#for me found family always meant people OUTSIDE of the character's actual family being there for them and caring for them

[stuckinakillingjar]

just realized that i fucking hate headcanoning characters as siblings

[eddiediazismyhusband]

Hi! A bit of a weird ask here, hope you don't mind. (I swear it's not meant in bad faith)

So, I'm new to the fandom. I'd wanted to watch the show for a while and I finally found time. I did like it, and all the characters, esp Hen and Buck.

Even previous to watching it, I had seen many posts about Buddie. I didn't think much of it until I watched the show. And now I can say... I don't see it. Like, from Buck's side? Sure. But from Eddie's? Not so much.

They both clearly act like Christopher's co-parents a lot, and that's where I'm like "oh, maybe there IS something". But outside of that, I actually see their interactions as mostly platonic. And when I see people talk about it, I see mostly about how Eddie completely trusts Buck with his son (which I agree with and makes a good point), but not much else.

So, what am I missing? Sometimes some characters are harder for me to "read", so I know there could be stuff that I'm missing. What interactions do you see from them that are so clearly romantic (at least more so than they are platonic)? In which ways do you see Eddie showing feelings for Buck?

Sorry about such a long ask. This might be more of a rant (oops). I just really want to understand, bc everyone's so sure... and I'm not. (Also, thanks for reading if you got this far)

So i’m obviously not going to tell you thst your interpretation is wrong- art is subjective and your interpretation of things is completely valid.

that being said, to me i see myself in eddie in a lot of ways:

- only son in the family, so i had unrealistic expectations fixed on me about what my life as a “man” should look like (im not a man, im nonbinary but i was still amab so to my parents i’ve always been a ‘man’)

- raised in a very religious household where there were certain expectations on who i would one day marry and have a family with (because not getting married at all and never having kids was out of the question)

- i was repressed for years emotionally (and sexually) due to pressure from my parents/church and thought there was something “wrong” with me for the feelings i felt

- i often revert to anger as my default defense mechanism because i have repressed my emotions for so long (which is something i am working through in therapy)

so seeing those things i relate to reflected in eddie, it is easy for me to pick up on subtext (whether intentional or not) when it comes to his sexuality/feelings for Buck.

you mentioned eddie trusting buck with christopher— to me this is one of the clearest examples of eddie’s true feelings for buck because he completely trusts the most precious thing in his life with Buck, but he has never even come close to that same kind of trust with any of his romantic partners… even shannon he was apprehensive about letting her back into chris’s life. this means he trusts buck on a level he has never trusted anyone else before— and not to get into psychology, but often when people are repressed emotionally, they find ways to feed those feelings without overtly feeding them if that makes sense. so eddie giving chris (who is practically his whole heart) to buck is essentially eddie offering up his heart on a platter.

so that gets that one out of the way.

as for other examples… i am going to state again that eddie is more repressed than buck and doesn’t show emotion as easily as buck does so Buck’s attraction/feelings are going to be more clear-cut and obvious.

but i am constantly seeing examples of eddie’s feelings for buck interwoven subtly through things:

- crying over buck after the lightning strike when we had only ever seen him cry twice before

- the hurt in his face when buck said natalia was the only person who “saw” him

- the way that he gets overly jealous and acts petty around buck’s romantic partners (the most egregious being Taylor, but we have seen it happen in his other relationships as well)

- the fact that he has never been able to fully allow himself to have feelings for the women he’s dated

- he is looking for a mother figure (second parental unit for chris) but has already effectively filled that role with buck

- he is constantly looking at buck like he hung the stars and the sun and the moon

- he has only started going off the deep end of this fixation with shannon after buck came out to him, and he is onyl actively remembering their relationship as what he wished it had been rather than what it was— something i used to do back when i was still in denial about my sexuality was imagining this dream life where i was happily married to a woman because that is what i was supposed to want, not because it’s what i actually wanted

- eddie is the only one who has shown he understands buck’s recklessness is less him being reckless/thinking he’s unbreakable, but that it’s actually buck seeing himself as invaluable enough that getting hurt wouldn’t affect anyone around him

- one of my favorite scenes is post lightning-strike when eddie climbed the ladder and instead of trying to lower buck to the ground immediately, he initially tries to pull buck closer to him while screaming for him

the list could go on and on and if anyone else wants to leave their observations on eddie’s feelings for buck in the replies by all means please do! but these are just a few ways in which i have personally seen eddie’s devotion to buck portrayed in a light that is much deeper than a platonic level.

i hope this made sense and offers a new perspective for you, and i’m glad that even though you haven’t seen enough evidence in your own interpretation, your first instinct isn’t to jump down people’s throats to tell them they are wrong, but instead reaching out and asking for other opinions to better contextualize why us buddie shippers are so invested in these two!

(and never apologize for a long ask to me… if there’s one thing about me i love to yap lmao)

i hope you have a lovely day, anon!! 💕💕

[imsoquarky]

OKAY IM GONNA TALK ABOUT TMNT MM NOW

WARNING FOR SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT!!! THIS IS A RAMBLE POST, I AINT TIPTOEING AROUND IT!!!

Also, probably gonna start making # for post types. I feel like I reblog so much stuff that it's hard to find my actual content-

♠️ - ♣️ - ♥️ - ♦️

Starting off the bat, everyone who said Rise lovers were gonna love MM were absolutely correct. I adored this movie with every fiber of my being and I really think it could bring new people into the TMNT fandom just as ROTTMNT did.

While I will always be sad that Rise did not get the merch it deserved, I am over the moon that MM is getting it. The toys I've seen and merch I've gotten are already extraordinary. For the most part they are very very well made and most of it doesn't look like they've seen their entire family be brutally ripped limb from limb.

But moving away from my opinions about merch which is a whole other bag of worms being the physical item lover I am. THE MOVIE WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!

The storyline, the characters, the voice acting, the line delivery, the writing, the comedy, and ofc most of all

THE ART!! OMG THE ART!!! I LOVED EVERY SINGLE BIT!!! I see so much dragging on the art of this movie because it's ugly BUT THATS THE WHOLE POINT!!! It's meant to be messy, asymmetrical, even uncomfortable at times. Every character is so vastly different from the last, including every single background character. Some of my favorite overall designs were Splinter, April, Stockman, Superfly, Mondo Gecko, and even that fuckin BEAST Superfly turned into at the end.

This was the first iteration I watched where Splinter started out as a rat, being only into the more modern media, I had no idea that he was originally a pet. I could go on and on about MM Splinter and that is what I am going to do. I LOVED HIM. SO MUCH. He was such a dad, and an absolute badass when he wanted to be. Kicking ass to save his sons and just worried out of his mind about them. Despite his distain for humans, he was willing to take their help when it was offered. Instead of reprimanding his sons right then and there, he'd give them a hug and make sure they were safe beforehand. And when he saved them from getting their blood taken (I'm not calling it milking, please don't make me omg- /lh), he was like "I told you so!" but not in like.. a toxic way?? I never thought Splinter would end up as my favorite of any iteration, yet... here we are.

But y'all probably aren't all that interested in my gushing about Splinter yeah? Let's talk about the turtles, going from my favorite to least favorite (not to say I don't absolutely love them all, I just like some more than others.)

Raphael and Donnie are tied, but I'll start with just Raph. Raphael very much reminded me of when I was younger. Down to the struggled with volume & um... well, anger issues. Deep down, he loves and cares about his brothers, but he wants to branch out and meet new people. It's not that he doesn't want them to be there when he dies, it's that he wants to know other people outside of them. He loves them, but it's only natural to not want to ONLY have them.

Donatello was a silly guy, lots of playful jabs at his brothers and I just loved him. Also, the guy can DRIVE. Technically, being old enough, most places I know you can get a learners permit, so he probably realistically could drive. Despite complaining about having a "giant stick" much like 2012 Donnie, I found myself less annoyed by his complaints. Maybe I'm bias? Who knows. Point is, I loved him.

Leonardo, like Raph, was extremely relatable. With his upbringing and having a very anxious father, it makes sense to have such chronic anxiety. I swear, sometimes I feel like a mix between MM Leo and MM Raph. While ofc, I wasn't a fan of the little crush on April, it's not unrealistic. This is the first girl they've met and he has dreams of getting a girlfriend, obviously a 15 year old like that is gonna fall head over heels for the first girl he sees. Hell, when I first found out girls could like girls I honestly wasn't much different. (Ofc, I'm not a girl anymore, but that's besides the point here). But April shutting him down at prom was a relief, I'm hoping it just stays as a little puppy crush. It was handled SO much better than 2012 ever did, and I'm standing by that.

Now Michelangelo. Mikey was the SWEETEST OMG. Him and Mondo were an adorable duo and I'm hoping in future content we get more of them. Also, what is with Mikey and almost getting hit with cars in this film? I think the mans needs to keep away from the streets because he's like the critters down here in Kansas, very bad luck with cars. Only reason he's probably my least fav here is because I guess I don't have much to say about him, like, specifically?

Anyways. That's a lot of rambling, someone please talk to me about MM.

[lyranova]

Her Name is Alice

Hiya guys! So, I was inspired to write this little oneshot after what happened in COTF: Shadows 14! I promise I’ll try to get to everything else on my plate as soon as I can. This fic focuses mainly on Henry, Millie, and Sally, however there are brief moments of other characters and OC’s! But for now, I hope you enjoy~!

Acylla and Zoisite belong to @faewraithsworld and Josele, Sterling, Dawn, and Dusk belong to @loosesodamarble

Word Count: 2,779

Warnings: Mentions of Pregnancy, Mentions of abandonment.

————

Henry watched quietly as his friends talked with their spouses and played with their children. Captain Yami was playing with his four year old daughter Hikari, Josele, Nacht, Acylla, and Zora were sitting together watching Sterling, Dawn, Dusk, and Zoisite playing together and Grey was holding two year old Aloys as Gauche tried to convince him to eat his breakfast. On the other side of the room Finral was letting Vanessa, who they all recently found out was 2 months pregnant, rest her head on his lap as she napped on the couch.

Gordon and his spouse were currently talking about starting their own family soon as were Charmy and Rill, and Asta and Noelle had just gotten engaged which also meant they would be starting their own families soon…

And he couldn’t help but feel left out.

While his curse was more controlled now due to Charmy’s cooking and a magical device Sally made for him, he still didn’t feel comfortable being around others that weren’t members of his squad. He always worried about meeting someone, falling in love with them, and then his curse suddenly draining all of their mana from them.

He didn’t like hurting people, especially if it was someone he really cared about…

So he made the decision long ago that he would stay single, and watch happily as all his friends fell in love, got married, and had children of their own. But now that he was actually beginning to see that happen he realized:

He wanted it too.

“ Finral…” Henry began slowly as he walked up to his friend.

“ Oh hi Henry, do you need something?” Finral asked softly so as not to wake up Vanessa.

“ Will…you…take…me…to…see…Sally…please?” Henry asked, and he watched Finral blink in surprise.

“ Sally? Why? Is your magic device broken?” Finral asked in concern as he sat up a little straighter, but Henry shook his head.

“ No…I…just…want…to…ask…her…a…question.” Henry said, deciding it was better to keep the real reason to himself for now.

Finral frowned but didn’t ask anything else, he just quietly stood up, put a pillow under Vanessa’s head, and created a portal to Sally’s lab.

———

“ Do you want me to stay with you?” Finral asked as he stood outside Sally’s lab and gave the building a hesitant and nervous look, but Henry shook his head.

“ No…thank…you…I’ll…be…okay.” Henry told him with a warm smile. Finral nodded but still looked at the building unsurely.

“ Alright, just let me know with the communication device when you’re ready to leave, I’ll be at the Hideout.” Finral told him, and he watched Henry nod before walking through the Spatial portal.

Henry turned back towards the door and gave it a small knock, hoping that Sally was there and that she would agree with his idea.

However he blinked in surprise when it wasn’t Sally who opened the door, instead it was Millie Maxwell.

“ Oh, hello Henry.” She said in surprise, and Henry smiled.

“ Hello…is…Sally…here?” Henry asked, and the woman frowned but nodded.

“ She is, but she’s a bit busy right now,” Millie said as she looked over her shoulder. “ May I ask why you want to see Sally?”

“ I…want…to…ask…her…about…something,” Henry began. “ But…I’ll…come…back…later.”

“ Wait a minute!” The two jumped as they suddenly heard an excited shout emit from inside the lab, and then after a few seconds Sally showed up beside Millie.

“ You’re the Black Bull that’s cursed right?! The one I made a magic item for?” Sally asked excitedly, and Henry nodded. “ I thought I recognized your voice! Come in!”

Sally turned back into the lab, and Millie stepped aside to allow Henry to walk inside the room. The three walked over to a small table that was covered in different papers and books and sat down.

“ You said you wanted to ask me something?” Henry nodded again.

“ I…want…you…to…cure…my…curse. Is…that…possible?” Henry asked, and he watched as a look of surprise appeared on both Millie and Sally’s face.

“ You want Sally to cure your curse?” Millie asked with a frown. “ Doesn’t the device we made you essentially do that? And isn’t there a member of the Bulls who makes dishes to help keep your curse from absorbing too much mana?”

“ Yes…but…I…don’t…want…to…rely…on…them,” Henry responded. “ I…want…to…be…able…to…be…with…someone…and…not…worry…that…my…device…will…fail.”

“I…want…to…have…a…family…like…my…friends,” Henry continued. “ But…to…do…that…I…need…my…curse…to…be…cured.”

“ So…can…you…help…me…please?” Henry asked, and he watched as Millie and Sally looked at each other for a moment.

“ Well-,” Millie began but Sally cut her off.

“ It’ll be difficult, but I would love to try it!” Sally said excitedly. “ I’ve been a little bored lately with my research, so this challenge is exactly what I needed!”

“ Sally-.” Millie sighed, but the woman ignored her and instead ran over to one of the other nearby tables and grabbed a bunch of tubes and other medical equipment.

“ I’ll need a few samples from you first and then I can get started!” Sally exclaimed excitedly, and as Henry began rolling up his shirt sleeves Millie cleared her throat loudly.

“ You’ll only take what samples you need, nothing more and nothing less. Understand?” She asked, and Sally sighed but reluctantly nodded in agreement.

After Sally and Millie took the samples Henry thanked them and left with Finral to go back to the Hideout.

“ Was Sally able to answer your question?” Finral asked as he and Henry walked back through the Spatial portal.

“ Yes…She…was. I…think…it…will…work…out!” Henry said brightly, and Finral smiled.

“ That’s a relief. So, are you going to tell everyone what you asked Sally for help with?” He asked curiously, and Henry nodded.

“ Tonight…at…dinner…when…everyone’s…together!” Henry said happily.

Later that night, Henry did as he said he would and told everyone why he had gone to see Sally. At first, everyone was a bit worried, but when they saw the bright look he had on his face at the thought of having his own family…all of the Bulls worries disappeared.

They gave Henry their full support, and told him they would help him in whatever way they could!

And then days began to pass with no news. Henry would go to the Science department once a week to see how everything was going and to give Sally more samples, but whenever he asked about the cure she and Millie would shake their heads.

“ Nothing yet, so far it’s all ended in failure,” Sally said with a pout. “ I think I’ll have to change tactics.”

“ Change…tactics?” Henry asked, and Sally nodded.

“ I’m going to combine your DNA with an old subject of mine from when I was a part of The Eye of the Midnight Sun,” Sally said with a grin. “ Who knows? Maybe it’s just what we need to cure your curse!”

But instead of curing it, something else began to happen.

About 2 months after Sally combined Henry and Subject 0906’s DNA, she went to go check on the test tube that she had placed it in, she blinked.

“ That’s odd. What’s going on?” Sally muttered as she stared into the tube, and Millie frowned.

“ Did the test fail again?” She shook her head.

“ No. I think…it’s working. But not in the way it’s supposed to.” Sally muttered with narrowed eyes, and she heard her colleague sigh before walking over.

“ What do you mean?” She asked as she also began to peer into the tube, and then a shocked gasp escaped her. “ Sally, do you know what this is?”

“ Uh, not really?” Millie sighed again.

“ I’ll explain on the way to the Black Bulls Hideout, but I think you’ve accidentally created something magnificent!” She exclaimed as she dragged the other scientist out of the room.

———

“ What…did you say?” Henry asked, his normally slow voice suddenly picking up speed as he and the other Black Bulls stared at Millie and Sally in surprise.

“ I said that Sally’s experiment worked, although not like it was supposed to,” Millie said as she rubbed the back of her neck. “ Instead of curing your curse like it was supposed to, it began to create a new lifeform!”

“ I’m a god! I’m a god!” Sally cheered excitedly from beside her.

“ How did that happen?” Yami asked, and Millie shrugged.

“ We aren’t sure either,” She admitted. “ It hasn’t happened before, so I think there’s something with Subject 0906’s DNA. Maybe there was something in her magic or genes that allowed this to happen.”

“ So… instead of curing my curse…I’m going to have a child?” Henry asked softly, his voice almost sounding like he was in disbelief.

“ Yep! It seems that way!” Sally said cheerfully, more happy at the thought that she had ‘become a god’ then about Henry possibly becoming a parent.

Henry slowly stood up, his mind blank. He…was going to be a father? He had hoped his curse would be cured before he had a child…

“ Will the baby be affected by my curse?” He asked hesitantly. It was a question he really didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know.

“ Since the child will have 0906’s DNA, which seems to be immune to your curse, along with your DNA that actually has the curse…there’s a very good and high chance that they could be immune.” Millie responded, but Sally hummed from beside her.

“ But there’s also a good chance that the baby could inherit your curse too-.” Sally began but Millie quickly quieted her as she saw a sad look suddenly cross Henry’s face.

“ But we won’t know for sure until the baby is, er, ‘born’. So for now, just focus on the positive side. You’ll get what you wanted; a family.” Millie told him with a warm smile, and he slowly nodded.

She was right, he could worry about the other things when it was time, but for now he was going to have a baby. A baby!

“ I’m…going…to…be…a…dad!” He suddenly exclaimed, his voice slowing back down and his face turning bright with happiness.

The Bulls looked at each other hesitantly for a moment, but as soon as Asta happily congratulated him, the others did as well.

Henry was so excited that he immediately added another bedroom to the ever growing Hideout that very same evening!

———

After Henry found out he was going to be a father, he would go to the Science department and visit his child three times a week, sometimes more!

During the months that he waited for his child to be “born” the Black Bulls expanded even more. Finral and Vanessa’s son Ezio was born, Gordon and his spouse announced that they were expecting, and Charmy and Rill announced that they had finally decided to try to have a child as well!

Henry couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the Hideout full of so much happiness and excitement!

Then one night, Henry suddenly received a call on the communication device, and it was from Millie.

“ I think it’s time Henry,” Millie began as he could hear Sally panicking in the background. “ You might want to hurry over here.”

Henry had quickly nodded and went to wake up Finral, who was grumpy at first about being woken up in the middle of the night, but after his friend explained he gladly got up and transported him to the Science department.

He quickly rushed into Sally’s lab, and the two scientists inside looked at him.

“ You’re just in time,” Millie said with a small smile. “ The fluid in the tube is almost completely drained. Sally, go get some warm water, a blanket, and a few towels, we’ll need them.” Sally quickly nodded and rushed away, and Henry rushed forward.

“ Nervous?” Millie asked, and Henry nodded.

“ I’m…very…nervous,” He admitted softly. “ But…everything…will…be…okay…won’t…it?” Millie nodded.

“ Yes, I’m sure everything will be okay, you have nothing to worry about.” She told him honestly as she patted his shoulder comfortingly.

Henry nodded. For the past few months his friends had been telling him the same thing whenever he expressed doubts about everything, and he always believed them. So maybe he should believe her too…

Soon, Sally returned with the requested items and all the liquid in the test tube drained, and as soon as Millie opened the door a loud cry echoed through the room.

Millie quietly picked the baby up and cleaned them off, before turning to Henry with a gentle smile.

“ Congratulations! It’s a healthy baby girl!”

A girl…he, he had a daughter?

Henry watched as Millie walked over to him, and without thinking he took a quick step back, making everyone blink in surprise. Including himself.

“ Henry, we’ll be back soon, alright? Just sit here and wait for us.” His mothers voice suddenly echoed in his mind, making his heart stop dead in his chest.

“ When…will…you…be…back?” He had asked, his parents shared a hesitant look.

“ Maybe tomorrow, or in a few days, we’re not sure,” His father had told him as he cleared his throat, and Henry nodded slowly. “ Just do as your mother said and wait here for us.”

“ Okay. Can…I…have…a…hug…before…you…go?” He asked, hoping his parents would grant him this wish.

But instead, he was scolded. Just like he always was.

“ Henry, you know we can’t do that! If we get any closer than this you’ll take too much of our mana!” His father scolded harshly, and his mother nodded in agreement.

“ He’s right. If we get any closer you’ll hurt us, and you don’t want to hurt us, right?” She asked, his voice soft and delicate, as though she were trying to portray herself as innocent.

Henry nodded and smiled at them, trying to hide the hurt he was feeling.

“ You’re…right. I’m…sorry.” He apologized softly, but his parents only nodded before they turned and walked out the door.

He waited…and waited…and waited. But his parents never returned.

“ Henry, would you like to hold her?” A voice suddenly asked, pulling Henry out of his memories.

He suddenly looked up and saw Sally and Millie staring at him with looks that were full of concern. As his senses began to return to him he could hear his daughter wailing and squirming in Millie’s arm.

His daughter…

“ I…don’t…want…to…hurt…her.” He admitted softly, his yellow eyes staring at his daughter as she continued to cry.

“ You’re not going to hurt her. You’re wearing your device right? So it’ll be okay.” Millie said as she walked up to him, and Sally nodded in agreement.

“ She’s right! If your curse was activated right now we would have already felt it, even your kid would have!” Sally agreed, and he slowly nodded.

Even though he had his magical device on him, and he didn’t feel his body siphoning mana from Millie or Sally, he still felt unsure…

“ Here, you know how to hold a baby don’t you?” Millie asked before quickly putting the crying baby into his arms, making Henry panic slightly as he scrambled to hold the newborn.

Admittedly, he had only held his friends' babies a few times, so he was far from an expert. But as soon as she put his daughter into his arms, it was like he knew what to do and how to hold her.

He could feel his heart beating anxiously in his chest and his mind began searching for a solution as to how to get her to stop crying and to not be afraid.

“ Hello…there…I’m…your…papa,” He began gently. “ I’m…sorry…if…I…scared…you.”

“ I’m…sure…this…is…all…very…scary. But…I…promise…it…won’t…be…scary…forever. I’ll…do…my…best…to…make…sure…you…are…always…happy…and…that…the…world…is…always…bright…for…you.”

“ I’ll…hug…you…everyday…,…I’ll…tell…you…that…I…love…you…everyday, and I…will…never…abandon…you.” He promised softly, a warm smile appearing on his face as he used a finger to gently remove tears from her eyes.

As soon as he had begun to speak, the baby instantly stopped crying and squirming. Instead, she just stared up at him. Her yellow eyes looked at him with wonder and curiosity, all the fear she had a moment ago seemed to quickly dissipate.

When Henry went to pull his finger away his daughter quickly reached out and grasped it with one of her much smaller hands. She didn’t pull it towards her, she didn’t shake it, she just held it, and she held it tightly.

It was like she didn’t want him to go.

Henry pulled the bundle close to his chest and hugged her tightly, but not too tightly. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt her.

“ Do you have a name for her yet?” Millie asked curiously as she and Sally watched the father and daughter. Henry looked up at her and nodded firmly.

He had this name picked out for a while, it was his favorite character in a book he read after his parents had abandoned him. He so admired her for her ability to go to a new and fantastical world, and was envious of how she was able to make friends even though she was different.

By giving his daughter this name, he hoped she would be able to do the same.

“ Alice…her…name…is…Alice.”

—————

Thank you all so much for reading and I hope you all have a good day~!

[xluciferseyeshadowx]

OMG TUMBLR

y’all, istg I was just eating Honey Nut Cheerios when an idea for a book slapped me in the face holy shit-

So first, I remember a twitter quote. The quote was something about how life sucks now because eve ate that GODAMN apple in the garden of Eden and humans were meant to chill and eat fruit all day with our tits out and stuff. AND THEN I THOUGHT-HOLY SHIT. WHAT IF I WROTE A BOOK WHERE EVE NEVER ATE THE APPLE AND HUMANS STILL LIVED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN- NAKED, EATING FRUIT, WITH NO TECHNOLOGY? AND WHAT IF IT WAS ACTUALLY CORRUPT? As somebody who has been going to church for years, I can say with confidence that the Bible is fucked. Women are seen as men’s property. People who are not Christian are shunned. There is lots of religious trauma vibes. So what if the morals like that from the Bible were still accurate and in this book? So I came up with some characters. Mary- she would be one of the main characters. She listens to her parents, and genuinely wants to please them. Her life is planned out for her and shit, because she does not know that life could be any other way from outside the garden. Until- because of the sexist nature of The garden of Eden- she is assaulted and starts believing that she wants something else.

Leah- the second MC. She would be very averse to the idea of being married, and often try to disobey her parents and fuck up her appearance to avoid being found attractive. She has always disliked life in the garden, and Mary being assaulted is the final straw. Beezle: He would be my portrayal of the Devil. Or satan, or whatever you want to call the snake that was in the adam & eve story. He would live near Eden, and he would turn from a snake into a human & spend most of his time tempting people into leaving the garden- rarely succeeding. He finds Mary after her assault and is like “I can totally manipulate this”, but after befriending her and Leah, they end up trying to get out of the garden, along with some others together.

Okay, so those are the main character I came up with. Here is some world building: The garden would be basically how they wrote it in the Bible, if it progressed past eve eating the apple. However, to avoid incest, multiple different families were made by god. They did not all stem from Adam and Eve. Because the garden is how it is in the Bible, it pretty easy to get the concept- mostly vegetarian diet, no clothing, living in harmony with animals and shit. Seems perfect right? WRONG. Because of the inherent religious pushing and being forced into family, there are strict rules that make little to no sense constricting the residents of the garden, especially women. For example: There is heavy influence of the Christian religion on everything, to a pathological degree. Sexual pleasure for women is looked down upon, and will even be punished. Obeying the Ten Commandments is the only real principles, leading to many loopholes and other crimes. Adam and Eve would be the leaders of the garden, controlling most of what goes on within it. They knew Beezle, and have spun the story to say that he was trying to ruin paradise for them by offering the apple. Heaven was actually trying to break free of god’s will. The main story plot would be Mary, Leah and Beezle trying to find a way to leave Eden, but ending up with them trying to help the others out.

[katzell]

your thoughts on the marvelous mrs. maisel finale? especially, the conclusion of the lenny and midge’s storyline?

Thank you so much for the ask!

I've been thinking about it for weeks, so it's time to get into it. I'm going to mainly address the Lenny and Midge part of the question, mostly because addressing everything else would make this far longer than it already is. And boy is it long. Here we go!

After years of ranting and raving, I now know when there is a version of a show I am watching and a completely different show the writers are creating. When I realize the show I want isn't something the showrunners are interested in, I cut and run.

I nearly dropped Maisel many times over the years as it became clear Midge was never going to have her big break before the finale. It would rather spin its wheels and have more family dinners and musical numbers than grapple with the real dangers of being in show business in the 1950s and 1960s. Midge and Lenny was the only thing that kept me going, and paradoxically it was because Lenny was going to die rather than in spite of it.

I never carried an ounce of hope that Lenny was going to escape the real fate of Lenny Bruce. When the Palladinos introduced Lenny in the pilot, they never meant for him to be a regular character. It was supposed to be a fun nod to the comedians of the time and the kind of comedy the Palladinos were inspired to explore in the series. And then Luke Kirby gave a mesmerizing, unforgettable performance. From that point forward, ASP was always very careful to make most of the characters who populate Midge's world fictional versions of real people. The decision to call him Lenny Bruce and not David Blake (or something better) put limits on what that character could realistically be or do.

For ASP, saving Lenny would have meant undercutting the few ties to reality Maisel had established. And I I agree with her. Especially given how little the show really seemed interested in exploring the darkness of that world. Sexism, racism, antisemitism, homophobia were all present, but the tone was always more light and whimsical. Which is why we got so many interminable boring overindulgent musical sequences.

Knowing that Lenny's death was coming filed in some of the shadows the show itself danced (literally) around. It also allowed me to enjoy Midge and Lenny as a pair of star crossed lovers who could have saved each other, but ultimately don't because of both their own faults and the societal forces around them.

Accepting those limits, I found really beautiful tragedy in Lenny's final two appearances. The opening scene broke me. I was prepared for him to die, but I wasn't prepared to watch him fail. Immediately after the episode I was upset with that narrative choice, but rewatching his previous appearances I came to agree this moment carries more narrative weight than one terrible phone call ever could. Midge watching Lenny fail and not confronting him after was set up in season four. And it's a tragedy of miscommunication on both their parts that comes from a place of love and respect.

Lenny told Midge when he woke up on her couch that he never wanted her to save him again. He was so embarrassed at the idea of Midge seeing him at his worst that he fled her home without his shoes, without using the bathroom, almost in a state of undress. Lenny also made clear to Midge that his drug use wasn't something he would discuss with her in the hotel room. Lenny so desperately wanted Midge to be impressed by him. And yet that desire ultimately prevents any chance Midge has of actually getting close to him. At Carnegie Hall, he realizes for the first time how carefully Midge listens to him and appreciates him. The thought terrifies him. Suddenly his best self seems like it might ruin Midge. So he bolts.

Lenny and Midge could talk about the struggle of comedy and even nod to the ways the world was inhospitable to people who lived outside of the accepted cultural mores of the time, but Lenny could never bring himself to share with her the nature of his addiction. For Lenny, this subject was far more taboo and unspeakable than religion, race, and sex. Because unlike those topics, society saw (and still sees) addiction as a personal failing. For all that Lenny could call bullshit on some things, he internalized this myth. If Lenny had been more honest with Midge, if he had gotten out of the cab and gone back upstairs, if he had let Midge know more about his drug use, if he had asked Midge to bring an umbrella to support him for more than national television appearances, Midge would never have let him fall on his own.

Midge remembers everything Lenny ever said to her. His words are maxims, even prophesies. Midge believes Lenny even when she shouldn't. We see her quoting him often. She carries his fortune with her for the rest of her life. It's such a clear indication of her love for him, but it's also a tragedy. Midge probably let herself believe that the paraphernalia she found in the bathroom wasn't a big deal, because Lenny had promised her it wasn't. By the time she had heard enough to know differently, the damage was done. If Lenny hadn't told her not to save him she would have tried to pull him out of his spiral with everything she had. As it was, she sent him Susie, her best friend, her greatest asset, the lifeline she had relied on over and over. But it just wasn't enough. Midge couldn't meet him at the club and respect what he had told her. And Midge always, always tried to do what Lenny said.

That miscommunication, that tragedy, is heartbreakingly rendered by Rachel Brosnahan and Luke Kirby. Without explicitly saying anything, we know Lenny wants Midge to walk through that door and to try to rescue him. And we know that Midge wants to do just that, but cannot bear the idea of being rejected by him.

In the end, at least, we have that scene in Chinese restaurant which I think might be the most visually stunning scene of any of Midge and Lenny's encounters (I'm sorry Miami club, you are a close second!) It's a nice final reminder of what Lenny did for Midge: he acknowledged she deserved a place amongst the elites of the craft. I only wish there had been room for Midge to also validate Lenny. I would have loved her to give him some parting words that he might also treasure.

There are other ways of tragically ending Midge and Lenny's journey that I would have loved to see, but given the Palladinos disinterest in really exploring the nasty, dark, ugly parts of show business in the 1960s, I am not surprised we didn't get them. That can be a project for a fanfic writer who doesn't want to "fix it" so much as "make it worse." (Go for it fanfic writer! Sometimes we need sad things!)

I also have my own ideas of what would be a happy ending for these characters (see Midge and Lenny's Alternative Adventures). But I think the key to landing those stories (for me) is to confront this miscommunication so that Midge and Lenny can both accept and demand more from each other and to build up a new, less brittle kind of respect that comes from real intimacy. I want productive fights that tear through artifice and expose the mess underneath. Only then do I think they have a shot of saving each other from their own worst instincts.

Does that mean I liked it? Hahahahaha I don't even know. I respect it. It lingers. I felt something. And that's better than most series finales. And Midge and Lenny remain sensational.

[adenthemage]

For the recent fic ask game! T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand? - Trauma <333 (I came to see you get salty /lh)

AGHSGSHS hi Trauma!! Thank you for the opportunity to gamerrage on main 👍

What interests me most in storytelling is character relationships and dynamics, so naturally my most vehement opinions revolve around that. Particularly when it comes to shipping tropes, because my heart is cold and dead 👍 but I swear they inevitably get flanderized and misunderstood into being the same old bland amatornormative shit. Stuff like hanahaki or soulmates. Ideas that, to start, are really interesting! But are more often than not used to push this "love at first sight" "meant to be" "romance above all" thing. And when you fall into that, then the nasty implications start to crop up.

Like, for example, if it's assumed the romantic leads are obviously going to stay together, then when genuinely concerning conflicts or power dynamics crop up, they're used for drama instead of actually exploring what the characters would do or giving them agency. And thus something like a Soulmates setting is only used as justification to keep them together, because the universe says they're made for each other, so of course they're gonna have to live happily ever after no matter how unhealthy or compatible they really are!

The hanahaki one is especially bothersome to me because the base concept IS really interesting! The flowers are a manifestation of holding yourself back, and how it harms you to hold your true feelings in and never move on, letting them fester. But instead, I often see it written as if the disease is spawned from the fact of falling in love, instead. This creates a situation where the love interest is expected to either reciprocate, or let the protagonist die,, which is,,, not greatttt. Like even if you wrote it being conscious of these implications, I struggle to find a worthwhile theme or idea that it could possibly convey.

And it's doubly a shame because these concepts could be SO INTERESTING outside the scope of being used purely as a vehicle to get some mediocre romance underway. A world with soulmate marks would surely have customs and inventions surrounding that very normal aspect of life for them. What would the religious impact be, if there's apparently some higher power connecting people from birth? Or with hanahaki, you could use the broader concept of "withholding your feelings/your true self causes the disease" to tackle other kinds of personal drama and subject matter beyond flat romance.

I also particularly dislike the fandom tendency to try fit all found family dynamics into rigid traditional family structure. Is it not far more interesting to explore a new kind of relationship that doesn't fit neatly into a single-word pre-existing box?

All these complaints often come down to the assumption that these relationships are above all other forms, and therefore it's assumed the characters will fall into them. This is ESPECIALLY true of romance, though. If one goes in assuming the romantic pair should get together, then one skips the vital work that has to go in to justifying why this relationship should exist and why its components want to be a part of it.

I feel that there's so many ways to explore romance other than just "these two like each other, they get together, there are some issues, it works out" that is underrepresented. Instead of making it toxic on accident, do it on phrpose! Explore that! Have two characters who want to be together, but don't work and have to make the hard decision to break it off. Stuff like that! Cuz it's not even that I mind stress-testing the relationships with some drama, it's just frustrating when it feels like the characters are always pigeon-holed into staying together.

Anyway is that enough complaining for one post? I surely could think up more, but I will show mercy and spare you this once. Thank you again for the enablement, love youuuu 💜💜💜

[noxiatoxia]

even as a small kid i felt like i didnt belong in this world. not in qn edgy way either but genuinely in a "i was born in the wrong lifetime" sort of thing. and then as i got older i got obsessed with the idea of stories and characters and people that were fixated on suicide from the moment they were born or people who never felt like they should have been brought into society or be human. i got obsessed with stories about unconventional means of happiness and love and living. ways of living life or being happy that most people would be perplexed at, i found comfort in those sort of stories, because i felt it was the closest id ever get to feeling like i belonged.

noww not to say i DONT like living. in fact i do. i have fun & despite all the bullshit in my life i do not want to end it all or w/e. i can have fun and be happy but that does not change the fact it all feels like a lie to others. hanging out with friends and talking to family feels like an eternal game im playing, never actually connecting with anyone or anything. and thats fine, bc its still fun and i still have fun, but living life day to day feels as real and sincere as a video game. i could play games for hours, get immersed and invested in them, fall in love with those pixels on the screen and cry at the story, but theyre still made up lives inside a digital world at the end of the day. thats what my life feels like. a very very fun video game! but its all shallow anyways. idk if that really bothers me exactly. i do often times find myself yerning for that place i belong that ive dreamt of before i could even read. as an abstract concept, one with the earth, or somewhere in the atmosphere, in space, dunno. i know ill never find it in this lifetime, and thats fine, as long as i can have fun and adventurw right now. and then when i die, i hope i can find where i truly fit in, and what my soul truly was meant to be.

i could go on abt how its likely this is a big reason i project myself through media and rely on it heavily to express myself, since im not really myself in real life, dont really have a being in real life, so i can pour my base desires and wishes into a fictional world where it all makes senae to me. and i could also acknowledge that i might be a bit mentally unwell, but if i have felt this way my whole life, perhaps this is just who i am. as ive always felt, some people simply are not destined to be human or to be alive. what some people want or how thwy feel cannot be changed through reprogramming or drugs. they are "lost causes", those who want nothing more than to dedicate their lives to killing, to killing themselves, to drugs, to living in the woods, to living with wolves. their happiness and desires are unconventional and perhaps can never be changed. maybe theyre "broken", but theres a lot of them out there, and i feel a connection with them. we get one life, lets live it how we want, theres so much more outside of this constructed society. normal is weird and weird is normal. for me, ill just wait.

[storytellersumayyah]

usual pinned post!

it's been one year since the heartbreaker's handbook went live. and a year ago, i was still deciding whether or not i wanted to share it with the world. because sharing it meant it was real. it wasn't just mine. it was something that existed outside of a bubble.

but it was the best decision i ever made. it became a fun fact about me. it inspired further pieces of writing- side stories and companion pieces, that i never really hesitated to publish. it allowed me to talk about it as much as i wanted without feeling bad, and most of all, it made me proud. it made me happy. i wouldn't have published it had it not been for all the encouragement i received.

but now it is stocked in homes and two libraries, and it's something to celebrate.

so that's why we're here. this celebration is to make me happy. because that is what art is about. making ourselves happy, and having a release.

it'll run between july 10th and july 24th, and is also open on my instagram (also storytellersumayyah) but all the requests will still be answered here. feel free to send multiple! everything will be tagged as #thhfbp, so without further ado:

everyone:

🥀 the characters as...

🌻 a little doodle of something i associate with a character or relationship

🌼 a song i associate with a character or relationship

🌸 a random piece of information about the characters or relationship

🌺 directors cut of a scene

🍄 a song that reminds me of a character or relationship

🌹 something i want in the hypothetical television adaptation

🌷 give me a scene and i’ll tell you what could have been

💐 ask me anything about the book

mutuals (including if I know you in real life):

🌙 something that happened that i associate you with

🪐 the character you would be if i wrote someone inspired by you

☄️ a random deleted scene/something that i want to write that won’t fit in anywhere else

and if you want to participate, but don't know what to send, here's a character guide! (there are more characters, but these are the ones where's the enough to actually send things about):

tristan: the heir to the nightingale name, the most powerful of all the noble families. constantly described as a natural heartbreaker, everyone seems to forget how he was groomed to become one. but children are not robots, and the pressure of everything he wants and must sacrifice in order to do what is expected is causing him to drown.

camilla: knows why her name does not match her face. she found out she was noble too late for the school to properly did their claws in, and she did not want to be a heartbreaker. but her attempts to prove the system she so badly wants to destroy wrong only seem to reinforce that they were right.

jonathan: is also the heir to his name, and the power that it carries is the only reason he was not labelled heartbroken. his heartbreaks are a performance, and not in the good way. and there is only so much a child can play at being an adult before it all becomes too much for them.

adelaide: has always enjoyed pushing the boundaries and the system as far as she could. but it was always a joke. it was never something she really wanted to change. until it was. but she's spent her life being a heartbreaker and an heir. it's not something she's allowed to actually do.

viola: is a heartbroken who could not care less about relationships. she is determined to change the system, and she doesn't care about who gets hurt to do this. in fact, the more people who get hurt, the better. but in addition to wanting everything to change, she is sad for the people who will never get to know something different.

ellias: is a first-year student, who is already stuck in tristan's web. he always knew he would be a heartbroken, but the evidence is still upsetting. his art is the only thing holding him together, and it reveals more than it hides.

victoria: is tristan's mother, in name and nothing else. she carries the name and power of the nightingale family. that reputation comes before all else. including loving her husband and parenting her son. and she will always teach him lessons in the harshest way possible, no matter what the outcome becomes.

james: is tristan's father in all the ways he is allowed to be, which isn't many. he always knows what's really going. he never helps. he's too scared that if he intervenes, if he chooses his son, his wife will leave. that has always been his flaw. he loves his wife at the expense of his son.

mr carter: grew up in eros academy and returned as a teacher for reasons that he will never disclose. it was the place that made and broke him, in more ways than one. he knows who he is to the students. he knows that they want his validation. he will do his best to save them, but he will be awful if he thinks it's necessary. his thoughts are not always trustworthy.

stefan: is the ghost of tristan's past that haunts his every waking moment. their actions still influence him, no matter how much he tries to redefine them. with soft smiles and gentle words and loving eyes, it should have been simple. only it was life, and the entire thing went in ways the nightingales had not thought to consider.

ari: was camilla's until she told him she was leaving. and then she broke his heart (and hers with it), leaving him to pick up the pieces and do what he could. there was no anger. only a soft sort of grief. and then they found their way back to each other.

rafael: is all tristan wanted as a teenager. they meet as adults, and for that they're both grateful. it gave them time to become the right people. he is stable and gentle and romantic. they know what to say and when to be silent. and despite everything, they never stop looking at the world with love and hope.

[terrainofheartfelt]

Sort of inspired by your discussion of Jenny needing to go to London alone to really grow into herself and mature as a person, in an ideal world in which none of the main characters were forcibly tethered to the UES or its more toxic inhabitants post-high school, how do you generally - like broad strokes - imagine them developing as people in college and throughout their twenties? I always wonder where everyone might have ended up had they not been constrained by the type of narrative they were living in, and I’d love to hear any headcanons you have on the subject!

I've been thinking about this on and off since i received it (an embarrassingly - for me - amount of time ago) and now finally feel like I can answer.

because, like, what if we weren't constrained by the harsh realities of making tv? what if the rules meant that they could leave new york?

well, first, let's dovetail off jen moving to london and blossoming, and send eric along with her. he can go to cambridge, or any of the other big name universities in the area, and he and jenny would be flatmates and live their own hilarious queer sitcom of being students in london.

I've already plugged nads' yale au in my answers this evening, but I still really like the idea of dan and blair attending yale, and outside of the maelstrom of manhattan drama, they settle into their own selves and learn they could actually...like each other? and then they fall in LOVE as far as careers, they are the most driven. and we've talked about novelist dan and editress blair and art historian blair and college prof dan.....but lately I've been thinking about blair working in costuming. It's not high fashion design, but I think it's a great synthesis of the things we know blair loves: literature, film, history, art history & fashion history, Evil Dictator of Good Taste, being a specialist and big boss on a niche subject...yeah...

i still enjoy the idea of vanessa being at nyu, or at another arts college in nyc, and making her own way and building her own story (without being boxed in to the secondary character of anyone else's story!) I like the idea of her attending Tisch too, and expanding her skill set into screenwriting in that way.

to plug another au by a friend, S's goodbye stranger introduced the concept of Serena attending Berkeley, and I LOVE it. I love that for her. Berserk-ley. I think that school in that part of the country would be where Serena would really thrive. She becomes a full glamorous SF queen. perhaps she opens a coffee shop. Blair is outwardly mortified but inwardly very proud.

As for Nate, I think he is the character who really should take a gap year. It's never questioned, but the way he is yanked around by the collar those first two seasons, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense that nate would decide that he needs some time to figure out what it is he wants. sidebar: bc the serena gap year felt disingenuous in many ways, yk? serena was so eager to leave new york and go to school and study. she likes learning, we see it, and the opportunity to reinvent herself that college would provide....why would she walk away from it? except for TV Reasons. so, I like the thought of nate taking at least a year. traveling, volunteering, maybe he takes a community college course or two. he falls off the grid for a while and he realizes how healthy and how happy he feels without the constant eyes and pressure of his family & gossip girl. and after that time, he's found what he actually wants to do, and goes to school to do it. -- as always, I'm fond of nate working in health care, as a nurse or pt or something, but it could really be anything. teacher? chef? social worker? children's librarian? (actually culinary student nate has come up in convos with ivy & cherry before and I am into it.)

and uhhhhhh i guess chip wiskers can crash his inherited business and money into the ground bc lets be real that fucko would try to launch his own cryptocurrency and since he seems to hold such disdain for education and self-betterment, he stagnates and falls off the face of the earth byeeee

[necrophilemagpie]

why this whole thing has such a grip on the brain

is the oc insert because i am obsessed in putting the dragon in situations? perhaps, but frankly

it's mostly about putting the trio in situations because the canon doesnt quite have anyone who'd provide the exact flavor of sheer identity crisis

[whoops this thing is way too long]

someone that is revealed to, before all of this, to have for a very long time simply kept on living in the human world anyway despite their inhumanity is arguably a description that doesn't... add up cleanly ideologically with how Hellsing operates, does it?

Though, funnily enough, 'ordinary human' doesn't apply cleanly to even any of the actual literal human major characters of the story except for maybe the wild geese.

There is a reason Pip has to give the speech about grieving the burning city and Sir Penwood had to make his strategically important sacrifice. The Iscariots dont read like normal people enough for something like this. Integra may be a sort of messy symbol for humanity narratively but the way the actual story treats her?

She's as much an outsider to humanity as the monsters are.

Been that way since that fateful day since she was 12, depending on how you imagine she was raised, maybe has always been to a degree.

Highly doubt Integra had much of a taste of normal human society. She's clearly not even remotely friendly with the other knights. Sure, she found Penwood amusing but i highly doubt they were in any capacity close. It doesn't appear the woman even Really leaves the manor outside of her job. We see her in civilian attire Once for fucks sake and it felt very 'what are normal people clothes again' to me personally. Walter and the vampires are realistically the only real close relationships she really ever had.

Seras too, has lived through something incredibly traumatic as a child and has been given no community or support, seen as at most a nuisanse. We do not get any mention of an adoptive family or other previous life to come back too, and its a context where in real life omission alone would be very telling.

Through that she has arguably too been robbed of being 'allowed' to be truly human long before she became a vampire. She was around people, sure, public school, foster care, what have you, but I somehow doubt a girl with severe ptsd would be understood much considering the time Hellsing is set in. If you're unwell as a kid you quickly learn just how conditional the care of strangers can be. Even if on paper they're meant to take care of you. She's kept up a mask of humanity with varying success but likely had known very little warmth a human life supposedly entails.

Alucard is strongly implied to believe that his humanity was torn away from him. He openly mourns it, but feels like he's been all but thrown into the grave of undeath by being forced to protect himself, and he's since only dug it so, so much deeper that he can scarcely see the sun anymore.

The very idea of being anything besides monstrous is very ludicrous to him, and he's so very jealous, of anyone who seems to have had even the slightest bit of a choice.

He was impatient and annoyed with how long it took Seras to accept her new nature because to him. It confused him to no end why Integra would never just make it official and admit her humanity was too incomplete to keep.

monsters are one way, humans are the other.

Humans have friends and family. They have homes to come back to, take care of each other, like many other animals they play and express individuality. They love, and love in uncomplicated, unconditional ways.

Monsters are inevitably alone. There isnt really a place for them to belong, they're solitary and must learn to enjoy it. Violence is, if not enjoyable, grimly necessary to a monster. A monster's attachment to others is a laborious, painful thing.

There is a clear line. You can't be both, you can't be one but keep some traits of the other.

But that's just one way of thinking, is it?

The dragon certainly starts out fitting so very neatly into the monster box. Glassy eyes, little priorities, truly alien relationship to the self. Their illness makes them appear like something that Should be dead. The way they seem to rationalize their situation comes off arguably even less human than even Alucard does.

And that would make sense! They weren't human for hundreds upon hundreds of years, in fact they were never human at all. There are some universal human experiences like how most acessible in modernity human food tastes or childhood they are fundamentally external to.

But as time goes on, as they realize that for the first time in the last few years, they're fine to stop running on empty and rest? As they find it safe enough to speak earnestly? The line gets increasingly blurry.

They start to talk of first sensible subjects like music and prose and history, but increasingly you'd find they're not simply 'making polite civilized conversation,' no. They've known some of the histories they speak of first hand, were friends with some of the writers mentioned even. They're intimately familiar with Making music, what goes into a play, and know a surprising amount about notably dated by now music production hardware and software. There's silly stories they have on hand to share.

Community to the degree Integra likely hadn't really ever known.

They've accepted certain few as siblings, they even apparently know how to take care of a child. They are currently the primary caretaker of their mysterious """benefactor's""" child because 'the woman might've wanted the kid but doesn't much care for raising one.' They genuinely care for the kid, and not Just because its someone else hurt by the same person. They seem to have Opinions on what's good for a child that seem to come from experience. It's not their first time around.

The culture to whom the human that caused them to exist belonged to? They still identify with it. Kept track of the family even, for actual hundreds of years they've been the distant relative that visits sometimes.

They seem to earnestly love the people they speak of and miss those no longer alive or who've they been unable to reach for the past nine years, which is most of them.

Family in a way Seras struggles to even imagine having.

Their illness, though something specific to nonhumans, is suddenly rather easy to recontextualize as a collection of individual rather human symptoms. Integra even has similar complaints about her joints. Their sometimes stilted speech isn't hard to accept as a mixture of something like neurodivergence and having modern english be about 5th language they learned. Humans do plenty of these same things with gender and sexuality too, thats nothing too special.

Even their suffering under the control of the woman in red, if you pay closer attention... starts looking a good bit more like plain old domestic abuse.

Yet they're very obviously Not a human, they say as much too.

The way they grieve is from a different angle, from one colored by hundreds of years of losing people, unable to forget even one. The way they love is similar, encasing every moment in amber of their eerily clear memory. They know too much historical context for every aspect of society to take much seriously, looking right for the outsiders of it for something truly interesting.

For fuck's sake, it's barely even blood what courses through their veins, even their internal anatomy is a touch off.

Somehow though, they lack Alucard's characteristic violent self hatred about it. Even in their current situation, having the very 'justification' for their abuse be that they're not human, they are very firm in the fact that being a dragon IS a cornerstone of their identity, that its not something that can be removed or altered, they wouldn't particularly want to be a human, and they're not worse off for it, they just Are who they are.

At peace with their belonging outside of humanity. Something Alucard swore to never be as much as complacent with.

They dont come in trying to challenge anything particularly, they just happen to be the kind of person the trio's worldview hadn't truly been tested against.

If any luck, maybe it'd get them to give some much needed attention to their own traits that have never quite fit the ideology either.

You know.

The real reason Integra had long known she wants Hellsing to cease to exist, at least in the way it does now.

Besides, it's kind of pointless rummaging through the shadows searching for boogeymen when monstrous humans are just as real.

"the woman in red" as the dragon calls her, may just be one.

[trulyinspiringmovies]

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

“El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” did not have to exist, but I’m so glad that it does.

Jesse Pinkman is finally free from the torment that Walter White has caused him for so many years, but he’s not in the clear just yet. He’s still being chased by the law. Remembering back to a conversation he had with his good friend, Mike Ehrmantraut, he decides to start his new life in Alaska. Scrounging up the money to do so isn’t going to be easy, but he uses the experiences he’s gained over the years to help him finally get the second chance he deserves.

I’ve always said I have two favorite television shows. My favorite animated television show is “Adventure Time”. My favorite live-action television show is “Breaking Bad”. I got into the show back when I was in high school and actually taking Chemistry class. I couldn’t believe just how good the show was. After each episode, I was desperate to watch the next. When they announced that they were making a movie, I was excited, but I kept pushing the movie off. Admittedly, I was scared of what this movie might retroactively do to the show for me. Eventually, I told myself that I would watch the movie after rewatching the show so I could have it fresh in my mind. Well, I finally got the opportunity to watch the show again and I’m glad I did. I realized how much of the show I had gotten wrong. When I was in high school, I genuinely believed that Walt was the good guy. In my mind, he was the noble man of the house who would give anything, even his reputation, to provide for his family. As an adult, I see that he had successfully manipulated me into believing his lies. Although this movie didn’t need to exist due to the fact that the show was so perfectly crafted, this is a great supplementary part of the universe for fans of the show. I know a lot of people were complaining about how lackluster this movie was, but I don’t think the criticisms are fair. I think a lot of people were looking for the same highs of “Breaking Bad’, but this movie was never set out to do that. It was just trying to tell the story of Jesse earning his freedom after the events of the show. That’s not to say that this movie lacked any form of highs. When the movie wanted to, it raised the tension in such engaging ways. It genuinely took me back to the days when I was first watching “Breaking Bad” and the situation got cranked up to eleven. Every scene of Todd’s apartment was electrifying to watch and only heightened by Vince Gilligan’s direction. The movie also brings back experimental shots that were a staple for the show and they look phenomenal. There’s expert use of camera blocking, dynamic camera movement that truly sucks you into the action, and a top-down POV shot that felt like the next level of those experimental shots. This movie also gets unfairly criticized for having way too many flashbacks. I found it to be just a part of the structure of the movie’s storytelling. It wasn’t intrusive because it was always meant to be the B-plot. It also helped inform the decisions of Jesse in the present day. I also found the flashbacks to retroactively make the unseen parts of the show feel lived in. It makes the characters truly feel like they had their own lives going on outside the scope of Walter White. It’s done with small things like private, introspective conversations between friends and the home lives of secondary characters. The movie also introduces characters that weren’t important to Walt, but definitely affected Jesse in major ways. Yes, bringing fan-favorite characters could be viewed as fan service, but their inclusion felt like much more than that for me. These characters were not just important to the fans, but to Jesse himself. Of course, having them in his flashbacks is important. They shaped him to be the man he is today. I think the one small criticism I could have is how different a lot of the actors look. Vince Gilligan could’ve used makeup or CGI to make them look like how they did in the show, but it’s not distracting at all. Jesse Plemons’s weight gain seemed to be the biggest target of this criticism, but once he starts talking, to me, he’s Todd again. They’re actors and you should judge them on their ability to slip back into these characters after so many years. Not a single one of the returning actors missed a beat. They all felt like they’d been their characters even after the show had wrapped up. I don’t think it’s fair to let aging, something no one can control, be the reason why the movie didn’t work for you. All in all, this was a movie made for the fans of the show, which there are a lot of considering “Breaking Bad” is seen by many as the greatest television show of all time. If you loved that show and wanted just a little bit more, then this movie delivers and then some. It not only doesn’t ruin the show, but also enhances it in some aspects. It stays true to the tone of the show, but also feels like a natural elevation due to the fact that it’s a full-fledged movie now. Definitely give it a watch if you love the show as much as I do.

★★★★★

Watched on January 2nd, 2022

[valleyfthdolls]

what are ur thoughts on elizabeth, oh wise one

Like I said, very important she has red hair and green eyes. I see people sometimes swap these traits out for blonde and blue but if you do that she looks like discount Susie. Let redheaded characters have red hair this drives me insane

Since red hair and green eyes are reminiscent of typical Irish traits and I’m about half Irish, I like to headcanon that Liz and the Afton family are partially Irish, probably on Mrs. Afton’s side since it’s more likely that the redhead trait Elizabeth shares (and Michael in fnaf 4) comes from her side of the family as opposed to William’s.

I don’t think the British accent is actually that prominent in the family. Michael, being so similar to his dad genetically, picked it up, but I actually think Elizabeth didn’t entirely pick it up naturally. It would have been more slight if she had, but she really wanted her dad’s approval and spent a lot of time around him to the point she began mimicking his speech patterns since she was so young.

I read Elizabeth as a sweet, passionate and loving girl, despite being troubled due to her abusive and neglectful father, who just really wants to be liked. She probably tends to cling to the people who do like her or who she really wants to like her.

If she knew Michael didn’t hate her for scooping him, she may have never been pried away from his side. Visually so similar to William, but so willing to accept and approve of her? That is the very kind of person she needed.

Her friends were few and far between, since a lot of her behavior read as strange and bothersome to others. However she loved the few she had with her whole heart.

She was probably developing BPD by the time she died, caused by her unstable home environment and the deaths happening around her, and exacerbated by others’ reactions to her “bad” behavior, especially William’s.

Above all else, Elizabeth constantly sought out love and approval from everyone around her. Her father, who never gave it, her siblings, her teachers, her friends, Henry, anyone and everyone. Due to feeling deprived of approval, she constantly was fishing for it, and always tried her best to earn it and get the most she could.

Elizabeth was young and in my interpretation lacked empathy, so outside of the few she loved more than anything, she never was truly affected or hurt by those around her suffering. She wasn’t a bad kid or a bully by any stretch of the imagination, but being good in everyone else’s standards just wasn’t her.

She didn’t really have a relationship with her brothers. I saw an interpretation on twt a while ago that she was pretty isolated from Mike and CC, and didn’t spend a lot of time with them, which I quite like, especially in attempting to timeline the games so all three are alive in the same era.

William could have wanted her to be his favorite child or even his successor, yet found every part of her personality that stood in the way of that to be an inconvenience and thus neglected her, leading her on with the promise of being loved but never fulfilling it. Baby was never meant to kill her, she was an impossible ideal to push Elizabeth to strive to. But that mentality was ultimately her undoing.

[fizziepopangel]

#Horror (2015, Horror)

As I was scrolling through one of my favorite free entertainment platforms, I came across a section I tend to frequent a lot; the horror section. Now, for being a free streaming platform, Tubi tends to be one of the best places to watch movies when you're looking for older LifeTime-esque movies, but I often times go there for horror since it streams harder to find titles sometimes, like The Human Centipede 2 and 3. Today, I came across #Horror, a 2015 movie labeled as horror and advertised as being based on a true story... While I hate having to "bash" a movie within my favorite genre, let's get into mess of what I just watched.

#Horror is the story of a group of preteen girls having a slumber party. Now if that isn't scary enough, it quickly becomes clear that these girls are only friends because of a similar family financial status, with only one of the girls being a scholarship student at the prep school they all attend.... This leads to a lot of tension within the group as it's clear that the only thing that truly binds them is the need for popularity and status, so these kids are horrible to each other. Like bitchy with a capital 'b'. As is normal for girls, the terrible way they treat each other is done under the guise of joking and friendship and all only done as long as the 'queen bee' is approving of it. As if the bullying isn't enough for the group, it becomes clear early on that two of the young girls are suffering from underlying mental health issues, and while one seems to be trying to work past things, the other takes the bullying too far and is kicked out of the house.

Now, throughout the entire movie, there's this weird online game that involves posting pictures online that most of the girls seem to be participating in. No big deal outside of the fact that the feed we're shown is from the perspective of someone who seemed to be posting pictures of people they actually killed. And these pictures are getting tons of likes. We see these pictures through the entirety of the movie, even as the slumber party seems to pick up and the girls seem to be genuinely getting along and having fun. And that's the majority of this movies; its either these kids bullying each other to the point of lowered self-esteem and tears or laughing and dancing with flashes of photos from an unknown perspective being taken from afar until the girls begin getting tormented by this person.

Moving on to the movie being marketed as a "based on a true story' type thing.... Things like that always intrigued me when it came to the things I watch so I took it upon myself to see if I could find the event that inspired the movie. When looking for this, I found that the director Tara Subkoff confirms that the truth in this movie ends at a secondhand account of her friend's child having to change schools due to bullying issues. I found that quite disappointing considering how painfully slow the movie was paced and the how flat the characters were written despite not having to be based on the story. Given that the creators didn't have to be true to characters or storylines for most of the movie since it was about 99% fictitious, I feel like that was a poor choice entertainment wise considering on top of that, the story was oftentimes hard to follow despite it's slow pace... It all felt like a jumbled mess to sit through and unfortunately, with it being over an hour long, I don't think I can find any way to get behind something meant to be entertaining being that hard to watch.

While I went into this #Horror with hopes of being made at least a tiny bit anxious through the movie, I wound up being extremely bored and wishing I had spent the hour and half rewatching something I've already seen.

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend and sorry I've been quiet all week. I was away for a family thing till Saturday and returned with a fucking fever so am swearing off travel, maybe forever. Anyway loved last week's LS episode since we managed to get good storylines for many of the up-until-now side-lined characters. A Paul love interest?? YES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES!!! Grace being the cutest, most concerned (and gorgeous, let's be honest) mom to every kid in trouble?? Love to see it (and Judd with baby

Charlie of course). And as for Marjan, God that was heartbreaking. She really went through it but stuck to her principles, gotta love her for that. And while it's optimistic of me to think they won't just forget about her and have her reappear when convenient (I know you know what show I'm glaring at), i have high hopes we'll get to see some of her journey as she finds her way back and that they'll make it a good one. As for this week, well hopefully this FBI nonsense will be at the end of it?? Fingers crossed. We haven't even gotten to talk about OG's return next week and Buck being lightninged and possibly comaed!! This obviously has a lot of potential (especially to see Maddie outside of dispatch and her house) and the Buckley parents visit during it could be interesting, i'm mostly worried about how KR plans to tie this in to the sperm donor nonsense. Anyway maybe a longer ask for later!!

Hello my friend! I'm so sorry you're sick! That's the worst, especially when you've been traveling and just want to relax at home! Hopefully you'll feel better soon and I'm sending you well wishes and manifesting some delicious soup to help! 🥣🥣🥣

Last week's episode WAS really good! (With the glaring exception that there was ZERO mention of what happened with Carlos the week before. Like, we didn't need a whole thing but not even a mention? Very much hoping it comes up this week at least in passing until we get to actually deal with it. I'm sure we will, I just haaaaate when shows have something huge happen and then forget about it for weeks until it's plot convenient again. ANYWAY) I LOVED that we finally got some focus on other characters. I always liked the idea of Marjan and Paul together if the show decided to go that route, but if not (or at least not for right now), I'm absolutely on board with this new woman for him! Their scenes were SO CUTE and he was all flustered when she recognized him and I would like more of that for him! He deserves to be flirted with until he's flustered and full of butterflies!

Grace continues to be the best person around, and her and Judd's relationship is just SUCH a highlight ever episode. He's SO supportive and wonderful, and so so good with babies, and young boys who've had a traumatic day alike. Plus the Tommy and Grace friendship?! *chef's kiss* It's so so so important to me and their scenes always hit so good! Also, any time they want to have Grace singing again, I am ON BOARD! Her voice is absolutely lovely, and her smile could power the whole of Austin.

As for Marjan, this episode was so tough because she was SO sincere and didn't let the team or anyone try to let her off the hook, she realized that in the heat of the moment and trying to get herself and the victim to safety, she said something hurtful and she owned that. She didn't try to make excuses (like, "we were going to die if we didn't get out in the next 30 seconds" which as far as reasonable explanations go is a pretty damn good one), she just apologized from the heart and was ready to take whatever reprimand the department handed down. And even when it was clear those people were NOT upset about what Marjan said and were just looking for a way to get some money when they found out she was "famous", Marjan still apologized for what she said and meant it. I LOVE that she stuck to her guns though and didn't cave to their demands that she try to use her status to get money from her followers, and wouldn't let the department use her and her followers either as an easy out to avoid a lawsuit. (Sidebar, WHERE is her union rep because I'm pretty sure the department leaving her out to dry like that if the didn't cave to extortion is like....not legal but I guess for the *drama* I'll let it go.)

My only major worry about this storyline is how the post mortem interviews said it was the last we would see of Marjan for "awhile", which does NOT inspire confidence that we'll see this as an evolving story. It's far more likely that we'll get nothing (or next to nothing) until the episode she returns and then we'll see flashes of her time away. Which is a bit of a bummer to me because I really love her as a character, but given that the show has not been able to manage having emergency calls because they're working in too much plot, it might be for the best, but still sad not to have her around! I do think that the end result of that journey is going to be some good storytelling for her character and I'm excited to see how it wraps up!

I am just....SO bored and tired of this FBI storyline so the sooner it wraps up and the less time I have to waste watching it the better. I'm crossing fingers with you that it's not just like...the whole episode. I don't think my soul can take it! And it's irritating because Owen was SO good this week when he was there to support Marjan, and so funny in the whole montage interview with Asha. And he's actually been really funny with O'Brian too, I just wish it was about their DAY jobs and not Owen's fantasy of moonlighting as a detective or something. IDK why the show seems to hate having Owen do fire captain related things because I really enjoy his character in that role and his dynamics with the rest of the team are fun to watch! Stop shipping him off to spend all his time with random side characters and show him interacting with his team! And is SON ffs. At least we can look forward to him and Andrea becoming FotG/MotG-zillas and trying to take over the wedding which I'm sure will be a lot of fun to watch!

I still can't think too hard about the sperm donor thing or I loose all hope and sense of decorum and become a screaming rage monster, especially knowing it's for sure dragging out the whole mother effing season. HOWEVER, putting that nonsense aside, I'm trying and failing to manage my expectations for the OG coming back. Like, this lightning storm looks SO GOOD already, and knowing we've got Brad and JCC back for a team up on a disaster already has me vibrating with excitement, but seeing the stills has got me HYPED. I'm for sure trying to keep my expectations for Buddie stuff down, but I'll be thrilled to just get a few episodes that aren't boring filler and this looks like it could be a return to peak 911 vibes for the whole group, even if it's just for an episode. So fingers crossed about all that. I'm excited!! And I'm here if you've got more rambling leading up to our original flavor wee woos coming back!

[emystic-a]

1, 2, 6 and 8

Meme for Roleplay Muns / Anonymous 

1. What is your favorite trope to rp?

Hmm I don’t know I need to think about that, maybe fish out of water sort of stuff? It is so many ocs I made with the concept they’re somewhere they don’t belong or new to. I love aliens and fantasy characters having to deal with modern Earth society.

Also found families when comes to relationships, I love dynamics like “well I’m adopting this child” especially when it comes to these “fish out of water” characters. Like explain to Mika what the heck school is or Null that it isn’t normal to eat five plates in one sitting.

2. Name 3 things you admire about OCs.

Anyone that ever roleplayed with me in the past knows that OCs are my life, I love making and interacting with original characters so much. 

Being proud of what you wrote and who you made, man I love people that are so proud of their OC and can talk hours about them. Tell me everything.

They came from out your noggin space from nothing, from a concept, or designed to be existing in a property you love. That’s awesome alone, someone just sat down and said “you know what would be cool this”.

OCs deserve so much more respect than they get, it is so many in the past I seen that turn their noses to interacting with a OC. Which I am like bruh why? That canon character you love in whatever anime, show, cartoon, book whatever was someone’s OCs once upon time.  Remember that everyone.

6. Name 3 things you love most about your muse/muses.

First thing LUCY I love Lucy (haha get cause it was a show...okay I’m out). She was like a break out character for me in a way, in past blogs when I first introduced she was pretty much a joke character. But I started to take her seriously overtime. She feels like someone I know or is even related to because of her mannerisms, Also, the fashion. A lot of y’all haven’t seen me draw but I like to and she is my fashionista.

Mika is baby and that’s all the reason I need to love him lol. He actually was my OG muse when I first started using Tumblr as a rp medium. Seriously, this little tyke was my OG and he changed over so many years. But he always been the sweetest little snookums ever and I want to pinch his cheeks so bad!

Despite Elliot in my past blog kinda taking a backseat a lot of times, despite the original blog he was from he was meant to be the center focus. I still really like him and love the fact that he is like one step away from being a supervillain to me. Cause I love having a “evil” character that is developing and isn’t exactly there yet.

8. Do your friends outside the internet know your roleplay?

My boyfriend does and that’s it really.