#and then burning himself for funsies and the experience. sorry I keep thinking about how insane Franci is.

[breitzbachbea]

❤️ for Gabriella and Charlie and 🧠 for Paddy and Tahir!

Thank you my beloved!!!! You're like. One of my bedrocks of serotonin <3

OC Emoji Ask Game

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Gabriella: Sometimes, when she is vulnerable and feels the demons knocking softly at the walls, she wants to tell you that one of her fondest memories are the first times she recalls Dolcetto calling her "Rella". The first time she and her brother bundled up and went on a walk in their neighbourhood to get groceries and both of them felt so important. Those memories that justify her giving up her life to join the world of her brother. But those aren't her best. This is the grief and loss and a displacement of love speaking that will never ever find room in Dolcetto again. She loves her brother; he loves his sister; but they are very different people. Therefore, her best memories are probably of nights out in gay clubs and kisses shared with young women her age after she left home to find Dolcetto and herself. Memories of her, drunk, telling another girl under tears how much in love she was with her childhood best friend. Feeling free and herself. And she does love the memories she makes with Fabio, a kindred soul in this depressing world. The nights they spent alone as friends and as lovers.

Charlie: Much like Gabriella, part of his best memories are an expression of grief and love lost. He does miss his father dearly; maybe not exactly the man that died and could never accept him, but the younger Connor Higgins. The Connor who skipped his piano lessons with him to play football. The Connor who was so cool and put together, but no buzzkill. The one who so clearly loved and knew his son. He sometimes gets take away and will stand in a dingy, warm and small shop and be hit with the feeling of this being the highlight of his entire month, because it was secret time spent with dad. But these memories are accompanied with rage and sadness and a deep, all-consuming longing. What he truly remembers most fondly is racing cars on his model track with Harry and other friends. He remembers fondly the trouble he caused at school, the defiance of standing up for himself that kept him alive throughout these awful years. He remembers the first roadtrips he took alone, no matter the terrible state of his dad's old Mercedes. Charlie's best memories are both of freedom and community, of figuring out who he is and indulging in what thrills him.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

Paddy: I like the most how old Paddy is. He's by no means 'old', he's middle aged in 2013, but compared with the rest of their characters who are usually in their twenties, he's got a lot more experience under his belt. Moreover, he lived such separate lives. Magdy is 20 years older and Magdy has SEEN SOME SHIT, but Magdy spent most of his life in one place, working with the same family for three generations. Paddy grew up in Derry and lived there until he was in his midtwenties. He could have never imagined to leave Derry until part of his house was destroyed by an explosion. Then he left; over the border into the Free State, through the country until he made it to Dublin. Characters, like the reality of people they are modelled on, can change rapidly in very little time, especially in younger years, but when you have a character like Paddy, you really get to see the layers that make up the tree. I love to figure out the core of his character and how it manifests. I love to see what an older Paddy regrets, what part of the younger self are transformed. And the ghosts, fucking hell do I love the ghosts. And I love how Paddy runs. He could never have imagined leaving Derry; now he's deadly afraid to return. He goes quiet in the first chapter of the IP rewrite when he begins to talk of Ben's death. He runs from himself, he will push a cart for others until the end, but faced with having to do anything for himself, he will run off the next cliff. For a character that's such a bedrock to others, he is very, very empty inside.

Tahir: Oh baby boy. I again like his relative age gap with a lot of the other characters, being in his 30s in 2013. But what I like the most about him is how selfishly selfless he is. All he ever did was to meet expectations and to afford the promise of a better life for him and his family. He may not be a sentimental man, but his love for his sister is immense. He very much believes he owes his parents, who worked their asses off, that he works hard for them. A sense of duty and responsibility is at the core of his being and it shows in all of his interactions. And yet, yet he's not a machine. Yet he wants freedom - as much as he still adheres to expectations (his own) in his freetime and exploration of himself and keeps appearances, he does want something divorced from the expectations of his family. Yes, the courtship dance with Arielle still runs along known rules, but it's an expression of desire and love, somewhere along the axis of platonic and romantic, a self-expression of himself as a man with a beating heart. As much as he might seethe over that his relationship with Robert is functionally no different than the arranged marriage of his parents, it was his own choice. It was an acknowledgement of his needs and that he is indeed not an island - that he'd like to come home to someone at the end of the day. I really like the soft, vulnerable and so, so loving boy that hides under the steely husk of a man. Play Oh No! by Marina and the Diamonds.