd hate to hear you've injured yourself 🥺 Anyways, hope you have fun with your roller skates (always stay safe though)! 🥰

Here comes a short drabble with your three words! This one’s gonna be a little different though - no OCs and not for the Resident Evil fandom, but rather the How To Get Away With Murder fandom, more specifically - for my favorite relatioship/characters on the show! Hope you enjoy!

All my love, Vy 💌

Better

Laurel Castillo x Frank Delfino (How To Get Away With Murder - AU: Canon Divergence; AU where the characters tolerate each other XD)

Warnings: Slight spoilers (Nothing too major though), Swearing

Laurel runs a hand through Chris’ curly hair, admiring how peaceful he looks now that he’s finally asleep. He’s got a fever that’s been giving him crying fits for two days now. Having to deal with a sick two-year-old while simultaneously trying to keep up with work and her final studies has been exhausting to no end. She’s been receiving some help from Michaela who seems utterly desperate to keep herself busy at all times, even when she’s supposed to be relaxing just so her mind doesn’t spiral into the void of loneliness she’s fallen victim to as of recent. Connor and Ollie have babysat for her a few times as well, another gesture she’s incredibly grateful for. Asher has offered to look after the toddler too on numerous occasions but that’s one offer Laurel’s never taken up. She appreciates him offering her his help, but everyone would justify this action of hers considering how reckless Asher can be at times - aka 90% of the time.

The Keating 5 has come through for her when it comes to both looking after Chris and keeping up with her studies, proving their friendship to be one of those rare ones. However, Keating 5 aside, she’s received the most amount of help from one particular person. Someone who’s prepared to turn up at her doorstep at three in the morning if she needs him.

Frank Delfino

The two had a rocky start, to say the least. Their on-again-off-again relationship as colleagues with benefits. Their constant back and fourth. Then came Frank’s disappearance and Laurel’s involvement with Wes, all occurrences blowing huge holes not only in their romantic relationship but also their friendship which has always been a second away from ceasing to exist, all things considered. Friendship is hard to maintain with such a strong, hypnotic and magnetic romantic connection. Some people just weren’t meant to be friends, ever. Frank and Laurel are among them.

Speaking of Frank, the man’s been rather concerned lately, the lack of calls and messages from Laurel worrying him more with each passing day. He overheard Michaela mention Chris’ fever in passing conversation with Asher when she was bailing on a date with the excuse of helping Laurel look after the sick toddler. He’d been surprised to hear that, initially thinking it was a cheap excuse of Michaela’s to avoid spending time with Asher considering things between them have grown sort of complicated. But when Connor confirmed this claim of hers, Frank couldn’t help but grow very concerned. He’s grown used to knowing what’s going on with Chris and Laurel before everyone else so having someone else be in the know while he was kept in the dark made him feel oddly jealous and hurt.

And he could only hold his worries and assumptions at bay so long...

Responding to the knock at the door, knowing who it probably is at this hour, Laurel contemplates whether opening the door would be the right thing to do. She’s double-checked that it is indeed him, that bringing her more uncertainty than comfort, oddly enough. She’s been doing her best to distance herself from him and his life for quite a while now. She’s been meaning to give him an opportunity at a normal life, away from her mess and chaos. She’s been wanting to give him an escape from the fiasco she always finds herself dragging him into.

But he still comes back to her, by his own choice.

“Laurel, it’s me.“ His coarse voice reaches her from the other side of the door.

“Yeah...“ She trails off, forcing her hand up to turn the lock, “...I know.“

Opening the door reveals the concern on his face a lot better than she saw through the peephole. It makes her heart swell up and all she wants to do is throw her arms around him in a tight embrace. But she can’t do that, she won’t. She’s not willing to give him any reason to hold onto her whatsoever. In her eyes, he deserves a lot better. And maybe he does, but he doesn’t want anything or anyone better.

“Hey...“ he mutters, unsure of how to start of the interaction. Things have never been easy between them and, looking back, it seems like they’ve only gotten harder. Somehow, their connection has only grown stronger though. A connection he wants to uphold and a connection she wants to sever.

“Hey...What are you doing here so late?“ Ok, that’s a sustainable question considering it’s 10PM, but then again he’s come to her apartment at odder hours. Only difference is, those other times, she called him over.

“Though I’d check on you. You’ve been rather dead with calls and texts recently. Also missed Chris, heard he had a fever so I got worried.“ She hears the undertone of accusation in his voice loud and clear. It makes her bite her lip with guilt she wishes she wasn’t feeling, especially when she’s supposed to be doing the right thing.

You can’t decide for him. If he wants to keep coming back, that’s on him.

That thought hasn’t crossed her mind yet. It almost feels like she’s letting herself off the hook, feeding into the temptation to embrace what her and Frank have.

“You hungry?“ Now that is a bit more out-of-place question, but it’s accompanied by her taking a step back to allow him inside, “I ordered Thai food I never got to finish.“

He follows the signal, growing a bit more hopeful now that she’s let him in the apartment, thinking maybe she isn’t avoiding him after all. “Loss of appetite?”

“Partly.“ She replies, hearing the click of Frank locking the front door before following her in the kitchen where the hanging lights are dimmed. “Chris was throwing a fuss all day, I couldn’t really do much but focus on him.“ She motions to the living room where the coffee table is littered with sheets of paper and highlighters, some of which have found a spot on the floor as well. “Not to mention the ton of crap I need to do for school and work.“

“Would’ve been a lot easier on you had you called me, you know?“ He comments, walking over to the fridge, taking out the two packs of Thai takeout, suggesting she had been expecting him. She wasn’t really, she was just quietly hoping he’d show up at her doorstep.

“Didn’t wanna bother you. It’s nothing serious, a simple cold, I can handle it.“ She replies, approaching the small vintage radio in the corner of the kitchen counter, turning it on to a quiet volume so some tunes could fill the silences that are bound to occur frequently with the amount of tension between them.

“You could never bother me, Laurel. I’ve told you countless times before...“ putting the food he’s now moved onto a large plate into the microwave and turning the machine on, he turns to look at her, “I love Chris like he’s my son. In my eyes, he is my son and I love him with all my heart. Just like I love you.“

Instead of allowing the deafening quiet to take over them again - the soft music from the radio aside - Laurel lets the loudness of her mind surface. She lets it seep through the barriers she built in order to protect herself and protect everyone around her from herself: “Do you never stop to think you deserve better, Frank? Better than some grown-ass woman with her life in shambles and a kid whose father’s dead. Do you not think you deserve someone who knows what they want and where they’re headed with their life? Someone who...” her confidence is slowly leaving her to fend for herself and so she does, the best she can. “Someone who can cook and do their projects and work and take care of her son simultaneously. Someone better, Frank! Do you never want someone better?”

She hadn’t realized her eyes had been darting all over the place, looking everywhere but at him. How that her gaze has once again landed on his face, she feels her stomach turn at what she sees. That concerned, hurt and disappointed frown only further fuels her guilt, making her wish she’d never opened the door in the first place.

“Laurel, where’s this all coming from? Did Bonnie say something to you cause if she did...“ she cuts him off.

“No, she didn’t. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now actually. All I am to you is trouble and a burden and...“ he gets back at her, cutting her off himself.

“And you’re none of those things, Laurel. Your view of yourself is interfering with your perception of this, of us, of what we have. You and Chris are my family. The family I choose. It’s not about deserve or idealism - it’s about what brings you joy and makes you feel complete. What and who makes you feel at home. Who is your home.“ Always cautious of her personal space, Frank takes a hesitant step towards her and another when she doesn’t back away. “Lord knows it’s no paradise, but what we have is special, Laurel, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world.“

Against her best attempts at keeping her emotions at bay, Laurel feels her eyes brimming with tears as she gazes up at the man she’s never been in the clear with. She never realizes what he means to her until it’s too late. She only realized she loved him when he disappeared. She only realized he meant the world to her when he had already slipped from her grip. And she refuses to continue that pattern.

Instead, she’ll work on finding out what they are exactly and even if she doesn’t reach that epiphany, she’ll still embrace it, no matter the oddity and unfamiliarity of it all.

“Thank you.“ she manages to whisper past the knot in her throat.

“Don’t thank me, you should never thank me for the things I do for you or Chris. I choose to do them. I choose to be here. I choose you because I want you. You and no one else, Laurel.“

Just then, the microwave beeps, alerting the two that their close-to-midnight meal is warmed up. Taking the plate out and placing it on the counter to cool down a little, he turns to her with a small smile on his face, “Let’s see what’s so troubling about that project of yours, shall we?”

And just like that, the tension has lifted, allowing for a smile to appear on her face as well. That ease of the mind is not something she’s been very used to throughout her life, constantly having shit to worry about and people to deal with. That’s why she’s never wanted to be a burden on someone’s back. She’s never wanted to be a major part in someone’s life, at least not until she gets her shit together.

And although she might never get her shit together, she’s got someone she loves and someone who loves her by her side. Lord knows he hasn’t been on top of his own shit either. At least they’ll be figuring it all out together.

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers (DT17 Season 2 Retrospective): The Most Dangerous Game Night! (Paid for by WeirdKev27)

Welcome all you happy people! As some of you will recall I do a lot of duck based retrospectives on this blog: Ride of the Three Cablleros! which took a look at all the Cabs major American adventures, Shadow Into Light, my Weblena colored look at Lena Sabrewing’s journey from abused teenager to magical protector, and the Della arc which I dind’t give a cool name but covered since Shadow Into Light read right into it’s final chapter and ended up perfectly synching up with the final month of the series. And of course i’m still working my way through the life and times of Scrooge McDuck with a plan to finish the main story in September barring any delays, sickness that sorta thing.

So it shouldn’t be at all a shock that having covered all of season 3 when it came out and covered the two season 1 arcs i’d be taking a look at Season 2′s three story arcs. So I probably would’ve covered them anyway.. but Kev, one of my patreons and the guy who commissioned Shadow Into Light AND Ride of the Three Cablleros, had expressed interest in doing the Glomgold arc from season 2 as it centers around his favorite character, Zan Owlson. He also wanted to do Della’s arc in time for mothers day, and was all too happy to combine both, and politely agreed to my request to do the Louie arc as well. To help soften the blow, I also suggested since he’s a patreon of mine on patreon.com/popculturebuffet he use his second review (You get one guaranteed review a month with 5 and he’s a 10 dollar backer so he gets two, and he’s earmarked marked one for House of Mouse through the end of the year) to help soften the blow a bit, which means some weeks i’ll be doubling up on this one. He agreed and it’s thanks to him that all of this happened so thanks bud. It’s also thanks to him I have money in the first place and I wouldn’t be here without him.

As for why I insisted on the Louie arc it wasn’t out of greed but out of pragmatism. I covered the Della arc purely on my own time, and gladly did so. But back then I also kept making the mistake of shoving retrospectives back again and again and again and that’s why there’s a rather nasty gap in my New X-Men retrospective I think severely harmed it , and a similar one for life and times which wounded it. I don’t mind taking smaller gaps of say a month when needed, but I learned from the experience I can’t just delay things constantly out of convince and expect it to work.

Not only that but the Lena and Della arcs only interact in the very last part. With these arc? While they don’t really touch at first and run parallel much like season 1′s arcs did, they start intersecting heavily as soon as Della gets back. Raiders of the Doomsday Vault! touches on both Della’s recent return and Glomgold’s bet with Scrooge, Happy Birthday Doofus Drake! has the A-Plot centered around Louie’s plot and the B-Plot centered around Della bonding with Huey as part of hers. And the final four is one one long, sustained arc, finishing up all three in the process. So yeah it was a package deal and as such this will be my third largest retrospective at 17 parts including the prologue. (As i’ll also be covering Della’s four issues in the IDW Comic released back in season 1). For the record my largest will be my Tom Lucitor Retrospective as 24 (in part due to doing the eclipsa arc for the same reasons as Dellas), and ride of the three cablleros at 20 is in a close second. This is going to be a long ride that will take most of summer, so buckle up, get your Louie Inc signs, Glomgold’ posters to jump through and black licorice gum ready and join me won’t you under the cut as we start this fantastic adventure together.

We open season 2 with all but one of our heroes proudly posing as they enter a temple. Scrooge even has his treasure of the lost lamp outfit on. Louie.. just looks tired and bored. One of the things I love about these reviews is that I haven’t watched most of the episodes since they first aired. Sure i’ve revisited some of my favorites like Dangerous Chemistry and the 87 Cent Solution, but I haven’t really DONE a full died in wool episode by episode rewatch of the series. I’ve got SO MUCH I haven’t watched, haven’t rewatched and haven’t even started, that I really DON’T have the time for it outside of my job. So it is VERY nice to get a chance to do so once in a while with it.

As such knowing Louie’s real motive this episode it makes this scene hit diffrently. On first airing Ducktales was back after a short hiatus, our heroes are operating at full speed and daringly charting through a temple: Dewey and Webby have become tighter than ever and easily stop a pit trap and Scrooge and Huey easily solve an arrow puzzle. But while at first glance Louie is just fed up because as he puts it later “I’m just loveably lazy”, knowing he’s really just burnt out, scared he’s going to die or worse like he likely thinks his Mom did because he’s not good enough.. it’s really tearjerking. Here’s an 11 year old who at his core feels he doesn’t belong in his family and just wants a friggin break from the dangerous shit they do. It hits even harder as a fan of the venture bros but i’ll save that for later. Point is he’s telling Scrooge he’s burnt out.

So then this happens...

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It really is almost the exact same joke, but diffrent enough since for one, Family Guy’s is driven by the refrenece (And god how I miss how their refrence humor used to have an actual purpose), where as here it’s to set up something else and hints for later: Louie having parsed how most adventures to at this point. While Scrooge is right in pointing out how every adventure is unique.. Louie’s not wrong that there is a small pattern to it: The Whoah! , The “Wait, What?” and the Aggggh!. Scrooge scoffs.. but Louie is proven correct as Dewey Whoas, a mechanisim trggers (Wait what?”) And everyone screams as they run from a giant wheel.

Back at home though it’s even more apparent poor Louie is miserable while his family is just jazzed. I can’t BLAME THEM, but I can’t blame him either for being, tired, worn out and just wanting ONE minute where they aren’t adventuering. There are some nice touches though as Scrooge runs off and finds a map in the idol: We see Duckworth removing the Scrooge as a Prospector painting based on Carl Bark’s painting of him from the foyer and instead replacing it with the painting of Scrooge, Donald and Della. It’s a nice little acknowledgment of how things have changed.. from Scrooge being alone and running from a painful past to having accepted it and gone back to being a family man. We also get Beakley just casually picking up Louie to vacum.

In the Triplet’s room.. which by the way why do they all share one room? In universe I mean, I mean is it saving on the power bill or does scrooge have the other rooms filled. Only four bedrooms are occupied: the boys, webby’s , Beakly’s (Which we never see but implicitly exists), and Scrooge’s himself. While the mansion isn’t LIMITLESS, it has to have more rooms than that. Is the rest just storage?

Out of universe though I do get why and i’ts why I let this concept of sharing a room when you have enough for everyone in the first place slide: it allows the boys to interact more easily outside of adventures by having all three in the same location. This episode is a good example of that as it kicks off Louie’s plan admirably: Louie is burnt out while Huey is excited.. and in another hint of Louie’s true gift he casually notices part of Dewey’s woodchuck uniform he was looking after is undone, simply making a quip about a sewing patch. He gets the idea for a scheme from there: to finally get his break by convincing Huey he’s slipping and exploiting his brother’s tendency for manic episodes.. which as someone with those I highly don’t approve and is far and away one of the more questionable things Louie’s done. And this is in an arc that includes him nearly wiping out all of existence.

Still it gets Huey on board but Scrooge and the wonder twins are a harder sell. Dewey and Webby are so jazzed on frinedship their even speaking in unions “This Needs to stop!” “I’ve tried but they really do enjoy harmonizing”

Louie insists the adventuring is driving them apart and making them less close.. and while Scrooge insits it brings them closer together he ends up proving his point when Louie fakes not knowing which triplet is which.. and Scrooge GENUINELY struggles with which one’s Huey and Which ones Dewey. Dewey’s face is at the top of the page.. and utterly and completely priceless.

And while I thought it was the same impressive face from night on Kilmotor hill turns out, nerp their uniquely hilaroius

Same mood though. But I do love this callback: almost a YEAR later, and Scrooge STILL is like...

But while movie night and make your own pizza night, which i’m pleased as punch to find isn’t just something my family does, don’t do anything one thing does... GAME NIGHT. Cue a glorious minute of David Tennant goofily shouting Game Night to everyone in the mansion. Seriously getting him was one of the series masterstrokes. The man has only done a few roles in voicework but damn is he a natural. Not eveyrone can adapt to it this fast. While I love Walton Goggins, it clearly took him a few episodes of invincible to get really comfortable with it. It’s why I have such respect for Voice Actors in general: I’ts not an easy job, it takes a lot of skill, and it can be often thankless. It’s also why i’ve made a concentrated effort ot more know of them by voice simply because they’ve earned that much.

Anyways Beakly pops Louie’s bubble that htis is not going to be relaxing for a very obvious reason: Scrooge is relentless against his enmies and game night makes YOU the enemy. He quickly has them pair off into teams, taking Donald right off the bat.

We also get one of the best jokes in the entire series “If you loose your out of the will” “(Genuinely suprised) I was in the will?”

It’s almost entriely in Tony’s delivery there. The surprise is just perfectly delivered. It’s also oddly touching as despite a decade’s estrangement and Donald understandably thinking he wasn’t in it in anymore, Scrooge NEVER removed Donald from it . Sure he’s thretaning it over game night but he clearly takes this ungodly seriously. Duckworth leaves to go do ghost stuff.. which is code for make up a flimsy excuse to run the fuck away. To make matters worse she’s stuck with Launchpad as a partner. Louie is left with Huey and immieditly regrets sending his brother into a panicy spiral as he’s already set up a creepy scheduling board.

So i’m going to go ahead and cover the Webby and Dewey Plot, and the acompanying Donald and Scrooge antics now to save us some time. I’ll come back to it at the climax of Louie’s plot obviously and to the episodes credit the pacing is exceptional, weaving in and out of both plots , Louie struggling to keep the whole shrinking plot a secret and the rest of the families game night, excelently, it’s just with my brain i’ts harder to do that in a recap so...

Game Night: Crush Your Enmies and See Them Driven Before You Scrooge goes to the Conan of Sumeria/Melissa School of Game Nighting. Or in short...

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Why HASN’T there been a Conan musical? So he and Donald dominate the first round, Charades, with Scrooge easily guessing almost EVERYHTING Donald mimes. As Webby puts it “When you’ve been around donald for 30 years you get good at non-verbal commuincation”. Granted they have a commuincation breakdown that results in this magic.

So Webby understandably assumes that given their best friends and Scrooge and Donald, while reconciled, hate each other, that they have an advantage. She is wrong. Not the first time: she also assumed she and Lena were just friends. It happens. you get a few wrong everyone does. Instead we get a great bit of Dewey utterly failing to guess it’s Scrooge despite Webby being obvious because Dewey’s brain is a riddle for the ages.

Jenga dosen’t really go great for either so they go solo for SCROOGEPOLY. Because of COURSE Scrooge created monopoly in this version. I simletaniously love and hate how eveyr piece is a top hat. I love it because it’s a hilarously quick gag.. but also hate it because one of Monopoly’s biggest draws is having so many diffrent peices. I mean some like the sports car make sense but then you have a dog for some reason and an ironing board. I mean I love that dog, he’s a good boy but I don’t understand why he’s in this. If anyone knows the weird old timey reasoning for either of these let me know in the replies or my asks.

This isn’t bad stuff mind, it’s just not really deep in stuff for me to make fun of. Apart from Donald ending up in jail... again. At least it’s not as bad as say goblin jail or that time he had to carve pinocchio’s nose into a shiv to surivive whale jail.

Louie: “How Long Before That’s Not Enough?”

Okay I kid, the subplot is good.. but that’s th epotatoes.. this is the potatoes iwth cheese.. look I love meat but potatoes don’t get enough love. They just don’t and you can do all kinds of delicious things to them. It’s why a good third of side dishes at most restaurants are potato based.

But yeah rolling it back a bit Louie is confident that even with the this will be mildly relaxing.. then Gyro bursts in thorugh the double doors proudly announcing his invention and pries himself in, ignoring Louie’s desperate attempts to shut him out.

Gyro is.. different in this episode. He’s peppy and while he’s mildly condescnding to the Gyropludians, more no that in a second, he’s far more enthuastic and freindly to everyone else and less of the awkward ballbag he’d been last season and would be again this season.

This feels like an ATTEMPTED course correct. See a lot of people, if understandably didn’t like how Gyro was in season 1. Fan of the original him from the comics and show iddn’t like the nice, friendly weirdo suddenly being a sour, condesencindg weirdo. Me I was FINE with the change from unintentional mad scientist to intentional one... I just feel they overdid it on the asshole as season 1 went on. In The Great Dime Chase he’s fine, he’s egosticial, angry and kind of a pill.. but he also clearly cares for his creations, rightfully hates the board for constantly doubting him, and is frustrated his creations keep going rouge. It was a nice balance.

The balance got thrown off entirely however once Fenton entered the scene. The crew just leaned WAY to hard into hwo much of a shitweasel he was to fenton: giving him an office in the bathroom with a cool quip, trying to beat him up (even if his rage over Fenton’s dumbassery was warranted that was not), and finally trying to take the gizmoduck armor back not out of any real concerns but because he’s worried he’ll loose his job... his job iwth the man who freely tolerates his creations going insane and really dosen’t care about his own colateral let alone Gyro’s. It came off as disngenous and that he simply didn’t trust FENTON with it and wanted and excuse to take the armor Fenton had clearly earned. He also pit manny and bulb against each other for a job which just felt out of character even for him to possibly fire one of his children which felt horribly out of character. Toniing this down was a good thing.. I just feel they overcorrected. They tried making him the 80′s version with a slight ego here, and when that didn’t work they just downplayed him for the rest of the season. He’s still around, in fact we’ll be seeing him again soon enough, and he still gets some great jokes... he’s just not really focused on at all. But they managed to fix their fix in season 3: they did have Gyro be a dick to Fenton again but gave proper context, had him apologize and framed it less as a funny joke and more as him being abusive because he was abused himself and breaking the cycle. He also kept the supporting role but kept the shadiness in it, with the earpiece bit from “Louie’s Eleven” being a highlight.

Gyro has a new device that can pick up tiny sounds and has found a tiny civilization in the ducks house, dubbing them Gyropudlians because he apparnetly likes Gullivers Travels. I do not really know what that’s about, nor have I seen any of the movies. Not even the jack black one made on a dare to see if they could actually sell a movie on the concept “This old story but as a jack black comedy”. And it went horribly wrong because they actually did get it greenlit and someone out there actually watched it. Not me... and I watched the Wrong MIssy entirely of my own volition. I’m not immune from making eye staining mistakes. This just wasn’t one of them.

Gyro ends up getting shrunk down because he naturally attached a shrink ray to it because...

So Louie shrugs it off correctly figuring out the arc of that sort of story: Gyro becomes a god, he learns a life lesson that sort of thing. Also I do applaud them for making the lost tribe not horribly racist.. that is a hard line to walk. They just make them generic instead which.. still better than racist. “Not Racist” isn’t a very high bar to clear but given this version went out of it’s way to be inclusive while the original show.. what’s a good metaphor for this.. hrmmm... these rakes are all the racism in the original show i’ve encoungered so far and probably will in the future, and i’m sideshow bob.

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Eventually though the Gyropudlians decide to decalre war on the giants because unknowingly the Ducks have been destroying their civilizations time and time again.. mostly louie but donald clearly peed a civiliztion to death..and i’m not grasping at straws there he left the bathroom and the other two possiblities for the floating city are too horrible to comprehend. Or it was just the sink and i’m a bastard... i’m probably a bastard.

So they blast the shrink ray around the kitchen and get Launchpad, so now he’s a part of this cliche. Beakly finds them.. is highly supscious, and Huey’s lie is.. not convincing... but this gets her out of game night with her overcompeitive boss so she takes the out and gets the fuck out and is not seen for the rest of the episode.. probably for several days. Look she does a lot around the house no one’s going to question if she comes back after a mysteirous absence with someone elses blood on her apron and several thousnd ddollars in brazilian cocaine. The sweetest cocaine of all. Scrooge is just used to it by now.

Anyways things continue to escalate as The Gyropuldians, Launchpad and Gyro launch an assault on the tower of infinity, aka the jenga tower and knock it over. The Good news is launchpad surivives and we get a great bit of the brothers hugging then awkarly and half assedly explaning it to cover. the bad news is the Gyropudlians considered it an act of war and have trained some flies to man the microphone shrink ray dealie.

It’s here we get the best scene of the episode: Huey is naturally worried.. even more so after he sees Louie’s response to the unfolding chaos: Curling up in a fetal position and rocking back in forth muttering to himself this was supposed to be a fun night in. Huey finally has had enough of this and wants to knwo wha tthe hell this is all about, shooting down Louie attempting to deflect it with his usual lazy schtick. Even at his laziest he’d pride self preservation over doing nothing. This is something worse. And while Huey is furious his rage is coming out of concern. While Huey prides himself on his brain... he has the biggest heart of the three. He’s the most empathetic and the one most willing to reach out to the others when they need him. Not that hte others lack it, Dewey was the one to welcome Webby into the group the most after all, it’s just Huey displays it the most. So his anger comes off entirely as genuine worry at Louie acting out of character and trying to avoid doing what eveyrone else does. And his response.. is heartbreaking...

“BECAUSE I’MMom was great at adventuring, and she still got hurt. I'm only good at talking my way out of it. How long before that's not enough? NOT GOOD AT IT OKAY?!”

Bobby Monihan.. really dosen’t get enough credit for this show. When he gets to really do something big with Louie he goes for it and he uttelry dominates the scnee here. Danny Pudi is no slouch mind.. but Monihan REALLy gets to show what he can do. His reasoning for his worries is also just as well delivered and heartbreaking.

“Mom was great at adventuring, and she still got hurt. I'm only good at talking my way out of it. How long before that's not enough?“

It just.. stings a lot. To find that Louie’s exaustion wasn’t out of self intrest.. but just out of fear. That he won’t be good enough at best and that he’ll end up like his mom: lost or dead never to be seen again as far as he figures. As a third of this arc will bear out, tha’ts not even remotely true, but out of the three Louie is the most pragmatic so while he says hurt.. he thinks she’s dead. And if she, someone as capable as scrooge or as close as someone whose not him can be, could end up dead... he’s living on borrowed time.

This is where the Venture bros comparison really comes out to me... because they had a similar if more spread out storyline in season 5, with bookish brother Dean, Huey if he lacked autisim but gained 80 dozen more issues, found out he and his brother Hank, aka Dewey in his teens, were clones because his dad is really bad at keeping his sons alive because he’s also bad at everything else including science, parenting, being emotinally open, making a cocktail that isn’t a crime against nature, sex, and not treating hank like garbage, which should fall under shitty parenting but I love my empty headed boy.

So why bring this up? Well besides self indulgance because I love both shows iwth a signifgant portion of my heart and frank flat out admitted to being a venture bros fan, and having Beakly take some cues from Brock, I love the accidental parallels here: both are arcs about a boy adventuer coming to grips with their mortality. Both withdraw, both are heavily depressed and both feel there’s no real light at the end of the tunnel for htem anymore.

And both.. are drawn out of it the same way.. by a concerned brother pulling them out of their misery and self doubt:

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It’s the same here... Huey helps Louie through it, understanding how he feels.. and like Hank did for Dean, proving to Louie he’s not alone. He points out that yes Della did get hurt.. but it’s because she went in alone. He’s got his family.. they won’t let him get lost or die.. because their not alone. The reason they can do all this stuff is because their together. Their all amazing alone.. but together their unstoppable. And i’ts fine Louie’s afraid.. but he can’t let that fear kill everyone he cares about.

So our boys run upstairs, but are a second too late as the gyro pudlians shrink the other four down, and the duo’s attempt to grow them just makes one of the gyropudlians giant instead. With things at their grimmist.. Louie finds his TRUE talent, looks at the situation. and takes charge. In the span of two minutes he completely turns the tide: he has launchpad crash his way out, which he does by pure accident because of course he does he’s nature’s perfect Himbo. He next has Donald and scrooge take on some guards to give Dewey and Webby some room and has Huey take out the giant with his sewing. His final part is to have Dewey and Webby work their way up to the ray gun.. which is a probelma s both have lost all confidence due to realizing they have nothing in common and can’t fathom how their friends. Scrooge’s reply? Of course their not.. THEIR FAMILY. It was then that a thousand debbigail shippers cried out and were silenced... I know I was one of them. I couldn’t speak for about a minute. It was awful.

And yeah.. I had been shipping Dewey and Webby up to this point, but it was becoming increasingly obvious they were being treated like brother and sister and then this happened. And in hindsight i’m glad I jumepd the hell off as they turne dout ot be blood related so I dodged a bullet there an found better ships for both. So no harm no F.O.W.L. clone accidental incest.

Realizing this the two find their second wind and save the day. OUr heroes are restored and things are good.

The next day, Louie faces the music with Scrooge and is terrified, not helped by Scrooge being dead serious... but his worries are for naught. Scrooge instead only has one thing to say

“You saw all the angles”

Something the crew conciously did was have each of the kids mimic one of Scrooge’s tennants, something that was heavily implied before but made fully explicit here: Dewey is toughter than the toughies, Huey is Smarter than the smarties... and Louie is the oft forgotten Sharper than the sharpies. Scrooge even lampshades how that part of his motto is often left out. And of course as frank made clear post series, Webby made her way into the family Square.

But back to the sharpie thing, I like this because it defines what that truly means, as it often comes off as similar to the smartie bit hence i’ts exclusion: It’s the ablitliyt to think quickly, strategize, a strategic, critical mind that can come up with a gambit in an instant and use everyone to the best of their abillity. It’s why for an example, Scott Summers is one of my faviorite x-men. Because while his eye laser things are impressive it’s this kind of cleverness and tactical insight, seeing all the pieces on the board and easily manuvering them, friend and foe, that makes him so awesome. And as scrooge muses it could make Louie even richer than he is. And in a truly touching gesture, Scrooge gives Louie the idol, confident in his Nephew’s potetial. His mother reached hers... he only needs time. So with that Louie’s arc truly begins and he hangs a shingle on the triplets door. Louie inc is born.

Final Thoughts: This episode caught me by suprise: I remember it being decent.. but damn if it wasn’t amazing on the rewatch, with the knowledge of Louie’s weakness helping but really it’s just a funny, tightly paced half hour of television. It has great jokes, a great emtoinal arc and in general is jsut well.. great. I didn’t see this poteitial the first time because I was more hung up on fethry finally appearing, the cabs finally appearing.. all the things in the distance after this ep. But this ep is just damn good and I wish i’d put it on my best of list. Top shelf stuff.

Next time on Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers: The second arc starts up as FLINTHEART GLOMGOLD returns as an amensiac south african fisherman and it’s up to Webby and Louie to unravel his past to figure out why he’s acting like this and if this is another one of his insane schemes. We also meet Zan Owlson buisnesswoman of the year and person about to go through some undeserved shit at the hands of a stupid man. Later Today: We return to Amity Park for more Danny Phantom and meet his second most intresting enemy as an innocent fuckup turns a spoiled brat into one of most dangerous enemies. Also PUPPIES and Tucker being the worst.

Wednsday: We grab onto some more ducktales as Donald returns to Ducktales 87. And judging by the content warning so does racisim.

If you liked this review stop my patreon RIGHT HERE. Seriously please do: you’ll find exclusive reviews, and if you join you’ll get acess to my discord, get to pick a short for my shortstravganzas, and help me reach my strech goals. And at my next one at 20, just 5 dollars away, ALL READERS will get a darkwing duck review a month and reivews of the two ducktales movie as well as the Danny Phantom TV Movie the ultimate enemy!

See you at the next rainbow!

#ducktales #season 2 arcs #louie duck #huey duck #scrooge mcduck #dewey duck #webby vanderquack #donald duck #gyro gearloose #bentina beakley #launchpad mcquack #duckworth #the most dangerous game night!#della duck

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cosmicmoved · 3 years

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FORMAL INTRODUCTION FOR KITAHARA KOJIRO

hi, for some bizarre reason unbeknownst to even me, this muse has been like half a year in the making (actually, it’s been 5 months but that’s close enough for to still feel shame), but he’s finally here. the ““ evil ”” witch oc! witch man who does murders! whatever you want to know him as! anyway, from now on you just know him as kojiro or koj bc that’s his name <3 please look under the read more link for more info! (WARNING: the following will touch on darker themes like death, murder and, to a lesser extent, abuse. this is a heavy character so please keep that in mind if you ever wish to interact!)

BASIC FACTS

firstly, this oc is mostly connected to tsukidate sho, my witch detective oc. the connection mostly lies in the fact they’re both witches who interact with crime/murder in some capacity but their families are also close.

his name is kitahara kojiro ( 北原浩二郎 ), known as either kojiro or koji by those around him. i haven’t decided his exact birthday yet but he was born in 1990 and is approx. 31 years old. (i understand this is ‘older’ by tumblr rp standards but, by normal people standards, early 30s is still relatively young so basically, if u make old ppl jokes, i will bite u)

technically speaking, kitahara is his father’s surname but he never really knew his father and was raised by a single mother. however, his mother made the choice of raising him with his father’s name in an attempt to distance the pair from her own family. i’ll explain why that is the case in the backstory section of this post.

kojiro is a witch. he’s not involved in any broader witching community nor does his being a witch have much bearing on his professional life but he is a talented witch, despite being trained only by his mother. what he DOES use his magic for, however, is to cause a lot of problems.

oh yeah, he’s also cursed. and he kills people. because he’s cursed. again, i’ll explain this in more detail further in the post but it’s kind of an important fact. he was cursed to die at twenty years old and he’s still alive eleven years later because the only way to hold off death is to kill other people <3 omg that’s awkward

in his normal everyday life, kojiro works as a cake decorator and does photography on the side too. he’s a creative person and tbh he developed a lot of stupid hobbies in his teens, thanks to the belief he was gonna die by the end of them, so he ended up making a living out of what he liked. he also didn’t go to uni because he didn’t see the point because, again, he thought he’d be dead by 20 and then, when he wasn’t, he stopped caring.

it’s also important to note that he, uh, doesn’t give off murderer vibes at all. he’s friendly and sociable (and not in the ‘this guy’s definitely a weirdo’ way).

i kept calling him ‘evil witch oc’ while i was working on him but, as i’ve said before, i think that’s actually a little too simple and i wouldn’t actually call him evil. he’s NOT a good person but i don’t think evil is the right word for him either. he doesn’t believe he’s a good person either but he’s learned to justify his own actions as a means of survival. kojiro doesn’t enjoy killing people, he doesn’t take any pleasure from the act of murder, but he’s also relatively calm about it too. since he doesn’t have to do it on a super regular basis, he prefers to target shitty people and esp corrupt witches in positions of authority (not really in a self-righteous way, more just because they piss him off). he has specific personal reasons for this.

he has a pretty intense fear of death. you think he’d be over it, having spent his whole life knowing he was meant to die early, but the ability to push his death back sort of flipped some switch in his head and, over the years, he went from quiet apprehension to paranoid obsession.

why is this muse 30 years old? firstly, because i want him to be. that would probably be enough but also his age actually IS important. the vibe i’m going for with this muse is, as i’ve said like once before, is what happens to the hero of the story after they complete their quest? what if that quest doesn’t go as planned? kojiro’s quest was to hunt down the demon associated with his curse. that’s his original ‘story’. what i want to explore here is the aftermath of that, what happens after the weight of the quest comes crashing down on the hero and they return to normal, everyday life where they’re forced to shoulder it as though it’s nothing. a decade after his initial story, he’s worn out. he’s not the same person he was at the start.

BACKSTORY

this isn’t going to be written in a super formal or tidy way because i honestly just can’t be bothered turning this into a proper piece of decent writing. this is only going to be in paragraph form because i don’t like putting backstories into bullet points unless it’s super brief.

kojiro was born in 1990 as the first (and only) child of his unmarried mother (as yet unnamed) when she was just nineteen years old. she was raised in a strict and traditional witching family so the fact that she’d had this child out of wedlock AND that the father wasn’t a witch didn’t exactly land well. regardless, they let her stay in the family home but it would soon turn out that the child was cursed. according to a member of tsukidate family (i.e; sho’s family who, as i said before, are on good terms with kojiro’s family and who are also knowledgeable in the realm of curses), the curse determined that the child would die on the day of his twentieth birthday unless he was able to kill the demon associated with the curse.

as if the judgement from her own family wasn’t enough, the curse brought with it a lot of stigma from the witching community and so his mother made the decision to leave home by herself when kojiro was a year old. all she could afford was a small, one bedroom apartment but, so long as she and her son had a roof over their heads, anything was good enough. kojiro would live a relatively normal life, going to school with other children his age and away from other witches, but his mother would teach him what she knew. although she wanted to him to live as easily as possible, she felt she had to prepare him for his inevitable encounter with the demon. kojiro grew up knowing about the curse too. there was no way to keep it a secret --- even if weren’t cruel to hide it from him, the curse had left a visible mark on him (still working out the details of what this looks like and where on his body it is but it basically looks like a tattoo to most people).

when kojiro turns eighteen, he decides he’s old enough to face this demon and claim control of his own life (maybe i’ll write this as an actual drabble / piece of writing one day bc i’m reeeally brushing over it here). it had been trapped by his family and forced to lie dormant until kojiro would arrive to take it down. what the demon reveals to him, however, changes everything. there is no cure to this curse, the demon tells him, everything he was told is a lie. the curse, it turns out, has tied the demon to him and the only way to kill the demon is for kojiro to die along with it. the reveal is this: when kojiro born, they took him from his mother for a short time. i want to emphasise that her family are pretty shitty people because they decided this would be the perfect opportunity both to punish her and to solve a very specific problem -- getting rid of this demon. the same member of the tsukidate who ‘diagnosed’ the curse was the one who put it on kojiro. i’ll explain the actual curse and story behind it (and the demon) in more detail at a later date but the basic gist of it is that kojiro’s family lied to him and used him as a disposable means to an end. his mother, for the record, was entirely unaware of this. but what else does the demon tell him? although the curse cannot be lifted, it can be held off. this demon thrives off death and, through death, it can stay strong and continue to keep kojiro alive. if it grows weak and it is not sustained, kojiro will grow weak along with it and inevitably die. kojiro informs the demon that he will not kill anybody. that is out of the question.

a month before his twentieth birthday, kojiro kills a man. he had tried to forget about everything the demon had said, tried to forget that his own family had set him up for guaranteed destruction, but it hadn’t been easy. it had set him on edge and he’d become unstable. he’d fallen into a slump and his friends grew worried for him. yet, after a while, he came to accept it and tried to make peace with his life as it was. he put it to the back of his mind as best he could. but he’d discovered that the man his mother had been seeing over the past few years since he’d moved out to live on his own was abusive. so he killed him. everything the demon had told him risen to the surface and he’d asked himself does it matter if this guy dies instead of me? after all, kojiro was curious. he didn’t really want to die and he had wondered if the demon was telling the truth. to this day, kojiro doesn’t know what to believe but it’s much too late for all that now. he followed his mother’s boyfriend home and broke his neck in a dark alleyway. thanks to the magic he’d been taught growing up, he was able to ensure that nobody every traced him to the accident and, when the clock struck midnight on his twentieth birthday, kojiro broke down crying with relief.

he wasn’t dead. he still isn’t dead. he’d never wanted to die. over the years, the killing has gotten a lot easier. over the years, the answer to that question comes much quicker; if somebody has to die, why should it be me?

#« 𝐍𝐎 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐍 (ᴋᴏᴊɪʀᴏ) » / 「 headcanon. 」#blood //#FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #anyway this might.....idk this might suck i literally cannot tell #i can't write shit w/horror elements bc i'm like 'oooh nooo what if ppl think i'm being Edgy'#but backstory and murder aside....he really isn't an edgy character #the lore also needs work but i'll talk about that in more detail later #this post is literally long enough as is

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