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sentinelpri · 3 years

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Yellow Roses

The first time was a learning experience.

Bumblebee had been innocent to the ways of human gift-giving back then, unsure of what to get or where to get it, but after using the internet and looking up where to buy gifts for humans, he found that there was a gift shop down the street from where the Autobot base was, and he begged and pleaded with Sari for some of her allowance money “for something important”.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to get. What he was sure of, though, was that he was completely enamored with you and had been since day one- and he couldn’t bring himself to confess yet, but if he didn’t channel his feelings somehow, they were going to burst.

But as he approached the gift shop on that sunny day in Detroit, no other than Optimus Prime walked out and bumped into him. Thankfully, before he could fall back at the impact, Optimus reached out and caught him, placing him back on his feet with one strong servo.

“P-Prime, hey!” Bumblebee grinned and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. He knew he wasn’t guilty of anything nefarious, per say, but he had no idea how Optimus would feel about him being in love with a human and wanting to buy gifts for said human with money that wasn’t his. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh, nothing much...” The other Autobot blatantly lied and hid a bouquet of blue and gold flowers that Bee didn’t know the name of behind his back, face burning the brightest shade of red the smaller bot had ever seen it. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

“I don’t know, I mean, what do humans even like?” Bumblebee muttered without thinking, and upon seeing Optimus’s optics widen, he raised his servos defensively and shook his head. “I mean, uh-! Never mind! What’s up with the flowers?”

“Ah,” Optimus gave an awkward grin and held the flowers in front of him instead of continuing to hide them, probably realizing that it was too late and Bumblebee had already seen them. The younger bot wondered if they were for Optimus or for someone else, but he didn’t dare ask, only listening to his leader talk. “I learned that unlike some other organic planets, on earth, it’s considered rude to pick plants if they’re in close proximity to someone’s home or in front of a public building or park unless they’re a specific type called weeds, which flowers aren’t, but I wanted to buy some for someone, so I came here to pick them up after asking Sari about it. Are you gift buying, too?”

“Well, yeah, I guess you could say that,” Bumblebee looked away and held his forearm in one servo, anxiously shifting his weight between his stabilizing servos. It felt like him and Optimus Prime had reached into the cookie jar and caught each other.

Bumblebee didn’t dare ask who the flowers were for even though he was dying to know in fear that Optimus would ask who he was at the gift shop for in return. An uncomfortable silence fell onto them momentarily, both of them quiet and staring at each other with the noise of traffic and the bustling Detroit citizens walking on the pavement who kept passing by to keep them company.

“I’ve been doing some reading since Sari’s birthday is in a few months,” Optimus tried to continue the conversation and cleared his throat. “The customs for gift giving can involve about anything when it comes to human girls, but the most common are flowers, books, chocolates, jewelry, clothing, video games, or gifts of practicality, which just seem to be hygiene products and things they can use in their daily lives. Gift cards and vouchers with money on them are also common, but considered less personable, so I wouldn’t go that route if you’re close with the one you’re buying for unless they specifically ask for it.”

“Oh... I gotcha. Good ideas, bossbot!” Bumblebee smiled again, the corners of his lip-plates sore from how forced it was due to his nerves.

What if Optimus had figured it out? That would defeat the whole point of his plan; buy you nice things and leave them at your door in the middle of the night without his name attached. It was simple and easy, but if Optimus knew before he even got to try it?

Well. That made it a lot harder.

Thankfully, though, Optimus gave him a nod and bid him a good afternoon, then walked away.

Bumblebee found himself letting out a sigh of relief.

Thank Primus...

...Hours later, Bumblebee regretted all of his life decisions. He was sitting, holed up in his room with one audial pressed up against your wall. It was a terrible habit of his, but he eavesdropped on you pretty frequently when he heard bits and pieces of you talking through the wall, and he was doing it right now.

He wasn’t sure how he had expected it to go, but when he dropped the bouquet of yellow roses at your bedroom doorstep when you were out for lunch and no one was in the halls, he had hoped that you would simply take the flowers, appreciate them, and never say another word. However, you were currently telling Sari about it, which made sense considering that the young girl dropped by your room often and asked you to do her hair or makeup as an excuse to spend time with you- you were an adult, a lot older than Sari, but the two of you got along very well considering that you were the only one who actually knew how to take care of her properly when Isaac Sumdac wasn’t around.

“I have no idea!” You exclaimed, no doubt in reference to the flowers. Bumblebee cringed. What if Sari made the connection that the money he had borrowed from her was for that? What if she told everyone, or what if you told everyone, and Prime realized why he was at that gift shop and let his secret slip? “I can only assume it was you or one of the guys, but like... I don’t know who.”

“Yeah, I have no idea! It wasn’t me, I would’ve just given ‘em to you. We should dig deeper, (y/n)!”

Oh. Oh, Primus, no.

“I’m not sure, Sari, whoever it was probably dropped it off like that for a reason,” Bumblebee heard you sigh, and at the same time, he let out a sigh of relief. Maybe you would just forget about it and-

“Wait! Do you have a secret admirer!?”

Dammit. Maybe not.

“I... Highly doubt that, the only one I’d be interested in anyways is-” You started, and then cut yourself off in a way that made Bumblebee’s spark shatter and crumble into little pieces inside his chassis. You were single, but you were already into someone? What if it wasn’t him? He’d understand, of course- Prime was stronger, Prowl was smooth, Bulkhead was talented, and Ratchet was intelligent. Compared to them, he felt like he didn’t have much to offer you. Everyone around him was amazing, and he was just there, but... He loved you, and he wanted you to know how loved you were. So, whether you’d love him back or not, he’d keep giving everything he had to you; even if the way in which he went about it was indirect. “Actually, never mind, but your braids are done-”

“No, wait, you can’t just gloss past that!” Sari whined. Bee almost didn’t want to hear the rest of your discussion, but he couldn’t keep himself from listening. “Who is it, who is it!?

“Let’s just go play Animal Crossing in the living room, we can talk about all of that at a later date, yeah?” You offered, voice laced with both your amusement and confusion.

“Fine, fine, but you have to tell me soon! Pinky promise.”

“Fine, pinky promise. Now let’s go.”

Bumblebee heard your door open and close, followed by what he presumed to be you and Sari’s footsteps in the hallway. The sound eventually dissipated.

The Autobot was left to lay back on his berth and stare at the ceiling with a huff.

You were telling others about the gift he left, trying to get to the bottom of it, and you were into someone or somebot he didn’t even know about.

What had he gotten himself into?

The second time, he felt a little better about it. It was a week later and he hadn’t heard any discussion of the subject amongst the other Autobots, so he assumed nothing had come from it.

But, as he lounged on the living room couch, he jumped upon you sitting down on the couch’s arm- right by where his head was laid.

It made sense that he had been jumpier around you over the past few days. Part of it was the usual I’m-in-love-with-you-and-super-tense-about-it jumpiness that he had become accustomed to, but it was made worse by the fact that he was guilty; guilty of keeping a secret from you, of indirectly lying to you. He could’ve done it the one time with the roses and let it die down after, but when you’d talked about your old game controller breaking the night before at the dinner table, he hadn’t been able to help himself- he went and got it along with a new bouquet of yellow roses, left it in front of your room later that night, knocked, and ran away.

It was the next day, and understandably, he’d been anxious about it. It was better than the first time, but he was just hoping you wouldn’t talk about it.

Of course, he was never that lucky, and you looked at him with the controller literally in your hands.

“Hey, Bee, do you know anything about this?” You asked.

Had he been caught? Did you know? Or were you just trying to get information from him in case he knew something? Unsure, he decided to play it safe and act oblivious.

“Huh? What’s that?”

“I’m taking that as a no, but someone left this new controller on my doorstep with a bouquet of roses? I needed a new one, but I only mentioned it to you and the others, so I think it’s one of you guys... But this is the second time I’ve received a gift without any name on it and I’m really confused. I’ve done some asking around, but the only one who seems to know anything is Optimus, and he won’t give me any hints and insists that he has no idea what I’m talking about.”

Great. So, Optimus probably realized why Bumblebee had been at the gift shop last week. Well... From what you said, it sounded like Optimus was at least decent enough to stay out of his business and keep the secret for him- or try to, at least.

“Yeah? That’s weird, I don’t really know why he’d be like that about it... Wanna play Streetfighter?”

“Sure, but I’m just super confused, man,” You muttered, turning on the playstation and giving a frustrated huff. The game quickly turned on, and while Bee took the old controller, you connected your brand new one and chose your stage, your character being Akuma. Bee chose Ken to fight with and listened to you continue as the game started. “I thought the first time might’ve just been a one-off thing, but it’s happened again, and the flowers were one thing, but now it’s flowers and a new controller. Anyone else would be creeped out, and I’m not creeped out- more flattered than anything since I know it’s from you or one of the other Autobots- but this is really expensive... I’d at least like to be able to say thank you!”

“That makes sense, I think I’d feel the same way,” The black and yellow bot mumbled. The game had hardly started and he was already losing due to his inability to focus- it was so bad that he couldn’t even combat you when you crowded his character into the corner and kicked him over and over and over again. His health bar dropped to zero, signaling that you’d won round one.

Round two started, and he did a little better; actually jumping away from your cornering attempts and offering some blasts and punches, but by the time it ended, he’d only gotten you down to half health, and you were delivering your final blow. Ken fell to the ground, Akuma still standing.

You didn’t even press replay despite being player one. No, instead, you let out a huff and stared at the ceiling. Bumblebee found himself resting his helm against your thigh without thinking, enjoying the warmth against his faceplates. You two were best friends, very comfortable with each other and with physical affection, so you didn’t mind it, only running a gentle hand over one of his audials in return.

Both of you set your controllers down. It was obvious that both of you were so focused on the subject of your anonymous gifts that the game didn’t catch either of your interests like it usually would.

“I might try to ask Optimus about it again tomorrow... Information extraction,” You joked, but Bumblebee quickly sat up and objected.

“Wait, I don’t think that’s such a good idea!”

“Huh? Why not? He’s the only one who’s given me so much as a reaction,” You argued and stood up to turn the game system off, then started pacing around the room. “And I guess his eyes getting all wide ‘n stuff may have just been something else, but like... It’s all I’ve got to go on.”

“Yeah, but you know how the bossbot is,” Bee stood as well, trying his hardest not to look like he was in the midst of blowing a circuit from the panic that was currently taking over his processor. “He shuts down when you push him too hard. If he knows anything about it, you gotta wait for him to come to you with that sweet info.”

“You’re probably right, Bee, thanks for the advice,” You smiled, and then walked to him to put a hand on his shoulder plate. “I’m gonna go to bed, ‘kay? Goodnight.”

You looked into his optics, and oh Primus, he was gone; your eyes were such a beautiful shade of (e/c), and your smile was so beautiful, and you were so beautiful, and he was so in love-

Quickly, he realized that he was taking too long to respond, so he quickly stammered something out.

“G-Goodnight...”

And then, you left, swiftly turning and walking out of the living room.

Bumblebee found himself letting out a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he missed you desperately.

He wished he’d given you a hug goodnight.

And, as he stood alone in the dark living room, he thought back to how exactly he’d ended up in his current predicament; painfully in love with a human, giving them things without having the courage to do it face-to-face, life feeling like it was falling apart with every hour that passed without him being able to kiss you and tell you how much he loved you like he so desperately wanted to.

He’d loved you from the very start, and as bold as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to tell you- he was just too scared, but...

What if this was what finally gave it away...?

The third time was what ended up blowing his cover. He should’ve left it alone, and he had told himself that after the last time- it was far too close of a call when you talked about Optimus knowing something, and he was so obvious with his own emotions during that, too... He wouldn’t do it again.

But then, he was shopping with Sari that day and saw a (f/c) hoodie that was just your size and style, and he decided you had to had it. So, when Sari was distracted at a different store, he got the hoodie, along with a new notebook, some pens, and a stuffed bee. He bought the gifts for you and put them in a nice gift bag with some paper, then left them by your door and disappeared before anyone could see him.

He was sitting in the living room yet again. It was late at night, and though him and his team had spent most of that night playing board games and catching up with a movie playing in the background, they’d all went to bed hours ago, leaving him to think by himself.

He’d lost at every game; Uno, Monopoly, Candyland, Sorry, Cards Against Humanity, and Scrabble, all because he was staring at you the entire time.

Why couldn’t he just get over himself and confess already? It was selfish to keep hiding from you, because what if the one you’d mentioned being interested in was actually him? And even if it wasn’t him, was it fair for you to think that he saw you as a friend when he was secretly in love with you? Was it fair for you to keep receiving gifts and never knowing who they were from?

Speak of the devil, though- the second Bumblebee looked up from where he was standing in the middle of the room, you were leaning against the doorway, wearing the hoodie he’d bought you and a pair of pajama shorts. You looked sleepy with your (h/l) (h/c) hair a mess and your soft hands rubbing the bleariness out of your (e/c) eyes.

“Bee?” You mumbled.

“(y/n), where’d you just come from? You look tired! You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m tired, but I’m fine. I was in the hallway, kinda waiting for everyone else to go to bed so I could talk to you, but... It took me a minute to come in here.” Bumblebee walked towards you and raised his optical ridge. His spark sank to the floor because oh Primus, was this it? Was it finally happening?

“Oh, uh... Why do you need to talk to me alone? What’s up?”

You averted your gaze and gently grabbed one of his servos with your hand, holding it tightly. Bumblebee took a sharp intake. You were about to start talking, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for it.

“I know it’s you,” You confessed with a guilty smile. Bumblebee froze in place and cringed. “I feel bad, but my curiosity was killing me, so I asked around some more and did a lot of prying- Optimus seemed like he was hiding something when I talked to him about it, so I pried until he gave up and told me that he suspected it was you; that he’d seen you at a gift shop the day I got the first bouquet, that he’d seen you lingering in the hallways the past few times I’ve gotten something, etcetera. He gave me enough details that I pieced it together, so... Yeah.”

“Well, at least it’s out of the way,” Bumblebee laughed out loud, and surprisingly, you smiled back at him. This wasn’t how he wanted it to come out, but he wasn’t sure it would have come out at all if not for this. “Getting human money without a real job is hard! Glad I could at least confess without having to do it so much that I went bankrupt.”

“Bee...” You started again, peering up at him, but he felt like he wasn’t ready for what was going to happen next. Were you about to reject him? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

“Well, now that that’s done, I’m gonna go ahead and go to bed! I could use a really good recharge right about now-”

“Bee-” You cut him off with a pout and gripped his servo, obviously not done, but he only continued in hopes that you would give it up and let him escape the situation.

“Goodnight, (y/n)-”

“Bee!” You yelled and pulled him towards you by his wrist so you could get in his face. “For God’s sake, man, stop and listen to me talk for a second!”

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry! I just-” He tossed his hands up defensively, ready to spill his circuits out, only for you to cut him off.

“You don’t think I love you back, right? You’re such a dolt!” You exclaimed.

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” Bumblebee yelled back at you, processor only catching the insult before he thought back on ‘I love you back’ and froze. “...Oh. Sorry.”

“I mean I’ve loved you for months now! Even before I realized it, I think I would’ve been more than open to dating you at any point in time, I mean... You’re pretty great. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Well, uh-” Bumblebee stopped and took in a deep intake, then sighed and linked your fingers with his digits so he could hold your hand properly. The anxiety that had been building up over you for so long now was finally leaving his body and being replaced by relief.“I don’t know. I feel kinda stupid now.”

“C’mere,” You mumbled and wrapped an arm around him. He hugged you back, taking you into his arms and resting his chin on top of your head... He could get used to that. You were warm and soft as you relaxed your body against his and allowed yourself to be held. You let go of his servo in favor of curling your hands and arms up by his chest. “Thank you for the gifts. They were really sweet and I loved them all, so... I’ll be sure to return the favor.”

“Return the favor? This is more than enough to return the favor!” He grinned, only hugging you tighter. “I’ve always wanted to just, like, hug you like this-”

“You can kiss me, too, if you want,” You offered, which had him pulling back to look down at you, spark lit aflame.

“Really?” Bumblebee asked, just to be sure.

“Of course.”

There was a moment of silence; hesitance from both ends. It was true that, while both of you had been physically affectionate as friends, you’d never kissed, and Bumblebee had certainly never kissed a human. He’d been waiting for this moment for so long, but he had no idea what to do now that it was actually happening.

Thankfully, you took the initiative and wrapped your arms over his shoulders, hands on the back of his neck. You looked up at him one more time before standing on your tip-toes so you could gently press your lips against his. Bumblebee was frozen still for a moment as he processed your warm, soft lips against his cool metal plating, but after the tension faded, he found himself resting his servos on your hips and melted into it.

One kiss turned into many; again, again, and again, you moved your lips against his in a manner so intoxicating that he couldn’t get enough of it.

Eventually, though, you pulled away and smiled up at him, but now that he had gotten to kiss you like that, he couldn’t help but want more.

“I, uh... I’m not sure the favor has been returned yet,” Bumblebee averted his optics from your eyes, able to feel his spark beating faster. “I might need one more kiss just to be sure-”

You chuckled, cutting him off by leaning up again and sloppily pushing your lips against his- and, with that, he was gone.

#bumblebee #tfa bumblebee #tfa optimus prime #optimus prime #tfa #transformers animated #transformers #fanfiction #x reader #bumblebee x reader #fluff #bulkhead #tfa bulkhead #bumblebee is the simpiest simp #and we love him for it #king goes bzbzbzbzbz #haha totally not writing comfort content rn bc jenny jinya released a new comic no sir

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bugsbunnybisexual · 3 years

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Only fools fall for you, only fools.

Only fools do what I do, only fools fall.

Random Baffy thoughts

Hi motherfuckers,

I have no idea what's gotten over me today but I cannot, for the life of me, stop thinking about Baffy. So much so that I made this blog on a valuable Friday that I should be using for productivity. Holy shit.

Keep reading if you wanna hear my spiels.

First, some easy-to-digest headcanons:

Bugs is 26, Daffy is 28

Bugs is bisexual biromantic, Daffy is demisexual biromantic

Bugs is Egogender, Daffy is Nonbinary and will describe his gender as "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Bugs Black, Daffy Black-Desi, specifically Bangladeshi

Daffy knows some broken-ass Bengali

Fools by Troye Sivan is a song that Bugs will sometime listen to and contemplate his romantic choices. LMAO but he will never tell Daffy that-

Bugs listens to a lot of Hip-Hop and old-school Rock. Daffy likes classic music because he thinks it makes him smarter. And older Desi music, like old movie ballads

Bugs has OCD. He's experienced depression before but it doesn't really flare up anymore

Daffy has OCD too. Don't @ me, all my faves get OCD okay? Along with that he has generalized anxiety disorder

Bugs likes reading about History & Physics

I like to think they have a sun/moon thing going on with Bugs being the sun and Daffy being the moon. All my ships have this dynamic, I know.

IDK there's more I can't remember right now...

Bugs' Flags:

Daffy's Flags:

Now, my basic idea for them...

If you notice in TLTS, Bugs doesn't HAVE to let Daffy stay with him, but he does. Though Daffy is basically a freeloader, Bugs never complains. To me, I definitely see this as Bugs being interested in Daffy in a more intimate way than one might think. Bugs has the ability to be roommates/housemates with other people who may have a job or whatever but Bugs doesn't particularly care. Moreover, Bugs is shown to be annoyed of others easily while being very patient with Daffy. You see what I'm talking about?

Meanwhile on the other side, yeah I know TLTS is comedy and everything - but - if we suspend the comedy for a second, I would like to imagine that Daffy actually has issues. Now, this has been supported by official/canon media before. Particularly in Back in Action. Daffy is shown in that show acknowledging that he feels people like Bugs a lot, but don't like him.

So, if we suspend the comedy for just a second, and talk about Daffy's issue, for some goddamn reason I LOVE and absolutely LOVE the idea that Daffy has difficulty understanding why Bugs loves him. And he questions it a lot. And gets upset over it. And Bugs can't really explain it, either, other than just saying "I like you for who you are. You may be a pain in the ass sometimes but that doesn't change the fact that I enjoy your company, I enjoy you."

I also like to imagine that their relationship is nowhere near perfect, sort of similarly to TLTS's approach to Bugs & Lola, where they are somewhat aware of the fact that they're a couple but continue to have miscommunications & difficulty. Except with Bugs & Daffy it's a lot louder, with a lot more accusations, but they make up in the end, because they have a mutual understanding that isn't obvious at first sight, but the more you see them interact, the more you realize they understand each other a lot better than it seems on the outside.

And then comes the lovey-dovey stuff.

Oh the lovey-dovey stuff.

I'll be putting them under a read more, it gets intimate.

So, Bugs is clever. He doesn't really exercise his flirting skills with Lola in TLTS, partially because Lola is more interested in him than he is in her. But in the classic Looney Tunes you can see how good he is with flirting with people of all genders and how easily he catches people off-guard with witty flirting. So, I'd like to imagine that doesn't change with TLTS Bugs, either. He just uses this type of flirting on very specific people. And Daffy is definitely, definitely one of them.

Daffy has a big but fragile ego. It's easy to trip him up with the right words & actions. And as I said, Bugs is smart, he knows Daffy very well. He knows exactly what to say to get to Daffy, and he loves using this as an advantage, especially when there's a fight between them.

There is a LOT of Bugs just using Daffy's words right back at him in a flirty way. Lots of shutting Daffy up with a kiss, lots of intimidating leans from Bugs, and a lot of flustered Daffy who doesn't actually know what to do with real affection and love because he barely knows what that is.

Daffy stuttering, having difficulty making eye-contact, being unable to believe what's happening, blushing, and just falling deeper in love every time Bugs flirts with him. And don't get me wrong, Daffy LOVES it, but he doesn't know how to react or just...how to compute. He short-circuits.

And Bugs enjoys that a lot. He loves seeing Daffy all flustered, confused, seeing his ego disappear and only his vulnerable and emotional self being visible, seeing Daffy being unable to stand on his feet flippers because of how nervous he is, refusing to look Bugs in the eyes until Bugs connects their foreheads...it gets Bugs just as flustered as Daffy is. He's just a lot better at controlling his emotions and not wearing his heart on his sleeves during intimate moments.

CW // Suggestive or NSFW

And of course, this dynamic continues onto bed, as well. Bugs loves showring Daffy with compliments as they fuck, only for Daffy to be completely flustered and unable to compose himself throughout the whole thing. Sometimes, if Daffy has the energy, he will grab Bugs, kiss him and tell him to shut the hell up. Which will usually lead to Bugs giggling and throwing a "fine, sure, we'll play it your way" and finally letting Daffy take the occasional lead.

Their physical intimacy will involve nibbling and hickeys from Bugs' side, tiny little bites hidden all over Daffy's body under his fur. And Bugs thinks Daffy gives the best head. Daffy's beak is sensitive and squishy, and easy to tickle.

NSFW over //

Some random intimate stuff:

Daffy really likes PDA but has difficulty expressing that he'd like to do things like holding hands in public. Luckily, Bugs understands and makes his moves bravely.

As they get older, Daffy humbles up and gets a lot better with his emotions and starts being a helpful househusband - cooking, cleaning, helping with chores and just making their home a nice environment. Bugs really appreciates this. Daffy understands later that he just doesn't like the corporate world, which is why he never liked working jobs.

The wedding is huge because Daffy wants it huge and Bugs actually exercises his popularity and riches for their wedding day. Daffy is genuinely so happy that Bugs feels greatly satisfied about his decisions by the end of the wedding. Also Bugs wears that one tux with a skirt wedding outfit. You know the one. Daffy can't decide between a tux and a wedding dress and flips a coin which lands on wedding dress, LMAO. It's his mom's old dress. Yes it is a Sari, if you thought it was a western wedding gown then the L is on you.

They play a lot of Troye Sivan, BTS, Pink Sweat$ & Kehlani on their wedding. Why? Because I said so, that's why.

...and that's about it!

Yeesh!

GO WATCH THE LOONEYTUNES SHOW. IT'S GAY, I PROMISE YOU.

#baffy #bugs bunny #daffy duck #the looney tunes show #my posts #poddo screams into the void as no one gives a shit #yes that poddo. poddostarline lmao #looney tunes #long post

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oatchi · 2 years

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TFA Optimus for the ask game :3c

absolutely right away (under read more because. well. im insane)

favorite thing about them he is probably one of my favourite "non regular" interpretations of optimus ever. to make a guy who is normally the old and knowledgeable leader of autobots just some guy who is still learning is sooo good. and they play it so well. im also a huge sucker for any time an optimus is allowed to make mistakes and be filled with rage and theres actual repercussions for this. more of a general show thing but the relationships he carries with his team and other bots in general is sooo ahuuuu (crying sobbing breaking the windows)

least favorite thing about them i will say as much as im a fan of what i said, i do think they shouldve perhaps pushed it a little farther. i love the scene where he snaps under stress and yells at his team! but i think it couldve gone farther, maybe having optimus and team forced to learn more trust in the other again. i get its a show for kids, so all talk wouldnt have been great. i guess what im saying is i just think they really couldve benefited from more episodes to delve into the whole "hes just some guy forced to deal with all of this" thing. analysis about how no one interprets him correctly in universe and out of universe etc etc. specifically in a post megatron defeat context i wouldve loved to see them push optimus and everyone realize hes just some guy when he snaps, not some holy figure who was held at that standard because he brought the allspark home and defeated their enemy singlehandedly (although, he did do all of that, i suppose.)

favorite line can i count the whole scene from return of the headmaster where optimus first finds sentinels head as a line. i love that exchange so much. who doesnt love optimus completely breaking character to cackle wildly at sentinel and then tease him. if i cant, then i do think two of my other favourites have to be one from later in that episode and one from decepticon air. first one when hes fighting henry masterson, he says "oh yeah, im so LEET!" and optimus responds "oh yeah? well, i have no idea what that means!" with so much confidence. the second is optimus crawling around in a vent going "suuure, transwarp me on to the ship, rescue my old buddy from a bunch of decepticooons, itll be fuuun!" very sarcastically as if he wasnt the one who demanded to be transwarped on to that ship

brOTP not really a "bro"tp but one of my favourite platonic relationships optimus has is with ratchet. i love how they interact and how they both try to get the other to talk about what hurts them, while also trying to dance around their own personal issues. they manage to have a near familial relationship and yet the whole thing is flipped on its head in terms of leadership which makes it a very interesting balancing game. not to talk about the scene where optimus snaps again, but when optimus tells ratchet to take the key from sari and ratchet tries to respond as a friend first and then quietly goes "yes sir" .... 🥺not even mentioning how the rest of that episode is spent with ratchet and optimus talking about how he responded and how RATCHET of all people thinks optimus is going too hard on them.... good god

OTP everyone come point and laugh at the senop shipper i know i know. im a very pro "optimus and sentinel sit down and talk about All Of That at some point" kind of guy. i do think with a lot and i mean a lot of work, one could perhaps even put blackarachnia back there with them. but personally i think baby steps are whats important and just getting ba to be friends with them again is enough. like theres soooo much going on there i would say it would probably be damaging even to try and make things like they were (the tumblr user then realizes hes been speaking with full confidence about the assumption that optimus sentinel and elita were in a poly relationship before archa seven without clarifying at all) but i DO think it would be beneficial for optimus and sentinel to sit down and go "hey, you are the only other person in the world who knows exactly, specifically, what i went through. and while one of us has made new connections and come to peace with himself and the other shut off all connections and is still striving to be the best, we are both now put in this really awkward political position and the longer we sit here the more we both have these negative feelings growing in us for one reason or another." i promise i wont talk too much longer but basically please for the love of god optimus sit down and say "i used to think i wanted to be a hero, a leader, but as they all look at me like im some kind of savior, i realize i just wanted to be treated normally. and now im not ever going to be. im not even sure i want to be magnus." and please for the love of god sentinel sit down and say "you dont want that? you dont want all that power? why? with all that power, you could change all of cybertron to be the best it could be. nothing bad would ever happen again if i was there." not outright saying anything and perhaps even seeming pompous to other people but specifically to optimus he knows exactly why he feels like that. anyways

nOTP megop shippers get hit with my truck (the truck is optimus)

random headcanon optimus was originally like the smallest bit taller than sentinel and when sentinel realized this he got the most minor, unnoticeable unless you knew, height boosters. somehow, optimus got taller on earth again, perhaps with the reformatting, and upon realizing, sentinel did it again. this is why no one can tell which out of the two of them is taller or if theyre the same height/why it changes episode to episode in universe. maybe even optimus realizes and decides to fuck with him and have ratchet install the same in him. it literally doesnt matter at all in the long run its like 1 real human inch but both of them know. another one just for fun this literally isnt true but i love to imagine on his cybertronian design hes has a literal boob window. like the weird design under the blue glass is his protoform. this is so untrue because we would literally see his spark but i think its funny to imagine him on cybetron tits out while training for the elite guard (FREAKS WHO TREAT OPTIMUS WEIRD DISREGARD THIS I WILL KILL YOU)

unpopular opinion i dont know if its unpopular or not but (looks up at my previous response) (looks back) optimus literally has no ass. please stop pretending he does. he is built like a stereotypical superhero. he has boobs sure but ass...? where.....? his hips and thighs are so thin. he has crazy calves though i guess. also i do think he would squish you like a grape if he knew the way you treated him and wrote him if you do the uwu baby super sexualized thing to him.

song i associate with them (going through my playlists) actually that action is so funny to say i only have a sentinel playlist. though actually i do think Human of the Year by Regina Spektor could be so very optimus. its about the "isnt this what you wanted? youre a hero. you won." also sorry to be a little animation meme boy but literally Ghosts by Jacob Tillberg is so.... along came a spider literally. i think i saw you but i know im not supposed to i must be dreaming because i dont believe in ghosts etc etc throws up cries dies imagining an animation meme that i cannot possibly produce and also its 2022

favorite picture of them sorry for this but it literally has to go to meep, gif i made in reference to this tfp gif me and my friends found of tfp optimus saying meep

close second is this gif from episode 3 that i made nonlooping for discord emoji reasons

#sparkxii #callisto.wav #tfa #SORRY IM SOOO INSANE HOPE YOU LIKE AN ESSAY..!!!

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night-unfurls-its-splendour · 3 years

Text

The Critique of Manners Part VI

~Or~

An Attempt at an Objective Review of Emma (2009)... VOLUME TWO

Haha, bitches you didn't think I could wait a whole week did you? Nah, not me. and guys, I added to it--all total, it's 9,023 words now. this half of the review is 5,214. HOW DO I HAVE SO MANY WORDS FOR THIS THING? I'm not gonna split it into a third part, because I don't need to for picture limit purposes, but buckle in.

If you didn't catch it, read part 1 here

Here it is, the stunning conclusion to my Emma Adaptation Review series (but this isn't really the end because I plan on doing some rankings later). In this half of my review of BBC'S Emma (2009) we'll discuss Costumes and all the very specific things that I love about this version, and some things I don't like, and some things I'm here to defend.

Let's dive in!

Costumes

Generally I liked these costumes pretty well. They were designed and facilitated by Rosalind Ebbutt, also known for her work on PBS’s Victoria and Vanity Fair (1998). And her work is, as her filmography would suggest, by turns, great and so-so.

These costumes are definitely in line with the adaptation’s general aesthetic: warm pinks and golds, with mints emeralds and blues to cool it off a little, are the order of the day. I really appreciate that every character has a definite color palette. The tradeoff is that this adaptation is the WORST EVER offender for the Jane Fairfax Blue™ trope.

Daywear

Emma’s daywear is full of warm and muted colors. Salmon and magenta are commonly seen. I love that most of Emma’s daywear consists of sleeveless or short-sleeved gowns with wide-sleeved linen blouses underneath. It’s not a commonly seen aesthetic so it feels light and fresh. My favorite of Emma’s daywear dresses is the pale yellow with purple floral print.

There’s one other in particular that I love.

Emma’s blue, sleeveless dress. I love this because of HOW OBVIOUSLY it’s a reference to this portrait of Charlotte, Princess of Wales. I mean...

I’M NOT IMAGINING THIS, RIGHT? WHY DOES NO ONE TALK ABOUT THIS? This is a REAL dress. They still have this exact gown of Princess Charlotte’s. It’s on display. It’s faded, but it’s the same dress.

Harriet has a fresh and innocent green, white and purple color scheme with healthy doses of peach and pink showing. I particularly like her white and purple floral print dress.

Mrs. Weston’s color palette varies, but leans heavily on tans and purples, which is very flattering, I must say, to Johdi May’s coloring and is really refreshing for Mrs. Weston who seems to get stuck in pinks and yellows a lot. No idea what’s going on with the laced-front dress though? This doesn’t quite read as authentic to me, but I do like that her first dress seems to be an apron-front.

I know I already said that this is the worst Jane Fairfax Blue™ offender, but guys I can’t stress it enough. WE ARE 5/5 ON DAYWEAR HERE. LOOK AT THAT. (Also of note, Jane 5 is one of Gwyneth Paltrow’s dresses from the '96 Emma.)

Mrs. Elton seems, at all times, to be wearing some form of pink, but I think I’m right in saying that the white day dress with the rose patterned bodice under the yellow and pink spencer is one of Jane’s dresses from P&P ’80. Can anyone confirm that? They did sneak in some Mrs. Elton Orange™ though, for Box Hill, and it’s worth noting that Mrs. Elton is the only lady who’s appropriately dressed on that occasion.

Isabella gets some understated day gowns that are very nice and also VERY “Jane Austen” in the sense that I feel like Jane Austen herself might have worn them.

Miss Bates, unfortunately is slapped with brown at just about every turn, but at least her “Nice” day outfit has some subtle leaf patterns, which is refreshing. Also Mrs. Goddard has a slappin’ cap. Love that.

Also, Harriet’s Grecian costume for the painting (upper right hand corner). What can I say, but that I love it. I love that it hints at the neoclassical influences on Regency fashion too. This is my favorite interpretation of the painting too.

Evening Wear

You know what I love about this version? It’s the first version of Emma where her gown for the Crown in Ball isn’t WHITE. I know, I know white was fashionable, but it’s just… it’s nice for not EVERY gown in a ball scene to be plain white friggin muslin and also, it’s not one she’s ever worn before, which is great.

Harriet does have only white evening gowns but that’s okay. My only complaint is that, specifically on her Crown Inn dress and in a lot of her costumes in general, the waistline seems just a little low. Hmm. I really like the pale blue pattern on her first evening dress though.

Mrs. Weston though. Woo. Look at those. She has a dark chartreuse gown with black lace trim that any other version would have put on Mrs. Elton, so you know from the dark tones that she’s a bitch. Not so with Emma '09, and that’s good. And her teal dinner number is a favorite of mine. I never paid much attention to her green and gold ball gown but it has some really beautiful, subtle leaf or maybe peacock feather patterns on it and I love that. My only problem is that there seem to be some fit issues. She’s got muffin top way too often. Her orange evening dress is a bit of a dud though, firstly, because it has long sleeves (which is an evening gown no-no) and the fabric slaps a bit too much of sari fabric for my tastes.

Jane, not only is put in blue with both of her evening gowns (although one is so pale it borders on white), ONE of them is another Emma ’96 repeat and not only that, it’s one of Jane Fairfax’s dresses in that film! Perhaps that’s enough to make it an homage, and I have to say, I think Laura Pyper wore it better.

Miss Bates only has one evening wear ensemble, but at least it’s cream and not brown.

Mrs. Elton’s gowns are surprisingly understated, and yet still seem to be annoyingly fussy and, what’s better? They’re not sickly green. One of them is actually a very pleasant mint.

Outerwear

Outerwear is roundly pretty great here. Emma’s primary choice of color for spencers is emerald/evergreen and one of them is Elizabeth’s Bennet’s from the 1995 P&P (though to be honest, I think Jennifer Ehle filled it out better.) I do love Mrs. Elton’s pink and yellow number with the slashed sleeves. Jane Fairfax’s only spencer is, you guessed it, blue, but her friend Miss Campbell has a rather fun mauve one.

There’s no shortage of pelisses and redingotes either. Harriet can be seen in one borrowed from Elinor Dashwood in the '08 S&S, Mrs. Weston has a rather fabulous purple one which she wears with the most delicious looking hat I’ve ever seen.

Emma has two. The first one is a great magenta number with military braiding (and I think she wears with it one of the brown slouch hats that Kate Beckinsale wore in the same role) and while the other pelisse is brown, they had the sense not to make her wear a hat with it that was also brown. Instead, they gave her a contrasting color. Good on ya, Rosalind!

Speaking of hats, I don't often single them out for commentary, but I want to here because… the hat authenticity is… kinda spotty. Let me show you.

Okay first of all, Emma may be a teenager in this pic on the upper left, but she is not dressed formally enough for her sister’s wedding (which is what’s going on in this scene) but at least her hat is pretty good. You can see the ribbons are on the inside of the hat here, which is as it should be… but she never wears this hat again. At any point in the series. Instead, we next see her in the one on the upper right and ye gads this is atrocious. WHY IS HER HAT NOT PINNED ON? IT’S SLIDING DOWN THE BACK OF HER HEAD. SOMONE FIX IT. PLEASE. But wait, there’s more. This kills me because these bottom two are so similar to the one she wore earlier (the correct one) but crappier looking. Jeez.

This is not a hat. It’s a peanut. You know who doesn’t have this problem? Harriet. She only has one sun hat but at least it’s correct.

I also wanna touch briefly on this ^ costume continuity issue.

WTF is this? She’s in the hall, her ribbon is contoured to the line of her dress; she goes into the drawing room and… it isn’t anymore? Wha happun?

I took more menswear screencaps for this version than any other version. And that’s because the men just have more outfits that are, y’know, different from each other.

Mr. Knightley is as understated as ever, but I wanna highlight the first pic there and why I love it. This is Knightley’s first appearance in the series and it’s the perfect establishing shot that shows the viewer everything they need to know about Emma and Knightley’s relationship and how it has always been. He sort of materializes, out of focus in the background, but Emma immediately knows he’s there. And to accentuate how much Knightley is part of her home and scenery, his clothes (similar shades of pale tan, white and minty green to the wall behind him) almost camouflage him and make him seem at one with the moulding.

He also has a rather lovely blue evening waistcoat that I WISH I could have gotten better shot of (although I do believe it’s also worn by Henry Crawford in the '07 Mansfield Park, so for further reading…)

Mr. Weston finally gets to wear clothes that aren’t all brown! He only has ONE brown outfit. He gets PATTERNED waistcoats, one of them a rather spiffing blue and brown striped number. And he wears TROUSERS! Because he’s a gentleman, and he’s not that old and trousers are worn by fashionable gentlemen in this period!

You know who else gets to wear trousers and at least one fun waistcoat? Mr. Woodhouse. Check out that lovely Sunday Best™ waistcoat. The red striped one. That’s delightful.

John Knightley’s evening wear intrigues me. That’s a double-breasted jacket, and you know I’m not totally sure that’s very authentic for evening-wear of this period, but it is different. Unfortunately he also has a flared top hat and that is definitely not on for this period.

One of my favorite things about this version is that they don’t dress Mr. Elton as a clergyman all the time. Yes, he may be the vicar, but he’s also allowed to dress like a fashionable, handsome young man. So I’m really happy that he gets to flex his fashion muscles here.

And speaking of fashionable young men, FINALLY frank gets to be COLORFUL and his trousers are even tight enough. Both he AND Elton are often seen wearing TWO waistcoats, as I would expect them to, and even though Frank’s a dandy, he knows that flashiness is gauche so his pops of color are bright, but not in your face. His green and red waistcoats are always worn under more muted colors, and I just love it.

The only problems are… what’s with the turned-down waistcoat collars? There’s no precedent for this, in fact I think it’s directly contradictory to the style at the time, and also it makes the cravats look a bit unruly.

A Critique of Manners

A lot has been said about the manners in this adaption. Like, the actual manners, body language and facial expressions, specifically vis-à-vis Romola Garai.

And, oh yeah, there’s a lot to pick at here, but first I’d like to talk about the facial expressions.

I'm mostly gonna be talking out of my ass here, but this is my take, so if anyone can make a better argument against my points, I am listening, because I don't really like talking out of my ass and I like to be informed. That said...

I tend to be lenient on the… exaggerated facial expressions because, something I’ve noticed reading Austen’s works through the last several months is that Austen is very descriptive when it comes to facial expressions and I just find it hard to believe that people in the Regency Era never made exaggerated expressions like this.

I’ve heard a lot about how Garai’s Emma is not dignified or lady-like. But let’s think about the context of Emma Woodhouse – she’s never been in society. She’s only had a governess to teach her, and we know Emma’s always been sort of averse to being told what she can and can’t do. Emma is the highest ranking woman in her social circle (barring Isabella’s occasional presence). Emma doesn’t have to be ladylike. At 21, she’s already her local Lady Catherine. She puts a lot of stock in her position in society but, as Mrs. Elton will be the first to hypocritically point out, she’s very poorly behaved. I'd be very curious to see what would happen if Emma went to London for the season. Probably, she'd be seen, comparatively, as a country bumpkin. Can you imagine how she might get on in a sea of accomplished young ladies? She can barely handle having ONE rival with any kind of grace.

Austen never describes bodily movements of the kind we’re looking at when we watch adaptations, so why not have Emma’s body-language be un-ladylike in the conventional sense of the time? I’m not saying this to excuse the absolutely inexcusable (Frank’s head in her lap, kneeling on the sofa backwards etc.), but while Emma’s mannerisms aren’t exactly ladylike for her time, they’re not overtly masculine either (which was one of my biggest problem with Death Comes to Pemberly for example.)

Yes, there’s an ideal for manners. But we know real people didn’t always follow those ideals. In dancing for example, many dancing guidebooks of the day were full of repeated instructions not to be too loud or rambunctious when dancing. What this tells us is that people were doing just that, and probably quite a bit, too. I think that, while taking societal strictures into account, we shouldn’t totally discount the idea that people in the Regency weren’t really that different from us, and young people especially.

Now I’ve already mentioned some of the inexcusable aspects of interaction in this adaptation and they’re so notorious at this point, I don’t think that I really need to go over them much here. Although I will say: is it ridiculous to have Frank Churchill put his head in Emma’s lap? Yes. Did it make me more viscerally uncomfortable with the situation on Box Hill than any other version? Yes.

I was like, 14 when I watched this the first time. This was an effective way to telegraph to young people like me that Emma is being extremely inappropriate here in a way that no other version really managed to, even when I watched them when I was older and understood the period more. I’m far more acquainted with Regency manners than I was then, but to be honest – if they had been accurate with the manners here, when I was 14 I would not have understood what the big deal was. Is there merit in circumventing historical accuracy in favor of reaching a less-informed but still-interested audience? Yes, I think so. There were three other versions of this, at that point, that did this scene with more or less pristine manners. Not every version has to follow the manners of the time to-the-letter to be good. That’s my feeling on the matter.

There are things that do really bother me though. Like the idea that Harriet Smith doesn’t know how to spoon soup, for instance. As I said in my review for the Miramax version, table manners are pretty basic, there’s no reason Mrs. Goddard wouldn’t have taught Harriet this. It does provide a good moment to show Emma tacitly coaching Harriet and showing the trajectory in which this relationship will go, but personally I don’t think it was necessary—there are plenty of other ways that could be done.

Also: kids at the dinner table? I know this is part of building the familial atmosphere but it really does annoy me, because apart from building the familial atmosphere (which they do very well and frequently in other ways) it really didn’t need to happen, and it doesn’t add anything.

The Heart of Highbury

So, as I’ve hinted at throughout this review, the bread and butter of this adaptation of Emma is emotion. This version goes hard and heavy on showingthe relationships – Emma’s relationships with Mrs. Weston, Mr. Knightley, her father, her sister, her brother-in-law, Miss Bates; Jane’s relationship with Frank; Frank’s relationship with his father; The John Knightleys’ home life – and it illustrates things that can be surmised from just reading the story, but really draws your attention to them in ways that other adaptations just don’t.

It does this from the very beginning with the prologue which explains in detail (not just in quick exposition between characters) how Jane and Frank were separated from their families at young ages. We know now, from psychological study, that being taken away from their primary caretakers during their formative years is one of the most psychologically traumatizing things for a child. This is deeply important context which is explained in detail by the narrator in 2-3 large pages (in my Barnes & Noble anthology) in the book.

In the featurette on the houses, they talk particularly about Hartfield and the Woodhouses being the heart of Highbury and how they particularly wanted it to feel homey because Hartfield is Emma’s house and they wanted the audience to feel why everyone is so drawn to it, and to Emma; to me that is what they did with the whole adaptation in microcosm.

I usually talk a bit about the dancing and I'm going to here as well because this is maybe the most special dance scene in any Austen for me. Of course I'm going to link to Tea with Cassiane as usual because she knows what she's talking about and I don't. But I wanna add some comments. She gives this a pretty low rating in spite of a generally favorable commentary because of two big oopsies, the circle dance formation is one, and the other is I believe, an issue with the style of dance not matching the tune in Emma's dance with Knightley. Throwing out any objective technical analysis though, this is my favorite Ball in any Austen and it all comes down to the cornerstone of this adaptation--emotion.

All of the songs and dances were original compositions and choreography made for this adaptation. So they're not period per se, but the tunes at least are representative of how Regency dance music should sound. These dances are upbeat, and lively and, damn they look like fun. Everyone is excited here and it makes me understand why dancing was such a big thing. Best of all that excitement adds to the emotional charge of the scene. "The Ship's Cook" is the most fast paced dance and I'm glad they made this the dance where Elton snubs Harriet because it really hits for me just what Harriet would be missing out on if Knightley wasn't so fucking aptly named. In all other versions you get the insult, but the dance that's taking place is usually a Baroque walker so it doesn't seem terribly like she's missing out on much. Here, this is like not getting picked for kickball-- not only is it a slight that no one wants you on their team, but you miss out on even playing the game. Harriet looks so lonely, and her feeling of being out of place rolls off of Louise Dylan so forcefully it chokes me up just thinking about it because I've been there, man. I feel this shit. *dabs eyes*. Ahem. So, yes, when Knightley engages her for the dance the excitement the viewer feels is that much more forceful and Harriet's exuberantly starting to jump in when the timing is off and Knightley gently pulling her back, it just hits me in the feels center, guys. (I wanna take a moment to give a shout out to every camp counselor who ever partnered with me for any game at summer camp.) Emma's reaction too, is gold. Her genuine relief at Knightley swooping in is one of those great reminders that Emma is Harriet's friend, and she does care about her.

Finally on the dancing front, I wanna talk about Emma's dance with Knightley and why I prefer it to the one in the 2020 version. I already talked about this a bit in the 2020 review, so I'm gonna try and keep it brief. That shouldn't be too hard, because I'm probably mostly going to repeat a lot of what I've already said about Emma and Knightley in this version as a whole.

The big thing everyone loves about the Crown Inn dance in the 2020 is the yearning, the sexual tension, the quivering touches etc. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE all of those things but... not all the time. Not in everything, and definitely not in Emma. Because Emma, to me, isn't about repressed sexuality or heated tension or seething passion. Emma and Knightley are the opposite of that, to me, really. One of my mutuals put it best, I think: "Emma and Knightley are more suited to stolen glances than hot touches."

In Part 1 I talked about how Knightley is Emma's comfort object. When Emma is out of sorts, Knightley re-centers her. It helps set up, and puts emphasis on, the crisis of the story in the last act--Emma not knowing what she has until [she thinks] she's lost it. Emma and Knightley are Friends to Lovers done as it should be. She is already so comfortable with him she doesn't even realize her own feelings. She just feels right with Knightley and that's what this dance is here to show you--a foreshadowing of matrimonial harmony.

The dance itself, of course, is always up to interpretation, because Austen never describes how it goes, just that Knightley asks Emma to dance and Knightley doesn't dance (barring charitable causes). If you prefer the sexual tension take, if that, to you is an improvement on Austen's story and gives you what you've always felt was missing, I'm glad that there is a version now that gives you what you've been looking for, but for me, I think the 09 approach hits closer their dynamic in the book.

Now do I do think the Emphasis on emotion maybe went a little too earnest in some places in this adaptation? Maybe. Just a little.

In my last review (1972) I went on a rather lengthy tirade about the scene where they turn Emma’s appeals to Harriet to exert herself and move on following Mr. Elton’s marriage into Emma guilting Harriet into thinking she’s a bad friend for being heartbroken and then throwing her into the situation most likely to rub salt in that particular wound.

In this version, while I love the emphasis they put on the stress Emma puts on her own guilt for being the reason for Harriet’s situation in the first place, I think it’s maybe a little too… much.

That’s the only way I can put it. I know I’ve just said that I think there should be a bit more expressiveness in period drama, but this doesn’t quite match the way I read it (Emma’s a bit less desperate in Austen’s prose. Very dedicated to helping Harriet feel better, but just a skosh more composed). I think she’s even crying in this scene.

While we’re here let’s go over to Box Hill ONE. MORE. TIME.

First of all, this is where this screenplay shines, in my opinion. This is the big turning point in the story and as such, should be a touchstone for the judgment of any adaptation. This sequence in the 2009 version is a perfect crystallization of everything I love about this version—namely that this is the version that, to me, most feels like someone read the book thoroughly, paid attention to what Austen was describing and then actually tried to convey it on screen. A lot of other versions sort of feel (to me), like the director glanced at the page and said “here’s what I want to convey in my version”. Insofar as making a piece of art goes, that’s good. Directors are artists as much as painters are and movies are their canvass, but it’s seldom that you find a director who honestly wants to hit as close to the author intent as possible and this Box Hill sequence makes me feel like that’s what Jim O’Hanlon was going for. I have the book open next to me as I write this and it’s shocking to me how minutely the atmosphere described in the book is conveyed here. Most of all, the fact that Emma’s insulting Miss Bates is not the only thing faux pas she makes here. Box Hill as a whole is a disaster, and it’s largely because of Frank.

“When they all sat down it was better; to [Emma’s] taste, a great deal better, for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object. To amuse her, and to be agreeable in her eyes, seemed to be all that he cared for—and Emma, glad to be enlivened, and not sorry to be flattered, was gay and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation, meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very well describe. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase—and to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she expected. She laughed because she was disappointed…” --Emma, Chapter 43

Most other versions rush through Frank’s “excessive” flirting with Emma (Right in front of Jane) to get to “Three Things Very Dull Indeed” as fast as possible, and yes that’s the crowning horror of Box Hill, but there’s a very intricate setting here, too, and this version has the time to lay back and let it all unfold in the oppressive discomfort of an English summer day.

Even better than all of that though is Knightley confronting Emma after it all goes down. This treatment is neither plaintive, nor aggressive as it was in ‘96 and ‘97 respectively. I’ve already extolled the virtues of Johnny Flynn’s Box Hill rebuke, but for a change I’m not going to zero in on Miller’s performance which is, at least as good as Flynn’s, but on Romola Garai’s, which I find superior to Anya Taylor Joy’s. Specifically, her reaction once she’s alone.

ATJ in the 2020 version immediately breaks down sobbing and it’s hard for me to feel that she’s sobbing for “anger against herself, mortification, and deep concern” or that there’s much self-reflection going on there. To me it rather just feels like she’s crying because she got shouted at. The theatrics of it, to me, feel childish and self-centered.

I don’t feel that with Garai’s performance.

“She was vexed beyond what could have been expressed—almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was most forcibly struck . . . How could she have exposed herself to such ill opinion in anyone she valued! And how to suffer him to leave her without saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness!

Time did not compose her…” --Emma, Chapter 43

Of course one can make the case that Emma's reaction should be a bit childish because Emma is an immature character, but that's the thing--I can agree with you anywhere else in this story but this is Emma's maturing moment. This is her turning point as a character. It's where we should see her reactions shift from the same childish denial we're used to seeing when Knightley scolds her, because this is different. It's not the usual brushing off of big brother Knightley, this is a young woman reacting to an esteemed friend pointing out how abhorrently inappropriate she's been and her having to admit that to herself.

I didn't really want to drag comparisons to the 2020 film into this, not on this scale at least, but this just jumped out at me the last time I watched the new film and I have to express it somewhere.

What I see in Garai’s performance is desolation and mortification. That shocked tearfulness of knowing you’ve been justly reproached for wrongdoing, but being too frozen in a pretense of composure to actually cry about it until you’re quite sure that no one will see you. And especially when it’s someone you esteem rebuking you, the horror of them leaving before you can admit that they’re right. There’s so much more depth here, I think, and I can’t even quite express what it makes me feel.

The aspect of time not composing her is another thing that they decided to put stress on in this version. Emma looks fucked up in the following scenes. When she goes to see Miss Bates, she clearly either hasn’t slept or has slept very badly. I feel like this is maybe an anticlimactic conclusion to this section but I’m afraid I’m very close to reaching incoherence, so I’m just gonna leave it here.

My absolute favoritest thing about this version though—something that sets it apart from ALL other versions and even adaptations of other Austen stories—is the inclusion of the post-confession conversation.

This is something of a trope in Austen books but it very rarely finds its way into adaptations: confessions of love are out of the way, the hero and heroine settle into an easy an comfortable conversation, glowing with happiness as they explain and laugh over their actions and misinterpretations of each other’s choices. It happens in Pride and Prejudice, in Persuasion, and yes, in Emma. This is the only Austen adaptation, that I've seen, to include this kind of conversation in any kind of detail. The 1995 Pride and Prejudice alludes to the corresponding scene in it its source material, but the lines pulled from it get tossed into the confession scene itself and then it flies through to get to the obligatory wedding—a side effect of rushing through endings, a convention I’m rather tired of.

Emma (2009) takes its time with this, as with all other aspects of this adaptation. For a version that’s so full of energy, its pacing is extremely laid back and comfortable, without dragging. When you hear the gentle musical swell and Emma and Knightley have their kiss (this whole confession sequence is so sweet and wonderful in its own right), you expect that to be it. But no, we cut to them, the picture of contented happiness, sitting together on a bench overlooking Hartfield’s garden, just talking and enjoying being together, with no teasing, no pretense. If Jane Austen stories emphasize anything, it’s the importance of communication in relationships, and I think that’s maybe why she made it a point in almost every story to show her characters communicating their feelings in words, even after all the conflict has been resolved. This is my favorite scene in the whole series (In case it being my header image didn’t make that obvious.)

This is followed rather promptly by a cut to the next day, with Emma bursting in to Donwell in hysterics about how they can’t be married because she won’t leave her father alone.

This is one of those maybe over-the-top choices that a lot of people don’t like, but guys, it was so funny to me when I was fourteen and it still makes me laugh. It might seem outlandish, but to me it’s just the emphasis on personal relationships and emotion coming through again and it always makes me smile.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard for me to give a proper round up of my feelings for this section because I think I’ve poured just about all of my feelings on each aspect into its dedicated sections.

At the end of the day, the only thing that really disappoints me about this version is the number of missed opportunities there are here. One of my favorite parts of reading Austen is when I run across a line in dialogue or narrative that just… slaps. But they never make it into the adaptations. Emma is full of them and I just wish that Sandy Welch could have taken an opportunity to slip a few of them in.

In summary, I think this is a wonderful, heartfelt adaptation aimed at getting to the emotional heart of a story that often gets caught up in the Mean Girl-ness of its main character than the coming of age story that it is. It's one of my favorite period dramas because it's one of the few that really captures the spirit of the source material as it's always felt to me. There's really only two other period dramas that I esteem on the same level as this, and they're North & South (2004) and Jane Eyre (2011) and it's for the same reasons; because they impact me deeply on an emotional level--which is what art is supposed to do--because of how well it captures the essence of the story that I know and love.

So did I succeed in a more objective review of Emma 2009? I' feel like probably not. But I tried my best. It’s so hard to be objective about something that makes you as happy as this adaptation makes me.

Ribbon Rating: Most Agreeable (83 Ribbons)

Tone: 10

Casting: 9

Acting: 9

Scripting: 7

Pacing: 10

Cinematography: 7

Setting: 9

Costumes: 6

Music: 8

Book Accuracy: 8

#emma 2009 #emma woodhouse #mr. knightley #jane austen #jane austen emma #romola garai #jonny lee miller #period dramas #regency

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marzipanandminutiae · 3 years

Note

I was asking more about the character's dolls themselves, like Kirsten's doll Sari and how accurate you found them to be. (it's no secret though taht the Beforever rebranding was a terrible mistake)

Ohhh! Sorry for the misunderstanding. Let’s take a look.

Samantha’s doll (1904)

I couldn’t find a photo of the original version that was discontinued in 1993, but it looked about the same. My sister has it, so I played with it growing up.

This doll has a porcelain head and real hair and...that’s about it, in terms of resemblance to dolls that were actually popular in 1904. Unless it’s meant to be an all-bisque, but those were usually way smaller than this doll is relative to Samantha herself. An actual doll Samantha might have gotten for Christmas could have looked more like this:

(Simon and Halbig doll, turn of the 20th century. Face model 939. Note that the body is jointed composition- hardened sawdust and glue -rather than the same bisque as the head.)

Felicity’s doll (1775)

(Original version sold from 1991-2009.)

Okay, someone REALLY did their homework with this one. While the face looks a bit Voldemort-y, the general shape is like the peg dolls (AKA Grodnertal dolls, tuck comb dolls, peg woodens, etc.) popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

(Wooden doll, late 18th century. This doll was actually pictured in the back of the relevant book, Changes For Felicity. I know because that image haunted my doll dreams for most of my childhood. No clue where she is now, but gods...what a beauty.)

The concept of the doll is that she was displayed in the window of a fabric shop frequented by Felicity and her mother, to demonstrate the latest fashions. This echoes both the idea of a Pandora, a doll used by wealthy 18th-century ladies to display new styles in miniature for their seamstresses to copy, and the “milliner’s model” title applied to some later dolls in the early-mid 19th century. (We now know that so-called milliners’ models were toys all along, but I believe the myth was still widely believed when Felicity’s books first came out.)

Physically, she bears more resemblance to later peg-dolls:

(Grodnertal doll/peg doll, 1880s. Earlier models often have a more realistic head shape, but this “spool” shape does appear sometimes in the early years of the 19th century.)

Still, I feel like more of an Attempt was made than with Samantha’s doll. So kudos to them!

Kirsten’s doll (1854)

I mean, it’s kind of hard to say that a homemade rag doll is accurate or inaccurate. Because what we now call “folk art dolls” pretty much ran the gamut in terms of appearance. From oil-painted faces and elaborate gowns to simpler styles like Kirsten’s beloved Sari, you really do see a huge variety.

(Cloth doll, c. 1890. Not a lot of early cloth dolls survive in good condition due to the nature of their materials and the fact that many belonged to poor families who would keep them in circulation until they had to be thrown away. Plus, they can be hard to date conclusively unless they have very stylistically specific clothing.)

So yeah, completely plausible.

Addy’s doll (1864)

See above. Completely plausible; nothing about her looks jarringly modern to me.

(Homemade cloth doll, c. 1880. A bit later, but still- there’s nothing stylistically to the actual doll that makes me say “oh that’s definitely 1880s, not 1860s!”)

Molly’s doll (1944)

There were plenty of nurse dolls about in the 1940s, and while many were composition, I believe some were hard plastic.

(Nurse doll, photo from an eBay auction. 1940s or 1950s. Pardon the bad picture, but it’s the closest outfit I could find.)

If this doll had rooted hair- which I can’t recall from my childhood -that would have been less likely than one with a wig. But overall, I don’t find her too difficult to imagine as a doll Molly’s dad could have sent her for Christmas.

Kit’s doll (1932)

Meant to represent Amelia Earhart, this doll reminds me of some very specific dolls from the same time period. Hold for Googling.

(Doll by Edith Flack Ackley, 1938.)

Totally plausible. Totally cute. Totally perfect for Kit’s character.

Josefina’s doll (1824)

Okay I am super out of my depth with this one. The history of the colonial southwest in the 1820s is something I haven’t studied much at all and, though I had Josefina, I only ever read her first book. But let’s take a look.

She’s cloth and homemade, so once again, literally any style of face or body could be valid for most eras (barring dolls made by specific artists).

I seriously tried to find a comparative doll, but finding a cloth doll from the 1820s, period, proved impossible. Let alone one from New Mexico. A search for “New Mexico cloth dolls” turned up a bunch of later tourist dolls, meant to represent stylized Folk Costumes(TM) instead of real people’s clothing during the period.

That being said, I buy the doll’s dress as 1820s, assuming it represents mainstream European fashions that reached the colonies by way of Spain. And she certainly has the look of a homemade cloth doll.

Kaya’s doll (1764)

Once again, homemade doll = could basically look like anything. Some Native groups did have very specific doll styles, like the iconic wide-skirted Seminole dolls, but I’m having trouble finding specifics for Nez Perce toys. I am seeing more dolls in cradleboards- by which I mean “more than two actual images of antique dolls that aren’t Kaya herself.”

(Undated Nez Perce doll. Does have a cradleboard, but the auction website is being weird, so this is the pic on Google Images.)

(Nez Perce doll in cradleboard- might not be removeable. c. 1875)

and this actual doll looks a lot like Kaya’s:

(Nez Perce doll, undated.)

As with a lot of things about Kaya, it seems the team really did their research on this one. And of course, they had a creative team of actual Nez Perce people working on the doll and her outfits and accessories.

Julie’s Barbie styling head (1974)

It’s literally just an exact replica of the real product. Lest you forget that Mattel owns AG now, so they can legally do things like this.

Courtney’s doll (1986)

...this is just a way to use up dead stock of the Molly mini-dolls, isn’t it?

And I think that’s all of them!

#ask #anon #dolls #long post #american girl

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emily-the-fae · 3 years

Text

Sound of a Heartbeat

Part 4. Negotiations, Exortions and Stories of the Past

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 5 - Part 6

Surprisingly, this story continues to move further for me.

Back to the characters where we left them in the previous part - with some heated arguments and intimate talks.

Pairing: Dracula x OC

Warnings: none, apart from lung diseases, wounds and Adrian being a total sweetheart

Next morning Shari woke up to sounds of footsteps and hushed speech. Straight away she knew the upcoming conversation will have to be one hell of a diplomatic achievement – how do you explain your sudden desire to leave to a group of half vampire, speaker and a vampire hunter who were most probably fighting for your life during the last three days. Trevor would be completely furious. Better stand next to Sypha when presenting the decision, just in case he suddenly has the wish to use his whip. You never know how the Belmont reacts, though possibly Shari could still drag it through without making a big fuss – Lisa was definitely right about one thing: she has made a habit of negotiating her way with people, especially the ones that were apprehensive or disliked her. Truth to say, nine out of ten were either of the two.

- And don't forget, you are our healer, how are we...!?

- So far I wasn't so much required, you guys can carry on perfectly well without me.

- I'm still not sure if it is a good idea, Shari, if you want to get some rest by leaving... It may only be more dangerous for you, - Sypha argued.

- Don’t you even think of supporting her! She took a few years off our lifespans with this incident! We can’t just let you…

- No, wait, you don't get it, I...

- Shari!

- Stop bossing me around, Trevor, I am not a child! I have not finished.

- Trevor, please calm down, she is neither under your command, nor your sibling. If she wants to leave, it is her choice, - Adrian stepped in, clearly annoyed with the three.

- See? I can perfectly… - Shari tried to pick up.

- Shari, - Adrian interrupted. – Can I speak with you privately?

The healer was genuinely startled for a moment. She turned to look Adrian in the eyes – probably for the first time since the incident – trying to estimate his emotions and plan her defense strategy. She was never scared of him – or at least she never showed that he scared her sometimes, because surely being sane and realistic she could not ignore the obvious danger presented by those sharp fangs and golden eyes. Still Shari was used to considering him a friend, his malevolent side almost unable to turn against her.

Now she was startled and – honestly – slightly scared. For a moment she thought she saw it in his eyes that he looked right through her: that he perhaps watched her and Lisa or sensed her thoughts or some other vampire telepathy kind of thing. That maybe he thought she was a traitor.

Then he smiled warmly and nodded his head to the side, gesturing for her to follow him away from Trevor and Sypha – and Shari straight away knew whatever it was, he was ready to be on her side.

- Are you sure you need this resting? I mean clearly you do, you are paler than father when he wakes up, but still… Sari, I know you are stronger than you look, but a witch traveling alone during such a time doesn’t seem the brightest idea to me, - Adrian spoke quickly and quietly, for others not to hear their discussion. Shari felt ashamed for how it continued to surprise her that he sounded genuinely concerned.

- Adrian, I’ll be fine. I swear. I just… I don’t feel well…for, let’s say, various reasons, not only the attack. It just suddenly occurred to me that since your father seems to be watching and purposefully slowing you down, it may be a good decision for me to…

- To not stick around and lower the risk of encountering him or strong specifically directed demons? – she nodded in response. – Well, I can get that… And Shari, - he suddenly took her hand, his tone turning uncharacteristically warm. – I’m sorry.

- You don’t have to. We already spoke about…

- Not about that. About your disease. I’m so sorry. If only I knew how to help you – I could have known the way, you know, I once had the access to knowledge that could have… I’m so sorry for you.

They stood in silence for a few moments. Shari found herself unable to look into his eyes, staring at the ground.

- For how long have you known? – she rasped, barely recognizing her own quiet voice.

- Almost as soon as we met… Shari, I…

- Don’t. It’s alright, Adrian, I just didn’t realize you knew and this struck me a little…

- Do you know where you will be heading? – if she ever was grateful to him for anything – though she was grateful for plenty of things to be fair – it was his ability to catch onto the atmosphere and change the topic when it is very much needed.

- I… yeah sure, of course I do, I have a rough plan of what to do. Thanks, - she coughed dryly a few times, still refusing to lookup and meet his gaze.

- Shari?

- Yes.

- Promise me you will be fine. Not to be dramatic, but I… have gotten used to you quite a lot.

Shari chuckled.

- Will do my best, - she finally looked up at him and saw the half-vampire smile broadly. – I’ve gotten pretty used to you too, you overgrown puppy, - they stood in silence for some time.

- Almost forgot, one last thing before we face the storm of unacceptance named Trevor, - he blurted out, when she moved tostep away and turn back to the campsite.

- Yes?

Adrian did not say a word – he simply opened his arms and Shari fell into the embrace without even thinking. She felt utterly childish for being this familiar with him. She also felt it was nice to have someone to turn to when feeling torn and exhausted without having to explain the whirlwind of emotion in your head.

Shari shouldn’t have been surprised that it was Adrian who let her go with such ease. He knew he could trust her decisions, he always did. She was somewhat flattered by the way he treated her as an advisor and assistant even though she was no way as knowledgeable as him; the half-vampire always showed that he believed she had an own analyzed perspective of things, that she wouldn’t be reckless. This time though his trust in her rationality might have failed him. Any way it was, he openly supported her decision and expressed the hope that she would be able to catch up with them in some time.

Shari knew Trevor thought Dracula hypnotized her into surrender and laughed at it to herself. If only he had a clue that it was the human Dracula's wife who controlled her.

In the end of that emotionally exhausting morning they finally parted ways: the trio went in the direction of the closest town, hesitant to leave their friend, but unwillingly agreeing it should be done for greater good; Shari stayed at the campsite with Rodo for a bit longer, motivating it with the need of rest. Adrian threw a concerned glance in her direction, but said nothing. The vampire felt there was something wrong, but decided to let it slide, since he had already supported her decision; if she said she needed rest, then so be it.

In fact, although Shari did tell him she had a rough plan of further action, in reality she had little to no ideas in which direction to move and absolutely no wish of discussing it with thin air in front of her disbelieving friends: they would definitely not see Lisa and they would definitely think she was hallucinating after the attack. To be fair, she could never herself be sure if that wasn't exactly the case. Maybe she was talking to an imaginary friend. However, since she had already decided to believe in the ghost's existence, she had to play along that assumption.

Lisa didn’t leave her waiting and appeared as soon as they were left alone, Shari sitting by the campfire a little lost and a little tired; a victorious smile played on the ghost's lips, as she sat by the fire next to the girl. Rodo made no sign of noticing their guest, only slightly shaking his furry head and letting out a jawn.

- What? - asked Shari, annoyed by the constant attention of the ghost. She took the cattle off the fire and set it aside to cool down a bit. She needed something warm to drink if she wanted to keep her blood and lungs inside her body.

- We have to move out, - Lisa smiled, now more gently, watching the human's movements.

- It would be nice if I knew where we went, - replied Shari, slowly looking around, taking in the little amount of her personal belongings lying about - there wouldn't be much packing when she would have finally decided to pick herself off the ground.

- I'll guide you.

- What if you disappear?

- I won't.

- What if I don't want to go? What if you only tell me that you are leading me to the castle, while in reality you will lead me to Dracula? That is actually most probably what is going to happen, - Shari finally expressed her greatest worry and doubt. She could not just trust Lisa, she wanted to, but couldn't bring herself to do so. The woman was most probably still here because of them - Dracula and Adrian - so her greatest concern would be to stop their fight in any way possible in order to finally peacefully leave them, not care about some girl getting hurt in the process.

- I believe you will just have to trust me. I have told you already, I only want to stop this war with as little blood as possible, especially when it comes to Adrian’s or Vlad-I meant Dracula’s blood. You will be of very little help to me if I simply spend time leading you to your death. Besides, I shall remind you, that your illness is not exactly leading you to a happy life, so you decided trusting me on that one, - Lisa winked at her and stood up; Shari clenched her teeth: well, that was a very good point, but definitely a blow-below-the-waist strategy. - We should move out, the sooner we start - the quicker we'll be there.

- You know, you're like an older sister that I never wished to have, - Shari huffed in annoyance, but finished her tea quickly and proceeded to pack. The fact that she was annoyed didn't cancel the fact that Lisa was right. She had to move out.

***

The day trip was completely uneventful. The few villages they had passed didn't show any signs of having been attacked, but Lisa still made Shari keep away from them - maybe it was for the best, people were very unsafe these days, the fear made them aggressive to any newcomers. Especially to ones possessing magical powers and followed by black wolf-demons. Going alone to such a village could be suicidal.

It was only at the age of ten, that Shari found out she had it in her. That one trait that made people wish your head on a pike no matter how you behave. Animals weren't just "friendly" with her, no-no, friendly is one understandable thing, especially with a little child. However, "friendly" is definitely not the most accurate description of the behaviour of the large black wolf that almost attacked her one day on the edge of the woods, stopping in mid-jump as the girl turned to face it - next picture: the wolf rolling on the ground before her like and ordinary dog demanding bellyrubs. The animals would not simply like her, they would obey her as if she spoke to them directly. She had no idea where the power came from and so preferred to think she was born into her witchcraft. Her mother insisted upon it too, saying that poor old gramma was the same odd thing in her youth. At least that was what Shari remembered her saying when they did discuss her little problem. That was until she turned sixteen – until she suddenly was separate from her family and out on her own. Until the first time the people wanted to get her burned. First of many more to come.She had learned to control herself and make use of herself, never expressing anything people would see as dark wizardry, nothing even seemingly malevolent, working for the local healer, helping out as much as she could and learning some things here or there by herself about herbs and illnesses - not a study, barely a child's curiosity.

Then it was a year of particularly poor crops after an awfully dry summer, Shari sensed it was coming before she ever knew why it was so - the villagers had no other way of dealing with such misfortunes. They placed all the blame on the odd girl who learned to cure wounds and diseases and spoke to the wild animals as she pleased. Burning witches was a very common sacrifice, after all.

The night before the burning was the night she ran. She knew they would come for her, so she escaped before they could get her, left her home to set to travel into unknown. And never truly stopped running ever since.

Lisa pitied her for that, even though Shari tried to brush it off as nothing. She was a witch after all and turned to be quite a good thief, quite some reason for the other humans to hate her already, even though she couldn't say theft pleased her herself - she was surviving the way she could: moving about and healing didn't ever buy her enough bread or material. The longest she ever stayed in a town was three months - then the cycle had to start over.

Lisa understood her reasoning for that quite well. At first she wanted to argue that staying longer might have bought Shari some trust, but held her tongue - she wasn't one to give that sort of advice, not now, not after everything that happened to her exactly for staying a little too long.

When they finally stopped for the night, Shari was almost falling - her legs unwilling to carry her anymore - and bending over in loud wet coughs, feeling the taste of her own blood in her mouth and suffocating in attempts to hold back from even more coughing. The freezing weather and bloodloss, even compensated with Sypha's magic, were not going to make this journey easier for her. Shari felt the feather light caress of the ghost's hand on her back and breathed in deeply, trying to calm her heartrate.

There was pain in her ribs now too - she was scratched quite badly a few days ago by one of the attacking demons. They were fighting off several of the things and one jumped her from behind: neither she nor Rodo had noticed it before. Shari succeeded in turning to face it, making the demon bounce off her and back away as soon as she made eye contact - these things were usually not much harder to control than wolves, especially with Rodo at her side. Unfortunately, before she managed to kick it off completely, the demon had left an unpleasant scratch across her ribcage, making her fall to the ground and lose the mental contact - the beast jumped back on her in a matter of seconds and for a moment Shari thought that would be her end. Only by luck Adrian was swift enough to protect her, fighting the thing away and aiding her to recover later - the sharp claws left three deep gashes on her skin and the girl had to spend a long time tending to herself after the fight, hoping the wound would not get infected with whatever those things could carry on their paws.

The wound had been nicely bandaged before, all was going well, but apparently Dracula's attack had erased that bit of responsibility from her memory and now Shari suddenly faced yet another problem: rebandaging was not only desirable, but very much a necessity by the time she dropped to the ground, settling for the night. The soaked and dried blood on the old bands now scratched and tore at the healing wound, causing her pain.

- ‘T is okay, - she told the ghost, quickly going to sit down on the ground. Removing the band did not take much time as well as putting on a new one-not when she was used to doing it anyways, but removing a part of her clothes let the cold bite her even more in the process, so when she was finished, she was freezing to the bone, so she wrapped herself in whatever warm cloths she had left and pressed closer to Rodo, to keep at least some body heat to herself. They decided to make no fires, as Shari was now mostly defenseless and the girl already felt how much she would regret parting ways with her friends. Lisa's care and Rodo's warm side couldn't do much to keep away the cold and her lungs were almost screaming in protest. She looked at Lisa's pitiful apologetic face and whispered: - I'm already used to it, - no you aren't, this is getting worse by second and you desperately need a fire.

- You have to fall asleep quickly. Tomorrow we'll start off at dusk, - Shari lay between Rodo's back and a large tree trunk; Lisa sat next to her head, looking down at the tired healer.

- I wish it was just as easy for me to move as it is for you, - Shari whispered sleepily.

- Trust me, you don't, - both laughed.

- How much is there left? Of the way?

- If you're lucky - and persistent, we may be there by tomorrow night, - Lisa answered reassuringly.

- Really? That's so fast... Too fast, to be fair. I thought the castle was hard to catch, - she stared back at Lisa.

- Parts of it yes, it moves as a whole. But there are stable parts - that one particular entrance was the one I used when I first found him. It was very hard to track - not many know about it, it's kind of in magically protected grounds or something - nobody has the incentive to go there, - the ghost explained.

- But you had, - Shari smirked.

- Of course I had.

- I wonder how he hadn’t killed you straight away.

- Oh, but he wanted to. He tried to frighten me – told me he would drink my blood, all that classical stuff.

- So what did you do?

- Told him his manners needed repolishing.

Pause. Shari chuckled. Then snorted. Then laughed out loud.

- And he did not murder you for such an offense?

- I believe he wanted to for a moment, but was too startled to act… And then it sort of…happened. I believe it was a big “why not” for both of us, until we suddenly saw something deeper to it, - Lisa smiled to herself, seemingly diving through memories.

- Sounds a little like me meeting Adrian for the first time – God knows I saw those large fangs and yellow eyes straight away, I knew very well what he was, just couldn’t…

- Can’t beware the dark, when it’s choice between stepping in or watching someone suffer?

- Something of the kind. My self-preservation goes way below. I called him in when I saw him bleeding out by the edge of the town – half expected him to drain me as soon as I bandaged him and when he… well, as you can see, didn’t… We just talked. He stayed over for a week gaining strength, not attempting to eat me – I guess that was the first out of the only two occasions when someone I have helped did not try to accuse me of devilish business in one way or another and just accepted the help. Of course he had to be not human.

- The second time that happened was with Rodo, wasn’t it? Humans don’t tend to be overly grateful.

Both chuckled.

- Adrian seems quite attached to you, - Lisa turned to Shari. – Thanks for that. For accepting him. I was always worried that he will have a hard time fitting in…pretty much anywhere, being what he is. So thank you.

- No need to. He is nice, your son. Feels like having a friend for once.

Pause. Shari shrugged and sighed.

- Tomorrow, you said, right? Though I can't say that I'm exactly lucky, so your prediction about the time is probably too optimistic, we are bound to have some struggle tomorrow,- she huffed, turning to her side and snuggling to Rodo's furry back.

- The castle shouldn't be so far away, it is quite close to Tragoviste, shouldn't have taken us long, - Lisa explained. - And you are lucky, sunshine - remember? You survived Dracula's bite. That mark on your neck is your lucky ticket now, - Lisa winked and lay back against the tree trunk. Shari wanted to think of a witty reply, but was interrupted by another violent fit of cough and decided to let it go. The healer cuddled into Rodo’s warm side and fell into uneasy sleep, hoping that the morning would bring at least some relief.

#castlevania #dracula x oc #dracula x reader #adrian tepes #alucard #sypha belnades #trevor belmont #adrian is such a sweetheart #lisa tepes

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

Text

The Miys, Ch. 126

Blehhh another one that I didn’t queue ahead of time and therefore am posting a few hours late. (thank you @baelpenrose for reminding me. Again.)

I really hate when this happens... I plan on adding the other chapters that are ready to my queue tonight so this doesn’t happen for at least a few weeks.

That said, this chapter was a huge step outside of my comfort zone, because it deals with a culture other than my own/Sophia’s and her experience of having it shared with her. There is absolutely no way my research could come even close to the kind of cultural knowledge someone who actually lives it daily, and I am well aware that this reflects in Sophia’s experience in this chapter.

And it is meant to reflect, I’ll be honest. I never wanted Sophia to be infallible or to know everything all the time. With that said, I very much welcome any suggestions from anyone who does live this culture daily, so I can keep including it in a more ongoing way. I specifically created a character in this chapter to give me an opening for that.

“Ow!” I muttered as I stabbed my finger with a pin for the sixth time in ten minutes. “This is a lot harder to do when you can’t see what you’re doing.”

“It does take practice,” Muna, the woman helping me, admitted as she patiently pulled the folds in the scarf over my head to be more snug. “I have been doing this since I was a small child, and I still prick my fingers from time to time.”

I took a deep breath and tried again, determined and reminding myself that it was a good thing that I wasn’t automatically good at something I was learning from another culture. Muna was one of several Muslim women on the ship who were hosting an open seminar on Women in Islam, and currently we were in a session on the various forms of hijab and what it meant to these women. I glanced at Hannah with a sliver of envy, since her experience as a weaver and seamstress allowed her to at least pin hers in place without drawing blood.

Charly, at least, was in a similar boat to me. I could see her poking uncomfortably at the snug folds surrounding her face, and started to worry. Thankfully, the woman helping her stepped back, seemed to consider something, and then shook her head and hastily unpinned the fabric before shaking it out. Holding out a smaller piece of black fabric, she got a nod from Charly before pulling a stretchy cap over Charly’s hair and tugging it down over her forehead slightly. With that, she draped the larger piece of fabric more loosely and secured it with a brooch at the shoulder. Charly grinned with a deep breath and nodded - obviously much more comfortable.

This was the final part of the seminar, but the entire session has been absolutely fascinating. From the legal history of women’s roles in Islam, to comparisons with other religions - I had no idea that Orthodox Jewish women wore wigs or scarves after they married, for the same reason Muslim women practiced hijab - all the way through the astrophysics used to determine which way they needed to face when they prayed. The sheer idea that they were so dedicated to their beliefs that they had learned astrophysics to adhere to them was so humbling that it took my breath away.

One thing that had brought a chuckle from me was finally getting the answer to a question Arthur had asked at Jokul’s trial before the Council: Is certain meat kosher or halal, neither, or both?

It turned out that, while the Jewish members of the Ark had largely agreed that the ‘pork’ from the food consoles was kosher - as it was synthetic and had never been alive - but still refrained from eating it, pork was one of the only kosher foods not to be considered halal, since the Qur’an specifically bans eating swine, by name. However, meat that would normally be considered ‘game’ and therefore prohibited were allowed to be eaten as it was created by the consoles specifically for food purposes, and was therefore considered cattle. Miys had even insisted, before leaving Earth orbit, that the protein stores be prayed over and blessed as frequently as needed, even though the meat had never been alive and therefore could not be blessed upon slaughter.

To say I was impressed by it all was an insulting understatement.

Finally, my hijab was pinned to Muna’s minimal satisfaction and she was showing me how to put my glasses back on without disturbing it. Once that was done, I took a look around the room to see how everyone else was fairing. Xiomara’s hair was covered in a more turban-style wrap, with another woman demonstrating how much more freely it allowed her to move while staying secure. Parvati’s hijab was much more free-flowing and she was currently demonstrating how to wrap a sari in what had to be the most beautiful culture exchange I had ever seen, as both women tried to figure out the best way to lay the folds of the hijab to flow into the folds of the sari.

If there had been a competition, however, I feel my sister would have won, hands down. Her already black attire had been topped with a matching shayla, that made her grey eyes seem even larger and brighter than normal. I would have looked like an old Russian grandmother, but she managed to look ethereal and mysterious, floating around the room with an expert flair of her skirt every time she turned. I was so distracted trying to figure out how she did that, I barely noticed in time where she was headed, or that Muna was right behind her.

The room fell silent as Muna asked for everyone’s attention, before turning to Tyche. “On behalf of the Council, I want to thank all of you for sharing your history and culture so freely. I don’t think I’m overstepping when I say we are all very grateful for your time, patience, and effort. To show our appreciation, Councilor Xiomara Kalloe and Assistant Councilor Hannah Bodenheimer have prepared a gift for you all.”

Xiomara’s grin could have powered the Ark for a year as she and Hannah brought an enormous storage chest forward. I couldn’t blame her - ever since the seminar had been planned, this particular gift had been in the works. Muna gasped when they opened the chest, causing everyone in the room to lean forward. In the corner of my eye, I could see Charly clapping her hands excitedly.

“This one is yours,” Hannah explained as she lifted a scarf from the chest and handed it to Muna. One by one, each woman who had planned the seminar and helped execute it was called forward and given their own scarf, each one made by Hannah and Derek specifically for that woman. Ever since he had given our ‘family’ our own scarves years ago, the color combinations and designs had been in high demand, especially since Derek was not inclined to produce them on-demand, but only for special people. When Hannah had explained her request to him, however, he had simply asked for photos of the women and what they liked doing before giving her the designs for each one so that she could weave them.

While I would never be able to follow his thought process behind each design - some were geometric, some were swirled, others had stripes - none failed to delight the recipient. I could see the relief on Xiomara’s face, clear as day. The entire idea behind these seminars was to share cultures we knew little about or drastically misunderstood, and as a result we had no real idea how to show our appreciation. When Grey had suggested the scarves, pointing out that everyone liked having clothes that suited them, we had taken a leap of faith and gone all in.

Now we just had to figure out how to thank Derek.

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#the Miys #humans are weird #humans are wonderful #cultural exchange #found family #science fiction #my writing #hfy #earth is space australia #haw #humans are space fae #aliens #apocalypse #post-apocalypse #post apocalyptic #original fiction #hope #space #the one where I tried to write meeting hijabi

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eve-of-halloween · 4 years

Note

Your Blitzbee family is so wholesome! Do you think think this is likelly to happen: Blitz or Bee get sick/injured and Hornet is determined to take care of them and make them better (cause she WILL be a medic one day!).

In this AU Blitzwing often has days where his faceplates bug him and cause him quite a bit of pain/discomfort. Usually, on those day’s he locks himself in his and Bee’s berthroom where he can avoid any kind of stimulus that might make his face’s swap (which makes his pain worse.) And usually, after an hour or two, the pain dulls and he’s good to go, but there are exceptionally bad days where it is excruciating and can last several hours which can make him very moody.(I wanted to draw this scenario but I’ve got a small case of artist block with artwork due to a busy work week, so imma write it instead!) Wholesome Wholesale Story below the cut! (to avoid dash clutter)

Hornet trotted through the warehouse that morning quite gleefully, the light thumping of her pedes as she made her way out of the hallway perked Bee’s attention, he watched his eldest sparkling as she looked around the room, clutching something in her servo’s.

“Morning, Honker.“ He smiled, “What’cha got there?”

“A draving I made for si-si vith bulky!“ She shouted with a loud thundering honk of a voicebox from the other side of the room as she looked around a corner, “Vhere is he?“

“Inside voice, Hornet.“ Bee reminded her, “Si-si’s face is bugging him so he’s laying down. Try not to be too loud so you don’t disturb him.”

The young sparkling furrowed her brows as she looked over at her carrier then to her younger sibling who was set comfortably in Bee’s lap. He appeared to be in recharge, curled up into a small ball.

“Is zhat vhy Ving Ding is out here vith jou instead of in jour room?“

“Hm?” Be said looking up from his datapad, “Oh no, He was just being fussy. Didn’t wanna recharge by himself.”

“Oh.“ She said rocking back and forth on her pedes sorta focusing on everything except what her carrier was saying, “Ok zhen.“

The little sparkling then smiled as an idea popped up in her processors, she turned heel and started trotting back in the direction she came from, halting for only a minute when she heard Bee’s voice.

“Leave Blitzwing alone, Hornet. He’ll come out when he’s feeling better.” He said sternly.

“Okayyyy…“ She said flatly and trotted into the med bay.

“Hello Hornet.“ Ratchet said gruffly, “Can I help you?“

“Can I have my medkit?“

“Hornet, I’ve told you dozens of times you cannot play with my medical equipment.”

“No, no! I vant MY medkit!” She repeated, “Ze von Sari made me.“

“Shouldn’t it be in your room, Hornet?”

“I left it in here last time I vatched jou vork. it’s up zhere.” She said pointing to a plastic pink box.

“Ah. I see.“ The old mech said as he grabbed the box and handed it to the young femme, “Make sure you keep your belongings out of the med bay. It’s not a playground.“

“Ok! Zhank jou!“ She chimed happily as she took the box and scampered off. Hornet made sure to walk as quietly as she could so Bee wouldn’t here or spot her as she slowly opened the door to her parent’s room, slowly closing it behind her.

She turned to face the massive berth that her sire was laying on. The massive mech’s servos were cupping his faceplates, rubbing small circles as he grumbled under the sound of his vents. Feeling like he was being watched, Blitzwing moved his servo’s so he could tilt his head and glance over at the door.

“Hello, Hornisse.“ He said with a tiny forced smile, that didn’t really hide the grimace in his voice at the discomfort caused by smiling and talking, “Do jou need somezhing, dear?“

“Ri-ri says jou don’t feel good. So I am here to help jou feel better!” She chimed.

“Oh?“ Blitzwing mused as Hornet’s tiny propellers spun, hovering her up onto his berth, spotting the play medkit in her servo’s he smiled, “Oh I have a medic taking care of me? Vell, do jour best doctor.“

“Mhmm!“ She hummed and opened her kit, pulling out a small box of human band-aids with some strange pink cartoon cat on them, “Tell me vhere it hurts!“

“Here, here, here, und here.“ He said pointing to several specific pannels of his faceplates that were bothering him.

“Ok!“ She smiled and went to work placing band-aids on each panel and placing a kiss over them, earning small winces.

Bee was still busy reading something on his datapad as it started blowing up with messages from Blitzwing’s comlink. Bumble Bee’ s frown grew as he opened each text message that popped onto his screen.

-Please come and get Hornisse.-

- I’ve made a terrible mistake.-

-These sticky wound covers feel like flaming knives and each kiss feels like a punch.-

-I appreciate her concern, and I am grateful, but this is excruciating.-

- HUMMEL PLEASE.-

- PLEASE GET HER!-

“HORNET!” Bee’s voice rang out.

“Oh no, he’s onto me.” She whispered as she heard the clang of his pedes as he rushed towards his berthroom, He swiftly opened the door and snapped his servo, pointing towards the hall.

“You. Your room. Now!“ He quietly barked as she looked up at her sire.

“Listen to jour carrier, Hornisse.“ He smiled, “Zhank jou for helping. I feel better already.“

Her smile stretched wide hearing she had helped her sire and she quickly hopped off the berth and trotted out of the room. Blitzwing gave Bumble Bee a grateful look as the other shot him an apologetic on and slowly closed the door as he left his conjunx to rest.

“Young lady!“ Bee frowned turning heel to face his sparkling, “I told you to leave your sire alone.“

“I vanted to help.“ She said, her smile not fading, “und I did.“

Bee sighed and placed his servo on her back, gently pushing her in the direction of her room, “And he’s grateful but he needs to rest to fully get better. Go play in your room, please. And leave him alone this time.”

“Okay!“ She smiled and ran off.

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sebastianshaw · 4 years

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Do you have any headcanons about how Haven and Maddie would get along? You mention them both a lot and they seem like they have things in common

OH BOY DO I EVER i happen to love shoving my faves into interaction in my head even if they never met in canon---ESPECIALLY if they never met in canon---and these are my two mega fave ladies! ...coincidentally I was out today on errands and playing Tori Amos (because *of course* I was) and specifically her “American Doll Posse” album, and I was like “GIRL DISAPPEARING and SECRET SPELL have Maddie vibes” (I also listened to KING AND LIONHEART by of Monsters and Men, it’s my fave of theirs, and “As the world comes to an end, I’ll be here to hold your hand” is forever a Haven lyric to me) So massive MASSIVE ramblings under the cut!

Anyway, yes, you’re completely correct, they have a TON in common, both in what actually happened TEXTUALLY to them, and the meta-text of how their stories were handled in very similarly misogynistic ways. Like, they’re both villains through no choice or fault of their own, both the victims of demonic corruption, both exploited specifically for their reproductive capacity (Maddie created literally to have Scott’s baby, Haven’s unborn child used by the Adversary to possess her), and both used to frame female sexuality as evil (Maddie only starts with the skimpy black outfits when she becomes a villain, Haven is a pure and chaste woman who had sex ONCE and as a result becomes demon-pregnant, corrupted, and dies, she’s very much punished for violating purity taboos just ONCE despite all the good she did, while NOTHING HAPPENS to the man who took advantage of her naivete and knocked her up) and both were treated with little sympathy by the story or other characters despite being so very deserving of it. So they’ve got a ton to relate and commiserate on if they ever met and opened up to each other about it, but even if they DIDN’T tell each other about their pasts (which I doubt they would, certainly not at first, it’s not something either is keen to talk about, Haven never told her own beloved brother and Maddie literally KILLS Threnody for throwing it in her face) I think they would get on well. With the understandable exception of Jean Grey, Maddie has NEVER been a jerk to anyone who wasn’t one first (she did go overboard with Threnody, of course...) and Haven, even while a demonically-posessed supervillain, was very calm, composed, polite, and downright kind to the good guys even when they KEPT ATTACKING HER. And to quote the “X-Plain the X-Men” podcast “❝ In this scene, she [Haven] is the one that’s being kind and calm and compassionate, and he [Xavier] is being AN ANGRY JERK. �� So, I think they’d get on at first meeting because they’re just both nice people at their default. They’re also both morally good people at their default. Haven’s history is that she’s someone born to extreme wealth and privilege who was driven to use it to help others, she did shit like bathing lepers and caring for dying babies and building children’s hospitals (literally how she got her name in canon, no shit) and even as a supervillain BENT ON DESTROYING THE WORLD OUT OF COMPASSION she STILL does shit like SURRENDERING A FIGHT SO SHE CAN TRY TO HEAL AN *ENEMY* OKAY. And Maddie was just straight-up a superhero even before she had the “super” part going for her, she was one of the X-Men even as a human and even after Scott left her, she had an incredibly strong sense of justice, she did her best at rescuing people in her job as a pilot during crises, she GAVE UP HER LIFE with the rest of the X-Men when Forge needed their life energy for a spell to save the world (she got brought back, they all did, but she didn’t know she was going to be resurrected, she went in knowing she’d die and thinking it would be permanent) and the first time she did get superpowers WASN’T as the demonic Goblyn Queen, but as the healer Anodyne. And you know why her powers specifically took the form of healing? It wasn’t random. The Fire Fountain (from which she and some other humans got these gifts) gave people their powers based on their passions and desires; Maddie’s desire and passion was to help others. So both of these women are extremely moral, healing-types at their core, both in powers and personality, who care about others deeply, even at the expense of themselves. Obviously, Maddie became very morally-grey since in the 90s, but even then she cared about other people first; Sebastian Shaw was never a bad boyfriend in the slightest to her, he was actually her first good relationship, but she left him because he was doing harm to other people, people she didn’t even KNOW, and she wouldn’t be complicit in that even as a bystander. She’s kinda gone full evil in the 2000s but she’s also very much Not Maddie Anymore as of the 2000s, so I just...don’t count that...anyway you see my point! My point being I think they would really come together on helping people, like Haven has the funds (she would probably not have powers anymore if she’s alive, since she’s no longer the host body of the Adversary) and Maddie has the piloting skills and superpowers, they could do a TON of good in the world if they teamed up to do relief work and refugee aid and stuff! I would honestly be really here for that. I really like the idea of them doing good in a way that has nothing to do with superhero adventures and is in no way glamorous or a battle that can be won with powers and punches, but is necessary and worthy all the same. I think they could really get a good working relationship going with this. I think the place they would differ is that Maddie is ANGRY. She’s very angry at what was done to her, she’s very angry at the X-Men, she’s very angry at Jean, she’s very angry at Scott, she’s very angry at Sinister, and she has a RIGHT to be. There is nothing wrong with this. But her anger also isn’t limited to people who harmed HER. Back when Maddie was Maddie and not a walking misogynistic stereotype, she also got BIG MAD at people who did bad things, who hurt others, who oppressed mutants and other minorities, etc. Like, during the story in which we find out about Genosha and how they’re enslaving mutants, Maddie is ready to WRECK ALL THEIR SHIT WITHOUT MERCY using the demonic energy that’s started incubating inside her. And you know what? Good for her. Maddie is the fire of justice and retribution, and if you have done something to deserve it she will FRY YOU IN HELL. Haven is not like that. Again, even when she’s possessed, even when she ostensibly wants to kill the world, even when she’s being steered by an entity of cosmic evil and chaos...she’s still so soft with her “enemies”. Hell, even when she’s come to the conclusion that Xavier must die, she still can’t do it with her own hands and has to just let some other villain out of prison and HOPE he does it, that’s the MOST action she can bring herself to take, and she thinks how “I admire you, Charles Xavier. I respect you. In an odd way, one might say…that I love you. For how can one not love a soul so pure, a heart so full of good intentions? One must love one’s enemy…if one is to slay him with compassion.” And this was AFTER Xavier rammed in his way into her head after she begged him repeatedly to STOP (boy was THAT an uncomfy scene) and she literally unmade herself from existence temporarily (yes, she could do that, and remake herself) in order to get away from him, even though SHE could have just unmade HIM permanently. So, once you take the demon out of the equation, I can only see her as being even MORE pacifistic and forgiving, just the epitome of grace----grace meaning not as in graceful (though I think she’s that too, she’s very elegant) but as in the religious sense of God’s grace, which is mercy where it is undeserved. She’s NEVER going to want to hurt people for their misdeeds like Madelyne does. She wants to comfort the victims, but not attack the victimizers. She’s probably the kind of person who prays for Neo-Nazis. She probably utterly forgives X-Factor and Xavier and the man who got her pregnant. And you know what? I also support that. I support Madelyne’s righteous rage, I support Haven’s all-forgiving compassion and mercy. I think both of these are beautiful. But they WOULD probably make conflict wherein like, Maddie wants to go after some bad guys to avenge the victims, and Haven doesn’t, that kind of thing. And I can see Maddie being angry AT HAVEN for that, and Haven UNDERSTANDING because she’s very understanding but still standing fast in her own beliefs. Haven is at peace with the universe, both its good and its evil. Maddie rages at the Heavens like if Milton wrote a woman. Both are perfect. Also like...I love so much the idea of Maddie being ready to PHYSICALLY FIGHT SOMEONE, no powers, she’s just going to WRECK THEM WITH HER BARE HANDS (trust me, she has a mean punch) and Haven pulling her back. Because Maddie is canonically 5′6 and 110 lbs, she’s not short but she’s VERY skinny (because Marvel likes making all their women borderline underweight; I headcanon Maddie should be more in the 135 lb ballpark) and Haven is a SOLID SIX FEET and has been shown as able to carry around GROWN MEN in her arms, so like Maddie just this feisty lil skinny spitfire ready to MURDER YOU and big mama Haven gently holding her back like an angry lil kitten!! Speaking of physical contrasts I also love how they’re very Tomboy & Girly Girl? Maddy is a pilot, she’s very adventurous and rough and tumble, she’s got cute dresses but she also wears her brown/green flight suit a lot, she’s a goth in the 90s...and then Haven is like, this very well-brought-up polite woman with super-long princess hair and the one time we see her in civilian-wear it’s this GORGEOUS sari with tons of jewelry, they’re just so Queen & Lady Knight, I love it. (It’s not that Maddie is unfeminine, Maddie’s VERY femme, she’s just more versatile and aggressive, whereas Haven is very conventionally hyperfeminine) I think another point they’d have a lot of difference---though not arguement---is sex. Like, Haven still spoke about her one (1) sexual experience with a lot of shame twenty years later, she’s very much a product of a conservative religious culture and while I don’t think she’s the type to slut-shame anyone else, I think she’s now very thoroughly celibate because of her experiences. Whereas Maddie is very much not, like she literally walks into Sebastian Shaw’s bedroom one night and rides that dick because shut up she wants to. While I don’t like the idea of her as this Sexy Evil Succubus that she’s become in the 2000s, I do see her as having a fun, practical, down-to-earth approach to sexuality as something that she enjoys and isn’t ashamed of, while also not being this male fantasy of a femme fatale 24/7. So I can see her commenting on hot guys buff bodies and Haven being embarrass, things like that, maybe Maddie trying to get her a date. Like basically Haven is the Virgin Mary, she’s chastity and motherhood and peace and mercy, and Maddie is Ishtar, the goddess of love AND sex AND war. Another thing about Haven is that she was established as EXTREMELY sensitive to the feelings of others, especially their pain, and that this was NOT a superpower from the Adversary, it’s how she’s always been since childhood. She’s almost psychic, she instantly figures out the personal problems of everyone in X-Factor, from Lorna and Alex’s co-dependence to Guido using humor to mask that he suffers from chronic pain due to his mutation. So while I doubt Maddie opens up to her about her past even when they become friends, Haven can very much feel out that SOMETHING awful happened to this woman. And Haven’s nature as a healer is going to be drawn that, to want to help her, without going too fast or too invasive, without doing anything Madelyne doesn’t want, without forcing anything on her because Haven has had that happen to her and she’s not going to do it to someone else even with good intentions. She’s done ENOUGH wrong with good intentions. And as Madelyne does begin to let her in and let Haven know what happened, Haven in return reveals her own startlingly similar trauma, and I think there’s a mutual healing there in supporting each other. Haven becomes the one shoulder Maddie has to cry on, and Maddie becomes someone who can be angry FOR Haven on her behalf. I see Maddie as probably being protective of Haven, like she has been of other women in the past who were wronged or vulnerable----such as when she was murderously incensed over what Genosha did to Jenny Ransome or when she offered to be Dazzler’s eyes when Dazzler was blinded by a mask magically stuck to her face. And Haven can help Maddie with moving on and owning her own life instead of devoting herself to vengeance anymore, because she loves Maddie and rightly believes Maddie deserves BETTER than that. Honestly, I just...love them both...and want them to be happy and healing...so much...thank you for this ask, I loved talking about them!! ;A;

#haven #maddie feels #haven and maddie #maddie and haven

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gaycrouton · 5 years

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hey! loooooooveee your writing! I'm super new to writing and I feel like I suck and since you seem so comfortable with it and you seem to play around all the time I was hoping you could say what you find hard about writing? I see lists of confidence boosters and encouraging tips but I think it would help me more to see that people I admire struggle? Is that weird? hehe sorry

Hahaha no that’s not weird at all, I understand! And thank you so much for your sweet words. So I know I’m definitely forgetting things from this list, but off the top of my head, here are a few of the many things I struggle with (in no specific order). Side Note: Everything I list is just my personal view. I’ve read fanfics that go against how I write personally and LOVE THEM.

I’m also gonna tag some others because I think for something like this, multiple opinions would be great! Anything you guys struggle with? @admiralty-xfd @monikafilefan @fragilevixenfic @slippinmickeys @sarie-fairy @suitablyaggrieved (ANY AUTHORS JUMP IN!)

1) Smut specific, trying to find realistic pacing. In terms of MSR, it’s very important for me to find a pacing that feels honest, even if I’m exploring or putting them in an AU situation. Even if I’m writing a “Mulder and Scully are trapped in an elevator and fuck” fic, I am still writing based off the canon that they take seven years to get together (which gets even tricker if your fic is earlier). It’s unrealistic to be like here’s a love confession then boom his dick is in her. I think that’s why I try and play around with awkwardness so much, because for me it’s what makes these situations plausible and real. They have to be pushed over the edge significantly and act accordingly (this is just for me personally).

2) I’m impatient. I write and then want to post right away. I need to respect the necessity of the beta-ing process (for reason #3), and when I do they always come out better.

3) I think faster than I type and I have small chubby Trump hands and ADHD. So typos and half-finished phrases galore.

4) Because of #2 I post WIPs before I even know where they are going. I think this also comes from a fear of being soooo excited about an idea that I want to put it out because I have an irrational and stupid fear that someone else will do it before me (which is ridiculous of me).

5) I know this will seem strange coming from me, but sometimes writing sex scenes is like pulling teeth. That’s literally just because I think the length of the sex scene should be adequate in regards to the build up. Build up is my favorite part to write so then when I get to the sex scene I’m just like “oh yeah... I have a whole other thing I have to write” and I always try to come up with an aspect that will make this sex scene different than that sex scene.

6) I am at the conundrum of loving stories where Scully is injured/hurt/attacked/xyz and Mulder trying to help her, while also recognizing the problematic history of ‘hurt woman rescued by man’ trope. So my gender studies lenses come out and I have to navigate the delicate balance of never having the violence or what it may be be too gratuitous or (not that I ever would) I have to really make sure Scully doesn’t come across as helpless. Of course this can be reversed as well, but it’s most commonly women being mistreated.

7) I have an awful method of writing. I sit down and I intend not to get up until I have a chapter/story done. 80% of my fics are written in one go. It would be so much better if I didn’t do that to myself, but I’m still learning.

8) I ocassionally am randomly sensitive, so sometimes mean comments hurt my feelings. It’s that whole, you could get 5000 positive comments and one negative and you’ll remember the negative. Which is so stupid, but being indifferent is easier said than done.

But hmmmm, that’s all I’m thinking right now.

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allsoundwavesarebeautiful · 5 years

Text

observations about Sari

Sari’s origins were explained in part through the show’s three-season run, but we were never given the full story. season four would have elucidated on her backstory further, as evidenced by the episode summary for “Megatron Must be Destroyed!”:

“Part 2: As a Powermaster-enhanced Optimus battles Megatron, Sari discovers a deeper connection between herself and someone familiar that may save the Earth and Cybertron.”

season four may or may not ever happen. TFCon this past week has offered hope to the fans, myself included, but it’s still up in the air. with this uncertainty in mind, i figured it was a good time to put forth a theory, so if season four does happen, i can say i called it. (if i’m right, of course.)

what is this theory about? that “connection to someone familiar.”

(this post got kinda long, so if you don’t want to read me presenting my evidence, you can skip to the bottom as there is a TL;DR.)

this is our subject for today. she appears human, but in truth she’s a technorganic who absorbed Isaac Sumdac’s DNA to gain her human form. given how Elita-One became Blackarachnia, it can be assumed this is something protoforms just do. they assume the form and characteristics of anything that “attaches” to them. this isn’t important for the rest of the post, but pretty interesting anyway.

in the episode “TransWarped Part 1,” Isaac Sumdac tells Sari that “some years ago,” he saw "a very strange flash of light” in his lab and found a “little body, like liquid metal.” when he touched it, he was knocked unconscious, later awakening to find Sari. Isaac is prone to keeping things from people, but he’s never shown to lie, so i’m going to take the story at face value: he’s presenting the events as he experienced them, without obfuscation or omission.

this is what she looked like as a protoform. here are the protoforms that were stolen from the Dojo and found on the Nemesis:

-Sari has a spark.

-she has eyes, but they’re closed.

-that normal protoform doesn’t look very liquid-y to me. in fact, neither does Sari, but i’m going to assume there was some weird surface tension stuff going on that allowed her to retain her shape. she is much shinier.

-she’s way too small.

despite this, she thinks she came from the Nemesis. in “Endgame Part 2,” after finding the last of the protoforms on the Nemesis, she touches its arm and says, “this is where i came from? i knew there was a reason i needed to be here.” her hand then starts to glow as she does...something.

but how did Sari end up in Sumdac’s lab? why there, specifically? and where did her spark come from?

i mentioned above that her eyes were closed. this was significant to me because as a human, she has natural red eyes. they only become blue after she absorbs Allspark energy, which is blue. in fact, she has a lot of natural red on her despite Sumdac not having a speck on him--so she didn’t inherit it from him.

now, two more things: Megatron’s head was in Sumdac’s lab when Sari appeared, and Sari herself fielded the possibility of being made from him in TransWarped. when Ratchet says her circuitry is Cybertronian, her immediate response is a dejected and disgusted “so he put Megatron parts in me? ew.” this is said at a time when she believes Sumdac built her, and is dropped after Sari learns she really is a Cybertronian.

but why would one exclude the other?

i propose that Sari was an experiment by the Decepticons to find a way to create new sparks without the Allspark. spark-splicing as an idea exists in other continuities, so it’s not out of the question that it might exist in TFA. it might be finicky or difficult or inefficient though; whatever the case, Sari turned out too small and weak and fragile for Megatron’s purposes, so he had her jettisoned from the Nemesis.

later, her pod was transwarped, due to entering a transwarp field or something in the pod itself being triggered. either way, it took her to Sumdac’s lab, because her spark was made from Megatron’s spark and that connection interacted with the transwarp. since his body was buried and his head was in a tower, the residual energy in his processor was easier to lock onto and that’s where she ended up.

why Megatron? maybe he was the only one who could, or offered the best chance of success because of his extremely strong spark. maybe Lugnut wasn’t traveling with him at the time, and Starscream and Blitzwing would both look like worse choices to him. Blackarachnia could potentially produce someone more Autobot-ish because of her previous allegiance, as well.

Megatron could have seen himself as the only logical choice, and it was just an experiment, after all--he wouldn’t need to give the protoform a shell, even, and could kill them right afterward if they were unruly. first they needed to see if such a thing was possible.

it was possible, and she wasn’t unruly, but also not what he wanted, so he got rid of her and by pure fortune she crash-landed into a good family. if she’d opened her eyes to look at Sumdac before he touched her, we would have seen bright red--Decepticon red.

a lot of this is conjecture, of course, especially at the end. i do think season four would reveal some deeper connection between her and the Decepticons, because it’s dramatic and the foreshadowing points to it, but whether it would look anything like this, i don’t know. i just think it’s fun to over-analyze tiny details like this! i’d love to hear other theories.

TL;DR: Sari was an experiment by Megatron to find a way to create new sparks without the Allspark. he spliced his own spark into her, but the protoform became small and weak, because spark-splicing just isn’t a good method in general. he jettisoned her from the Nemesis. later her pod got caught in a transwarp field, and without proper coordinates, it dumped her in Sumdac’s lab because that’s where Megatron was at the time.

#tfa #transformers animated #soundwave posts #i finished this up while beer-tipsy so forgive me for mistakes i didn't catch #this post is pretty long under the readmore but there are also images #i'm probably too verbose but here it is #my favorite fan theory/headcanon for Transformers #like in general. out of everything i've come up with this is my favorite

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hamliet · 5 years

Text

tense

this is a personal post; something I wrote to process the experience of losing my dad a year ago today.

I am leaving for India soon. I will be visiting friends. My father is in the hospital. It's nothing new, and still I feel the familiar clench in my stomach I’ve felt almost every one of my twenty-five years.

My first full memory--I have snapshots of earlier, but my first complete scene--is of waking up to find blood all over the kitchen floors and counters, the toilet, the bathroom tiles. White streaks from where someone tried to clean it up. An ambulance, coming to take my father away. The white stretcher. Our neighbor, talking to my mother on our front stoop.

To this day, I hyperventilate at the sight of blood.

He had an illness, but God healed him, my mother insists. He was at death's door and then he wasn't, his liver healed itself. At the very least, God gave him over twenty more years.

He died when I was not yet thirteen, but the paramedics shocked him back, and he got at least a dozen more years. He had forty-something surgeries by the time I was in my twenties.

When I moved to India, I was twenty-one. He called me up before I left, telling me how upset he was, how he didn't like the idea, how I was letting him down. I cried for hours. He'd disliked my choice to major in English and creative writing, disliked my choices of where to live, what I did with my hair. I'd told him years earlier I knew I wasn't the child he wanted. I was too loud, he’d said before, too too too.

He was in too much pain, and so was I. And while there was ten thousand miles between us, he called me. He said, I'm terminally ill. Inclusion body myositis. Coupled with a break-up and a crisis of what to do with me life like all recent college grads, I moved back to the US. The literature didn't match his perspective on his illness, but I believed him. To this day, I don't know what the full truth was.

I think he was tired. I tell him he better hang on. I want a family soon, and I want him to be around. I want him around. He told me he wanted me to be happy and worried when I went through a health scare of my own. He tells me I have a gift for writing. I box up his compliments, storing them in a cavernous space. The empty space I use to crush myself when he lashes out next time; the compliments I unfold on my own time.

I leave for India at twenty-five, visiting friends, when he is out of the hospital. This time, he tells me to have fun, see the friends he knows I adore. And in India, I'm in the hospital with food poisoning, and so is he, with an infection. Then, I'm back from India, and he's out of the hospital. And then he falls and he breaks his arm, and he's back in again, and out.

I see him on Easter and I think how much I dislike the holiday. I love its religious significance. I hate my Easter experiences. I do not want to go home, but I go for him. I wear the skirt I bought in India, the green and blue one made from a sari. He says I look pretty. I box it up.

This weekend, he is sick and cannot eat his favorite pizza. We watch Jumanji, but we pause it while he is ill. He laughs, says he likes it. We argue politics. I ask him if he wants anything from Japan, and he says he wants a cat keychain, and I remember how he said he hated cats until we were nine and he got his first one.

I leave for Japan four days later. My father was the one who encourages me to go anyways, telling me now was the time to travel, and I remember how he'd been so opposed to me living in India before. He's grown, too, and he gives me hope.

Four days later, I call him before I fly out to Tokyo. He tells me to have fun and reminds me, "Don't forget my keychain!"

"I won't," I promise.

I text him at the airport, when I almost miss my connecting flight. He says he is praying for me to make my flight. I do. I text him after leaving Don Quijote’s in Tokyo, telling him I found his keychain. It lights up in a combination flashlight, but I don't tell him this part. He texts me back a cat emoji, the one with the red heart eyes.

I text him some pictures throughout the rest of the week. He doesn't respond. I look forward to telling him about Hiroshima. I plan out the stories I will tell, the inflection of my voice when I tell him. It is, in many ways, one of the best weeks of my life.

The day before I leave Tokyo, my sister calls and tells me my dad was in the hospital with encephalopathy. His liver is failing him. But he is better now. He will be okay, my sister tells me. I look to my friend I'm traveling with, and I don't know what I want to say to assure myself.

My flight heading back is a disaster. When I realize I will miss my connecting flight, I burst into tears. The flight attendant asks me what's wrong. I tell her my dad is dying. It is the first time I say these words out loud with a sense of imminence.

My brother runs the Boston marathon back home, the third time, and in the worst weather in years. But he writes my dad's name on his shoes, since my dad always wanted to run it but never did. He finishes despite the cold.

I land in Boston thirty hours later and call my parents the next day. My dad is napping. That night, my mom calls me. Her voice crackles. She begs me to visit this weekend. "Please." That word is emphasized. I don't remember the other words, not specifically.

I promise I will come. I cry, too, hot tears on my face, and my roommate grabs her keys and tells me, let's go.

We drive down. His skin, freckled and marked like all Irishmen, is stained yellow from jaundice. Agony rends his limbs, and he curls up, moaning, a pink basin on him for if he vomits. I am angry and praying and ordering doctors and God to make him better. They stabilize him and I tell him I love him, kissing his cheek. He thanks me for coming, voice hoarse but still very, very alive.

I spend the next two days working, in a fog, because by that point I know. My sister and my brother still think he'll get better. I tell my roommates I don't think that any more. I've said it aloud, but to someone I don't know. Saying it to people I do: it's cold slicing through me. The coming days will be the tipping point, the cliff, and soon I will fall and I don't know when that fall will end. There is a horrible part of me that wants that rope to just break already, just snap already, I can't take dangling anymore. I know the inevitable, just let me go, I've never liked suspense, not even in movies. But I'm not ready to fall, and I'm not ready to dangle again either. I can't imagine him being gone. I try to make plans for what will happen to the cats he's rescued. My brain won't cooperate.

When I see him that Saturday, I know. I cry almost instantly. My sister sees, and she knows, and she leaves with her boyfriend to cry, to think. He doesn't recognize me, I don't think. My mom says he does. He keeps trying to get up, but his legs can't support him, and I'm scared if he gets up when I'm alone with him that he will fall and break something. I am not strong enough, but I cannot let him fall, but I can't stop it either. I pray. Daddy, I am scared.

My sister and her boyfriend return. He catches my dad when he falls. My dad keeps thinking we're leaving the hospital. "Mama, let's go," he says to my mom. They've always called each other by their roles. Mama, Dad.

I brought his keychain in a small crinkly bag from the store in Tokyo. I can't give it to him. The doctor gives us the end of life talk. I cry more, but I plan to give him the keychain the next day, once they get the medicine that will, at the very least, stabilize his brain so he can recognize me.

My mom breaks down that night. "I don't want to lose him." I hold her, as does my sister and her boyfriend.

I write a Facebook message to my cousin. I tell her, my dad is dying. She calls me the next morning, when we are already at the hospital and his breathing is slowing. My mom calls my uncles, my aunt, my father's siblings. "It's going to be today." Someone calls my brother, who was running a race six days after running the marathon. He jumps in his car and races towards the hospital.

The nursing staff have put soft, ethereal music on. It at least gives the room with its antiseptic smell and shoes squeaking on tiles a spiritual presence, something foggy and soft to wrap around us. I text my friends, asking them to bring me clothes to stay for the week, telling them this is it.

My sister leaves for a minute. I say goodbye, and I don't remember what I said. I know I said I loved him. You would think I would remember my words, but I don't, beyond a phrase I'd said thousands of times.

His breathing skips in places. My mom and I try. She tells him to hang on, my brother's not here yet. I say the same, and then, because I am scared, I tell him it's okay to go if he can't hang on. My mom says no, and he listens. Because my dad doesn't give up. He hangs on.

My brother arrives. He holds my dad's hand. It is swollen and it doesn't look like his hand anymore. He speaks to him.

My mom says "I think he's gone." He's not yet. But within ten minutes of my brother arriving, he slips away.

I kiss his cheek before I leave. He is cold.

My mom cries and I tell her the only thing that comforts me, that maybe if God exists outside of time, we are already with him.

That night, I watch Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 with two friends, via rabbit. It is the series of movies--the GOTG ones--that my dad and I made a point to see together.

We bury him with the cat keychain in his hands.

It's May, and I am angry that no one wants to ask me about his death. I am lonely. It's a few weeks later, and I am told I have to move my apartment, one of my best friends is moving away, and it is too much. I keep thinking, I need to call my dad, and it strikes me each time.

You can’t.

It's June, and I listen to the voice messages I have saved in my phone, the times he called me in India. It is July, and his birthday and my brother's and my sister's and mine all come during that family month, and my friends check up on me. It is September, and I move to a new place, a place he's never seen. It is winter, and I am dying too.

I wake nightly with a nauseated cloud in my head dribbling rain and memories down my spine. I dream his death again and again. I dream of my grandfather's death when I was fourteen, the one whose funeral my father missed because he was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. I dream of my grandmother's death, the one who told my mother she was trying to hold onto life until I got back from India to say goodbye. I didn't make it in time, but in my dreams, I do.

I don't know how to dream anymore without nightmares. Not just death ones, but the ones in which I say all that was unsaid between us. There was so much to say, and I didn’t know how in the time we had. And neither did he.

Depression, a frequent visitor since my teen years, comes to shroud me. I feel like I'm walking through a world of static mostly, the kind where I can't concentrate on colors or people. I go on a few dates. Guys will eventually ask about your family, and I can't always dodge. Nothing lasts, but more often than not, I am the one who deletes their number. My therapist and my doctor are scared. They tell me I need to do something, but I don't know what. My boss badgers me. I get a few job rejections.

I want to give up.

I am tired.

He is the one somewhere far away, and I can't reach him. And so here I am, writing. Hey, Dad, can you hear me?

There are people who reach for me, too, friends and fellow writers, some whom I’ve never met in person, and they tell me, I better hang on. I call my doctor. I increase my dose of antidepressant, a different kind but still an SSRI, from the one he started only months before he died. I don’t know if they had the chance to work on him, but maybe they will help me, hold my hand at least through the rest of this year, beyond if needed, until I can walk on my own again.

My brother runs the Boston marathon and he lays the medal on his grave. He wonders if it's morbid to have taken the picture he sends to me, the medal with its blue ribbon coiled at the foot of his grave, and I say no, it comforts me.

My sister's gotten engaged, to the boy who caught my father when his legs wouldn't hold him anymore.

It is Easter, and I wear the same blue and green sari skirt, and I think, I look pretty. I've started a new dose of Zoloft, and it's Easter. Resurrection, Love in a Human conquering death, the last enemy, a Son returning to his mother on earth and then his Father in heaven, and, I hope.

I wasn’t better yet. But I am here, writing this, and I think I will be. Time is not constant in experience and maybe not at all. It is especially the case for me with grief, so I am both okay, and not okay, healed and bleeding, mourning and laughing.

And so, again: Dad, can you hear me?

There’s a lot to say. In time, I will.

I love you.

#personal #grief #depression #loss

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mariedemedicis · 5 years

Note

*slides into your askbox* so tell me more about your dolls and stuffed animals

For @joannalannister

Below a cut because I still want this on my blog but I know most of you on my dash aren’t interested in this.

[Disclaimer that my photography skills are not very good.]

I don’t have as much variety or history to my dolls as you do, Lauren, though I definitely want to ask you more questions about your dolls!

Large dolls

Most of my dolls are American Girl dolls. I got Kirsten Larson for Christmas when I was about nine or ten, which was perfect because I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie and had devoured all the books.

My Kirsten

With her I got a couple of her outfits, including her winter outfit with snowshoes which my dad honestly might love more than me. [Requisite meme: He just thinks they’re neat!]

Kirsten’s School Dress with Shawl

Summer Dress and Straw Hat

Apron Dress and Daisy Wreath

Kirsten’s Nightgown and Sari doll

I am retrospectively kicking myself for never getting some of the other outfits, especially since now they are incredibly difficult to find and expensive.

These ones are the ones I want the most:

Swedish Dirndl and Kerchief

Checked Dress and Apron

Midsummer Outfit

Baking Outfit

[Pictures courtesy of the American Girl wiki.]

Of course at the time, I was solely interested in the pioneer aspect of Kirsten’s story rather than any Swedish history or culturally specific clothing.

About a year(?) later, I think when American Girl released her, I got Nellie O’Malley, Samantha’s best friend, for Christmas. Even though my Irish-American ancestry is pretty far back, I really liked Nellie because she was the closest American Girl had gotten to my own background.

My Nellie

Nellie’s Pajamas

Nellie in Samantha’s Middy Outfit

I still have all of Kirsten’s books too, in a box set, and some of the other historical character books.

I bought Josefina Montoya for myself three years ago.

My Josefina

Feast Day Finery

Christmas Dress and Mantilla

I found Addy Walker and Marisol Luna, Girl of the Year for 2005, on ebay and mercari for cheap.

My Addy

My Marisol

Plaid Summer Set

Tartan Plaid Dress

I have one of the 14.5 inch Wellie Wisher dolls, Emerson. (I like that they’re half the price of the 18 inch dolls and they work super well as younger siblings.)

My Emerson

I have one more 18 inch doll, Heather Hardin, who I bought for ~$20 on mercari. She’s a Magic Attic doll and though I read a handful of the Magic Attic books as a kid, I had no idea there were any dolls. The line didn’t last for very long.

My Heather

I really like that her head is more articulated than the American Girl dolls and the books are definitely cute - the premise is that four friends find a key to this attic and when they try on different outfits they get to travel to that time period - but inferior to the American Girl ones in terms of teaching anything about history. (There’s a book where Megan travels to medieval France (which is cool since the American Girl characters are restricted to American history) but the whole plot involves an invisibility cloak and a unicorn so.)

Magic Attic dolls can wear American Girl doll clothes but they’re skinnier so everything fits a bit loose on them.

This is Andy, my sort of baby doll. I don’t know what brand she is and I haven’t measured her so I don’t know how big she is but she’s smaller than Emerson.

Andy

I know my picture isn’t great quality but her skin is really grey (she’s as old as I am), I should probably clean her somehow but I’m scared to mess up, and her eyes open and shut although now when she lays down one stays half way open.

Small dolls

My parents never liked Barbie so I had one or two but they were secondhand from neighbors and older cousins. (I had this pink travel house my cousin handed down to me that I was obsessed with though I’ve since given it away.)

This was it! Picture courtesy of flickr

They didn’t mind the Kellys though, so I had a bunch of those.

Most of them I have given away but I thought I’d hung onto these three though I can’t find them now (they might be at my parents’? I hope they’re still around).

Picture courtesy of Amazon

This is from one of the Kelly Around the World sets. Left to right, they represent Kenya, Spain, and Holland.

The reason I hope I’ve kept these around is because I got this trio right around the time my dad came back from six months in Kenya and my dad’s family is from Spain so these Kellys feel emotionally significant.

I have three of the American Girl mini dolls.

From ltr: Mini Elizabeth, Mini Samantha, and Mini Grace.

They are Mini Elizabeth Cole, best friend to Felicity, a Mini Samantha I picked up for cheap that someone had cut the bangs off of and I think was trying to customize into a revolutionary soldier (maybe Ben?) and a Mini Grace Thomas who was the Girl of the Year in 2015.

I’ve been kind of obsessed with the minis lately and my dad has promised to try and build a house for them with me. (He’s very into diy restoration and has totally redone a bunch of the rooms in my parents’ house all by himself, even though he probably is too old to be doing so.)

We’re going to try and replicate this:

Byers-Muma House in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, built ca. 1740

The other mini dolls I have are from the European brand Simba Toys, specifically the Evi Love line.

The two dolls in the Doll Cradle set

The dolls are about Kelly sized but chunkier and they with the babies make really good children for the American Girl minis.

Here’s a comparison:

Elizabeth’s arms are stretched a little too wide to hold the baby but don’t they make a cute little family? I just need to find or fashion period appropriate clothing for Charlotte and the baby.

Stuffed animals

I have a Beanie Baby stuffed Tiger named Tiggie who is about the same age as me.

Tiggie

I’m fairly positive that he is a Beanie Baby although he looks quite a bit different than my other contemporaneous Beanie Baby.

Here’s Peaches and Cream, she’s a Snip the Cat beanie.

Peaches and Cream

Here’s a comparison of Peaches and Cream next to Tiggie:

I used to have more Beanies but I gave most of them away about ten years ago.

One of the cool Beanies I had was a Beaver one.

Picture courtesy of Amazon

For my last birthday in college, my roommate gave me one of the new Beanies.

Cute but I kind of hate how big the eyes have gotten.

One of my best friends and I got matching snow leopard stuffed animals from our trip to the Bronx Zoo.

I have a teddy bear! He is missing an eye so he wears a eye patch.

Lastly, I have a little folkmanis puppet.

Mini Raven

I had to get the raven after reading ASoIaF!

Miscellaneous

I have the Calico Critters Tuxedo Cat Family and Tuxedo Cat Triplets.

I have a whole bunch of paper dolls and historical fashion coloring books, mostly Tom Tierney but I’m too lazy to photography them right now.

The Lannister dress I found was from one of these.

My brother and I had a lot of playmobils as kids. These are all at my parents’ house but I always wanted to make a massive city diorama with them.

There are so many more dolls and toys and outfits and accessories and etcetera that I want but money and space so that’s all for now.

Let me know if there’s something else you wanted to know I didn’t mention!

#asks #answers #joannalannister #dolls #american girl #calico critters #stuffed animals

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gabriel-gabdiel · 3 years

Text

Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 2: Self-Insert Power Fantasy

The outcast Florante awakens unusual special powers while dreaming. He then unleashes his pent-up frustrations against all his classmates who bullied him... in the dream.

Surely releasing all his stress in a dream is a healthy way of dealing with it, right? A victimless crime. But what if it wasn’t a dream...?

My original fiction. You can also find it here. Please enjoy.

First | Previous | Next

Florante walked outside the gates of Fatima School, his head in the clouds. Dark, nimbus clouds with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms followed him.

He must've blacked out earlier. What had just happened?

Everything was quiet. The whole school was a wreck. Did he get caught in the middle of a Signal No. 4 typhoon and only came to just now to realize it, when everyone else had already evacuated?

His gut felt like it was on fire. His head, or perhaps his brain itself, throbbed like a second palpitating heart that pulsated in conjunction with his actual heart.

He hadn't the foggiest idea what was going on.

He looked at his hands. They were stained with blood.

Shit. What happened?! Was it his blood that...?

He then heard a voice say, "I found you. You naughty little devil."

The apparition of a beautiful girl with long, flowing hair and transparent watery wings emerged from the rain and mist.

He asked her, "Who are you?!"

As the strange female being stared at Florante with an unreadable expression, she whispered, "Archangel Raphael."

This made him remember the comic books he drew about the four most famous archangels: Gabriel. Raphael. Uriel/Azrael. Michael.

Who was she? Why was her face so familiar? She was stunningly gorgeous. In fact, she kind of reminded him of his high school crush.

"This is the end of the line for you. I won't let you hurt anyone else, Flor."

Wait. She knew him?

Wait. Laura. She looked like Laura! The same Laura that he had just... had just...!

Damn it.

"Prepare to die," the angelic version of Laura said before becoming a blur of fluid glassy wings, a downpour of pressurized water, and certain death.

It then all came back to him in an instant.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

When dreams become nightmares.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 2: Self-Insert Power Fantasy

***

During the summer before his first day at Fatima High School...

Florante Galang actually read through the book, "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie in order to avoid becoming a pariah in his new school like he was back in his old school.

For all the good it did him later on.

He inwardly swore his high school days were going to be much different from his lonely grade school days, when no one his age would talk to him and only people a year or two younger than him tolerated his presence. Or even looked up to him.

It was supposed to be his high school debut. His chance to turn a new leaf.

The night before the first day of freshman classes, he tried remembering the advice given to him by that very book that included tips such as "Don't criticize, condemn or complain," "Give honest and sincere appreciation," and "Arouse in the other person an eager want."

He even tried the book's advice in winning over people on his own family, particularly his strict smothering mother, but he must've missed a chapter or two. It didn't work.

Or rather, his attempts at "Get the other person saying 'yes, yes' immediately," and "Ask questions instead of direct orders," led to yet another misunderstanding that got him punished for "disrespecting his elders". Again.

He got a flying piece of footwear—a slipper or flip-flop—hit him right on the head soon afterwards, to be exact.

She also said something about him talking back to his parents and being insolent.

Perhaps he should reconsider the self-help book's advice as less of a surefire way to manipulate his mother into saying yes to her increasing his allowance and more of a set of helpful tips to make himself more appealing to people.

If used correctly, of course.

He did his rote memorization of the self-help book in his bedroom located on the east portion of their abode, with the facade and front yard of their bungalow facing north and his parents' bedroom at the southwest portion.

He used to share his room with his two older sisters but they soon moved out to their own rooms as they saved enough money to expand their home.

It was a familiar room that belonged to him exclusively around Grade 5 to 7. He couldn't remember exactly when.

The linoleum floor, the cream walls, the gray ceiling with discolored tiled patterns on it where the beams supporting them were supposed to be, and the red curtains were all part of his childhood.

The Galangs' humble abode originally had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and (barely) a garden plus a plot of undeveloped land with pebbles and other smooth stones over it. Half of a bungalow in Pasig.

This below sea level part of their property was then slowly filled up with land over the years so that the whole house would rise above the street. From there came the construction of a second part of the home with two more bedrooms and an extra bathroom as well as a garage for the family car.

With the money his mother earned from their short-lived stint with selling goods through a sari-sari (variety) store and the rest she got from her parents (his grandparents) on top of the ones she saved from his father's engineer work, they were able to turn their half of a house and turn it into a full house, so to speak.

The most notable changes on the bedroom was how it once had two beds but now it only had one. The mirror still had the "Santo Niño (Baby Jesus)" statue there, which he never looked at directly because it gave him the creeps. However, he would never admit such a thing to his prayerful Roman Catholic family.

Regardless, he attempted memorizing and taking to heart many of the lessons the book imparted, but like any other teenaged boy, his short attention span ended up becoming his downfall.

He skipped, scanned, and skimmed through many of the pages of anecdotes and stories in order to find something he could use. He only really wanted the book to help him with his social anxiety so as to turn a new leaf.

All of that "effort" was for naught, of course. His nightmarish bullying in grade school only got worse in high school.

***

Back to the relative present...

One morning in Fatima High, chaos ensued. All hell broke loose.

His head in the clouds, Florante Galang "sleepwalked" into the school, his every step practically gliding through the road, swift as the gale wind, his fingertips emanating sparks and crackles of electrical might.

It was like something out of a movie or a Sci-Fi TV series.

He maneuvered through the heavy traffic jam of the road like a motorcycle delivery man in a hurry, weaving through every nook and cranny with the grace of a swan and the aggressiveness of a duck. Unnoticed by the cars, vans, jeepneys, and trucks around him.

For whatever reason, he ended up with superpowers right off of a superhero comic.

Ah, who cared? It was just a dream, after all.

'That's right. I'm dreaming, aren't I?'

In a dream, anything was possible, including gaining supernatural powers like those of angels, demons, and gods, thus allowing him to wreak havoc on his most hated high school in a relatively harmless way.

This was his stress reliever, he rationalized. A way to blow off steam from all the resentment boiling up inside him as the outcast of his class and this god-forsaken school.

Instead of stopping crime or saving people, he did the exact opposite upon his discovery of his unnatural abilities. He instead committed crime and damned everyone in his path.

Maybe it was because he'd never do any of this in real life. It was his opportunity to have his revenge against those who wronged him.

This was how a normal person would react to getting superpowers, he rationalized. The same way someone would more often than not end up on a spending spree after winning the lottery despite claims to the contrary prior to getting the cash prize.

It was just human nature in action.

He idly wondered why in western comics and manga, the hero with superpowers almost always ended up becoming vigilantes or supernatural policemen.

It was more realistic for them to do what he was doing now, as though he'd just won the lottery and he was about to splurge on the nearest sports car, game console, or mansion.

His list of bullies remained fresh in his mind. His nightmare scenario had become their nightmare scenario. The resident timid freak, "quiet kid", and communal punching bag could now punch back.

One thing came to his mind as he approached Fatima High.

'I have been abused all my life to the point where I don't trust anyone.'

Unbeknownst to the people inside the school, he'd been testing his powers elsewhere, with him appearing like some sort of cyclone or tornado as he blasted through rivers and old buildings with his newfound abilities.

It was so much fun having so much power after being powerless for so long.

He couldn't wait to test them out on actual humans. Fragile, squishy humans.

Yikes. Why did he sound so bloodthirsty all of a sudden?

He then braced himself while also reassuring himself that this was all a dream. A harmless dream.

Because of how unbelievable the situation was, he presumed it was all a dream. A blurry fantasy borne out of his frustration from being rejected by his classmates and seemingly the entire school campus.

He stopped mid-stride. Before him was a familiar face. A girl from school. His classmate.

It was the face of Jennifer "Jenny" Tolentino. She was a petite, intelligent, talkative, and capable do-getter nerdy girl who was one of the first (and few) students to befriend Florante in Fatima High.

The only girl who was kind to him.

"'Sup, Flor. You're here early. What'cha up to?" the bespectacled Jenny asked with an inquisitive head tilt. "You look like you're in a hurry."

Florante smiled and chuckled. Although he still hated that girly nickname his classmates gave him, he ignored it and told her, "You're an okay gal, Jenny. Don't go to school today. For your own good."

"W-What do you mean by tha...? HEY!" she asked, but in the blink of an eye he was gone.

His power fantasy was about to begin.

***

He saw her again. The girl of his dreams. She had locks of black hair, cascading like a starless night. Her face as gorgeous as the sun setting over the ocean. He had yearned to be with her.

However, today was not the day for him to make her his, whether by words or by action. He lost that chance forever due to their misunderstanding and perhaps his owwn overzealousness.

Pity. She would've looked mesmerizing in their wedding.

This was the drop-dead gorgeous girl who rejected him over a misunderstanding regarding him drawing her in the nude. The class beauty. The pretty young woman who helped put a stop to his social life in Fatima High.

Her perfectly symmetrical face had a gentle look to it. Or it did until she saw him.

There she was. Laura Reyes. His first crush in high school.

She was a healthy girl with sturdy legs, demure eyes, and a wide, unabashed smile as she talked to several of their friends in class. Her hourglass figure created the perfect feminine silhouette as she turned towards him.

He intended to spare her from his power fantasy rampage of revenge like he did Jenny since he really did like her a lot. Before their friendship crumbled to dust with his accidental social suicide, they got along just fine.

They weren't close friends or anything but they could talk to each other.

Just as he was about to move past her though, she flinched at him and gave her a look of contempt.

"Stay away from me, you creep."

Florante snapped then and there, his body surging with electrical might that coursed through his crush's veins, electrocuting her to death.

He didn't go so far as to fry her to toast because it'd be a shame to see such a cute girl turn to ash or dust, but his angry outburst of power did rob her of her life.

What a sick dream he was having.

He hesitated after seeing the girl with fair skin and an angelic body wilt like a flower and fall like velvet unto the grassy ground of the soccer field, unmoving.

Beautiful in death as she was in life.

She fell with the same grace as Evelyn Francis McHale did. The depressed woman who jumped from the Empire State Building on May 1, 1947, landing on a car roof. Songs were written about the picture of Evelyn's corpse that made it look like she was just a Sleeping Beauty rather than dead altogether.

Both appeared like they were resting or napping instead of dead, stuck in an idle daydream.

The boy beside her, a friend of hers from another section whose name eluded Florante, screamed bloody murder and attacked him on instinct.

Galang reacted thusly, shooting his attacker with twice the amount of electricity that he shot Laura, intending to fry him to ash.

The kid crumpled into a ball after Florante moved forward and punched him on the stomach, breaking his ribs. Perhaps also his spine. He soon lay motionless on the grass beside Laura.

Amazing. The asthmatic, unathletic him doing all this.

Before he could finish him off, he heard gasps, screams, and murmurs from everyone around him who witnessed his crime.

He asked himself: What was he doing? Should he be doing this? Wasn't this wrong of him to do this? Should he stop? Turn himself in?

He gulped, exhaled, and heard a whistle as he drew his next breath. His asthma acted up again due to all this stress. How ironic for an asthmatic like him to suddenly have weather-based powers.

He reassured himself that it was all just a dream. Perhaps a lucid dream, but still just a dream. An illusion or perhaps delusion. A fantasy of him evolving and maturing despite his inherent weakness.

It was his power fantasy.

His felt his body feel grow warmer and warmer, reaching a fever pitch as a cyclone or tornado formed around his body. The clouds darkened above, the winds sucking in nimbus clouds and reshaping the sky, turning morning to seeming midnight.

A boy suddenly gaining superpowers from out of the blue to take revenge on his bullies? Surely this was the dream of an idle mind, regardless of whether he made it up during his nighttime slumber or while daydreaming in his boring math class.

With that in mind, he indulged himself, laughing as he experimented upon the nearest of the students with his crackling lighting bolts and energy projectiles.

He found out earlier through morbidly amusing trial and error that by taking control of the energy flowing though him, he could make his electrical powers shock the nervous systems of the surrounding students to the point of making them jump back like frightened cats or spooked frogs.

He kept on moving forward, recalling his list of bullies in his mind. He didn't even need to list them down. He had it memorized by heart.

He'd already crossed his Rubicon anyway.

Starting with the kids Laura was hanging out with. The popular kids.

Like Danny Ilagan. Florante chanced upon him walking down the stairs to where the first floor classrooms were.

Galang remembered Ilagan as the classmate who first teased him about his obvious crush with Laura right in front of her in the lunchroom, which led to her to talk to him less, thinking their every encounter had a hidden agenda on his part.

He was also the guy who suggested Florante draw Laura then lied to her about him drawing her in the nude. He was sketching her body with shapes first before putting on her clothes, dammit!

Florante wasn't as careful with using his powers on Danny as he was with Laura.

He shot him full force with his energy bolt full of presumably millions of volts of electricity, turning him into a shadow on the pavement while the rest of the projectile exploded right through one of the nearby pillars like a bomb.

He was like one of the victims of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, in fact.

Galang kept walking towards the inside of the building while various students ran away from him, not understanding how he was doing what he was doing. They just ran on instinct, thinking he was packing heat or throwing explosives.

In the hallway, as he walked with murderous intent, he then saw Mr. Neil Nepomuceno. Their social studies teacher who humiliated him in front of the class.

The teacher shouted, "What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

What was he doing? He wanted to hurt them as much as they had hurt him. And this was all a dream anyway so it was the perfect opportunity to do so. It was his way of venting.

The teacher then hollered out his catchphrase of, "Caramba!" and turned into a grotesque splatter of guts, gore, and giblets on the wall care of a careless yet supernaturally strong backhand.

Damn. Florante didn't know his own strength. He couldn't even look at the mess that used to be Mr. Nepomuceno.

The school was in a panic now.

They had kids under the table. Screaming teachers. Security guards with guns shooting at Florante, but he blew them (literally) away without a second thought.

It was frighteningly easy to kill people his dream. He had to hold back a little bit. Savor the moment.

'Susmaryosep, I sure am screwed up.'

He went up the stairs, sparing several of his classmates he recognized but had no quarrel over. Forgiving them for laughing at the jokes of his bullies and targeting his bullies instead.

Was he not a Merciful God? An Angel of Mercy and Divine Retribution?

He then caught up with Kyle Hernandez inside the computer room, who sat on a chair across a long table. The same guy who had been tag-teaming with Geronimo "Gerry" Jacinto to jeer and humiliate him at every turn.

This culminated to Hernandez playing a practical joke on Florante during the flag ceremony. The sections were lined up by height in front of the Philippine flag every Monday.

One Monday, during the flag ceremony where the class was supposed to form two lines, Kyle and many of Florante's classmates all huddled in one line, leaving the line where Galang was much shorter and only about 5-6 people long.

Galang was traumatized ever since.

"Hey, Flor. What's going on outside? Is there a storm? Are classes canceled?" Kyle asked Florante, who didn't respond as he approached him with malice burning through his electrified fingers.

Bristling in remembrance of that humiliating prank, Florante turned a lightning bolt into a laser sword and cut Kyle in half by the chest down, with one half of him shorter than the other like the lines his classmates made that day.

He moved further down the second floor hallway right into the middle stairs. He heard more screams and the stampede of a dozen leather shoes. He silenced them by firing more bolts of energy across the open yard right on the balcony of the second floor hallway.

He then fired off missiles of light from all ten of his fingertips into the classrooms to his left, resulting in debris, pieces of plaster, concrete, and flaming wooden shards to shower all over him.

As the smoke cleared, he made a beeline to the final flight of stairs to get to the third floor library.

He practically flew through the steps, remembering how one of his bullies actually fell back and hit him with his buttocks to the face while the rest of his posse yucked it up.

Those bastards. Make a fool of him, would they? He'd show them. He'd show them all!

He burst through the library's double doors so hard they flew right off of their hinges.

He targeted more of his freshmen classmates, specifically the ones who teased and bullied him while he mostly electrocuted and flung like rag dolls anyone else that got in his way.

Many of the students were wise enough to stay back, hide, or run away from him.

Alas, the more his power grew the more he couldn't control it. There was bound to be some collateral damage here and there. He honestly didn't know his own strength. Not at this point.

Then there they were. The people who regularly appeared on his "snitch list" to teachers so that they'd stop bothering him but found ways to mess with him regardless.

Steven Catimbang. Sheila Bernal. Isaiah Cuevas. Matthew Lim. Regina Mariano.

Florante spotted them before they went and hid in the computer section of the library or tried to blend in with the rest of the fleeing crowd of students.

Steven was the one who pulled the butt-to-the-face prank on him.

He found Steven at the computer table as he was about to hide under it.

Galang shot Catimbang in time with a bolt to the posterior, destroying the lower half of his body and leaving the upper half crawling in the floor, crying bloody tears and begging for his life (even though it was too late for him).

This was getting seriously fucked up. Goddamn. What was with this dream?

As for Sheila, he found her under another table of the library.

She was the girl from another section who, as he and his boy classmates finished up from their swimming class for P.E. (gender separated), jeered at him and his lack of a bulge on his swimming trunks.

He was jeered relentlessly by his classmates for months after that remark regarding his manhood.

He asked Bernal if she remembered the swimming pool incident, and she just stared blankly at him.

"W-Who are you...? Pl-Please, don't kill me! I'll do anything...!"

She didn't even remember him.

Seeing how big of mouth she had, he decided to suck the air from out of her, vacuuming it right out of her lungs with his powers until she suffocated. He instantly regretted it after seeing the horrified face she made and the blue tinge of her face and whole body.

He moved on, his head throbbing and his finger twitching with static and sparks.

As for Isaiah Pascual, he tried scampering towards the window, but Galang caught him by the collar. "I don't know how you're doing all this, bro, but we're friends, right? I always talked to you! Spare me, man!"

Florante replied, "You abandoned me when I needed you the most. I tried to fit in with you and your group, but you were always so distant."

Pascual kicked Galang by the groin and attempted to run away, jeering, "Yeah, right! Like I'd ever be friends with...!" only to be cut off with his head exploding from one of Florante's light bullets.

"...Yeah. Why'd I ever delude myself into thinking you were my friend?" Florante felt something warm drip on his face. It was Pascual's blood.

He resisted the urge to hurl, looking away at the mess he made of his traitor of a former friend.

Florante wanted to spare Pascual but Pascual made fun of him.

Meanwhile, Matthew Lim cried out, "Leave me alone! I never did anything to you, Flor!" before Florante reminded him, "You made fun of my accent when speaking English. You told people about how when I talked to them, I couldn't stare them in the eye."

"Th-That's it? Dude, we barely even talk or interact! It was Jacinto! Gerry's the one who's always messing with you, dude...!"

He turned Lim into a mangled mess by shooting the ceiling and letting debris fall on him. He turned away as soon as he saw the blood pool from underneath the rubble, before the smoke from the wreckage even cleared.

Then there was Regina Mariano. She once compared him to a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome found on their pamphlet about the side effects of drugs and alcohol.

He hated the teasing she caused back then. But he could barely look her in the eyes now, and it wasn't because of his social anxiety.

No. Right now, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes, saying over and over, "I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me."

He then asked, "Do you believe in God?"

What he said made her cry harder, not knowing what to say except, "I'm so sorry!" over and over again.

He decided to give her a quicker, painless death than the rest, ramping up his gathered chi energy or whatever and releasing a beam of light that turned her to ash in a millisecond. The entire building shuddered from the impact of his forceful will.

...At least it was all a dream. Right? God, he hoped it was a dream.

A fantasy he could use to vent in a harmless way, with him not actually hurting anyone.

Not recognizing the rest of the faces hiding under the tables, smoke, and rubble, he walked out of the library (or what was left of it) in a daze.

He stared back at his cracked reflection on the glass divider of the computer section of the library. All he could see was a shadowy silhouette of a man with shining blue eyes, like a cornered animal at dusk.

Was that everyone? Had he punished all his bullies? No, wait. He still had a few more people to scratch off of his list.

He walked across the soccer field straight to the gym where they had their P.E. classes.

From the roar of the winds, he could idly hear what he surmised as Mrs. Mancenido, crying out for him to stop. Recognizing who he was. Afraid of what he had become.

'Sorry, ma'am,' he apologized to her in his mind. It was too late for him.

Good thing this was all a dream though.

He jumped and crashed right into the third floor basketball court that doubled as a volleyball court.

The gym was mostly empty. The students probably caught wind of what he was doing, even though it was hard to believe or imagine him having the otherworldly powers necessary for this school massacre to take place.

As the winds parted and the smoke cleared, he was greeted by a metal pipe to the back of his skull from out of nowhere.

He turned to see John Sarmiento put up his dukes at him, pipe in hand. "You son of a bitch. Did you kill her, Flor?"

"...Who?" he dared ask even though he knew who he was talking about.

"Laura, you asshole! Why'd you kill her?! How the hell did you turn into... this?"

Florante caught the pipe and used it to conduct millions of volts of electricity at John before answering the convulsing student's question with, "Because she was a bitch to me."

Ah. Sarmiento. He remembered him. They were being ferried around by the same school service. They were bus mates (actually, jeepney mates), in a sense.

Instead of spending gas money driving the kids to school, their parents opted to save money by paying someone with a jeepney to fetch them and other kids around their village from house to house in order to drive them straight to Fatima School.

They weren't neighbors but they lived in the same suburb.

He remembered Sarmiento pranking him, putting cockroaches in his bag like an asshole then denying ever doing it. He was also one of the guys who encouraged him to draw Laura "in the nude" from his imagination when he was just making a sketch of her.

The nerve of him, acting the hero now when he was nothing but a villain to him all this time.

"That is for pranking me with those cockroaches."

Sarmiento spat blood all over Florante's face despite his body writhing in agony. "Really? You're going kill me just for that, you psycho? Like you killed Laura? God damn, you're a petty son of a...!"

Galang then slammed John to the ground with a sickening crunch. Squashed like a bug. A cockroach, even.

How appropriate.

He looked at his wristwatch, amazed that it still functioned after all his effort as well as his use of thunderbolts and electrical shocks.

This really was a dream, then, or else his watch would've ended up busted long ago.

Regardless, he'd been at it with his raging rampage of revenge for almost 40 to 45 minutes. The whole school was in bedlam thanks to the walking pacific storm that was him.

Someone soft and sweet-smelling yet hard-bodied grabbed Florante from behind in a Full-Nelson hold, arms interlocked from under his armpits and hands clasped behind his neck.

"I always knew you were a little psycho," said someone from behind him. Someone... female.

Her words were full of venom but her melodic voice was music to his ears.

Shamed as he was to admit it, this was the closest to female contact he ever had in his life. Probably to no one's surprise in Fatima, given his bad reputation as a friendless weirdo.

Wait, he recognized that voice.

It was Laura's other best friend aside from Jenny. Kelly Mendoza. A promising freshman volleyball player rising in the ranks of their team. One of Laura's best friends.

He then felt something sharp pierce through his uniform. For the first time all throughout his dream, he felt pain. Searing, gnawing pain.

He doubled over in time to realize who had stabbed him with a pocket knife.

It was Mark Zuniga. Gerry Jacinto's second-in-command. Or best friend. Whichever.

The other tough guy of First Year St. Francis of Assisi charged at Florante while he was distracted by Kelly grabbing hold of him so tightly, her breasts pressed close to his back.

Regardless, Florante winced and wheezed from the damage that Zuniga had wrought, gnashing his teeth in agony and indignation.

Another villain wanted to play the hero. Just like a bully who'd mess with you until you hit him back, so now suddenly he was the victim and you were the one who was in the wrong.

This guy. The audacity of this asshole. He remembered him.

Every time they had an oral exam, class recitation, or had to go in front of the board to solve math problems or whatever, he'd be there with Gerry to jeer and mock Florante about his crush with Laura until she herself stopped associating with him.

His body shivered and folded in on itself in hatred, fear, and anger as Mendoza let go of him, his blood pooling on the floor.

"Why are you snarling? You're actually angry? You li'l bitch!" screamed Kelly at Florante's ear as she kicked him where Mark had stabbed him.

"How dare you. You killed Laura! Danny! Mr. Nepomuceno! John! Who knows how many others in the library and classrooms! You're a monster! You have no right to be this angry, asshole! Don't play the victim now!"

Ha. He was the one playing the victim?

Mark stabbed him again, this time sticking his knife at Florante's back.

"As far as I'm concerned, he deserves all of his bullying," said Zuniga. "Not only is he a snitch. He's also a psycho. We were protecting Laura from weirdo creeps like him. No wonder he has no friends."

Galang also remembered that one time, when he was alone in the mall, Zuniga chanced upon him with his own girlfriend, saying, "Aw, still no GF, Flor?"

He then overheard them make fun of him behind his back as an awkward virgin who was fated to be forever alone.

Come to think of it, the girl he was with probably was the same one holding him back with a wrestling move.

"You should've killed yourself instead, since no one would care if you died!" said Zuniga.

That was the last straw.

This fucking bastard. This bitch. This wasn't the first time Zuniga told him to kill himself. Even before Florante went on a murder spree, he already told him the same words.

It was amazing what monsters people ended up becoming when treating those they believe were monsters themselves.

First, he blew the volleyball varsity player away into the roof and the sky with a blast of spiraling air, with her shrieking like a banshee all the while. She ended up pretty high up before she came crashing back down.

With a sickening thud.

Florante averted his eyes from the harsh and inevitable crash from the screaming Kelly.

Instead, he focused his attention on Zuniga. His bully who stood a good few inches above him and several inches thicker in musculature than him seemed smaller somehow as he floated in the air with static and sparks.

Galang didn't know what sort of face he made, but it elicited a gape-mouthed, wide-eyed look of what he presumed was awe on the part of one of his worst bullies in school.

It felt so good seeing the tables turned on him for once. Even though it was a dream.

Yet it also felt anti-climatic shooting him to oblivion with five bolts of energy from one hand when usually one or two was enough to blast entire classrooms into smithereens.

"FLORANTE!"

Florante heard his name echo across the wrecked basketball court from a familiar booming voice. A voice he'd heard countless times, mocking him. Haunting him like a resentful ghost. The voice of his biggest, most savage of bullies and critics.

Geronimo "Gerry" Jacinto.

Each and every one of his fingertips then grew hot with growing power and energy. Instead of five shots, he wanted to shoot his whole payload of ten pure light bullets unto the bastard who made his time in Fatima a Living Hell.

Gerry wasn't seething with anger like Mark was. For someone who just saw the murder of his best friend (and best friend's girlfriend), he had a pretty smug smirk on his face.

Florante breathed out a sigh of relief. This definitely was a dream or else the real Gerry would've reacted more severely to what he had wrought.

He faced off with the huge and lanky bully who'd normally push him around with ease. Finally, he could push back. At last, he could fight back and then some.

Galang fired off all ten bullets of light energy and plasma straight at Gerry, expecting them to turn him into ash or a shadow on the floor, if not turn the entire gym into a smoking pile of rubble.

There was no kill like overkill, after all.

However, to Galang's surprise, Jacinto shrugged off the miniature comets like specks of water or rain, the bolts of power exploding behind him and giving his bullish rush an extra boost care of the resulting simultaneous shockwaves from ten blockbuster-tier explosions.

The tall basketball player charged and tackled the nerdy asthmatic, who could only stand there, jaw metaphorically unhinged in shock, before a meaty punch on the same jaw literally unhinged it from its socket.

"SHUSHMARYOSHEP!" Florante called out, wincing as he snapped his jaw back into place with palm. It looked so easy to do in the movies, but when you did it yourself, they never tell you about the toothache-like pain of attempting such a move afterwards.

Meanwhile, the sneering Gerry mimicked and repeated his "catchphrase" to his face, mocking him. "'Susmaryosep'? What are you, an old lady attending mass at Quiapo Church?" He laughed his heart out.

Ooof. Even in his dreams, his nightmare of a bully still had the upper hand?!

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Galang willed lighting strikes to appear and hit Jacinto over and over while at the same time charging compressed pinpoint spheres of energy above each and every finger.

Was this hitting two birds with one stone? No, it was hitting one bird with all the stones he could get his hands on.

His metaphor ultimately didn't work in the end after he missed Jacinto by a mile then got hit himself by his bully's shuddering sledgehammer punches, unable to retaliate or shoot any of his bullets that leveled most of the high school building earlier on.

"You really are a virgin with rage, aren't you? Mr. Sensitive. Mr. 'The whole world is against me. Oh woe is me.'"

Florante ended up curled into a ball, remembering his mother hitting him with his father's belt whenever he misbehaved as a child.

Still, for some reason, he was still more afraid of his mom than this tall, beefy alpha male who turned him into a punching bag.

"You're blaming us for you having no friends? Let me guess, you think it's us and not you that have mental problems. Everybody else is the asshole. You're the saint here! You psycho war-freak!"

Florante grit his teeth, afraid his jaw would get dislocated or altogether broken by Jacinto's hammer fists. Vaguely, he remembered hearing how his bully also trained in boxing as a hobby.

Throughout the haze of pain and what seemed like endless fists raining down upon him, he realized something.

Somehow, someway, Gerry gained the same special superpowers as he did, allowing him to keep up with him. Or even surpass him.

Jacinto beat and ground him to a pulp, breaking his right hand, cracking several of his ribs, punching his face until one of his eyes swelled shut, bending his leg at an awkward angle, and triggering his asthma to the point that the mere act of breathing felt like torture.

Once again, the popular kid at the center of everything was beating up the little guy that no one liked. As usual. This was natural selection in action.

"Make the effort to change or face the consequences of your own bad behavior, moron! If everyone in society is laughing and condemning you, is it really society's fault? Or is there a chance you're the one who's being the insecure jerk?"

Gerry slammed Florante's face and body into the devastated basketball court, making the entire third floor of the building shudder from the impact. "Apologize now, and maybe I'll consider sparing your life."

'Apologize...?' Florante thought while on the brink of unconsciousness, the darkness seeping through the sides of his blurring vision.

He then wondered if going unconscious in a dream meant waking up in real life.

Even in his dreams, Jacinto got the better of him. The charming bully you never saw in TV shows and movies who made you think you deserved being bullied by him.

Galang couldn't humiliate Gerry with a joke that made the whole class laugh or embarrass him in front of Laura the way they did to him. Not in real life and not in his fantasy.

This was what he learned all throughout his stay at Fatima High.

People would torture you. People would turn you into an outcast. And if you were to retaliate, they'd declare you the bad guy.

Florante once remembered punching the head of one of his bullies for messing with him for so long, only for him to get in trouble and end up in the principal's office because his bully dared claim to be the victim instead.

It was a good thing a teacher from his last school caught his bullies bullying him red-handed, allowing him to write down the names of those who teased him so that they'd cut it out.

However, this only ended up giving him the reputation of being a snitch back in his former alma mater.

He could never win. Damned if he told on his bullies and damned if he kept silent about the bullying. It wasn't fair.

Well then, screw being fair. He had enough.

In reality, he couldn't take his revenge on Jacinto in a fair, reciprocal manner. Instead, Florante could only vent his frustrations at him or the "him" that existed in his mind this way. Through a nightmarish power fantasy about revenge.

His coping mechanism was having violent dreams. Either that, or punching the wall again and getting scolded by his mother for breaking either the wall or his fist.

As Jacinto prepared to knock him out or worse, Florante saw his opening.

With his remaining healthy left hand flowing with pinpoint spheres of energy at each fingertip, Galang thrust his clawed hand and every single finger into Jacinto's broad chest, drawing blood.

"...Apologize? Yeah, sure. I'm sorry I ever met you. Go to Hell."

His hot fingers dug deeper and deeper into Jacinto's chest even as the bully kept punching his already broken face and body into ground beef. He just wouldn't let go.

"LET GO, FLOR! LET GO! I ain't joking! FUCK!" the punches became more rapid. Stronger. Harder. Faster. Panicked. There was actual fear in Gerry's eyes for once.

It felt so satisfying to see him like this.

Galang could feel Jacinto's heart pound at the same time as his own excited pulse. He gripped the heart tightly then pulled.

From inside Gerry's chest, Galang shot his five energy bullets simultaneously, which fried the jock's insides and made the entire top half of his body explode into electric fire, guts, muscles, tendons, blood, and giblets.

The hint of ozone permeated the air along with the smell of burnt human flesh.

As what was left of Jacinto's lifeless corpse fell to the ground with a wet thud, Florante heaved a relieved sigh, the pelting rain falling from the large gaping hole in the ceiling (practically a skylight) washing the blood, sweat, and tears from his beat-up body and face away.

It was all just a dream. A fantasy. A way for him to vent from all the stress of his real-life bullying.

Everything he had done so far were victimless crimes against, well, imaginary straw-men (and straw-women).

...Right?

***

As Florante strode through the pure devastation of what was once Fatima High that he left behind in his wake, he felt unsatisfied somehow. Empty. Hollow.

Was that it? He got his revenge against the people who wronged him. What now?

He looked at the consequences of his actions and cringed. That feeling was familiar.

Like the aftermath of a storm. Or a temper tantrum when he was about 6 or 7 years old.

It felt cathartic to release all that pent-up anger and frustration he couldn't verbalize or express at any of his classmates normally, but now he felt a huge amount of guilt weigh him down.

Was any of this called for? What was he thinking?

Instead of relief, he felt like he did whenever he lost his temper when he was a toddler, only to end up hurting those around him or humiliating himself.

He went too far. He overdid it.

This wasn't "Even-Steven". This wasn't fair. Well, for him, some of them were, like how it felt satisfying to grind Zuniga into the ground like that.

No, no. What was he thinking? They bullied him and he killed them in return. That was an overreaction. He made things worse instead of better.

This wasn't him. He was a nice guy. Dealt a bad hand by fate. Born a social outcast with social anxiety and awkwardness around people.

He didn't really want to hurt anyone, but his temper always got the better of him, leading him to do things he wouldn't otherwise do.

Florante walked outside the entrance gates of Our Lady of Fatima School of Mandaluyong, his head in a daze. He could hear the wheeze and whistle of his asthma from under his breath after every exhale.

Everything was quiet. The whole school was a wreck. It felt like his throbbing brain was slamming itself right into his skull, demanding release.

He might've been in shock. For a minute or two, he didn't know where he was or what had happened.

He then heard a voice say, "I found you. You naughty little devil."

The apparition of a beautiful girl with long, flowing hair and wings-shaped water cascading behind her like a cape emerged from the rain and mist.

He asked her, "Who are you?!"

As she stared at Florante with an unreadable expression, she whispered, "Archangel Raphael," which made him remember the comic books he drew about the four archangels.

Who was she? Why was her face familiar? She was so gorgeous.

"This is the end of the line for you. I won't let you hurt anyone else."

She reminded him of Laura Reyes.

Wait. Laura? As in the girl he met on the first day of school that he had a crush on? The same Laura that he had just... murdered?

Like a bolt out of the blue, he remembered everything he'd done an hour ago.

Laura had awakened to supernatural powers like Florante had and transformed into the Archangel Raphael to avenge the deaths of all the people he just killed, including her.

She was there to take him away. Probably to kill him. Give him karmic justice for all that had transpired.

He felt the corners of his mouth quirk. This was all probably for the best. Let his crush finish him off and pay for his crimes. Let her become his Angel of Death.

Wait, so why was she Raphael instead of Azrael?

Faster than he could even fathom or wonder why she was named after the Angel of Healing instead of the Angel of Death, Raphael flew towards him with watery tendrils.

Everything became a blur from that point on when he and Archangel Raphael finally faced off.

His life then flashed before his eyes.

And then he finally woke up.

Thank God.

***

What a weird, horrible dream.

Yet another dream in a series of dreams. Perhaps nightmares, even.

Not night terrors, though. You didn't remember night terrors after waking up.

He rubbed the rheum from his crusty eyes, got hold of a pen and paper (notebook), and wrote down what had happened in his latest dream on his dream journal.

That one was a doozy.

What was wrong with him, dreaming up such scenarios? He told himself that he'd never do such a thing in real life. Not only because he didn't want to but because he couldn't.

No one developed superpowers like this except in fiction. Fan fiction. Self-insert fan fiction. This was obviously a dream. A dream a psycho would come up with but a dream nonetheless.

A dream about how the crush who rejected him just killed him after he killed her first.

His dream was indeed just a manifestation of his longing to belong.

Apparently, it was all a "fever dream" of Florante's. He ended up not going to school that day because of how high of a fever he had, which was also compounded by his asthma.

The feverish asthmatic called in absent for three days until he recovered.

Ugh. At least he'd have a break from all his bullying at Fatima High.

***

Three days after his fever dream, he went back to school. His prison.

For an introvert like him, home was freedom and the outside was maximum penitentiary.

It was in Fatima High School in Mandaluyong where he now found himself exiled. He was left in a prison city. Heaven for others and hell for him.

As usual, it rained hard. It was the rainy season during June in the tropical Philippines, after all.

On the plus side, because it was raining, he didn't have to deal with the weekly morning flag ceremony every Monday, with everyone gathered around the concrete stadium under the hot sun. He had his morning classes instead.

He didn't view the rain as an omen of things to come. Just something unavoidable and inconvenient given the season. He'd already said his goodbyes to the sun back in summer.

The only people he could hang out with were the Dead Kids, and even then he could only do so during lunchtime and through the Art Club. Most of the time, he was left to his own devices with the classmates he loathed.

He detested Fatima High School. He loved Pasig. For the most part, anyway.

He was not a big fan of the river of mud and vegetation known as the Pasig River. When it flooded, it had waters with the consistency of chocolate milk. The chocolate milk river. 'Don't drink from it, though,' he mused.

Regardless, he remained the new guy in town. In a new school. A freak. No student there was anyone he grew up with. He had to make friends quick or else he'd end up a pariah like in his last school.

However, for whatever reason, his classmates were somehow more distant to him now than before. Usually, they took the time to mess with him.

Now? They seemed to go out of their way to ignore him.

Did something happen again? Like the time after P.E. class, all the boys in the changing room noticed his undershirt was threadbare to the point of being see-through, so they teased him and called him a male stripper?

He briefly considered the chance of them having the same nightmare as him massacring students left and right before waving the thought off.

'As if that'd ever happen.'

On one hand, this was just par for the course with all the bullying he went through so far in high school. On the other hand, it seemed somehow different. They were actually leaving him alone for once, which was kind of a refreshing change.

He was still the social pariah, but at least they weren't calling him names or making him the butt of their jokes as usual.

That was on the plus side. On the "minus" side of things, he still ate alone at lunch. None of the Dead Kids were available and he didn't have Art Club that day.

Where did they go? Did something happen? He had hoped he wasn't kicked out of the group or anything, like what had happened to him and the gang of Laura and Gerry after the "nude" drawing incident.

Maybe if he were better looking, he'd have more confidence and friends? Like a sporty, tall kind of guy instead of a normal guy who was just... there? However, no matter how good he appeared, being a crybaby beyond the age of 4 years old was never a good look anyway.

If only he were manlier then perhaps girls would look his way without eyes of disdain, pity, or disinterest. Maybe. He didn't want to think about it. It made him cringe in embarrassment.

Instead, he ended up being a tan-skinned, brown-eyed, and stringy-haired kid with an almost bowl-cut hair parted in the middle. A total geek, in short.

***

That Thursday, school sucked as usual. You'd think Florante's impromptu three-day sabbatical would improve things, but they didn't.

On second thought, maybe it did.

Many of his classmates had thankfully gotten sick and tired of messing with him, with all those tough guy jocks and bullies focusing their attention on his other classmates and their... imperfections.

Florante felt the pain of his fellow bullying victims as they were made fun of because of things like being too quiet, having eyes that were unusually big, or alleging one of them had... mental issues.

No, the First Year St. Francis of Assisi bullies weren't exactly politically correct with their insults.

With that said, perhaps rather than a premonition, he should've been more worried about what had already happened. Like his fever dream he somehow couldn't forget.

Well, he kind of couldn't forget. As the day wore on, the details of the dream became hazy like with any other dream, but the summary of it remained fresh in his mind.

In order to vent, he gained supervillain-level powers in his dreams and killed his most of classmates, many of whom were his staunchest of bullies.

A disturbing fantasy but a fantasy nonetheless. A victimless crime that was all in his mind.

If only something unusual like that were to happen.

Not necessarily him doing a mass murder of the scope of The Peoples Temple in Jonestown. Sure, that was a different kind of massacre he read from one of the library books during recess, but a massacre nonetheless.

Something more like an exciting new adventure. New horizons for him. Now that he'd released all his pent-up rage in his dreams, perhaps he could delve into something more positive for once.

Like doing some oil painting (too expensive, though). Or finishing his unfinished comic book series, maybe by basing it on his dream journal (if only he had the time and motivation to make it).

'Note to self: Never tell anyone from my class that I keep a dream journal,' Florante thought. He was bullied enough already. No need to add that cherry on top of his shit sundae of a life.

Or maybe he could do something more fantastic, like him piloting a giant robot. Or him ending up with a harem of girls. Or him saving the world from the threat of annihilation by monsters.

Or something.

The dismissal bell then rung.

As his classmates started milling towards the exit, he willed himself to ignore the stares he felt at his back. It was the familiar feeling of being watched for the tiniest clumsy mistake, weird behavior, or angry outburst.

He heard idle chatter from the different cliques and groups formed within their class across the months they'd been together in one classroom, talking about where they wanted to eat or wished to go.

The malls of Mandaluyong were walking distance from their school, after all.

Unlike college in the Philippines or high school in the U.S., the Fatima private school had all the subjects taught in one classroom instead of students moving from one classroom to another. It was the teachers who moved from section to section or room to room.

They were more like schools in Japan, where one class full of students stayed in one classroom for the whole year. They didn't switch out and mingled with other sections in the same year except during club meetings, where students from different years and sections could join.

Nothing significant happened today. Nothing really changed. It was business as usual, even though his bullies at least let him off the hook for today.

As he was about to go to his school service at the school parking lot, the "something" he wished would happen finally happened.

He should've been careful what he wished for, to be honest.

As an aside, it was like déjà vu all over again.

A huge boulder that looked like a piece of the Fatima Grade School building fell right on the jeepney that served as his school service, crushing it in its weight.

"Wha...?" he said, his face draining of color as he remembered the school service driver there who once treated him to taho (Philippine snack food made of fresh soft/silken tofu, arnibal sweetener and flavoring, and black gelatinous sago pearls).

He turned around. The school he just exited ended up in ruins, with students running away everywhere screaming as mayhem ensued.

To be more specific, right above the school floated an unfathomable monster with two gigantic eyeballs sitting atop a body made of a mountain of minced meat and long tangled spaghetti pasta that undulated and wrapped themselves around the nearest buildings and hapless people like a dense forest of guts and intestine.

Damn. To think, spaghetti was his favorite food too.

It was like he was losing his mind just looking at that incomprehensible thing, much less try to describe it.

His thoughts zipped a mile a minute, going from the horrible realization that his fellow school service students in Pasig and the jeepney driver had been crushed to death to Fatima School itself getting demolished by a ridiculous-looking giant monster.

Wait, did he fall asleep again? Was he indulging in another one of his secret "edgy" fantasies he'd never dare (nor could) do in real life? Or share with anyone because he might be sent to a mental hospital afterwards?

That must've been what happened. None of this was real.

His fever dream still fresh in his mind, he gingerly moved forward instead of away from the tentacle monster even as students and teachers (as well as other faculty members and staff) of all ages ran away from it.

He felt compelled to do so, feeling the same way as he had in his fantasy. It was too unreal for his mind to wrap around it as actually happening.

The (for lack of a better name) giant spaghetti monster crawled across the parking lot like kudzu grass, moving from one building to the next and crushing them under its weight like saltine or soda crackers.

The creature didn't so much move around as grew so that its fleshy red membrane of a body with bulging giant eyeballs could transfer itself from one position to the next, like a vine or flowering plant would but sped up.

Its pasta tentacles flooded the streets of Shaw Boulevard and St. Francis Street with its endless, root-like tendrils and tentacles of varying sizes, resulting in a heavy traffic jam. It appeared to be headed towards the nearest mall.

Why though?

He stopped running towards the monster after seeing it swallow up several students in its sea of viscera, guts, and intestinal entanglements. Some of them kids from Fatima Grade School who hung out after dismissal for far too long.

A few of them were his fellow students from high school. Most of them were unfamiliar or vaguely familiar faces. One in particular caught his eye.

A bespectacled, short-haired girl climbed and practically swam in the disgusting sea of oily pasta in order to reach the eye balls of the strange eldritch horror.

Brave of her to do so, but her face looked familiar.

Wait a minute.

It was Jenny! Jennifer Tolentino. The girl he spared in his dream before he "massacred" his bullies.

The Italian dish of a monster saw her just in time to wrap a multitude of its tendrils around her neck, arms, and limbs. Like with many other students and teachers in its noodle grasp

The one girl in their class who was nice to him was about to die.

Before he knew it, Florante found himself running towards the monster instead of away from it.

Was it out of morbid curiosity or a death wish? He couldn't tell.

Like in his dream, he shot out bolts of lightning and reverberating shockwaves of thunder at the living spaghetti creature, freeing up many of the students in its suffocating grasp.

He even shot one of the creature's eyes and cut through its tendrils in time to get even Jenny loose, catching her right in his arms after she fell.

"...F-Flor!" she exclaimed as he landed on his feet while holding her in a bridal carry. "Y-You saved me!"

He felt his cheeks grow warm as he gently put her back to the ground on her own two feet. He then faced away from her, at a loss for words.

"Thank you!" he heard her say from behind him, which made him mutter, "Y-You're welcome," under his breath.

This was it.

He didn't really want to kill all his classmates like in his other fever dream where he vented his frustrations over their bullying of him.

He wanted to be accepted. Respected. Validated. Loved. Or at least tolerated and left alone instead of having every single quirk or action he did scrutinized and mocked by his supposed peers.

He wanted his existence acknowledged at school. He wanted to be treated fairly like all the other students. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He just wanted to stop them from hurting him.

Maybe he could get one or two close friends as well. That wouldn't hurt.

His resentment (and imagination) merely got the better of him in that nightmare of his.

His confidence boosted, he then charged at the monster wreaking havoc all over the street like mountains of spilled Italian food, intending to fry it into charcoal.

"Gabriel, watch out...!" Jenny screamed.

"Gabriel...?" he repeated, only to have tentacles shoot out from behind him, stabbing him in the back.

He let out a small exhale, choking at the air he suddenly couldn't breathe.

The monster did a sneak attack on him, he realized too late. It spread its noodle limbs into the nearest drain then shot it up where he couldn't see.

He then saw the world spin all around him, from sky to concrete to car to dirt to van to pillar to post and back again to the sky in an infinite loop.

He got dragged and flung around until he felt the spaghetti monster's tendrils snap like lizard tails, hurling him to the roof of a Toyota Tamaraw FX utility vehicle.

Tears streamed down his eyes as his whole body throbbed except his legs, which horrified him. He suffocated in pain, unable to even groan.

Had the spaghetti monster turned him to roadkill? What sort of nightmare was this? His powers from his previous dream failed him, and now he felt death creep in the edges of his blurry vision.

Hah. Served him right.

That was what he got thinking he could take on that nightmarish, tentacled pseudo-octopus. Shooting helpless students with no superpowers was way different from dealing with a giant incomprehensible mess of a leviathan that could fight back.

He then gasped as a feeling of euphoric relief enveloped him. The soothing warmth pierced through his being and spread across his body like a fever. He then reverted back to heart-rending pain as he finally felt his legs or what was left of them pulsate in pure agony.

He screamed. He cried. He clawed at the ground, gnashing his teeth.

Or maybe they were fine after all, as he soon felt okay enough to move his feet around, from his thighs and knees to his ankles and toes. He dared peer at himself, only to see bloody, torn pants draped over perfectly healthy legs, the frighteningly large laceration over his hamstring closing up like magic.

He then looked up to see Jenny Tolentino kneel over him in seeming prayer, a cool neon mist of light transferring from her body to his.

Wait. Was she... healing him? Was that what was happening? Like a healer from an RPG videogame? Man, this is one crazy-ass dream!

The girl with the glasses then said, "I'd hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"Jenny...?" Florante trailed off.

Jenny took a deep breath and said, "Listen up, Flor. You're an Ophanim."

"P-Pardon?" stuttered a flabbergasted Florante. "I'm a... what?"

"An angel. You're an angel without wings, Flor."

***

To Be Continued...

Fun fact: I actually made a Geocities site for this story once while considering turning it into a webcomic. Or at least I named the Geocities site after the title of this work, which featured a "Gabriel De Angeles" protagonist instead of a "Florante Galang" one at the time.

Farewell, Abdiel

#angel #demon #angels and demons #gabriel #florante galang #fantasy of evolution #self-insert #power fantasy

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