#as always ****the views of my characters don’t reflect my own****

[ofbreathandflame]

The Paradoxical Nature of Feyre

It’s interesting to consider just how much of Feyre’s character must overcompensate for Rhysand’s shortcomings as a character. I’ve always wondered at the impossibility of the morality involved in the characterization of feyre; in which, Feyre exists – as @feyres-divorce-lawyer has already elaborated on this this post – in this violent conundrum in which is operates as both the most qualified, but is oftentimes then characterized as the most inept to help.

To elaborate – Feyre’s character has to subsume an almost reverential when she is discussed in thorough conversations that question to her motivations, tactility, and efficiency. And because Feyre is never actually given qualities (or I should say – those qualities are never at the forefront when discussing why she is placed in these hierarchal / leadership positions) that prove she deserves to be a leader there’s no actual, tangible evidence to prove that Feyre is inherently qualified for any of these roles. When Helion asks Rhysand – “why did you make her High Lady” the story does not lean onto to any tangible reasons as to why we the reader should believe this other than ‘Rhys loved Feyre’

Here enters the actual problem with Feyre’s character: her being High Lady is a statement of Rhys goodness, not a statement on Feyre’s prowess. Because the story leans on such individualistic, arbitrary ideals, there’s nothing being said about Feyre as a character. So much of these conversations centers around Feyre being qualified but there’s nothing in the story that suggests otherwise. Feyre being reckless and brave prove that she is….reckless and brave – both those qualities don’t really make a good leader and they prove…nothing about Feyre’s skills. Realistically, of course Feyre knows close to nothing – of course she’s going to make very bad decisions and mistakes, of course her per view is limited. So much is put into proving that Feyre is the best that there’s often no conversation about how rigid that makes Feyre as a character.

Those are flaws that make Feyre a better character. One of my favorite moments when reading A Storm of Swords was the moment Davos realizes he needs to be able to read because ‘he’s a lord now.’ I love how he reflects on how hard the process is and how the children seem to read so easily and he has to sit down and sound out the words. Davos is such a good character because he represents the kind of struggles someone – lowborn, smuggler, illiterate, might have when integrating themselves into a new hierarchal world. But this also says something about him as a character – he chooses to begin the journey to learn how to read because he’s realized he needs tools in order to combat is inexperience. Even the fact that it’s not Feyre who realizes she needs to learn how to read but Rhys who forces her says so much about her character, negatively.  

So when we have these conversations about Feyre, no one ever actually proves what makes Feyre qualified to lead. Begrudgingly feeding your family because you feel obligated doesn’t prove that you can lead an entire town; it proves perhaps resilience, perhaps resourcefulness but even then id argue Feyre isn’t even that (see: she seems to not learned any other skills other than hunting, complains about her shoes instead of just mending her own or switching with Nesta or Elain; she can’t cook, etcs). Rhysand making Feyre High Lady because he loves her says nothing about her as a character. It doesn’t expound her talents and skills – and ultimately doesn’t make anyone believe the title is tangible. Even the story doesn’t believe that to be true.  Nothing about Feyre’s trials UTM prove that she is capable leader – if anything they prove the opposite (I do not mean this negatively – if anything, I’ve always felt that Nesta’s arc with the Valkyries fit Feyre much more than her own arc did. I could see Feyre being someone who operates under her own set of rules. I’ve always felt that Feyre seems to chafe under rules , so it doesn’t make sense that she would bound herself to such a leadership role as High Lady).

Back to the main point – the whole I’m making is that I believe that Feyre is talked about this way because so much of her character has to be muted to connect with Rhys. I think this conversation is always a consequence of Rhyland’s characterization and the novel's (and stans) rush to defend him. So many things have to be true about Feyre in order for her romance to Rhysand to be believable - and I argue that those changes are to the detriment of the traits Feyre's is initially characterized as having. And because Rhysand never has to undergo an actual character arc the pressure is placed on Feyre's character to align with the more negative traits Rhys possesses. Realistically, given how Feyre is characterized and given the whole “I hate the preening, gawking Spring Court” – I think its weird that she would immediately (1) do the exact thing in basically nothing with Rhys (2) allow herself to be turned into the most traumatic version of herself and (3) delight in random people’s pain. But because the story never asks Feyre to introspect she simply doesn’t talk about it.  And even if the story wants to go there – so much of Feyre’s healing hinges on affirming that she is good and so introducing these bad, carnal, selfish thoughts into the mix seem to undermine that.

[licorice-lips]

Okay, so I was thinking about Snape and although I'm avoiding like hell speaking online about Harry Potter, I think it needs to be said because it falls onto the rest of fantastical literature as well, especially those stories that have parallels to fascism/nazism/colonialism in their magical world.

I'd like to start by saying I don't like Snape for a variety of reasons, some of them because of Rowling, others because of the character himself, and others because of his fans, but today I'd like to talk about how Snape's Redemption Arc actually sucks and why, and also about how we're treating redemption arcs as a whole.

Okay, so let's begin by making a sort of timeline on Snape's life: he grew up in an abusive household, suffered bullying by the Marauders through school years, bullied other students as well, called his best friend a slur, "apologized", joined a fascist hate group that actively persecuted and hurt people for things they had no control of, acted on behalf of this group for years, turned against the hate group not out of morals but because their actions began to threaten the people he cared about (like they always said they would, how shocking), bullied his teenage students as a grown adult, acted as a spy against the hate group when it came back, died.

Right, so before I dive into all those things, what we also have to add is that Art isn't made in a vacuum. Just like science can never be done by a completely neutral party, our productions of art are completely based off of our views, especially when we're talking about writing. As a writer myself, I can see exactly how my experiences as a person in the context I was born and grew up in affect my writing and my production of art.

For example, it's very common that I find enemies calling themselves by their last names in American/European fiction but in Brasil, we don't normally call people by their last names unless it's very unique and as a nickname. So when I write enemies, they always call each other by their first names, simply because it doesn't feel right to me any other way. On a more serious example, most of the countries in my fantasy books have some history of colonization or dictatorship because it's a part of my history and I feel it's impacts to this day, so it's something that reflects my own thoughts and ideas in politics.

So when we talk about Snape as a character, we cannot escape the fact that Rowling created him. And as a European author, it's more than clear —and that's especially obvious to people who suffer under colonization to this day— that Rowling has a deeply ingrained colonizer mentality. The goblins in Gringots are a clear and problematic representation of Jewish people, the domestic elves LIKING being enslaved and not changing the status quo by the end of the books, and even Hermione being ridiculed for her militancy on it — these are all representative of how Rowling views the world.

Although there's more, all of those examples make it clear that, when she looks at fascist ideology as a whole, Rowling doesn't think the ideology itself is the problem: the ending is the depiction of them getting rid of the "bad apples" instead of making the "roots of the tree" healthy again is parallel to blaming bad individuals for a system that is corrupted and therefore corrupts. So basically, what the Harry Potter books tell us by the end is that it's okay for you to perpetuate a racist system, just don't do it so openly. The problem for her is not the system, but these people she considers "bad apples" which is basically right-wing ideology.

And my problem with Snape starts here: because Rowling sees purist views as an acceptable way of thinking as long as you don't kill people because of it (because for some reason that's a step too far — but when the system oppresses, beat down, and hates on marginalized people, that's okay) — in her mind and in her writing, Snape's ideological affiliation earlier on in his life is not that big of a problem, especially when he "changes sides".

Snape's active participation in a hate group is dangerously and irresponsibly downplayed both by Rowling and by Snape's apologists and fans when this is, in reality, one of the two greatest offenses his character has to compensate for in his "Redemption Arc". So when he hesitates at nine yo to say to Lily that being a Muggleborn doesn't make a difference (even when he knows it does in a practical sense of what's happening in the Wizarding World), when he despises Petuney for being a Muggle, when he says to Lily that what he, Mulciber and their "death eaters" friends did to Mary McDonald was "just a laugh (btw, I'm sure the Marauders also think what they did was "just a laugh" as well), all of this is not only extremely reprehensible, it's the kind of thing that makes a fascist, a fascist.

And it's not that I don't believe teenagers cannot change their minds and grow with more ease than adults, it's just that this alone would've been enough grounds to understand why Snape's redemption arc sucks. His beliefs from early on, even before he goes to Hogwarts, are extremely problematic and hateful, and they uphold the very corrupted system that is perpetuated against Muggle-borns in the Wizarding World.

Then we reach the point I wanted to make: it's very clear throughout the books that child and teenager Snape struggles with feelings of deep hatred against his parents (especially his father, who's a Muggle), inadequacy in social life even among his peers (wizards and witches) and isolation, all of which make a person undeniably vulnerable to extremist ideology.

And here's my first issue with Snape and his Redemption Arc: his trauma and feelings should not be an excuse for his bad choices and yet, they are used exactly as such. Yes, Snape was an impressionable teenager and yes, he was influenced by an ideology in his desperation to fit in and find solace in a community, but that doesn't matter.

None of it matters because, at the end of the day, his actions for this ideology are just as harmful, just as awful, just as cruel, as the actions of someone who joined the Death Eaters for thoroughly believing Muggleborns were scum. He harmed people just as much as Yaxley, Mulciber, or any other Death Eater who joined Voldemort for their hatred just for his support alone.

And more than that, even if Snape was in a vulnerable state and impressionable, he was still receiving other kinds of influences, influences that were contrary to the bigotry and cruelty of Voldemort — and he still chose to ignore those influences. There was still a level of choice to what he became as a young adult.

But even if there wasn't, Snape is —or at least he should be— responsible for his own choices regardless of influence. As they say in the Kingdom of Heaven film, when you're before God and he asks you why you did something, you won't be able to say that others told you to do so or that it wasn't convenient to do the right thing — it'll not be enough. And it's not enough because your actions matter more than your intentions. Your actions will be the thing that will determine what happens next, not your intentions. It'll be actions that will shape your path and influence or directly impact the path of others around you, not your intentions.

The older I get, the more I understand the power of action and how it says more than any intention or feeling ever will. At the end of it, Snape's actions are what matters, not his feelings or intentions. But as humans, we're so prone to empathize with others that we actually believe that, because someone feels guilty or regrets the things they did, that's enough to forgive them.

We forget that it's not.

Earning forgiveness must come with 5 major steps —

Accountability — do they acknowledge the way their actions hurt us? Do they acknowledge the way they hurt us? Do they acknowledge their role in our pain?

Apologies — do they apologize? Is their apology sincere? Do they hold themselves accountable in their apologies?

Acceptance — do they feel entitled to forgiveness? Do they accept the consequences of their actions? Do they accept the boundaries you impose on the path to forgiveness?

Amends — Did they take steps to mend what's broken? Do they make choices to prevent them from doing this again? Do they try to help without crossing your boundaries?

Alteration — Did they change the behavior that hurt you? Did they take steps to improve themselves?

Those steps are fundamental in a Redemption Arc because it'll exemplify to the (young) readers what is forgivable and how forgiveness is earned, not deserved. That's what grits me the most about Snape's "Redemption Arc":

There is no accountability, at least not for joining and upholding a hate group, and we kinda get accountability for what he did in his friendship with Lily, but in a fucked up way, let's see:

It was nighttime. Lily, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady, at the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. “I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.” “I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just – ” “Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?” He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. “I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.” “No – listen, I didn’t mean – ” “ – to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

It's very important to me that we dissect this piece of dialog because it shows a lot about Snape and how every time he's tried to apologize, there's no accountability.

He didn't say he's sorry he said that slur (to LILY and only Lily, might I add, when at all would've been ideal but I'll have some leniency because of the situation) — he's said he's sorry, but not for what he has done, just for Lily. He didn't take responsibility for his words as he should — he says it 'slipped out' or that 'he didn't mean, again just to LIly.

He accepted no boundaries Lily tried to impose — sleeping outside Gryffindor? Really?

Most importantly of all, he took absolutely ZERO steps to alter his behavior so that he could never harm someone again like he harmed Lily. And that's very important, I cannot begin to explain how: when we regret doing something, the most fundamental step to take in change.

Change is fundamental to forgiveness but it shouldn't be conditioned by it. If we regret doing something harmful, the first thing to do is to change our behavior. Instead, Snape not only doesn't change his problematic behavior, he doubles down on it, joining the hate group Lily pointed out as one of the main problems in why their relationship couldn't continue, acting in the name of said group for years and only backing down on it when Lily is threatened.

And that reveals something about Snape's worldview: for him, since that day he called Lily a slur, the problem wasn't that he was a bigoted piece of shit (like Lily said it was), the problem, in his head, was that he hurt Lily. And that's not true. The problem is, one hundred percent, his bigoted behavior, and Lily says as much, more than one time. He just does not listen to it. He doesn't listen to her.

More than that, though, you can try to point out that he redeems himself by acting against Voldemort but I'm sorry: what Snape did is not enough. He was part — and believed in — a hate group, it's not enough that he changes sides not because of values, but because one person who is being threatened is dear to him (which was the whole prerogative anyway so I failed to see how he's even surprised by this). You can say that this is good or honorable or "love" but it's not cute to base your entire life around one person.

It's not honorable to prioritize one person over a whole world he was threatening before and not caring at all about them. Disregarding other human beings in favor of one is not as pretty as people think it is and Snape represents this very well: it makes you bitter, it makes you become abusive, cruel, a bully to everyone else. It's not pretty, it's not understandable. Be a fucking decent human being, it's actually not that hard.

But I digress again: my point is, that just because Snape regrets the things he has done for Voldemort (not even out of morals, which drives me mad) it doesn't mean he deserves forgiveness. He doesn't and he hasn't earned it, he didn't even try. Actually, he's so stuck in his regret, he's harmful because of it: guilt is a trap, babes. It sucks you in if you let it and makes you miserable as well as anyone around you. You'll be so remorseful and yet you'll hurt people because of it.

And it's the same thing I've been saying since the beginning: we need to stop associating feelings with deserving forgiveness because you don't deserve forgiveness, you earn it. Either you earn it from someone else, from yourself, or from both, but either way, it's earned, not deserved. If I were to excuse my harmful behavior every time just because I regretted doing something instead of earning their forgiveness by taking steps to apologize to the people I've hurt, I would be compared to my father all the time. And THAT would've been an insult.

Anyway, let's just stop feeling sorry for characters, especially fascists, just because they regret something. Please, let us hold our characters accountable for the shit they've done adequately and make our writers actually put in the work to make them earn the forgiveness they crave instead of just wallowing in their own misery, stuck forever in a vortex of hurting and being hurt that sucks people in. It's not a good example for us readers, it's not a good example of behavior, it's not what a good person who did shitty things should strive to be and we shouldn't think it is.

[wrenlywofau]

The Legends of how Pyrrhia’s Tribes got their Powers

(Shout-out to this video that I based most of this on!!)

A common IceWing legend tell of a great Ice Dragon (notably never referred to as an IceWing) flying up to the auroras in the frozen night sky and touching them in order to gain animus powers. This Ice Dragon would’ve lived just after the scorching, when the modern tribes were still forming. She’s regarded as the first queen of what would become the tribe, and though her real name has been lost, it’s not uncommon to hear dragons referring to her as Aurora.

The first SeaWing animus, Prince Albatross, was born as the result of an IceWing prince and SeaWing princess some 2,000 years later.

NightWings’ abilities come from the three moons, which they say were once brothers born with different powers; Perception could read minds, Oracle could see the future, and Imperial could do both to a much stronger degree. It was once said that they watched over the tribe, but this story didn’t prevail much longer after Darkstalker’s time, when the NightWings moved to a new kingdom and stopped being able to see the moons. Hope is working to repopularize this tale.

SkyWing dragonets with firescales have only ever been known to be born on the summer solstice. For a long time, all eggs set to hatch on this date were killed, but after generations of no firescaled dragonets hatching, the tradition fell out of practice. By the time Peril was born, the massacre hadn’t occurred in years, with egg instead just being kept out of the sunlight on this day. It’s said that the first firescales, a dragon named Solstice, tried to force his way into power, and that legions of dragons died trying to stop him.

There is no set-in-stone tale as to how SandWings got their animus abilities. Some say they come from an IceWing hybrid, or a SandWing who followed Aurora into the stars, while others tell of the moons stealing them from the IceWings to give to the SandWings. Though the latter is the basis of why the SandWings worship the moons, few modern SandWings are aware of this origin.

————

History is written by the victors, and often without the intent of telling the full story. Take these legends with a grain of salt, most notably how they could easily be misconstrued.

[carakook]

Bloom. °˖✧✿✧˖°

"You didn't seem to think so ten minutes ago when I was fucking your pretty little brains out, or any of the other times for that matter. What's with the change of heart? You suddenly feel guilty?"

→ Chapters list ←

⚘Intro

⚘1. Wilt.

🔞For Mature Audiences Only🔞

╔══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══╗

⚘Pairings: Jeon Jungkook x fem!reader

⚘Synopsis: Y/N realizes tonight that she can no longer handle the guilt. She wants things with Jungkook that seem impossible given their situation. As much as it hurts, this will be the last time she sleeps with Jungkook… that’s what she thinks, anyway.

⚘Genre:Forbidden love

⚘Word count: 5K+

⚘Warnings: 18+ for mature audiences only, MDNI, rough sex, mentions of hate sex (but not actual hate sex), emotional, mentions of cheating, arguing (sort of), sad Jungkook (def needs a warning no one wants JK sad), ass slapping, hair pulling, jealousy, breakup (sort of?), let me know if I missed anything.

⚘Disclaimer: This story in no way reflects the characters of those who are mentioned. It is pure fiction and for entertainment purposes only. Please don’t take it seriously. Nothing is real in this story.

⚘A/N:Chapter one is out! Starts off a bit emotional right off the bat lol but I hope you enjoy it. Can’t wait to release more chapters! Thank you for reading. 🥰

╚══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══╝

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺ ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ :

♪ Stuck with Me - The Neighborhood

♪ Eyes Don’t Lie - Isabel LaRosa

♪ Run - Joji

✧━。゜✿ฺ✿ฺ゜。━✧

Bliss.

That's what you feel when you're with him. For example, right now. Pure bliss.

The bliss is enough to make you forget about the guilt. The shame. The absolute sin that you're both committing.

He grunts out as he stalls his movements, "Fuck, baby, I need you to be still, I wanna take my time. Gonna cum too fast if you keep doing that."

This pleases you, so you slowly push yourself into him. He has you laying on your stomach with your ass perched up, face smooshed into his pillow, his favorite position. He loves the view. He loves your ass. He loves your body and how, in moments like this, it's his and only his.

As you push into him, you wiggle a little bit, regardless of how much your legs shake from the sensation. He's deep. So deep. Deeper than any other guy has ever been able to get.

He throws his head back, eyes rolling back with it, and he grunts almost as if he's in pain as his entire body tenses. He's close. You can feel him twitching. You can't help but let out a little laugh, pleased with yourself.

Oh, but he doesn't like that very much.

He grabs the back of your neck forcefully, leaning himself onto you, and pressing his back firmly against your own. He tilts your head so that his lips are touching your ear, and he grunts again as he buries himself even deeper into you, which seems impossible.

"If you wanted me to fuck you like I hate you, you could've just asked."

Without even giving you a moment to respond, he pushes your face into the pillow, muffling any noise that you make. He slams into you forcefully, so hard that the headboard of his bed slams into the wall. He keeps his hand on your head, ensuring that you don't move. He doesn't relent, as he slams himself into you at such a fast pace, that your entire body is vibrating. He's never fucked you like this before. And you love it.

You couldn't make a sound even if you wanted to, you're left speechless.

It doesn't take him long to come undone, and you don't mind, because he already made you cum three times. You're sure that you've been going at it for nearly two hours now, a mixture of heated kissing, grinding, and teasing. He fingered you and gave you head, and you had already came once around his cock, so you think that he's earned it.

He empties inside of you, painting your walls white as hot ropes of cum shoot into you. The feeling is unlike any other. Even if he isn't yours, it feels like he is at this very moment. And you're his too. You always have been.

The twitching dies down, and he lays himself on top of you gently, making sure to pepper the back of your neck with soft kisses.

He lays there for a moment, catching his breath, as you do the same. Despite being sober, a drunken smile crosses his face, his dimples on show. One of the things you love most about him.

You, on the other hand, come down from your high fairly quickly. The moment he disconnects himself from you is when reality hits you every time.

The guilt surfaces.

You've never not felt guilty about what you're both doing.

Recently, however, it's been prominent. Too prominent. At first, you were easily able to shoo the guilt away. It all started so easily, and things just happened, before you even knew what situation you were putting yourself in.

Once you found out that he was married, it ate you alive, but it never stopped you. Because you're selfish and shameless. You love him. And sometimes, love is a hell of a drug, causing you to do stupid things.

You grew to love him a bit too quickly, at first it was just fun, but all it took was a bouquet of roses and his concerned face the day after he went a bit too rough on you in the bedroom, for you to fall in love with him.

You didn't mind him being rough. It was the first time a man had ever handled you in such a way, and you fucking loved it.

But Jungkook is an overthinker.

After you were done that night, he saw the tears staining your face. You assured him they weren't sad tears, you couldn't even control them, you had just experienced such sensations that overwhelmed your brain and your body, crying and cumming seemed to have been the release of those sensations.

He showed up with those roses and puppy dog eyes, totally out of the blue, he hadn't even texted you before arriving. He was so concerned. He himself looked as if he might cry, and you couldn't help but think it was too cute.

He hugged you so tightly that you'd think he was afraid you were gonna float away. He apologized profusely and said that he couldn't get your tears out of his head after he left. He felt terrible, no matter how much you reassured him. He even had a nightmare about it.

It took an entire hour of him sitting on your couch to convince him that you were, in fact, ok, and had never felt better. Although embarrassing to admit, you explained to him that you've never felt more pleasure out of anything. And you want him to do it again. He finally gave in and accepted your explanation, but still apologized once more.

That night you didn't sleep together. It was the first time you guys had hung out without having sex. You watched movies, ate junk food, and talked about stupid shit all night long.

That's when you realized you loved him. And you were fucked.

You blame it on your fucked up brain. Daddy issues. Abandonment issues. Attachment issues. Girly things.

You shouldn't love this man. You shouldn't even like him. You'd think finding out he was married would have been enough to get you to run the fuck away from him.

But it didn't.

You loved him so desperately that you decided to live with it. Pretended that it was ok. Because when you were with him, it was oh so easy to forget.

The moment that he left though, that's when it ate you alive.

Especially recently.

Your visits used to be sporadic, spontaneous even. No more than once every week, usually two. It was easy to push it away after the first few days of being without him again. Then you started craving him, causing all of the guilt and coherent thought to completely leave, or hide maybe, which would make it easier to give in to your selfish desires.

Recently, though, he's been an animal. Wanting to see you constantly. Several times a week. As if he was addicted.

You didn't complain at first. You were able to replace the guilt with pride, loving the fact that he wanted you that badly. He was willing to make whatever excuses he did to come and see you.

But it has proven to make the guilt worse.

You find yourself awake at night, wondering what excuse he gave his wife, whether or not she's becoming suspicious of his sudden and often absence. If it were you, it'd be clear that something wasn't quite right. Then again, you don't know how good of a liar Jungkook really is or isn't, because you never ask these questions.

This leads your thoughts to a dark place, wondering if she even loves him like you do, does she take care of him like you do, does she kiss him like you do, does she touch him like you do, does he think about you when he's inside of her...

Jealousy plagues you when you have no right to be jealous. He isn't yours. The ring on his finger signifies the fact that he belongs to someone else.

You feel bitter, towards a woman that you don't even know.

You've never seen pictures of her, you've never asked about her, you don't even know her name. You don't know what kind of life she lives. If she's happy. Yet, you still wish nothing more than to be her.

Love. It's fucked up. Especially when you fall in love with someone out of reach.

Since he has made his frequent visits a habit, you've been slowly becoming comfortable with the idea of calling things off. You love him. You do. But you know that he will never be yours, and although he so often proclaims his love for you, you just can't believe him. If he loved you, you wouldn't be his dirty little secret.

Dirty. That's how you feel.

So, you made a vow to yourself before coming to his second apartment (the one that's so kindly reserved for your secret encounters), that it'll be the last time.

Comforting, in a way, that you'll be able to leave the guilt of what you're doing behind. Or you hope so anyway.

Yet, the dread that you feel from the fact that this means he'll no longer be in your life, makes you feel almost as if your heart will explode into tiny little pieces and result in your ultimate demise.

Death would be easier.

He has no idea about the thoughts going through your head right now. He's still coming down from his high, looking as if he's never felt happier. He has no idea of the bomb you're about to drop on him, and you're entirely terrified of what his reaction may be. Will he care? Will he freak out? Will he fight for you?

As if he can read your thoughts, he looks at you with concerned eyes, moving your hair out of your face as he moves to lay next to you, instead of on top of you.

"Was I too rough?"

You smile sadly at him, "No. No such thing."

He smiles so innocently at you as if he didn't just almost break the bed fucking you into oblivion.

His smile quickly fades as he sees the frown on your face that you so desperately tried to contain.

"Baby, what's wrong? Talk to me."

You glance at him, biting your lip nervously, trying to figure out how to bring this up. How to end it.

Yet, you can't help yourself. There are so many questions in your head, questions that you have no business to ask. But still, you're curious, and you blurt out before even giving it a second thought, "What have you been telling her? Since we've been seeing each other so often."

This catches him off guard, the hand that was cradling your face so tenderly as you let yourself get lost in your head, suddenly tenses. He slowly pulls it away and turns his body so that he's lying on his back, now staring at the ceiling. Avoiding looking at you.

His guard is up.

"Told her I have some projects at work that require extra attention. Why?"

He still doesn't look at you. Your heart crumbles.

"Don't you feel... guilty?"

He sighs and closes his eyes, purses his lips, and lets out a deep breathe that sounds labored. He props himself up on his elbow and looks down at you, his gaze remains loving, but guarded.

"What's with the questions?"

You blink at him, now you're the one who's caught off guard by his cold response. He feels guilty. Behind that tiny spec of love in his eyes, is nothing but guilt. And now worry.

He thinks you're gonna tell her.

You quickly shut down those thoughts, "Stop overthinking Kook. I'm not gonna say anything. This is a secret for me too, you know. I'd never wanna out myself as someone's fucking mistress."

You can't hide your irritation at his distrust. You don't blame him, but also, you aren't the only one in the wrong here. It takes two to commit this type of sin. He isn't innocent. And you hate knowing that all you'll ever be is his secret. A secret that he'll never cherish enough to tell or share with someone.

He furrows his brows, suddenly looking angry, "Mistress? What the fuck?"

You glance at him and scoff, "That's what I am, right? I'm your mistress. Side piece. Sneaky link. Take your pick, Jeon."

That pisses him off even further. He hates it when you refer to him as Jeon. As if you're his business partner. It feels cold. It feels wrong. He's always been Kook, Kookie, and sometimes even Koo when you can't fully get his name out while he's railing you. Jeon is reserved for impersonal encounters. Or frustration, in this situation.

He looks at you as if you've slapped him in the face, becoming animated in his frustration as he speaks, his eyebrows scrunch up as he speaks, and he sounds a bit whiny, "You aren't my mistress, don't ever call yourself that again. I love you. Fuck."

This earns him another scoff, more like a laugh, "Ha!" Is the sound that you let out, and he glares at you even further. He's nearly pouting at this point, and it takes all of your self-control not to smoosh his cheeks and kiss his face all over. It pisses you off that he can be so cute when you are feeling like such shit. You channel that anger into the problem at hand.

Your guard is up too. The mention of love will quickly bring the walls up, separating you two from each other.

"Love me? You don't love me."

He shakes his head, almost as if he's certain he heard you incorrectly. His eyes blink rapidly, and he stares at the wall with a pout on his face, thinking to himself, "Surely she didn't just say that?" It takes a few moments of him looking at you like a lost puppy for him to respond.

"Where is this coming from Y/N?"

"Do you love her too?"

You don't want to hear the answer. But you know that you need to.

His tongue darts out of his mouth, licking his bottom lip before he bites it. A clear sign of nervousness. He's overthinking. Considering his words carefully.

He sighs before he responds, tilting his head to one side as if it'll help him understand your sudden cold mood, "Can you explain to me what the sudden change is? I don't understand why you're asking these kinds of questions all of a sudden."

He avoided the question.

Your anger rises.

"Would you leave her for me?"

You make sure to look him directly in his eyes, wanting to relay how absolutely serious you're being. You won't back down. You feel that you selfishly deserve answers after everything. Even if you're guilty.

"Y/N, you know that's not an easy question. I can't just leave my wife. I've built a life with her. Shit isn't easy."

Not a straight answer, but it is a straight punch in the gut.

The hurt disguised as anger reaches the surface, overflowing, leaking into every crack of your being.

Enough.

You hastily get off of the bed, picking up pieces of your clothes to quickly dress yourself. You feel too vulnerable. You want to hide. You need to cover yourself in some way.

"Y/N, what is happening? Talk to me please."

You don't answer. He's looking at you as if he's silently panicking. As if his entire world is about to come crashing down, and he's having to watch. He doesn't know what to do. And he can feel what's coming. What you promised yourself would happen tonight.

"I want to stop this, Jungkook."

He stills. As if he's becoming a statue. One look at him, and you second guess whether or not you're Medusa, and fear that he may soon crumble into dust.

"Why?" He nearly whispers, and his voice cracks, and oh fuck, it takes everything in you to not run over and cradle him as if he's a baby. Your baby.

But he isn't. That's the problem here.

"Because, Kook, I can't live with the guilt. I can't live with being someone's mistress. I want to get married too, at some point. I need to move on and live my life, stay open for whoever is gonna make me theirs one day."

You didn't just punch him in the gut, you took a dagger and dug it into his heart, twisted it around, and left it there. He's hurt. So hurt. He wishes that you were Medusa because then he could crumble into dust instead of having to watch you walk out of his life for good. Instead of having to endure the consequences of his mistake. A mistake that he, himself, would never ever call a mistake. Maybe a tragedy, or a twist of fate, but never a mistake.

But he's like you and disguises it with anger. It's easier that way.

"You fucking serious? What do you not understand about the fact that you're not my mistress? I love you, Y/N."

As you button up your jeans, you notice that he's now standing. He's perched himself against the dresser, staring at you with an intensity that makes you nearly uncomfortable. As if he can see into the depths of your very soul. Something you do not want right now.

"No, Jungkook, you do not love me. If you loved me, things would be different. You're married, for fucks sake, and all of this is so wrong."

Jungkook is a sweetheart. Always has been. Despite his rough hands in the bedroom, never once has he not been gentle with you, even when you're snarky with him. But one thing about him is that he's petty. He can be immature when he's provoked. When he feels hurt or rejected. Like a big man-child, he acts out.

"You didn't seem to think so ten minutes ago when I was fucking your pretty little brains out, or any of the other times for that matter. What's with the change of heart? You suddenly feel guilty?"

You snap.

"I've always fucking felt guilty Jungkook! Always! It eats me alive. I can't continue doing this knowing that you're not only married but will never love me the same way that I love you. It's going to ruin me. I need to get on with my life."

He's closer now, as you button up your blouse. You ignore him. You can't bear to look at him. You want to get this over with.

"Y/N, please look at me."

He says it almost as if it's a plea for forgiveness. As if he's begging. So soft that he's nearly whispering. He regrets his outburst, not even a minute after it happened. He's too sweet. He has too big of a heart. A heart that is not yours.

But you don't look at him. You can't. You can't risk the fact that one look at him may just change your mind.

"Look. At. Me."

No longer a beg, now a demand. But you still don't look at him. He probably assumes you're being stubborn, but in reality, you're fucking scared to look at him right now. He makes you so damn weak.

You start to bend down to grab your shoes, but he grabs your arm, forcing you to face him. His touch is firm, urging you to comply, but still gentle. And when you still don't look at him, he grabs your chin in the same way, firm yet gentle, forcing you to look at him.

Don't back down.

"I love you."

But then you see it. As you look into his eyes, it mirrors your own. He loves you just as much as you love him. Eyes don’t lie. It's clear as day. Yet, all logic in your brain tells you that he's lying. How can he possibly love you when this is your relationship? Regardless of the time you spend together after the sex, you wonder if he'd even come around if sex wasn't involved.

So you push him away.

You yank your chin out of his grasp. And you spit out, "You have no idea what love is. You fuck someone else behind your wife's back. That's not love. Not for either of us. You're selfish."

You've once again hurt him. You continue taking that dagger that you left in his heart, stabbing it over and over again. Yet, no matter how many times you defile his heart, it is still beating for you.

He didn't expect this sort of reaction out of you. He didn't know what to expect, actually. He hoped that his words, and the sincerity in his gaze, would convince you. Even if you did leave. He didn't want you to leave thinking that you were no more than a good fuck to him. Because even if you don't know, you're so much more, and he has no idea how to explain it.

What you said really hurt him. He, himself, doesn't quite understand why he's put himself in this situation. He does love his wife. Or he thought that he did. Ever since you came along, he isn't so sure.

Jungkook has never cheated on anyone, even in his younger and more irresponsible days. Loyalty was always important to him. He'd rather break his partner's heart by leaving them than break their heart by cheating and making them feel as if they're not enough. Although that's exactly what he's doing with you.

He's a great liar. Something that you've always wondered about. So great that his wife is none the wiser… or maybe she just doesn’t care enough to notice.

Ever since he met you, something blossomed inside of him. It's as if there was a seed planted in his heart, all of the women that he had ever been with nurtured it and tried to get it to grow. Some did the opposite, causing it to get buried deeper inside of him and stay stagnant. But, as soon as you came along, it sprouted. A tiny leaf. A new feeling. Slowly, as you spent time together, regardless of how impure what you did was, this leaf bloomed into a beautiful flower. The petals are decorated in the various shades of you. Claiming his heart in a way that you aren't even aware of.

Not even his wife could do that.

And he's married to her. He has been for two years now. He's been in a relationship with her for four. They met freshman year of college, and the rest was history. He assumed that would be the end of it. His happily ever after.

But, he never bloomed. He didn't even know that he could bloom. Didn't know that he needed to bloom. He just thought his wife was it for him.

Until he met you.

He doesn't want to let you go, but he doesn't exactly know how to keep you either. There are options, there are always options. But none are viable. None give him a clear conscience, and regardless of how eagerly you asked him earlier, he knows that if he did leave his wife for you, you would feel guilty the entirety of your relationship. There is no good ending for you two. Every single option ends in you two living with guilt for the rest of your lives. Which ultimately would end in the downfall of you both. Chaos. Disaster. Two worlds colliding that shouldn't have to begin with. The end of the fucking world.

He doesn't want that, no matter how tempting the thought of leaving his wife is. No matter how tempting being with you forever sounds. No matter how tempting the idea of being the one to marry you one day sounds. He doesn't want you to have to live with the guilt of his own selfish decisions. He just wants you to bloom.

His wife isn't perfect. In fact, she's kind of a bitch. But he's always been able to handle her. She grew up rich, privileged, and a bit stuck up. Jungkook had an average childhood and was a bit of a delinquent in his teenage years. She clung on to the bad boy in him. Yet, she still treats him as if he's a child.

He was ok with this, didn't mind it at all… until he met you. You cared for him in a way that she never did. Regardless of this little secret being built upon a foundation of lust and infidelity, you treated him as if he were your husband instead. You cooked for him, you took care of him whenever he was drunk or hungover, you checked on him if you felt something was wrong, and you did so many little things to show him how much you cared.

He remembered the time when he was so stressed at work that he gained a few pimples. He never got pimples. Regardless of how beautiful he is, he’s still human. He gets insecure. You hated that he didn't feel beautiful.

So, you invited him over that morning before he went to work. It was unlike you. You usually save your unholy acts for the dark. So he expected that you just missed his touch.

However, when he arrived early that morning, you did no such thing. You greeted him with a big breakfast composed of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and strawberry syrup that you homemade. Something that his wife never did. She never cooked, always ordered takeout, or nagged him to cook.

After the breakfast, which was filled with innocent conversation and banter, you took him to your bathroom. You knew that his pimples were bothering him. He texted you a selfie of it the night before, followed by "I look like a fucking teenage boy :(" Something so human, so natural, caused him to doubt himself in so many ways. He held himself to such a high standard that something as simple as an inevitable stress-induced pimple made him feel less than worthy.

So, after he became stubborn and told you that he didn't want you to touch or look at them, you reassured him to trust you. And he did. So easily. You decorated his pimples with tiny little star patches, patches that you reserved for yourself and your really bad days because they were expensive as fuck on your tight budget, but he was more than worth it. He was hesitant, as he saw what you were doing. But then he looked in the mirror, and he didn't even see the pimples, he didn't even care about the girly and childish stars covering his chin and temple. He saw you, and the way you lit up as you saw him.

Inevitably, the morning ended with you two having a quickie. But it wasn't lust-filled as usual. It was something more. Something sweet.

He arrived at work no longer feeling insecure. He kept the stars on his face, regardless of how goofy they felt, they were a reminder of you. How you saw him, how you wanted to reassure him, how you wanted to protect him. Even from himself.

He had such a good day at work that day. Although, as soon as he got home and his wife saw the stars, she scolded him. Told him that they weren't manly. They made him look ridiculous and childish. Made him take them off. But it didn't matter, because the flower had bloomed fully that day.

He wanted your flower to bloom.

He wanted to make your flower bloom.

But he knew that he couldn't exactly do that when he was married. Unlike you, his flower, the one claimed by you, was surrounded by a fence. A fence composed of his wife.

Maybe a cage is more accurate.

He knew that your flower would never fully bloom as long as that cage was in place.

He knew that he needed to let you go, for your flower to bloom, no matter how much it hurt him.

So, he did. Or he tried to anyway.

He cleared his throat, fighting his tears. There were some truths behind your words, but the one prominent lie is the fact that you think he doesn't love you. He does. But he'll never convince you with the nature of your relationship.

"I... I understand. You're right. We should stop."

Your heart cracked. Your flower wilted.

He didn't deny it. He didn't fight. And a part of you was expecting him to. But you know how selfish and naive that is.

You say nothing. You grab your purse after putting on your shoes. You head for the door and hesitate as you feel his sad eyes boring into the back of your head.

You don't look at him, but you quietly bid your goodbye.

"Goodbye Jungkook. Take care of yourself... love your wife more."

And you walk. Nearly run. Desperate to escape the suffocating smell of his apartment.

He follows you but says nothing. He stops as you reach the front door. But he doesn't stop you.

Quickly, you open his front door and slam it shut, and then you freeze. You don't know why you linger, but you do. Possibly waiting for him to rush out, profess his love to you, and offer to leave his wife so that you can live happily ever after. Hope, that you have no right to hang on to.

Instead, you're greeted with a few seconds of silence. And then a bang. And then a crash. And then a scream. He's losing it. And you know you've lost him. He won't fight. He won't beg you to be his. He's lashing out because he knows that he can't.

So you take a deep breath, and you walk away. Feeling numb. Feeling alone. Feeling empty.

Dirty.

✧━。゜✿ฺ✿ฺ゜。━✧

[doitforbangchan]

All Bark and No Bite : Meet the pack

Helloooooo! Welcome to my new series titled All Bark and No Bite. Before the series officially begins I want to give a quick overview of the SKZ pack members and their roles within the pack! This is how I view the pack dynamics working and my own personal thoughts. I have sorted them based on where I think they would fall. I have also included what tendencies I think some of them would have. I am also including a small background for the story. Please let me know your thoughts as well! I’d love to discuss :)

Disclaimer: The names and faces used here are just that, names and faces, and in no way reflect the real people the characters were designed after. The views and actions of these characters do not reflect the real Stray Kids in any way shape or form. This is all for fun let’s keep it that way please. 

My content is always for 18+ ONLY. If you are not 18+ please see yourselves out thanks

Background info: This story takes place in an alternate universe where people eventually present as one of three presentations: Alpha, beta and omega. Omegas are incredibly rare and many people have never even seen an omega in their lives. The new tradition is if an alpha does get an omega then that Omega does become the packs, though they will mainly ‘belong’ to the main alpha of the pack. Due to the submissive nature of the omegas this has turned many alphas and betas very misogynistic. 

Next Series masterlist Masterlist

Bang Chan aka Chris -Pack Main Alpha 

Chris is the head alpha of the SKZ pack. He is strong willed and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Head of the pack and also unofficial head of the neighboring town has taken its toll on Chan mentally and emotionally. He is known as a strong leader who would and has done anything to protect his people. Other packs have heard of him and know better than to challenge him… Mostly anyways. The stupid few usually don’t make it home after coming for Chan. He is used to obedience and expects it in all aspects.

Lee Minho -Beta 

Minho can be hard to read sometimes, he gives off such a serious vibe but once you get to know him and how he interacts with the pack it’s clear he really cares for them. Minho is very blunt and will tell you exactly how he sees it. Even though he’s a beta he is still Chan's second in command in the pack. Minho is often there to remind Chan that he’s allowed to be a human and not a machine. Main cook for the pack. 

Seo Changbin -Alpha 

The main muscle (other than chan) of the pack. He takes pride in his strength and his ability to protect the pack as well as offer a shoulder to cry on. Changbin is often the one the pack goes too when they are down and just need a hug. According to them he gives the best hugs. Also really good for a laugh as he never stops joking around. 

Hwang Hyunjin -Beta 

Hyunjin is a true romantic through and through. When he’s not helping out at home with the pack you could usually find him painting out in a field somewhere or in town helping the townsfolk. He can often be found running errands for the elderly in town. He is a true artist and loves to do portraits of his fellow pack mates. 

Han Jisung -Beta with Omega tendencies

Precious Hannie, always so helpful and supportive. It was a surprise to his family he didn’t present as an omega growing up given how submissive he can be. He just wants to please the people he cares about! He can be a little introverted and shy around new people but once he warms up to you he never stops talking or joking around. Sunshine boy :) 

Lee Felix -Beta Omega tendencies 

Felix is another ray of sunshine for the pack. He is very dainty like a fairy and dances around like one too, despite his deep voice! His bubbly personality is contagious and anyone he meets is enamored by him. He can often be found in the kitchen baking during the day and singing along to whatever song is stuck in his head. Sometimes the pack wonders how he didn’t end up an omega. 

Kim Seungmin -Beta with Alpha tendencies 

This boy is very smart and is one of Chan's right hand men in the pack. He pays attention better than anyone else to small details and is good with strategy. He can come off as aloof and rude when you don’t know him yet, but once his shell is broken through he is actually a very caring person. He always tries to do right by his pack and would stop at nothing to protect them. 

Yang Jeongin -Alpha 

The youngest member of the pack and newest to present as an Alpha. He is very easy going and doesn’t have many responsibilities yet as he’s still trying to find himself as an alpha. He really looks up to the other members, especially Chan as he is a prime example of who Jeongin wants to become. The least experienced of the pack. One thing about him is he is very quick on his feet and even though he is young he knows he would die for the pack’s safety. 

If you got this far thank you :') I am not the best writer but I do enjoy it and hope you do too!

©doitforbangchan

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@ihrtlix

[luvring]

PHOTO OF YOU

suna x gn!reader | rin comes home and sees the new photo of him you've gotten

note from nia: if anyone does another character w my idea i am humbly asking u to tag me because i think it's fun and silly

“what the hell is that?”

“what do you mean?”

“i mean why is my face on the back of your phone?” suna asks, laughing in disbelief.

you turn your phone to look at its back with the photo of him sitting in a pink photo holder. he’s mid-laugh, head resting on your lap, and plushie under his chin. your aforementioned boyfriend stands above your spot curled up on the couch, and waits with a tilted head for an explanation. “you don’t like it? it’s a photocard.”

“it—” he snorts before reaching for your phone to inspect it. you hand it over and his lips twitch into a smile. “am i a k-idol now?”

“maybe. you tell me.” you shrug. rin carefully takes off your phone case to look at himself, even moving so the light from outside would give him a better view. you gesture to the photocard with an accomplished grin. “i even got a sleeve and decorated it.”

“mhm, i see that, baby,” he replies breathily. you watch as he rubs the different stickers and tilts the holder, letting the sparkly stickers reflect back at him. if he had passed your desk he would have seen the sticker sheets you bought specifically for this, alongside the different layouts you had planned out. “where’d you even get this printed?” he asks.

“i have my ways.”

rin shakes his head, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek before looking at you. “no, i need to know so i can print one of you.”

“what?” he only continues to look at you, a smile growing on his face.

you squint at him in return. "rintarou." he bends down to place your phone and photo on the coffee table, then moves to join you on the couch. if there was something you knew about suna rintarou, it was that he’d always, always go through with a bit. if you didn’t stop him now, he’d start ordering photocards of you and pretend to unbox them, saying something about always managing to pull the rarest ones.

you groan at the new weight on top of you as he shifts to lie down properly. “rin, oh my god, you’re going to smush to me. and also no way are you getting one.”

he hums and wraps his arms around your waist, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his laugh against your skin. “why not? i want a photocard of you.”

“no, you don’t deserve my photocard.”

“but we could match, babe. don't you think we’d be cute? i could decorate my sleeve, too.” rin looks up at you with an exaggerated pout. you pinch his cheek and snicker at his unamused frown. “no, you’d pick an awful photo and i’d have to kill you out of principle.”

“uh-huh, just don’t get blood on my picture then,”—he turns his head to bite onto your finger and grins as you pull it away—“it’ll be the one and only copy, worth your rent in just a year.”

“so you admit you’d pick a terrible photo?”

“no, i’d pick a good one,” he says plainly. the look you give him is so obviously mistrusting that rin laughs loudly. he shifts up to plant a kiss to your jaw and counters softly, “i would, it’d be the one i have as my lockscreen. promise.”

his lockscreen had been the same photo of you for months; it was a selfie you had taken on his phone, close up and face smushed against his pillow. the first time you asked about it, rin had told you he’d look at it when he was away and didn’t want to wake you, and imagined you were there beside him.

he looks at you expectantly, waiting for approval. your own expression softens and after a second, you sigh. “god. yeah, okay. i can’t believe we’re going to have photocards of each other.”

“seriously? you did it first.”

“as a joke, and you’re going with it.”

“yeah, ‘cause you’re cute and i love you.” you stutter and he smirks, deciding to give you the small mercy of not commenting on it. “i’m gonna print a bunch and start a collection, y’know.”

the idea makes you groan. “can you just make your own and sell them so we can be rich?”

you feel his laugh before getting his agreement. “i can do both of those things. i'll even get the team on board and spoil you with our incredible profit.”

“oh, wow. will i get credit?”

“yeah. something, something copyright law or whatever.” you're 100% sure that was bullshit, but hum despite it. “m’kay. that’s the plan, then.”

and you think that’s the end of it, and quietly ask rin to hand you your phone again. even if it was as a joke, you spent more time on decorating the sleeve than expected and wanted it back in your case. he manages to grab and pass it to you but the sight of himself gets rin's mind on his own photocard again. he looks at you sheepishly. “...can i seriously take your stuff to decorate the card sleeve, though?”

@devilgirlcrybabiey @lordbugs @smiithys @xfangirl-trashx @passionateuchiha @scaramouchesfootstool @fifteenshadesofpinkk @chloee0x0 @kenmaslov3r @bakugosgrenade @dai-tsukki-desu @Thathoneybee3 @momoewn @aintgeluh @dazaisfavgf @simpforerenn @crystal-lilac @vhenis @omiigad @kur0-kawa @semispilledcoffee @ksyhmm @idontlikeyourjob @sparrowb3nscloset @awkwardaardvarkforever @rory-cakes @prblmtc @kuroaka @sunaslay @the-midnightskies @h0n3ysgh0st @lackey-laufeyson @bontensbabygirl @dira333 @the-b-u-n-n-y @Kamukayakmonyet @danyisapingu @isentsworld @lilithlunas @anime-ships-gay @todorokiskitten @kellesvt

[lovelessrage]

Loveless: A Loveless Review

[Plain Text: Loveless: A Loveless Review]

Trigger Warnings For: Discussion of sex, sex negativity, platonormativity, arophobic tropes, and anti-loveless rhetoric

Disclaimer/Disclosure: I couldn’t finish this book. This will factor heavily into the review, as it has to do with how some scenes, details, and the writing quality were just very hard to sit with and continue. I got about 50% through, so I didn’t just skim pages and get back to you on it.

You might guess I don’t think of this book highly if I had to put it down and stop reading. This would be correct. However, I have more in depth thoughts than that. If you like this book and don’t want to read negative things about it, that's fine, but I implore you to read it anyway. A lot of the problems in this book are present in a lot of creations I see and can be a valuable teaching lesson; loveless people aren’t out to ruin your fun because biases got questioned.

Alright. Enough disclaimers. Review under the cut.

The Bingo Card: Surprisingly, Not A Strikeout

People who have been following me for a while may remember I mentioned I went into reading this book with a bingo card in hand: Loveless and Tired Bingo, a sheet made by yours truly. I did not get Bingo with this book! I did, however, fill 17 spaces out of 25; it just didn’t happen to line up, not because the book passed with flying colors. We’ll return to the Bingo Card at the end of this post to see what it looked like. But, letting you know, that’s a rate of 68% of all squares ticked on Loveless and Tired Bingo. Not looking so hot. 

Platonormativity, Envy, and The Loneliness Whirlpool

Let’s start with the meat of the post so nobody has to read it all if they just wanted my representation opinions. Other things like writing will be shuffled down for your convenience.

Edit: Past Scowl is a liar and a fraud and did not have maims glasses on, and misread the bingo card! I did get Bingo. Oops. Point still stands because the data is the same, I just gave this book a sliver more credit than it deserved for not getting one.

If this book had a full course meal, normativity would ironically be a key ingredient in every plate on the menu. Loveless has a platonormativity problem that confronts you from page 1, more realistically before that; the blurb!

[Text ID: From the marvelous author of Heartstopper comes an exceptional YA novel about discovering that it's okay if you don't have sexual or romantic feelings for anyone... since there are plenty of other ways to find love and connection. /End ID]

I promise not all my complaints will be raving about one sentence, but this kinda encapsulates the entirety of my problem with Loveless: Georgia Warr is not supported in her own novel. Loveless is a deeply insecure book that many can relate to, but, really… does it alleviate that insecurity, or just cover it up? There’s an unspoken “but” to every part of Loveless’ philosophy about aspec people [especially aroaces], where they must have platonic love to make them whole, to “fix” and “redeem” their lacking attractions. This has always bothered me, and it’s not an uncommon opinion in the community, unfortunately.

Aroaces aren’t allowed to simply “be” – they must be more. They must be so platonically invested you forget they’re aroace, because they have all this other type of love to give the world. It’s reflective of a view on a community sourced from hurt and exclusion, of someone trying to rebuild their worth on a new forefront. It doesn’t make it less of what it is, though: it’s a “yes they’re valid, but” statement that serves as the backbone for far too many aspec-focused media. 

Georgia is a deeply unsure character, and there’s nothing wrong with her being this way; she’s a fictional character made to represent a journey of acceptance, not a real person with the ability to inflict harm on other real people. She does reflect the author’s biases in many ways and many points on the same token, though, acting as a mouthpiece. This often comes in Georgia’s insistence her friendships are simply stronger than other relationship types, as well as her reflexive tendencies to judge the friendless.

One of my many, many hurdles in this book had to do with Rooney [someone save her and half the cast from this novel, please], when the group realizes she’s only a socialite, not really a long-term relationship holder, and the entire room devolves into silent judgment. Georgia does not defend her newfound friend, simply noting she thought differently of her. What about Rooney not having many friends changes her outgoing personality? It doesn’t. It’s simply the fact that Rooney being friendless makes her weird, as with many things Rooney is unfairly demonized for in this novel.

The emphasis on friends doesn’t end here, and persists through the entire novel, practically. It is the main focus, when it isn’t talking about Georgia’s disinterests, and her friend circle is very important to her. All of this is fine. What isn’t fine is the expectation and casual enforcement of friendship being all you have, so you must seize it; this book, even though I wouldn’t recommend it, is often given as The Book on being aroace, but I wouldn’t agree [you’re free to tell me I can’t have an opinion on that if I’m not aroace, but at least read on before deciding anything, alright, official hear me out warning]. One, not all aroaces are alloplatonic, and two, this:

Why Is This Book Written Like A Workplace Safety Seminar

It’s a very… cookie-cutter way to be aroace, and cookie cutter aroaces exist in real life! The rep should exist, no doubt, and shouldn’t be taken away from anyone. It’s not my problem per se that the book is semi-stereotypical. What my problem is has to do with something I see a lot.

The book falls into many of the pitfalls of what I’m dubbing “the pamphlet effect”: when a novel, show, etc. continuously needs to halt the plot to remind the audience this character is different, and explains this to you in a way that resembles an educational pamphlet at a pride event. Georgia Barr feels like an example given to explain a concept more than a person, and I feel bad for her because of how little this book engages with her actual character when it shines through. I understand the book is primarily centered on her journey through the spectrum, but very little is given to make Georgia’s experience unique outside of one scene off the top of my head. Her interests, hobbies, and unique feelings only seem to play a role when it comes time to be an author mouthpiece on slutshaming for fun and sport; only one scene, the forced kiss with Jason when rehearsing the play, really blends her life experiences with her aroace experiences.

Georgia feels designed to be an everywoman, and it was very disappointing to say the least. Very little of the book actually feels like I’m with her, or learning about her unique take on being aroace as a theatre fan or young adult figuring things out; it just feels like Georgia [and the reader] are being dragged through the Cliff’s Notes version of what it is to discover being aroace, rather than a look at how a character like this might feel differently than others on a fuller, whole scale. She’s a hole that can fit most shapes into it, which makes her broadly relatable, but not as fun or engaging to read about if you don’t fit precisely in the demographic Georgia is for; even if you do, is there much to engage with beyond “I’m like that too!”? 

This isn’t just a Georgia problem, either, as many, many characters in this book are walking stereotypes or very flat. But, we’ll get into that later [if you want to get into it now, skip to Writing Problems, Oh My!].

The Fingering In The Room: Loveless’ Weird Ideas About Sex

Alright, if you’re sex repulsed and braved the storm to get some insight, this next paragraph is just complete confusion about this book’s sex scenes and talking about some of the details within. If you want to skip that, skip the next paragraph.

Why is everybody fingering each other? Fingering is fine and it feels good, but it is basically the only sexual act this book knows outside of making out with tongue. Someone having sex in Loveless? They better have clipped their nails because at least two are going in. It feels like a point of research that was skipped because it was unimportant, which. Pretty much, yes. But when you’re someone who pays very close attention to sex scenes because you’re of the opinion they can have artistic value, as well as conveying the author’s views on sexuality, I come away with “is fingering what Oseman thinks young adults do?”. Anyways. Something I noticed.

[Okay sex repulsed people, you’re good. No in depth descriptions beyond this point, just the word “sex”.]

I should’ve titled this section “In Defense of Rooney Bach” because oh this poor girl. Oh you are just there to be gawked at.

First off, let’s begin in a good place: this book always has to clarify it isn’t slutshaming its characters, followed by slutshaming its characters. Rooney is, for the uninitiated, very sexually active. Georgia’s envy often leads to a judgemental, close minded view of Rooney that often pins her sex life as “too much” – something many sexually active women get villainized for. It strikes me immediately how Rooney is constantly picked on for her sexuality as a woman in ways no male characters who aren’t asexual either are treated. None of the men she flirts with or spends time with are reprimanded or “held to account” by the book; Rooney alone is breaking the rules. Rooney’s descriptions are often bookended with a disclaimer that she isn’t being called a slut, she’s just like one, which… This is slutshaming. You can’t just say you aren’t doing it to not be doing it.

Rooney is also a victim of a very arophobic trope, and one that is also misogynistic: the Broken Woman. Why is Rooney sexually active? A rough breakup that broke her heart and makes her fear intimacy on account of potentially being wrong again. Sure, sex feels good, but explicit focus is made on the fact she is only not engaging with romance because she tried and it didn’t work. For a few chapters, admittedly I was hoping for a book where an aroace and aroallo can get past some differences and expand each other's worldviews; what I got was Georgia thinking pretty poorly of Rooney through unaddressed envy and sex negativity, and Rooney being made to only like hookups because she’s messed up. Because of course a woman could only enjoy that if she had a negative experience that forced her on the path!

Also, another scene I didn’t like was Georgia and Pip watching Rooney have sex while she is completely unaware of their presence? Jason leaves as soon as he notices, but the two of them watch before Pip makes a comment on how disgusting it is and Georgia agrees. I’m shocked at how little this is brought up as being violating or creepy. 

If it was a better book, I would have expected it to result in some kind of furthered conversation about boundaries; it could've been a place for Georgia to start establishing what she likes and dislikes, starting with Rooney preferably keeping her out of her sex life when she’s able. Instead, this event gets brought up solely for jokes, and for a motivation for Pip to start hating Rooney, despite her insistence it wasn't because of the hookup and she isn’t slutshaming. Always a great sign when that needs to be clarified. This is a PSA for everyone: you should not need to clarify you aren’t trying to slutshame. If you feel the need to do so, you are probably being sex negative. 

This book isn’t very fond of sexually active people, nor is it kind to characters that are. I can understand why being asexual and sex repulsed is representation people would want, but I also think there’s many, many ways to write it without making it an exercise in shame.

Ironically Kinda Arophobic In Some Parts

This is a short section of a thing I noticed, hated, and had as a contributing factor for my ending early: this book loves aphobic tropes. There’s already the trope against aroallos of not needing romance because of being broken into only liking sex, but also the problem with Pip and Rooney.

I’m a lesbian, for clarification, and I’m saying from experience that I hate the archetype of the angry, jealous lesbian. It’s everywhere. It’s in this book. Pip, upon even the idea of being rejected, starts berating and demeaning the girl who turned her down, even if she was only turned down in her head. The book passes it off as a lighthearted, funny story that Pip got so mad at an ex-crush she was suspended for throwing an apple at their head. Why do I bring this up?

Is it not ringing any bells that this is arophobic? That a character so hostile to romantic rejection is treated as a joke? Many, many aros, and queer people in general, have experienced violence for turning down someone. It’s a serious issue for aros and a real fear in rejecting someone. I found it incredibly hard to read and sit through as everybody passes off Pip’s tendencies to do this to the women that reject her as a silly, funny Pip moment and not a major issue for the aspec community. I don’t care if it’s enemies to lovers, because it doesn’t really feel good to read at all. The only tension is built off the back of something I’ve experienced in real life and many others have as well. 

Lovelessness: The Insecurity Unaddressed

This book, despite its title, is obviously about a loving character. Many people might not see this as a problem: first off, loveless doesn’t always mean the same thing, and second, many aroaces express feeling loveless when coming to terms with their identity. Here’s my rebuttal.

One: Georgia fits no definitions of the label. She subscribes to none of the beliefs. She loves her friends actively and sees their relationship as more than romance or sex, as something greater to her.

Second, this is because anti-loveless rhetoric is everywhere and all over this book. Not once is it suggested Georgia could live as loveless, or truly be without love. In the end, she is surrounded by it, simply learning to accept friendship instead. The way her insecurity isn’t met with “you’re complete as you are”, and instead with “you can still be complete if you simply fill the void with friends”, is anti-loveless. Nobody is allowed to be whole on their own without a subplot where their doubts are reinforced or they’re explicitly made to be broken inside.

This is shockingly common, and always sad every time I see it. Many aspects fear being loveless, as if it is a curse or blight they must cleanse. This book is one example out of many, but it doesn’t make it less hurtful when a book that runs against everything your community stands for [self-acceptance and the optionality of love] bears your name regardless. It is a book for people who are afraid of loneliness, and it answers their insecurities with “you’re right. You do need other people. You just need to find a way to still find and have a life partner!”. This is damaging to loveless people, especially those questioning an aplatonic identity.

Again, it’s not unique to Loveless. But, it’s reflective of a broader issue of aplatonics who may be seeking community constantly being presented with “you ARE broken, but friendship can fix you!”, a “solution” many can’t use, and often leads to even more self-hatred.

That’s about it from the aspec side of things. If you got this far, congrats! The rest is opinions on the writing, and the bingo card finale. You can drop off here if that’s all you came for.

Writing Problems, Oh My!

This is veering into heavy personal opinion, so, I will remind you: I don’t usually like YA, but YA can be a very good genre! I do not think this book is a good representation of what good YA looks like.

The writing quality is one of the hardest things to get past, because of a major problem I observed: Oseman is better at comics. This isn’t so much a vilification as a recommendation that it would’ve been much better suited for a different type of media. This kind of “media dysphoria” is present in many of the ways the book operates: many scenes would flow perfectly well in a visual piece. Georgia’s inner monologue has a tendency to jump suddenly into scenes and interrupt the action in a way that would be perfectly natural as a narration bubble put over a drawing of the scene around her. There are entire pages of just… text messages that would be much better suited to a visual medium where you could make these dialogue bits look much more interesting through different shots, or drawing what the background would look like on a screen [The Girl from the Sea does this well, for example]. 

There’s also the fact I cannot place in my mind if I'm too old for this novel. A lot of the jokes boil down to “hah! Sex!” in a way that instantly alienates me from the writing. The jokes can be pretty juvenile and repetitive, and serve to be the equivalent of a comedian saying “eh? Get it? That was a joke.” six times. 

This isn’t to mention the fact many of these characters are complete cardboard. Sorry. Jason does not need to exist. When he appears in a scene, he is ignored or completely leaves it on his own. He really only serves to drive Georgia’s character forward, rather than have one of his own. I found myself forgetting he was present in a scene at all until he spoke again and reminded me of his existence. The book would practically be unchanged if Georgia temporarily dated Pip and Jason was never a factor, plus or minus the Shakespeare Soc plot. 

Many interesting characters suffer from severe Pamphlet Effect syndrome. Most of the girls do. In a better novel, they would be more in depth, but Loveless doesn’t really afford them this luxury. I need to take the girls very far away from this novel, okay. I need someone to write a version of Loveless where they have personalities. There’s crumbs there. Please, someone make a loaf of bread out of it. They deserve it.

Another thing, but minor: the breakneck pacing at some points followed by slow slogs of not a lot happening contributes to the reading issues. You may thing something would be dwelled on, just for it to go flying away into the sunset as 3 more things happen and then one problem lasts for 2 chapters. I found it very hard to catch up with Loveless, while other parts I felt like I was constantly waiting for it to catch up with me instead.

The Final Frontier: The Bingo Card Returns

And without further ado, the Loveless and Tired Bingo Card for Loveless by Alice Oseman! Completed with help from other readers braver than I.

[Image ID: A bingo card made from a basic template. It has no title, and all the text is black on a white background. Some squares are marked with a blue X, while others are marked with a red scribble. The marked squares are: “Not prioritizing friendship treated as freak behaviour”, “Jab at loveless sex thrown in”, “Something about not being like THOSE people”, “Universal type of love is laid on thick”, “The answer to all your problems is finding some pals”, “Found family ending”, “Platonic-romantic binary”, “Love still treated as universal [free]”, “Friendship is more wholesome or pure”, “Amatonormativity BAD [platonormativity is my bestie]”, “Platonic love being more powerful or sumn”, “You still love your friends though, right?”, “Friendship saves the day”, “Still thinks you need dedicated people to survive”, “Being alone treated as worst thing in the world”, and “Friendships are more stable than partnerships anyways”. The unmarked, blank squares are: “Something about "players" and pickup artists where no commitment is villainized”, “Character fears being loveless and is kinda aplphobic about it”, “Aspec double standards [one is normal, one is weird]”, “You still love your FAMILY, right???”, “QPRs mentioned by no nuance given to their diversity”, “Friendship forced upon a character against their will”, “Comment about some people being inhuman gets brushed past”, and “Simply prioritise your family instead!!” /End ID]

Would I recommend this book? Uh. No! Well. Yes, but not as a good book for aspecs. I’d recommend it solely to read it yourself and form your own opinions. But, no, I would not recommend it to any aspecs I know, especially not loveless ones, aplatonic ones, aroallos, or if they're an aroace looking for support.

Ah, Loveless, how you vexx me. Never again. See you in the next, much shorter post.

[theygotlost]

good afternoon here's my big rant on my pet peeves for subtitles in movies and tv

This is a post that I’ve thought about making probably for years now but never got around to. I might add more later if I realize I’ve forgotten any

When it comes down to it, the purpose of subtitles is this: to reflect exactly what the audience can hear, precisely when it can be heard. If you fail to do this, your subtitles are bad and you should feel bad. Although I don’t have concrete examples for most of these off the top of my head, I promise I have experienced them all firsthand at least once.

-> Watch for spelling and typos. Obviously.

-> Syncing issues.

This should go without saying, but the captions should be synced as closely as possible with dialogue and sound effects. Subtitles that are out of sync are worse to me than no subtitles at all. They’re unbearably distracting and I have to turn them off. I’m fortunate enough that I can keep watching without them, so imagine how frustrating this is for someone who needs to keep them on no matter what.

-> Jumping the gun.

This is basically an example of out-of-sync subtitles that are slightly too fast, but it gets its own category because it ruins the viewing experience in its own unique way. In particularly dramatic scenes, actors will often draw out their lines or pause between phrases. Captions sometimes fail to reflect this by displaying the entire sentence all at once, allowing the audience to read what someone is about to say before they actually say it, which deflates all the dramatic tension of the scene.

-> Phantom captions.

This one is less self explanatory, but it’s kind of similar to syncing. Sometimes there will be significant intervals of time between lines of dialogue, especially after a scene ends and a new one begins. The interval may include music, sound effects, or complete silence, but what I’m calling a “phantom” is a caption that stays on the screen after that last line of dialogue is delivered until the next line is spoken. I don’t remember what I was watching, but there was one that was glued to the screen for SEVERAL MINUTES over what was supposed to be an atmospheric break between scenes and it drove me nuts. In my experience this happens more often with older subtitling for DVDs and some old videos and less with modern streaming. 

-> Straight up spoilers.

Sometimes, a character will speak whose true identity has not yet been revealed to the audience. If I’m not supposed to know the character’s name yet, don’t just… tell me right there in the captions whenever they say something. Descriptors like “disembodied voice”, “man”/”woman”, “mysterious figure”, etc. will suffice.

-> Lack of musical descriptors.

It usually helps to describe the genre or emotion of the music that’s playing rather than just writing [music] or 🎵. That being said, if there is a song playing that’s particularly well known in the mainstream, I think it’s useful to actually include the name of the song. This one I do have a concrete example for: in Arrested Development, Gob always blasts The Final Countdown during his acts. But the captions on my DVDs for the show always describe it as [stagy pop]. Like yeah I would say that song is some pretty stagy pop, but I think a lot of the humor comes from knowing that it’s specifically The Final Countdown by Europe because it’s such a perfectly corny selection that Gob would make.

Another musical failure is not transcribing pertinent lyrics. If the song is playing in the background, then that’s understandable and it can be kind of distracting if there’s dialog happening on top of it because the audience isn’t actually meant to be paying close attention to the song. But if the song is front and center, like for a musical number or montage, then the lyrics can be pretty important. Last year when I watched Arcane on Netflix with my family (a recent, high budget production from the biggest streaming platform ever), the show had the nerve to write [man rapping] over a musical sequence. Imagine if all subtitles ever just said [person speaking] for the entire movie.

-> Affectations.

If a character starts using a silly voice or accent, or if the sound of their voice changes in any way, describe that. If the audience can hear the difference, the subtitles should reflect that difference. And they should reflect it informatively and accurately; for example, don’t just say [mock accent], but specify [mock French accent]. 

-> Paraphrasing.

I don’t even know why this is an issue, but it’s alarming how many times the subtitles just… straight up don’t match what the characters are actually saying. It’s like the transcriber was forced to write all the captions from memory, so they kinda sorta say the same thing, but the wording is different and some sentences or phrases are missing. When I brought this up with my mom she theorized that the transcriber was working off the script for the movie because hey, that’s all the dialogue already written down, right? But it completely fails to account for revisions, improvisation, or actors delivering their lines even slightly different than how they were originally written.

And last but certainly not least, one of the biggest offenders in bad subtitling…

-> [Speaks foreign language]

If someone says something in another language, please, for the love of god, do not just write [speaks foreign language]  and call it a day. Specifying the actual language is an improvement, but this descriptor only works if the audience members are truly not meant to know what’s being said (which is sometimes the case). If a character is only saying a single word or phrase in another language, transcribe it. As in, write down the actual words that they said. If you don’t speak that language, find someone who does. You are insane for transcribing a character saying “hola” or “abuela” in an otherwise English sentence as [speaks Spanish] (real examples I saw respectively in Rango and JANE THE VIRGIN. THERE’S SO MUCH SPANISH IN THAT SHOW). 

If the audience is supposed to know what someone is saying in another language, English subtitles will usually be hardcoded. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LET THE CAPTION SAYING [SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE] COVER THESE UP. This is actively impeding understanding, not helping it. Jesus christ

* Please keep in mind that I’m not deaf or hard of hearing and I don’t have auditory processing disorder; I almost always watch movies and tv with subtitles whenever the option is available because it helps me absorb information better. If I don’t even strictly NEED subtitles and these are issues for me, I can only imagine how much more difficult it is for those who rely on them more heavily. I invite you to add your own perspective!!

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

The Detour 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Thor

Summary: You find yourself stranded in a small village.

Part of the Backwoods AU

Note: So this is an idea I had for a while but I just know I wouldn't get to do it full length for chapters but I hope it's fun.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You watch the green landscape pass outside the window. The tow truck rattles, almost to a concerning degree, as it chuffs down the winding country road. The driver, a man who calls himself Vol, sings along loudly to the radio as you make yourself small in the passenger seat.

This isn’t how you saw your road trip going. You don’t understand why something always has to go wrong. Even with your utmost efforts, there’s always some hitch.

You go over it all in your head. An oil change, standard check-up, some adjustments. All that on a nearly new model and you still ended up stranded. A flat tire but you don’t have a spare. The man promises one back at his shop. 

Whatever it costs, you don’t care. You’re annoyed at the time spent on this ridiculous mishap. It does seem to occur often that each time you attempt to do something for yourself, that there must be some disaster. It’s why you haven’t tried anything of the sort in years.

You look in the mirror and see the edge of your car strapped to the bed of the truck. You should’ve done the train. The view along the cross country rail is allegedly quite resplendent but you didn’t like the idea of having to abide by a schedule not your own. Once again, your stubbornness nips you in the rear.

The man slaps the steering wheel along to the beat of the music. You don’t mind the song, it’s considered a classic of the genre, but does it need to be so loud? You cross your arms and huff, the noise of your displeasure drowned out by the crackling speakers.

Country houses stand on hills and fields sprawl with freshly sowed fields. You try to imagine a life here, away from the bustling furor of the city. That thought makes your chest want to collapse. You couldn’t do it. You are urban to the core.

As you come to the heart of the village, the houses are placed closer but not clustered. Only along the sparse row of their ‘downtown’ do buildings dare to touch. It’s after five and the shops are all closed for the day.

“Garage is just behind Mary’s place,” the man turns down the radio, “we’ll get a better look at the damage.” He assures you, peeking at you in the rear view, “these old country roads aren’t meant for speeding.”

“I wasn’t…” you cut yourself off. You won’t argue. You just want a new tire, “right, thank you.”

He chuckles, nonplussed by your curtness. He steers around another long bend in the road. Why must everything be so tedious and slow? He shuttles up to a bright red structure that resembles a barn. Across the moniker, hand painted nonetheless, is the name Volstagg’s. He flips the stick to park and kills the engine.

“Here,” he proclaims, pausing as his eyes pinpoint through the windshield, “ah, of course.”

He clicks his seat belt and lets it repel. He swings open the door so violently it shakes the entire vehicle. You furrow your brow as he hops down and hollers. What on earth is he doing?

“...working. What d’you want?” Is all you catch through his chortling grit.

“Good to see you too, friend,” another voice counters, even deeper and smooth like silk. Great, another of the village folk.

You undo your seat belt and check your reflection in the side mirror. You open the door and plant your heel on the little metal step below the door. You let yourself down but stumble at the still jarring height of the truck cabin. You cling to the door as you gain your balance.

You shut it with a creak and a clang. Your soles mulch in the dusty gravel as you follow the voices. You clear your throat, facing the men chattering on the other side of the truck. You bring your hands to your hips in a show of your irritation.

“Hullo,” you sneer, “my tire, sir.”

The bearded redhead, Vol, and his companion, a blond even taller and blonder, look over at you with curious expressions. Their faces tint from surprised to amused. You want to roll your eyes. Your stature rarely affords you dignity.

“Yes, ma’am,” the redhead shows his large palm apologetically, “forgive me,” he faces the other man, “as you see, I have work to do.”

“So I see,” the other man drawls, his gaze stuck on you, “you are visiting Hammer Ford?” 

You curl your lip, “never. Passing through,” you turn and stride away, towards the front of the building as Vol gets back in his truck. 

The blond jogs in front of the high bumper, waving at the driver, as he crosses over to you. You keep your back to him as you strut up the edge of the dirt lot. You try to ignore him as you watch the mechanic angle around to bring your car along the front of the garage, steering the bed towards the doors.

“Passing through. On your way to…?”

“None of your concern,” you sniff, “I only need a new tire and I’ll be gone.”

“Ah, that’s too bad. This is a lovely village. Quaint. You might like it here,” he muses, “a woman like yourself, you might find it novel.”

“A woman like me?” You challenge, facing him at last, well, facing his torso. You look up, “how am I like, sir?”

“Well, from the city presumably,” he tosses back as if mocking your tone, “city folk tend to endear themselves to the quiet here.”

“Mmm,” you accept with a purse of your lips, “I’ll be off as soon as my tire is fixed. I have more important places to be.”

“Fair,” he shrugs, “you do seem rather… important.” He emphasizes the last word, echoing your own statement. You squint and turn away again. You’ll be gone soon enough.

“Vol,” he spins with a holler, bounding off to bother the other man as he works at placing the loading ramps against the truck bed, “before I go…”

His voice trails off as he claps the other man’s shoulder, his volume dropping notably. You slowly drag your heels towards them, receiving another glimpse from the blond’s sea blue eyes. He smirks before he releases his comrade from his bearlike grasp.

“Good day, lady,” he bows his head in exaggerated gallantry, “not to worry, Volstagg always takes special care of the pretty ones.”

[writingwithfolklore]

Level Up Your Settings

                When I was a younger writer I always considered my settings last in scene writing. It went action -> Characters -> Maaaaaybe setting if I felt like it. This can work—a lot of stories get by without having very memorable or strong settings—after all we’re there for the story within them. But once I got older and started moving and leaving places behind, I began to recognize how much a setting or place can hold—in memory, symbolism, feeling.

                These aspects of a place are just as important to imbue in fiction—they can convey an emotional impact, reinforce the tone, provide details on background. More than anything else, I find setting is where you can imbue your story with magic.

                (Specifically, I’m talking more about individual settings rather than worldbuilding. Check out my worldbuilding posts here!)

Most important to start with is consider what this place means to the character. For example, “home” is a concept as varied as the people who use it. It can mean safety, love, belonging, alienation, escape, confinement, freedom, etc. etc.

                What memories reinforce that meaning of home? How does the character’s background relate to and lead up to their concept of home?

                Then, once you know this, what decoration or ‘look’ would convey this?  A character who views home as a temporary place to be abandoned at the drop of a hat would have very few personal items in their home. Maybe hardly any furniture—maybe they live out of a suitcase and keep only a carton of milk and a box of crackers in their kitchen.

                A character who has lived in the same childhood home for their entire life may have just as much of their parents’ things as their own—their surroundings reflecting generations of loved ones.

                These objects hold memory as much as their surroundings do. This is where we can really explore background and the emotional ties to a place. How loved is it? What does loving a place look like for that character? Maybe love looks like keeping it perfectly clean and tidy—maybe it looks like filling it to the brim with pretty things.

                What makes two characters’ homes different? We want to avoid stating the obvious. You don’t really need to mention that your character has a bed, a nightstand, and a lamp in their bedroom—unless you’re making a point of how little or how much they have. You may want to mention which items are new and which are old—especially if it’s a room that they’ve been in since childhood, or throughout several periods of their life.

                Just like levelling up description—what makes a place unique? What message are you trying to convey?

Good luck!

[ouidamforeman]

This may make me look like an idiot bc I can’t articulate myself BUT!!!!!!!! Big Queer Good Omens meta incoming

I want to talk about This Neil Gaiman ask for a minute because I figured out why I really like his blanket response to this “discourse” a lot but still somewhat disagree on the nuance, and why fandom attitudes about this bother me much much more than his open ended response like this one

Under a read more because im going to get Insane

First of all this is going to be riddled with my own viewpoints on queerness as a transmasculine nonbinary person who reads too much theory so if u disagree please be polite lol

So like. To begin with I really don’t think Neil is obligated to understand these nuances or even comment on them, let alone explain them to fans desperate for validation, so the fact that he’s been able to answer so eloquently is pretty impressive considering how vicious fandom is. But I want to specifically talk about what I think he means here and why that seems to bother fandom so much sometimes, and how fan interpretation of these ideas he presents can get Really weird and interesting imo.

In my view, Neil is answering this from a Doylist perspective, as in like. To the real life human audience, angels and demons are inherently queer because they don’t fit into traditional human definitions of genders and sexualities. This especially comes across in his insistence that Aziraphale and Crowley aren’t gay because they aren’t human men, but they ARE queer. This literally just looks to me like him saying “yeah so no angels and demons fit into these categories so they’re definitely queer from our perspective but I understand ‘gay’ as being two men and i don’t think that fits because it’s narrow” and while I disagree on some nuances here for reasons I’ll get into I think this makes total sense as an author describing how, from his perspective, an audience is intended to view these nonhuman characters.

However, I’m much more interested in a more Watsonian explanation of how A&C are queer, one that’s much more relativistic and honestly not something I expect Neil to go over every time he gets another ask about this???? My opinion has always been that A&C choosing human queer masculinity is significant and that it gives evidence to them being nonbinary, transmasc, gay, ace, aro, anything that people headcanon really. Because they are presenting themselves as queer in a HUMAN way in universe imo, which makes them queer not just by the standards of the audience but by the standards of other angels and demons in the story? I think that the fact that they were created as sexless and genderless and then CHOSE human gender presentations, whether nonbinary or not, that reflected themselves, and then them being in love with each other in a human way IS what makes them queer, not Just the idea that an angel without a gender or sexuality/romantic or other relationship orientation is inherently queer from the average human’s perspective. People who just want them to be Human Cis Gay Men are really missing this idea I think.

The thing is though. And I don’t think this is Neil’s problem to solve or whatever, nor does it mean “stop liking that angels and demons are genderless”. The thing that annoys the shit out of me. Is that fandom, even queer fandom, took Neil’s Doylist explanation of celestial beings’ gender status and just didn’t think any further about it. To this day people insist that A&C MUST be nonbinary forever just because they’re an angel and demon and were made that way. Like literally just inventing Fantasy Biological Essentialism again which is annoying as hell to me, another nonbinary person. Again, the fact that they were created without any sense of gender or biological sex and then chose any humanish gender for themselves at all whether nonbinary or not is what makes them queer in universe I feel. I think the “they’re an angel and demon so they’re inherently nonbinary and can’t be anything else” is shit tbh.

To reiterate, I think Neil is responding about this from a Doylist perspective aka “to the real life audience all angels and demons are queer because they don’t fit into human genders and sexualities” but I am focused much more on the Watsonian idea that A&C are queer in universe bc angels and demons can choose their gender presentations like humans can and everyone else hasn’t figured it out bc they haven’t been on earth to figure out what gender even is. I feel fandom gets weird about this because lots of people still see gender as something solely internal and inherent, when I genuinely don’t think that’s all it is. It’s internal feeling, external projection/behavior, and both of those as a reflection of social experience all at once. The feelings and internal sense of Knowing your gender or lack thereof is inherent to your self identity, but your gender is also informed by what you understand genders as, and what presentations you understand and have access to! Aziraphale and Crowley can be Human Genders because, because they’ve been on earth, they 1)know what gender is, 2)can see those feelings reflected in themselves, and 3)through that understanding choose how to present based on their feelings! They don’t just have to be genderless celestial beings in the sense angels are if they don’t feel like it anymore! They can be like “oh actually I’m a queer man” or “oh I’m nonbinary but in the way that I’m among humans and I’m not a man or woman.” I just feel like only considering them queer from a human or angel perspective but not both is sort of undermining the themes in the text against bioessentialism in favor of the instant validation of “oh they’re angels so they must be nonbinary.” Perhaps having any human gender presentation is queer to the average angel. Our internal feelings and sense of self knowledge as queer people is inherent. How we act on those things and assign meaning and labels to them can be anything! A&C can be anything they feel like! They don’t have to be the classic celestial beings above gender! I feel like they would love and have fallen into human gender customs just from so long on earth, and that doesn’t mean they can’t be nonbinary or agender. It means they, as a part of humanity, saw and understood human genders and realized what gender they were in relation, whatever you headcanon that to be. And that’s more queer than “god made them without sex and gender so I guess their species makes them inherently one thing”!!!!!!

[camille-lachenille]

Was thinking about just how much characters in the Silm and LOTR deal with pain an injuries on a daily basis. It’s not always said plainly but they exist in the story, they live, they are important, and I wonder how much of them are inspired by Tolkien’s own experience of war injuries/illness. How many of his fellow soldiers came back home disfigured and disabled and were faced with disgust or contempt?

Sure, there’s the whole fairy-tale/mythic aspect of loosing a limb in your heroic quest to get the Magic Object, but what about Gwindor, who was captured by Morgoth and, when he finally managed to escape, was so changed by his sufferings that his beloved rejected him? Gwindor’s not a hero, he’s a simple soldier who suffered through war and captivity and became disabled because of that. How much pain did he live with daily even if it’s never said on the page?

And, still in the CoH, there’s Brandir the Lame. He was born disabled, couldn’t be a warrior, yet held a position of power until his people wanted action and scorned him. Brandir is a healer, a man of wisdom and lore; how much of it is because he tried to cure himself? To ease his pain but also try to "fix" himself in the eyes of his people and be the worthy leader he thought they wanted.

There is Sador ‘Labadal’ too, who chopped his foot off in an accident and is looked down for that by several character (not the least of them being Morwen).

These three characters are all disabled and looked upon with pity, contempt or outright disgust. They did not become disabled in the doing of great deeds, their stories aren’t heroic, and so their disability makes them worthless in the eyes of many.

If you take Maedhros, on the other hand (pun fully intended), he is seen as made greater by his disability. He suffered unthinkable torments and was freed at the price of his right hand, and did many great and terrible things after that. It is similar for Beren, who also lost his hand (arm chopping is not a love language!) but it always portrayed as a good and heroic character, because his disability is the direct result of him taking part in the great designs of the world rather than a banal accident.

And that’s only for the Silm characters, because we don’t want to forget about Frodo of the Nine Fingers, who bore the One Ring to the very fires of Mt Doom. Frodo who returned home sickly and traumatised, plagued with chronic pain, nightmares and a poor health and was only looked at down by the hobbits who did not take part in the quest if the ring. Frodo may be a hero for Men and Elves but he has little to no recognition in his homeland.

Another character I nearly forgot (shame on me!) is Celebrían, She was captured and tortured and despite her physical wounds healing she was never the same again, to the point she had to leave her family to seek healing elsewhere. I see this as a form of mental illness, probably depression and PTSD. And Celebrían is not thought as lesser because of her disability. She is seen as a tragic story, yes, but it’s better than most of the other disabled characters in the Silm.

Anyway, I don’t really know what my point is here, just that I noticed a pattern in the representation of disabled characters in Tolkien’s works, first of all that they exist at all, and second that how they are treated certainly reflects the views of society on disabled people during Tolkien’s lifetime. The way he writes disabled characters isn’t perfect, far from it, but they are here, and I, as a disabled reader, am immensely glad for their existence and I play in the gigantic sandbox of the Legendarium with these characters and others whom I imagine as disabled in any way.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

I know I’ve spoken about my issues with ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’ (2023) before, both in my initial thoughts post about the film after it released and a couple of smaller comments since, but I’ve realised something this past week after rewatching the original Disney cartoon and the 2003 non-Disney live-action while sick, and I feel I need to talk about it.

It’s about Wendy Moira Angela Darling.

While I stand by that Ever Anderson was one of the highlights of the film and that she did a great job as Wendy, the Wendy in the film is not really the Wendy seen in Barrie’s book, nor the one in the play and other films adaptations. It’s a very different character in a lot of ways, and while it’s normal for characters to differ from adaption to adaptation - especially over the course of 70+ years - I feel like the Wendy seen in the 2023 is more like Jane, Wendy’s daughter, from Disney’s Return to Neverland sequel in 2002.

Let me preface by saying that I actually love Jane in the sequel as a character - I see a lot of myself in her, and while the sequel in itself is not really my favourite, I do have some nostalgia for it because I grew up with it and it’s a cute little story. I like that Jane is actually different from Wendy in a lot of ways; she’s a lot more headstrong and more of a tomboy, and while she’s also a storyteller at times like her mother (mostly to her brother Danny), she is a lot more practical I think and seems to be opposite to Wendy in that she’s trying to grow up too fast. Wendy believes in Peter Pan and doesn’t want to grow up, meanwhile Jane believes Peter Pan to be silly childish nonsense, that she has to grow up quickly and be more adult due to the war/her father being away - Wendy says to her, “you think you’re very grown up - but you have a great deal to learn”.

Obviously the 2023 Wendy doesn’t want to grow up, that’s still the same, but in terms of personality, temperament and the way she treats her brothers after the broken mirror incident (blaming John for it), she reminds me more of Jane than Wendy. Like Jane, she also doesn’t seem to have a good time going to Neverland (at least not at first?) and she seems to take on a lot more action than Wendy did in the animated film.

Of course, it’s not the first time that we’ve seen Wendy wielding a sword and fighting pirates - the 2003 Wendy was shown to play with wooden swords and use real ones, even remarking, “who are you to call me ‘girlie’?!”. I’m not saying that Wendy can’t be a sword wielding girl and fight because she can, it’s one of the additions I love the most about the 2003 film.

The problem with the 2023 version of Wendy is not her being a main character (she has always been a main character), nor her sword fighting and being generally bad-ass - it’s the erasure of the other qualities that make her Wendy Darling.

One of Wendy’s primary character traits is her mothering nature - she is very motherly to her brothers, and when she hears that the Lost Boys don’t have a mother, she’s aghast and agrees to be their mother. The whole “Peter is father, Wendy is mother” idea is clearly a reference to how kids in the playground will play games like “mummies and daddies” - kids imitating what they see around them. It’s all a big pretend game in Neverland for fun. It’s also undeniable that Wendy pretending to be the Lost Boys’ mother is clearly reflective of her own mother, who she adores and is portrayed as the loveliest lady ever, and how she’s imitating Mrs Darling in a lot of ways during this “game” - singing to them, telling them stories, medicine etc.

Some would argue that Wendy is “forced” into being the “mother” and that while all the boys are off having fun, she’s left playing house, which I understand. But what a lot of modern audiences and filmmakers don’t understand these days is that motherhood is NOT an anti-feminist idea - there seems to be this view that portraying a girl wanting to be a mother or expressing the wish to be married/have children is some old-fashioned misogynistic notion, which is absolutely bizarre to me.

As a feminist myself, I believe that there is no clear cut definition of “womanhood” or what it means to be a strong woman with autonomy. Some women want to have careers and not have children, and that’s fine; some women want to have children, that’s fine; some women want both, and that’s fine. What matters is that it’s the woman who is deciding what she wants.

For me, Wendy has always been this remarkable and extraordinary character to look up to because she chooses to grow up - and for her, that means having her own children to tell her stories to. That’s what she wanted, that’s why she went back to England, and that’s part of her character arc, realising that by growing up she has things to look forward to.

For some reason, when 2023!Wendy thinks “happy thoughts” to make herself fly when being walked off the plank, her vision for the future that she looks forward to involves piloting automobiles that haven’t even been invented yet and then dying alone? Which… I mean, if that’s how someone wants to live then fair enough but that’s not Wendy. That’s not the Wendy Darling I grew up loving.

A lot of my issues with the 2023 version of Wendy do in fact link with other issues of the film in general: the Lost Boys including girls, for example. Like I get wanting to be inclusive, and I 100% wanted to be a Lost Girl growing up, but the Lost Boys are boys for a reason (“girls are much too clever to fall out of their prams”), and when Wendy arrives it’s a huge deal because they’ve never actually lived with girls before, and the only concept of girls they have is their memories of “mother”, which is why Wendy becomes their mother figure - because they literally don’t have any other female figures in their lives to compare her to other than the tiny scraps they remember of their mothers.

There’s also the issue of the thing prompting Wendy not wanting to grow up being changed; in the original, it’s because it’s her last night in the nursery and moving from the nursery - aka the room she has spent her entire life thus far in - to her own room is a HUGE transitional worry that a lot of kids probably go through (usually it’s in the form of moving from toddler beds to big kid beds but still). In the 2023 version, she’s being sent off to boarding school for some reason which doesn’t really make sense to me because the Darling parents a) are so poor they have to have a dog as a nursemaid and b) love their children so much that they would never do that to them. I’m not saying that being shipped off to boarding school ISN’T a worry for a young girl or a huge deal, but it isn’t one that I think necessarily fits with the story.

There’s the fact that Wendy is no longer the storyteller; in most versions, the reason Peter visits the nursery is because he likes her stories. Instead, the reason he comes to the nursery is not because he likes her stories but because he used to live in the house? And instead of bringing her to Neverland to tell stories, he comes to take Wendy away as he apparently heard her saying she didn’t want to grow up? It just doesn’t sit right with me, but maybe that’s just my opinion.

Also, for some reason, Wendy and Peter don’t actually seem to like each other at all in the 2023 version - I’m not saying there should have been romantic hints or whatever, but even just in a friendship way they really don’t seem to care in any way about each other. They just seemed rather indifferent towards each other, and it’s kind of jarring to see.

In some ways, I feel like 2023 Wendy was made a little too bad ass and on the nose super feminist: “this magic belongs to no boy!”, slapping Peter across the face (which was just…??? Why?!?!), constantly criticising Peter/Neverland, having WAY more action and heroic moments than Peter Pan himself… maybe in a different story it could have worked but for this one, it came across forced at times, like they were intentionally trying to show “look! Look how badass she is! She can fight off grown men all by herself! She doesn’t need a boy to help her! She can do everything by herself!”

This is why I feel like the 2003 version of Wendy is the best one (so far): while they modernised her slightly by making her sword fight and express an ambition to write novels about her adventures, she was still a storyteller and motherly figure to the Lost Boys/her brothers. For me as a child, seeing Wendy be the storyteller and her journey of acceptance about having the grow up was really important to me because I could completely relate to it.

Of course, I recognize I’m very biased because this is the one I grew up with (along with the animated Wendy of course) so I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts!

[juliettedunn]

Do you think Belos is not as complex as his fans makes him out to be?

I don’t think it’s a case of more or less complex, it’s that a lot of Belos stans mischaracterize him to the point they make him a different character. The stans ironically completely erase what makes Belos, Belos.

The “Belos” a lot of Belos stans present is the guise he wears to manipulate others and himself, hiding his actual character and nature beneath.

Belos is one of my favorite villains, because he manages to be a truly reprehensible villain with no redemption in sight, while also having a lot of layers to his psychology. He’s a villain whose thought process/general psychology I find fascinating to think about, as I think it’s quite well-written and reflective of people like him in real life.

There’s this perception that in order to be interesting, a villain has to be sympathetic or redeemable in some capacity.

It’s popular to give villains sympathetic motives or backstory, and even redeem them, to avoid the simplistic “I’m doing evil things because I’m evil” type.

And this type of villain can absolutely work, it’s just not necessary for every story, or for a good villain. You can have a complex, layered villain whose psychology is fascinating to think about, without them actually being sympathetic in any way.

Belos doesn’t think “I’m doing evil things because I’m evil.” He justifies himself with a twisted line of thought built around his own selfishness, insecurities, immaturity, and possessiveness, as well as the Puritan ideology he embraced.

A big part of his character is that he warps reality in his own mind to suit his needs. That’s why his mindscape is literally layered, with the beautiful, heroic paintings at the start hiding the true, ugly memories. He isn’t just lying to other people; he’s lying to himself. He’s so caught up in his own delusions and persecution complex, he’s lost sight of reality and starts to be confused by his own lies, built into the very structure of his mind.

The show makes it clear how his view of the world, that he is an oppressed victim, is delusion. It shows Caleb embracing his brother warmly in the Boiling Isles, despite the aggression he displays. It shows people were friendly and trusting during the time period he arrived, and only lashed out at him once he began to kill and oppress, like the demons avenging their brother Blue Fang. His fake child disguise used to manipulate Luz is shed to reveal the true sinister man underneath as his real inner self.

His misery is of his own making. He killed Caleb, he refused to change. Even after four hundred years, he refuses to do anything but whine about what witches and demons took from him, despite the fact he was always the aggressor.

Belos’s story is the story of a man driven by an extreme selfishness, a desire for coddling and protection, to have everything revolve around him and his needs, at the same time as he claims to want to purge the sins of others for being selfish and evil. A man who is so caught up in his layers of lies and manipulation, he himself loses sight of what he believes, and eventually descends into crawling, whining slime. It’s a pathetic end that is his own fault.

But Belos stans want to ignore the story being told in favor of believing the simple narrative he presents at face value - that he was a mistreated kid whose brother abandoned him to cruelty and persecution on the Boiling Isles. They take the story to be a simple “tragic orphan was wronged and now he’s bitter” instead of an exploration of the psychology of this kind of truly reprehensible human being, who absolutely does exist.

The thing they portray is fine for a character story, but it’s not Belos. It’s so blatantly missing the entire point of his character, that they might as well just create an oc.

We have to shed this idea that a complex villain means a sympathetic one. You can have a rich, layered character who has basically always been a piece of shit, and remains so. Sometimes those are the best villains out there, depending on the themes of the story.

So no, Belos isn’t less complex than they make him out to be. He’s just a different character entirely.

[seasoningyeeting]

HAPPY CAPTAIN AMERICA DAY

You probably can’t tell this from my blog, but this is like, *my* movie. It’s just…my movie. Everyone associates me with this movie, just like they associate me with Vox and Taylor Swift. I’ve seen this movie, an insurmountable amount of times, to the point of where I know the line of just about every single character, I remember when all the little music cues come in, and my entire existence is just…LITTERED with traces of this movie. I’ve tried so hard to get my claws on merch and items from this specific era of movie, and obviously, with it being 10 years old now, that’s incredibly difficult to do. It’s weird, I feel inferior most days, because my favorite things don’t really “stack up” against other people’s favorites, especially with me being so involved in the art ‘world’. Like, it’s very difficult to explain why this is my favorite movie. Because there is no meaning to it by the majority of people’s standards. But this is the movie that made me want my own TV show. The camera angles when Steve talks on the PA system are just…I can’t even. Chris Evans’ delivery choice on “absolute control”, coupled with the complete lack of outside sound, were jaw dropping to me 10 years ago, and they still have the exact same effect on me now. The witty banter between Nat and Steve actually being smart and witty, and not just “witty for the sake of her being pretty”, also stuck out to me. The mall dialogue is one of my most favorite little story telling pockets I’ve ever seen. She was funny in her own way. Yes, the physical impracticalities of Natasha in this movie still irritate me, (her hair when she comes out of Sam’s bathroom? Really? Come on.) but it characterized her a hell of a lot better than the other movies did. (Aside from her own.) Another thing I always loved, was the absence of references to other parts of Marvel at the time. Like yeah it had references, but they were absolutely necessary not just to the plot, but also for the audience to start understanding Steve as a character. His little hint of exasperation on “Stark?” while still remaining cordial with Nick, is *chefs kiss*. That ONE single line, conveys all of his feelings about Tony up to that point in time: he knows he’s damn good at what he does, but that still doesn’t negate the fact, in Steve’s mind, that Tony still has the capacity for selfishness and recklessness. I also love that one-liner, because they’ve gotta remember from a directorial standpoint, that to we as an audience, Steve has pretty much only just come back. That itty bitty line really hammers that down. His exasperation isn’t just at Tony, it’s at technology in general. It all clicks for him: this is a necessary evil. It’s a new world, and Nick even says that to him, multiple times throughout the film. And with that being a recurring theme, it shows us how flawed this iteration of Steve really was. Of course he was a good person overall, but he still struggled with putting himself on a pedestal. His internal struggle with how he views himself, is also reflected in his treatment of Bucky. Something I wish more people would clue into, is Steve wasn’t denying that fact that Bucky is different now, he was trying, to convince his equally traumatized self, that Bucky wasn’t different. His rational brain knew Bucky wasn’t the same, but we see bits and pieces of ‘irrational’ bleeding heart Steve, come back into the picture, every time they’re on screen together. Very few actors, (especially nowadays,) can act with their eyes, and nothing else. Sebastian Stan? Is the MAN of eye-acting. Even now, he remains a criminally underrated performer. The artistic genius of the costume design, making the mask and goggles two separate pieces, was also half the reason he was able to convey an entire lifetime’s worth of a character’s story, just through eye contact. And the moments where he would break eye contact were SO poignant. Because yet another thing I wish people would understand, is Bucky wasn’t triggered by Steve’s devastation in “Bucky?”, he was trigged just by seeing Steve. Cont.

[nyaagolor]

Merry DL6mas!

I wrote an inordinate amnt of words about Edgeworth and MVK and dynamics and meta and w/e, stuck it below the cut so I don't obliterate ur dashes

So originally I wanted to make a relationship flowchart for all the characters and then realized that the amnt of caveats would make the image entirely text so I’m just forgoing the image altogether and doing this group by group starting with the VKs bc DL6mas and whatnot. It’s an essay and also unorganized so um. Have fun or apologies in advance? 

Anyway. I think AA1 intending to be standalone and then getting these additional games does some fun things to the characters but especially for Manfred. I’m of the opinion that he was not created or written to be deep or nuanced or anything. He’s the final boss, we weren’t supposed to get more on him, he’s honestly just a symbolic representation of the forces Phoenix works against rather than a character in his own right (in AA1 at least). He’s cartoonishly evil and that was supposed to be it— and then we get JFA and Franziska and suddenly Manfred gets all this retroactive characterization as the story is built beyond its initial parameters. That’s part of the reason why I’m so interested in him— all this new information comes exclusively through other characters and insinuations rather than him actually being on screen up until Investigations and even then it’s like 4 lines. We get more on Manfred, yes, but it’s a shadow on the wall. I’m sorry to bring up allegory of the cave about the gay lawyer simulator but w/e I’m a melodramatist, it’s an allegory of the cave situation. The reason I bring that up is because I don’t really think about Manfred in the same way as other characters; I piece together how I think of him though his relationships and impact on others rather than as an independent dude. His past is inconsequential to me and the ppl who flesh him out are the real troopers but he matters to me more as a vessel for narrative themes than anything. This is all to say that everything I’m doing is conjecture and just kind of filling in the gaps based on my current understanding of the text. Headcanons for the broad and far-reaching audience of me, myself, and I. 

That being said. The whole spiel I just went on about “Manfred as defined by his relation to others” works quite nicely as tie-in to how he feels about Edgeworth, because I think Edgeworth occupies this symbolic space in MVK’s mind. Yes, Edgeworth is a kid he mentors and who lives in his house and who he is legally responsible for, but Edgeworth is also this physical manifestation of his failures. Edgeworth is a child, yes, but to MVK he’s a ghost, a consequence, a punishment. He may not be a VK, but he IS karma (sound the turnabout melody I am kissing you on the lips for this line btw). 

This also means that the way MVK views Edgeworth as an extension of his own thoughts about the DL6 incident rather than solely as his own person, which is something that changes pretty drastically over time. The way he talks about and to Edgeworth goes beyond who and what Edgeworth is as a person because for MVK, there was always an aspect of the self in there, and MVK interacting with Edgeworth is as much a reflection of his own identity as it is how he feels about Miles. 

If there is one thing the entire VK family does extraordinarily well it's projection, and I think MVK has been doing this since he brought Edgeworth into the picture (and before that, but it’s only relevant to me now). This is personally how I rationalize how absolutely batshit half of MVK’s actions are. I know the actual reason is “we expanded the characters around him which necessitates certain actions to drive the plot and inconsistency results from this expansion” blah blah blah paratext more or less confirms this, but we are going full Watsonian in this bitch. 

I have talked at length about the actual medical stuff around gunshots and how bullets are typically removed from joints specifically because of how badly they damage the surrounding tissues over time, I’ll link the post if anyone is curious, but tldr bullet wound symbolism. I bring this up now because I think the bullet acts as a physical representation for DL6, it literally and metaphorically tears him up inside. No one else knows about this murder, most people have forgotten the penalty, but he never did, because he can’t. For someone who has structured his entire self on the idea of perfection, this is an event of unprecedented magnitude, and the living proof of it is eating dinner at his table every night. MVK sits with the weight of what he’s done, and whether or not he feels justified or guilty or w/e doesn’t even matter because it’s making him lose his goddamn mind. His behavior gets more intense, more irrational, because before he was just a massive, scheming, paragon of perfection (and corruption but shh) but now he is in this inescapable cycle as the result of his choices and his choices exclusively. I don’t propose to know nor care about how he felt about it or what the specific emotions he felt were because they’re not particularly important in my mind, only that the lingering ghost of DL6 is driving MVK kinda bonkers and that drastically alters how he interacts with Edgeworth and Franziska. 

I’ve seen a lot of debate about why MVK took in Edgeworth, but my hot take is that he actually doesn’t know. I don’t think MVK ever processed DL6, I think he is filled with contradictory feelings (how ironic) and that this is what eats at him through all those years. Why did he take in Edgeworth? Because he felt guilty? Because he wanted to train him into everything his father hated as a twisted kind of revenge? Because he wanted a prodigy and saw himself in Edgeworth? It’s all of them, it’s none of them, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t know. Why did he prosecute Edgeworth right before the statute of limitations ended? Was it revenge? Hatred? A way to test his prodigy? To project his own gnawing nest of emotions onto the person he felt embodied the incident? Same deal. (the real answer is that it doesn’t really matter bc we were not supposed to think about it this hard but. Shh. dw about it.)

I don’t take much interest into Manfred’s inner world because I ultimately think that a lot of his actions, while completely under his control, are him acting on impulse, on him doing irrational things because DL6, in a sense, killed him too. He comes out of that elevator a different person (not worse (can’t go down from rock bottom), not better, just a different kind of asshole), but destroyed from the inside out by a murder he committed. He’s so arrogant, so entitled, that he could never let this go, and I think that drives so much of the insane shit he tries to pull. He has centered his life around the axis of DL6 and he will always be pulled back into its orbit. The further we get from DL6 the more time he has to think, the more it tears him apart, the more the contradictory feelings about it rear their heads in turn and create this guy who is just desperate and angry. And when it’s days before the statute of limitations he just becomes completely subsumed by it all. He was always cruel, but now he’s cruel and desperate and completely willing to drag everyone down with him. The desperation is the important part. 

I will say though that he is, irrefutably, his own downfall. He molded Edgeworth in his own image, he created Phoenix Wright the defense attorney as a consequence, and it is the two of them who send him to his death. He is the one who planned the murder of Turnabout Goodbyes. From beginning to end, it’s his own hand. Manfred is one of the only characters in this series whose actions are not precedented by extenuating circumstances. It’s allllll him. He’s the bitch. He has been and will always be a selfish prick and for as much as he is lashing out because of DL6 he does so by dragging others in. 

Extremely long prelude to say that I think how he treats edgeworth varies so wildly over time and is so irrational in its presentation because of everything I mentioned before. He is Edgeworth’s greatest kindness and his worst nightmare— at the same time!! Multitasking king. He takes in Edgeworth as a snap decision for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, and I think because of that he never quite views Edgeworth as a son (at least in the traditional sense). Edgeworth is not his child in the same way that Franziska is his child (and we will get to her in a different post I promise), but he’s not just some random kid either. Manfred is emotionally tied to him through DL6, and I think the fact colors the way that Manfred treats him. It’s a dynamic that I can’t really put a label on, because it’s mentor/student with so much extra baggage that it feels different than that. There is an emotional connection between them, a sense of atonement and revenge, and I don’t think either of them will ever be able to articulate what that means. Manfred does not address Edgeworth as his child, and I think there is an attempt in his language to distance himself from Edgeworth, but he finds himself drawn to Edgeworth all the same (bc Edgeworth is DL6 etc etc). He did not ask for a child, he does not WANT a child, but he has one! Get fucked!

MVK is obsessed with his own image, with this idea of perfection, and insofar as Edgeworth is DL6, Edgeworth is an extension of MVK. He pushes his ideals and tactics onto Edgeworth the second Edgeworth decides he wants to be a prosecutor, because even more than Franziska, Edgeworth is MVK’s living legacy. He is quite literally Manfred’s midlife crisis and I think Edgeworth wanting to be like him and becoming this Demon Prosecutor is this insanely fucked up kind of catharsis in MVK’s mind. And as Edgeworth becomes more like him, as he takes up MVK’s mantle, he becomes a mirror— that is where shit gets fun. I don’t think I need to spell out the ways in which MVK was simultaneously caring and cruel to his kids— you’ve seen Sound the Turnabout Melody, you’re seen Turnabout Goodbyes, we know this song and dance. 

The more time Edgeworth spends around him, as Edgeworth reflects more of Manfred back at himself, MVK simultaneously becomes proud and revolted. Edgeworth is growing beyond the consequences of DL6 and into a mirror of his adopted father figure mentor person. He is, from the ashes of DL6, becoming Manfred von Karma, and I think that drives MVK insane. He is becoming firmly entrenched in MVK’s life at this point. For as much as Edgeworth is DL6, he is now MVK himself. He becomes a walking contradiction, and Manfred’s projection then manifests as this rapidly oscillating clusterfuck of reactions. Edgeworth is out of his control but he’s super important to MVK— recipe for disaster. 

He builds Edgeworth up, teaches him everything he knows, starts to treat him like a son while at the same time irrevocably traumatizing for the rest of his life. He loves who Edgeworth is becoming while hating everything he stands for, and I think this absolute garbage pile of a child-rearing philosophy is as much a projection of himself as anything. It was never about Edgeworth the person. At first, MVK does not care in the slightest about Miles Edgeworth and it is only when he does, even a little bit, that shit hits the fan in my mind. Edgeworth the physical manifestation of DL6 is being overtaken by Edgeworth the Demon Prosecutor, and MVK starts to be proud of him— but this is an eventuality he did not plan for and cannot do anything about. For both of them, it’s personal now, and no amount of pushing each other away is really going to fix that. 

Anyway I don’t think literally any of this was intended. Manfred is not this deep, I am making literally all of this up, but it’s fine. If you got this far I salute you. Miles time. To pivot to Edgeworth’s POV for a while, I think that from the very beginning, Edgeworth looked up to MVK. It’s not the same idolization that Franziska does, but it’s up there. Obviously he idolized his father, but DL6 not only served as a complete evisceration of his family but also his ideals. Gregory the man was dead, but if criminals can kill his father and get away with it, that collapses the foundation on which Miles built his understanding of justice. Gregory the defense attorney– his ideals, his legacy, his philosophy– he died in that elevator too. Edgeworth pivots, completely independently, from a man who wants to protect to a man who wants to punish (and I firmly believe that this was his own decision and not Manfred pushing him into it, if MVK had not adopted him he still would have become a prosecutor just not so much of a dick). 

But so Manfred takes him in, and was spectacularly ill-equipped to handle this. I always saw Manfred as emotionally distant on the best of days (he’s born in the 50s what did u expect) but for Miles, who he barely considers a son at all, he isn’t capable of being the emotional support he needs. He never would be and never wanted to be. That’s layer one of baggage. What MVK does provide for Miles, though, is a purpose. Miles does not wallow in his father’s death, because he is taken in by someone who acts as a paragon of Miles’ new worldview. Manfred never lets a criminal get away. He is perfect in that way, and it gives Miles a tangible (albeit impossible) goal to strive for. MVK mentors him in this worldview and gives him the tools to outlet his grief and rage into something productive— fucked up and wrong, maybe, but productive. That’s layer two of baggage. 

For as complicated and twisted and contradictory as MVK’s feelings towards Edgeworth are, Edgeworth for most of his childhood sees MVK as this pillar of everything that is good and treats him with intense amounts of respect. He accepts any cruelty as tough love, he adopts his ideals and his tactics and his suit. Edgeworth needed *something* after the grief of DL6 and MVK is what he got, so Miles latches on and never lets go, for better or for worse. Miles Edgeworth is not Manfred von Karma but he actively tries to take his shape because whether or not it’s reciprocated, Edgeworth loves him and everything that he stands for. Manfred cares about him in that respect at the very least. And ultimately, this is my big take on Edgeworth: I think Edgeworth actively chased MVK. He became MVK on purpose. It’s a result of trauma and built entirely on false pretenses, but Miles is the one who takes the initiative and Manfred indulges him— And then Turnabout Goodbyes happens. 

Everything Edgeworth is, everything he made himself become, is wrong. Edgeworth has molded himself into a person he does not recognize and that person turned out to be a monster. The person Edgeworth idolized, respected, and maybe even loved is the very person who destroyed his life. He is wearing the skin of the monster he wanted to destroy, and he did it on purpose (in his mind). This is not to say he had much if any agency in this situation— this is not a path he would naturally take, this is structured entirely under false pretenses, and he was clouded by grief, traumatized, and most importantly nine, but what matters here is that Edgeworth FEELS like it’s his fault, and the complete collapse of his worldview AGAIN is what drives all the bullshit of RFTA. Edgeworth is not MVK (and you can tell because he is capable of self-reflection which MVK is ostensibly not (or at least unwilling to)), but it still drives him to this complete and utter devastation. He sees Manfred in himself and it isn’t until AAI1/2 that he’s able to see Gregory as well. MVK filled a need for Edgeworth at the lowest point in his life (and absolutely made him worse but that’s not the point). Edgeworth respected and loved Manfred’s ideals, STILL chases the idea of the man, and because of that still cares about him. He becomes aware of who the monster he loved is, and how has to reconcile with what it means to be that person’s reflection and legacy despite knowing— and feeling, and BEING— all the harm he caused.

Those contradictory feelings that I talked about earlier? Love and hatred all mixed together— questions that cannot be answered and actions taken without knowing why? That’s Edgeworth’s final gift from Manfred: he inherits the bullet and the legacy he carries forward. Unlike Manfred, though, Edgeworth takes that pain and shares it, lets other people in, scoffs at the veneer of perfection and allows himself to be hurt and vulnerable and it is only in that way that Edgeworth can break out of VK’s shadow and break the cycle. He holds onto the ideals that he learned from Manfred, separates them from the nastiness and acknowledges the place they came from. It’s obvious in the way that Edgeworth carries aspects of that legacy forward that he’s capable of disseminating everything that Manfred is, acknowledging the way he’s been influenced by him and what he still respects about the man despite it all, and make peace with the rest of it. The cycle of violence and corruption started with Manfred and Edgeworth makes sure that it ends with him too. 

I have a ton more to talk about with respect to his teaching methods and the nitty gritty of how he interacts with his kids but that’s for the Fran post. This is more of the “whys” than the “hows” but I’ll get there :)

Anyway, I think that’s it. I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing but my head is beyond empty rn and I can’t think of anything else I wanna talk about with respect to these two. I know I literally just spewed 3k words about into this textpost but I do love chatting about them (total shock I know) so if u also have thoughts or ideas abt anything related to them lmk :3