#idk the books that impacted me the most as a kid/teen were always the ones that tackled heavier topics like cancer or grief

[vaugarde]

i feel so stuffy whenever i see general fandom takes on why fiction should always be happy by the end and should always be escapism and needs ao3 tags stamped all over it like the “well ACTUALLY” feelings just leap out i cant help myself

[rainbowrider1290]

My take on a Genshin Impact Circus AU Part 4 with Noelle as a strongwoman and Amber as a death-defying archery stuntwoman. Their backstories are under the cut!

Noelle:

First off I have a very self-indulgent headcanon that she is ridiculously strong. Like. Can benchpress people. Canonverse or AU.

She used to help out around the circus and she was kind of indifferent to the fact that she was likely going to be a maid. It's a respectable profession. And helping out at her childhood friends' (Kaeya and Diluc) manor as she'd been born into doing seemed like a good job.

How she got into the circus life requires a bit of backstory. Back when they were kids, Kaeya, Diluc, and Noelle would mess around (as kids do) and have little challenges for themselves. Who can run the fastest, who can do the best cartwheel, who can jump the highest, and the like.

Noelle got a little hesitant as she got into her early teens bc she was always told to be ladylike, so she spent one or two of their hangout sessions watching Kaeya and Diluc and talking. One day, however, Kaeya and Diluc are being Teenage Boys and lifting heavy things trying to outlift each other. Noelle has lifted furniture when cleaning up after these two so she figures this one unladylike thing would be okay.

She comes up behind them and just. Picks them both up. On top of the things they were lifting already. Kaeya and Diluc have to take a second and just look at her like "yeah no you are never sitting out of our competitions again"

And so they try other things like cartwheels and tests of courage like who can climb the highest on a tree and things are back to normal.

Skip forward a few years and Crepus dies. There's a huge mystery around it that not even his son's attendants are privy to. The only thing people know is that the sons have been sent away to boarding school. The whole manor is abandoned, all the workers fired.

Noelle for the next few years spends her time working at laundromats, and other odd jobs, but eventually she runs out of luck and suddenly there's too many people and not enough opportunities.

One of her friends from one of her old jobs invites her to go out and see this new circus that happens to be in town. She goes because why not. And wouldn't you know it one of the acts is her childhood friends doing these death-defying stunts that hit her with a wave of nostalgia bc their entire act consists of essentially the song "anything you can do" but with more and more dangerous stunts.

Noelle of course has to say hi, so they catch up and Noelle's lack of work comes up and would you look at that Aether and Lumine happen to have an opening for a maid.

So Noelle settles in, continuing to lift heavy shit to clean under it (Bennett swears up and down he saw her lift a fridge once but he might've been sleep-deprived). She also got into helping Chongyun with the techy stuff so sometimes she'll be at tech rehearsals moving things around and one time a rope holding up a person breaks near Noelle and she. catches it.

Now, one night. One of the acts drops out at the last moment bc injury or last-minute commitment or the like. And it leaves a gap in the show. Everyone else is busy. And panicking bc the circus is still relatively new and they really need to build their rep rn.

They start wondering what kind of last-minute acts they can put together like "what about the gymnasts??" "They all have group routines" "do they have old routines??" "Not polished enough for what we need" and someone somewhere pipes up "man I wish we had a strongman or something" and Diluc and Kaeya immediately whip their heads around to look at each other for like half a second before Kaeya bolts. He finds Noelle doing her usual rounds she's been doing for like a month now and Bennett was right, she is currently under a mini-fridge that she is lifting over her head whilst leaning it against a wall.

Kaeya takes Noelle by the shoulders and just zooms her over to where the commotion is happening and pitches the idea to Aether and Lumine. They're hesitant as hECK bc this is a huge risk they're taking since Noelle isn't even a performer but Diluc pitches that they could literally just scatter really heavy items and have Noelle clean under them and as long as she looks at the audience every once in a while it can be played off as a bit.

Noelle with qUITE the stammer says that she'll try her best but at this time is in need of a moment. She has never performed before. Kaeya and Diluc have to go perform so they leave her with a shoulder squeeze and a thumbs up.

She gets on-stage. She flinches under the lights for a second. She takes a deep breath and focuses on the first thing before her with her best "oh heavens, it's filthy in here", and she gets through the entire act by doing that for every object. So the audience is seeing this seemingly petite young girl lift the equivalent of a hecking car in order to clean under it.

Needless to say, there's roaring applause the second Noelle leaves (which she hears from far away because holy shit I just cleaned for people and they liked it)

This was a bit of a one-time thing and she goes back to her regular maid duties until the circus gets a new strongman by the name "Zhongli".

His style is more about lifting exTREMELY LARGE ROCKS, and breaking them in half whilst giving a history/geology lesson on them.

He quietly observes the maid who he hears fantastical stories of That One Time She Charmed An Audience By Cleaning. He was bewildered at first but saw the merit of it while watching her clean. He immediately decides that this girl has sO MUCH. POTENTIAL that is being wasted by having her work as a maid. He has nothing against maids or their profession, but he invites her to train with him.

Noelle gets hELLA stronger and they come to a conclusion. Noelle performs part-time and is a maid part-time. She doesn't have a particular performance style. She'll sometimes play catch with Zhongli and his big rocks, other times she'll be in the background of performers like Amber in the art lifting some hEAVY SHIT.

She gets along with Chongyun super well bc Chongyun has to make less trips to move his equipment since he's worked with her. She's a blessing for when they have to pack up and move.

Amber:

Amber's story is a little more straightforward. She started out engaged to a suitor. Amber was the kid in kindergarten who was learning about dragons and "idk what everyone else was doing". She's known what she wants for a long time, and what she wants at the moment, is not a relationship.

Throughout her childhood she was a very lonely child. Her family exposed her to lots of academic or ladylike things (do not ask me when this au is set, it's the 1800s and the 1990s at the same time or a suspendes steampunk time) to get her away from the thing she liked most: archery. She'd been exposed to it as a kid and latched on.

This drove a bunch of suitors away, so her family got more desperate and exposed her to more classes and activities to get her away from it. She went "that's easy, I'll just practice at night"

So she does that. She practices at night and underperforms in the coming weeks. It is during this time that her parents (high class ppl) find her a man to marry for some business deal idk.

The man's nice enough. It's just obvious he can only take Amber in small doses, and Amber takes full advantage of this to practice and stay in shape.

How Amber gets into the circus life was essentially running away. She bonds with Eula over this.

So because of all the attempts to make her fit into the ideal lady description, her rebellious streak said "yeah we're going to go as far away from that as possible" and she goes "I'm going to run away with the circus" bc that's what the books she's read say is the most rebellious thing you can do.

She finds THE FIRST circus she sees and begs to be let in. This is the shadiest most sketchy place but Amber sees it as the key to her freedom. She signs a contract.

They treat her like the US treats their students. She barely gets time to practice for performances and she's mostly doing dirty work. When they ask her what she can do she's like "I'm really good at archery" and they go "cool, you're going to be doing that while everything is on fire now. Can you do a handstand"

Essentially they push her and push her and push her to do more and more hazardous things she has to pick up on under the threat of being kicked to the curb.

After a while of this Amber is extremely burned out (pun intended) and as she's packing up after one of her shows, covered in burns but proud bc she hit all her targets without killing anyone, she's approached by a blond foreigner.

Tbh for all she's read, Amber really doesn't consider leaving and this time she can't run away since she's now bound by a contract (not Zhongli's btw in case anyone was wondering).

This foreigner tells her that there's so many ways to improve her situation and that he runs a circus looking for members.

Amber refuses since she's not getting tangled up in another legal mess, but she takes his advice on how to take care of her burns, and improve safety while she's performing.

Skip a few months. She hears word of this mysterious new circus around. Her encounter with who she'll later know as Aether stuck with her, and so she goes. To see whether she could really shoot her arrows without being burned alive.

After a show one night, she tries to get past security and fails repeatedly. She turns to leave and wouldn't you know it there's Aether. And Lumine. Waiting for her once she turns the corner. Amber's biggest concern is her existing contract and when Aether and Lumine say they have a nICE lawyer, Amber sees her next step to freedom.

Aether and Lumine essentially gain custody of Amber (but like for adults) and Amber is. Shocked. She's walked through her new contract of employment clearly and essentially treated like a human being.

And now that she knows things and has more freedom (though still under the watchful eyes of Aether and Lumine to see how she does) her creativity and competitive streak flourish. She decides she actually doesn't hate fire, she just doesn't like when she doesn't know when or where it's coming. And she makes fast friends with the gymnasts, so she ends up incorporating that into her routines. Now she uses her canon goggles to protect her from the burning eyes of prolonged smoke exposure when she uses fire.

When she meets a little pyromanic girl named Klee, she's thrilled that someone this chaotic and sure of herself exists.

[ashtonq247]

Kaminari Denki headcannons!!

Bc it’s his bday and I love him (this will not cover his fam bc I switch between backstories with him so much that I just have no clue)

Buckle up bc this is a very long post I did not mean to get this deep lol

Let’s start with the most obvious- he makes friends easily, but I’m not just talking other students, I’m also talking the staff. This boy makes friends with the janitors and the lunch ladies and even the teachers!! He also makes friends with the security bots and pranks them a lot

This stems from him wanting ppl to like him. I think this bc of the fact that his character sheet says he likes all things “trendy” - I think he rlly wants to be known as the cool guy bc he is rlly insecure of himself

And as much as I think he is very trendy, I also think he is a big literature nerd! I believe he is more likely to listen to audio books tho, but I’m not entirely 100% sure though. He tries to keep this underwrap, but eventually he does join momo’s book club and brings completely different analysis to the table :D

He is just generally into the arts (we see this in cannon- he plays guitar, is seen drawing Aizawa, references Hemingway) so I see him as a more creative guy rather than a logically minded dude

This boy has adhd, anxiety, and dyslexia and dyscalcula (he was able to work through dyslexia bc he read so much, but still has problems with his dyscalcula) and this causes issues for him in school. He also a HUGE procrastinator. He often feels stupid and dumb bc if it (also doesn’t help that even his friends joke abt it too, but as long as it’s just a joke he shouldn’t make a big deal abt it right??)

I say he has anxiety because of the way he reacts to when he is training- always panicking and frying his brain. I think what stans between him and being rlly op is his anxiety and view of himself

Speaking of him frying his brain, I headcannon he has litchenburg figures, which if u don’t know r these rlly cool scars that look kinda like branches with what kinda looks like flowers so cool tbh, and BEFORE u say “he obviously doesn’t have them cannonly” let me just say that his quirk affects his brain cannonly!! It’s not weird for it to also affect his skin!!! I think he might have had litchenburg figures if they were more commonly known as it is a very cool thing tbh

I also think that bc his brain gets impacted by his quirk, sometimes his nerves get impacted too. This means he sometimes can’t taste food (and he doesn’t eat it when he can’t taste it, which pisses Bakugo off) and he also can’t feel things as well (I believe the class figures this out after Denki went to poor himself some tea but didn’t know the kettle was still rlly hot and so he grabbed it not knowing he was burning himself until he handed it over to someone who then dropped the pot bc it was so hot- needles to say he had to go to recovery girl that day)

He has never been to the aquarium bc as a child he had terrible control over his quirk and that made ppl nervous to put him near water (he goes as a teen with the bakusquad and is absolutely floored- his favorite creatures are of course all the sting rays, jelly fish, and electric eel- cue bakusquad comparing him to the brainless jellyfish)

He also doesn’t know how to swim till he was in middle school (once he was in better control of his quirk he went out and learned to swim on his own bc he had to learn how if he wanted to be a hero u know? He never quit got the hang of it tho)

Storms make him very energized and his already low ability to focus worsens. Prone to accidentally zapping ppl. He mostly stays in his room when storms happen bc he doesn’t want to hurt ppl/ wreck electronics on accident. He doesn’t even get to chat with friends on the phone bc he would wreck it so storms get rlly lonely :(

Also is basically a lightning rod. It hurts bc of how forceful it is, but it’s also not that big of a deal to him

Is prtty forgetful unfortunately due to all the times he fried his brain. It’s something he really tries not to think about

He probs can’t sleep very easily due to all his energy

He hates frying his brain bc it’s very hard to understand what’s going on when he does. Everything is a lot more sluggish and things are simultaneously way too much and he gets hyper sensitive and at the same time his senses are also very groggy and weird. It’s over all a bad time, but he got used to it

Whenever he fried his brain instead of being all wheyyy and thumbs upy he use to act more vegetative which rlly freaked ppl out so he eventually learned to get to where he is now when he fries his brain

Kids use to take advantage of his whey mode and do pranks on him which often got him hurt, but he never rlly felt it at first so he didn’t mind to bad. As long it was just joking and they were having fun right??

Time for happy ones!! His favorite foods (besides burgers, those r his favorite cannonly) all have some coralation with memes (speggeti tacos, mac n cheese, “chonky” milk, chicken nuggy, etc)

He is a meme lord yes

Stans pikachu (obvi)

U cannot convince me that he doesn’t paint his nails black, maybe with a little lightning bolt on his middle finger. This boy cannonly wears a choker common

He does face masks with Mina!! I believe he cares abt his looks greatly, and does beauty routines with Mina all the time. I’m constantly switching btween wether or not he owns it, or is a bit insecure and tries not to show this side to much to the boys

Why does this show not give him skinny jeans?? I mean common his entire style calls for skinny jeans. Maybe it’s Japan fashion or smth bc if it was in America he’d have skinny jeans bc it’s the trendy thing u know

Cannot cook. Can barely work the microwave. Claims unmarked food and eats it at midnight

Has a lot of weird info stored in his brain- how weather works, psychology stuff, weird facts abt bees, etc- that he learns randomly, never rlly trying to learn them but it sort of just happens u know. This frustrates Bakugo and jirou to no end bc he knows all these useless facts about how 1,200,000 mosquitos is all it takes for them to all at once drain a human of all their blood in a second, but not about how to work the pathagorean theorem

Idk why I think this (and it’s a popular headcannon too), but he knows at least 3/4 languages. It just suits him?? Bc he is a ppl person??? I don’t know??

Gets major test anxiety

Teachers either love him or hate him no in between. A lot of his elementary teachers absolutely hated him and would tear him down by calling him stupid and annoying. In middle school when he learns to control his quirk better, teachers rlly liked him- in the way that class clown trouble makers are liked by teachers. He may not excel in his class but he is a pretty funny dude.

He is constantly either underestimated or overestimated. Kaminari himself does this as well. It’s part of the issue with his hero training

Cats do not like him. They may like being petted bc if the static electricity, but when Kami pets cats he just absorbs the static- no pleasure :(((- or he accidentally has too much static electricity. If so then only tge rlly fluffy cats like him. Either case, shinsou finds a cat that likes kaminari as well and it is very cute :33

THE class prankster. Even on the teachers! The death glare Aizawa gave him on the one time prancing him worked is one kaminari will never forget (he still tries to prank him despite this lol)

Constantly teasing Bakugo as a way to press his buttons. It’s debatable on wether or not this helps bakugo’s anger issues

He is the wingman between Bakugo and Kirishima change my mind!!

Also mandatory kaminari is bisexual headcannon bc he rlly gives me those vibes. I think he doesn’t know yet that he’s bisexual, and when he thinks a fellow bro is hot he thinks he’s just admiring his bro u know. Maybe even thinks he is jealous. He does flirt with all genders tho mostly as a joke. He draws dicks as jokes but he always puts a little too much detail in them for him to rlly be straight

Can be used as a defibrillator as long as he can focus

Honestly there’s so much stuff kaminari has the potential to do with his quirk it’s a shame the manga/anime doesn’t use it

Like I rlly want to see him use his quirk in training to blow out all the lights in a building so he can use it for his advantage

That’d be badass

Also his quirk makes him very hard to be caught when their training. He can slip out of ppls grasp easily with a shock, and he also just has good reflexes in genral (I think this is cannon). Cue class 1-a running around trying and failing to catch him lol. Their best bet is to get him to fry his brain :(

He was popular in school before UA bc of his quirk and bc of how charming and easy to get a long with he is. This lead a lot of his friends to be very shallow. He didn’t rlly think about wether or not someone was trying to be his friend or not, he just liked being liked. This lead him to his whole liking trendy things, and he often felt that if he wasn’t seen as cool or funny his friends would all leave him. His whole rlly liking to talk thing caused a lot of ppl to think he was annoying at times, but he was never rlly able to lose that trait

The bakusquad was the first friend group he got rlly close too. He felt he can be himself around them and be the crackhead he was always meant to be. He still always concerned about wether they might leave him if he’s too annoying bc of anxiety but he’s getting better :)

He is a bringer of chaos and that’s part of his charm! Never dull with Denki around. He’s always doing the weirdest stuff, and ever since Mina, Kiri, and Sero, this has only doubled!

He is always calling Momo a genius (bc she is) and they are rlly good friends

Is an unofficial emo squad member (just look at his hero costume)

A sinnamon roll I’m srry but he ain’t a cinnamon roll. He has a dirty mind lol

Peepee jokes

Probably does tik tok dances I’m sorry

Nintendo fan for life

Xbox or PlayStation?- “Nintendo wut u mean”

Abbreviates so much it’s kinda hard to read,. Like if u thought I was bad this boy is soo much worse

It’s kinda ironic bc he has a very large vocabulary lol

He only uses it when he’s being sassy or very passionate

Mixes his gen z lingo with his big brain vicab to create atrocities of sentences

”bro the rise of the proletariat is lit tbh”

He is the worst to text with. He gives Bakugo aneurysms

Yeet yote to be yoted

3am shower thoughts

Unpopular opinion: i don’t think he likes weed. It probs reminds him too much of his whey mode

He’s a good strategist, but let’s the other team members think of the plans bc of insecurity, and otherwise his anxiety causes his smartness to shut down

Very good at zoning out. Sometimes he accidentally zones out so hard during class he misses the entire lesson and is only brought out bc of the school bell. Aizawa is best at snapping him out of it

Tbh I don’t think UA would be good with mental health. You’d think they’d hire a professional therapist or smth, but maybe it’s bc hero’s are so glorified ppl don’t ever think about these issues

I doubt the teachers had very good teacher training u know

We’ve mostly seen young heroes. I bet that’s bc they die so often, and if they don’t die in battle the mental health issues that stem from trauma and the media’s pressure are such an issue that it’s not uncommon for hero work to have high suicide rates

Anyway I’m starting to lose track of things thanks for coming to my ted talk I think I’ll stop here

[rose-tico]

I want to hear your opinion on m/m vs f/f relationships in Cog! And male vs female characters in general. What I noticed about relationships is that nominally, we do have wlw prominent characters - as in, they exist and all - but the focus is never on them. And female characters' plot is often a function of male pain/angst. I did love Cordelia, though, and I thought James was more bearable than other Herondale men.

my opinion is essentially what you described: there are definitely wlw characters in the shadowhunter books, they exist, (helen blackthorn, aline penhallow, and anna lightwood), but they are never allotted the same kind of focus that the mlm characters have. the wlw characters’ internal thoughts, dialogue, and arcs take up less pages than the mlm characters’. they’re usually operating as supporting characters to the main characters’ storylines. not even like second-level supporting characters like how ty, dru, livvy, and kit were supporting characters to emma, julian, mark, and christina’s stories, where they had their own arcs that directly tied with the main cast, but didn’t nearly take up as much page time or were the emotional center of the books. but like third or fourth-level supporting characters where they showed up to fulfill one or two narrative purposes and then were never to be seen again. they might have a few pov sections within chapters here and there that allows the reader to get a small glimpse into their minds and their feelings, but they don’t have any real significant arc or as big of an impact on the story compared to both the mlm characters and presumably straight characters. yes, i’m talking about aline and helen and yes, i’ll always be bitter they didn’t show up until the end of the second book in the tda trilogy. and yes, i’ll always be bitter that when they did have any page time in qooad, they were very short. and no, i don’t think aline and helen being older authority figures aka “adults” thereby necessitating that they be sidelined so they don’t take over the stories and fix the problems of the young adults/teens is a reasonable excuse to erase them to the extent that they were.

another thing: there are simply more mlm characters than wlw characters in the shadowhunter books. this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because we always need more mlm representation. but if you compare the amount of mlm characters compared to the amount of wlw characters, there’s a clear inequality and dare i say, preference for mlm characters. and this fact makes me uncomfortable being that cassie is a woman and this clear preference is riddled with heterosexism. the first mlm relationship in the shadowhunter books was magnus and alec, right? and the first wlw relationship was aline and helen, right? okay, we have one of each, but arguably magnus and alec were more important characters in the tmi series. skipping over tid because there really were no new queer characters in that trilogy. magnus was there, but he’s not a new character. moving on to tda: we have mark, kieran, kit, and ty. four new queer characters in the shadowhunter books: all of them are mlm. again, we can’t discredit the presence of aline and helen in the tda trilogy, but let’s be real, mark, kieran, kit and ty were part of the main story and aline and helen were not. and this is where the argument of leaving aline and helen at wrangel island for most of the trilogy makes me uncomfortable. mark and helen are twins, aka they are the same age! you can’t argue that sidelining aline and helen was necessary for the narrative because of the whole ‘authority figure meddling with the kids’ stories’ issue, when mark and helen are the goddamn same age! the idea to bring back mark early on and not helen just reeks of heterosexism. you . could argue that cassie simply was more interested in mark as a character and that as a writer, she should have the creative freedom to write about what she wants. but when you deliberately create a wlw character who is the same age as her mlm brother, kindling that hope in readers’ hearts that they’re finally gonna get wlw rep, but then suddenly prop up the mlm character at the expense of the wlw character, then there’s a problem. it would have hurt less if these characters were not related and the same age, but they are. 

and now lastly, the tlh trilogy. we have matthew who’s bi, alastair who’s gay, charles who’s gay, thomas who’s presumably gay, anna who’s a lesbian, and ariadne who’s presumably a lesbian as well. (cordelia gives me bi vibes, but that might just be cassie’s writing through her perspective and describing every person regardless of gender with very beautiful descriptors, who knows). we have a whole slew of new queer characters which is amazing. i’m thrilled and happy that cassie made this decision and is willing to be inclusive, more than she has before. but the ratio of mlm characters compared to wlw characters is still skewed. cassie had the chance to create more wlw characters, fix the mistake of not having as many wlw characters in her previous books, and even out the numbers a little, but instead she choose to create even more mlm characters. idk...as much as i love the mlm characters in chain of gold, like i adore alastair, thomas, and matthew, i can’t help but feel frustrated at the lack of page time for anna and ariadne. when i heard anna was gonna be part of the main supporting cast and saw that she was on the drawing of all the characters in the first edition of chain of gold, i was so excited! finally, a wlw main supporting character. i was crushed to later find out she’s actually a few years older than them, and her only big narrative impact is when she’s helping them at the hell ruelle. anna has a few pages and moments where it’s all about her and her relationship with ariadne, but it’s not enough. speaking of ariadne, of course the only other wlw character was poisoned and bedridden for most of the book! because we simply cannot have more than one wlw character in the main narrative at the same time! 

this is already super long, so i’ll end my thoughts here with this: all of this erasure and sidelining of wlw characters reveals that there’s a clear preference for, and honestly...fetishization of mlm characters in cassie’s books and heteromisogyny towards wlw characters. i don’t know if it’s actually okay that cassie prefers and is more comfortable writing mlm characters, especially considering she’s presumably a straight woman. i lowkey feel like there’s an assumption that most of her fans prefer mlm characters and thus, there are more of them in her books. why do you think male characters in cassie’s books are lauded as heroes and leaders more than the female characters are? there’s an assumption that the target audience of the shadowhunter books consists of mostly straight young women, therefore the characters that get the main focus and emotional weight and struggle in her books are male characters, with the male herondales being a prime example. it’s all really frustrating. 

[apocahipster]

here’s just some author’s notes for the huge taz fic i finished today

you can read it here if you want

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13468608/chapters/30877473

Author’s notes,, i haven’t proofed these so, apologies ;000

 Wow. Huge. This is literally the biggest thing ive ever written to completion. I had the whole fic planned before I uploaded the first chapter, and to accentuate the planning I had a 100+ page document of notes and also had an excel sheet which looked like this:

(the yellow on the left means summer, and blue when it was winter. The second column is day of the year, third important dates. On the right is the events which I highlighted yellow as I wrote them)

and like this

Its also the first fic I decided to upload as I wrote each chapter because I knew it would take about a year to complete. I wanted fan support (which I got and loved <3 ) and I didn’t want to sit on the whole thing and constantly re-write it and end up hating it and never publishing it.

So the way this fic began is I was listening to TAZ balance for the first time and as I different scenes or dialogue occurred I started taking notes on my phone for how they would translate to a high school setting. This whole thing started around the time I was at crystal kingdom and ironically, that’s were im up to in my relisten at the time of publishing the last chapter.

The other, very original, formative idea for the fic was this:

Magnus beats up kids who are homophobic to Taako as a way to cover for the fact that he is also bi // Thinks he’s straight and overly supportive of his gay friends

 Similarly, in the original idea, it was going to be Julia who had died, not magnus’ dad. There was a really depressing scene where magnus spent the day with Julia’s parents.

Another formative idea was,

My name is Taako, you know, from Instagram.

And I suppose in the end this was the most impactful because I decided that I personally specialise in writing comedy based things. I wanted this to be a light-hearted fun fic.

In the original fiction, Travis and the other McElroys show regret that Magnus’ story is formed around the death of a woman (Julia). Similarly in sensitivity to the McElroy’s personal background I decided that this was not the right thing to write about. But I also wanted this story to be a magnus emotional journey. By choosing his dad as the character who had died I could keep many things planned such as magnus’ one year gap, Fischer as a therapy fish, Magnus’ aggression etc.

My favourite TAZ character is magnus, if that wasn’t obvious. But ironically, I feel like of all the characters his dialogue is the most OOC. While I tried to keep his thought-logic and actions to Magnus I don’t feel like magnus would say 99% of what my magnus did. Conversely Taako seemed like one of those characters who would be hard to pinpoint but I actually found him easiest to write.

Taako’s magic stone which ultimately ruined the play was introduced as I felt I was focusing too much on Taako’s appearance and not the fact he is incredibly smart and a brilliant wizard.

So I decided to make this fic mostly lighthearted. I wanted to squeeze as many highschool tropes in like the gigantic party, the school play, the football match. The last chapter has a scene in a class for every subject as I felt like I somewhat forgot to write them ever being in class for a large chunk of the middle section. But then again no one really want to read about school do they?

I almost always write my stories to a song, but in this case it was an album. Vance Joy’s Dream Your Life Away, and while I love the music I never want to hear it again for like at least a few months. I would play the whole album every time I sat down to write this thing. It set the summer-time mood for the fic. If you listen to the songs youll probably find places where each song inspired bits of the fic.

The first song Wind’s of Change begins with the like ‘I miss you more than you could know’ which began the driving idea of Magnus dealing with the loss of his father. The song ‘first time’ begins with a line about jumping in the neighbours pool which obviously… inspired magnus jumping into a pool. ‘The best that I can’ inspired Magnus and Mr Waxmen’s interaction. I love the idea of a teenage boy who keeps doing the wrong thing, feeling shame in himself and in his mentor and trying to get better.

The song ‘from afar’ was initially Taako’s song. This whole fic was going to be a Taako / Magnus / Kravitz fic where Taako convinces Magnus to take care of himself and Magnus realises Taako is in love with him and this helps him discover he’s bi and it was super dramatic. There was (an still is) some Magnus / Kravtiz scenes too mostly in the form of flirting.

As I stepped away from this being a ship heavy fic this song became Lucretia’s song. Lucretia’s unrequited love to Lup was mostly written from the heart, and I’m so sorry to Lucretia stans, she deserves all the GFs in the world. But I felt this was a very powerful thing to write in a teen story.

Taako’s fear of LDR is also taken from the heart. In a way this whole fic was a serious vent from my high school experience. Similarly as I am now 21, I didn’t feel comfortable nor did I even really conceptualise any NSFW scenes for this fic. It just didn’t seem to have a place. Besides, sex is in almost all other teen movies and books. I also wanted to keep weed out of this one bc I personally hate how drugs are in every teen story.

I actually had a planned acronym for the IPRE, the Insufferable Prick Resistance Ensemble, and a short backstory that Magnus Taako Lup and Merle formed the group in their youth to complain about annoying classmates.

Writing Lydia and Edward was the worst. I don’t know how to write cool and sassy kids. Me at me: don’t make me do it again.

 Heres the entirety of my prepared barry notes:

Barry

-Oculus, opens portals?

-Likes pretty girl?!!?!?!

 I had a planned thing for how each of their grand relics could play into the fic but it was far too much work.

I was also planning on writing wayyyy more Lucretia and wayyyy less Barry. Bc Lucretia was basically me as a teenager. But I started writing Barry as one of my friends and this helped me just write bundles and bundles of Barry content.

I really didn’t have anything planned for davenport. Even drawing his yearbook I was like whelp idk. The idea of him becoming a sports strategist kicked in right as I was writing the paragraph about killian being the new jock, simply bc the section needed to be longer and frankly, I love how his story turned out.

Part of scrapping the original, edgy tone of julia’s death and taako / magnus romance was wanting to continue the tradition where TAZ is a world separate of racism and homophobia. I scrapped original ideas of magnus being provoked by homophobic remarks and transphobic remarks about lup, wanting this to also be an escapist piece like TAZ is. Therefore coming up with other reasons for magnus to get into fights was hard and also I hate writing fights bc ive never been in a fight in my life.

The first half of this fic I was riding an enthusiasm high and just adding scenes and conversations as I thought of them and listened to the story. By about the end of semester 3 I still cared about the fic but I was basically writing everything I had pre-planned with little innovation.

All in all, this was extremely fun to write, and I think it made me a much, much, much better author. I love anyone who read the whole thing sm.

[lightsandlostbells]

Skam Austin episode 1 reaction

I wasn’t planning on writing long-winded reactions to Skam Austin, I thought I might just have fun with the clips as they happened. Because there’s such a different context with this remake as opposed to the French/German/Italian ones, that it’s hard to take in! Julie Andem’s direct involvement, the Facebook factor, that it’s American rather than European. I’m processing this one very differently. I’m not even sure how to gather all my thoughts about it.

But then a few things got my attention so here’s episode 1 a week late. I don’t think I say anything that hasn’t already been said, lmao, unless you want to hear about my high school English unit on The Scarlet Letter.

Clip 1 - Frozen is #relatable

Let’s point out all the signs we see during Poonam’s opening monologue:

“Be a winner, be you”

“Work hard, finish strong”

“Always victorious”

“Shoot for the moon”

a board full of college acceptances

IDK guys, I think there might be a theme about the pressure to succeed here.

Poonam’s monologue and the overall themes about pressure and success may seem generic or #relatable depending on your POV. For me, I found it worked, mostly because it’s funny in how mundane and teenage-y it is and the bit about Elsa from Frozen is so weirdly specific, and I knew a million kids like Poonam in high school. But I do get how Julie could have done something more topical considering the world of shit that is going on in the US politically and culturally, including in our schools. (I don’t know exactly how much of the show was filmed before or after the Parkland shooting and I don’t know if/when/how it will be mentioned, but I certainly hope they address it. That’s the kind of issue that Skam is made to cover: things that are directly relevant to the youth of the culture.)

Poonam is talking super loud and were she not serving up our thesis statement, the teacher would tell her to shut up.

I tried to listen to what more of what the teacher actually says, and it’s hard to make out, but of course she concludes with “draw a connection to something happening in present day” … hmmmm….

I was really confused because the test Megan looks at in class appears to be a state-mandated standardized test, not a regular exam you’d take in class. You can clearly see on her paper that it says 68th percentile, which means she scored as well as or better than 68% of students tested. But Marlon seems to be grabbing a similar-looking paper and he says he got a 99, like … is he in the 99th percentile? And Shay’s in the 100th percentile somehow (which cannot be a thing because you can’t go higher than the 99th, lol)? Is there an actual score out of 100 on these tests? Are they talking about a different test?

I’m not from Texas so I don’t know the format of this specific test, but I took a similar standardized test for my state and this is not how I remember it. Also we didn’t go around sharing our scores on those tests the way we would a regular math test or even the SATs or something. And no one studied for those things. 

Meg swaps the numbers around (68 to 86) and he says, “That’s not bad” in a somewhat patronizing way so you know she feels great about it.

The music for the Kittens’ slow-motion walk is very apropos lyrically.

I like Shay, she’s charming. There’s a lot of American “bro” talk and shit like that in the dialogue and it gets cringeworthy, but I think she and Tyler seem pretty natural and I buy them as friends.

Clip 2 - Survival kit

As people have pointed out, The Scarlet Letter is incredibly thematically relevant to Meg’s past. In fact it’s so on the nose that I’d almost say it’s overkill, however that book is so widely taught in American classrooms that yeah, I buy it, it works for me. At least they’re keeping it fairly subtle so far - we notice it because we know the S1 story, a new viewer wouldn’t necessarily realize the connection. And I have seen so many versions of the classroom scene where the inspirational teacher openly talks about the themes of the novel/impact of the historical event/educational topic that just so happens to coincide with whatever’s going on in the protagonist’s life, that yes, this is actually relatively subtle.

Pointless personal anecdote #1: In high school I had one of those stereotypically artsy English teachers and every year she had her students do a mock trial based on The Scarlet Letter, where the goal was to determine which of the main characters was the least guilty. It was a huuuuge project and worth a ton of our grade, and the year we did it, there was tons of drama and crying and name-calling outside of the classroom due to everyone taking this trial 200% too seriously. I drew the team representing Dimmesdale (the minister who fathers a child with Hester Prynne) and miraculously everyone else on the team was smart but chill; we were the only team that didn’t blow up into drama, and we won the trial. I had a great time doing the project, but as time went by I started to think about the point of the trial and whether it was a good assignment, and how our biases crept into the result. Because I remember when kids drew the Hester team, they groaned, because they knew they wouldn’t win. One of the male characters was going to win. Chillingworth might win even though he’s an evil piece of shit and some readers think he straight-up poisoned a dude, but he wasn’t Hester. Hester was definitely guilty because she had sex outside of marriage and had a baby. And if we want to tie this back to Skam, it gets me thinking about how Eva/Meg is the one who loses everything and Jonas/Marlon’s life seems to be more or less intact. The girls lose their friends and in Meg’s case, her hobby/passion, while the boys are OK. Then the same thing happens later with Eva where P-Chris is just a fuckboy but Eva is a slut. Because the girls are the guilty ones. 

Megan’s homework mentions the “life-changing event happens to Hester when she is in the forest away from her community. What do you think this says about the role of community in the outcome of her life?” hMMMMMM. The next question is also about the story centering around a “strong female character.”

Shay talking to Meg while stretched out on her back sure is quite flirty.

Meg’s parents are arguing and contributing to making her feel like a loser, building up some of that pressure (theeeeeme). She has a survival kit which implies that this is a regular thing and she feels the need to escape a lot. 

I do think Julie is getting in some nice shots of the city and making these teens look all picturesque.

Clip 3 - Sad sad eating alone time

I wish Poonam had a Frozen lunchbox.

I'm wondering what Meg’s and Poonam’s relationship is supposed to be. Are they old friends? Are their parents friends? Are they acquaintances who share a class? Does Poonam just want a sounding board to vent about her busy life? I knew people like that in high school. 

Poonam is self-centered in a rather teenage way, not just in talking about herself and being insensitive, talking about how quitting extra-curriculars makes you a loser, assuming Megan doesn’t care, etc. but also how she ditches Megan to go sit with her choir friends instead of like … inviting Meg to sit with her and the choir kids.

There's the THEME!!! of community again as Poonam encourages Meg to be more social, because people who engage in community have happier, healthier, more successful lives. The clip starts with both Meg and Abby alone, but ends with Meg alone and Abby not, because Abby is part of a community and Meg is not.

Also Meg has to be super checked out not to notice the giant Talent Night posters everywhere, including right next to her. It’s too bad they probably won’t go into this but I feel like she’s depressed on a level that Eva wasn’t, which is likely due to losing not just her friends but also purpose of being on the dance team.

“Talent night is the one night of the year where the entire school comes together to celebrate the foundation of our social hierarchy - sports.” Lol, no it’s not. I guarantee you it’s not, no matter what your school is, but especially not this school where sports appear to be a big deal. Try Homecoming.

Marlon is the worst. The woooorst. It really feels as if he, Shay, and Tyler are a group that Meg is just not in, in a way that I didn’t feel with Eva. Because while Eva was often excluded and was the third wheel to Jonas and Isak, Isak was also in some situations the third wheel to her and Jonas. Megan feels like she’s completely on the outskirts of this group. She’s friendly with Shay but I wouldn’t say that they’re friends, while Eva and Isak had some history and were decently close on their own. Some of the other remakes emphasize this too - in particular Italian Eva and Isak (Martino) feel like great friends in their own right. Plus if Marlon does opt to hang with Megan over his friends, Shay and Tyler still have each other.

But for fuck’s sake, Marlon, why didn’t you ask your girlfriend to get some damn food with you? Unless you didn’t really go for food...

Clip 4 - Conservative

How many times has Meg had to listen to Marlon’s music? Yet when she asks him to go do something with her, he doesn’t want to do it. Dump him.

In terms of Marlon’s comments about sports culture … OK, on the one hand I would say there are bigger issues in sports culture, particularly in high school - for example, how sports gets more funding than any other high school program, just to name one issue. His thing about sports culture being about winners working hard, losers are lazy, is maybe not the most relevant, it’s kind of trite. However, I can see a so-called “woke” teen saying something like that, much like I can see a teenager rhapsodizing about Elsa from Frozen. And I get it, it fits in thematically.

Megan used to be on a sports team (and dance teams often do all kinds of competitions so I’d consider it a sport) and clearly misses it so maybe he should chill. And don’t ask your girlfriend to go with someone else when you know she doesn’t have any friends.

Dump him.

Clip 5 - Talent Night

Besides the dance memorabilia, in her room Meg has a poster for a costume party around Halloween, which is possibly when she hooked up with Jo.

Marlon is the worst!!! Worse than other Jonases!!! At least they canceled ahead of time, Marlon just bails last second to go do something fun he likes. Rude and inconsiderate! He doesn’t even invite her along to the concert (and gives an excuse in the next episode, but dude, if you’re going to CANCEL YOUR ESTABLISHED PLANS AT THE LAST SECOND you should at least ASK).

Plus she really needs an escape from her house at that moment due to her parents’ fighting. Great job, dude. 

The B-roll is nice. Again, good shots of the city.

Discussion was happening on @softnorwegians’ Tumblr about the plausibility of Talent Night in terms of location, setup, importance, etc. and I agree with a lot of the criticisms. I absolutely do not buy an official school-sponsored event taking place at what looks like a bar with no chaperones or adults around. Talent Night would probably be held at the school, in the auditorium or gymnasium. Maybe a community center. Maaaybe at a local coffee shop or restaurant, something like that, but that’s pushing it IMO - there would be so many people there that you need a large venue. This doesn’t seem like a small school. My high school did talent shows and there were always tons of adults present, teachers, parents filming their kids.

Also, Talent Night is typically not to fund sports teams! Talent Night is something put on by student government maybe, or if any school group is going to fundraise from it, it would definitely be the arts programs. Or it would be to raise money for charity. Sports teams already have a bunch of fundraisers, also a lot of them are for the individual teams, like swim team will have one, football will have one, etc. I guess it’s not impossible, but it feels a bit contrived. But there are probably some schools that do Talent Night for the sports teams, IDK. (Also, if it’s for the sports teams ... it seems weird to me that the athletes like Jordan don’t seem involved, either on stage or working at the venue? All fundraising I did for the school clubs/activities I was in, I had to do some actual work for the event - sell tickets, serve food, clean up, etc. Lol, here it seems like the sports teams are just hanging out and reaping the profits while random kids earn some money for them.)

Some of the graffiti in the bathroom: 

Sk8ers gonna Sk8 (I’m blanking on where this came from originally, I think it was on an IG post or text?)

Alt er love

Daniel + Grace

That last one, believe it or not, is what made me interested in reacting to this show. Because Grace is our Noora, there are hints of our William being called Daniel … and yet, what’s the context of that graffiti? It makes no sense when you think about it. New girl Grace surely doesn’t know Daniel. Is that supposed to be a hint to future Noorhelm, or is it a shoutout to something that won’t happen - like is Julie teasing us?

I mean, Grace and Daniel are very very common names, but the choice of graffiti was deliberate as we can tell from the other Skam references.

Lol @ me thinking Julie won’t do Noorhelm again but let me have this for now.

The Facebook/fandom reaction to Grace is an example of one of the worst parts of doing a close remake. If this were a completely new show and no one knew the plot, the reaction would have been, “Oh yay, Megan met someone nice :) Maybe they can be friends :) ”

But because she is supposed to be The Noora, a bunch of people had expectations for how she was supposed to act and (especially) look, and when she didn’t fit their expectations, complained. First of all, Grace was quite pretty to me so I didn’t even understand the backlash on a superficial level. Second, get the actual fuck out if you think any of these girls aren’t attractive enough to be a part of the squad. This show has never been about depicting the hottest, most physically perfect people. In fact that’s a reason people like Skam, that there are a variety of body types, their teeth, skin, and hair aren’t perfect. 

Pointless personal anecdote #2: “Let’s give it up for Natalie on nunchucks” is how I want everyone to greet me when I walk into a room, I’m going to have to start practicing.

Jo is great! So good. “I want to see your dumbass routine.” “Ballet shit?!” That whole bit was awesome. What a true friend.

This was so awkward. Painfully awkward.

General Comments:

The IGs are nice work, I’m sure FB pulled some strings to get the pictures backdated. There are some good clues in them - Meg appearing in the old Kittens pics and the Mannequin challenge, Abby has pictures set in Megan’s bedroom where she has clearly cropped out Megan. Abby and Marlon have pictures of a beach from the same day.

Poonam’s super paranoid text about posting things on IG made me laugh a lot. 

I didn’t talk about the acting. It’s ... not great in a lot of places, and sometimes it takes me out of the scene (especially in the Talent Night clip) but it’s not something I want to focus on a whole lot. The cast appears to be teenagers, many of whom have no acting experience, and I’m not totally comfortable being negative about them (NOT saying that no one can criticize their acting, just that for me personally I feel bad doing it). Besides, the fact of it being a direct remake is the more pressing problem for me. As for positives about the acting, I think Shay and Jo are great and have some natural comedic timing.

I am not rooting for Meg/Marlon at all. At all. No version of Eva/Jonas has induced this much annoyance in me. There’s a lack of chemistry, Marlon is more inconsiderate than the other Jonases, and they don’t seem to have much in common.

Unpopular (?) opinion but I have no problem with naming the Jonas character Marlon, or calling him marlonf9000 on IG. It’s an affectionate homage, sure. I guess my only problem with it is that Marlon the character sucks so far and Marlon the actor deserves better.

Man, I don’t even know what to feel about this show at this point. It feels so surreal. I don’t hate it? I’m not angry at it? I’m disappointed that we have to get yet another S1 more than anything. I actually want this show to succeed, believe it or not - even if I don’t care for it personally, I would rather have a lot of other people love it than not. 

I also feel stupid for making any type of speculation on what could happen! Because we’re going to come up with these elaborate theories about how Julie could adapt the story and take it in a different direction, and it’s likely to be all for nothing and we’ll just watch an awkward redo of a scene we’ve already seen.

I do want to say good job for increasing the cast diversity. That was a main fear, that Skam Austin would be lily-white, and we’ve already got 5 prominent WOC in the cast (including Zoya) which is terrific. 

I don’t take the millions of views on the first clip/first episode super seriously since FB was promoting it pretty hard and I heard something about a three-second rule? I’m more interested in seeing how the viewership on the episodes/clips manifests week by week.

It’s also clear that a lot of viewers were confused by the format and don’t get the concept of real-time clips vs. the compiled weekly episodes, which I can hardly blame them for since it’s not typical. 

[lysical]

I was introduced to a lot of the Batfamily via the Morrison run. How screwed up is my perception of them? Comics are an effing minefield of characterization—I know, I’m a Hank Pym fan because I ran into him first in one of his highly rare likeable periods. Any tips/recs? It feels like everywhere I go the characters aren’t the “real” ones, and idk where to find these “real” ones. (This goes for Tim too, although you seem understandably down on him lately & might not want to talk Drake anymore

It does vary by character, actually. There are some fundamental things he does that are a bit out of there, and other things that are just plain offensive, but he’s not the absolute worst to come in on, as damned by faint praise as that is. 

Long post ahead

Bruce: Morrison and I fundamentally see the character very differently. He sort of subscribes to some ideas about Bruce as Batman that I just don’t like re: emotions, life, family. He uses a lot of allegories and devices in his work and the depth is there, I just don’t agree with what he was doing and had to say about Batman on a fundamental level. Post-Crisis Bruce is a bit all over the place. A lot of different writers got their hands on him and the dark and gritty post-Jason transformation of the character was intense and permanent. Because of this, coming into Morrison doesn’t really hurt you that much--especially since for a lot of it he’s functionally dead. Maybe check out some runs like Hush (more emphasis on the family), Dark Victory (some young Dick Grayson), Batman: Year One (say what you want about Miller, but it’s a decent book and the atmosphere and art are great for an introduction to the modern character), and then hop over to some of Bruce’s team books. Sometimes characters get distilled well over in their team books compared to their solos (especially since the Bat Department is...weird at times). Maybe check out Superman/Batman, the old team up from the early 2000s. For Bruce it’s just best to cast a wide net and read a variety. JLA: Tower of Babel is a good one to see Batman and the wider superhero community in conflict, which brings in a lot of Batman’s negative aspects in a way that was decently balanced and didn’t villainize him via narrative even as the characters might have felt that way about him (Young Justice certainly did XD), but I havent’ read it in a long time so ymmv. 

Dick: One of the few characters that didn’t get that bad a hand by Morrison, or too much of a characterization shift (his character shift had happened during the Chuck Dixon and Devin Grayson period, although the latter more than the former). Unlike new 52 onwards, while he was softened a little to pair effectively with Damian, it wasn’t too much as we saw at times later and how fandom kind of tends to portray them (’Shut the hell up, Damian’ comes to mind). The Dickbats run was a nice change and development for Dick, a natural progression. The things that were sort of tweaked to create conflict with that transition (Dick not wanting Batman, some characterization behind that) were pre-Morrision, during Battle for the Cowl and the setup to Morrison, so while they follow on from that they’re mostly absent from the run. For the modern Robin Dick stories, go for Teen Titans: Year One, Dark Victory, Batman: Year Three, a couple of the other year ones are decent, although some incorporate those characterization shifts, but that’s comics. I’d go back to New Teen Titans (starts in Pre-Crisis, goes into Post, but the book doesn’t have a huge change due to the crisis and it’s just a really good run, deserving of being the benemoth during that time period that it was) to get the best of Dick on a team, then maybe check out Prodigal (follows on from Knightfall, Dick’s first run as Batman), skip Nightwing: Year One (it’s got tiny amounts of Dick and Jason bonding but Dixon ripped everything else about Dick’s early Nightwing period to shreds). From there, depends if you want his solo or his team stuff, he’s a pretty easy character to follow. I like to start chronologically with him because then you see the shifts happen as he falls back under control of the bat-books, and his solo and team stuff have some interesting contrasts (I lean towards his team stuff generally because Dick has always been about that for me, rather than running solo). 

Babs: Birds of Prey is her essential stuff, I don’t think Morrison really did that much with her but my memories of it all are a bit vague now. I’d personally take anything when she’s romantically involved with Dick with a grain of salt, that relationship was a bit of a disaster and they both do terrible things to each other (I believe the one responsible for it all is Devin again but it’s been a while since i visited that train wreck) and there’s some victim-blaming that happens that’s not so good. I prefer Oracle having a bit of distance from the Batfam, as she’s just surpassed being someone who is under Batman’s authority and is just crucial to the entire operation of the superhero community in general, so Bird s of Prey. 

Jason: Hnng. Here’s where Morrison really just decided to throw away established DC continuity and try his hand at a bunch of crap that fell completely flat. Just toss it and purge, tbh. Winick got Jason back late in the run but it was too late for that. Maybe there are tiny aspects of characterization that aren’t bad (Pride and Prejudice) but Morrison misunderstood Jason on a much more fundamental level. Also the red hair was probably some attempt to make a witty visual pun and add ‘depth’ but there are so many problems with it. Continuity-wise it makes so sense with how pre-crisis and post- worked, particularly for Jason, and additionally Morrison is realllllly wishy-washy with his ‘EVERYTHING IS CANON’ stuff that it rings false, plus in Pre-Crisis he was like...blonde I don’t understand. The implications of Jason being forced to dye his hair are absolutely disgusting for Bruce and go back into that fundamental problem I have with how Morrison sees Bruce. Jason, Post-resurrection suffers a lot of DC writers not knowing what to do and unloading a lot of DC’s baggage and some unconscious, problematic tropes onto him. Read his Post-Crisis origin (Batman 408 on, there’s the origin and some issues after set up by his original Post-Crisis writer Max Collins) and maybe all his Post-Crisis, pre-Death stuff since there’s honestly not a lot and it’s fairly obvious when Starlin starts pushing for his death. For post-resurrection, Under the Red Hood, Lost Days (it goes off the rails at the end, so I only half rec it honestly), Outsiders 44 and 45, Countdown (but only if you’re skipping the plot and just reading the Jason (&Donna &Kyle) bits, it’s one of the most even-handed treatments he actually gets in Post-Crisis but the book is otherwise terrible). Then just go straight to RHatO Rebirth. 

Tim: Ignore new 52 and Rebirth entirely. Red Robin is a book a lot of Tim fans really like but I personally think it’s bad in general and also don’t like what the writer does with Tim, but ymmv. Tim’s origin is also pretty weak and his initial mini and series aren’t that great at establishing him as a proper character outside ‘this kid is Robin pls like him we want to get away from the controversy of the last one’ so it’s hard to connect with him there without nostalgia glasses. By Knightfall (1994ish) on, that’s where he’s more of a character himself, and his stuff from about then through to the early 2000s is the best (before Geoff Johns got him in Teen Titans and Didio started doing Things, which basically led us to today to be honest). Personally, I think Tim functions best in a team, there are aspects of what his writers do in his solo where they just...missed the implications and it kind of grates on me. His stand out book imo is Young Justice (the og comic not the cartoon which only shares the name and nothing else tbh). 

Steph: Another who actually got treated decently well during the Morrison-era, as opposed to the crap she was dealt earlier during her time as Robin and War Games. Steph’s Batgirl run is something I definitely recommend, and her stuff with Dick and Damian in Morrison’s era is contemporary with that. Her origin is actually really good and compelling, so I’d dig into that (TEC 647, i think, is her first appearance). She kind of just revolves around Tim during his run and their relationship is kind of...there are implications there that are a bit cringe. Her stuff with Cass on the other hand is really enjoyable so I’d recommend those. Her brief Robin run is decent if melancholy considering what we know happens, and I wouldn’t touch War Games with a ten foot pole. 

Cass: Shafted from the mid-2000s on, tbh. She got a bit blessed with a solid creative team to start her off in her Batgirl run, it attempts some pretty deep and interesting explorations of her character that while not perfectly executed are still really good comics. I’d just read her No Man’s Land stuff, follow her book and stuff with Steph and pretty much just ditch out when One Year Later hits. Her Black Bat outfit is cool and there is some retroactive backpedalling by DC to justify shafting her but it’s all Morrison era anyway so you might be familiar already. 

Damian: Morrison created him and he took a lot of liberties with that backstory which unfortunately have had a lasting impact for Talia, which is frustrating. As Damian’s creator, what you see is what you get. Morrison didn’t want him to be likeable and he also didn’t really want him to be permanent (ties in again to how Morrison sees Bruce and family tbh), other writers gave Damian development later, but despite being around for over a decade now, there is still a lot of push and pull between writers about his characterization and development. It’s unfortunate but there’s a noticeable lack of consistency with Damian and his development that is frustrating to read. Probably read Tomasi’s stuff if you want Damian’s softened, developed arc and avoid other stuff. I’m not the best for Damian because most of his stuff is during the new 52 which I wasn’t around for and am picking through only occasionally. 

Hope this helps. 

[icharchivist]

Thanks for the links I'll be sure to watch them. I like watching analysis on Disney movies. Belle is my most favorite Disney princess. Has been forever. I was eager to see the live action movie until I kept hearing all this stuff about Belle being 'better' smarter and stronger. I was thinking Belle was already perfect. Why fix what's not broken? I'm not sure how any of this is an improvement. Instead of appreciating who Belle is and why her nature ended up destroying a curse to save countless -

2 people and redeem one soul who also proved he was a awesome selfless guy underneath that spoiled attitude. We get a character who we’re suppose to be impressed by her talents or, as you put it, how ahead of her time she was. Original Belle would be special yet easy to misunderstand no matter where or what time period you stuck her in. She was role model for her selfless attitude and independent mindest that didn’t go w/the crowd. She saw past images and cared about what was underneath. -

3 Belle was also relatable because she liked what she liked and felt lonely sge didn’t have friends who liked or accepted her. We all have yearnings to escape a place we feel belittled or trapped in. We all want to have at least 1 person to love us for who we are w/o wanting to completely change us first. But in the remake we got Belle the inventor. I’m not going to relate to someone alone for being an inventor. As you said, I feel like they lost what made Belle Belle when they turned her into -

4 into a mini version of her Father. We didn’t need her to become her dad and inherit her dad’s problems. She had her own problems. Just like what they’re doing w/Jasmine. Once again I thought the Aladdin remake looked fun until they talked about Jasmine veing a stronger version. She’s into politics and stuff. Forget that Jasmine wanted to marry for love and stood defiant against her well meaning Father’s picks for a husband. All men who only wanted her for status. That she was brave enough to-5 escape her sheltered world to be herself. That she never once looked down on Aladdin or anyone for being a street rat and treated him like a equal worthy of respect. She’s never once impressed w/material gain and showed more awe for a kind thief’s world then a boastful Prince’s magical parade that enchanted everyone else. That she stood up to Jafar of all villians w/o breaking a sweat. That she forgave so much. That she got her freedom and true love in the end. That’s only 1 movie too.

Yeaaah that’s so true I agree with all you said.

Tbh this is kind of another problem, Belle was more “ordinary” in a way that was relatable: but that was part of what made her this “extraordinary”. She was the “simple bookworm” who had a golden heart and could have people be their best selves around her. And it’s.. good. I mean I think people forgot those movies originally target kids or the kids inside of us. Sometimes it’s just good to tell the kid that even simplest things make them amazing. That they don’t have to be “special”, to be smarter, stronger than everyone else to be taken seriously, that you could just be yourself, that you could still have an impact on people’s lives. 

Like yeah it’s cool to tell kids they can be more too!! It’s important that there are stories that can tell kids “and you can do extraordinary things” but htat doesn’t mean that the likeable ordinary characters shouldn’t exist. And it’s such a disservice to Belle bc she was relatable. Any kids could feel for her journey, for who she was, and didn’t have to feel.. unadequate because y’see they’re not a genuis like her.

Already I feel like we’re losing a bit of her agency by making her an extension of her father, but as it is, it’s just… again that apparently to be considered a “good protagonist” you have to be a step ahead, to not just be a normal person see, you have to be a SUPER person who is more amazing that everyone and super transgressive.

And it’s.. a shame because the original movie carries that on far better. Belle is still weird, and we know the town is being a bit dumb but…. the thing is that, it’s super relatable? Like in the remake tries far more to relate it to the time period (which is in itself silly, the original “La Belle et La Bête” was published in a lady’s magazine for women to read it’s not,, like it was that weird to “teach another girl to read” in that time period in France,,) and they add this stupid plotline of how Gaston is just having major PTSD and that’s why he’s a douche and they have a whole section showing the townfolks don’t trust him blindly and Le Fou has to pay them to sing Gaston and i’m just??? Bc No, the Town were just mindless people who just would push away anyone who’s different. Gaston is your usual bully. The kind who believes they’re more important than anyone. They’re… people you actually meet in your life. 

So by making Belle “more special” while also in a town that is “more justified” it just… feels wrong and fall flat and it just feels insulting.

I don’t know that remake missed all the marks and Belle especially suffered from it and i hate how superficially they took the character. It’s super annoying. 

For Aladdin i admit i didn’t keep track of the remake, i personally think it looks like a trainwreck but i’m also very, very tired about the Disney Remake trend, and extremely annoyed with the “We’re fixing stuff from the original” ones. Because like, for exemple, liking it or not Maleficient wasn’t trying to fix the original, it was another side of the story. Jungle Book took a different approach but didn’t act all smugly about how they were fixing things. But with Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin they keep talking about things to change from the original to make it “more modern and better” and generally it’s not even on like… actual important stuff (i’ve only ever watched Aladdin in French and they don’t have it in it but apparently there’s a lyrics from the opening song that is downright offensive about how barbaric the culture is. Like. Think about fixing that before fixing your “woman problem” Disney.)

For Aladdin,  I really have no idea where the damn remake is headed but yeah i’ve seen them mention how much the new Jasmine is better than the original and c o m o n. You can try to talk a little more about politics without completely  undermining that she was still having an arc in the original, that she didn’t want her life decided for her, and everything you just said. 

idk i feel like they didn’t even get why those characters were liked to start with. They rush into conclusion about what bad role models they are without even taking into account that it’s… not like that people took them. Legit I’ve never thought “Cinderella/Ariel/Belle needed a Man to save them from their lives” for exemple until people started to smash it all over my head when I was a teen. 

Personally my fav princess growing up was Ariel, for exemple. to me she was a passionate person and people around her kept villainizing what she liked, his father litterally destroys all her stuff in front of her in a fit of anger. she is more pressured into doing the family stuff like singing for his father, but her interests are shunned away. What she wants is to explore her passion, to discover new things, to not be locked where her family tells her is her best place to be, especially when her father for exemple completely overlook her boundaries. Saving Eric happened to be one of the catalyst making her want to set it in motion, but she didn’t do it until her father sent her the message that her passion would be welcomed with violence. And yeah she took rushes decision when she was running away from home after her father terrified her, she was pressured in the contract, but the enjoyed herself on Earth, and whatever “she just wanted to find a man” means, she found what she wanted with Eric. he has boats, they can travel if she wants. He invites her to danse, he makes her visit places, she handle a horse, he helps her live more of her dream that isn’t just living a life with him. 

So to me i grew up with Ariel on a pure escapism sense, of living off your passion, of being able to escape an unsafe place to be with said passion, and hell the ultimate fantasy is that her father admited he was wrong and did right by her in the end. Getting the man was a bonus. 

and Ariel also enters a lot in the bashed princesses category because of Eric and it always kinda frustrated me, but when I was a young teen and everyone told me they were bad role models? I just ended up agreeing because “guess kid me doesn’t know any better”. But as an adult now, I feel like kid!me understood it much more, because those raw emotions are what inspired me in my life. Not the man, the passion did. 

Can’t WAIT until they remake The Little Mermaid to “remake Ariel in a Stronger Female Character” even if that’s not what this story need /sarcasm.

So yea long story short I think executives who are trying to say “how to better female characters kids loved” just completely missed why kids loved those characters to start with, and so instead it’s just pushing down our throat “shhh you love it the wrong way, here how you should love it too be More Progressive” and this is just annoying.

So yeah. Wait and see for the Aladdin’s remake but I have very little hope. 

Oh boy and it reminds me everything they planned for the Mulan remake *takes a huge breath* i dont know if i’m strong enough.

Take care!

[illyrian-bitch-queen]

Stranger -part 2

I know, it took me long e-fucking-nough to write this and I’ve been promising it forever.

But it’s here! And I’m considering continuing it with one more part but I am nowhere near having decided yet because I wrote a whole 22 pages with all the lorcan and aelin banter and other stuff and this is only 13 but it’s so much work and I’m so bad at continuing things but I really feel like this part has barely any rowaelin until the end and I need to correct that by writing another part but idk I’ll decide when I’m not half-dead from book hangover

~Aelin has an accident at work, and Rowan meets her in the emergency room~

**

Tonight was not a good night.

On any given night of work, we would go home with quite a few bruises. Either from bumping around in the dark corridors that actors are forced to go through blindly, or from getting someone’s knuckles into you for doing your job well.

I'd under-exaggerated a little when I'd been talking to Rowan the night before. It was actually pretty common to get hit when you worked in a place like I did. I'd been honest though, when I said I'd only gotten hit in the face once. At least, if you didn't count glancing blows to the jaw or head.

But tonight was even worse than usual. I'd gotten nailed in the gut in my first group, and had been forced to slink away into the nearest dark pocket out of sight while Chaol came over and took the guy aside to remind him that the actors were just doing their jobs and to step out if he couldn't control himself.

After I'd caught my breath for a moment I had gone back out to finish the tour.

Chaol checked on me briefly before I started my next group, but it certainly wasn't much of a deal considering the performers tended to get hit quite often. Although it'd been a hard hit, I'd had worse just growing up with my asshole of an adopted father.

The group after that had been full of squealing teen girls. They'd become so terrified part way through that I had to sneak forward to advise the other actors that I was toning the performance down in order to make sure they didn't become too miserable for the experience to be any fun.

We had a saying around the prison that pertained to situations like theirs. We want them to have nightmares for a couple weeks, not the rest of their lives.

So I left that group mostly to a scary plot, rather than jump scares and gore that was making them cover their eyes and ears.

At least I didn't get hit through it.

In a group that was mainly millennials like myself who were too busy laughing to be frightened, we pulled out our most horrifying scenes.

Chaol, in one of them, grabbed me by the hair and dragged me down the hall on my back while I screamed bloody murder. Dressed as a guard, he was taking the escaped prisoner back to her cell, despite her pleas of innocence, leaving skin and blood behind from the brutal dragging.

In reality, there was a smooth pad in the back of my costume, and it was no different than if he was dragging me on a sled. Although, the hair part was a little uncomfortable.

We always got a kick out of working together, even now that we were broken up. Living together, seeing each other every day, made it all the more humorous when it came time to pretend we were murdering each other. Although it always felt like a fun little play to us, it was downright terrifying to the guests.

After kicking it up rather wildly, the group was screaming exactly the way we'd wanted them to.

The next group resulted in an elbow to my throat, and at one point in the night, I'd tripped over something in one of the actors’ hidden corridors and had about shattered my toe.

As a result, I was having an awful night even before I got a fist to the nose and a free ride to the ER courtesy of my ex-boyfriend, who was having a hard time hiding his amusement.

The man who punched me was probably about the size of my older cousin, Aedion. And unfortunately, he hit about as hard as I’d expect Aedion to.

I'd surprised him, having slipped into the group beside him when he was watching Chaol struggling with an escaped prisoner.

Apparently, I made a rather large error when I bared fake sharpened teeth and eyes black enough that the whites were eaten up by it to my chosen victim.  I realized that when the man, who had thought he was standing beside his girlfriend, apparently lost all control of himself.

I fell back against the wall behind me with the force of the impact as his fist cracked into my nose. And although odd sounds were to be expected at a haunted attraction, Chaol and the other actor instantly realized that something had gone wrong when guests gasped and whispered as I leaned my weight against the wall, my nose and lips cupped safely in my hands.

“Oh, fuck,” the other actor, Ress, said as he came up to my side. My eyes were watering, clenched tightly shut.

I could hear the man trying to apologize, but Chaol ushered the group on quickly forward, getting them away from me to give me space.

“Hold up on the next groups for a minute. Injury ahead.”

Ress was talking over the radio, I realized a moment later. “Hey,” he said to me, “look at me.”

When I raised my eyes to his, he put a hand under my jaw, tipping my head up. “Let me see.”

I groaned as I pulled my hands away, any small movement sending a shock through my face.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered. At my widened eyes, he laughed nervously. “Oh, I'm exaggerating. It's not so bad…”

“You're an awful liar,” I hissed, whining in the back of my throat as the words reverberated through my nose, sending little shocks through it.

I could feel warmth running down over my lips and slumped back further against the wall before pushing myself off of it with a groan. Ress took my arm as I began to walk myself towards the nearest door that led to staff walkways. I needed to get out of the way before the schedule got backed up.

“All clear ahead for guests to come through,” I heard Chaol say over the radio, letting the others pick their acts back up just as we entered a little staff room. There were costumes and makeup piled against the walls, but it was more of a sitting area than a changing one.

I sat heavily on a chair nearby, closing my eyes against the aching in my nose.

“It's probably broken,” Ress said, pursing his lips as he looked me over. “You're gonna want to go to the emergency room.”

I shook my head. “No way. My health insurance is shit. I can take the pain for a while.”

Ress grimaced. “Aelin, it’s bent. It's totally broken, and it's going to heal crooked as hell if you don't go to the doctor.”

I looked at him with wide eyes. “Will it really heal crooked?” I swore colorfully. “God dammit, I'm pretty but I'm not pretty enough to take a crooked nose without looking like the fucking creature from the black lagoon,” I whined.

Ress blinked at me, his lips parting hesitantly, unsure of what to say.

“It'd just be...endearing is all,” Ress said, trying to be comforting. I groaned, dropping my head back.

“I don't want to be endearing. That's a word for puppies and little kids, not something to call a beautiful woman.”

I almost felt bad for Ress after the helpless, mildly terrified look he gave me in response. But really, didn’t he understand?

Before Ress could try to stutter through another attempt at comfort, Chaol was before me, crouching down and resting a hand on my knee.

“Are you alright?” He plowed on without waiting for a response. “I get off my shift in ten minutes and Boss says I can leave early to take you to the hospital.” He turned to Ress. “Find her a towel or something for the blood.”

I huffed, but let him take control of the situation as I instead focused on trying not to let my eyes water as the sharp stinging in my nose refused to dissipate.

Chaol kept talking, his steady, rumbling voice soothing to me. Unfortunately, My current situation was making me miss our intimacy like I had only a couple times since we'd broken up, and I really wished he'd just put his arms around me right now.

I wouldn't wound my pride or risk our only recently stable friendship by trying to press a relationship that was no longer healthy for either of us. So I sat back against the seat, wishing that there was someone here that I could solicite a hug from.

When Ress returned with a clean white towel, Chaol took it and held it up to my nose. “Hold this here. I'm going to get your stuff together.”

Ress looked at me for a few moments while Chaol was gone, hesitating and stumbling over a vague goodbye before fleeing the room as soon as he returned. I just rolled my eyes.

“Do you want to get changed before we go?” Chaol asked, much calmer than I appreciated.

I shook my head carefully. “No. I just want this mess fixed before I heal looking like the wicked witch of the west.”

“You will not look like the wicked witch of the west,” Chaol sighed, setting my bag down beside me and pulling his coat around his shoulders. “Besides, you saw Wicked with Dorian and I. Elphaba isn't so bad, hm?”

I glowered at him and he chuckled quietly. “Her nose wasn't crooked anyway,” he mused. “You'll look more like a professional boxer or something.”

“You're such a dick,” I hissed, swatting a hand out to slap his shoulder. “You're supposed to be nice when someone's hurt.”

Chaol raised a brow, pulling away from me and slinging my bag over his shoulder. “I am being nice. I'm taking your stuff for you and I'm giving you a ride to the emergency room. I think even Dorian would be impressed.”

I sighed in despair, closing my eyes. This was not going to be pleasant.

My phone buzzed from inside my bag and I reached for it with my free hand, beating Chaol to it. Rowan's name and message popped up in my screen and I turned it quickly away before Chaol saw it. I didn't need that teasing right now.

But it seemed I'd move too slow. “Rowan? Who’s Rowan?”

There was a bit of an edge to his voice, but it wasn't much. I just smiled prettily at him before stuffing my phone into my pocket to read later. “Fine. Don't answer then.” Chaol huffed, standing and offering me his arm. I took it, unsure of my balance, and let him walk me to the exit.

The frigid air swept my hair away from my face and cut straight through my thin costume. I sighed, but didn't change my mind about getting changed. “Well, I guess the emergency room will have an interesting night.”

Chaol huffed out a nearly silent chuckle as he walked me to his car. I ducked my head and tried to keep my body behind Chaol’s to break the icy wind.

I all but threw myself into the familiar car, sinking into an impeccably clean cloth seat and turning the heat dial up as far as it would go. Chaol slid behind the wheel with much more grace than I'd used, smoothly twisting the key in the ignition.

“I still think you should've kept your standard,” I said, looking pointedly at the glove box where there should be a shifter.

Chaol rolled his eyes as he turned his blinker on and pulled off the side of the road where he'd been parked. He'd gotten rid of his standard car just after we’d broken up. He'd only kept it as long as he did because I'd whined every time he brought up his plans to sell it. I loved to watch people drive standard, although I doubted I'd ever be able to do it myself.

My adoptive father had never wanted me to learn to drive, another one of his ploys to keep me dependent on him. Although I'd tried to learn after I'd moved away from him, it hadn't been as easy as I'd hoped to find someone willing to teach me. I still had my permit, but that was as far as I'd gotten.

Chaol had said once that he'd teach me, but that had gone out the window at the same time that he sold his old car.

It was a pain to rely on others to give me rides though. And it was a strain on my wallet when it came to needing a cab any time it wasn't convenient for one of my friends to drive me.

I wasn't sure what I would have done if Chaol hadn't been able to drive me now. I would've had to call Dorian away from a family dinner just so I could get myself to the hospital.

“Teach me to drive?” I asked, dropping my head back with a sigh and waiting for his response.

“Not a good idea,” he responded, just as he always did when I asked him that. “You wouldn't have been able to drive yourself tonight anyway. Your eyes aren't focusing properly as it is, and you need a free hand to hold your towel up. You'd get in twelve accidents before you made it to the hospital.”

I grunted in irritation. Why was it that he could still read me like an open book, even this long after we'd broken up?

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Chaol asked, pulling smoothly into the circle in front of the ER entrance. “I can grab a parking space and meet you in there if you want.”

“No, that's fine. I can handle my own doctor’s appointment. I'm a big girl.”

“Well, that's debatable,” he joked, tossing me a little grin. I just huffed, swatting at him good-naturedly. “Thank you for giving me a ride. I don't know what I'd do without you and Dorian.”

I slid out of the car, thanking him once more before turned and stepping quickly up the walkway. My pale, stained and tattered jumpsuit looked even more obscene in the stark lighting of the emergency room.

I groaned as I felt all eyes go to me. I stepped up to the front desk as the woman watched me warily.

“I broke my nose,” I said, placing a hand down on the counter. “Someone punched me.”

The woman continued to look at me with wide eyes, frozen with a hand perched over her keyboard. The only thing moving on her was a strand of blonde hair that had fallen from her bun. It was lifting and falling gently on the breeze

I sighed. “I work at the old prison on the other side of town. You know, the haunted house thing? I'm an actor there.”

The woman continued to stare, but nodded. “Alright honey,” she said slowly. “What brings you here today?”

I blinked slowly before pulling the towel from my nose and pointing to it. “I got punched in the nose. Im pretty sure it's broken. It hasn't stopped bleeding and it's bent.”

The woman nodded again and began to dig through her papers, her cheeks now flushed a rosy color in embarrassment. “Sorry. It's not every day we get someone walking in here dressed...like that.”

I nodded, tapping my fingers on the desk impatiently.

“Alright, so here's the forms for you to sign. Just fill in your information and hold onto it until the doctor comes to get you.”

“Don't I have to sign in?”

“Oh!” The woman flushed again. I hoped to god that she was new here. “Alright, here it is.”

She passed me a clipboard with a list of names. I scribbled myself onto it and took the other one she offered me for my medical information.

I sat heavily in my seat and began to scratch away at the form. My pen was pressed hard enough to leave an indent by the time I reached the end of the paperwork.

Did they really need all this shit to pop my nose back into place?

I set the clipboard aside and leaned back in my seat, reaching for my phone, finally remembering Rowan’s text.

For the past two days, I'd been talking to him nearly every waking moment. I texted him on all my breaks during work, and I even responded to his texts while I was reading, which was impressive considering I'd always refused to look at my phone while immersed in a book.

He was fun to talk to. He was real, and he was honest. And, although I had got a pretty serious vibe from him when we talked in person, he responded well to my jokes and flirting. I'd sent him my Snapchat earlier in the day and we'd been using it to send pictures of our surroundings back and forth to each other. He'd gotten a kick out of the picture I'd sent just after I got to work of Chaol, already dressed as a prison guard, following closely behind a teenage girl in line.

I'd had to put my phone away, though, once I got into costume. I'd missed the last text he sent, although I'd warned him I was putting my phone away.

‘Alright. Text me when you get out? I can come give you a ride if you need it. My roommates are all up drinking tonight again so I'll be up late’ -R

Well then. At least his friends were having a good night.

I was about to text him back when I bit my lip. I  could text him back. Or I could make him sweat for a bit by sending a Snapchat from the ER.

With the silent acknowledgment from myself that I was certainly a bitch, I took a picture of the waiting room, along with the guy in front of me nursing a horribly swollen right hand.

‘Well, I'm out now,’ was all I typed. After sending it, I watched the screen, anxiously awaiting his response. I tapped my foot impatiently when I saw the arrow turn hollow.

He'd read it. Now how was he going to respond? Would he be worried? Or would he not care enough yet?

I got an answer a moment later when my ringer went off, obnoxiously loud in the otherwise silent waiting room. I hit talk quickly, putting the phone to my ear and smiling to myself. Yes, apparently Rowan did care.

“Are you in the Emergency Room?” He said as a greeting.

I couldn't get myself to drop my smile, even as I shifted the bloody towel on my nose.

“I might be.”

I was grateful that this conversation seemed natural, despite it being our first conversation on the phone.

“What the hell happened? It's one in the morning.”

I snorted in amusement, wincing at the air pushed through my nose. The man with the swollen hand was called out of the room and I looked around, trying to gauge how much longer I had to wait. There were half a dozen other people in the room, and most of them were either bleeding or cradling injured limbs. Or seriously drunk. One guy was wobbling on his feet while his buddy tried to make him sit. I rolled my eyes, going back to my conversation.

“Well, you know, I worked from eleven to six tonight, so I do have a reason to be awake at this hour, unlike you.”

Rowan chuckled quietly before speaking again, sounding serious now. “Have you been crying?” I blinked, surprised. “Your voice sounds off.”

In my head, I threw the phone across the room and never spoke again. I knew I'd been talking in a nasally voice, but everyone had assured me it was just in my head. Assholes.

“Yeah, no, I haven't been crying. But I think my nose is broken, so that might be it.”

“Your nose? How the hell did you manage that?”

I sighed. “Well, remember when I was telling you that actor's occasionally ran into someone who didn't take being scared so well?”

“Oh god,” Rowan groaned. “Tell me you didn't get hit.”

“I would, but I don't think lying is a good way to start a,” she paused, searching for a word that wouldn't make things awkward, “relationship.”

Let him make of that what he did.

Apparently, he didn’t think much. I wasn’t sure how to take his lack of reaction when it came to my word choice.

He swore quietly. “And you're in the ER? How hard did he hit you?”

“How do you know it wasn't a girl?” I asked, sending a sharp glare to a man who was giving me a dirty look for breaking the silence. Fuck him. It may be one in the morning, but this was a public place. He could go to the library if he wanted quiet.

“I know I only met you for a little while, but I'm pretty sure you're a tough person. A girl’s punch wouldn't send you to the Emergency Room.”

“Oh bullshit,” I said, my temper riled quickly in the face of my indignation. “I'm a girl and I can hit just as hard as the asshole who broke my nose.”

There was a short pause before I heard him laugh. “You know, I can imagine that. You're right. A girl could certainly break your nose.”

I huffed a little, wavering between amusement and lingering annoyance. “You bet your ass she could. But it did happen to be a very brutish male who hit me tonight. Apparently, he doesn't react well to being scared. Who knew?”

“Jesus,” Rowan said. I could imagine the worried look on his face, even though I'd only seen him in person once. I had, of course, stalked his social media since meeting him, so I knew what he looked like pretty well. But I hadn't seen much expression from him yet, and I had to wonder if I was jumping the gun by assuming I knew how he'd look when he was concerned.

“Are you alright? How'd you get there?”

“One of my coworkers gave me a ride.” The man who had glared at me before was called up then, and I scowled at him as he passed. Damn prick didn't deserve to get health care before me.

“If you want, I'm only a few minutes from the hospital. If you’re at the one closest to the prison, at least. It might be weird, but I mean, I'd like to come keep you company since you're on your own.”

A smile split my lips, wrinkling my nose just enough to sting. “Sure,” I said. “I'd like that. I'm at the one on Arsenal Street. I'm in the waiting room now and by the looks of it, I'll be here for another year or two.”

“Great. I mean, not great, but you know what I mean. I'll be there in a few.”

“Sounds good,” I said, still smiling to myself. “See you then.”

He returned a short goodbye before I pulled the phone away and hit the end button. I looked down at it a few moments longer, something fluttery rising in my stomach when it really hit me that Rowan was about to show up. Rowan, who I had been talking to but hadn’t actually seen beyond that one night.

Shit. Rowan was going to be here soon, and I looked like I had actually just murdered someone. I dropped the phone and moved quickly for the bathroom. I locked myself in and set to rinsing my hands quickly, letting the blood trickle down over my lip for the sake of clean hands as I worked on pulling my contacts from my eyes. I tossed them once they were out, blinking furiously and wishing for some eye drops. The light was brighter now that the contacts weren't filtering it, as if I'd just taken off a pair of sunglasses.

I tugged on the fake teeth next, opting to stuff them into my bag instead of tossing them. They were expensive and the prison would certainly take it out of my paycheck.

I quickly wiped the blood clean from my face and ran the bloody towel under the faucet until the water ran close to clear. I wrung it out and pressed it to my nose again before making my way back out of the bathroom, looking and feeling more like a normal human now. Just as I sat down again, the automatic doors whirred open and I caught a glimpse of silver. I looked up and offered a small wave as Rowan looked around for a moment before finding me.

He came over to me with a hesitant smile.

“Your friends are safe to be left alone then?” I teased, remembering the rowdy bunch he'd been with at the prison. He smiled a bit wider, shaking his head and taking a seat next to me.

“I'm not sure about that. They're never safe to be left alone. They're like two year olds.”

I chuckled, trying to push air through my lips instead of my nose. I waved my free hand towards the stained towel sheepishly. “Well, they're probably in better condition than I am right now, so they've got that going for them.”

He smiled slightly, even as his brows turned in with concern. “Is it that bad?”

I grimaced, pulling the towel from my face after a moment of hesitation. His eyes widened. “God, he got you good. Enough to have two black eyes coming on.”

I sighed in defeat, covering my face again after a moment. Rowan let his eyes wander down to my outfit after a moment and he raised a brow. “I'm thinking you made quite a scene walking in here like that.”

I laughed quietly. “Yeah. I just ran to the bathroom not long ago to take my contacts and fake teeth out, so I was worse when I first walked in. And I had blood all down my face and neck, so I made quite a few heads turn.”

Rowan chuckled, but offered me a coy smile. “I'm pretty certain you always make heads turn, stranger.”

A delighted smile split my lips and I lowered my eyes, looking at him through my lashes as my cheeks flushed, a warm flutter warming my chest.

“Maybe not with a crooked nose,” I teased slyly, “but I won't argue with a compliment.”

Rowan’s eyes seemed to light up at my reaction, leaning a bit closer and brushing his shoulder lightly against mine. “And I don't think a crooked nose will do you any harm. It'll make you look tough.”

I thought for a moment. Tough. Much better than ‘endearing’.

“I like tough,” I decided, grinning at him. He smiled back, flicking a piece of hair back from my face playfully.

“So you've gotta tell me the whole story,” Rowan insisted, lifting a tanned, muscled arm to place it casually over the back of my chair. I leaned into it just a little, enjoying his warmth and the excited little flush that came with it.

It had been way too long since I'd talked to anyone like this, and I was definitely ready to enter that world again.

Since I'd dated Chaol, I hadn't felt that urge to get back out there. The breakup had been nasty and it had, admittedly, hurt me pretty badly despite that fact that I was the one to end things.

It had gone out in an explosive argument, one that was severe enough that it had nearly come to a physical fight before Dorian had gotten us away from each other. Well, a fight in the sense that I had about tackled him and scratched him across the face in an attempt to get some kind of reaction out of him, and would have next jumped to taking swings if he hadn't reacted. I'd thought in that moment that I wanted something truly bad to happen to him, and it had been the darkest place I'd ever been in for the weeks after that.

I was still in a dark place now, judging by the concerned looks Dorian gave me whenever we were out together and I turned away any man or woman who approached me. He liked to remind me that I should get back out and live my life again, but he seemed to forget that living like I had before I'd dated Chaol had only come about because I always wanted to be either too drunk or too busy to remember the fiancé I had lost years before I met Dorian or Chaol.

I didn't want to go back to trying to forget, to going out every night and sleeping through every day, waking up in places I didn't recognize or with everyone talking about actions that I didn't remember or didn't want to remember.

No, I didn't want to go back to living that way. Not when things were starting to fall back into place. Not when I had a stable job, a home, and a group of friends that I didn't want to lose.

So I wasn't going to go out and drink myself unconscious again. I wasn't going to go out and work the dangerous odd jobs I'd been hired for before. I would work every day I could and I would read when I wasn't working, and I would find time to be the friend Dorian and Chaol deserved through it all.

Even if I was afraid that I wasn't free from that dark rage and despair that had driven me to physically attacking my ex-boyfriend over an argument.

But, despite the fears echoing in my chest like a single bat amidst the butterflies Rowan had put there, I parted my lips and a story spilled out, told with as much laughter and embarrassment as my little accident deserved.

And as he tried not to laugh at the story of how I broke my nose, as I pushed against him with my shoulder, as we talked and moved closer together while the minutes passed, that bat grew smaller and weaker until finally, I couldn't feel it anymore.

And when I left him to return with a freshly straightened nose and eyes reddened from the pain of having it set, I let him chase that damned bat away again, and I marveled at his ability to do so when nobody had been able to for so goddamn long.

I had almost forgotten what it felt like to not have that dark shadow hovering in my chest. And when I smiled, it was wider than it had been in a long time. When I laughed, it was louder and rougher than I had grown accustomed to.

And when Rowan took my hand, walking me down the dimly lit sidewalks to make sure I got home safely, I swore to myself that I wouldn't forget this feeling. Even if Rowan stopped pulling it from me, I wouldn't forget what it felt like to feel as if I was fully present. Even if I didn't find it again for a long time, I would remember what this felt like. And I would remember that, even if it only lasted a moment, this was the feeling that I'd been chasing since I lost track of it.

This lightness made all the time I'd spent in the dark seem short.

And even when I woke up later that night, just an hour after I'd gone to sleep alone, and got up to light the candle I kept on my dresser for the worst nights, I thought back on how I'd felt when I was walking down those streets with Rowan.

And, although I didn't blow the candle out, I got back to sleep that night.

And I dreamt of butterflies instead of bats.