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#idk i think it's bc of my vague fear of men and seeing him who Could hurt me very easily
mishkakagehishka · 2 years
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Do you guys undeestand how much i love kuro btw
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arcadekitten · 2 years
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whered u get the idea for twyla? i think shes my favorite character with mary bein second to her! shes so cool idk i always get excited when i see her or catch myself thinking about how cool her character is omg
also theres a song called mary by alex g and every time i listen to it it reminds me of cemetery mary (not just bc of the name) u might like it !
Haha, I'm glad you like her! 🧡 I think I can't answer fully without diving into spoiler territory!
CEMETERY MARY SPOILERS BELOW!
She originally started as a matching character for Crowven. I always knew Crowven was involved in crime, and as such I wanted him to have a rival organization. And wouldn't you know that Crows and Owls are natural enemies in real life?
Twyla started as the vague idea of a daughter/niece to a crime head just like Crowven. Originally, she was going to be a lot more "princessy". She had lighter colors, lots of jewelry and sparkle, and would act in a way that's bratty. She was almost like a female Crowven. But then, as I started to develop her, she became more of a foil to Crowven.
I changed her design to look much more "owl-like", at least in the traditional sense (as people associate them with lots of academia and her outfit reflects that). She became more and more the opposite of Crowven and I really enjoyed it. Crowven is often loud, Twyla is often reserved. Crowven is (often) pretty sociable and playful with others, Twyla is mean and rude. Crowven is actively miserable in their "business", Twyla actively pursues and revels in it. Crowven doesn't mean to hurt people, Twyla absolutely does. Crowven really does love people, Twyla doesn't.
Twyla is also an expression of anger, and a funnel for negative emotions. Sometimes I think of her as being anger personified. Like if you gave rage a face.
I've also mentioned it on streams in the past, but Twyla is also very cathartic for me when it comes to terms of villainess girls in fiction.
Growing up, I often felt in fiction that female villains fell into a few vague categories. They were often either seductive vixens, or misunderstood women who had good intentions, or some tragic backstory as to why they were evil. And to me, it began to feel dehumanizing.
There are plenty of stories about men and male villains who have no deeper motivation behind their actions other than because they want to, and they aren't made to be sexy while doing it. Regardless of how the audience might view them, they are often written with the intention to be intimidating, someone who can't be reasoned with, or someone to be feared.
You will often find in my work female villains like this, with Twyla as one example. Girls who do horrible, atrocious things...because they are people, and people can be so evil sometimes and there's just no helping it. Not everyone needs a reason to do bad things. Sometimes they just do. To me, that is catharsis. So even if her evil deeds may sometimes seem exaggerated or even cartoonish at times, to me there is nothing that feels more human and equal. I love to create girls like that and Twyla is a prime example of it.
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thecrenellations · 3 years
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Return of the Thief Notes, Part Three: The Book of Pheris, Volume 2, Chapters 6-14 and “Alyta’s Missing Earring”
Notes from my first read, October 2020. (Part One | Part Two | TaT)
Contents:  Elephants, guesses about gods and dead men, villain team up, the unexpected, AAAAAAH, elaboration on the word cloud above (which is one big Gen, medium Pheris, medium love, and scattered other names), and more quantitative analysis! I love this book.
Format:  Page number. My thoughts (Context?)
Chapter 6
285. unkingly moment, last night with her at home
MISMATCHED STOCKINGS (I have a thing about this.)
Wedges of ribbons?
285. cute
286. a pitneen? A drunk bird?
Wait. Gift of animals??? Did he steal the thunderbolts wearing it?
A canary no longer
287. Hilarion and Ion, wow
Throw a cup of wine on me
288. War pants! War pants!
What’s Attolia wearing?
Sophos! (the whistling!)
288. Ok fine it’s gonna be sad ... I say as if I didn’t just experience the trial (the last lighthearted moment)
Pepper!
Be careful Pheris
Also Relius went to Dite and Juridius, right? (I was convinced Dite would show up)
Sinerine!
290. SOCKS! Yay <3 magus
I was resigned to not much magus but he is HERE!
He’s … so much nicer than he was to the kids in the Thief, lol
A CART!
Lamb, falling in same paragraph. Worried.
Gen :( Gen you ran all over the palace and leapt in the water last night. You are so stupid.
292. Yay Sophos I love you
Math buddies!
294. I’M SAD.
They have had this convo before
I love them
It’s because I can that I think I should
295. Do not overreach. Eddis is right
Danger in self indulgence?
I love her! “I was outside chasing your brother with a stick”
296. My heart. You have to trust yourself. I don’t know if I can. Then you have to trust us.
Tactical Irene!
Thanks I’m gonna hold on to it: “The Call of life is a s powerful as the call of death, and it is no weakness to answer to it”
297. Oh no. My children. Tell each other things like that!
Great time to be childish, Gen.
Yeah honestly. It’s bothered her FOREVER
299. Pull it together, kids!
Thx Helen
Inkpots … :( :( :(
Chapter 7
302. See … that Continent occupation isn’t good either!
303. Unfortunately that is NOT an alternative. Bc volcano.
305. This is stressful.
Chloe, interesting
306. Elephants
Oh my god it’s better than I ever could have imagined (there was like 10 years of lead up to the elephants, and I thoroughly enjoyed them)
I love him
Gen wtf
Yes drink up those guards (“We could keep [an elephant] in the guard’s bathhouse! There’s plenty of room.” “And the guards will bathe ...?” “In the palace reservoir.” “Our drinking water.”)
#6 Gen about elephants
308. This is gonna be a disaster
Hilarion with an eyeglass
Fuck Pheris is making this up.
Gen I love you
Oh my god
Honestly idk if Gen is having fun but I AM
They’re. They’re such a power couple.
Also Bu-seneth is so rude to Attolia
309. so vague about battle, but I’m sure it’s horrible
310. hero talk. Chills.
311. all the woman comparisons for Gen (“Would [a world with no war and no heroes be a bad thing?” “That’s a woman’s question”)
Wow. Interesting. Anonymity
312. Don’t listen to them Gen!
Bad tempered cooks
313. lol. Good looks.
Gen. the hand joke. Why
Well that was … a scene (I don’t know my Henry V)
Reassuring to have a glove. Which one?
314. No. Bad. This is what I was afraid of. (Nahuseresh baiting Gen with Kamet)
Ok Pheris
315. That cannot be true. (it was not!)
Gen. No. No.
316. Wow. That worked out well. So far.
They called him annux. If Kamet is really dead…
319. Yeah Attolia is RIGHT
Yeah I can’t actually either!
Irene knows. In his story!
320. Glove resolved very fast
Interesting reversal (Gen and his dad)
Maddening!
Chapter 8
322. who’s charging off in a haze of glory now
Philologos wounded
Wait, the attendants follow him in to battle...
Cleon RIP
Temenus <3
No. Stenides
If they ever returned.
His brother died in an explosion
Gen’s tears
This is sad.
323. lion lamb :(
325. At least they have each other
Morality is an illusion. Like safety?
326. that’s what Costis was mapping, right? (nope)
How many has Gen killed now
328. Who. Pol? Ambiades? (The cairn man question remains)
Oh no
Oh no. you can fall from a horse
HILARION!
Is Fordad a spy?
I am just not accepting this yet
WAIT THE MEDES TOOK HIM! (I thought the Attolians had taken Gen, or Gen’s body, at first.)
330. wow things only Pheris can do
GDI Erondites
WOW THIS IS A VILLAIN TEAM UP
332. You gave it to him dude (Nahuseresh asking “Why does he still have this?” about Gen’s hook)
I love Gen. I wonder if he’s afraid.
This is bad.
Whose treason, whose betrayal?
333. Yeah! Kamet said so (“Tell me again that you are king.” “Annux, if you prefer.”)
334. Oh god.
Get your stories straight bastards
Rolled in a rug!
336. Oh gen
Oh god
Yeah this is …
Be careful what you ask for
338. What did he sign as, though, Attolis? Eugenides?
Nomenus wtf
What does mwt have against facial hair (Fordad, Nahuseresh)
Costis please come (idk how I thought he was going to help, but I was in Costis Denial and expected him to show up at any moment)
Everyone must be going through a lot
A face like an open grave
Gen.
Gen I love you
YES
YES
Is he … invulnerable now?
Gen what.
Is he possessed? Is he already a god?
341. Yeah same. (“I think he meant that I should not fear him, either. I did, though ... I still followed him”)
This isn’t being self indulgent or overreaching, is it?
342. RIP Ion Nomenus
“My work”
Oh Nomenus
Does he just exist for the morally gray and loyal angst feelings? It works (...)
344. What did he DO
Yes! Swearing Gen!
345. love all caps Gen
Those names
Aaah
346. Ooof.
Chapter 9
347. moon promises
Yeah
Noooo Philologos :(
Legarus … :(
349. Gen what what
Sparks
Costis? Stenides? STENIDES?
Wow ok he killed Bu-seneth
350. god
See I said Nahuseresh shouldn’t have said that
Also is Gen a bastard
351. WHAT (“Because your council had just voted to kill him”)
Oh Helen
Oh Irene
Does he invite him in?
This is reassuring to the reader (“He can bear his god a little while without losing himself”)
Aaaaah Galen
354. Gen that’s a lot. A lot.
Don’t kill everyone.
So so so x7 of doom
Bye Yorn
I hope he wins too
Go away Nahuseresh
Omg
another fall
Interregnum
Ok it was Lader (when you don’t know who the man at the cairn was, keep on guessing!)
Yeah the circumstances thing is back
Oh god
Oh no
Chapter 10
361. how long has it been?
362. three days
I love them (Elephants! My excellent queen!)
You promised to trust him
364. Oh no. Oh no. (Relius)
370. These Helen convos…
371. Sad. :(
372. Emtis and Lader
Yeah.
Omg
374. Wow
Steal by elephant?
377. Don’t forget about Dite!
378. He’s gonna kill him?
379. Is Dite dead too?
Oh Sejanus
Oh I see
He’s got a mercy taste too
380. Switching!
Lying in moonlight. Hm.
381. Yesss
Nooooo
383. I’m nervous
Gods blessing on your road
Wow. <3
They would have fallen… (if Pheris had gone through with his plan, that’s how they both would have died)
Did not expect Sejanus feelings in Rott.
Chapter 11
386. He’s gonna know. But the trust.
Ion knows.
390. Gen…
Pheris is Lyopidus?
I’m scared
393. I kind of love Ion
More Sejanus, bring it on
I’m nervous
Hmmm… who could it be
395. MoW :( <3 I will not be ok if he dies too
Gen knows the way bc Costis (nope)
Oh my god these two (“I lied” “I know”)
Chapter 12
398. Oh no.
This is not
Her Thief
Irene. “only sleeping” this is what Eddis said to her
But mist… water???
Face touch
402. not living or dead. King
Yes. But no.
403. crying at everything and the MoW next to him
There he went
It was the Eddisians. He fought with them.
404. yeah that’s a lot to deal with, Pheris
405. what a mystery man (Sejanus)
Lol mysterious exit averted
Excuse me that was a difference
406. :(
Am I king
407. Helen is once again right. She’s also always right
MOIRA was Melisande???!??!? (who even knows)
409. ?? Irene?
Same as for Dite. Man loves his brothers. (nephews. you know what I mean.)
Nice.
AAH yup. Add it to the list (“How neatly you tie them together” ... the list of is ways Gen and Irene are becoming more like each other)
410. speaking of which where is Costis!
Hm… what god was that
I love their reactions
411. SPLENDID.
Oh Irene. It’s true <3
It’s so true (“When the king gives his heart he gives it completely”)
Now I’m crying again, at them
412. Gen, she has a point.
Amazing. I … I don’t think she meant to ask like THAT
Jesus, Gen.
You do not know a wagon from a wheelbarrow
413. Irene!
She’d better get home safe.
Gen!
Omg
414. I have another bad feeling, about Gen
415. High king or queen though?
Magus <3
Chapter 13
416. “of course”
That’s ominous
417. No! Sejanus!
A gut wound yikes
418. sadness
419. lol “ill will”
We’re in Roa. My heart’s pounding.
422. I love Gen.
YESSS
Yes I love them.
Sheep.
Kamet!!!
?!?
Costis. Mattresses exist.
424. Oh no.
426. roof dream
Good roof dream
Good job Helen
428. TWINS. Everyone was RIGHT
Reyatimi
Oh shit. The sky.
Oh dear. :( aaah
430. Climbing the rigging!
“it’s just that you have so many least favorite things”
431. I love them (Gen and Irene)
432. I love them (Gen and Helen)
433. RIGHT! I was thinking
I can’t <3 (they’re naming the baby after the MoW, and it’s perfect, and she’s not gonna tell us, huh)
OH MY GOD!!! (baby thief!)
WOW!
434. AAAAAAH (Hector! @threetoadswaltz​ finished reading before me and knew that I would explode about this and I DID, I threw my arms in the air! HECTOR!)
PERFECTION!
435. AAAAAAAAH (this was when it became clear they were going to dance on the roof)
Yes she was (as surefooted as the king)
Is this the first time she’s Irene
Yes.
I’m filled with happiness
Celia and Lavia again … lol.
Lol Chloe
THALIA
CRENELATED wall
HE’S ALIVE
Kamet is a sweetheart
The gods!!!
The gods!
Aracthus
Mystery goddess?
Ula?
Moira! Yes!
(I was very happy. The page itself:)
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Alyta’s Missing Earring
Wait. Was it Alyta.
Glad we got a bi god (with all due respect to Immakuk and Ennikar, whose bi-ness and godliness is perhaps more up to the reader)
Got very bi very fast
Also. He’s Gen.
Interesting difference in story
Kathodicia!
Are we literally getting ALL the answers? (No. But so many more than I expected!)
Gen’s grandfather sucks
An urn huh
Omg. Heiro’s earrings?
Oh my gosh.
Same, Gen. Same.
Obvs Phresine knows.
Is Phresine a goddess?
Same, Gen. Same.
She got to tell a story! She is so happy!
I think he’s a little scared
Moleskin
Yeah peace huh
This series is socially sanctioned silliness
1000 Eugenides. Wow.
They did melt though
Little thief.
<3 <3 <3
He’s a character in a story
A big question
Tamarisk? Takima? (We are not getting all the answers.)
That’s it! Thank you for reading - it feels very self-indulgent to type up all of these, but I will honestly take most chances to relive the intense and wonderful experience of reading this book for the first time, which often means looking back at my own notes and sometimes means sharing them with people. Also, I really love reading liveblogs/real-time book thoughts, so here is one from awhile ago ... all at once.
Anyway, check out this word cloud from all of the notes (made with this site):
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It’s ... mostly just character names, with a variety of words that express my enthusiasm and feeling (love, lol, wow, yes, excuse me...). Gen is the biggest because I said his name 115 times! Here are some totals for the other characters who came up a lot:
115 - Gen (and 10 Eugenides)
42 - Pheris
26 - Costis
18 - Irene (and 6 Attolia)
16 - Helen (and 8 Eddis)
10 - Sophos (and 4 Sounis)
12 - the magus
11- Kamet
11 - Teleus
10 - Relius
9 - Ion
6 - MoW
6 - Moira
5 - Sejanus
These don’t fully represent how much I had to say about them, because I didn’t always refer to people by name or title ... which kind of explains why Costis’s total is ridiculously high compared to how much he is in the book -  I likely have more notes about other characters, but I didn’t need to bring up their names because they were already present in the scenes I was taking notes on (for example, I think I talked about Relius more than Teleus, the magus, or Kamet, but many of those just referred to him as he, because it was obvious to me who I meant). But also I was just looking for Costis! Anyway. My use of names and titles for the monarchs also really illustrates how much this book reshaped the way I think of these characters’ relationship to them, Gen’s and Irene’s especially.
It’s representative of my feelings about this series that I wrote “I love them” about so many combinations of characters. Who, exactly? And how many times? Well...
5 - Gen and Irene
4 - Gen and Helen
2 - Gen and Pheris
1 - Gen, Irene, Helen, and Sophos
1 - Helen and Sophos
1 - Costis and Kamet
1 - unknown combo of Gen, Pheris, and Relius on p.166, I love them all and can’t remember. Kamet’s map was there, too, and I do love Kamet, so maybe he was in there too.
no matter what the numbers say, I love them all endlessly, and I love this book.
be blessed in your endeavors, yes I will take any questions about these notebook screams, etc.
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rnegitsune · 4 years
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Ok so I thought I'd put together some horror stories from my time as a babymetal fan bc of how drastic the shift in the fandom has been the past year or so. For context I got into babymetal in like june of 2014 (all 3 girls were still underage at the time, I was 22; when I first got into them I thought I would be considered an older fan lmao the naivete, the innocence of new fan me wow I know now I'm not at all in the older half of the fandom esp considering I was born the same decade as su and moa), and I made this blog in I think may of 2015.
I've had people say I should compile men being gross into a post and I just couldn't do that out of fear for my own mental health but this will be pretty close. These are all my experiences with this fandom over the years; I'm definitely missing some but what I do remember should do well to cover most of how this fandom used to be vs now. It's gonna be a lot and tw for men being gross about minors.
Back in my first year or so of this blog I on multiple occasions got dms from men asking to be friends. At the time my bio only said my name and my pronouns. I've always been cautious of dms so I'd ask their age and every single one was considerably older than me. I wouldn't usually answer after that bc no thanks but they would generally try to continue convos til I blocked. The only one I still had was this one
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After I put my age in my bio, which was 23 at the time, I never got a dm like that again; take from that what you will. But if you're young please be wary of this hell fandom even now. And if you're an older fan and esp an older male fan reading this, don't dm people trying to be friends. I was over 18 and it still creeped me out to no end.
One of my real first men in this fandom are disgusting moments was a blog back in like 2015 or 2016 who I had some contact with due to common interests; he was a huge yui stan and made bm content. He was like 28 or 29 at the time and I eventually noticed he would tag idols, mostly kpop girls, by their body parts (legs, butt, etc) which is disgusting enough as it is but then I saw him do the same for literal minors, like tzuyu from twice. I messaged him asking what the hell he was doing objectifying women but also actual children and he blocked me lmao. He later unblocked me to let me know that's just how he tagged things and it was my fault he had anxiety and then he blocked me again.
Back before the tumblr purge this fandom was repulsive to a degree I cannot even begin to describe. Someone would reblog something from me, I'd go to their blog and it would be underage jpop idols and japanese p*rn all the way down. I even stumbled upon a man editing underage su into p*rn gifs. Obviously no proof of that but I did go find my initial reaction to it
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The number of times I'd get a follow from someone then go to their blog and it would be as mentioned above or their bio would be the most misogynistic trash I'd ever read was staggering. I genuinely considered giving up and deleting this blog so many times bc i felt oberwhelmed and outnumbered by these gross old dudes; and so the fact that this fandom has evolved into a bunch of chaotic wlw?? Amazing, I could cry.
Fun phenomenon of women running bm blogs was men sending messages asking if we liked babymetal. No joke. I think this happened to me two or three times but I spoke w other female creators at the time and it had happened to them as well. My entire blog is babymetal, and yet???
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He said the weird guy idk bc he sent some random ass messages vaguely insulting me and when I responded coldly, he acted confused so I said you're some guy idk, hence the above message starting as such. Also that pic and the one up above that has my current pfp bc I just took those screenshots. Like I said I typically blocked weird dms but I guess these passed me by so I still had the messages.
Most people know the sub reddit is the worst and don't need me to tell you but it's a hellscape and I highly recommend avoiding it. A short list of things I've had to see as a result of going there: men discussing at length kano and momoko's appearances and how they look in costume vs in normal clothes. Men discussing at length the hope that the girls would marry men who aren't Japanese, a thread that was from when all 3 girls were underage. They aren't gonna marry you dude they're really not.
The insulting of billie Eilish, a 17 year old at the time, was horrible too. Su and moa got to meet her, something they were extremely excited for, and they posted a pic; the comments were disgusting as you can imagine. The yui rumors were terrible too, fatshaming, slutshaming etc all based on nothing. Some man saying the rumors about yui leaving bc, no joke this was a real rumor, she "got too fat" couldn't be true bc "look at saya." Saya being a barely 18 yo back up dancer who covered the third spot after yui left but before the avengers. Not to mention the upskirt shots from when they were minors, the constant editing of their faces onto explicit photoshoots etc. I remember being a new fan looking for a su pic on google and being horrified at the fact that one of the top suggested results after her name was “bikini;” she was 16 at the time. Also, the uptick in massively creepy posts and messages sent to bm blogs as each girl, but esp moa and yui, approached 18 was disgusting.
Now for some personal nonsense. A big reason why I haven't touched my youtube channel in months is bc I got tired of dealing with the men of this fandom. I poke fun at metal and get told I deserve to die. I say ped*philes and creepy men are gross and get a swarm of middle aged men cursing at me. Had a guy cry about how men are shamed for liking bm and then he turned around and said some gross shit about wlw. Had a guy call me racist for liking a band he also likes (and despite him having no way of knowing my own race) and tell me the babymetal fandom doesn't need my kpop feminist bullshit, which is honestly a great description and I thought about putting it in my yt about lmao. Had a middle aged man unironically say he'd never seen a man be creepy towards bm but fans su and moa's ages calling them hot was creepy. The disillusionment....the level of unawareness is astounding. If you want to see screenshots of some of these comments they are fairly recent in my don't mind me tag; I don't want to see them anymore tho bc they're infuriating so I'm not going to look at them to post here.
Essentially I haven't looked at my channel since may bc men are exhausting and rude and refuse to examine the fandoms they're a part of no matter what. They're told by a woman of the fandom that she's had bad experiences personally and they all start crying about how it's either a lie bc they haven't seen it or unimportant. I did stop reading comments in may and I will never read another one again probably as a result of this shit. Trash men being trash are not worth my time and I refuse to give them anymore of it. I do plan on making more videos tho and let my ~feminist kpop bullshit~ live in their minds rent free.
I will also continue to make fun of metal and the creepy men in this fandom bc it's important and I'm a spiteful asshole who likes disrupting these dudes perfect bubble of a fandom. It genuinely brings me so much joy seeing all the new fans recently (which sidenote if you got into them recently I am kinda curious as to how you found them; I've gotten tons of new followers and considering how inactive they are rn I'm curious). People sending messages about how they finally feel like they belong or that they have a safe space....like I don't even know what to say and I never feel like my responses fully convey how genuinely wonderful that is and how thrilled I am that this is where we're at now and I have had at least some part in it. As this post shows, my experiences have been negative for the most part so the shift recently is such a relief I cannot even begin to explain my gratitude.
So to anyone who read all of this and hasn't disintegrated from the male bullshit, thank you. Keep being yourself and fighting for your place in this fandom, esp if you're a young woman; keep making fun of the creeps and keep making wlw memes!! Babymetal's music is in such a huge way meant for girls and to see more and more finding their way to this previously hellish beyond belief fandom is incredible.
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loverfighter · 5 years
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well. i think i’ve finally pinpointed the Thing abt chapter 2 that really digs under my skin / makes me uncomfortable to look at too closely (not the character execution of half the losers which is major and probably reason numero uno why chapter 2 does not live up to the book nor first movie and i Will go on abt later but i’m waiting to finish my reread to do so) and it’s essentially that eddie and richie are almost.... forced apart for a lot of it. in chapter 1 we have so many moments, countless looks and gestures and dialogue to point at and say look! there! that’s why they’re in love! where the impact these characters have on each other holds weight and they’re so deeply intertwined to the degree of siamese twins, one never without the other, never farther than a thought or heartbeat away (physically touching in one way or another anytime they can, a beacon through the walks of hell). it’s clear, on both ends, that whatever love they hold for each other is profound and heavy and embedded six feet deep into each other’s souls, transversing across memory, distance, time. even in the background of a scene in which the main focus is ten feet away, highlighted in red and grasping at your attention, you can spot eddieandrichie⏤together, inseparable, linked. 
with chapter 2, this dynamic is hinted upon, and given to us through flashes, but never through scenes alone (prior to neibolt) or actual context. in fact, the scenes we Do have in which their magnetic pull towards each other is allowed narrative (hammock, eddie taking off the shower cap, eddie looking away smiling after richie’s “what the fuck does that mean”, going into the photo booth separated from the rest + eddie pulling richie in, eduardo! andale, them expressing constant agreement w each other through gestures, all of the jade of the orient stuff, etc) was courtesy of the actors and not the script or (likely) direction. bill even said that He was the one who had to push the clarity of richie’s sexuality, to clearly express that he’s gay (“““movie canon”””), while andy and the rest thought vague would be the best route to go in fear of audience reaction. and even then! it’s not as forward as it should’ve or could’ve been (considering they pulled eddie’s canon death scene w the love confession + more emotional moments between them in that setting + the supposed kiss), and oh! not to mention stripping eddie of his own homosexuality and giving richie the bowers storyline, which was the scene that cemented his sexuality in the movie, making it clear that the crew knew the dynamic and context of the interactions between eddie and bowers. 
the point remains that all of the “official” reddie scenes are... kinda out of nowhere? we are given spare information, but lacking any context, leaving the general audience with no way to complete the puzzle with a dozen missing pieces. during the flashback, we see richie carving r+e on the kissing bridge, set after the events of the arcade, and obviously the e stands for eddie, but that’s it! nothing before or during that flashback gives the average watcher any information besides that, and the ones of us who are invested have little satisfaction from that moment alone, when we’ve been building it up and expecting an actual storyline, rather than 5 secs in a minute long flashback clip (that is to say, the r+e is one of my fav reddie scenes, but maybe they shouldn’t have teased it in the trailers if that was all it was gonna be?). 
richie is the one to calm eddie down, snatch away his inhaler bc it’s meaningless physically and damaging psychologically, and tell him “you’re braver than you think.” but why is it that richie is able to get through to him when no one else can or bothers to, why richie, why does he understand what eddie needs to hear, why does eddie listen and take it to heart, especially when richie is the one emphasized to have a crush on eddie and not vice versa? they’re important to each other (on a deeper level than they individually are with the rest of the losers), it’s clear based on that scene, but that’s what it’s left at, with no scenes or dialogue previous to that moment propping it up, other than the r+e, which doesn’t account for eddie’s reaction. and then, they’re together when they face the doors, parallel to benverly who are shouting their love at each other. again, this is telling us something, which is less surprising based off of the inhaler scene 5 mins prior, but then it swiftly plummets to eddie essentially sacrificing himself / saving richie. again: why? 
to me, it’s obvious. to y’all, it’s obvious. we all know well enough, right. but susan in the seat next to me doesn’t, nor do her two friends, or even my friends (getting new ones) or the majority of people who came out of that theatre. they walked out of there and didn’t understand the relationship as requited bc they weren’t given the context and love and soul of reddie. and i think what upsets me most about that is that i can’t just brush it off as them not understanding the nuance or depth of a stupid clown film (if it was the stupid clown book, sure, or even the first stupid clown film but) bc it was done on purpose. they were afraid of negative responses to the lgbt storyline (and god forbid there’d be two of them in their precious big studio film), and so they strangled the heart out of reddie. and because reddie became canon (or richie’s crush became canon), they had to tone down the “gayness” of their relationship, because now the audience would have a new perception of what they were to one another, and no longer have the cushion to brush it off as a “brotherly relationship” (sorry finn). take bill and mike for example! objectively, they were probably “gayer” than reddie, because they were allowed to touch, to show affection, to say i love you. but of course they can’t be gay, bc bill has a wife and they don’t see mike as enough of a person to give him anything good. 
it’s like. what they (production) Have given us is flashes of moments that they are barely responsible for and bury ur gays (fantastic rep), wherein the sexuality of the character that actually dies is kept vague so that the record breaking number of people that went to see their film (who frankly don’t even care) won’t think the film is too gay. like. LMFAO it’s so dumb and frustrating bc on one hand we’re valid for clocking reddie but on the other we’re Too Wild for thinking that it’s a requited love story. like yes, i’m grateful that richie’s sexuality (re his attraction to men; i think he’s bi, movie canon leans toward gay but whatever) is canon, that the wretched grief he felt at losing the love of his life was Shown if only to paint how deep the emotion he felt went, that r+e is forever carved into history. but that’s hand in hand w me being upset over eddie’s character and sexuality being sidelined, at the graphic depiction of gay men being murdered with no full circle moment as it Should Have Been, at having to defend reddie as canon bc some cowards in the editing room couldn’t handle the negative reviews of a few bigots at the expense of their invested and loyal and passionate audience who care abt this story and the characters within it. 
idk. anyway. this is the result of me going crazy so don’t pay it much mind but. imagine how fucking tired i am
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finished the covers for my caleb and adam playlists! putting them together because like......... i have to. i can’t separate them
there is a caleb/adam playlist too but i’m gonna post that cover separately bc i have a different idea for that one
playlist notes under the cut!
caleb
yes, this playlist is 40% sleeping at last. no, i am not going to apologize for that. they have an album called emotions, it was kind of impossible to not use those songs.
falling for the first time- barenaked ladies: this gives me some strong caleb vibes, and i think it’s because it’s kind of an upbeat but also vaguely self-deprecating song? i mean, come on. I'm so cool, too bad I'm a loser/I'm so smart, too bad I can't get anything figured out/I'm so brave, too bad I'm a baby/I'm so fly, that's probably why it feels just like I'm falling for the first time
son- sleeping at last: And I will try, try, try to breathe 'til it turns to muscle memory I'm only steady on my knees One day I'll stand on my own two feet And I'll run the risk Of being intimate with brokenness Through this magnifying glass I see a thousand finger prints On the surfaces of who I am
soul meets body- death cab for cutie: it’s got some caleb/adam elements, but ultimately i chose to use it as a caleb song, because it feels more specifically like caleb seeking out adam’s emotions because they make him feel more like himself; So brown eyes I'll hold you near/'Cause you're the only song I want to hear/A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
joy- sleeping at last: i just really love the way emotions are described in the songs on this album (well, except for fear, which has no lyrics and is also not on this playlist). i also just really love The clumsy start of adolescence/The glue that mends our broken remnants/An overwhelming sense of reverence/It's a glimpse of light in a mine of gold for caleb
a new mission- josh whitehouse: ah. this song. this was the song that made this playlist really, really difficult to make, because it was the first song i added and it set a very high bar for literally every other song on the playlist. it just feels so perfect as a caleb song to me, especially early on, when he was still figuring things out and he was constantly overwhelmed by all the feelings around him and in him.
Sometimes I can't control a feeling that I get inside my chest Even with those who are close to me, the ones I call my best I lose sight of all my confidence, in a heavy single step It's happened ever since my childhood, things I thought I'd put to rest I can keep my mind intact by getting on with a new mission I can push myself, having heavy ammunition When something gets me down, for a second I'm distracted I look back amongst the lights I consequently lit my path with
anger- sleeping at last: I mean, it kinda feels like this song has to be on here, yknow? especially with this part, which genuinely feels like how caleb describes anger sometimes: Like wildfire, it starts in my chest/The silence grows louder, ringing out in my head/I feel the Earth shaking under my feet/I feel the pressure building until I can't breathe/And it takes everything/And it all spills out, reckless but honest words leave my mouth
if i say- mumford and sons: aaand now we’re at the sad part of the playlist, because i can’t make happy playlists apparently. this one is definitely a safehouse caleb song; Show me your hands/Are they cleaner than mine?/Show me your face/Did you cross the line?/Show me your eyes/They any drier than mine?/Your soul survives/But peace, you'll never find
organs- of monsters and men: also a safehouse song, but more aftermath than in the middle of things. it’s sadder, more subdued.
sorrow- sleeping at last: more safehouse! who would’ve guessed!
I feel out of focus, or at least indisposed As this strange weather pattern inside me takes hold. Each brave step forward, I take three steps behind. It's mind over matter-- matter over mind.
Slowly, then all at once A single loose thread and it all comes undone
up with the birds- coldplay: caleb likes coldplay, so i had to include one of their songs, and this one is just. kind of perfect?
The sky is blue, Dreamed that lie 'til it's true, Then takin' back the punch I threw, My arms turn wings, Oh, those clumsy things Send me up to that wonderful world And then I'm up with the birds
--
adam
some of these songs are here for tone; the line between what adam would listen to and what helps me draw him is very thin compared to most characters. i did try to make sure they were all songs that fit him at least a little bit, though.
all the kids are depressed- jeremy zucker: i mean. i feel like the title kind of speaks for itself here, honestly. also the lyrics fit pretty well. there isn’t a ton of explaining that needs to be done for this one.
three- sleeping at last: yes i am back on my sleeping at last bullshit no i don’t care this song is perfect go look at the lyrics they’re all good here’s some of them: Maybe I've done enough/Finally catching up/For the first time I see an image of my brokenness/Utterly worthy of love/Maybe I've done enough
velodrome- dessa: this was one of the songs i included primarily for the tone; it’s one of the songs i listen to full volume on my Nice Headphones when i’m feeling too much at once because it kind of just gets rid of everything somehow. it just creates this kind of,, pleasant hollow feeling, if that makes any sense at all. but i realized after i added it that some of the lyrics do kind of fit: With a bell to tell us when we're hungry/There's a bell to tell us when we're tired/A bell that tells us to rise and fight/A bell to rise and die/It's just all bells/Sometimes I ring myself/To see if I might chime
drowning- jay brannan: a lauren playlist song, because like. fuck. that is all i have to say on this song: fuck
trapdoor- twenty one pilots: adam is a top fan because of course he is. i listened to this one a lot in high school so i’m passing it on to adam, and it also felt like a good follow-up to drowning
marching bands of manhattan- death cab for cutie: god this song is perfect. also, another song i listened to a lot in high school.
And it is true what you said That I live like a hermit in my own head But when the sun shines again I'll pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in
Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound But while you debate half empty and half full It slowly rises, your love is gonna drown
nine: sleeping at last: god, this song. it fits way too well and it hurts. it’s genuinely difficult to choose lyrics from this song, and i recommend looking at the full lyrics because holy shit, but like
Who am I to say what any of this means? I have been sleepwalking since I was fourteen Now as I write my song, I retrace my steps Honestly, it's easier to let myself forget
Still, I check my vital signs Choked up, I realize I've been less than half myself For more than half my life
Wake up; fall in love again Wage war on gravity There's so much worth fighting for, you'll see Another domino falls either way
better days- radical face: 90% of my playlists have radical face songs. adam especially needed one, though, because his playlist notes mentioned he’d probably actively seek out queer artists, and also there was a youtube q&a where ben cooper said he never writes songs while he’s happy, and honestly the whole discography has adam vibes imo. anyway: When you're always drifting out to sea/Because the ground won't stay beneath your feet/And your head is pouring gasoline/On the person you prefer to be/Try to remind yourself/That it's probably gonna take some time/But there are better days to find
the little things give you away- linkin park: it just has that drowning vibe. i mean, it makes sense, they reference drowning, like, a lot in the song, but i feel like the tone of it adds a lot to that too. like, i can feel that guitar, you know? or maybe that’s just me. idk, it just works, i think.
in a week- hozier: you ever just listen to this in a dark room lying on your back with your eyes closed and yeah? because like, i do sometimes, and i kinda feel like adam does too. i needed a hozier song on this playlist and this felt like the most fitting one to add, and a nice subdued end to the playlist.
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ca1e70-deactivated · 5 years
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a list of my entirely way too niche headcanons ive actually implemented for everyones imagination:
name options ive used and refuse to retire: david elizabeth strider (sometimes i dont feel like being a douche to others and saying thats not his name), harley davidson strider, and david james strider for the sake of simplicity
im not gonna tell yall the like. oc exes ive given him bc thatll take eighteen years. 
i dont rlly have an explanation on the ghost thing besides the fact he just can? ive occasionally pulled from family ghost stories and experiences bc i somehow got landed with family members who lived in a haunted house for a decade and enjoy scaring me with all the stories (including the time my cousin literally died on the kitchen floor from a bronchial spasm and one of the friends that was over asked my aunt later what was up with the old man she saw in the corner of the room that night - my cousin is fine btw shes just a huge bitch and a third grade teacher and i dont like her)
whether or not hes done drugs is based on absolutely nothing besides how im feeling in that moment. either hes the designated driver and sober friend forever or he got fired from his job after doing a line at work during graveyard with some random customers theres no inbetween (this absolutely happened @ waho. if dave works at waho hes a mess of a person and thats on the diner itself.)
ok look i hc dave w/schizophrenia besides when i was 14 i had a hyperfixation with learning about it and then at 16 was prescribed a medication and had side effects so wack my therapist genuinely thought 14 yr old me was onto something and its a weird way to cope with the idea that lady put in my head that i might “develop it in my twenties” which i turn 20 this year and i havent been able to stop obsessing and panicking over the prospect so PLEASE dont come in my inbox calling me ableist im not out here all harley quinn in suicide squad with the voices ok hes medicated, he goes to therapy, the hard fast delusion that lil cal was nearly sentient and informed bro of every single thing dave did no matter how asinine it was is no longer a debilitatingly affecting him ANYWAYS
i actually use the chicken/egg farming family pretty often just because its hilarious to me to give dave like. an actual mom and dad. hes literally an uncle to like three different kids he just never visits because they make fun of his skinny jeans and he hates one of his (incredibly bare-bones ocs all of them) brothers who threatened to bash his head in with a little league bat after dave broke his star wars lego set apart on accident (but not rlly) so their parents were like “why dont you stay with your brother in the big city for a lil while champ” and then they just never picked him back up? and thats on favoritism 
the other one is that his name is actually david reed and hes the middle child of a family of three who literally live the standard golden retriever white middle class life only they went to disney land or something equally as dumb one year when dave was like 6 and he wandered off so bro literally just went “huh free game” because frankly he was an idiot who thought maybe i should take this kid home because its real dangerous in parking lots and then it was too late to NOT have it seem like a kidnapping and thats why daves never had a summer job, seen his birth certificate, or gone to school. but vaguely remembers what kindergarten was like and having a pet dog and calling someone mom as a kid. 
im not making a bullet point about his sex life headcanons just use your imagination and acknowledge the fact bro essentially worked within the sex industry and i enjoy putting dave through trauma as a catharsis 
i stopped doing this one usually but if he did go to school hes been in percussion since fifth grade and played the drums in his high schools jazz band as well as various edgy teenager garage bands he likes to pretend dont have a youtube presence and that hes absolutely never been shirtless in front of plenty of his classmates because he wore a hoodie to a show like an idiot. idk occasionally ill put him in an actual band he doesnt hate but keeps separate from his lil turntechGodhead internet persona (which i will ALSO touch upon in a sec) until they wind up getting looped into a tour with some bigger named band that has a show in *insert beta kid here*’s city and hes gotta come clean solely so he can visit his online friend. sorry derseasterous thats the one time weve ever run into each other and i made him have a crush on one of his bandmates i was in my anti-daverose phase where i made dave a hoe and also didnt want to admit i still loved the ship all these years later 
i hate it so much but you know the whole vr loli trap voice shit that was popular a while ago? hes fucking baller at it for some reason. he did it as a joke while talking to bro and they both about shat their pants. if im feeling real ambitious, hes got a separate soundcloud solely dedicated to doing dumbass rap covers or making his own but in the voice under the pseudonym elizabeth “beth” davids that he will never admit is his. well, he will, but hes gonna be really fucking embarrassed about it. irony or not.
talking abt seperate soundclouds and stuff ive always had it where turntechGodhead was his like. essentially internet fucking persona facade shit he used because we all had that phase where we wanted memorable urls and stuff but also didnt want to totally ignore the nagging fear of people finding you in real life, until it turned into real life ppl finding you on the internet. so he also has basically an adjacent set of social media under the same name but its just a boring username i havent decided on so everyone he knows irl doesnt mix up with what hes made for himself as TG and the people he knows as TG dont know what highschool he goes to. (this occasionally comes with the territory of ppl on parp being pissed that daves “lying” or “hiding things” from his friends as if he was doing it out of spite instead of just keeping embarrassing tagged photos and videos from football games or when he ate shit at the skatepark from fucking with his “rap career”)
every once in a while i get on a kick where hes just german. like, i just replace houston texas with hamburg germany and have him apply to a university in whatever state is applicable for whoever im chatting with and it goes from there? sometimes he moved when he was little and went through the whole visa thing, sometimes he didnt go through the visa thing, sometimes hes a dual citizen because of family and shit, its all dependent on what suits the situation best. 
one that ive been fucking with for a while but hardly break out (until recently with like 5 roses in the span of one day hell yeah) is that he has a neighbor at the end of the hall who is like a thousand year old witch lady that hes basically adopted as his mother figure in lieu of not having one and shes totally cool with it, especially bc when she kicks the bucket she fully plans on giving dave all her occult stuff so her figure-skating coach and realtor daughter doesnt sell it at a garage sale and lets it all go to waste. she also once brought rose up by name in a conversation without any prompting of her existence which dave didnt realize for days, and then one time cryptically stopped and stared at an empty space in the wall, went “she has potential, you know.” then looked at him sitting on her kitchen counter with a smile “lots of it” and hes thought about that weekly ever since. (it is important to note one of the occult items he leaves her is literally her own personal book of shadows shes been filling out for decades its like a 600 page leatherbound book dave has no idea what its used for but the sheer amount of homemade spells and etc in it is like. gonna murder rose the second this chick gets her hands on it i promise you.)
theres the standard strife shit? im not rlly gonna get into those theyre all basically cookie cutter bullshit. its just standard bro and dave abuse talk. i like to inclulde the whole 24hr live cam up in the apartment that definitely watches dave in every room besides his own and the bathroom, but that quickly delves into the prospect of middle-aged men stalking him online and basically sexually harassing him in his own god damn home by talking about how they can see him just trying to take his shoes off in the living room after getting home and frankly? its not one of my best takes! but once you throw it into the headcanon bin, its there forever. 
he actually really does do something with his photography but not enough to warrant anything exciting, but he has his own branding for it and regularly takes pictures of his friends or anything else he thinks is moderately interesting enough to take pictures of, but those are just thrown into shoeboxes under his bed in favor of posting genuine shots because he wants to keep his image intact and blurry photos of jade smiling in the tree they climbed up together while bec paws at the base of it while whining isnt exactly something he wants the whole world to see.
i also pretty often but him into either paleontology OR i put him down as trying to become a mortician because he thinks handing roadkill once he graduated from museum giftshop specimens to doing his own taxidermy on the side has prepared him enough to perform an occasional autopsy and start embalming real human corpses. (sometimes i put my own desires in and make them his bc i have to project at some point and put him through the same EMT course i dropped out of bc it was one semester and he already has pretty decent first aid skills, but he definitely didnt expect it to be as fucking wild at times as it is, but whats he gonna do? get a job back at waffle house? the company hes working for just offered to pay like half his associates in paramedicine tuition and hes already got all his pre-recs done when he started for paleo. at least its a stable job and hes got the ability to be compassionate in the moment) 
im running out of things that ive done to the poor kid. OH 
hes not a virgin he had a girlfriend all four years of high school (shes also one of his optional and designated exes plz keep up) and their relationship ends in one of two ways: she dies in a car accident a week before their high school graduation, or she stops talking to him entirely a week after their high school graduation until a couple years later she gets into (guess what) a car accident with her current wife/girlfriend and dies which leaves behind their daughter. who just so happens to also be daves daughter. her name is hannah and i love her like my own but no one ever likes her and thats on the conditioning of dirk. does dave end up taking her in? yes. shes awesome and the first time he takes her to the park to like run off some fucking steam she disappears for two minutes and dave is moderately terrified until she comes back holding a dead baby squirrel and thats the moment he realizes huh maybe things really do be genetic.
ok at the bottom of the list im gonna add the couple of times hes been a camboy which usually coincides with the live apartment cam thing and the amount of people in his dms calling him hot or whatever, but typically its more of a started the day he turned 18 and basically dipped around 20 in favor of showing up randomly with no warning to complain about a video game dick in hand because it gives him an outlet that wont annoy his friends bc this is the fifteenth time hes had a lot to say this week about a certain boss battle and also the comments fuel his ego and daddy issues.
the last one wasnt the bottom but literally unless its explicitly proven otherwise every time anyone rps with me there is the underlying fact dave strider was a goalie on his high school lacrosse teams all four years and (shocker another one) definitely had the hots for one of his teammates like major hots like first gay experience hots. like it was painfully obvious that teammate also liked him back hots. like one night at a team sleepover one of the other guys was like can yall just makeout and get it over with were fucking tired and dave really had the balls to be offended and ask what the fuck they were talking about while literally sitting halfway in the mans lap bc for some reason they had to share the same chair. 
he is also guilty until proven innocent of being the worlds biggest loner outside of that sports team and even though hes literally a jock he still opts to eat his lunch alone in the hallway or something like that and has a tendency to leave girls on read, but bc hes got an in with the rest of the jocks hes basically drug around to plenty of parties and since hes conventionally attractive enough and popular in the aloof way that he is, hes got plenty of tagged insta posts and twitter directs and snapchat streaks going. 
THESE WERE ALL NO GAME AND DONT INVOLVE SHIPS BC I LIKE TO KEEP MY OPTIONS OPEN AND THEYRE LITERALLY ALL BASED OFF RPS IVE DONE I HOPE YALL JUDGE ME ACCORDINGLY
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drawacharge · 6 years
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emperor’s new clothes
ok so hi. this has been sitting in my drafts for a .... while. and i’m gonna’ post it bc it’s long lmao. i also had an idea for a valentine’s day esque nsfw sequel to this but idk?? btw, just a warning-- this is in steve’s pov and billy’s pov is my comfort zone so if it sucks Sorry 
There’s something about almost dying too many times that makes the rest of the world around you seem minuscule. It makes school even more boring than before, it makes sleeping a distant memory, and pure, genuine laughter harder to come by. There are too many days Steve spends in class, the teacher droning on and on about Darwin and Natural Extinction Theory and all he wants to do is stand up and go, “Do you have any idea what’s out there? We’re in here, studying bullshit, and out there, right now, are things that wanna’ kill us, that know how, that will—“ but he doesn’t, because he signed too many legal wavers to count, because if he does they’d just throw him into a mental facility. So he sits and stays quiet instead, swallowing back all his anxiety and fear of the unknown and known, sleep-deprived eyes staring out the nearest window as if he expects something nasty with claws to walk on by.
Nothing ever does. Jane closed the gate.
Somehow, that’s worse.
Everyone else seems happy with the peace. The kids smile and laugh and ask Steve to take them to the arcade constantly. Nancy has never seemed happier, walking hand in hand with Jonathan. Jane has more freedom that she’s ever had, visiting her friends, learning about the world. Joyce and Hopper get closer every day, enjoying each other’s company, maybe even finding solace in it. Maybe that’s part of it. Maybe the kids use each other to deal with their shit. Maybe Nancy and Jonathan use each other too. They’ve all been through hell, the only difference was after it was all said and done Steve was the only one left completely alone.
He feels dead. He thinks, maybe, he’s felt wrong since the first time he took that bat to the Demogorgon, but this is different. Worse. He doesn’t feel like anything. He doesn’t feel angry, or sad, or even really scared, not anymore. There’s nothing there. And maybe that’s the only thing nowadays that actually scares him: the fact that nothing does.
It’s mid-January when he finally decides to do something about it. When the emptiness gets so bad he almost skips an entire week of school. When Mrs. Leery, his English teacher, calls him over after class and says, “Steve, your grade has been going steadily downhill. Is anything the matter?” with an expression so soft and concerned, that all Steve can manage is a tight smile and a, “Just tired,” before giving some half-assed promise that he’d try harder.
He does try too. He’s been trying since the beginning of fucking November. But he falls asleep when he should be reading Of Mice and Men, and it’s not even that boring of a book.  He knows something has to change, that something in him is broken and he needs to fix it before he’s nothing but some vague shadow of what he used to be.
Steve realizes just how he’s going to do that when he’s getting the mail one day. Billy Hargrove speeds by in his Camaro, probably going twenty over the speed limit, Tommy, Carol, and two other girls hanging out of the Camaro whooping, hollering, and laughing as the wind whips through them. Steve thinks he’s never seen a group of people seem so alive. He remembers when that used to be him driving, him hanging out the window, him laughing. It was a shallow happiness, perhaps, but it was happiness.
And he decides he wants that back
He knows where to start, and it’s not hard. Steve’s known Tommy since before puberty, and he knows that even if Tommy feels sorry for something he’ll never apologize first. Every fight they’ve ever had has led to Steve outside his door, an apology on his lips. Only then does Tommy apologize too and only then do they move the fuck on. Steve hopes that, even after a year of not speaking, that fact hasn’t changed.
He brings beer with him, just in case.
Tommy opens the door on the third knock and scowls when he sees Steve. Then he sees the beer and the scowl shifts, eyebrows raising in interest. “Want something?”
“To apologize,” he holds out the beer immediately, offers a halfhearted smile. “I shouldn’t have jumped down your throat that day. You were—“ in his own way “—you were trying to have my back.” And he really was, Steve knew that. Maybe not in the best way, maybe not in the nicest way, but he was.
There’s a long pause where Tommy just eyes him, like he’s considering, and then he reaches out for the beer and steps aside, wordlessly inviting Steve in. “Yeah, well… I coulda’ handled it better,” he’s grumbling, words half muttered. If Steve wasn’t an expert in Tommy Language he’d have to ask him to repeat himself. “I woulda’ been pissed if you’d said all that shit about Carol too, just—“ he takes a breath, starts walking towards the steps to the basement where they’d always hang out. “—I knew she wasn’t fucking good enough for you man. I knew she’d hurt you.”
And. 
That’s fair too, honestly. Tommy had known what kind of person Steve could be. How sensitive. How trusting. People assume their friendship had been shallow, but it really hadn’t been. Not always. Steve still remembered the way Tommy cried on his shoulder when they were kids and his dog was hit by a car. There was meaning there. Trust. 
They’re down stairs and Steve is cracking open two cans, holding one out when he goes, “Guess I should’ve listened to you,” before downing about half of it in one go. Tommy follows suit and wipes his mouth before glancing over his shoulder and then back at Steve, a grin pulling at his lips.
“How about I kick your ass at air hockey again? That always cheers you up.”
“Pretty sure that cheers you up,” Steve says, and Tommy laughs. “But sure, why not.”
Steve loses, five to two, but he feels like he’s won anyway.
Billy Hargrove quickly becomes his main problem. Of course, Steve knew he would be before he even found himself on Tommy’s doorstep. Billy did not like him, and the feeling was mutual. They had barely talked since the incident at the Byers’ and Steve was happy with that. He could handle the sneers and even the shoving during basketball. Billy had laid off the kids for the most part and that’s all that mattered to him.
Luckily, Tommy has more sway with Billy than Steve originally thought. He assumed their friendship was more symbiotic than anything. Billy claimed the crown that had been abandoned, and Tommy found it easier to follow than not. It was a familiar position for him, after all. But it seemed like a little more than that. When Tommy invites him over to eat with them that Monday, Steve’s actually surprised that Billy allows it. That he frowns, but otherwise ignores Steve, keeping his attention on the rest of the team. He doesn’t look at Steve again for the rest of lunch.
It’s not good enough.
For it to really be right, or this to work, Billy has to like him. Steve isn’t sure how to accomplish that, hell, he isn’t even sure if he wants to, but it’s necessary. 
He starts with buying them all alcohol. He pays for the booze, the weed, offers up his giant, empty house and heated pool. It’s how he woo’d Carol, even Tommy when they were kids ( minus the alcohol and weed ), and most of anyone else at school. He thinks it’ll work on Billy too.
It doesn’t.
Billy drinks his booze, and he smokes his weed, and he swims in his pool. But when it’s all said and done he still sneers at Steve, still ignores him at lunch, still checks him too hard at practice and mocks him in the middle of random conversations.
“He’s a fucking asshole,” Steve grumbles one night, laid out on the couch in Tommy’s basement. His head is in Carol’s lap and she’s playing with his hair. It’s nice. Not something he’s had since Nancy. He missed it.
Also, they’re all really fucking high. He missed that too. Getting high with his friends. 
“I’ve tried to be friendly, even after the bullshit he pulled--” 
Everyone knows that they fought. Or at least, they figured they did since Steve showed up to school that Monday looking like he got hit by a truck, and Billy showed up with a black eye and busted knuckles. It didn’t take long for the student body to put two and two together and guess who won. 
“I don’t think he’s impressed by money,” Tommy says from the floor. He’s leaning back against the couch, head on the cushion, and a joint between his lips. “I mean, he’s poor as shit,” he continues bluntly, “like Byers level poor.” Steve shoots him a look and Tommy holds a hand up in mild surrender. He doesn’t see why Steve is protective of them, especially after Jonathan and Nancy, but he’s gotten better about how he talks about them anyway. 
“Wouldn’t that make him like... want to be around it?” Carol questions. It’s a natural conclusion for three well-off teens to come to, but Steve’s learned enough over his last year of bettering himself to know that’s not always true. He thinks maybe Tommy has a point. 
“You should like. Be real with him.” He leans his head further back until the back of it is leaning against Steve’s knee. “I don’t think he likes bullshit.”
Steve thinks about that night at the Byers’ and how Billy seemed furious that Steve lied about Max being there. He thinks about Nancy going you’re bullshit and wonders if maybe she wasn’t that far off. After all, he spent an entire year pretending everything was okay, and before that he pretended like having absentee parents didn’t bother him. Hell, he still did that sometimes.
“No bullshit,” Steve sighs, and reaches for the joint when Tommy offers it out. “I can do that.” 
Tommy throws a party that next weekend. It’s his and Carol’s anniversary so they celebrate it in the way they know best: by making everyone else celebrate for them. They get booze and pot and set the house up so that all of Tommy’s mom’s breakables are hidden away. Billy arrives thirty minutes before the party dressed to the nines and with a keg. Steve wonders how he can stand wearing an open shirt in fucking January but doesn’t bother asking.
Six hours later the party is headed into the A.M. and Steve’s completely fucking wasted when he beats Billy as beer pong and grins like he won Olympic gold. Billy looks just about ready to kill him, and Steve can tell he’s significantly less drunk than him and wonders why since Billy always seems to get shit-faced at these kinds of things. 
Billy leaves to grab a smoke outside, and Steve-- in all his drunken genius-- decides this is the best time to approach him.
It’s not.
There’s something dangerous in Billy’s eyes when he sizes him up, something that reminds Steve of that night, something wild. He asks what the fuck Billy’s problem with him is anyway, and Billy grins in the kind of way that reminds Steve of a shark. He gets real close, encroaching on Steve’s personal space, and he can’t help but think about Darwin and the Natural Extinction Theory. How man is just stupid enough to kill itself. How, right now, Steve is the perfect fucking example of that.
“My problem with you,” Billy breathes, right in his face, smelling like beer and cigarettes, “is that you’re a little spoiled rich boy who’s used to getting everything he wants.” Steve opens his mouth to argue, to say that if he really got everything he wanted he’d still have Nancy and not nightmares. That he’d have parents who loved him and a father who didn’t think he was a failure. But, Billy continues. “And now, what? You’ve decided you wanna’ be king again, yeah? That it? Make Hill think you give a shit about him--”
“I do.”
“Bullshit,” Billy snarls, flecks of spit hitting Steve in the face, almost making him flinch. “Your girl dumped you for a freak and now you’re desperate for friends and fans again. So, here you are, making nice, buying them whatever they want just so they’ll like you--” 
“Fuck you,” he hisses back, “I’m not. I missed Tommy and Carol--” and he had, in the same weird way they had probably missed him. “--you’re just their baggage I have to deal with.” It’s fucked up. He knows it’s fucked up as soon as he says it, nasty and not what Steve meant to do when he came out here. And it gets him punched in the face.
No surprise there.
He probably deserves it.
Steve reels back, his jaw fucking aching, and Billy prowls in close, grinning wide like a great white, like he had that night. He must not expect Steve to hit back, because the punch actually lands and Billy looks fucking surprised when he rights himself. 
“Is that you’re fucking problem?” Steve demands, filling the space Billy had stumbled back out of. “You think I wanna’ be king again? That I’m gonna’ push you out--”
Billy laughs, “You couldn’t even if you wanted to.” But Steve thinks he’s wrong, and he thinks Billy knows he’s wrong. They were both charismatic, both handsome, but Steve was nicer. He was friendlier, more easy going, and at the end of the day that’s someone everyone would rather follow than someone like Billy. Some angry, aggressive, and volatile. Someone they fear. They both know it, and it’s clear on Billy’s face even when he says the opposite. 
“Newsflash, I don’t care about being king.” And he doesn’t, he actually really doesn’t. He just-- “I just don’t wanna’ be alone, anymore.” And it’s probably the pussiest thing he could have said. I don’t wanna’ be alone, like some kind of fucking girl. He expects Billy to laugh at him, to make fun of him, maybe punch him again, maybe shove him back and go inside to tell everyone what a little bitch Steve Harrington is. 
He does laugh. But it’s after a moment of surprise, and the sound is more dry than it is mean. “You’re a fucking piece of work, Harrington.” Billy sighs, and looks up at the night sky like there’s something up there beside stars before looking back down. “And I’m watching you.”
And with that, the most ominous thing Steve’s ever fucking heard, Billy saunters back inside. 
Only after the door has shut behind him and Steve tastes copper does he realize his nose is bleeding.
That Monday they’re all sitting at the lunch table when Billy asks Tommy if he’s seen the new Rambo yet. He hasn’t, and while Carol wrinkles her nose at all the violence, she admits that Sylvester Stallone is pretty hot, so she’ll tag along if they go to see it. Steve doesn’t comment, figuring if Billy’s inviting people then he’s not going. He’s thinking about taking the kids when Billy looks at him and goes, “You gonna’ come?” And Steve’s so fucking surprised it takes him a second to find himself and go, “Yeah, sure.”
That Thursday Billy eats his lunch like a man starving. Without thinking, Steve offers up his meatloaf and Billy stares at him like he’s crazy but takes it anyway. In response, Billy offers up his applesauce and he accepts it, feeling not like he’s won, but that he might be close. 
“I think he doesn’t eat at home sometimes,” Tommy says while Steve’s BMW is idling in the McDonald’s drive-thru. They’d been talking about Billy’s massive appetite, and how it even puts theirs to shame. “He eats my entire pantry every time he comes over.”
Steve frowns and thinks about it before he’s leaning back out the window and ordering two more burgers, fries, and nuggets. Tommy doesn’t comment on it, but he shoots Steve a look when they get back and Billy goes, “What’s with the extra food?” and Steve shrugs and replies, “Must of got the order wrong.”
A week later he’s driving Dustin home from school and figures something is wrong because the kid isn’t jabbering like normal. He almost looks like he’s pouting, eyes out the window. Finally, Steve can stand it anymore, “What’s up, man?” He never thought he’d be bothered by Dustin being quiet, but he is. 
With his arms crossed over his chest, Dustin purses his lips like he doesn’t want to say, but when Steve prods him he finally blurts, “Are you going to turn back into a douchebag?” And Steve’s, well, Steve’s caught a bit off guard because he definitely hadn’t expected that, figuring maybe it had to do with Max. 
“You used to think I was a douchebag?”
Leveling him with a look that says seriously? Dustin goes, “Uh, I didn’t think you were one, you were . Before Nancy you were all look at me I’m so cool, and you hung out with Tommy Hill, and now you are again and with Billy Hargrove of all people, and--” 
“Whoa man,” Steve breathes with a little laugh, “Cool your jets, okay? I’m not--”
“He kicked your ass!”
“I know.”
“And threatened Lucas!”
“I know!”
“Then what are you doing?” Dustin demands, fixing him with an incredulous look. “Did he knock something loose when he punched you? ‘Cause, like, he’s not a cool dude, and you-- if you hang out with him you might--” 
“Dustin,” he sighs, pulling up to the others’ house. Steve puts the BMW in park but doesn’t unlock the doors just yet. “I’m not... look, you’re right. I was probably a total douchebag.” Especially to a kid. “But I’m not going to just... change back, okay? I just... need people that aren’t kids or my ex to hang out with.”
“But we’re cool kids.”
He laughs a little, and it’s more fond than mean. “You are,” and okay, Dustin and the rest of the party are total dorks, but they’re cool dorks, and while Steve would never tell anyone that except Dustin, it’s still true. “But it’s not the same.”
And he thinks Dustin must agree on some level, because instead of immediately arguing he just pouts, taking a breath and blowing out his cheeks while he thinks. Then he finally he goes, “Fine,” before adding, “But if you start turning into a douchebag again I’m like totally gonna’ hit you or six El on you. Or something.”
Again, Steve laughs, “Man, if I start acting like that again I encourage you to hit me and/or six El on me, okay?” Dustin nods, seemingly okay with that deal, but just in case--
“Hey-- how about I take you and the other brats to the mall on Saturday?”
Dustin immediately brightens at that, “The one outta’ town?”
“Yup. You guys just have to ask your parents if it’s okay.”
“Totally! I’ll let the guys know! Hopefully Hopper will let El go too. Thanks Steve,” and then he’s hopping out the car and heading for his house with a quick wave as a good-bye. Steve waits until he’s safely in before driving on home.
The very next day Dustin tells him that Max’s mom said she can’t go unless Billy comes to look after her. “It’s stupid,” he huffs, “She’s safer with you than she’d ever be with Billy,” and even though Steve doesn’t disagree with that point he’s heard enough about Max’s parents to know there’s no arguing with them.
“Okay. Billy will come then.” And Dustin looks so fucking betrayed that he can’t help but laugh. “What? You want Max to come, don’t you?” 
A pause then, “Fine. But you gotta’ like. Keep his ass in line, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, shithead, I got it.”
Convincing Billy to go with him and six kids out of town won’t be easy, though.
He figures the next party coming up will be the best time. It’s right before Saturday, and Steve hadn’t planned on going for the sake of his pride, but a drunk Billy is a Billy more likely to accept Steve’s proposal. He was always nicer drunk. Okay, no he wasn’t, but... he may be more agreeable. If he’s drunk enough.
And friendly enough.
“A Valentine’s Day party?” Billy asks, nose wrinkling at the flier Steve had just stuck in his hands. 
“Singles party,” Steve corrects, and Billy somehow looks more disgusted.
“Those are a thing?”
“Well,” Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Steve shrugs. “Last one Lisa threw was like? When we were fifteen? Then she got into a relationship with Jimmy P, but they broke up in December, so--”
“So she’s throwing a singles party.Yeah, no thanks.” Billy pushes the flier towards Steve’s chest. “Sounds pathetic. I’d rather get wasted at the quarry.”
“That’s pathetic too.” He points out, “And at Lisa’s the booze and food will be free. Plus it’s mostly an excuse to get wasted, make out with people, then never talk about it come Monday morning.” That wasn’t a lie. Steve had probably kissed a countless number of girls the last time the party was thrown. Hell, he was pretty sure he kissed Tommy too, but that was three years ago and Steve decided he was too drunk to remember it. 
Billy barks a laugh and Steve thinks maybe he’s convinced him, “God, that’s fucking ridiculous. Why do you want me to go so bad?”
“Because, I want to go.” Okay, he actually doesn’t. It is pathetic. “But Tommy and Carol can’t go, and you’re single so--” he shrugs again, reaches out to nudge the paper against Billy’s hands. His knuckles are cut up again. It’s the second time that month and Steve wonders who’s the unlucky soul that's been on the other end.  “Okay. What do I get if I do?” 
“Pot?”
“I got pot, and Cali pot is better than Indiana pot.” Fair. 
In all honesty, Steve had no idea what to give him. He can’t think of anything so he settles for, “I’ll owe you one,” and a smile that promises just about anything Billy could want. It’s a good deal, so good that Steve’s almost nervous about making it. What kind of favor would Hargrove ask of him one day?
Billy, of course, brightens at the suggestion. “You’ll owe me one,” he repeats. “Alright, pretty boy, you got yourself a deal.”
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professional-anti · 6 years
Text
Chapter Nine: The Circle and the Brotherhood
Okay, we start out a little stressful bc Jace says they’re gonna take the subway back to the Institute and Simon jokes around like “you guys take the subway but you’re demon hunters haha” and this happens:
Jace was scary-calm. His face was expressionless, but something burned at the backs of his eyes.
Um, are we not supposed to be worried about this? Jace should be working on this problem!! Why is he so mad at Simon? Oh, that’s right, he thinks that Simon is competition for Clary. And that’s enough for him to get this angry at Simon. I’m sure everyone can tell why this is unhealthy.
Simon proves to be an actual idiot when they get to the Institute. The Institute is housed in an old church, and for some reason Simon can’t comprehend that old buildings can be used for something else.
“It’s the Institute,” Clary said . . . “I thought it ws a church.” “It’s inside a church.” “Because that’s not confusing.”
This is New York City!! The home of remodeling!!! My aunt’s apartment used to be a house! My brother’s camp used to be an apartment! Things can be other things!! Oh my god!!!
They meet Isabelle in the kitchen, where she’s stress cooking. Oh, I remember this! She sucks at cooking but does it when she’s stressed. It’s actually really cute. I stress cook too! Once I made soup from scratch at 3 AM. (My psychiatrist said, verbatin, “That’s worrisome.”)
But then of course we get the typical annoying thing, where Simon stares at Isabelle “rapt and openmouthed”. I think I speak for most people when I say that someone staring at you with their mouth open is creepy. And weird. When was the last time you looked at someone like that? Hopefully never! Blergh, it’s like the way creepy men stare at you on the street. And then Clary gets jealous of Isabelle. So, that’s fun. Love that girl-on-girl hate. I’ve never felt the urge in my life to hurt a girl bc she was prettier than I am. I can’t imagine feeling that way. Sometimes I’ll say jokingly “she’s so pretty, I’m mad”, but I’ve been trying to cut back on that bc I don’t mean it, it’s something that’s been programmed into me to say. But Clary literally wants to throw the soup over Isabelle’s head. Okay.
There’s a tiny bit of worldbuilding that’s also kind of cute, which is that Isabelle “got the recipe from a water sprite at the Chelsea Market.” Well, most people would just say “Chelsea Market” without that article in front of it, but I still like it. Idk, maybe I’m just a sucker for magical New York. Vampires on the Upper East Side? Give me. Werewolves taking advantage of Central Park? Hell yes! Magicians in Greenwich Village? Duh, sign me up. So, little mentions like this make me happy. The worldbuilding is still shit, but this is some nice stuff.
Jace snarks at Clary for eating all the sandwiches at Dorothea’s, and it’s maddening. Those sandwhiches were the first thing she ate for a whole day! Let women eat their fill without judging them!! Arggghhhh!!!!
For some reason, Jace isn’t sure if they should tell Hodge that the men with Luke were the ones that killed his father. I guess bc he thinks that Hodge won’t let them go out and investigate? Idk. Like, we all know that Hodge is Evil Giles, but Jace doesn’t know that. He tells Isabelle that they’re going to Hodge, but they might not tell him about the men being his father’s killers, and this exchange happens:
[Isabelle] shrugged. “All right. Are you going to come back? Do you want any soup?” “No,” said Jace. “Do you think Hodge will want any soup?” “No one wants any soup.” “I want some soup,” Simon said. “No, you don’t,” said Jace. “You just want to sleep with Isabelle.” Simon was appalled. “That is not true.” “How flattering,” Isabelle murmured into the soup, but she was smirking. “Oh, yes it is,” said Jace. “Go ahead and ask her—then she can turn you down and the rest of us can get on with our lives while you fester in miserable humiliation.” He snapped his fingers. “Hurry up, mundie boy, we’ve got work to do.”
So much. So much. I’m short-circuiting. First of all, it’s so incredibly disrespectful to Isabelle for Jace to talk this way. If I were her, I’d be so uncomfortable. And I know that Jace knows her and her comfort limits, but it’s still disrespectful. Secondly, Jace is so mean. And Clary does call him out for it, but who even knows what she sees in him. He’s so fucking mean. And mean characters are fine. They’re great. But I’m just confused why everybody is falling the fuck in love with Jace. It makes zero sense to me. Jace is set up as this paradigm of a romantic partner and it’s like,,, what??? This Jace???
Clary calls Jace an asshat. An asshat. In our year of the Lord (checks copyright date) 2007. Actually, makes sense. Fandom was Like That. Everyone being vaguely British. I wasn’t technically on the fandom scene for anything back then, but in my fanfiction phase, I did some serious digging into the past. And all this fandom dialect makes sense when you remember that CoB is repurposed HP fanfiction.
Jace claims that he was trying to save Simon from heartbreak bc “Isabelle will cut out his heart and walk all over ti in high-heeled boots. That’s what she does to boys like that.”
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Clary APOLOGIZES to Jace for snapping at him. Like, the Jace who was so brutally mean to Simon just now? The Jace who is constantly rude to her? The Jace who talks down to her and is so freaking patronizing? Is she apologizing to that Jace? Mmmmmkay.
Ugh, apparently Maryse, Isabelle’s mom, is usually the cook. So it’s the women who like cooking in this book. Got it. Usually 7 people live here, right? Isabelle, Alec, their brother, their parents, Hodge, and Jace. Two women. Five men. And the only people who cook? The women. Cool, cool, cool. Okay. Got it. Thanks.
Wait, this is weird. Apparently Maryse never taught Isabelle how to cook because, according to Jace:
“Isabelle never wanted to learn. She’s always been first and foremost interested in being a fighter. She comes from a long line of women warriors,” he said, and there was a tinge of pride in his voice. “She’s one of the best Shadowhunters I’ve ever known.”
So, huh. A lot to unpack. Isabelle likes to cook, right? So why wouldn’t she want to learn? And why are cooking and fighting mutually exclusive? There’s so much weird stuff going on here. Clare writes the women as the only ones who cook. I don’t like that because she’s basically saying, “Cooking is something that women do, not men.” And now, because it’s a traditionally feminine thing (which it doesn’t have to be anymore now that most men aren’t out hunting all day), Isabelle doesn’t want to do it. And the narrative accepts that as normal, that women should want to divorce themselves from traditionally feminine things, which in my opinion is still sexism. Except that Isabelle likes to cook. So why wouldn’t she let her mom teach her? Does any of this make sense, you guys?
I AM CONFUSION
For some reason, Clary desperately wants to know if Alec is a better Shadowhunter than Isabelle. Not sure why. Jace replies that Alec has never killed a demon. Interesting. Not sure how that’s possible, but okay. They meet Hodge in the greenhouse, and the prose is truly awful:
Clary exhaled. “It smells like . . .” Springtime, she thought, before the heat comes and crushes the leaves into pulp and withers the petals off the flowers.
Slow down there, Emily Dickinson. Anyhow, Jace tells Hodge about their adventures, except for the fact that the warlocks were the ones who killed his dad. Still not sure why, still don’t really care.
“And [the warlock’s] names were . . .” “Pangborn,” said Jace. “And Blackwell.” Hodge had gone very pale. Against his gray skin the scar along his cheek stood out like a twist of red wire. “It is as I feared,” he said, half to himself. “The Circle is rising again.”
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There are so many other quotes like that from HP, but I’m not about to reread all 7 books to find them.
Neither Jace nor Clary knows what the circle is, and Hodge ominously leads them to the library. There’s some annoying, edgy description about the libary. Then Hodge pulls out the Death Eaters’, I mean the Circle’s, manifesto. He reads some creepy stuff from it about swearing his life to the Circle “in order to preserve the purity of the bloodlines of [Elba]”. So, you know, creepy. He explains that he used to be part of a group of Shadowhunters that followed Valentine. They wanted to kill all muggles, ahem, Downworlders when the Downworlders arrived in Elba to sign the Accords. For some worldbuilding reason, they have to be signed every fifteen years.
I’m going to cry. I just can’t. A group of magical supremacists who follow a leader whose name starts with the letter V. Please, someone set me free from this hell. Jace recognizes this story; apparently, this was the Uprising. Somehow the Clave managed to wipe out every mention of the Circle, though. Not sure how. Sounds a little bit like a scary place to live, if the government can just wipe out information like that. A healthy government would say, “This was something terrible that our country did. Nobody forget. We must do better.” But apparently Elba is some sort of fascist hothouse. Also, I’m confused what the point of erasing the Circle was if everyone still remembers the Uprising. Whatever.
Hodge finally admits that he used to be part of the Death Eaters, and even helped write the manifesto. Double bombshell, Clary’s mom used to be in it to.
“My mother would never have belonged to something like that. Some kind of—some kind of hate group.” “It wasn’t—,” Jace began, but Hodge cut him off.”
Okay, tell me what it wasn’t, Jace? It wasn’t a hate group? They wanted to kill all the Downworlders bc they were just so full of love? No, tell me. I’m interested.
Anyway, Hodge triple-bombshells Clary by telling her that Jocie wouldn’t have much choice in the matter bc she was Valentine’s wife. Let’s just ignore the fact that Jocie still is on the hook for being part of a suprmacist organization and end part one. That’s right, guys! Part one is finished, finito, finis. See you on the flip side.
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boyjadzia · 7 years
Text
I’m gonna put this under a readmore bc it deals with like, unwanted advances/intimate contact, not sexual assault but just like men being gross, generally, also it’s really long
so this weekend I went to this party, I was invited by a dude I met on tinder. I didn’t know anyone there, I didn’t even really know him, we’d never met before. maybe I was a dumbass for just going with it, even though it was obvious he was interested in me and I wasn’t sure I was interested in him? but I thought, I’m an extrovert, I like meeting people, and I feel like I can’t really decide how I feel about tinder people just from a few texts back and forth, so I was sort of hoping I would be interested in him once I met him. idk.
Anyway, he was clearly flirting with me when we were texting and once I got there he was basically on me the entire time. like, hovering over me, had blatantly no interest in introducing me to other people at the party (also he was at least a foot taller than me). I guess I tried to push away my discomfort bc I’m used to feeling like I’m “colder” than i “should” be bc of my antidepressants and complicated relationship history that makes me not want to jump into things. and I don’t get many opportunities to feel like people are into me, being trans, and my friends thought he was good looking so. I just went with it. Even though he really didn’t present me with much evidence that he was actually an interesting person, and I probably should’ve picked up more on the fact that he couldn’t sense my discomfort.
well long story short I tried to keep him at bay, I left the party to go walk a dog and came back, (and I kind of didn’t want to go back but I did anyway bc he asked me to and I was like well alright I should try to put myself out there, be cool, have fun. why was I trying to convince myself this thing that obviously wasn’t fun was fun? why didn’t I trust myself. idk.) but I went back, and drank a bunch more, and eventually he started putting his hands all over me, I mean not sexually just like rubbing my arms and my back and sides. i felt conflicted about it bc on the one hand, like I said, I’m normally pretty isolated from romance and physical intimacy by being trans, and he wasn’t exactly coming on to me explicitly, but on the other hand I wasn’t actually comfortable with it. and I was really drunk. so I basically just sat there and did nothing and he kept it up (he was also super drunk, but that’s not relevant). and we were having a conversation (with some other people) about like, gender and sexuality and whatever and I think he sensed that this was like, kind of a heavy subject for me, so he was trying to be comforting? idk. but he definitely also just wanted to touch me.
Anyway, eventually it was late and I had to leave, and he offered to let me stay, and I declined, and he offered again as I was going out the door, and I declined, and he kissed me a couple times which I don’t remember very well bc I was very drunk but also just extremely tired. I never really rebuffed him. I was just ambivalent, and he just pushed ahead.
I was kind of vaguely uncomfortable with all this from the outset but it took me a day or two to really process it. but what’s getting to me is like, now I’m reading all these articles about sexual assault that people have been sharing and I’m struck by the fact that this very easily falls into that pattern. Like I said he didn’t actually do anything explicitly sexual, but it was on that path. he wasn’t paying attention to me or what I wanted. he didn’t really care, he only thought about me in relation to himself. it’s messed up.
But the thing that’s really really getting to me is like, these articles are always about women, and I’m not a woman. it says I’m trans very explicitly on tinder, I only have it set to men looking for men, this guy never would’ve met me under the guise of my presenting as female. but I know I look like one, and even beyond that, I’m just a generally small and effeminate person. and one of the things he said in the course of our convo about gender and sexuality was that he’s pan but he doesn’t actually like men that much. or, the way he framed it was that he “doesn’t prefer dicks” which, yikes. and all his previous relationships had been with cis women. idk, I don’t think he was a chaser, but even being super drunk and tired I was taken aback and it def made me uncomfortable.
so part of me wonders, was he acting that way bc he saw me as “basically a woman”? or is this just how he acts, with everybody? this is messing me up a lot because, I’m a nonbinary person, not a man, my masculinity really only feels relevant to me in the context of intimate relationships/sexual orientation, and yet I’ve been feeling so much pressure lately to “pick a political category” because I have to either fall on the side of oppressive/male or oppressed/female. and I know that not being a woman means benefiting from misogyny, etc etc, I don’t care about trying to avoid that, it’s just that in situations like this— where this guy’s behavior was still probably related to my not-maleness, even though he knew I wasn’t a woman so like it obviously wasn’t misogyny, idk. I already feel really alienated from maleness for a lot of reasons. but this wasn’t transphobia in the sense of him not seeing me as a “real man” because i’m not. this was its own weird mix of like, nonbinary/gnc-related transphobia and toxic masculinity, or something.
I’m just confused. because I know nb women (pretty much always AFAB tho) who get annoyed at the implication that you can be a nonbinary person and not a woman and still be oppressed by men. like, the idea that you would be part of a “political category” that maleness oppresses and yet not a woman is an oxymoron. but I just feel like idk how else to conceptualize this. how else do you describe this kind of predatory male behavior? the fact that he definitely didn’t see me as a man, and I’m not? this is why the separation of transphobia and misogyny as being like, totally unrelated axes of oppression feels lacking to me. Bc they’re very intertwined, even if they’re obviously two different things.
I’m just tired of feeling confused and like a bad person. like being nonbinary and trans is an empty statement and not something that I live every day that impacts my life. I’m tired of cis-adjacent nonbinary people, who aren’t trans and are aligned with the binary gender they were assigned, dictating the terms of how nonbinary ID relates to gender as a political construct. of feeling like i’m a bad person for thinking of incidents like this as relating to a larger pattern of oppression by cis men because what else is it? transphobia, yes, but a particular type of transphobia that’s bound up in maleness vs. my lack of conformity to maleness. that reinforces a distrust and fear of men, not just cis people. I’m tired of feeling like this means I’m not really trans and should just go back to IDing as a woman or woman-aligned.
basically, I’m tired of having to deal with binary trans people’s lack of empathy for nonbinary trans people, and non-trans nb people’s presumptuousness. I’m tired of my experience not making any sense and feeling like I don’t fit into anything.
I legit don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like I have any of the right answers. the idea of talking about the oppressive behavior of men in terms of “women and nonbinary people” feels dangerously close to the preposterous “women and femmes” thing. and there are obviously issues women have that I don’t. but like, how am I supposed to deal with the emotional fallout of being preyed upon by men if I’m alienated from every gender-based social grouping in the course of these discussions?
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blackwoolncrown · 7 years
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1/2 (Dipper anon) Yes I totally agree it seems like more of Thomas just being too proud of his fanbase to shut down things that could be seen as harmful even if he didn't intend it to be harmful, and while that may not mean he's a pedophile it's still shitty, so yeah I totally agree with you. Like also you're v right about how vague accusations with faulty sources are stuff we have to be wary of and not something someone should about to base an opinion on whether he is or isn't
2/2 (sorry idk if the message went through) but yeah agreed Thomas is not someone I’m a fan either and I agree with u about him not shutting down harmful things in his fandom that he should and while it may not make him a pedophile it is shitty for him to do and like you’ve legit already countered the arguments against you but people keep using the same reworded argument because they don’t want to admit they’re wrong since they can’t counter your argument back lmao
————
Exactly like I’m not saying he’s not a pedo and that he’s not up to some nefarious shit. And if he is, that’s beyond fucked up and something needs to be done before he victimizes anyone.However sadly it’s actually possible he’s a fucking idiot going along with his fanbase’s whims which is actually something I think is the Dark Side to social media marketing fame- you, in deciding to adhering to your fanbase (”give the people what they want!” it’s torn down HOW many youtubers now?) become molded to and too dismissive of what they/their fanbase is doing bc they start to live in a bubble of acceptance from their fans who are at the same time rewarding them for certain stances/behaviors and afraid to go against it ever because you fear a drop in revenue. There was no better way for him to have handled it bc there’s too much shit it’s not just one issue and the only thing that should have happened is him knowing the fuck better in the very beginning and never doing anything that could even LOOK like cosigning such behavior in his fans. Like real talk he should have been like ‘hey if ur a minor don’t u ever do that shit again’ but he’s probably a coward who again is afraid- and this is a very real (not right, just real- bc morally you’re supposed to do what’s right regardless of the consequences but capitalism tends to shift people from this) fear- that ANYTHING he said would blow up regardless because this is tumblr.Like again, fuck ‘im but it’s also very likely that the Dipper thing was liked as a joke and to appease the fan who sent it to him because part of his marketing is seeming ‘real’ and ‘accessible’ to his fanbase so he not only can’t ignore things they send him too often but he’d also need to specifically support their engagement with him. Which is why you see artists doing shit like reblogging all fanart of their characters even if it’s like…weird or ugly. They just think they can’t afford to turn anything away. It could very well have just spun out of control.  However I will say that if that Dipper pic wasn’t sent to him and he just did that on his own…what hte fuck I take this argument back and it no longer applies to him.
See, I know there was a period of The Early Internet when people would LOL about drawings of nude cartoon characters and share them w people not because they thought it was sexy but because it was like, shocking and hilarious to see a character from a childhood cartoon behaving in a morally OOC way. If that was happening nowadays y’all would be out here saying everyone who laughed at and shared those emails was a pedophile. So coming from that angle it’s possible for me to see how maybe he wasn’t doing it in a mm Dipper is hot way but rather a ‘lol a wholesome cartoon character in the nude!’ which is an ACTUAL joke kids cartoons make because kids think being naked is shocking and funny!! And young/mid teens get caught in this weird period where things are strange + funny AND strange + attractive at the same time in a way they haven’t inspected but instead they just make art/talk about if that makes sense? Like I clearly remember me and my friends going through that and it’s weird. Anyway…
still idk it’s kind of questionable bc at the same time you have that pedo working on PPG who made a fucking self insert romance interest for Blossom so really you can’t give men toooo much credit or even benefit of the doubt with their bullshit.
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serendipitousoracle · 7 years
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Mixtape n wardrobe for like... ALL the ocs?
[♡ OC ask meme ♡]
i will give you six (6) ocs.
Egeire Mahariel:
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like
1. “Love Love Love” - Of Monsters And Men (basically The song for Egeire/Zevran tbh. love and reluctance and duty and fear and pining, which eventually breaks down as despite it all they keep getting in deeper and deeper until Egeire finally goes fuck this and for once decides not to sacrifice everything he wants to hold onto)
2. “Rather Be” - Clean Bandit (happy fluffy love song for Eg’s sweet, loyal attachment to various love interests. he is devoted and adoring and when he is with the one he loves he would never want to be anywhere else)
3. “Wolves Without Teeth” - Of Monsters And Men (wqieujb?? devotion and consumption and non-physical wounds idk how to explain)
4. idk. something emo? and then instead insert “Not Gonna Die” - Skillet bc it’s really the message Egeire should be taking home
5. and then as throwback to something he’d like maybe smth Gorillaz or Disturbed just for “smth that would probably be on Egeire’s music playlists somewhere“
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?                                  
In DA-centric universes Egeire ends up becoming fairly all-or-nothing re: clothing. at the end of the Blight, into Warden-Commanderdom, and to some extent post-Wardenhood, he is either in full armor and weaponry (with some extra flash and ideally some small piece of elfiness in the Awakening period), or when he is completely alone and not paranoid and with people he trusts in a space he feels safe in, he is wearing like comfortable loose-fitting pants and that’s about it.
In more modern AUs Egeire wears more like… practical clothes, probably? flannel and open button-ups over tank tops with sturdy pants and tough boots, whatever clothes have been Gifted to him over the years, annnnnd at-home muscly shirtlessness with loose sweatpants
Also he looks so great in lace
Under Cut: Egeria Surana, Flytter the Junior Historian, Cyrron Mirevas, Soveliss Liadon, Grey Surana
Egeria Surana
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like
1. “Arms” - Christina Perri (still p much the First and Most Egeria/Alistair song. being Wardens is one rough thing and then the elven mage and the bastard prince is harder still. it works out in the end, but….)
2. “Retrograde” - James Blake (ouch that isolation and your friends are gone, and your friends won’t come, so show me where you fit. i’ll wait, so show me why you’re strong– i’ll wait, we’re alone now)
3. “You May Be Right” - Billy Joel (whoops it’s The DenRia Song)
4. “Beth’s Theme” (Broadchurch OST) - Ólafur Arnalds(Ria’s canon is just so like…. sad. unintentionally sad. quietly, wordlessly sad.)
5. “Stolen Dance” - Milky Chance / “Budapest” - Georga Ezra / “Break Stuff” - Limp Bizkit (just kind of misc songs for Ria Chilling Around The House)
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?
DA: a mix of aesthetic robes and practical ones, some with long flowing pieces and embroidered flowers that gradually transition to black dust, wearing her mage blood and magic specialties quite literally on her sleeve, some that are more armor than robe (bc spellsword/arcane warrior) but with elements of robes nonetheless. Dresses more lightly in private for ease of movement, with fur shawls and fine shoes and all. may be talked into some sort of short top + long skirt look by her fawning husband. in private.
Modern: light blouses and either loose-ish pants or long skirts, fond of flower motifs, plenty of like cardigans and soft jackets and things that generally perfect that sweet and trustworthy and caring outward demeanor she wields like empathy made tangible and precise. also has regular graphic tees and jeans for gardening.
Flytter
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like
1. “Little Talks” - Of Monsters And Men (grief is what drives Flytter from home to wrap themself up entirely in their work… for better or worse, despite the best wishes of those who cared about them)
2. “Non-Stop”, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, … - Hamilton the Musical (um excuse me if somebody made a musical about Egeire Mahariel/WAWsquad/The Fifth Blight Hero you fucking know Flytter would be all over that)
3. “Radioactive” - Imagine Dragons (radioactivity… lingering Blight corruption… same difference, right?)
4. “Heavy In Your Arms” - Florence + the Machine (not entirely happy with this pick but struggling to find something for just– that kind of background gnawing of the slow, slow, painful death seeping into their being, the constant pain and the losing fight to the ebb of the corruption and their inability to keep it effectively treated or soothed or just. nesdfds.)
5. “Beyond the Veil” - Lindsey Stirling (trippy instrumentals for recording things and remembering dreams? sure why not. clear Veil joke? woo!)
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?
.DA: robes, again. robes with a focus on complete head-to-toe coverage and not irritating rough patches of skin or what not too much. Something comfortable enough to sleep in. Not really much variety once they lock themself away in Kinloch Hold rebuilt.
Modern: light shirts tied up and semi-professional vests and the ability to quickly create a skirt in any situation when they need to really move in a hurry
Cyrron Mirevas
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like
1. “Enemies” - Shinedown (i didn’t even have to think about this one everyone hates Cyrron except like…. you jay. only you. everyone else goes ‘ew’ or ‘why are his eyes sockets not full of sharp/sharp-ish utensils’ when i bring him up. only you cheer when he shows up or hand him over to tentacle monsters but)
2. “Simple Man” - Lynyrd Skynyrd (and the complete flipside– a simple kind of man, not rushing, revering the gods, settling down with a bondmate and having children… it was the life Cyrron intended to live, not exactly a soft or warm or gentle man by any means, but a simple man. Then he lost everything, and survived Vir Banal’ras, and we have present day Cyrron.)
3. “The Dalish Elves Encampment” - Dragon Age: Origins OST, or something (this is basically a placeholder to state: what do you think super traditional Dalish elf music sounds like? for Ferelden Dalish if you want to get specific maybe. Basically, whatever Traditional Dalish Music is, that is all Cyrron himself cares to listen to. That’s it. He hoards it. maybe even plays an instrument. the world will never know.)
4. i swear to god i’m not putting “Closer” on this list SO HOW ABOUT THAT BODIES SONG HUH IT’S SUPER MURDERY N STUFF
5. “Indestructible” - Disturbed (fitting, since it was on Egeire’s list, and he definitely got that from somewhere. really, Cyrron is indestructible to a point that even upsets himself until all the venom he sank into others finally comes back to flood his veins)
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?
DA: Armor. Sturdy Dalish armor, long updated and cycled through with parts, blades on hand at all times, each meticulously well-kept and menacingly. The only time he’s not in armor is if he’s for some reason in disguise to get closer to someone to kill them.
Modern: ranges from business semi-casual to business ultra-formal and nowhere below that range, at least not for wearing out in the daylight. Cyrron mostly has his crisp dress shirts and pressed black slacks and all that easy “I am wealthy and important and you don’t need to know what I do for a living” class, even despite the clear vallaslin, but he also has a variety of tougher garb and more lowkey clothing for when his real line of work comes calling in the night for a slit throat or a poisoned drink.
Soveliss Liadon
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC or songs they themselves would like
1. “Addicted to Love” - Florence + the Machine (possibly the earliest defining song for my vague thoughts of ‘Soveliss and his feylock patron’. Soveliss insists he knows what he’s doing! He just has to keep his wits around him! … gods, though, he is so lonely.)
2. “Carousel” - Melanie Martinez (have I mentioned Sov is really super doomed? And it’s all fun and games/‘Til somebody falls in love/But you’ve already bought a ticket/And there’s no turning back now)
3. “Believer” - Imagine Dragons, & “Whispers in the Dark” - Skillet (the main brain-chewing songs for fiendlock!au Soveliss)
4. “Dust Bowl Dance” and “Broken Crown” - Mumford & Sons (hypothetical #mood for potential Angry parts of potential Soveliss character/story arc “You haven’t met me, I am the only son.”)
5. “A Martyr for My Love for You” - The White Stripes (i’m just saying if anybody else dies before we finish this adventure Sov is gonna start getting real antsy about forming attachments to normal, mortal people)
Bonus 6. Welp. (a ghost monk floats through Soveliss’ room as Sov puts up a bard band poster up in his room in the monastery like “soooooovelllllissssss whaaaat isssss thissss” and teenage Sov is just Instantly Teenage Annoyed “MUSIC, JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, IS CHANGING, DAD” (all the monks in the monastery are Dad sov has like 2 dozen dads it’s a time))
BONUS 2 EDIT EDITION: i forgot “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” - Florence + the Machine was also a Sov inspiration song whoops
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?
D&D: Soveliss at the moment generally has his greyscale Acolyte of Kelemvor robes/garb, some dark leather armor, maybe some shiny beads or baubles, and his gorgeous blond hair (it is probably literally enchanted t b h), buuuut he has no real exposure to like….. choice of clothing let alone fashion. idk we’ll see if aub ever gets us somewhere cool where I can get him a truly art-worthy outfit or if he dies first i guess.
Modern: ????????????
Grey Surana
mixtape: 5 songs that describe your OC(s) or songs they themselves would like
1. “Stray Italian Greyhound” - Vienna Teng (whoops first song is a Grey/Tamaris song. but: Grey is every bit the tongue-tied hopeless romantic that Egeire is, except he somehow works himself up about it even harder bc in a way Grey can be summed up as Eg But Extra (i love this song tho))
2. “I of the Storm” - Of Monsters And Men (wh o o ps it’s another Grey/Tam song. but it is also a good sort of song for Grey’s general insecurities, still carried over if reflected differently from Egeire’s. not measuring up. not being loved. feeling trapped. are you really gonna love me when i’m gone? are you really gonna need me when i’m gone? i fear you won’t; i fear you don’t)
3. “In My Sleep” - Mystery Skulls (can’t find a good video but you can’t do this like i do/i fucking wrote this in my sleep is just. 1. it mostly inspired an au. 2. take Egeire’s mild peacock tendencies and turn them up to fucking 11 and you might start to approach Grey levels of pride and showboating. tempted to put “Magic” on this list but just. it’s so great. just go look it up.)
4. “Through Glass” - Stone Sour (something quieter. bringing back that feeling of isolation from Ria, but a bit more self-imposed– putting up walls of glass to keep a distance from everything and ending up sitting alone inside his own head, which really could account for a lot of his doubts. a negative feedback loop of sorts. but he is so used to it.)
5. “Work Song” - Hozier / “Iris” - Goo Goo Dolls / “Rather Be” - Clean Bandit (just some more love songs for the hopeless romantic bc I’m p sure I’ve spent like 8 hours on this ask and I’m dead now)
wardrobe:what’s your OC’s style like?
DA: so fashionable. whether he’s the Circle Ambassador or the Warden-Commander, Grey is dedicated to keeping up with trends and edging out ahead of them where he can. It’s a careful balance to keep, neither being so compliant as to be invisible or stepping so far out of line that he’s branded “outsider“ again, but he loves it. Grey is all about politics, wealth, luxury, prestige– whatever the Circle and the Chantry wanted to deny him, he will take, one way or another.
Modern: so fashionable. if it’s In he is at least looking into getting his hands on it, if he doesn’t already have it. as the Circle is traded out for more like…. slicksharp white collar big business laddering-climbing type ambition, so too are robes traded for suits, and so some manner of dress shirt + jacket/blazer/etc + slacks/dress pants/etc becomes his norm. Whether he’s climbing or charming or sleeping his way to the top, he enjoys surrounding himself with luxury and learning how to take advantage of it.Is still a sweetheart who looks nice in lace though.
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vardasvapors · 7 years
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reply post times whatever
simaethae replied to your post:                    some more replies                
   i think tho we may be cross-talking a little bc i honestly don’t feel like i often come across the phenomenon you describe? i get very irritated by victim-blaming or attempts to make it so that nothing is your faves’ fault, and i agree “they’re all just as bad other” is a shallow and boring take, but i’ve more often seen it in a context of… deepening complexity, it’s very difficult to achieve a good motive without unintended consequences, etc    
No yeah that’s probably true - I have seen the vague ruining thing a lot, so I’m super sensitive to it. But yeah, different fandom exposures can cause super different opinions or feelings about what the norm is or whatever. :) Like, idk, while IA that the deepening complexity thing can be done well, it eventually becomes obvious when a writer is actually doing it to deepen complexity/show things from a specific character’s personal perspective for its own sake/the larger story’s sake, and when a writer is doing it to try to make something else look worse in comparison to the thing they like. And like, I’ve had the impulse to do that too abut some things and know how tempting it is. But often it’s hard to tell right away, so resentment about the number of fics I have backspaced out of in the middle of like, chapter 5, when the shoe dropped, has just made me very touchy about it.
   i mean like, this is all fandom factional stuff, the feanorians were all dead about from maglor and celebrimbor by the time numenor was a thing and fortunately neither of them ever ended up involved with numenor outside certain distressing AUs, so i def think there’s a lot of scope for us just having… not stumbled across the same posts :p    
Oh no yeah totally! Errr...sorry if my ideas came all disjointed timeline-wise! I was just putting out like, examples of the phenomena I had seen -- I have not seen the, uh, The King’s Men were right stuff firsthand, but I have seen lots of the Feanorian stuff and of course I have seen lots and LOTS of the ‘make the Arafinweans in general awful in order to deny and discredit their moral high ground’ -- sometimes in the context of silencing the legitimacy or sympathy of their anger at the Feanorians about the mass murder against their maternal family’s/half their cultural heritage, and pretend that it’s just them being holier than thou or disloyal or sycophants -- but I’ve also seen it in other circumstances that weren’t just about the Feanorians, so the King’s Men thing kareenvorbarra mention def rings a bell in terms of that particular aspect of it.
    but what's unsympathetic about hubris? :p more seriously i'm into that kind of, tangle of sympathetic and shitty motives into this inextricable knot of fear and insatiable hunger, but that's just subjective personal taste                
Haha *insert one of those ‘oh you!’ gifs here* but no yeah I totally feel you on this, but I guess just....well, you know, the word ‘like’ as applied to characters is really headache-y and unclear tbh. Like...I really like their feelings but don’t like...them...? Like I find them sympathetic but not tragic, or...more empathetic than sympathetic, if that makes any sense...?
Like I think, ‘well, tbh, if i wasn’t someone living in a world where immortality doesn’t exist, but was instead an almost-elf who was almost-immortal living almost in sight of paradise full of immortals, how would i feel and behave about immortality and the possible prospect of becoming immortal and being denied something that i like to think just might maybe hold the possibility of making me immortal?’ and while the answer is not ‘massive colonial conquest of the inferior races to stoke my crumbling ego and feed the inevitably encroaching void’ it still......moves the needle :P
(Also I guess my greater interest in a more crystallized and sincere fear-of-death motive would probably back up to Tar-Minastir and Tar-Telperien)
elesianne replied to your post:                   some more replies                
   I want to click like on all your posts and replies where you speak for nuanced and interesting interpretations of canon/characters without unnecessary hate but instead I’m just going to leave this reply here    
awwww :) thank you! I’m glad i come off that way i guess, though imo i feel like a lot of my opinions are just ‘well idk which is right, but this one is wrong’ laziness
crocordile replied to your post:                some more replies                
   Honored u remember + like something I wrote uwu    
Always!!! <3 The ‘selling mastery over others as freedom’ etc. And tolkien putting a lot more thought into his depictions of idealism and fake idealism than people give him credit for  :)
unfortunatelyimaginary replied to your post: other replies
ack, I have to go to work so I guarantee this won’t be well written but I appreciate this whole Feanorians discussion so very much - Maedhros was my favorite character from the first time I read the Silmarillion but it makes me feel so uncomfortable to see his and his brothers actions treated lightly/excused because, well, it felt like something he/they wouldn’t approve of and that doesn’t quite sound right but I really don’t want to be late for work so apologiesifwrong
No yeah exactly, this makes total sense! It just comes off as so, tin-eared?
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lavender--girl · 8 years
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Yoonmin fic idea: (This may be long idk I’ve had the idea for a very long time)
Alright, so, it start off with a 6 (?) Year old Jimin and his mother. It’s in very old times and magic is a thing and Jimin live in a small village and his family is very poor bc his father left. His mother is telling him a story of a man who was very arrogant and stuff. The man and his friends were walking one day when they come across an old woman who claims she is a witch and will grant them a wish each if they do her a favor. The man doesn’t believe her and makes it know that he doesn’t. He mocks her and calls her crazy. She tells him to ask for something and he, thinking this is all a hoax, wished for youth and immortality. The woman said he would regret it and left. He thought it was hilarious but his friends did not think likewise. As the years passed he realized that the woman was actually a witch because while his friends grew old he stayed the same. He watched the people he loved die before his eyes while he stayed the same. He tried countless times to kill himself but it never worked. Finally he decided he needed to find the witch. He searched everywhere and though he was never able to find her he did find her little cottage. There was a letter on a dust covered table. He went to it and read that it was addressed to “the one that doubted.” He figured it was for him and after he read it he found out it was for him. The letter basically said that she was going to be burned to death bc they found out she was a witch and that she heard he was looking for her. She said the only way to break the curse was for him to find the boy of the same blood as her, fall in love, watch him die, then find him again. He didn’t understand. He never left the cottage. He had no where else to go. His hair turned white and so did his skin. He never went out and the small village that was near his cottage lived in fear of him, thinking he was a witch too. Basically, the story is to tell Jimin to never travel on the road that goes through the woods bc that’s where he lives.
Skip a few years to where Jimin is like 21. His mother tells him to take something to his grandmother who live in the village over. He decides to take the road through the woods bc it would cut his trip down by a day. So he does and he ends up seeing a shadow and then tripping and hurting his knee really bad or something like that and a person wearing a very dark purple (or whatever color you want) cloak comes out from behind the trees and goes to help him. Jimin is scared out of his mind but the person helps him. He asks if he can take him back to his cottage so he can properly wrap his knee up and Jimin is vaguely reminded of the old fable his mother would tell him before bed and the thought that this might be the man crossed his mind but he quickly dismisses it and tells himself that its just a stupid story parents tell their children to keep them away from the woods and decides to go with the man. When they get to his cottage Jimin sits down and the man takes his cloak off. Jimin sees the palest man and the whitest hair he’s ever seen. He quickly realizes that the stories were real. He panicks and the man turns around and smiles he says something along the lines of, “I never get any visitors. It’s actually kinda nice to see you. Sometimes i feel like I’m going crazy. It’s probably not healthy to live 200 years I’m solitude.” Jimin has internal conflict on whether or not he should stay or run as fast as He can. It ends with him staying out of curiosity. He stays the night and heads to his grandmothers when the morning comes. When he leaves the man, Yoongi, asks if Jimin could possibly visit again sometime and Jimin agrees that he will try to visit about once a week.
A few months later and Jimin is visiting Yoongi once a day, sometimes staying the night. They fall in love. Jimin knows it’s wrong. His village had a law against being with your own gender, a law that is punishable by death. But as he slips into their love one night he can’t seem to care because something wrong wouldn’t feel like this. It wouldn’t feel like his skin was on fire every time Yoongi touched his lips to it. It wouldn’t feel like his heart was beating too fast for him to keep up every time his and Yoongi’s skin met. The next morning he wakes up in Yoongi’s arms and looks up at the older man. He was ok with dying for this man.
One day Yoongi decides to go to the village. He needed to see Jimin but he had no way to get to him. So he grabbed his cloak and went. He found Jimin in the market place. He was holding a few of Yoongi’s favorite fruits. He smiled to himself and walked up to the boy and placed a hand in the small of his back. Jimin turned and saw Yoongi. He smiled and something happens to where Yoongi’s hood ends up calling off. People around them see the man and they automatically know who he is. There’s no one else he could be. They see his hand placed on Jimin back and the look on his eyes. They knew what was happening just by that, but they knew Jimin mother. They knew that their family had it ruff so let letting alone and went to talk to his mother.
His mother was furious. She knew he hadn’t been home many days out of the week but he always told her he was going to grandmothers or he was with his friends. When he came back home the next day she confronted him. She asked where he had been and she knew he was lying. She asked again and again until he finally told her. She forbade him from going out to the cottage again. Told him that no son of her’s was going to lie with another man especially one like him. Jimin cried and pleaded for just one more night. Just to say goodbye and then he would never see him again. She did not let him.
The next night Jimin snuck out. He had his friend, Taehyung, send word to Yoongi to meet him close to the entrance of the woods and the older man did so. Jimin ran as fast as He could to the woods but what he didn’t know was that there were a few men of the village the decided that if they saw Jimin leave his house to go to the woods they would kill him bc of the law. Jimin was so close to the woods that he could see Yoongi standing there. He saw Yoongi’s beautiful smile and stopped running. He was walking to him when Jimin felt a sharp pain in his lower back. He saw Yoongi’s smile leave and the older man started running to him. Jimin was still trying to get to him but as another arrow was shot his legs failed him. Yoongi was there just in time to catch him. Jimin raised a hand up to his face and his last words words were, “please Yoongi, don’t stay in that old cottage and lock yourself away for hundreds of years again. You have an extraordinary curse. Please. See the world I wasn’t able too. I love you Yoongi.”
He held Jimin in his arms and as the sun rose Jimin died.
He was seated just outside of the woods. Holding his dead lover in his arms. Unable to control his emotions Yoongi screamed out in agony. The pain hurt him so much he couldn’t bare it. For the first time since he had met Jimin he wished that he could just die. The villagers gathered around the two boys and watched as Yoongi prayed to whatever God there was that this was some sick twisted dream.
After what felt like an eternity to yoongi the man got up. He held Jimin in his arms and walked to the villagers. He asked, “Do you know where his mother lives?” They nodded and pointed to one of the smaller houses. He walked Jimin to the house and knocked on the door. An old middle aged woman opened the door. Upon seeing the boy in Yoongi’s arms and crumpled to the ground and Yoongi quickly later Jimin on a bed before his knees gave out too. He apologized. He told her that her son had caused him the most happiness in his life in just a little under a year. He asked her if he could please have something of Jimin’s. She nodded her head and went to Jimin. She took off a necklace the boy was wearing and have it to Yoongi. She said that it had been his father’s and he wore it everyday. He thanked her and left.
He went back to his cottage and looked at the necklace. It has a charm that looked very familiar. He was digging through a wardrobe of old things that belonged to the witch that lived here before him. He found the same charm. Suddenly it all made sense. The boy of the same blood. Fall in love. Watch him die. Find him again.
Jimin was the boy that had to break the curse.
Remembering Jimin last words, Yoongi started packing his things. He would be off the next day. He wasn’t going to stay here and disappoint Jimin. He had to see the world his lover never got to see.
Skip forward hundreds of years to modern times. Yoongi is in New York or something like that and he hasn’t given up hope. He still has dreams of his love. He never goes a day without thinking of him. Then one day, Yoongi goes to a cafe, one that one of his friends, Hoseok, recommended. He walks in and heads a small gasp come from the man at the cash register. He looks up and he’s met with the eyes of Jimin. He looks the same, well, except he now has pink hair, but besides that he looks exactly the same, maybe even more beautiful. They lock eyes and Yoongi knew that Jimin knew who he was. Yoongi makes his way up to the counter and smiles at Jimin. The younger boy asks quietly, “a-are you real? I-I’m not dreaming right? We-we’re not in a village. We are in my work right? You’re name is Yoongi and-and I’m not insane. Right?” Yoongi could see tears in the boys eyes and he just nodded his head and said, “Jimin, I’ve waited so, so long to see you again.” Jimin watched as Yoongi suddenly changed before him. The pale man regained color again and his white hair changed to black. “Wh-what just happened?” Yoongi smiled at his confusion, “You broke the curse jiminnie.” Jimin ran around the counter and wrapped his arms around the man’s neck and brought him down into a beautiful kiss.
Jimin and Yoongi loved out the reast of their lives. Yoongi finally aged past 23 and was ecstatic. They were happy and everything was ok.
OH WOW. This is very very long and I apologize but I’ve literally had this idea for months and I can’t make it sound right when I try to write it as a book. I hope you like this. I almost cried while writing it but, you know, I love this. If you want to use the idea you can just please like tell me so I can read it.
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