#and so might have understandably have expected a more significant role (as in her second appearance)

[fallenrocket]

In episode 7 of The Acolyte, I can't say enough about how much I like the specific way everything falls apart. Like many, I'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop on what the Jedi really did, but I was expecting an institutional conflict, the Order bringing their weight down on the coven, with horrible bloodshed as a result. Once the dust settled, the Council's reaction might have ranged anywhere from, "This is a stain on our conscience--it didn't have to be this way," to, "They should not have meddled in the Force in dangerous ways." Regardless, I expected the fight to come from the top down, with the individual Jedi on the ground somewhat caught in the middle, acting at the behest of the Council despite whatever misgivings they might have.

Instead, it's the Council who's saying, "You've interfered enough, get back to your survey work for the good of everyone involved," and the ultimate clash is less about ideology/institutions and more about individual fears, mistakes, and misunderstandings. Not that the institutional thinking of the Order plays no role--it comes out in Sol's automatic assumption that this unknown culture is a dangerous one and Indara's assertion that testing children is their right. But I find it so interesting that this is led so much by individual flaws and screw-ups.

Sol gets so caught up in his attachment to Osha that he makes increasingly reckless decisions, distrusting the witches more and more based on his gut rather than any hard evidence or genuine guidance from the Force. Torbin is understandably restless and homesick, but those feelings make him vulnerable to being taken over by Mother Aniseya, which just unbalances him even more. He too starts acting even more rashly. Even Indara, the main voice of reason in the group, makes important miscalculations. Being less forthcoming with Torbin might be her teaching style, but in this case, it ignores how genuinely distressed he is until, again, those mental pressure points are used against him by the coven. And in her determination to free Kelnacca from the witches' control, she underestimates what that will do to them.

And for all that, the coven makes significant mistakes too. Mother Aniseya possess Torbin to demonstrate their power, trying to get the Jedi to leave them alone, but that comes back to bite them when he tries to take the girls in his desperation to leave. Mother Koril is more than ready to fight, and she's the one who tells Mae to tap into her power by getting angry. Lighting Osha's Jedi booklet on fire is a heated, reckless act on Mae's part, but even though she almost immediately regrets it, it still spirals out of control.

The whole episode is about people who are variously afraid, angry, and obsessed. They let those feelings guide them, and their distrust of the opposing group continually leads them to take an action that makes the situation worse. By and large, they're not behaving rationally, and like Mae with the fire, many of them recognize their errors within seconds of making them, but being sorry can't fix the damage that's already been done.

[hephaestuscrew]

"Minkowski's been talking about Sondheim again…": Minkowski's love of musical theatre and what it reveals about her characterisation and her relationships

TL;DR: Renée Minkowski's love of musicals, while it might seem just like a mundane character detail, is used to give depth to her character because it contrasts with expectations of her from both the listening audience and the other characters. Her willingness or unwillingness to share this interest in different circumstances reveals her relationships with other characters at various points. Since this is a long one, if you'd rather read it as a document, you can view it here: Google Doc version.

"She actually really cares about these talent shows": Episode 8 (Box 953)

In the early episodes of Season 1, Minkowski is presented (largely through Eiffel's unreliable perspective) purely as a strict no-nonsense authority figure without much emotional depth, the kind of person who only likes things that are useful, purposeful, or mandated by Command. In contrast, musical theatre is a creative pursuit that has nothing to do with the mission of the Hephaestus and is viewed by many people as fairly frivolous or silly. The gradual exploration of Minkowski's passion for musicals is one of the many ways that the show expands and challenges our understanding of her as a character. 

The first indication that we get of her interest in musicals is through her entry into the infamous talent show, something that is required as part of the mission. Minkowski really cares about 'crew morale' activities in general, even when they actually have a negative effect on morale and even before she's friends with any of her crew (for example, the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners in the earlier stage of the mission), perhaps partly because doing things in the "right way" is important to her. 

But Eiffel senses that the talent shows aren't just about rules for her: "it’s bad enough when she makes us do something just because it’s military protocol, but I think that she actually really cares about these talent shows". This might be the first indication that we get of Minkowski caring deeply about anything that isn't inherently part of her role as a Commander. Moments like this are part of the gradual process of giving us insight into her character beyond the Commander archetype that she tries to embody. And yet, she only indulges her theatrical passion because something mandatory gives her permission, or an excuse, to let another part of herself out.

Of course, to satisfy the needs of a talent show, she'd only need to provide a performance of a few minutes. But Eiffel mentions "the second act of the play" - which along with Hera's comment that "Isabel isn't the biggest role in the play" - implies that Minkowski was intending to put on the whole of Pirates of Penzance as her talent show act, rather than a few of the songs or some kind of medley. (I suppose that Eiffel could be exaggerating or Minkowski might have been planning to do extracts from different parts of the play, but I prefer the interpretation in which Minkowski gets to be more ridiculous.) 

Even though no one else would be willing to be in her production of Pirates of Penzance, Minkowski casts Hera as Isabel, a role with two lines and no solo singing. I found some audition notes for this play which said "The traditional staging gives [Isabel] more prominence than the solo opportunities of the part suggest, so she must be a good actress" which does make me sad in relation to Hera's inability to have a more significant role by being physically present on stage. 

It’s sweet that Hera still wants to take part though. She tells Eiffel "Pirates of Penzance is a classic of 19th century comic opera", so either she’s absorbed what Minkowski has told her about the show, or she’s done her own research and formed her own opinions. I enjoy the fact that Hera is the one Hephaestus crew member who shows potential to share Minkowski's musical theatre appreciation; I like to think that this is something they could explore together post-canon.

Anyway, I'm obsessed with the idea that Minkowski was planning to play every character except one in Pirates of Penzance, a show which is designed to have 10 principal characters and a chorus of 14 men. It seems that her contribution to the talent show was supposed to be an entire two-hour two-act musical, with costumes and props, in which she would play almost all of the parts. This is very funny to me as the perhaps predictable consequence of giving an ambitious and frustrated grown-up theatre kid a position of authority and asking them to arrange a talent show. Minkowski knows that the audience will be made up of her subordinates who are theoretically obliged by the chain of command to watch and listen, so she absolutely tries to make the most of that opportunity. There's probably also a degree to which she limits other people's involvement in her musical because - as with her other endeavors - she wants the outcome to be almost entirely within her control (something that is usually pretty much impossible in as collaborative a medium as musical theatre).

Of course, Minkowski's behaviour in most of the talent show episode is affected by her being drugged by Hilbert. This creates an exaggerated situation which is the first real opportunity for Minkowski to be something other than the strict sensible authoritarian Commander and the foil to Eiffel's jokey laid-back attitude. I don't agree with ideas that being intoxicated brings out anyone's true self (especially in the absence of consent for the intoxication), but it seems pretty clear that being under the influence of whatever was in Hilbert's concoction caused Minkowski to fully commit to a level of manic enthusiasm for her musical production that might have otherwise been obscured by her professionalism. It's a particular kind of person who belts showtunes when drunk, and Minkowski is that kind of person, even if that's not how she wants to present herself. (As a sidenote, I seem to remember that they took Emma Sherr-Ziarko's script off her to help her sound more drunk. It's an excellent performance.)

Minkowski wants interval ice cream. She wants "pirate costumes" (and she'll threaten to shoot a man to get them). She wants "swashes and buckles". She wants whatever props she can get her hands on (including a real cannon). This show is important to her, even though only three other people will witness it and two of them actively don't want to be there. It’s important to her for its own sake.

Eiffel says Minkowski wants "a second pair of eyes to tell her if the prop sabre for her Major-General costume was a bit much…"  While I certainly wouldn't put it past Goddard Futuristics to have a prop sabre on the station for no apparent reason, it feels more likely that she might have made it or adapted some existing item. Which suggests that maybe she was that passionate about the props even before Hilbert drugged her. 

Even so, it does feel significant that Minkowski's love of musicals is only revealed in the episode in which she is drugged, exhibiting lowered inhibitions, exaggerated behaviour, and an "impaired euphoric effect". Her love of musical theatre is initially revealed through a professional structure that provides permission, and then further emphasised by a forced intoxication that exaggerates some impulses that perhaps she already had.

"Some hobbies other than making trains run on time": Episode 17 (Bach to the Future)

After Eiffel tells to find Minkowski to find something else to do while her work duties have quietened down, they have the following exchange:

EIFFEL: You must have some hobbies other than making trains run on time. Something to do with friends? Boyfriends? MINKOWSKI: Of course I do, but, well, there aren't really a lot of opportunities for rock climbing or trail hiking in the immediate vicinity. 

Even though this quote doesn't mention musicals, I've included it here for two reasons. Firstly, it's very funny to me that, even after the talent show debacle, Eiffel acts like he's never had any evidence of Minkowski's hobbies. She tried to perform a whole play almost single-handedly and it didn't occur to him that this might indicate an interest of hers outside of work. I think this reflects the fairly two-dimensional view that Eiffel has previously had of Minkowski, which her interest in musical theatre didn't fit into. 

Secondly, it feels notable that Minkowski doesn't mention musical theatre here. She wants to show that she has non-work interests, but without undermining her own authoritative image. Her interest in rock climbing and trail hiking - while it may be genuine - fits with how she wants to be seen as a Commander. These are hobbies which portray her as physically capable, with a high degree of stamina and a willingness to adapt to perhaps less hospitable surroundings. Of course, Minkowski does have these traits and they serve her well on the Hephaestus. But there's not really anything particularly surprising about her expressing these interests. The surprise in this scene comes from the reveal that she has a husband, a character detail which - like her love of musicals - isn't something we'd necessarily expect from the archetype-based view of her we are initially presented with. 

Her interest in rock climbing and trail hiking never come up again, because these details don't really deepen her characterisation (or at least, they aren't really used to deepen her characterisation beyond proving that she isn't entirely all-work-and-no-play). In contrast, Minkowski's love of musicals is brought up over and over because it shows another side of her that she struggles to reveal on the Hephaestus, and that allows more interesting things to be done with her characterisation.

"You wanted to write showtunes": Episode 35 (Need to Know)

Alongside the more high stakes discoveries prompted by the leak from Kepler's files, we also learn that Minkowski applied to - and was rejected from - the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.

Up until this point, we've only had evidence that Minkowski enjoys performing in musicals. But here we learn that Minkowski doesn't just love watching or performing in musicals - she wanted to write them too. This suggests a creative side to her that we never see her fully express.

The course

The Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program claims to be the only course of its kind in the world and it accepts just 30 students each year. The current application process requires applicants to: upload play scripts or recordings of songs they've written; answer a large number of extended response questions about their creative process and views on musical theatre; write a 'statement of purpose' which has to talk about why they are applying and include 3 original ideas for musicals; provide a professional resume and a digital portfolio; complete an exercise of writing in response to a prompt; and undergo an interview. The process might have changed somewhat since Minkowski would have been applying (which, if it was soon after she finished college, might have been around the early 2000s) or it might be different in Wolf 359's alternate universe, but I think we can safely assume that applying to this course was a serious undertaking that required an intense amount of commitment and work. 

Applying to a course like that isn't something you do half-heartedly or on a whim. You couldn't apply to this course if you hadn't done a fair amount of musical theatre writing already. (The course requires applicants to choose to apply as bookwriters, lyricists, or composers, but I'm not going to make a guess here as to which of these Minkowski went for.) The fact that Minkowski wanted to study this course suggests that she was seriously considering trying to make a career out of musical theatre writing. In Once In A Lifetime, she tells Cutter that commanding a space station has always been her dream job, but we've got evidence here that it wasn't her only dream job. There's something kind of funny and kind of sad about the idea that writing musicals was her back-up / fall-back career path. She does not like to make life easy for herself.

The revelation 

This information is revealed against Minkowski's will. It's not something she wanted people to find out, and she isn't happy about them knowing:

JACOBI: "Dear Renée, thank you for your interest in the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program..." MINKOWSKI: Oh, come on!  JACOBI: (pressing on) "We are sorry to say, we will not be able to offer you a spot in this year's blah blah blah." Oh this is too good. You wanted to write showtunes?  MINKOWSKI: Number one? Shut up. Number two, why are my personal records on there?! [...] How is it in any way relevant?! JACOBI: Oh, I think it's very relevant. I mean, if you're sending someone to pilot ships in deep space, you want to make sure that they can, you know... paint with all the colors of the wind.  Jacobi CRACKS UP - and, although to a lesser degree, so does Lovelace. Minkowski looks at her: really?  LOVELACE: Sorry, Minkowski. It's... it's a little funny.  MINKOWKSI: No, it isn't!

Minkowski seems defensive and embarrassed here. She obviously doesn't trust everyone there with this revelation (Jacobi, Maxwell, Lovelace, and Hera are all present). She considers this information to be "personal" and irrelevant and not even "a little funny". She's used to reactions like Jacobi's (and to a lesser extent Lovelace's); in Ep41 Memoria, she says "most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals" (see below for more thoughts about this quote). But the fact that these mocking reactions are expected doesn't mean that they don't bother her. She wants so badly to be taken seriously and, in this scene, her interest in musical theatre seems to be incompatible with that. Jacobi reacts the way that he does because of the idea that I've already expressed, that a passion for musical theatre does not fit with the serious authoritative image that Minkowski has often presented. It's not the typical hobby of a soldier, especially not a Commander.

To me, the way Lovelace laughs suggests that she might not have previously known about Minkowski's love of musicals, or at least perhaps not the full extent of it. At any rate, it's definitely news to Jacobi. And Minkowski clearly hasn't talked about it enough for it not to feel like a big reveal for her.

The rejection 

It's notable that this reveal is not just that she wanted to write for the stage, but also that she failed to get into a course that might have helped her work towards that goal. This of course compounds Minkowski's discomfort at having this information revealed. Not only did she want to write showtunes, but she encountered rejection in her attempts to do so. This detail implies that perhaps it wasn't just the appeal of her spacefaring dream that stopped her going down a theatrical career path. 

I'm about to move more into headcanon territory rather than just straightforward analysis, but I personally believe that, while Minkowski auditioned for a lot of musicals (particularly as a child / young person), she was never cast as the main role. She seems embarrassed about her interest in musical theatre in a way that (at least judging by people I've encountered) people who were always the lead in their school / college productions don't tend to be. 

We don't have much evidence about her actual level of singing/acting ability, given that she is inebriated during the only time we hear her sing in the podcast. However, it resonates with other aspects of her characterisation to imagine that Minkowski was generally good enough to get an ensemble part but never quite good enough to be cast as a main part. I think she might see only ever being cast as part of the ensemble, and failing to get into the Tisch Musical Theatre Writing programme, as slightly more down-to-earth examples of the same pattern as her repeated rejections from NASA. She is desperate to prove herself. She is "someone who very much wants to matter. To do something important." When she casts herself as almost every part in Pirates of Penzance, she is finally taking the opportunity to be a main character, an opportunity which I imagine had been denied to her over and over in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

"It's just from a play I saw once": Episode 41 (Memoria)

The next scene I want to talk about is from a memory of Hera's, which took place on Day 57 of the Hephaestus mission and in which Minkowski appears to be talking about the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George:

MINKOWSKI: Oh, it's just from a play I saw once. It doesn't matter. (BEAT) The guy who sings it is this famous French painter. And his entire life is kinda falling apart. But he can always turn what's happening around him into these beautiful paintings.  HERA: And? MINKOWSKI: And... That's, I don't know. Reassuring, maybe? (BEAT) I don't know why I'm going on about this. You don't care.  HERA: I think it's interesting.  MINKOWSKI: Yeah? Most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals.  HERA: I don't see what's funny about it.  MINKOWSKI: Well, thank you Hera, but you're not exactly... you know.  HERA: I'm not... what? 

There's a couple of different things I want to pick out from this exchange. Firstly, the line "Most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals" makes me sad. I don't think she's talking about people on the Hephaestus there. Judging by the quote I talked about from Bach to the Future, Eiffel definitely wouldn't have registered Minkowski's love of musicals at this stage, and I doubt Hilbert cares at all about the hobbies of his fellow crew members. So Minkowski is talking about experiences that she's had on Earth, of people mocking her interest in musicals and thinking it doesn't fit with who she is. You can hear the impact of those experiences in Minkowski's reluctance to elaborate, in the way she says that something she obviously cares about doesn't matter, in her assumption that Hera doesn't care.

Secondly, this scene is a complicated one for Minkowski and Hera's relationship. On the one hand, Minkowski freely talks to Hera about something she's passionate about, and Hera listens and expresses interest. Hera validates Minkowski's interest in musical theatre without making a thing of it being weird and Minkowski thanks her. Again, it’s shown as an interest they could could potentially share.

But on the other hand, it seems like part of the reason Minkowski feels able to open up to Hera is because at this point Minkowski doesn't see opening up to Hera as fully equivalent to opening up to a fellow human. She doesn't just accept Hera not making fun of her interest; instead it seems Minkowski is about to imply that this lack of judgment indicates Hera's difference from humans (although she does have the decency not to say it outright). Minkowski's expectation of judgment from others contributes to her saying something very hurtful to Hera here. (This kind of potential consequence of negative self-attitude is explored a lot with Eiffel, so it's interesting that Minkowski can sometimes have a similar issue.)

Minkowski and Hera's conversation is interrupted when:

The DOOR OPENS.  EIFFEL: Hey, Minkowski, we've - What are you guys talking about?  MINKOWSKI: We were just discussing how I'm going to take away your hot water privileges if you don't reset the long-range scan.

Eiffel can obviously tell that he's walked in on a conversation that is about something other than work, or he wouldn't have asked. But Minkowski actively chooses not to tell him that she was talking to Hera about musicals. Perhaps she doesn't know how to open up to a human subordinate about it. Perhaps she doesn't trust him not to make fun of her. Perhaps she just doesn't have any impulse to talk about her interests with him. Either way, if Minkowski's love of musicals is something which reflects a side of her personality outside of her Commander role, this is a moment where she chooses not to take an opportunity to share that side of herself with Eiffel. This reflects the emotional distance between them three months into the mission, which forms a nice contrast with the next couple of quotes I'm going to talk about.

"Composition. Balance. Harmony.": Episode 54 (The Watchtower)

When Eiffel comes directly face to face with alien life, he discovers that music is the human invention that fascinates the Dear Listeners:

EIFFEL: You haven't figured out music?  BOB: ORDER. DESIGN. TENSION. COMPOSITION. BALANCE. HARMONY.  EIFFEL: (low, to himself) Minkowski's been talking about Sondheim again…

I only learned in the course of writing this post that in this moment the Dear Listeners are almost exactly quoting a repeated phrase used throughout Sunday in the Park with George. The titular protagonist lists various combinations of these qualities in multiple songs in reference to his art. In the closing song, the lyrics are "Order. Design. Tension. Composition. Balance. Light. [...] Harmony." It's not only Eiffel's references that the Dear Listeners are incorporating into their speech - they've picked this one up from Minkowski. This also suggests that some element of her appreciation for musicals and the way she talks about them has fed into the Dear Listeners' understanding of the human phenomenon of music. The Dear Listeners aren't just parroting - they understood the quote enough that they left out the word "light", arguably the only quality in that phrase which isn't a big part of music as well as visual art. Eiffel likes music too, but I don't think that this is how he'd talk about his favourite songs.

This is a refrain about finding order and beauty out of the chaos and uncertainty of life, which was also the aspect of Sunday in the Park with George that Minkowski focused on when talking about it in Memoria. It suggests that art/music could be something governed by rules and principles, which is potentially something that appeals both to Minkowski and to the Dear Listeners.

Eiffel's response to this reference is one of those little hints that reminds us that Eiffel and Minkowski have spent a lot of time together and that not all of that time has involved them being at each others' throats or actively in a life-or-death situation. Some of it has just been Minkowski going on about a musical she loves and Eiffel (willingly or not) paying enough attention that he recognises this phrase as a Sondheim quote that Minkowski has talked about. I suppose that this quote might have been in Eiffel's pop-culture-brain anyway, but judging from Eiffel's general tastes and the fact that I don't think Sunday in the Park with George is one of the more commonly known Sondheim musicals among non-musical fans, it seems more likely that this quote is something he only knows because Minkowski has talked about it. 

Eiffel sounds exasperated at the mention, like he's heard Minkowski talk about Sondheim far too much. But I'd argue that this still says something positive about their relationship, when we contrast it with a couple of other moments I've already mentioned. Firstly, when her previous musical theatre ambitions are revealed to Jacobi, Maxwell, and Lovelace in Need to Know, Minkowski seems embarrassed and defensive. Secondly, in the memory from Memoria, she avoids telling Eiffel that she was talking about this same musical. Yet, by the time The Watchtower takes place, Eiffel is sick of hearing Minkowski talk about Sondheim. She doesn't have the same barriers up in sharing her interests with him, even though he doesn't have the same interests. I think this is a demonstration of how comfortable she feels with him. It's a hint at the kind of easy downtime that they've sometimes shared.

"One day more": Episode 61 (Brave New World)

Eiffel recognises another musical reference of Minkowski’s in the finale. As the crew are preparing for their final confrontation with Cutter and co., Minkowski quotes Les Misérables, mostly to herself - but Eiffel recognises the lyrics and joins in:

EIFFEL: Hey - chin up, soldier. We're almost through. Just one more day, and then we're done.  MINKOWSKI: Yeah, one more day. (more to herself) The time is now, the place is here - one day more.  EIFFEL: - one day more.  They both stop, dead in their tracks. MINKOWSKI: Did you just - ?  EIFFEL: Was that what I - ?  They look at each other: No way. And BURST INTO LAUGHTER.  EIFFEL: Man... this is really it, huh? The end of everything. 

It feels really important that Minkowski and Eiffel share this moment of togetherness before she tries to send him back to Earth and before the rest of the action goes down. I think there’s some nice symbolism about them finding a way to communicate that they both understand. Making references is Eiffel's thing, and musicals are Minkowski's thing, so this is a synthesis of their two approaches. Again, there's a contrast with Minkowski's previous unwillingness to share her musical theatre passions with Eiffel (at least without the mitigating circumstances of a mandatory talent show and some kind of intoxicating substance).

I talked about the significance of the fact that they reference this particular musical in this post from ages ago. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler for Les Misérables to say that the revolution that the song One Day More is building up to does not end well for the revolutionaries. When Eiffel says "Just one more day, and then we're done", it encompasses both the possibility that the crew will escape to travel back to Earth and the possibility that they will all die. Minkowski's reference to a famously tragic musical suggests that it's the latter possibility that's at the forefront of her mind (right before she tries to send Eiffel away from the danger). But Les Misérables is also a story about people standing together in solidarity against powerful oppressive forces, which gives particular resonance to the way that this reference brings Eiffel and Minkowski together in a moment of being completely on the same wavelength as they prepare to fight Cutter and Pryce's plan.

When they laugh here, it's not about the 'hilariousness' of Minkowski's interest in musicals, it's about their unexpected unison - Eiffel's recognition of Minkowski's reference and Minkowski's surprise at the fact he joined in. It's a laugh of togetherness, of shared understanding, of friendship. It's a moment of lightness in dark times. And that moment is provided by Minkowski's pop culture interests, not Eiffel's. In spite of all they've been through, she's not lost that part of herself, and in fact, she's more open about it, at least to Eiffel.

I'll finish by highlighting what Eiffel says when he's trying to get into character to impersonate Minkowski so he can turn the Sol around:

EIFFEL: Umm... yes, this is Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski. I'm... uh... well I sure love schedules, and, uh, musicals. And that man, who I married…

I just think this is a nice example of Eiffel not defining Minkowski solely by her professional Commander role. Sure, she likes schedules (probably in a personal as well a professional capacity to be fair), but she also loves musicals, and her husband. It is a fairly reductive overview of her as a person, but it feels reductive in a fond way, like these things are part of Minkowski's brand to Eiffel in a way that he might affectionately tease her about. (Credit to @commsroom for this thought.) His view of Minkowski has come a long way from "our resident Statsi agent" or even just "you must have some hobbies other than making trains run on time." He doesn't see any contradiction or inherent humour in Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski's appreciation of musicals.

Conclusion

Minkowski's love of musical theatre is used to deepen her characterisation and is one of the ways in which we gradually begin to see her complexity beyond the strict Commander archetype. The degree to which she is prepared to share this interest at various points is used to illustrate the nature of her relationships with other characters: a general unwillingness to show a less serious side of herself; a complicated potential shared interest with Hera; and the growing understanding between her and Eiffel.

If you read this whole thing, well done / thank you 😄 It wasn't meant to be this long - it just happened… Feel free to share your thoughts!

[saintjosie]

hi!! fanfic writing person here again :D

i've been looking at a ton of stuff and first like. damn i didn't expect me headcanoning a character as transfem to lead me down a rabbit hole where i now 1. have loads of random knowledge on transfem issues and 2. have a massive amount of respect for transfem people and understanding of the differences in experience of different trans people. wonderful actually. your stuff has been super helpful tysm

actual question! how do i go about using femininity as a marker of transition without falling into gender roles? do you think that's disrespectful? because like. wearing makeup, 'feminine' clothes, that kind of thing-- functionally no bearing on someone's womanhood. but those are, to my understanding, big hallmarks of transfem experiences. i don't want to say that wearing makeup or a dress makes her suddenly feel wonderful and pretty and solves all her woes, but i also don't want to downplay the significance of that experience. ideally, how do you think those should be balanced? basically how do i make her feminine without it seeming like a certain level of femininity is required to be trans.

generally, are there any experiences you think would be helpful to know? i'm writing a lot about her (currently two fics on different effects of HRT as an adult, and two on her gender being affirmed as a teen when she had taken basically no steps in her transition) so any insight is helpful. ideally what would you want portrayed in a non-transfem author writing a trans girl? idk!

i understand that these are very big asks so once again don't feel pressured to reply-- thank you regardless! generally looking at your content as a trans woman has been super helpful so thank you so much for sharing <3 best wishes!

"how do i go about using femininity as a marker of transition without falling into gender roles?"

you cant! but why do you need to? a core part of the trans experience is experimenting with gender, stereotypical or not. so many trans fems (including myself) start off by leaning very hard into stereotypical femininity because they are things that many of us have not previously explored. and then a core part of that journey is learning that there is no right way to explore gender. i spent years leaning into being femme until i realized i was more comfortable with a little bit of fluidity and androgyny. i think the most authentic experience would be to have her explore femininity, stereotypical or not, and then eventually coming to terms with how she is a woman outside of stereotypical femininity. two experiences that i think might be a good way to introduce this concept is one, the gender affirming experience of being included as one of the girls. there's a lot of nuance to that experience that people dont necessarily consider. there is the self doubt of, oh am i really one of the girls or are they just humoring me? and also for some there is the need to feel like they need to confirm to expectations of femininity, and leaning too hard into it.

second, the experience of experiencing misogny for the first time. i specifically say misogny because a lot of trans women have face homophobia and transphobia before they experience misogyny that validates them as a woman and for many people there can be this sudden awareness of how different the world is when you move through it as a woman. there is your typical run of the mill, this guy is a dick misogny but then there is also that experience of facing internalized misogny from other women. the experience of being told by cis women how to engage with femininity because a lot of cis women haven't deconstructed that for themselves is an experience that can be particularly hurtful because it is infantilization and misogny that is also incredibly invalidating.

third, when youre talking about gender affirming experiences from pre-transition, there's a lot of nuance to those experience because while they are gender affirming, there is confliction too. for some theres the question of why do i like this? and you also have to consider that many times those experiences that happen to a person who sees themselves as a boy. there is a level of separation from the experience because they havent necessarily embraced transness yet, and if they have, theres tentativeness because being in your teens is all about forming identity.

if you can capture these experiences in your writing, then fantastic! but also these are hard to capture because often times it takes lived experience to write it with nuance. love these questions and happy to answer! good luck with your writing!

[inkdemonapologist]

are you excited for the big role sammy's going to play in Cage?? im apprehensive... i love him a feral amount and i was real disappointed with his 2 seconds of screentime in BatDR

also just saying ur sammy drawings give me life he looks wonderful in hats

brought to u by ⭐️ anon

Hehehe aw thank you!! :D

There’s a lot of things in Dark Revival I ended up disappointed about, but despite my love of Sammy Lawrence, Sammy barely appearing was not really one of them. At the time, I’d commented to friends that the complete lack of Sammy mentions in the hype leading up to BatDR meant he was either very important or had only a cameo appearance, and I was actually pretty delighted about the Cyclebreaker cameo – it’s a moment that takes him startlingly seriously, that wasn’t just him quoting one of his four catch phrases; it’s... a kind of moment we haven’t seen from Sammy before. The part where he gets shot was like, where my expectations were, so the cyclebreaker thing was a pleasant surprise.

But like, ever since The Cage was announced… we knew Sammy kind of had to be in it. Like, Henry says “how did WE escape” and it’s set in the SPECIFIC place and time that Sammy also is; literally the only reason for Sammy to not be a significant character is if the creators actually didn’t want anything to do with him. So I have to admit the announcement that WE CAN CONFIRM that SAMMY WILL PLAY A MAJOR ROLE IN THE CAGE!!!!!!! RESTORED TO HIS CHAPTER 2 CREEPY GLORY! is just…… ugh, it’s hard to articulate why this tweet frustrates me so much.

Like………………….. "he's in it more" is not the only thing people care about, surely! What is he doing? What is his role in all this? What does he even WANT? In a review, "he's back to his chapter 2 creepy glory" would be a powerful recommendation; in a tweet from the creator right after preorders go up, it feels more like, "Hey, remember the thing you wanted? we DEFINITELY did that thing you wanted and we did it SUPER WELL so preorder our game please!!" Give us an intriguing line of dialogue or a hint about what he's doing (opposing you? helping you? uneasy truce? trying to find bendy?) and you wouldn't even need to promise us that he plays a major role; we'd be curious to learn more.

So this reassurance ends up doing the opposite, for me, because I still don't know if the creators even understand what I like about Sammy. The thing is that the circumstances of BatDR (there's a little Bendy running around, the Ink Demon is claimed dead but actually it's not, Wilson is trying to become the Lost Ones' new Big Brother) could've been INCREDIBLY relevant to Sammy -- that's why people wanted him to show up in BatDR, to see what he thinks of these developments and how he would react to them!! So if you're interested in Sammy, the character, then it would not be hard to hint at like, what his deal is – "Sammy knows the Ink Demon is out there somewhere and Henry is the key to finding him" or "after the disappearance of his Lord he's become a desperate man who's as much an obstacle as an ally" or even "Sammy was defiant when he went into the Pit -- what will Henry find when he encounters him now?" or w/e -- simply insisting HES LIKE HE WAS IN CHAPTER TWO, THE ONE YOU GUYS LIKE instead of being able to think of a single character-based hint that we might find compelling is, tbh, rather un-reassuring!!!

My complaint about Twisted Alice’s role in BatDR was that ultimately, it felt like they were just trying to capture the vibes that Twisted Alice had in BatIM instead of really exploring what that character would be doing HERE, in THIS situation. Nothing she’s doing really makes sense, and what IS there seems to have forgotten what her actual deal is, but she’s doing it with the right flair, so it feels like she’s in-character enough for the scene to be fun. Like an episodic cartoon that just forgets what happened in previous episodes depending on who’s writing this one. So… I think that’s a real risk for Sammy. For the people who just want him to show up and whisper cult-ish things so we can hear his voice more and go HEHEHE ITS HIM, this isn’t really a concern lmao, that will probably happen. I don’t have high hopes that he’ll make sense as a character, but tbf I don’t know that he ever has.

And IDK, its still early, its possible the cage will come out and I'll look up spoilers and be like OMG NM I LOVE WHAT THEY DID WITH HIM. A game that's supposed to be psychological horror could, in theory, be a really fun place for Sammy!! Maybe the people actually writing him will give him more care, haha. It's a little silly for me to be so worked up about the marketing for a game that I am not going to buy b/c I’m still not interested in giving JDS, Inc. my money. AND YET DESPITE IT ALL I STILL… CARE ABOUT SAMMY LAWRENCE LMAO….. I think my main emotion about The Cage is just curiosity, though. I do want to know what they do with him. I’m curious if he’ll play a major part in the story, or if he’s like Henry or Porter in BatDR, with one big scene where he gets a bunch of lines and then runs off. A lot of people really want to see Henry and Sammy team up in this, but I’m not writing off the possibility he’s an antagonist of some kind, so I’m curious which way that’ll go. But I don’t feel like I have any strong expectations, so I guess we’ll see!

[merp-blerp]

Kaylor, Arial, and Belle: A Strange Deep Dive... Thing 🌼🐚🥀🌈

So Mr. Christian Siriano had mildly rocked my world by posting the infamous rainbow dress again, plus a new rainbow dress. However, him posting the rainbow dress with yellow/gold dresses, plus the purple top on the most recent rainbow dress, has me and others pondering, so here's my two cents. Come clown with me if you'd like.

This post inspired this.

Naturally, Siriano posted this dress for a mystery person to wear for NYC Pride 2019, that mystery person theorized to be Taylor originally before the master heist potentially ruined that and Billy Porter wore it instead:

Fast forward to 2024, where Siriano posts this infamous dress once again, first on being on 6/3/24, the second time with a new rainbow dress on 6/28/24, once again imploring others to guess who the dress is for:

It's worth noting that there are other rainbow dresses by Siriano (and at least one more time he posted the original rainbow dress pro-2019, but that wasn't significant here), but they don't seem to have as strong of a connection to Taylor outside of being yet more rainbow dresses:

On 6/30, Siriano posted this photo with a male model (Kyle?) wearing (half, technically) of the 6/28 dress. In the same post, he writes "Oh and everyone don't worry it was not for Taylor but we love her!!" It recognizes that every gaylor associates his rainbow dresses with Taylor and the story of "Diva who we made this for can't come to pride anymore", which lines up with the NYC Pride coming out theory. This is not the first or biggest time he's acknowledged the theory, but it is always very affirming for Siriano to be so open on it:

I personally wasn't expecting Taylor to actually wear the 6/28 dress at any point (I mean, I clowned just in case so it could potentially be manifested, but I wasn't getting my hopes up). Still, the allusions of her associations with Siriano's dresses are present in the new dress posts and interesting to think about, especially when Siriano himself plays into them when he really doesn't have to.

So I just wanted to piece together this idea of Taylor + Karlie = Arial + Belle symbolism from my perspective as a fairytale and Disney nerd.

Theorizing time!

Part 1: Belle = Karlie Kloss 🥀

With this makeshift theory, I'd like to start with the most interesting side first, which might not seem as obvious. I think Karlie might represent Belle in Taylor's music and that's at least a part of why the rainbow dress(es) is pictured with yellow/gold dresses, as that's often Belle's main color outside of blue. As to why:

Belle's dress being gold (in the film itself) or yellow (in merchandising) could easily parallel Taylor's lyrics about associating her lover with gold and the sun, like "Gold Rush", "Daylight", etc. It also fits Tay saying Kar was the sunshine emoji in their Vogue Best Friend video.

Belle as a character was allegedly inspired by Katharine Hepburn's portrayal of Jo March in Little Women (1933). Katharine Hepburn was a queer woman and Jo herself has been interpreted as a queer character.

Belle could arguably be a "static character", as in one who doesn't change throughout the story. That doesn't make Belle badly written, it's just the type I personally think she, at least somewhat fits into. Karlie, for as long as she's been reflected in Tay's music, from what I can tell, has not really changed in her role. She's always been Taylor's beloved muse.

While I sadly can't find a source— if you can, please share—I've heard before that Belle's blue village dress was inspired by Dorothy's dress in The Wizard of Oz (1939). This nicely complements the theory that Karlie is Dorothea in Taylor's song by the same name and that Dorothea is a reference to Dorothy Gale, who herself is a queer-coded character and is associated with the queer slang phrase "Friend of Dorothy". Both Belle and Dorothy yearn for a life that's beyond the one they're living because their peers don't seem to understand them. Many of Taylor's songs have this yearning in them, like "Down Bad" and "I Hate It Here". They aren't the ones in their stories learning the lesson; Dorothy helps her friends learn that they had their gifts all along and Belle's presence in Beast's life inspires him to be better. They're also very accepting of those who are different from society's expectations, Belle with the Beast and Dorothy with her various friends.

Lyricist Howard Ashman wrote the songs for both Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid with Alan Menken. He was also gay and unfortunately died of AIDS in 1991, Beauty and the Beast being the last project he worked on (he technically worked on Aladdin in 1988 before it was released in 1992, but a lot of his songs were cut from the film because the story changed over time, so I believe Beauty and the Beast is typically considered his swan song).

Beauty and the Beast did NOT come out the same year Karlie was born, 1992, but almost did, on November 22, 1991. In the "...Ready For It?" MV, 89 and 91 are on the wall in red and yellow, kind of like Arial and Belle, though the 91 is likely just a beard red herring in the song about bearding. This isn't really a point, I just thought I'd mention it.

Belle is a similar enough name to Betty. Belle means beauty (in Spanish) and the old slang term "Betty" refers to an attractive woman and someone who "...has a smile that can light up a room, and a laugh that could change anyone’s mood..." according to Urban Dictionary. Both names in Hebrew mean God's oath/oath of God.

In the Gaylor world, yellow is often seen as representing closeting/escaping closeting, since the closet room in the Lover house is yellow and Taylor wears a yellow dress after ghosting the prince in the "Bejewled" music video (there could be other reasons too). In the 6/3 photo of the rainbow dress, the mannequin the dress is displayed on and the yellow dresses behind it have a yellow sheer wrap around their heads. For the rainbow dress at least, Billy Porter didn't wear a yellow wrap around his head when wearing the dress, as it's not a part of the outfit, so why is it on the mannequin? My best non-gaylor guess is to help pair it with the yellow dresses better, but why is the dress with these yellow dresses at all rather than with the other rainbow dresses Siriano created or something more similar in concept? It might not be for any Taylor-related reason, but who's to say? It seems as if it's a random choice (and I like how in the og rainbow dress post Siriano's profile picture just happened to be of a yellow dress. Fun happenstance).

Yellow daisies are associated with Kaylor due to their presence in the Big Sur trip and Taylor referencing them in "Don't Blame Me". Daisies are also associated with queerness, being a slang term for gay. Wow, Ms. "Now I'm your daisy", that was bold to say now that I think about it.

Roses play a big role in the general story of Beauty and the Beast, including Disney's. Some of the strongest Kaylor songs mention roses, like "Maroon", "The Lakes", somewhat "The Albatross", etc. The rose is often out of place, like in "The Lakes" where it's growing out of snow, as if it was magical that it happened or seen as not something that should happen, yet it did. Carnations are mistaken as roses in "Maroon", to me representing how Kar and Tay's love isn't always like the norm, so not always a rose, the most common love flower, but carnations still mean love (and have a queer history attached to them). It's "A rose by any other name" and "is a scandal" like in "The Albatross".

Certain songs have been theorized to be from Karlie's perspective towards Taylor, like "TTPD", "Renegade", "Cardigan", and even "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)". All the songs mentioned depict the narrator as trying to help their lover gain strength, knowledge, or simply better habits. In "Cardigan", Betty is steps ahead of James, knowing his moves before he does them because that's how much she loves and knows him, regardless of his actions. Similar to Belle's brainy personality and Karlie's seemingly matching one. Belle never actively tries to "fix" her beast on her own accord in the Disney film despite popular interpretation. She notices that Beast is making an effort to change his ways and supports him through it, as seen in the film's song "Something There". Belle never stomached his bad behavior, running away when Beast pushes it too far and only coming back when he earns it. She never "sees the good in him" before he actually exhibits good. This is similar to Betty (and the narrators of the other songs I mentioned), who lets James come to her when he's ready, rather than stay with him after he did something wrong and is clearly dealing with some baggage in an unhealthy way. I'd say "I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)" was the only exception, but the song ending with "Whoa, maybe I can't" acknowledges that the idea of "fixing" anyone is often a lie; the narrator knows this and stops (sarcastically/in a tongue-in-cheek way IMO) sassing that they can. But the narrator describing her lover with lines like "The dopamine races through his brain" and "Softly traces hearts on my face" communicates to me that the lover, Taylor, wants to improve on her own accord. Taylor and Karlie are always working together to get to a better place, like Belle and Beast, not one trying to fix the other.

Part 2: Arial = Taylor Swift 🐚

This one should take less explaining I guess. I have less to say about this one.

Disney's The Little Mermaid was released in 1989, the same year Taylor was born. Arial is 16 years old, the same age Taylor was when her first album was released.

Taylor dressed as Arial for New Year's Eve in 2019 (or 2018 if you want to be technical about it...).

Arial has a forbidden romance with a human. Taylor has written about forbidden romances plenty before. Gee, I wonder why—

Of course, the title of Taylor's song "But Daddy I Love Him" is a reference to a line Arial says in the film.

The purple top on the 6/28 rainbow dress is reminiscent of Arial's sea-shell bra.

Mermaids and Sirens are often conflated as the same creatures. Sirens, whether they were half-bird or half-fish people, were seen as evil creatures pulling sailors to their deaths, their voices and songs too alluring to resist. Reminds me vaguely of "Put narcotics into all of my songs // And that's why you're still singin' along" from "WAOLOM". Mermaids have also been seen as victims of men (sailors), promiscuous figures, lucky charms, child-appropriate creatures, and temptresses to men, like Taylor has been seen at times in the public eye.

Many of Taylor's lyrics allude to her seeing herself as or even portraying herself as a monster, beast, or otherworldly creature. "Anti-Hero", "WAOLOM", "...Ready For It", "Don't Blame Me", etc. Mermaids have been seen in many ways over the years, villainous or virtuous. Hans Christian Andersen's original version of the story was subversive at the time for not making the mermaid evil or sexualized. But she's still a half-fish creature, not a natural human, so she could still be considered a "creature/beast" whether she acts beastly or not. Therefore Taylor sees herself as the Beast to Karlie's Beauty.

Andersen's original story ends with the mermaid attempting to jump off the prince's ship after he didn't fall for her back. She expects to turn into sea foam since mermaids have no souls to become angels. This would fulfill her deal with the sea witch. However, the mermaid is saved by these fairy-like creatures called "Daughters of the Air", as they recruit her as one of them so she can do good deeds for 300 years with them and gain her soul without the aid of a man's love. It somewhat reminds me of Taylor pausing the beardings and abandoning men to hang out with her squad. "I picked the petals, he loves me not // Something different bloomed // Writing in my room..." (from "YOYOK").

And Andersen was fairly certainly queer.

As for this line in "Clara Bow": "Beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours // Demanding more..." I think it's mostly a commentary on how painful the demand for women to be beautiful is. But under this lens, it could be slight self-reflection; I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor has personally felt the pressure of trying to stay as beautiful as possible, both in looks and spirits. Inside her is both physical and spiritual beauty, but beauty can be a beast, demanding to stay against all odds despite natural aging or moments of being human and exhibiting more negative "non-beautiful" emotinal traits.

Not really a point, but here is a fun fact: there are ✨13✨ official Disney Princesses currently, starting with Snow White and currently ending at Raya (I don't know if Asha from Wish counts yet or will count). Belle was the next princess directly after Arial in terms of their film's release dates, similar to Karlie and Taylor's birthdates.

[scoonsalicious]

Heya hey mother pookie🩷 So here’s my thoughts.

Can’t stress this enough and will keep on saying it that Lebron is just…

It’s sad u know? just… sad! Idk how to explain but it’s sad that’s not pity. The closest word I can think of is pathetic. She’s pathetic but not to the point I feel sorry for her.

Honestly, if she wasn’t a bit cray2, delusional, obsessive, manipulative, a pick me, I would’ve actually feel bad for her but then she’s not

She’s a whole red flag and if Buckybaby doesn’t see that in the future, RIP his eyes and sanity but as said by Mother Pookie before, this Bucky is better and so I have faith in him. It’s just that his action might be later on than now bcs he always thought of Lebron as his friend only. Before he never been interested so hard in a dame before but now that he’s actually starting to fall in love with Major, he’s going to notice her delusionalism (this word doesn’t exist btw)

Btw Leechoney… what do you expect😭😫 Like… what? Ofc he’s going to lie to you bcs of your attitude. She’s acting as if Bucky is her boyfriend (i bet in her mind she thinks that). She’s going to confront Bucky the next day I tell ya. She’s not the type to back down too. I can imagine the shrill of her voice right now and it’s making me cringe. I bet she gunna stomp her feet like a child demanding Buckybaby to explain why he lie to her and who’s he with. She’s the type to use the ‘but I’m your bestfriend’ reason too, which is hella annoying. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes so hard it refuse to come back down, but it had too bcs I need to read the upcoming part.

Personally, it’s fun to read Lenovo’s POV. Imagine if Jade had one?! That would be cruel yet interesting😂 Reading the antagonist view has a different vibe because there will be a time where we don’t understand why they’re acting the way they are and in a sense of way, we’re psychologically interpreting/discussing their behaviour which is fun. I lurve it!!

Lastly, as usual, great writing, Happy mother’s day to your mama Pookie and others as well andd ofcc as usual, love you Mother Pookie🩷🩷🩷

PS// One of my cat is sick rn. Please pray that he’ll be better tomorrow (He’s not meowing as usual, wobbly wobbly too, these past few days the weather has been unexpected, changing between heavy rains then scorching hot in seconds, and i hope it’s not affecting him. This is why we need an actual cat as a doctor, like a cat doctor, not human doctor just so they could take care of other cats ASAP)

I feel like it's easy to put deLulu in the crazy bucket, but she's definitely motivated more by selfishness than by any kind of mental illness. She could have easily asked Bucky out at any point over the last four years. Who knows-- he might have said yes. She just kind of expected him to fall for her, so don't feel bad for her. She's been manipulating his relationships for a long time now.

She's definitely put Bucky in this quasi-boyfriend role, where she treats him like a bf and expects him to treat her like a gf, just minus the sexual/romantic element... for now (in her mind). She's used to being the only girl of significance in his life, and it's going to hit her hard when that changes. And it changes very, very soon.

Bucky will start seeing problems with the way she acts, but he won't necessarily put two and two together right away. Because, to him, the idea of a romantic relationship between him and her is just... so far out there. She is a friend; he's never, ever seen her as anything else. The idea has never crossed his mind. So, when trying to come up with motives for her behavior, jealousy will not be the first one to come to mind.

I think I would have been too terrified to have ever written a Jade POV. It would have been so scary in that head, lol.

[howtofightwrite]

My character is a 50 something police officer that suddenly finds herself in a post-apocalyptic world (think similar to Fallout), how would her training help her?

There's a little more complexity here than you might expect. Fallout alternates between three different settings, and I don't mean this in the normal, nerdy, “oh, but Fallout: Tactics, isn't canon, except for the Midwestern Brotherhood...” I mean it rotates across three different post-apocalyptic sub-genres. So, I'll dig those out in a minute.

The biggest thing is probably combat training. Even if they never had a combat specialist role (like a SWAT officer), they would still have undergone training in hand to hand, use of their baton, their sidearm, and a shotgun. They may have also been trained with various types of rifles. While it's not likely to be their most commonly used skill, it does open their options up a lot. It will also help them  avoid some very bad situations. Sometimes, having a combat background is more about knowing when not to walk into someplace.

The second big boon is going to be their medical training. Even if they were just a patrol officer, they would still have undergone first aid and CPR certification on a fairly regular basis. Depending on their experiences, this might also give them a passing understanding of pharmacology (especially if they worked vice or dealt with ODs on a regular basis), and they may even be able to perform some rudimentary field surgery if there's no other option. (Granted, they also have a pretty good chance of killing their patient, but that's still better odds than the certainty of dying without any medical attention.)

The third major skill is their grasp of human nature. This is something that most veteran cops will build up over time, simply as a result of their human interactions. Now, this can result in a very jaundiced view of people, due their experiences, but this will make it harder to pull one over on them. (Now, there is a blind spot here, because your character is now in an unfamiliar world, their baseline is going to be a little bit scrambled. But, in general, they're going to have a significant advantage in reading people's behavior, and intentions.)

Depending on their background, they may have a lot of more specialized skills that could be extremely useful. Someone who worked in SWAT will have an extremely robust combat toolkit to work with, someone with a motor pool background will have an advantage in vehicle repair and maintenance (and while only two Fallout games have featured working cars, they're certainly a part of the setting.) A pilot would know how to operate a chopper (or vertibird.) Specific to Fallout, an officer with a background dealing with maintaining robotics would be able to do that, and might also have some skill with working on power armor. A hostage negotiator would have an almost frightening number of social options. A vice detective would have, likely, have a robust knowledge of pharmacology (as mentioned earlier), both in their symptoms, but also, likely, in their creation, and potential uses. Finally, detectives would still have their investigation skills, which could be very useful in their field. This is the usual, determining what happened at a location, tracking people, and so on.

So, why did I make a point about there being multiple versions of Fallout earlier? Because it affects how useful some of these skills are. Fallout, from its first incarnation, was a pastiche of an entire literary genre, which took heavy inspiration from multiple, not completely compatible, visions of a post-apocalyptic world.

The original game is bleak and subdued. You could almost think of it as a low-fantasy post-nuclear wasteland. Very little of the old world survives into the original game. It's also a world without a lot of the more fanciful elements that have become synonymous with the brand. Deathclaws are a ghost story told to frighten green caravan hands, not a massive apex predator understood to be wandering the wasteland. The super mutants are staying in hiding, while they carefully enact their master's plan. Ghouls are rare enough that most mistakenly describe them as the risen dead.

Within this context, a lot of the survival skills are likely to be the most important. Notably, there are a few cases where towns are run by their police. This is something that a veteran cop might have experience with. If they took on a leadership role, then it's quite possible they have a good background for starting, and protecting, a new settlement. Though, as the first game shows, this is an approach that can backfire horribly.

Fallout 2 and New Vegas represent a different, and more unusual, post-apocalyptic setting. These are worlds where the survivors are so separated from the end of the world that they're effectively building new civilizations. In Fallout 2, this includes a number of new, post-war cities, that have built up in the decades between the games.

These games also reflect an era when a lot of the mysteries of the wasteland have been exposed. Things like the ghouls, super mutants, and deathclaws are all known to exist, and the latter are acknowledged as serious threats.

In situations like this, some of the survival skills are less important, and it's possible your character could actually go back to doing their job, if they're living in one of the larger cities. It may seem a little counterintuitive, but these are settings where, to some extent, life goes on like it did before. With some changes along the way.

Fallout 3, 4, and, 76 all kind of operate as, “immediate aftermath,” scenarios. In spite of the mainline games being set in the back half of the 23rdcentury, their worlds are ones that almost make more sense in first few decades after the nukes struck.

Hell, Nick's personal quest centers around settling a score with someone from before the war, and while there's in-universe justification for how this works, this really is a variant of a renegade cop's revenge story. It's explicitly the kind of story you'd normally set immediately after the apocalypse, before everyone had a chance to die off of old age. Granted, there's some extra existential elements at play, but in the end, this is a story that does suffer from spending 200 years at the back of a freezer.

I hate to say this, because I don't want to tell anyone they should play it, but 76 is worth considering, specifically for The Responders. These were a mix of police, firefighters, and paramedics who set about rebuilding immediately after the war. And, ironically, if Todd Howard's dictatorial fiat hadn't put an end to any living NPCs in Appalachia, along with his driving need to wedge the Brotherhood of Steel into places where it didn't belong, 76's concept of The Responders is a pretty good model for what a character could build.

The Desert Rangers get a few stray references in Fallout and New Vegas, but they're never fleshed out... because they're a reference to the player faction in Wasteland. The actual origin, much like the Brotherhood of Steel, is the pre-war US Military group. The Rangers were original a Nevada National Guard Engineering Battalion, and immediately after the war they commandeered a prison complex, repurposing it as their headquarters.

If you've never looked at Wasteland, the Rangers have (to some extent) a more law enforcement focused approach to their territory. This is complicated by the fact that things are still more than a little messed up. However, it may give you some more thoughts on what you could do with a cop in that environment, or how people would try to rebuild after the end.

It's probably worth remembering that Max Rokatansky (the protagonist of the Mad Max films) is a former cop, and his signature vehicle was a Police Interceptor before the end of the world. In fact, the first film, The Road Warrior(1979), isn't even post-apocalyptic. The events occur as the world is falling apart around them. While this has a lot to do with the budgetary constraints of a film that (literally) paid many of its extras in beer, it is a unique apocalypse as a result.

Ultimately, depending on what their job was as a cop, your character has a lot of potential skill sets, and nearly any of them could be extremely advantageous in a post-apocalyptic environment. It really is a question of what overlaps between who they are and the world they find themselves in.

-Starke

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[shamrock313]

Cillian Murphy General Reading

This reading is for entertainment purposes. Please take everything you read with a grain of salt. Enjoy!

I'm a fan of Cillian. I love sitting down and watching Breakfast on Pluto or Red Eye. I use to have Peaky Blinder nights with my friends and I love that he's a not that big of an actor. I gotta say when Barbenheimer happened that was the BEST marketing ever for these two movies.

I might have to put Bill movies aside (again) and have a Cillian marathon. Sorry Bill fans, but Cillian came first. I swear whenever I try to watch something Bill or Evan related, something better comes on like I can't watch American Crime over The Mummy (Brendan version). I can't just not watch it!!!! It's THE MUMMY!!!!!

For those who haven't seen it. I think its still on Tubi. You need to watch is asap. The first and second. Don't watch the third Mummy. I barley remember it. I just know I went to sleep on it in the theaters.

Career: 2oS + Sun + Lovers = "Choosing between jobs. Debating on what projects to take on". With the Sun and Lover that means people took an interest in him and want him involved in their project because he's a "big name" and it might draw audience in. Taking on significant roles. Perhaps more leading roles? They want this, I don't know if he does though. Depends on him. He doesn't care. If he takes it, he'll be paid well. Risk of romantic feelings on set (?) Maybe some flirtation.

Love Life: Cillian POV: 3oS, 9oC, Strength, 5oW = 3oS "unwanted 3rd party coming in between relationships". Argument/ conflicts. 5oW "competition between suitors" "conflict between lovers" Fighting for relationship. "Love you and doesn't want to walk away". He and his wife need to communicate the issues that come between them during Oppenheimer. If they don't this could possibly ruin them. Now, with the 9oC + Strength it would say he's appreciative of his love life. It's a strong caring relationship and he will "fight" to make it continue as is, but he can have a temper if the same issues keep coming up repeatedly like he might get annoyed about something that happened a year ago still getting brought up now, but it's like if you fucked up and someone is still hurt by it, you can't just not expect them to let it go. You need to consider your wife's feelings.

Oracle Cards: Mercury Retrograde which of course is communication issues

Yvonne POV: 10 of Pent - She's a faithful wife and has been with him since the beginning. Has always supported him and they have built a foundation (marriage, children, family unit). For this to break, it will be upsetting but a part of me feels she might be okay. She's independent and she's a woman with her own career.

OC: Liar and Water Sign. Liar is being watchful of someone being sneaky (3oC) and it's a Water Sign person so IYKYK.

Dynamic: QoS, 10oW, WoF, 8oW, and Knight of Cups (R) = QoS Honest conversation. Clarity and mutual understanding. Setting boundaries. 10oW Unresolved issues. Burden. Taking on more responsibility within marriage. Trying to fix the wrongdoings. WoF Uncertain outcome. Either stay in their marriage and work it out or divorce. It can go either way it just depends on them. Like they say the wheel keeps spinning and you don't know where it will land. 8oW is a period of growth and communication. Doing family activities together. They could be just doing this for the boys, but I don't know. I keep hearing "Remember the good ole times. How things use to be". KoC (R) insecurity / instability. Failed promises.

OC: Spy (people such as fans and family watching them closely and their interactions), Distance (emotionally or physically distant), and Let Go "make room for the new beginnings on the way to you now".

What does Cillian think of Emily Blunt? Death + Knight of Swords (side) = IF something happened between them, I don't think it was serious and I don't think he will leave his wife for Emily. She (Emily) brought some changes into his life, so if the blind items are true then damn. (I think there are some blind items about them if I'm not mistaken). KoS (U) They work well together. Great pair. He sees the drive and motivation she has in her work. It's impressive. Similar values and intellectual conversations. (Rev) She has a problem with her mouth. She talks too much and when she does, she let's things slip. Don't tell her anything or she might accidently let it slip out. She gets her way. I also kept seeing a wall like a blockage between them. They might not be on talking terms right now.

Emily on Cillian: 3oW (side) + PoP (R) + 5oS (R) = 3oW (U) Crush? May have caught some feelings for him. I mean have y'all seen those eyes? Damn. Love eyes (?) Admires him...(Rev) Unsure about him sometimes. Regrets. There's something weird about these two. I don't know if they were physically together or very flirty. I know we got the FWB OC and that could be what we think it means or it doesn't.

PoP (R) She thinks he waste his talents by not taking on bigger roles. "Wasted opportunities". I know Cillian was almost Batman, but he didn't fit the look of Batman. I like him better as Jonathan Crane. "Sees him as someone who wants success but not willing to work for it". I just think he doesn't care too much and doesn't want the pressure. Wants to be grounded, but I could be wrong. 5oS moving on. Cut the loses. I hear "She came on too strong".

OC (for them both): Incompatible, No Spark, FWB

[empyrangel]

Finally got around to doing the new event and I gotta say it’s pretty good. Have a few thoughts about it.

Very Kaveh centered (almost like a Kaveh story quest) of course and I think he deserved it. I think it was executed very well. Alhaitham is important to anything Kaveh related, they’re a package deal, and his parts seemed pretty good too. Even though Kaveh was the main character I think they did a good job of incorporating most of the other Sumeru characters.

Layla had a nice arc and it was good seeing her interactions with the other characters like Tighnari.

Tighnari and Cyno didn’t have a huge role, but I think the screen time they did have was sufficient. They had some nice scenes and got just as much attention as they needed, especially considering that they were already significant characters in the last event.

Faruzan was great as always. Loved her dynamic with Kaveh! Seeing her appreciate someone instead of always looking down on everyone was refreshing. Their interactions might have been the best part of the event.

Wanderer had a nice role. Enigmatic background work suits him. The reveal at the end about him having been entered into the championship by Nahida was anticlimactic and underwhelming since that was already obvious from the beginning, especially since he even told us she was the one who enrolled him in Vahumana. The concept of him being sentenced to something like that as like community service or something is kinda funny. But also imagine being a top Vahumana scholar and you’re favored to be picked to represent your darshan in the championship and then Lesser Lord Kusanali herself picks some stranger who wrote a few essays and on top of that he doesn’t even try at all until the final round. Your darshan would be a laughing stock and have the worst performance of any darshan in any championship ever. Vahumana must be in shambles right now.

As for Nahida herself, I think only including her at the very end was a good move. Everything even remotely Sumeru related for the past like 8-9 months has been about her. This event can stand to not be about her. She fulfilled her purpose and her inclusion didn’t feel forced or contrived, that’s good enough.

Dehya and Candace didn’t have a lot of screen time but I think it worked for them. Their purpose was casual appearances as tourists in Sumeru city and to advance the plot line about the eremite assassins. While I inwardly wish that Candace had been there more, I understand that this wasn’t about her and she didn’t need more screen time than she got. Fingers crossed she’s the next four star to get a hangout event so she can finally get more attention.

Dori also had a minor role, one which was mostly confined to side quests. Still, I think it went pretty well. Her purpose was to introduce information which would give us context about the main plot line of the event. I’d say that was executed good enough. My only criticism would be that her giving us free information multiple times felt contrived and out of character, but it’s such a trivial detail that I guess it doesn’t matter.

Collei and Nilou are where you can tell that they really just tried to squeeze every playable Sumeru character into this event no matter how it turned out.

Collei was there for two seconds no joke. I thought for sure that she would come back to help Tighnari in the other two rounds but that didn’t happen. She was so insignificant that I almost forgot she was even in the event at all. I don’t feel too sorry for her though, and I don’t really care much about this because Collei hogged over half of the screentime in the last Mondstadt event and I think she deserves a taste of her own medicine.

But Nilou. Oh Nilou. They did her dirty. They did her so dirty. I came into this event thinking that surely they’d half-ass it and only portray her as this shallow, ditzy, nice girl- I really didn’t expect much for her, but I still did not expect that they simply wouldn’t portray her at all. Genuine question; Why the hell was she even there? She did absolutely nothing. She had like three lines and two of them were like “let me go get the paper for the lots” or something. All of the commentary and announcer stuff (and literally anything else) that she could have done was done by Alhaitham. If one announcer was all they needed then why pretend that Nilou has any business being there, she was just there for no reason. If she’s not needed then don’t give me false hope just to not incorporate her into the event at all, what a waste. I heard that Alhaitham and Nilou were going to interact and I was excited to see their dynamic. I think he acknowledged her maybe once and that’s it. They could’ve had their conflicting personalities be used as a source of comedy, or as foils to one another. So much potential and nothing came of it. Giving Nilou literally anything to do wouldn’t have distracted from the rest of the event in the slightest. I’m so disappointed at that.

[gothprentiss]

there's a post i've seen maybe twice that's got i think at this point 20k notes. it's about how, like, fictional depictions of medieval women Get It All Wrong (true); how our notions of medieval misogyny are relics of the victorian age, not historical reality (eh??); how class is a more realistic way of understanding premodern womanhood than gender (to some extent!); and here are some ways you might consider writing medieval women, e.g. "tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn’t the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself “not like other girls” you could gain significant autonomy & freedom".

the idea that victorian people had particular essentialist ideas about the genders (e.g. the angel-in-the-house-style separate spheres philosophy) and either a) medieval people didn't, not to that extent or in that mode OR b) that has overdetermined our notion of what all the past looks like strikes me as more of a starting point than a conclusion.

like, okay, the idea that there was a singular ideal for women (and that it's virgin saint, lol), even just women in a particular period in a particular area of the medieval christian world-- that does run so categorically against the idea that class is more explanatory than gender here. what you might say, though, is that you can extrapolate this as the sole ideal for women from the historical record (i don't think you can, but let's play) as a result of class and social position. christine de pizan was a court scholar for numerous members of the french royal family. most of the writings that survive of medieval christian women are the products of either noblewomen or nuns. but second of all-- you can't say that the virgin saint was the female archetype rather than the mother or the wife. the virgin saint is literally both of those things: she figures the virgin mary, whose virginity is important because of her maternity; she figures the church, which is allegorically the bride of christ. it's also worth noting, of course, that the virgin saint (i.e. the nun, presumably?) is not the same sort of ideal as the wife or the mother in any material way.

all of this is emblematic about how much of the historical record works and is made to work. in terms of real, factual women who were either able to write at great length or written about with any interest, you have the inevitable upper-class bias, as the post tacitly notes: "Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life" (odd groupings). in drawing in literary sources, as studies of medieval womanhood always do, you have the additional problem of fabulation, which you are trying to read a theory of womanhood or at least an account of gender roles out of. (medievalists, due to the size and conservatism of the field, are also notably not very good readers when it comes to gender.) e.g. the post cites a thesis which is, as i am looking at it now, significantly about the roman de silence (reading it out of the context of hagiography and alongside the roman d'eneas). the desire for fiction to work as historical record is common in medievalism (really in all premodernism), and understandable, and has some foundation. it is rare to see this foundation meaningfully established in this work.

the other problem you have for the concept of medieval women-- whether you just want to, like, depict one, or have some baseline understanding of what their lives were like, or do them justice-- is the privileging of the individual and the outlier. "women could do this in the middle ages" is often a sentence backed up with, like, five truly good examples, one of them legendary. the desire for a history of empowered women gives you a certain kind of returns; the expectation of a history of misogyny gives you a certain kind of returns. this sort of "THIS IS HOW MEDIEVAL* WOMEN REALLY WERE (*LIMITED TO A SPECIFIC SETTING, AREA OF INTEREST, ETC.)" trumpeting is naturally not about all women of that particular context, and to do so-- beyond the really quite blunt-headed approach to the dynamism of both gender and misogyny-- strikes me as a great disservice to this object of study, delimiting womanhood to solely that of the wealthy and, by that same token, empowered. if nothing else it's certainly telling about the state of gender scholarship in pop medieval history (if not also medieval studies) that feminist interventions get you to about the mainstream scholarly feminism of the 80s, where gilbert and gubar write a whole book named for bertha mason that is only really interested in jane eyre.

[mekatrio]

ok organized my thoughts and reread some bits so this is the better worded long post where i complain abt why novel 6 and novel 7 rubbed me the wrong way, but specifically in regards to how it handled shintaro as a Main Character

firstly the 180 from kano's hatred towards shintaro to a current admiration is very jarring. it feels very rushed, and its very weird how kano practically has 0 lingering resentment towards him. like just two days ago he was psychologically torturing shintaro, and now he thinks of him like this?

^all of this is kano's gay ass pov regarding shintaro btw

like i completely understand now why people ship kanoshin now bc this 100% reads like a kid crushing on their older sibling's friend. it might just be really strange localization, but with the lack of fan translations for this novel, this is all i can go off from. but it honestly feels so bizarre and like, not in a funnily comforting way but like... a strange misogynistic way?! but ill get to that in a second.

anyways i understand that kano just had the biggest breakdown of his life in the ending of novel 5, and his facade essentially broke apart entirely. and now without the need to put up a front, kano is able to recognize how much shintaro has changed from the guy from two years ago who would turn away from everything in front of him. but despite that rationalization, its still an overall pretty weird dynamic bc well..... what connects these two individuals is a currently deceased ayano, but i feel like she doesnt play a significant enough role in their assessments of one another.

and this is what i mean by the fact that this kanoshin dynamic feels strangely misogynistic. if shintaro's feelings towards kano was like, "i owe it to you to get your sister back, because it was my arrogance in the past that led her to not confide in me", then that wouldve been fine, and would have also been what i expected. but instead it feels more like a "hey, youre not that bad of a guy, shintaro!" "haha you too kano! guffaw guffaw", like.. what?

but to get to the crux of it, what bothers me the most abt their dynamic is that kano (and the rest of the dan) is now suddenly relying on shintaro. like all of a sudden he's being given rein to create a gameplan for them to survive the summer. like what? this is what i mean by shintaro's Main Character Complex, where hes placed into this type of position seemingly just bc he is the Main Character of the story.

i have many issues with the fact that shintaro was the main planner for this infiltration scheme. i think it was a big mistake that only a few members worked on it, cuz something this important shouldve involved the whole group's input, so its off-putting that it didnt. hibiya apparently played a big role, but this was only mentioned in passing by kano, instead of actually being shown. maybe the final novel might show a more comprehensive picture of this plan being put together by the whole group, and if it does, ill be happy to eat my words.

but not just that, but also how extremely similar this plan is to the one that momo devised against the terrorists in novel 1. both of them hinged themselves on the same trick, with kido appearing out of thin air with mary by her side. but momo devised her plan in a much more stressful setting, in a hostage situation with only a cellphone, with way less members at her disposal and an even lesser understanding of everyone's powers. and yet momo is not shown to have put in any input in this new plan, and the similarities and her clever ideas from the first plan are not acknowledged at all, like??? despite momo being shown to be just as capable as shintaro, if not even more so, it feels like she got pushed to the side so shintaro could have more time Being The Main Character. not to mention that im also iffy with the fact that shintaro spent more time around kids her age than momo herself did, with momo instead running around with hibiya since novel 4?!

so instead of the concoction of the final climatic infiltration plan being a group effort, and rather than having momo play a bigger role which she very much deserved to, shintaro is randomly made leader of this plot instead. bc he is the Main Character; which is then justified bc of the intellect he possesses, which honestly feels like something that was hamfisted into the narrative.

shintaro's intellect has a difficult time fitting into the story. this intellect is meant to be the reason why he was brazenly arrogant, this arrogance then being the flaw of his former self (did not reach out to ayano in a way that mattered), but the strength of his current self (the confidence and resourcefulness to create a climatic infiltration plan). but as i pointed out, it's manner of fitting itself into the current day plot, came at the expense of making kano bizarrely forgiving, and copying momo's brilliance but without any of the acknowledgement.

and this then relates itself to novel 6, which similarly threw itself out of balance in order to have a pretty big focus on harushin. like i understand the importance of harushin, its supposed to be a significant parallel to shintaro's strange friendship with konoha. i get that. but it feels a bit Too skewed to harushin? i can recognize the harutaka but like ive said before, considering that takane's whole novel practically revolved around haruka, with shinaya playing a very small part, it feels unbalanced when haruka's novel almost focuses more on shintaro than it does takane?? but ok thats not the main thing thats out of balance that really gripes me, whats really irritating me is this:

WHEREEEEE THE HELL IS SHINAYA. LIKE. THERES NO SHINAYA?? like it just feels so unbalanced?? we got our harutaka, cool (all of novel 2 + some of novel 6). a few helpings of ayataka along the way, nice (ayano encouraging takane to confess her feelings 2 years ago + ayano's email to ene). novel 6 coming in with some sweet hot harushin, and a little sprinkle of haruaya, very nice. now wheres the shinaya? where is it. huh. Where... THERE... IS NO.... SHINAYA..... they are like, completely and utterly subtextual. it is almost parody. LIKE...

like on one hand i understand that this could be interpreted as a cool, deliberate effect; shinaya's relationship haunts the story and they haunt one another, they talk about how their absence affect each other and all that, but we never actually see them interact meaningfully in the story.

^relevant remind blue lyrics pertaining to shinaya (IN MY GRANDIOSE AND CORRECT OPINION)

i get that, thats cool. its just.... UGHHH its just super extremely frustrating. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. shintaro literally does not let up at all like he is INCREDIBLY unlikeable when he is a student so ayano's crush on him just feels incredibly deranged. HE DIDNT EVEN REMEMBER HER BIRTHDAY????? like for me to be ok with this, all of this needs to be remorsefully acknowledged or something and we need to get our penultimate shinaya moment in the daze or SOMETHING cuz this is. getting.. ridiculous..

ok but basically to wrap it up, very annoying that shintaro spent more time with kido, mary, and kano than momo did; very annoying that hes being relied on for making a crucial gameplan that practically ripped momo's brilliant ideas off with no acknowledgement; and very annoying that he played a massive role in haruka's novel, while shinaya continues to be the most subtextual of subtexts. GRAHHH

[llycaons]

ep9: dafan wens my friends the dafan wens

imo this is def the weakest arc in the show. this episode was fun but whew, I think ep8 might have been my least favorite and we're still getting out of it

he asks this question way later in eps 20 and 43 or something and each time lwj is like 'we just gotta rush them' king of rigid problem-solving and only having one solution to any problem <3

threatening jc with lwj is kind of funny but on a rewatch it's like. ah

credit where it is due. jc almost expressed concern here for wwx

wwx defending lwj for zero reason and then turning and giving him such a sweet smile. bud you are so far gone <3

NOW IT'S DAYTIME?? not even dawn but BROAD daylight. mama mia

yeah, I feel like putting the zombied people in the cage would have been safer than putting the healthy ones in

IS HE. HMM

god this is so sad. look how miserable wq looks to see her popo like this

I don't like any of the surreal, drawn-out, misty sequences interspersed with fight scenes. I mean the waterborne abyss. I mean this forest fight. I mean a chunk of yi city. I mean the maze forest. I just hate the hazy atmosphere and there's usually no good character moments and there's a ton of worldbuilding magic that I can't follow very well and don't rly care for

this fight isn't bad tho! there's some fun banter and some cool angles, like the one above

ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT STRANGLING WWX. WHEN WILL HE CATCH A BREAK. this is the first of...four? jc, wrh, and jgy way later...let wwx breathe 2k23

also this is a VERY funny thing to worry about. lwj is very good at going Heady Empty (meditation) but wwx found it challenging due to having so many thoughts

I SEE BABY A-YUAN!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO!!!!!!!!

as much as I complain about him as a character I was THRILLED to see this little guy. I LOVE baby a-yuan and I think he's just precious. his survival was one of the things I needed to be spoiled for in order to watch the show without significant distress

though given the timeline this can't be a-yuan...he'd be way too old by the time the post-sunshot timeline rolls around. that's at least two years later. so I guess this is his older sister who looks the same as him. god but that's a cute little actor. love him and his big chubby cheeks and his little fingers and his baby wig

GREAT choice for little wn and wq too. they look just like their adult versions. actually I think the casting for all the kids versions of the adult characters was perfect except for a-yuan doesn't look a great deal like lsz imo

HA. wrh may be power-hungry and getting more unhinged by the day with the magic of the yin iron but he's still a more savvy political actor than his stupid fucking son. 'of course wen qing is going to intervene if you mess with her family, you fuckhead' lmao

SUCH a pretty shot I love how saturated the colors are for their outfits and headpieces

literally such a fucking funny scene. well-dressed young nobles hunting in the woods for a chicken. and wwx being so clever and getting wq alone so he and lwj can question her in private. curious how quick he was to cut nhs and jc out. nhs isn't from either of their sects, but jc should theoretically be trustworthy. except! wwx doesn't trust him. hmmm. even this early, he and lwj act as a unit. lwj's entirely given up trying to go it alone and now they work together nearly seamlessly

literally seconds apart. I fucking give up. and I don't think it's the translations because this has been a consistent issue in all the versions I've watched. it's 10! wq and wn are clearly around the age of the others so it's not 20

remember that post that's like 'jc: lady wen may I rub thine shoulders? massage your feet? feed you grapes? vs. wwx and wq doing a six-step handshake and laughing together' that NAILED it. jc trying to be attentive and gentlemanly bc he views her as a Woman and he's trying to fulfill the role he understands to be expected of him, as a man, in society ( to Intervene and Protect). meanwhile wwx views her as an independent actor in this shitty situation they're in. dgmw wwx is also sexist but he treats women more like human people than jc does, esp wq. he also thinks out of the box and isn't afraid to challenge social norms, unlike jc who's guided by social expectations because his parents haven't given him strong positive role modeling and he doesn't have strong instincts on how to behave outside of what he's been taught by society in general

but like I said. still sexist. it's not like being a creative and original thinker can save him from Living In A Society

lwj is very polite to wq, as he appears to be to all women, but I don't think he'd get close with any women because he doesn't get close with anyone at all. also I don't think he meets many women so he doesn't have much interaction with them outside of professional and impersonal settings so they've been at an arm's length from him since he mama died

jc is consistently so unpleasant to wwx. like would it kill you to be supportive of your brother when he's trying to solve a mystery. for ONCE

I like this waiter <3

be nice to the waiter my GOD jc. chill out. he's just telling a story

ohhh cinematic parallels to post-sunshot hmm 👀

overall the yin iron plot is overly complex, kind of silly, and imo feels extraneous, and I can def tell why novel fans dislike it. but it did give the boys and girl some quality time together and an excuse for exposition/backstory development and really, that's all the purpose it needed to serve before its bigger role later. now if only jyl was on more of these trips :( I miss my girl. I love wq but jyl is probably my favorite female character

personal highlights

wwx's cute little smile directed at lwj for no other reason than that he likes him

wwx finding it hard to concentrate in the woods because he just has too many thoughts, which he interprets are being so so smart (and he IS I love you wei wuxian)

nhs and jc going chicken-hunting in the woods

BABY A-YUAN DEBUT!!!!!

[mearnsblog]

"Moana" (2016)

I've written many, many words over the course of this project. Probably too many words! But while I've been slow to pick up the pace on watching the movies during the past couple years (life is busy, OK?), I've almost always been quick to put digital pen to paper after I've actually taken the time to put them on. The process of retaining information and fresh thoughts typically works best that way.

"Moana," however, was an outlier. As I sit here now, it has been almost two months since we watched it. As always, part of the difficulty was finding time, but on this occasion, I had a little bit of writer's block. The reason? I love "Moana" so much that it's hard to adequately express it. I like plenty of movies, but it's unusual for me to have such an overwhelmingly strong and positive reaction. I might be brief, but I am going to try.

"Moana" doesn't waste any time. It grabs you mere seconds after the Disney production card ends, with a striking sequence explaining the backstory of Te Fiti, Maui, and Te Kā, concluding with the introduction of the island and our main characters. It does a remarkably efficient job of setting up, well, just about everything in this movie, and it instantly draws you to Tala, the narrator of this prologue as well as Moana's grandmother.

This is a brilliant setup considering how important Tala is to kicking off the plot of "Moana" itself. Our title character, of course, has her song about "wanting adventure in the great wide somewhere," as Belle would say, and make no mistake: "How Far I'll Go" is an A+. It's not hard to understand why Moana is so driven to explore while still wanting to live up to expectations as the heir-in-waiting to lead the village one day. Further, it's not hard to understand why she has such a strong bond with her grandma. John Musker and Ron Clements of "Beauty and the Beast," "Little Mermaid," and "Aladdin" fame directed "Moana" and it shows.

The relationship is obviously special within the movie, and I'm also not going to act like I'm an unbiased observer here. Tala is very different from my own grandmothers in her own way, but that kind of pure connection of love and trust across generations? Naturally, I relate to that. I would not be who I am today without Grandma Mearns, whose love of singing and cooking was dwarfed only by her only love of family, and Grandma Robinson (Grandmar), who lived just a town over and was there for just about everything that my sister and I did. She stepped up in a truly immeasurable way as we grew up without my dad, and she never gave a second thought to any of it. In short, grandma stories have a very high probability of getting to me, hence the difficulty in putting all my "Moana" thoughts all into words!

"Moana" has even more going for it. The Lin-Manuel Miranda/Opetaia Foa'i/Mark Mancina soundtrack is full of hits, it's really cool to see the stories of Te Fiti and Te Kā develop over the course of the movie, and I don't think I could have imagined liking The Rock as Maui as much as I do. On Maui in particular, it's a great role that allows The Rock to act as the wild card who can generously be described as skeptical of a mortal, and yet soon grow to consider her a friend. And Maui is far from a flawless character in his own right, with his arrogance gradually skewered until he can be worthy of his hook's full powers again.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that my love for "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" plays a significant role in my fondness for "Moana." I don't play video games even remotely as much as I did when I was a teenager. As I got more and more into baseball, that left less time for solo gaming, aside from multiplayer ones like the ones in the "Smash Bros." and "Mario Kart" franchises. I think "Wind Waker" might have been the last video game that brought me all the way down the rabbit hole. The adventure was as great as any Zelda title, and I'll never forget the incredible feeling of sailing around the islands of flooded Hyrule on the King of Red Lions or its moving conclusion. The parallels are obvious to Moana and Maui's journey around these Polynesian islands, and the story even includes an underwater realm to briefly explore, too. The endings are all tied up in embracing the role of explorers as well!

I think I've gushed enough. "Moana" forever. It is one of the best Disney films that I will ever see.

Best song: "How Far I'll Go"

Updated ranking

1. “Beauty and the Beast” (review) 2. "Moana" 3. “The Lion King” (review) 4. “The Little Mermaid” (review) 5. “Cinderella” (review) 6. “Mulan” (review) 7. “Tangled” (review) 8.  “Wreck-It Ralph” (review) 9. “Frozen” (review) 10. “Sleeping Beauty” (review) 11. "Big Hero 6" (review) 12. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (review) 13. “Aladdin” (review) 14. “The Emperor’s New Groove” (review) 15. “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (review) 16. “The Jungle Book” (review) 17. “Lilo & Stitch” (review) 18. “The Great Mouse Detective” (review) 19. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (review) 20. “Fantasia” (review) 21. “The Rescuers Down Under” (review) 22. “Tarzan” (review) 23. “The Princess and the Frog” (review) 24. “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” (review) 25. “Alice in Wonderland” (review) 26. “Lady and the Tramp” (review) 27. “Pinocchio” (review) 28. "Zootopia" (review) 29. “Robin Hood” (review) 30. “Oliver & Company” (review) 31. “Hercules” (review) 32. “Pocahontas” (review) 33. “The Rescuers” (review) 34. “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (review) 35. “Bambi” (review) 36. “Peter Pan” (review) 37. “The Aristocats” (review) 38. “Fantasia 2000″ (review) 39. “Dumbo” (review) 40. “Bolt” (review) 41. “Meet the Robinsons” (review) 42. “Treasure Planet” (review) 43. “Chicken Little” (review) 44. “Fun and Fancy Free” (review) 45. “The Fox and the Hound” (review) 46. “The Sword in the Stone” (review) 47. “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” (review) 48. “The Three Caballeros” (review) 49. “Make Mine Music” (review) 50. “Brother Bear” (review) 51. “Winnie the Pooh” (review) 52. “Dinosaur” (review) 53. “The Black Cauldron” (review) 54. “Saludos Amigos” (review) 55. “Melody Time” (review) 56. “Home on the Range” (review)

[fairywilds]

Since birth, Aneurin felt overshadowed by his older sister, Orlaith, who seemed to be the golden child. This dynamic proved challenging for Aneurin. Their family lived in Ireland until Orlaith was nine, deepening the divide. Aneurin, born three years later, faced a significant twelve-year age gap. This played a role in amplifying the sense of living in his sister's shadow. The family dynamic was further complicated by their mother and grandfather's alpha status. In Northknot, Orlaith was groomed for alpha leadership, leaving Aneurin, the second-born, without the same opportunity. In result, he found himself on a path with no encouragement or acknowledgment, grappling with his identity within familial and pack expectations. The parents had old-fashioned views and judged quickly without taking the time to understand. Aneurin felt like the odd one out, not fitting into the strict expectations their parents had. Especially because Orlaith went through life so easily; handed everything on a silver platter. Aneurin chose to keep his own thoughts. He'd learn to keep his own secrets too while still attempting to figure out how to navigate life. It didn't help that Aneurin sensed his difference from what was expected and he silently acknowledged his bisexuality, but kept it hidden while under his parents' roof. The dynamics shifted when Orlaith was revealed to be gay, and that she had tried to suppress it until now. Although this resounded with him, it boggled his mind because: how could the golden child have a single flaw? This revelation shook Aneurin's perception of his sister. Encouraged by her honesty, he began exploring his own suppressed urges more, but still vowing to keep concealed from his parents. When Orlaith was disowned because of this, his parents redirected their strict expectations onto Aneurin, and he retreated into himself to weather the storm; no longer aspiring to their expectations, but instead feeling the urge to run. Aneurin still maintained a distance from Orlaith, but things began to change after high school graduation. Moving out of the family home allowed him the freedom to think independently. This newfound autonomy prompted Aneurin to reach out to Orlaith, gradually bridging the gap. The effort brought them a bit closer. Reconnecting also meant meeting her fiancée, Elsa, and he found himself strangely comforted by her. His anxiety lessened, perhaps due to her sunny disposition that lifted his spirits. Elsa, engaged to his older sister, began treating Aneurin like a brother, creating a sense of being seen and understood that he had longed for. Despite the warmth, Aneurin still grappled with understanding Orlaith's choices, as the childhood trauma made it a learning process, but one he had slowly been putting more effort into lately. Aneurin found a community of fellow wolves, including Molly, Laurel, Lachlan, and Astrid. Their household thrives on communication often expressed through gossip sessions on their expansive porch. During this time, the alpha status of the Moon Valley pack shifted to Orlaith and she claimed Laurel Parks, one of Aneurin's roommates, as her beta. While such a development might have angered Aneurin in his more immature years, he now understands this as it was always to be his sister's destiny. Considering all Orlaith has endured with their parents, Aneurin believes she is well-suited for the position and graciously accepts his place under her leadership in the pack. In his early twenties, Aneurin connected with McKenna, a fellow werewolf from a different pack. Their passionate relationship endured for a few years, but Kenna's avoidant tendencies led to challenges. Navigating moody phases, Aneurin eventually felt the relationship became a burden. Around this time he had been hired as a park ranger and, with this new job, he prioritized his well-being, and ended things with McKenna; leading to a messy breakup which he at the time believed was best for both of them.

[very-grownup]

Conventions of Fantasy Monarchs, Queens, and the Subversion Thereof

I think a lot about Megan Whalen Turner’s use of monarchy in her novels and how that compares to royalty as presented in children’s fantasy fiction (as well as adult fantasy fiction, although I think there has been a strong turn away from rulers as absolute moral arbiters in the past twenty-five years, maybe, in favour of portrayals that are not necessarily more nuanced or realistic but are certainly more corrupt and far from divine) and Turner as a feminist writer and how these two aspects of her writing are interlinked. The nature of her approach to her Queen’s Thief series, however, requires a finer focus to begin from the wide view. While other authors world build with brick and mortar, Turner’s books create their world through origami. Each book is a separate piece and is folded into the next.

In "The Thief", Turner starts by establishing the three kingdoms of the Little Peninsula: Sounis, Eddis, Attolia. King, Queen, Queen. Although “The Thief” is wholly Gen’s story, the King of Sounis appearing briefly at the beginning, the Queens of Attolia and Eddis appearing at the end, they are established as the powers that be, the decision makers, the three figures trying to maintain their country and their identity in balance with the martial and economic pressures from all out sides. We know little about any of the monarchs, beyond that Sounis is older and Eddis and Attolia are both young. That the young women are queens, not princesses, is immediately a quiet triumph, an eyeshiver of subverting the unquestioned status quo (you think now, as an adult, of all the uninterrogated eternal princesses in your media, the young women without fathers or with fathers specifically deceased, and the refusal to permit their ascension to an adult title).

Indeed, in “The Thief” it is impossible to envision them as princesses for they are not given names. This is not an oversight on Turner’s part, not a diminishment of their personhood or, at least, not a diminishment of personhood that is not considered part of the parcel of governance. The three monarchs are frequently referred to simply by the name of their country, even dispensing with King/Queen of [Country]. Of course this implies a degree of the individual as their country, their country as the embodiment of the individual, the placing of country before self which, in and of itself, calls on the typical mythos found coupled with a hereditary monarchy. But it also shapes the reader’s understanding of the dynamic between the three monarchs as equal. Queens instead of princesses is adult and the further step of country in lieu of title degenders them, allowing the reader to move beyond their expectations for these titles, these roles, based on previously consumed media or even an awareness of those monarchies which continue today.

It is easy to overlook these socially conditioned expectations; the woman who is a doctor but regularly addresses as “Ms.” without second thought versus the rudeness of anyone forgetting to address a man by his professional credentials. Turner lifts the reader away from expectations they may have for such archetypes as ‘king’ and ‘queen’ without any fanfare given for what she is doing.

Moving beyond the scope of the three monarchs, into the matter of Eddis and Attolia, the only female characters in "The Thief". When the women appear, Turner sets up a familiar feminine binary between the two queens. Eddis is ugly but kind. Attolia is beautiful but cruel. Subsequent books prevent this from being a reductive portrayal of women without invalidating the initial descriptors. Eddis is never described as particularly attractive, but in certain eyes she is beautiful, without it ever seeming like a case of a perceptive/quality man perceiving a non-traditional beauty. Her kindness is tempered, prevented from being a weakness as she makes hard, sometimes ruthless decisions in “The Queen of Attolia” and those decisions are not motivated by possessing greater kindness than Attolia. Instead, she is equal to Attolia in her fierce love and protection of her country and its people. Attolia, the supremely beautiful woman who is cruel, is not the beautiful but evil queen not because she is not truly cruel, but because her cruelness is an expression of her ruthlessness. It is not petty, this is not a governmental expression of a Madonna-Whore dichotomy. It is two women who are physically very different operating in very similar roles with identical goals.

The physical difference is not significant; it is fact.

The important difference, the real dichotomy, is not a question of which of these women is good and which is evil, which woman is ugly and which is beautiful, which woman is pure and which is corrupt. It is, in fact, not a reflection of the women at all, but a reflection of the society and men around them.

More than the other books, the complete understanding of how Turner has taken superficial expectations of kings and queens and the portrayal of two women who, by existing in the same text will always in some way be positioned against each other, is achieved in “The King of Attolia”. Not, as might initially be thought in “The Queen of Attolia” in which the Wicked Queen is given the history and explanation that Explains her; for once we understand why she is wicked, will her actions not seem more understandable and forgivable? Turner in fact says no, Attolia’s cruel acts remain cruel; the nightmare consequences of one particular action continue throughout the series in the form of literal nightmares. “The Queen of Attolia” also gives Attolia a stand-in for someone who appears to be filling the role the evil advisor who leads a good woman astray for his own power and gain in the form of Nahuseresh.

“The King of Attolia” has a protagonist who is not of the nobility and from his perspective the reader gains a deeper understanding for how Attolia the country has been affected by Attolia the queen, the disruption of tradition rippling out to a disruption in the land and its greater politics. Initially, Attolia is a queen governing without a king, contrary to tradition. As a result, Attolia is surrounded by men wishing to control the country through her, their own schemes kept at bay by Attolia making ruthless example of a few individuals and setting the survivors against each other, focusing their attentions on the immediate threat of their peers rather than the abstract threat of not having direct control of Attolia yet. There is a sense given that the history of Attolia’s reign has been a steady escalation of ruthlessness as the scheming and the impatience of her barons persists and under the distraction of infighting, spies, beheading, and torture she secures alternate sources of power which strengthens the tie of loyalty binding the lower classes to her by instituting policies of a non-traditional nature like: meritocracy in the military, terms of indentured servitude having finite limits, and financial compensation for people working for the crown.

Attolia’s political actions, once the reader comes to understand them, are actions which elevate the powerless in her country and in doing so it enables to cement her own power: the power of one who, traditionally, would also be powerless. That we only become aware of this, truly appreciating the impact of Attolia as queen, instead of just the difficulties and hardships personally suffered, from the point of view of an insignificant young soldier and guard, who both fears and is loyal to the queen, imbues this interpretation of Attolia as one of greater truth than what is shown in the previous books. The narrator of “The King of Attolia”, Costis has a simpler view of the matter, a man on the ground view. He has no experience of living under the rule of anyone but this queen. He is not affected by the wider inter-country politics, his position is one formed by experiencing Attolia’s rule. It does not read as propaganda or apologia for the actions of this woman which are influenced by our ancient history and the politics therein.

Turner’s series has now come to an end and the number of main female characters never expanded beyond Eddis and Attolia but, in a genre that frequently fails women, even now, Eddis and Attolia are nuanced characters, powerful characters stretching the expectations of their archetypes and growing beyond them. The way Turner constructs her novels builds slowly and subtly into works that are feminist, despite the predominance of male characters, and strong with class solidarity and an anti-monarchial bent, despite the majority of the protagonists and point of view characters being members of the nobility. The genre and demographic do not need to steer the politics and ideas of a narrative and, in turn, those aspects cannot be accurately represented by simple numbers and Megan Whalen Turner demonstrates this often overlooked truth with each of her books.

[captains-simp]

Hey!! I was wondering if there’s a chance you could write Angst 4 with situation 4, with Wandaxfem!reader? Thank you so much anywho, I hope you have a great day

I absolutely can and you have yourself a great day too

"Wake up, dammit!"

Warnings: injury detail, near death, thoughts of death and me once again not really understanding how the human body works

2k words

[ masterlist ]

Buy me a coffee ☕

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Being an Avenger required a lot of skills. Practical, physical and mental. You excelled at most of it, your life and that of your teams depended on it. But you had a tendency to let personal matters get in the way.

You weren't the only one guilty of that. You were pretty sure you could name a time it had happened to everyone on the team at some point.

But you and Wanda were much more liable to let that get in the way than the others. You had both made a couple of bad decisions in the past to protect one another's safety. It was hard to control. Your first instinct would always be to protect your girlfriend, as was hers for you.

That was when things were good between you. Things being bad was a new concept, especially the way it affected a mission.

"Clear on the fourth floor C corridor." Wanda said through the comms. You jaw clenched tightly as you withheld the urge to role your eyes.

"I just confirmed that, Maximoff." You said back. Wanda didn't respond to that, not that you expected her to.

You were both working your way up a building that Hydra agents were supposed to be hiding out in. Wanda took the left side and you took the right, there were times where you met in the middle with no exchange of words.

"Thanks anyway, Wanda." Natasha said in an attempt to ease the obvious tension.

You continued to up the stairs to the next floor and tried not to think about the fight you had had the night before. It was a blur the next day, the reason it all started was unknown to you both. You had both been in a bad mood and things had soon escalated...badly. You had both said hurtful things, things you wished you could take back more than anything. The pair of you had formed a habit of giving each other space before apologising, but you had been forced together on the spontaneous mission that has thrown you both off, even more so by the fight being the worst one you two had ever had in your four years of dating. You had no idea where you stood with Wanda.

When you arrived in the center of the fifth floor you and Wanda rounded opposite corners into the main hallway at the same time. You paused when you saw her, she did too.

You were about to say something to her. Something that wasn't bitter or tense. You had the sudden urge to spill out an apology but she spoke first.

"Clear on the fifth floor corridor A." She didn't spare you a second glance, continuing through the building. You nodded to no one and hastily blinked back the tear that threatened to spill.

Focus on the mission. Focus on the mission. Well you didn't have much luck doing that.

"Going on to the next floor." You said steadily. You hadn't done a proper sweep of the floor, but nothing in the building showed any signs of people being there and you needed to put more distance between yourself and Wanda.

You should have waited for her. You knew that. She knew that. No one protested.

As soon as you were on the second floor you let your guard down and leant against a wall to take a moment to gather your thoughts. That was a mistake. A significant one.

You weren't in the right head space for that mission. That become so much more apparent when you when two bullets hit you.

Whether it was shock, panic, being distracted or a most likely combination of all three, you barely registered the first bullet. You saw who shot it though. One single Hydra agent who made a break for the exit behind you.

Just as you raised your gun to fire the second bullet hit you and sent you falling to the ground. You registered him jumping over your immobile body towards the stairs but before he could put one foot on them red swirls surrounded his body and threw him against the wall, knocking him out cold.

Wanda emerged from the hallway and skidded slightly in panic as she stopped to turn your way. Her eyes widened at the sight of the blood covering your clothes and hands. You were shaking violently while trying to put pressure on the wounds, but you didn't know where exactly they were. You couldn't feel any pain. Just numbness. And that was terrifying.

"You...no, fuck. M-medical assistance- now. Y/n's...been shot." Wanda stammered in panic as she knelt down beside you.

Natasha was giving Wanda instructions but you weren't paying attention to anything except your girlfriend.

"It's...okay." You struggled to say. Your breathing was laboured and speaking was even harder. The distinct taste of blood was in your mouth but you had to ignore that.

"I shouldn't have let you come up here alone." Wanda scolded, tears trailing down her cheeks as she found the two wounds. She ripped some fabric from her shirt into two pieces and held them against your stomach.

"I probably...would have...bitten your head...of if...you tried to." You laughed, instantly regretting it as pain shot through you. The shock was wearing off and the pain was taking its place in the most unmerciful way.

Tears fell from your eyes and your head fell back against the hard ground as you gasped, struggling for air. Wanda moved behind you and placed your head in her lap while she continued to apply pressure.

"I'm sorry." Your voice broke as you spoke. "I'm... so sorry for...last night." Wanda instantly shushed you and shook her head. Her left hand stayed on your stomach and her right combed through your hair to calm you.

"We both said bad things."

"I didn't...mean it...any of it." You tried to lock eyes with Wanda through your tears.

"Neither did I, we'll talk about this when you're better." Wanda promised, nodding her head to assure herself that you would be fine.

But just as she said that it became increasingly difficult to stay conscious. It was as though there was something in the dark calling to you, urging you to let go. It would be so easy. There would be no pain. But Wanda wouldn't be there.

You put your hand weakly over hers, wanting her to be the only thing on your mind incase it was the last. The feel of her skin against your own, her soothing voice and the accent she tried to conceal but you loved, the way she cared for you like no one else ever had. The thought that you may never experience that again made your heart drop.

The shaking was getting worse and you felt so cold.

Go to the dark. Don't go to the dark. So easy. No Wanda...Wanda.

You couldn't help it. You couldn't stop it. It washed our you like a wave. The sounds around you became distant, as though everything was far away. You couldn't make out what Wanda was saying. She sounded desperate. You couldn't see her either. Everything was blurred. Then it was all gone.

*

The recurring beeping from the monitor was the only sound in the room. Wanda had always thought she would find them annoying, but the Sokovian never wanted to hear it stop. Not until you didn't need it anymore. Until she didn't need it.

It had been a week since you were shot. A week since she had seen your bright y/e/c eyes. The doctors were skeptical. Wanda vaguely remembered them talking to her about your injuries, the severity of them and how they would effect you if you woke up. Once you woke up. They said it was a slim chance.

Wanda sat curled up in the chair next to your bed watching you, wondering if it felt peaceful to be in that state. She wore your favourite hoodie and had a blanket from your shared bed over her, it was the only thing that brought her comfort.

"Wake up, y/n." She whispered, as though trying to secretly communicate with you. "Please." She raised her voice slightly, thinking it could make a difference. It didn't.

"Y/n." She leant forward in her chair and took both of your hands in her own. All she had been able to think about was your fight. It had been stupid, so so stupid. You hadn't fixed it, not properly. Wanda needed more than than the brief moments on the mission. She didn't get to apologise. She couldn't let you go before she got to apologise. She had done it over and over to your sleeping form. But it didn't count. She needed you to wake up. To look at her again. To smile. To speak. To go on another date. To share another kiss. To sleep in the same bed...to get married. There was so much left to do. Wanda wasn't prepared for it to be cut short. It wasn't fair.

"Y/n please wake up. I'm so sorry." She pleaded as she gripped your hands like a lifeline. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pleaded over and over.

"Wake up, dammit!"

*

When your eyes finally flickered open you shut them again instantly. It was bright, far too bright. You gave a soft groan at that and tried to shield your face with your hand but found no energy to do so.

Your throat was dry and scratchy and your eyes were stinging from the exposure to the light.

You became aware of the beeping and glanced at the monitor as you tried to adjust to your surroundings, taking a for moments to remember how and why you were even in a hospital bed.

In the corner of your eye you saw movement on your left. You slowly turned your head in that direction and had your breath caught in your throat at the sight of your sleeping girlfriend. Was she still your girlfriend? Your heart dropped at the possibility that she might not be, but you hastily pushed it to the side and appreciated her company.

You had missed her. You had no idea how long you had been out. You had no memory of what it was like. All you knew was the familiar feeling of coming home deep in your chest.

Wanda's slim hand was resting on the bed next to yours and out of pure instinct you laced your fingers through her own, still unable to get over how perfectly they felt entwined together. Would she pull her hand away when she woke up? Would she shout at you more?

Fortunately you didn't have to wait long to find out. Wanda stirred from her uncomfortable looking position on the chair and blinked a few times before her eyes fell to your hands.

She furrowed her brows in confusion at the sight, not remembering putting them together but one look up told her all she needed to know.

"Y/n." She said as a sigh of relief, sitting up straight and gleaming at you.

"Wanda." You croaked with a weak but genuine smile. She picked up on that and with one flick of her tinted red wrist a small cup of water came floating towards you.

"Thank you." You said gratefully and took the cup with your free hand, wanting to hold Wanda's for as long as you could. You gulped the water down quickly and placed it on the bed side table before looking back at Wanda.

"You scared me." She admitted, concern prominent in her shimmering eyes.

"I'm sorry." She shook her head and was quick to speak.

"No, no more apologies from you. I'm sorry. For everything. I-" You cut her off by placing a finger to her lips with a smile.

"Stop."

"I really am though." You knew that, you could see it.

"I know you are." You said genuinely. "And I am too. I don't even know how it..." You trailed off as you opened and closed your mouth, not knowing what you were even trying to say. Wanda laughed and nodded, you had missed that sound so much.

"Are we...are we okay?" You asked timidly, fearing the response so much you couldn't look her in the eyes, only staring at your entwined hands.

Wanda lifted your chin with one of her fingers, wanting you to look at her as you spoke. Her warm smile greeted you like a treasured friend.

"We are. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

"Well then that's going to get confusing really quickly because I'll be doing the exact same." You declared. Wanda laughed again and brought your hands up to her lips to place a soft kiss on them. A smile spread easily across your face at the gesture.

"Come here." You muttered as you moved over to the edge of the bed and pulled the duvet back for your girlfriend.

She eagerly accepted the offer and slipped in beside you, instantly wrapping her free arm around you to bring you close while her other still held your hand.

"I love you." She whispered as she kissed your forehead.

"I love you too." You smiled and held onto her loose clothing and...how the hell did you miss that? "Is that my hoodie?"