#i’ll be incredible sad since i like her character

[starlightseraph]

finished dead boy detectives!!! (spoilers ahead!)

quick disclaimer: i haven’t gotten around to the comics yet but i’ve been very interested since the sandman came out and i do plan on reading them eventually lol.

- edwin is my new blorbo cutie and i too would go to hell for him. also, his style is immaculate, exactly how i want to dress all the time.

- i am SO sad about niko. but i’m glad that it seems like she’s not totally gone? i hope she’s not an antagonist in the next series (the ending was a touch ominous), but i’ll honestly be happy either way. it’s so rare to find good western-japanese characters. it made me incredibly happy when she switched into a japanese accent when saying “osaka” because it’s something i recognise in my family and in me. i know people from lots of different backgrounds do that with words from their own languages, but i’d never seen a japanese character do it before so i was very tickled.

- charles. man. please fall in love with edwin. how tf are you quite literally dragging him out of hell and he confesses to you and you look him in the eyes and say that you love him but you’re not in love with him. i mean that’s the best possible way he could’ve gone about it, but if i were edwin i might just have gone back down to the doll face spider thing.

- i hope that crystal’s past doesn’t land her in jail or anything. i really like her dynamic with the others but i’m not sold on her and charles romantically, mostly because edwin is so fucking sweet and i don’t want his heart to be broken. he’ll be happy if charles is happy, but i cannot stand see him get hurt even the tiniest bit.

- jenny is amazing. she’s literally me fr. also i love how she just hands people cleavers.

- i found the night nurse’s breakdown when she was in angie’s stomach very relatable. i feel like that a lot lmao. and i love her accent. i will go to bat for my own weird ass culchie irish/valley girl hybrid, but if had to pick another accent…

- i need a wise and eternal south asian man to talk me down from the ledge. it’s almost finals week and a ring from kashina would be a big help.

- tragic mick (top tier wordplay name) is a sweetheart and i hope he gets to be a walrus again eventually. my first reaction when i saw the cat king was “oh my god, it’s the piss kink guy from You!” but that aside, he was ok in the end. so was monty. i hope the night nurse can help crystal drag david the demon back down to hell.

[grandeoatmilklatte]

Taking a Sick Day 🤒 (Ominis Gaunt x F!MC)

Alternate title: "come over, my parents aren't home!"

I'm back from another writing hiatus! Please enjoy this floor-fucking smut!

Warnings: NSFW || P in V || 0ral || f!ng3r!ng || loss of V || Characters are aged up and 18+ || MDNI || (1892 words)

“Oh sweetheart! You’re burning up! You can’t go out like this!” Ominis’s mother exclaimed as she sat on the edge of the bed, her hand resting on her son’s forehead. “Everyone else will just have to go without us.”

“It’s alright mother! I wouldn’t want you to miss the party! I can stay home alone. I’ll be asleep most of the evening anyway.” Ominis pleaded, praying he didn’t sound too desperate. 

“He’s right dear, the boy is eighteen now, he’s old enough to stay home alone for an evening.” his father’s voice echoed from the other side of the room. 

After a few moments of discussion between Ominis’s parents, it was agreed Ominis could indeed stay home, while the rest of the family attended a dinner party that night at the home of a family friend. Ominis smiled to himself as he heard his parents leave the room, waiting until their footsteps receded before jumping to his feet, dashing to his desk and quickly crafting a letter, whispering words to his self writing quill before shooing his owl away so that his letter could be delivered as quickly as possible. 

Ominis’s plan was turning out to be a success so far.

An hour later, the Gaunts were saying their goodbyes to Ominis, letting him know that they would return past midnight, and that they wouldn’t wake him when they returned. Once they had left, Ominis summoned the family house elf, letting the elf know that he was giving him the night off so that he could be alone while he recovered from his “illness”. The elf was happy to oblige. When Ominis confirmed that the house was indeed empty, he made his way to the family room and waited, his heart beating out of his chest. 

Less than twenty minutes passed before Ominis heard the sound of tapping at the window of the family room. He dashed to the front door, listening for a moment before he called out.

“Darling, is that you?”

“Yes! It’s me!” Came the beautiful voice of his girlfriend before he felt her arms wrap around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. He kissed her back and led her inside, shutting the door behind him. 

“I was so worried they wouldn’t fall for it! Had I known this was that easy I would have skipped out on every one of our History of Magic classes!” Ominis said as he proceeded to quickly give his girlfriend a tour of his home. She laughed at his remark, but her eyes were wide in awe, taking in her surroundings. 

“Ominis, your home is incredible!”

Ominis felt a slight pang of sadness knowing that this was the only way he could have her in his home - in secret. The couple had been together since their fifth year, with their romantic interactions being few and far between due to a lack of privacy at Hogwarts. They managed to see each other occasionally over the summer holidays, but this had to also be in public spaces, her muggleborn status making an invite to the Gaunt manor forbidden, lest she wish to be killed. Recently, Ominis had begun to slowly and secretly steal from his family’s fortune, waiting until he had stolen enough for them to run away and start a new life together. Until then, their relationship would need to remain a secret.

So, when Ominis learned that his family would be out of the manor one evening for several hours to attend a party, he couldn’t deny himself the opportunity to have the place to himself, for him and his beloved to do whatever they pleased. A simple potion created to make the drinker appear sick with a fever was all Ominis needed to make this evening work in his favor. 

After giving her a brief tour of this home, Ominis led her back to the family room, where he sat himself on a dark emerald velvet sofa, while she remained standing. With a quick wave of his wand, Ominis lit the grand fireplace that was across from the sofa.

“Darling, don’t just stand there, come sit with me.” Ominis leaned back, making his lap readily available for her. 

A nervous giggle fell from her lips. “Sorry, this is just…so different from what we normally do. I don’t think we’ve ever been this alone before.”

“Well, we should take advantage of the opportunity then.” Ominis began to worry he might be sounding a bit desperate. The growing desire for her, as well as the growing bulge in his trousers, was hard to ignore. 

His worries faded when she straddled his lap, her hands coming up to hold his face as she kissed him. As he deepened the kiss, he brought his hands to her hips, gently guiding her so that her core was slowly grinding against his bulge, which was now straining against his trousers. Ominis could feel the tension releasing from her body as she began to move her hips on her own, increasing her pace as she continued to grind against him.

“Take your clothes off.” Ominis said breathlessly as he pulled away from her lips, the desperation completely taking over him. 

Without a second of hesitation, he felt her body leave his lap, followed by the sounds of her clothing coming off. Ominis followed suit, remaining on the couch as he undressed. He couldn’t help the soft groan that left his lips when he felt her sit back on his lap, her skin coming in direct contact with his own for the first time. 

She resumed her previous action, grinding herself against him, her bare cunt rubbing against the length of his hard, leaking cock. Ominis slipped his hand between their bodies, gripping his cock and trying to guide himself inside of her, but she pulled away, sinking down to her knees, trailing kisses down his chest as she did so. 

Her pace was slow as she took his cock into her mouth. The oral pleasure she had given him before was always quick and quiet, either in an alleyway after one of their dates, or in an empty corner of the library when they were still in school. But right now she was taking her time, savoring every second of this alone time they had, and it was driving Ominis crazy, moans freely falling from his lips as his hands wrapped around her soft hair. 

“Wait, wait, stop, not yet!” Ominis groaned, knowing that if she kept this up any longer he was going to fall off the edge way too early. “Come here.”

She did as she was told, resuming her original position on his lap, her lips immediately latching on to his. As he kissed her, he slipped his hand between their bodies once again, this time turning his attention to her as he slipped two fingers inside her wet cunt. She moaned against his lips, and adjusted her hips so that she was matching his movements as he pumped his fingers in and out of her. After a few moments he pulled his fingers out of her, using the same hand to slowly stroke himself as she lined herself up with his cock. When she was positioned perfectly, Ominis’s hands went back to her hips as she slowly sank herself down his length. 

She let out a long, drawn out moan as her body adjusted to the new feeling. “Easy, darling, easy. We can just go slow.” Ominis whispered softly. She gave him an affirming hum before she began to slowly ride him, Ominis’s hands encouraging her as they remained on her hips. Her hands moved from Ominis’s shoulders to the back of the velvet sofa, gripping it as she picked up her pace, Ominis’s hands still keeping her steady.

The Gaunts would surely kill their son if they knew what he was up to right now, and with a muggleborn no less. This was the ultimate act of rebellion against his family, and the realization of this, coupled with the way she moaned in his ear, coupled with the way her walls tightened around his leaky cock, almost made Ominis fall over the edge right then and there. But he kept his composure, knowing he wasn’t anywhere near done with her yet. 

“On the rug, now.” he commanded breathlessly as he lifted her off of his lap by her hips. She obeyed immediately, lying on her back on the large white rug that adorned the floor in front of the sofa. 

For a moment, Ominis felt it a bit crude to be taking the woman he loved on the floor, but he ignored the feeling, immediately diving between her spread legs. Moans of his name filled the room as he alternated between licking and sucking her clit. When her moans became louder, he slipped his two fingers back inside of her, working her with both his mouth and fingers. He was so lost in the taste of her, it was difficult to pull away, but eventually he did, positioning himself so he was directly above her.

“I love you.” He whispered against her lips before he gently kissed them. As she kissed him back, Ominis once again weaved a hand between their bodies lining himself up with her, gently sliding back inside of her. 

The gentleness was gone the moment Ominis bottomed out, as he began to fuck her mercilessly on the rug. He knew he didn’t have much time before he reached his climax, between the sound of her moans and the feeling of her legs wrapping around him. But, Ominis, ever the determined Slytherin, refused to let himself finish until she had first.

Almost as if she could read his mind, Ominis began to feel her walls tightening around his cock. His soft praises of “you’re so close, darling” and “you feel so good” gave her the final push she needed as she nosedived off the edge with a whimper of his name. 

Ominis slowed his movements down slightly, savoring the feeling of her orgasm as he himself was finally pushed over the edge. He once again considered the significance of this moment, juxtaposed with their current location, and cursed his bloodline as he emptied himself into her. 

There was no sense of urgency as they laid on the rug reveling in the afterglow. No need to quickly clean up and get dressed, or act as if they weren’t doing anything at all. Ominis could just lay there with her, listening to the sounds of the crackling fireplace, and the soft sighs of her breathing.

Although he could have laid with her on that rug for hours, Ominis eventually sat up, still wanting to enjoy the empty home. He led her into the garden, where they took an evening stroll before she provided Omins with his second orgasm of the night, taking him into her mouth again while they sat on a garden bench.

Once they had gone back inside, the two retired to Ominis’s bedroom, fatigue beginning to catch up to them. The time was approaching midnight anyway, and Ominis didn’t want to take any chances in case his family arrived earlier than expected. As they drifted off to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms, Ominis couldn’t help but wonder when his family would be attending a dinner party next. 

[cieloclercs]

what would you say (if i told you i love you)? — charles leclerc

PART: 4/? (read part 3 here)

summary. in which childhood best friends blur the lines between what they’ve always known, and something more

warnings. pure angst lmao, charles is an idiot with a capital I, swearing, basically everyone hates charles, the leclercs (minus charles) and joris being iconic + your unnamed bestie, i used pictures from france 2022 so sorry about that 🫠

pairings. charles leclerc x artsy!reader

face claim. tara michelle

author’s note. alex is in one of the pictures as a face claim for a different character but absolutely no hate is intended to her at all !! sorry for the angst in this one 😭 but i promise it won’t stay like that for much longer! <33

liked by yourfriend and 27,836 others

y/nsart experimenting with new textures and media! super happy with the outcome 🖤

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yourfriend incredible 😍

*y/nsart liked this comment

username oh fuck.

username now i really want to know what charles did

username so i’m not the only one getting REALLY sad vibes off these paintings??

username nope 😃

username will any of these be going for sale? 👀

y/nsart i don’t think so unfortunately! i’m just painting for me at the moment :)

username @charles_leclerc what the fuck did you do?

username what happened to y/n’s light tones and summer landscapes? ☹️

username charles happened apparently

username pascale normally comments on y/n’s art posts…is this confirmation? 🥲

username babes you’re reaching

username or at least i hope you are

username the charles thing aside, these are so beautiful!

username no charles like either 😭😭

username it’s the beginning of the end girls :’(

arthur_leclerc amazing as always 🖤

*y/nsart liked this comment

username at least arthur’s still here !!

username wrong leclerc. no offence arthur

arthur_leclerc none taken, i fully agree 😃

username WHAT

username ok so we’ve got no pascale or charles…but there’s still some leclerc presence 🤔

username i’ll be honest i’ve got no idea what’s going on

username same bestie !!

username i mean it’s got to be all connected. charles’ dnf in zandvoort and how sad he looked all weekend (he didn’t even post after!!) and now this?? something weird is going on

username i just want charlesy/n back 🥲

liked by formulaupdates and 9,736 others

f1wags Charles Leclerc arrived in the Monza paddock today with Italian model Bianca Santoro. Sources suggest they looked pretty cosy 👀

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username it’s over for us charlesy/n nation 🥲

username i’m literally sobbing

username YOU’RE JOKING

username this can’t be happening.

username it’s only been three weeks and he’s already forgotten about y/n??

username you say that like they ever actually dated 🙄

username no they didn’t, but they’ve been best friends since they were literal toddlers! that’s not something you just get over in a few weeks imo

username my heart is breaking wtf

username @charles_leclerc WHAT ABOUT Y/N???

username oh my god for the last time, THEY NEVER DATED !! 🙄🙄

username i seriously believed charles was in love with y/n 💔💔

username why does this feel like a betrayal 😭

username i feel so bad for y/n 🥲

username yikes

username guys this girl might actually be nice! don’t be so quick to judge just because you all want charles and y/n together 😁

username we never said she isn’t.

username but they were my endgame 😭😭

username the only positive out of this is that we’re about to be fed with the most beautiful, haunting, gut-wrenchingly tragic paintings OF ALL TIME

username y/n’s rep era (painter edition) loading…

liked by leclerc_pascale and 104,357 others

y/nsart the heart was made to be broken

view all comments…

username oh.

username not the oscar wilde quote 💔

username i was not mentally prepared for this

username i don’t think any of us were babe 🥲

username i’m never going to forgive charles for this

username why am i feeling this so deeply 😭

leclerc_pascale ❤️

username i can just imagine what pascale’s going to say to charles after this lmao

username she’s gonna tear him apart 😭

arthur_leclerc stop this now i will cry.

username arthur 😭😭

username phahah he’s one of us

username @arthur_leclerc same bestie

username as sad as this is i wish i had an outlet for my emotions like this…i feel like it would be so liberating

*y/nsart liked this comment

username this is exactly what heartbreak feels like. i’m not ok.

username charles is now enemy number 1 after making my girl y/n feel like this

username i was going to say i hope he dnfs but he’s already cursed enough it’ll probably happen anyway

username HAHAHA SO TRUE 😭

username someone said y/n’s rep era would be the only positive out of the charles-bianca thing BUT THIS IS PAINFUL. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP I WANT HAPPY Y/N BACK.

username oh god the first and last slides 💔💔💔

username she’s not even denying it anymore…

username i’m going to pray every day from now that charles comes to his senses and tells her how he feels 🙏🙏

username can i join you

username and me

username our delusional asses need to stick together rn 😔🙏

username on a slightly less sad note THE AMOUNT OF LIKES THIS HAS GOT OMG.

username as it should! y/n’s talent needs to be more widely recognised 😌

username @charles_leclerc you’re breaking all our hearts here

liked by f1wags and 15,736 others

formula1updates Charles Leclerc after his DNF in Monza 💔

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username karma.

username honestly it serves him right

username we manifesting it guys !!

username i want to be sad because that’s his championship hopes completely out of the window but he genuinely deserves it after the way he’s treated y/n…

username you mess with y/n you mess WITH GOD BITCH

username lmao it’s so funny that he brings his little girlfriend with him and then crashes out 3 laps in 😭

username he KNOWS he deserves it as well

comments on this post have been limited.

yourfriend

yourusername toujours mon amour 🩷 arthur_leclerc take care of her please ↳ yourfriend what do you think i’m doing? 🙄 joris_trouche can’t believe i wasn’t invited 😔 ↳ yourfriend do you understand the meaning of a ‘girl’s trip’? charles_leclerc please can you ask her to answer my texts? ↳ yourfriend why should i? you’ve already hurt her enough.

three weeks later…

liked by charles_leclerc and 26,836 others

tagged: yourfriend

yourusername healing 🌊🤍🌙

view all comments…

yourfriend la plus belle fille 💕/ the most beautiful girl

yourusername je t’aime <3

leclerc_pascale Reviens vite à la maison, mon ange 🤍 / come home soon, angel

yourusername tu me manques, maman 🥹

username the strongest person i know 🩵

*yourusername liked this comment

arthur_leclerc i never thought i’d say these words but i miss you ☹️

yourusername awww arth 🥹🥹 i miss you too x

joris_trouche still sad i wasn’t invited on the girl’s trip :’((

yourfriend tais toi, stupide 🙄 / shut up, stupid

yourusername 😭😭

joris_trouche rude 🙁

username guys are we all seeing the same thing right now or am i hallucinating 😳

username charles liked??

username OMG IM NOT HALLUCINATING

username CODE RED 🚨🚨🚨‼️‼️‼️ CHARLES LIKED EVERYBODY STAY CALM

username not charles trying to crawl his way back bitch please 😭

username @/yourusername tell him to go fuck himself x

username HAHSHAH STOP

username nah i’m calling it he’s definitely been lurking around her and y/f/n’s stories for weeks trying to figure out how to win her back 🤞🤞🤞

username girl you’re delulu if you think y/n’s gonna take him back that easily 🙄

username y’all just ignoring the fact that he still has a whole ass girlfriend 😭😭

username let me be delulu in peace please and thanks. 😐

username this is the mediterranean girl summer i want 😍

username how to be y/n y/l/n

username babe this isn’t google

username this bianca girl has NOTHING on y/n

username fr she’s literally a goddess 😫

username if charles doesn’t want her i’ll gladly take her 🤭

username two pretty best friends 🤩

username the growth 🤍 @/yourusername i’m manifesting love and happiness for you girl !! no one deserves it more 😘

yourusername thank you my love 🥹🥹

username charles get tf out of here 😂

username lmaooo he’s ruining the hot girl summer vibe

➜ part 5

tagged: @incoherenciass

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

Stuff I wish we could’ve seen in HOTD

1. Alicent comforting Rhaenyra after her mother’s death

There’s a deleted scene that shows Rhaenyra returning to her room after her mother’s funeral, to find Alicent there waiting for her. As soon as she sees Alicent her strong facade breaks and she bursts into tears. She falls into Alicent's arms, and they sink to the floor together.

Rhaenyra has a tendency to mask her emotions when upset, and Alicent seems to be one of the few people she feels safe being vulnerable around.

2. Rhaenyra confronting Alicent about the engagement.

There’s a somewhat infamous deleted scene that shows Rhaenyra confronting Alicent about her engagement to Viserys.

She asks how long Alicent has been meeting with her father without her knowing. When Alicent says it’s been going on ever since the queen died, she is furious and calls her a whore, accusing her of seducing him.

A lot of people shit on Rhaenyra for this, saying she’s victim blaming, which, yeah, she is, but it’s also a very realistic reaction. She’s not only dealing with the fact that her father is remarrying, she’s now dealing with the fact that her best friend is gonna be her new step mom and their relationship will never be the same again. She’s probably also afraid of the possibility that her friendship with Alicent was never real and that Alicent was just using her to get power.

Alicent immediately denies it, saying they never talked about marriage, and Rhaenyra responds, saying she should’ve known it was leading to marriage since she was visiting him alone in his chambers. She asks what she expected to happen, and Alicent doesn’t answer.

Because she did know. From the moment her father told her to where her mother’s dress she knew. But their conversations were so casual and non sexual that she convinced herself that it was purely platonic, as a way of protecting herself from the horrible truth of the situation.

Instead of answering the question, she deflects, and says that she did it at her father’s command, and when Rhaenyra says she should’ve just refused him, she snaps back that not everyone can get away with doing whatever they want like she does.

This seems to be the moment Rhaenyra accepts that this isn’t Alicent’s fault and that she’s lashing out at the wrong person.

Rhaenyra says they (Otto and Visarys) can’t do this. That she is the princess and she will have it annulled.

Rhaenyra obviously doesn’t have the power to do that, and she knows it, but she’s not used to having problems that she can’t snap her fingers and have fixed. She’s also putting on a strong confident facade, saying, “don’t worry, I’ll fix it,” partly to comfort Alicent, and partly to comfort herself.

But when Alicent doesn’t seem comforted by this, Rhaenyra begins to realize that Alicent hasn’t protested the marriage. So she asks her if this is what she wants, and Alicent, who’s resigned to her role as a woman, says it doesn’t matter what she wants.

This is the key difference in their characters. Rhaenyra wants to fight against the restrictions imposed on her as a woman, while Alicent accepts them. Alicent has been groomed her entire life by a misogynistic society to view this unfair patriarchal system as the natural order of things, and to believe that her submission to it is a virtue.

3. Alicent and Viserys’s wedding

There is a deleted wedding scene that we don’t know a ton about, but it would’ve been nice to see. And by nice, I mean incredibly depressing and uncomfortable.

There are pictures of Rhaenyra helping dress Alicent for the wedding, mirroring Alicent dressing Rhaenyra for her heir announcement ceremony thing. It’s a reflection of their respective positions in the kingdom. Rhaenyra is destined to rule, while Alicent is destined to marry.

Also the sad finality of it. This is the last time they will get to be just friends. After this is done, they will be step mother and step daughter.

Also, disturbingly, in the book, Rhaenyra was at the bedding ceremony and was one of the ones who undressed Viserys. I can’t imagine how disgusting that would be. Not only having to undress your father so he can have sex with your best friend who clearly doesn’t want him, but also having to stand and watch him rape her, knowing that there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

4. Rhaenyra and Harwin Strong’s relationship

I’m not the only person devastated that we didn’t get to see Rhaenyra and Harwin’s relationship begin. We saw him eyeing her up when she was covered in blood, but that was about it.

Was they’re relationship a purely sexual fwb situation, or were they in love? I like to believe they fell in love, but the show doesn’t tell us. How did Harwin feel about not being allowed to openly claim his sons? That shit has to eat away at you after a while.

How many times did he want to tell them? When he was killed in the fire at Harrenhal, did he think of his boys? That he would never get the chance to tell them the truth? That he could never tell them he loved them?

Harwin’s sisters also become Rhaenyra’s ladies-in-waiting in the book. It would’ve been nice to see her befriending them and them being aunts to the boys.

5. Rhaenyra trying to have a good relationship with her half siblings

There is a deleted scene of Rhaenyra holding baby Aegon on her lap and trying to teach him to say her name.

Not only would Rhaenyra trying to bond with her siblings make what ends up happening even more tragic, but it also makes since politically. She doesn’t want her siblings to see her as an enemy and be tempted to usurp her in the future. So she tries to win their affection through gifts and teaching them how to ride their dragons. In the book, Aegon even says, “what kind of brother steals his sister’s throne?” But that could’ve just been sarcasm.

And Rhaenyra always wanted a sister, so you can’t convince me she didn’t try to have a relationship with Helaena. Even if she grew to be less than fond of Aegon and Aemond as they grew older, I believe she loved her sweet sister.

Of course on the opposite side you have Alicent who has Otto trying to convince her that Rhaenyra is untrustworthy and is a threat to her children. At first Alicent doesn’t buy it, but as time goes on she begins to believe it more and more, and her subtly mounting paranoia leads her to isolate her children from their half sister.

Then you have the whole thing with the fight at Driftmark, and I could go on and on about that. It was so needlessly cruel and stupid of Rhaenyra to order Aemond be interrogated about where he heard a rumor that everyone and their mother knows about. I know that’s what they say happened in the book, but I feel like it could’ve been done better.

Like, Alicent gives Rhaenyra grief about the pig incident, so she lectures the boys about how just because Aegon is allowed to bully Aemond, that doesn’t mean they can too. Aegon is not a person they should emulate. She may not be overly fond of Aemond herself, but it doesn’t matter if he’s mean and mopey, he is their uncle and they’ll treat him with respect because that’s what’s expected of them, and them acting out makes her look bad.

So at Driftmark tensions between the kids and Rhaenyra and Alicent are high, so she tries to do some damage control by going to Viserys and Alicent and suggesting that, because there are so many dragons and eggs here, they should try and get Aemond a dragon, and of course Visarys agrees.

But Aemond doesn’t want just any dragon or a lousy egg. He wants the biggest dragon in the world. He sneaks away to claim Vhagar in secret, but Rhaena (who wants to claim her mother’s dragon just like her dad wanted to claim Meleys) try’s to stop him only to be shoved by this much larger boy into a pile of dragon dung (like Joffrey in the book.) Aemond claims Vhegar, and Rhaena goes to get Baela and the boys. When Aemond lands, the fight happens like it did in the show.

When Rhaenyra finds out what happened, she’s not focused on the bastard thing, the kids care more about that stuff, instead she’s focused on the fact that Aemond, her half brother who she was just trying to help claim a dragon, threatened to kill her sons with dragonfire, and tried to bash their heads in with a rock.

Alicent demands Luke’s eye be cut out, and Rhaenyra and Viserys both refuse, with Rhaenyra angrily insisting that her sons will not be punished for defending themselves and their betrothed. Instead, she blames Aemond, saying, “Words of war become acts of war. Better he learns that now before he loses more than his eye.”

And that’s when Alicent grabs the dagger.

Idk, I’m not a writer, I’m just spitballing.

6. Laena and Rhaenyra’s friendship

In the book, after Baela and Rhaena are born, Daemon writes to Viserys and asks if he may bring them and Laena back to Kingslanding, and, of course, Viserys accepts them with open arms.

When Laena comes to Kingslanding, she and Rhaenyra become close friends. Laena and Daemon choose to live at Driftmark, but Laena and Rhaenyra still fly to visit eachother often, and would race their dragons from castle to castle.

When Rhaenyra heard Laena was in labor, she flew to Driftmark and stayed with her through her three day labor. In the show, when it becomes clear Laena won’t survive the birth, the maester overseeing the birth suggests a forced caesarean. The same thing done to Queen Aemma. I can only imagine the hell Rhaenyra would’ve raised to prevent her friend from suffering the same horrible fate her mother did.

After Laena’s death, Rhaenyra and Daemon mourn together. It’s not romantic, it’s not sexual, it’s just two people who just lost someone they both loved.

[bronx-bomber87]

Hello my wonderful fandom :) Thank you for all your lovely comments on me being delayed. Not my usual M.O. but I definitely needed the extra time to process. I was GUTTED and absolutely wrecked. Poor D had to deal with my panic spiral for most of Wednesday. (love you lol) I'll be honest I'm still little shook up and sad. Kinda grateful for the 3 week break tbh between episodes. This was a gut punch I wasn't in the least expecting. Hoping we'll get a S7 announcement during this hiatus. *fingers crossed* Get it together ABC. This took me awhile to unpack emotionally so thank you all again for being so patient.

So I want to preface this post. There will be ZERO And I mean ZERO bashing of Tim in this review from me. Would appreciate that in comments as well. I love conversation you know I love comments. What I don't like is hate being spread. Also nothing on Eric either. I've also seen this which is utter madness. Don't touch our captain. Man loves this fandom so much. Deserves respect. If you came to this review for either of those things please promptly exit stage left. I mean that in the kindest way possible but I love Tim/Eric so it's a non starter with me.

I’ve never so deeply related with a character in all my life as I have with Tim Bradford. I’ll be dissecting this ep to best of my ability. I love both these characters so very much. Why I was knocked out for a couple days before could tackle this. I imagine my thoughts will change when I do my summer in depth one. When we have the rest of the season in pocket. I have to say this won't be mini at all. LOL So lets get rid of that concept right now ha I can't be mini with this ep. I am not brief so thanks for reading. Also hats off to Eric my god he was incredible in this episode. Melissa too killing me left, right and center you two. Let us get started.

6x06 Secret and Lies.

Poor Lucy looks like me when I’m stressed and drained af. Tamara asking how stressed she currently is? Lucy answering 19.....She looks like a 19 if not worse tbh. This is probably the most time they've spent apart since they got together. Basically living together at this point let's be honest. Other than 6x01 they haven't really spent time apart aside from that UC op in 5x21. *sigh*

Tamara asking if Tim is still ghosting her? Lucy trying so hard to keep it together with her answer. My heart. What a wreck she is without Tim. Do love that we get to see her pin-up board btw. Good shot of her room we don’t usually get. That cupcake poster I love it so much. Although now it makes me sad...

Lucy asking what's wrong? Tamara telling her she wants to move out with some friends from school. Crap. Her moving is the last thing she needs…. But it's good for her even though the idea makes me sad. End of an era. Lucy is right she needs to live with people her own age. Doesn’t make it hurt less though. This is a ROUGH season for Lucy my god. The hits keep coming for our girl and I wanna hug her. Shield her somehow....

Lucy touching near her tattoo when she reaches Angela. (Mini gut punch.) I do love her coming to Angela about this. If there is anyone who knows Tim like she does it's Angela. Does help she finds his behavior alarming too. I mean of course she does. You can see the immediate worry. The empathy she has for Lucy is there but she holds her cards close in her advice. Telling her to trust him even though it's literally killing her. Not the council Lucy needed to hear or was looking for.

Lucy wanted more action than 'Just wait and trust him.' She has been trusting him but she’s so insanely worried. Going out of her mind with anxiety for her person. It's exuding out of of her and she looks like she wants to cry…Ugh me too Lucy. I’m an empath and an anxious one at that. I would be going out of my mind too…. Angela looks worried as hell though. Even though she isn't conveying that to Lucy at this point. Breaking my heart as she takes off from their convo. Because if she doesn't she'll lose it right then and there.

God I love Angela Lopez. First off well done on tracking him down. She's just a bad ass. I mean it's one of the reason's Lucy reached out to her tbh. Just gets into his car, drinking his soda, calling him out right away. I love her reasoning saying she can live off Wesley’s trust fund. Lmao. Doesn’t matter as much if she get's fired. 'Wine o'clock.' for her. Gotta love the confidence. I truly hope we get more Tim/Angela scenes the rest of this season. I always adore their dynamic.

Tim is sold on her reasoning and starts to explain the current situation he's trapped in. Angela taking it all in and assessing everything as he explains. Once Tim has succinctly summed up his current predicament Angela's reply is the best. 'I’m in.' lmao I love this woman. ‘I got your back boo.’ That she does. In more ways than he even realizes at this point.

Gotta commend Angela calling him out for walking away from Lucy. Not only that but his job to arrest a guy hasn’t thought of in a decade…. Ain’t no one better than her to be there to call him out his crap right now. Not only that but to really dig deep. To know this is far more than what he's sharing. This is why Angela is an incredible detective rooting things out like this. Saying this is more than just protecting Lucy. Her intuition is out of this world.

I mean she's not wrong. Lucy would understand if it was just about the benefits. She would be proud really. Thing is it's about protecting himself too. Which really just scratches the surface of why he is doing this. Tim knows he's caught even if he shrugs it off. She has him dead to rights and he knows it. 'I’m your BFF. I know you.' Ha it’s true whether you like it or not Timothy…Just like Lucy she has your number.

Angela giving him crap with how they're following Ray. Worried he isn't being smart about this. This is so unlike him to be this sloppy and unfocused. She was right he was tailing too close… Ray catches on to their tail quickly. When he scanned the vehicle made me so nervous. Doing it while he's taunting Tim. He's so detail oriented blows my mind Tim let that get by him. This SL gave me such MASSIVE anxiety as I watched it. Oh my lord.

The minute they get back to Angela's place she calls him out once again. Asking why he thinks this is ALL his fault? Tim shrugs it off and she refuses to take that as his final answer. Of course Angela was right there is far more to this story. Tim finally opens up to her about what happened. He had been leading his squadron for some time. Looking to move up to Sergeant.

The catch was he couldn’t be promoted if there was rampant criminality in his unit. Ray clearly was in the way of him moving up. Tim figured he could keep it within his unit if they went after him.. Oh Tim…. It was an unsanctioned mission too. Thinking if he could accomplish this would be easy fast track to his promotion.

Kills me to know he was there during the air strike ugh… Details missing from the last episode. The Humvee saved him and Mark but not his other men… I can't imagine what Tim felt in that moment. The immense amount of guilt laid on his soul from here on out. I mean it makes sense why he never left patrol before Lucy. The last time he tried to advance his career this happened. My broken boy.

Eric CRUSHES this scene. I wanna cry. My poor Timothy. He was more focused more on his career than his oath...Got two of his men killed. My damn heart. He’s so ashamed of himself. The way he points at himself when he says 'leadership.' I knew his military past would be dark but holy crap. I wanted more of his backstory and they delivered that in spades. What a gut punch this had to be for him. No doubt his men were loyal af to him. Would've followed him anywhere and did.

He carries leading those men to their deaths because they followed his leadership. Oof. That is quite the weight to keep on your soul. Also gives us insight to why he shoulders everything. Even when he doesn't have to. Punishing himself for past transgressions such as this. I'm sure when we get to the other side of this season, I will have an even deeper respect for the writers going into his backstory like this. Giving us even more insight to this man.

This hurts so good to get this kind of info. I have no doubt that’s why he shut Lucy out. The shame he feels is overwhelming. I totally get it. Nothing scarier than someone knowing your darkest secrets. Not only that but worrying they’ll think less of you due to it. Tim already struggles with self loathing. Been a theme for him his entire arc on this series. Something I've touched on a lot. This is truly bringing that to light in the most painful way.

We see Ray scanned Tim's car in order to gain access to it. To check his GPS to see where he's been. How he's been tracking him. When he scrolls down to Lucy's address. Made my stomach sink. Legit felt sick to my stomach....

I do love Lucy coming home and having Tamara there. Saying she ordered pizza for them. This is exactly what she needs. Do you really have to go Tamara? I wonder if she'll delay leaving now after this ep. There is a knock at the door and of course it's not the pizza. It's Ray. Hair's on the back of my neck stood up from the moment he entered that apt.

I know Melissa stated in her interview she was nervous about this scene. That she came off awkward in her anger. You are incorrect madam. Holy hell Lucy is a BAMF. Telling him the only call she's gonna make is for the ambulance. Because when she's done with him he's going to need it to wheel him out. Holds her ground like the confident bad ass we've all loved seeing her become.

Lucy calling him shaking and demanding where he was. Ooh lord hell fire coming with her through that front door. I love Angela grabbing Tamara to another room. Like let's go mom and dad are about to have a big blow out. Let's give them some space...

Tim asking if she's ok? Truly concerned but Lucy isn't having ANY of it. 'Do I look ok?' Damn no she doesn't....Ripping into him saying how that creep could've showed up when she wasn't there. Lucy is not wrong....Oh my lord I’ve never seen her so damn mad. She is RAGING at him and rightfully so. Her home was violated, Tamara was put in danger and threatened. All because Tim was trying to protect her. phew.

Tim FINALLY concedes to telling her something. It only seems to enrage her more. She is literally vibrating with anger in this scene with him. The more he tells her the more it doesn't explain why he left her in the dark. Lucy begging him to read her in. I mean she has earned that my love. ..Telling him to stop protecting her. Gah Tim is a deep loyalist who would protect anyone he loves even if it's not the right thing. His reply is a reflection of that.

'I can't. I won't.' He's so driven to keep her safe. His instinct is to protect her but doesn't see he's hurting her in the process. I knew she was going to be pissed he let Angela in and not her. But Tim was right she has a lot less to lose. Which doesn't seem pertinent in this moment...I do love her placing her hands on his when she also replies. 'I can't. I won't.'

Mirroring his words from moments ago. Just like he will never stop protecting her. Lucy will never stop fighting for him or longing to help him. That man is her entire world. The most important person in her life. It makes perfect sense she would help with this. Career be damned. I mean she risked her career to get him a shot at Metro. Of course she would do the same thing in order to shoulder his burden with him.

Love her standing her ground in this moment. Like damnit I love you and you are going to let me in. Whether you like it or not I am here and I'm going to help. If this wasn't a reflection of the communication problems that still painfully exist between them I don't know what is. I mean she tried to be patient and trust him. But honestly he needed this kick in the ass to let her in. Which is a problem. Lucy needs to be the first person he goes to. It shouldn't have to come to this. *sigh*

Their OP goes off without a hitch. Except Ray saying he was going to be an air strike on Tim's life.... God I had no idea as I was watching that scene how true it would be. Tim gets his interview and lies to protect Angela and Lucy. While keeping his own job intact as well. Also welcome back to Jackson’s dad. Hello there Percy. This is not how I wanted to see him again.

But he is IA him returning was never gonna be a good thing tbh in a post Jackson world. Regardless it was nice to see him again. The scene is Grey's office is ROUGH. Never seen Wade so disappointed in Tim. It hurts to watch. Just like this entire gut punch of an episode. Tim is just standing there in utter shame of everything. Ashamed Wade is looking at him like this.

Kills me Grey has to inform Pine of what he did. It makes sense he has to but damn that sucks. The amount of respect Tim has for Wade is immense. To watch him tear Tim apart and just stand there like a puppy being scolded hurts my soul. Especially when he tries to fight Pine knowing. Just dismissing him without further comment or argument...

So I will say this and it's not at all fair to Lucy that I thought this I'm sure. But I felt like if there was gonna be a breakup it would be coming from her. Not Tim in this moment. That's the part of this moment that really knocked the wind out of me. She had every damn right to be the one too btw. Instead she is there waiting for him with open arms. Honestly I took a breath for the first time this entire episode when she welcomed him in.

Wrapping him up in her arms. Encasing him, rubbing his back, her fingers in his hair. Gently cradling him against her. I thought ok maybe we'll be alright. Since Lucy isn't nearly as angry as she was earlier. Maybe they can get through this together. Cause she loved on him regardless of what happened. The unconditional love she has for this man blows me away. I honestly thought with her loving on him maybe they'd make it out. That they’d work through it together.

Tim looks so very defeated. On the verge of an actual breakdown as he explains that he lied about everything. Saying it saved his job...protected Angela and her. It doesn't seem like enough of a win to him. He looks so very destroyed and this is just the beginning of his downward spiral.

Lucy is doing everything to be his rock in this moment. To assuage him of his guilt… Most vulnerable ever seen Tim *pre tears*…. Lucy telling him it was an impossible situation. She would've done the same thing. It’s so very clear she was willing to work through this. To build them back to where they were before he got that phone call. Everything Lucy was in this scene represented her unconditional love for him. Tim is just too destroyed at the moment to see it….Also for him to accept it. It's so hard to truly accept unconditional love if you've never had it before. To truly trust in it.

Lucy is watching him spiral out of control. The way he's talking about himself with such loathing. How she never would've been in a place where she put her self interest over her team like him. She is trying her damndest to right his wrong. But Tim is having none of it. It pains me to see it... Pains Lucy too. It's the way she grabs onto him while he continues his verbal self flogging that get's me.

Trying to ground him in this moment with her touch. Bring him back to her. Something that has worked so well in the past. Sadly not having the intended affect this time around. Tim is too damn gone at this point. He feels he’s betrayed everything he thought he was. THOUGHT he was. *heart clutch* Tim has such a deep moral compass. That's why this is rocking him so very much. Ugh my heart. I too have a crazy deep moral compass. I can't say I wouldn't be spiraling out like him as well.

This was his greatest sin brought to light. To Tim exposing him for the fraud he feels he is. Him saying he's been lying to himself for a long time is a reflection of this. That imposter syndrome coming out real strong here. Something he buried deep down came rushing to the forefront and he is imploding. Says as much above. He no longer feels worthy to be in her life now. I get this anytime I screw up with a friend or my sister. I have this deep sense of shame attached to it. Like I no longer deserve that friend or my sister cause I messed up or if a past sin comes up. That they'll no longer love me or will forever look at me differently cause of it.

It's not logical but it's deeply ingrained from my mom shaming me for doing anything wrong growing up. As it is for Tim. His father literally beat the hell out of him for ever being out of line. He has suffered emotional and physical abuse. Unless confronted and treated comes out like this. Demons making their way to the surface. I was bawling by the time he said 'I'm sorry.' He’s never seen himself worthy of Lucy’s love that much has always been evident. But to see it this raw and visceral ripped my heart out. It’s on the ground where they're both standing.

I think this is something that has been brewing in the background for Tim for a long time. Now that I've had time away to decompress and think. I'm actually very excited they're tackling this. It's clear Tim is not in a place where he thinks he deserves her anymore. Low key never has been. He acts before he thinks. Eric had a great quote from his interview about Tim "He is impulsive and he reacts instead of thinking things through, and it can come out a bit too strong.” That is this decision in a nutshell. He feels he is a burden therefore he is removing himself without thinking it through. The regret that is going to come with this is going to be immense for him.

'You deserve so much better.' Better than me basically. He feels immense shame and that shame is launching him away from her. You know I learned something in therapy about this. About not being perfect and feeling like I'm too much. i.e. a burden. My therapist told me and it made me cry. 'You are worthy of the space you take up in people's lives. They want you there.' Tim does not think he is worthy of the space he is taking up in Lucy's life now. All his sins on the table laid out for her to see. He can't handle it. That much is very clear here. I will say I haven’t let a ship hurt me like this in a long time.

This absolutely crushed me. I couldn't even fathom assembling my thoughts. Cut me very deep. Been with this ship since day one. Also what a crushing blow this is for Lucy. Our poor girl. I mean she gave everything to this relationship. I mean EVERYTHING. She was all in from the moment Tim said ‘Unless it is.’ This was her first real relationship. First real leap into being serious. Thinking about marriage and kids. She gave her all to Tim my god. Her career took a hit for him and she never complained. Knew he was worth it (he still is btw) Fought every step of the way for him. For them.

When he was pulling back above it was an absolute panic for her. She could see him slipping through her fingers. Idk what broke my heart more Tim thinking he’s not worthy of her any longer or her begging him not to do this. She literally can't fathom how he can let go of her like this. Thought she was his person. Tim feels he’s gone back to who he was pre-Lucy and that scares him. He feels undeserving of the love she has to give him. Lucy knows everything and in his mind he can’t imagine her still loving him.

Lucy was as we all were in this scene. In disbelief... Even though Tim put her though absolute hell she was still there to comfort and support him. Because to her he is worth it even in the hard times. We all know Tim isn’t the best with his emotions. In his trauma damaged brain he thinks he’s doing the right thing here. That he’s radioactive, she deserves better than being around him and his reckless behavior.

The kiss on her head. Lucy trying to physically push away his rejection. Stomping all over my damn heart...However this ends up playing out Tim is going to have to address his emotional instability. How he charges forward and doesn’t think things through. Ruled by his emotions in the worst way. He’s impulsive and he’s gonna have to fight to get her back when he’s in a better mindset. Her trust has been obliterated by this. She fought and clawed for them and this was her reward. He’s gonna have to do some serious healing to get back to her. Lucy has loved him the best she can but he needs to put in some work now. We see next ep he's meeting with Aaron's therapist. Don't love that but I’ve wanted Tim to go to therapy for years. He needs this. Therapy doesn’t work unless you put the effort in though.

That will be a challenge for him. When I get out of the purview of this hurt I’m feeling...I’m actually going to be really impressed and happy they had Tim go through this. Do I think this is the end of them? No I think this is some serious growing pains. It was issues that have been percolating since Lucy did that 5 player trade. Hell probably back in 5x12 when Tim sacrificed himself without telling her so they could stay together. I still think that was romantic because of it's intended nature. BUT was the beginning of the communication problems. They’ve grown so very much in that regard. We’ve seen it but there is still work to be done on that front. It just came to a very gutting painful head.

I still have faith in the writers. I still have faith they’ll be ok. It might not be right away and I'm already feeling impatient tbh. But this is some serious realism being applied to them. It wasn't some random BS angst. Honestly we’re lucky our ship gets the most attention, the best SL’s and two people who LOVE these characters. They absolutely adore them and this ship. If you haven’t read Melissa and Eric’s interviews for this episode I highly recommend. This sucks right now. No two ways about it. But we will survive this storm. They’ll come out stronger than ever. Truly believe that. But for now let's rally around each other and get through this together. There will be brighter days ahead just doesn't feel like it right now. We got this.

~~~

Side notes non Chenford.

Do love Aaron working with Harper all if of all I cared about other than their SL in this one. Nolan's I fast forwarded which I normally don't do but I had no patience for his BS in this ep lol My anxiety was rampant in this ep and had no space for him.

Also RIP Metro Tim for the 6x07 promo. This hurts to see not just cause I enjoyed him in that outfit lol But to see his career take a nosedive like this. I wanted more Tim back story. Didn’t think would hurt like this though....Feel free to comment I love you all for any interaction I get with these. <3

[kimetsu-chan]

Disclaimer! ⚠️: this is not meant to take jabs at the ocs as some of these characters have unpleasant personalities. I chose these based on similar traits, outfits they’d look good in, and the ultimate talents. If you would like me to alter the outfit, I will. It just needs to be recognizable as the specific character’s outfit. This will take me an incredibly long time, upwards to multiple weeks. Since I am doing splash arts and one big art piece. If you are uncomfortable with the character your oc was given, please let me know and I’ll do my best to rearrange things. I will only being drawing YOUR oc in THEIR outfit and pose. I will not be mixing the characters.

this’ll be a long post so get ready

First off, this can contain spoilers for Danganronpa V2.

Kyoko Kirigiri technically shows up for the anime version on V2 but I want to include as many ppl as possible. + she’s my favorite so haha

Oc: Akari Fuyutsuki (@thewinterpillarhashira)

Talent: The Ultimate Detective

An honorable mention since Eva thought Celestia would work better than Makoto 😋

Oc: Eva Himiko (@muitsuri)

Talent: The Ultimate Gambler—

Byakuya Togami is the first person I thought of for this oc 😋 he and Makoto are sorta same in the sense that they appeared in the anime. Although Byakuya had an impersonator pretend to be him in the actual game

Oc: Celestine Ellis (@saffron0v0)

Talent: Ultimate Affluent Prodigy

IF ANYONE KNOWS TERUTERU’S PERSONALITY, IM NOT TRYNA BE MEAN I PROMISE— I hate Teruteru okay 😭 I just like his accent and outfit

Oc: Kirika (I couldn’t find her last name) (@ta-ni-ya)

Talent: The Ultimate Chef

Mahiru Koizumi so underrated omg 😭 I loovveee herrrr.

Oc: Marilyn Kaizumi (@cloudymistedskies)

Talent: The Ultimate Photographer

Peko Pekoyama has such a fun name omg. I like saying it over and over again. Once again, and underrated character

Oc: Ilona Dulina (@tokito-dulya20)

Talent: The Ultimate Swordswoman

I don’t really like Hiyoko either, but she’s adorable and I think her outfit would suit this oc very well

Oc: Akira Sakuranbura (@tinyperson00)

Talent: The Ultimate Traditional Dancer

Ibuki is so chaotic and I love it. She’s so adorable. I love that she’s described to be pitch perfect and tone deaf at the same time—

Oc: Irina Gonshira (@shycroissanti)

Talent: The Ultimate Musician

Mikan is such a shy girl. She also cries when embarrassed and stutters a lot. She’s not my favorite, but I don’t hate her. She’s really clumsy which I find relatable—

Oc: Milo Suzuki (@larz-barz)

Talent: The Ultimate Nurse

Usami will be taking the place of Nekomaru since I don’t feel comfortable with draw Yuna in his clothes and such. Plus Usami’s the teacher and I thought it would be fitting.

His character was a little hard to choose, but he’s actually pretty adorable. He calls everyone else “mortals” and he’s my sister’s favorite character

Oc: (I can’t remember her name 😭) (@littleolspring112)

Talent: The Ultimate Animal Caretaker

Nagito is quite possibly the most popular character in the entire franchise. Man has simps left and right. It’s probably bc he’s a little crazy— and he has a rlly sad backstory 😭 he’s also the ✨ main antagonist ✨

Oc: Boo (idk their last name) (@boo-simplified)

Talent: The Ultimate Lucky Student

Chiaki is the lead female character and I like her quite a lot!

Oc: Hanako Kimura (@rion-isnot-an-ai)

Talent: The Ultimate Gamer

Hajime Hinata is the lead protagonist in this game CONGRATS TO THIS OC WHO HAS HIM

Oc: Yuki Ayaka (@sweetstarryeyedgirl)

Talent: He doesn’t have a talent though 💀

I think you can tell by just looking at him… but he’s the mastermind. He also shares a body with Hajime 😃 (wee wo wee wo, wee wo wee wo weeeee—)

Oc: Ayuna Katsuki (@ayunakatsukiwolfhashira)

Talent: I think he’s also talentless, just really smart—

My beautiful, stupid, girl. I love Akane. She’s really energetic and loud so she fits this oc

Oc: Asai (I can’t find her last name 😚) (@night-mince0)

Talent: The Ultimate Gymnast

Sonia’s got two outfits, I’ll do this one though. She’s a literal sweetheart

Oc: Kiyoka Watanabe (@kiyokatokito)

Talent: The Ultimate Princess 0-o

Kazuichi is such a goody goober. Keep your beanie on though. Please.

Oc: Amari Delarosa (@naramaiz)

Talent: The Ultimate Machanic

Kazuichi calls him “boss man” and “baby face”. He hates it. Internally a sweetheart though

Oc: Basil (idk his last name) (@aceofstars0)

Talent: The Ultimate Yakuza— yes he’s part of the mafia. or at least his parents are

And that was the last one 😭

ima plan on doing a group pic, but I might not end up doing it— just cause it’s a lot of work 😭

Ima replace Nekomaru with Usami/Yuna and add poses for everyone else who’s character doesnt show up (that’s not Byakuya I promis, that’s the impersonator)

[runwayrunway]

So, about LGBT pride planes

Okay, okay, I've talked about liveries. Sort of seems like that might be the thing that I do. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention something else - potentially the most revolutionary move in aviation since the invention of the airline itself.

This...is actual promotional material for a real airline, that flew planes for money, and was ostensibly a company. This is a screenshot from this actual airline’s announcement that their new plane will be registered TF-GAY, made over Snapchat. We live in such an incredibly normal and plausible universe. This was posted by a company which, at the time, filed taxes and had employees. Said employees probably wore suits. They had offices. They were registered with the Icelandic government. They flew airplanes daily and this was their job. They posted this on Snapchat. This was widely covered by news. People discussed this as a massive step forward for LGBT equality. It was posted on Snapchat by a real airline.

TF-GAY was an Airbus A330-300 formerly operated by Icelandic low-cost airline WOW air, given her registration as a shattering gesture of LGBT inclusivity in the same league as Stonewall and Obergefell v Hodges. She was just a regular A330 painted in a regular WOW air livery which happened to be registered as TF-GAY. 

I’ll be honest, I don’t think this is within the scope of this blog to rate, but if it were I would give it an A+. This is such a silly and pathetic gesture that I loop right back over into adoring it. The Snapchat announcement (I forget Snapchat exists, never mind imagine that it might be used by an airline) is so absurd that it may well be the thing that convinces me that I’m actually a Boltzmann brain because this could not possibly be real. I love TF-GAY. I’m very sad WOW air went bankrupt because it means I can never fly on TF-GAY. (She is now stored, having most recently flown for Batik Air with an unremarkable registration, though she was registered TC-LOL in the interim, which feels worth noting.) 

TF-GAY is an LGBT icon to rival whatever the most recent character who casually mentions having a same-gender partner the news is profusely lauding some or other Netflix show for is at the moment. She is sorely missed, along with WOW air’s other hits, like TF-DAD and TF-MOM. But that’s a story for another day. For now, have a lovely TF-DAY and thank you as always for reading. 

[quibbs126]

could i get a mintrock fankid,if possible?

Okay so I feel like I went a bit off prompt, but here you go, I finally made her, this is Mint Toothpaste Cookie

Admittedly, maybe I could have given her a more occupational name instead of Mint Toothpaste, but I can’t think of one. Maybe I could come up with one in post, and if she has a different name, you know I changed it. I do at least have her character down, so

Anyways, Mint Toothpaste here is actually a scientist working at Astronaut’s agency (I don’t remember the specific NASA pun and right now I’m too lazy to look it up), and she specifically works with the Xylitolians, trying to learn and integrate their technology with their own. She’s also a bit of a fan of their fashion sense and has altered her outfit to more resemble theirs

Okay I know this angle is completely out of nowhere for a mintrock kid, but let me explain. The idea was based on her being made of toothpaste, and wanting to incorporate that into her character. Originally my idea was to maybe go a dentist route, though it felt a bit boring to me. Then I remembered Planet Xylitol also has a dentist/teeth theme, so I decided to use that concept and say that they’re connected

Also, I couldn’t think of anything interesting/something I liked that had to do with Mint Choco or Rockstar’s music angles. All I could think of was basically just going into a different genre of music, and that felt incredibly boring, so why not go in this sci fi route? In retrospect maybe I could have found something to ground her more to normalcy, but screw it

I don’t really know how she came to the scientist conclusion in her life, but shut up, she just did, don’t ask questions. Maybe it was Pink Choco

She does however still have music in her life, it’s just more of a hobby than a lifestyle. She is in fact, an accordion enjoyer and player (though I’m realizing it doesn’t look super good in that sketch now). She also enjoys music from video games she plays, and will sometimes play some of those songs on her accordion. She’s not the biggest strings fan, which is somewhat disappointing to her parents, but at least they didn’t have to compete over whether she would like the violin or guitar more (she thinks they’re just okay)

She’s a bit of a know it all, and while she does good at her job, and the Xylitolians like her, outside of work she kind of lets her job of integrating with an alien culture, being part of intergalactic history, go to her head. She’s sort of become that person who’s annoying after coming back from a study abroad (or so I’ve heard that’s a thing, I haven’t experienced that yet. Or maybe that was me with Britain last year), except she never left to go there and isn’t planning on ending her communication with them. Hopefully she gets better

And yeah, on to the design

So I called her Mint Toothpaste because it’s mint, and I like to imagine Rockstar as being made of shaving cream, and thus I like to imagine his kids not really having the most normal flavors. I didn’t really do that previously, but I did here. I believe the original name was going to be Mint Sauce

Mint toothpaste:

One thing I will say right off the bat, I’m sad that I couldn’t make her hair look as good as it did in the sketch. I tweaked it enough so it doesn’t look horrible, but in my opinion it looks much better in the sketch

But anyways, so her design was mainly based off of the Xylitol NPCs, since she was going to be connected to them. I actually didn’t decide until late whether or not she was living with them or working remotely, but regardless it’s a way to tie them in together. Though I also put in some Mint Choco flair with the coattails so she had something to separate them

I’ll admit right now, I don’t think she looks a lot like Rockstar, at least in the outfit. I used his jacket color in the accents, and she has his eye color, but I don’t know. Or maybe I only think that way because a lot of her colors come from Mint Choco

Also the little triangle in her top part of her suit is supposed to look like Rockstar’s necklace. It was just added to make her have a bit more to do with Rockstar, but I think it looks good on her

Honestly, I actually quite like how her design turned out. Yeah it’s not the most complex, it works with what she’s trying to do, and I think I did better than last time

And yeah, that’s it for Mint Toothpaste. I hope you like her!

[cloudyskiiees]

massive post about all the changes i’m making in my season one rewrite of tdi! the fic i have for it is slow updating so i wanted to share everything here for yall to enjoy too! <3

i’ll be starting with teams and some swaps i made, then go through the characters in their elimination order!!!

the screaming gophers: heather, tyler, beth, noah, owen, eva, izzy, trent, lashawna, gwen, katie

the killer bass: courtney, bridgette, geoff, duncan, harold, sadie, lindsay, dj, ezekiel, justin, cody

as you see, i swapped two pairs of characters! (technically three since izzy is on the gophers but i kept sadie and katie on different teams!!)

eva and justin are swapped, as well as tyler and lindsay! i have good reasoning for it trust.

now for character changes! (in the order of elimination)

DJ: he doesn’t change too much! all that’s different is it’s him voted off after the first challenge instead of ezekiel. DJ and Courtney were the two in danger!

Justin: since Eva is now on Heather’s team, the queen bee chooses to take Justin out from the killer bass since she worries his charm will carry him too far. uses his fake eyelids cheating strategy to turn the bass against him after the awake-a-thon!

Beth: Heather still attempts to get Beth under her thumb, but without the presence of Lindsay to help make it somewhat enjoyable, Beth is simply not into it! she’s too annoying and unhelpful, so when Heather sees the resident genius (Noah) in danger of getting eliminated, she pulls some strings to get Beth off instead after the dodge brawl challenge!

Trent: Once again our villain is stepping in, since Heather is incredibly annoyed at the romance blooming between Trent and Gwen. due to her changed strategy in my rewrite, she decides getting rid of Trent would be more helpful, rather than Gwen. the gophers lose the talent show, and Heather gets everyone to vote for Trent since he had the lowest score!

Cody: During “the sucky outdoors,” Cody gets lost in the woods looking for Sadie after she disappeared from the group. he returns to camp late, and while he’s happy to see everyone is present and ok, he is promptly eliminated, since he was the reason his team lost.

Sadie: Everyone does relatively well for the phobia factor challenge, but the bass agree Sadie is too annoying and cowardly to stick around. Courtney narrowly avoids elimination due to Bridgette sticking up for her!

Tyler: Tyler was left to keep an eye on everyone’s boats and oars as the rest of his team did the fire starting challenge, but wasn’t paying enough attention. the oars get knocked off the boat by a fish and float downstream, costing the killer bass their win. he’s eliminated quickly after that!

Eva: although Heather was glad the powerhouse was on her team, it didn’t make Eva any less brutish or headache inducing. during the paintball challenge, Heather takes the chance to set Eva up, to make it look like she was attacking her own team. although a few teammates stick up for her, the majority vote her off when the screaming gophers lose.

Izzy: In the three part cooking challenge, Heather and Izzy are partnered up. fueled with a bit of rage due to Eva’s elimination and a normal amount of Izzy insanity, the redhead ends up locking Heather in the freezer for the majority of the challenge. because most of the competitors actually like Heather in this rewrite, they deem Izzy too unhinged and scary, and get her voted off when they lose. (yes she’s still being hunted down by the government as she flees the island)

Geoff: completely messes up the first challenge of rock climbing, mildly injuring duncan in the process. he tries to make up for it by being super encouraging, but ends up throwing his team off more than actually helping them. it’s a very sad goodbye for some, but party boy messed up one too many times.

Courtney: same as in canon, Harold rigs the votes against Courtney, wanting to mess with Duncan since the punk had constantly been bullying him. miss CIT goes kicking and screaming, leaving the majority of the killer bass angry about how she got eliminated. (Courtney takes on a much more motherly role, rather than a mean older sister. most of the killer bass actually respect her! even though they agree she can be very overbearing and stuck up)

Harold: due to the killer bass not fully believing Courtney was rightfully eliminated, Bridgette does some snooping and finds out Harold rigged the votes against her friend. he was shunned by most of the team for the challenge as well, so it was an easy move when the bass lost.

Merge: Eva and Trent are brought back! both were scorned and set up by Heather, so it makes sense for the show to bring them back, as Heather is still going pretty undetected as the villain. only Noah, Owen, and Lindsay know the truth at this point!

Noah: having secretly been working for Heather and her ploys for the first part of the show, Noah is simply tapping out once the merge hits, especially seeing as Eva is back. he lets himself fail and basically self eliminates after the extreme torture challenge. (after Heather saved Noah from elimination in the third challenge, he agrees to be her rat as long as she’ll keep him in the game so he won’t have to actually try. he stops working with her after she purposefully eliminates Eva AND Izzy, only warning Owen about what Heather’s actually like. the queen bee can almost respect it.)

Lindsay: with Harold gone and the merge in place, Duncan takes to picking on Ezekiel almost exclusively. Lindsay is simply fed up with everyone’s unruly behavior, and absolutely snaps and Heather AND Duncan. everyone is so flabbergasted by the sudden outburst they believe Heather’s story of Lindsay being the real villain, and vote the silly blonde off! (without the companionship of Beth on her team, Lindsay takes a liking to Ezekiel! being on the killer bass as well, she’s able to properly see Heather constantly not being a “Girls-Girl” as Lindsay calls it, and becomes her subtle rival throughout the season.)

Owen: my dude could simply not win the hide and seek challenge against Chef. he was found out quickly, and didn’t manage to help Chef capture anyone else in order to gain an advantage. this paired with how whiny he had been since noah left, and how strong of a social player he was, the gophers made a hard choice and eliminated him. (owen befriends team e-scope much earlier in this rewrite since they were all on the same team!)

Trent: not having immunity, and doing very little other than trying to impress Gwen/warn her about Heather was enough to annoy almost everyone. at this point people are getting suspicious about Heather, seeing as the cool musician and the angry girl seem to agree about her, but Trent is just so irritating!!! the girls make a pact to vote him off, especially since he was distracting Gwen so much.

Bridgette: unfortunately for my calm surfer girl, she was simply terrified throughout the serial killer challenge. while everyone else was simply unfazed or only a little frightened, she was almost a liability for how little she was willing to help out. due to her overwhelming fear and lack of help for everyone, she’s eliminated.

Eva: no matter how nice she tries to be, animals simply do not like her. so when the challenge was to find an animal and return it to camp, she kinda knew her time was up. she was the only camper to not return with any animal, leaving her eliminated without even needing a ceremony. she attempts to warm the girl alliance one last time about Heather before she’s shipped off yet again.

Duncan: in the challenge where the final six are divided into pairs, he gets stuck with Heather. Duncan being himself, is simply terrible to be handcuffed too, and while the girls are suspicious of Heather now, they believe her when she tells them how truly terrible it was. Duncan is gone for simply being an asshole.

Ezekiel: when Chris is talking to the eliminated campers about the final five, everyone starts rambling about how they never expected Ezekiel to make it past the first few challenges, let alone be in the final five! as they speak, each time they say his name, Chris begins counting them as votes for him to leave the island. when everyone realizes this, they start panicking and simply making it worse. Ezekiel is quickly snatched from the competition unfairly, leaving the final four.

Ms. Coconut: while the final four are seemingly stranded on an island, Katie goes a little nuts all by herself and befriends a coconut she names “Ms. Coconut,” who is eliminated in favor of not eliminating an actual competitor when revealed everyone technically failed the challenge.

Katie: split up into pairs again, Katie is paired with Lashawna, and they do pretty good! sadly not as good as Heather and Gwen, who beat them back to camp! Chef becomes the deciding factor for who gets eliminated, and he chooses Katie, claiming he felt Lashawna had a stronger chance at winning. understanding and excited to be reunited with Sadie after so long, Katie is gracefully eliminated.

Heather: same as in canon, she chickens out during Lindsay’s dare of shaving her hair off, getting her eliminated immediately from the final three, as she was the first to fail or chicken out of a challenge! (her whole head isn’t shaved, but she loses a good chuck of it! Heather very much plays up her likable side in this rewrite, and being on the gophers allows her to still be sarcastic and a little crude while still having others find her overall kind. she ropes Noah into an alliance early on, and after he stops helping her she starts slipping up and accidentally leaving others suspicious!”

and now… the winner revealed… althought you may have guessed it…

LASHAWNA!!!!

i stand by the fact she would’ve been a fantastic winner, and i love the idea of a “friendship finale” between two characters who are friends, but still give their all in the finale! Gwen simply couldn’t keep up with the determination Lashawna had to win, and was only a few feet behind when Lashawna crossed the finish line!

…

YEA! there’s my elimination order and majors changes i’ve made in my rewrite! this post took me forever to write out so i hope some of you guys get a kick out of it!!!!! (i also have an all stars rewrite i may be posting about!) <3

[paris-in-space]

Hey, I was wondering how you chose colors for the Dracula cast! (I love Arthur's red jacket.)

Hi! I am so sorry I only just saw this ask today, but I’ll answer it now, hopefully it was worth the wait (at least with the drawing asks I have the excuse of not having had time to draw things).

Okay so, a lot of the decisions I made when it comes to the colours was on instinct, but I can still try and explain.

Jonathan wears brown, with a hint of red in his tie, and has brown hair and eyes, I wanted his colours to be relatively unassuming, the little bit of red is for visual interest but also maybe hints that he’s not just an average guy, but his design is intentionally quite plain.

When I first designed Mina it was actually for an English Lit A Level class where I had to make a character sheet about her, so I actually googled her for inspiration and took some from her look in the 1992 film (I now hate that film although it does have gorgeous visuals) and I think the green from her outfits in that film stuck in my head. Initially in my mind I didn’t imagine her as a redhead however when it came to actually putting colour on her it felt like a good decision to make, and offers some nice contrast to the green. Her earrings are meant to be like drops of blood because symbolism.

Lucy wears pink because I think of her as being pretty and feminine, the choice to have multiple shades of pink in her outfit was just to make it more interesting although the ribbon she wears in her hair matches with Arthur’s tie. Her hair is a warm blonde because of the sunny ripples line in the book, and her eyes are brown to keep things warm.

Arthur is the character whose design has changed the most since the first time I ever drew him, and I’m glad of it. (My original design of him was incredibly boring) although since first adding colour it has changed very little. The choice of red both looks nice next to Lucy and fits in with the other suitors whilst still being distinctly different. Choosing Arthur’s colours was very much a case of seeing what felt right rather than thinking too much about it in depth. (Also thank you for the compliment on his jacket.)

Jack spends a lot of time being sad so a cold colour palette made sense for him, I think the green has some medical connotations, and still allows for him to have some colour in his design without being too bright. Aside from brown shoes which sort of balance out his hair, any other clothing than his waistcoat and tie are grey because I don’t think he’s the sort to wear much colour. He also has the palest skin of the lot because he spends a lot of time inside.

Quincey on the other hand has such a warm presence as a character that his colour palette is full of warm tones. His mustard yellow waistcoat is the most memorable thing to me but it isn’t his only defining colour, I mostly just wanted him to have a very warm presence without venturing too close to Arthur’s red. I am also fully on board with the idea of Quincey being a person of colour.

Renfield is very grey all around with almost purple undertones. His clothes are very much inspired by the 1931 film which was of course black and white, and are also simple enough that many other colour choices wouldn’t make much sense for him. His hair reflects his age, and his complexion is somewhat unnatural (definitely unhealthy) to sort of separate him as a link between Dracula and the human world whilst also not really being a part of either.

I have barely drawn Van Helsing in colour so I don’t think I can really do a colour analysis on him yet, I need to get into the habit of drawing him and actually design him an everyday outfit, I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve done him in colour he was wearing black because of Lucy’s death.

Dracula himself is a mysterious black shadow with red eyes, mostly because I like the idea of depicting his menacing presence and dangerous vibe without specific details, I also really like the idea of a Dracula adaptation where you don’t actually see Dracula, and just have the mystery that the characters face and whilst drawing him this way isn’t exactly doing that, I think knowing this might make the design make more sense.

I hope this makes sense and was worth waiting so long.

(I had to re type a bunch of this a few times because I accidentally clicked off without saving more than once, having typed out multiple paragraphs)

[randomsufff]

Ok fuck it- I keep seeing the Great Gatsby pop up (thanks Gravity Falls lmao) and recently saw The Great Gatsby on Broadway and I need to spill out my thoughts on this musical

I’ll hold off my grips with it compared to the book till the very end- since I know a lot of argument around this musical is that it’s an adaptation and the adaptors are liable for taking creative liberties. Which- yeah! That’s valid! But I’d argue that in order to adapt something successfully, if you’re gonna make huge (and I mean HUGE) changes to the source material, it’s gotta somewhat follow some reason that makes sense for the characters and/or adds some layer or depth to the story or else you get something like HBOs Velma. But more on that in either an entirely other post or later depending on how long this gets

Read bellow if you want a really fucking long, detailed description of the show and what I think it did right and very, very wrong.

I will say- as a TLDR rn- I thought the show was just…ok. Like- “yeah that show sure was a musical.” kind of ok. The good songs and amazing spectacle of a few of the numbers kinda cancel out the bad pacing and really questionable narrative choices the show made. Also- hearing Eva Noblezada sing live changed my life.

OK- so I’ll start out by saying- I believe we had basically all the original current cast except for Jordan Baker was played by Traci Elaine Lee (who was absolutely phenomenal so I’m not too sad about missing Samantha Pauly)

I really thought the show was ok. Like I don’t hate it vehemently but I don’t love it either. I feel like the only reason it’s so famous is because of its two powerhouse leads (Hot take? Maybe.) Anyways, I don’t know how to go about this so we’ll go list form

1) PACING WAS ATROCIOUS

Again, not even comparing it to the novel- the pacing felt really off and didn’t even make much sense story wise. Like we would rush past certain information and then linger on scenes that didn’t really need to be lingered on? At least to me, I felt like there was other stuff the show should have prioritized showing- CAUSE THATS THE THING WITH THIS SHOW- is that they TELL not SHOW a LOT of information- so it kinda just feels like you’re being tossed plot without experiencing it.

For example, literally as soon as the show starts, Nick and party goers just throw all the information about Gatsbys party and being mysterious at the beginning by telling us and not showing, like he never shown to be cryptically hanging around in the first like 20 minutes of the show (at least that I remember- there was a lot happening in the opening number 😭) . Which sucks because they did this REALLY COOL thing right before the show started where Gatsby was standing there and was immediately gone as soon as a screen passed. LIKE YOU COULDN’T HAVE THAT HAPPEN AGAIN WHEN THEYRE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT HIM???

(Also- recently saw a rehearsal (?) video where Gatsby like actually opened the opening song “Roaring On”, and that would have been great if they kept that! Because looking back, I felt like Gatsby had the least amount of stage time. Which probably I sn’t actually true, but it really felt like it. Like where is the main guy??? His first appearance (after his little disappearing act) is like, 20 minutes into the show. Idk for something that’s called “The Great Gatsby” he sure wasn’t on stage a lot. )

Then a couple scene later, Gatsby reveals to Nick- a man he JUST MET FACE TO FACE- that he’s in deep love with his married cousin and asks him TO HIS FACE that he wants him to set up a meeting with her. And then they move on. Like???

If you watched the show, maybe this’ll make sence to you, maybe this won’t, but it feel like they rushed past everything in the original source material, and only expanded and talked at length the aspects they wrote in.

Also the ending was so. Incredibly. Rushed. Like we don’t even get to see Daisys reaction to killing/hitting Myrtle. As soon as the fight at the Plaza ends everything else happens in like 15 minutes. Are you kidding me. WE DONT GET TO SEE DAISY ACTUALLY HIT MYRTLE. They did the ol’ “Bright lights get shined at the audience as character pretends to get hit” but that’s it! Literally THE REASON why Gatsby is killed and we don’t get to see it or their reactions in the moment. They just… tell us what happened instead of showing it to us. (“Daisy tried to swerve to the next lane but there was a car coming- and then… she just peeled off. She’s packing now…” YOU COULDN’T SHOW THIS TO US???) No idea of how Daisy or Gatsby reacted immediately after, only the next day. No rambled and frightened dialogue of their game plan, no glimpse into Daisys psyche where it’s shown she’s not going to choose Gatsby after all. Nothing.

Oh! And guess how long Gatsbys funeral was? Like a minute long. Just Nick sitting next to a casket in the background while party goers, Jordan and Wolfsheim dismiss Gatsby with a throwaway line. Like bro… that’s your main lead character… shouldn’t you give him, idk , at least more than a minute on stage when he dies? And like yeah I get that that’s the point that he’s forgotten, but I thought it was going to be more prominent than that! Give me Nick standing solemnly next to a casket thats dead center on a completely empty stage while he narrates how no one showed up. How despite the riches and infamy, no one, not even Jays own father (cause literally no one was by the casket on stage but Nick) showed up for his funeral. Instead of weirdly dismissing it like it’s not important?

2) NICK AND JORDENS “RELATIONSHIP”

Nah this actually pisses me off because there’s literally no point in this being so highlighted when it literally goes fucking nowhere.

So their relationship arc goes like this: Jorden says relationships sucks because she wants to be an independent woman in the 20s. Nicks like, I am not looking for a relationship but if we were in one I’d let you do all those things. They flirt, almost kiss, flirt more, do kiss, Nick says “let’s get married /j” Jorden says “yeah let’s get married /srs”, they get ENGAGED, they fight after discussing if they inadvertently caused Myrtle’s death (Jorden intentionally let Myrtle know where they were going that night), break up, and never speak to each other the rest of the show.

HELLO? What the actual fuck was the point of this then? If you wanted to expand Jorden to be the independent, feminist, girlboss *cough lesbian cough* that she is, just let her stay single?? She doesn’t need to be with Nick if you want her to be a part of the main cast.

The main problem I have with this is that the musical put wayyyy too much emphasis on it. And it’s so funny because there’s this big, dramatic, movie-esc pause Nick does after he says “I don’t want to marry you”, and sorry to the people who genuinely gasped, but be fr, are we surprised??? Jordan has been saying from literally her first line that men/marriage sucks, and that she would never do that willingly- then when she get married to a guy she knows for, at most? 1-2 weeks (idk how long the musical take place over), I’m supposed to take that relationship seriously????

In fact, I felt like their relationship often overshadowed Gatsby and Daisys, which shouldn’t happen, because the whole fucking shows about Gatsby.

For example, they steamrolled Gatsby and Daisys reunion with a budding Jordan and Nick plotline, for some reason??? Like they literally show Gatsby and Daisy seeing each other, have them say a few sentences wistfully reminiscing their first meeting, then have them go inside the house while their silhouettes are shown talking while the audience stays with Nick and Jorden OUTSIDE as they joke and almost kiss each other. HUH??? How are you going to literally push your years-long, slow burn yearning MAIN ROMANCE reunion to the side for a budding relationship that came out of nowhere and frankly dosent need to exist? And since we’re not going book accurate, you can actually SHOW how Gatsby and Daisy fall back into each others orbit, how their conversation went. But no.

It got so bad that I honestly can’t tell if one of the themes of this musical is something about marriage because of how much they pushed the “married/ people in a relationship” dynamic. Like what are you trying to tell me? All marriages are doomed??? I don’t even know (mayhaps just me being aroace)

What grips me the most is that they don’t even get any closure. Like they literally never speak to each other after that night Myrtle is killed. (Mostly cause the show ends literally 5 minutes later). The whole show they put these two together, build up their romance, show them having cute and funny moments together… all for what? For nothing?

AND I DID LIKE THEM. They were a cute couple, and their chemistry and jokes together were funny and charming. Their dynamic was interesting too, with Jordan wearing the pants, so to speak, and insisting she maintain her freedom while in marriage/ a relationship which wasn’t heard of in the 20s. But for all that to end because Jorden didn’t want to tell the cops Gatsby and Daisy possible ran her over/they’re partially responsible??? Like they INVESTED. SO. MUCH. in this relationship (to the point where they got ENGAGED???) that it feels so stupid and dumb for it to end like “wow you’re heartless :c I don’t want to marry you anymore :ccc” “well too bad, L, you’re guilty too asshole. Bye.”

AND what really grinds my gears is that if they cut this whole shit out, or at least made it more in the background, it would give more time to flesh out the few other problems I have with this show

3) SONG… EFFICIENCY (?)

Ok last point that’s not as much of a complaint as the others, but it was still something that bothered me. Some of the songs just say nothing/ repeat stuff we already know. Mainly thinking of (and sorry to people who like these songs- I’m not saying they’re bad! They’re just not a lot of info there) “For Her”, “Go”, or “Shady”

Like “For Her”, he’s just saying “I did [list of things involved with his fame/money] for her” for 4 minutes and you don’t even know who “her” is until like, the last line. Like this could have been a perfect opportunity to deep dive into Gastbys upbringing/ past, but the most the musical goes into Gatsby’s past is that he was in the war. Like you don’t get the sense that this man worked his way literally from the ground up for this woman. It’s just so repetitive that, even though it was Jeremy Jordon, I was getting bored halfway through.

AGAIN, this is not slandering Jeremy Jordan (JJ stans please spare me), you could have the most amazing Broadway singer sing with the best technique, but if it’s a dull, repetitive song, PERSONALLY, I’d be bored. They could have just combined this with another song, or as I suggested, add more purpose to the song and maybe put it later in the musical.

Similarly, “Go” (and, AGAIN, love Jeremy and Eva) was super repetitive and could have just been reduced to dialogue.

And “Shady”, though also a really good song, frankly could have been cut out. For some reason the musical really wanted Wolfsheim to be a main antagonist/prominent character and gave him this song- but there’s nothing in it that wasn’t already implied in the first Act and it really has nothing to do with any of the other characters, other then a vague “Jay and Daisy” gotta keep their affair secret (which… yeah I think we know that, but also to compare that to… hiding dead bodies and minding your own business- it’s???? Idk what they were going for)

(Tbh- I conversed with my dad who also mainly wanted to see the show for Jermey Jordan and Eva Noblezada and he said that none of JJ songs were that memorable, which I kinda agree with. He’s a great singer, a very talented man, but the songs he was made to sing in this show were not it. Just nothing of substance or catchiness. Which SUCKS. Because how are you going to get someone like Jeremy Jordan and not have him sing an absolute banger? But weirdly, none of his songs (maybe except “Only Tea” which I really liked) stood out which I’m so disappointed about.)

—————————

Ok that’s all just as it’s own thing (mostly) NOW MY FUCKING PROBLEMS WITH IT COMPARED TO THE BOOK

1.B) NICK AND GATSBY’S FRIENDSHIP

THIS IS THE BIGGEST ONE- Nick and Gatsby friendship is so fucking integral to the original, and it feels like it didn’t even exist in the musical.

Like regardless on whether you ship them or see them as friends- Nick was Jays only fucking friend. He was the ONLY ONE who truly cared about him and went to his funeral when no one else did. In the book, Nick did So. Much. just because he wanted to for Gatsby. Gatsby had to ask Jorden to ask Nick to set up his tea meeting, he attempts to charm and lavish him in trips, and even tries to pay the man to get him to agree. But Nick refuses and is even offended that Gatsby would pay him money for such a thing and immediately accepts the night he finds out. And they actually hung out! Like a lot! At least before Jay asks him for the tea request. And though it could been because he wanted to make it easier for Nick to say yes, they were friendly with each other, and felt like actual pals. Nick genuinely was worried about Gatsby at the end, and even tried to warn him about what he was attempting to do multiple times.

In the musical that bond is just… not there. They rush past meeting each other, they never hang out one on one, and any interaction between them seemed slightly aggressive or politely concerned, like one would be to a stranger, which they technically are!!! The only reason he agrees to Gatsbys plan is basically petty revenge against Tom for punching Myrtle and being an asshole to Daisy/ in general. (Which- I feel like a move thats so out of character for Book!Nick cause he also dislikes Daisy.) Like Nick never learns Gatsbys backstory here (I don’t think he ever tells it, not even to the audience).

The “ you can’t repeat the past” line seemed more aggressively exasperated in delivery then the more soft concern for a close friend I initially read it as. And the “you’re worth more then whole rotten crowd put together” line didn’t really hit as hard because they don’t feel like close friends and nowhere in the show has Nick expresses this pedestal he puts Gatsby on like in the book.

Literally the only times they’re together alone is their initial meeting, and setting up for tea at Nicks. Every other time either Gatsby is with Daisy or Nicks with Jorden. They could have at least put together a cool ass montage of them hanging together, using those moving panels, going through diffrent activities as Jay introduces himself with his Oxford and army line, instead of dumping it all on him on their literal first meeting in his study.

(Also noted that they made it so Gastby owns the property Nick lives on and is renting it out for the man. Idk why they did this- to make it so Nick is indebted to Gatsby??? Also Gatsby vaguely threatens/ says something with a condescending/threatening aura (???) before Nick leaves after Jay ASKS A MAN .5 SECONDS AFTER MEETING HIM FOR THE FIRST TIME FACE TO FACE for the tea set up. Like there was a moment where he held onto Nicks hand as they shake goodbye, held his eye and said a line (I forgor) and kinda stood there staring him down before Nick awkwardly left. LIKE WHAT WAS THAT???? WHO ARE YOU???? WHY??? Literally doing everything to make sure no one can ship them)

2.B) THEY STRAIGHT-IFIED MY BOY.

NICK WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU. It felt like they wanted to take away any whiff of an implication that this man is gay. Like literally no build up to Jay and Nicks friendship, no meaningful scenes between the two, going head first and completely committing to Jordan, AND THE MR MCKEE SCENE BEING LIKE THAT.

AND MR MCKEE, IM SO, SO SORRY WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO YOU. They made him to be some predator who harasses Nick the whole party scene. And this could have been so. easy. to fit into the queer lens if the actor who plays Nick (Noah J Ricketts, fucking what a talented man) acted interested in Mr.McKee but was actively restraining himself and trying not to engage in order to save face in front of Tom and Co. (Please, please, please- making a prayer circle and manifesting that one of the later actors does this down the line) But noooooo, Nick is shown to be mildly uncomfortable while McKee follows him around (in an unfortunately a banger of a song) EVEN THOUGH IN THE BOOK NICK ACTIVELY ENGAGES WITH HIM IN HOMOEROTIC DIALOGUE AND EVEN GOES TO BED WITHBNANJSBSJB

3.B) Jordan’s Purpose

Already touch this before but what the hell was the point of Jordan here. I love the “cool independent woman in the 20s” angle they were going for, but then why the hell would you immediately shackle her to a romantic relationship with Nick when that goes against literally everything she stands for. And I’m not saying she can’t get in relationships, but the speed in which SHE of ALL PEOPLE, was like “Yes I want to get married to you for real” make me…

Sure it was said in the novel that Nick and Jorden were together, but he was always flighty about her; saying he was attracted to her but also hated some of her qualities (dishonesty and heartlessness). It wasn’t the main focus like it was here (I can’t even remember much of their relationship in the book tbh) and they didn’t invest so much in it as they did in the musical that it didn’t feel out of nowhere or too much of a big deal when they broke up. Like it fr felt like the musical held up a “Gasp Now” sign when Nick said he doesn’t want to get married to her cause they wanted that moment to hit so hard for some reason???

AND. There was an ACTUAL PURPOSE to Jordan relationship with Nick in the book (a representation of the wealth he was attracted to then repulsed by [*cough* also contributing the “Nick is Queer” lens *cough*]) they… kinda? did it in the musical? And it would have been boosted by Nicks new naivety in the musical, but it falls short because they never speak again, or really explain Jordan’s value on wealth and herself is why it went wrong other then a “you’re heartless” line that feels out of nowhere. (Idk maybe I was too focused on how pointless that relationship felt that I failed to noticed if Nick had a Big RevelationTM here on Wealth and Jordan)

4.B) Character Differences

Some of them are great, like there’s more dimensions to some, but some character choices, I’m like- that goes against everything they’re supposed to represent in the book.

Like I found it so weird how willing Daisy was to run away with Gatsby in the musical when in the book it was more obvious, at least I read it so, that she was holding back a bit and was never going to run with Gatsby that far. Like wdym Gatsby could have had it all if he just ran with Daisy then, WDYM HE SAID NO BECAUSE OF HIS PRIDE???? HUH? WHERE did this priority of PRIDE come from???? When Daisy’s RIGHT. THERE. Like she was sobbing, begging him to run with her. In what universe would Gatsby turn that down???

Like many people say, this seems like it’s supposed to be a love story between Gatsby and Daisy, but in the book it’s pretty obvious how Daisy isn’t as committed to Gatsby then she is Tom cause of their Old vs New money.

And Myrtle? Why did she suddenly turn back to George? I felt like the only reason why that happened is cause the creators wanted shock and tragedy factor. Like “aw she finally found peace in where she is but oops now she’s dead”

And it would have been good if they actually showed why she thought this beyond the 3 minute song, cause that’s not enough time for someone who only chased after money to do a 180. Like, sure she figured Tom would just move on from her (YES EVERYONE CHEERED, GREAT CHARACTER MOMENT) but George isn’t shown to be that great either in his last moments with her. I mean he locked her in the house? Bathroom? and was pretty violent towards her. Sure we learn earlier that he’s doing a lot for her but we never SEE it. He sings to US the audience about his dream to move them out and live a nice life but not to HER which could have been a cute point of connection but nooooooo.

They also made Nick like, kinda naive. Like he really likes Daisy and Jorden and I guess Gastby (though it’s not shown) compared to his counterpart who know how money corrupts and kinda hates everyone (even Gatsby at points). Any I feel like they could have done well with making him naive to that fact, to really make this a tragedy (like Hadestown esc) but they fell short somehow. I think it’s cause the ending was so rushed. Like there wasn’t enough time to show the consequences of everyone’s actions and how hurt and changed he is. It all flys by in like 7 minutes.

—————————

Ok now we’re done being cynical- here are the good things I liked

1.C) The woman are 3-Dimensional yay/ Nicks also here

Myrtle’s song (Second-Hand Suit) is phenomenal. Great way to introduce more character and backstory to someone who originally had none.

Also, again, loved Jordan’s independence angle (if only they WENT SOMEWHERE WITH IT) and I lowkey loved the “well Tom cheats why can’t you” line and Daisy’s whole attitude as she one ups Tom in the dinner table scene. Also Daisy was already kinda complex in the book, but it really shows how turmoiled she is here and that’s interesting,

And despite how I kinda ragged on it, I really did like Nicks personality throughout the musical. He was sooo humorous in a way he wasn’t in the book. Also, thinking about it, his nativity is an interesting spin on his character that I really would have liked if it was executed properly.

2.C) The songs fucking slap

I can’t lie, most of these songs are bangers. I have half of the songs on loop. Not to mention the actors who sing them are absolutely incredible. I won’t lie, I was mostly interested in this musical cause of Jeremey and Eva; and Eva, holy shit, is an absolute powerhouse to witness live. I was So. Surprised by how effortlessly she sang notes and how clear and crisp they were (“Absolute Rose” was… idk what it was about that song, but I’m obsessed with how she sang that song, [except the “open” part? Idk it grates me for some reason???] even though it’s not my favorite song) Like she truly embodies Daisy Fay and it was incredible to see that in person.

However, the rest of the cast was so incredible too, ESPECIALLY MYRTLE (Chilina Kennedy). Holy Fuck is that woman amazing at singing. Her two songs she sang absolutely ate, like I’m obsessed with her voice. Wolfsheim (Eric Anderson) and George (Paul Whitty) also had amazing voices.

Also NICK??! Holy shit, I’m so sorry you’re not in like any promotional stuff cause you fucking killed it. The way I’m obsessed with how he sings “If only I’d knew then, that I would never be the same” in “Roaring On” and how he sings “The Met” is amazing

3.C) Visuals- kinda

Some of the visuals were ok tbh- kinda boring- but the ones that went big, WENT BIG. Of course “New Money”, “Roaring On” and “The Met” are the ones that stand out the most in my mind. “New Money” and “Roaring On” are exactly what you probably think it is, big dance numbers with sparks and huge lights. But I loved “The Met” cause the furniture slid around and literally moved around Nick while people drifted in and out of the room. It was just great to watch visually.

4.C) THE ENDING NUMBER HOLY SHIT

I. Love. Love. LOVE. How they brought back the opening number, and the theme of party goers going on from party to party to show how unimportant Gatsby was to the world, and how everyone moved on.

Like, Nick stood in the center of the stage, reciting the end of the book, in tears and voice cracking, as the ensemble in the back slowly get revealed and are just having a grand ol time looking for the next party. Just- chills. It was amazing conceptually and they pulled it off so well.

If the musical got nothing else in terms of structure going for it- at least they got the last minute right cause omg, I love when media has opposing moods in the same scene, and they did so well here.

—————————

Overall, yeah. Not horrible but I don’t love it. The lack in plot and nonsense relationships and complete disregard of the book didn’t totally ruin the musical cause I had a good time and liked the songs and such but I would not go back and re watch it.

I think of you know nothing about the book or anything about The Great Gatsby other then there’s a guy named Gatsby and he’s great and you just want a nice sounding show, you’ll probably like this, but people who are burdened by the knowledge of the book will be hung up on a lot of things I mentioned here.

Always, long ass post, congrats to anyone who actually read this real informal review. I haven’t gone into how this is a pretty bad adaptation, but I’ll have to do that in another post (if people want to see that) and another time cause this took my literal hours to type out.

(Tbh I might just do the adaptation essay anyways, cause I’ve written at least 4 papers on adaptation in media [and how Groundhog Day the musicals the best Movie to Musicals adaptation] and I love that shit)

[naughtyneganjdm]

A Compromise - Chapter 20

Summary: Months pass after Y/N asked Negan for a divorce and she had to deal with the ramifications of her choices making her realize that she made some mistakes.

Characters: Negan, the reader (OC), Shane, etc.

Warnings: Swearing, massive angst, etc.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27834154/chapters/121227772

Notes: There is a scene in this chapter where someone is aggressive and abusive toward a child so I want to pre-warn that. I've been having a lot of trouble with writing and finding inspiration lately, but I finished this chapter and wanted to at least put this up for people. There are two chapters left after this. So there is that. Thanks to those that read this.

“Come on,” Y/N muttered to herself looking at the time after she had been waiting for what seemed like forever sitting in front of the home that Negan shared with their children. It had been months since she had asked Negan for a divorce and since she asked of that they had made an agreement that she would get the children every other weekend. Since she knew Negan was the better parent, it only made sense for Negan to be their primary care giver. Especially since he had the big home and she just had an apartment in the city. Dropping her head back, she felt incredibly stressed feeling like this was on purpose. She had texted Negan to let him know she was there to pick up the children a while ago, but this waiting was being dragged out longer than expected. Hearing the sound of a bark, Y/N lowered her head to see that the front door was opening. “Shit.”

Negan had Avery in his arms and was carrying all of the children’s things. It looked like Negan was trying to coach one of the children out of the house and it made her chest ache. Since she had asked for the divorce, Negan looked like shit. His beard was longer along with his hair that was messy. But he still looked like a soccer dad dressed in a pair of gray sweats with a white tank top underneath the opened jacket. His hair was slicked back when Isabella came out of the house with her backpack. They were all waiting for Negan who was obviously bickering with NJ who didn’t want to leave. After some urgings Negan was finally able to get NJ out of the house. When they were all out, Negan walked them to the car and Y/N popped the trunk for him to put the children’s stuff in the back. After he was done, Negan opened up the back to get the child seat ready for Avery.

Looking in the rearview mirror she could see that Negan was still wearing his wedding ring and she huffed. That night she asked for a divorce is the day that she took her rings off and put them away. They sat in the top drawer of her dresser at her apartment, yet Negan was still wearing his. It made her sigh and she lowered her gaze to focus on something else. Once Negan had Avery strapped in, he peppered loving kisses against the side of her face and Avery clung to his cheeks.

“I love you daddy,” Avery giggled making Negan give a sad expression but he feigned a smile and gave his daughter a nod. “Miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too sweetheart,” Negan gave her one final kiss before crawling out of the back to talk to both Isabella and NJ who were standing beside the car with him.

“Hey baby,” Y/N reached back to grab for Avery’s hand, squeezing it faintly in hers.

“Hi mommy,” Avery smiled back brightly. At least their youngest was still happy around her. She was too young to truly understand what was going on between Negan and Y/N.

Looking toward the other three she could see that Negan was giving a pep-talk to both of them caressing his fingers through their dark hair. NJ looked miserable while he stood before Negan with his big hazel eyes locked on his father. Attempting to listen in, Y/N couldn’t tell what they were saying, but she knew that Negan was doing what Negan always did. Which was try to coach their children and give them a positive outlook on things.

Isabella was the first one to give Negan a big hug and then Negan bent down to kiss her on the cheek squeezing her real tight. Once she got in the car, Isabella had a hard time looking at her mother as she pulled on her seatbelt. Negan closed the door behind Isabella and then took some time to talk things out with NJ further.

“Would you please tell your brother to get in the car?” Y/N requested of Isabella who simply shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t know how to respond to her mother’s request. After a while, NJ allowed his father to hug him and kiss him before he moved around the car to the other side to get in the car with them. “Are we all set?”

“Why don’t you come up to the house to get us?” Isabella wondered, her eyes watching as Negan stood at the center of the yard with his hands in his pockets while he watched them get ready to leave. “Don’t you want to talk to daddy or see the puppies?”

“I don’t really want to talk to your daddy right now unless I have to Isabella,” Y/N informed her daughter looking back over her shoulder to see that NJ rolled his eyes and rest his head against the window. “And I’m sure the dogs are doing perfectly fine.”

“Oliver misses you,” Isabella declared with a frown, brushing her fingers through her long hair while Y/N managed to get the car started up. Pulling his hand from his pocket, Negan waved goodbye to the kids. With the expression over Negan’s features she knew that it killed Negan to give the children up to her every other weekend. The children were his life and she knew that. She couldn’t imagine what he was like without them at home. “Cooper doesn’t understand why you aren’t home. He goes to the bed and just lays in your spot.”

“Cooper will learn to adapt just like the three of you have to do,” Y/N commented driving away from the home she used to share with Negan seeing that Negan remained at the center of the yard. “How was school?”

“We don’t have school right now mommy,” Isabella reminded her mother making Y/N huff loudly when she remembered that they were out of school for the summer.

“She doesn’t even remember our birthdays, how do you expect her to remember our school schedule?” NJ quipped to his younger sister since they both had birthdays during her separation with Negan. It made Y/N look back in the rearview mirror knowing that she missed the parties that they threw for them, but still got them presents and had something for them a few days later at her apartment.

“What did you say?” Y/N asked of her son to repeat what he said, but his hazel eyes refused to look up at her when he lowered his head down to look at the handheld game system that Negan had gotten him. “I’m speaking to you NJ.”

When she was met with silence still, she stopped at the next red light and stared back at her son who completely avoided her, “Negan?”

“He’s still not talking to you mom,” Isabella stressed to her mother making Y/N scoff knowing that NJ had been keeping this up for a while now. “He hasn’t been talking to you after you missed his game.”

“I don’t understand why you are still angry at me for that. You knew that I wasn’t going to be able to make it,” Y/N tried to get her son’s attention, but it fell on deaf ears while NJ kept his head down looking at his game blocking her out completely. “I told you from the start that I wasn’t going to be able to come.”

“Well, then you said you might come and he waited for you. Instead of doing good at the game, he was looking for you and he did really bad,” Isabella explained making Y/N’s throat tense up hearing her middle child explaining everything to her.

“Your team still won NJ. Regardless of if you played badly or not,” Y/N prompted NJ of what she knew to be true since people made a big deal about Negan leading the team to winning. “I don’t deserve to be ignored for this.”

“He’s also embarrassed that you and daddy are divorced,” Isabella claimed making Y/N smirk and shake her head when she saw the light turned green again. “Kids are harsh about that kind of stuff. And we like being at home.”

“We’re separated,” Y/N corrected her children of what she knew to be true. “Because your daddy refuses to sign the divorce papers that I sent him. So right now, your daddy and I are just separated because daddy is being a jerk.”

NJ scoffed from the back seat and rolled his eyes visibly hating that she was shit talking his father. NJ leaned into whisper something to Isabella who listened to him closely before nodding her head.

“Is your boyfriend at your apartment?” Isabella questioned out loud making Y/N grasp the wheel tightly while she drove toward her apartment building. That was a question that NJ undoubtedly coached his sister into asking.

“Yeah, Shane is at the apartment like all the other times,” Y/N answered them making both NJ and Isabella make faces that showed they hated the idea of that. “The three of you are going to have to get used to Shane being around.”

“Do you miss seeing Noah and Sam?” Isabella asked instead of responding to her about her comment on Shane. Bringing up Negan’s children that he had with two other women always made things uncomfortable for her. “I don’t think they understand why you don’t come to see them either. You were their mom too and…”

“I’m not their mom. I was their stepmother,” Y/N immediately corrected her daughter knowing that while Sam grew up with her, Sam was an adult now and she assumed Sam would not be happy with her for doing what she did to her father. “When I get divorced from your father, they are no longer going to be anything to me. So they should get used to not having me around.”

“But you were in Noah’s life longer than you were mine,” Isabella pointed out her voice stuttering and it was clear how young she still was with how she was talking to Y/N. It was strange how Isabella was the only one of her children that were talking. Even Avery had gotten quieter around her after everything. And of course NJ didn’t want to talk to her. “So you’re his mom too. They both love you too.”

“It’s complicated honey,” Y/N explained with a frown pulling in the parking lot that was beneath the apartment building. It was a pain in the ass lugging everything up to her apartment. Carrying Avery and most of their things, they took the elevator up to her apartment and when she got the door open, they heard the booming sound of a football game on the television. Shane’s voice was yelling at the screen when NJ pushed through to go straight to the room that she had for them. “You know I thought you guys would like this apartment with all the windows.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty,” Isabella acknowledged moving over toward the windows that were in the distance to stare down at the city from Y/N’s apartment. With how loud the television was, Avery clung to Y/N and Y/N knew that Shane hadn’t realized that they were back yet.

“Shane!” Y/N called out to him hearing the television turn off and Shane hopped up onto the large couch that he was spread across. Jumping over the back of it, he quickly moved to meet her at the door with a big cheesy smile. “Can you help me carry these to their room?”

“Sure thing,” Shane accepted grabbing her things and offering up a smirk when he saw that Avery was staring up at him with her big hazel eyes. “Hey there little one. Look at those pretty eyes of yours. It’s good to see you again.”

Avery’s eyes got bigger before she turned her head away from Shane and buried her head in against the center of Y/N’s chest making Y/N hold onto Avery tighter, “She’s shy. She’ll get used to you soon. Her father never put her down so she’s just used to him and not other men.”

“We’re going to be friends soon,” Shane frowned reaching out to caress his hand in over the center of Avery’s back before taking the things that Y/N asked of him toward the bedroom. Following Shane in, Y/N knew that she had an area for all three of them. She was working on getting more rooms built in her apartment because it was big enough but right now the children all had to be together in a room that was still big enough for them. NJ was sitting at the corner of the room on his bed with his head buried in his game. “Hey bud. How are you doing?”

Instead of answering Shane, NJ kept his head down and Shane smirked looking to Y/N who gave him a shake of her head as if to hint that Shane should leave him alone, “We’re going to order some pizza or something for tonight. You okay with that?”

“I’m okay with that,” Isabella piped in when she walked into the room and moved over toward her bed to hop on top of it. “I’d like one with extra cheese please.”

“Got it,” Y/N gave her daughter a wink before allowing Avery down. Avery went over to sit with Isabella after grabbing a stuffed animal that Negan had packed for her. Heading to the kitchen, Y/N looked for the number to the nearest pizza place and felt arms hooking around her when she pulled out her cell phone. “Shane.”

“I can see why you were so desperate to get away from them,” Shane slurred pressing kisses over the side of her neck making her let out a shallow breath. “That son of yours is a real asshole.”

“Shane,” she muttered his name looking back over her shoulder at him with a glare seeing him toss his hands up in the air and shrug.

“I like the girls. The girls are sweet,” Shane clarified moving around the big counter that was in her kitchen bracing his weight on the countertop. “Avery and Isabella are nice to have during the weekend, but it’s definitely overwhelming. Your son is a sharp looking little dude but he’s a dick and you know that I’m right.”

“It’s complicated,” she frowned knowing that she found herself saying that a lot. “I hurt his feelings by missing his game and not being at his birthday party.”

“He’s twelve, it’s time to grow up. It’s something I would expect from a six-year-old, not a twelve-year-old,” Shane rambled on making her cringe over the fact that her boyfriend was trash talking her son. Then again, she knew that she had complained to him several times about the things that were going on in her life. “I get why Junior drove you away from wanting a family if he acted like that all the fucking time.”

“It wasn’t just Negan Junior,” she motioned him to be quiet as she ordered the pizzas for them. Once she was done, she avoided the conversation by going to spend time with Avery and Isabella since they actually wanted to interact with her. By the time the pizza showed up, the two girls were out in the large living room playing a game with her and Shane. NJ had stayed in the bedroom with the door partially opened and when everything was ready, she called out to her son. “NJ the pizza is here.”

In the kitchen she got the food ready for all of them helping Avery at the table. Cutting up Avery’s pizza, Y/N made sure that there were pieces for her to grab while Isabella helped herself to a big piece. They were all seated by the time that NJ showed up to the kitchen. Walking to the fridge, he grabbed himself a coke before sitting down at the opposite end of the large table she had where she had placed his pizza.

Instead of eating, he continued to just play his game that he had and she let out a long sigh, “Negan, put your game down and just eat. Then you can do whatever you want.”

Keeping up with ignoring Y/N, NJ kept playing his game and took a sip of his coke before leaning back in the chair to keep playing making Shane clear his throat, “Buddy, your mother is talking to you.”

“He ate before he came here,” Isabella justified her brother’s actions with a mouthful of her pizza looking to Y/N with big eyes. “He’s probably not hungry. Him and daddy made a lot of desserts together. They like doing that. So he ate a lot before this.”

“It sounds like you had a lot of sweets then, so you should eat at least a piece,” Y/N tried again with NJ knowing that it was like talking to a brick wall. After a minute, NJ grabbed the pizza and took a small bite of it and then dropped it back on the plate with a plop. “What game are you playing right now?”

Once again, she was met by silence.

“I know you’re angry with me Negan, but at some point, you are going to have to talk to me,” Y/N muttered watching the way that Shane looked between her and NJ. “I told you from the start that I couldn’t make your game and with your dad…sometimes parents don’t stay together. That happens.”

“More please,” Avery finished the amount of pizza Y/N had given her and Y/N stood up from the table to reach for Avery’s plate. Cutting up the rest of the piece Y/N had set aside for Avery, Y/N placed the plate back in front of Avery and watched her pick at the pieces that were there.

“Would you prefer one of the other kinds of pizza that we got?” Y/N stared out at NJ knowing that she had just given him a piece of cheese and she really had no idea what kind of pizza he liked. It made her feel guilty knowing that it was Negan that did everything when they were together. Only Negan would be able to know what all of their children loved because she had been too focused on her job. “I have pepperoni, a supreme one…”

“Your mother is talking to you son,” Shane snapped his fingers at NJ making him look up at Shane and just stare out at him with his hazel eyes. With NJ being quiet it made Shane even more furious. “You should learn to be respectful and answer her.”

Rolling his eyes, NJ smirked and looked back down at the video game that he was playing making Shane’s face flush over with red, “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Shane shook his head, his dark eyes falling back onto NJ. “You know this whole time that I have known NJ he hasn’t said a damn word to me or you. I don’t know what his father is teaching him or making him do…”

“Daddy is not the person who tells him to stay quiet. Actually daddy tells us all to be really nice to you,” Isabella immediately corrected Shane making Shane huff out. “Daddy wants everything to be good for us so he tells us to be nice to both you and mommy. He just wants all of us happy. NJ is just upset because mommy picked work over us. She picked you over us.”

“That’s not true,” Y/N responded hating to hear that come from her daughter’s mouth. But she could see why they would think of it that way since Shane was living with her and she was with Shane every day instead of being with them. “Shane…I didn’t…I didn’t pick Shane over the three of you.”

“We just really don’t like it here,” Isabella was honest looking around the apartment. “Not much for a kid to do here. We just like it at home better. Our backyard is fun. We have our dogs. We love daddy a lot.”

“Yeah. I miss daddy,” Avery agreed with what Isabella said making Y/N drop her fork down on her plate and caress her fingers through her hair shakily showing that she was stressed.

“Well you’re going to have to get used to everything that is here,” Shane interrupted the discussion making Y/N sigh loudly. “Do you know how much I would have loved to live in a place like this as a kid? This is a really nice apartment. You’re lucky your mother has a place like this.”

“Our home is nicer,” NJ finally spoke up not bothering to look up from his video game system making Shane look back over his shoulder at NJ. Shane’s forehead creased and he looked to Y/N knowing that was the first time he ever heard Negan Junior speak.

“Put your game down,” Shane demanded of NJ but her son continued to ignore Shane. “I said put your game down now.”

“It’s fine, leave him alone,” Y/N muttered from across the table seeing that Shane was getting heated. Isabella and Avery were staring out at Shane from their seats not sure how to react with him raising his voice to NJ.

“Your kid needs to learn some manners Y/N. You shouldn’t just accept him treating you like shit because you are living your life the way that you want. You put up with twelve years of shit before deciding to finally pick yourself for once,” Shane stammered, his eyebrow arching when he pushed the plate in closer to NJ. “Put your game down and eat your dinner, now!”

“NJ, please just eat,” Y/N begged of her son who continued to ignore them while drinking his soda. Gasping out, she watched Shane pushing away from the table and grabbing the device from NJ’s hands. Tossing the handheld device against the wall caused it to shatter making NJ stand up to go grab it, but Shane placed his hand in over the center of NJ’s back to force him back into his seat. Pushing the plate in front of NJ, Shane was clearly trying to get Negan Junior to finally do what Y/N had been asking of him, but he was doing it all wrong. “Shane!”

“You can’t do that!” NJ grimaced in pain with the way that Shane was grabbing onto him. With the way he was wiggling beneath Shane’s grasp, it was clear that NJ was uncomfortable and trying to get away from Shane. No matter how much he tried though, it wasn’t working. “My dad bought me that!”

“I can do whatever I want when you’re in this apartment. Eat your food now,” Shane snapped, his hand still firmly placed over NJ’s shoulders. Pushing NJ’s head in closer to the plate it almost looked like Shane was going to smash NJ’s face against the piece of pizza. “I said eat your food!”

“I’m not hungry!” NJ snarled when Shane slid his hand up further toward NJ’s neck pushing harder. “I said I’m not hungry! Stop!”

Getting up, Y/N immediately moved around the table and placed herself between NJ and Shane grabbing a firm hold of Shane’s wrist to get him to let go of NJ. Once she had gotten Shane away from NJ, something changed in Shane’s dark eyes and he stepped back away from her, but she still had her grasp on Shane’s wrist. “Never do that again Shane. Or I swear…”

“I’m just standing up for you,” Shane blurt out throwing his arms up in the air making all of them uncomfortable with how angry he got. “That kid is disrespectful as hell. The way he treats you isn’t right. He wouldn’t even be here right now if it wasn’t for you.”

“You can go to your room,” Y/N looked back at NJ seeing that he had tears in his eyes when he got up from his chair to go over to grab the gaming device that Shane had undoubtedly just broken. Looking it over, NJ frowned and then swiftly moved into his room. After NJ left, Isabella pushed away from the table and left to be with her brother. It made Y/N frown and she saw the way that Avery was staring out at her with big eyes. “You want to go be with your brother and sister?”

Avery simply nodded her head, keeping her mouth shut showing by the way that she was looking at Shane that she was scared being around him. Picking Avery up, Y/N allowed Avery to her feet watching her little legs move swiftly to the room that she had for the kids.

“I don’t understand you. You let them walk all over you when you’re the parent and they are the children,” Shane threw his hand out toward the direction where her children had disappeared into. “Avery and Isabella, I like them. I understand them, but that fucking boy treats you like trash and you’re okay with it?”

“He’s hurt Shane. He’s fucking hurt,” she declared noticing the way that his nose wrinkled by her response. After the way Shane touched her son, she found herself wound up with her heart hammering inside of her chest. “NJ is a good kid. I just…I missed a lot in his life and they do really love their father. I’m the fuck up, not them.”

“See this was your problem back then when you decided to get a separation from your husband. You blamed yourself for wanting more. You wanted something different because you were miserable. You hated NJ and Negan,” Shane debated how she felt when she asked Negan for a divorce. “They were the two that made you the most miserable. Now that he’s here you are coddling him and allowing that behavior. I like kids Y/N, but that fucking kid needs to get his shit together. He’s part of the reason that you left his fucking father. You didn’t want to go home because of him. If he didn’t make you and Negan fight all the time about him, you’d still probably be with his fucking father.”

The sound of something falling was heard and she looked to see that NJ was standing at the entrance of the kitchen. There were tears streaming down his face when he undoubtedly heard what Shane had just said. Stepping forward, she tried to reach for NJ but he pulled away from her letting out a shuddering breath.

“You left dad because of me?” NJ whimpered making Y/N frown and she looked back to see that Shane was lowering down to the seat that was at the table. Rubbing the back of his head, Shane shrugged his shoulders and Y/N tried to comfort her son again but he moved away from her. “You hated me that much? I’m the reason that you never came home?”

“That’s not…that’s…” Y/N tried to find it in herself to lie and the fact she didn’t say something immediately made NJ drop his head forward. Even if that was how she felt at the time, it wasn’t something that NJ should have ever heard out loud. “NJ…”

“Why do you even force me to be here?” NJ questioned, his hazel eyes meeting hers with his bottom lip tremoring. Tears were sliding down his face while he waited for some kind of answer. “You don’t even love me. Is it to torture dad? Because you know how much he loves all of us? How much he loves you?”

“It’s because I love you NJ,” she reasoned with her son hearing him let out a pained sound. Shaking his head, he stepped back and away from her. “I want to see my children.”

“No you don’t. Not for a long time,” NJ replied, lifting his hand to wipe at his face with the back of his hand. “I want my mom back. My real mom.”

“I’m right here NJ,” she urged him to move in closer to her, but he pulled away from her again. Regret flooded her veins that she even said that shit to begin with for Shane to spew out for NJ to hear. “I do love you and I do want to spend time with you.”

“You don’t want to spend time with me. You haven’t in a long time. Since you got this new job. You’re not my mom. Because you’re not who I remember,” NJ stayed firm, his voice raising as he stared out at her and Y/N could see that her girls were standing by the door watching their big brother break down. “I loved my mom. She was loving, caring…made me feel safe. Avery is too young to know, but me and Isabella know better. We miss our mom. We miss our family. Once you started at this new job, we lost her. Dad lost her. You’re no longer her. I miss her smile. I miss her and dad putting me to bed at night. Every Christmas, her and dad would pull Isabella and I into bed with them. We’d all cuddle up. You and dad would pepper us with kisses and wrap us up in your arms while you and dad held hands. Or how Isabella and I used to find it so gross when you and dad would kiss under the mistletoe all the time? You’d pretend it was on accident, but the two of you just loved each other so much. Or how every birthday both you and dad would come into our rooms singing happy birthday to us…together. Do you remember that? Or is my mom gone completely?”

There was a silence that filled the air while Y/N felt an ache in her chest after hearing all of that from her son. Tears burned at her eyes, but it was followed by the sound of Shane snorting and sitting forward in his seat drawing both of their attention.

“How old are you kid?” Shane was the first to speak up ignoring the fact that what NJ actually said had emotionally affected her. “You’re twelve, right? Your two-year-old sister acts older than you do with things. I’m not sure which one of you is supposed to be the toddler. You’re mad at your mother because she doesn’t put you to bed every night?”

Instead of answering Shane, NJ looked to Y/N waiting for her to say something. Her lips parted and a tear slid down the side of her face, burning at her flesh. There was so much she wanted to say, but nothing was coming out.

“That answers my question,” NJ cleared his throat and tried wiping at his face with his hands. “My mother is gone.”

“Please wait,” Y/N watched NJ run back to the bedroom and slam the door shut behind him after urging his sisters in with him. Going to reach for the door after she followed him, she grabbed onto the knob and felt it locked. Huffing out, she rest her forehead against the door. After a minute or so she felt a hand placing in over her shoulder and she waved Shane away from her. “Don’t touch me right now. Just leave me alone.”

“Fine,” Shane held his hands up and tipped his head to the side. “I’ll go lay down for now. I just think maybe you should just start trying to have days with your girls because nothing is going to come from you having that boy here…”

“Shane,” she snarled at him hearing him huff. After hearing her he headed off toward the bedroom that they shared together. Heading over toward the couch, she sat down and grabbed the pillow that was beside her on the couch. Cuddling the pillow in closer to her, she stared at the door to her children’s bedroom knowing that it should have never gotten to what it did tonight.

Honestly, she didn’t know why she started dating Shane. It was probably some kind of rebellious phase after she had separated from Negan. It was probably to hurt Negan and she knew that, but she didn’t even understand why she kept Shane around. What she really needed when she separated from Negan was alone time, but instead she had Shane move in almost immediately with her. Sometimes she thought it was because she was lonely and then other parts of her did think it was to hurt Negan.

Looking around her living room she thought about what Shane had said to her when she first decided to divorce Negan. There were no photos of her family in her apartment. Once she wrote off Negan, she completely wrote off her family and she could see why NJ said the things to her that he did.

Shifting on the couch, she stared out at the door and knew that she needed to give NJ some time to calm down. Once he came out of the room, she was going to be ready to talk to him because it had to be done. Until then, she was just going to wait it out alone.

It wasn’t a short process. In fact she had ended up falling asleep on the couch clutching onto the pillow. It was the sounds of NJ’s voice that actually woke her up. With an uneven breath, her eyes slowly fluttered to an open hearing NJ crying while he spoke. It was a faint whisper, but he was undoubtedly crying. Pushing up, she looked around the room still having it blurry around her since it was completely dark in the house except for the light coming from the kitchen.

“NJ?” Y/N called out pulling herself up from the couch to head over toward the kitchen. Once she got to the kitchen, she saw NJ slamming the phone back onto the receiver and he looked back at her with his hazel eyes seeming nervous as can be that she had caught him. “Who were you on the phone with?”

“I wasn’t on the phone,” NJ blatantly lied to her making her eyebrow arch when he tried to move around her to go back into his bedroom, but she stopped him by placing her hand over the center of his chest. “I want to go back to my room.”

“We need to talk,” she insisted trying to get him to step back, but he struggled with her and she placed her hands in over his shoulders to firmly get him to stop. “Negan Junior!”

“What?” NJ snapped at her, his hazel eyes full of anger and sadness at the same time making her chest ache at the sight of it. Tears still lingered from him crying before she had come into the kitchen with him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I don’t care,” she responded with a firm shake of her head.

“That’s the problem mom. You don’t care,” NJ shot back at her making a sharp exhale fall from her lungs when she stepped back and stared down at him. “I don’t want to be part of your life anymore. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“You don’t have a say in something like that,” she breathed out, her jaw flexing while his hurt features stared up at her. “I know that I’ve hurt you and I get your feelings NJ, I do, but you can’t just decide that I don’t get to see you anymore.”

“I don’t get it, you didn’t want anything to do with us when you were with dad,” NJ reminded her making her throat go dry hearing her son trying to understand why she wanted to bother with them now that she was separated from Negan. “You don’t want us here. You never wanted us, so forcing us to come here is cruel. Why keep us here when dad is the one that loves us, not you.”

“I do love all of you,” she insisted making NJ roll his eyes and fold his arms out in front of his chest. “I know that I messed up before, but I want to start to try to make things right for all of you.”

“Every other week on the weekends?” NJ grumbled under his breath, his jawline flexing while he stared up at her with his young features. “Nothing is ever going to be right. None of us, none of us want to be here with you. We hate Shane. We hate this apartment. Just stop trying to pretend to be something that you aren’t!”

“Is this where you still want me to stay out of things?” a voice rumbled from behind them drawing her attention back over her shoulder to see that Shane was standing at the door in just his athletic pants hanging low at his hips. His arms were folded in front of his chest while he rest against the doorframe.

“Please,” Y/N begged holding her hand up and he shrugged his shoulders heading back into the bedroom. Having Shane putting his nose into things constantly was not helping. Especially when he was the person that started all of this today.

“How can you like someone like him?” NJ snarled making her sigh and lift to pinch the bridge of her nose feeling a headache developing from the stress of tonight. “He’s nothing like dad.”

“I think that was kind of the point,” she shrugged her shoulders hating that she was having this conversation with her son. It was inappropriate and she really just thought at the beginning Shane was a relationship of convenience for her. He was there and he was willing, so she accepted it and just never really pushed it away from her. “Listen NJ, we have to talk about things.”

“I don’t have time,” NJ pushed through her heading back toward the bedroom. Following him toward the bedroom before she could even follow him in, he was heading back out with his backpack over his shoulder. At the same time he was trying to push the remainder of his tears away from his face.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she grabbed a hold of NJ’s backpack when he went to move around her, stopping him in his tracks.

“I’m leaving,” NJ declared trying to pull from her grasp, yanking on his backpack to get it from her before throwing it back over his shoulder again. “I don’t have to stay here. I don’t want to stay here. Not after what Shane did and said.”

“You’re not going to just walk out into the world and walk home NJ!” she stated with a grunt only to hear the sound of a knock on the door. Everything inside of her tensed up when NJ’s face turned pale and he looked toward the front door. “What did you do?”

Heading for the door, she heard NJ calling out to her when she pulled the door open to reveal Negan at the front door. His expression was angry and suddenly things were starting to make sense. Standing in the doorway, she felt NJ attempting to get around her, but she put up her arm to stop him from leaving the apartment.

“It was your dad that you called?” Y/N wondered looking back at NJ whose big hazel eyes were staring out at her with worry. “You can’t leave with your dad. It’s my weekend with you and you aren’t going anywhere.”

“He said your boyfriend broke his game system and put his hands on him,” Negan informed her making NJ’s face flush over with red. It made a lump develop in NJ’s throat when he gazed between both of his parents. “He called me sobbing Y/N. Our son shouldn’t be afraid to be here with you.”

“He’s not afraid to be here with me,” she reasoned with Negan hearing NJ clear his throat and nod his head when he looked to her.

“We don’t feel safe here with Shane,” NJ was honest with his mother, his eyes still red from the crying that he had done earlier. “None of us do. Not even Avery and she’s young. You can tell that she’s scared. But Shane doesn’t hate the girls, he just hates me. So do you. So I’m going to go home with dad.”

“This is bullshit,” she placed her hand in over the center of NJ’s chest to keep him from leaving. “I deserve to have time with my children.”

“Then make Shane leave,” NJ blurt out making Y/N swallow down hard when he grasped tightly to the strap of his backpack. “I know you don’t want me here to begin with, but if you want me here like you say you do, I don’t feel safe being here with Shane.”

“Your father and I need to have a discussion. Together. Alone,” Y/N nodded back toward the couch making NJ huff out loud and look to Negan with a begging expression. “We’re just going to be out in the hallway together. I promise your dad won’t leave without talking to you.”

“Dad,” NJ whimpered looking to Negan for guidance and he gave NJ a nod to listen to Y/N. Rolling his eyes, NJ moved to the couch and took a seat. Once Y/N saw that he was seated she moved out into the hallway with Negan closing the door behind her.

Stepping before Negan, their eyes connected and she could tell that Negan was angry with her from the things that he had undoubtedly heard from NJ when he snuck that call in to his father. Negan’s eyes shifted, his jaw flexing while he waited for her to say something first. It was clear that Negan was tired and he probably hadn’t slept in a while and the way he towered over her made her feel small.

“Listen, I know things probably sounded bad, but it was really a misunderstanding,” she explained holding her hands up in a defensive position. “NJ was keeping up with the whole not speaking to me thing and Shane was trying to get him to talk to me. Shane just stepped out of place and I corrected him for it.”

“Stepped out of place?” Negan repeated her words, his eyebrows bouncing up in what seemed like frustration. “NJ said that Shane took the handheld game system I bought for him for his birthday and threw it at the wall shattering it. Then apparently, he grabbed a firm hold of the back of our son’s neck and kept forcing his head toward his dinner hurting him. Considering our son is not a liar, I do tend to fucking believe him Y/N.”

Clearing her throat, she lowered her stare and felt her face flushing over with warmth, “Also apparently, he heard Shane blaming him for the fact that you and I got separated? Did you really tell that asshole that the reason you asked me for a divorce is because you hated NJ?”

“That’s not exactly what happened. Shane just took it that way,” she claimed knowing that she kind of went on a huge vent the first time that she talked to Shane about her family and while she didn’t want to believe that she said something like that, she wasn’t really sure what she did say. “I was really angry at you and NJ at that time for always making me feel guilty. So that could have been Shane’s interpretation of things.”

“Nice,” Negan grumbled under his breath and folded his arms out in front of his chest, his jaw flexing in anger while he kept his stare locked on her. “I’m not going to force my son to be here when he’s not comfortable. When you asked for this divorce, you told me that you would give me full custody of the kids and just requested the one weekend every two weeks if you were available. I’m doing this just to be nice. So if NJ wants to come home, I’m going to take him home.”

“Then I will never see my son because he doesn’t want to be here Negan,” she responded with tension growing in her tone. Shaking her head, she knew that wasn’t something she was okay with. “I should be able to see my son.”

A sigh escaped Negan’s throat when he finally lowered his head to look down at his feet. Pushing his hands into his pockets, Negan’s Adam’s apple bounced in his throat while she stood before him, “Did you sign those papers yet?”

“Really?” Negan snapped with a scowl over his face after raising his stare back up to her. “We’re talking about the comfort of our son being at your home and you’re going to ask me if I signed the fucking divorce papers?”

“That’s a no,” she frowned leaning back against the doorframe and sighing loudly. “I just think you are dragging the kids along thinking that there will be something more here between the two of us. They never gave Shane a shot from the start.”

“It doesn’t sound like Shane deserved a shot regardless,” Negan shot back, lifting his hand to point it out at her. “And I tell you what? If that son of a bitch ever puts his hands on NJ again, I promise you I will fucking kill him.”

“Don’t say that,” she hushed him making Negan immediately shake his head. “He’s a cop Negan.”

“I wouldn’t give a shit if he was the goddamn pope. If you touch my son, I will fucking break every single fucking finger on your hands,” Negan was getting worked up and she found herself thankful that she was the only person on this floor since he was making it clear that he was upset. “I’m not kidding Y/N.”

“I know,” she acknowledged hearing his breathing loud when he shook his head. “I expect nothing less from you.”

“I don’t get this,” Negan maintained his face twisting with frustration and confusion. “I never thought you would be asking for a divorce. I never thought our children would be in this kind of position. It’s not fair to them.”

“Parents get divorced all the time Negan,” she countered with a shrug of her shoulders. “I know that it’s not fair to them, but sometimes two people just fall out of love.”

“One person,” Negan corrected her with a frown. “I never fell out of love with you. No matter how mean you got. No matter how many times you hurt me or said something that brought me down. I always loved you. I promised to love you for the rest of my life and I meant it.”

Looking to Negan’s left hand she still saw that he was wearing his wedding ring and it made her clear her throat. Feeling a warmth flooding her body, she looked down and away from him hearing him sigh, “I think you’re just going through something right now. I went through some shit when I lost Lucille. I lost myself. I think when you get through this, you’re going to realize…”

“Negan,” she interrupted him, holding her hands up to stop him before he started. “I know how you feel. I do. I just, I don’t know if I see it like you do.”

“You’re telling me you don’t miss anything?” Negan searched for an answer making the ache in her chest grow. With those big hazel eyes staring into her soul she found it hard to even look at him because she felt horrible. “The dogs? The children? Us?”

Ignoring the question, she knew that she had been feeling so many range of emotions since NJ mentioned to her that he missed his mother and brought up their past together. Of course she missed moments like that, she just…forgot about them since she had grown to be too busy in her own life.

“You loved your life. You loved your job before you started working at this new place. I know it was more money, but you were happy at your original job. You took this job because your father convinced you to. You told me when we first got together that your father made your life miserable and you kicked him out of it. I know what it’s like to have a shitty father Y/N. You know that, but after he convinced you to have this job, I think it awoke some of those feelings he gave you before we got together,” Negan spoke up stepping forward to reach out to sweep his thumb in over her jawline to get her to look back up at him. “Your father made you hard and then you found me, you found family with Sam and me. We made you happy. Your family made you happy. I think you were already stressed and then the whole Avery thing happened and it is possible to still have postpartum depression with your third child. And it can go for a very long time. You’re not weak for asking for help.”

“Negan,” she closed her eyes feeling her bottom lip tremoring with his palm caressing in over the side of her face. Lifting her hand, she held onto him and stroked her fingers against the back of his hand. “I’m not good enough for you. Or them. I’ve known that. I’ve always known that.”

“Listen to me,” Negan whispered stepping forward to close the distance between the two of them. “It’s not too late to fix things Y/N. I still love you. These kids love you. We can figure out something. Get help. Go to a therapist, the both of us. Maybe as a family sometimes.”

“I don’t think I can fix the things I’ve done,” she responded, her eyes fluttering to an open when Negan slid his other hand in over the side of her face to cup it tenderly. “I’ve been a really shitty person over the last few years Negan. And over these last few months, I’ve been the worst. I don’t deserve to fix things. All of you are too good for me. I’m a bad wife. I’m a bad mother. I’m a shitty person.”

“I don’t think it’s all you’re just not a good person Y/N. I think you’ve had some troubles between Avery being born along with all the stress. You were abused as a child and sometimes that shit comes back to you in your adulthood. With this job, I think you were just out to get your father’s approval again and you lost your way a little bit,” Negan reminded her making her let out a tremoring breath and he could see that tears were developing in her eyes. “We can try to fix things, make this whole thing better. I know that as a family…as a duo…we can fix this.”

With a shuddering breath, she felt Negan’s forehead pressing up against hers. Pressing her palm in over the center of his chest, she slid it up toward the side of his neck before stroking at his chiseled jawline. The warmth of his breath pressed over her lips drawing chills down her spine until the sound of the door pulling open was heard.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Shane’s voice boomed making Negan slowly pull his head back to gaze over at the new man in Y/N’s life. Taking his time, Negan lowered his hands and that anger that was there when he arrived slowly flooded back into his features. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

“He’s picking up NJ,” she alerted Shane with a frown knowing that after her conversation with Negan it was for the best that NJ should leave if he wanted to leave. Shane stepped out into the hallway with them and let out an amused breath. “NJ was uncomfortable being here and wants to go home.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Shane shook his head making it known that he didn’t like the idea of that when he stepped further into the hallway. “I don’t know what kind of bullshit you are flooding into your son’s brain, but his mother isn’t a villain for wanting something in her life. She wasted twelve years of her life trying to pretend that everything was okay and when she finally does what’s right by her suddenly, she’s the bad guy? No. NJ is going to have to learn to live with the way that things are. She has the right to reinvent her life and let me tell you something, you’re going to stop trying to get in the way of things.”

“Listen buddy, I’m not going to step back and let shit go by when it comes to my children,” Negan scoffed, standing up straighter. There was no way that Shane was going to intimidate him. “Which now that we’re on the subject of my children…don’t ever put your hands on my son again.”

“What are you going to do about it if I do?” Shane mocked Negan, stepping forward to bring his chest into Negan’s almost bumping him back with the power in his body making Negan smirk. Reaching up, Negan brushed at his bottom lip with his thumb and smirked. “There is nothing you can do to me if I do.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Negan warned, his stare narrowing and his eyes getting darker when Shane smirked. “So don’t test me.”

“Get out of here,” Shane ordered making Negan shake his head when he looked to the open door to see that NJ was still sitting on the couch watching them interact. “Now.”

“He’s taking NJ,” Y/N grabbed a hold of Shane’s arm only to feel Shane pull away from her. Shoving into Negan made Negan huff loudly and his jaw flexed. “Shane, knock it off. I told you what is going to happen here and this is none of your business.”

“It is my business because for once in your life you need to stop letting Negan and NJ run your life,” Shane snapped at her, pointing his finger back and forth between her and Negan. His brown eyes were angry and he was breathing heavily. “They don’t get to control your life anymore. Not with me here because that’s bullshit.”

“NJ, let’s go,” Negan called out to his son only to let out a groan when Shane shoved him firmly against the wall. Shoving back into Shane made the shorter man stumble back giving Negan a smirk before nodding his head. With a grunt, Negan turned away when Shane firmly punched into the side of Negan’s face. Taking a minute to gather himself, Negan gazed back at Shane and nodded his head. “Thank you. Now you gave me a reason to defend myself without getting in trouble.”

Gasping out, Y/N stepped out of the way when Negan tackled into Shane making Shane slam into the wall behind him. Arms were throwing while Negan and Shane found themselves in a fight making NJ scramble to the door in attempts to come and try to help his father.

“Stay there,” Y/N demanded of her son not wanting him to get hurt while Shane and Negan tore into each other. Stepping forward, she tried splitting it up knowing that this was the last thing that NJ needed to see. “Shane! Knock it off.”

Scrambling to get the fight split up, she grabbed a hold of Shane’s arm in attempts to get him to stop. Trying to pull his arm away from her, Shane let out an angered sound before bringing his arm back into the side of her face making her fall back to the ground hard. Almost immediately NJ moved to his mother to make sure that she was okay.  

“Shit,” Shane muttered realizing what he had done, but with what he had done it had only made Negan more furious with the man before him. Managing to get Shane to the ground, Negan started hitting him over and over again taking advantage of the moment. Each hit sounded brutal as it echoed through the empty hallway followed by the grunts coming from Shane’s throat.

After several more hits, Negan held his fist over Shane and lifted his gaze to see that NJ was staring out at him and he grunted under his breath. Curling his fingers into Shane’s dark hair, Negan pulled his head up and made sure that Shane was staring out at him, “You touch her again and I will destroy you. The same goes for my son. Never put your hands on my kids or Y/N again.”

Dropping Shane back down, Negan got up enough to move over to Y/N and NJ. Once he knelt down to check on Y/N, NJ immediately scrambled to wrap his arms around Negan to hug him tightly. Nuzzling his nose against the side of NJ’s neck Negan comforted his son leaving Y/N feeling incredibly guilty.

“NJ, go get your sisters. All three of you are going home with your dad,” she instructed of her son when NJ looked over his shoulder giving her a quick nod. When NJ ran off to do what she wanted, Negan shifted to help her up from where she was on the floor. Embarrassment flooded her features when she looked to see that Shane had pulled himself up into a seated position on the floor with his head buried in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“Come with us,” Negan pled, his hazel eyes trying to appeal to her, but honestly? She couldn’t. She felt guilty. This was her fault to begin with. She made her bed with Shane and she was going to have to live with it. After everything she did, there was no way that she could just go back home with open arms. What Shane did? What she did and said? It was all so wrong and she didn’t deserve this family. Not now, not ever. Shaking her head made Negan frown, but she knew that he was too good for her. “Please.”

“I can’t,” she answered him with a miserable expression showing that she hated the choice she had to make, but it was clear that she thought she had to do it. “I need to take care of things here. Just please, take care of the kids. And tell NJ I’m sorry.”

With the sound of footsteps, she turned to see that NJ had both of his sisters with him. Reaching down, she picked up Avery and gave her a big kiss on the cheek before handing her over to Negan. Once she was done, she knelt down to Isabella and NJ to give them a big hug which surprised NJ with the way that he was looking at her.

“I love you guys, I’m sorry,” she apologized again for feeling bad that it led to this. Her children should have never had to experience the negativity and toxic environment that she put them in with Shane. It wasn’t even like she liked Shane and this was the last thing that they deserved. “You’re going home with daddy, okay?”

Grabbing the bags the children brought out with his free hand that wasn’t holding onto Avery, Negan gave Y/N a long once over before nodding. Heading for the elevator, Negan made sure to get the children on the elevator before leaving himself.

Staring down at Shane who glared up at her, she didn’t even know how to respond to everything. Shaking her head, she moved back into the house and saw one of the bags that belonged to the children still sitting in the doorway of the room she had for them. Going to grab it, she headed out of the apartment to see that Shane was finally pulling himself up.

“I’m going to bed,” Shane announced when she hit the button for the elevator. His glare told her that he didn’t like the way that she reacted to things, but he didn’t even apologize to her about everything he had done.

“You’re sleeping on the couch,” she informed him once the elevators opened making him scoff. It seemed like he was about to bicker with her but she hit the close doors button before he had a chance to. Once she got off the elevator, she moved through the parking garage and saw that Negan was finishing up getting the children into the SUV.

“We can’t just leave her here dad,” NJ bickered with his father, looking up at him with his hazel eyes. “Don’t you want to save her and protect her from that man?”

“You know I want to protect your mother more than anything NJ. Other than you guys, your mother means everything to me,” Negan lowered down with a sigh making her hide behind one of the cement columns so she could listen to them together. “I tried NJ. I don’t know what more I can do. Your mother doesn’t want to be with me. I can’t force her to be.”

“We should be able to do something though,” NJ countered making Negan sigh before leaning forward to press a kiss over NJ’s temple. Stroking his fingers through NJ’s hair made their son frown and Negan let out an upset breath. “I know I haven’t been happy with her, but I don’t want that guy to hurt her dad. I still love her.”

“I love her too buddy,” Negan stated making her let out a long sigh feeling her chest tightening. “I wish I could change things, but I’ve tried. I don’t know what I can do, but all we can hope for is that she’s okay. That’s all that matters, right?”

“I feel like there should be something more that we can do,” NJ insisted but when Negan gave him an expression, NJ let out a defeated breath. Giving Negan one final hug, NJ got up and moved to the SUV to get into his side of the car.

Knowing that Negan was going to be headed to leave, she cleared her throat and stepped out making Negan gaze back over his shoulder at her. Holding out the bag that they left, she had a hard time looking at Negan after everything. When he reached for the bag, his fingers brushed against hers making her sigh.

“They forgot that one,” she pushed her hands into her pockets feeling bad after this whole thing. “Please be careful driving home.”

“I will,” Negan gave her a nod, the vein at the side of his neck bulging. When he went to turn on his heel, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she waved her hand in the air knowing that she hadn’t been okay in a very long time. “Just be careful and take care of them.”

“I’m going to worry about it Y/N,” Negan frowned turning back to face her, his thick eyebrows full of emotion. “I love you. I’m always going to love you so worrying about you is just going to come naturally at this point.”

“You need to learn to stop doing that. Doing that is only going to make you miserable,” she slurred, stepping back and away from Negan knowing that she was having so many thoughts right now but she could tell that Negan was genuinely worried about her. “I’m not your responsibility. You should be happy Negan and with me, I don’t think you’re ever going to have that.”

“Then you don’t know me like I thought you did,” Negan replied letting out a long exhale when she stepped back and headed for the apartment building. “Come home with us Y/N.”

“I can’t Negan,” she stopped at the doors and shook her head. “We’re beyond that at this point. I know that now. Especially after today. Have a good night, Negan.”

Leaving Negan and the kids actually hurt tonight. Especially with the way that Negan was looking at her when she made her way back into the building. Heading back upstairs, Y/N took notice of how Shane was already asleep on the couch with a bag of ice over his face from where Negan had beaten the snot out of him. Shaking her head, she went back to the bedroom to get ready for bed.

Once she laid down, it took a very long time for her to even fall asleep. Her brain was going through so many thoughts and emotions that she didn’t even know if she was healthy enough to comprehend them right now. One thing she knew for sure was what happened tonight could never happen again. When she finally did fall asleep, it wasn’t for very long because the sound of the front door being slammed was heard making her eyes flutter to an open.

Staring out at the pillow beside her, she sighed when she saw that it was bare. Even though she had expressed a distaste for the notes and the flowers that she was receiving every morning from Negan, she grew to miss it. Sighing, she pulled herself up out of bed and headed toward the kitchen to see Shane standing at the counter using his phone to look at his face after his fight with Negan.

“Hey, I got you something,” Shane nodded toward the cup of coffee and bag of something he had picked up from the local chain that was close to her apartment.

Taking a seat at the counter on one of her stools she sighed and watched Shane push the food out to her in front of her. Thinking about her life before all of this, she bit down on her bottom lip and shook her head, “You know every morning when I was with Negan, he used to cook me these ridiculous over the top breakfasts. For all of us really.”

“I’m not Negan,” Shane reminded her with a confused expression, his Adam’s apple bouncing in his throat. Rubbing at the back of his neck, Shane leaned back against the counter opposite of the island she was sitting at.

“No kidding,” she commented reaching for the coffee to take a sip of it knowing that the coffee at home with Negan was even better. Shaking her head, she sighed and looked to Shane with a blank gaze. “I’m going for a ride today. While I’m gone, I want you to get your things out of here. You’re not welcome here anymore. By the time I get home tonight I expect everything that’s yours to be gone. Including you.”

“Excuse me?” Shane snorted with a half smirk, his brown eyes narrowing as he stepped forward to brace his hands over the top of the counter on the island. “You’re joking, right?”

“Does it look like I’m joking?” her stare was deadpan while she clung to the coffee he got for her. Shane was stammering to say something when she stood up from where she was seated. “I don’t care how stressed my family may have made me. You have no right to put your hands on my children. Ever. Hitting me, even though I’m sure you’ll wave it off as a mistake last night—maybe I could have excused that. But then again not really. In all my time being married to Negan he never once hit me. We may have bickered, but not once did Negan hit me. If anything I was the more aggressive of the two. But when you touched my son, no matter the reasoning…I never want to see your face again. I made a lot of mistakes. More so recently, but the biggest one I made was you. So get the hell out of my house.”

“Hey,” Shane tried to follow her toward her bedroom while she gathered some things for herself that she would need for her drive. “I get that things were emotional last night, but I was just trying to defend you.”

“I don’t need defending because I’m the one that was wrong!” she screamed at Shane, turning on her heel to stare out at the man she brought into her life when she was at her worst. “I’m a shitty mom, Shane. I said horrible things to NJ. Things I can never make up for but putting your hands on him…you’re lucky I don’t sue you for it and take you for everything you have. Because you know I could. I could make you lose your job. I can make sure that no one ever hires you again Shane Walsh. So before you piss me off any further, get the fuck out of my apartment and never show your face again.”

“Wow,” Shane scoffed with a tense smirk, his head nodding slowly. “Yes ma’am.”

With a final glare, Shane moved toward the closet to grab a bag for him to start packing his things. Even though she was a lot of things Shane knew that she wasn’t fucking around. If she wanted to, she was capable of ruining his life easily. Even though she knew it was too late when it came to kicking Shane out of her life, she knew it was the right choice to no longer have him there because he was just a poison in her life that needed to be gone. And he needed to be gone now.

----

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[emblemxeno]

Alm and Celica’s argument at the end of Act 2 in Echoes is honestly fascinating when you think about it more cuz yeah it’s easy reading it on the surface level as a lover’s spat (hell I think even Kusakihara described it as “girl gets mad and boy has no idea why girl is upset, just like real life” which bleh) but it grants very good setup. These certain lines from each of them stick out to me most: 

Alm: Nrgh… If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was speaking to a blue blood. My station doesn’t matter, Celica. I’m here because I was called. I have a duty to perform, and I’ll perform it. No more, and no less. [...] Do you think I WANTED this fight? This all started because Lima IV went and angered the empire. If you wish to point fingers, point them at the ruler who failed his people. It’s his fault we’re in this mess.

Celica: That’s not… Well, so what if it is? Maybe you should go become king if it’s such a damnably easy job! [...] You’re awfully free with accusations for a boy with no idea what royalty entails! And now that you’re a “hero,” I imagine the throne is next on the list, is that it?

Celica directly critcizes what Alm is currently lacking as a leader, and Alm unwittingly hits one of Celica’s major insecurities. 

Alm is established as having strong ideals and unwavering views during Act 1, but his awareness of the world is incredibly shallow, not made better by how he’s so sure of how the world should be that he’s unprepared for what it actually requires of him and what it means to be a person of influence, be it an army’s commander or someone of high birth, hence why Celica brings up exactly how he’s ignorant to the kinds of burdens that royalty have to endure. That’s why his parts of Act 3 and 4 have him dealing with exactly that: it starts with his Brand being revealed to Berkut, next he gets the Royal Sword that’s supposed to be royalty only, the conversation with Clive about rescuing Delthea, him finding out Celica is a princess, dealing with killing his own father and cousin, etc. And despite it all, what he has to due is think beyond himself and for the world. He can’t focus on his sadness of losing his family right now, as the heir to Rigel’s throne his responsibility is to make sure the safety of Valentia’s people is secured. That’s the burden of royalty that he was lacking, what Celica has had since she was a kid and what she criticized him for, and the piece of the puzzle he was missing.

Celica meanwhile is established as being incredibly aware of the people around her during Act 2. She takes out pirates even thought it’s not in her mission description because she knows the people are suffering because of them, for example. However, she’s distant. She’s closed off. She knows what’s required of her as a princess, but it can seem like she’s being cold instead of responsible. And despite this, she’s still under the impression that she’s not doing enough, hence why she gets as upset as she does when Alm calls Lima a terrible king, because even though she didn’t like him whatsoever, Celica herself sees herself as a terrible princess. In response, during Act 3 and 4, this insecurity of hers gets put into overdrive. She’s helping people yes, but being Mila’s priestess and the newly revealed missing Princess of Zofia starts having her taking her burdens to extremes. She’s convinced that she has to do everything herself, and that Mila is the only way to fix things. This extreme is taken to the point where she’s too self sacrificing and closed off to the pleas of her friends and the situation right in front of her, that everyone involved gets hurt. Her piece of the puzzle that she’s missing, is the day to day perspective, and understanding that the strength of her friends can buoy her; Alm being raised as a village kid means he was set up to have this way of living woven into his character.

In short: Alm sees what’s in front of him, but needs to learn to see the bigger picture because he’s unprepared for what kind of pain being a leader brings. Celica is very aware of the bigger picture, but needs to learn to lean on her friends or else she’ll end up hurting more than just herself in trying to do things alone.

They each have what the other lacks, but are just unable to reconcile early on because they were separated for so long, hence the argument. But y’know. Hardship builds character and all that. And sometimes hardship means unknowingly killing your cousin and dad, or getting turned into a souless monster and stabbed with a sword.

[yeyayeya]

I’ve wanted to make this post for a while but wanted to wait until the dub was officially over so

My Final Thoughts on the TGCF Season 2 English Dub

Howard Wang as Xie Lian is fucking perfect. Every single time he spoke it just, I don’t know how to properly put it into words, except it is so well done?? But when XL started basically having a mental breakdown in front of Hua Cheng after Lang Qianqiu found out about the truth of the Gilded Banquet, holy fuck did the emotions just hit me in the feels. The scream and he emotional fatigue after? Xie Lian’s voice is perfection omg

Shoutout to James Cheek for just voicing the gayest character ever (Hua Cheng) and writing the gayest script for TGCF. While I liked his voice in the first season, but I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. It wasn’t until the second season where almost everything improved, and James’s voice for Hua Cheng? *chef’s kiss*. Okay but at least tone down the gayness a bit. And seeing someone who has read the novel and having little easter eggs for the novel readers for them to go insane over is incredible. I’m going to miss his voice in Season 3 since they’re going to have to cast someone else as Hong’er, but that’s ok.

Male and Female Shi Qingxuan: OMG??? Perfect casting. I just know they both put so much effort into them and I am eternally grateful. They just sound like the best of friends (they are). Every single line from them was so fucking iconic, which is accurate to the Wind Master’s character. I love both their voices so much you don’t understand.

Lang Qianqiu: AAHHHHH. My son, my boy, they gave him justice and I am so happy. First read through of TGCF, I only cared for HuaLian, but reading it again has made me appreciate and fall in love with the side characters, with Lang Qianqiu being one of them. I’ll say it did take a bit for me to adjust to it, but he sounds so much like an anime protagonist that I am ok with it. Another perfect casting. I’m going to be so fucking sad that he won’t appear for such a long time, and while he does get brought up occasionally, his last appearance is going to be the finale. I’ll miss you my son 😔

Jun Wu: ASDFGHJKL. He sounds like such a manipulative/toxic ex and a father figure at the same time. wtf. But his voice is so sexy tho. I don’t like it but I do. And I thought his original Chinese voice was hot, and then the English one goes and surprises me. I hate that I love it

Qi Rong: Perfection, glorious, fucking incredible. HIS VA IS PERFECT. Original was slaying so hard, and English? Fucking killing it. He was actually the one I was looking forward to the most, and he 👏 did 👏 not👏 disappoint. I won’t get over the perfect casting. Ever. The crazy and mad laughs? The insults I’ve never heard about but decided to keep in mind? Literally everything. I’m sorry I can’t get over how great his voice is

Feng Xin and Mu Qing (of course together): I am so biased towards Lucien Dodge, so I immediately loved his voice for him. He slaying that tsundere cat boy vibe so well. I will admit that his voice made me like his character more tbh. Ok but Feng Xin’s? Every time I hear it, I always need at least 30 seconds to get used to it. Idk why. I don’t hate it, and I actually love it, but he sounds so much like a dad it’s so funny. I still love him tho.

Pei Ming: 😳. No but that was actually my reaction to his voice. Why is every single god’s voice so hot. Please calm down. I really did not like Pei Ming at first but damn. I can actually understand why every single woman went weak with him.

Ling Wen: While she didn’t get as much dialogue this season, I’ll still count her. I’ve heard some drama relating to her voice actress from a while back but I’m not bringing it up rn. But her English voice is almost exactly the same as the original, just, different languages of course. She has such a unique voice and it’s quite pleasing to hear. She also sounds a bit like Siri but it fits her character

Other major characters that got only a few lines but still slayed their roles (Ming Yi, Pei Xiu, Jian Lan, Yin Yu): Hello?? Can I be patient to hear their voices again? Probably not, but please I need more of them. Ming Yi sounded hot since he took voice lessons from Hua Cheng, Pei Xiu sounded like such a little wet cat (wtf where did this crush on him come from), Jian Lan slayed because she is such an underrated queen, and Yin Yu? I WAS NOT EXPECTING A DEEP VOICE FROM WTF. I will say I do prefer his Chinese VA a little more due to it being more in character with him sounding soft and somewhat tired. But I enjoy his confident and announcing voice. They should keep him for the QuanYin flashbacks.

All in all, perfect cast. I don’t have twitter/X but I see things from the VA’s from time to time. And seeing them interact with the fandom and trying to give more to their characters makes me so happy. I just desperately need for more of the characters to have voices (aka Shi Wudu, Quan Yizhen, Mei Nianqing, Yushi Huang, Male!Ling Wen, White-No-Face). Give me more please.

Please check out the dub it’s so fucking great.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

where's the rant ???

Alright so rant time: people constantly argue that making a character a transwoman is the same as making them a ciswoman and frankly that’s wrong. I’m sorry but it is. As a small disclaimer: I’m nonbinary and I am in school getting a sociology degree. I will be using sex to refer to biology and gender to refer to otherwise.

Using Tim Drake as an example: the stories you tell with a transgirl or a cisgirl version are incredibly different from each other. Because men and women are socialized drastically different from one another. While the character of Tim Drake (fierce, loyal, hard working, generous, and wanting to do so much good) wouldn’t change so much else about Tim would in either option.

With a transgirl Tim Drake, you have how society would react to her and coming out. I’d also argue that she wouldn’t come out until her teen years because of Jack. No one can tell me that this man would be okay with his kid being a transgirl. You just can’t tell me that. Janet is a toss up because of the limited information we have on her as a character. She however did neglect her kid, and in general I think that as new or old money, whichever you want to use, she would have problems with image, considering that a trans child could go bad for the PR. But even ignoring the parents, a transgirl!Tim would have a totally different story. I expect her story woudl go much like canon for a while until she is able to articulate that she is a girl. Then I expect backlash from people, one of them being Stephanie.

I’m probably in the minority when it comes to my thoughts that Steph is a straight woman who would react to her partner coming out as a woman badly because ‘what does that say about ME?!’ I won’t go into my issues with Steph. Others have done it way better but I do think that she and Tim both messed up their relationship even if frankly most of the blame is on Steph’s feet. BUT ANYWAYS: Tim coming out would cause issues there. A harsh reaction is never great for a baby trans kid and I can see Tim retreating as Steph goes off to complain to someone like Babs. Who I then think would be upset with Steph for outing Tim. Baba then acts as a pillar for Tim who slowly can come out on her own terms. Bruce and Dick I don’t think would have an issue and Jason? Let’s be real: Jason wouldn’t give a fuck in the sense it’s “okay wait, girl? Okay… I’ll still beat the shit out of you”.

The media would pitch a fit and I think that YJ would become closer over this, but I also think that there will be backlash from other members of the cape community. There just isn’t a way there wouldn’t be because while sure a lot are accepting you can’t tell me everyone is. Also the rouges. Unless Bruce asks Tim to pretend to be a guy still which… OUCH. I feel that is on brand and also something Tim would struggle so much with but want to obey while everyone is yelling at Bruce.

Then a transitioning Tim when her father wakes up probably wouldn’t go back to him because I doubt his reaction is a good one, and so she stays with Bruce. Probably becoming adopted. She and Cass would bond and I can see Tim developing further and becoming more confident as time goes on. She is less confident as Robin as she is not allowed to be herself.

The Damian and I’m torn. On one hand: I kind of like the idea that the League are all assholes but they also are chill with queer people cause Ra’s is creepy with canon Tim. In the other this is something he can attack Tim over and I doubt he’d give up the chance the little psycho.

So… Damian would be a thorn but I think that Dick steps in way more here because ‘baby assassin trying to kill Tim since he doesn’t know better’ is very different then ‘a transphobic kid being a shit to Tim’. Sad but true.

Tim’s story drastically changes by being a transgirl and it’s one that is VASTLY different then being a ciswoman because Tim still was socialized as a boy from birth. There is still a level of privilege she got from birth that a ciswoman doesn’t. People would react to her being trans in multiple ways such as denial or disgust.

But a cisgirl!Tim? Well…

People expect different things from the sexes. Women are supposed to be soft, gentle, not to loud and are supposed to be kind. Boys get to be demanding and loud and smart and rough.

Tim as a girl would have Jack and Janet reacting differently. It’s a personal headcanon for me that Jack imposes a lot of his traits onto Tim as a boy because ‘it’s my son and he is thus like me’. A girl though he’d expect to be a ‘cute and soft girl who is there for me to pull out of the closest’ because frankly the guy who willing marries someone not even a decade older then his kid who uses to be his physical therapist is a LOSER who would. Janet is again a toss up but I feel she’d have more of an impact for this Tim as being a woman in buisness or archeology is a field she had to climb and claw her way through. Things she would then pass on to her daughter.

Women are expected to be feminine and gentle. I’m actually fond of a girly fem!Tim compared to others, but I think it’s more of a punk girly then not. Janet totally would have weaponized her femininity in a way Tim tries to mimic. Dresses, soft smiles, doe eyes but a sharp mind about to rip you apart. Her interests in photography would be dismissed as ‘artsy girl’ and she’d be put into ballet or gymnastics with some comments over martial arts.

Women will have people talk about them if they do anything out of the ordinary. They aren’t supposed to ride skateboards or things because that’s what boys are expected to do. They aren’t supposed to like climbing things or other shit.

Tim as someone born a girl, and as either new money or old money, would be expected to have certain traits a boy is allowed to not have. So without a doubt she had etiquette lessons and dance lessons and anything else her mother might have decided were useful because Jack wouldn’t have noticed anything. Even if it’s cause Janet got mocked by people for not knowing I can’t see Tim not having these lessons.

Tim who has a great mask and who keeps her lives seperate this would have her high society mask, her vigilante mask, her public self and her real self because girls are still expected to act a certain way in public. Any interest that deviates form what society expects is brushed off as ‘she’s trying to be unique’ or ‘tomboy’ or ‘fitting in with the boys’.

We finally get to Robin now because Tim is still Tim and I don’t doubt she would do the same thing, fight to become Robin, but with this comes it’s own problems. Threats of sexual assault, comments about being a girl, crude comments about opening her legs or how she fights: all of these would follow her. We can go: some rouges are nice all we want but not all of them are.

Then we have Stephanie and that relationship is already drastically changed because Stephanie again is straight, and I think that Tim would be able to connect to Steph much better as a girl. I still think it wouldn’t be the healthiest of friendships because of everything but I also think that Tim being a girl while having hard lines is very different from a boy with boundaries because Steph knows as a girl what it’s like to have boundaries. She would feel bad for breaking them compared to ‘Tim is upset I found out his identity boohoo why is he upset with me?’.

We have Dick to and I’m going to be real honest: I think Dick is sexist enough to make assumptions of Tim. He doesn’t have issues with women but in general he’s a bit of a douche bag (sleeping with Babs while inviting her to his wedding with Kori anyone?) that he would put some expectations on this Tim related to being a girl. Of course Tim tosses those out of the water and I think he’d adapt but still: Dick is just… I think he’s the guy who puts a lot of stock into blood relations more then we know (ala Damian) and that he’s got a few assumptions about the Robin title along with thoughts on girls.

Bruce is… I think his expectations would be similar to canon with an emphasis on her being a girl. He knows competent women but in his world most of the female heroes are super powered or criminals, with Barbara being a shining example of a non-powered hero who got hurt. He’s going to compare it. I think it would either be worse then canon or he’s going to shove her off on female heroes more because he isn’t sure how to handle her.

Barbara as well I think is closer then canon to Tim being a girl and sort of the Batfam early compared to Stephanie. I actually think Babs would be a lot more posessive of Tim because of this, but this miiiight just be me. I know Tim and Cass would be incredibly close as well much like canon.

Jason and Damian though? Okay so I’ll be blunt: Jason is the kind of guy who is a feminist and supports woman’s rights but has a few issues with women he’s never been able to articulate. Society would press on him women are supposed to be fantastic mothers who put their families first and then he gets Sheila and Catherine. And while Catherine may have loved him society says she’s a terrible mother. Then we have Talia and no matter what the ‘sleeping together’ thing is fucked up. It just IS. So Jason has issues. However I think said issues being thrown into his face would make him stop short. Yet his reaction to a girl taking the mantle is one that would be… tricky as hell.

Damian? Damian is sexist and could go one of four ways: a) canon, b) WORSE then canon, c) dismissive and arrogant assuming she is just there to be trained and would be shoved out of the role as soon as he’s there no need to fight which turns into canon reaction when she isn’t or d) an assumption she’s there as a bride for someone. Because frankly it is something I can see him assuming. Bruce training a girl much like how Dick/Jason was trained so eventually they would marry to be solid heirs. The LoA is messed up and Talia might be a woman but she was raised there so there’s probably a ‘exception to the rule’ mentality with her. And I can see Damian either then: deciding he would be Tim’s groom as the true heir to the Bat or he would go: well time to marry her off now.

Either works. He’d still be violent and cruel towards her but that’s just Damian in general until he mellows out.

I think losing Robin in this world would be much more of a blow for Tim because of the sexism she’s faced. Being the lesser Robin for being a girl, how people reacted to her being feminine, seeing how Dick so easily tosses her aside for a male child. How people probably would go: yes! A good Robin finally! Or how his more violent reaction probably gets praised over her. Mixed in with the dismissal of Bruce being alive which feels worse as women are always getting dismissed by people and Tim lashes out harder then in canon.

We then come back to Babs because there’s only two ways she can react: canon or she goes ‘I’ll listen for real as I know the guys suck at listening to the girls’ and making her decisions that way. (And let’s be real Babs would know. Give me more female solidarity in comics and not the weird catty crap we get otherwise)

We then have canon happen with Ra’s being just as creepy mixed with a lot more sexism on her world tour.

One thing I do think would happen like canon is Tim realizing she’s bisexual when Fem!Bernard comes along and gets her thinking about it because girls are allowed to be touchy with each other so her not knowing is twice as likely.

These stories are VASTLY different from one another and the assumption that they wouldn’t be is insulting. Yes, transwomen are women but there’s still a huge difference in a story about either of them. Both these stories have very different thoughts and reactions from characters.

Just pretending that they’re one in the same is wrong. And pretending there’s a moral high ground when you claim they are is just being a dick.

[eliteseven]

Gathered a few recs for the Shadowheart playlist, if that’s still a thing. It’s a little lengthy because I’ve put thought into each one, and could simply go on for hours about this character:

Bring me to Life - Evanescence. Just a really perfect summary of Shadowheart’s Selûnite arc. Her journey from Shar’s darkness into the light, and how the player helps her to see the truth of Shar’s manipulations. With lyrics like ‘call my name and save me from the dark’, ‘Save me from the nothing I’ve become’, ‘I’ve been living a lie, There’s nothing inside’.

Like a Prayer - Madonna. For the religious themes and sexual innuendo of a woman who loves God like she might a person, compared to Shadowheart’s relationship with both the player and her love for Shar (Shadowheart a-likens her love for Shar with Gale’s love for Mystra). More appropriate for Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, where the player is effectively Shadowheart’s side piece/ Mistress to her real relationship with Shar. Bonus points for actually being able to pray to Shadowheart during a sex scene in the game.

Numb - Linkin Park. If you consider the song to be from Shadowheart’s perspective, directed towards Viconia/ Shar. ‘I’m tired of being what you want me to be, feeling so faithless, lost under the surface, I don’t know what you’re expecting of me, Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes’, ‘Cause everything that you thought I would be, Has fallen apart right in front of you’, ‘all I want to do, Is be more like me and be less like you’.

Somewhere I belong - Linkin Park. A song about someone trying to escape their pain, and find a place they can belong and be happy. For Shadowheart’s greatest shame; “She doesn’t know who she is, or where she belongs.” She spends the game trying to find a place for herself, whether that be with Shar, with her family, or by Tav’s side. If she ends up travelling alone, then she’s still trying to find it, come the epilogue party.

On the Beach - Chris Rea. Makes me think of the skinny dipping scene. ‘Between the eyes of love I call your name, Behind the guarded walls I used to go’, ‘No-one but you and I, Underneath that moonlit sky, Take me back to the place that I know, On the beach’.

The Housebuilding Song from Red Dead Redemption 2, because Tav and Shadowheart ‘build a little house together’. The song plays during a scene in the game where you build a house and a barn on a country farmstead for your family, which is what Tav and Shadowheart do post-game.

Why can’t this be love - Van Halen. Always makes me think of the mutual pining during Act 1 and Act 2, where Shadowheart refuses to act on her feelings for the player for the sake of Shar and her mission. Carries on into Act 3 on the Shar path, with Shadowheart explicitly saying “I can’t truly love you.”

Sunshine of your love - Cream. Makes me think of the Shar romance ending, with how Shadowheart and Tav have secret trysts whenever Shadowheart slips away from her duties. In particular, it makes me think of the original Shar romance epilogue slide, “By the Night Orchids bloom, her mind doth wander to old friends and an old flame. The one light she is never sad to see, when it doth cast itself upon the steps of the House of Grief.”

Girl - The Beatles. This one’s here exclusively for the line ‘When you say she’s looking good, She acts as if it’s understood’, since Shadowheart responds with “I know” to a player saying “You’re beautiful.”

My Love, My Life - Abba. Shadowheart’s writer did a QnA on one of Jen & Aliona’s streams where he said this would be Shadowheart’s favourite Abba song.

Omg!!! What an incredible addition to the Shadowheart Playlist tag!!!! 😍

I love your picks!! And I love hearing the explanation for why you chose each one! They tie into her story and themes so well! They’re all so fitting (besides being great songs), I can’t wait to listen to them with a fresh perspective! 😄

Thank you so much for sharing your compilation! I’ll be stealing these for my master Shadowheart playlist if you don’t mind! 🥹