#Cassie has every right to be peeved

[upagainstthesunset]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but i sort of dont like how artists draw a character so different that theyre unrecognizable without their costume or without standing next to another character theyre associated with.

I get that often character designs are simple for the sake of drawing them thousands of times, and that each artist will have their own style. Thats all fine.

But i notice this A LOT with harley. Out of costume she can look literally like any blond woman that's thin and curvy, which in comics is well.. any blond woman. There is almost nothing about her face design that lets you know its her, and because of that ive seen so many different versions all claiming to be the same person. I can stretch my imagination only so much.

And those panels of Diana I just reblogged.. id have literally no idea thats her except that she has dark wavy hair. Her face looks so different that i read her as asian. (I will call out these are just two panels so might not be representative of the design.)

So that's another thing that especially rubs me the wrong way. Its not a huge deal breaker, but I am going to side eye artists who draw every "hot" female character as having asian traits. Its not too different than people drawing villains with hooked noses. But its so normalized that i think people see round face, button nose, slanty eyes as just plain cute (it is cute), so they accept it. But that doesnt mean thats what Diana Prince an Amazonion should look like. Im not saying she needs to be the exact opposite, im saying who tf is this woman im looking at bc it was unrecognizable until i saw the caption.

And just recently i griped about Cassie Sandsmark looking like Taylor Swift. Again, its a very good look. But its not Cassie.

So idk. Theres no solution here. Its just plain a peeve im venting about first thing on a monday morning. All im saying is if youre drawing a character for canon, its not free reign to do whatever as long as their hair color is right. :/

EDIT: I have since seen more panels of Diana and Donna from that scene, and I'm glad to report that it was just an out of context angle. That's a relief because a lot of the art has been good. My point still stands for everything else, but glad to see Wonder Woman actually does look mostly like Wonder Woman.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

David's actual return was... bad. What would a good return have been like? As a kid I always expected someone to find him and for him to end up in Yeerk custody and that'd be how they found out who the Animorphs were. I do kind of like Crayak using him but just to get to Rachel, because it'd be a bad idea to give any power to David.

I really like that idea of David finding a way to tell the yeerks about the Animorphs!  It even fits with the existing structure of the series – he returns in #48, and the yeerks find the Animorphs in #49.  

My own suggestion for how to make The Return better?

Make it not a dream.

I have a peeve about dream plots, I’ll acknowledge.  I think that at best they can be an opportunity for an eensy bit of characterization, a heapton of setting, and exactly zero plot.  That said, there are also many scenes in #48 that are potentially scary/cool/interesting, if they just happened for realsies.

If the events of #48 really did occur in canon, then:

Jake and Rachel do what they’ve been threatening since #7, and have an argument that escalates into physical violence.

This helps set up Rachel going full Blood Knight in #52, and Jake doing the same in #53, because these two keep each other ethical-ish any time they butt heads over morality and are forced to defend their decisions to each other.  If the Berensons’ bond has fractured to the point where they’re brawling in morph, then each of them is lacking the other as a check on their behavior.

Marco and Ax’s intelligence analysis determines that (even though they didn’t know it at the time) the events of #46 were the final straw for the yeerks’ secrecy.

The conversation between Rachel and Marco at Ax’s scoop helps sell the idea that the Animorphs’ world is slowly coming to an end.  Too many humans witnessed too much on that aircraft carrier, too many hosts have escaped the yeerks, and the invasion is becoming an open secret.  It’s ominous as hell, because the Animorphs have an inkling that the start of open war will be the end of their ability to live at home with their families, and it’s highly effective at setting up the events of the next several books.

Rachel kicks the elephant in the room by pointing out that Marco and Ax get away with bloodthirstiness while she doesn’t, because gender.

Rachel basically comes out and tells Tobias that Marco is every bit as ruthless as she is, and that Ax is just as quick to kill.  And she’s not wrong.  But Marco and Ax kill coldly, they kill rationally, they kill from a distance, and they kill as boys.  Rachel kills quickly, she kills angrily, she kills up close, and she kills as a girl.  Therefore, their friends don’t tell Marco he’s “worrying” (#22), “terrifying” (#35), “out of control” (#37) or “psycho” (#52).  Their friends don’t get into screaming matches with Ax or act frightened of him.

But Rachel’s a girl, and nice girls are supposed to control their emotions.  Nice girls aren’t supposed to enjoy growing into big strong creatures who can rip their enemies apart.  Nice girls should never be aggressive, and if they are it’s probably because they’re too emotional.  It’s a good point, one I wish came up more often.

Crayak’s deal with Rachel comes due in a way that none of the Animorphs could’ve predicted.

If everything with David is canon, then there’s a fascinating follow-up to Crayak’s offer in #27.  Crayak isn’t just drawing on Rachel’s violent side, he’s drawing on her Achilles heel: that David gets under her skin.  It’s a great wrap-up to the Crayak plot.  It shows that Rachel’s the Ellimist’s favorite not because of her natural-born gifts, but because of her choices.  She’s capable of ruthless violence, but whenever possible she chooses compassion.

There’s also the fascinating ambiguity in the line “kill your cousin,” and the fact that Rachel interprets it to mean Jake — and of course she’s about to kill Tom.  Dozens of fandalites have expended gallons of ink on the question of how to interpret that motif, but it has far more impact if Rachel truly is talking to Crayak in this book as well as in #27.

Cassie’s forced to confront what they did to David.

Leaving aside Rachel for a second, there’s a ton of potential for how this book could change Cassie going into her Big Character Moment in #50.  She never feels the level of guilt over David that Rachel and even Jake do, I think partially because Cassie’s morality isn’t nearly as human-centric and therefore not nearly as horrified by the idea of making a human into a rat.  But if Cassie’s confronted with the reality that she designed and executed a plan that ended with a kid her age trapped in what he considers to be a fate worse than death, then the implications for her character development are almost infinite.

Rachel embraces an unpretty female power fantasy.

I love mecha-Rachel.  Mecha-Rachel is big and ugly and strong, capable of ripping her enemies limb from limb while still being fundamentally Rachel-shaped.

Rachel, maybe more than any other Animorph, has to put up with society telling her that her body is wrong.  Everyone from Marco to her gymnastics coach feels entitled to tell her that she’s too big and tall for a girl.  Everyone from random guys on the street to her own classmates feels entitled to sexualize her body because she’s female.  Rachel doesn’t feel mismatched or dysmorphic the way Tobias does, but she is aware of (and fed up by) the expectations of what her body “should” be.

Mecha-Rachel is unfeminine to the extent that she takes up space — a lot of space — and takes no prisoners.  But she’s still got the aspects of femininity that Rachel loves, from flowing hair to long nails.  Mecha-Rachel is exactly the kind of shape that makes morphing so fun to fantasize about, especially for little girls.

Rachel kills David.

This is maybe what I want most out of #48: for Rachel to kill David for real.  Because, as she tells Cassie, somebody has to do it.  Because she’s strong enough.  Because she’s compassionate enough.  Because she understands David.  Because she understands herself.  Because she’s been a rat, and she’s been just like David in lots of less literal ways.  Because she doesn’t know what the right answer is, so she’s willing to respect David’s wishes for lack of a better way out.

Visser Three gets kidnapped and thrown out of a pokéball and beheaded and then gets better and yet also mysteriously thinks that it’s not suspicious at all one of the andalite bandits looks like a giant human, oh and also there are sentient rats who speak their own rat language.

On second thought, we can leave out all of this nonsense.

Honestly, 99% of my frustration with this book comes from the fact that I can’t tell how seriously to take it.  If it’s just a dream, then a fat lot of nothing happens in the war between #47 and #49, and Rachel’s last book before her death also contains a fat lot of nothing.  If it was something that happened in canon, then I think I’d really enjoy everything in this book except the (non-David) sentient rats.  With only a few tweaks — the first scene taking place in California not D.C., the fight with Visser Three getting cut, the sentient rats getting swapped for more human minions — it works pretty well as a real Animorphs plot, one that helps smooth the transition in both tactics and morality that occurs in the last ~10 books.  This book has some genuinely cool stuff in it, and I want that cool stuff to be part of the real events of the story.

[fortysevenswrites]

fic writer asks: 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, & 24!!

2. How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

It definitely fluctuates based on how much is going on with my business, my brain capacity, and ya know, life in general, but I’d say I’m somewhere between 60/40 and 75/25 reader to writer. You’d think it would be a little more even considering how many damn WIPs I have (which...I added another SK Post-Matnzas idea the other day), but yeah, I’d say I read a LOT more than I write. I could safely say that I’ve read at least ONE fic each day for....more than a decade.

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something?

...I’m not going to lie. I am V E R Y picky with the fics that I read. VERY. And if I don’t like the fic, it has N O T H I N G against the author. It’s just not up my alley. 

That said, I’m NOT a fan of: explicit POV shifts (show me through CONTEXT that you’ve changed perspectives, it’s not that hard), first-person, second person, reader-insert, intentional OOC that isn’t crack, tagging your NoTP in a fic that has nothing to do with them (or because they’re together for a hot minute before getting together with your OTP), no paragraph breaks, fleecing readers for reviews before you consider posting the next chapter (which I know is an old FFN holdover), and unhappy endings.

9. Tag 3 fic writers you think are underrated/unknown in the fandom/fanfiction community.

I couldn’t list three, and I’m not going to try, but there are some A M A Z I N G writers in every single fandom, and I love all of you.

10. What’s your favorite fandom, pairing, or character to read fic for?

Just one favorite? Hahahahahahaha. I read for:

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Kim Hart/Tommy Oliver

Power Ranger in Space: Astronema/Zhane, Ashley/Andros, Cassie Phantom

Rogue One: Jyn/Cassian

From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series: Seth/Kate, Richie/Santanico

Daredevil/The Punisher: Karen Page/Frank Castle, Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios, Sarah Lieberman/David Lieberman

Flashpoint: Mike/Winnie, Jules/Sam

There are so many more, but yeah. These are the ones that come to mind right now.

11. How do you come up with your fic titles?

Sometimes they’re lines from the text itself, sometimes they’re song lyrics that don’t have much to do with the fic, but are the song I listened to while writing the fic, and sometimes they’re just...words that happen to be what comes to mind before I post. 

Sometimes I know the title right off the bat, but sometimes it’s right down to the wire.

13. Do you outline your fics? How much of a headache would someone get if they just looked at an outline of yours without reading the fic?

Not really. For one-shots I pretty much know everything that’s going to happen, and they’re short enough that I can keep it all in my head, or write pieces of each scene in order.

Sometimes for longer fics (like the FDTD/The Punisher crossover) I’ll write like...notes in order with like, the general idea of each scene, like “X talks about the thing”, “This happens”, or “This is where Y reveals that plot twist” and “feels happen because of XYZ thing”. 

If someone were to see that kind of outline, they’d be pretty well spoiled and would know everything that happened in the fic. I wouldn’t share.

24. What’s a trope that you’d like to never hear about as long as you live, let alone write?

A/B/O. Full stop.

Fic writer asks

[slurrmp]

                   all you need to know about spyro’s original characters:                                                          oc: sasha o’neill                                                          fandom: stargate                                                             status: active.

THE BASICS

Name: sasha o’neill Nicknames: sash, ash (daniel), asha (cassie), kid (jack) Gender: female Pronouns: she/her Sexual Orientation: bisexual Age (actual age): 27 (as of season two of sg1) (october 20th 1972) Place of Birth: san fransisco, usa Citizenship: american

                                                  APPEARANCE

Age they appear: early twenties Hair colour: brown Hair style: the different seasons each have a different style. season one: short and almost in a bob. season two: it has grown out more and now reaches her shoulders - curls. (seasons tba) Eye colour: brown Birthmarks/scars/marks: there is a birthmark over her left hip. a scar just on the right side of her upper lip (which she got when she fell over on the driveway of her family home when she was six) Piercings: both of her ears. seconds. Tattoos: n/a

Build (curvy, toned, etc): short and slim, toned from all those years as a teenager doing swimming at high school and also wanting to keep up with jack while running.

Weight: around 60kilos Height: 5′2″ Clothing style: very modern (for the nineties that is) but while she’s on base it is the typical stargate uniform. the dark green doesn’t really work with her hair though. Overall appearance: actually a little sloppy. the uniform is baggy on sasha, making her look smaller than normal.

Trinkets/jewelry: sasha has her mother’s wedding ring and her father’s dog tags. Equipment/accessories (things they are never without; ex: a backpack or a notepad) all the is required when going off world. plus her notebook which she absolutely gave a matching one to daniel.

                                          INNER WORKINGS

General mood: oh she’s so very vibrant. she spent most of her childhood trying in high school but after her parents accident, sasha began to rebel a lot. so now, she tries her best to make it up to jack, by being vala before vala was even around. Mental state (any mental illnesses?): a little ptsd from her childhood and losing jack for the months he was captured in iraq but over all she’s very happy and healthy. Alignment (neutral good, chaotic evil, etc): chaotic good. Morals: family. Temperament: the niece.

Quirks: rants. she has a lot of them. no matter what kind, whether she’s trying to figure something out or get over something. lip biting and leg bouncing. Pet peeves: when people talk too loudly.

Strengths: selflessness. in dependence. Weaknesses: the team. it come to everyones knowledge when she gives herself up for their release and becomes something that everyone tries to get her not to do.

Fears: the goa’uld. no matter how much she tries to be strong, the scare the shit out of her. Intelligence: managed to finish high school. decided to start college (studying archeology)

Priorities: the sgc, the team, making sure the fucking planet doesn’t explode. Desires: to actually finish her degree at some point. Likes: the coffee from the bottom of the mountain. though the fruit platter the kitchen crew makes is amazing.

Vices: a little too trusting.

                                           RELATIONSHIPS

Friends: sam, daniel, teal’c, walter, sylar (they have coffee at that little cafe every morning)

Family: mother (jack’s sister) deceased. father deceased. uncle: jack o’neill. aunt: sara o’neill. cousin: charlie o’neill.

Significant other: well that’s where it’s up in the air.

Kids: none.

Enemies: listen it’s too long. but let’s just say the goa’uld as a whole.

                         EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION

Jobs: student. works at the sgc (on sg1) Profession: archeologist.

Income (if any): who knows

Furthest education: pending college. Degree (if any): pending archeology degree.

                                   EXTRA INFORMATION

Criminal record: petty theft and shop lifting when she was younger.

Social media accounts (if any): none (this is the 90s of course)

Reputation: oh she’s kind of none more like daniel jackson’s student, considering she’s not exactly a proper archeologist. but she’d rather that than just being the colonel’s niece.

Skills: she can kick ass. she’s a fast runner - languages are her thing and being able to pick up information quickly.

Talents: calming a situation. mainly involving daniel and jack when they bicker.

Hobbies: binging cringey 90s tv.

Special abilities (if any): considering she’s related to jack, there’s a bit of ancient in her (which when we get to it, allows her to get around atlantis a lot easier)

Transportation: the stargate tbh

Living conditions: sasha moved away to san fransisco after turning 18, wanting not to cramp jack and sara any longer. however, the move away from the home was put on hold when jack was captured in iraq. after he was returned home - she followed through with her move. only to return back to el paso when hearing of her cousins death and jack and sara’s divorce. moving into his house by the lake - which she still resides in.  

Pets: none.

                                               AESTHETIC

Colors associated with: pastel browns ! Their personal aesthetic: space. stars through a telescope. cold evenings on the roof. the blue of the stargate. Song that suits them: she by selena gomez

╳ BIO:

nothing set in stone yet. but here are dot points...

sasha’s parents died in a car accident when she was only 13.

with jack living only a couple of hours drive away, he (and sara) agreed to take her in.

sasha lived with jack until she was 18 (which then his own son was about three years old)

she felt like she had been cramping their style, causing too much of a problem child and wanted to leave before she ruined her relationship with her aunt and uncle any further.

however the move was put on hold when jack was captured in iraq. sasha stayed with sara and a then rather young charlie.

when jack made it home safely, the move to san fran went a head, however, sasha floated between jobs.

temp. advice columnist (well an assistant to one). soft core reporter. waitress. bar tender.

in the next six years, sasha moved from place to place as well, sleeping on different guys couches.

however on her 22 birthday, sasha thought it was about time that she went to college. MORE DETAIL ABOUT THE MOVIE (SASHA ACTUALLY LEARNING OF DANIEL JACKSON’S WORKS)

when jack was asked back to sgc, sasha ultimately tagged along, considering she was helping daniel when he was deciphering the hieroglyphs off the stargate.

more stuff - so technically she shouldn’t really be a part of sg1, considering they already have an archeologist, but jack insisted, considering she’s family and she’s prone to accidents any other team wouldn’t be good

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (22.22% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Fourteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

It’s delightful. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Maggie passes with Cassie as she puts her to bed.

Female characters:

Peggy Carter.

Hope Van Dyne.

Cassie.

Maggie.

Male characters:

Howard Stark.

Hank Pym.

Scott Lang.

Peachy.

Luis.

Dale.

Kurt.

Dave.

Darren Cross.

Frank.

Paxton.

Gale.

Mitchell Carson.

Sam Wilson.

OTHER NOTES:

Dave calls Scott a pussy, and Scott is not fussed at all about accepting the attempted insult.

Ah, the old ‘wish you’d call me dad’ cliche, the most worn-out lazy way to establish an antagonistic parent/child relationship. 

“a sustainable environment of well-being”, what an excellent fascist euphemism.

Maggie is very reasonable with Scott about the conditions for seeing Cassie; it’s refreshing to not have this played as ‘harpy ex-wife refuses to let man see his child because she’s just the worst!’ Maggie has a child to look after - and has been doing so for years now while Scott was in jail - and she has every right to impose rules on how things proceed, Scott doesn’t get to just march in and have things his way ‘because she’s my daughter!’ Children are not possessions or status symbols, and this movie does a nice job of recognising that and having the adult characters recognise that and behave in reasonable and understanding ways for Cassie’s benefit rather than their own egos. Other films should take note. Also, real people.

“Yeah man, it killed DiCaprio.”

Turning lambs into goo is worse than kicking puppies. What a monster.

They do a pretty solid job with the reason for Hope not being allowed to don the suit instead. It has strong potential for seeming like flat-out sexism, the idea that a woman can’t get the job done (in universe) and that a female hero won’t sell (out universe), and while that may indeed still be the core reason, they still pull off the reasoning as if it’s genuine.

Pym’s excuse for why he never told Hope the truth about her mother’s death, on the other hand, is pretty fuckin’ weak. Tell people to stop pretending ‘I was trying to protect you’ is a reasonable explanation for lies. It’s super-high - easily Top 5 - on my list of Worst and Most Tedious Cliche Lines.

Kurt suggests that the suit is the work of gypsies and it’s...not the best line they could have picked. Something less racist instead, maybe? No?

Cross is really fixated on Pym as a father figure. It’s different. I like different.

“That’s a messed-up looking dog.”

Scott and Paxton making peace is so great. Paxton peeing in all the corners and Scott being all jealous and threatened by Paxton ‘usurping his place in the family’ would have been such a predictable cliche for them to use, and this very palatable mature adult behaviour is sooo much better. This is how you stop normalising petty possessive rivalries. 

Luis is magical, and also, mad cultured. I love it, but I love even more that they don’t hang a lantern on it, they just let it be part of his character.

Ok, I confess, this is probably gonna be a weird sort of meandering review, because I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts for two months gathering dust while I deal with the mental and physical fatigue of the first trimester of a pregnancy (it’s FUN), and now the due date for this post (pun definitely intended) is right on the horizon, so...I’m just gonna get it done, and it’ll be whatever the heck it is in the end. This is not a complex film filled with deep nuance, it’s basically just an action-y heist movie with some hand-waved scifi on top. And there’s ants. It’s not a hard film to talk about, so you’ll excuse me if it doesn’t get my very best effort. I’m kinda busy growing a human over here.

I remember a lot of grumbling and even some outrage in fandom, back when this film was announced; a lot of people upset that the MCU was bringing in a comparatively little-known and perhaps little-loved superhero like Ant-Man when they still hadn’t bothered with a single female-led film yet, and various complaints about the problematic nature of the Ant-Man character from the comics (referring, I believe, to the Hank Pym version). And then, of course, there was the doubt about whether or not an Ant-Man story was just a fucking idiotic idea in the first place, what with the questionable application of science and the even more questionable appeal of a tiny little man running around playing with ants. Expectations were not high. And yet, Ant-Man pulls through, not just with a great fun romp, but with what I consider one of the more entertaining films the MCU has churned out to date.

I have made my fair share of sour comments about previous films in the MCU and their unimaginative paint-by-numbers plots, and so what I’d like to talk about with Ant-Man is how it manages to be such a success to me despite an essentially uncomplicated story that follows a predictable narrative arc the likes of which we’ve all seen a hundred times before. The basic tenets of a heist movie are all there; the basic tenets of a good vs evil story play straight, alongside a low-key but typical redemption plot, and some plight-of-the-regular-guy vs corporate greed and warmongering, and the leading man hooks up with the leading lady in the end and proves himself as a hero to his family and all that jazz. We know every one of these story and character beats. So. Why do they work?

Let me back this up a second to talk about a couple of major-league pet peeves of mine, the one a microcosmic version of the other: firstly, when people say ‘all Marvel films are basically the same’, and secondly, the Advanced Level Faux-Intellectual Douche version of that sentiment, when people declare that ‘there’s no such thing as originality anymore! There are only seven types of story in the world anyway! Everything is derivative!’ It’s an obnoxious absence of a viewpoint that betrays a lack of imagination and a use of such broad-strokes surface-level comprehension as to be essentially meaningless. Sure, if you break down story concepts to their most fundamental core drives, you can summarise their arcs in a relatively small number of ways, and familiarity with these core concepts can provide a degree of predictability in the way things play out. But that doesn’t mean that every single version of, say, the classic Hero’s Journey is the same damn story, and therefore a useless derivation from which no entertainment or message can be gleaned. If someone asks you to tell them the plot of a movie and you just go ‘oh, it’s a Hero’s Journey’ and leave it at that, you’ve told them almost nothing about what to actually expect. The Matrix is a very, very different Hero’s Journey to The Lord of the Rings, which is a very different Hero’s Journey to Finding Nemo, which is not at all the same as Iron Man. And which of them is closest to The Odyssey, anyway? One of the most obvious differences with all of those examples is genre, and the traditional trappings which often (but not always) follow from them. Sure, the MCU films tend to all fit superhero-comic genre conventions, and some of them (particularly origin stories, as with Iron Man and Thor) may employ a lot of the same tropes while they’re at it. But does anyone really, genuinely think that Ant-Man is ‘basically the same’ as Captain America: The First Avenger? Is Guardians of the Galaxy almost indistinguishable from Black Panther? Does anyone who says ‘Marvel movies are all basically the same’ actually believe the words out of their own mouth, or do they just hope it makes them sound smart if they imply that they’re ‘above’ enjoying mainstream popcorn action?

All of this is to say, what makes Ant-Man work where other trope-heavy films fall apart? The same thing that makes literally any story ever work, and be worthwhile, whether it ‘breaks barriers’ or ‘teaches something’ or is considered ‘high art’ or not: details. Some films are too light on details, which makes them boring because they never really bother to build anything on top of those core foundations we know so well. Sometimes, the details - numerous as they might be - are too generic to have an impact, and the dull result is the same. Sometimes the details are too absurd to land, or there are too many to keep track of, or they require too much extraneous qualification to fit into the flow of the rest of the story, or they’re irrelevant to the rest of the story anyway. The thing about details? There are countless options. People come up with new ideas all the time, through the exercise of imagination or through developments and innovations in the real world. Basic, core plot arcs may be distilled to a handful of options, but story details are limitless, and the possibility of fun new combinations is always there, whether you’re inventing something entirely never-before-seen or not. The idea that you have to be shocking and unexpected to be worthwhile is ridiculous, and shepherds illogical contrivances and gimmicks without narrative cohesion or purpose much more often than it achieves something genuinely surprising with merit (and storytelling that prioritises ‘shocking twists’ is usually so busy trying to look clever it forgets to actually be clever, but, that’s another conversation). The point is, Ant-Man being a delightful film isn’t rocket science. It’s as simple as just a little forethought in the construction of its details.

As noted back near the top, the whole Ant-Man concept and its wobbly science was something that drew some doubt regarding whether or not it could be pulled off in a convincing manner; the solution to achieving that is to do more than just lean in to the idea. The film throws itself whole-heartedly into its core conceit and its tropes, and it drags us along with it to gleefully delight in the act. The story is not embarrassed by itself, it doesn’t try to keep its distance; instead, it gives us a flying ant named Antony, and a dramatic death scene for that ant. What is the point of the Pym particle science conceit if we don’t enjoy the comedic potential of an epic battle inside a briefcase, or on a child’s train set? Relevant to this also is the subject of casting choices (as much a detail-of-interest as anything; a single casting choice can legitimately make or break a film). Paul Rudd has a perfect blend of leading-man charisma and affable comedic chops; he plays Scott as a beta-personality, which is always a refreshing change-up for a lead, and one which invites other refreshing changes around him. It avoids tedious masculine antics in his interactions with other men, while encouraging balanced and respectful interactions with women; Scott never asserts himself as the boss or leader in his relationship with Luis and the rest of his crew, allowing for a smoothly-cooperative dynamic; no time or plot is wasted on pointless jostling for control of the operation with Pym; the idea that Scott needs to prove himself to the three female characters in his life - Hope, Maggie, and Cassie, each for similar but different reasons - is given legitimate weight, instead of implying that Scott and his perspective is inherently superior and correct and the onus is on the other characters to realise that, rather than being on him to live up to other people’s reasonable expectations. It should come as no surprise that the latter element is especially interesting and heartening in the context of this blog.

This is particularly good news when it comes to the kinds of relatively minor details which can make a huge difference in whether or not one reflects on a film in a positive or negative manner; the fact that the narrative supports and validates Hope’s anger, her frustration and resentment and her all-business-no-fun attitude, is vital to keeping a viewer like myself on-side with the film. Hope is never presented as someone who should ‘just loosen up’, or ‘have faith in her father’s plan’, the fact that she is denied the Ant-Man technology because Pym ‘can’t bare to risk losing her’ is offered as a reason but not as an excuse for something deeply patronising, and Scott proving that he can get the job done despite Hope’s misgivings about him is not framed as her being ‘wrong’ - her concerns were legitimate, as all her emotions across the film are, and the story never compromises on that in order to bolster another character. Whether or not Hope is well-handled is not important to the operation of the central narrative plot in a technical sense, but it means a lot in terms of delivering strong characters with satisfying arcs, and a central plot can easily fall flat if the characters participating in it don’t work well, individually or together.

I’m trying to wrap this up coherently, but it’s just as well that I disclaimered myself in the beginning because all I’ve got are frayed pieces of, probably, five other paragraphs I could waffle about. It’s not a complex film, no, but it has a surprising amount of quality details, the more I think about it, even regarding aspects of the movie that I liked less than others (Pym, for example, I did not love, but I like that the movie never tried to pass off his ‘genius’ as an excuse for him being a significantly flawed figure in the lives of most people who encountered him, often with bitter consequences. I’m also a big fan of the fact that both he and Scott have complicated but loving relationships with their daughters, considering that Hollywood has a hyper-obsession with the idea of ‘A Man And His Son’ as the beating heart of family narratives). I’m going to close this out with what may be my personal favourite refreshing detail of this movie, and that’s the mature adult relationship between Scott, Maggie, and Paxton. I mentioned it already in the notes, but honestly, how many times have we seen that toxic cliche, with the shrewish ex-wife and the terrible new man in her life, where the main character (who is Doing His Best!) has to prove through [insert plot heroics] that ex-wife is WRONG and should have stayed with him, the father of her child(ren), because did we mention, her new man is terrible and the main character is always right and good and better! In the end, ex-wife almost certainly leaves her terrible new man to get back together with the main character, because he is Doing His Best and that’s more important than actually being a stable/responsible person! The American nuclear family is the ideal! Divorce is for heathens! Y’all know that toxic plot. I can think of three different examples of it in action right off the top of my head, with no effort required. Point is, the degree to which I was utterly thrilled by this movie subverting cliche at every turn of its family saga really cannot be overstated. Maggie is a reasonable person! Scott respects that Cassie’s needs are more important than his wants! Paxton cares about his family and genuinely wants Scott to land on his feet, for the benefit of everyone! There’s no jealous posturing and Scott acting all hurt about being ‘replaced’! HE LITERALLY THANKS PAXTON FOR EVERYTHING HE DOES, WHEN HAVE I EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE?! Honestly, you don’t have to tell the most original story in the world to tell a story that resonates. You don’t even have to avoid common tropes, you just have to think about what you want to do with them. It’s not rocket science. It’s just good honest storytelling.

With ants.

[melodypond-thewomanwhomarriedme]

for the writer's ask, every question please! ^^

Nkcjnikanidnwienf what the- anon, you’re really sweet, but i wish you’d reveal yourself so that i can answer this privately lol. No one else wants to know this stuff omg. Okay well, here we go! The answers are under the cut.

ink: what do you do to “set the mood” when writing?

If it’s a piece I’m continuing, I’ll reread it from the start and make some changes her and there, and that way I can kind of segue from editing to writing some more. If it’s a piece i’m just starting out, i need to stay really quiet for a while and map it out clearly in my head so i’ll know the general direction of where the story is going.

pen and paper: do you prefer writing by hand or on a device? why?

It really depends for me. I use both my ipad and my notebook interchangeably. I’ve realised that after I’ve used one of them for too long, I’ll tend to write better and longer on the other. 

diary: how many pieces have you written that are just for you or will never see the light of day?

So many. So, so many, ya’ll. 

journal: do you ever write just so you can enjoy something to read?

I enjoy the process of writing but I never enjoy my end product. Idk, it’s a really weird thing. But in the end, my stories are for other people to read.

novella: do you prefer to write short stories, one-shots, or entire novels?

Short stories for sure. 

pulitzer: tell about/link a piece where you felt your writing was the best.

It isn’t posted yet, and I’m still in the process of writing it. It’s a library fixit with thirteen and river, and I think it’s really some of my best writing. I love it, and I’m really proud of it, and I can’t wait to share it once it’s done.

genre: what genre do you prefer to write in?

Uhh I guess romance? Or angst?

narrator: what pov do you like writing in best?

Third person for sure.

backstory: how did you come to love writing?

When i was a kid i read the harry potter books and i remember being absolutely obsessed with them. I would carry those books around with me everywhere, and that fandom was the one that introduced me to fanfiction as a reader. With reading came writing and i discovered that i was a natural talent (my teacher’s words), and it just grew from there. My love of English and language grew even more and i kept reading and writing until I just couldn’t imagine my life without it. 

time-lapse: how long have you been writing (as a hobby or for work)?

I’ve been writing for maybe five to six years? Rough estimate.

characterization: describe your favorite character(s) you’ve written.

I only really write two characters - neither of them are mine, so hehe. 

carnegie: what authors and/or books/stories have inspired you to write or influenced your work?

Harry potter, as mentioned. And i had the lovely pleasure of reading amazing works from my other fandom, NCIS. And then this current fandom i’m in is just blessed with gifted writers everywhere and every single one of their works have influenced my writing in some way, shape or form, even if they don’t know it. I honestly just,,, read really really great fic from really really great writers until i decided i wanted to become one of them, too.

faulkner: what tropes do you LOVE writing? which ones are your guilty pleasure?

Omg. I have wayyy to many guilty pleasures. I love when like, things are going perfectly and it’s all sunshine and balloons until something majorly bad happens and everything starts to fall apart. And there’s angst and hurting and fights and screaming. I love that. I write that a lot. But i love it even more when it comes with a happy ending, just cuz i need that energy in my life. Some other tropes i really really like are: fake dating, arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, they’re both in love with each other but are too afraid to say anything so they pine with doe eyes, and so many more i can’t think of right now but the list is never ending, i assure you. 

o’connor: what tropes/genres do you dislike writing?

LOVE TRIANGLES WHERE ONE OPTION IS CLEARLY BETTER THAN THE OTHER. OMG. MISS ME WITH THAT SHIT.

dickinson: what insecurities do you have about your own writing? what do you think you should improve on?

E V E R Y T H I N G

playlist: what kind of music/songs help you write? do you have a writing playlist?

I do not. Though when i’m writing doctor/river, i do listen to ‘The Wedding of River Song’, ‘Melody Pond’, ‘The Woman He Loves’ and ‘The Singing Towers’. Just to remind myself how in love they are. 

record: have you written things based off of songs? do you like to?

Omg. I just did a whole thing on discord about ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ by the Bee Gees and how i associated it with doctor/river. I was crying to cassie and bernie all night about it lol. I love write things based off songs, but it’s more likely to be meta than fic. 

nobel: have you published anything you’ve written? online or irl?

If i ever get the chance to publish original works in real life i’ll never shut up about it, trust me. Many moons ago, i used to publish original stuff on wordpress, but then i deleted my account so. Nah. Only on ao3 for now, lads. 

notepad: can you write anywhere or do you have to be in a specific place and mood to write?

I have to be alone. I cannot work with anyone else in the room. I need it to be quiet, so i can hear myself think. 

parchment: how often do you or your personal life influence your writing?

Not that often. My life is boring and all the action seems to come from my stories so.

dedication: if you were to publish a book or multiple, who would you dedicate the book(s) to?

Everyone who has supported me in my writing. So mostly my friends online. 

trope: what’s a pet peeve you have about writing?

When i do this damn annoying thing where i’m so ready, i have my notebook and pen or my ipad or whatever, and then i sit there and i…. dont…. write

input: what’s something you hate that people say to you about writing/your writing?

When they tell me something about my writing that is blatantly false

critic: what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received about writing?

“you do you, boo.”

mifflin: what do you feel is your strong suit in writing?

A lot of people say i’m good at writing emotions. So i guess that??? 

houghton: what’s something you love that people compliment your pieces on?

When they’ve given thought to my story and they notice something that was actually unintentional and it just feels like they really love my story to give it that much attention, ya know? But i do love every single comment you guys give me, i swear. :)

[izaswritings]

Title: at last, sunrise

Synopsis: Rapunzel gets kidnapped, Varian gets adopted, and a couple of evil hoodlums get what’s coming to them. All in all, it’s a good day.

Notes: I mentioned in my fic daybreak of the victor that Rapunzel sees Varian as her little brother, and I kind of wanted to write more on that? So here, have this—fluff, humor, feels, and sibling bickering/bonding all in one.

I’ve said this before, but—as much as I adore writing character development, it is so nice to explore the after, too.

Didn’t edit this nearly as much as I usually do—please let me know if you catch any mistakes!! (Also, I’m always open for feedback or constructive criticism, so please, don’t be afraid to tell me if you think something doesn’t quite fit!)

-

This fic is a prequel to two other fics of mine, daybreak of the victor (which can be read here or here) and the problem with politics (which can be read here and here). You don’t need to have read these fics to understand this one, but it does provide some background for the fic!

AO3 Link for this fic is here.

-

The tunnels beneath Corona’s castle are the stuff of nightmares. No matter how many times Rapunzel has been here, they are unchanged. Dark, damp, and as frightening as they were the first time she stepped through them. They are lit by a ghastly green glow, thin and weak, barely illuminating the floors, and even an extra lantern cannot quite pierce through the darkness that surrounds them. They are always full of dust and cobwebs, danger lurking around every corner. They are mystery incarnate, holding secrets and threats Rapunzel can only guess at, a place of constant peril.

“Princess,” Varian says, from behind her, voice dark with irritation, “if you don’t stop laughing, I’m going to have to gag you.”

They are walking side-by-side in the tunnels, Varian holding the lantern above their heads to light their path. On Rapunzel’s shoulder, Pascal is nestled into the hood of her cloak. At the moment, none of them are quite looking where they are going— Varian is giving Rapunzel the stink eye, Pascal is having conniptions, and Rapunzel is currently dying.

“Oh!” Rapunzel says, and slaps a hand across her mouth. She can’t quite stop giggling, however. “Oh, Varian, but their faces!”

A smile twitches at Varian’s lips before he ruthlessly squashes it, scowling at her so forcefully it looks more ridiculous than threatening. In the light of his lantern, she can see his cheeks go pink. “Stop, stop it, I was improvising!”

“It is I, Varian! The Alchemist! Come to enact my revenge!” Rapunzel mimics, and has to stop, she’s laughing so hard. She places both hands on her knees and wheezes. Tears bead in her eyes. “Oh, Pete! Stan! I’m so sorry!”

Varian elbows her. “Stop laughing!” His cheeks are bright red, the tips of his ears burning. “I had to improvise, okay? I didn’t know they would come back right when I was sneaking you out! You said Cassie was keeping them distracted!”

“No, no, it was good, really!” Rapunzel insists, and clasps a hand to her mouth before she can burst into hysterical giggles all over again. “Very convincing!” she squeaks out through her fingers. Her voice is high and strained.

Varian gives her a disgruntled look, unconvinced. “Somehow I do not believe you. Why is that?”

Rapunzel takes a deep breath, shaking her head to get her laughter back under control. “Oh, I’m sorry, Varian, it’s just…” She bites her lower lip, grinning into the back of her hand at the memory.

He’s not wrong about Cassandra, she had promised to fill in—alas, Pete and Stan must have somehow slipped her notice. Varian had reacted very well, all things considered, and it probably would have been okay, dramatic speech and all, except… well. Varian hadn’t been wearing his alchemist’s mask at the time, and instead of intimidating, he’d just looked rather panicked. A bit like a startled rabbit, honestly.

In other words— Adorable.

“It was just… so… you,” Rapunzel decides finally.

Varian reels back at this, overblown offense on his face. He waves both hands in the air, the lantern swinging wildly in his grip. “What! What’s that supposed to mean?”

Rapunzel wavers her hand back and forth in a vague gesture. “Just… you.”

He scowls at this, turning his back on her with a dark mutter under his breath. He raises his voice, sounding peeved, not looking at her. “…This is a kidnapping, you know. I’m kidnapping you. Just so we’re clear.”

Rapunzel looks down at her unbound wrists and unchained feet, the frying pan at her side. She looks back at Varian, at the comically serious expression on his face, the near pout he is just barely biting back.

Her choice is instantaneous. Rapunzel sags dramatically against the wall, as if her knees have gone weak, Pascal bawling fake tears on her shoulder. “Oh!” she says, pitching her voice high and breathy in pretend terror. “You dastardly fiend! You have captured me! Taken my only means of escape! Whatever shall become of me!”

“Why is it, that you’ve only gotten more embarrassing with age?” Varian complains, but he’s grinning despite himself. He shakes his head and shoves at her shoulder. “C’mon, move it, we gotta go! We’re burning lantern-light here, night won’t last forever.”

Rapunzel fakes a stumble and Pascal gives a nice theatrical wail. “Ah!” Rapunzel says, pretending to cower at the wall. It takes everything she has to not cackle at the look on his face. “Don’t hurt me, dear sir! Mercy! Mercy on me!”

Varian stares at her for a long moment in contemplative silence. “I’m gagging you,” he decides finally, and Rapunzel laughs so hard she falls over.

-

See, it starts like this: the separatist group of Saporia decides to threaten war.

To be more precise—the Separatists gather up their weapons, terrorize a few villages, somehow manage to get an alliance with a neighboring kingdom (Damn it, King Trevor, Rapunzel thinks), and then they make an ultimatum: give us land or else.

Now, this would be a very serious and not-at-all laughing matter sort of situation, if the Separatists hadn’t done it in such a way that Rapunzel is helpless to do anything other than stare at the missive and say, “But… that’s… so stupid?”

“Honey, they’ve infiltrated our kingdom.”

“But we know their base?”

Her father sighs at her. “They want us to attack them, Rapunzel. They have the treaty with Equis for that reason. If we crush them publicly, as a kingdom, without a crime that King Trevor can’t excuse—well. Equis can retaliate. It will break into full-blown war.”

Rapunzel arches an eyebrow. “Then… don’t attack them publicly. We can send men in disguise!”

Her father crosses his arms. “How many men? They’ll know it’s us if we send an army. Trevor—” He practically growls the name, “—will immediately suspect. We can’t send more than two or three people, and we most certainly can’t do that.”

The solution to that, of course, is simple. “Send me,” Rapunzel says without thinking, and gets promptly banished to her room.

Thanks, Dad.

Sometimes he’s good at respecting her choices, Rapunzel thinks absently, tapping her quill against her lips as she writes her letter. Other times, her father can be rather exhausting.

The difference between now and then is that nowadays, Rapunzel had no more patience for it. Her father has forbidden her from infiltrating and taking out the Separatist group? Fine. She’ll just sneak out and do it herself.

Of course, it never hurts to have help.

It’s easy, grabbing a hold of Varian—easier than it would have been a few years ago, before he returned to Corona. All she has to do is borrow Owl and send him off with a message, and then she meets Varian in a secret location a few days later. He always comes, when it is Rapunzel asking; she suspects lingering guilt.

Two days after she sends the message, she arrives at the Snuggly Ducking, a usual meeting place of theirs. Varian is already there waiting. He stands the moment he sees her, walking quickly to her side, pale with worried. “What is it?” he asks without any delay, searching her face. “What’s wrong?”

Rapunzel places a hand on his shoulder, and he jumps at the contact, blinking fast. “Calm down,” she tells him gently. “I’d have said if it was anything immediate. Come on, let’s sit. Have you eaten?”

Only after they order some food and drink, and Rapunzel has secured a private room from Lance, does she finally sit down to talk. The room is small, but secluded, the walls secure from eavesdroppers and attackers alike. Two small chairs and a small wooden table is its only furniture.

Rapunzel settles down in her usual chair, and rolls out the map for Varian to see. The door opens before she can speak, Lance sweeping in with their food. Rapunzel gives him a sincere smile. “Thank you, Lance. I’ve missed your cooking.” She glances at the plate and gasps in delight. “Ooh, and pie, too?”

“Of course! Anytime, little lady, if it’s for you,” Lance replies warmly. He sets down the plates and ruffles Varian’s hair with a grin. “Anything for my favorite customers! Lemme know if you two find any more buried treasure like last time, y’hear?”

Varian bats his hand away with a scowl, and Lance laughs deep from his gut, walking away. “I’ll keep the eyes off your back,” he calls after them as he exits. “Go save the kingdom or something for me!” He pokes his head through the doorway to point a finger at Varian. “And you, kiddo, you better let me know if you’re staying for dinner.”

Varian mutters under his breath and brushes his hair back into its usual style, tying the strands behind his head in a loose pony-tail. “Yeah, yeah. I’m staying.”

“Wonderful! I’m making your favorites, then. It’s a special day, after all!”

Rapunzel waves at Lance’s back as he exits and turns to Varian the moment he’s out of sight. “Special day?” she asks with interest.

“Doesn’t matter,” Varian dismisses, waving it off. “Lance is just being—Lance. Mother-henning me.” His hand drops, and Rapunzel suddenly finds herself pinned under a fierce stare. Varian is practically bouncing in his seat, his fingers tapping hard against the table.

“Now can you tell me why you wanted to meet?” he asks, without any more delay. “Usually when its small stuff I meet with Cassie or Eugene, so, it’s something big, right?”

Rapunzel shakes her head, more amused by his impatience than offended. “Here,” she offers, pointing out the mountain hideout. “Have you heard anything about the Separatists lately?”

Varian leans over, eyeing the map. “Yes,” he admits. “I sent Cassie a letter about them this morning, actually. They’ve been… weirdly active. Bolder than usual.” He looks up. “The royal family knows?”

“And the guards.”

He frowns at this. “But then why haven’t they…” Realization flickers across his face. “The Separatists—they have leverage?”

“What they have,” Rapunzel says, “is a deal with a King who is willing to defend their right to be Separatists.”

Varian clicks his tongue, catching the subtext. “You can’t attack without inciting war, can you.”

Rapunzel snaps her fingers at him. “Exactly. Or, arrest them for being Separatists without getting the same result. Basically, we’re checked!”

Varian frowns. “It’s checkmate, actually. Checkmated…?” His face screws up, and he coughs into his hand. “…Anyway, you are acting weirdly peppy for this conversation topic? It’s a little freaky? Not like, bad freaky, but—”

Rapunzel snaps the map closed, cutting off his ramble. “That, my friend,” she says with dramatic grandeur, “is because I have a solution.”

Both eyebrows rise up, and a smile twitches at the corners of his mouth. “Okay…?”

Rapunzel clasps his hands in hers and leans forward over the table so he can’t escape. “Varian,” she says solemnly, “how do you feel about kidnapping a member of the royal family?”

Varian freezes.

Rapunzel grins.

“Oh, no,” Varian says, very quietly, and that is when Rapunzel starts laughing.

-

“I don’t know why I had to be the one to come,” Varian grumbles, hours later.

“Quiet!” Rapunzel hisses back. They are crouched in a bush, ducked underneath the many branches and leaves. She cannot help but be thankful, for once, that her long hair is now cut short; even unbreakable, it would have been a pain to lug around and hide. “Do you want them to find us?”

“I dunno, do I?”

Rapunzel frowns at him, disapproving, and Varian subsides with a sigh. His shoulders droop, his attitude falling to uncertainty. “I just don’t know if it’s a good idea, okay? What if we get caught?”

“Easy,” Rapunzel says, and hefts up her frying pan. “We get to practice! It’s been a while since I went all out, y’know?”

“Well…”

“You have your staff, don’t you?”

“…I do…”

“And all your alchemy concoctions?”

“Well, not all, but…”

Rapunzel studies his face and gentles, smiling sympathetically and nudging at his shoulder. “Remember a few years back?” she asks, soft. “When you and I went into the tunnels, and fought our way through all those boobytraps?”

“Yeah,” Varian says. “And then I stole a useless flower, betrayed you and the kingdom, and started making what turned out to be some of the worst decisions of my life?”

Rapunzel punches his shoulder, a move reminiscent of Cassandra, unamused by this. “Before that. Just— just the tunnels. The moving walls, the traps, the collapsing floors…”

“The automaton,” Varian offers, brightening a little, as Rapunzel knew he would. Science has forever been Varian’s love. Even just the mention of the robot is enough to bring a sliver of joy to Varian’s face.

She beams at him. “Yes, exactly! The automaton. We worked together pretty well then, didn’t we?”

His smile is sudden and startling, small and uncertain but bright. “…Yeah. Yeah, we did!”

She nudges his shoulder again. “That’s the spirit! And I mean, after having faced such a… a marvel of ancient scientific achievement, what are a few goons?”

This time, Varian grins, all teeth. “Easy pickings?”

Rapunzel matches his smile, bolstered by his good mood. “Exactly! So chin up, okay? Don’t worry. I’m here with you— we’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Varian says, and this time he really sounds like he means it. Rapunzel tugs a twig from his hair and tells him the rest of her plan with a wicked smile.

Varian matches her grin with one of his own, laughter in his eyes. “Aw, you’re right,” he says, warmth in his voice, “we do make a pretty good team, Princess.”

-

“I seek an audience with the to-be King of Saporia,” Varian says coldly, shoving Rapunzel forwards. Rapunzel stumbles in her footing. Her arms are wrenched tight behind her back, tied with rough twine and twisted so she can’t get free. There’s a gag around her mouth and fire in her eyes, the hook of Varian’s staff circling her throat.

At the entrance of the mountain hideout, home of the Separatists, the look-outs hesitate, stepping back, glancing uncertainly between one another. Neither of them speaks.

Varian’s eyes narrow, shoulders drawing back. He grabs Rapunzel’s arms and forces her to her knees so that he can point the staff at them, instead.

“Well?” Varian snaps. He makes a terrifying sight, in this midnight darkness— a tall and snap-thin teen, all angles, with dark circles like bruises beneath his eyes and deep shadows across his cold face, a wicked scar trailing across one cheek. Varian tilts up his chin and jabs the staff in the look-out’s direction, the alchemical concoctions tied to the tip glowing a sickly green-and-yellow. “Get going, before I decide to find him myself.”

One guard steps back, but the other steps forward, sword held out, expression uncertain. “Who—who are you? I don’t—”

“I am someone who wants revenge on Corona, same as you,” Varian says. “What more do you need to know? I have the Crown Princess at my feet and my staff at your throats. I don’t advise you make me wait any longer.”

This, it seems, is enough for the guards— without a second glance, they both flee into the hideout, vanishing into the dark, leaving Varian and his prisoner alone.

The moment they vanish, Varian’s shoulders sag, and the cold expression falls from his face. He looks down at Rapunzel in worry. Rapunzel sits up and winks at him.

“For the record,” Varian whispers down to her, “I've changed my mind. I hate this plan so much. I mean sure, they were dumb enough to both leave and get him—their hideout is completely undefended right now, I’m a bit offended, but—”

Rapunzel rolls her eyes at him, sitting back on the dirt. Pascal crawls out from behind her hair, shaking his head up at Varian from her shoulder.

“I mean, yeah,” Varian admits, squinting at the unprotected hideout entrance, scar scrunching up near his eye, “it’s nice to be respected, but like— wow, this is one of worse ones yet. The plan, I mean. I’ve met worse goons— the plan, this plan though, oh yikes.”

Rapunzel turns to stare at him, deadpan. She cannot believe him. Is he really saying this now? Here? When they are quite literally in the middle of said plan? Ridiculous.

Varian looks back. “Oh, wow. Did you learn that one from Pascal? ‘Cause it kinda feels like you learned that one from Pascal.”

Pascal squints at him. Varian nods knowingly. “Yep,” he says. “That was a Pascal-look for sure.”

Footsteps and voices echo from within the hideout, and all three of them pause, before they snap back into character. Pascal vanishes back behind Rapunzel’s hair, and Rapunzel directs her eyes to the ground, shoulders bowed in pretend defeat. Varian gingerly places the crook of his staff back at her throat.

“Positions, everyone, positions,” Varian mutters, mockery of a stage play director, and giggles nervously under his breath.

Rapunzel bites her lip to keep from laughing and shakes her head. Angry thoughts, she reminds herself. Must think angry thoughts!

By the time the Separatist self-proclaimed King and entourage turns into the light, Rapunzel is ready, eyes lowered but burning with fury. It is not hard. All she has to do is remember the threat this man poses to her people, and the rage comes quickly.

Varian’s face is once more wiped clean of emotion, his cold blue eyes glittering with malice. When he sees the Separatist leader arrive, he smiles a crescent smile, a smile too wide to be sincere, devoid of true joy and warmth.

“King of Saporia,” Varian says, calm. “I’ve come to offer you my services.”

“Have you,” says the man, but he seems non-hostile, mollified by the title Varian has granted him. He glances at Rapunzel and then away again. “A bold statement, my dear boy. Why, pray tell, should I believe you? Or even have need of such services?”

“Because I have the Crown Princess of Corona at your feet and skills you could only dream of,” Varian says, smile dropping. Silly questions always have made him impatient. “Do the math, old man.”

“The Crown Princess—?” the man starts, looking to Rapunzel for a long moment. After a second his eyes go wide with recognition. “That is—… by the Moon, it is her.”

This time when he turns to Varian, he doesn’t seem nearly as confident. “Who… just who are you?”

“One who hates Corona as much as you do,” Varian says simply. He smiles again, hard and cold as stone. “Tell me, would-be King of Saporia. Have you heard of the Alchemist?”

“The Alchemist? You?” The false king steps back. “But I heard… I heard he was much older. And you don’t look at thing like the wanted poster…”

“Is it my fault if the kingdom is full of fools?” Varian asks simply. “They didn’t want the stigma of being beaten by a fourteen-year-old; worked out well for me all these years. I am tired of this. Do you agree, King? Or should I go,” he pulls back the staff, near choking Rapunzel, and she holds her breath to keep from coughing, “—and give my gift to someone else more… appreciative?”

“No!” The Separatist leader says, panic and greed clear as day in his eyes. “No, no, my dear boy… You, you are welcome! Your company, your abilities…” His eyes stray to Rapunzel. “And your gift.”

“Wonderful,” Varian says. He smiles, much more genuinely this time, and squeezes Rapunzel’s shoulder in a silent cue. “We have a deal then. Now—”

All at once, Rapunzel breaks into motion. She twists and turns and fights with all her might, and Varian lunges at her bound wrists, pretending to struggle to keep a hold on her.

“Damn you, help me!” he shouts at the Separatists. “Bring your men out here, hurry!”

“Can’t you do something?” the leader cries out, stepping closer, nervous at the idea of his prize escaping.

“Do as I say,” Varian snarls back, acting out his part perfectly even as he dabs chemicals on Rapunzel’s bound wrists, “or Moon help me, I’ll—”

Rapunzel ‘rips’ free of the rope bindings while all are distracted and lunges for the Separatist leader. Her rope bonds fall away like water, the cords already eaten away by one of Varian’s concoctions, just as they planned. She grabs the startled leader, twisting his arm behind his back the way Cassandra taught her, and holding the rim of her frying pan under his throat, cold metal against his windpipe. “Drop your weapons!” she shouts, when all the Separatists go for their swords. “Stop moving now, or—or, the old man gets it!”

The old man gets it? Varian mouths at her, looking incredulous, and Rapunzel flushes, shaking her head at him.

The men mumble, shuffling uncertainly on their feet. Rapunzel glares her fiercest glare at them. “Well?” she demands.

They glance between each other. “…We could always get a new king,” one guard mumbles, and as one, every Separatist sword rises.

In her grip, the former Separatist leader sobs pathetically.

Rapunzel nearly drops her pan. “Really?” she says, disgusted and annoyed. “Really?”

“I told you so,” Varian mumbles, and that is when the men attack.

-

“Stop pouting,” says Rapunzel, an hour later, trudging through the woods. Varian follows at her heels, grumbling quietly. “We were fine!”

“You hit me in the eye,” Varian says back. “With a frying pan.”

“That was an accident!”

“You threw it straight at me!”

“I thought you were going to catch it! Everyone else always catches it!”

“Threw it at me,” Varian repeats stubbornly, rubbing forlornly at his face. “Giving me black eyes, making annoying plans, setting off flares…”

“It all worked out!” Rapunzel insists, offended by his complaints. She brushes a stray branch away from her face, ducking underneath another one, heading up the hill with a huff. “We were amazing! You didn’t accidentally say anything cheesy in a panic, I got to dramatically escape and hold a man hostage, we had a wonderful time subduing a threat to the kingdom, and we won! It was perfect!”

“Sure, they all got arrested,” Varian says. “But we had to run away from guards, and my eye hurts, and I told you so.”

Rapunzel grins at him. “And we won!” she repeats stubbornly, nudging him with her elbow.

Varian waves a hand. “Ehhh.”

“Ehhh?!”

“Yeah, that’s right. Ehhh. I think we should’ve done my plan.”

“Your plan!” Rapunzel says, crossing her arms. “What was your plan!”

Varian huffs. “Well, I may have forgotten to mention it, but—”

“Ohoho, did you?”

“—BUT,” Varian repeats loudly, “I’ll have you know it was a vastly superior plan—”

“Oh!”

“—Very well thought out—”

“I see!”

“—And it would have absolutely worked, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. So there.”

“W-ell,” says Rapunzel, trying not to laugh, adopting a lofty tone, “I’m very sorry for not following your wonderful and yet unspoken plan, Varian.”

Varian nods firmly, crossing his arms with a satisfied smile. “Thank you,” he says primly, and promptly trips over a branch.

Rapunzel catches him before he can face-plant the ground, laughing softly as she sets him upright. “You okay there?”

“Branches, too many branches. Where are we even going? This isn’t the way back to the castle!”

“That way is going to be crawling with guards for a while, so I figured we should avoid it for a bit.” Rapunzel tugs him forward, looping their arms together playfully. “I know a good place to rest, yeah? We’re almost there! Just, trust me?”

Varian goes quiet at this. When he finally responds, his voice is much softer. “Okay,” he says. His eyes are on the ground. “I trust you.”

Rapunzel faces forward, and doesn’t look back at him, doesn’t dare to. But she smiles into the shadowed brush, so wide and bright that the force of it nearly brings tears to her eyes.

She never really thought they could have this, is the thing, never believed she and Varian could ever be friends again. Those years ago, after that battle in Old Corona, she had thought that would be the end of it. She could apologize, she could give him a second chance, she could try— and maybe, things could be all right. But even then, she’d never dared to dream that this would happen. That he could forgive her, and that she could forgive him. That they could start over.

The events that brought them to this point—none of them were nice, none of them were pretty. Some still give Rapunzel nightmares, memories of a dark place, of a desperate chase, of a bloody arrow or a kingdom in ruin. She still has scars, pale and light, remnants of wounds even Rapunzel’s quick healing can’t erase entirely. Varian is missing half his ear, has a scar slashing across half his face. Eugene’s leg will never be the same; Cassandra’s back is a mass of scars.

Yet, for all the ugliness in their past, their future is bright. It is full of laughter and fun and fights that are more brawl than true danger. Rapunzel… she can never regret these past few years, not really. Not when it has brought her this future, not when it has brought her here, to a world where Varian says “I trust you,” and means it, a world where they are not enemies. A world with Eugene at her side and Cassandra set to be Captain of the Guard. A world where they are victorious.

These thoughts comfort her as they walk, set her heart at ease and keep her walk steady. When they reach her destination, she has enough good cheer remaining to make of a show of it, a low sweep of her hand and a silly smile.

“May I present to you—a wall!”

“Ah, yes, the kingdom border,” Varian says dryly. “A riveting sight. Truly amazing. It’s almost like I didn’t grow up in a border town and see it every day of my life—”

Rapunzel has already climbed to the top. “Quit sassing me and come up!”

“Princess, seriously, I already know—”

“Up!”

He sighs loudly, but starts climbing, only complaining a little bit. Halfway up, his gloves slip, and Rapunzel leans over the edge, catching him just in time. She yanks him up the rest of the way with one sharp tug. He’s lighter than she expects, though, and she pulls too hard—they go tumbling back against the stone, Varian yelping and Rapunzel wheezing when Varian’s elbow digs into her stomach.

“Ouch!”

“Ohhh, thanks for that, just what I needed, to be sent flying into space—”

“I keep forgetting how light you are,” Rapunzel says, laughing weakly, trying to catch her breath. “Eugene is right! Have you been eating regular meals?”

“I forgot how strong and how nosy you are,” Varian says in return, pushing himself up. He pats the dust from his hair. “I’m fine, Mom. I eat veggies and everything, lay off.”

“I just worry.”

He sighs at this, rolling over onto his back, arms out-splayed. “I know,” he says sadly. “You always worry. I wish you wouldn’t.”

Rapunzel has nothing to say to this, so she lays down next to him instead, arms folded on her chest, looking up to the stars. She’s quiet for a long moment, playing with her nails, before she dares to speak.

“I’m told that what older sisters do,” she says finally, hesitant. “Worry, I mean.”

Varian sucks in a tiny breath. “An… older sister,” he repeats, but his voice breaks on the words, makes it a question.

“Yes,” Rapunzel says. She tangles her fingers, untangles them, tangles them again. She has called Varian her brother before—just once, a year ago, and it had seemed right to do it—but she has never laid claim to the title in this way, mentioned herself as a part of his family, rather than just him as a part of hers. “If… if that’s okay?”

Varian is quiet, quiet for a long time, his breathing rasping faintly in the air. When he finally speaks, his voice is rough, wet with unshed tears. “…Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I’ve… I’ve never had a sibling before. Its— I don’t… I don’t mind if— if you are.”

Rapunzel lets out a relieved breath, grinning up at the sky. “Okay,” she says, beaming at the stars. “Okay.”

“Do—do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you mind? Calling me— your brother. After everything.”

She rolls onto her stomach, pushing up on her elbows so she can reach out and tweak his nose. He yelps, hands flying to his face, and she laughs at his expression, confusion and childish annoyance clear as day in his eyes.

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” she tells him, warmth curling in her heart. She twists to sit up fully, legs dangling over the edge of the wall, the wind blowing through her hair. “How many times are you going to ask me that? You’re my brother. I told you that ages ago. Ah, you’re so silly sometimes.”

He laughs, or maybe cries, or maybe it’s something a little of both. He sits up too, next to her, one hand still rubbing at his nose. His eyes are blinking fast and he is hiding a smile behind his hand. “Ugh, where do you get off saying that? Remember the tunnels? Oh, you dastardly fiend—”

“May I remind you,” Rapunzel says with a grin, “of, It is I, Varian! Come to enact—”

“Okay okay! I get it, you win, can you please not remind me of that?”

Rapunzel breaks off into laughter, and after a moment of hesitation, Varian laughs with her, the last of the tension bleeding out from his shoulders. The wind blows cold against their faces, still clinging to the winter chill even in this early spring. In the distance, the capital city and the castle are awash in light, a glowing beacon on the horizon, a radiance gathering at its edges. It turns the far-off hills into black silhouettes, stains the clouds a brilliant gold and pink. Dawn is soon approaching.

Rapunzel smiles out over the kingdom and reaches out with one arm to hug Varian to her side on impulse. “Happy birthday, little brother,” she tells him, and kicks her feet over the edge. “Nineteen’s a big year—I know mine was. I hope you had fun tonight.”

He freezes in her hold, sucking in a sharp breath, stiff in her arms. “I didn’t know you—”

She grins at him. “A little birdie told me.”

“Who?”

“I think you’ll have fun finding out, won’t you?”

He pauses at this, and then sighs. “Lance. Oh, damn. There's gonna be gifts in my main hideout, isn’t there?”

“Better head to the Snuggly Duckling and pick them up before you go!” Rapunzel chirps, refusing to feel ashamed.

“You’re all terrible,” Varian says, but he is smiling, cheeks flushed with pleasure. “What, was this—this whole thing, was it—”

Rapunzel laughs sheepishly, one hand rising to pull at a strand of her hair. “Sort of…? I mean the Separatists, they were a legitimate issue, but… Yes.”

“I still don’t get how what we did solved anything,” Varian admits, picking at a loose thread in his vest. “Won’t King Trevor just declare war now? I mean, being a Separatist is a crime, but he’ll probably defend them against that charge, so…”

“Oh!” Rapunzel says, grinning back at him. “Actually, it’s pretty simple. See, you attacked and kidnapped me, and you made a deal with the Separatists— I can vouch for that. Ergo, because of that, they are guilty of aiding and requesting an attack on a princess, ergo this is a crime King Trevor can’t excuse, and thus— We charge them for the crime of assault, and since we aren’t persecuting them for being Separatists, King Trevor can’t throw a fit over it, and we leave them all to stew in their untimely demise.”

“Nice,” says Varian.

“I know, right? I make good plans.” Rapunzel pokes his side, and he squeaks in surprise, leaning away from her. “Nice subject change, by the way. C’mon, be honest. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

Varian smiles, a bit sheepish, his eyes bright. “Okay, okay. It was.” He takes a deep breath, looking as if he is about to speak, and then shakes his head. Abruptly he leans forward, twisting in her hold to hug her properly, both arms squeezing tight against her back, his hair brushing her cheek.

He has let go and pulled away before Rapunzel can react. “Thanks,” Varian says, very carefully avoiding her gaze. "For— for everything.”

Rapunzel blinks at him, still surprised by the sudden hug, and then smiles, soft and gentle. She feels like she's on cloud nine, so happy she could sing. “Of course.”

Varian shakes his head again, and stands suddenly, turning away. It cannot hide the tremble in his hands, the tears in his eyes, or the smile on his face. “I should go now,” he says awkwardly, fiddling with his clothes. “I still have…”

He waves his hand, looking frustrated, and Rapunzel nods knowingly, taking pity on him.

“I get it,” she says kindly. “Take care, Varian.”

He looks back at her. “You too, Princ…” He stops then, and smiles. “Rapunzel,” he corrects, and Rapunzel beams back at him, delighted.

They help each other down from the wall and Rapunzel wraps Varian in one last bruising hug before he can scamper off. For a moment he hesitates, and then his arms come around and hug her back, just as tightly.

“Goodbye, Varian,” Rapunzel says, squeezing him hard before she pulls away, hands resting on his shoulders. “I’ll see you soon.”

He grins up at her, for a moment looking every inch the boy he once was, the boy he still is, the boy she met years and years ago. “Bye, Raps.”

She waves him off and tries not to laugh when he leaves, because he is walking in the direction of the Snuggly Duckling. She hopes Lance doesn’t tease him too much, or throw too big of a celebration; she hopes he likes the gifts they all have left for him. She hopes tonight was as fun for him as it was for her.

She turns her face towards the sunrise and starts the long walk home, discussing with Pascal her story for how she ‘escaped’ her kidnapping. There is happiness in her heart and warmth brimming from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She feels happy. She feels victorious.

All in all, she thinks, watching as the sun crests over her kingdom, it has been a good day. A good day, a good year, a good life. It is the happily ever after the tragedy, the sunrise at the end of the long night. They may have struggled to get here—but in the end that sun shines all the brighter to their eyes because of it.

Her story has ended at last, and this ending—this happily ever after they have all been left with—it is one she has come to love, with every fiber of her being.

She walks home to her family without fear, led on by the rising sun, and not once does she think to look back.

[reidimagines]

Prompt #28 w/ Spencer

I know you didn’t ask for this, but I made it a crossover with Supernatural. It is a little bit longer because of that, but I hope you like it nonetheless. 

#28: “Go to Hell.” “Already been but thanks for the invite”

The BAU team had often seen you around cases, and it was soon they made a link. Yet, the wrong one. You saved their ass without them knowing it, and you got arrested. Not that you really cared, you would be free soon. 

You were glad when the seemingly youngest one (and cutest one) joined you in the room. 

“If I had known I would be interrogated by someone like you,” You began, leaning in with a grin. “I would have dug up my sexy underwear.” You winked. 

If he cared, he was good at hiding it. “What were you doing in the crime scene?” His voice was calm, but you knew that wouldn’t be the case for long. 

“Last time I checked, it was just a building with more houses.” You leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. “But if you really want to know, I was buying sex toys from an illegal dealer with one eye.” 

The agent, Dr. Spencer Reid, blinked a few times. “Right. What were you doing here,” he placed a picture of another crime scene on the table. “About two months ago.” 

“Honey, I live nearby.” 

“And here.” He placed a few other pictures on the table. “Or here, or here.” 

“As far as you know, I am rich and have more houses.” You smirked. 

“Can you explain why we can’t find anything under your name? Where is your ID?” He started losing his patience, which was horribly cute. 

“I’m not from here.” You leaned back forwards, shamelessly flirting with him. “But for you, I would consider staying another night.” 

Dr. Reid stood up, moving to the door. You guessed someone whispered something in his ear. “Bye, Dr. Reid.” You waved after him. 

You were alone, but knew every move was followed. You started humming a song, your teasing glare never leaving the ‘mirror’ in front of you. 

A darker skinned man came in, and your flirtatious smile crept back on your face. 

“Well hello, sexy beast.” You just didn’t know shame anymore. 

“We found your car.” even though that was hard to believe, your face fell for a second before you laughed. 

“How embarrassing. I haven’t cleaned her in a while.” You smiled. “Sorry you had to see that much dust on a black car. Probably a male pet peeve, am I right.” 

You had a black car, but you hoped he would think this was just a trick. However, he didn’t bite. 

“Can you tell me what you think we found?” You raised an eyebrow. “It can help you.” 

“Sweet cakes,” You leaned back. “You couldn’t have found my car. I’m not stupid.” 

“We aren’t, either.” 

“In that case, you should know that you can’t hold me without evidence.” You gave him a sympathetic smile. “And I think you have nothing except coincidence. That means I’ll be gone before sundown.” 

“We can hold you for 24 hours.” He reminded you. 

“Believe me when I say I’ll be home before that ends.” You winked and leaned back. 

You were right, an hour later you were on your way out. With a last wink pointed towards Dr. Reid, you glided through the doors. You didn’t hear how they shook their heads, annoyed that they couldn’t prove anything against you. 

When you jumped into your car, you were glad they hadn’t found the car. The weapons would be enough to put you in jail. 

You hoped it would be a while before you ran into them again, but it wasn’t. You never got what you wished for. You were on a job when the BAU decided to show up. 

And of course they had to walk by when you were just about to beak into the crime scene. 

You cursed under your breath before you dove into a bush. It was childish, but they almost knew too much. They would figure out that it wasn’t a person who killed the victim, but a spirit. 

It was sunset, and you wondered why they weren’t going back. The spirit would soon appear. 

“We should do one last check.” An older man said, gesturing for them to go inside. Even though you didn’t really liked them, you didn’t want them dead. You were ready to blow your cover, maybe hold them back, when you realized they were already inside. You rushed to the door, telling them to get out before a crazy spirit came. But the door blew too, and you knew that they were in the hands of the spirit. 

You groaned, turning around to go to your car, gathering as many weapons as your bag could carry. They would need some weapons, too. You took some iron knives and extra rock salt. 

Breaking the door open would be hard, but you had done it before. You got ready to kick the door open, which surprisingly worked. The door fell closed with a loud bang behind you. You didn’t saw the agents, you started looking for them.  

You didn’t make a sound, but they were also silent. You got thrown to the ground by q female figure. 

“Cassie?” You saw Agent Prentiss her black hair and smiled. 

“You can call me Y/N.” She pushed the woman off and stood up. “It’s not what you think, alright. put down your guns I’m here to save you.” 

“Is that why you brought guns?” Agent Morgan said. You rolled your eyes. 

“Obviously. You can’t kill it with a regular bullet.” Their guns didn’t lower. “Alright, listen up motherfuckers. You let me do my thing so you can all see daylight again or we all die.” 

“We can handle the unsub. Don’t worry.” 

“Oh, how do you kill a vengeful spirit?” You placed your hands on your hips. “Tell me.” 

“A ghost?” 

“I don’t like that word.” You glanced at Dr. Reid. “But if you will, yes. They are real. So are demons. Werewolves. Vamps.” You shrugged. “Besides, I couldn’t kill anyone with my bullets. It’s salt.” 

Spencer leaned down to check. “She’s telling the truth.”

“That doesn’t mean there is an actual ghost.” You rolled your eyes and walked to your bag, a gun was pointed at you again. 

“So you’re a ghost hunter?” 

“Oh please, I hunt more than just ghost. And you better put that gun away, mister.” You pointed towards Derek. “I am here to save your fucking ass.” 

He looked extremely annoyed with you. “Why can’t we kick the doors open? What’s going on?”

“Strange ghost power.” You took the salt out of your bag. “Move.” 

“What are you doing?” Someone asked. 

You sighed. “I can’t explain everything in one night, but here we go. Salt stops spirits.” You kept it short, drawing a big circle. 

“There, stay in the circle.” You pushed them in. “Don’t move. I’ll take care of the spirit.” You handed Derek and Emily a shotgun and some salt. “Don’t miss.” You grinned. 

“Wait!” Spencer called after you. “How are you going to stop him?”

“There is something in this house that is his connection. I salt and burn it and he’s gone.” 

“You can use us, right? I mean, we are profilers after all. It has to be something special to him?” 

You got curious and nodded. “Yes, his name is John Greenwall. He has been dead for six years. Killed by an axe, his brother lived here until he died. Now the Ross family is killed.” 

“It-It had to be something important to him, right? Like, a book or something?” You wondered why they believed you without seeing the ghost. Then it hit you: This was a distraction. It was too late, the blonde lady had thrown herself onto you. You didn’t want to hit her, but as she was straddling you, you had to kick her off. The other members had drawn their guns, but so had you. 

And for once the spirit had a good timing. He appeared to your left, Hotch noticing it first. He shot, but it didn’t matter. You loaded your shotgun and shot, the ghost vanishing. 

“Do you believe me now?” You pushed them back towards the circle. “In the circle!” You reloaded your gun. 

“Are you willing to help now?” 

Spencer seemed to be in deep thought. “I remember reading his brother’s file. A-a painting! He refused to give it away!” 

The spirit came back, and before you could shoot, Derek had. You grinned at him. 

“A painting. It’s possible. Okay, I do the attic, someone gotta look here.” 

JJ raised her hand. “Give me a gun. I will.” And so you left. You only ran into the spirit once. You didn’t find the painting. You ran back downstairs after hearing gunshots. However, you found JJ holding the painting. 

“We found it.” She breathed out with a faint smile. You grinned. 

“Alright, get back in the circle and make sure he won’t attack me.” You placed the painting in the middle of the room and salt and burned it. You held your breath. 

“I hope this worked because otherwise, we have a long night to go.” You were already quite tired. 

You tried to open the door, which worked. You sighed in relief. “Alright guys, case solved.” You gathered your weapons and smiled. “It was my pleasure, yet I hope I never run into you again.” 

That was a lie. Even though they almost shot you, they hadn’t. That was better than your last friends had done. 

Spencer Reid still had questions, and he was the first one to be outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of you. 

“So you’re just going to leave?” 

“What else am I supposed to do?” You smiled and pushed your bag in your car. “There are other people who need me.” 

“You aren’t even going to stay the night?” 

“Nope.” You wiggled your eyebrows. “Unless you want me to.” 

“Go to hell.” He chuckled. 

“Already been but thanks for the invite.” You answered. He didn’t know you were serious. 

“What if we run into a ghost again?”

“You know what to do. Salt also helps with demons, remember that.” You plopped down in you and rolled the window down. “If it’s bad enough you’ll see me again. And if that happens,” You smirked. “Then I’ll take you out for dinner.” 

You drove off, hoping you’d see them soon again, because then, you and Spencer would have dinner together. 

[rantingnbanting]

Euphoria season 1 Review

**SPOILERS**

Welp episode 8 has me in actual tears

Mini 1x08 review: (because why the fuck not)

I LOVE YOU CASSIE <3

Jules, I understand why you left. You felt suffocated in the little town and needed to spread your wings. But DAMNIT WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LEAVE LIKE THAT.

I honestly feel bad for Nate. He’s going through a lot right now (and am I the only one that thinks Cal just wet a lil overboard with Nate? Yeah he was being an asshole, but Nate was pushed so far that he has some type of attack on the floor).

That being said,

Fuck you Nate. Abusive asshole. Just leave Maddy alone. She’s so supportive of you and you figuring out your sexuality, and all she wants is for you to be okay. I get that there’s a lot stress in your life right now, but please don’t take it out on Maddy. She’s so broken too :(

I honestly thought fez was going to kill Nate, and I’m really happy he didn’t

THAT ENDING THOUGH

THIS BITCH WAS ON THE EDGE OF HER SEAT THE ENTIRE TIME

IM SO EMOTIONALLY CONFUSED

But we’ll leave the rest for the main review ;)

~~~~~

OKAY COMMENSE SEASON REVIEW!!!

My plan is to address plot stuff (characters too!) and then technical stuff

Story (in general):

KUDOS KUDOS KUDOS. FUCKING FABULOUS. My thoughts watching this was “this feels so real”. I honestly never thought that it seemed at all cliche, which is a feeling a tend to get when I watch something set in high school. I liked how all of the girls were friends and there weren’t cliques.

I also liked how all of the stories were coexisting at the same time and they all worked to gesteht very well. I never felt like the show was cramming I details or overcompensating, which was nice. At the beginning of the show, I did get confused A LOT with all of the characters’ names but that was because they introduced all of the characters at the same time.

I never had a problem with pacing, which can be a huge pet peeve of mine so I applaud ye.

Overall, very well done.

Ending:

I always do a separate review for the ending because, in my unprofessional opinion, it the most important part of a story.

This ending made me emotional but also confused and slightly angry

Allow me to elaborate

If you follow me or have read some of my reviews, you know that I like solidified answers and no loose ends. Well this ending gave me tons of loose ends, which annoys me slightly.

But I knows this is only because they were planning on renewing it for another season (which they did thank god), so I can live with that.

A good point was made during a sincast episode. These problems that every character goes through do happen in real life. But the fact that all of them are happensjng in the same town is kind of hard to believe

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sincast-presented-by-cinemasins/id1073364619?i=1000445028205 here’s the link to that episode. I think the part where they talk about euphoria starts around the hour mark, right after the ad

The confusion and emotion go hand in hand because of rue and Jules’ ending.

HOT DAMN

NOT AT ALL WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

Well, I was expecting that Jules and Rue were going to fall out about something and Rue was going to go back to drugs.

BUT NOT LIKE THAT

AND THAT SONG AT THE END

ANRJRBDHD

if somebody could send that to me or tell me what it’s called, I’d hella appreciate it ty

And yeah, we didn’t get a happy ending. But what the ambiguous ending leaves for is utter excitement for season 2

And who knows when that will come out :’)

Rue &Jules:

Honestly, I fuckin called it. I knew they weren’t going to last because they never seemed to make it work.

This is also a “real” moment because it displays that not all teen relationships work out. In cliche movies, the main couple work through their relationship and end up getting married. But this reminds you that real life doesn’t work that way.

As a tv watcher, I liked that rue eventually went back drugs. It seemed kind of obvious, almost to the point where it’s too obvious to do it, and that’s why I liked that they did that. As a fan of the show, I’m fucking pissed because that means that poor rue is going to have to start back at square one, but without her resources that helped her stay clean the first time.

I think I wrote in my first or second review of the show that I liked rue and Jules’ friendship, and I still agree with that. The friendship is what held rue together. But when things started to progress further than that, and the pair became romantically involved, that’s when the relationship became toxic. And that’s what’s sad. They both needed a rock to support them, but that support was almost immediately ruined when they became a “thing”

Kat:

I liked Kat’s wardrobe change! When she lost her virginity, she seemed to become an entirely different person. And I’m pretty sure her appearance shift has ulterior motives (maybe some self consciousness..?) but she seemed to spread out of her shell abut, and I liked that.

IM SO HAPPY SHE AND ETHAN GOT TOGETHER IN THE END!!! <333333

But this brings up a lot of questions: is she going to continue with camming? (I think yes). If she does how will everyone especially Ethan react?

Idkklk

Nate, Cal, and Maddy:

This one im intrigued to see where it is going to go. Because the last episode left us with a lot of loose ends:

Rue, Jules, Nate, and Maddy know about cal’s hookups

Nate and Maddy are the only ones with proof

Is Maddy going to keep quiet about this? We never really saw her reaction to the video or which video it was

Cal is potentially abusive toward his son

Nate takes a lot after his dad

Nate has a lot of built up emotion and tends to take it out on the people in ramonatocqlly involved with

Alexa Demie and Jacob Elordi are also phenomenal and their chemistry in stage is matches exactly how Maddy and Nate are suppose to act towards each other

McKay & Cassie:

I’m about to eat my fucking foot

I actually really liked this story in the end. I just think I dragged a lot because Cassie’s and McKay’s episodes were at the end of the season. When their episodes aired, I immediately liked the show and their story better.

And that’s just a problem with the story. I fell like this section of the story could have progressed more by the time their episodes came up, to at least build suspense.

But Sydney Sweeney is probably one of my favorites actresses in the show because of how emotional and open she became when Cassie was pregnant and had her abortion. It broke Cassie, and Sydney portrayed that excellently

Quality:

Really good. Seemed to be shot on a nice camera. The camera angles were kind of wonky sometimes, but it never felt like too much and it always seems to match what what’s happeneing during the scene

Rating/content:

Definitely TV-MA. Please use discretion when watching this. It’s a hard watch, and, like podcast says, it would not get an R rating if it were a movie. Honestly the sex scenes bothered me way more than the drugs, but that’s my personal opinion. All of the things that make this TV-MA are essential to the show though, so you can’t cut that stuff out

Overall...

Very impressed. I did like the ending a lot, and I can’t wait for what season 2 has in store :)

[goblinkind]

Even numbers for the newest ask meme!

These are actually hella fucking cute y’all

2. Do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?

No I do NOT like it because I hate it!!!

4. How do you take your coffee/tea?

I either drink black coffee or coffee with cream in it. I do not like sugar in my coffee ever at all.

I do like to pour honey in my tea, though.

6. Do you keep plants?

Yep! I have three plants at college and one plant at my grandma’s house. (I used to have more, but I gave them to my friend Cassie.)

8. What artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Pencils, ink and markers are my go-to. I also use watercolor pencils on occasion.

10. Do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

Sometimes I sleep on my back; sometimes I sleep on my side. Never on my stomach, though, because my boobs don’t like it.

12. What’s your favorite planet?

It hasn’t been discovered yet, but I know it’s out there!

14. If you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

Gay.

16. What’s your favorite pasta dish?

It’s, uh, Velveeta mac and cheese. I just bought an eight-pack of it last night!

18. Tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

Uh, well… there was the time I introduced myself to this dude (who’s literally always stoned) and he thought my name was Genevieve. My friend Eli went to correct him, but I interrupted them and just went along with it.

It’s been like three months and the dude still thinks my name is Genevieve.

20. What’s your favorite eye color?

Brown!

22. Are you a morning person?

Noooo.

24. Is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Honestly, no. My secrets are secret for a reason.

26. What are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

It used to be my black studded boots, but I basically wore them to death. So now it’s my white Nikes.

28. Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset!

30. Think of it: have you ever been truly scared?

Uh, yeah. I get “truly scared,” like, every single night when I remember that one scary movie series I watched two years ago.

32. Tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

Okay. One night morning, my BFF K and I were, y’know, havin’ a sleepover

And I think he left the room to like, to go pee or something

And I kinda just rambled to myself the entire time he was gone

And he came back but I didn’t notice

And I told this loooong bullshit story about a dude who, like, does weird stuff to freak out his neighbors or some shit

And that’s how my OC Mug was born.

34. Tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? What does it look like? Do you still keep it?

Her name is Birdy and she’s a canary from IKEA who gets nosebleeds. She’s yellow and has embroidered-on big red nostrils and blue eyes and K’s mom sewed up her wings (which were starting to fall off) and my roommate sewed up her tummy (which got bitten by a dog). Of course I still have her. She’s in my dorm room right now.

36. Which band’s sound would fit your mood right now?

Fall Out Boy! They make me feel tough but also nostalgic. I was listening to “Where Did the Party Go?” today in the shower.

38. Tell us about your pet peeves!

That’s easy: when someone tries to correct me but it turns out they’re the one who’s wrong. (This happens a lot with grammar.)

40. Think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s its story? Does it have any meaning to you?

Cassie gave me a necklace with an agate and amethyst pendant on it for Christmas. There isn’t really a story behind it other than that, though. I just really love Cassie.

42. Do you have a favorite coffee shop? Describe it!

I really like the Panera next to my old outpatient facility! I used to show up early and go there and draw Rick and Morty fan art. It was nice to have some time to ground myself before a long day of therapy.

44. When was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?

Uh, last night, probably. Last night when I was falling asleep.

46. Tell us the worst pun you can think of.

I can’t. I can’t think of one at the moment. But here’s a good one that somebody else made!

48. What was your biggest fear as a kid? Is it the same today?

It was “people with scary smiles who wanted to hurt me”

And yeah, that’s still my biggest fear. I’m also still scared of scary music.

50. What’s an odd thing you collect?

I collect hex codes! Sometimes I’ll thumb through them when I’m taking a study break and it’ll calm me down.

52. What are your favorite memes of the year so far?

I still don’t entirely understand it, but I do enjoy the “you know I had to do it to ‘em” meme!

54. Who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?

Uhhhh, Max.

56. What are some things you find endearing in people?

I like people who say things in a funny way. Like, what they’re saying isn’t necessarily funny, but the words they use and their inflection are.

My dad is one of those people. One time, my family was all packed into the car after a vacation in the mountains. My mom got out to check that we hadn’t left anything in the hotel room, and when she came back, my dad yelped. He’d spilled some of her Diet Coke on his hand.

My mom: What? What’s wrong?

My dad: *very agitated* It’s this—this—this Coca-Cola!! >:( >:( >:(

58. Who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? Why?

At one point, Max has figured out who was whom. I don’t remember what they ended up deciding, though. I’ll have to ask them later.

60. Do you like poetry? What are some of your fav[orite poems]?

I do! My dad is actually a published poet. When I was little, he wrote a poem out of a bunch of nonsense that I’d said and he’d written down and saved. That’s my favorite poem.

(P.S. If you want to read two other poems by my dad, click here.)

62. Do you drink juice in the morning? Which kind?

I know it’s kinda weird, but I’ve fallen into the habit of ordering a lemonade every morning before class.

64. What color is the sky where you are right now?

It’s like, kinda white. White-grey I guess. Mostly just white.

66. What would your ideal flower crown look like?

It would look just like the one Eli made me for my birthday, but with spikes!

68. What’s winter like where you live?

In a word? HORRIBLE.

70. Have you ever used a Ouija board?

Yeah, with my friend Spooks. It spelled out “E-D H-E-L-M-S.”

72. Are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?

Yes! Because of my OCD, I get very anxious whenever I forget anything. So the writing stuff down that I do can actually be an unhealthy compulsion in my case.

74. Describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

Uh, okay. Well I have this friend who’s kinda sassy and says weird stuff. They’re gay and they talk about their S/O a lot. Also they always make jokes about how they’re ready to die and it’s kind of concerning.

And they have a soft pretty voice and like to wear long skirts. And I love them. And I wish I could see them more but I know there’s a good reason why I can’t.

Oh! And they’re really smart.

76. Is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

…I don’t like this question.

78. Are you in the Minion hateclub or fanclub?

I do hate Minions, but I wouldn’t say I’m in their hateclub because I also associate them with my therapist. And I love my therapist.

80. What color are your bedroom walls? Did you choose that color? If so, why?

My bedroom walls at home are lavender. I chose the color when I was younger because it used to be my favorite. (I’m still really happy with the walls.)

82. Are/were you good in school?

Nope!

84. Are you planning on getting tattoos? Which ones?

Probably not. My parents don’t believe in tattoos.

86. Do you like concept albums? Which ones?

Does Crybaby count as a concept album? I like Crybaby!

88. Are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

I like the meme-y one that made everyone confused and angry. Dadaism. I like that one.

90. Talk about your one of you favorite cities.

I really like Seattle! It has a lot of jerks in it but it’s fun to walk around and it has fun festivals and art fairs. Plus, I hear it has some really cool gay neighborhoods.

92. Are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

The former. I love cheese.

94. Who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

Eli! Their birthday was last Friday.

96. Do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot?

I tend to stay pretty on top of my computer updates.

98. When’s the last time you went hiking? Did you enjoy it?

It was over the summer and NO. I HAAAATED it.

100. If you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? Why?

I’d go to the future. Everyone knows it’s safer to mess with the future than with the past!

[stickthatinyourstraw]

Beginnings

I’m going to start journaling here on my ole tumblr account. For anyone who still follows me, if this isn’t your thing, you’re welcome to go. I just need to find a new way to release some thoughts and energy on a regular basis. Who knows how often I’ll even get around to it. Ideally daily would be great, but considering how scatter-brained I really am, it’s unlikely. This’ll be a kinda stream of consciousness type thing, where I don’t go back and edit it, I just post what I’ve written.

So I guess I’ll start with what makes me want to do this in the first place; I don’t know how to deal with my own emotions or thoughts, and I feel like venting about it to no one on the internet might make me feel better. I went out with Wyatt tonight, and it all just stressed me out. To set the background, and so I’ll remember with context later; today was a chill day at work, I got to go in when I wanted for just education, so I slept in and grabbed Starbucks on my way in. Nothing particularly special happened, except for some sweet gossip that I love to hate; Jerenda is moving from her manager position to be a CCU nurse. I imagine that’s a pay cut, and I’m surprised Debbie is letting her go, but she must really be suffering like the rest of us were (and some still are). I asked Cassie to get with her old contacts in CCU and give me updates on how she does, more specifically if she fails, so I can report back to all my old buddies on the floor. She deserves every ounce of shit she gets up there. The rest of my work day was generally uneventful, but I ended up coming home to a paper towel confettied mess, because Wyatt hadn’t put the boys up this morning like he usually does. Not a huge deal, but I can’t find the damn broom, so I’m going to leave it for him to see and clean up, though it does stress me out every time I go out there. If I just ignore it, it doesn’t exist, right? Wyatt came home after with his car back out of the shop, he had some thing done to soften the ride and raise the suspension or whatever, but they ended up somehow fucking it up and lowering the damn thing even more. Now you can’t even fit a finger in the wheel well. I’ll admit that the ride was smoother, however even the slightest bumps sounded like the entire undercarriage of the car drug on the ground. So we rode out to the Habitat for Humanity food truck fest at the baseball stadium to meet Dad for some dinner. I got a giant redneck cup full of sweet tea, and Wyatt had a couple beers. He had Mahi tacos from Wrighteous Eats, I had a macaroni and pulled pork grilled cheese from Who Cut the Grilled Cheese? All in all, pretty good stuff. Dad wasn’t hungry, and Wyatt wanted to get to his buddy John’s car meet, so we left around 7. Now, I used to take a lot of issue with his driving style, because he tends to speed and take turns and corners too quickly for my liking, but since he put new tires on and stiffened the suspension in the Accord, it gripped a lot better and I felt I could trust it more. Well, it’s been raining for the last two days, so it’s damn wet outside, and I don’t care how much grip your tires have, if you go too fast on a turn, you’re putting not only us in danger, but other people as well. He flew down 110 at about 70, driving past a wreck with an overturned truck and a few state troopers. I felt it would’ve been smarter not to speed past the troopers, but whatever. We get to 29 and he has to do a fly by for the boys, so he hauls ass at like 70 down the 45 zone to get some good muffler noises, then does a U-turn and comes up to the shop. As soon as we get out of the car (whose door I’ve just locked), he and Rylan jump into a souped up Civic and go for a ride. I barely got an “I’ll be right back, love you babe!” before he hopped in and they took off in the little red fart can. 5 minutes go by and I’m getting antsy, standing in a mechanic’s parking lot with a bunch of strangers in the dark, waiting for my doofus boyfriend to get back. I text him and tell him, “I am not interested in hanging out here alone with strangers.” He replied with “I’ll be back in a sec, they needed me to buy beer.” Okay, fine. He’s gone almost another ten minutes, and needless to say, I hadn’t arrived in the greatest mood as it was. They get back, and I’m audibly irritated with him, and he asks if I’m mad at him for going, and I say that I kinda am for just immediately taking off and leaving me alone with strangers for 15 minutes. He tells me to “calm down”, which we all know how well that works out. He says “whatever dude”, my favorite pet peeve phrase out of his mouth, and walks off to put the beer away. He then goes to talk to this kid who’s bought himself a piece of shit Accord and proceeds to give him the old coilovers off his car that he’d had replaced today. The kid (19) is super excited, and proceeds to gush about his Accord to Wyatt, who’s just thrilled to have someone with the same car as him. Wyatt takes him for a ride in his car to show it off, and I stay behind because I have no interest in being complicit in his going 80 down Hwy 29. Two different groups of guys were making shitty remarks about Wyatt’s car, and though I couldn’t make out specific sentences, I could hear the snickering about how slow he was. They made fun of him. All I could think of was that I hoped no one knew I was his girlfriend. I didn’t want to be made fun of too, nor did I want to make anyone stop talking about it. I wanted to hear their unfiltered and unbiased opinions. Those opinions were not nice. Then they got back and Wyatt asked if he could go for a ride in the kid’s car, and though I gave him a dirty look, I wanted him to just do it and get it over with. He saw my face and told the kid “maybe another day” but I whispered “he has the mental maturity of a 4 year old, just go with him and make his fuckin day.” They left, the kid’s muffler dragging against the ground the whole way. Once again, all I could think of was “please for the love of God no one acknowledge that I know half of the brain power in that vehicle.” They made endless fun of that shit bucket car, even after they came back. Wyatt did get a semi-backhanded compliment from Rylan about his car from the ordeal, “This car is a piece of shit. Accords are not all pieces of shit, because your car isn’t a piece of shit, but this car is.” That made Wyatt happy, which is all I ask for. Now, note that this entire time we’ve been here, and I mean since we rolled up into the parking lot, I’ve had to pee. I’m on my period, so I’m already bloated, and I just finished about a quart of sweet tea and a giant grilled cheese and tots, so I’m busting at the seams here. He asks if I want him to take me home so I can pee, but I don’t necessarily want to abandon him and leave, I just want to go somewhere relatively clean, not the mechanic’s bathroom in the shop that I’ve just seen three kids running in and out of and playing in. No thanks. But eventually I just give in and let him take me home, and here we are. Writing to you, the void. It’s nice to just sit here on my computer, on the couch, in my own home, in the dark and the quiet, with three relatively calm dogs at my sides. Cali popped up out of a box and scared the shit out of Shep, so I’ve had something to laugh at.

I need to try and study a bit for the HESI and then sign up to take it next week so I can get my dumbass into school. I don’t really know what I want anymore. I want to help people, and I think I want to do it via emergency medicine, but I honestly don’t know if I’m equipped to handle that. Sure, I love the blood and guts in videos and shit, but what about in real life? I haven’t had a chance to see a real surgery yet, and with the way that I’ve handled things in the past, I’m nervous I’ll be too weak for it. Plus, going back to 3 12s every week and working those long and miserable hours on my feet with a bunch of grouchy ass patients. I really like the whole unconscious patients thing, they haven’t got much room to talk back. The other thing I’m worried about with nursing is being able to even get through school. Sure, if Glenn can get through it, I imagine I can too. But how do I learn all those medications? The abnormal heart rhythms? The various symptoms and variations of diseases and their processes? In just four semesters? How do I manage all that in such a limited time? I’ve never been particularly good in school, and I’m lazy as all hell, with my “if you don’t know it by now, there’s no point in studying any more” bullshit mentality. I know I shouldn’t be like that with schooling that determines my career, but I can’t help myself but not give a shit. It’s been almost a week since registration for the summer opened up and I still haven’t signed up for a class. I don’t know how I’ll be paying for it either, with the lack of Florida prepaid left over at this point. I’ve only got 37 hours left, but thankfully only need 42 hours for this AA. Beyond that, I’m shit outta luck. 

I’m just not feeling the motivation for anything. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t feel motivation any more, or that I never felt it to begin with. I wasn’t motivated in middle school or high school, and certainly not the first time around in college classes. But I just don’t feel motivation to do things that I enjoy. It reminds me a lot of when I would come straight home from school and just sink into the couch to watch Netflix until late at night, without bothering to do much homework or any studying, much less any self care. I don’t have the motivation to shower every day, I don’t remember to brush my teeth every morning if I don’t go to work like normal, I never wear makeup and usually don’t brush my hair. I never eat breakfast or enjoy my coffee or wake up at the first alarm without snoozing. I don’t play videogames anymore, and I don’t have much interest in plants anymore. I don’t keep up with my part of house work and yet still get frustrated with Wyatt when he doesn’t do his part. I neglect my old passions and belongings. I don’t try. I don’t really care, even. I just feel so empty sometimes. I feel like I have a hole in my stomach, like I’ve tried to fill a void with hobbies and interests and food and friends, and nothing ever seems to work, or at least not for long. I’m not really depressed right now, but maybe it’s just that it’s grown into something different. Maybe this constant emptiness is my new form of deep sadness. I don’t cry a lot anymore, and I haven’t been suicidal in a couple months. Even when I have been sad lately, I’ve thought about the idea of suicide taking away the pain, but it just doesn’t feel like the right solution anymore.  I guess that’s a good thing, not wanting to die, even if I don’t really feel like I am living. I’m just so upset about everything all the time. I’m worried I’m too handsy and mean with the dogs. It breaks my heart every time I raise my hand to Lillie and she cowers, and I know that I’m the one who’s done that to her. I don’t beat her, but I’ve used my hands to train, and I know it’s wrong. I guess that makes me one of the bad guys. I hate myself for it, because I can’t control myself in the moment, I just see this blind rage and I lash out at the object of my anger, and then afterwards realize I was wrong in handling it the way I did. Do I even deserve these dogs? Sheppy paces out of boredom, and I’m worried Lillie will end up doing the same. They’re just so high energy, and I’m so not, I can’t motivate myself to take care of them the way I know they deserve. I hate myself sometimes. This is one of those moments where I wish I could just die, but I know I don’t want to. I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. I think I’ll schedule another appointment with Dr. Kim and talk it out with her. I really need help with Wyatt most of all. I’m worried about him, and I’m worried about the way I treat him. He absolutely deserves better than I’m giving him, but I couldn’t stand to lose him. He really is my whole world, but like with Lillie, when he aggravates me, I just lose all sense of right and wrong and just go with an aggressive and hateful base instinct of doing what I want. I’m trying to be better, but I feel like since I’ve stopped therapy, I’ve slid back some. I haven’t been so kind, patient, and forgiving. He deserves that much from me, when I know he does the same for me.

Anyway, at this point, I’m just rambling thoughts of things that have come to mind lately, and I think this is sufficient for the first journal post. If you’re a follower and you’ve made it this far, I’m so sorry for you, it was not worth it bud. But for me when I come back and read this later, be more forgiving to him. He didn’t mean it that way, he didn’t intend to make you feel like that, he didn’t mean to upset or bother you. Sometimes he’s just oblivious, and he still can’t read your mind. Give him the patience he deserves, and the love and support and acceptance he needs. Give more of yourself to him, don’t be selfish, share a little.

Cheers

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Hi, I just recently found your blog and it's amazing! I'm so happy there are still people there are as invested as I am in the Animorphs series! I especially love your Adult AU and your analysis of the books. In fact I was reading one of your posts where you said that Cassandra Clare's book glorify violence - if I'm remembering correctly - and I was curious if you could expand on that. If you prefer you can message me privately since this is strictly an Animorphs blog. I hope I'm not bothering u

No bother at all.  I sometimes feel like I spend half my blog space whining about how every other book on the planet is inferior to Animorphs, which isn’t actually the kind of vibe I’m going for.  I SWEAR I LOVE YA SF.  Just… Not Mortal Instruments.  I’ve tried.  I tried so hard to like that series.  It is objectively well-written and creative.  I just… I can’t with Cassandra Clare’s work.  I can’t.

First of all: a confession.  I’ve only ever read City of Bones, City of Ashes, and about half of City of Glass, and then several different issues (the glorification of violence, the glorification of “slender” or “skinny” bodies, the way Jace’s Freudian Excuse gets used to let him get away with all kinds of bad behavior, the borderline-pathological worship of True Love in City of Ashes) conspired to drive me away from the series as a whole.  So I don’t actually know if Clare improves in the last 80% of the series.  Thus everything I say has that big honking grain of salt. 

However, I do take issue with the way that, from what I’ve seen, the Mortal Instruments series portrays violence.  Individuals are portrayed as all good or all bad (literally, they’re on the side of the angels or else they support demons) and—from what I’ve seen—there are literally no good demons, nor are there angels worse than “morally grey.” This Manichaeisan worldview (which I think is no accident given the overtly Christian overtones of the series) basically justifies pretty much any acts of violence on the grounds of “they are bad and we are good and therefore pretty much anything we do to them is good, regardless of the means we use to get to that end.”  One extension of this principle which pops up again and again and again with regards to the Shadowhunters is that Might Makes Right.  Clary is the best at coming up with new runes to kill demons, which is a sign she is the best good; Izzy is the best at stabbing demons very dead, which is a sign that she is good too.  Morality comes about by way of violence in that series.

It’s troubling because it glorifies war as “we are the good guys wiping out the bad guys” and utterly dehumanizes the bad guys in the process.  Given that we live in a world where pretty much any group can be potentially cast as “the bad guys,” and that we as humans have an implicit bias toward casting ourselves as “the good guys” no matter what group we belong to… It can reinforce bad behavior.  To say the least.  

Case in point, the first scene in the series is one of Clary witnessing a major fight between (apparently) several children her own age, who are using deadly weapons to launch all-out attacks against each other and (again, apparently) succeed in killing at least two individuals at the end.  The narration doesn’t focus on her shock or horror or utter terror; it spends a long time dwelling on how cute Izzy’s dress is and how nice Jace’s cheekbones are and how cool they all look swirling around with their magical weapons.  (And slender bodies. Can’t ever, ever forget to mention that every single one of them has a slender body.  I confess that’s the #1 pet peeve in the writing that drove me away from the series.)  I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Clare has probably never witnessed a real fight, or even a video of a real fight, because this is not only unrealistic (real fights are short, chaotic, hard to interpret, and incredibly disturbing—kind of like how they’re described in Animorphs) but it also suggests that violence is cool. 

Meanwhile, I don’t want to suggest that Clare is by any means the only author with this problem.  There was a great article (which I have since lost—I’ll have to send a link if I find it) which pointed out that American Clinton supporters and American Trump supporters and American independent voters all cast themselves as the Rebel Alliance in Star Wars and cast their political nemeses as the Galactic Empire.  Because it’s easy to do: the narrative of Star Wars dehumanizes the stormtrooper enemy (although I could have cried with happiness when Finn took his helmet off in the latest film) while glorifying the individuated, special, blessed-with-magic heroes.  It literally says that there is “light” and “dark,” and that the light is justified in (for instance) blowing up a space station with dozens of prisoners of war and possibly hundreds of innocent sanitation workers on board, just as long as doing so advances the cause of the Light.  Avengers, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and a simple majority of sci-fi/fantasy suffers from this problem. 

I also specifically said that Clare doesn’t so much glorify violence and other troubling content as much as she fetishizes violence, which I do view as a problem specific to Mortal Instruments.  It leads to this attitude of “people did bad things to me, therefore I can do bad things to [totally unrelated individuals].” Clary nearly forces Alec to out himself to his parents (which, I admit, hit all of my own personal “NOPE” buttons when I was reading the series as a closeted queer kid) because she idly experiments on him without fully informing him of what he’s getting into, but she’s special and this is how they discover she has the best angel powers of them all and that means that it gets brushed over.  Jace and Clary are jealous and possessive jerks toward each other while also pushing each other away throughout City of Ashes and City of Glass, but this is portrayed as excused because They’re Doing It For (unhealthy, selfish, possessive) True Love.

The one that drives me furthest up the wall is the scene where Jace stalks into a bar, orders a Scotch (because Scotch is a Man’s Drink, never mind that the Man in question is a bratty 16-year-old), throws the Scotch at the wall because he’s Overcome By Emotion, shouts at the people in the bar, and then demands a replacement from the bartender.  This whole sequence gets portrayed as “look how much Jace is suffering” but I couldn’t get away from thinking about how much the bartender, the random patrons, and everyone else who has to deal with his temper tantrum must be suffering.  Seriously, that’s the kind of behavior that I would punish in a six-year-old, because I’d expect a six-year-old to know better, whether or not the six-year-old thinks that he’s in love with his sister and that their father is an evil demagogue (Luke Skywalker called and he wants his plot back, by the way) and whether or not the six-year-old has a Sad Hawk Backstory™. 

Anywhoo, I find Clare’s work… frustrating.  Obviously.  I have ambivalent feelings about most of the other sci-fi/fantasy for which Animorphs has ruined me forever, but Clare’s work is high on my personal “nah” list.

Quick inevitable aside to How Animorphs Did It Better: the kids view avoiding violence as the ultimate end for which they are fighting this war.  Any time the protagonists have to choose between a violent means and a nonviolent one, they struggle to find a nonviolent one.  There are good yeerks (Aftran, Illim, Niss), bad andalites (Estrid, Alloran, Samilin), and even bad Animorphs (mostly David, but to a lesser extent Marco and Rachel).  Even then, the good-bad dichotomy gets complicated and continuously questioned, such that the “good” guys do a lot of things that everyone can agree are “bad” and get condemned for it.  Marco acts like a jerk toward Tobias early on in the series, and the fact that he’s doing it partially because he’s (reasonably) terrified of dying thanks to what Visser One did to both his parents and partially because he’s whistling in the dark very clearly doesn’t excuse his behavior.  Visser One spends AN ENTIRE BOOK trying to argue that her bad behavior is the product of her having had a rough life, and at the end of it Applegate succeeds in getting us to hate her more, not less.  Predominantly “good” characters do “bad” things (Ax killing Hessian soldiers, Cassie letting Tom’s yeerk have the morphing cube, Jake flushing the yeerk pool), just as predominantly “bad” characters do “good” things (Visser Three helping defeat the nartec and helmacrons, Visser One protecting Darwin and Madra, Chapman’s yeerk agreeing to help Melissa), and the series doesn’t offer a moral dichotomy any more absolute than “try not to harm people, I guess.  Oh, and do your best to prevent other people from getting harmed, if they can’t protect themselves.”  The series shows that Tobias’s sad human backstory doesn’t make it okay for him to annihilate the mercora or even to snap at Rachel when he’s hangry.

I just… really love Animorphs.  And it ruined me for every single other book series on the planet. 

[jonas46kkuan]

Grammar Quirks: Daniel Torday on Pronunciation Pet Peeves

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Daniel Torday: "Justice." Listen to those internal rhymes! Listen to how it starts, like a simile, to say “just”—but then it shifts. Look at how badly we need more of it in our world, right now.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

DT: The neologistic way people refer to themselves as "myself" when they mean "me" hurts my ear a bit. I think as a novelist, or a short story writer especially, you’re always looking for concision. To say it tight. So when someone starts calling themselves "myself," I kinda wanna take out my red pen. I can almost see that little Microsoft Word green grammar squiggle hanging in the air.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

DT: I will literally never be able to learn how to spell the word "gray/grey." One is British. One is American. My second grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Gray/Grey. Hers was spelled the British way. I just won’t ever know. And how’s this for a fun fact: my nine-year-old daughter’s teacher this year is named...wait for it...Miss Gray. Grey. I just don’t know.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

Cassie has a serious pet peeve against adverbs, but weirdly she uses them ALL THE TIME while not noticing.

DT: With all the thumb thumb thumbing we do to type on our phones and tablets, I think we need a new word other than "typed" for when we write something on a traditional keyboard or a computer. Maybe "qwertied"? As in, "I waited and qwertied you this note to make sure I got it right."

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

DT: I’m a pretty wide open descriptivist. I actually get excited when I see spoken language find its way into codified written language. That said, my new grammar pet peeve has morphed into a pronunciation pet peeve. I listen to a ton of books and podcasts these days—I run a lot, and I find when I’m doing research for a novel, it’s better to do research through Audible. But it’s opened a whole new world of mispronunciations, words actors and writers clearly have never seen before: Credulity! Penurious! Every proper noun they’ve ever encountered! It’s making my ear literally hurt. Maybe it’s time to start "Pronunciation Patty."

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips from Grammar Girl RSS https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/grammar-quirks-daniel-torday-on-pronunciation-pet-peeves

[abby27collins]

Grammar Quirks: Daniel Torday on Pronunciation Pet Peeves

Grammar Girl: What’s your favorite word and why?

Daniel Torday: "Justice." Listen to those internal rhymes! Listen to how it starts, like a simile, to say “just”—but then it shifts. Look at how badly we need more of it in our world, right now.

GG: What’s a word you dislike (either because it’s overused or misused) and why?

DT: The neologistic way people refer to themselves as "myself" when they mean "me" hurts my ear a bit. I think as a novelist, or a short story writer especially, you’re always looking for concision. To say it tight. So when someone starts calling themselves "myself," I kinda wanna take out my red pen. I can almost see that little Microsoft Word green grammar squiggle hanging in the air.

GG: What word will you always misspell?

DT: I will literally never be able to learn how to spell the word "gray/grey." One is British. One is American. My second grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Gray/Grey. Hers was spelled the British way. I just won’t ever know. And how’s this for a fun fact: my nine-year-old daughter’s teacher this year is named...wait for it...Miss Gray. Grey. I just don’t know.

GG: What word (or semblance of a word) would you like to see added to the dictionary? Why?

Cassie has a serious pet peeve against adverbs, but weirdly she uses them ALL THE TIME while not noticing.

DT: With all the thumb thumb thumbing we do to type on our phones and tablets, I think we need a new word other than "typed" for when we write something on a traditional keyboard or a computer. Maybe "qwertied"? As in, "I waited and qwertied you this note to make sure I got it right."

GG: Any grammar pet peeves we should know about?

DT: I’m a pretty wide open descriptivist. I actually get excited when I see spoken language find its way into codified written language. That said, my new grammar pet peeve has morphed into a pronunciation pet peeve. I listen to a ton of books and podcasts these days—I run a lot, and I find when I’m doing research for a novel, it’s better to do research through Audible. But it’s opened a whole new world of mispronunciations, words actors and writers clearly have never seen before: Credulity! Penurious! Every proper noun they’ve ever encountered! It’s making my ear literally hurt. Maybe it’s time to start "Pronunciation Patty."

GG: To what extent does grammar play a role in character development and...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips from Grammar Girl RSS https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/grammar-quirks-daniel-torday-on-pronunciation-pet-peeves