#Demi Subverse

[wombocombo4x3]

I Think I Installed The Wrong Atomic Heart...

[metalichotchoco]

This is the only time am’s outfit has pants and it’s on someone else lol

[distortedblurs]

──  (  chase  sui  wonders.  24.  genderqueer.  she/they.  )  thank  god  you’re  here,  man  -  have  you  seen  JUNIPER  RIDLEY  LIAO  anywhere?  i  totally  lost  them  after  their  rendition  of  hot  dog  by  limp  bizkit  last  night.  no?  they’re  like,  aye  -  high  and  go  to  LANGSTON  -  i  think  they’re  a  SOPHOMORE  level  studying  CRIME  (DOING  IT)?  but  who  knows,  these  days.  all  i  know  is  that  they’re  DAUNTLESS,  IRASCIBLE  and  an  ARIES  .  last  night  they  kept  going  on  and  on  about  how  they  won  MOST  BURPED  LETTERS  OF  THE  ALPHABET  last  year,  which  is  cool  and  whatever,  but  i  just  wouldn’t  expect  it  out  of  them,  considering  they’re  so,  like,  INATTENTIVE  AND SUBVERSIVE,  you  know?  anyways  -  i’m  going  to  check  down  by  the  crumbling  abbey,  i  think  that’s  where  they  like  to  hang.  text  me  if  you  see  them,  okay?  bye!  /  as  penned  by  james.  26.  they/them.  est.

content  warnings  for...  familial  death,  grief,  alcoholism,  child  neglect.

student file.

full name — juniper ridley liao.

nickname(s) — june, at the very most ( junie is very poorly received ); ridley.

place of birth — albion, new york.

date of birth & age — april 9th, 2001. twenty4.

gender / pronouns — genderqueer, she / they.

sexuality — demi - bisexual ( but deeply repressed about it ).

major — crimes ( doing them ); a self - created major.

astrology — aries sun, scorpio moon, capricorn rising.

dormitory — their side looks like a tornado had swept through their belongings; a scattering of clothes both clean and dirty, empty beer cans and joint roaches, the classwork they rarely seek to do. the bed is never made, and the walls are adorned with holes from a board - less game of darts. the stale scent of cigarettes often drifts to their roommate's side.

interests — the  quick  -  release  of  adrenaline  after  a  bloodied  fight;  the  stretch  of  healing  skin  and  peeling  scabs.  black  coffee  and  bar  -  floor  cigarettes.  nicking  joints  from  her  classmates,  shrouded  behind  an  ear.  the  crackling  of  a  scratched  cd  in  an  old  car  radio.  starting  arguments  for  the  sake  of  arguing.  bribery,  if  the  price  is  right  (  always  the  form  of  free  food  and  smokes  ).  lying  for  the  fun  of  it.  fake  tarot  readings  and  wads  of  cash  stuffed  inside  bras.  stealing,  especially  from  college  parties.  evading  their  problems.  minor  arson;  vandalism;  baseball  bats  against  mailboxes.  being  right  (  never  is  ).  cars  &  her  part - time job,  the  only  one  she's  managed  to  keep.  stealing  shots  at  the  bar;  shitty  beers  and  cheap  liquor.  living  just  to  spite  those  who  wish  her  dead.

aversions — intimacy;  always  nerve  -  wracking,  always  confusing  -  always  a  trick.  ankle  monitors;  they  always  itch.  the  police.  her  family;  her  sisters  in  particular.  apologies.  begging,  pleading.  the  concept  of  fear  -  of  being  scared.  promises;  they're  always  broken.  sleeping  in  a  jail  cell.  the  consequences  of  her  actions.  stupid  nicknames.  the  faux  security  that  being  cared  for  provides;  as  if  it  could  save  her,  as  if  it  could  save  anyone.  notably  flinching  away;  a  habit  that  can't  break.  their  weaknesses  on  display;  vulnerability.  the  sour  taste  of  guilt.  hypocrites,  despite  being  one  herself.  nuanced  truths  and  straightforward  falsehoods.  the  definitive.  nostalgia;  nothing  good  ever  comes  from  it.

quirks — putting  cigarettes  out  against  her  tongue  like  a  cheap  party  trick.  picking  off  her  nail  polish.  aggressively  stomping  out  dead  leaves  on  the  sidewalk.  crosses  the  street  right  when  a  car  barrels  down  it.  entering  and  exiting  homes  via  the  window,  scaling  the  lattice.  a  maddening,  hyena's  laugh.  prefers  to  watch  someone  struggle  than  offer  her  help  (  unless,  of  course,  it's  for  a  price  ).  keeps  a  windowsill  of  dead  plants.

most played — when i am queen by jack off jill.

notable features — skin  littered  with  shitty,  blurred  out  stick  -  n  -  pokes  from  years  prior,  alongside  fresh  bruises  and  old  scabs.  hands  that  can't  keep  to  themselves,  either  fidgeting  or  balled  into  fists.  a  spattering  of  beauty  marks  across  her  features,  and  dark,  dead  eyes.

general disposition — arrogance  and  self  -  loathing  tied  like  twine  against  a  bundle  of  dynamite;  a  sneer  always  twitching  at  lip.  a  walking  BEWARE  OF  DOG  sign,  all  growls  and  snarling  teeth.

character study — kim kelly ( freaks and geeks ) & kat stratford ( 10 things i hate about you ).

public record.

everyone  in  their  hometown  knows  the  liaos,  even  if  they  wished  not  to;  they're  hard  to  ignore,  albion's  very  own  bad  omen.  a  family  of  criminals,  of  scammers  and  thieves  -  the  liao  children  born  in  quick  succession  of  one  another,  barely  a  year  apart.  in  love  with  themselves  and  each  other,  they  were  respected  in  their  small  circle  of  crime,  and  managed  to  evade  arrest  on  numerous  occasions.

familial  death,  grief;  no  matter  how  happy  they  are  -  it  doesn't  last.  juniper  is  the  last  born;  their  mother  dying  during  childbirth  -  and  juniper  becoming  a  blotted  stain  in  her  family's  lives.  if  their  grandparents  were  alive;  they  would've  deemed  her  cursed,  marking  the  end  of  their  family's  lucky  streak.

alcoholism,  child  neglect;  the  death  of  his  wife  strikes  their  father  hard;  the  oldest  liao  sister  takes  the  role  of  parent  as  their  father,  in  all  his  grief,  turns  to  the  bottle.  nights  are  spent  passed  out  in  his  recliner  chair,  in  front  of  the  tv  -  beer  bottle  just  about  slipping  from  his  grasp  to  meet  the  others  littered  across  the  ground.  he's  an  absent  man,  both  in  heart  and  mind  -  not  angry,  but  lost.

child  neglect;  the  liao  sisters  grow  up  raising  themselves  in  their  small  and  cramped,  grimy  trailer.  juniper  is  always  left  to  fend  for  herself;  they  blame  her  for  their  mother's  death  -  and  they  tell  her  that  much.  even  if  they  didn't;  she  knew  -  just  by  the  way  they  looked  at  her,  the  hard  glares  that  matched  her  own.  juniper  blamed  herself,  too.  she  grew  up  as  the  neighborhood  bully;  pushing  kids  off  the  jungle  gym  and  stealing  money,  biting  when  accosted.  always  claimed  she  didn't  care  about  the  consequences,  about  the  way  her  sisters  treated  her.  juniper  didn't  need  them;  she  doesn't  need  anyone.  she'll  make  her  own  goddamn  sandwiches,  walk  herself  home  from  school.  survive  on  her  own.  when  they're  nine,  they  run  away  -  and  when  they  eventually  return  (  not  so  long  after  ),  it's  like  they  didn't  even  notice  her  absence.  like  she  didn't  exist.

like  any  liao  before  her,  by  the  time  juniper's  in  high  school  her  rap  sheet  is  a  mile  long  and  filled  to  the  brim  with  petty  crimes.  vandalism  and  minor  theft,  underaged  drinking,  smoking  -  minor  assault,  no  charge  pressed.  the  police  know  her  by  name,  as  they  know  each  and  every  one  of  them.  it's  a  vicious  cycle;  commit  the  crime,  fail  to  get  away  with  it,  spend  the  night  in  a  jail  cell  -  even  if  it  has  to  be  the  next  town  over's.  they  never  learn,  doesn't  care  enough  to  -  because  nobody  else  does,  so  why  would  they?

they  drop  out  of  high  school  in  their  last  year  and  refuse  to  look  back;  they  hop  from  job  to  job,  anything  to  make  themselves  money,  anything  to  keep  them  out  of  their  family's  trailer.  tarot  scams  are  her  game  -  a  side  hustle  to  keep  it  flowing  as  she  hops  between  jobs.  none  of  them  stick,  mostly  by  her  own  design.

until  langston;  a  university  so  disreputable  and  just  close  enough  to  albion  that  june  can't  quite  call  it  running  away  again  -  but  more  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air.  breathing  room  from  their  family,  from  the  cycle  each  liao  is  destined  to  follow.  fifty  bucks  paid  to  the  shady  guy  who  lurks  behind  the  cinema  every  tuesday  night,  8pm  on  the  dot  for  an  ...  altered  transcript.  a  "proper"  ged  -  and  june's  gone  from  albion.  middle  of  the  night;  like  they  never  even  existed.  they  know  it'll  amount  to  nothing;  that  it's  years  wasted,  that  they'll  end  up  right  where  they  started  -  but  there's  things  june  needs  to  get  away  from.  escape  from.

personal details.

locally  known,  now  campus  renowned,  problem  child  long  -  deemed  a  lost  cause,  hopeless  to  help.  the  worst  reputation  amongst  the  trailing  pack  (  or  more  so,  duo?  trio?  )  of  sisters;  and  lacking  the  charisma  that  her  parents  had  in  their  youth.  a  cheap  imitation,  if  anything.  she  can't  help  but  cause  all  sorts  of  problems  on  campus  -  both  langston  and  palladian  -  whether  it's  vandalism  or  scamming,  or  just  picking  a  fight  -  provoking.  does  almost  anything  if  it  means  earning  a  quick  buck,  and  gets  an  adrenaline  rush  from  stupid,  dangerous  acts.  a  liar  and  a  thief.

quick  to  become  defensive,  and  even  quicker  to  anger;  fury  bubbles  beneath  her  skin  like  a  witches'  cauldron,  like  coals  being  lit  afire.  she's  uncouth  and  aggressive,  the  mouth  of  a  sailor.  is  always  expecting  the  worst  -  is  genuinely  surprised  when  it  doesn't  happen.  has  few  and  far  friendships  and  doesn't  know  how  to  manage  them  -  or  how  to  handle  kindness.  doesn't  believe  in  redemption;  but  tries,  on  the  rare  occasion,  like  it'll  erase  the  sin  of  her  existing.

has  never  pursued  a  relationship,  much  less  intimacy  in  any  form.  is  too  guarded,  too  on  defense.  takes  flirting  like  a  sick  joke;  becomes  confused,  angry  -  like  they're  taking  the  piss  on  her.  like  she's  some  sort  of  joke.  it's  embarrassing,  nerve  -  wracking,  and  exposing.  despite  their  outward  arrogant  demeanor;  juniper's  soul  is  laced  with  insecurities  and  well  -  hidden  doubt.  unable  to  be  close  and  personal  with  others;  she  always  deflects  attempts.

juniper  is  incredibly  blunt  and  critical  -  quick  to  point  out  what  they  notice,  or  believe,  to  be  weaknesses  and  weak  points.  never  thinks  before  speaking;  doesn't  think  very  much  at  all.  they  act  purely  on  impulse,  and  doesn't  often  worry;  acts  like  she  hasn't  a  single  fear.  she  does  not  have  an  intuition  against  danger,  but  is  surprisingly  perceptive.  notices  the  little  details;  and  uses  them  to  her  advantage.

a  part  of  her  cares  more  than  anything;  that  craves  the  intimacy  of  being  cared  about,  of  knowing  that  she  won't  die  young  and  alone.  her  emotional  needs  are  heavily  repressed,  buried  beneath  layers  of  self  -  destruction.  a  part  of  her  is  always  mourning  the  life  she'll  never  have.

is  quick  to  accept  a  bribe  if  it  benefits  her  -  mostly  in  the  form  of  money,  food,  or  free  illicit  substances.  her  loyalty  switches  to  the  highest  bidder,  whoever  benefits  her  desires  the  most.  she's  selfish  and  unkind;  bites  the  hand  that  feeds  until  it's  blood  becomes  her  drink.

most  of  her  belongings  are  stolen  from  others,  or  on  occasion  -  thrifted,  or  passed  over  to  her.  excellent  with  their  hands;  they  make  their  own  jewelry  using  trinkets  they've  stolen  over  the  course  of  the  years.  is  particular  to  house  parties,  mostly  to  raid  their  medicine  cabinets  and  closets.

desired plots.

enemies  until  the  end  —  lifelong  enemies  from  the  moment  they  met,  someone  that  juniper  aims  to  make  life  miserable  for  and  vice  versa;  they're  constantly  at  each  other's  throats.

a  vicious  kind  of  love  —  love  also  being  a  loose  term;  maybe  more  of  a  flirtationship,  almost  one  -  sided  due  to  juniper's  own  reservations.  maybe  it's  just  for  fun,  something  to  entertain  the  other  person;  non  -  serious  for  them.

tbd when i have time <3

[ambivert-artist]

Harper Callaghan 💔

"Haiiii! X3 waves rapidly I was in the middle of re-dying mai hair, why'd you have to barge in >:( !! Now I have to start all over you fukking moron stabs 300 times Oops XP Now I gotta hide da body in my taco-mobile X3c" -Harper

Pronouns & Gender: Trans Demi-Girl. She/They/It

BDay: April 11th (Aries)

Ethnicity: Irish/British

Weight & Height: 5'4 and 101 lbs

Age: 18

Many call Harper a human anomaly, Although she sees herself as the embodiment of the internet scene girl, she's pretty nihilistic towards everyone she meets. Sometimes her internet personality seeps into her real life and when the two mix; that's when she really becomes unpredictable.

At night, Harper plays a character called "Envy" in a band called "The Soul's Final Pulse". The band's music is an exploration of the 7 deadly sins and subversion of expectation of what you'd expect the band to be. 'Envy' plays the electric guitar and sings the main vocals.

Harper's band is not only a creative outlet for her, but it also serves a second purpose. Harper comes from a family of music producers. For a couple of years, they've been secretly buying out indie bands and muddying their vision the moment they hit studios. Harper's band is a calling for other stage artists to rebel against corporate conformity. Harper also believes this band could be a warning to her family's reign in the music industry.

Harper's hobbies:

💔 DJ-ing. At first, she picked up this hobby mainly for side money, but she started to become genuinely passionate about it.

💔 Painting. Harper picked up painting for her album covers. She does Finger-painting and Acrylic Pours.

💔 Ballet. Her childhood dream was to become a ballet dancer, to this day, she dances during her shows as 'Envy'.

💔 Nail Art. One of her favorite pass times is having Nail Nite while watching shitty soap opera's with Valerian.

[adarkrainbow]

So, I realized I made a BIG mistake in my previous post (thanks @gay-impressionist and @northwest-by-a-train for correcting my big mistake, I clearly wasn't well-informed Xp) - time to redo a new post!

As a result I'll go straight to the conclusion: there's something inherently queer about fairytale adaptations. There's something inherently queer about literary fairytales, for example, written by French lesbians of the Renaissance or sad Danish gay men. There's something even queer by the more "traditional" folktales (see the famous fairytale type which ends with the heroine undergoing magical gender transition - I posted a Greek version and reblogged a Romanian one). But when it comes to various fairytale adaptations, the queerness is even more present.

The most famous example is the Disney classics. Movies that are the epitome of fairytales in America, movies that are some of the huge symbols of heterosexuality and "conservation of traditional values" in America, movies owned and produced by a company still known today for not being queer-friendly... And yet movies that form a huge part of the queer aesthetic, and that fuel the cross-dressing/drag-art imagery, and that formed a certain gay audience. Charming princes, beautiful princesse, disturbingly sexy villains, Disney had all to please a queer person.

But it isn't just in America. In France the two major fairytale movies, the dominant pieces of fairy-tale cinema, were created by two prominent gay/bisexual artists of their time, and each had their own queerness in it. Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (he literaly had his boyfriend play the Beast), and Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin (his musical movies of the 60s form in themselves a sub-genre associated with gayness in France - we don't have the "Gays love musical theater" stereotype, but we do have the "Gays love Demy's musicals" stereotype).

(This isn't so much about "classics" but I have to point out how the motif of queerness as a joke or subversion of fairytales also is quite present in French media since the 90s-2000s onward. The sex-comedy "Blanche Neige la suite" has, obviously, a lot of gay jokes, the humoristic-fantasy book "Blanche-Neige et les lance-missiles" and its sequel have a lot of lesbianism, the recent "Robilard" comic book has a big gay element by the middle of its run, and even the recent Cinderella parody movie has an entire segment about a gay fairy godmother directly referencing Demy's Donkey-Skin ; while of various qualities and worth, I can't help but compare this prominence of the "lesbian joke" or "gay subversion" in fairytale comedies and parodies in France, compared to for example American fairytale parodies and comedies which seemed more shy about it? I don't know, again, I'm just scribbling down notes)

And from my old post other people pointed out similar phenomenon in old "classics".

@countesspetofi pointed out how in the UK you have the entire pantomime genre, and there is no need to explain why they're queer. And @maimoncat higlighted how a lot of fairytale productions of Europe like to use the "crossdressing princess" motif (Three Wishes for Cinderella/Fantaghiro) - plus how Roberto de Simone's adaptation of "Gatta Cenerentola" explored the motif of gender ambiguity by having femminielli (third gender people from Naples and Campania) be involved in specific scenes, and the wicked step-family played by crossdressing actors.

If you ever have other examples don't hesitate to share! (And let's hope this time I won't have to rewrite the post due to my own ignorance Xp)

[compacflt]

I was wondering if you had thoughts about how Ice and Mav's politics don't fully align with their actions? There was a post where you said Ice's politics are more socially liberal than Mav's but Mav is also the one who goes out to La Jolla to hit on guys before Ice, and later again when he's broken up with Ice, but Ice only goes out with women out of fear for his honor or whatever. Same with their respective thoughts on feminism, with Mav's mild respect for Charlie (telling Ice not all women fit the stereotype) but later Ice is the one who sends Juno to Mav's Top Gun class without telling him she's a woman and Ice has a respectful friendship with Juno. I think you said Ice is vaguely on the ace-aro spectrum (demi-homoromantic) which is a sort of fascinating irony that he doesn't have the words for it whereas Mav is the one with the theories about Ice's sexuality. Though with their hypocrisies and inconsistencies this all just feeds into their characterizations of the fact that they keep divorcing their actions from their spoken words from their identities.

okay going to take this point by point

1. yes i have addressed their politics in relation to their actions before, so maybe read this post and this post before you read this one, just to see where my other thoughts line up

2. gay republicans and conservatives do exist (at the very least certainly republicans and conservatives who have gay sex in secret)

3. before maverick is a political actor he is a human being, and the characterization that we are primarily given for him is that he is impulsive and reckless and doesn’t think through his actions. As ive written about many times before—from a story construction standpoint, his thoughtlessness is his number one most important character trait. He is both thoughtlessly dangerous (his hero’s “fatal flaw;” he can’t stop himself from making bad decisions) and thoughtlessly brilliant (the navy’s best and most daring and heroic pilot). He does what he wants without thinking about it; and he makes excuses and hollow promises whenever that plan doesn’t work out (“I know better than that. It will never ever happen again;” [it happens again] “I’m not gonna let you down. I promise.” [goose dies shortly thereafter]). His thoughtless impulsiveness overrides everything else. Maybe the act of having gay sex (to address your “he gets fucked in La Jolla before ice” point) is politically subversive, but for Maverick’s thoughtless character that we are shown in Top Gun, the most subversive possible thing would be to LABEL the gay sex and think through the consequences of it. To call a spade a spade and call himself gay or bi or queer or whatever. That would be the most subversive (and with mav, entirely unbelievable imo) possible thing. That takes conscious effort of thought, something maverick is near-incapable of doing. As long as he can get away with it without thinking about it, he’s politically in the clear, with regards to his character & character arc. If that makes sense. “Don’t think. Just do.” That’s literally his motto lmfao. He represents thoughtless action as an archetype; his politics come secondary to his desires

4. Their “respective thoughts on feminism” are divided into two camps: 1. “Professional as required by the law” and 2. “Sex pest mode.” They’re naval officers in the 1980s. Whether republican or democrat, that’s kind of par for the course. How men treat women can be a performance to other men. Any respect i made them show towards women had broader, more metatextual “need to move the conversation/story from A to B” reasoning behind it. See the first post I linked for much more on that.

5. i never said ice was on the ace/aro spectrum, or if i did i DEFINITELY meant it sarcastically. That could not be further from what i believe. This isn’t something I’ve ever discussed on this blog before, but a MASSIVE part of the philosophical discussion I’ve been trying to moderate within this project over the last year is the question— “do labels even work with characters under these very specific and extraordinarily extreme conditions and societal pressures?” It’s a question I took from my time studying early American history—the contexts of certain environments, and I would definitely count the elite officer ranks of the navy in the 90s and 2000s as one of these certain environments, simply Are Not Conducive to the easier (path of least resistance maybe) ways we civilians handle sexuality and friendship and trauma. There are so many variables and external and internal pressures within an environment like the upper ranks of career navy officers that sexual orientation labels lose all nuance and accuracy. I don’t think Ice (as i have written him) is gay. I don’t think he’s straight. I don’t think he’s bi. I think he’s an unlabelable product of too many variables for labels to have any effect on how he is perceived. Which, in our society built around labels and categories, is admittedly difficult to wrestle with. But doesn’t make it any less worth wrestling with.

6. Yes, ice and mav’s hypocrisy is the linchpin of the entire story.

They’re both trying to have their cake (“honor” and moral superiority based on the harmful traditional subjective morals arbitrated by elite navy officership) and eat it too (a fulfilling relationship with the love of their lives). & the point is that they cant. they have to settle for one.

[theoreticallysensible]

I didn’t think this would bother me much but I was really disappointed by the ending of Solitaire, which I otherwise loved.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Tori and Michael’s relationship was something I related to a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever been in quite as dark a place as either of them are throughout the book, but my senior school experience was similar to Tori’s, and I’ve recently become more like Michael, and found friendships similar to what they build together. These meant a lot to me because I’ve struggled with emotional intimacy, and I think I’m somewhere on the graysexual spectrum, so to see characters like Tori and Michael, who are demi-and pansexual respectively, have friendships just as deep as romance but not coded that way, despite both being interested in romance in theory - it meant a lot both in terms of representation and validation. Relationship anarchy and all that - it speaks to the graysexual and the anarchist in me 😂 (the anarchist coding pf Solitaire was also fun).

But then at the end… they kiss. And everything previous to that becomes so easy to recontextualise. All that friendship becomes unrecognised romantic tension. Tori was sadly in denial about her romantic feelings for Michael, not just unsure about an unusually close friendship. Of course, it may be that the romantic feelings arose suddenly at the end and all that truly was friendship. And of course the boundaries between the two are hazy at best at that level of intensity anyway. And of course, I can just ignore the kiss and read the story without it - those earlier pages still exist and can be separated from the later ones in my mind, and I’m mature enough to be able to self-consciously read stories how I want to - l’auteur est mort. But it still smarts.

I know Loveless exists, and I’m excited to read it, but I saw Solitaire up until The Kiss as a triumph of friendship through ambiguity - a subversion of romance tropes. It still is that, in a way - a triumph of authentic love based in friendship over Lukas’s inauthentic love based in delusional jealousy and devotion. Ellie Anderson’s essay on phenomenology and the ethics of love has a great bit on this, and it is very important… but it just got so close to what I wanted before falling back into something more familiar. Loveless, being about an aro ace character, seems like it’ll be less in that space of ambiguity, and more about the confusion of being so radically outside of it - which is valuable in its own way, but less so for me. Radio Silence looks like it’ll hit the kind of spot I’m looking for better, so fingers crossed.🤞 I’m still sad though because the character of Tori meant a lot to me and I wanted hers to be the story I connected to with this. Ah well.

(As a side note, I listened to the audiobook and then read the physical copy afterwards, and though some of the updated cultural references were nice and Charlie and Nick being more consistent with Heartstopper was cool, the increased sensitivity in those two characters made Tori’s despair feel less tragically inescapable and her new moments of sensitivity felt very jarringly censorial and out of character - it didn’t sound like her voice; maybe it was beneficial for some readers, but I feel like it was done a bit clumsily).

[tavolgisvist]

Liverpool groups were like little gangs - a mentality that’s helpful when your audience is full of big gangs... <...> ‘Invasion of the Liverpoplians’ was a typical music paper headline of the day. Thank Your Lucky Stars, the big pop show of 1964, had a Mersey special with Cilia, the Beatles, the Searchers and Billy J. Kramer - so successful was the show that it was the British entry in that year’s international TV competition. A beat group was invented called the Wackers, who were in fact from Manchester. That may not sound like a scandal of Watergate proportions, but to those on the scene it was a sign of the desperation other towns were feeling. Polite young Merseyside men, up at the Oxbridge colleges, were suddenly talking Scouse for the first time in their lives. Liverpool, so often out of step with the national mood, was now its very model: cheeky and young, un-posh, un-stuffy, democratic to the boot-heels. <...> The strangest sight of all was Merseybeat’s impact on the world beyond Britain’s shores. Thanks to the impression it made, big doors were opened to British music. Before the Beatles there was no sense, internationally, that Britain was a natural home of pop, but suddenly you had Chuck Berry coming up with a title, ‘Liverpool Drive’, for an LP called St Louis to Liverpool. Chuck had, of course, been quite the demi-god to Liverpool groups, but it’s unclear whether he had even heard of the place twelve months earlier. Motown’s boss Berry Gordy was even quicker off the mark. The man whose label had been to Merseybeat what gasoline is to a flame, now arranged for Diana Ross and the Supremes to rush-record an album of Beatle covers called A Bit of Liverpool. American recognition of the Liverpool upsurge was occasionally bizarre. In 1967 The Monkees followed up their hits ‘I’m a Believer’ and ‘Last Train to Clarkesville’ with something called ‘Alternate Title (Randy Scouse Git)’. As Mickey Dolenz explained to Mojo: ‘We were over in England and the Beatles threw a party for us. There were limos outside and always screaming girls. I was just sitting in a hotel suite trying to document what was going on in a kind of poetic way. The title I got watching Till Death Us Do Part - I just heard it and said, “That’s a cool term, but what the hell does it mean?” And it was something like “sex-crazed Liverpudlian jerk”. RCA in England told me they’d pull it from the album unless I came up with an alternate title. So I said, “OK, ‘Alternate Title’ it is.” ’ Stranger still, the ‘randy Scouse git’ was actor Tony Booth, playing Alf Garnett’s idle son-in-law and target of his Cockney rage. Booth was the father of Cherie Booth, future wife of Tony Blair.

<...>

Britain took the ultimate American invention, re-arranged its ass and shipped it back. The British were not, on the face of it, the race that anyone would have tipped for this job. The English in particular were not a funky people. Their menfolk danced like Douglas Bader. It was a land where reserve was valued over exhibitionism, where enthusiasm was suspect and quiet irony the favoured means of subversion. English music was sometimes beautiful, often witty, but never sensual. Yet it seems all it needed was a push.

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI), (XII), (XIII), (XIV), (XV), (XVI), (XVII), (XVIII), (XIX), (XX), (XXI), (XXII)

[shimmerbeasts]

Characters that I believe you could play well:

Sascha Vykos (from VtM); Lissandra (LoL); Fiddlesticks (LoL); Pyke (LoL); Rengar (LoL)

Yes, this is a long list, but I think you could do an amazing job with all of them. They are very different between themselves, but you are much more capable of writing a wide range variety of characters than you think! Plus a lot of them go to horror side of things or or are hunt themed.

Based on my existing muses, whom else do you think could I play?

I am really flattered in your trust in me to portray a wide variety of muses. I think you are right. After all, even just looking at my cast, those are all very different characters and people. Sure, some of similar archetypes, yet all feel distinct and unique. And while most of my characters are antagonists, they are still very different.

I am not very familiar with Vampire the Masquerade, so I would have to familiarise myself with that tabletop RPG. Therefore, Sascha Vykos is the one, whom I have the least ties with. Though based on what I read, I can see why you think I can do her well. I am rather skilled with writing horror/torture characters. However, because I know nothing about VtM, they would probably be the hardest for me to pick up or write. But that is really the only thing, which would be blocking me: The unfamiliarity with the IP.

League on the other hand is a different story.

Let's start with Lissandra. From what I understand and read up on her biography, she is an ancient ice witch/demi-god, who basically made a deal with the Watchers, which just happened to be another word for the creatures from the Void. This deal ended in her sisters dying and her sealing the Watchers underneath True Ice to stall how swiftly they would emerge and destroy the world. At the same time, she did everything in her power to masquerade and hide what she had done. She sounds like not just an extremely powerful character, but also like someone who has gotten themselves into some serious moral and emotional trouble. Lissandra sounds like a very complex character due to what she did and how she justifies things to herself. These types of characters are ones, I really enjoy.

Fiddlesticks, by contrast, is less about story and more about his theme and horror. Given that this scarecrow represents primordial fear, he has a similar problem to Evelynn. Fiddlesticks functions best with other characters as an embodiment of their fear, not on his own. Hell, he does not even have voice lines of his own. Instead, his voice is repeated phrases by other people about him or to the specific champion, he encounters. Telling a story with him as the focal character would be challenging, though probably not impossible. Much like with Evelynn, I would need to think a lot about what I wanted to tell with his character.

Pyke, much like Lissandra, is that blend between an interesting story to tell and a horror archetype. Pyke, being a supernatural, ghost-like killer, who is out for the blood of those who wronged him and basically has beef with an entire industry in Bilgewater is a pretty interesting concept. Plus, much like Lissandra, he is in a completely different region than Zaun aka what I am used to exploring. Of course, both things would again require a lot of world-building, and to be honest, I am not very fond of pirates due to personal reasons. So while Pyke as a character is a really interesting concept, I am not that invested in Bilgewater.

On the surface, Rengar sounds like the perfect character for me. After all, in a way, he is a hunter and an animal. He is my current big themes - animalism and hunting - on steroids. But that is the problem. Unlike Jinx or Silco, he is only that. He is what you see is what you get. There is no subversion in him, there is no surprise in the fact that he is a hunter. Whereas with Jinx and Silco, being hunters says more about them than just that they hunt other people. It is a vehicle to express how they dehumanise others, their obsession for control, their rage and frustration given form. The balance between the light and dark comes from the animalism being a core of them, but also not just the foundation they stand on.

Rengar on the other side only has the hunt and the animalism going for him. He is basically the Predator and every trope of an uncivilised tribe and trophy hunter rolled into one. There is no interesting element in his story, which might counter or reshape him as a hunter. He is after Kha'Zix because he is the runt of the litter and wants to prove himself in a clan full of hunters. Unlike with Jinx, that is the simplest boring idea, you can do with this character. Hell, as far as we know, Rengar's hunting style does not differ in any substantial way from his peers. Unlike Jinx, Naafiri, Silco or even Lissandra and Pyke, who are in some ways in conflict with themselves, and who because of this reshape the tropes, they embody and make use of, Rengar is not in conflict with the self. He has the most by-the-number story, you can imagine for a predatory hunter character.

As obsessed as I am with animalism, hunting and mind control, I am also a storyteller and I live from surprising, if not myself, at least my audience. For that, I need to find some inner conflict or twist in a character or their archetype. If I cannot find a way to do something somewhat unexpected with the character, I am not interested. For me, my personal interests are a big part of character creation, but they are the shades that work with an unexpected core theme or twist.

[faketokufan]

Welp... Geats is done, it's over and we can all go on with our lives. It was all in all a pretty good season! Nothing near top tier but hey it's miles ahead of whatever the hell Revice was... A solid season with some real stand out characters! Buffa was a fantastic rival and anti-hero. Nago's story of self discovery and self actualization was really interesting to watch and went in directions that I DID NOT see coming at all. A great subversion of the "I just want a boy friend" girl.

And Tycoon...

Sakurai Keiwa is the best Rider we've had in a long... LONG time. Not just Secondary, but RIDER Period.... He and his story brought this season up from being completely box standard and made it really worth watching.

But unfortunately the one character that never really managed to hook me at all...

Was Geats. Like... Like don't get me wrong his design is FIRE as hell and a rider wins or losses me on design alone like 90% of the time. But Ace as a character was just Tendo at home. And Tendo only worked because he was such an unbelievable asshole all the fucking time. Ace was just kinda Smarmy and a little dickish some times? Most of the time he was basically just nothing with a hint of "Ooooh I'm a schemen! I'm a little schemer!"

Don't get me wrong I don't dislike him or anything... He was just basically nothing. Especially when standing next to Michinaga and Keiwa.

All in all Geats was good! Super looking forward to Gotchard...

...yup...

Oh and also before yall start blaspheming in my treehouse.

I shall have none before Gaim sir thank you very much, you take your broke ass back to the demi god bargain bin here you belong.

My Gaaaaaaaim is an awesome Gaim he is! A funny little guy!!!

[sergeantsporks]

Hey, @anarcho-commeownism OP here. Fun fact! While the two experiences are not the same, I AM both, so this is a personal thought that happened to blow up. And on the front of “it has nothing to do with asexuality,” the phrases “late bloomer” and “you’ll find the right person” were actually thrown around me when I was just asexual and wasn’t aromantic yet! So while one doesn’t want to conflate being asexual/aromantic with each other, it’s also not great to ignore the fact that the types of hate and dismissal we receive are often very similar.

I was very specific not to mention how the love potion makes you feel. The person in question could be an alloace who suddenly feels sexual attraction/love and their friends are like “haha yeaaah get it!” instead of acknowledging the horror. They could be an alloaro person suddenly experiencing romantic attraction with similar results. Or they could be aroace suddenly experiencing romantic and sexual attraction. Post non-specific for a reason.

Finally: I think it is important to stop to consider that the 1-paragraph writing prompt was never going to address the full breadth of the human experience lol, and you either needed to find a less-confrontational way to phrase your point (as did the many demis who went “lmao my daily life tbh”), or to simply make your own post. My main desire was a subversion of the idea/trope that a love potion would have no/different effect on aspec people, instead exploring the ramifications of how terrible it might be. It sounds like you want a subversion of the idea that aspecs (and in particular aromantics) are all on the “0 attraction” end of the spectrum. That’s a great idea! I love the concept behind it and the more varied representation it would give. It’s still a subversion of the idea that we’d be unaffected by love potions. Which is awesome

"Aro/Ace person gets given a love potion" story but instead of them being immune or whatever, it DOES work, and they realize IMMEDIATELY that they've been fed a love potion because this feeling is so wrong and foreign but everyone keeps laughing off the idea of it being a love potion because "they were probably just a late bloomer" or "no, you just finally found the right person!" and it's just a horror story about how no one believes them even though they know, they KNOW this isn't right and they can't stand it.

[benedictive-shaman]

Something I really like about Sdorica's narrative is how the first season sets up Elio as the protagonist for the next season but pulls a bait and switch before revealing the real protagonist(s).

Elio is:

Theodore's son

A bastard child with a mother who is doomed by the narrative

Angelia's cousin

Royalty

A wanted criminal

A mythical type of demi human that holds special importance

A Rune magic prodigy

On his own journey to find meaning in his life

It's such a perfect set up for a new protagonist for the next season. He even is the protagonist of the arc at the start! He meets up with a goofy and loveable carnival girl and an escaped slave then.....

He's gone. He just gets disappeared from the plot from then on leaving us with our new protagonist, Sophie. He's still a driving character in a way, his absence drives the plot forward and he's the crux for the final act but as a character he pretty much doesn't exist. Our protagonist is not a royal who is steeped in several birthrights but an orphan teenage carnie, her rag tag crew of misfits, and Rune, who's just slave as far as we know then.

On its own this is a funny little bit and a neat subversion on expectations. What makes this truly great is how it plays into the themes of Mirage. Mirage as a narrative is all about the idea that you can become whatever you want if you put in the effort even if in the moment you feel inadequate and like an imposter. Sophie is someone with no prestige who comes from nothing but through the course of the story learns that she can make a change. She feels trapped by her inadequacy, by her father's own failure which left her an orphan. She breaks past all of this and because of her own character does she manage to save the Desert Kingdom.

It's a such a great bit of writing that really accentuates the themes of the arc. The one who saves the world is not the most protagonist coded twink in the world but a 'nobody' who grew into something. She's also just a teenage girl! I think that's really important to state because that's a demographic that has a lot of self image issues, is often maligned by society, and is struggling to find themselves. She struggles very outwardly with all these things but manages to succeed and find herself! It's a really relatable story to me.

I fangirl over Eclipse a lot on here but Mirage really is incredible as well. There's so many great characters in the arc and its core theme is incredibly strong and moving. It's a gacha game that has strong, coherent, meaningful, and interesting themes! Unheard of!

[sibylvanereviews]

Kiss Her Once For Me by Alison Cochrun

1/5

I really did want to like this.

Spoilers ahead.

I had a hard time getting through this novel as it was horribly self-referential and aware. The plot itself is derivative, which was expected by the back blurb, but there was no 'extra bit' that I found satisfying.

The story itself is about a women writing about the book as we are reading it, and how much it is a rom-com. Which, yeah, I'm reading that. The meat of it is the big 'twist' of the trope. She is fake engaged with this man she finds attractive (but is basically strangers with), and turns out is truly in love with his sister, who she met once a year ago. I can look past the one time meet, it is a rom-com, but the behaviour of the siblings that we are supposed to believe love each other? That's literally a plot point, how these siblings care about each other enough to create the plot.

They talk back and forth how she could never betray her brother, all the while making out. Apparently it doesn't count unless they have sex. Yikes.

But don't worry romantics, they have the affair anyway. This is treated as romantic as desperate love is- until somehow it was the protag that forced the sister into it for two pages or so of betrayal angst. Really pushed that second act falling out.

All the while, we need an excuse for how these people can be so rich, while still acknowledging how wealth generated at that level can only be achieved immorally. The solution is a bastard of a grandfather who nobody likes, and a father whose big Immorality is, you guessed it, cheating. Don't worry, the rest of the family is lovely and falls in love with our dear protag.

There’s a lot of realistic casual dialogue that is completely upended by the constant desire for a snappy chapter end, therapy speak, and pop-culture references. I don't live in Portland and I'm not a Buckeye though, so maybe the last two are beyond my purview.

Like wayyy many wlw novels, the protag had major mom-issues. This could have been a point of character growth but it only was used as character explination. The mother is still half-way in the protag's life and was antagonistic towards her. Only once does the protag stand up to her, protesting strongly only to her mother’s view of bisexuality. This of course doesn't lead to any development either plot or character, as the mother simply ignores this and the narrative moves on. But at least we got that in there I guess.

I don't think that it was purposeful, but it felt that the protag was only demi to explain how she couldn't possibly want to suck it up and marry the man / fall for him. It's mentioned immediately that she is demi, and then that she is attracted to this man that she doesn't know. Then, we find out that she fell in love completely at odds to her sexuality with a woman a year before. She goes with the woman then because they had a connection (the one night stand a year ago, also noted to be a deviation from her sexuality), and tells the man she cannot be with him because she is demi. God forbid a women just not find every man attractive.

The novel is expected to be a bit mushy, but past that, the subversion I came here for just wasn't right. It's a sapphic romance and half of it was a false marriage to a man and the other half dràma over sibling relations.

[a-bluedream-posts]

DEMI (SFW) by Candra