#How she constantly insulted and mocked any art I did

[palominocorn]

NOTE: The RBY paletee is still basically defunct as the influence of digital art and home printing make CMYK almost universal anyway. Which is nice, because as a kid CMYK was used in exactly 2 places: prepping books/magazines for print, and stage lighting.

It's a vastly better system than RBY in almost all cases, excpet when you want to do a canvas painting with Older Pigment Paints, not even the contemporary stuff. It's popular now mostly for its undeniable historical and restoration value. Can't restore an RBY painting using CMYK colour theory, you'll ruin it.

Also, I'm posting this partially for educational and partially leftist reasons, but also, partially, to tell this story again.

My sibling and I are at a family friend's. The friend and I are talking color: LEDs, the difficulty in making orange look right on many screens, magenta as not corresponding to a wavelength, and so forth.

I don't remember how it came up exactly, but I bring up the thing about RGB being opposites of CMY. (In computer terms.)

My sibling gets very, very quiet for several minutes. Then, our of nowhere, after the friend and I had moved on to talking about... cats? Knitting? Childrearing practices? My sibling shoves their phone in my face and screams "SEE, YOU'RE WRONG, RED AND GREEN ARE OPPOSITES!"

(They had a six section color wheel up on their screen.)

It was such a bizarre and needlessly hostile interaction that to this day I'm like ??? What are you trying to prove here exactly?

[blues824]

Hey there! May I request the House Wardens with a Female Asta Reader from Black Clover? (Like Asta, she’s an orphan along with Yuno, who was born without Magic in a world where everyone has magic, but refuses to give up and trained her body every single day because she dreams to become the Wizard King, and inherited the 5 Leaf Grimoire at the Grimoire Ceremony when she was 15)

How would they react to her revealing she’s an Orphan, Commoner/Peasant, was mocked and insulted her who life because she wasn’t born with Magic (As the amount of Magic and your Social Statues decided if your useful or worthless) yet she’s optimistic, doesn’t care what others think about her (As Asta literally found it funny how the Nobility was ‘Chewing him Out’ for his social Standing and just kept eating very much unbothered by their hurtful and cruel words)

However she gets FURIOUS when it’s her friends that are insulted, as she tells them she couldn’t care less what others think of her, but if her friends’ are being insulted or harmed in ANY way she’ll beat them up (Deuce, Grim, and the Ghosts and any other friends she makes will literally BAWL when she says that they know she always keeps her word, even if it means she gets harmed; while Ace just feels embarrassed)

How do you think they’ll react to her revealing she has a DEVIL inside her Grimoire that gives her Anti-Magic to use (Bonus if your caught up in the Anime and Manga on who the Devil is 😏😭) and how her ‘Pet’ Bird just follows her everywhere either on her head pecking her or nearby (Nero is the… ‘birds’ name, is Male for a VERY obvious reason 😏😏) the level of jealousy will be PHENOMENAL 🤣

I forgot to mention, but she’s phenomenally strong, fast, has incredible reaction time, endurance, stamina and incredible will (As she trained every single day to hone her body and go past her physical limits… As well as can us Ki. Rook is not going to be able to sneak up on her, she’ll be able to tell where he is, and tell how other people are feeling, thus makes finding who’s gonna Overblot MUCH easier)

Although I think they’re gonna be PISSED when they hear about Brother Lily (Genderbent Sister Lily 🤣💀) and her repeatedly trying to marry him (As well as just going up to Vil and be like; MC; ‘Yeah you’re gorgeous but not a Gorgeous and AMAZING AS BROTHER LILY!!’ Vil; ?!?!? 🤣🤣🤣)

When I say that this single request took up a whole page on Google Docs, I’m not joking. Also, I’m giving you Riddle, Leona, and Azul because I lost motivation for this a while ago.

Riddle Rosehearts

And he thought that he had it bad. You were a magicless commoner orphan in a magical world, but you refused to let that define you and decided that you were going to train your butt off to become stronger. When he’s scolded you, you’ve just brushed it off.

Now, when he scolds the Adeuce duo, you are about ready to throw hands with the Prefect of Heartslabyul. You tell him off about the way he’s constantly belittling them and how he expects them to learn if he tells them that they are good-for-nothing jerks.

He has noticed your grimoire and thought nothing of it until he saw the devil inhabiting it. He doesn’t dabble in the dark arts, so this is very unfamiliar territory. In fact, he doesn’t recall ever meeting a demon ever. So to hear that you carry one around with you, he is shocked.

Leona Kingscholar

You went from one magicless-person-in-a-magical-world situation to another, and for once in his life he actually felt pity towards you. You also maintained the brightest smile he had ever seen, even brighter than his nephew’s.

When Leona had started yelling at the ADeuce duo, you did actually throw hands this time. As you were fighting (and winning) against the lion, you were shouting about how you would not let him belittle your friends like that. Needless to say, he got the message. 

Upon finding out that the grimoire you carry with you has a devil living inside it, his respect for you already grew. I mean, he already routinely drinks his ‘respect women’ juice, so to say that he respected you more is saying a lot.

Azul Ashengrotto

You were just a pity show at this point. But, one that didn’t concern him at the moment because he could not capitalize off of your misfortune. From what he could see, you had nothing that would be of value to him aside from Ramshackle.

But, when Azul had taken advantage of Ace, Deuce, and Grim, you did actually fight Jade, Floyd, and the aforementioned cecaelia and left the three with a black eye as you demanded that the three be let out of the contract.

Then, he found out about the grimoire and the devil living within it, and you could paint him as intrigued. To be fair, he did want to put you under a contract so that he could use the devil to his advantage, but that’s not quite how it worked.

[gallyg]

Thoughts on Heathers (2018)

I am someone who doesn't really mind the existence of bad media, even legendarily bad media that exists in proximity to media that I hold dear. The Last Airbender is one of the worst movies of all time, but it does not offend me that it is an adaptation of a beloved animated series. At the end of the day, it's just another version of the story which did a few things differently. ATLA wasn't a story about bad guys who can shoot fire from their hands. It was a story that used those bad guys as a force of nature to oppose the heroes to say something about characters I identified with, and so it is not an affront to art that the film version takes away the bad guys' ability to generate their own flames. M Night Shyamalan thought those changes could make for an interesting alternative take, and it did not work for me. Oh well. At the end of the day, it is just a bad version of a good story.

I'm bringing up this extreme example of my being unfazed by a bad adaptation to demonstrate how serious I am being when I say Heathers 2018 is my new least favorite piece of media, and I feel genuinely hurt from having watched the entire thing.

Going in, I was only faintly aware of the show's reputation as a conservative comedy. The Heathers are reimagined as a gang of performatively woke progressives who use their clout as minorities to harass the white boys of Westerberg High with the threat of cancellation in order to secure their positions of power in the culture. This is a pretty big plot point in the first episode, and it is cringe, but it does not actually bother me very much. Past the first episode, the diversity of the Heathers isn't even really something that comes up all that often.

To be clear, I do hate how the Heathers are treated, but it goes a lot deeper than the show not being woke. Heathers 2018 hates humanity. Every single time a Heather experiences a genuine emotion, the show pretends that maybe this time, someone is going to learn a lesson. Every single time, it's a trick. Heather Duke faces transphobia and none of her friends stand up for her. She still yearns for their approval, and she is still denied. Her boyfriend Kurt is the only person on the show who gives her any respect at all, and she gets blackmailed into breaking up with him. She is malicious and insulting both in the moment and afterwards when she tries to backtrack on the breakup. When she thinks he's killed himself, the show pretends it might let this effect her in a real way for all of two minutes before she goes right back to her old self, exploiting Kurt's death in a power play against Heather Chandler. The notion of Heather Duke breaking away from Heather Chandler and forging her own path to fulfillment in Westerberg's social ecosystem is brought up constantly, and every single time, Heather Duke goes right back to this bullshit cat and mouse game. In the end, she dies alone and scared in a field of corn, with no friends, having learned nothing.

Heather Chandler is the same way. We see glimpses of empathy somewhere deep inside her a few times throughout the show, but it never goes anywhere. No matter how low she is brought down, she never gains the ability to empathize with anyone or care about anything in an authentic way. Heather McNamara kills herself and Brianna Parker attempts the same as a result of Chandler's bullying, and it doesn't faze her a bit. In episode 7, she enters a dissociative fugue state from the trauma of public embarrassment and begins trying to make amends to everyone at Westerberg, even taking Brianna Parker out for dinner.

Now, because this is a deeply misanthropic show, Brianna is constantly mocked for being poor. And because this is a deeply unfunny show, it comes across as strictly hateful. Still, it's obviously an improvement over Heather's behavior up until now. And it lasts like ten minutes before she's right back to her old self, worse than ever before. Her first reaction to what she believes to be a mass suicide is to leverage the opportunity to make one final claw at fame. And it doesn't even work. She is reduced to a footnote in Veronica's legacy, and everybody who ever thought of her as anything else is dead. One last spit in the face for the show's only survivor.

To put it bluntly, Heathers 2018 is a show about awful people suffering pointlessly. Any shadow of an implication that it might get better is only there to service the the Shepard tone of misery.

The character whose treatment hits me the hardest is Veronica. Veronica means a lot to me in the original film. I appreciated seeing a character with these horribly violent intrusive thoughts treated empathically by the narrative and have a rich internal life. When JD enters her life, he indulges these intrusive thoughts and attempts to make her believe that these thoughts define her, but in the end, she rejects him. She does not accept that some scribblings in her diary make her a bad person, and chooses instead to reach out to the people around her and have a positive influence in her community. It's a beautiful story. It makes me feel seen and cared about as someone who has struggled a lot with intrusive thoughts.

It's a huge change from the original, but the choice to make Veronica a more proactive killer in Heathers 2018 initially struck me as exciting. If the original film says that your thoughts do not define you, perhaps the reboot could take it a step further. As a young child with no emotional regulation skills, Veronica let the intrusive thoughts win, and she murdered her best friend. As a young adult, these same dark impulses still linger, and JD is the voice in her head telling her to say fuck it, indulge yourself. She does so, she likes it, and she has become even worse than JD by the time of this reveal.

Sure, I thought. The Heathers are being treated like absolute punching bags with no care given to their internal lives outside of being vehicles for pain, but surely Veronica, the main character, will have her emotional journey taken seriously. If Heathers 2018 is even distantly interested in respecting the spirit of the original film, Veronica will find some healthy avenue to be understood and redeemed. She will learn that she is not defined by the worst thoughts in her head, her worst impulses, or her worst moments of indulgence. Somehow, she will make it.

Of course, that's not what happens. The show teases out the possibility, of course. She essentially comes out as a psychopath to her friends, and they accept her. She tries to use her impulses for good. For about half an episode, it seems like she might be okay. And then the last episode happens. She becomes a monster, perpetrating one of the deadliest mass killings in American history more or less on a whim. There is no redemption. In the afterlife, she is totally alone, a lost soul wandering Hell forever, without even JD to accompany her.

Cool.

Look.

I love a good tragedy. I have been posting about how much I love Saw III (the one where everyone dies at the end) for as long as I been online. But there's no catharsis in Heathers 2018. It doesn't even feel like it's trying to have any. Everyone is awful, they're all awful to each other, and nobody deserves better than what they get. It wallows in this cynicism.

The Last Airbender is a bad movie based on a cartoon I like a lot. Metroid Other M is a bad game in a franchise I like a lot. Animorphs is a bad TV show based on my favorite childhood book series. I do not feel like any of these were made with malice. None of these stories hate me.

Heathers 2018 hates me. It feels like it was made with the intention to hurt anyone who ever identified with Veronica Sawyer.

[lordofwaffless]

6. Cafe

Stu was exhausted. Not only had he been yelled at by pretty much everyone, he’d been made fun of by his aunt, then mocked by his teacher, and then insulted in the cafeteria by not only a stupid wizard, but also an angry witch. He was almost tempted to call Ezra and ask her to

take him home. Knowing Ezra, though, she had almost certainly made plans in town once he had told her that he had plans in town. Most days, she was done with work and all of her errands by four or five and they could go home, but since he would be in town until six, she’d probably made plans until eight. Ezra was fun that way. 

He was currently in his last class of the day, gnawing on his pencil and waiting for the bell to ring. He was supposed to be designing a sculpture of a living saint, but hadn’t really made it much farther than a sketch of his aunt Ezra twerking before he’d gotten distracted by his plans for the evening. Sure, it wasn’t really a date, but he was still going to be spending an entire three hours with Wesley, if you included the walk. He’d never really made plans with anyone before, so even making plans to study with someone was kind of a massive deal for him. The fact that he’d made plans to study with the person who was easily the most popular junior in the school (and who he’d had a crush on for two years) did not help. 

“Hey, Stu, how’s the sketch going?” asked his art teacher. She was friendly enough, he supposed, but he really just wanted to be left alone to worry himself sick. “It’s fine. I finished it.” 

She looked over his shoulder and shook her head, smiling. Although the satyr tended to chew her pencils more than draw with them, when he did bother to put in some effort, she was always pleased with the results, no matter how impertinent the subject matter (although if that impertinence had been directed towards any of the other saints, she would probably have been obligated to say something). “That’s quite nice, Stu. Have you thought about what medium you’d like to work in?” 

He blinked, startled away from his increasingly anxious reflections by her question. “Well, marble or stone is what people usually use for statues of saints, but I’d like to try welding something with moveable parts, like a drinking bird. But with my aunt’s behind.” 

She laughed, just as the bell started to ring. “Good work today! I’ll see you tomorrow, Stu. Keep working on that design, ok?” 

He nodded as he began haphazardly shoving his papers into his leather rucksack. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable bag to be so constantly shoving one’s face onto, but it carried all of his things and looked quite nice, unlike the more comfortable bags he could have carried. Stu had had some initial scruples about using a leather bag, but the leather had come from a cow that had died of natural causes (Ezra’s hunger being perfectly natural, in her opinion), and, as Ezra pointed out, his only other alternative was Ezra’s tattered old messenger bag from her days at the East Everin School for Saints. (It was black with orange straps and covered in pins and buttons for bands he’d never heard of, as most of Ezra’s things tended to be.) 

Stu looked up as someone knocked on the door frame. 

“Hey, Professor Clare,” greeted Wesley with his usual mischievous grin on his face.

“Wesley Clarke,” she began, trying not to smile, “you’re one of the best painters I’ve taught in twenty-three years. Why are you no longer in my class?” 

“No room in my schedule, unfortunately. Anyway, you really shouldn’t say things like that, I’ll get even more conceited and none of my hats will fit on my head,” he said with a laugh.

He turned his attention to the blushing satyr attempting to cram six books in his bag. “Stu, you ready?” 

Stu mumbled something vague in reply. He had really not been expecting this. Professor Clare surveyed the two boys before her with a knowing look in her old grey eyes. “Are you two going somewhere?” 

“Just downtown to the cafe,” Wesley replied. “I’m tutoring him in maths.” “I’m terrible at maths,” mourned Stu, finally achieving his improbable task and heaving his overfilled bag onto his tiny shoulders. Wesley hurried over. 

“Here, let me,” he offered, setting his own bag down before attempting to grab Stu’s. “I’m fine, I’m used to it, and you’ve already got yours,” Stu rambled as he tried to shift away. 

“Your bag weighs almost as much as you do, I can’t just-” 

“It does not, and I’m used to it, anyway, so-” 

“Stu, just let me-” 

“It’s fine, you don’t have to-” 

“Stewart, just let the boy carry your bag,” chuckled the art teacher. The satyr paused his scooting just long enough for Wesley to manoeuvre the bag off of his shoulders and onto his own.

He turned around and stared at the taller boy, surprise and concern etched onto his face.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Wesley smiled, throwing his own bag on top of Stu’s. 

“If you say so,” muttered Stu, clearly unconvinced. 

“I do say so.”

Stu shook his head, brown curls bouncing around with the movement of his skull. He startled, suddenly, as Wesley slid his hand into his. “C’mon, let’s start walking,” Wesley murmured, choosing, for once, not to smirk at Stu. 

“You’re an ass,” Stu declared. 

“You know, I’m inclined to agree,” replied Wesley, chuckling again. “If you’re referring to the bag debacle of approximately seventy-eight seconds ago, though, I’m sure you’re completely capable of carrying your giant, eighty-pound bag by yourself. However, I am also capable of carrying your giant, eighty-pound bag as well as my own with a lot less effort. It’s the logical thing to do, Stewart.” 

Stu just shook his head again and bounced along down the hall, wondering why, precisely, he didn’t really seem to care that Wesley was kind of an entitled prick; and more importantly, why, precisely, Wesley was holding his hand as they walked from the art room down to the entrance of the school. Under ordinary circumstances, Stu probably would have allowed himself to get lost in his wonderings and lose focus of his surroundings entirely, but today, he felt, was not quite an ordinary day. Today was a weird day, with too many things to tire him and too many things to wonder about. 

Wesley wasn’t wondering about much of anything. (Well, that’s not precisely true. He was wondering why in the world he’d never attempted to hold the satyr’s hand before, and he was wondering whether or not Stu would pull away. He was also wondering how someone who fell asleep in most of his classes had the energy to skip down a hallway at the end of school, but he supposed that that was what all the napping was for). He was doing a lot of thinking, though and especially about what his friend Fiona had been rambling about in PE as they’d been duelling: “It was ridiculous!” she’d shouted, waving her wand around and haphazardly shooting off offensive spell after offensive spell while he ducked like a madman. “He just sat there pouting at me, his tongue stuck in a pot of gelatin as he mumbled some nonsense about not wanting me to defend him. Who doesn’t want a witch defending them?!” 

Wesley had declined to answer. At least, he would have if he’d been physically capable of answering; all of the ducking had left him too out of breath to utter a single word. (He’d never been great at defensive spells, and Fiona had been casting too furiously for him to even hope of getting a jinx in edgewise; their PE teacher had given him an “A” for exercise and a “D” for likelihood of survival.) He was also thinking about the algebra II test they were taking in a few

days, and Stu’s high likelihood of failure. There really wasn’t any avoiding the failure; there was just cushioning the blow a bit with frantic studying so that he failed a bit less badly. He was mostly thinking about how much he wished he didn’t have to tutor Stu, and how much he wished they could just sit and talk. 

They were walking down the hill to the boundary of the school property now. St. Basilton Preparatory was built in the centre of forty-three acres of wooded park, surrounded by lush gardens and wood sprites who only sort of wanted to eat the students (not that a faery three inches tall could have managed to do so). The school itself was a stately baroque building, large enough to be considered a castle, but not quite so large that students couldn’t make it from one side to the other before the bell rang. (Older students had the opportunity to board at the school for a minimal increase in tuition, which was part of why it was so large, but Ezra preferred to have her nephew as close to her as possible.) Ezra and Stu both thought it was beautiful and utterly ridiculous; it was one of the few things they managed to agree on. 

While there were a number of secluded spots on the grounds or within the school itself that would have served for studying purposes, Stu and Wesley had agreed that eight hours on school property was more than enough; and besides, everyone knew that Cecelia’s Cafe and Bakery was the only place to get a decent cup of coffee in the entire town. The town, like the school, was named after St. Basilton the Archer, one of the few male casters to have ever made it through the Goddess’s trials; they were nearly insurmountable even with an affinity for one of the elements, and that was something that belonged to witches and witches alone. 

The cafe was situated in downtown Basilton, between an artist supply store and a bookstore that specialized in antique spell books and faery tales. It was one of the larger businesses in the area, as it catered to pretty much everyone in town who enjoyed beverages that had flavour and were a temperature (which was, naturally, almost everyone in town). The owner, Cecelia Clarke, was a cousin of Wesley’s father, a Professor Fiero Clarke, who taught botany to middle schoolers (it was an incredibly thankless job). 

Wesley was thinking about that, too, when he realised that the satyr skipping merrily along next to him had paused. “What?” he asked, confused at both the sudden stop and the way Stu was staring at him. 

“You’re holding my hand,” said Stu, as if that explained everything.

Wesley cocked an eyebrow. “Well, yeah. I’ve been holding your hand for a good four and a half minutes now.” 

“Why?” 

Wesley laughed. “Well, initially, it was probably more to get your attention than anything else, but because I want to, I think?” 

“You think?” questioned the satyr. 

“I mean, I know I want to be holding your hand. I meant that I think that’s the answer to your question.” 

“Oh,” responded Stu. He started skipping again, albeit more slowly and less merrily than he’d been skipping along before. He paused again after a moment or two and turned back to Wesley. “Why?” 

Wesley sighed. “Are you asking me why that’s the answer to your question?” Stu shook his head. “No. Why do you want to hold my hand?” 

Wesley tugged him along as he answered. “Why do you eat so much jelly?” “Because I like jelly. Jelly is good. Jelly is-” he paused again. “Oh.” He tugged his hand back from Wesley and started walking at an accelerated pace. 

“I- Stu, wait,” Wesley called. This was not a conversation he’d expected to be having today, not by any stretch of the imagination. This was not a conversation he’d expected to be having ever, if he were being honest with himself. He sort of figured he’d just keep teasing Stu forever without actually getting around to admitting that he had feelings for him. “Stu, slow down, please,” he requested as he attempted to catch up. For someone with such short legs, Stu was remarkably fast. 

Stu’s face was burning, both from the sting of the wind whipping his face, and from the knowledge that the guy he liked also, apparently, liked him (and not just in a teasing way). He supposed he should probably thank Ezra for the t-shirt. 

“Stewart, please,” panted Wesley, who was beginning to be quite out of breath. “Please slow down.” 

He did, and turned around to face Wesley once more. “I-” he began, before biting his lip and contemplating what he actually wanted to say. 

“Hey,” Wesley said gently, having finally caught up to him. “It’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. Let’s just go sit down, ok?”

They’d reached the cafe at that point. Stu nodded in response, and opened the door. It had only been a ten-minute walk (less, really, with Stu travelling so quickly), but it had felt a fair bit longer, and both boys were relieved to get inside and slide into a booth in one corner of the cafe. It was a warm, cosy space, vibrantly decorated in autumnal shades of orange and violet. Both of them found themselves thinking about Fiona, who existed in the same range of colours as the cushions on the armchairs by the fire and the garlands of leaves that hung from the ceiling. While Wesley’s thoughts were more specifically focused on her, as she’d been in most of his classes since she’d started at the school two weeks ago and he’d known her for years, Stu only thought of her as the angry witch from earlier that day. 

“I heard about what happened earlier,” Wesley began. “Are you ok?” 

Stu looked up from where he’d been taking his books back out of his bag. “What do you mean?” 

“Fiona told me about the fight earlier. Are you alright?” 

“Shouldn’t you be asking her that? I wasn’t really involved,” responded Stu, frowning down at the bottle of strawberry syrup he’d unearthed in his bag. 

“I’m not even going to ask why that’s in your bag.” Wesley shook his head, before continuing, “They were fighting about you, so you sort of were involved, Stu. Besides, she told me about the shit those guys have been saying to you.” 

Stu pouted. “I’m fine. I didn’t ask her to start a fight.” 

Wesley looked at him, considering. Stu was still as rosy-cheeked as he’d been that morning, and was seemingly determined to look in any direction that didn’t include Wesley. Wesley decided, after a moment, that it wasn’t really a topic worth pursuing, and instead started taking his arithmetic textbook and notebook out of his bag. Once he’d set his things down on the table, he stood up. “I’m going to go buy a latte. What do you want?” 

“Hot chocolate with whipped cream and caramel, please,” Stu replied, looking down at the table. 

“What, not a strawberry hot chocolate?” Wesley teased. 

Stu glanced up, surprised, before looking back down. His ears were burning. “No thank you. Caramel.” 

“Okay,” muttered Wesley, shaking his head.

He came back a few minutes later with two scones, some sandwiches, and their drinks, and sat down next to Stu. “Shouldn’t you sit on the other side?” questioned the satyr, who was still staring in the opposite direction. 

“Not if you actually want me to walk you through these problems. Or if you want sandwiches, for that matter. The other side of the booth is too far away.” 

Stu definitely wanted both of those things. He wanted Wesley to sit next to him even without those two things; he just wasn’t sure what to say. Wesley noticed (it was impossible not to), and figured he should probably attempt to clear the air if they were actually going to accomplish anything. 

“Hey,” he began, brushing a few stray curls behind Stu’s ear. “Are you sure you’re ok? You’ve been acting weirder than usual today,” he murmured, concern written across his face. Stu finally turned around, nibbling on his lip as he once again contemplated his response. “I don’t know. I- you said- well,” he paused, unsure, before whispering, “you make my cheeks rosy. I think I might be dying. I think I might be tomato-coloured for the rest of my life.” 

Wesley burst out laughing at Stu’s fairly absurd response. “I don’t think I’m physically capable of blushing, but if I could, I’d probably be tomato-coloured around you too,” he replied, smirking at him once more. Stu couldn’t help but smile as he glanced back down at his textbook.

“We should probably start working,” he mumbled. Wesley sighed, wishing again that Stu was just a bit better with numbers, so they could spend the time they had together in a more enjoyable manner. He supposed he really would have to invite him over soon.

 “Right.” He opened up the largest textbook in front of him and scooted a bit closer to Stu, letting his hand rest lightly on the smaller boy’s back. Wesley glanced at him to make sure he wasn’t freaking out, and noted with some relief that while the satyr was blushing even more furiously, he seemed perfectly content to lean into Wesley and pretend to focus on what they were studying. They’d been reviewing quadratic equations in class towards the end of last week, and had a test on the material that Wednesday. 

“This sucks,” mumbled Stu. 

“Agreed.” 

He pouted. “Why does this suck for you? You like maths.” 

“Stewart, you cannot honestly believe that trying to get you to understand quadratics is really all that enjoyable.”

Stu stared at him, eyes wide. “But I’m so pretty,” he whispered. “And you get to sit so close.” Wesley wasn’t entirely sure whether the satyr was teasing him or not. He stared at him, full lips parted, his handsome brows scrunched together in wonder at the surprisingly confident nonsense that had just exited the satyr’s lips. Finally he shook his head, grabbed one of Stu’s pink, strawberry-scented gel pens, and started writing out a problem. 

“Do you have any concept of how this works?” 

Stu shook his head and leaned in closer. Wesley exhaled melodramatically and started to walk him through it, slowly going over each step. He realised, as they went from problem to problem, that Stu had a point; he was exceedingly pretty, and was sitting extremely close. In fact, he seemed to gravitate closer with each problem they worked through, glancing up at Wesley every few seconds through his absurdly long lashes as he attempted to comprehend the information being presented to him for the thousandth time. As nice as it was, it wasn’t quite enough to distract from the frustration of explaining the quadratic formula for the sixth time in three minutes. However, it did increase his patience somewhat; and Wesley, as a general rule, was not very patient. 

He paused his explanations for a moment to eat the last of the sandwiches, running the hand that had been resting on Stu’s back gently up and down the satyr’s spine. Stu peered up at him, his sepia-toned eyes boring into his skull. 

“Do you want a bite of my sandwich, Stewart, or are you just staring at me for fun?” Stu blinked. “Both.” 

…which was true, but neither of those reasons had been why he’d looked up. Wesley held the sandwich out to him. He leaned over and took a fairly large bite from the corner nearest to his lips. Wesley (who’d honestly expected him to grab the sandwich) barely breathed as he watched him consume it, noting everything from the way his jaw moved when he chewed, to the bob of his adam’s apple as he swallowed it down. 

“You have jelly on your mouth,” he whispered. 

The satyr ran his tongue over his lips, completely unaware of the way his friend was dissecting his every move. 

Wesley could have kissed him. He was seriously considering leaning over and kissing him, putting off the Goddess-forsaken mathematics lesson and simply letting himself enjoy the feeling of Stu’s strawberry-flavoured lips against his own. He was, luckily, spared from the possibility of actually acting on those urges (and probably confusing Stu immensely, he thought) by the arrival of an unreasonably tall, violet-eyed witch.

[notmuchofarolemodel]

music- sia’s movie

originally written on jan 24 2021

I can’t believe i’m writing about this. again.

So, if you didn’t already know, Sia directed a movie about an autistic girl, starring Maddie Ziegler. This is problematic for so many reasons, including the fact that Maddie is allistic (not autistic), Sia did next to no research on autism before directing the movie, and after announcing the movie, she took to twitter and attacked autistic people voicing their opinions. But she’s done so many more awful things since. So yay, article by me, the sequel. /s

Sia has done a few interviews over the last while about her movie and has responded to criticism about it. (very badly.)

Despite her claims, Sia was never going to cast an autistic actor in the first place. She said:

“I realized it wasn’t ableism [Casting Maddie]. I mean, it is ableism I guess as well, but it’s actually nepotism because I can’t do a project without her. I don’t want to. I wouldn’t make art if it didn’t include her.”

It was also found that Sia said had written a film for Maddie a long time ago- in 2015- which almost certainly means she never had any intentions of casting an autistic person.

The plot of the movie, and a clip have both been leaked since the release of the trailer in November.

‘Music’ falls back on harmful Hollywood sterotypes again, and again- but yet, after it was no longer fresh news, almost nobody but the autistic community was talking about it. It’s still set to be released soon this year, but stereotypes such as ‘autism = special/savant abilities’ as seen in Rain man, and ‘Autistic people don’t have feelings’ - are ones that lead to underdiagnosis, and biases in the professional world.

“We are particularly alarmed that Sia has said it would be ‘cruel’ to cast a nonspeaking autistic person as an actor. It suggests that she thinks that autistic people don’t understand our own lives and aren’t the people who should be telling our own stories. When people tell stories about autism that cut out an autistic point of view, when storytellers view us as objects to tell inspirational stories about, or when autism is treated as a narrative device rather than as a disability community full of real people, the stories that are told fall flat, don’t speak to our reality, and are often harmful to us.” -Zoe Gross, ASAN

Sia refused to refer to her main character as disabled, and only used the term ‘special abilities’ which just further proves how these sterotypes affect people’s view of autistic people. In today’s society, autism is a disability, and that’s not a bad thing. She also described the film as “Rainman, the musical- but with girls”

There are several meltdown scenes in the movie, and one of them has been leaked in a clip. In this, Music is having a meltdown in a park, and she is then held in prone restraint. Meaning she was jumped on top of and pinned to the ground. This was not only unnecessary, but potentially deadly. This film is going to be big, if it gets released, and it was very much made for a neurotypical audience’s enjoyment. People will likely see this movie, and think that restraining an autistic person is ok. It’s not. This is how people get killed. Recently a story came up about Eric Parsa, a 16 year old autistic boy who was killed at the hands of the police last year, after they used this ‘technique’ on him.

Regarding this scene Sia said, “If they [cinema-goers] watch the movie, it will allow them to touch into their compassion. That scene was so important to me, because of all the people staring. I felt compelled to put it in.”

This is why people need to listen and learn from actual autistic people. There’s so much dangerous misinformation out there, and it’s unacceptable. There is nothing ‘compassionate’ about harming people, and autistic people are people. i.e people who deserve the same rights and dignity as everyone else.

Sia continues to further dehumanize autistic people by constantly talking about ‘levels of functioning’. humans are impossibly complex, and there’s no one way to function. In an interview with Sia, nonspeaking autistic people are compared to ‘inanimate objects, like wigs’.

Sia also said “People functioning at Music’s level can’t get on Twitter and tell me I did a good job either.” This is untrue, firstly because, again- there’s no one way to function, and just because a person can’t speak, doen’t mean they don’t have a right to opinions, and feelings (and it definitely doesn’t mean they should be compared to ‘inanimate objects’), and secondly because many nonspeaking autistic people have taken to twitter and social media to tell her she’s done a bad job, she’s just chosen to ignore and insult them.

This whole thing is so infuriating, and it’s very obvious that Sia does not care about autistic people.

“Sia being ableist AF while claiming she meant well is some serious abled savior bullshit. I can’t believe so many people green-lit this project & the press team approved the ‘special abilities’ language. Disabled people clearly weren’t part of this production team.” -Kristen Parisi via twitter

She also claimed she decided to make the movie because she was inspired by a 16-year-old named Stevie that she met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. “Stevie used to sit next to me in the front row at my AA meetings. He was low-functioning and on the spectrum with echolalia; he’s the reason I wanted to make this movie,” she said. Autistic people don’t exist simply to be inspiring or make you feel good about yourself. We’re people, who just want to go about our lives, the same as anyone else- we don’t need a cure and we don’t need to fit people’s idea of what autism is, just let us be, please.

Finally, I’m just going to touch on the question ‘Why isn’t any criticism being directed at Maddie?’ This is because she likely didn’t have much say in the film at all. Keep in mind that she was only 13/14 at the start of this project. Sia also said Maddie was worried that people would think she was mocking autistic people. The film is a mockery of autistic people, but Sia is at fault.

“She had researched her role for two years, we watched movies together, and I taught her the nuances and ticks I had observed from [a] friend [with autism],” Sia said. “We did this in the most sensitive and respectful way.”

I can confirm that that is very much not sensitive and respectful- not to mention that Maddie also watched autism meltdowns as a part of her reseach too (filming a meltdown is incredibly dehumanizing) , but the fact that she learned how to ‘act autistic’ from sterotypes, taught to her by a person who just, doesn’t know anything about autism is awful, but also quite absurd. It makes no sense.

No, I do not wish to watch an abled-bodied actor wear my stims like itchy clothes. A caricature of my being.

No, I do not want to see her dance around in skin not her own, profiting from a life not her own.

No, I do not wish to support yet another film that will profit off the lives of disabled bodies without one disabled body involved. -tiffany hammond

I recieved quite a bit of backlash when I posted the first time about why casting a nondisabled actor for a disabled role is bad- from allistic people, so if any of you are reading this as nondisabled people- I literally do not care if you disagree, you don’t get to dictate how autistic people feel. Try a little harder to get out of your own head and see things from another person’s perspective xx

Now, for the love of God, please don’t watch this movie if it comes out in February, and listen to Autistic voices. : Here is a thread of positive autistic representation instead :)

click here for thread!

Sign the Petition

Filming & posting videos of children's autism meltdowns on YouTube is a clear violation of YouTube's community…www.change.org

link

Sign the Petition

Sia has announced she is directing a movie about an autistic woman, and claims she wants to represent the…www.change.org

all other relevant links are linked within the underlined text.

my original article - link

[adhd-disaster-willie]

Seventeen and strung out on confusion; chapter 1/4

Summary: Just some snippets of backstory for the one and only Alex Mercer; aka my comfort character. Each moment will have a date attached so you can understand the timeline. Angst with fluffy found family moments :)

Warnings: Homophobia, swearing

---

As I’m sure you could guess, there are numerous problems that come with being the only out gay kid at your school in 1994. It’s not so bad if you keep your head down and persuade your friends not to get into a fight with everyone who throws a slur your way, but regardless. That pink hoodie that you’ve been wearing since you were 14 and is honestly too small at this point but your parents refuse to buy you another one? Well it’s a target on your back and apparently everyone at the school is now a professional archer. Or at least, they’re all very proficient in the art of unoriginal insults that cut deeper than they should. All of this is to say, don’t come out to your religious parents in 1994. Ever.

---

Alex Mercer was born into a perfect nuclear family, in a two story house with a white picket fence, brick columns, and a clean cut yard that was unsettlingly green. His parents were as religious as anyone could get; straight-laced, good Catholic parents who kept their hands tight around Alex’s shoulders. He went to church every Sunday and tried to ignore the way his neck itched from the too-tight collar and his mother swatting at his hands until he had to sit on them to refrain from drumming on the nearest surface. He was good at hiding the way he payed undivided attention to his little sister’s ballet classes, good at pretending to stare at the girls in the hallways that all his friends drooled after, and especially good at convincing everyone that he drummed and sang to… impress said girls. Right. But unfortunately, Alex was even better at accidentally outing himself a day into the New Year, consequentially losing all of his parents’ affection.

He didn’t even exist to them anymore. Maybe it would’ve been better if they’d given him a million restrictions and curfews and basically chained his hands together, because this was unsettling. And lonely. Family dinners were a thing of the past, and he’d really begun to sympathize with Reggie and his microwaved, half-cold meals every morning and night. But it could always be worse. They hadn’t kicked him out… yet.

---

January 25, 1994

“Alex, dude!”

Alex flinched upon realizing Reggie’s hand waving in front of his face. He looked up and smiled guiltily, realizing the way he’d frozen, spaced out staring at the wall and absentmindedly hitting his sticks against his legs with a beat that didn’t at all match the song they were supposed to be rehearsing.

Luke sighed, wiping the pout off his face. “Alex, come on man! We aren’t gonna get any gigs if you keep…” He waved his hands vaguely and slapped Alex’s shoulder. “Just, pay attention dude.”

“Right,” Alex replied, his voice strained. He was staring down at his shoes and he could feel his bandmates having a silent conversation above his head which he could only deduce Luke was not happy with, probably meaning they were stopping rehearsal. He didn’t want them to stop for him; it made him feel like a burden, and Luke was right, if they were gonna make it anywhere, they had to be all in.

“Alex, you okay?” Reggie asked, his eyebrows knit together in concern.

Alex nodded briefly and kept his gaze trained on his feet. His sneakers were too small and he had to curl his toes in for them to fit but he was afraid of the reaction he’d get from telling his parents he needed something.

“It’s not one of those homophobic jackasses again, right?” Bobby asked, moving closer, his eyes narrowing. “I swear, this time I will cave Josh’s fucking face in-”

“It’s not!” Alex clarified, finally lifting his head. “It isn’t…” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look it’s just my parents alright? They…”

Reggie’s eyes widened and he began fiddling with his flannel sleeves. “They didn’t… they didn’t hurt you did they?” He asked, his voice small.

“No, no they didn’t hurt me… not physically at least.” He laughed ruefully. “They’re just being stupid, alright? Ignoring me like they have for the past 3 weeks.” Alex stood up, well aware that at this point band practice was a thing of the past. He walked to the couch, the other three boys in tow.

“Hey!” Luke elbowed Alex’s side before throwing an arm over his shoulders. “That new Green Day album is coming out in like, a week.” He grinned, eyes lighting up. “I’ve been saving up to buy it, and we can use that new cassette player I got for Christmas to listen to it.”

Alex nodded, smiling softly and letting his head relax on the back of the couch. “Yea that sounds great. Promise you won’t listen to it without us?”

“Of course ‘Lex; we all gotta be there to find which songs we’re gonna cover.”

Reggie wrinkled his nose in confusion. “I thought you said we’d moved past being a cover band?”

“It’s Luke, he’ll make an exception for anything if it involves Green Day,” Bobby chuckled.

Several beats of silence passed in which the sun seemed to get increasingly lower in the sky, before Bobby sighed in resignation. “You’re all staying here tonight, aren’t you?”

Luke beamed, clapping Bobby’s shoulders. “You know us so well.”

“Sleepover!” Reggie laughed, pumping a fist in the air. “Does it count as a sleepover if we all basically live here at this point?”

“Shhh ‘Lex, don’t ruin our fun,” Luke responded.

Alex smiled hesitantly. Yea, he was okay.

---

May, 1994

Michael Williams had dark hair brushing the tips of his shoulders, eyes that were almost golden in certain lights and a smile that gave Alex butterflies. Not to mention he was in theater and had a reputation for flipping off the homophobic jocks that were constantly on Alex’s tail. Not that he did it specifically for Alex, but still. The only problem was that talking to cute boys that he hadn’t known since 3rd grade was far from Alex’s strong point.

“Come on Alex!” Luke groaned, sliding into the last open seat at their lunch table. “Just talk to him before I literally combust.” He punctuated his sentence by waving at Alex with a cold french fry.

Alex grumbled something, his face in his arms in a futile attempt to hide the red dusting his cheeks.

“Hey Luke, if you explode because Alex refuses to talk to his crush, can I have your CD’s?” Reggie quipped, a lopsided grin on his face.

Luke gasped in mock offense. “Reginald-!”

“Still not my name.”

“I will be buried with my music,” Luke said. “Both of my guitars too-”

“Even your amp?” Bobby questioned.

“Yes.”

“Seems like a waste of space. Can you even fit all that in a coffin?”

Luke shrugged. “You guys can figure it out. Don’t betray my dying wish.”

Something that would’ve been silence had Luke ever been taught how to chew like a normal person passed over the table, in which Alex’s attention drifted lazily back to Michael Williams, who was chatting enthusiastically with one of the girls in his theater class. Alex didn’t know her name but they had biology together and she never gave him dirty looks, so he liked her.

“10 bucks if you go talk to him,” Bobby said, nudging Alex and waggling his eyebrows.

“No. No,” Alex said. “Not happening.”

“15.”

“Where is this money coming from?” Alex squeaked, although the prospect of $15 was all too tempting. He could get some decent shoes for that.

“20,” Bobby continued, grinning maniacally.

“Dude!” Luke laughed. “How are your parents gonna like you asking for money to fulfill a bet?”

Bobby slapped a hand over Luke’s mouth.

“I’m gonna regret this,” Alex sighed, already moving to stand up.

Reggie giggled like a child and offered a shit-eating grin to Alex, who promptly flipped him off before heading across the cafeteria.

---

December 17, 1994

Alex was screwed. No. Alex was completely fucked. Alex Mercer was likely seconds away from living in a ditch. Because of course it had to be his sister who caught him making out with a guy after school. And of course she was too young to understand why she couldn’t tell Mom and Dad. Because she would’ve done the same if he’d been kissing a girl because kissing is gross and it’s funny to tell your parents that your big brother was kissing someone.

“Hey Mom, guess what Alex did today?” Angie asked, giggling. She was perched on the counter, licking frosting from her fingers while their mother brushed cookie crumbs from her dress. And Alex was frozen at the top of the stairs, crouched down, his heart pounding so loud he was sure it could be heard downstairs. He dug his nails into his palms and prayed that his mother would pretend he didn’t exist when he wanted her to. It was one thing, them knowing. But this? This was something else. Alex’s parents lived on the philosophy that homosexual thoughts got you an eternity in hell, but homosexual actions got you shunned and thrown out. So yea, he was screwed.

“What did Alex do today?” His mother asked, plastering a false smile onto her face, her voice sounding like she was already packing his bags. Alex wanted to get up and run. He wanted to go to his room and jump out the window and fly away. But it was like the sweat on his palms was superglue keeping him stuck to the carpet, and his brain had short-circuited.

Angie laughed again, trying to get it out through her snickering. “Alex was kissing someone today.” She sang, her small feet swinging back and forth, the noise of her heels against the counter like knives in Alex’s ears. “That boy Michael that used to go to our church.” The innocence in her voice made Alex ache.

“Angie.” His mother’s voice was cold now. “Leave please.”

Angie’s brow furrowed in confusion, but she scurried up the stairs anyway, giving Alex a tearful hug on the way because even at ten, she knew that that voice meant trouble. “Sorry ‘Lex. I shouldn’t ‘a told your secret,” She whispered, before sprinting to her room and leaving Alex wondering if he’d get to see her after tonight.

“Alex Mercer, please come downstairs.” Her voice chilled him to the bone, like shards of ice penetrating his skin and seeping into his blood. But he walked down anyway.

Alex tightened the muscles in his hands and feet, willing himself to stay still and planted to the wooden floor, facing his mother head-on, as if the look in her eyes wasn’t terrifying him to the point of tears. But he wouldn’t let her see that she was getting to him, he wouldn’t. So he bit his tongue and counted down from ten inwardly.

“What is this nonsense?” She hissed, reaching out and gripping his forearm, her nails a millimeter away from digging into his skin.

Alex swallowed roughly. “I- I don’t know. Angie’s just… she’s-”

“Don’t lie to me!” His mother snapped. She brought her hand back, curling her fingers in with a look of disgust, as if she’d been touching fire. And then she was speaking again, but Alex couldn’t hear her over the pounding in his ears. He tightened his jaw and shut his eyes momentarily. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“Get out.”

His eyes snapped open. Alex stood still in front of her, searching her eyes for the slightest bit of remorse. But there was nothing but ice. So he left. He left with tears running down his face and he couldn’t even bring himself to say goodbye to Angie. It wasn’t until he was halfway down the block when he realized that he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a backpack full of everything he could fit, and no where to go. He collapsed on the ground, the cold night air finally hitting him, seeping into his bones. He looked up and wiped his eyes, sniffling. It was odd, the way that the Christmas lights were able to look so beautiful when he felt so broken inside. It felt almost unfair that everything outside of him was moving at a normal pace like nothing had changed. But Alex knew better than that. Everything had changed.

---

These are the people who expressed interest in reading this when I posted about it a few days ago :)

@edgeofgillespie @herequeerandcantdrinkbeer @lookingthroughmirrors

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

[viciousgracearc]

sh.adow & b.one thoughts ( contains spoilers! ) tw: racism ( this is just a thought dump and to explain why i’m not adapting the show’s racist elements in my portrayals )

disclaimer: just because i will not adapt the racist element as it appears in the show doesn’t mean i won’t acknowledge the book canon, in-universe prejudice and discrimination against the poc characters in grishaverse. 

so. the racism in shadow and bone. having watched all of the show, i now have some mixed thoughts about it. in the books, alina is assumed to be white for the most part. it is only at the end when we ( or at least i ) suspected that she is not entirely ravkan, and then the casting confirmed it. the kind of racism alina ( and mal ) faced in the show was never a factor in the books, despite rampant anti-shu and anti-fjerdan sentiment. the suli are painted as people who are displaced and mostly neglected by the ravkan government, and definitely treated with prejudice, but as far as i recall there is no specific slur directed at them either in book canon.

however, whereas alina’s ethnicity is vague in the books, it is crystal clear in the show that she is a biracial woman. i know that for biracial folk, experiences vary across the board, especially if you’re a biracial person and an immigrant or a refugee. alina is a war orphan. her mother’s country of origin is at war with her current country of residence. to an extent, i understand the level of animosity ravkans have against people who look like the threat / the enemy. people of color face racism and prejudice day in and day out, sometimes from white people, sometimes from fellow people of color. this is a grim reality with a long and studied history of racism and racial superiority creating divides between minorities and pitting them against each other.

was the racism necessary to the plot? it definitely adds layers to it. you have an orphaned girl of color in a mostly white people country. they discriminate against her and her best friend for most of her life, using slurs such as “rice-eater” and “half-breed”. but this country has a huge problem, and it turns out only this orphaned girl of color can save them from it, despite them alienating her consistently. now they need her help, now they call her a saint. this girl, who based on show-canon, feels so different and abnormal from the rest of her peers because her ethnicity is always pointed out and considered a bad thing. now she has to be a hero for a country that despises her... and not only that, now she has to do it under the tutelage of a white man. white man looks older than her; there is an obvious imbalance in their power dynamic, but he looks at her like his hope come at last and places her on a pedestal she doesn’t ask for. this same white man puts a collar around her neck and then effectively subjugates her by taking control of her power.

it... it kinda sounds bad, doesn’t it? it does. “but wait,” the volcra screeches. “via, are you fucking stupid?” it asks. “that’s not how the story ends! she overcomes!”

well, yes. but does it really make the rest of it any less insidious? alina is denied food, consistently picked on, and mocked, for being half-shu. it is prevalent in her show storyline and difficult to ignore. and thus it will be woven into everything that happens to her, and every decision that she makes will in turn, make us, the viewers, look back on it even if she herself doesn’t do so explicitly. i know the intent of including this racism element into her ( and mal’s ) story is to portray an accurate depiction of the POC experience as they maneuver white or mostly white spaces, or just spaces not catered to their specific ethnicity. but does it work? is it necessary? the irregulars, which is also a netflix show, did a great job at casting a young chinese woman in a lead role and a black man as dr. john watson without ever having to define their characters or their capabilities to move in the world by their race alone. as a half-chinese woman myself, it was empowering to watch a chinese girl able to take the lead and make bold statements and brave decisions without ever being bogged down by the limitations of her race. 

at the end of the day, it is a fantasy world. do you think if the racism isn’t there, the story’s going to be worse off than it is? personally, if they left it out, i think the story will be just fine. there are a lot of things that tie these characters together outside of their racial struggles, like... i don’t know, personality? circumstances? the need to save their country from a powerful tyrant? the struggle for survival in a constantly at-war nation? there is also the fact that this racism element they’ve introduced is inconsistent. so much directed against alina and mal because they want the viewers to sympathize with these two characters. some of it directed towards inej, another protagonist, whose story has a lot to do with how she was exploited because she is suli. but where’s the racism directed at zoya? at botkin? if there’s racism against the shu and if they call them rice-eaters, where’s the anti-fjerdan racism and what do they call fjerdans? ice-shavers? cold-dwellers? aren’t fjerdans ravka’s enemies too? but oh wait... fjerdans are white. nevermind.

speaking of zoya: in the books, especially in RoW, it was implied that she is white-passing, which is why she was never treated differently for being suli. however, show!zoya is NOT white-passing at all. she is very obviously a woman of color, and while i acknowledge that yes, poc can be racist against poc, i don’t really see zoya -- bully, mean girl, attention-starved, ambitious, ruthless zoya -- resulting to such a low blow. sujaya dasgupta herself admitted that in show canon, zoya experiences racism ( though it was never explicitly shown to us ), and consciously turns it against alina in the hopes of hurting another woman of color. don’t get me wrong, zoya is definitely a terrible person at the start of the series. she was classist and mean and she had a superiority complex, and that superiority complex comes from being a powerful grisha, something she worked hard for. she thinks alina doesn’t belong in the little palace, not because alina is shu, but because alina appears out of nowhere, is untrained but is already considered powerful / the solution to everyone’s problem, and has nabbed her old place as the darkling’s favored. the “you stink of keramzin” jab is more than enough to drive her point home and i don’t think “half-breed” is necessary at all. besides, from what it looked like, alina isn’t the only mixed-race grisha. grisha comes from all over, taking refuge in ravka because they’re the only nation that treats their grisha under acceptable conditions. so one would expect some diversity there, which zoya, having been at the little palace since age 9, would have been used to by now. i don’t really think there’s a lot of incentive for her in using a racial slur, and she’s lethal enough with words that she doesn’t need them to injure somebody. 

“via, stop barking and tell us what you’re going to adapt in your portrayal!”

okay, well. personally, i’m not interested in including the show’s racist element in any of my characters’ storyline ( alina, zoya, mal, ehri ). i acknowledge the anti-shu, anti-fjerdan, and anti-suli sentiments as they appear in book canon, but i will not use alina’s ethnicity as the basis of her “otherness” because i like the book canon explanation for that better. nor will i acknowledge that zoya called alina a half-breed, because my zoya is not white-passing zoya, and she knows infinitely better ways to inflict verbal harm than racism. zoya will also be grappling with being half-suli because she was exposed to anti-suli sentiments by her own mother as a young child. 

all my characters are of asian-adjacent ethnicities, and as an asian person myself, do you really think i am interested in reliving my traumatic racism experiences through the characters that i write in a fantasy world? with alina especially, it’s like she couldn’t breathe without someone pointing out that she’s half-shu. i think as much as it is important to show authentic poc experiences in art and media, it is also equally important to show poc solidarity, and to stop defining people by their race alone and to just let them exist as people. 

it doesn’t help that the show’s way of depicting racism is gratuitous, insulting, and feels like it’s catered more towards the white gaze than... you know, actual POC viewers? i understand people will disagree with me on this and that’s fine. this is just how i feel. given that shu-han as a nation didn’t even feature much in the books and we don’t know ANYTHING about them in a cultural context aside from the fact that their appearance is coded as east asian, the discrimination towards them really just hinges on shallow factors like how they look, what they eat ( ???? ), and how they are viewed as ravka’s enemy. it boils down to an east vs. west type of scenario ( and considering the barrage of anti-asian sentiment in our current political climate it’s... questionable at the very least ), and the racism element is not a profound expression of the poc experience but more like... a caricature version of it, once again, in my opinion.

“via, i can’t believe you used that many words trying to tell us you won’t include the racism in your portrayal.”

hey, i know. but a girl be having thoughts, a girl’s two brain cells be rubbing together, you know? this is me deep cleansing my brain by yoting my thoughts into the void. but yes, this is my take! i understand if you don’t feel the same way, but i just... i can’t feature the racist elements of the show in my blog, sorry (not really).

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[calciferous-kelpie]

Breaking Young Artists ft. Kirby

So I woke up today at 8AM (which is highly unlike me) with the extreme urge to write about my shitty experiences as a young creator online. I’ve never really talked about this with anyone before, at least not to the extent that I’m going to now. But yeah. Here we go. Yay.

Today we’re talking about the Kirby fandom, but it’s okay if you don’t know shit about Kirby because we’re actually talking about fandom gatekeeping more than anything.

Most of you probably didn’t know I was into the Kirby franchise at one point, and that’s completely intentional. I’ve put that part of my life far behind me, and let me tell you, I don’t look back on it with much fondness, despite the fact that I was in the fandom for years.

Here’s one of the many reasons why!

This is JP. My Kirby fan character from forbidden days no longer spoken of.

“Wait, so JP? Like… Jigglypuff?”

Yes.

“And this was your Kirby fan character?”

Yes.

“Oh.”

Yes.

My lack of creativity should be apparent to anyone who looks at this character. JP’s creation is lazy and self-indulgent. She is clearly the Pokemon Jigglypuff with some minor redesigns who was then shoved into the Kirby universe for no good reason.

When I first made her, I had no real intention of explaining why she was basically just Jigglypuff, but as I continued to develop her, I began to consider what it would be like to explain her appearance—to create a story where Pokemon and Kirby both existed together on, like, different planets in a vast universe. She was going to be half Jigglypuff and half… whateverthefuck you want to call Kirby’s species.

You can still find art of her buried deep in my DeviantArt gallery (as well as 21 chapters of a story I will never, ever complete), but I don’t talk about her anymore. And this is why.

It all happened back around 2010-2012, which meant I was about 12-14 at the time. This was back when DeviantArt was still the main hub for all artists (lmao) and tumblr was still kind of new on the scene. A cool new trend popping up in fandom spaces at this time was the creation of “your oc is terrible” tumblr blogs, which—as the term implies—existed simply to make fun of artists who had crappy characters. They would reupload artists’ works and laugh at how lame or unoriginal their designs were.

These people were trend-setters, making fun of cringe character designs before “cringe” was even a word used to describe them. And before you fall for the fun hipster wording here: no, this did not make them admirable. They were, in fact, assholes.

Some of these blogs liked to pretend they “poked fun” in the spirit of “constructive criticism” but very few of these people actually offered anything outside of insults. (Besides, even if their feedback had been constructive, none of these artists whose work they’d reuploaded had asked for this and probably should have just been left alone.)

You can probably see where I’m going with all of this. My art of JP was uploaded to a couple of these “crappy oc” blogs, and I was ridiculed for having dared to create a thing.

I discovered my art had been taken from my DeviantArt gallery and uploaded to tumblr (a site I didn’t even have an account on at the time) without my knowledge. My signature had been blocked out (to protect my privacy I guess??? lmfao) and my work had been openly mocked for the enjoyment of an audience. People complained about my shitty character, saying that she was literally just Jigglypuff dressed up to look like an OC. They rolled their eyes at her name and her appearance. And in no uncertain terms, I was deemed a bad artist and a bad member of fandom—a warning to other new artists of what to never be.

I wasn’t told any of this to my face, of course, which I guess was supposed to be a blessing. Rather, I had the lovely privilege of discovering that people were mocking me behind my back for their own satisfaction. It could have even been one of my friends who had brought my work up for mockery. I’ll never know.

But let me tell you, there’s not a lot that’s more discouraging than learning people are ridiculing you just out of earshot.

I wish I had had the foresight to take screenshots of the posts these people made. To document the insults and the way I was treated when I asked them to take my art down from their blog. Unfortunately, I don’t have that. I was young and ashamed and just wanted the experience to be over with. But you know what? The receipts don’t matter, anyway.

I don’t need to prove that I didn’t deserve that treatment.

Today, I acknowledge that my character was lame and kind of uncreative. But that certainly doesn’t mean that the people who made fun of me were in the right. I had never claimed to be a brilliant character creator—some great example of unique OCs and unparalleled storytelling. And hell, even if I had done that, it wouldn’t have given anyone the right to stomp on my imagination the way these people did. I was just a kid.

It’s 2021 now. I’m nearly 23 years old, and it’s been about a decade since this happened to me. I haven’t thought about this horrible event in detail for some time, but I need you to understand that even when I’m not actively thinking about this, my life as an artist is affected by it every day.

I’m still ashamed to share much of anything about my characters. I still worry constantly that I’m being cringey, self-indulgent, or a “bad artist.” Some days I manage to create with beautiful, reckless abandon, but then when the dreaming ends, I look back on what I’ve created and fuss, and worry, and doubt. (Ever wonder why you rarely see my work?)

I know the culture around OCs online has improved in a lot of ways since the 2010’s, but I still want to put this message out there. I want everyone to know why this sort of thing isn’t okay. I want my history to be documented so that maybe some new, excited artist doesn’t have to go through what I did.

TL;DR:

Never make fun of someone for having an uncreative or “cringey” character. It’s crappy to do to any artist of any age, but especially if you do this to a kid of all people—a young artist who is just learning the ropes and learning to be creative. This shit sticks with a person, and it can and will inhibit their ability to create amazing things in the future. If you put down an artist for being bad at design or being cringey, you are an awful person.

And to the people responsible for putting my dumbass little timmy’s-first-OC on tumblr blogs to be sneered at and mocked, I mean this will all my heart:

Fuck you! :)

[rokutouxei]

a storm of a woman

part 7 of atelier heart

ikemen vampire: temptation in the dark theo van gogh/mc | T | 3146 | [ao3 in bio]

a/n:just pure, tooth-rotting, domestic fluff, because the latter part of Theo’s route is just miles and miles of agony.

a series of snapshots in the daily life of Theo, now romantically entangled with you, a storm of a woman, if he had any say in the matter.

Theo has always been an early riser. He likes to get his day started as the sun is rising; it gives him an extra boost of energy and motivation like no other. But as of late, he’s had some motivation to stay in bed a little longer than he ever has before, if only to watch you for a few minutes, sleeping soundly next to him.

You usually scoot extra close to him at night, so he’s careful as he wakes up so he doesn’t jostle you or get you out of your comfortable position. Presses a kiss on whatever patch of skin is closest to him—your shoulder, your cheek, your hand—and watches: sea-blue eyes trained on the person he loves the most. Joins you in your synchronized breathing, in, and out, you give him a peace the sunrise can’t compete with.

His stubborn mind and experience tells him it’s wrong, but somehow when you’re with him he feels like nothing can go wrong—that this is the epitome of peace—that it can’t get any better than this. So much has been lost to him, so much has been left behind, so much has passed. Fate has been crueler to Theo than he ever was to himself in many ways, and yet you’re here now, like an apology, like a recompense for all the misery.

So Theo takes his time with you.

The healthy sheen of your skin under the early-morning sun; the tenderness of your flesh; the curl of your eyelashes against your cheek as you’re deep in sleep. The gentle in and out of your breathing; the warmth of your hand curled against his; the thrum of your blood underneath your veins reminding him: you are here, you are here, you have not let him, and if the world is kind, you never will.

But nothing—nothing!—knocks the wind out of him in his early-morning reverie quite like your sweet, sweet smile, your scrunched eyes, the soft sound you make as you stretch, reaching out to him in many ways, and your groggy, hoarse, “goedemorgen”—

Oh, you’re so bad for his heart.

-

It is simple to say I want to become an art dealer too but much harder to do, so once you’ve finally made up your mind to follow him on his journey, the learning begins. While of course there are many things you learn on foot, like in between exhibits or visits to artists and patrons, there are also other things that you learn in between pages of a book. Like art history, techniques and styles, methods and design. Theo is a stern tutor, and the both of you spend nights huddled up on his bed in his room memorizing and discussing, making connections between observations in real life and things learned on paper.

And it’s not like you’ve come from the 21st century entirely empty-handed, so when he teaches you about this or that era you can name a few artists, the most familiar of them. But what excites Theo the most is when you talk about the future. Pathways of art that have long been found from where you are from that are still being looked for; he makes sure to take note of the names you mention, the timeframes. And when he does, you’re always laughing because “how did it end up that I’m the one teaching you? Theo, focus!” is such a fun way to tease him, but—

(you always talk about the future with wide-open eyes, and Theo can’t help but dream of even the most unimaginable things coming true with you)

He has so much to learn from you, how can you blame him from staring?

-

There are loud days. Disagreements aren’t that surprising when Theo’s words are commonly coated in barbs, and no matter how long you’ve spent with him there are a few things you just can’t let pass. So there are days you fight. Sometimes it is quiet; cold shoulders and unwillingness to cooperate. But on others, it is loud. You are screaming down the hall and telling him you don’t understand why he has to be so stubborn and he asks why you have to be so insistent.

The room is cold.

Today, you’re fighting over something so silly he doesn’t even quite remember what it is anymore, maybe just a slip of the tongue or some unmeant insult—but either way, the one thing he does know is that it isn’t worth all of this shouting. You’re sitting on the other side of the bed from him (his side of the bed, ironically) with your arms crossed over your chest, a deep frown on your face. And maybe if Theo listens even closer, he’ll be able to make out your little sniffles.

He knows that getting into disagreements with him makes you the most upset, but they are unavoidable, not when he is stubborn and insolent like that and you are a hundred years from the future. It’s understandable, he knows, but it doesn’t have to be normal.  

So he reaches out to place his hand on yours from across the bed, and when you flinch and pull back he holds it down. “Let’s talk,” he says, softly, as to not scare you, “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

And you turn, smiling weakly at him, and softly say, “I don’t want to fight anymore either.”

-

Then there are quiet days. Days for recovering after a long week at work, days for just relishing in each other’s company. Somehow, the two of you have found a way to spend these afternoons lounging in the mansion’s rather impressive library, picking up books and reading it to each other.

You’re holding up a book of Classical Literature, a stack of other books on one side, as you’re prancing around on the carpet in front of the sofa where he’s laid down, happily reading out loud the cheesiest of lines from literature, ones he tries to counter back. Though at this point, the both of you have prepared for this exchange in advance, so most of the lines are said from memory; the conversation goes:

You say, “Your love is the weather of my being. What is an island without the sea?"

He says, “I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints.”

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” you say back, with as much flair as you can.

And Theo says in turn, “She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

You grin just as you say your winning line, reading, “My love is as a fever longing still, for that which longer nurseth the disease,” and Theo gasps, offended—

“Is that Shakespeare? How dare you!”

And he pulls you by the wrist as the two of you tumble onto the sofa, laughing, legs tangled together in the most inappropriate of ways, sharing a kiss.

-

You go on dates. You say that every work day spent with him is nearly like a date anyway, when it’s all enjoyable, looking at art and going to different parts of the city and sometimes even out of the country, but he makes sure to take you out on rather “normal dates” too. A lot of it depends on the schedule, but “normal dates” include at least one of the following: going to galleries, walking along the Seine, eating at new (or old, familiar) cafés, taking King out for a walk, or taking a carriage to nearby towns.

It doesn’t help, though, that when he is alone with you, with no work to think about, no worries, he gets so distracted because all he has to think about and focus on is you. It doesn’t help either that he’s constantly still trying to make sense of how you make him feel, a million different metaphors rewriting itself over and over again in his mind.

The one that sticks with him is that you are like a drop of rain after a long-lasting drought; the beginning of a storm. A storm that will turn into a flood, ravaging the hills, causing landslides. Drowning villages, leading rivers to overflow into the ocean. A storm that will take everything with it—and one he will take for washing away all that he’d have.

You’ve made him new and it hurts and it’s raw but you’ve made him who he wanted to be.

“Theo?”

Oh, the sound of his name on your lips; he returns back to the present and looks up at you with that lovestruck smile he doesn’t know he wears. Regularly. You get lost in it for a moment, before the flush settles in your face.

In mock anger, you furrow your eyebrows. “What were you thinking about?”

“You,” he quickly answers, and you feel your effort to tease him come rebounding back at you in ten times the force. What can you do when it’s you who had opened up his heart to honesty—but to suffer the brunt of the blow?

-

Theo cannot deny the fact that he is some sort of workaholic, but just because his work ethics are like that does not mean yours have to be the same—is what he constantly says to you. Not that you listen, because yet again he’s found you hunched over a desk in between sorting documents and checking your notes, and with a tsk and a gentle pat on your head he’s off carrying you to bed. This has happened once or twice now, but tonight’s is different, because you’re burning up with a fever that’s snuck up on you in between all the fatigue. In the morning, you wake up dizzy, and hot, the sun already high in the sky and Theo’s half-dressed, as if hesitating.

“Am I sick?”

Theo frowns. “Can’t you tell?”

“Just making sure,” you say, with a cough to match it.

He sighs in response and sits next to you on the bed. “I thought you’d get better by morning.”

“Wait, we have an important meeting today, don’t we? Oh, today’s supposed to be full. Artists in the morning… tools in the afternoon… the patron by evening.” You shake your head weakly. “Don’t worry about me, go to work.”

“I don’t think I can go when you’re like this.”

“You have to!” you say, but your voice betrays you. You clear your throat and try again. “No really, I can handle myself.”

He presses a hand to your warm cheek and frowns out of worry. “I’ll need to go to that patron by evening, but I can stay with you for the rest of the day.”

You want to argue that he has to go—which is true, even your feverish mind can figure that out—but there’s only so much you can do when your mind feeds you the rest of the images on its own: Theo next to you for the rest of the day, which instantly makes you feel calmer. Theo giving you water when you’re too dizzy to stand. Theo helping you eat. Theo holding your hand. Theo easing you out of your fever just by existing. You sigh, then curl up against his body, pulling the blanket with you. “I think I’m delirious. I’m giving up. Please stay.”

He chuckles, pressing a kiss to your forehead and then slapping a wet towel over it for good measure.

-

Theo isn’t the kind to jump at all your bad ideas, but it doesn’t take much to convince him to do it anyway, so now the both of you are cuddled rather awkwardly in your shared room’s private, solo bathtub. The new equipment of running water thanks to the turn of the century but also Le Comte’s great influence as a nobleman is something you were not going to take lightly.

Theo’s got in his hand a bottle of your homemade shampoo, and you’re holding in yours a bar of your also-homemade soap, because as much as you’ve gotten used to 19th century life, you’re still up for 21st century bathing techniques, should the opportunity arise. You’ve asked Theo to wash your hair, saying that you’ll in turn wash his back, but he’s too fixated on trying not to get your ass pressed too hard onto his crotch, because one more time and he’s sure he’ll—

You make a noise that is borderline pornographic just as Theo returns to the task of massaging the shampoo onto your scalp. The sound goes straight between his legs, and when he growls, you turn to him with a silly grin.

“Need some help there, big boy?” you ask, and Theo growls as he pulls you closer by the waist.

“You’re doing it on purpose!”

-

“I told you to be careful,” he sighs, as he puts you down on top of a low cabinet, making sure not to jostle your scratched knee. You had tripped while rushing past a crowd in the middle of running errands with him and had landed rather terribly, considering you did have layers and layers of skirts and petticoats on top, and you still landed knee-first onto the pavement.

You pout and it doesn’t show on his face but you know just that expression on you is enough to let you off the hook with Theo. Especially if it’s such a small thing such as this. “I’m sorry. It’s not too bad though, at least it didn’t bleed that bad.”

And it didn’t; just a light scrape that has made the flesh pink, but one that could probably use a bit of antiseptic and maybe some gauze. Theo has carried you directly to one of the buildings the both of you have rented lately, to be used as exhibit space, fully knowing he has a first aid kit in there somewhere.

You clean yourself up with antiseptic, and Theo holds the gauze in his hands, still (faux) glaring up at you. “From the moment I’ve met you up until now, you’ve done nothing but worry me. When are you going to stop?” he asks with the most overdramatic sigh you’ve ever heard from him. Well, he’s getting better at his acting, at least—and it’s rather amusing.

But instead of praising him, you go the roundabout way, the way he does, just to bite back at him. “You should stop worrying now, because now you are at least watching over me, right?”

And he groans in defeat, but he knows you’re right.

-

A phonograph is nothing to Bluetooth speakers of the 21st century but it’s still music, and the two of you are in one of the rooms in the mansion that’s being used as Vincent’s little storage area for all his paintings. There’s no need really for anything to ease boredom or exhaustion, because Vincent’s art is all magic and stunning in one place, but Theo’s set up a phonograph on the corner anyway, to play some music as you two go through the piles of canvases for paintings that will go along with the theme of the new exhibit the both of you are planning.

There’s nothing quite like appreciating art while a little tipsy though, and the whiskey you’ve been drinking (happily gifted by Vollard) makes it easy for the both of you to get lost in the music, to get distracted by its swaying tunes—and soon the two of you are face-to-face, slow dancing in the middle of the room under the late-afternoon sun peering through the window. Theo’s got his arms around your waist and your hands are around his shoulders and you have a cheek pressed against his chest.

One song slides into another and maybe they’ve replayed already but you’re not quite sure, not when Theo’s already tilted your face up to share a kiss—he had told you once that sometimes he just can’t stop kissing your stupid, stupid face—and you’re laughing into this one at the memory. He gives you a look but you shake your head and kiss him again, the kiss like something the both of you are not taking seriously, just something passed around. Clumsy mouths pressed against each other. Back and forth, back and forth, you’ve taught him, this is what it means to share, you say, this is what it means to not carry it all on your shoulders. And after one impertinent round of laughter he bites your lower lip and tugs—and you’re not one to be bested so you curl your fingers into his hair and pull, and the kiss is something and everything all at once.

It steals Theo’s breath away and he’s thanking it.

Your lips on his, the warmth of your touch, the music, the setting sun—this moment feels like it will last forever.

-

Theo thinks of much of his life—both in this and the past one—shrouded in a veil of darkness, the same way dark clouds cover over the sun just before it crashes and falls. But you’ve made him think differently of storms now. A storm that will take everything with it—that’s what you are to him, and at this point, he doesn’t mind if you ravage his lands as long as he gets to keep you, the rain that makes his flowers grow.

And one morning, Theo wakes up, much, much too late, on a day-off, after a very, very busy night in bed, to find you already bundled up and curled up on the armchair near the window, sipping a warm mug of coffee. It’s raining outside, mid-autumn showers that make the red leaves fall.

You look so lovely.

So delicate, so strong, and yet so fervent.

Oh, to fall for a storm of a woman like you.

You are teasing each other for morning breath as you both wake up. You the future he is trying to build. You are the arguments settled between bouts of tickle fights and laughter. You are centuries of books on romance combined. You are running in the rain because it suddenly poured and there is no shelter. You're warm soup and fresh bread. You're pushing all the limits. You're comfort and adventure.

He thinks back to everything that has happened in the past. To everything else that can happen in the future—the good, the bad, the ugly. And he hopes, hopes deep inside his heart, that nothing goes wrong. Nothing goes wrong when you’re with him after all.

So it’s himself he hopes for. Hopes that he can get this right, this time around.

-

in the atelier: The Storm, by Pierre Auguste Cot

[poguesofthebau]

princess of the mainland, pt two

part two requested by @ponyboys-sunsets: I loved your jj fic with the touron reader! could we get another part to it? maybe she is going around the island with jj, hangs out with the pogues, or even run into some kooks? there’s so many possibilities!

part one is right here if you haven’t read it yet!

summary: two weeks after their first meeting at The Wreck, jj and his tourist girl spend an eventful night together at the boneyard, including a run-in with everyone’s favorite kooks. word count: 2,114

“i can’t believe you can’t surf, y/n. that’s a shameful thing to admit around these parts,” jj claimed, as he was currently scolding you for not being educated and skilled in the art of surfing, which you’d quickly noticed was his all time favorite thing to do in his spare time. 

“oh, oh, sorry. i don’t wanna disgrace you, then, right? so i’ll just head back to the hotel, you know, leave you alone with your surfer thoughts,” you threatened in response, the corners of your mouth perking up as you watched jj’s reaction. the two of you were walking down the beach, headed to a kegger at a place jj referred to as “The Boneyard.” ominous. as you trekked through the sand, the blonde boy had been commenting on surfers that you were passing. critiques like ‘terrible form,’ ‘what a fuckin’ wipeout!,’ and ‘that guy’s definitely never surfed before now’ had been falling from his mouth without hesitation. he had his fingers laced through yours, but that had been just about all of the attention you were getting from him before you told him you’d never surfed before. now, he seemed ready to throw you on his own surfboard and ship you off into the ocean, but lucky for you, there was a kegger for him to attend instead. however, that didn’t stop you from teasing him a little.

hearing your threats to abandon him on the beach to return to your family, who you’d barely seen during your so-far two weeks of vacation, jj yanked you into his side, wrapping an arm around you and squeezing. “no fuckin’ way, princess. nice try, though. think you can escape back to kooklandia now? it’s a little too late for that.” your heart skipped a beat when you heard the word princess, but you ignored it. you’d learned on day one that heart palpitations were just a jj side effect for you. 

“once a pogue, always a pogue?” you’d offer with a smile. he’d hum contently at your statement. at that point, you two had almost arrived at the party. from where you stood, you could see john b standing by the keg, pouring drinks for partygoers with that social butterfly smile he always wore. sarah was wrapped around jb, her arm around his waist as they both laughed at something. pope and kie were just as easy to spot, sitting close to each other on a log around the bonfire.

“okay, game plan,” jj would say as you continued strolling in the direction of the keg. “tonight, we get drunk and have a good time. tomorrow, after your day of kook-ish tourist activities, surfing lessons.” a groan would slip out of your mouth before you could think twice, and jj laughed at you for it. “i’m a great teacher, you know. i can teach you plenty of other shit too, if you wanted.” the low tone of his voice would make you laugh this time, immediately shutting down any ideas he’d had. as you laughed, jj would lean his head against yours, breath fanning out on your temple as he breathed a laugh with you. “okay, fine. keeping playing hard to get. but--” he quickly shifted into a sing-songing voice. “your vacation won’t last foreverrr!”

you nudge him with your shoulder, smiling at him as you spoke. “jeez, jj. what kind of girl do you think i am? jumping into bed with a guy i’ve known for 2 weeks?”

“you know you’d be honored to jump into bed with me.”

“woah, woah, woah, kiddos! who’s jumping into bed with who, now?” john b would call with mock concern, laughing as you two got close enough for him to hear your conversation without even realizing. “the night is too young to already be acting so scandalous!” 

“don’t worry, jb, i was just reminding jj that i’m not the typical island girl. just a simpleton of a mainlander, if you will.” jj threw a shut up your way before releasing his grip on you to grab you each a drink.

almost an hour later, jj decided to break out the joint he’d had sitting in his pocket, lighting it before taking a pull from it and handing it off to you. as you smoked, the two of you began strolling toward kie, who you both knew would love her fair share of jj’s weed. as you approached kie and pope, though, another body placed itself directly in front of the two of you.

“hey, pogue,” you heard, looking up to see a boy you’d never seen before. the only thing you knew about him based on that one glance was that he was a super kook. “what a surprise to see you here!”

jj’s grip on your hand tightened, and it clicked in your head. this must be rafe-- sarah’s evil older brother who tortured the pogues every chance he got. you’d heard plenty about rafe during your two weeks in the obx, and you weren’t too impressed by his reputation. upon realizing this, you also predicted that jj was about to lash out. you squeezed his hand back, trying to let him know you understood without speaking, but he didn’t seem to get the hint. you tugged on his arm this time, trying to pull him around rafe without any more damage. “sorry, we’re not interested tonight,” you’d quickly speak up in rafe’s direction, jj finally taking a step to follow you when he saw rafe’s thrown off, slightly confused look toward you. “’scuse us.”

“really, jj? backing down from a fight before i can even beat your ass?” another two kooks began coming down the beach, laughing at rafe’s words as they neared-- unbeknownst to you, it was kelce and topper. jj’s steps faltered at rafe’s challenge, but there was no chance you were letting go of his hand.

“hey, islander, cut the shit. we’re not doing that tonight,” you’d call out to jj, seeing the fire in his eyes when the two of you made eye contact. speaking again, you lowered your voice this time so only jj could hear your words. “two possibilities, right? one: you fight, you beat his ass, he gets pissed. or, two: you walk away, he gets just as pissed that you won’t give him the time of day, we go smoke another joint. i’m here for vacation, not wwe, you know.” over the past two weeks, jj had shown up to your hotel to pick you up on multiple occasions with bruised and bloodied body parts, claiming to have gotten into a fight on his way there every time. you knew that side of him was one he let show more than frequently, and you understood where he was coming from, but you still wanted him to be safe. (what ever happened to like, ‘yo mama’ battles, or something? why is everyone always fistfighting nowadays?)

after letting out a low growl of disagreement, jj let you pull him farther from rafe as the older boy continued to run his mouth behind you. you heard the other kooks joining in, spewing harmless insults at you both as you walked away. when you reached the other pogues, kie had a look of impressed awe on her face, and pope seemed to be in blatant shock. laughing at their expressions, you passed kie the joint before turning back to check on jj. “you good?” he shrugged, still appearing to be a little pissed off, but not enough to do anything about it. “was my assumption that that was rafe cameron correct?”

pope jumped in then, standing and placing his hands on your shoulders. “yes, y/n,” pope confirmed in an exasperated tone, shaking your shoulders lightly with every word. “that was rafe cameron, and you just achieved the impossible. like, fucking defying gravity, kind of impossible. you just kept jj maybank from fighting rafe cameron? how the hell did you just do that? huh?” jj would roll his eyes at that, taking the joint back from kie with a huff. “hey, here come john b and sarah! did you guys just see that too?!” pope would yell to your quickly-approaching friends, causing you to laugh again.

as john b and sarah walked up to the group, you and jj took your own seats on the log next to pope and kie’s. knowing what was about to happen, jj buried his head in your neck (after checking to make sure rafe and his pawns weren’t watching anymore). “i hate you,” he’d grumble into your neck, prompting you to run a hand through his hair with a smile as you told him he was wrong. he grumbled inaudibly again, then groaned when john b and sarah began asking him questions about what they’d just witnessed. “y/n made me break the rules of the jungle! okay? that’s it! my girl’s a mainlander, and she follows the rules of mainland society! she doesn’t get it! how is that my fault?!” everyone would laugh at the outburst, and your heart did another backflip when jj called you his girl. unlike the nickname of princess, though, being his girl stirred up some new feelings for you. where is this gonna go after i go back home? do i just lose him? you’d suddenly wonder, looking around at your new friends to avoid making eye contact with jj. fuck, i don’t even wanna lose his friends, let alone lose him. fuck, fuck, fuck.

though you didn’t realize it, jj noticed your change in emotion right away. he’d felt your pulse jump under his lips, and when he looked up to check that you were alright with being called his girl, he saw the look on your face. it was a look that jj could only connect with panic, uncertainty, nervousness. when you didn’t do anything but slip your hand into his, though, he chose to let it go for the time being. it wasn’t until you two started walking back to john b’s later in the night that he addressed it. “you good to go back to jb’s?” he’d ask, trying not to be too specific with his words, but still wanting to be certain that you were certain. certain about whatever you’d been thinking about earlier at the boneyard, whether it was him, or the pogues, or anything else. jj found himself constantly wanting to make sure you were okay during those two weeks. he was always glancing in your direction when you wandered off for a moment, and texting you on days you spent with your family to make sure it wasn’t going too terribly, and tossing a sweatshirt toward you when he felt you shiver under his arm during a night on the hms pogue. in those two weeks, you became jj’s top priority, at all times.

“yeah, little sis is gonna cover for me for the night. she texted me that she stuffed my hotel bed with pillows for just in case mom and dad come in while she’s asleep,” you laughed, bringing a chuckle out of jj, too. “i just have to be back by 7 tomorrow morning so nobody realizes i wasn’t there overnight, and mom’s psycho itinerary starts at 9. no problem.”

“that’s good to hear,” jj would reply, taking a breath before continuing. “but, not really what i meant.” when you looked at him quizzically, he spoke again. “i don’t know, i don’t want you to think i’m kidnapping you or something. i just wanna make sure this is all cool, i guess. and all the stuff earlier, the sex jokes and stuff, you know, that’s not serious. i mean, i’d love to, but i don’t care about it, you know? like--”

“jj,” you cut him off, laughing at his rambling and pressing a kiss to his hand, which was being held in your own as you walked. “i know. you don’t have to worry about me misunderstanding you. i think i’ve got it by now.” he smiled in relief at that, but you weren’t done. you could see the Chateau now, so you sped up your words in a low voice in order to get them out before being in earshot of the other pogues. “and, fyi, the sex jokes are fine. funny, even. but, it’d be okay if they weren’t jokes, too.”

jj’s eyes would widen, making you laugh, and his grip on your hand would tighten just a little. “are you-- are you serious?” you’d nod, a smirk on your face as you looked up at him and feigned innocence. “oh, my god, y/n. i’m so glad your sister is covering, because you are so done for.”

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

Cats has been a divisive show ever since it opened in 1981. Some people hate it for being a plotless spectacle that focuses more on the visuals than on music and story, while others love it for those same reasons, as well as for being utterly campy and fun. I’m firmly in the latter category, to the point I can’t  really comprehend the opposition to the film. Stuff like the jab at this film in The Critic or the mockery of it in Hey Arnold just seem weird to me; what is it about this fun, silly musical about cats that makes people’s blood boil so much?

Perhaps all these people saw into the future where the film was released.

Cats had a long, troubled history getting from stage to screen. In the 90s, Amblimation was set to make an animated version of the movie, set during the Blitz of WWII. Unfortunately, the inability of writers to find a way to turn this episodic showcase of random singing cats into a cohesive narrative combined with the failure of Amblimations films caused the project to dissolve, leaving behind nothing but some really cool concept art. 

But see, this perfectly demonstrates the problem with adapting Cats: the musical is a spectacle, a showcase, it’s all about the dancing, costumes, and the songs. It doesn’t have a story to speak of, instead contenting itself with showing us a bunch of different cats and having them sing about themselves for a bit before moving on to the next cat. Sure, there’s a bit of continuity and whatnot, but this really isn’t the sort of show that’s trying to deliver a deep narrative. It just wants you to have a good time, nothing more, nothing less.

No one told any of this to Tom Hooper, apparently. This director of the grounded, gritty, realistic adaptation of Les Mis was tapped to utilize this same style in a musical about magical singing cats, all while not even knowing what catnip is or how animation works. Hooper was apparently constantly butting heads with the VFX team due to his lack of understanding of how animating works. He tried to get the team to watch videos of cats performaing the stuff he wanted and forced them to give 90 hour work weeks, cementing Tom Hooprt as one of the biggest douchebags imaginable. On top of all this, the guy tried to weave this plotless showcase of felines into a cohesive narrative, and tapped a bunch of talent of various degrees of questionability to play parts. And what was the result?

An absolute disaster. The film was savaged by critics, with most positives being that the film was so bad it’s good. The film (of course) won a bunch of Razzies, and was the subject of mockery and memes before, after, and during its run in theaters. Hell, as soon as the trailer dropped, the film was mocked to death. Not helping was the rushed VFX which, again, was due to the team being under pressure from a draconian idiot who had no idea what he was doing. The film received an unprecedented bug fix, so to speak, in the form of an updated version with slightly better VFX that was shipped to theaters after the initial negative reaction. This obviously did nothing to help the movie’s reputation, of course. Hell, even in my initial review, I wasn’t super keen on the film. Most damning of all, though, was Andrew Lloyd Webber himself calling the film ridiculous, and even said "The problem with the film was that Tom Hooper decided that he didn’t want anybody involved in it who was involved in the original show."

But after ruminating on it, and after watching the film once more, I’ve decided to ask the usual question: Is it really that bad? It’s weird to ask this about a film that’s so new; I usually wait for hindsight to kick in, and look at older films considered bad. But even now, Cats is building up a reputation as a campy cult classic, with such figures as Martin “LittleKuriboh” Billamy watching the film with alarming frequency. And after reading the nightmarish behind the scenes and considering everything… yeah, I think this film deserves a re-evaluation.

This is going to be a little different, though: I’m sort of going to go through the film part by part, since this film has an interesting issue where, generally speaking, the first half is where the worst problems are, and the second half is where things start to pick up. So let’s get the bad out of the way first, then move onto the good.

THE BAD

So, I’m actually not going to pick on the VFX too much, and not just because of the horrible treatment of the VFX artists. In all honesty, the weird human/cat people, while not even remotely as cool as the insane costumes of the stage show, eventually stop being super distracting and kind of just become something you accept. Like, I’m not gonna pretend like this work is amazing, but I dunno, I think it gets harped on too much. There is some stuff that stands out as noticeably bad, though, and we’ll get to that.

A consistent problem with the film that I can’t even try to defend is the problem with the scaling. It’s seriously hard to tell how big these cats are supposed to be in relation to anything else. They honestly seem to change size from scene to scene. It’s seriously weird and baffling and there’s never any way to get a good sense of scale. Even when the cats are alongside mice and roaches, it just boggles the mind what size anything is actually supposed to be.

Mr. Mistoffelees, one of the most flamboyant and enjoyable characters of the stage show, is one of the biggest character issues with the film. Gone is the tricky, confident magician who prances and dances, and here is a meek, sniveling twerp who can barely do anything without tripping over himself. This is because the actor who plays him had a terrible audition that left him miserable due to a lack of singing and dance background. So, rather than find someone who could, you know, sing and dance, they decided to rewrite Mr. Mistoffelees into comic relief, which is just an insulting slap in the face. The cherry on top of course is how they straightwash the character and excise his homoerotic tension with Rum Tum Tugger, instead making him completely and totally straight and giving him a thing for Victoria. Out of everyone in the entire film, they did Mr. Mistoffelees the dirtiest.

Now, let’s get onto the actual “plot.” The film actually starts out fairly well, with some cool shots, good dancing, and some setup for Macavity, whose intro has a neat little nod to the fact he’s based on Moriarty. The issues don’t really start showing up until we reach the first of the Jellicle choices… Jennyanydots.

Jennyanydots is portrayed by Rebel Wilson, which is the first issue. Rebel Wilson is probably one of the worst actresses ever. She is just a horrendously, relentlessly unfunny human being, and she brings that exact quality to her role here. For her song, the vocal talent is secondary to the cringeworthy comedy Wilson puts on display. And yet, somehow, Wilson isn’t the worst part of the scene. No, that would be the horrendous CGI human-faced mice and roaches, which look like they came out of a PS3 game.

This horrendous spectacle is followed up with the appearance of Rum Tum Tugger, portrayed by Jason Derulo. I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I do think Derulo has the necessary egotistical celebrity swagger to play Rum Tum Tugger (especially when you consider he responded to negative criticisms of the film by calling the movie  “one of the greatest pieces of art ever made”) and his design is actually one of the better ones in the film, but on the other hand, his singing and the musical choice for his song are not very impressive and really just doesn’t work all too well. It’s at least something of a step up from Rebel Wilson and her CGI abominations, but that’s not really saying much, is it?

Next up we have Bustopher Jones, played by James Corden and, if I’m being totally honest… he’s not quite as awful as he could be. Corden is basically the male equivalent to Rebel Wilson, but at least while he’s singing he manages to be somewhat amusing, whimsical, and enjoyable even. The problem comes when he throws in jokes, including one where he claims to be self-conscious about his weight… a joke that occurs in the middle of his song where he is bragging about how fat he is. Talk about sending mixed messages. I wish I didn’t have to be so harsh on Bustopher, but sadly he is bogged down by really bad shtick.

Bustopher Jones also highlights a problem with the cats in this first half. These minor roles – Jennyanydots, Rum Tum Tugger, and Bustopher Jones – are all being played by relatively big celebrities, and as such they’re going to want a lot of time to sing. As a result, songs that were ensemble numbers on stage become more one-man songs here, with Bustopher Jones being the most egregious example, turning this positive fat character into a walking James Corden fat joke as he sings his own praises rather than having his praises sung.

Following him up we have Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who are usually fun characters with a fun little pseudo-villain song, but alas, they manage to screw that up by using a slow, jazzy version of the song originally used in earlier London productions rather than the more up-tempo version from later productions, making the song sound awkward and forgettable. Topping it all off is the bargain bin Mr. M popping in at the end for some wacky shenanigans, but at this point, the movie takes a turn towards…

THE GOOD

So as soon as Dame Judi Dench shows up as Old Deuteronomy, the film gets a sort of inverse of what happened at the start. Where the film starts somewhat awkward and promising, it slowly gets stupider and stupider when Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo, and James Corden botch their scenes in the ways described above. Here, things start a bit shaky and unsure, but Dench is a sign things are about to pick up. What makes her so enjoyable is how, despite how utterly silly things are, she treats her role with the dignity and gravitas of something out of Shakespeare. The only thing as good as an actor in a silly movie like this going full-on ham and cheese is an actor treating their role dead serious and injecting it with such class and dignity you can’t help but enjoy it. Thankfully, Dench isn’t the only person to take her role seriously.

Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella technically appears briefly in the earlier portions of the film, but here we get to hear her belt out “Memory,” and by god does she do a fantastic job. The raw emotion and passion she injects into Grizabella is phenomenal, and it’s even more powerful when it comes back for its reprise in the finale. Victoria gets a sort of response song to “Memory,” called “Beautiful Ghosts,” and it’s a decent song in its own right, but you can tell it was a more modern composition and it just doesn’t gel super well with the rest of the songs. Still, all this is good stuff, and the “Memory”/”Beautiful Ghosts” scene is a nice, refreshing bit of emotion after the incredibly weird and silly extended dance number that is the Jellicle Ball.

The movie doesn’t stop pulling punches; shortly after Grizabella we are given Gus the theater cat, an elderly actor whose number is all about reminiscing of the old days of theater and his many stellar roles from days gone by. Naturally, the only actor who could possibly perform this role properly is Sir Ian McKellan. I am completely unironic when I say this: This is to McKellan what Patrick Stewart’s performance of Xavier in Logan is. This sounds ridiculous, but think of it: Gus is an aging thespian, clearly a bit senile and desiring to be reborn because he has reached the end of the line, and McKellan fills him with this genuine, incredibly honest performance that really makes you feel emotional. It’s powerful. It feels so personal and resonant, like McKellan has inserted some of his own feelings into his performance, which may very well be the case. Oh, and after his song Macavity kidnaps him with a big autograph book and apparates away while saying his name, which gets me every time.

And now, my friends, the lord and savior arrives: Skimbleshanks.

This is, hands down, the best scene in the entire film. Everything comes together here: the music is absolutely fantastic, the dancing is choreographed extremely well, and it’s clear that everyone involved is having a blast. This is a concentrated essence of what Cats should be, and it’s really a shame Hooper didn’t understand that this is the energy needed for the entire production. The most crucial element, of course, is Steven McRae, who not only has a lovely singing voice and looks dapper as all hell in his red suspenders, but is a tap dancing maniac. This man has feet of fire, and his tapping adds a whole new layer of fun to the song. Overall, this is a perfect scene, and probably one of my favorite scenes in any film ever. For a brief four minutes, everything about this film works. I literally have no idea why this cat wants to be reincarnated, he is straight balling in this life.

But the hits don’t stop! Right after this song, Taylor Swift descends from the ceiling, and we get “Macavity.” In the stage productions, this is a song sung by Bombalurina to describe how nasty Macavity is, since she’s traditionally a good cat; here, she’s reimagined as a villain, and so this song is basically her acting as Macavity’s hype man, singing his dastardly praises, and best of all, Macavity joins in at the end! I’m certainly not a Taylor Swift fan, but she really kills it here, and definitely makes this one of the best songs in the movie with her hilariously forced accent and insane energy. It’s just a shame that from here on out Macavity ditches his villainous pimp coat and is now a nude Idris Elba, but I suppose this is equivalent exchange for Skimbleshanks being so amazing.

While not as incredible as the previous two songs and not quite as good as the stage version due to the removal of the latent homoeroticism, Mr. Mistoffelees’s song is actually okay. It’s nice that he gets to sing his own praises here, but it’s just nothing compared to the stage version, even if it has a fun little finale and it actually is genuinely heartwarming when Old Deuteronomy returns and sings along. It’s a sweet moment that almost makes up for how much Mr. M has sucked the whole movie. Oh, also, all of the Jellicle choices Macavity kidnapped fight back against their captor Growltiger, with Skimbleshanks aggressively tapdancing at him and Gus using his acting skills to make him fall into the Thames. This is so goofy that it wraps back around to being awesome.

The movie winds down in the goofiest way possible after the gorgeous reprise of “Memory,” with Macavity being caught on a big sculpture and apparently running out of magic, leaving him stranded like a regular cat. Then we get one final fourth-wall breaking song where Judi Dench directly addresses the camera that has the music swell up to the point where it seems like the song is ending numerous times without actually ending, and each time is funnier than the last. Really, what better way could you end such a silly film than with this?

Now, a general thing that’s great about the film is the choreography. The dancing in the movie is spectacular. I don’t really have a bad thing to say about it. And, in a broad sense, the music is good too, even if the singers aren’t always perfect, the backing tracks are great, and there’s a lot of fun in the tracks in the latter half of the movie. McRae and Taylor Swift’s contributions in particular are great, and Hudson’s version of “Memory” is incredibly powerful, as is McKellan’s take on Gus’ song.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

No.

Look, it’s hard to be like “Wow this is a fantastic masterpiece of film” or anything like that, because the movie has blatant and evident problems. But this is literally the reason I made this review series; I’m asking if the movie is really as bad as people say, and in this case, no, there’s too much genuinely enjoyable in the film for me to say it’s deserving of several Razzies and a spot on the Bottom 100 of IMDB that places it above Master of Disguise and The Emoji Movie. Like, seriously? This is worse than the 90 minute commercial starring the abusive dick who called a bomb threat on his girlfriend? Hell, this movie is rated worse than Artemis Fowl, which is definitely a contender for the worst film ever made (and amusingly enough also features Judi Dench in it). Artemis Fowl has next to no redeeming qualities in it, and it certainly doesn’t have Skimbleshanks, whereas Cats has several fun scenes and also has Skimbleshanks.

I definitely think there’s more of an argument for this film being so bad it’s good or camp at best, but it’s definitely more enjoyable than you’d think it would be. If you can learn to live with the weird CGI, it’s a fun, goofy romp that you might find yourself feeling for at times. After my second watch, I have to say… I’ve started to unironically enjoy this movie. It might even be one of my favorites of all time. I can’t even deny that it has a lot of stuff I don’t like, and it falls flat in a lot of ways the 1998 film soars, and it screwed up some of my favorite characters… but there are so many moments where the fun and heart of Cats shines through brighter than it has any right to, and all the failures of Hooper and Universal seem distant for a just a few minutes.

So yeah, is this movie good all around? No way. But is it fun, does it have value, and is there more redeeming qualities than the critics let on? Oh yes there is.

[gayregis]

It may just be me but the way I was introduced to Yennefer by tw3 made me dislike her and I didn’t really get over that until I started reading the books because CDPR didn’t really give her much depth other than being snarky. Like she’s so much more than her wit and for that reason I will be asking her to stomp on me

yeah, cdpr did yennefer a really large disservice by portraying her as snarky, bossy, and rude to geralt, not caring about his opinions on things a lot of the time and basically being this incredibly one-dimensional “i have my own plans and i don’t have to explain myself to anyone” type. which isn’t even what yennefer in the books was like, the only time she “hid her plans” from geralt was in the last wish when she was literally the plot’s antagonist. after she and geralt become close, she’s incredibly giving to him and while she still has her insecurities and is still afraid to share some of her vulnerabilities, she doesn’t just block him from information in a manipulative fashion. after those four years in vengerberg, they practically knew everything about each other.

and every other NPC in tw3 is always commenting about how yennefer’s such a bitch. like all of the wolf school witchers make fun of her, i think cerys calls you whipped or something. literally when you begin the game, vesemir insults her to your face. that’s a pretty misogynistic creation of cdpr, because in the books yennefer had been to kaer morhen multiple times and she was never there uninvited, and thus it should be assumed that she was well-liked. in actuality the one that the wolf school witchers are annoyed by is triss, who lambert constantly mocks.

this isn’t helped by the fact that so many tw3 fans call yennefer a bitch and manipulative and accuse her of being abusive to geralt in the books/games and tell everyone to go romance triss instead because she’s so sweet... as if geralt and triss ever had a consensual romantic relationship and as if geralt ever had any actual romantic interest in triss, as if triss didn’t betray them all by siding with the lodge of sorceresses to kidnap ciri and not care if yennefer or geralt died in that process.

sapkowski had some moments in the books where i think his definition of “spicy relationship” were more definitions of red flags for abuse, but it’s much like the whole of the witcher, in that there are parts that suffer from their male authorship of the 90s’, but overall it is an overwhelming positive experience. if you accept yennefer throwing fruit preserves at geralt, you also have to accept geralt sleeping with underage essi daven and shani, and i am personally retconning all of these things. if you retcon those things then yeah they do have a pretty good relationship in the books (especially during the scenes in time of contempt and lady of the lake) and it’s sad to see their relationship reduced to “i like you because you make bad puns sometimes,” instead of “we deeply care about eachother’s being and we are able to be vulnerable around each other.”

i’m currently redoing the last wish quest in tw3 ng+ right now and i am just... blink blink blink... at how they approached the lore concerning how yennefer and geralt’s relationship originated. geralt’s wish didn’t make them fall in love, it just intertwined their fates. and then they died, the end.

the worst part is that yennefer’s relationship to ciri was entirely wiped from tw3. yennefer’s relationship to ciri is way more important than yennefer’s relationship to geralt, but they just removed it because they wanted to make an equal playing ground for triss and yennefer. but like, yennefer becoming ciri’s mother was such a big step in development as a character for her. that demonstrated not only what love she was capable of but why she hid it from the rest of the world and wasn’t eager to dole it out. it develops her because she becomes a more mature and selfless woman and focuses less on how she has been victimized in her life, rather focusing on the well-being of her daughter instead. yennefer did EVERYTHING for ciri, she fell into torture attempting to save her, and she prolonged the torture by not willingly giving information about geralt and ciri.

then cdpr erased all of this and had ciri distrust yennefer by saying she doesn’t trust her and thinks she has plans for her... like what? where the fuck are you getting this from? why are you slandering yennefer like this? and having ciri trust avallac’h, a fucking aen elle who was one of her kidnappers and assisted in her being raped multiple times and is weirdly obsessed with her because she’s the descendant of lara dorren, who he had a crush on or whatever? remember that time he fucking gripped ciri by the neck to shut her up? yeah, i really trust this guy...

also as a sidenote. i am apalled by what cdpr did to yennefer’s hair. that is NOT fucking stormy curls, that is a salon blowout. and don’t say it would hurt our computers to run a more book-friendly hairstyle, because i use book yennefer hair mod reworked and it runs fine. idk WHY the fuck they did that to her because the concept art looked way better...

(unrelated, i kinda hate the “step/stomp on me” meme but i’ll let it slide)

[starkeristheendgame]

Complicated Boyfriends and Cute Waiters

Just a little something for @starkerchemistry​ for all the love she threw at Complicated Boyfriends and Kidnapping. Also, pls reminds Chems of how amazing her work is bc the lil shit disagrees >:( Also for @starkerintheparker​ because I keep converting her to WinterSpider >;D WinterIronSpider.

Tony takes one look at his waiter and sighs heavily.

Not because there’s anything wrong; no. In fact, the plush lips and the shaped jaw and the mop of curls desperately styled into something resembling purposeful mess is actually quite pleasing. The large, honey eyes that widen in recognition don’t hurt either.

No. It’s because Tony knows Bucky is going to take one look at this twinky little slip in his smart shirt and his tie and he’s going to want.

And Tony so had been looking forwards to a quiet evening. A little wine, some $80 salmon and perhaps even getting dicked down into the next fortnight by his boyfriend. The standard casual night in.

“Mr. Iron Stark” the boy whelped, and immediately flushed scarlet at his mishap. Tony could only smile quietly into his book, endeared if a little mollified.

“I think ‘Tony’ would suffice” he responded demurely, sliding the bookmark into place and setting his book aside. The boy was now stood bolt upright, and had obviously steeled himself into giving the Best Service Ever, though he looked a little like he might crumble if Tony so much as looked at him for too long.

“Oh, god. Right. Yes. Mr - I mean, Tony. Of course. I’m sorry, I’ve only just started this job and I’m not used to...” The boy trailed off, clearly trying to think of a way to say ‘people like you’ without it coming across as a little insulting. Tony flashed him an easy, warm smile.

“Breathe, kid. I’m just like anyone else in person, I promise. How about you start me off with a nice, fruity red bottle and two double Presidential 25′s, if that’s okay? Take your time; Lord knows my boyfriend certainly is” he teased, head tipping as he disarmed the boy with another dazzling smile.

His waiter could only gape, before he shut his mouth with a painful sounding clack and spun on his heel, fleeing to the nether-regions of the employee zone. Tony gave an amused sound as he checked his phone. It wasn’t like Bucky to run late; that was Tony’s thing.

And then, like Beetlejuice and undoubtedly because Tony had been thinking of him, Bucky came sauntering into the restaurant like some sort of underwear model. His suit was a deep, silken black with a slightly lighter floral pattern in the fabric, the jacket hanging artfully off his shoulders as he swept the room for his lover.

His hair was styled neatly, and Tony still loved the more modernised cut that he’d opted for; longer on one side, layered and fluffy with bangs that fell over one eye constantly. His stubble was a neat shadow on his jaw, and his eyes focused on Tony with such intensity as he approached that Tony lifted a brow.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to out-do me” Tony greeted as he leaned back in his seat, enough that Bucky could duck down and suck his lower lip into his mouth for a brief but promising kiss.

“Actually, I’m just trying to do you” Bucky shot back shamelessly as he slid into his seat, one leg immediately finding Tony’s under the table to press against. Tony gave an indignant sound, because it was both a truth and a lie, but let it go as movement caught the corner of his eye. Much as he wanted to watch the boy approach, he turned back to Bucky.

Storm-grey eyes slid away, following the path his own had left, and oh, yes. There it was. The subtle up-down of Bucky’s lashes as he sized up the boy, the curl of a smirk at the corners of his mouth. Bucky’s gaze drifted back to Tony in an undeniable stake of predator-prey. Tony could only tip his head in response, smirking slowly.

“H-here. I’m so sorry it took a while” the boy fretted, balancing a tray neatly on one hand as he set a tumbler of whiskey opposite each man, complete with artful glass freezer cubes and an empty, polished wine glass besides that, setting the bottle of red - freshly corked - in the centre of the table. He had to lean over a little to do so, and you would have had to be blind to miss the way that Bucky leaned back to sweep over his body.

“What did I say, darling? Treat me like any other rich shmuck in this place. And don’t mind him, he only bites if you ask nicely” Tony hummed, gesturing to his boyfriend, who eyed him both like he wanted to throttle him and kiss him senseless. In Tony’s experience they often came one with the other regardless.

“I - Sorry?” It came out as a question, but the boy was flushed from hairline to shirt collar and fumbled with his notepad, hands a little shaky as he produced a pen from his breast pocket. “Um, are you ready to order? Or would you like me to give you another minute?” He asked, and it was impossible to miss the way his gaze flit between them, eyes raking their bodies like they were two cuts of steak he was trying to decide between.

“Oh, I think Bucky knows what he wants, alright” Tony purred in obvious, gleeful amusement. Bucky smiled at him in a flash of canine, but didn’t miss a beat as he tipped his head back, eyeing the waiter with a charming smile.

“I’ll settle for the stripped, gold-crust steak served rare, and your name, since this moron was clearly too impolite to ask”. And ooohhhh, wasn’t that a low blow to gain favour? Tony pressed the toes of his Louboutin’s into Bucky’s own none too gently.

“Peter” the waiter blurted, eyes flitting between them as he scribbled down Bucky’s order in impressive short-hand, gaze drifting to Tony, who only smiled serenely at his boyfriend.

“You’re so predictable. Always going for the tender, high-class meat. Always liking it raw” Tony purred, and they both knew he wasn’t talking about the steak. Bucky only gave an elegant shrug in response; at a loss to deny it. Peter was looking between them again, vaguely like he might know they were talking about sex, but unable to address it.

“What can I say? I like something solid to sink my teeth into. I like a little juice to lick at and taste. And you of all people know I prefer it raw” Bucky replied steadily, gaze not leaving Tony’s.

“I’ll have the salmon, please, Peter.” Tony hummed, gaze leaving Bucky to look sweetly up at the boy, who nodded and turned, striding away like he was desperate to run away. Tony let his gaze drop back to Bucky. “Less wolf, more fox. He’s a skittish young thing. Haven’t I taught you anything about hunting?” He sighed in mock admonishment and Bucky reached across the table to cup his jaw, smirking.

“Doll, I was fucking people in back-alleys long before you were born. You taught me nothing, old man”. And, well. Rude. “You’re right, though. We might spook him off at this rate. Last time I saw someone that red it was Clint, and he was choking on a mint”. Bucky leaned back, picking up his whiskey and taking an indulgent sip.

They made comfortable small-talk over the time it took for their meals to arrive, Tony lamenting the boredom he’d faced at the quarterly performance review and Bucky noting the progress he and Steve were making with their veteran programs. Tony was proud of his man, really. He’d come so far since Steve had shown up at the Tower with him, both sopping wet and bloodied.

Peter came back no longer than ten minutes later, a plate upon each hand. He delivered Tony’s first, bending down to slide the plate onto the table, and Tony couldn’t resist leaning over, flashing a sweet smile at the boy up close, where he could see flacks of green in his eyes. “Thank you, darling” he murmured, and Peter’s cheeks went red yet again, like Tony simply speaking to him was an activation button for a blush.

Bucky, the brat, had to go one extra. Instead of giving Peter room when the boy bent down he crowded in close, practically licking the shell of the boy’s ear as he whispered a sultry "Thanks, Doll”. Peter’s gaze jerked to Tony, alarmed, but Tony only half-rolled his eyes and picked up a delicate mouthful of smoked salmon.

“You’re a pest” he noted, once Peter had stammered his way into retreating once more. “I had a quiet evening planned” he added, as though it mattered. It didn’t. This practically was his quiet evening, he just now had two desserts instead of one. By the way Bucky eyed him, he knew that, too.

“Shut up and eat your fish” Bucky drawled, popping a cut of dripping steak with tiny flecks of gold powder into his mouth. Obnoxious prat.

But Tony did as told, polishing off the salmon and whiskey both, and filling their wine glasses with a generous serving. It was sweet and rich, just his taste, and he wondered if another waiter hadn’t advised Peter on which choice to bring. “So. The choice is yours” he announced after a pause, when Bucky had finished his own meal and was sniffing daintily at the wine.

“You wanna play sheepdog, or am I?” Bucky asks in answer, lips curving into a wicked smirk that has Tony grinning in response, leg twisting around Bucky’s in a hidden touch. Tony shifted his wine glass in response, allowing a few measly drops to fall onto the edge of his jacket. Good thing he wore grey and hated this suit anyway, because that red wasn’t gonna come out.

Bucky only rolled his eyes, because they’d played this game before, and pushed to his feet. “Woof woof, bitch” Bucky murmured, low into Tony’s ear as he passed, and Tony resisted the urge to drag him back by his hair, to put him on his knees right then. Largely because of he had one more PR disaster this month Pepper got his custom Audi, and he only had four days to go.

It took another short collection of minutes for Peter to come practically skipping over; during which Tony had splashed a few more drops for good measure. “Oh, Peter. D’you think you could help a clumsy old man out? Buck’s gone on a phonecall and I tipped my wine” Tony pouted, putting on his best helpless, sweet aura. Peter’s eyes zeroed in on the red splashed at his hips, tongue peeking out like the solution was to lick it clean.

“Of course! I can - I’ll see if there’s any stuff behind the bar? I can be right back” Peter breathed, but Tony shook his head, pushing to stand. Peter’s eyes are wide now, like a startled deer. They’re stood close enough for Tony to note he has almost a full head on the boy. For a man who’s boyfriend towered over him, it made him rather smug.

“Oh, no need for all of that. Just come to the men’s with me to help me dab the wet patches, hm? At least I won’t reek like a wine cellar on the way home”. He added a charming smile for good measure, turning on his heel. He didn’t need to look to know Peter would follow obediently. Refusing Tony Stark wasn’t good for business, after-all.

Bucky is perfectly concealed when he swings the door open, shrugging out of his jacket and listening to the clack of another polished shoe on the tiles as Peter steps in after him, practically vibrating with nervous energy. Tony carelessly draped his jacket over the edge of the sink and begun to run the tap, because what was a story without details?

Peter hovered closer, clearly unsure of why it would take two men to wash a jacket. “I - What do you need me to do, Mr. Stark?” The boy asks not a moment later, and Tony can’t bite back a grin. Peter has wandered around to his right, which means when Bucky makes his dramatic entrance, it’s gonna be behind the kid.

“Oh, nothing you don’t want to, darling. But if you do want to, then just stand there and let me make you feel good, hm?” He asked, head tilting as he turned off the tap and took a step closer. The hitch of Peter’s breath is audible.

He doesn’t step away, though. Interesting.

“Y-You’re here with your boyfriend” Peter whimpered, even as Tony’s hands came up to his shoulders and chest, petting gently. He trembled under the touch, but didn’t back away, sucking his lower lip into his mouth. Over Peter’s shoulder Tony can see Bucky swing around the edge of a stall door, prowling quietly closer, but he doesn’t dare look up, doesn’t dare alert Peter of the predator at his heels.

“I wouldn’t worry about hurting my feelings, Doll” Bucky purred, low and raspy in Peter’s ear as he pressed up against Peter’s back, until the boy was a pretty little sandwich filler. Peter actually yelped, driving forwards into Tony’s chest, and Tony let his hands fall to slim hips, holding him steady.

“Now, Bucky” he chided, voice softening. “What do we do before we play?” He asked, arching a brow as Peter panted between them. Bucky cast him a pouty but gentle look.

“We ask for consent” he hummed, metal hand reaching up to gently brush aside a curl when Peter whipped around to face him, lips parted.

“Good boy” Tony murmured, gaze dropping back to Peter. They take a step away from him in unison, giving the poor thing some room to breathe. “So. That means you can tell us to stop, and we’ll walk out, pay our bill, and we won’t approach you this way again. Or...You can say yes, and we’ll be gentle, but we’ll make you feel good” he continued.

Peter shifted between them, looking cautious but also like he was two breaths away from sinking to his knees. His voice is small, rough when he finally speaks. “If...What will you do? To make me feel good?” He whispered, and Tony and Bucky wore matching, slow smirks.

“Well. I’m more of a practical person” Tony drawled, eyes roaming Peter’s face for confirmation. He found it in a weak nod, the boy’s pupils blowing as he advanced closer and reached out, him and Bucky closing Peter between them once again. Peter was small between them, lips bitten and eyes wild as Bucky reached down, sliding metal fingers along the curve of his ass and between his thighs, rubbing there like you’d finger a girl, his other hand winding around to press flat over Peter’s stomach.

A wrecked, torn sound slips from Peter’s throat, practically collapsing against Bucky as Tony’s hand dripped down, palming over the half-hard bulge there none too teasingly, the other hand cupping his jaw and tipping his head.

“We’ve maybe got five minutes or less” Tony breathed, licking into the corner of Peter’s plush, pink mouth as Bucky pressed up against him, dropping to mouth at his neck. “I can think of a few things to do”.

[lilsherlockian1975]

The Nose Knows

A little soulmates AU, mostly fluff. Here’s part one. This is NOT beta’d, sorry for any mistakes. Huge thanks to @mel-loves-all for helping out with editing the images since I’m an ignorant goose penis when it comes to all that business. Blame me for the quality of the pics... it’s what I picked out for her. ~LiL~

-o-o-o-o-

He catches it on a breeze. It hits him like a physical blow and he instantly knows what he’s smelling, if not... who.

He and his cousin Daven are sitting on one of the few available benches on the Quad. Addam, his best friend since childhood, is talking about some girl he’d met at a sorority mixer the night before but as soon as the scent drifts his way, Jaime pretty much tunes out the sordid tale of sloppy, near-anonymous sex. It’s a gorgeous Spring day, not a cloud in the sky and no hint of rain for the first time in at least two weeks. This fact alone has driven most of the student population out of doors, making it almost impossible for him to quickly assign the scent to its owner.

Jaime is instantly ill at ease, which is unfortunate as moments ago he’d felt entirely in his element. He and his twin sister had celebrated their twenty-second name day the weekend before and prior to the scent, he’d been feeling at the very top of his game. Now he’s... confused and excited and anxious all at once.

Less than two months and he will be finished with this gods’ forsaken town and its massive university. He’s already been accepted at Crakehall School of Art & Design for his post-grad, which is, incidentally, where he originally had planned to study. His father’d had different ideas, forcing Jaime into the business programme at KLU. Thankfully, he had managed to slip a minor in Architecture into his degree by selling Tywin a load of shit about wanting to ‘propel Castlery Corp. into the modern era’. The minor had added a full year to Jaime’s studies and without a major in his chosen field, he will have to take supplementary classes at CSAD but he’s certain it will be worth it in the end.

None of that matters now. Tywin Lannister had died of a massive stroke seven months ago. Jaime supposes he should feel worse about that; should feel some kind of loss or sadness, and maybe he does, though not for the reasons most sons would for the death of a parent. But the old man was never a real father. He’d been indifferent toward Tyrion, dismissive toward Cersei - though he could occasionally be somewhat warmer to his only female child - and constantly demanding that Jaime ‘live up to the Lannister name’. Jaime can feel sympathy for their mother, of course, she did love the old bastard, but neither he nor his sister are overly damaged by the old man’s death. Oddly enough, their father’s death seems to be affecting his little brother the most.

The scent assails him again and this time he stands, walking towards it, leaving Addam sputtering objections and calling him names. Jaime doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about is the originator of that smell.

He passes small groups of fellow students, all equally excited about the respite from the spring rains. The Quad is packed, of course, so it’s no easy task. Not to mention that he probably looks like some kind of weirdo, walking around, nose first and… sniffing. But he’s being driven by something entirely out of his control. 

Though he’s never really given much thought to the idea of soulmates, he knows they exist - his Uncle Gerion and Aunt Briony are soulmates, for instance, but it’s rarely talked about within the family, almost as if it is some dirty secret. Actually, for some unknown reason, talking about soulmates seems to be taboo in ‘polite society’. Uncle Gerion - his favourite uncle -  however, is quite outspoken against Lannister Family tradition and societal norms. The phenomenon, as far as he knows, is very rare these days and Jaime has never once even considered the possibility for himself. 

Now… Now there's no doubt. He can smell her - them? - whoever! Jaime’s never been attracted to men, but somehow he knows that if the gods have seen it fit to match him with a man… so be it! 

Shaking himself, he chuckles as he moves to another group of students. It won’t be a man, he thinks. Surely the gods would have given him some kind of inclination towards his own sex if… Suddenly, he’s engulfed with the scent. They’re close, they must be!  He turns, following his nose like a damn toucan. 

The crowd thins a bit; it’s the top of the hour and people are rushing off to class. Jaime’s eyes and, yes, his nose, zero in on his target. Shit! It is a dude! He’s taller than Jaime by maybe an inch or so with short, straw-like blond hair, broad shoulders and… He’s just about to resign himself to a future that he’d never even considered (okay, so he’s maybe had the odd thought here and there about other guys - everyone has, right?! Right?) when they turn around and…  

“You’re a girl,” he says without thinking. 

She (oh, thank the gods she’s a she!) narrows her eyes, straightens her spine and glares. “Yes, I am. And you’re not very original, I’m afraid,” she says coldly before stalking past him. 

What?! No! She’s… she’s supposed to know. She’s supposed to smell him too. What in the seven hells is going on?! “Wait!” Jaime calls out but she doesn’t stop. He can’t give up, he just can’t. Sprinting to catch up, he reaches out for her, wanting to stop her, to talk to her. He doesn’t make it that far, though. Just before he touches her arm, she jerks back - maybe she saw him in her peripheral vision, maybe it’s some strange side effect of their connection, he doesn’t know - but when he sees the look in her unbelievably blue eyes, he’s the one flinching away. 

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she practically growls, “but you can’t just go around insulting people, chasing after them then touching them as if it’s your right!”

“But it is,” he replies lamely because... how doesn’t she know?

Her responding laugh is mocking and he can’t deny that it hurts him in a way he never imagined being hurt. Shaking her head, she sneers as she looks him up and down. “Guys like you are all the same…”

There are no guys like me, he thinks but luckily, this time he holds his tongue.

“I know I’m an easy target - hard to miss, low hanging fruit and whatnot - I’m just not in the mood for this nonsense today.”

Jaime knows he should give up, regroup and try again later, but patience has never been his strong suit. “I wasn’t… It wasn’t an insult. I was…” ‘Surprised’ sounds insulting and really, how does she still not know? His mind scrambles for a word to properly describe his condition. Finally, he settles on, “Confused?” though it unintentionally comes out as a question.

This seems to only further enrage the girl. She takes a step back, draws a deep breath and, once again, shakes her head. “Find someone else to help you figure out your sexuality!”

Okay, there’s a story there, Jaime’s sure of it but he doesn’t have time to ask. “No-no, you’re misunderstanding me. I know I’m not gay.” Although the fact that he considered it for thirty seconds or so is something he’ll deal with later! “I’m saying that…”

“I really don’t care what you’re saying.” Again, her eyes travel over him and Jaime has never felt so judged in his entire life. “It’s nothing new, it’s nothing I’ve not heard before. Do you really think you’re the first prick to want to screw with me? I’m guessing it’s another bet. Who put you up to this? Red? Bushy? If it was Hyle, I swear to the Seven...”

“None of them! I don’t even know who you’re talking about!” When he thinks about her words, an intense feeling of protectiveness overcomes him. “What bet? What did they do?” 

Her pale, freckle-covered cheeks turn an interesting shade of pink as she hitches her messenger bag higher on her shoulder before crossing her arms over her chest. “Nothing. Never mind. Just… Just leave me alone. Please.” The last word comes out softly, pleadingly and it just about breaks Jaime’s heart. Turning, she starts to go.

“I’m not a creep!” he calls out, managing to stop her escape. Looking around, he notices that, miraculously, the Quad has pretty much cleared out. If their fellow students hadn’t been in such a rush to return to class he and the angry girl would have surely drawn a crowd. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself before continuing, “And I’m not a prick. I am sort of an arsehole, but not - I think, not like those guys you mentioned. Whatever they did... hurt you enough to make you make that face…”

She whips around. “What about my face?” 

With a sigh, he says, “It looks sad. Too sad. It’s not supposed to.” And what does that even mean? he wonders as the words leave his mouth.

She’s surprised for a split second, then all emotion seems to drain from her features. “I don’t know why you’re doing this but please just… leave me alone.”

So he does. For now.

-o-o-o-o-

There is a very good reason that Brienne doesn’t know ‘who’ Jaime is. This is just the first part, I’m working on the next bit. Please let me know what you think. Thanks ~Lil~

[cobalt-breezes]

First things First: introductions!

HOWDY HEY THERE!!!

My name is Koda and I’m a 19 year old trans man who hyperfixates on my little pony a concerning amount.

my pronouns are he/him, they/them, or ix/ix.

If you want a semblance of normal art, and not drawings of two ponies who have never interacted once in canon being gay, then check out my art blog, @kodartarang 

If you like the idea of seeing funky, weird, niche art for the warriors fandom, I also run the blog @warrior-cat-furby teehee. It’s a warrior cats design blog where I draw warrior cat characters but as furbies (specifically, the way I imagine they would look if they were real creatures. My designs for furbies are not at all canon to the toy line lmfao, especially since a lot of my furby designs are based on odd-bodies).

You can also follow my main blog, @kodangaroo​ , but there is no organization to what I reblog on that one. So like. You may experience something similar to what happened recently, where I reblogged nothing but Scolipede posts for at least half an hour and terrorized my followers’ dashboards with bug horse.

Now onto the blog!

I got the idea one fair evening when I was scrolling through @/msponies (not tagging her bc I’m not sure if she'd want to be tagged in a post like this !). She had posted a crack-ship fan-child design post that featured Zephyr Breeze and Prince Blueblood. 

My initial response was "hoho! This idea is obsurd! Heehee! How funny! I will imagine them being gay for only a moment, to make myself laugh! haha! heehee! hoho!" But then I actually imagined it for real and whoopsies, I couldn't stop thinking about the idea for a while!

What got me intrigued first was how these two characters would very much exhibit an "opposites attract" nature. And like many others, I am a SUCKER for common relationship tropes in LGBTQ+ pairings.

Prince Blueblood, like many ponies of course, lives up to his name. He is snooty, upper-class, uptight, and holds himself to a very high standard. Zephyr Breeze, on the other hoof hand is aloof. He may be prideful like Blueblood, but in an entirely different way. He holds his appearance in a different way (the messy hair, the facial hair shadow), rather than the prim and proper way Blueblood holds his appearance.

I imagine that the way their relationship progresses, it would be very similar to "Rivals-to-Friends-to-Lovers" (yet another trope I'm a sucker for lmfao). In the beginning, after they first meet, Blueblood is very judgemental of Zephyr. The two butt heads a lot. Zephyr constantly teases Blueblood ("Weeell hello there, your highness, your coat is as perfectly and pretentiously groomed as ever I see!"), an Blueblood absolutely abhors it. But somehow they just keep running into each other, despite their desperate attempts to do otherwise. Eventually... The teasing and jabs become less rude and insulting and more... Friendly. At some point, the two of them don't really mind the incidental run-ins as much.

Zephyr Breeze invites Blueblood to a get-together in ponyville with his sister and a few friends. Blueblood, of course, over-dresses for the occasion and is a little bit surprised to see everybody dressed very casually, telling jokes, and laughing loudly.

He's not sure why, but... he kind of enjoyed it. All the social gatherings Blueblood had been to before were uptight and everybody expected him to have the highest of manners. It was nice to let loose.

Blueblood doesn't really know how to express his appreciation for being included, so he does the only thing he can think of; he invites Zephyr to a high-class social gathering at the castle. Zephyr has never been to one, but he appreciates the invite and decides to go. If Blueblood could let loose for a couple hours and take part in a casual hangout between friends in ponyville, then surely Zephyr could manage to fit in with the upper class for a few measely minutes at least. Unfortunately it doesn't go very well; he didn't have any outfits that lived up to the standards of the other attendees, and he ended up being mocked by everyone. Plus, he ate too many of the h'ourderves (how the FUCK do you spell that) and everybody looked at him weirdly, and every time he tried to crack a joke to the crowd they didn't exactly appreciate it. He ended up leaving early, whispering some excuse to Blueblood ("yeaaaaaahhhh... family matters, it's uh. A family emergency yeah, and you know how mom and dad can't get by in these things without me. You know how it is."), and escapes to a nearby bakery where he's the only customer in at the moment.

To his surprise, the door opens to reveal... Prince Blueblood.. Blueblood reveals that he figured Zephyr would be there, and decided to come and check on him ("One must guaruntee that their... acquaintence... will not cause any trouble, of course.")

After a long silence, Blueblood apologizes. "I should have known that a social gathering such as that one would not be a very comfortable place for you."

"Did you just... apologize?"

As the two grow closer, they both learn how to better themselves. Zephyr already had the help of his sister to learn how to push through, get things done, and actually take care of himself, but now he has Blueblood to help him keep track of some of the things he says that may be a bit... "uncouth". And Blueblood learns how to let loose, treat others equally, and just... how to be someone people enjoy talking to. And he learns how to have fun! He didn't know how to do that before.

They don't really say it outright-- they're still working on that-- but there's no denying that there's something there. They move in together. They laugh together. They help each other. They become better, together.

[hellyeahheroes]

Orphaned: How The New 10s Have FAILED Cassandra Cain

As we approach the end of “the New 10s”, how we came to call this decade (a term I will be using in the common usage, referring to all years with 201X number, not the proper one which ends with 2020), I took a look at one of the characters who I really feel got the short end of the stick through all of it  - Cassandra Cain.

There were some good things for the character in the decade. Writers like James Tynion IV, Bryan Edward Hill actually gave her as much respect as they could in given circumstances and she even made her first-ever appearance in animation. However, looking back I cannot say that it has been actually kind time for her . The bad just outweighs the good. I have isolated five reasons why I believe that to be the case.

1. The Erasure

This room is full of New 52 Cassandra Cain stories.

As always, everything boils down to New 52, the reboot that defined the New 10s for DC Comics. A reboot that asked us to assume Cassandra no longer exists and never existed, even if this did not mesh with the supposedly intact, just compressed, Batman continuity. The only writer who seems to have ignored it was Grant Morrison, whose Batman Inc. was caught by the reboot in the middle and seems to exist in a Schrödinger's relationship with two continuities - both part of the old and new DC Universe.

What is worse is that DC editorial has been silently stonewalling writers who wanted to use the character with vague excuses of her supposedly being toxic and little explanation beyond that. Scott Snyder was denied the use of her in Batman and had to create Harper Row as a replacement. Gail Simone’s pitch for a Batgirls book featuring Cassandra, Stephanie Brown and Barbara Gordon was rejected in favor of a solo Barbara book. In which both characters have been banned from appearing. The only exception was the Future’s Ends special, which was literally Simone’s final issue. It feels that this was done due to higher-ups' desire to push Barbara as the One True Batgirl. Which manifested in some of the editorial changes made to the book, like an artist being told, behind Simone’s back, to make a new villain look like Stephanie. Or Batman flat out calling Barbara “Only Good Batgirl” despite this making no sense in a continuity where she is literally the only one to ever use the name. The fact this ended up doing more harm than good to Barbara is a topic for another list like this altogether. The crux of it is, DC did their worst to make people forget Cassandra ever exists and alienate her fans for years, hoping to get rid of them entirely.  As the very existence of this article proves, their attempts were less than successful.

2. The Alienation

Once DC actually gave in and allowed Snyder to bring Cassandra back, other problems arose. The first one has come in the form of her new codename - Orphan. That name was supposed to allow her establishing her own identity instead of being defined by Bruce and Barbara. However, this argument seems dishonest when it is an identity previously used by her villainous father. The idea of Cassandra redeeming it has some merit, I admit. But this decision does send a message of her being defined solely by her abuser. It also serves to separate her from the rest of the Batfamily. Originally Cassandra has been portrayed as a member of the group and an adoptive sister to all of Bruce Wayne’s fellow sidekicks. Now it feels like her very name serves to single her out, an orphan among orphans.

This problem is not limited to the title. In general, Cassandra is now written as more isolated from the rest of the Batfamily, excluded from as many things as possible or having her role limited to nothing but a cameo. It has been 5 years and DC did as little as possible to reestablish her relationships with any people she was close with previously. In fact, with characters like Stephanie or Tim Drake, they seem to be betting on fans remembering their bonds from the previous continuity and act like they do not need to put in the work to rebuild them. Even if such measures have been taken for things like the reveal of her mother again. Her relationship with Barbara is as quickly cut as it was reestablished, without giving us anything but one or two scenes that work mostly as a reminder of what the two have lost from old continuity. She is not allowed to form new bonds with major characters either, her interactions with Jason Todd and Damian Wayne being kept to a bare minimum even more than before New 52. 

What’s worse is that new connections that she does form end quickly broken and undermined. After a big buildup of her friendship with Harper that girl gets completely written out of Batman comics altogether. Her relationships with Clayface and Batwoman were shattered with the former’s death. Not only that but DC seems entirely unwilling to follow on plot threads like this. It has been over a year by now since Kate was forced to kill Basil to save Cassandra’s life and not a single interaction between the characters seems to be allowed to ever bring that up, despite the effect it should have on both of them. I’ve gotten an impression they aren’t allowed to interact at all anymore, just stand awkwardly next to each other in group shots. Even Cassandra’s currently established bond with Duke Thomas feels constantly undermined by a looming threat he will end the story broken and turned into a villain. All of this sends a message that Cassandra is not a real part of the Batfamily, more a hired muscle than a real member of the group. 

Even the relationships with her villains have been taken away from her by simply erasing said villains. The same goes for many characters who once were her supporting cast, like Brenda or Onyx. Even her father had to be killed despite how many great scenes past writers could work out of confronting the two and exploring both how twisted his view of her is and what extent of the damage he has done to her. It gives an impression of outright spite, as if DC only agreed to bring her back at the cost of stripping her away from all interesting story threads.

3. The Jobbing

The less is said about Thomas Wayne vs Entire Batfamily, the better.

One of the problems with Cassandra’s portrayal is jobbing. For those who do not know, jobbing is a term in wrestling where a wrestler is made to lose a fight to put their opponent over with the audience. The bigger the reputation of a certified badass the jobber has, the more likely people are to buy the other guy as a genuine threat. A quote attributed to veteran wrestler Christian goes “If you can make the other guy look good you will always find a job, but you will have to do the job”.

Sadly, since her return, Cassandra has been reduced to a jobber. A character who is known as the best martial arts fighter in the Batfamily, if not in the DC Universe as a whole, is constantly made to lose to make someone else look good. In fact, between 2015 and 2019 the character had literally a single clean victory. By “clean” I mean a fair one on one fight. Every single one of her other victories was immediately being retconned as her opponent holding back (Dick Grayson) or undermined by her having the help of other characters (Lady Shiva, Azrael). Even the one opponent she was allowed to beat, Ismael, was a new character introduced just a few issues prior and his only show of skill to speak of was beating her in a previous fight. Meanwhile, she is constantly made to lose against opponents who have never been shown to possess skills or abilities that could make it believable, like Jason Todd, Helena Bertinelli or Karma. Thomas Wayne, a character whose use of guns was justified as compensation for his horrible hand-to-hand skills, is likely the worst example of them all. Cassandra is allowed to beat unnamed minions, be it Colony soldiers or League of Shadows ninjas. However, these do little to establish her as a force to be reckoned with she once was. After all, every single hero takes down hordes of minions constantly. Overall her status as a great fighter is at this point nothing more but an informed ability and DC has killed all credibility she once had.

There are painful and insulting implications that come along with Cassandra’s jobbing. This is because her skills as a martial artist have always been something she took great pride in and formed a lot of her self-esteem around. She finds comfort and relief from living with her disability in them. Her story is not one of a person “overcoming” their disability or have it nullified by superpowers that comic books are sadly full of. It is a story of a disabled person learning to live with their disability by finding solace in other skills she has and proving herself a true master despite said disability. By making her be beaten by everyone and their mother, DC turned that character arc into a cruel joke. Cassandra who is losing every fight is Cassandra that DC wants you to laugh at. Mock her for being delusional to think disabled people can be heroes and not just helpless victims. An ableist position very in line with a company that erased Barbara Gordon’s disability and history as Oracle, and to this day has editorial personally offended by the idea she could be anything but helpless in a wheelchair. As a result all Cassandra stories since her return just feel mean-spirited.

4. Shiva

Since Cassandra's return, the only two stories to focus on her have been about her mother, Lady Shiva. This has been a larger problem that has existed since Dan DiDio started meddling with the characters. We could see it in a classic story Destruction Daughter as well. There seems to be a desire on an editorial level to repeat and outdo the classic fan-favorite fight between them from Batgirl #25. Which is by many considered the best Cassandra story and the pinnacle of Kelley Puckett's run. But the editorial does not want to simply “top” that fight. They also want to somehow integrate it into a bigger story that ties Shiva with League of Assassins. I mean no disrespect to James Tynion or Bryan Hill or Anderson Gabrych, but none of them managed to truly make it work. The stories, while still well-written, seem to be inherently contrived. And I believe the future attempts will never truly work no matter who is writing them. The whole premise is nonsensical. Shiva that works with Ras Al’Ghul and his League is by definition out of character as the two have no aligning goals to speak of. There is nothing he can offer her and she doesn’t care for his goals. And the idea of sticking with him to fight challenging opponents is undermined by a fact she could get a good fight by simply slaughtering his entire organization. I started comparing this to Street Fighter to easily explain my issue with this. For Shiva to work with Ras makes as little sense as for Akuma to be M. Bison’s lackey.  DC is constantly trying to sell to us a story that does not work and then angrily try again when it is not hailed as better than Batgirl #25. It seems that Cassandra has become a means to an end in all of it. That she exists solely to get Shiva over as a minion to a bigger villain she has no good reason to follow in the first place.

This does nothing to make Cassandra less of a jobber either, as Shiva has been stuck in the same position for the entire decade herself and at this point is no more threatening than a Teletubby. Especially if the same stories that are supposed to reestablish Shiva as a threat are the stories where she fights her daughter. It feels like the two characters are trying to each regain their credibility by beating the other one because DC did such a good job of undermining them they wouldn’t be allowed to defeat anyone else.

While I want Shiva to be an antagonistic force in Cassandra’s life and she is a great villain, the way it is done does nothing for either character. Their complex relationship and clashing philosophies don't need to be violent or even physical at all to be compelling. It effectively squanders all potential the two have, seemingly for no other reason than to put Ras Al’Ghul over.

5. No Focus

Some of you may have caught on the prevailing theme of these points. Cassandra is no longer being written as a character in her own right. She is erased or pushed in the background to not overshadow Barbara. Her relationships are not being built upon and her plotlines are being dropped in favor of focusing on other characters. She is isolated from her new family and her membership is undermined even by her own codename. She keeps losing so that villains can look strong and cannot score a victory to not make someone “more important” look weak. She keeps being dragged into fights with Shiva to push Ras Al’Ghul as a bigger deal. She is constantly on team books that are always about other people first. 

This pattern speaks for itself. Despite an ever-increasing number of her fans and even writers who adore her, DC does not care about Cassandra Cain. This whole decade the company has shown the only role they see for her is someone used to push characters the editorial wants people to like instead. DC’s treatment of her betrays their arrogance, the belief the editors know better what the fans want than the fans themselves. Sadly it seems to have spilled onto other media as well. From what we know about her appearance in the upcoming Birds of Prey movie, Cassandra is the only character the creators did not care to get right, just somebody to make others look good. This is also why I am not holding my breath for her upcoming appearances in DCeased and Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey books. At the end of the day these are still not her stories, just someone else’s books she was allowed to be in. Do not get me wrong, I hope we really get this “Cass Renaissance” the fandom is getting excited about. But outside of Shadow of the Batgirl, which will actually be a story about her, I do not trust DC to treat her as more than a glorified prop for other characters. If there is one thing I learned is that you can never expect good things from the Big 2. You can hope for the best and prepare for the worst. But they will very rarely offer you a surprise that is actually pleasant.

- Admin