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#and then she mentions she also sleeps with women and veronicas like ????? that does not sound straight to me
somethingaboutmint · 1 year
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Quick ugly doodle of cassidy contemplating her sexuality at some dump somewhere
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333sth · 3 years
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dove. (frankie morales)
chapter i. previous.
pairing: frankie morales x ofc (’dove’) no use of y/n.
warnings: mention of ptsd/military service, language, violence, brief mention of torture/kidnapping, injury detail, fighting.
summary: frankie was going to propose, until dove found the ring and ghosted. even santi can’t track her down.
rating: mature. wc: 1.6k
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Dove was a nickname coined by an old general during her training. He was a traditional man, though not disrespectful. It was a term of endearment that probably softened the influx of powerful women breaching into the male territory. He’d drawled, ‘I ought to call you Dove – I ain’t never seen a girl so swift, yet so fuckin’ lethal.’ She kept the boys in line too, he’d noted. When Benny got too reckless, or Tom’s temper ran away with him, she was the first to snap them out of it. In environments where peace was a very distant concept, she played the peacekeeper.
One time, during a two-month deployment in Nigeria, the group was shoved in the back of an ancient pick-up truck for six hours. Dove was wedged between Will and Frankie, sweltering in the humid air. The stale smell of sweat mixed with blood and diesel was permeating the air, and they were three hours from the nearest checkpoint. To pass the time, she asked them what they’d do if they weren’t special forces.
That was easy for Will – he’d be a teacher of some kind. Benny waffled about sports, making some brash comment about how he’s got to channel all his aggression somewhere. Tom and Santi couldn’t come up with anything that suited them more than the forces, which was not surprising. Frankie would still be a pilot somehow. Dove had never seen him more comfortable than in the pilot’s chair.
Dove dreamed of owning her own bar or café, somewhere relaxed and laid-back. A beach perhaps, somewhere quaint and peaceful, where the air is warm well into the late evening and the waves are gentle, collapsing onto the sand like white noise. She imagined the hum of conversation meeting tinkling music, beach lanterns dotted around the decking to cast an ambient glow beneath the stars. Maybe a chef on weekends could make bar snacks. Tom had snorted at that, throwing a jab about how she can burn the water they use to make their dried food sachets.
The men had recalled this conversation, desperately trying to fathom where Dove might have taken off to. It was met with an aching nostalgia for the type of teammate she was too. That conversation had been a tactic, a peaceful one, to prevent the terrible concoction of adrenaline, exhaustion and heat forming an argument in that truck. She was a natural tactician as well as a good friend.
Frankie had recounted each country they had been stationed and exactly how Dove had felt about them. She had loved Argentina, even when she got shot and Will spent three hours with his finger crammed in the wound to stop the bleeding. But she also liked Jamaica, Brazil and Hawaii. None of their contacts in the forces had any trace of her, not even Santi’s in South America. Her family were none the wiser – they brushed it off, her dad mumbling something about it sounding like her usual antics. 
All he had was a scribbled note that read, ‘I need space. I’m safe. I love you.’ It was folded neatly in his wallet, like he was carrying the last piece of her that he had. 
*
Mexico. That was where she was. A small town on the West coast that had enough life to keep her occupied, and the guarantee of anonymity.
If people asked, she was a retired nurse, which wasn’t entirely untrue. She told them she spent a lot of her career in humanitarian aid, to explain the occasional jitters on a rowdy Friday night and the nasty scars. There was a particularly gruesome one leading from the base of her throat up to her bottom lip from a knife fight. She told them it was shrapnel, flung from a collapsing building, and she was lucky it didn’t catch her jugular. The locals had gasped in awe at her heroism. She’d flinched against the memory of how her own knife buried into her attacker’s throat instead. 
A few days into her move, Dove had found what could only be considered a derelict shed on the beachfront. It was probably the remains of an old boathouse. With some help from the locals, she had restored the ageing planks of wood. What was spare formed the bar and some rustic furniture. She pieced together a jumble of second-hand bar stools, chairs and lanterns that made for an eclectic combination. It had character and history in its walls, rather than some swanky, expensive build devoid of any personality. It was exactly what she had dreamed of, huddled in hypothermic temperatures or insomniac in her cot at base, sleep beyond her reach.
It didn’t change the fact that every time she entered her bedroom, the old polaroid of Frankie pinned to the wall hits her like a ton of bricks. Frankie knows she took it – it was pinned to the fridge at their home before she left. It’s quintessential Frankie, sat with his arms folded to his chest, biceps straining slightly against an old denim shirt that was getting a little too snug post-retirement. It was at a barbecue, his skin tanned and flushed from a day in the sun drinking, tousled hair peeking out from the sides of a dog-eared cap. Every time Dove glances at it, she wonders if he still has that hat. 
‘Of course he has,’ the voice in her head snaps back. Any piece of clothing she’d suggest replacing would be countered with, ‘over my dead body’. The man was sentimental, a little too attached to his home comforts. She’d also bought it him in a seedy gift shop in the middle of nowhere as a joke. 
“To add some variety,” she’d said. He would never let it go now.
Once, Veronica had eyed the photograph on her mirror and asked, “Who is he then? An ex?”
Veronica, or Roni for short, had lived in the town her whole life until university. When she graduated and moved home to save money, she needed a job. Dove needed a friend, so she took her on as a bartender. She was young and giddy, but harmless. More importantly, she was too self-absorbed to notice or even care that her thirty-something year old boss had bullet holes in her back.
“Something like that.” Dove had replied, rifling through her sorry excuse for a makeup bag. She’d closed the bar early to have a rare night off in the next town over, which had considerably livelier nightlife. 
“You never talk about relationships. Or men.’ Roni observed, peering over Dove’s shoulder to eye another photograph. It was a group picture of the boys, huddled in the same fraying booth in their favourite bar back in Florida. “Looks like you were spoilt for choice.”
Dove scoffed, meeting her friend’s twinkling gaze in the mirror. “Shut your mouth. They were friends from work.”
“Were? Does that mean you can’t set me up now?” 
“They’re almost twice your age. You’d tire ‘em out.” Dove set down the lip-gloss she dragged out for special occasions. “Come on, I’m not getting any younger either. It’s already passed my bedtime.”
Thankfully, that was enough to amuse the younger girl into linking her arm and hauling her out the door to the taxi, no more questions asked.
*
The hollering of spectators and thudding of skin slapping against the mat was reduced to a distant buzzing in Frankie’s ears. It was dimmed by the incessant ramblings of Santiago and Tom, discussing the files Santi had put together on Lorea. He could feel the reawakening of his rusty military senses as he follows the familiar tactics, mentally registering his agreement or noting what he might do differently. He doesn’t vocalise it though, because he hasn’t even agreed yet. Joining the debate would inadvertently signal his agreement. He didn’t want that.
There was a shadow lingering in the space on the bench beside him. It was an empty presence, not Will, who was hooked on the cage of the ring yelling encouragement to his brother. Not Benny, thumping his leather gloves together with his teeth pulled harshly over his mouthguard, judging his competitor with a predatory glint in his eye. 
The opponent was a monster, but he lumbered like his limbs were filled with lead. Frankie notes that Benny, nimble and tall, will have a breeze tiring him out. Dove would have joked that it wasn’t worth coming, that they’ll be sat here until their asses are numb watching Benny play cat and mouse. His chest twinges. Sometimes it’s too easy to remember what she’d do, what she’d say. He wished he knew what she’d make of Santiago’s proposition. She always saw through Pope’s glamourisation and Tom’s greed. 
What Frankie misses while he observes his pitiful surroundings is Tom and Santi descending into a hushed conversation. Tom nudges Santi, “You got anything on Dove?”
Santi sighs, long and solemn, “Maybe.” As Tom’s face quirks in interest, he holds up his finger, “It’s just a hunch.”
“A hunch is better than what we’ve had in the last year.”
Santi takes a sip of his beer, casting a glance at Fish, whose eyes are trained on the floor and the swirling contents of his cup. He knows him well enough to know his thoughts are the only thing that have his attention.
“I worry about him. We all do.” Tom whispers. “Getting busted just made things worse.”
“Don’t get his hopes up, man. It’s nothing solid. It’ll crush him if I’m wrong.” Tom nods solemnly before Santi continues, “A friend of mine saw an ex-Delta in a bar, a woman. He knew ‘cause of a tattoo she had on the nape of her neck.”
Tom’s eyes widen. In front of them, Benny lands a sickening punch on his opponent’s nose, complimented by an audible crack. He’s barely breaking a sweat, dancing around as the guy heaves and stumbles forward. 
Santi’s gaze doesn’t break from the ring. “Mexico. I think she’s in Mexico.”
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razorblade180 · 3 years
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Interdimensional Moms: Bonus
Part 4 here<-
After many tears and tissue boxes, all members of team RWBY had finally stopped crying. Blake was the best off with her eyes a little red while Ruby was the complete opposite. The girl’s face was still rather red and her eyes were puffy. She hadn’t even completely stopped sniffling yet; much like tear marked partner. Yang on the other hand rested her head on the table. She had cried hard enough to giver herself a minor headache. She was completely drained.
Yang:Ugh, this blows! I thought this was gonna be a fun learning experience.
Blake:We definitely learned. It just so happens we had to poke at some.... extremely sensitive topics.
Weiss:I’m all for looking inward and self reflection but I’ve had my fill.
Ruby:Same. Should’ve kept the summary light.
Yang:No, I’m glad you got that off your chest. We just need a way to lighten the mood.
Blake:.....I kicked Weiss’s butt in a tournament.
RWY:......What?
Blake:During the time spent training for Salem, another tournament was held between the schools. It had team matches and singles. I kicked Weiss’s butt in my fourth round. It was a good day.
Weiss:How is that lightening mood!?
Blake:Listen, it was a big deal! I never thought I was gonna win the whole tournament but I really wanted to beat you. I love you but your head gets a little big when you’re on a roll for too long; plus I just really didn’t want to lose. I always felt a bit of rivalry between us.
Yang:Hehe, is that you’re way of saying “It would look bad to lose to a Schnee?”
Blake:Well it would!
Ruby:Hehehe.
Yang:Wait, does that mean we went back to school?
Blake:Yeah. It was pretty comforting. There was definitely a lot left to learn.
Yang:Weird. School kinda faded into the background.
Ruby:I went back to school. We all did actually. It was fast tracked by roughly a year but it was fun. We all got to pose in caps and gowns.
Weiss:Damn! I should’ve went back just for that. Unfortunately I was busy making rent and learning how to properly preheat a oven.
Yang:It’s like two buttons.
Weiss:Gas stove, and six years out of date.
Yang:Awww, you had to learn the hard way. I’m surprised and thankful you never left the gas on.
Weiss:There’s an alarm for that. Also I’m not irresponsible! Anyways, I mentioned similar tournaments earlier. I didn’t participate much but enough old videos of me in them were enough for to really light a fire under my kids. For awhile I was a bit concerned that they were just following a trend but they really love it. They used to always go around playing like knights when they were tiny.
Ruby:Carmine was a little different. She definitely always tried doing things I could but nothing got the girl jumping like seeing Yang’s horses or new ballet shoes. There wasn’t a morning when I didn’t hear a vase fall over or seeing her spin like a top. Carmine still hums some old routines when she isn’t paying attention.
Yang:Not too many memories of Yujin when she was pint size. But I do remember that wild child always loved using my bandannas for everything! Napkins, capes, ropes; anything but an actual bandanna. I used to get a bit upset with the napkin one but she’d always look at me with her big eyes and crazy hair. I never stayed mad.
Weiss:Softie.
Yang:She was like a pudgy puff ball! Fat cheeks and wholesome smiles. Ah! So adorable!
Weiss:I used to always have at least one of my kids on my hip when I was out and about. I think the media has a magazine amount of pictures of me at the park kissing my babies. Summer liked tummy rubs. She’d never go to sleep without one. Some nights I’d sing too but start to doze off so Jaune would have to take over.
Yang:*smiles* Speaking of Jaune.....
Ruby:No.
Yang:You don’t even know what I was-
Ruby:Were you about to suggest we compare our Jaune’s in the bedroom?
Yang:*red*......Well not just the bedroom! What’s the harm!? I just wanna know if he’s consistent across the board. No need to get detailed.
Weiss:You really never change no matter the world.
Yang:Can’t change greatness. It shows in any form!
Blake:He’s pretty compliant and accommodating. The benefits of being his first when I had prior knowledge I suppose.
Ruby:Don’t answer!
Blake:Why not? I’m comfortable with it.
Yang:Don’t listen to those two Blake. They’re just a bit more embarrassed since Jaune has literally been their one and only.
Blake:Huh, I never thought about it like that. Jaune would’ve been the first person you two opened up to on such a level; especially Weiss.
Yang:That’s still hilarious. All the protesting and somehow you found yourself stripping for the guy.
Weiss:Shut up! I already know! It was....I.... *blushing* emotions ran really high.
Ruby:An entire mental rollercoaster of thoughts and firsts happening all at once. Anxiety was high.
Yang:Heh, so you could say that Jaune Arc-
RW:Got through our walls. Hardy har har.
Yang:Shit, I am the same in every universe. Well I don’t have any reservations about it! *grinning* He makes me feel special every time!
Blake:Bottom.
Yang:I’m ignoring you.🎶
Ruby:Hehe, sounds about right. He...might make me feel a bit special as well.
Blake:Switch.
Ruby:How can you just guess off of that!?
Blake:It’s a gift.
Weiss:......
Blake:*smiling*
Weiss:Leave me alone.
Blake:I don’t know what has you embarrassed. You told us you’ve slept with everyone here except Ruby! I knew you were repressed but geez.
Weiss:For your information it wasn’t my idea! It was yours!
Blake:Not surprising. Let’s switch the topic. How is this other child of mine? Can’t picture me having a daughter.
Weiss:Veronica is very sensitive. Even if she tries to act like she isn’t. One time when she was tiny, a soccer ball hit her straight in the face and she sprung up saying “I’m fine!” Then you took her behind the bleachers to patch her up; tears all on her face. It both breaks my heart and very adorable to see her act fine while her ears are folded back.
Ruby:Your other son Kovu was a bit of cry baby. Partly my fault. Carmine kept beating him up and making fun of him.
Blake:What!?
Yang:Ha! Wait, that’s my kid too. How the heck!? Are you telling me you raised the rowdy child and I got the baby?
Ruby:Yang you’re a baby. I’m like twice as rowdy compared to you. A nevermore got worked day one at school.
Weiss:She has a point. You cry the most out of any of us.
Yang:Wha- that not- how....shut up! *pouts* I’m not that touchy.
Ruby:Kovu is a sweetie and not a cry baby. Carmine is just a little mean when she tries to care about others. She beat him up in an attempt to make Kovu give up dreaming about being a huntsman. That way he wouldn’t be in such a dangerous job. Reasonable logic but you know, a little over the top. Almost broke his arm. Boy did I chew her out. All it did was make him want to try harder.
Yang:Fantastic. I shouldn’t expect less from my own blood. I bet Yujin would like him. Which reminds me, anybody have kids in relationships?
RWB:We’re working on it.
The three women paused briefly before laughing at their meddling. Yang could only admire and fear her friends.
Yang:Should I be scared for your children?
Blake:Lucas needs someone to break up the routine in his life. I’m not saying he has to date her, but it would put a smile on my face.
Ruby:Carmine takes after me, not really thinking about stuff like relationships much. However, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t at all. Carmine tries her best to not act like she’s a teenaged girl with teenage wishes. But everyone sees right through it. I’m fine with her not being in one but I would like if she acknowledged that it’s okay to just....ugh, be normal! Why can nobody have normal knees in my life!?
Weiss:Nick likes Valerie who tries to deny she likes him by liking Summer, who doesn’t like her; while Veronica crushes on Nick who obviously has conflicting feelings.
RBY.....
Yang:Why is it always complicated with you?
Weiss:How is this my fau- okay it is a little bit.
Blake:Where do you stand?
Weiss:I think Valerie would be lovely for him.
Yang:What’s wrong with my baby girl!?
Blake:Yeah!?
Weiss:One, not yours. Two, have you met who I’m married to? Can’t really say he’s wasting his efforts. Though I wouldn’t be upset with Veronica. I think those two might be good for each other.
Blake:Any other bombshells people got?
Ruby:......
Ruby:Ilia is happily married.*sips coffee*
Blake:Oh that’s wonderful! I’m glad she found a loving wi-
Ruby:*smirks* To Sun.
Blake:....*stands up* I need, champagne!
A bottle of champagne poofs into existence with several glasses. Blake immediately pours everyone a glass before raising hers into the sky.
Blake:Ruby Rose, today you’ve erased guilt upon my conscious. I’m happy there’s one world where it seems all of my good exes get over me.
Ruby:Are the Ilia and Sun where you’re from miserable like Yang!?
Blake:No, but they kinda fumble in actually going for relationships. It just always makes me feel a little bad.
Yang:You can technically count two worlds. I’m fine, Ilia is dating a pretty secretary, and your one evil ex is now raising a morally good family.
Blake:You’re right! This calls for a double toast! To alternate universes! *puts glass down*
Weiss:Haha, aren’t you gonna drink it!?
Blake:No I’m still recovering; but how could I pass up the opportunity!? Man I wish I could attend that wedding! I don’t know if I’d be a bridesmaid or the best man!
Yang:You’re just gonna steal Neptune’s thunder like that?
Blake:Hey, Sun and I have taken bullets for each other and stab wounds. I think I deserve to be a little greedy and say I ride or die for that man just a little harder than Neptune.
Ruby:Geeeeeez Blake! Haha, I didn’t even tell you about the baby.
Blake:*visble excitement* Excuse me!?
RWY:*raises glass* Cheers.
Blake:CHEERS! What’s he like!?
xxxxx
Aero:AAAACHOOOO!
Carmine:Eugh! Cover your mouth! I don’t need to get sick.
Aero:Damn! What happened to uh I don’t know, “bless you!?”
Carmine:*pulls out tissues* Happy?
Aero:Where...why are those in you book bag?
Carmine:It’s flu season.
Aero:....I can’t tell if you’re the coolest person around or just a second mother.
Carmine:I can be both. My mom is arguably both but don’t tell her that. It’ll make her month and she’ll hug me too tight.
Aero:Bitch, you love hugs. Stop being difficult.
Carmine:Mmmm nah.
Aero:I feel bad for your mom.
Carmine:I feel bad for yours.
Aero:Hop off. You’re so childish.
Carmine:And yet you love me.
Aero:*red* In your dreams!
Carmine:It would make your day if I dreamed about you,wouldn’t it?
Aero:I hope you dream of spiders.
Carmine:We do not joke about that! *grabs him* Aero I will beat you up if I dream of them tonight! That’s just mean!
Aero:Stop crying ya baby. I could’ve said they were- ow!
Sun:*hitting him* Shut up and just kiss something! We’re trying to watch a game.
Aero and Carmine:We don’t like each other!
Jaune:With all do respect, that’s a lie. But please by all means Aero, continue not touching my daughter if you know what’s best for you. I don’t wanna have to fight you and your parents right afterwards.
Sun:Ilia would kill you.
Jaune:Yeah! That’s why I don’t want the fight! Much like Ruby, she’s short and terrifying. Her size holds the rage.
Ilia:*peeks in* Who’s talking shit?
JASC:Nobody, we love you!
Ilia:.....Got my eyes on you four. *holds Garnet up* and this one; the most well behaved in this bunch even with no nap.
Garnet:*fussy grumbling* I’m a ball of rage!
Ilia:You wanna nap?
Garnet:Yes!!!
Ilia:See, behaved. *walks away* don’t make me come back out here.
Carmine:....So do you like me because your mother is also imposing?
Aero:This is it, my evil origin story. It begins today.
xxxxx
Ruby:I admire his patience.
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kellyvela · 3 years
Note
GRRM has said in interviews that he’s purposely played with the romantic tension between the hound and Sansa. What do you think the endgame purpose of the unkiss and that playing is meant to be for?
This is all what he said about the matter in question so far:
The Hound and Sansa, romantic or platonic? It could be very different things to each of those involved, mind you!
JUNE 24, 1999 THE HOUND AND SANSA
Moreta12: I understand, I’ve heard your opinion on that. In ACOK, it seems that the relationship between the Hound and Sansa had romantic undertones. Is that true?
GeoRR: Well, read the book and decide for yourself.
Moreta12: I’ve read the book and I’ve debated those particular scenes with a few others. Half say that it’s romantic and half say it’s platonic. I’ve taken the romantic stance.
GeoRR:  It could be very different things to each of those involved, mind you
Moreta12:Yes, but it seem like evidence points towards romantic undertones. Will the Hound appear later?
GeoRR: Yes, the Hound will be in STORM OF SWORDS. In fact, I just finished writing a big scene with him.
[Source]
When will Sansa be “legal”?  **ºª@”¡¿x<%$!&?
OCTOBER 05, 1999 AGE OF SEXUAL RELATIONS IN WESTEROS
The nature of the relationship between Sandor and Sansa has been a hot topic on Revanshe’s board. Sansa’s youth has been one focus of the discussion. What is the general Westerosi view as to romantic or sexual relationships involving a girl of Sansa’s age and level of physical maturity?
A boy is Westeros is considered to be a “man grown” at sixteen years. The same is true for girls. Sixteen is the age of legal majority, as twenty-one is for us.
However, for girls, the first flowering is also very significant… and in older traditions, a girl who has flowered is a woman, fit for both wedding and bedding.
A girl who has flowered, but not yet attained her sixteenth name day, is in a somewhat ambigious position: part child, part woman. A “maid,” in other words. Fertile but innocent, beloved of the singers.
In the “general Westerosi view,” well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them. And such early weddings, even without sex, remain rare. Generally weddings are postponed until the bride has passed from girlhood to maidenhood.
Maidens may be wedded and bedded… however, even there, many husbands will wait until the bride is fifteen or sixteen before sleeping with them. Very young mothers tend to have significantly higher rates of death in childbirth, which the maesters will have noted.
As in the real Middle Ages, highborn girls tend to flower significantly earlier than those of lower birth. Probably a matter of nutrition. As a result, they also tend to marry earlier, and to bear children earlier. There are plenty of exceptions.
[Source]
Unreliable Narrator
JUNE 26, 2001 SF, TARGARYENS, VALYRIA, SANSA, MARTELLS, AND MORE
[GRRM is asked about Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword.]
The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business (*), on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.
[Source]
(*) It was Arya who misremembered the name of Joffrey’s sword tho…
Unreliable Narrator 2.0
OCTOBER 05, 2002 SANSA’S MEMORY
[Note: This mail has been edited for brevity.]
… this is an inconsistency with ASoS more than an outright error. In ASoS, Sansa thinks that the Hound kissed her before leaving her room and King’s Landing. In ACoK, no kiss is mentioned in the scene, though Sansa did think that he was about to do so.
Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning
[Source]
Unreliable Narrator 3.0
NOVEMBER 27, 2007 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
Here’s a really particular question (which I realize means it probably won’t get asked in a general interview): In A Storm of Swords, there is a chapter early on where Sansa is thinking back to the scene at the end of A Clash of Kings when The Hound came into her room during the battle. She thinks in the chapter about how he kissed her, but in the scene in A Clash of Kings, this actually didn’t happen. Was that a typo or something? —Valdora
GRRM: It’s not a typo. It is something! [Laughs] ”Unreliable narrator” is the key phrase there. The second scene is from Sansa’s thoughts. And what does that reveal about her psychologically? I try to be subtle about these things.
[Source]
Sansa may be dead but Alayne is alive
APRIL 15, 2008 FUTURE MEETINGS, POVS, ARYA’S ROLE, EASTERN LANDS, AND ASSASSINS
[Will Sandor and Sansa meet?]
Why, the Hound is dead, and Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone.
[Source]
A lot more dangerous than romantic
AUGUST 2, 2009 AS SER JORAH MORMONT…
weltraummuell: The Hound Oh please don’t cast an old guy for the Hound, his scenes with Sansa are so romantic and erotic, I couldn’t bear if it’d feel creepy all of a sudden. Well, that’s me making demands. LOL
GRRM: Re: The Hound Old guy? No, but… the Hound is still a whole lot older than Sansa, and was never written as attractive… you know, those hideous burns and all that… he’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic.
kestrana: The Hound Yeah its a “girl always wants the bad boy” kind of thing although Sansa seems to pull something else out of him. It feels so wrong sometimes but I want to see them together again tee hee.
weltraummuell: The Hound Hehe, George, maybe you didn’t intend it, but he turned out to be a very erotic character to female readers. Especially since he’s mutilated and dangerous. Makes him unpredictable and vulnerable which is the most explosive aphrodisiac for a girl’s fantasy. ;)
weltraummuell: The Hound And I know from discussions on other board other women feel just the same about Sandor. He’s an absolute favourite with the ladies!
halfbloodmalfoy: The Hound LOL, you’re such a man. To many of us women, dangerous *is* attractive.
GRRM: The Hound But no one has any love for poor old Sam Tarly, kind and smart and decent and devoted…
[Source]
I played with it but I didn’t get the answer I was waiting for
JUNE 22, 2012 SWORD & LASER VIDEO PODCAST
GRRM: I am sometimes surprised by the reactions, of women in particular, to some of the villains. The number of women over the years who have written to me that their favorite characters are Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane [the Hound] or Theon Greyjoy… All of these are deeply troubled individuals with some very dark sides, who have done some very dark things. Nonetheless, they do draw this response, and quite heavily, I think, in the case of some of them, from my female readers in particular.
Veronica Belmont: I’m a big fan of the Hound, myself, actually.
Tom Merritt: Of Sandor? Really?
Veronica Belmont: Yeah, the Hound… Maybe it’s not because I feel any compassion towards them, I’m not really sure what the attraction is. Ah, I’m not going to call it attraction, actually. Let’s just say it’s a fascination, perhaps.
GRRM: [Chuckles] Well, I mean, fascination is one thing, but some of these letters indicate that there really is like a romantic attraction going on there. And I do know there’s all these people out there who are, as they call themselves, the “San/San” fans, who want to see Sandor and Sansa get together at the end. So that’s interesting, too.
Tom Merritt: The TV show has sort of played with that a little, and probably stoked those fires.
GRRM: Oh, sure. And I’ve played with it in the books. There’s something there, but it’s still interesting to see how many people have responded to it.
[Source]
I played with it but I didn’t get the answer I was waiting for 2.0
JUNE 23, 2015 GRRM Q&A AT THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKSTORE IN STOCKHOLM
Question: “Is there any fan reactions that you have been surprised by, like is there a character that’s more popular than you thought or have people been shocked by something you didn’t think we would be shocked at?”
GRRM: “I’m reasonably certain what people will be shocked by. I knew that the Red Wedding would provoke a big reaction and it did. I was pretty confident that, you know, throwing Bran out the window and then killing Ned in the first book would get reactions, and indeed they did. All of those worked exactly the way it did to the extent that things that have surprised me, they tend to be smaller things. I guess I… Maybe I should not have, I don’t know. How do I phrase this without getting myself in terrible trouble… I guess I don’t understand women, but I was definitely, you know, way back when, surprised by the number of women who reacted positively to characters like Theon and the Hound as dashing, romantic figures. The san/san kind of thing took me by surprise, I must admit, and even more so the women who, and there are some, who really like Theon. So that surprised me.”
[Source]
Unreliable Narrator 4.0
DECEMBER 2016 ASKING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ABOUT S@N/S@N
My question is regarding Sansa Stark. Her sexuality has evolved through every book and yet the memory that seems to stick the more with her in this regard is the night of the Blackwater. So I was wondering if you can expand on your view on what this is, since as before that night her interactions with Sandor Clegane weren’t really physical.
The night of the Blackwater, yes. Ahhh… Well, I’m not going to give you a straight answer on that hahaha… Uhmmm, but I would say that ahhh… you know a television show and a book each has its own strengths and weaknesses; there a re tools that are available to me as a novelist, that are not available to people doing a television show. And of course there are tools available to them, that are not available to a novelist, I mean they can lay in a soundtrack, they can do special effects, they can do amazing things that I can’t do, I just have words on paper. What can I do, well I can use things like the internal narrative, I can take you inside of territories… thoughts, which you can’t do in a TV show… Ahhh… You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal, and I have the device known as “unreliable narrator”… Ahhh… Which again, they don’t have. So, think about those two aspects when you consider that night of the Blackwater.
[Source]
Do with it what you will.
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buddiebeginz · 3 years
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So I finally got to watch 4x08 and I have a lot of thoughts so be prepared for a long rant.
For starters I literally groaned out loud when I saw they brought back Taylor Kelly. I know that some would make the argument well the only reason you don’t like her is because you want Buck with Eddie. If Eddie didn’t even exist I still wouldn’t like her and I definitely wouldn’t want her anywhere near Buck. She’s incredibly self centered doesn’t care who she hurts at times and can be really manipulative too. Like how she went out of her way to hurt Buck in front of Albert and Veronica for no reason. I get it if she didn’t totally understand why Buck asked her there but she could have said that to him privately. She could have left without turning it into a whole big spectacle to make Buck look like a dick.
Then the stuff she said to him in the hallway was just totally messed up. Buck called her because he got roped into the stupid double date thing and didn’t want to look like a loser in front of Albert and Veronica but also it’s clear he’s been feeling lonely for a while and didn’t want to be the third wheel. He should have communicated more to Taylor what was going on with the dinner but nothing about what he was doing was malicious or manipulative to me, Buck can just be kind of clueless at times.
When they were in the hallway Taylor made it seem like Buck used her. That he basically wanted people to see him with “famous” Taylor Kelly the reporter. The thing is when Taylor got to the apartment she thought that her and Buck were going to have dinner and hook up. She was clearly planning on using Buck for sex like she has before, yet she accuses him of using her.
She called him needy and said that he can’t stand the idea of someone not liking him. To which he ends up apologizing. Watching this I’m like WTAF are you apologizing for Buck? This woman is trashing the shit out of you and you’re standing there apologizing?! I mean this is what I’m talking about when I say she’s manipulative. Like I said before Buck should have communicated better what was going on that night but it’s also not his fault that Taylor assumed he was calling her over for a hook up. I also don’t think Buck called her because she’s sort of famous and he wanted to look good or to use her, I think he didn’t want to look like he’s all alone when everyone around him has someone. He had seen her recently and talked to her about things he’d been dealing with so I think she was the first person he could think of to help him and likely the only one really.
Even after Buck tried to explain some of this to her and tried to be vulnerable about how he was feeling what does she do? She laughs at him then basically calls him a liar and tells him that he treats his friends shitty and his issues with Albert are his fault. Never mind the fact that Buck had opened up to her about feeling uncomfortable about his roommate dating a woman he dated and bringing her home to their house. Never mind the fact that Taylor knows nothing about Buck and his relationships.
I mean she says something earlier in the episode  “your life is nothing but meaningful relationships” (talking about the 118) but that’s pretty obvious to anyone who meets them so I don’t give her much credit for that. Not to mention a while back she spent time in the firehouse filming so that was easy enough to see then. But the fact that she could spend time with Buck and he could open up to her the way he has multiple times through out the show and she could still make the kind of snap judgments she does about him or use him the way she does is just awful.
By the end of the episode the shows tries to make Taylor look like this poor sad woman who is dealing with so much and I think they were even trying to make the connection that she was also feeling alone like Buck feels alone. They also try to make it seem like she just wants to help people, again I think trying to connect her to Buck and his innate desire to help everyone around him but I don’t think she’s anything like Buck and I still can’t stand her.
I really hope people haven’t forgotten that this was the same fame hungry woman that was ready to air footage of Bobby (calling out to his dead daughter) and almost jumping off the roof when he had eaten laced brownies. She made it clear when we met her when kind of a person she is. That she was the kind of person who would probably sell her own mother if it meant furthering her career. The thing is I definitely believe characters who make mistakes or who start out as villainous or problematic should be allowed to grow and change (I mean some of my favorite characters are ones that have started out awful) but this doesn’t feel like a character that has changed. At all. The way she went out of her way to try and humiliate Buck in front of Albert and Veronica and the things she said in the hallway prove that. I’ll be utterly disgusted if they try to pair her up with Buck.
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I’m just really tired of how the show seems to treat Buck. I have no problem with characters going through hard times, dealing with others being awful to them, or even abuse. These are all things that happen in real life and can make for great storylines. But if you’re going to show a character repeatedly going through something it should serve a purpose, it should be leading towards something and I’m not sure if the 911 writers get that. I love the show but sometimes I feel like they’re just putting Buck through stuff for the hell of it.
Like we’ve repeatably seen women treating Buck awful which in an of itself isn’t a problem if it’s going somewhere. Like the show could use that as way to say Buck is always picking the wrong people and has problems with speaking up for his needs (likely because of his family). There’s a lot the show could explore with Buck’s relationships especially with him seeing a therapist. Unfortunately though we haven’t been seeing him talking to the therapist and especially after this recent episode where it feels like the same old same old (i.e. a woman treats Buck like crap and Buck apologizes) it just doesn’t feel like there’s a good enough reason they keep writing Buck’s storylines like this.
First there was Abby who I feel like used Buck in some ways to jump start her life back up and then ghosted him when she didn’t need him anymore. Then she didn’t even take responsibility for that when she saw him again nor did the show really let Buck call her out on how she made him feel really. Then there was Ali who knew how dangerous Buck’s job was when she got involved with him and did anyway then chose to drop him when he was going through one of the toughest times of his life. The show didn’t even do Buck the dignity of really talking about what happened with that relationship she just was gone by the next season.
There was Taylor who just used Buck for sex and for her career and who the show tried to paint as being like the female version of Buck which I thought was kind of bullshit. Buck has made plenty of mistakes in his life and he certainly was all about sex when we first met him in season 1 but in the first place Buck would have never sunk to the kind of lows Taylor has just for his career. Being a firefighter is everything to Buck but the 118 are like his family and he wants to be a firefighter to help people not just for fame or glory. There was the lawsuit but Buck didn’t even realize how much that asshole lawyer was going to go after the 118 and I’m pretty sure if he did he wouldn’t have done it. You can tell when Buck talks about it to Eddie how much he still regrets it. As for all the sex Buck was having it’s clear he was looking for a more meaningful connection and just hadn’t learned yet that wasn’t where he was going to get it. Not to mention it seemed like a lot of the women he was sleeping with were just using him to an extent like the therapist who slept with him. Buck is very different from Taylor who in my eyes is not a very empathetic or emotional person and seems much more about herself than anyone else. So the shows need to compare them really gets on my nerves.
Then there was his date with Veronica which was just ridiculous. My problem wasn’t that they had her be some strawman SJW feminist who got offended by everything it was the way they had Buck respond. As usual he wasn’t allowed to stand up for himself and just had to sit there and take the mistreatment.
It hasn’t just been in romantic relationships either we saw what Buck went through with his family and the show just kind of closed that off with Buck forgiving them for a lifetime of abuse.
I don’t get why the show constantly lets Buck get treated like crap by so many people around him and without standing up for himself no less. Like I was so angry about that scene in the hallway with him and Taylor. It would have been one thing if Taylor had lashed out at him (maybe taking her own issues out on him something she could have explained later) but the show still should have had Buck push back against some of the bs she was spewing. I’m tired of Buck having to hear how much of a failure he is. I’m tired of seeing Buck hurt by people he tries to let in. Buck would literally die for the people he loves. He almost has numerous times. So to hear someone like Taylor trashing him and telling him he wasn’t a good friend was so infuriating.
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I mean it’s not that everything with Buck is handled bad. I love the relationships he has with the 118 and especially with Bobby and Athena. Her and Bobby are almost like parents to Buck especially when it feels like Buck never really had the family he deserved and I love them for that. There’s also Maddie who has always been there for Buck and their relationship is so important. But the best relationship Buck has is obviously with Eddie. He’s the one who gets Buck the most and who Buck is the most himself with. Buck doesn’t have to hide or hold back with Eddie and neither one of them are afraid to call each other out when necessary.
I love the relationship Buck has with Eddie and I really want them to just get together already, though I know there’s no guarantee that will happen. But if the plan isn’t for Buddie to happen I wish that the show would stop dangling that relationship around every episode as a way to pull viewers in because it’s clear they know how popular they are. I especially wish that the show would be clearer about what they plan to do with Buck’s sexuality. I feel like there’s been so many hints since the beginning that Buck could be bi and I don’t know where the show is going with it.
I’ve seen people saying that Buddie isn’t going to happen and it doesn’t need to happen because there’s already other lgbtq characters on 911 and there’s a main lgbtq ship on Lone Star but I disagree. Buddie could still happen but even if it doesn’t the show could definitely still explore Buck’s sexuality. It would be so important to have a main male character who has been straight presenting on a popular prime time show come out as bi. There’s this misconception that representation in media for lgbtq isn’t that big of a deal anymore because there are so many lgbtq characters now but it is still a big deal and many shows still don’t feature lgbtq characters and storylines prominently nor do their stories justice. They definitely don’t when it comes to bi characters especially bi men.
To have a character like Buck have a storyline that would explore his sexuality would be huge. It would be even more huge if it was about him coming out as bisexual. Biphobia is a big problem not just from straight people but within the lgbtq community maybe even more so in some ways. Popular media rarely shows accurate good depictions of bi storylines. Even when there are bi characters on shows or movies we usually don’t get to see their journey like we have in media through the years with other lgbtq characters. We rarely get to see what it’s like to figure out you’re bi and to live as a bi person. As someone who is bi myself I really want this to change. 
The show has made many hints to Buck’s sexuality and it’s something that they could easily explore. If they aren’t planning on going that route though I don’t get why they keep hinting at it. I don’t get why they’ve had multiple instances where people have commented on Buck’s sexuality or being with Eddie and he never corrects them. I mean once would be enough but what is the point of the show doing it over and over? I mean the Lone Star moment was just crazy to me if they don’t plan on doing anything. It didn’t just feel like a throw away joke moment especially since Buck didn’t deny it and Eddie came around the corner it felt like the show was saying something.
If the show isn’t planning on having Buck come out or putting Eddie and him together why does it feel like Buck and Eddie behave almost like a married couple? I mean they connect and know each other almost more than some of the actual married couples on the show. It feels like Buck is Chris’ other dad. I mean we saw Eddie going out with Ana but at the same time it almost felt like it did with Shannon like Eddie just trying to do right by Christopher and make sure he has mom. After the date the one Eddie comes home to is Buck. When Chris is upset the one he runs to is Buck.
If Eddie and Buck and Chris aren’t meant to be a family was does the show keep making it seem like they are each other’s safe space? It’s clear that the connection Buck and Eddie have goes beyond just being friends. It’s just unclear why the show has developed them this way and what they plan on doing with them now.
One last thing in this giant ramble. This episode was called “Breaking Point” but I feel like we didn’t see Buck’s breaking point. I’m hoping that all these bread crumbs are leading somewhere in exploring Buck’s sexuality maybe this episode title was a clue that Buck’s breaking point is coming. We’ve had lots of hints about his sexuality throughout the course of the show and this season in particular there’s been a lot of talk about how lonely he feels and how disconnected he seems to feel from everyone. So maybe we’ll get to see him talking to his therapist and exploring some of these feelings. Maybe if Eddie continues to see Ana Buck will end up feeling jealous and this will bring up feelings he hasn’t wanted to confront yet, about himself and about Eddie. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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woodchoc-magnum · 3 years
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911 4x07 “There Goes the Neighbourhood” Reaction
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Under the cut!
A solid, enjoyable episode - I laughed multiple times during this.
A sad lack of Eddie Diaz but that’s okay, he had a big episode last week.
Thoughts:
The rocker moms at the start had me lolling
Look, was it sexual harrassment? Sure. But that lady saw that Diaz ass and realised she had a golden opportunity for some slappin’
Veronica certainly was interesting. I’d love to know how the date started? Like... did she just dislike him instantly or did he say something to piss her off... she was openly hostile right from the get go.
Kinda weird that the last episode ended with Eddie on a date and this one started with Buck on a date, you know, the man who hasn’t dated in anyone in a season and a half now 👀
I don’t pretend to know what the writers are doing but what are they fucking doing seriously
Why did Buck decide to jump into the dating pool again now? Is this just a straight-up reaction to Eddie dating? WILL WE FIND OUT NEXT WEEK? Fuck I hope so
I want a REALISATION, PLEASE
Moving on - I would’ve kicked Albert out the moment he stole that cheesecake
There are some things that are sacred. Women come and go but CHEESECAKE IS FOREVER.
Am I... anti-Albert? After that? Yes.
Also like I know Buck is a social person but I am a person who cannot survive without my own space so for him to have had literally no space for himself for the last six(?) months like... I wouldn’t be coping at all.
Good god NIA IS SO FUCKING CUTE - they have 10/10 nailed the casting there holy SHIT
Okay so Michael’s wall of windows is great but HE LIVES ACROSS FROM THE HOTEL CECIL
I AM LITERALLY WATCHING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THAT SPOOKY ASS HOTEL
I could not BELIEVE IT
Also when Bobby gets involved was just 10/10 so. fucking. funny. And the Austin Powers music? I was DYING. HILARIOUS.
Like all the men on this show are just as bad as each other and the women just put up with it
The entire turkey scene was 10/10 as well - Buck and Eddie finally managing to catch it? So good. And they weren’t wearing masks! Honestly I hate that the masks cover their faces, I know they’re necessary but I can’t wait until the day when they don’t have to wear them anymore.
Buck telling Eddie he needs a “safe space” - DUDE. If they’re not foreshadowing Buck moving into Eddie’s house - does that mean he kicks Albert out? Maybe? He could kick him out; it’s Buck’s fucking apartment.
I mean I realise it is wishful thinking for Buck to move in with Eddie - I am 90% sure Eddie doesn’t have a spare room, and if he does, they’ve never shown it - but GOD I WANT IT. Buck’s not a guest in Eddie’s house!
I love the Hen & Athena friendship - and Hen and Karen are SO GOOD TOGETHER, honestly I was so happy to see Karen. And not all the parents on this show are super terrible - there’s hope for Hen’s mom yet.
No mention of Ana 👀
And then the big reveal at the end that Albert is dating Veronica... look, I was anti-Albert after the cheesecake stealing incident (NEVER FORGET) but... he could’ve told Buck? It’s not like Buck was pining after this girl. Why didn’t he just tell him? So fucking weird.
Let’s wildly speculate (and I’m always wrong!):
So we know that Buck and Albert are on the rocks as roommates (cheesecake thievery). We know that Taylor Kelly comes back in the next episode (I one hundred percent think she’s married). We know that Buck is looking for a safe space. We know that Buck has a one-on-one scene with Christopher and there was also a BTS video of Oliver in the same outfit as he wears in the scene with Christopher at the hospital. There are also those set photos from the airplane emergency where it kinda looks like Buck and Eddie are fighting (though I remain unconvinced about that). We know that Ana is in the next episode. The next episode is called Breaking Point.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
I have no idea.
Genuinely have no fucking clue.
My gut tells me that... Buck and Eddie probably aren’t fighting, especially not about anything jealousy-related because Buck doesn’t seem to be that jealous of Ana? Unless things dramatically change in the next episode.
The hospital thing, I don’t know. 
Why do Buck and Christopher have a one-on-one? My original wild theory was that Eddie was sick but I don’t think that’s going to happen either (he looks fine in the set photos).
Can I wildly speculate for one second (this will not happen) that Eddie gets food poisoning on a date with Ana?! Because... I’d enjoy that. Not Eddie’s suffering, of course, but like... Buck to the rescue, kind of thing.
It’s not going to happen; moving on.
The theory about Buck moving in... I mean, I want it. @from-nova​ made a brilliant post about that and I so hope she’s right.
If Eddie does have a secret hidden spare bedroom, it could happen? But he’s only got a small couch, so where the fuck would Buck sleep? “Oh hey Ana, so Buck’s moving in with me and I don’t have a spare room so we’re just gonna share a bed also he’s been co-parenting my son with me for the last three years, so did you want to order now?”
I don’t know.
I just feel like next week’s episode is going to have something big Buddie-related? I have a FEELING.
Does Eddie get jealous about Taylor? We all remember the Season 2 murder strut.
It seems too soon for Eddie to tell Christopher about Ana?
I don’t know. I’m anxious. This has been rambling.
My fear is that they will end the next episode with Buck and Eddie fighting and I really don’t want that, so I’m manifesting for that not to happen.
This whole season has been about Buck and finding his family and finding his place... the recurring theme of the invisible string, them constantly showing Eddie supporting Buck; constantly drumming in that Buck and Eddie talk to each other about everything... Buck is searching for a safe place, where is safer than Eddie’s house?
What if he moves in and it just... clicks? Like... everything falls into place for him. This is where I’m meant to be.
God, I hope. I REALLY REALLY HOPE. 🙏
Also fingers crossed for Eddie dumping Ana next week PRAYER CIRCLE
She says one fucking thing about Buck and/or Christopher and he’s like “we’re done.”
I want it.
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butterflies-dragons · 4 years
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oh j0nryas know about balticon report, they just think he was being coy (asdjkahs same delusion with s/ns/ns), that he was rambling bc he was trying not to give spoilers. at this point he could go on live and say "no dumbasses there is no j0nrya, there won't be, there never was" (same w pedoships) and they will all be like "omg it is definitely happening in twow, look at how he's trying to divert our attentions, we are onto you george hehehe"
OK let’s review, again, chronologically, all the times that GRRM was being coy and trying to divert his readers’ attention regarding the ships you mentioned:
The “It could be very different things to each of those involved” Alternative: “Mind you!”
JUNE 24, 1999 THE HOUND AND SANSA
Moreta12: I understand, I’ve heard your opinion on that. In ACOK, it seems that the relationship between the Hound and Sansa had romantic undertones. Is that true?
GeoRR: Well, read the book and decide for yourself.
Moreta12: I’ve read the book and I’ve debated those particular scenes with a few others. Half say that it’s romantic and half say it’s platonic. I’ve taken the romantic stance.
GeoRR:  It could be very different things to each of those involved, mind you
Moreta12:Yes, but it seem like evidence points towards romantic undertones. Will the Hound appear later?
GeoRR: Yes, the Hound will be in STORM OF SWORDS. In fact, I just finished writing a big scene with him.
[Source]
The “Why are you asking me about Sansa’s sexuality?” Alternative 1: “Are you really asking me when your fave male adult character can fuck a girl, 15 years younger than him, without guilt?” Alternative 2: “Why are you so gross?”
OCTOBER 05, 1999 AGE OF SEXUAL RELATIONS IN WESTEROS
The nature of the relationship between Sandor and Sansa has been a hot topic on Revanshe's board. Sansa's youth has been one focus of the discussion. What is the general Westerosi view as to romantic or sexual relationships involving a girl of Sansa's age and level of physical maturity?
A boy is Westeros is considered to be a "man grown" at sixteen years. The same is true for girls. Sixteen is the age of legal majority, as twenty-one is for us. However, for girls, the first flowering is also very significant... and in older traditions, a girl who has flowered is a woman, fit for both wedding and bedding. A girl who has flowered, but not yet attained her sixteenth name day, is in a somewhat ambigious position: part child, part woman. A "maid," in other words. Fertile but innocent, beloved of the singers. In the "general Westerosi view," well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them. And such early weddings, even without sex, remain rare. Generally weddings are postponed until the bride has passed from girlhood to maidenhood. Maidens may be wedded and bedded... however, even there, many husbands will wait until the bride is fifteen or sixteen before sleeping with them. Very young mothers tend to have significantly higher rates of death in childbirth, which the maesters will have noted. As in the real Middle Ages, highborn girls tend to flower significantly earlier than those of lower birth. Probably a matter of nutrition. As a result, they also tend to marry earlier, and to bear children earlier. There are plenty of exceptions.
[Source]
The “Unreliable narrator - Part 1” Alternative: “The much more important lapse in memory that was promised”
JUNE 26, 2001 SF, TARGARYENS, VALYRIA, SANSA, MARTELLS, AND MORE
[GRRM is asked about Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword.]
The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.
[Source]
The “Unreliable narrator - Part 2” Alternative: “It doesn’t mean what you think it means”
OCTOBER 05, 2002 SANSA’S MEMORY
[Note: This mail has been edited for brevity.]
… this is an inconsistency with ASoS more than an outright error. In ASoS, Sansa thinks that the Hound kissed her before leaving her room and King’s Landing. In ACoK, no kiss is mentioned in the scene, though Sansa did think that he was about to do so.
Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning
[Source]
The “Unreliable narrator - Part 3” Alternative: “Better ask yourself about Sansa’s psychological state”
NOVEMBER 27, 2007 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS
Here’s a really particular question (which I realize means it probably won’t get asked in a general interview): In A Storm of Swords, there is a chapter early on where Sansa is thinking back to the scene at the end of A Clash of Kings when The Hound came into her room during the battle. She thinks in the chapter about how he kissed her, but in the scene in A Clash of Kings, this actually didn’t happen. Was that a typo or something? —Valdora
GRRM: It’s not a typo. It is something! [Laughs] ”Unreliable narrator” is the key phrase there. The second scene is from Sansa’s thoughts. And what does that reveal about her psychologically? I try to be subtle about these things.
[Source]
The “The answer is No” Alternative: NO!
APRIL 15, 2008 FUTURE MEETINGS, POVS, ARYA’S ROLE, EASTERN LANDS, AND ASSASSINS
[Will Sandor and Sansa meet?]
Why, the Hound is dead, and Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone.
[Source]
The “He’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic” Alternative: “BUT THERE IS SAM!”
AUG. 21ST, 2009 AS SER JORAH MORMONT… - NOT A BLOG
weltraummuell: The Hound Oh please don’t cast an old guy for the Hound, his scenes with Sansa are so romantic and erotic, I couldn’t bear if it’d feel creepy all of a sudden. Well, that’s me making demands. LOL
GRRM: Re: The Hound Old guy? No, but… the Hound is still a whole lot older than Sansa, and was never written as attractive… you know, those hideous burns and all that… he’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic.  
kestrana: The Hound Yeah its a “girl always wants the bad boy” kind of thing although Sansa seems to pull something else out of him. It feels so wrong sometimes but I want to see them together again tee hee.
weltraummuell: The Hound Hehe, George, maybe you didn’t intend it, but he turned out to be a very erotic character to female readers. Especially since he’s mutilated and dangerous. Makes him unpredictable and vulnerable which is the most explosive aphrodisiac for a girl’s fantasy. ;)
weltraummuell: The Hound And I know from discussions on other board other women feel just the same about Sandor. He’s an absolute favourite with the ladies!
halfbloodmalfoy: The Hound LOL, you’re such a man. To many of us women, dangerous *is* attractive.
GRRM: The Hound But no one has any love for poor old Sam Tarly, kind and smart and decent and devoted…
[Source]
The “That’s interesting...” Alternative: “They are deeply troubled individuals, Harriet”
22 JUNE 2012 SWORD & LASER VIDEO PODCAST
GRRM: I am sometimes surprised by the reactions, of women in particular, to some of the villains. The number of women over the years who have written to me that their favorite characters are Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane [the Hound] or Theon Greyjoy… All of these are deeply troubled individuals with some very dark sides, who have done some very dark things. Nonetheless, they do draw this response, and quite heavily, I think, in the case of some of them, from my female readers in particular.
Veronica Belmont: I’m a big fan of the Hound, myself, actually.
Tom Merritt: Of Sandor? Really?
Veronica Belmont: Yeah, the Hound… Maybe it’s not because I feel any compassion towards them, I’m not really sure what the attraction is. Ah, I’m not going to call it attraction, actually. Let’s just say it’s a fascination, perhaps.
GRRM: [Chuckles] Well, I mean, fascination is one thing, but some of these letters indicate that there really is like a romantic attraction going on there. And I do know there’s all these people out there who are, as they call themselves, the “San/San” fans, who want to see Sandor and Sansa get together at the end. So that’s interesting, too.
Tom Merritt: The TV show has sort of played with that a little, and probably stoked those fires.
GRRM: Oh, sure. And I’ve played with it in the books. There’s something there, but it’s still interesting to see how many people have responded to it.
[Source]
The “I guess I don’t understand women” Alternative: “I'm shook”
JUNE 23, 2015 GRRM Q&A AT THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKSTORE IN STOCKHOLM
Question: “Is there any fan reactions that you have been surprised by, like is there a character that’s more popular than you thought or have people been shocked by something you didn’t think we would be shocked at?”
GRRM: “I’m reasonably certain what people will be shocked by. I knew that the Red Wedding would provoke a big reaction and it did. I was pretty confident that, you know, throwing Bran out the window and then killing Ned in the first book would get reactions, and indeed they did. All of those worked exactly the way it did to the extent that things that have surprised me, they tend to be smaller things. I guess I… Maybe I should not have, I don’t know. How do I phrase this without getting myself in terrible trouble… I guess I don’t understand women, but I was definitely, you know, way back when, surprised by the number of women who reacted positively to characters like Theon and the Hound as dashing, romantic figures. The san/san kind of thing took me by surprise, I must admit, and even more so the women who, and there are some, who really like Theon. So that surprised me.”
[Source]
The “Comfort level of femininity” Alternative: “That's not a reference for romance”
MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT 
My con friend asked about the Jon/Arya relationship again and brought her (impressive) Game book that had all of her references marked out with little flags. She brought up the Ygritte connections to Arya that Jon saw in her. George did not directly answer yes or no if there would be anything romantic between the two.
George did say, despite what readers see as clues to a romantic relationship between Jon/Arya in the books themselves, he did not confirm this so easily but inferred that what Jon saw in Ygritte was a comfort level of femininity. <<<  She and I obviously discussed these comments after the meeting and this was the general feeling.
My con friend was referring to George explaining Jon’s perception: GRRM replied, “You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and  a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.”
The “I was making up shit.” Alternative: "I wish I can delete that"
MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT 
After the Coffee Talk just outside the room:
My Con Friend asked about Arya and Jon again. This time GRRM gave some very pointed replies:
GRRM finished (in the hallway now) by saying that he “wished some past things weren’t such strong foreshadowing,” and that he, “wished some new things had stronger foreshadowing then.”
Friend: Ok, if you foreshadowed something in the first book, like, really cleverly hidden, would you then follow through on that hint? For sure?..
GRRM: “Well, this goes with what I said before, the story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that’s not going to happen.”
Here is a transcript of the outline discussion and Jon/Arya portion of the coffee talk:
[question about Jon/Arya]
GRRM: “Alright, you’ve thought about this more than I have. I mean it’s simple, Jon is very fond of Arya. They were the two odd birds in the Stark family nest, here. They didn’t quite fit in with the others, they look like each other, they both had the brown hair, you know, as opposed to the auburn hair of Sansa and Bran and Rickon and Robb. So there was always that closeness between them. And, you know, Arya didn’t mind that Jon was a bastard, and Jon didn’t mind that Arya was a tomboy, so there is that closeness there.”
[question about Jon comparing his lover to his sister]
GRRM: “If he did it, uhm… I began writing these books in 1991, and, uhm, I worked on it in 91 and then I got a tv play, so I put it aside to really work on ‘Doorways’ tv pilot and did a tv show in 92-93. In 94 I returned to it [the books] and worked on it. You know, up till then, in my career as a writer, I’d always written the entire book before I opted for sale. That’s unusual. Most writers do chapters and an outline. They write a few chapters, they outline the rest of the book, give that to the publisher and the publisher says ‘oh okay, I’ll take that’.
“As some of you may have noticed, those who have been paying very, very carefully attention, I’m not good with deadlines. And, uh, and I’m not good with outlines, either. I always hated outlines. So with Fevre Dream and with Armageddon Rag and with Dying of the Light and all my novels, I wrote the entire book. I didn’t do chapters and outline. I sat down, I wrote a whole book, and I sent it to my agent and said ‘Look, here’s a whole book, and it’s finished’. That way I ran into no deadline, it was finished before it even went on the market. And it worked well for me. And my initial thought was to do this the same way, but what happened, you know, was in 1994, uhm, when I returned to it and I’m working on it and I’m very enthused about it and I say ‘I really wanna write these Game of Thrones books as the next part’. But I was still in Hollywood and I’d just lost all this groundwork on ‘Doorways’, I was still in… The studios and networks still wanna work with me, so I’m getting other offers, like ‘We want you to write this movie’, ‘we want you to do another tv pilot’. And, you know, I took a couple of them and was ‘Oh god, I gotta have to put the book away again’. Cause I have no deadline [for the book]. You know, when you think Hollywood, they will give you a deadline, you know, they say ‘here, son, write this movie, we want it in three months’.
“So, I said ‘look, if I wanna get back to being a novelist, I’m gonna have to sell this even though it’s not finished’. So I had my 200 pages of Game of Thrones at that point, but they wanted outline. I said ‘I don’t do outlines. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, I figure it out as I go. And that’s how I always did it.’ No, we had to have an outline. So I wrote two pages, a two-page thing about what I thought would happen. It’ll be a trilogy, it’ll be three books, Game of Thrones, the Dance with Dragons, and Winds of Winter. Those were the three window titles. And, uh, it’ll be three books and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen. And I was making up shit.
“And I had thought that those two pages were long forgotten, because, of course, the books did sell. They sold in the United States and in Great Britain, both. They sold for enough money that I didn’t have to take any more Hollywood games. So I was able to say ‘no’ around. I had a few less [?] to wind up in in 94 and 95. Once I had, I said ‘no, I don’t want any more movies or tv shows, I’m going to write these books now’. And I started writing the books. And in the process, I pretty much disregarded the outline. The characters took me off in entirely different directions. So, for 20 years I had forgotten that that two-page thing even existed. And then someone in my British publisher, HarperCollins, they got a new office building, uh, brand new offices, and new conference rooms, big conference rooms that they decorated with books and stuff like that. And they named the conference rooms after the writers, so one of the conference rooms [?], and they put up these plastic display cases, including the outline. The two-page outline, yes. [?], they didn’t ask my permission, they just put it up. And in that two-page outline, Jon and Arya become a romantic item.”
“You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and  a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.””
[someone says they have 5 minutes left]
“You know, I was pretty pissed that that outline got out there. It should not have happened. Outlines and letters like that are meant only for the eyes of the editor. They shouldn’t go on public display. And, uh, they also [?] my papers on [?], all my papers and correspondence. You know, I’ve been sending that stuff there for years, and it’d be, you know, available for future scholars or whatever, just like the papers of many other writers. Somehow, in the back of my head I was like ‘yeah, 20 years after I’m dead some scholar will go in and find them’. They’re going in right now!”   ”
[question if he is still going with the 1991 ending]
“Yes, I mean, I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm…Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn’t even know there’d be a guy named Bronn. I was inventing him along the way when I was writing, ‘Okay, he gets kidnapped. Let’s see, there are a couple sellswords there, their names are Fred and Bronn’.
“It was actually Bronn and Chiggen, and then one of them dies, I flipped a coin ‘okay, who dies? Chiggen dies, cause his name is stupid. Bronn is a better name, so I’ll keep Bronn’. And then Bronn became quite an interesting character and plenty of these characters take on minds of their own. They push to the front till you [?] speech and you think of a cool line and you give it to Bronn because he’s trying to talk, and now Bronn is somebody who says something cool. [?]. That’s how characters grow on you. “So a lot of the minor characters I’m still discovering along the way. But the mains-”
[question if he knows Arya’s and Jon’s fates]
“Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah.”
This report appears in the following sources:
fattest leech of ice and fire blog [Source 1]
asoiaf.westeros.org [Source 2]  
westeros.org [Source 3]
The “Unreliable narrator - Part 4” Alternative: “I think I had enough...”
DECEMBER 2016 ASKING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ABOUT SAN/SAN
My question is regarding Sansa Stark. Her sexuality has evolved through every book and yet the memory that seems to stick the more with her in this regard is the night of the Blackwater. So I was wondering if you can expand on your view on what this is, since as before that night her interactions with Sandor Clegane weren't really physical.
The night of the Blackwater, yes. Ahhh... Well, I'm not going to give you a straight answer on that hahaha... Uhmmm, but I would say that ahhh... you know a television show and a book each has its own strengths and weaknesses; there a re tools that are available to me as a novelist, that are not available to people doing a television show. And of course there are tools available to them, that are not available to a novelist, I mean they can lay in a soundtrack, they can do special effects, they can do amazing things that I can't do, I just have words on paper. What can I do, well I can use things like the internal narrative, I can take you inside of territories... thoughts, which you can't do in a TV show... Ahhh... You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal, and I have the device known as "unreliable narrator"... Ahhh... Which again, they don't have. So, think about those two aspects when you consider that night of the Blackwater. 
[Source]
Most of these questions make me think of Nabokov having to clarified, regarding Lolita, that he didn’t write a romance..........
So there’s that, everyone can draw their own conclusions.  God knows that in this fandom: “We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.”  
Thanks for your message.
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riverdale-retread · 3 years
Text
Riverdale S2 E17
- My favorite person on this show right now is Sweet Pea.  I want a Sweet Pea spin-off so bad.  He’s the best looking boy on the show, bar none (though Reggie comes close second), and also did I mention, tall?  On my to-do list is to find Sweet Pea fanfic that goes into Serpent politics, and his seething about Jughead while falling for Josie.  This exists, right?  Anyway, he does all the great things: Speaking up at the debate session, and pointing out that Betty  has no right to be claiming Serpent Queen identity for herself.  Tells Jughead he’s looking like Buddy Holly, Sucking Up to the Northside.  Calling Alice Cooper turncoat, and Betty, turncoat’s daughter, and Bughead, running with the turncoat’s daughter.  And he speaks for all the Serpents, to deny Jughead the vote.
- Protagonist Privilege Betty is getting on my nerves.  Why do people keep insisting that Bughead are supportive of each other when scenes like this exist? 
Exh 1. The car that Bughead shoved into the swamp has been found, everyone is panicking, and Jughead says: “We should have known better” which is true, but Betty gives him a look, and he amends it to “I should have known better.”  Uh. Betty you need to say or do something!  But nothing! She only touches him when she says something about herself -  “We 100% were wearing the gloves” i.e. precious Betty’s fingerprints are not in the car.
The Cooper women going at it and the Jones men looking at each other like OMFG was pretty funny, though.
Exh 2: “Living in sin in the trailer” v FP “sleeping on the pull out sofa with his son” so Betty can be in the bedroom. So did Jughead always sleep on the pull out sofa throughout his childhood?  Is that why he has such horrendous posture? 
Exh 3:  Betty claiming to have “helped the Serpents on numerous occasions.” Well maybe. Except you didn’t really give a shit about Jughead trying to save Southside High or whatever. 
Exh 4:  Betty calls in the Serpents and ... they come when summoned and I find this very, very annoying.  And this is, after the uncomfortable breakfast that Jughead had at the Cooper’s back in S1, the first time that Alice says anything to Jughead in absolutely ages (which is to say Thank You and it comes ONLY AFTER Jughead apologizes for breaking down her door, for effect, to save her life after the strange Darla & man that Chic bring to her life)
- You know how I said Jughead was the spiritual son of Fred and replacing Archie, because Archie defected to Camp Hiram?  I’d forgotten this bit, that Jughead has a breakfast conversation with Fred, working on his speech, and neither of them told Archie.  And Archie flakes on attending Fred’s speech to announce his candidacy for mayor. 
- Nana Rose is not always in a wheelchair. Sometimes she’s just seated on a chair. Does this mean Penelope has the upper body strength to bodily haul Nana Rose around?  Nana Rose making the call was terrific, and I enjoyed the fact that Nana Rose had obviously forgotten that Claudius Blossom existed at all.
- The Gay Conversion Therapy plot, it hurts me how badly done this was, because I love my Cheryl.  Kevin says that boys used to sneak out to meet him at the forest to hook up, but for some reason Cheryl has an all -points alert and nuns hunting her down. They establish the tunnel of escape from the Sisters of Quiet Mercy building, which they reuse (or attempt to) during the Farm storylines. Josie dropping out of the search for Cheryl was perfunctory, designed to wrap up the underdeveloped and badly done strange crush that Cheryl used to have on Josie.  Veronica wearing a very strange look-at-the-skin-on-my-sternum catsuit and heels for the rescue was one of the rare costume fails at Riverdale. 
- We’re supposed to find it terrible and embarrassing whenever Alice Cooper breaks out snakeprints and dark eyeliner for those times when she dips into her Serpent past, right? It’s supposed to be mawkish, yes?  Also the compulsion she has - if she’s a Serpent then she must fuck FP, and FP agreeing to this rule, is really, really weird. 
- Similarly, the whole bit with coded Italian gangsters visiting the Spanish speaking Hiram Lodge to do something about the prison whatever was so very dull, and I am going to keep an eye out for when they dispense with the Hiram Is a Gangster storyline altogether and just make him a real estate developer.
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urbydizzy · 4 years
Text
THOUGHTS ON BOOK IV, CHAPTER 11
This chapter had a lot, didn’t it? (I’m so glad they went back to focusing totally on story and allowed the new heroes to express themselves in the Forging Bonds, to give each part their own space...)
Regarding the changeling reveal: I saw it coming as soon as Sharena mentioned swapping clothes with another girl way back at the start of the book, and I have been hoping that it was going to get to a reveal that somehow, Sharena was of the fairy realm or was more in touch with it than a regular human (as changelings in most lores are actually fairy “children”, big air quotes) but the route they’re implying is that it’s just a dream-aided place/situation swap.
I have been trying to figure out if there’s some evidence that Sharena might not be part of the Askran royal family, but what I’ve found is...loose. Askran royals seem to have gradient hair (men with blue-gold, and women with blonde-pink) and Peony does have a blonde gradient, but it seems more blonde-orange. Though, as we’ve seen with Líf (who has blue-grey), that gradient can change due to some kind of traumatic experience...
I have been hoping for this book to give Sharena some big moment for herself, sort of how Book III made Alfonse super cool, but right now it’s...kind of disappointing on that front. I kept thinking that maybe Sharena had some kind of power to punch out of the dream realm herself, but...yeah, I dunno. Please IntSys, give lil sis a bone here
edit because I just realized: what if the reason why sharena is so unfailingly optimistic is that she was a fairy the whole time, oh heck, oh shit
EDIT: REGARDING “SHARENA THE TRAITOR”: Freyja seems to be trying to manipulate Sharena into thinking she betrayed the four other girls by not drinking the dream nectar. We also know that the four fairies were originally girls who had bad life circumstances, and as far as we know the Askran siblings grew up in comparatively easygoing circumstances! So...why didn’t Sharena drink the nectar?
I’m guessing it’s because Freyr stopped her from doing so.
And Freyja lost the opportunity to have a fairy that could open gateways, and she is mad.
Regarding Mirabilis: ouch a child of neglect, finally able to do as she pleases and so she just decides to sleep all day instead of actually taking care of herself, i feel it
Regarding the “dream within a dream”: Honestly, I thought the conclusion that Alfonse was going to reach was “Dream-King Freyr is still alive somehow” but...ok Al, that’s also a valid possibility. I’m currently seeing two possibilities:
1: It’s Kiran’s dream. We don’t know anything about Zacharias beyond what we’ve been told (which is not much), so that’s why Alfonse couldn’t recall anything about him when Veronica asked about their relationship.
2: It’s...Líf’s dream? Super unlikely and doesn’t make nearly as much sense, but he has dreamed of being a non-goth Alfonse before.
There’s room for a third possibility that heck I dunno, it’s Sharena or one of the fairies dreaming, but like, that’s so left field that I’d scream (then again, this book has gone in directions I didn’t anticipate and I feel way out of my depth anyway)
I’m kind of disappointed and worried that this is the route we’re on, because that means that some of my favorite lines out of Veronica so far are strictly in the dream realm, and the memories of the temporary alliance we’ve been able to form with her might not carry out to the real world. It’s possible that everyone wakes up and remembers the dream (???? Kiran can dream for everyone? Freyr is somehow sharing it with everyone involved? Does this mean that Alfonse is just watching us move his body around and make decisions for him?)
So far, Book III is still my favorite, but Book IV is...getting interesting? It’s pretty late though, and if they’re going to try to wrap it up in Chapter 13 like they’ve done with past books, there’s not a lot of time to set up and resolve something new.
I just want Sharena to have her moment in the sun ;_;
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ladyartemisia28 · 4 years
Text
Say Amen (Saturday Night)Chapter 4
Pairings: Prinxiety, side Logicality, Platonic Moxiety, Platonic/Family Logince.
Warnings: Cursing?
Words:4179
Summary: Sanders Sides Human College AU
Chapter 4- Nine in the Afternoon
~
Author’s Note- Very advised to get a hold of the song Welcome to the Black Parade- by My Chemical Romance.
~
After they finished gathering their things, Roman led Virgil out to the parking lot.
He slowly shuffled his feet as he caught up to Roman who walked up to open the trunk of a very nice red car. The symbol on the front of the car was a large L.
Virgil raised his eyes up from the ground to look at the vehicle with wide eyes.
“This is your car?” he roughly tossed his bag in the back set
“Yeah, I was hoping for a Lamborghini.” Roman joked with a wink as gently placed his bag in the trunk.
Virgil attempted silence small bitter voice in his head.
“When I was 14 and my cousin, Adora, got her Quiñceanera. She chose me to be her chambelán de honor or chosen escort. I was SOOOOOO JEALOUS!” He dramatically flourished with his hands as he grabbed the trunk lid and closed it shut. “So to bribe me my parents told me that they'd get me a car a year early.”
“Sorry but I have to ask, but I...I'm not sure what it is?” Virgil asked
“Oh uh, sorry” Roman apologized with a smile.
Virgil hummed as a response.
“It's the big birthday that Cis Latina girls get when they turn into 'women'. Silly and patriarchal, I know!” Roman added with a open palms gesture when he saw the eyebrow raise that Virgil gave. “But it was so fun, so fancy and beautiful!”
Roman pushed the key fob to unlock the car and they got themselves settled in.
“It's fucked up that other genders don't get anything like that.”
“Yeah I even stole the catalogue that she picked her dress out of. I cut out my favourites and glued my face on them. Put them all up and down my mirror.” Roman said with a proud smile remembering the happy memories.
Images of Roman in slinky cocktail dresses rushed into Virgil's mind. His face dropped to a small frown as he struggled to stop that particular train of thought.
Roman was unsure if he had said something that upset Virgil to make him clam up again.
"Uh you can pick the music if you'd like?” Roman offered as a break in the sudden silence. “CD's are in the middle.”
He waited for Virgil to buckle himself in before he pulled his car out of the parking lot. Virgil went through all the preset radio stations before opening the middle console.
“CD's? I would have thought that you would have your car set up with Spotify or Pandora or something like that?” he said as he opened opened the console and looked through the collection
“Eh, CD's are great. No commercials for long car trips. ”
All of the Cds were for musicals, a few that he had heard of like Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, and Guys and Dolls. And some that Virgil didn't know, Dear Evan Hanson, Six the Musical, and...Legally Blonde? He did not know that that was a musical.
Then he spotted one that Roman had mentioned.
“Um, any suggestions from Heathers? You said that I might like this the 7/11 song?”  
“I usually go through the whole thing in order....but I suggest for you, Track number 4.”
“Could I get some context?” Virgil asked as he pressed the button for the track number.
“The uh, 7/11 scene in the movie...But in song.” Roman offered with a bit of a smug smile.
“I probably should have guessed that.” he admitted with a grumble.
Virgil closed his eyes as he listened to the song and imagined the scene in his head.
Just like in the Heathers movie JD was recounting to Veronica how he travelled all over the place because of his father. And because of that he didn't feel like he was able to connect to the people and places. No place felt like home, except for 7/11.
It was always a weird scene in Virgil's opinion. Like JD is just opening up to this person he just met and telling her his very strong feelings about a convenience store and Slushies.
Even though it was strange Virgil had to admit, it was a good song. Parts of the song were a little to close to home, like “When the voice in your head says you're better off dead”.
“So what do you think? ”
“Yeah I get it. Its good.”
“That's all?”  Roman asked exasperatedly
“I guess I was expecting something different???”
“Like what?”
“I just thought that JD was going to be a little more intense. Like crazy sounding or something?”
“Ah what YOU are searching for is 'Meant to Be Yours' number 17.”
He pressed the button until he reached the number and sat back in his seat to listen.
~
“So is that was you were expecting?” Roman asked as they exited the car after arriving at the store.
“Yeah, it was” Virgil smiled “Real Intense.”
The pair stopped after they reached to threshold to get their bearings.
“I get so lost in here.” Roman complained with a slight whine to his voice. “I don't usually do the grocery shopping.
Before Virgil could comment Roman continued.
“Lo likes to go to make sure that the budget is kept tight, but he's been so busy with his job. He just got his a new taker for his math tutoring.”
“So Logan's your brother?” Virgil
“My brother, well Step brother. My Mama married his Papa. When I was old enough to remember that I was getting a new family, but young enough that it's no longer weird.” Roman offered a little bit more information than necessary.
Roman briefly considered mentioning that he was at the party and Virgil had briefly seen him, but he didn't want to bring up the previous night.
At lest he didn't want to bring it up first.
They were getting along so well that he didn't want to make Virgil uncomfortable.
“Really, I grew up with him so he is my brother. Soooooo do you have any siblings?” Roman began to play with the sleeves of his jacket as he attempted a more personal question.
“Uh yeah, a older sister” he muttered.
“And her name is...?”
“Melantha,” he responded with little inflection “she prefers to be called Missy.”
“Melantha?! WOW, huh! Did your parents just grab a baby name book and open a page at random for ALL their kids!” Roman teased with a mocking laugh as they arrived at the Dairy and Juice section.  
“Yeah haha, Virgil's got a weird name. I've NEVER heard that before.” Virgil rolled his eyes as his tone changed from frosty to salty. “You know Roman isn't really the most common name either.”
“I am far from COMMON! Besides I wasn't saying your name was BAD! It is 'strange and usual like you'.” Roman winked as he tried to steer their conversation back to more friendly waters.
“Quoting Beetljuice at me? You'll have to do better than that.” Virgil grinned in spite of himself as he grabbed a six pack of orange drink and placed it in the cart.
“Come on you gotta give a guy some credit for remembering what your interests are right?”
“Yeah I guess” he said with a reluctantly happier tone.
“Hey do you see the Almond Milk?” Roman asked after he finished his scan bottles and cartons.
“Uh no, I think that might be over in the Organic or like Vegan section. Why does your brother have you on a specialized diet as well as his, what was it? His extremist water agenda? What does that even mean?” Virgil chuckled as he took the cart from Roman and led him toward the other end of the store.
“It's just what I call his super weird thing about getting enough water everyday. And yeah he does keep our kitchen stocked with a lot of green veggies. Also he checks to sure I kept up a sleep schedule”
Virgil's eyebrows rose in surprise at hearing all things.
“Yikes, he sounds like a bit of a control freak...”
“Yeah he is sometimes. Like I have hide my Butterfinger stash from him.” Roman complained. “He's not as bad I make him sound...NEVER tell him I told you that.”  
Roman went over to the shelf and looked over the choices, Soy, Almond, Lactose- Free lined the shelves.
“Oh and to answer why the special milk, I'm THINKING of starting the Paleo diet right now. My brother has no influence on this though, just want to try and see what works. I might try Keto if this one doesn't work for me.
“ah right.” Virgil nodded eyes slightly widened hoping that the look on his face didn't betrayal the fact that he did NOT know what the heck a Paleo or a Keto diet meant.
~
Virgil felt heard a chime from his pocket so he pulled out his phone.
“Hey I'm going to get this.” he shook his phone up to show Roman before he stepped away from the cold of the meat section.
Roman nodded in return as he turned to look at the selection of skinless chicken.
Virgil got a message from Green_Tea_Gay on his Instagram account, Anxious_On_Main.
'Hey so that “Study Partner” is a hot piece!'
'Remy do you have a point' Virgil replied
'Gurl do you know? have you seen his pics? HOW is he Single!!'
After the three little dots disappeared in their place were several pictures
His face reddened as he looked at the pictures of the previously mentioned selfies. Roman wearing tight jeans in front of a mirror with his backside captured on the camera. Another with him laying on his stomach caught at an angle getting his short clad behind in shot.
He quickly glanced over to Roman, who was still distracted.
He looked back at him phone and quickly texted back.
'Don't send me those!'
'They are posted to the public! I didn't hack his phone'
'I don't care, no more pics of his butt'
'K'
Just about the time he was going to put his phone back into his pocket another chime stopped him.
The next series of pictures were of Roman exercising posing with a dumbbell doing a curl, stretching, and other gym activities,  
And the last was Roman in swimwear that exposed more skin than he thought was allowed outside of certain websites.
His body felt instant heat and he looked and took a few calming breaths before returning to message Remy.
'I said no more pics!'
'Sis you told me no pics of his ass'
'DO NOT SEND PICTURES OF ROMAN SANDERSON!'
'Easy there Baby! No need to get your knickers in a twist. I'm just trying to help. Look at what you will be missing if you don't Snatch. That. Up!'
'What the hell Rem! We are NOT getting together! He is not into me.'
'Nah sweetie, you should have been paying more attention. That is totally a smitten kitten'
'You are the worst'
'No I am literally the best and you two are soooo getting together. Don't worry I know I made my point.'
'You asshole'
'Enjoy the pictures ;)'
~
Roman noticed that after he returned from his handling of his phone business Virgil had gotten quiet again and seemed to shift his gaze away from Roman.
'Did I spent too much time with the chicken?'
They walked down to the breakfast aisle.
As Virgil picked up some a box of Count Chocula cereal Roman slowed the cart to a stop behind him.
“You can only get this one around this time of year” he looked at it with a fondness that made Roman's stomach flip.
“So what are you planning on making?” Roman asked as he leaned his arms on the handle bar of the cart.
“Making? Uh, nothing, just like a bowl of cereal.... like with milk...from a cow” Virgil tilted his head to one side.
Confusion on his face as he held up the box and gave it a shake.
Roman could feel heat creep over his face, he was very caught off guard by the unexpected softness on Virgil's face.
'Shit!...now he thinks I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to eat cereal!'
~
Virgil turned around and did not see Roman's flushed face as he hide his own.
Basic cereal... I guess I could be making something with it like a cereal bar or something? A cake? Maybe? It isnt very impressive...and it's probably not on the platleo diet or whatever it was...
They stood in awkward silence until Virgil turned back around.
“I guess that cereal isn't something that YOU would be eating.” he looked at the cart. “From what I see here, you eat like you are going to be in the next Avengers movie or something.”
“Thanks, I mean I try.” Roman said with his eyes downwards as his body did an uncharacteristic shy sway.
“Yeah, I gues if you workout half as much as you take all those pictures, you could get away with more than the occasional  Butterfinger.” Virgil's eyes widened as he realized what he had said.
'.. shut up! shut up! shut up!'
Roman's head snapped up to look at Virgil.
“You've seen my gyms pictures?” Roman asked in a whisper.
“Ah Yeah that's like all over your Instagram page,” he attempted to sound super casual
He did not sound casual.
Like at all
They felt a charged moment between them and the longer it went on the longer they were unsure of who was going to break the silence.
Roman took it upon himself to interrupt the quiet as he tool the box of chocolate cereal in hand.
“I like the marshmallow bats.” he said with sheepish smile.
~
When they returned to the car they loaded Roman's groceries into the trunk and Virgil's bags into the back seat. Then they got themselves settled in their seats.
“SO where am I uh dropping you off?” Roman asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.
“I live in the dorms," Virgil asked as he started his usual habit of checking all the radio stations. “You don't?”
He found a song that he seemed to like on one of stations, Roman recognized it as a song by Imagine Dragons.
“I live in a apartment a little bit away from the college, with Logan.”
“Um, I live in the north dorms.” Virgil said as he a small bit of nervousness as took his thumbnail between his teeth. “With Patton, my best friend.”
After that song ended, a G piano note began the next song. Roman vaguely recognized it from somewhere he couldn't place. He figured when it got to the singing part he would be able to identify it.
~
Virgil tensed out of both excitement and fear.
He was about to embarrassed himself in front of Roman.  At lest Roman was driving so he wouldn't be stared at. So he took a breath and let himself focus on the lyrics.  
“When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city” Virgil sang out beautifully. “To see a marching band”
Roman's jaw dropped and his breath stilled. He felt like he was going to swoon.
He was so very grateful that they were at a red stoplight.
“He said, son, when you grow up Would you be the saviour of the broken The beaten, and the damned? He said, will you defeat them Your demons and all the non-believers?”
Virgil sang with closed eyes losing himself in the song. While Roman's heart thumped hard in his chest and he felt an assortment of warring emotions.
“The plans that they have made? Because one day I'll leave you A phantom to lead you in the summer To join the black parade”
As the song picked up in tempo Roman realized where he had heard this song before. He remembered that he had a few friends who were into My Chemical Romance, it was 'Welcome to the Black Parade'.
“When I was a young boy My father took me into the city To see a marching band He said, son, when you grow up Will you be the savior of the broken The beaten, and the damned?”
Virgil continued a little more intensely. As the song got more upbeat Roman joined Virgil in singing and continued his drive toward the dorm.  
“Sometimes I get the feeling She's watching over me And other times I feel like I should go”
Virgil eyes popped wide open and he smiled.
“And through it all The rise and fall The bodies in the streets And when you're gone, we want you all to know
We'll carry on, we'll carry on And though you're dead and gone, believe me Your memory will carry on We'll carry on And in my heart I can't contain it The anthem won't explain it”
As Roman turned a corner they continued to sing together
“A world that sends you reeling From decimated dreams Your misery and hate will kill us all So paint it black And take it back Let's shout it loud and clear Defiant to the end We hear the call”
Roman followed the music with dramatic hand gestures as he continued driving with his left hand. Even Virgil joined in with less dramatic the hand motions.  
“To carry on We'll carry on And though you're dead and gone, believe me Your memory will carry on We'll carry on And though you're broken and defeated Your weary widow marches”
Virgil sang with a full grinning face, his relief at Roman joining him in singing the song had caused him to relax and he was able to sing louder with more feeling.
“On and on, we carry through the fears (Oh, oh, oh) Disappointed faces of your peers (Oh, oh, oh)”  
Take a look at me 'Cause I could not care at all”
Roman held onto the note at the end for a bit. Virgil continued on with the lyrics
Do or die, you'll never make me Because the world will never take my heart Go and try, you'll never break me We want it all, we wanna play this part I won't explain or say I'm sorry I'm unashamed, I'm gonna show my scar Give a cheer for all the broken Listen here, because it's who we are I'm just a man, I'm not a hero Just a boy, who had to sing this song I'm just a man, I'm not a hero I don't care
They arrived at the dorms parking lot and Roman parked.
We'll carry on We'll carry on And though you're dead and gone believe me Your memory will carry on You'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated Your weary widow marches on
Roman contuined his singing the longer held notes as they song concluded.
Do or die, you'll never make me Because the world will never take my heart Go and try, you'll never break me We want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on) Do or die, you'll never make me (We'll carry on) Because the world will never take my heart (We'll carry on) Go and try, you'll never break me (We'll carry) We want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on)
“We'll carry on!”
They both sang as the song ended to the sounds of drums.
At the conclusion of the song both Virgil and Roman were out of breath and grinning.
~
Roman felt his heart race.
He had thought that he had experienced maximum attraction that morning toward Virgil. But he was very wrong.
'Damnit Virgil why does your voice have to sound like sexy melted chocolate!'
He fought every instinct to just lean over and initiate a vehicular makeout session.        
Roman caught a brief glimpse of Virgil's eyes peak out from underneath his bangs and he gave him a very full smile.
~
Virgil nervously took a glance at Roman from underneath his dark hair.
Roman had the brightest and most authentic smile that Virgil thought he ever saw on his face.
It wasn't like Virgil thought that Roman faked his other smiles, the feelings of joy and friendliness were not false. But it seemed a lot of the other smiles that Roman gave seemed too perfect, Virgil guessed he practised his expressions in front of a mirror.      
This smile was of shear amazement, it was pointed in Virgil's direction. Like he could not believe what he heard, it caused Virgil to feel an annoying sensation in his chest.
“I didn't know you could sing” Roman spoke softly breaking the silence.
~
“Uh sure I guess I can sing a tune here or there.” Virgil shrugged with a dismissive sigh.
“I think its more than that!” Roman attempted to offer him a very sincere compliment.
“Yeah I'm not about to sell out stadiums anytime.” Virgil chuckled at the thought.
'I wish you were in a band. I'd buy all your albums. Be front row in your concerts, I'd....shit I can't tell him any of this!'
“So My Chemical Romance huh?” Roman said with a wide smirk.
“What about it?!”
“They are like the most cliché Emo band ever.” Roman snickered.
“Ah cliche? Really YOU want to go there do you?!” Virgil said
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Roman asked with a raised eyebrow.
“For a theatre kid you would think you'd dress a bit more stylish or something?” Virgil attempted to say with an indifferent air.
“What like take the costume from Hot Mikado out around the quad?”
“Absolute no clue what that is.” Virgil laughed as he exited the vehicle.
“It's....never mind that. I have only dressed subtly to spare those around me. ” Roman responded as he walked to back of the car. “How would anyone be able to concentrate on their schooling if I were to show up in full regalia?!”
“Full Regalia, huh, you sure think highly of yourself don't you? I'm not sure you should be bragging quite so much.”
“Is that a formal challenge?” Roman felt his racing heart in his chest in the midst of their back and forth.
“Not sure how impressive you'll actually be, but I'll keep an open mind, I guess.” Virgil shrugged with a small smirk as he began to take out the bags.
'I'll show him'
Roman noticed a few heavier bags that he could chivalrously offer to help him with.
“I can help you carry some of your groceries to your dorm?”
“Ah you just want an excuse to come to my room.” Virgil teased in a deep low voice  as he waited for Roman to banter back.
“YES YOU BET I DO!!!!....play it cool, Roman play it cool!'
“N...no...! I uh... as a gentleman I ... have to help anyone I see that is in need...” Roman sputtered out before he took ahold of small package of bagels “You ...you have... you have to carry..lots there.”
~
Virgil read his flustering as a rejection of his flirtation.
“No thanks! I got it! ” he quickly and loudly shouted in a panic as he took the bag out of Roman's hands.
Virgil thought that he and Roman had just shared a moment together.
'You just were imaging it! You shouldn't have believed Remy, you complete moron! ' He sling his messenger bag over his shoulder.
Then he draped the loops of the several other bags onto each elbow crook. And then took another bag into his left hand.
As he struggled to stuff the bagel bag into an already full bag, Roman again attempted to offer help.
“It's not a problem!” Roman gestured to the bagels.
“NO! I got it” Virgil just wanted to disappear as quickly as he could. He then placed the plastic of the bag in between his teeth.
“Cee Ou ENESAH.” Virgil shouted through clenched teeth as he retreated.
“Uh yeah.” Roman spoke to an empty damp parking lot. “see you”
~
Author's Note
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE SO SORRY for the long wait!
The long pause was due to new job and lack of constant access to a working computer.
I think I will still have a job later after the situation clears, but I am unsure....
I
ANYWAYS!
What do people think of me backtracking and converting all of the mentions of DEE to JAE? It won't be too much trouble as he has not even appeared yet.
~
Taglist: (PS YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING!)
@tatesinclairr
@love-is-the-fear-of-loss
@misslilidelaney
@ishoulddyemyhairthatcolour
@dwbh888
@violetshovel
@sadgayisme​
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4x02 Chapter Fifty-Nine: Fast Times at Riverdale High
Senior year!
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Just a mere glimpse at this shirt—what looks to be a sleeveless pink polo. Echoes of the sleeveless shirt she wore at Pop’s in her first (fully-clothed) scene in 101. 
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It’s possible Betty wore this skirt in 311, visiting Hal in prison, but it’s a little inconclusive. The platform pink Chucks are very familiar to us. 
(What are they projecting here??)
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Catch me lusting over this cropped sweater. The navy cuff detail is quite nice. Notice Betty takes her ponytail out, literally lets her hair down, to celebrate with friends and toast to their senior year. 
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And, you know, this. Everyone’s like awk, and I’m like, teenagers, Riverdale, etc, shrug. 
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(This is a Natori Cherry Blossom bra, we saw one in the flash forward in 322 in a different color.)
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Not the first time we’ve seen Elizabeth in a Jughead Jones S-shirt. 
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Nor the first time she and Jug crashed out on a couch only to wake up in a tizzy. 
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The lines of this outfit remind me of her drag race look (206): high-waisted jeans, a nipped-in waist, a crop top. I honestly adore this outfit—the red, white, & blue stripe ribbed shirt, cropped, the Chucks, the dark wash jeans. 
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Gray envelope purse, first appeared on the scene in 219 and holding strong ever since. 
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Guess Backpack 2.0 is still around. 
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(Betty wore this collar in 209, Veronica wore it in 211, now we have completed the trifecta.) 
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Betty only rarely breaks out a new purse, so it’s always an occasion when she does. 
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Betty’s outfit and her blonde ponytail bring Bret Weston Wallis (l o l) to label her ‘very Sweet Valley High’—which for a brat like Bret, who participates in a salon discussion of Moby-Dick, is notably not high praise. Historically, Betty’s been underestimated by those who judge her visually. We know Betty isn’t a person to be trifled with; Bret’s sure to learn that in time. 
A+ coordination of the polka dots with the overalls, Elizabeth. 
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Honestly, Betty’s read on this place isn’t wrong. I know prep schools, I went to one (albeit a Catholic one, which is a slightly different beast.) Additionally, Veronica states that there’s no school more ‘nihilistic and/or privileged’ than Stonewall. Things to remember...
There’s a lot to suss out about this storyline, and I’ve got a lot of thoughts on it already. But that’s Jug’s story; it’ll intersect heavily with Betty’s, given their relationship, so we’ll chat about it when it does. 
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Kevin, still drinking milk, bless. 
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This pink bomber (with a red stripe detail) first popped up in 305. Compare this Betty-confronts-Kevin-in-the-woods moment with the one we saw in 203 for an interesting, if difficult to parse, parallel. 
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Ah, yes. This dress is probably why I started this blog. (We’ve come so far, guys.)
This is lightyears away from season 1 Betty, but it does have all the signifiers that would suggest this is the same person, just one at a different point in their life. It’s a sporty polo dress, it’s preppy. It’s even a color (goldenrod, mustard yellow, etc) we saw Betty play with early on in the show’s run. 
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It’s in the details that we see growth. Her hair is down and tousled, casual, very different from the ponytail we used to see her in almost without fail. The ponytail hasn’t gone away (she wears it in this episode, frequently)—she’s just not as buttoned-up as she once was. Which, also: her cleavage is...glorious.  
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I think these are the blue velvet Mary Janes she first wore in 211. 
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Another crop top, and much bolder than what we usually see Betty in at school. I fully would have gotten detention for baring my stomach. Well—I would have gotten detention because I was out of uniform, but the cherry-on-top would have been the stomach-baring. The Sisters would have been scandalized (and my Sisters’ order was way more liberal than the Sisters of Quiet Mercy—stripped of their affiliation in Vatican II as they apparently were. But the Catholic Church has always historically tussled with the women who make up their orders. This is the strangest aside. ) 
Betty wore this skirt in 202 (giving Cheryl the shakedown) and then again in 316 (during that episode’s opening number.) The knit crop top evokes a sweater she wore briefly in 314, and yet another abstract animal-print motif sweater in 320.
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Alexa play The Look of Love. 
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Pink sling-backs, how coordinated. 
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(You can tell it’s the same skirt from the center v-detail.)
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(Defo FP’s kid.) 
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Okay, yes, this top is accidentally see-through. It happens to the best of us, and it certainly can happen on a television set with bright-ass lights. Whatever, still cute. Also, it’s a Natori Feathers bra (also here). 
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First saw this skirt in 202. Lotta repeat items and motifs in the ep, and yet it still feels fresh. There’s been growth. 
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And then there’s our flash forwards. 
Everyone’s looking for Jughead in the woods, wearing these search party vests. Betty wore this zip-up in 316, while staking out the Farm (and also in 317 and 318, in a scene that bridges those two episodes.) 
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I wonder what kind of before/after vibes we’ll get in wardrobe with these flash forwards, if any. Season 4 is the first of these Outfit Watch posts I’m not doing retroactively, so it’s a new kind of experience. We’ll see how it plays out. 
Summary: 9 different outfits—including one instance of sleeping in ur boy’s t-shirt, and one flash forward. 
I Own This: Well, yes. I own that Natori Cherry Blossoms bra (in that Sea Spray color and 2 others.) (I also own the Feathers she wears with the accidentally see-through top.) (Wish I owned both of the stripe tops she wears here, love them.)
Is Betty a River Vixen??: Veronica and Cheryl certainly are (and a creepo tries to photograph V in the locker room post-practice), but Betty’s not in attendance. 
That backpack?: RIP Backpack. You really served us well for 3 seasons. We’ll remember you. this is so sad alexa play sarah mclachlan. Backpack 2.0 reigns. 
The Season 4 Crop Top Count: I’m not taking any chances here, because we get 3 in this episode alone. 
Best outfit: For me it’s really a draw between the goldenrod polo dress and the first-day-of-school striped crop top & jeans.
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gif via @fyeahriverdale​
Honorable mention to Veronica’s bra, which my boobs wouldn’t tolerate but is indeed *chef’s kiss*
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ty-talks-comics · 5 years
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Best of DC: Week of July 10th, 2019
Best of this Week: Batman and the Outsiders #3 - Bryan Hill, Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini and Clayton Cowles
Batman’s Outsiders has a lot to learn before they can properly function as a team.
After losing Sofia, the girl that they were charged with protecting, Baman gathers the team together and tells them that they are going to get her back, but first they need to be tested. On the other side of the coin, Sofia finds herself in the clutches of Ra’s al Ghul, who places the man who killed her father in front of her. Ra’s tells her to kill him, her own test to see if she’s worthy of being trained by him.
The book flips the focus between two central characters specifically, those being Sofia and Duke Thomas, aka The Signal. As mentioned in my last review of Batman and the Outsiders, this book was slated to come out around the same time or after an arc in Detective Comics where Batman’s sidekicks were being targeted by a murderous villain by the name of Karma. His primary targets were the Cassandra Cain and Duke Thomas, the latter of whom is still suffering from PTSD after failing to save a kid with a bomb strapped to him by Karma and being injured in the explosion.
Ishmael, the man who killed Sofia’s father, kneels before her and goads her into attacking him, telling her that he heard her father’s last thoughts before he died. He says that her father wishes that she were killed instead of him and Sofia succumbs to her anger, striking Ishmael. After a smokescreen clears, Duke is met by someone wearing Karma’s gear and attacks the figure in a rage. “Karma” tries to convince Duke that he doesn’t deserve the metahuman power that he has, the ability to see what others cannot (see Dark Knights: Metal), and that Batman must be disappointed.
After thoroughly thrashing Ishmael, Ra’s gives Sofia a sword, telling her to end Ishmael and become another of his weapons. She holds the sword in her hands and thinks long and hard about her decision. Ultimately, she decides that vengeance is the only option and chooses to plunge the blade into Ishmael. Ra’s reveals the test for what it is, allowing Ishmael to defend himself and telling Sofia that if she joins him, nothing will hurt her again.
Cornered and afraid, Karma approaches Duke and asks him where is his team now, making him think that The Signal is all alone. Suddenly, Cassandra kicks Karma in the face, Katana slashes him in the face of the mask and Black Lightning picks the kid up from the ground. Bruce reveals that he was the one under Karma’s mask and tells Duke that he is very proud of him.
This issue was made great by the duality of the situations presented. Batman normally takes in broken kids and builds them back up to be strong, compassionate and in tune with their emotions. Ra’s al Ghul takes young men and women and turns them into unrepentant killing machines under his will. Duke could just as easily have been in the same position that Sofia is in now and vice versa. Sofia, however, will be a harder case to bring back to the light now that she knows that she has given in to her darker side. Sofia has a chance to become like Damian if she’s lucky, but who’s to say?
Duke has already been to the dark depths since his late childhood, watching his parents get forever Jokerized, dealing with an army of wannabe Joker kids as a teen and fighting against the Dark Multiverse as Batman’s new ward. Duke has been through a lot, but he’s also been able to overcome every threat in his way. Karma took that security away from him when he made Duke watch his own failure and this left the young man angry and broken, unwilling to take orders from anyone lest he make the same mistakes again.
Batman and the Outsiders succeeds at placing it’s focus on characters other than Batman, leaving him as more of a support player while the stories hone in on individuals or team dynamics than Batman’s leadership. Duke Thomas has been out of the picture for a while and having the gates flood open on his headspace in particular made me very happy. I also kind of like Sofia. While not exactly super fleshed out yet, she shows a lot of promise especially making the decision to have this new character go down a dark path in the beginning. She has good motivations and I actually hope that by the end of this arc, she earns a place on the team properly.
High recommend.
---------------------------------------------------
Tom King’s Batman can be hit or miss sometimes, but this one is definitely a hit.
Runner Up: Batman #74 - Tom King, Mikel Janin, Jordie Bellaire and Clayton Cowles
For the entirety of his superhero career, Batman has been driven by one singular goal: to make sure what happened to him as a child didn't happen to anyone else. He's vowed to protect the streets of Gotham and to honor the memory of his parents and the city they loved.
This vow has become increasingly harder to honor over the course of this run; from being unable to save a possible replacement in the Superman-like Gotham, to being told to stop being Batman by his father from an alternate universe, and ultimately being left at the altar by the love of his life. One man is responsible for it all, Bane.
Part of the (admittedly) convoluted scheme to break the Batman was to somehow bring the Flashpoint Batman from his Universe to finally convince his son to stop. Thomas rationalizes that all Bruce needs is the love of his parents and his sickness, his broken need to be Batman will go away. As revealed in the last issue, Thomas' goal is to resurrect Martha Wayne in Ra's al Ghul's most powerful Lazarus Pit and reunite the Wayne family. 
Mikel Janín's art remains amazing as always. I could gush for days about how he's able to make Thomas and Bruce solemnly expressive through body language and only using the lower halves of their faces, but Jordie Bellaire, is the real star of this issue. She manages to color this story in a way that makes it seem like it takes place in three acts.
The first act takes place in the beautiful drawn and barren desert after Bruce and Thomas reconnect while fighting Ra's ninjas. Everything is bright and the yellows, contrasted to the Blacks of the Bats give things a slightly warm feel. Thomas is happy for his son to join him and give up his crusade.
The second act shows Bruce and Thomas reaching the edge of the pit and is coated in the cool blue hues of night. The scene feels somber and intimate as Thomas tells Bruce how stubborn he was as a child, crying because he wanted to hear his favorite story over and over until he fell asleep. Thomas says that Bruce absolutely got that from his mother, who would constantly insist that Thomas read him that story, how she always had faith that Bruce would sleep. The two begin to climb down into the pit.
Throughout the issue the Russian Folk Tale, “Animals in the Pit” had been told and spoken about in the usual Tom King style. The tale involves a group of animals that get trapped in a pit and perform contests where the loser gets eaten. In the end, one of the two remaining animals tricks the other into ripping himself open and feasts on his flesh.
In the final act, in the dark of the pit, the book takes on a harsh red hue. Thomas is finally there, at the end of his journey to give his son the happiness and family he deserves. Saying that he couldn't deny Bruce his childish wishes as a kid, but now he will deny him remaining Batman. 
Bruce tells him that the reason he wanted to hear the story constantly was because, despite the horror, his father told him the story with a bit of levity. Bruce gained hope that one of the animals just might escape and even if he knew it was impossible, he never gave up hope. He then betrays his father with a right cross to the face.
Janín can draw a beautiful, flashy fight scene when he wants to, but this fight is anything but. It's raw and brutal, it's close quarters and every emotion is felt, accentuated by the excellent coloring. Bruce punches his father, Thomas punches his son right back. Even when the fight pivots away from them to focus on the coffin, the tension is still there. Their ideological struggle is felt through the shadows on the wall and when Thomas is thrown into the coffin, things spiral downward for him.
Right on the heels of the hopefully amazing “City of Bane” storyline, this two issue filler arc strengthens Batman’s resolve for what will be the final confrontation with one of his greatest enemies and all of his pawns in Tom King’s Batman run. While the issue does suffer from the usual King-isms (long winded diatribes taking up entire pages, lack of explanation for possibly crucial plot points, like how Thomas came to this world, and the general pretentiousness in dialogue structure) they don’t pull the issue down in a distracting way. While mildly annoying, they fit this story very well and continue to expand on Bruce’s reverence for his mother, introduced in the “I Am Suicide” arc and furthers him being resolute in his mission.
Bane’s going to have hell to pay when the Batman comes for him. High recommend.
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staliasjeronica · 5 years
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Riverdale 3.07 Thoughts *Spoilers*
- Who the fuck would think that Archie and Jughead were brothers? Lmao sweetie no... (side note my niece thinks that Sweet Pea and Jughead look alike and she constantly gets them mixed up and it’s annoying because they’re so different and my baby Sweet Pea could never)
- Saw the voicemail yesterday and sit still bland as fuck. Like, Riverdale still hasn’t convinced me that Jughead and Betty TRULY love each other and then you have a boyfriend calling his girlfriend (who somehow doesn’t realize that his cling ass, co-dependent ass girlfriend isn’t answering his calls, which he knows she would never do to him, and that she’s in trouble. But whatever I’m just glad they’re not currently together because that means this episode has a CHANCE to be good... even though my faves aren’t in it) JUGHEAD WHERE’S THE LOVE AND THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTION IN YOUR VOICE? LIKE, IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE DOING THIS OUT OF OBLIGATION.
- Archie wanting to send Jughead back just so Betty actually has someone on her side. We love Betty’s future husband and best friend, who cares about her so fucking much!
- “Betty took down a serial killer”? Last I remember she was helping her father clean up his mess but alright. Sure, they got him arrested but that was mostly because he threatened her and Alice (still not entirely sure why though)
- “You can’t go five minutes without getting the crap kicked out of you,” uh yeah the same can go for you, too, Jughead. Penny literally almost killed you. Honestly, I kind of wish they went through with it because I would love to see how different things would be. They could have made the next episode like a dream to Archie or Betty (preferably Archie) not only to trick us fans into thinking it’s real, that he’s really dead, but also it would be interesting to see what would happen.
- So you just come across this convenient random ass farm... and you decide to stay there? I find that so weird but alright Archie you do you
- LAURIE LAKE IS SO FUCKING ATTRACTIVE. FUCK.
- Wow a time where I actually agree with Jughead? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME RAS STOP
- Jughead’s concerned for Archie... but leaves anyways for... pictures? Nvm Jughead’s still a crackhead lmao Like obvious he finds the symbols but STILL. YOU LEFT YOUR SUSCEPTIBLE BEST FRIEND WITH THOSE ODD WOMEN
- Honestly, farm life would really fit Archie but THIS KISS AIN’T IT BITCH. For a second I thought they were going to have her try and pull another Joaquin. OH GOOD HE MENTIONS VERONICA. But you’re not supposed to tell her your shit, Arch... ARCHIE YOU’RE TALKING TO HER LIKE SHE’S AN OLD FRIEND AND YOU’RE CATCHING UP. STOP.
- Now that I think about it thought, Jughead being off on his own like he used to and is supposed to, it’s really fucking great. I also miss photographer!Jughead (and Toni but she’s lost all personality since getting with Cheryl and i’m PISSED about that)
- Poor Archie, he can’t catch a break, can he? Thanks for bashing him on the side of the head, crackhead
- ARCHIE NO YOU RAN AWAY FROM RIVERDALE FROM HIM SPECIFICALLY. THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. Although, it’s surprising that Jughead suddenly has good ideas because when it comes to the Serpents he would just rather possibly get someone killed/or do something so horrendously stupid that if he died he would definitely deserve it (skinning Penny’s tattoo off)
- So all of a sudden you realize that you can’t hide from Hiram? Really bitch?
- JUGHEAD MENTIONING VERONICA MY JERONICA HEART BITCH
- Oh is Veronica FINALLY leaving like she has in literally all of my stories? I would have figured she would have left right after Archie was placed in jail and went to live with Fred (or took refuge in Pop’s) to keep him company and also give her a place to stay because we all know he would. But i’ll take this, too. Fucking finally
- How can you not like Veronica Lodge, the queen of being the most caring (other than Archie) and supportive woman in Riverdale?
- BITCH MY FANFIC IS COMING TO LIFE. Although I would have thought she’d sleep in her office because I figured she’d get one but this still works!!! Now Jughead just has to come in and find her, then take her in. Obviously that won’t happen but it does in my stories so whatever
- WE LOVE A DEDICATED WOMAN.
- REGGIE!! I love how he’s being her shoulder to lean on I am HERE for Veggie! And it’s cool and all that a Bulldog and Serpent are playing G&G together (even though they’re playing G&G) but who the fuck is this Serpent? I wanna know!!! I love me some Serpents. I still want to know who was in the background in the scene when Jughead and the Serpents go to rescue Betty from Chic’s criminal people who wanted money. But I know we’ll never get that luxury (or even a name drop) despite the Serpents being the best thing on this show besides Choni and Swangs
- So... it’s Reggie who suggests going a bit criminal? At least it wasn’t Veronica because she turned down the casino offer but since it’s Reggie it at least makes sense for him to do so. BUT ALSO VEGGIE YES BITCH WE’RE HERE FOR IT. Oh thank god it’s only for a night...
- If anything happens to Pop’s imma fight. Also how convenient that after Veronica and Elio talk about their illegal activities in front of the portrait she has of herself thanks to Hiram, he shows up. I’m sure it’s about Hermione being worried for her but still.. s u s p i c i o u s.
- Hiram does have a point about her always talking about wanting a legitimate business but now doing the gambling thing, but when people are desperate, they do desperate things so she’s let off of the hook (also because this storyline is a million times more interesting than anything involving Betty or Bughead)
- HA. HIRAM BEING AN ALLY. That’s funny. That’s like Betty being a good person and a good detective it’s not gonna happen
- But you’re telling me that NO ONE else could show up? Not Kevin, Sweet Pea, Fangs, Cheryl, Toni... not even in Veronica’s? I mean, not even shown fucking around with cards in the background? Or maybe Sweet Pea and Fangs standing guard? Honestly fuck you Roberto, the only reason this storyline is good is because it has Veronica and Reggie, and doesn’t involve Betty or Bughead in ANY way. That guy who gave Veronica her favorite drink? THAT COULD HAVE BEEN TONI. IT COULD HAVE BEEN A FUN MOMENT BUT YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM US. It’s like RAS knows what would actually be good for us and the show... and then just completely ignores it, then wonders why we’re all annoyed and angry with him.
- REGGIE “Want me to rough him up? Throw him out” I’D LOVE THAT SWEETIE BUT ALSO HE’S THE ONE WHO MADE ALL OF THIS HAPPEN (with V of course) YOU CAN’T KICK HIM OUT OR THERE’LL BE EXTREME CONSEQUENCES
- WE LOVE THE TRUE QUEEN OF RIVERDALE
- I’m still angry that no one else is in this. Like... seriously. I’m very pissed about it and you can tell because i’m bringing it up AGAIN. So much lost potential.
- WE LOVE A GAMBLING QUEEN, VERONICA LODGE, AND HER PROTECTIVE BOYFRIEND/BODYGUARD/BARTENDER REGGIE MANTLE. HE FUCKING CALLED HER V OH MY GOD I’M- THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HER. STOP. THEY’RE SO IN LOVE and it helps because they’re dating in real life. DON’T COME AT ME FOR NOT THINKING THE SAME WITH THE OTHER COUPLE WHO I’M NOT NAMING LMAO
- LOOK AT REGGIE SO FUCKING ENAMORED WITH HER. UGH FUCK ME UP. BOTH VEGGIE AND CHARMILA
- Pop! :((( He’s so pure and innocent. I’m surprised RAS hasn’t tried to fuck that up, honestly. But he does have a point, Veronica should and CAN NOT veer towards the criminal direction of her father or else all of her character development will go down the drain for nothing. And I don’t want that because she’s one of the greatest characters on this show!
- VERONICA DID YOU REALLY JUST SAY YOUR FATHER WASN’T ALL THAT BAD? He gave you inside intel about Elio and suddenly him destroying Archie’s, and your life, just... goes away? He literally is ruining Riverdale. THIS IS SO OUT OF CHARACTER STOP IT RAS QUEEN RONNIE WOULD NEVER. Season one V, maybe, but not season 3. Definitely NOT season 3 Veronica
- Oh Goody... now onto Betty. This should be boring and full of shit
- Elementary? IT’S SO WEIRD HEARING THAT BECAUSE I SAY IT LIKE ELEMENTRY but also this voiceover stuff is funny I gotta admit. But this is how Betty normally acts... except she says her stupid shit to people’s faces instead. She acts all fake and nice and sweet but we know she’s anything but. Thanks for highlighting that in this, RAS.
- LMAO BETTY SAYING “THANK YOU SO MUCH” WAS SO WEIRD BECAUSE THAT’S SO NOT BETTY.
- ETHEL WE BEEN KNEW JUGHEAD ISN’T INTO BETTY. “THIS PSYCHO BITCH” is basically Lili when someone points out that Bughead is toxic
- JUGHEAD ACTUALLY TOLD BETTY? It’s so weird... like I know it’s always Betty who lies and shit but imagine that conversation “hey betty ethel and I kissed for the game and it actually wasn’t that bad...”
- Ethel, Betty acts like she’s better than everyone because she knows shes’ not.
- For an investigator, Betty.. you’re really slow. Also “bite me” is ALICE’S THING NOT YOURS SO STOP YOU’RE NOT EVER GOING TO BE HER.
- For Betty i’m surprised she didn’t go into the room after the girl screamed because Betty, like Jughead, is stupidly impulsive.
- “Real friends don’t kiss each other’s boyfriends” she really calling herself out isn’t she. BETTY... THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID. TO VERONICA. But I mean you guys shouldn’t be friends in the first place, you don’t deserve Veronica. She never should have gone ooc and apologized to you for NOTHING
- WOW THE WRITERS ARE LITERALLY FUCKING SHADING US WITH ETHELHEAD. I mean obviously it was a joke in the first place but hey at least we get to see Betty’s real bitch side. You know, the normal, annoying ass Betty that somehow everyone seems to think is so cool and feminist when she’s the opposite of that?
- SO RAS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ETHEL TO FUCKING PUNCH BETTY AND HE DIDN’T TAKE IT? I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE BETTY ACTUALLY FACE CONSEQUENCES. Besides we know that Ethel is compulsive and stupid as well (milkshake for Veronica)
- So... you’re not going to check the rest of your file just in case? And does she really think they wouldn’t have checked the place after Cheryl escaped? Betty’s fucked. RAS would never let an opportunity to make Betty miserable so she can be rescued go.
- “I was lost again.” Betty... this is why you’re not the Serpent queen. THEY’RE NOT GOING TO FALL FOR THAT SHIT AGAIN BETTY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
- I know I should feel bad for Betty... but honestly... I kinda don’t. I mean, I know she needed proof but why didn’t she get herself in trouble to see the GK? Now we’re going to be forced to watch more Bettydale and I don’t care for it! Give me the Serpent, Veronica, Archie... something that actually is more interesting. No one likes Betty constantly having to be saved because she COULD save herself but she makes stupid ass decisions.
- Also I’m so mad about the mistreatment of Ethel. Like, she was innocent and kinda nice I guess in season 1 and now she’s this fucking apprentice to the GK
- Ugh watch the GK somehow be Hal so that this has even MORE to do with Betty. Now she’s gonna be saved and then have an even larger ego and god complex and i’m just not fucking here for it.
All in all... the only interesting thing to happen, truly, was Archie and Jughead’s part. Veronica’s showed her normal, bad assery and i’m glad but it also is trying to demonize her and bring her back to “criminal daughter” who Betty will definitely act better than and show that she thinks she’s all that. I just... Betty Cooper and how she’s so high on this goddamn pedestal has ruined the show. The only reason i’m watching is for literally anybody else. Betty and Bughead need to fucking go if RAS wants people to start watching again. I get too invested into characters and I can’t leave but that’s not the case for others.
It’s like he sees everything we write, what we want, what we hate, and then he just... ignores it and figures out a way to make Betty even more insufferable. Honestly, I want to like Betty but right now I wouldn’t mind if she just fucking went crazy, got actual help, and had to stay off of the show for a season or two and force Jughead to realize how shitty they are together. I want the best for this show PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOBODY WANTS BUGHEAD. It’s all just to piss off other ship’s fans, to give them less shit while you focus on Bughead. PLEASE. STOP. 
59 notes · View notes
hey baby won't you look my way (you can be my new addiction)
Chapter 6: because i also want to be rawed by alice cooper in that dress
Chapter Summary: Nobody has a normal sleep schedule, Jughead helps Betty with her totally-not-real issue, the Lodges and Coopers are really gay, and Archie has some scary (but still important to the plot) tendencies.
Notes: mayorlodge: hermione acoop: alice Also, just for clarification, both Hal and Hiram are out of the picture (mostly because it's convenient to the story but whatever). This is a long-ass chapter, so... have fun?
ao3
Wednesday, 12:00 AM
gays united
wannabett: IM BACK!!!
wannabett: as in i finally got my phone back!! im alive again!
nopeaz: you got your phone back at exactly midnight??
wannabett: yep!
hbicheryl: i dont understand you coopers
veroffica: cheryl, you're technically a cooper yourself.
veroffica: and even if you weren't, the blossoms are even worse.
hbicheryl: ugh
hbicheryl: technicalities
spillthefogarTEA: do any of you... actually go to sleep at a reasonable time??
wannabett: no
nopeaz: nah
hbicheryl: nope
veroffica: ha, no.
jugheadalones: definitely not
hisshissmotherfucker: no
goingtoheller: not a chance.
spillthefogarTEA: yeah, me neither
spillthefogarTEA: just checking
hisshissmotherfucker: normal sleep schedules are for the weak
hisshissmotherfucker: natural selection only the dumbasses die
hisshissmotherfucker: im the dumbass
nopeaz: same
jugheadalones: rt
hbicheryl: ^^^^
wannabett: ^^^
wannabett: so
wannabett: yall wanna talk??
hisshissmotherfucker: about how i just realized that fangs and bettys ship name would either be bangs or fetty?? absolutely
goingtoheller: bangs?? can we seriously talk about this?
nopeaz: when you said fetty all i could think of was fetty wap
hbicheryl: no we are NOT doing this now come back to bed and go to sleep RIGHT NOW topaz
nopeaz: as you wish, dear
[nopeaz is offline]
[hbicheryl is offline]
jugheadalones: well i need to get my beauty sleep so i can look my emo self tomorrow, so goodnight
[jugheadalones is offline]
spillthefogarTEA: okay i have to admit that we all should get some sleep, but @sweets we are circling back to bangs and fetty later
goingtoheller: ^^
hisshissmotherfucker: i cant help that all my best realizations come when im delirious from lack of sleep but if you say so fangs
[hisshissmotherfucker is offline]
[spillthefogarTEA is offline]
wannabett: nobody wants to stay up and talk? :(
goingtoheller: i might.
veroffica: i will too.
goingtoheller: nevermind, i'm going to sleep! have fun! ;)
[goingtoheller is offline]
wannabett: i guess its just us
veroffica: want to move this convo to a more private setting, then?
wannabett: sure thing
12:13 AM
wannabett + veroffica
wannabett: hey v
veroffica: hey, b.
veroffica: congrats on finally getting your phone back, btw!
wannabett: i missed you
wannabett: i mean i know that i was only absent for one day and i still managed to call you once
wannabett: but it felt longer than that. more significant
veroffica: i know what you mean. school was hellish (at best) without you there, especially with cheryl being, well, cheryl. i know that she's not half as bad as she used to be, and that toni's helping her to be a kinder person, but sometimes she just doesn't know when to back off.
wannabett: about that, did i ever thank you for standing up for me so vehemently? because i appreciate it
wannabett: you didnt have to but you did anyway
wannabett: and thats what i... uh,, really like about you!!
wannabett: hold on a sec i have to go my moms calling me!
veroffica: at 12:18 am?
veroffica: aaaand you're already gone.
12:18 AM
wannabett + jugheadalones
wannabett: hey jughead quick question
jugheadalones: i did mention earlier that i was going to go to sleep right??
wannabett: please this is really important
jugheadalones: fine, go for it
wannabett: okay hypothetical situation here
wannabett: say this one girl (lets call her lili) has this best friend (lets call her cami) but at one point lili almost says "and thats what i love about you" to cami
wannabett: what does that mean?? is it just a normal platonic friend thing??
jugheadalones: so, this is all strictly theoretical, correct?
wannabett: yes obviously any and all resemblance to real people is purely coincidental haha
jugheadalones: then id say that lili might actually have more-than-platonic feelings for cami
wannabett: do you really think so??
jugheadalones: yep
wannabett: so in this purely made-up circumstance... what should lili do?
jugheadalones: i think that lili should seriously consider telling cami about her feelings for her
jugheadalones: she just might be surprised by what cami says back
wannabett: okay thank you jug
wannabett: for your help on this definitely fake thing that clearly did not occur with undoubtedly nonexistent characters
jugheadalones: sure thing betty
jugheadalones: just next time dont wake me up at midnight
[jugheadalones is offline]
12:23 AM
wannabett + veroffica
wannabett: hey im back
veroffica: finally! it took you long enough!
veroffica: what did your mom want?
wannabett: huh?
wannabett: oh yeah she wanted me to... wash some dishes
veroffica: at 12:18 in the morning??
wannabett: yep its all part of my punishment for getting detention
veroffica: i thought your punishment was just being grounded for one day?
wannabett: well theres also a list of chores that i have to do for her that she can cash in at any point
veroffica: no offence betty, but is your mom satan?? that sounds awful!
wannabett: none taken, she indubitably is
wannabett: and im used to it by now
veroffica: still... i wish i could do something to help.
wannabett: let me move in with you
veroffica: what??
wannabett: thats what you can do to help! i could move into the pembrooke with you if your mom says its okay!
veroffica: i don't know, b... don't you think it's kind of a big step? and what about your mom?
wannabett: what about her? polly didnt ask mom when she moved in with you
wannabett: i understand if you dont want to, but just think about it for a second
wannabett: it would be like having a sleepover every night!
veroffica: i'm still not sure...
wannabett: plus ive been wanting to get closer to you and this could be just what i needed
veroffica: well, i'm on board! i just have to text my mom, she's on a business trip.
12:29 AM
veroffica + mayorlodge
veroffica: hey mom, can betty come live with us?
mayorlodge: does this have any particular reason, or did betty just finally realize that her mother is a bitch?
veroffica: mom!!
mayorlodge: what? i went to school with alice, and she wasn't half as bad then as she is now. i blame hal.
mayorlodge: in fact, she used to be a southside serpent!
veroffica: i know, mom. betty told me.
mayorlodge: leather jackets, flannel... she was gorgeous.
veroffica: if you weren't my mom, i would say 'go for it,' but since you are, i'm going to say 'gross' instead.
mayorlodge: don't give me that. you know as well as i do how easy it is to fall for the cooper women.
veroffica: what are you implying?
mayorlodge: mija, I want you to answer me honestly: do you or do you not have feelings for betty?
veroffica: i... i don't know.
mayorlodge: think about it. and in the meantime, betty can stay over.
veroffica: thanks, mom!
mayorlodge: on one condition, though--alice approves. i don't want to be getting calls from the police because she thinks i'm illegally harboring one of her children.
veroffica: but betty's mom would never agree to this!
mayorlodge: then convince her otherwise.
mayorlodge: goodnight, mija.
[mayorlodge is offline]
12:35 AM
veroffica + wannabett
veroffica: she's in!
wannabett: yes!!!
veroffica: there's one thing, though...
wannabett: oh no
veroffica: your mom has to give her consent.
wannabett: shit
wannabett: stupid minor laws!
wannabett: i guess ill go ask her
wannabett: but im going to do it over text i dont want to be near her when she flies into a rage
veroffica: good luck! please don't die, i'll miss you too much!
wannabett: ill try v
12:38 AM
wannabett + acoop
wannabett: hey mom
acoop: Betty? You do realize that we live in the same house, right?
acoop: Also, what do you want and why are you texting me at this hour?
wannabett: ummmm
wannabett: can i go stay with veronica?
acoop: The Lodge girl?? At the Pembrooke??
wannabett: yes
acoop: For how long?
wannabett: indefinitely
acoop: I'm going to talk to Hermione and then I'll get back to you on this.
wannabett: wow that sounded a lot less like a no than i expected
acoop: Don't push it, Elizabeth.
wannabett: what i meant to say was thank you mother for this incredible opportunity!!
acoop: I haven't agreed yet, Betty.
wannabett: i meant thank you for considering this. it means a lot to me.
acoop: ...Of course.
acoop: Now, you should get some sleep while I consider this further. I'll get back to you later.
12:41 AM
acoop + mayorlodge
acoop: Is this Hermione?
mayorlodge: yes... alice?
acoop: You still have the same phone number from back when we were in high school.
mayorlodge: alice, it's the middle of the night. why are you texting me?
acoop: I have reason to believe that our daughters are going down the same path we once did.
mayorlodge: so you see it too?
acoop: Yes. The two of them are as close as we were back in high school, and we both know where that led.
mayorlodge: i don't want veronica to get her heart broken like i did, but it isn't like we can stop them.
acoop: I'm not talking about this with you right now.
mayorlodge: then when?? ever since we broke up, you've been saying you 'don't want to talk about it,' but it's been DECADES, alice.
mayorlodge: and i thought that i was okay with having no resolution and no explanation, but then at the sodale project opening i saw you in that goddamn red dress, and it all came back to me.
acoop: I'll admit that I regret giving into my parents' wishes and breaking up with you, but it wasn't like there were any other options.
mayorlodge: there are always other options.
acoop: So you're saying that you would've agreed to run away from Riverdale with me, riding around from town to town on my motorcycle?
mayorlodge: ...i would've liked that.
acoop: ... Really?
acoop: It doesn't matter anymore, though. What matters is now. We may not be able to stop Betty and Veronica from falling in love, but we can make sure that we don't end up pushing them apart like our parents did.
mayorlodge: exactly.
acoop: Which is why I want to give Betty my blessing to move in with Veronica.
mayorlodge: you do??
acoop: Why does everyone seem so surprised by this?? I do have a heart!
mayorlodge: trust me, i know.
acoop: Actually, on that note, I was wondering...
mayorlodge: yes?
acoop: When you get back in town, would you like to get a milkshake at Pop's with me, for old time's sake?
mayorlodge: alice cooper, are you asking me on a date?
acoop: Yes I am, Hermione Lodge.
mayorlodge: well, all you had to do was say so.
mayorlodge: i get back on friday. i'll see you then and we can figure out if we still have that same explosive chemistry we used to.
acoop: It's a deal. And if the date just happens to make it back to my house... Well, we'll have it all to ourselves.
mayorlodge: i like the way you think. goodnight, alice.
acoop: Goodnight, Hermione.
[mayorlodge is offline]
1:02 AM
acoop + wannabett
acoop: You can stay with Veronica for as long as you want.
wannabett: really?? thank you so much!!
acoop: Just make sure that you've cleared out by Friday night.
wannabett: why, do you have a hot date?
acoop: The hottest.
wannabett: i was kidding mom!!
acoop: Well, I wasn't.
wannabett: ugh tmi
acoop: Have fun at Veronica's!
[acoop is offline]
1:04 AM
wannabett + veroffica
wannabett: my mom is cool with it!!
veroffica: are my eyes deceiving me, or did alice cooper actually allow her underage daughter to move out??
wannabett: its insane isnt it? she said that she has a date on friday so that might be why shes so mellow
veroffica: hmm, do you think that it's one of the hot dads of riverdale™ or some new contender??
veroffica: maybe... one of the hot moms of riverdale™ (lesser known but just as hot)?
wannabett: whoever it is they seem to make her happy so i approve
wannabett: also i really hope that they dont break up and return my mom to her former angry state
wannabett: so lets take advantage of this while we still can!
veroffica: i can have smithers drive us over to your house tomorrow after school and then we can pack up your stuff! sound good?
wannabett: sounds great. i can't wait, see you tomorrow v!
veroffica: ditto, b.
[veroffica is offline]
[wannabett is offline]
2:28 AM
beronica shippers
spillthefogarTEA: guys i was just talking to archie and he told me that he has some hot tea to spill about our favorite oblivious wlw!! can i temporarily add him to the chat?
hisshissmotherfucker: why were you talking to andrews hes an asshole
hbicheryl: archie isnt an asshole hes a dumbass
hbicheryl: youre just jealous sweet pea
hisshissmotherfucker: why would i be jealous of ginger troy bolton??
hbicheryl: uh because youre jealous of anyone else who spends time with fangs??
nopeaz: ooh yes expose him baby
spillthefogarTEA: as much as i appreciate sweet pea not wanting me to talk to archie and choni trying to find ulterior motives in everything he says, i still need an answer to my question! can i add him or not?
hbicheryl: im all for learning whatever "heterosexual" nonsense b&v have gotten into this time
nopeaz: ^^
spillthefogarTEA: sweets?
hisshissmotherfucker: hes a fucking NORTHSIDER
spillthefogarTEA: please? for me?
hisshissmotherfucker: ...fine.
spillthefogarTEA: great! im also going to add jughead and kevin while im at it because they are both also beronica shippers in their own right
spillthefogarTEA has added jugheadalones, goingtoheller, and arch to the chat
spillthefogarTEA: for those of you who dont know--jughead and kevin--archie has some fresh beronica gossip, you in for listening?
goingtoheller: hell yes, lay it on us.
jugheadalones: i supoose since im already awake and probably too invested in their relationship
jugheadalones: but the next time these two do something interesting, it better be at a time when im NOT TRYING TO SLEEP
hbicheryl: lmao doubtful but sure
spillthefogarTEA: archie, please begin your tale
arch: so i was sitting in my room lifting weights when i saw, with my super-good eyesight, betty texting veronica
arch: and through my undoubtedly-impossible-and-kinda-creepy observance, i noticed that betty is pulling a polly!!
goingtoheller: she's pregnant with one of the blossom twins' (by now, it's just cheryl though lmao) twin children??
arch: no...
jugheadalones: shes been sent to the sisters of quiet mercy?
arch: no
hbicheryl: shes given birth to my children and has given them horrendous names like juniper and dagwood??
arch: no!! this is too hard to guess, so ill just tell you. she wants to move in with veronica at the pembrooke!
nopeaz: what did she say?? "hey, i want to live with you, but like, platonically"??
arch: um essentially
arch: but then i observed something that is both MUCH more shocking and a significant development!!
arch: mrs cooper and mayor lodge used to be dating, mayor lodge is gay for mrs cooper in that red dress that she wore to the sodale opening, and theyre going to a date on friday!!
arch: the end! have fun gays, gotta go!
arch has left the chat
goingtoheller: well, that is... a lot to process.
hbicheryl: i relate to hermione lodge
hbicheryl: because i also want to be rawed by alice cooper in that dress
nopeaz: id feel threatened if i didnt also know that alice cooper is also essentially your great cousin in law
hbicheryl: oh darling dont you know that incest runs in the family?
hbicheryl: jason and polly, my mother and my father... and thats just the tip of the iceberg
nopeaz: im concerned again
hisshissmotherfucker: so to summarize the lodges and coopers are gay for each other and archie has freaky good eyesight that is not humanly possible but is necessary to the story because it helps add important info to the plot??
goingtoheller: when you say it like, it sounds like we're characters in a book.
hisshissmotherfucker: honestly i always thought of myself as more of a character in a fanfiction for a bad cw show
2:38 AM
jugheadalones + wannabett
jugheadalones: ive just been informed by archie that you are planning to move in with veronica
wannabett: what the hell?? how did archie know that??
jugheadalones: he said he saw your texts from his room
wannabett: damn his terrifying and freakishly good eyesight
jugheadalones: so... this wouldnt happen to have anything to do with lili and camis mythical dilemma, would it?
wannabett: nahhh of course not
jugheadalones: well, if you ever do need to talk, im here for you, okay? i may not be good at giving relationship advice, but ive been told that im a good shoulder to cry on.
wannabett: whenever i need help ill make sure to talk to you first, but im really okay now. thanks jug.
jugheadalones: ofc
[jugheadalones is offline]
[wannabett is offline]
Notes: Alice and Hermione have too much sexual tension to have not dated in high school, and the flashback episode pretty much only proves it. I mean, did you see Alice when she was younger?? That whole look screams lesbian! Anyways...
Comments validate me!! You can leave 'em here or at my ao3 account, lgbtqshipper, where pretty much all I do is complain about Riverdale and how I wish that it was gayer (so nothing different).
In the next chapter, Betty will finally be forced to answer for her sins oblivious homosexuality ft. Choni sexts (again, but I swear, this is the last time)!!
57 notes · View notes
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Red Petals
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Thank you so much! I hope you like this ❤ 
I hope I didn’t lose my touch. I am breaking this into two parts because it was kinda long :)
Ao3, Part 2
Landing safely, in one piece, on Earth was the biggest relief to the Paladins and their companions. They have been travelling for about 2 months, if their devices were correct, and it was starting to show with how exhausted everyone was. Stress was catching up to them, some more than the others – namely Lance and Allura.
Lance felt for Allura, losing her home again as well the news of more Alteans, not only alive, but tortured and harvested for Lotor’s own personal gain. Romelle’s full story left Allura in tears and the others heartbroken with guilt for believing the Galran Prince’s lies.
The ex-Blue Paladin stood at the shore overlooking the ocean after literal hours of begging Allura for Cuba to be their safe haven for a few days as he missed his large family immensely. The sunset left a red-ish hue on the water, adding to the moment’s perfection. The true heat coming from the pure earthen sun and the air mixed with salt and Lance knew he was home.
After dark, he trekked back to his home where he left the others to be attended to by his parents as they set up the extra rooms and couches for sleep space. His mother shocked him with the news that most of his siblings moved out while he was gone. His older siblings, their spouses and their kids all got homes on the same street to grow their families, leaving his parents and the twins. The old bedrooms now occupied by the ex-ship residents.
He suggested anyone sleep with him in his room on the couch he had in the corner if they want but they all collectively agreed that Lance should enjoy his room at his house, alone. Everyone knew how intense his homesickness became the last year in space, not even close to being matched by Hunk’s as the Yellow Paladin made peace with being away from his mothers a long time ago.
His father and Hunk were having a conversation in the garage, something about their car and fixing something, Lance never really payed attention to this kind of stuff. Shiro and his mother were talking old recipes, apparently his mother always wanted to learn the Japanese cuisine and Shiro had mentioned that he had some memorized and was willing to share with his mother.
Only some though! My mother loved secrecy about her magic soups Shiro had joked at one point.
Lance learned that Shiro’s father died in a pilot error when he was 15, which ultimately killed his mother from heartbreak not long after, leaving Shiro in the foster system in his sophomore year of high school where he met Keith. He kept her recipes memorized to remember her in food in times of need.
He turned his gaze to Keith sitting on the couch with a cup of green tea in his hands. Tension wrinkles smoothed on his face with the domesticity shown to him, something he suspected the ex- Red Paladin hadn’t seen in a while. His hair was tied in a bun and his armour exchanged with a hoodie from Lance’s older siblings stash of clothes left here and some sweat pants. He looked absolutely serene. The Cuban didn’t want to blink as to not miss a single second of… this.
He thought of the last time they truly talked and what it had caused him. The pain of suppressed coughs and hidden bloody tissues that serve as a reminder stacked in his pant pocket.
They had estimated two more days to reach Earth and everyone was super excited and nervous at the same time. They sat around a make shift fire, something they are now becoming experts in making and destroying in a matter of seconds in case of other inhabitants on the planet.
Food was distributed all around proceeded with soft chatter of what they missed the most about Earth and what to expect. Romelle listened to everyone; her eyes sparkled with wonder at everything anyone mentioned, especially at Pidge’s description of Pizza.
Pidge sat next to Hunk with his arm around her shoulders, Shiro and Allura were basically spooning in front of everyone while Coran glared at them with the disappointed father look. It wasn’t as to what it meant more like no-PDA-no-matter-how-platonic-it-actually-was. Krolia and Romelle sat next to each other with Cosmo between them completely relaxed and sleeping with both women scratching behind his ears.
Lance was too aware of Keith sitting next to him, their shoulders slightly touching, heart beating too fast to be healthy at this point and Lance was shocked as to how Keith didn’t hear it yet. He tried to normalise his breathing while thinking of a specific turning point for Keith to have this kind of reaction on Lance. When no one memory popped up, he settled on the fact that Keith always did this, he just pushed it to the back of his mind to not think about it too much.
“I personally just miss my family.” Lance said with a fond smile not really looking at anything in particular. “My brothers and sisters. Dios! Mama’s food!!”
“How many siblings do you have?!” Keith blurted, slight feint redness covering his cheeks. Lance filed it under the aftereffects of the heat on the planet.
“What Keith meant was you always talk about a big family, you can’t possibly have that many siblings.” Allura laughed.
“I do!” Lance beamed at the chance to talk about his family. “I have three older brothers and two older sisters! That also means that I have nephews and nieces. Who knows how many more I have now after leaving for this long… I also have twins younger than me, we were so close…”
Lance saw Keith and Shiro share a pointed look; he was probably bringing the mood down with that last comment. He tried not to but it was this constant fear that he was missing too much of his family’s life. He was gone too long.
“I’m sure your family would enjoy the chance to talk to you about what you missed, people sometimes like to talk about themselves and their accomplishments.” Keith smiled at lance but the words played too much in his mind. Was this what Keith thought of when he spoke about his family? That he liked to talk about himself too much?
He felt a cough tickling his throat but he suppressed it and pushed it away.
“Yeah… Probably.” He didn’t speak much after that the whole night but that didn’t stop him from paying too much attention to every single word that Keith said, every breath he took and every sound he made.
Lance took a deep breath, feeling overwhelmingly breathless. There was this crushing pressure on his chest that won’t go away no matter how hard he tried. Tiny pricks on the inside of his throat that just begs for release.
He stood up too fast and ran to the nearest clearing away from the others. He doubled over in a coughing fit that he was sure was going to result with losing a lung. The Cuban felt an actual velvety feeling clawing its way up his throat making its presence known. After a few more tries he finally succeeded in extracting it to see a red… petal.
It was like he was drenched by ice bucket, the shock vibrating his every nerve. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him what he had, he already knew; Hanahaki’s Disease. He actually had Hanahaki’s Disease. Lance knew he felt too much but not to the extent where he might actually die.
He brought his hand to his mouth as his thoughts were cut off by another fit, this time when he removed his hand it was coloured crimson.
He didn’t remember much after seeing red. Only that he ended up in his Lion and just laid there for hours looking at the ceiling thinking of a way to tell Keith about his feelings for him, but the more he thought about it the more it seemed like a farfetched dream. He knew Keith didn’t take him into high regards from the way he talked to him, not that it stopped Lance from falling for him… hard.
He tried distracting his mind by sitting next to the twins on the floor while they played with his Bayard. Seeing them both as old as 17 was heart-breaking for him; solidifying how long he was gone. Five years… Five long years. Marco’s hair was long reaching his shoulders, highlighted with blue streaks, though tied in a bun at the moment. He was the one who gave Keith the hair tie because Veronica’s was a pixie cut.
He almost didn’t recognise his younger sister when he first arrived due to how drastic her change was. Her usual long brown curls exchanged with a pixie cut with a shaved side that had two carefully drawn parallel lines in the middle. It was beyond beautiful in his eyes and he was never as in awe with her as he was the minute he walked into the house. She also apparently came out while he was gone.
They were alike yet so different, the Sierro Twins.
“So what you are saying is that you saved our bother’s ass too many times?” Vero looked at Keith, a twinkle in her eyes. “Man, I am going to have blackmail material to last a lifetime.”
“How do you open this? Is it heat registered? Does it have to do with DNA?” Marco was moving his Bayard in all directions pushing every single button-looking edge. “But if it was DNA then it should open to me, right! I am his brother.”
Keith smiled at her reaction and looked at Marco. “No, you are supposed to be a Paladin to actually open it. Besides, you are not identical to Lance so even if it was with DNA, it wouldn’t open with you.”
Lance felt a pang at Vero’s comment. Keith doesn’t think of you as competent. His brain added. And you want to tell him of your feelings? You can’t stop the inevitable.
“Well we are a team and we all saved each other’s asses” Keith giggled. “But yes Lance wound up in the healing pods way more than anyone else.”
The twins laughed at that. “Dude you have to tell me about every single time.” “Yeah, all the stories! We want to know everything about Lance in space.”
“Well, it was quite an experience.”
“Yeah I bet it was.”
Lance smiled at the interaction trying to hide the hurt. He knew he was a pain in Keith’s ass, but not that much. Did Keith hate hanging out with him that much?
Of course he did. A voice supplied. Why else would he leave the only people he knew in space the moment you showed him how much of a burden you really are?
He didn’t quite catch what the twins said to Keith but the laugh it got from him was enough to knock the wind out of Lance… literally. The previous pricks came back with vengeance and it was harder to breath by the second.
He wasn’t aware of the fact that he was hyperventilating until he felt a soothing hand rubbing his back. It helped but not as much as he wanted. He looked up and found Keith’s face too close to his lung’s liking and he coughed even more. Concerned violet eyes searching his face for answers he couldn’t give, not ever.
“That’s it. Deep breaths”
He followed Keith’s orders until his breathing soothed, not back to normal, but still slightly better. He sat straight with his back leaning on the couch for a sense of stability. He slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Keith was kneeling infront of him with a worried expression.
“What was that?” Keith’s voice was uncharacteristically low and gentle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have a panic attack before.”
Panic attack? Is that what he thought this was? Good.
“Just thought of something…” Lance replied, playing to the idea. He had had his fair share of panic attacks in his life and knew what they felt like. “I couldn’t stop.”
“Yeah… I get it.”
“I have to go.” Lance made to stand up but hand held him firmly to the ground preventing him.
“You won’t be okay for a while after that attack. Stay here and I’ll get you some water.”
After making sure Lance wasn’t going anywhere, he made his way to the kitchen. In the meantime, Lance thought about how utterly dead he was. Every action Keith seemed to make made whatever this thing was worse. He loved the Texan too much that if the disease didn’t kill him, Keith not reciprocating his feelings will (aka. Rejection) which ultimately was what the disease made sure of.
Keith returned not too long after with a glass of water and Hunk trailing behind him.
“Heard you just had a panic attack, Man you didn’t have one of those in months.”
“Months?” Keith exclaimed.
“Yeah. Lance and I met on the couch waiting to go to the counsellor for our anxiety. Remember, Lance?” Hunk smiled at Lance.
“How could I forget?! You asked me to be your friend that day.”
“Yupp! Best decision ever!”
“Aww buddy! You are the best.”
Keith raised his arms up to bring the attention to himself.
“Not that this isn’t the cutest shit I’ve seen, but why did you think both of you living together at Garrison was a good idea considering you both had anxiety?!”
“Hunk thought that since we both have it, it would do us good to look after each other if not after ourselves. I took care of him and he took care of me.”
“I never knew you had anxiety.” Keith turned to Lance. The Cuban’s eyes focused on the floor. Talking about his anxiety wasn’t something he wanted to open up about to the one person he is trying to supress his feelings from.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
“I’m pretty sure I got the gist of it.” Keith rolled his eyes and smiled. Lance chest tightened at the sight. “I’m going to go see Shiro, you’ll be okay?”
“I’m not invisible, you know.” Hunk sighed. “I’ve been taking care of his ass for years.”
“You know what I mean.” Keith said, walking out of the room back to the kitchen. Hunk looked at Lance, raising a brown eyebrow.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Lance sighed. Hunk was the last person he was trying to hide anything from. Mainly because he knew it was fruitless. “I… I think I have…” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms trying to conjure the right words for this situation.
“Take your time, buddy.” The Samoan boy sat next to Lance at the couch and rubbed his back. It was always a calming gesture he would use when he saw the other stressed while trying read something. It wasn’t that he could read, it was because after a long day his eyes became blurry and he stops comprehending any word written on the paper he was supposed to learn.
Instead of saying it, he dug up the red petal from his pocket and held it up to Hunk. He hoped he would understand what it meant without having to explain.
Hunk was quiet for a few minutes, the gears in his brains almost audible. A sharp intake of breath and a low “No…” and Lance figured out he understood.
“You are sure its Keith?”
“You know I am.” He didn’t know what more to say. He had had a crush on his back at Garrison, but that was all that it was. A stupid, silly crush. It wasn’t a fatal disease that put an expiry date on his life.
“Tell him.”
“No.”
“Why? You could die, Lance. You understand that right?”
“Because… I just can’t okay.”
He got up and made to leave when a hand held his wrist.
“I can’t lose you. Keep that in mind.” And with that, he let go of Lance.
Walking up the stairs was much more of an effort that he would admit. He was completely breathless by the time he reached the top, his lungs feeling like sand paper and his head like it was going to explode. He bent down trying to calm his breathing before finishing his trip to his room.
“You sound like you are dying.” The hoarse sound of Pidge came of one of the twins’ rooms. “If anyone asks, I didn’t give you whatever bug you caught from me.”
“I don’t have a bug.”
“Well at least a bug is curable. What the hell is wrong with your lungs then?” she approached his and rubbed his back gently to ease his breathing. This seems to be the running theme with everyone who saw him.
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“And I am a forty-five year old French woman.”
“You could be with that sass you know.”
“Yeah yeah. Just tell me what’s wrong.” She creased her eyebrows in a way that said I am worried and you better tell me before I probe you myself and find out.
He stood up and walked to his room away from her… probing eyes. Leaving her with a quick “Don’t worry about lil ol’ me pidgey!” and locked his door.
When Keith walked into the kitchen for the second time that day, Shiro was sitting on the counter with a notebook and a pen and the concentration of a military man getting his debriefing.
“And then you add seven tablespoons of coco powder to the mixture. Now you remember what I told you before?”
“Yeah… you mix the dry ingredients first then add the liquid ones.”
“Good.”
He smiled but it quickly fell when he remembered why he was here.
“I really hate to disturb this wonderful episode of… I don’t know a Food Network show or something but Mrs. Sierro I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”
“Anything, my boy.” She smiled at him though he could tell a hint of concern was in her tone. She must’ve read his face well.
“I just found out Lance used to have anxiety… did he take medication for it?”
“Why did something happen?” The pot she was stirring was quickly placed on the counter. While she was taking off her apron, she muttered in quick Spanish and the words “Lance” and “Hunk” came in clear to Keith a few times.
“Nothing serious happened, Mrs. Sierro.” He tried to calm her down. “He just had a small panic attack and I called Hunk and he calmed down. They mentioned how they met at the counsellor’s office and that’s how I found out he had anxiety.”
“I never knew he had anxiety.” Shiro sound so tired and defeated. He imagined how bad he must feel not knowing that two if his crew… friends used to go to a councillor for actual mental illnesses.
“He used to.” Lance’s mother sighed. “After he was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety, he was prescribed medications for them. He finished his anti-depressants dose before going off to Garrison but he still had the anxiety ones. The doctor said he might always need them.”
Shock and horror reflected on the Black Paladins. Their happy, lively Lance used to take anti-depressants and they never knew. They never even guessed he could be remotely that sad, not to the extent that he would be diagnosed with clinical depression. Keith knew how hard and bad he had to fight for recovery.
“His medication is in his room at the top shelf. If you think he needs them, that’s where they are.”
Keith thanked her and left. He could faintly hear Mrs. Sierro and Shiro talking about Lance and his past. He wanted to know more about Lance but he already felt bad for not asking the boy personally about all of this. He needed to be ready if something was to happen and to take precautions for the future. Maybe if they take his medications they could refill it later.
The thought of anything making the said boy feel anything remotely negative left a sour taste in Keith’s mouth. His happy image was etched in his memory, an image he would love to preserve and keep it as real as possible. He would go to the ends of the world for his team’s happiness. For Lance’s happiness. This whole thing made him see Lance in a different light.
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ziggory · 5 years
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Riverdale Liveblogs 3x07 - 3x13
Instead of making you all suffer through six separate liveblogs as I was catching up, have them all in on post!
3x07, “The Man in Black”
Remember when Jughead was the biggest woobie ever with a bunch of sad shit happening to him. Fun times. Honestly, Jughead’s just really taking advantage of finally being on the roadtrip he was denied
Justice for Jingle Jangle. Why did we need a new drug? Or I’d be fine with it complementing the other but NOooOooOOOO. It’s trying to shove JJ out of the spotlight!
Elvis’ granddaughter could’ve just drugged the eggs but instead she chose to nearly give Archie a concussion. Hiram might chop her head off if his Archiekins gets permanent brain damage
Let Archie kill a man!! Jughead got to skin someone who was fucking up his life. Why can’t he let Archie take his shot!? I can’t hear you about consequences
Your business is failing because trading away the final piece of the Soutshide to open a vanity project in the form of a dry speakeasy was not a great idea. Also, gamers can give you business. I’ve seen it!
The show can make Veronica say all these supposedly empowering lines, but I’m never going to forget that she supported a for-profit prison
MAYBE MY DAD’S NOT SO BAD!!?!?
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This voiceover was completely unnecessary. Honestly, it’s sort of a slap in the face to Lili’s acting as if they didn’t think she could convey certain things without some hand holding
I’ve seen movies. They make you swallow that shit on the spot
So many negative thoughts being awkwardly confirmed
Honestly, this is what happens when you keep exploiting the place for abuses to help your investigations but never fucking shut it down
3x08, “Outbreak”
Does Moose need drugs to get it up? He said Midge liked to get wild, but methinks he liked it of his own volition as well. And just what I wanted. Shadowy makeouts while high on drug laced childhood candy
Kevin needs to find out who put a curse on his dick. ANOTHER hookup interrupted by bodies in danger
I don’t know why a group of high school boys acting like typical jackass high school boys with loud laughing is cause for thinking they’re all high.
“good people like Archie” 
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Gladys being a Jarchie shipper is pure. I will not stand for this no homoing
Wait, Cheryl did actually get to be Student Body President? I thought they were just going to let that circle the drain and disappear
MY FAVORITE INCOMPETENT EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATOR
THE PRISON WAS A FUCKING COVER?!?!? So all of S2 was just…oh my fucking god, I’m going to do drown myself
“good looking shortsatck” Love it. Goddamn, I love Gladys
Do they know that the way they write Hiram and Veronica feels like it’s been dipped in ten layers of incest? He talks to her like she’s the mistress he wants to bed
The affection the Jones women have for Archie is cute
The Gargoyle King being a hallucination is the most disappointing thing
TABLETOP RPGS ARE NOT FUCKING BORN OF MADNESS. Ugh, my inner geek is angry with rage
Oh, now you care about the kids in conversion therapy
So I guess they didn’t go to Toledo for Christmas??
Lili should get a raise for this Griffin Queen shit
I’m more emotional than I would usually be over these Fred scenes given Luke Perry’s recent condition
PROTECT THAT FUCKING DOG WITH YOUR FUCKING LIFE!! THROW YOURSELF IN FRONT OF A BEAR
I missed alcoholic Hermione. And lmao this Watchmen realness
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I love Silent!Kevin getting nothing to say in that office! Just fucking great
we need to know more about this fucking Governor. Racist piece of shit who gets upset about vandalized statues of genocidal war criminals, AND he’s under Hiram’s thumb.
3x09, “No Exit”
Will someone get bit by a monkey? I can only hope
Oh fuck off with the Star Wars reference. IT DOESN’T FIT
Stealing from the rich to give to the rich. How very one percenter. And Toni, all your friends are living in tents by the river
KEVIN. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU ALWAYS JOIN THE WORST GROUPS
While the implication of Jughead sleeping over is nice, what the fuck was the point of last episode’s cliffhanger. This timeline makes no sense
I’M GETTING FIREWATCH VIBES
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They’re so fucking low budget that they couldn’t even show the bear, LMAO
I forgot what Fangs sounded like. Didn’t FP retire? ARE THERE EVEN ANY ADULTS LEFT IN THIS FUCKING JOKE OF A GANG. But Damn, Fangs is good at crying. So pretty
Aww, I actually missed the hammy ass warden
Every time Joaquin’s name is mentioned, another dagger in my heart
The fact that the sisters have been fake nuns this whole time is just…what the fuck. AND THE FUCKING SOCIAL WORKER KNEW AND JUST LET THEM KEEP OPERATING!?!? LET THIS WHOLE FUCKING TOWN FALL INTO A HELLMOUTH
Remember when Jughead was outraged about the Serpents being paid security at the Pickens festival thing? Time is a flat circle
CHERYL, WHY DON’T YOU JSUT KILL HIRAM THEN
“SAVED”!??! REALLY NANA ROSE!?! IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL THE CHILD GROOMING YOU DID!? And uh, Fred and Sierra should know about that sordid piece of Penelope’s past
Damn, Veggie is hot as fuck
You know who else could’ve gone undercover for the Serpents to infiltrate the Gargoyle gang?!????? I HATE YOU FOREVER, RAS. ANOTHER AU FOR THE DRAWER
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3x10, “The Stranger”
LMAO that they tried to make us think Archie died
Being attacked by a bear in Canada means not having to suffer through crippling debt because of the hospital bill for the rest of your life
Sidenote, but I really thought the painting of Veronica would have a bug or something. The fact that she just kept the painting instead of burning it says something
Oh so the core four are THOSE type of friends
Betty’s money >> those kids
Claudius just doesn’t want to do actual work
They let a kid pass the first grade when he couldn’t read? So the educational system has always been rather shit
Hey there, Silent!Kevin! Just sitting silently with your slowly developing biceps
Does Reggie know what PTSD is
I spy with my little eyes Kevin in the corner putting his PE clothes away! Once again robbed of a shirtless scene
FUCKING TALL BOY!?!? Lol, this is really good for my drawer fic actually. Keep sounding like a spiteful man! It’s semi feeding me
Wow, they really crammed in two Varchie sex scenes
Hiram deserved this and every agonizing second of pain he felt
Raw milk, huh? Yeah, that’s all you need to bait Kevin into this cult
Bye Claudius, no one will miss you
I want Hermione/FP to fuck
Jughead throwing a party to make things better is the biggest twist this series has ever done
Archie the alcoholic, eh. If this lasts more than one episode, that’d sure be something
3x11, “The Red Dahlia”
This is the noir episode, isn’t it. I’m…really bad with noir so an episode from THIS team is going to be…very trying
Awww, FP mentioning Joaquin is an extra pang. I wanted to know more about their relationship
I’d love to see the notes on this draft when Jughead tries submitting it to a publisher. Unless he goes the self pub route
Who even runs the newspaper now?
Betty, you’re like the last person to talk about black and white morality
Archie sounds like the protagonist of Office Space at the end when he finds his calling in construction
ELIO HAS SPOKEN MORE THAN MELODY EVER DID. EAT SHIT, RAS
I still need Jughead and Veronica arguing about classic cinema
I wonder where Penelope learned those crocodile tears, Nana. Like I never need a scene of her criticizing her ADOPTED DAUGHTER again
Cheryl is pretty forgiving of the uncle who sort of helped with her institutionalization
Have these boys never watched an episode of Breaking Bad? Put that body in a barrel
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So has Veronica had a change of heart about Daddykins? I’m so confused
SMITHERS!?!? YOu’RE STILL ALIVE!? Protect this man
Remember when Betty was a camgirl for ten seconds and watched all of her fake brother’s porn videos
Josie’s voice is pure butter, and the show needs to stop pretending that we want to hear anyone else sing
Why doesn’t Toni have a job at Veronica’s dry speakeasy? She used to be an actual bartender!
“Kevin’s dad boxes at the gym” being a line from Josie is the most beautiful line in this episode
Well at least they explained the seizures.
YYYAAAAAASSSS, KELLY RIPPA!!
What is even the point of Minetta having faked his death just to be Hermione’s kept man
Well, damn, I really didn’t see this FP reveal coming. I wish he was the sheriff Hermione was fucking. And given all the things Jughead used to say and aim at Keller, it’s interesting to see him have to deal with his dad being somewhat in Hermione’s pocket
PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER, ARCHIE
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Lmao at this Bad Boys line. I see you, synergy
Honestly, how dare Archie shoot the person who was going to kill Hiram. I guess that’s one way to bury the Archie/Hiram grudge
Hermione’s trigger finger is life goals
3x12, “Bizarrodale”
So first off, fuck that title and everything it implies.
Second, this is the episode where I’m supposed to finally get fed, eh? FINGERS CROSSED
I forgot what Kevin sounded like after not talking for four episodes
WHEN CAN WE MEET KEVIN’S MOM!?!? I HAVE MANY FANCASTS
Veronica watches Netflix confirmed, and yet I guess she just scrolls past Orange is the New Black every time it’s recommended to her
Why are Kevoose makeouts always in shadow? Is it to disguise the fact that when they makeout it’s with their lips sealed shut
The actor who plays Major Mason followed me back on my burner instagram
Awww, Sweet Pea is a relationship guy with a gooey little heart!
Sierra pegs Tom confirmed. Love these two kinky fuckers
The way Tom says “Gargoyle King” goes straight to my nether regions
So does Britta have a kink for people outing others against their will? I swear this is a plot point in Ship It too
I feel like these issues are something they should’ve talked about way more. Making Moose’s coming out be an ultimatum is pretty gross
How DARE they not let us hear Josie sing?!??! Ohhhh, if we’d heard Josie sing then we would sent death threats to the fake Juilliard board. I never want to hear Josie’s teary little voice again because it hurts my feelings
Lmao, this is the second time a parent has been judgmental of how the Lodges involve Veronica in their business
Remember that time Moose and Cheryl made out? I’m forever traumatized by that
Hiram and Hermione strolling in like a fucked up Gomez and Morticia
I’m sure that Dilton would approve of his friend from another lifetime using his secret bunker to pop his cherry. But only Moose. Yes, I ship comics Dilton/Moose
Oh, HeeEYEEEEEEE, IT’S LIKE A BUNCH OF MY FIC DREAMS COME TO LIFE. Wow, I finally got pandered to. Kevin being in dagner is like…the basis of the majority of my drawer fics
I’M FUCKING PSYCHIC X2!!!! Well huh, this puts that earlier diner scene in a new light
Yesss, please keep calling him Tommy and talking about how Kevin looks like your old friend with that sad, wistful tone. Please feed my fic bunnies
Christ, Ashleigh has such a fucking amazing voice. I can actually bear KJ’s singing
Moose having to leave makes sense. ALSO MAKE SURE YOU WATCH CODY”S SHOW ON NETFLIX TO MAKE THIS WORTH IT
I never want to see Kevin cry again. Fucking Maramaduke
Gladys can step on me, and I’d apologize
3x13, REQUEIM FOR A WELTERWEIGHT
I’M FINALLY ALL FUCKING CAUGHT UP
I don’t think that bacon is fully cooked
So Veronica just decided to not move back out because the path of least resistance?? And she’s back in her Daddy’s clutches because....he got shot???
The Serpent with the awesome dreads is still there! Can he be an actual character with a name? He deserves it
Between last episode and this one, I am being fucking BLESSED with Daddy Keller content. 
VERONICA IS a FUCKING REPUBLICAN CONFIRMED. I guess we all know who scrolled right past 13th on Netflix! 
They’re really trying to sweep up their awkward plot mistakes from last season, eh
I need a flashback of young Alice in this ugly fucking wedding dress
This is some Rocky and Mickey shit. Hopefully Keller doesn’t have a heart attack while confronting Mr. T
YES, GLADYS!!! CALL OUT THAT LEADERSHIP!
San Junipero water, huh. 
Why is Archosie so perfect
Ehhhh, the last time they talked was eight episodes ago. Will this scene be about how Kevin’s recovering post-Moose?? Of course not. My hopes for investigative Kevin are once again yanked away. Though of course remember that time she got him to catfish a murderer without telling him that Chic had killed someone?? Fun times
“cute gay farmies”
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Veronica is the opposite intimidating ESPECIALLY in the face of Gladys who we all know has actually fucked up a bitch
The monstrous Freeform ate Malachai, eh. Ghoulie jackets are still the best jackets
I’ve never watched Apocalypse Now so this scene is wasted on me
THUNDERDOME!!?!?
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Keller looks like he gives good hugs
How the fuck did Jason learn about The Farm?
This is Polly’s revenge for being sent to the Sisters
It’s awkward how Choni just sort of disappeared from the episode
Damn, Archosie has everything going on
Hermione, you should’ve just killed Hiram when you had the chance
PROTECTIVE BIG BROTHER JUGHEAD!
Gladys doling out gang advice is just everything I wanted from her
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