#it's always been in the background lurking for privileged people like me but then it's not even hiding anymore.

[farfartothewestofeverywhere]

Star Wars has always been about fighting fascism but it just feels so real now.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Top 10 Things I Love About the QL Tumblr Community 2023

I'm loving everyone's end of year lists, and decided to make up one of my own.

I haven't been on Tumblr for very long and was originally just lurking. 2023 marks the year where I finally started posting, after I read a take that made me feel compelled to come to a fictional character's defense. (Saengtai, my poor little blorbo).

So in commemoration of my first proper year of active tumblring, I present what I love about this community (in no particular order).

(Side note - Technically I know this is still primarily a BL community, but I like to say QL because I am trying to manifest more lesbians for us.)

1) The Gifmakers

Y'all are a good 70% of the reason I joined Tumblr in the first place. There are so many show moments that I want to relive, but without having to search through videos. Sometimes I want to appreciate the aesthetics. Sometimes I want to remember adorable or goofy moments. Sometimes I just want to see cute boys eating each other's faces. Our gifmakers give all of that to us, with the addition of so much creativity and style.

There's too many amazing ones to mention everyone, but I have to shout out @sparklyeyedhimbo, because the way your brain works makes me so happy.

2) The expertise

The other part of why I joined Tumblr was to learn more about what BLs were out there and what I might be missing. And holy hell. Y'all are putting in the work. Not only lists and resources for finding all kinds of QLs, like these fabulous monthly breakdowns by @gunsatthaphan, but also amazing posts that add additional context, like @absolutebl's incredibly helpful breakdown of Asian honorifics. There is so much research people do, for fun! And then they share it!

3) The meta analysis

I frickin love reading people's takes and analyses on series. I love learning, I love seeing perspectives from people with different cultural backgrounds to my own, it's all so fascinating! There's so much context we can miss due to our own privileges, or lack of knowing about various cultures, or due to whatever bubbles we've been living in. People here are just so smart, and nuanced, and willing to reflect and think about things, and also push back at each other, but generally with respect (except when you call out the dumb shit you see, usually on Twitter or TikTok, where people are being reductive and dumb about gender and sexuality).

And I've seen a few takes where people complain about analyses, and say that the director/production doesn't do everything deliberately, and we're all reading too much into it. To which I say, eh, lighten up. How people connect to and relate to media has relevance beyond what was intended. The point is we get to think and discuss and learn and grow. That doesn't happen if we don't analyze.

Special shout out here to @respectthepetty because colors mean things!

4) The wild theories

The other side of the analysis coin, the clown cars y'all drive around in with the wildest of theories. I have happily climbed into an occasional clown car, and usually I am utterly wrong (*cough* Saifah *cough*). But it's a super fun ride. I love seeing how people's brains work. I love it when y'all are wrong. I love it when y'all are right. It's beautiful.

5) Immediate acceptance

I am one of those people who knows that I have a lot of good qualities, and also, always kind of expect rejection. Blame the childhood bullies, I guess. Anyway, whenever I delve into a new space, I still feel like a total dork that no one will want to talk to. It's kind of a fraught way to move through the world, but I manage.

Anyway, I started posting my thoughts as they came up, and people are just totally cool with it. People even follow me sometimes. Even my silliest thoughts and dumbest jokes get at least a couple likes. It's so validating.

And my very silly joke about gay mafia in Kiseki has over 800 likes. I feel very seen.

6) Mutuals

I still kind of can't believe I have any. This ties in to the dork feeling above, but seriously - they are soooo cooooool. They're smart and awesome and funny, and they somehow find me worth following back, which is baffling yet wonderful. I want to squish their faces and give them many kisses (if they're into that kind of thing).

7) The self-exploration

I really appreciate how it's become more talked about how a lot of people are discovering queerness through BL, because that is so the case for me. I think it's both that I was in a bit of a hetero bubble before, and also that I'm evolving a bit as I age. I had figured out I was demi, and maybe a little bit gay, before getting in to BL, but being in this community, and seeing so many of you share so openly and freely, has made me realize it might be more than a little bit.

Either it was a new realization, or being around y'all has made me more gay. Win win, either way.

8) The weirdness

I'm weird. Y'all are weird. I love it.

9) The thirst

So many in this community are thirsty as fuck, and as someone who is in that same condition, I love that it's not just me. There are not many places where I can freely admit how horny I am as a part of my general existence.

Here? I could post about wanting to lick some random BL actor's face, and it would get a bunch of likes and some tags like #lickable, and it's just not remotely a big deal.

Also the gifmakers understand this, and give us beautiful cuts of our spicy scenes. They are genuinely too good for us.

10) The communal watching experience

There is absolutely nothing like watching along with people in the community. It is so worth the torture of having to wait week to week for new episodes. Seeing the show trend, watching the theories fly fast and furious, or the way everyone collectively loses their minds over particular moments. In a world that can feel very isolating, it's a very warm experience.

So there you go. Thank you all for being you. Here's to another year of QL shenanigans and losing our collective minds!

[zapreportsblog]

Yandere Aemon Targaryen ( Jaehaerys 1 son)

❝you and I will rule together❞

✭ pairing : yandere aemon targaryen x reader

✭ fandom : game of thrones

✭ summary : aemon targaryen is a known as the ruthless prince and it’s a wonder to the people how he managed to get with a sweet young women such as (y/n), wherever she goes, he lurks in the background watching her every move.

✭ authors note : yeo I turnt his picture around and now it’s fucking with me 😭

✭ yandere masterlist

In the realm of Westeros, tales of the Targaryens had always been shrouded in mystery and intrigue. Stories of dragons, madness, and power were whispered through the halls of King's Landing. Yet, amidst the legends and blood feuds, one Targaryen stood out in a different way - Prince Aemon Targaryen.

Aemon Targaryen was known throughout the Seven Kingdoms as the Ruthless Prince. His demeanor was cold and calculating, his words sharper than Valyrian steel. His reputation for cunning, ambition, and a ruthless determination to achieve his goals preceded him wherever he went. Many pondered how such a man could ever find solace in the arms of a woman, especially one with a reputation as sweet and gentle as his wife, (Y/N).

(Y/N) was a stark contrast to her husband in every way imaginable. Her smile was a beacon of warmth in a world that seemed perpetually shrouded in shadows. Her kindness and compassion had won the hearts of all who had the privilege of knowing her. But what truly puzzled the court and commoners alike was how Prince Aemon, the feared and obsessed protector of his wife, could ever have found love in the first place.

Their union had been a source of endless fascination, for Aemon had always been notorious for his affairs and dalliances. He had indulged in passionate liaisons with countless women, including his younger niece, before the day he married (Y/N). Yet, as soon as their wedding vows were exchanged, a transformation occurred. Aemon's infidelity ceased, and the relentless pursuit of his desires turned towards his wife.

It was said that he had been obsessed with her long before their marriage, though few dared to speak of it openly. Some whispered that he had been captivated by her ethereal beauty, her radiant kindness, and her unwavering loyalty to him. Others believed that it was something darker, an obsession that consumed him entirely, making him willing to forsake all others for her.

Regardless of the reasons behind their union, one thing was certain: Aemon Targaryen was fiercely protective of his wife, (Y/N). Wherever she went, he was never far behind, though often he remained concealed in the shadows, lurking like a silent sentinel. It was as though he believed himself to be her unseen guardian, sworn to protect her from any harm that might befall her.

The courtiers of King's Landing often gossiped about the strange relationship between the Ruthless Prince and his sweet wife. Some speculated that he kept her locked away in their chambers, a delicate bird in a gilded cage. Others claimed to have witnessed tender moments between the two, glimpses of a love that defied the prince's reputation.

As the tales of Prince Aemon and (Y/N) continued to unfold, it became clear that their union was far more complex and enigmatic than anyone could have imagined. The Ruthless Prince had indeed been tamed, but the reasons behind this transformation remained hidden, buried beneath layers of secrecy, obsession, and the shadows that clung to them both.

The court of King's Landing was always abuzz with rumors and speculation about Prince Aemon and his sweet wife, (Y/N). Some said that their marriage was nothing more than a strategic alliance, a move to solidify power and alliances in the ever-shifting game of thrones. Others believed that there was something deeper, something hidden beneath the surface.

(Y/N) moved gracefully through the courtly affairs, her gentle smile lighting up even the darkest corners of the Red Keep. She was a beloved figure among the nobility and commoners alike, known for her charitable deeds and her ability to bring a sense of calm to the chaos of the capital.

But as beloved as she was, there was always a lingering unease whenever the conversation turned to her husband. Aemon Targaryen was a man of sharp edges and unpredictable moods. His obsession with (Y/N) was undeniable, and it was often the source of hushed whispers among the courtiers.

Whenever she attended social gatherings or events, Aemon's presence was felt, if not seen. He remained hidden in the shadows, a vigilant guardian who watched over his wife with unwavering devotion. Some found his protectiveness endearing, a testament to the depths of his love. Others couldn't help but feel a shiver of discomfort at the way he loomed, unseen but ever-present.

Aemon's transformation from a notorious philanderer to a devoted husband had been abrupt and mysterious. It was as though a switch had been flipped on the day they were wed, and his former pursuits were cast aside. No longer did he entertain the company of other women, no longer did he engage in reckless liaisons that had once been the talk of the court.

The court's intrigue only deepened as time passed. (Y/N) seemed content in her role as the beloved wife of the Ruthless Prince, but there were moments when glimpses of unease flickered in her eyes. Those who were closest to her noticed the subtle changes in her demeanor, the way her laughter sometimes sounded forced, and the hints of sadness that occasionally clouded her bright spirit.

As the court's whispers grew louder, one question remained unanswered: What had driven Aemon Targaryen, the Ruthless Prince, to forsake his past and become the shadowy protector of (Y/N)? What secrets lay beneath the surface of their marriage, and what price had been paid for their union?

The sun hung high in the sky as (Y/N) strolled through the bustling marketplace of King's Landing, her heartlighter than usual. The aroma of exotic spices, the calls of vendors haggling, and the vibrant colors of fabrics and trinkets surrounded her. Despite the lively scene, there was a persistent absence by her side, a shadow that never strayed too far.

"Sweet King," she whispered, her voice gentle as a summer breeze. It was the affectionate nickname she had bestowed upon her husband, Prince Aemon. She paused her steps, glancing over her shoulder towards the concealed figure lurking among the crowds. "Would you come out from the shadows and walk beside me today?"

Aemon hesitated, his silver hair concealed beneath a hood as he observed his wife from afar. He had always been vigilant, his eyes sharp and wary. But at her request, he reluctantly emerged from the shadows, his presence sending ripples of unease through the marketplace.

His tall figure materialized beside (Y/N), and for a moment, the people of King's Landing seemed to hold their breath. The Ruthless Prince, now visible in the daylight, was an imposing sight. But as his wife took his arm, her smile warm and welcoming, some of the tension dissipated.

As they strolled through the market, (Y/N) couldn't help but feel a sense of triumph. Her husband had a reputation as the ultimate protector, a guardian that lurked in the darkness. Yet today, he had yielded to her request, stepping into the light by her side.

Amidst the stalls and vendors, (Y/N) stopped at a jewelry merchant's cart, her eyes sparkling as she admired a delicate necklace adorned with sapphires. She exchanged a few words with the merchant and handed over a few coins, and he, in turn, reached out to give her the purchased item.

Aemon's watchful eyes never left her, even for a moment. He saw the merchant's hand brush against (Y/N)'s as he handed her the necklace, a seemingly innocent gesture of transaction. But to Aemon, it was an intrusion, an unwarranted touch that sent a jolt of anger through him.

Later, in the privacy of their chambers, Aemon summoned the merchant who had dared to touch his wife. The man, trembling with fear, stood before the Ruthless Prince, unaware of the storm that was about to descend upon him.

With a swift, merciless stroke, Aemon ordered the man's hand to be severed, a gruesome punishment for what he had perceived as an act of disrespect towards his beloved (Y/N). The merchant cried out in agony, his life forever altered.

When (Y/N) came to her husband with questions in her eyes, her voice trembling with concern, Aemon held her close, his arms a shield around her. "My perfect little dove," he murmured, his voice soft but filled with an underlying intensity. "I saw that man doing something unspeakable with his hands before he touched you. I couldn't let him near you."

(Y/N) was mildly horrified by the brutality of her husband's response, but she didn't doubt his words. She had always trusted Aemon's judgment, even when his actions seemed extreme. Nestled in his protective embrace, she nodded and whispered, "I know you'll always keep me safe, Sweet King."

The enigmatic shadows that clung to their marriage deepened, and the secrets that bound them together remained hidden from the prying eyes of the court. As they held each other close, Prince Aemon and his sweet wife (Y/N) faced a future filled with uncertainties, their devotion to each other stronger than ever, and their love veiled in mystery.

Late that day, as the moonlight gently cascaded through the curtains, Aemon lay beside his wife, watching her peaceful slumber. He couldn't help but be captivated by the delicate contours of her face, tracing his fingers softly over her features.

Whispering tenderly, he shared his deepest promises, his voice barely audible in the quiet room. "I'll always be there for you, no matter what," he murmured, his words filled with unwavering devotion. "When I am king, you will rule beside me as queen, sharing in the power and responsibilities that come with it."

His heart swelled with affection as he imagined a future where she stood by his side, their love a beacon of strength and unity. "By my side is your rightful place, your birthright," he continued, his hand resting gently on her stomach, envisioning a time when it would be rounded with their heirs.

In that moment, the room seemed to hold an air of anticipation, as if the dreams they shared were on the brink of becoming reality. Aemon's mind raced with thoughts of the legacy they would create together, a dynasty built on love and unity.

As he watched her breathing steady and calm, he felt a surge of gratitude for the woman lying beside him. She was not only his partner in life but also the embodiment of everything he held dear. Her strength, grace, and unwavering support were the foundations upon which his dreams were built.

With a gentle touch, he pressed his lips against her forehead, sealing his promises with a silent vow. In that quiet moment, Aemon knew that whatever challenges lay ahead, he would face them with unwavering determination. For his wife, his love, and the future they would forge together, he would give his all.

As sleep finally began to claim him, Aemon held her close, cherishing the warmth and comfort they found in each other's embrace. The night was filled with whispered dreams and the tender hopes of a future that seemed closer than ever before.

[ms-moonlight-inn]

💥💥It’s the Wednesday Tag Game💥💥

Today’s tag game is about our wonderful fandom! Tagged by my lovelies @jrooc & @vintagelacerosette & @guinguin1984 & @blue-disco-lights & @mybrainismelted & @energievie & @doshiart

How did you get into the fandom? 

I started watching the show 'cause I was raised in the inner-city & heard that there was this new show that was doing this really good, honest depiction of inner-city life. Tell me the 'hood is being accurately depicted & neither romanticized, nor made into a caricature & I show up. Those first few seasons were so familiar to me in both comforting & repulsive ways.

And THEN there also happens to be a gay 'ship in this show?! 😱 I mean, there was no way I could escape the pull of Shameless.

So, it started with me binging back episodes, and it escalated to fanart. Then I tripped across some fanfic... I was a creepy creeper lurking in the background for a long time. Eventually, I struck up a conversation with @dancermk in her comment section. And it all snowballed from there. (Sorry, I just said snowballed –it's not meant to be used as a euphemism.)

What’s the first fandom channel you found? (Youtube, Reddit, Tumblr, Insta, Twitter, FB, other?)

Strangely enough, it was Pinterest, I think. It was some fanart or fanfic that was pinned & I followed the thread to AO3.

what’s your favourite now? 

Tumblr, but I find myself on Discord a lot lately. I used to spend my time on Twitter until musk took over.

Which mutual have you known the longest in the fandom?

The longest who is still in the fandom is @notherenewjersey. The longest who aren't in the fandom @dancermk & @stillbeatingheart

Which tumblerino’s did you have your first fandom crush(es) on and want to get to know?

😆 Anyone I've wanted to get to know has, unfortunately, been subjected to my extrovertedness. I don't think you can stop me from talking to people. 🫠 If I'm intrigued by someone's approach to Gallavich, I will interact & it's normally the response to my interaction that dictates how much I'll "harass" you.

First Gallavich fan fic you read (or that blew you away that you remember)

The first one that really drew me into the fandom & made me want to find other things to read was "As Long As The World Keeps Spinning," by @doodlevich. The whole Husbands and Shit series is so good.

First Fan art that blew your mind? 

So many, but the first one that really made my eyes pop out & my heart beat thump loudly in my chest was this one by @darthvaders-wife . It's so very representative of Mickey.

Fanfic trope that you were sure wasn’t for you but now you low key (or high key) love?

🤫🤫🤫 (but also any shade of monster fucking? though I always liked that. so, maybe praise kink, though I've always liked that, as well.)

ACTUALLY, now that I think about it, a lot of the fluff tags I thought would not be for me. And I wouldn't say that they are a high-key love of mind, because I do absolutely adore angst. But, I am much more tolerant of semi plotless domestic fluff than I ever thought I would be.

What surprised you most about this fandom?

The amount of good writing & art'ing we're privileged to have. There's just SO MUCH good here. 🥺🥰

Moment in the show (or YT vids if you’re one of those) that you fell in hyperfixation with Gallavich?

The scene at the docks. All of it. Before the kiss, during the kiss, after the kiss. 🫠

Ian or Mickey?

(I don't play this reindeer game)

Which Gallagher or Milkovich are you? 

Ugh. I wanna say Sandy, but I'm probably more of a Lip 😭

***

Tagging @notherenewjersey

[exqviis]

hello hello! my name’s isa   ( 23, she/her )   and i’m here to a) ask forgiveness for posting this so DISGUSTINGLY late and b) introduce you to amara chaichana who is a new-ish muse that’s kind of a mixture between rachel green, julien calloway, and song jia, and has been lingering in my mind for the past couple of months. i’m really excited to meet and write with all of you - so if you’re interested in plotting please don’t hesitate to click the lil heart button, or just slide straight into my dms! my discord is also available upon request, if that’s your preferred way of communication!

look who’s joining the infinite tour! only AMARA CHAICHANA, who is the STYLIST of KWON SOMI (MICHELLE). i’ve heard whispers that the 24 year old is pretty AMBITIOUS but lowkey DEMANDING. also, doesn’t she remind you of NICHA YONTARARAK (MINNIE)?

i always start my intros with links for BIO / STATS / PLOTS / PINTEREST – though i should say that the biography is still unfinished ( coming …. soon-ish? ) and the pinterest board is also under construction ;-; i should also mention that i’m ASTRONOMICALLY bad at writing intros and this will probably be all over the place – please bear with me

amara grew up in los angeles CA as the only child of a famous model and an acclaimed movie director – so upper class and very privileged ( read: spoiled ) and lucky enough to grow up incredibly loved and cared for

very much involved in the hollywood scene from a young age, accompanying her parents to many of the events they attended and walking her first red carpet at the age of seven. none of it bothered her at all – not the bright light of the camera flashes, nor the cacophony of shutter sounds, and least of all – the attention. she loved it – reveled in it, even. so it came to no one’s surprise when amara finally dipped her toes in the nepo scene at the ripe old age of fifteen. the long days spent on movie sets as a child bled into her teenage years, though now she was the one standing in front of the camera, instead of lurking in the background

okay so maybe it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows like she thought. maybe the media was a lot more ruthless now that she was older and maybe her friend group cared more about her connections than her. so what? it totally didn’t play a part in her packing her bags and exchanging hollywood’s glitz and glamour for new york’s skyscrapers – not at all

( to be fair it was only the cherry on top – in reality, she’d been planning the move for quite a while and this only gave her the final push to go ahead with it )

got into parsons on her own merit, enrolling into their fashion design program and graduating as one of the top students in her generation. gathered as many internships and courses under her belt as possible and then moved again – this time to seoul SK, where, for the first time ever, people didn’t really care about who she was or who she knew

she’d been interning at vogue korea for about a year when one of the editors recommended her for one of the stylist positions on the tour – and who was she to say no to the prospect of doing what she loves while travelling the world?

okay now for some personal info

→ although she’s been away from la for quite a while, social relationships and the image she presents to others are still just as important to her and something she’s very careful about. she’s gotten quite good at talking a lot about herself without actually saying anything substantial. she has tried to be more open with herself and others, but almost subconsciously slips back into this mindset as she’s not really used to anything different

→ unfortunately this also kinda means she does a bit of a ‘push and pull’ or ‘hot and cold’ with a lot of people where she wants their attention and wants them around, but pushes them away when she feels like they’ve gotten too close

→ she still cares about other people! very easy to be around, always ready to chat about anything and everything and help out in any way she can. likes to make people feel special and important – just as long as, you know, you don’t ask any personal questions

→ flattery may not work on everyone, but it does on her – though she hates to admit it. amara’s easy to sway, you just gotta put in a lil effort and know the right words

→ very detailed, very dedicated, very determined. also incredibly competitive – not to the point where she’d actively sabotage someone else for her benefit but she definitely tries to stay a couple of steps ahead when it comes to the things she wants

[buffaloborgine]

"And this behavior of Sephiroth, while may not be something really intended because he seems very oblivious to other people's feeling, has been something repetitive: he whistled like dog whistling to Glenn's party, he smirked at Zack when the latter was coming to get the mission from Lazard (which is what should be done by Sephiroth instead), he mockingly told Zack that not successfully dealing with the scenario in Junon is going to be in Zack's profile while he could have gone in and help, or in one DMW cutscene, Sephiroth mocks Zack for not knowing about 1st SOLDIERs privileges => Sephiroth has never learnt that his tiny actions or gestures may piss off other people and they are just tolerating him (either because he was too young for the time or that they were being kind). When a repetitive bad behavior keeps on going, you can't say it was just accident."

So what are you implying? That Sephiroth was already a heartless, arrogant scumbag before he snapped in Nibelheim? That he didn't have any redeeming qualities beforehand whatsoever? That he was always a monster lurking beneath the surface? You claim that you don't hate him yet you continuously claim how much of a horrible person he was before Nibelheim and then present it as fact. You are allowed your own interpretation of the character even if it is an unpopular one, but to push it as the canon interpretation is wrong. Only Square Enix can decide how the fandom should interpret the character, villain or no villain. In fact, they also paint him as a victim but not entirely because he did a lot of bad things for Shinra and after he snapped in Nibelheim. He may be the overarching villain of the FF7 Compilation but he is meant to be a tragic one. However, your interpretation implies that he was always an evil scumbag from the start, which greatly deviates from the creators' intentions for his character.

You know it's weird that you have to say that I hate him when I point out what his bad side is. First, Sephiroth is a fictional character, and a fictional villain. I see him as a subject for analysist, not someone that I cling to so there is no hate nor love on him. If he is good, I will write that he is good, if he is bad then I will write that he is bad. There is no need for me to really hate on him because hating doesn't bring me any joy, it's more like bringing me headache.

Second, you say that SE can decide how fandom should interpret a character, but when you look at it, why would they not write his past before writing his future, which is a weird and backward in logic if they ever want to paint him as a tragic villain that people may be able to sympathize. In all of the other FFs, villains with tragic background are often hinted very early that they have tragic background: the irrational setting and time flow of FFI hinted that something may not be normal with the narrative that Garland is just a bad guy who kidnapped the princess and provoked Chaos (this is later expanded into Stranger of Paradise), the hint around Golbez and Cercil's relation in FFIV, Kefka's past mentioned quite early in FFVI, etc. The point is, every narrative has to follow the rule of emphasis, the more important part is meant to be presented early and repeatedly while the less important part could be introduced later but not as frequently. Using this same logic, what do you see presented more strongly around Sephiroth in OG, AC, BC, CC and EC? It's not that he has a tragic past, but it's him doing unforgivable heinous acts on behalf of his own delusion and with EC comes out, it just emphasizes on how someone that had been through abuse could continue the cycle of abuse, that's unacceptable. Sephiroth can't be redeemed, not just because of his heinous acts, but also because he doesn't learn from his mistakes, doesn't learn to accept reality and most of all, doesn't try to sympathize with others.

Which brings us to the third point, you are wrong about SE wants to paint Sephiroth as a tragic villain. I know you know about DFFOO, so have you ever looked into it and think "Why most other villains get their redemption but Sephiroth still doesn't get a little bit?". Mind you, even Kefka, even Kefka was given some kind words from Terra, she said he was a pitiful soul because his mind is broken. Emperor, Exdeath and Cloud of Darkness are villains that live on their nature, they accept they are well, born to be bad and never painted themselves as "hero". But Sephiroth keeps on saying he is a hero, and that he is the chosen one, the only hero the world needs. How is that "painting Sephiroth as a tragic villain"? More like delulu villain who the best option is to just bury him 6 feet down the ground for good.

[bumblely]

People like you are so disgusting. Defending bad behaviors and trying to act like 'everyone should just get along' when in reality you're trying to defend a spoiled rich kid. You'd be silent if it wasn't Lando that was getting called out for his yet again ignorant behavior

hi, anon! I'm the disgusting person when you came to my blog to send this kind of ask and, of course, even if it's really predictable, anonymously? let me laugh and you're still about this 2 days after? touch some grass and took a few deep breaths, it's going to be okay.

dear anon, I guess you saw my tags (and nothing was scandalous here, I stand by what I said) and decided you wanted to know more about my opinion when you despise it? doesn't sound really healthy to me but it's a you problem. I'm a writer so it's not a problem for me. I'm asking you, as you're here and want to talk about it —I guess you kept the name of my blog somewhere to come back —, what was Lando supposed to do once the trophy was broken in pieces on the podium, then? as it was part of the post and what I precisely replied to.

he apologized to Max, they’re friends, it'll become a story to tell in a few years. he's not going to magically fix it up there, be for real, because now you're blinded by hate. I guess you're part of those saying he insulted a whole country because of an accident —I've seen and rebloged the 2 other times it happened, just scroll down it was long before your ask— but you can't convinced me it was intentional or he had any malicious intent with his celebration, even if he could have done it differently.

this whole thing is going way to far, so even if you were right at the beginning —he should have been more careful and acted differently the first few hours after the accident— as you used it as an excuse to just hate on him for whatever reason you decided was fair, it's making you in the wrong because it's disproportionate now. the post I rebloged against him wasn't fair and you know it, some things weren't even true. I happened to see it because a mutual rebloged it, I'm not lurking on any anti tag don't worry, they're actually all blocked but it just wasn't properly tagged by the previous blog.

he understood and apologized to the factory, the case is closed. as someone really clumsy, I now this kind of things can happen, stop acting like someone died or it was done on purpose. and you better have never broke anything in your entire life because that's just how life goes, not everyone is being careful 100% of time, even when they should be (me included). especially after a race as tiring as this one and a P2. you can be mad at people for many things but not because they're happy and joyful after a good race.

also, for someone who apparently knows who I like, you should have a better look at my blog and what and who I trully stand for. spoiler, it's not Lando 😂 I just always do what seems to be right and fair and some of y'all went too far with this, hence my reblog with my point of view, which is allowed on this app, you liking it or not.

I honestly couldn't care less about people's backgrounds —in life, not only about f1. I don't like or dislike anyone because their family is more or less rich and influent, I rather dislike them for what they do with their money and influence, like who they choose to support for example. I like some paid drivers and dislike some 'self-made' ones because I judge people for who they are and, once again, I always do what seems to be right. as being rich means something bad for you, you believed the hate against Zhou was justified because he grew up privileged and his sponsors helped him to get his seat? and now that you can see he's an amazing person you're taking his side? not just because hate and racism are vile things.

about me defending Lando because I have an undying love for him and not because all of this is ridiculous and out of line, you should check someone's blog before claiming this kind of things, especially when I always tag my posts/reblogs, it's really easy to do. I checked and I rebloged less than 5 posts about him, a little weak if he was my fave 😂. also, I'm far from being silent to defend my drivers: Lewis, Yuki and Guanyu's hate was pointed out here. what have you done again?

also, I don't keep up with people and drivers I don't like because what's the point of doing so and wasting my precious time for someone I don't like? you're keeping up with what you believe is bullshit and even go on people's blogs to insult them because they don't believe on the same things as you, that's far from being healthy, ask yourself the right questions and use your time to show some love to your faves instead.

believe me, if I could, I would block you because we don't need more hate in this sport, there is already more than enough but you're too much of a coward to show who you are and to take responsibly for what you say. I believe that everyone can co-exist peacefully within the big f1 family as long as they know about respect and decency and stop going after each other's throat for everything and anything. if you're being hateful in your post (and lying), people will be in the comments/reblogs, be nice, more people will be. treat people how you want to be. also, as a Lewis fan, I've blocked many fan accounts because all they did was insulting Verstappen over the stupidest things, I ain't following hate accounts because hate is disgusting when it's not justified (being sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and on). so I hope you're keeping this energy for the real fights: racism, xenophobia, sexism, ineffectiveness of the fia and their fear of addressing the right problems (like their deafening silence towards the abuse Zhou got ahead of his debuts), driver's safety (especially in Spa and Miami but also everywhere), mental health and so on.

as I mentioned in the tags about trophies never being in a situation they could break, and as you know, Lewis is known to throw his trophies after a win (which I really miss) and he threw this one as well. I kept the same energy by not hating on him even if the trophy could have been broken by doing this. it's called a celebration as podiums aren't made for art but to celebrate the top 3. did you kept your energy back then and hated on him too? I'm true to myself, I'm not hating on drivers over these things, and especially not on accidents.

— Hungarian Grand Prix 2016, 2018 and 2019

last but not least, instead of being hateful, you could have used your time to teach people about the trophy: its history (shape and painting as it's traditional) or about the history of the factory or the manufacturing process as you know so much about it. it would have helped the community but, sadly, it's not the choice you made and it's sad. it was a good opportunity to be a kind person.

on a different level, I feel like F1 isn't doing enough to promote the trophies: this one is in fine porcelain and hand-painted since a long time, yet most people only got interested because it was broken and most of the times, the artist name is unknown when so many are interesting. they did more promotion for the annual collaboration between Louis Vuitton and the Automobile Club de Monaco than for the collaboration of Richard Orlinski for the French Grand Prix trophy when he's a known artist. F1 and their love for money 🙃. I know Alfa Romeo created the #GetCloser and invite artists but I hope this accident will open the talk about art and trophies —I would love them to be as hyped as the special helmets designs.

this being said, have a nice day anon,

looking forward to seeing you again maybe kinder this time,

— bumblely.

[robininthelabyrinth]

"The Untamed", but Jiggy has a white cat whom he tells everything.- May or may not be sentient or 'spiritual' like Fairy in the book. (From an idea I've thrown around with my friend @yraelviii)

ao3

He found the cat in Qinghe.

“What are you doing here?” Meng Yao said, crouching down to try to scoop out the little handful of white fluff underneath his cabinet only for it to bare its infantile fangs and him and hiss, moving its butt around as if it thought his fingers ought to be running in fear from its fearsome pounce. “How did you even get in here?”

The cat – a kitten, really, small and scrawny, dirty and covered in ashes as if it had just run out of a forge, but no less passionate for it – squirmed in his hand as he picked it up.

“Who owns you?” Meng Yao asked, and the cat hissed viciously as if to shout no one owns me!

Something about that echoed in Meng Yao’s heart – no one owns me, he thought – and so he fished up some extra meat from his plate, filled a small platter with water, and used the sleeve of an old outfit that needed to be taken to be laundered anyway to wipe the grey ash off of the cat’s white fur while it was distracted by sniffing suspiciously at the food and water that it ultimately declined to consume.

“Just this once,” he told it.

-

Doing good work will often only bring you more work, Meng Yao reflected, and so it was with the cat as much as with anything else. He still didn’t know how the cat managed to get into his rooms, and he sometimes dwelled on paranoid suspicions that there were hiding-holes in his chambers designed to allow others to spy on him, just as there had been in certain rooms in the brothel – though even at his worst moment of uncertainty and doubt he didn’t really think so. He knew that it wasn’t Nie Mingjue’s style even if Meng Yao had been someone important enough to care about, and anyway he didn’t question his own ability to discovery such a thing if it had really existed. He’d checked.

At any rate, however it kept getting into his rooms, the cat was now a regular presence there, lurking around.

It didn’t want to be petted and greeted all attempts to feed it with utter disdain, but despite its general standoffishness it seemed to like being in the same vicinity as Meng Yao, enjoying nothing more than to settle haughtily by the window in his room and watch over Meng Yao as if it thought he might get lost without its supervision.

Meng Yao thought it was probably someone’s pet gotten lost, or maybe even just a feral cat from outside (Qinghe had a fair number of them) that had figured out that it could access the good life by going inside, but it was very hard to sincerely worry over the ill-intentions of a cat, and he was already very busy.

If he didn’t need to care for it, then it wasn’t adding to his troubles. Let the cat sit where it liked!

Meng Yao had found that life in Qinghe was both different and similar to life in Yunping, the only life he had to compare it to, and it amused him to think of the great and righteous Nie sect as an overly large brothel, with the main difference being that they sold their strength where women sold their bodies. In both places there needed to be order, someone to sort things out and tell people where to put things and what to do; in both places Meng Yao, with his quick mind and excellent memory, his sense of understanding people and anticipating their needs, was utterly invaluable in arranging such things.

He had, admittedly, expected it to take a little more time to climb up to the top – the only person he couldn’t understand in this place was Nie Mingjue, who was far too easy to deceive and smiled at him like he really thought they were friends instead of just being master and servant, who appreciated his talents and told him so, who shrugged off his mistakes and had faith that he would do better, who ignored his status instead of lording it over him the way Meng Yao had expected him to. Even when he was angry, when he shouted and slammed his hands against things, Nie Mingjue never once mentioned Meng Yao’s background, and the only things he seemed to hold against him were his own mistakes.

Meng Yao still didn’t know why Nie Mingjue would act so rashly as to promote someone he had just met to a position as high as viceroy, much less actually trust him, but it didn’t really matter. However quixotic his method of reaching a place of power, he was here and his next task was to keep his place until he’d made a reputation for himself.

Part of that he did through his work, good critical work that people needed and which had always won him gratitude even if not respect, but the other part of it was in cultivation. That was the way in which the Nie sect was not like a brothel: you couldn’t just be clever, you couldn’t even just be beautiful - to be respected, you had to cultivate.

Not that wanting to cultivate was a problem for Meng Yao.

He’d always had a memory like a sponge and a body that obeyed his every wish, his childhood of mimicking the beautiful dances of his mother and her ‘sisters’ serving him well in transitioning to learning the sword even if he was years behind everyone else; his mother had bought a thousand fake cultivation manuals for him and he’d learned them all, each one of them more useless than the next, and now that he was here in the cultivation world at long last, he was finally, finally, finally able to cultivate for real.

Using Nie sect methods, of course, even if that wasn’t what he really wanted.  

He’d started as soon as he could when he arrived, endlessly grateful that the Nie sect provided training sabers without cost, and he’d snuck one away back to his room so that he could practice on his own time, knowing it would take a long time to form his golden core. He’d debated with himself for a long time as to whether or not it was worth it to invest in a real one – if the training sabers were free, then real proper Nie sabers were somehow three times as expensive as the swords you could buy in the marketplace, and you could only put in a deposit without any notion of when you’d actually get the saber, apparently subject to the contrary dispositions of the spiritual weaponsmiths that made them.

In the end he decided to go for it more or less on a whim, emptying out his hard-built savings to place the order, even though he knew he would one day need to discard whatever they made for him in favor of a sword.

The Jin sect would accept him one day. He would make them.

(If the Nie sect cultivation style was good for one thing, he thought as he went through endless drills of slashing and thrusting, it was that you could work out your anger while you were doing it. There was nothing quite like imagining the face of someone you hated and then bringing down the practice saber in a vicious slash, and oh, but Meng Yao hated so very many people.)

The cat liked watching him train most of all, although Meng Yao suspected it was because seeing him jump around panting was funnier than watching him sit at his desk and gracefully write out letters. It would occasionally start purring, a sound a little like a crackling fire, and eventually Meng Yao got into the habit of going to run his fingers through its fur as a reward for himself when he successfully completed a training sequence.

After a while, he started talking to it, too.

“That commander,” Meng Yao said as he brought the training saber down. His real saber was still on the order, probably stalled purposefully; the smith assigned the task was probably one of the people that thought they were too good to deal with him because of who his mother was, and it’d all been a waste of money in the end. Completely a waste, even if Nie Mingjue had smiled so happily at him when he’d heard about Meng Yao placing the order, his eyes warm and soft and how had that man survived so long in this wretched world of politics and pain, didn’t he know he would always be deceived and betrayed?

Why should he be the exception to the rule, when everyone else had to suffer?

Meng Yao threw away the unhelpful thoughts and thrust the saber forward, as if piercing his invisible opponent straight through the chest.

“That commander.” He minutely corrected his form and stabbed again, this time as if piercing through the belly: a gut wound, a slow and awful way to die. “He’ll regret what he said to me.”

The cat’s purring intensified.

Meng Yao briefly had the wild thought that it approved.

“I just –” Another thrust. “– need to figure out –” An overhead slash. “– how.”

-

Meng Yao ended up taking the cat with him when he left Qinghe.

It probably was someone’s pet and he was opening himself up to a charge of stealing, a charge he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against now that he no longer had Nie Mingjue’s protection –

(Nie Mingjue who had wept tears and blood at what Meng Yao had done, betrayed at last after having finally encountered a deception he could not swallow, who had banished him from the Unclean Realm even after everything Meng Yao had done for him – who had, despite it all, still hidden an entire bag of gold and Meng Yao’s favorite Qinghe snacks in Meng Yao’s things with a short note claiming that it was for unpaid wages. As if Meng Yao had ever let a single pay period go by without claiming exactly what he was due. As if Nie Mingjue still cared despite throwing him out, as if he worried about how Meng Yao might live, as if he hadn’t given up the privilege of caring about things like that – )

He didn’t really care.

He wanted the cat, so he took it. It was the least Qinghe could do for him.

The cat spent all its time in his new rooms in the hotels he stayed out as he traveled: in his bedroom and study, the little gardens that, when available, he liked to use to train in the mornings and evenings. It would even follow him when he took a bath (although that was with great reluctance on the part of the cat, and only if Meng Yao were taking an especially long time in the bath and the cat was worried he’d drowned, yowling angrily as if it could revive him through the power of its voice). If it had once belonged to someone else, it now belonged to Meng Yao, and Meng Yao didn’t give away anything that was his.

“I’ve made worse mistakes,” he said defiantly to the cat, which blinked at him from its side of the carriage he’d used some of the gold to rent. “It’s only that I don’t want to review them in order to think of which ones those might be.”

The cat got up, stretched its back, and walked over to butt its head against Meng Yao’s hand before turning and going back to its spot by the window.

Meng Yao wasn’t sure if that was a sign of agreement or if the cat just thought there was a treat in his hand. Not that the cat had ever accepted treats from his hand.

He still wasn’t sure what the cat ate, actually, but he was sure the cat would make its feelings known now that they weren’t somewhere with a dependable kitchen, though he supposed there was always the possibility that it would start picking up hunting.

“Wen Chao said that they’d aimed at the Cloud Recesses,” Meng Yao said, deciding not to dwell on the things of the past. There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do about Nie Mingjue’s betrayed eyes or the snacks he hadn’t even known Nie Mingjue had known he’d liked, about the hand-me-down guans and trinkets that Nie Huaisang had insisted were part of his wardrobe when he’d helped him pack even though he knew Nie Huaisang still wore them sometimes, about the fact that he should have been ordered to take the Nie sect’s braids out of his hair when he passed by the gates for the final time since he didn’t deserve them anymore but the two disciples there had just nodded at him and let him pass without a word – nothing to do about the saber he’d ordered, still on the list to be made, and maybe if he made something of himself out in the world alone he would one day come back to claim it at last. “That’s where we’re going now. Lan Xichen might be in danger. I have to help him.”

The cat made a sound like it was considering hacking up a hairball.

“He was kind to me,” Meng Yao said, feeling defensive. “The only one who never judged me –”

Since he’d decided to forget about Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, wiping it out of his mind as if it had never been, that was even true.

“– and he’s a proper gentleman, a good man. I’ll help him.”

That Lan Xichen was also a powerful man was something he wished he didn’t think of, but he couldn’t help the way he was.

“After I help him, I’ll figure out what to do next,” Meng Yao said, like a liar, and the cat looked at him like he was stupid – which he was being, because of course he’d already planned out what to do next, figured out his next move, and there was no point in lying to a cat about it. Meng Yao had skills that were only useful in management, not labor, and the only thing he left to sell was information about the sect from which he’d just been ejected. “No one owns me, right? Let it be the Wen sect.”

The cat did not purr, but it didn’t condemn him, either.

That would have to do.

-

It was a good thing that Meng Yao’s cat was self-sufficient, he thought, because he had neither the time nor the stomach to feed it during his time at the Wen sect.

If he had thought he had worked hard at the Nie sect, he now knew differently: at least there the worst he had faced from his colleagues had been disdain and not outright murder attempts, back-stabbing and undercutting to try to show off to Wen Ruohan, and all the while the man himself demanded more and more from him without the slightest care for his own well-being. He was grist to the mill for Wen Ruohan, no matter how much the Chief Cultivator enjoyed having another man’s prized deputy as his own – Wen Ruohan might had been very nearly driven insane by the Yin Metal, but he still remembered old grudges – and it was night and day away from Nie Mingjue’s reliance on him that was based on trust, rather than reluctantly satisfied suspicion and paranoia.

Meng Yao had hidden the cat as best as he could from the start, thinking rightfully that people would try to use it against him, and to his relief it seemed that no one else had yet laid eyes on it and identified it as his own, despite its white fur standing out like a beacon to his sight. Unfortunately there were some people that had managed to figure out that he had a cat, even if they didn’t lay eyes on it themselves, and he’d had more than a few incidents in which someone had left poisoned meat out on the floor by his room in order to catch it.

The cat seemed as unimpressed with that as anything else.

Instead, the cat seemed to have taken up hunting as its pastime. It brought back the corpses of small birds, the Yin Metal-infused little spies, full of resentful energy, that Wen Ruohan had developed for his sons to use. At first Meng Yao worried about the cat getting somehow poisoned by them, but time went on and it seemed to be fine, even thriving. It had grown into a proper cat now, no longer a kitten, and it enjoyed licking its white and shining fur until it was gleaming.

It didn’t like Meng Yao’s training sessions as much – he trained with a sword now, two-faced just like him, and in a dozen different styles, Wen and Jiang and Jin, always Jin – so sometimes Meng Yao would go back to doing the old Nie sect style again, knowing the cat would recognize the familiar movements, and it was a surefire way to get the cat to purr.

The Nie sect style was also still the best for getting out anger, all aggression and sharp movements, and Meng Yao still had a lot of anger inside of him. He was starting to think he always would.

At least here in the Nightless City he could kill the people he hated, as long as he did so in low and dirty ways that didn’t trouble Wen Ruohan or interfere with his plans, and yet every time he did it, he felt no relief, only a vile and wretched stickiness that came, perhaps, from that awful Yin Metal that he had schemed over yet couldn’t seem to escape.

The cat didn’t like the Yin Metal one bit. It hissed and scratched, and in one notable incident seemed like it was going to pounce on it directly if Meng Yao hadn’t caught it mid-leap and shoved it into his sleeve before anyone had noticed it.

“You’re going to get me into trouble,” Meng Yao told the cat next time he trained, using the soft sword he’d hidden away for a time of need to hack and slash in the Nie way, which didn’t work with a soft sword at all but which made him feel strangely better. He was currently imagining Wen Ruohan’s head underneath a saber, his head and the heads of all those corpse puppets he’d created. “I will cut you loose if you do that.”

The cat rolled onto its back and showed its soft and fluffy belly, which only the truly unwise would seek to lay a hand on – Meng Yao still had scars – and Meng Yao rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “No one owns you, not even me. But do me a favor and don’t screw this up for me. Not when I’m so close.”

Lan Xichen had been accepting his letters and feeding them to Nie Mingjue, who trusted as blindly as he ever did. Meng Yao wished sometimes that he didn’t, that he would learn, that he would put some defenses up on that stupid reckless heart of his, but on the other hand it suited his plans very well that he didn’t.

Soon, he thought. Soon.

Soon he’d know what he needed to do.

-

“Now he chooses not to trust people,” Meng Yao complained to his cat. “Now. Now!”

The cat purred.

It wasn’t that Meng Yao (damnit, Jin Guangyao, he had a new name, he was Jin Guangyao now) couldn’t understand Nie Mingjue’s reluctance to trust him – fool me once, fool me twice, but three times seemed to be the other man’s breaking point – and in some ways he understood it more than ever now that he had been accepted back by the Jin sect, clothed in the gold he’d always deserved to wear.

Jin Guangshan hadn’t lost much in the war, not like the other sects, and the second it was over he was already scheming. Meng Yao – Jin Guangyao – was pulled right into the thick of it at once, less for his spying capability than for his sheer disposability, the fact that Jin Guangshan wasn’t willing to burden his pure and righteous heir with black matters that he was more than happy to taint the son of his whore with. With Nie Mingjue, general and hero of the Sunshot Campaign, representing the only real threat to the Jin sect’s domination, even if he didn’t want to be, Jin Guangyao was bound to be in opposition to him.

It made sense for Nie Mingjue not to trust him.

It irritated him regardless.

Still, lack of trust or no, Nie Mingjue had succumbed to Lan Xichen’s impassioned arguments and had agreed to swear brotherhood with him, even if Jin Guangyao suspected that Nie Mingjue’s primary motivation was to keep a better eye on him and scold him the way he did Nie Huaisang. It would be politically beneficial to Jin Guangyao to be tied in such a way to Nie Mingjue – it would suit his own desires as well, though that was less important – and so he had of course agreed as well, and he was planning on going to their oath ceremony in the outfit he had chosen for himself, gold from neck to foot, a sword he’d taken from the treasury since no one would order him one of his own, and a hat on his head like the ones his mother so admired to make up for his lack of height and to hide the Nie sect braids he still habitually wore underneath.

An old habit, and one he really ought to break, really. Ideally before Nie Mingjue figured it out and told him to cut it out.

There was a knock on the door, a familiar pounding, and the cat looked up, intrigued, even as Jin Guangyao sighed voicelessly to himself. Perhaps he had waited too long.

Perhaps it would be better to make a clean cut in this way, too.

He opened the door.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he greeted, thinking to himself that it would only be a few more hours before he was entitled to call the man da-ge as if they were nearly equals and how strange that would be. “Can this humble one help you?”

“Can I come in?” Nie Mingjue asked gruffly, his eyes lingering on Jin Guangyao’s uncovered and Nie-braided hair, just as he might have expected. Had expected.

Jin Guangyao nodded and stepped back, allowing him in, and closed the door behind him. “Could I get the sect leader some refreshments?” he asked politely, but Nie Mingjue seemed to have come to a stop right in the entranceway, surprise written all over his features. “Sect Leader Nie?”

Nie Mingjue was staring at Jin Guangyao’s cat.

“…Sect Leader Nie?”

Did Nie Mingjue not like cats? There were an endless number of feral cats in Qinghe, so it seemed implausible, and yet, here Nie Mingjue was, looking at the cat like he’d never seen such a thing before in its life.

Of course, at that exact moment, Jin Guangyao’s cat, the traitor, hopped off its pillow and went straight to rub itself against Nie Mingjue’s leg, purring like a little maniac.

Jin Guangyao stared at it, feeling thoroughly betrayed by what he would have previously said was his thoroughly unsociable cat, who had taken years to warm up to him enough to give him half the attention it was now bestowing freely on Nie Mingjue. Was this the heavens deciding to mock him for his earlier betrayals?

Alternatively, Nie Mingjue might just be very good with cats, which Jin Guangyao could believe. Perhaps he even carried in his pockets some of the Qinghe vine that cats were said to be so enamored of, although certainly Meng Yao’s cat had never once before shown an interest in such things before.

“…what’s its name?” Nie Mingjue croaked, voice hoarse. He was still staring fixedly at the cat, looking as though his entire world had shattered around him. He hadn’t even looked so unsettled when Jin Guangyao had so viciously mocked him at the Nightless City, and at the time he’d thought he was going to die and be turned into a corpse puppet to murder all his loved ones.

Jin Guangyao was tempted to say something rude or facetious, something like ‘I just call it Cat, why, do you name random cats?’, but the cat had been a good companion of his for a long time now and he couldn’t do that to it, even if he was currently planning on taking an extra long bath to force the cat to miserably linger by the door to the bathing room, screeching in unhappiness at the wet, but bravely (if grumpily) supervising him to make sure he didn’t drown.

“Hensheng,” he said, because that was in fact what he’d named it – it meant hatred for life, which was not exactly an auspicious name but which had stuck from the very moment he had thought it up – and waited to hear Nie Mingjue’s judgment. “It’s not normally quite so sticky,” he added in an attempt to save some face. “With most people.”

“Well, it’s me, that’s different,” Nie Mingjue said, and maybe the man really was just the human incarnation of the plant cats liked so much. Meng Yao really wouldn’t put it past him. “You...you cultivate in the Nie sect style? Still?”

Jin Guangyao blinked, surprised by the change in subject.

“Yes,” he said, a little hesitantly. He cultivated many styles now, although it was always the Jin sect style when he was in public. But he still had all the anger in his belly to vent – even more so now than before, anger at his father, anger at Madame Jin, anger at his brother born to a blessed life, anger at all those disciples that sneered at him even after he’d been legitimized, anger, anger, anger – and the Nie sect style had always been the best for that.

And anyway, it made the cat purr.

“Is that a problem, Sect Leader Nie?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Nie Mingjue said, and when he turned to look at him his eyes were warm and soft the way they’d been all the way before the fiasco with Xue Yang, shimmering with tears of joy and a smile that seemed to come straight from his heart, the foolish easily deceived man. It was so unexpected that Jin Guangyao actually took a full two steps back, his jaw dropping a little. “I’m happy for you. Very happy.”

He actually wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, dashing away the tears.

“You should come back to the Unclean Realm to pick it up when the brotherhood ceremony is done,” he added nonsensically. “I can’t imagine how long it’s been waiting for you.”

“…what?” Jin Guangyao said. “Pick up what?”

“Hensheng,” Nie Mingjue said, which – what? “Your saber. Hensheng.”

His saber?

The saber he’d never gotten, having been banished from the Unclean Realm before the order was finished, the one he’d spent all his savings on just in putting in the deposit, the one he’d never actually finished paying off? He remembered it, of course, and sometimes it still itched under his skin that he’d never gotten what he was owed because everything that was owed to him he deserved to get in the end. But…

“Hensheng is my cat,” he said.

Nie Mingjue blinked at him. “That’s not a cat,” he said. “That’s a saber spirit.”

Jin Guangyao’s gaze dropped down to the cat.

The cat that never seemed to eat anything or drink anything, that never once fell for the poisoned meat or accepted his offers of treats, that no one in the Nightless City had ever seen with their own eyes; the cat that could consistently get into his rooms despite there being no holes for it to enter, as if it had simply passed through the walls like a ghost.

Like a spirit.

The cat, which purred whenever Jin Guangyao practiced the Nie sect forms, swinging a saber with rage in his heart.

The cat to which he had confessed all his anger, all his frustration, all his rage, all the feelings he never gave to any human being around him – the sabers of the Nie sect thrived on such emotions, those feelings that encouraged them and strengthened them, developing the saber spirits that made each one of them a spiritual weapon unlike any other, with power and rage infused into the very blade.

Saber spirits, which only those born into the Nie sect or adopted early, raised in their ways, one of them, could form.

“A saber spirit?” Jin Guangyao said weakly, and his knees suddenly didn’t seem strong enough to hold him; he swayed and Nie Mingjue stepped forward quickly, catching him by the shoulders to steady him. “I cultivated a saber spirit?”

“The saber is back in the Unclean Realm,” Nie Mingjue said, not without kindness. “It was only ever waiting for you to pick it up once you developed the spirit, so that you could introduce the two.”

“It hasn’t been – I would have thought it would have been thrown away, or repurposed –”

“It’s a Nie saber, Meng Yao. It won’t obey anyone else ever again, not in this life; it is yours, yours alone. When one day you die, it will be buried with honor in our saber halls, just like all the others.”

The cat looked up at him and purred.

No one owns me, Jin Guangyao thought – the first thing the cat had said to him, and he’d always had a good understanding of what the cat wanted from the very first. No one had owned that wild spirit then, but it had stayed by his side, at first from curiosity and later from habit, and it was his now.

His, and no one else’s.

“Will you come pick it up?” Nie Mingjue asked, hope in his eyes. “Will you come home, if only for a little while?”

“Yes,” Jin Guangyao said. “Yes, I will.”

-

Later, Jin Guangshan told his son to kill Nie Mingjue, that fool who trusted too much and didn’t know when he was being deceived, finding him in his rigidity and righteousness too much of a burden on the power he planned to wield.

Jin Guangyao bowed as deep as he could, a smile on his lips, saying nothing, and the next day, when Jin Guangshan went to the brothel as he always did, drinking tea served by his son the way he always did, he never did figure out why his heart had stopped.

(The saber Jin Guangyao began to wear openly after the funeral – a gift from his sworn brother, he said with a smile, in remembrance of his time at the Nie sect – purred in pure satisfaction.)

[radiowallet]

For the month of December I want to highlight some of the blogs that have made my time on the hellsite (affectionate) a truly wonderful and fulfilling experience! Some I have interacted with personally, while others I have lurked in the background like shadowy gremlin, but my love is there none the less. This is by no means a comprehensive list because there are so many amazing and wonderful people out there making days brighter with just their simple presence and kind hearts! To all of you, ALL OF YOU, Happy Holidays! I am so grateful for all of you!

Today I want to give a huge shout out to @djarinsbeskar​

I stumbled onto a story called Stitches back on a cold February day while my child made a huge pile of mulch at the playground. I was instantly intrigued as a huge fan of Din Djarin and as a healthcare worker, and after that first chapter I was hooked. That was way back when I was terrified to talk to anyone. I was afraid to comment or reblog, somehow convinced I was bothering authors when I did that. But then one day I couldn’t help myself and I left this huge rambling reblog for a chapter of Stitches because, and I can’t stress this enough, this fic is a masterpiece.

The lore, the world building, the deep, intimate understanding of one of my favorite characters. Rachel is a master of her craft and it needs to be screamed daily from the roof tops. The attention to detail, the care she takes in letting the physical and the emotional mirror one another throughout her stories. Honestly, I could go on and on about how much her whole masterlist has rocked my world; everything from Stitches to her Din AU’s to her most recent work with A Sensual Summoning. 

But then, after geeking out for months I had the opportunity to meet Rachel in a discord server, and I was truly blessed with the privilege of meeting one of the nicest people on this planet. Rachel is encouraging and kind, and is never one to shy away from giving advice or encouragement. (Seriously, she’s the one who talked me through writing smut, and I always attribute any strides I make in that area of writing to her wise words). Rachel! Thank you! For never letting me doubt myself, for always being as kind as you can, and for sharing your talent with us! Thank you Thank you Thank you!

I also want to give a shout out to a blog that up until recently I’ve only casually lurked and that is @krissology​

I was super lame and jumped on the Forget Me Not train after the fact. (I know, god, I suck). Kriss is a true talent. I downloaded FMN off AO3 and burned through it. Holy hell. Just amazing. And though anon isn’t my style, I have gone into Kriss’s inbox time and time again to lay praise at her feet beneath anon because I just..gah...I’m so in love with her and her style. Kriss, you are such an inspiration to me, someone who would one day love to see her stories become even more. You are a true talent and on top of that  you are so wonderfully funny and kind. I have seen you stand up for your friends and never once have I seen an unkind word come from you. I have been remiss in letting you know how much your blog has meant to me and for that I apologize.  Thank you for being a part of this fandom and thank you for being you. Happy Holidays. 

[alicemitch09writes]

the catastrophic history of us

PAIRING: ryoumen sukuna x reader

SUMMARY: This is a story of two people - one was destined to see all while the other was destined to be all-powerful.

They came from different factions of society, though not entirely different if you compare a humble hut versus the slums.

This is a love story.

But it is not a happy one.

A/N: This is a continuation and sort of prequel to 'written in the stars' which gives light on why exactly Sukuna killed the reader and what he meant by 'waited a thousand years for this'. It's been in my head for a while and was an idea I wanted to try.

From what I've researched, Ryoumen Sukuna is said to hail from royalty while some he was just there, so I kinda wanna explore more on his background and ended up crafting my own. I'm sorry if it's kinda cliche. I ended up using the already existing lore about him, but added a bit of my own to fit the story and the narrative I want.

also available on ao3.

disclaimer: i own NOTHING but the plot.

This is a story of two people - one was destined to see all while the other was destined to be all-powerful.

They came from different factions of society, though not entirely different if you compare a humble hut versus a grandiose palace, a benevolent being versus a power-hungry one, one who dances with the mystic arts versus one who challenges the fates, one royal highness and his royal spiritual advisor, - two very different beings destined to meet, destined to fall together, destined to be together.

This is a love story.

But it is not a happy one.

This is a story of two star-crossed lovers.

But again, to reiterate, this is not a happy story. There is no happy ending here.

Legends speak of a name, so feared and great that just the mention of it sent shivers down the spines of many – young, old, human, curses.

Just the mention of his name was akin to devastation and disaster, killing all forms of life regardless of status.

Ryoumen Sukuna.

Also known as ‘King of Curses’.

Call his name, and you are invoking yourself to a life of damnation, of no return, of death.

However, once upon a time, Ryoumen Sukuna was once a simple man.

A prince to be exact, son to the Great Emperor, heir to the throne, general commander of the royal army, and quite possibly, the strongest warrior in the land.

Once upon a time, Ryoumen Sukuna was a man of great power and privilege.

He could take soldiers with a swift blow of his sword, could conquer lands in a day, with only a swagger down the road that could bring the mightiest men quaking, could overpower just about anyone with only his presence - his menacing and great presence.

Wise beyond his years, versatile in combat, cynical, ambitious, and wicked – these were the traits of the soon-to-be Emperor? How unsettling. The kingdom would no sooner meet its demise and burn into flames than to shine brightly with a ruler with blood and warfare on his mind.

Many had thought so as well, yet did little.

For what can they do against someone who can promise dominion and power? They can all but kneel and acquiesce to his bidding.

He did possess a younger twin brother, but compared to his brother, he was passable at best. The brother doesn't talk much, says very little, but paid close attention to his surroundings, his companions, even to his older brother, whom he admired greatly.

It was sometime during his time as a prince when fate decided to play their hand.

But no one saw it coming.

Save for one.

The Emperor’s royal spiritual adviser, the kingdom’s revered onmyouji known only by the name (Y/N).

"That's quite the look on your pretty face, (Y/N)."

Sighing, the (h/c)-haired woman ever so carefully dipped her brush into the ink well before continuing her writing.

"Oya? No wisecracks this time?" the voice drew near, she could feel his hot breath beside her ear. "Is that any way to speak to your future king?"

Unfazed, she dipped her brush into the well again, careful strokes bleeding into the paper. "Truly not worth his royal highness' time if I even breathe or say a word."

Even without looking, she knows he's smirking. He knows he got what he wanted, ever the child.

Silence filled in. She, continuing on with her scrolls, and he, lazily perched himself awfully close to her side, sliding his gaze from her eyes, her face, to her kimono, to her nimble fingers.

From the first moment he laid eyes on her, he was fascinated by her very being. More so, when she revealed that she was to be the royal onmyouji with the ability to see all. 

Technically, her position was better suited for a man, especially a man from a renowned jujutsu family – for trivial reasons.

However, no man could ever compete with one with an all-seeing eye, with impressive control of her cursed energy other than this woman, this strange woman.

No one else but her.

He would like to think that he became a man no long sooner after their first verbal spat, after their second introduction – having differing ideals and morals, never backing from the other despite their status. He and his twin had just turned 18, a prime age for the king to be. It was what drew them together in the first place.

From the moment their eyes met, he had unwillingly declared this fascinating woman as his and only his.

When she was finished writing, just as she laid her brush aside, a hand slammed on the table. She didn’t flinch, even as the man effortlessly picking her up into his arms. "Surely you must be bored from all that gibberish writing, eh?"

Allowing herself a genial smile, (e/c) eyes alit with life, she draped her arms around his strong shoulders. 

"Must I remind you time and time again that they're readings?" Fingers slipped and carded through his locks, grabbing tufts of hair playfully. Tilting her head, she used her free hand to ghost over his strong jawline. “Your great kingdom would crumble would it not be for said readings. Lives would be lost. Blood will be shed. Your name tarnished and damned-”

"Blah, blah, blah, is all I can hear you say," pushing her against the wall, he welcomed himself between her legs, drawing himself ever so close to her. “Don’t you ever get tired of spouting bullshit?”

“Surely you would know,” she gasped as something hard pressed against her core. “that’s all your mouth is good for: running your filthy mouth.”

He met her smirk with his, hot breath fanning hers. “And here I thought you’d be this docile diviner.” Scoffing, he drew close. “Thank fuck I was wrong.”

Hot lips pressed against hers, just as the ink dried out and the shadows danced in the dark.

"We order you to join forces with us destroy Ryoumen Sukuna."

"I refuse."

Even she can't deny that the man she loved was a danger to everyone, probably to all of humanity. He was quick to be enamored with power, sadistic even in his means to achieve greater feats and exploit his foes.

Eventually, she saw how the man she came to love drastically turned into the cynical, malevolent King of Curses he was.

Mad with power, ambition, and glory, in order to achieve all and more he sought out the dark mystics that made him murder his younger twin brother granting him his grotesque figure - two faces, added appendages, and dark marks littering his body.

It started with a vision. Then came the prophecy.

Overnight, a brother was murdered in cold blood by his own, through his blood spawned the King of Curses.

Many months were soon bathed in more blood as he sought nothing more but destruction and chaos,

In the end, she knew what she had to do, what must be done, what must happen, what was foretold – even if it ends up breaking her heart.

"Could you do it?"

"...I have no choice."

This is it, she thought. The end.

The end of the beginning.

Fire licked throughout the field, soot rising from the ashes, craters, devastation lurked wherever the eye could see. There was even the occasional ice covered in blood, sometimes encasing 

It had been a long, treacherous, arborous, and exhausting battle – sorcerers and Imperial soldiers against fellow sorcerers and curses.

Jujutsu sorcerers – especially the high-ranking ones from esteemed clans, set aside their petty differences for this one battle, to put down the King of Curses.

Ryoumen Sukuna.

It was a hard-earned battle, as Ryoumen Sukuna had with him a rather interesting set of warriors to fend off against them.

But finally, they got him.

In the middle of all this madness and bloodshed, a victor was finally declared.

And it wasn’t him.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?" He screamed, binding spells forcing him to his knees, his whole body weakened and paralyzed by countless battles and countless spells against him. “(Y/N)!? HOW COULD YOU!?”

She forced herself to hold him down as the sorcerers around her continued their spells.

Amidst it all - the undeniable pain, the humiliation of being pinned, the utter betrayal - Ryoumen Sukuna turned to her and only her, red eyes burning her very being, as though ready to incinerate and devour her on the spot.

At the front line, that’s where she was to be – supposed to be, as she was their leverage to get close to the King of Curses.

She was leverage at best, the one thing that can keep Ryoumen Sukuna down - despite the countless claims that no one and nothing can do so.

"In this life, know that you were always the man I hold closest to my heart, the warmth on a cold winter's day, the joy from a day's tiresome work. There is no one but you, Ryoumen Sukuna," she was openly crying now, uncaring of anyone and anything. "But in this life, we cannot be."

The spell had been cast, paralyzing Sukuna, allowing the rest of the jujutsu sorcerers to attack.

With the final blow, she poured a bit of herself into her final, most powerful spell. Sealing him and vaporizing any memory of her in it, emptying his being until he was but an empty husk.

"YOU BITCH! YOU LIED TO ME!" Despite being in constant pain, his body slowly reddening and wax appearing all over, he found it in himself to spout angrily at her. "WAS EVERYTHING A LIE!?"

Memories upon memories - of their first meeting, their first verbal spat, their next meeting, him cornering into a corner, of their first kiss, of their first night, of their many nights, of promises under the sheets, of eyes searching, of eyes yearning, of eyes hurting - voided one after the other.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU DEAD, YOU FUCKING BITCH!" He doesn't mean it, she tells herself, adding more spells that caused him to scream in even more pain.

"Y-YOU FUCKING BITCH! I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!" His eyes were blank, regarding her with all the hatred man could possess. "YOU'LL BE THE FIRST PERSON I KILL THE MOMENT I GET BACK!" choking on blood, he feels himself weaken. "I SWEAR IT! I'LL KILL YOU THE FIRST MOMENT I GET!"

A sob escaped her, as much as she tried to swallow it down. To no avail, she cannot fake her remorse, her pain. She knew it was the right thing to do, for the betterment of all – humans and sorcerers, but it cost her so much sorrow and pain.

"Nothing is a lie," she croaked, feeling the last of her energy leave her, tearfully gazing into the eyes of her beloved. "But I have to say goodbye."

And just like that, the King of Curses was no more.

And when the fighting was over, the Seer vanished without a trace.

It came abruptly.

Without warning, without a sound, without a whisper, without a call.

The end of the beginning.

Of when fate decided to try its hand with life, changing the course of all.

For a thousand years ago, the jujutsu society was at its high boasting about great families within their ranks and a seer to guide them all.

The seer, who were specialists in the mystics and great beyond, who helped build empires, defend against curses, win wars - the great seer revered, respected, and treasured. 

Alas, this seer fled, vanished, and doomed the jujutsu society.

For without her visions, how can the sorcerers ever know of the truth and lies that the future holds, to protect them from whatever threatens them? Of the corruption that would soon waste them away? Their arrogance and overdependency on her visions became their downfall, yet few could actually attest to that.

The jujutsu world was a strange, fickle, archaic, and destructive kind with an equally disturbing system. A system unwilling to change, unwilling to adapt, willing only to lead by example.

After her disappearance, they were left with crumbs to pick up, on where she'd be for their next life - for without her visions, how would they be able to secure safety for themselves?

(how selfish of them)

Lo and behold, a thousand years later, and she would appear again, outside of Japan and born half a Gojo! What tremendous luck they have!

Without wasting another second, they sent their best sorcerers to abduct the child and took her by force from her mother, bringing her all the way to Japan.

Only they could have their hands on this seer, one they've waited for thousands for years, one who remains theirs, rightfully theirs, one who has to atone for her sins of leaving the jujutsu society vulnerable all those years ago.

Yes, this child must bear the sins of her ancestors, must live a life for the future of the jujutsu sorcerers.

She is theirs.

Theirs and theirs alone!

But alas, Gojo Satoru caught wind of the other Gojo, singlehandedly took her from them and took her under his care.

How dare he!

So long as he was alive, no way would they ever get their hands on the seer, the great diviner, the all-seeing eye!

How dare he!

Gojo Satoru who manages to effortlessly insert himself in situations he shouldn't be, halting or stopping decisions entirely, establishing his presence as the strongest sorcerer - a title that many of them cannot deny, with much disdain, he, who is without a shred of doubt, a threat.

The Gojo seer continued to live her life, foolishly and blissfully unaware of her true value. Foolish little girl!

The past and present converged into one another, tightly wounding and bounding, meshing and mixing in between the seems, for a future nobody knows, a future nobody is prepared for, but a future nonetheless for all.

However, unbeknownst to all - even to the jujutsu higher-ups, the Great Gojo Satoru, and his beloved little sister, the future in store was not kind. No.

It's as though the past comes back to haunt, to call out for sins to be repented.

Strange as it seems, it all went according to plan - Gojo Satoru finding out about his sister, Fushiguro Megumi sent to Sendai, Miyagi to fetch a cursed object and meeting Itadori Yuuji, Itadori Yuuji ingesting said cursed object and hosting Ryoumen Sukuna, reviving the King of Curses after a thousand years. Yes. Marvelous. All according to plan. 

The characters were set, ties looming into each other. Glorious.

It was inevitable, that these characters had special ties connecting them with each other, keeping their lives intertwined, for such was the plan for the grander scheme of things.

There was nothing.

A sea of nothing.

Endless nothing.

It went on and on and on and on and on and on.

It was a nothing that comforting, a nothing where nothing existed, a nothing where nothing was felt.

It was a nothing with that - nothing.

The perfect word for it would be void, however, voids can still have something in them.

And there was red.

A field of red spread across, going on forever and ever and ever.

Curious, she got to her knees to inspect. A flower, it was a red flower with six umbels and a long stamen, blooming outward, as though seeking life. Fingering through its petals, her eyes followed along millions of them spread.

Suddenly, a cold chill ran down her. For some reason, she looked up, meeting nothing.

And yet, she remembered the feeling dwelling in her in a sea of nothing.

Yes, she remembered this feeling.

She knows that feeling.

"Where am I?" a voice cut through the nothing.

In front of her stood someone who looked exactly like her, except, one pair of her eyes had the trademark Six Eyes of the Gojo clan, there was a streak of white running down the right side of her hair, and she was dressed in clothing much different from hers.

Recognition fell upon her, blinking calmly as a faint smile graced her lips.

“Who are you?” asked the girl.

Her smile turned sad as she approached, crushing the flowers under her feet.

The same recognition fell unto her mismatched eyes, but probably not the same kind of recognition she had.

With the gentleness akin to a mother, she eyed the girl before her.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, her voice echoing in the dark. “I’m sorry to have cursed you – all of you,” confusion crosses her face, it hurts her even more. “to have you all carry my burden." The red all around them seemed to glow, a vibrant, blinding red. "I’m sorry.”

Confusion continued to riddle her features, which makes this meeting just more bittersweet.

And then came rain, pouring down on them.

It washed over them, over the flowers.

And then nothing.

Come a thousand years later, and there they were.

A promise foretold, enacted finally.

He, a man resurrected from the dead, free from the curses that kept him away, taking what was rightfully his with her beating heart in his.

And she, a shell of a woman in the form of her now empty descendent.

At last, he had his comeuppance, at last, he got his revenge.

As he devoured her heart, feeling the remaining pieces of his powers return, as did the memories. What a cruel twist of fate.

Suddenly, his mind felt like a rush of water downstream. He could feel his immeasurable power returning, could feel in pumping his veins, yet at the same time, there were tears.

Elsewhere was Fushiguro Megumi, screaming over and over the name of the woman he had just killed – a scream of desperation, anguish, and pain. Why did it sound so familiar?

Finding a blackened uniform, hovering over a body laid in her own pool of blood, the boy continued to scream and scream.

Fushiguro Megumi was a man he couldn’t wait to see at his full potential for battle, another in his list of to-kills, having shown great potential as a jujutsu sorcerer and as part of the wretched Zen’in. But this was far from the man he knew, all he saw was a weeping boy, a boy who lost his mind as he was grieving, begging over and over a corpse, the corpse of his beloved.

Satisfied, he should be, right? Yet, why doesn't he feel it? Why does a part of him feel a great loss? Why does a part of him feel as though he was the one with a ripped soul?

A flash of white came to view, standing next to the crying boy, his stance was rigid, apart from that nothing with his back turned.

Kneeling, Gojo Satoru let his fingers press against the dead girl's eyelids, closing them shut. His hands fell to her cheeks, engulfing them in his large fingers, lingering, thumbs caressing her ice-cold cheeks. Once filled with warmth and life.

"Megumi," says Gojo Satoru, cursed energy just radiating off him. "mind if ya take yourself and (Y/N) aside?" lowering his blindfold, his cursed energy increased in power, reeking of maliciousness. "Things are about to get messy."

He met Gojo Satoru's murderous look head-on, finally getting that fight he long promised him.

And yet, as he stood there, tears leaked from his eyes.

Even with all his powers returned, him being at his full glory, his heart felt more hollow than before.

[thechangeling]

The Box

Tiberius Blackthorn had gotten quite good at compartmentalizing. Pretending that things weren't happening, that they didn't effect him. Pretending that he didn't feel. It was almost like flicking a switch. If things got too painful or too real he just turned it off. Closed his eyes and told himself over and over.

This isn't real. This isn't really happening. This doesn't matter. I don't care.

She isn't really dead. I don't miss him. I don't love him. Over and over until the pain stopped. Ty could usually make it last for awhile. Until something brought up an unpleasant memory or feeling and then he had to start all over again.

Being around Kit again was certainly making this worse.

Kit, in true Herondale fashion was in deep trouble with multiple people. As it turned out, he was the first heir and now a bunch of people were trying to either kill or kidnap him. So now a bunch of shadowhunters and downworlders had banded together to help him defeat his enemies and keep him safe. Ty had made a huge fuss to Drusilla about being forced to help. But secretly they both knew that he would rather die then let anything happen to Kit.

So now Kit was here, back in the Los angeles institute and currently sitting at the breakfast table with that vampire friend of his and Dru. She seemed to be very adamantly telling a story and Kit was laughing hysterically. Ty felt his heart turning over in his chest at the sound. He had to fight the urge to smile.

It isn't real. I don't love him. This isn't real.

Having him this close was torture. Hearing him laugh, watching him train, watching him flirt, watching him try not to cry in front of the others. There were so many times that Ty wanted to just reach out and touch him. Run his fingers through Kit's hair, trace the curve of his cupid's bow, hold him in his arms. It was a burning, suffocating ache.

Ty leaned back against his perch up on the windowsill. He had asked Livvy to give him some space to be alone. He was doing a decent job of blending into the background with his black clothing and dark hair. Or maybe they were just ignoring him. Ty pushed away that thought.

Suddenly he felt the weight of someone hopping up beside him. They made no noise or attempts to get his attention. Ty could hear the faint sound of Under Pressure coming out of headphones.

Alyssa.

Alyssa Reyes was the werewolf from Maia's pack who had been assigned to essentially be the scholomance's liaison to the downworld and help educate future centurions about downworlder affairs. She hadn't exactly been happy about this situation and had been pretty hostile towards most of them for awhile. But she and Ty had bonded over both being autistic, and also being queer. He could honestly say that meeting Alyssa had changed his life.

He turned to face her. She was staring up at the sky, mouthing along to the words of the song. Her black wireless headphones were slud over her ears and her dark waves were tied up into a low bun. She was excitedly fiddling with the straps of her white crop top which contrasted nicely against her golden brown skin. He stared at her for awhile, just basking in her presence.

He was sad that she was going back to New York in a week. He was really going to miss her.

Eventually she turned her gaze on him, sliding her headphones down. "You have all the best hiding spots" she confessed with a smile. 'Also I figured it was time to come interrupt your lurking because it was just getting a little sad." Ty rolled his eyes at her.

"I wasn't lurking! I'm literally just sitting here!" He protested worrying instantly that they were speaking too loudly. But everyone else was deeply preoccupied with their conversations and also they were several feet away. He stole a quick glance at Kit again and practically felt Alyssa disapproval radiating off of her. Ty turned back to face her displeased expression.

When Ty had first met Alyssa she was scared and standoffish but had quickly warmed up to him. He often described her as having pure magic in her warm brown eyes, so much excitement and life practicing buzzing out of her. But now her eyes were cold and dark. She seemed angry.

"I have just about had enough of this Ty" she announced. It's clear to me how much you want him, how much you love him, so why don't you just go talk to him already?"

Ty sighed, avoiding her gaze. "I can't."

She flailed her hands haphazardly. "What do you mean you can't Ty? You can. You just won't! I'm so sick of this!" She shouted.

Ty spared a panicked glance back at the kitchen table, but they hadn't looked their way. Still Ty hopped down from the ledge.

"Here, follow me" he said to Alyssa, pulling her off the ledge. She didn't protest. She allowed him to lead her out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

"Look" he began, "I don't want to talk to Kit alright? I'm still mad at him. I'm not just going to let that go." He explained. Alyssa just stared back at him.

There was a long drawn out pause where neither of them spoke. Ty wasn't that concerned. Long drawn out pauses were kind of their thing.

"Ok" she said slowly. "I need to tell you something that you might not be ready to hear. In fact it's probably going to make you really angry. But I need you to listen."

Ty had no idea what to say to that. But Aylssa kept on talking.

"Ty you need to get over yourself" she stated simply.

Ty bristled instantly. Rage flooded through his entire being. Who the fuck did she think she was? And to hear this from Alyssa of all people. Didnt she understand why he was so hurt? Why he was so angry?

Alyssa kept going before he could yell at her, stepping towards him slightly. "Listen to me Tiberius Blackthorn. I understand your pain, better than anyone else most likely. I understand your anger. I feel it to. I feel it everyday. The way the world treats us it's like little jagged cuts everyday, slowly whittling us down into nothing." Her voice broke. Her eyes were brimmed with tears.

"But I need you to ask yourself something" she continued shakely. "I need you to ask yourself, did Kit Herondale really do this? All of this? Is all of this really his fault? Something that we talk about a lot in therapy is putting the blame where it belongs. Recognize what was caused by which person and how much fault really lies with the person you're mad at. I know you don't want to forgive him because you're hurting and your also so fucking stubborn love" she laughed despite the fact that her eyes were filled with tears.

"You refuse to move. And I know why you do that because you think if you move, you will be admitting defeat. Admitting weakness. But you aren't Ty. You are saving yourself" She reached for him but shot backwards, shaking his head. He couldn't believe her. Maybe somewhere deep down he knew that she was probably right but he didn't care. He didnt care about what he knew anymore. All he could think about was the pain he felt.

"Please" she whispered "It isn't healthy to hold a grudge for this long. It isn't good for you. It isn't good for your soul." Alyssa wiped her eyes and stood up straighter, hardening her voice. "I know you're fed up with everything, and the same things keep happening over and over again. But here's the thing. Kit isn't responsible for what Paige did to you or what your father did, or your uncle or anyone else." Ty instantly began to shake at the mention of Paige Ashdown. He could feel all if those instances coming back to him. All of those kid memories he had tried to repress.

Whenever Ty had something horrible and traumatic happen to him. Everytime someone laughed in his face, everytime someone whispered behind his back or called him a slur. Every time someone made him doubt if he was really loved. Every autistic hate crime, every murder, every debate over the concept of his soul and whether it really existed. Livvy's death. Everything that happened that day on the beach. What Kit had said to him. Kit leaving him. He took all of it, all the bad memories, all of the pain and heartbreak. He took it and shoved it into some deep place inside of him. He usually envisioned a box of some sort. He shoved it all inside of that box, shut the lid and buried it.

This isn't real. This didn't happen. This isn't happening.

Ty's entire body was vibrating now. Alyssa put her hand on his shoulder. "Listen to me. Kit Herondale is not your enemy. He isn't trying to drown you or ship you off to an institution or shove you into ABA. And I know what you're thinking, that's a pretty fucking low bar and I know!" She exclaimed. "I know! But we have to start somewhere Ty. We have to start somewhere or else we will never get anywhere. That kid is so fucking in love with you and yes he does not deserve a gold medal for doing so, but he is fighting like hell to win you back."

That much was true. Kit had been trying to talk to him all week, but Ty kept brushing him off. It wasn't enough, he always told himself. It wasnt enough. He wasnt actually sure if Kit really loved him. He just refused to believe it.

Ty shook his head at Alyssa, his fingers fluttering at his sides. He began to hit his hands against his thighs to ease some of the tention he was feeling. Alyssa squeezed his arm, taking a deep breath.

"I know you are sick and tired of explaining the same things over and over and answering stupid questions and always having to make adjustments and put in the effort when everyone else doesn't try. I am too! Believe me! But I think at a certain point you need to ask yourself if you can forgive him for not knowing?" She asked. "Can you forgive him for being ignorant and making a mistake and breaking your heart because you've hurt him too? Can you accept that he is not perfect?" She dropped her arm down and stared him directly in his eyes. "Because neither are you. Ty I know you dont wanna hear this, but you live in a very privileged bubble where most people let you get away with murder because you're a man and you're white, while those same people condemn me for being rude and intolerable." She said pointedly.

Ty bit his lip. He felt like he should argue with her but he knew she had a point. "You're a shadowhunter!" She glared at him. "You're a shadowhunter and your people have committed so many atrocities against mine. You and your family spent most of your time ignoring all of this and only focusing on helping your brother and sister. You joined an organization that has a history of doing terrible things to downworlders!" She shouted.

"Well so did you!" He shot back even though he knew it wasnt really the same thing. "And by the angel Ali if you really hate me that much then why are you even here?" Alyssa just shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "Because I don't hate you genius. I could hold these things against you, but I don't. I forgave you for not knowing. As long as you acknowledge it and try to work on making things better, which you are, then I can let it go. Because like I said Ty, we have to start somewhere" she pleaded. "

"You have to be brave and let it go."

Instantly Ty sucked in a breath. He recognized the words she had used perfectly. They were from a song.

Their song.

Tears instantly gathered in his eyes. He let out a shakey exhale and she smiled sadly at him.

"Because right now all you're doing is hurting is yourself." Alyssa said with a shrug.

Ty squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "I know" he whispered. He opened his eyes again, she was staring at him sympathetically with those warm eyes. "I just dont know how to do this" he admitted. "I don't know how to deal with all if it. I don't think I can."

Alyssa looked confused "Deal with what exactly?"

Ty took a deep breath. "The box" he exhaled. Alyssa looked even more confused. It was a little funny.

So he decided to tell her. He told her about the coping mechanisms he had been using since he was a child. He told her about the box and how many things he had buried in it, and what they were. She cried and held him tightly to her chest. He let himself cry along with her.

He cried for that kid who had the door slammed in his face, that kid who had his interests mocked and spat on. That kid who had his heart broken over and over again long before Kit Herondale. That kid who never felt accepted or like he belonged, not even with his own twin. He cried for Livvy. He cried for that kid on the beach who lost everything. Who wanted to apologize to Kit and make everything right because he was so fucking naive and stupid, and Magnus Bane told him to go away.

So he did. But it hadn't solved anything.

He also cried for Kit. His Kit.

Ty pulled away from Alyssa, wiping at his eyes. "The worst part is it's not just my pain that's in there. I put all of the stuff with Kit in the box too" he confessed. "Like I mean the stuff that's happening right now. He's in a world of danger and I can't feel that because if I feel it then I'm afraid it'll break me."

Alyssa contemplated this for a while. "I know Ty, but you have to face it. All of it. You have to open the box or else you'll never get through it." She said sternly.

Ty leaned up against the wall if the institute. When he spoke, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere far away. "Every bad thing that happens to him feels like it's happening to me. Everything from when he was younger. When he was alone." Ty was making an effort not to cry again.

"I want him to know that he'll never be alone again. Not as long as I'm alive."

Alyssa looked at him incredulously. "Well then don't you think you should tell him that?"

Ty didn't answer her, just stared ahead. He still needed to think. Alyssa seemed to understand that because she spared him one final glance and then walked towards the kitchen.

"I'm gonna go eat" she announced. "Come join us when you're ready."

And then she left Ty alone in the hallway with his thoughts.

You have to open the box.

This is real. All of this is real.

You have to open the box.

@older-brother-kit @zafirafoxx @idontgetit-whydoihavetosaymyname @ti-bae-rius @anxiousbookenthusiast @emiikas @eutony-in-whisper

[ruinousaltruism-moved]

Leverage: Redemption, The Rollin’ On The River Job

"As good as" isn't good enough.

Little mice don't put up a fight.

I still worry about him.

I'm trying to keep you alive here!

You're busy. I got this.

You're not the boss of me.

Sucks, doesn't it?

That is a gorgeous dress. You didn't make that, did you?

Well, it is stunning. You are very talented. You must have some amazing designs.

Somebody's doing this.

They're not interested in the money.

Oh, am I the low bar?

It's about, you know, emotion, not detail. You draw from personal experience. You've been on this merry-go-round.

Just out of curiosity, how thorough was that background check you did on me?

I told you, I'm not hiding anything!

I've lost count of my marriages, but... I only ever had one husband.

It's not a real pearl? Bummer.

Gosh, maybe somebody stole it. Maybe somebody lifted it right...

What... what did you... how did you...?

Well, if we're all done picking pockets, may we continue?

He actually, believe it or not, is about as honest as they come.

Uh... I assume it's rather difficult to rob a casino in general?

They end up hauling their clothes in trash bags from couch to couch, which sucks.

We have to cover every angle.

The Southern belle is a really hard con. She has to combine traditional femininity with an iron resolve…

You can't plan a grift with a flow chart.

You have to be able to read the mark and improvise and…

Are you using a flow chart for all your interactions?

You are memorable.

That's my secret weapon.

You heard about my party. Event of the season.

We have to agree my fee first.

Who was that woman you were talking to?

I'm lookin' to slow down a bit.

It might look quiet, but trouble lurks around every corner. You gotta be alert.

You know, people don't know what it takes to be on the job.

I wondered if you'd be interested in a little friendly competition.

I hear you're having a party.

Good lawyer would have told you that.

Do you really think you can compete with me? I don't miss.

Always a pleasure to watch you shoot to kill.

I don't like these suit guys.

The money will do the work for us.

It's nice to be recognized.

I saw how she treats you. You have all the power.

What exactly is it that you do?

They'll assume I bribed my way in.

These people. Everything handed to them.

Everyone is going to know my name.

Let's show these bullies they can't push us around.

Smart guy like you? That's hard to believe.

This little punk is gonna get what's comin' to her.

Find an alternate route and make sure nobody spots you.

I told you not to do it.

It just takes time. You gotta know when to and when not to.

We can't risk you being recognized from today.

Let me guess... you've come to try to make me feel better.

I had that life. I left that life. Now it would appear that's all I have to offer.

All you have is, uh, money and good looks and privilege and access.

It seems like you could do just about anything, and all of it's scary.

I want the world to stop sucking. 'Cause it sucks. For me, for people I care about.

I haven't really relied on anybody for a long time, but I'm relying on you.

If you want to be part of the team, you actually have to be part of the team.

No one's gonna look under the dress.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you not want to attract attention to yourself?

I made the modifications you asked for.

Remind me again why we invited her.

Sorry 'bout that. Little too much champagne.

When I give the signal, you start winning.

Well, you're here now, and that's what counts.

This is a restricted area.

Russians? How do you know they're Russian?

Is this going to be a problem?

Okay, okay, all you have to do is maneuver through some heavily patrolled areas and grab what you need.

I always get the fun job, don't I?

It wasn't catering. It was a food sensory experience.

What happened to your tie?

Police'll be here any minute.

I have to deal with something.

It was you. You did this!

But look on the bright side... now everyone's gonna know your name.

I can't accept this. This is too much.

This is more than I could have ever hoped for.

I think I could take care of that.

Why not leave the other stuff to us?

So this "worst world ever" thing you see... it's the only world I've ever known.

I'm not scared. I'm kinda ready to kick it in the junk.

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #8 - Is Art School worth it?

Hi folks!

For my next Art Advice blogpost (go here for my previous ones) I want to talk about my experiences with ‘art education’/’art school’, and whether I think it was worth it... 

Just a note, I’ve done roughly 6 years of practical art education (not including the general art classes I did as a child in school). And I also want to acknowledge that I know I’m immensely privileged to have even been given the chance at an art education. So even though this essay will be critical of the system and my experience, know that I still do appreciate that I was given this opportunity! 

(this is about 2300 words long, by the way... oops...)

Is Art School/Art Education worth it? 

I don’t think it’s surprising to learn that art was one of my favourite subjects in school. Especially from the ages of 8 to 14, I adored it, and also revelled in the fact that I was actually above averagely good at it as well! 

But then GCSE art (ages 15-16) happened and... that opinion did begin to change somewhat lol. 

I’m now going to go (as briefly as I can) over how art is ‘taught’ in the schools/colleges I’ve been to because I appreciate that my experience isn’t universal, and other countries might have a different system!

In most classes what would happen is we would be given a theme at the beginning of the term, something like ‘journeys’ or ‘time’ or vague things like that which can be interpreted in a variety of ways. And throughout the classes we would be assigned specific artists to research and then base a work of our own on (so, for example, if the artist was Claude Monet, then we would be expected to go and paint something in his style that ties into the theme for that specific term). Other classes would be spent working on different techniques and mediums. So, things like still life drawing, printmaking, painting, etc. 

As the term goes on, you are then expected to do your own research for artists and develop your ideas for the theme individually (although teachers will always be lurking the background to offer you ‘advice’). And eventually this will lead to you doing a final ‘Final Piece’ which sums up all of your ideas for the specific theme for that term, including the research and experimentation you did along the way. How you’re expected to present this research is through sketchbooks, which leads me to my first issue when it comes to the way art education is taught. 

Sketchbooks

In literally every institution I’ve been in to do art, teachers will gather everyone together at the start of the school year and show you a selection of sketchbooks made by past students. 

Now, these sketchbooks are usually works of art in themselves. Every page is coloured and full of interesting images and patterns, the writing is easy to read and thoughtful, and overall these sketchbooks tie perfectly into your project and your final pieces. And of course, the fact that there are previous examples of sketchbooks that do this really well, it’s obviously something that does work for some people.

However...

If you’re anything like me, trying to make my sketchbook look good on top of doing a good final piece (and on top of all the non-art related subjects you have to do in school) meant that either my sketchbook looked amazing but the final piece was mediocre, or vice versa... 

I truly believe forcing all art students to do a particular type of sketchbook, when a lot of us would’ve much rather have focused on the final pieces for the project, excludes a lot of people who would otherwise excel in art. And the way that art is marked means that if your sketchbook doesn’t live up to this standard, then you will automatically be marked down. 

The only project where I felt I was truly allowed to make a sketchbook exactly how I wanted to make it was in my last year of college when I did a self portrait project on women artists in history (there’s some examples of it floating around my blog if you’re interested, by the way). And because of the nature of my project being very researched based, I wasn’t expected to keep a really ‘prettified’ sketchbook, which allowed me the freedom to focus on my final pieces and the overall message I was going for!

This isn’t even to mention the fact that you’re marked on how good your literacy skills are in your sketchbooks (which does feel incredibly ridiculous for a subject like art... like... I enjoy writing essays about art because that’s just who I am, but I know a lot of artistic people don’t enjoy that, and feel like their contributions to art aren’t as ‘important’ just because they can’t write 1000s of words about it...).

Essentially, sketchbooks can be very useful to artists, especially if you’re working on one particular project over a period of time. BUT, the generalised high expectations of how a sketchbook should look for everyone in a class, despite the fact that art is supposed to allow its students to be individuals, leads to people feeling like they have failed. 

Grading

A few days ago I woke up at like 1am thinking about how ridiculous it is that art is even a subject that’s graded at all, particularly in early education (so, ages 8-14). We all know that art is subjective, so having anyone be the judge of whether you ‘did the art right’ has never sat right with me. 

I was always predicted high grades in art, but I rarely met them (not that I did badly). And in a way, I always felt that my art education journey was me creating things which I thought my teachers would want to see. (Also important to note that I procrastinated a lot of my school art because I was much more interested in doing fanart, which wasn’t something we were allowed to do in art education but... more about that later lol).

The thing is, I understand that exam boards believe that grades are the only way to motivate students, and that no one will want to do a subject if they can’t aim for that illusive A*... But ultimately, after university, grades are literally meaningless lol. The most that employers will want to see is that you passed basic Maths and English. Other than that, grades literally only serve to push you  into higher education. 

I’ve known so many students work themselves half to death to get a good grade in a subject, only to end up in the same unemployed train as the rest of us when they leave university. So really, all grades do, particularly in subjects like art, is remove all the creativity and interest out of the subject, since they become so focused on fulfilling a dumb grade rather than enjoying themselves! 

It wasn’t all bad...

So, since I’ve been pretty negative so far, I wanted to take a little break to talk about the good things about art school/education!

Being taught basic art related things is definitely something I’ve taken for granted. Things like proportions, the colour wheel, how to use certain mediums, even things like specific artistic terminology! One of the main reasons why I wanted to do these art advice posts was the fact that I was given this amazing knowledge through art education and I wanted to be able to share what little I know with people who perhaps weren’t given that opportunity! 

Another positive is being around like-minded people! You can bounce ideas off each other, give each other advice or constructive criticism, compliment each other’s work, etc! All things that feel so much better when they come from fellow artistic people! Even having a teacher who’s on the same page as you about things is such a breath of fresh air! (Although not my university art teacher... f*ck that racist twat lol)

Something else is that you’re actively encouraged to use a wide range of materials and mediums which are supplied to you! You also have access to a lot of hightech or specialised equipment that you wouldn’t usually be able to get to use! (this of course depends on whereabouts your school is or how much money they are given to spend on things like the arts, as I said before, I can only speak of my own experience...the area I grew up in wasn’t particularly affluent, but we were offered a lot of things that I know schools in other parts of even this country wouldn’t have been so... again, just pointing out that art education IS a privilege!!!)

There are probably other things too, but overall there were a lot of aspects of art education which I genuinely loved. Unfortunately, the things that I didn’t love were the things that ended up sticking in my mind a lot more...

“Be creative! ... wait not like that!?!?”

Ok so, story time (I may have spoken about this before, but it’s important and it still makes me mad so...).

In my 2nd year of college, we were given the theme of ‘secrets/fantasy/lies/etc’. And in the first class of that term, our teacher started listing things we could do for the theme (it was just vague ideas). (I ended up doing something based on dreams and the subconscious, by the way). But something that stuck with me was what our teacher told us NOT to do. Namely, we were “advised” to not do something with fairies or other fantastical creatures, basically anything that could be seen as more ‘decorative’. 

And although I had no interest in doing fairies or anything like that, it really bugged me even then that they were so against students doing something like that. I think their reasoning was that they wanted a wide range of ideas coming from the theme, and if they allowed more ‘generic’ takes on the theme then it wouldn’t make for an interesting end of year exhibition. Of course, this idea forgets that even if everyone decided to do fairies for that theme, everyone’s take on fairies would be slightly different. 

Another reasoning I think they may have had for saying this is that art education exam boards want art that ‘challenges’ stereotypes or whatnot, they want their students to think outside of the box and do something with a more ‘thought-provoking meaning’. And I do get this, but at the same time it insinuates that a student having picked a theme like fairies wouldn’t be able to somehow give that a greater symbolic meaning? 

(There’s also a whole other discussion of why art education is so fixated on art with deeper meaning when most art in history is pretty surface level or decorative but... that’s for another day lol)

In telling students to ‘be creative’ but only allowing them to be creative in a way that the teacher dictates because that’s what the exam board want just... doesn’t sit well with me... 

It also opens up judgment from teachers who maybe have a bias against or for a particular subject matter. And if you end up doing a project about something that a teacher doesn’t understand because it doesn’t fit into their ideas of creativity, then you’ll end up getting marked down for it, or coerced into doing something you don’t want to do just in order to appease them!

The layout of the courses

The final point I want to talk about ties a bit to all of the others, and it’s specifically the way the courses are laid out in art school. 

I already described a bit of what you’re expected to do, but what I missed out was the way that literally every art teacher described it as:

~a Journey~

They were obsessed with the idea of going from research to experimentation to final piece in a neat line of progression that was so perfectly documented in your sketchbook. This ‘journey’ of how you got from one idea to another, a journey that was so stupidly fabricated because so much of it was stuff you were forced to do by your teachers. 

Every decision you made you were made to document and explain, and every single time I wanted to write ‘I did this stupid print of a shoe because my teacher told me to!’ because at least that was true!

Forcing students to fulfil this bizarre ‘artistic journey’ particularly for people like me who ‘think of an idea, do some sketches and research for the idea, do the final piece for the idea, and then move on to something else because I’m not bored of said idea’ is just so so dumb! 

And all it exists for is to make sure students get that good grades in order to boost the reputations of the schools and colleges so they can get more funding... At the end of the day, if your art has a journey and fulfils all of the ridiculous expectations of teachers or exam boards, then that’s great. But there’s a large portion of artistic people who don’t fit into this category and who get left out just because they’re not living up to what a ‘good’ art student is like!

Conclusion

I’ve complained a lot in this post, I know... I also want to emphasise that this is all my own experience and I know that a lot of people will have very different ideas about this... 

But I suppose after all this you’re probably wondering if I’d recommend going to art school, or taking art subjects in any part of your school life...

And... Honestly I can’t really answer that. 

If you’re someone who loves art, and wants to do art as a career, or just want to improve your own skills, then you’re probably going to take any opportunity to do it, regardless of what one person says on the internet lol. 

I’d also reiterate that it’s honestly an amazing privilege to even be offered the chance of doing 6+ years of art education, and it was definitely worth it just because I was able to use almost entire massive tube of oil paint without having to buy it myself (amongst other things, of course).

I just hope that any young people who see this can get a better idea of what art education CAN be like, and that it isn’t always going to live up to your own expectations of it!

~

I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, but I’ve been hesitant because I don’t want to come across as too whiny... 

But honestly my experiences in art education were SO close to making me give up on art entirely, which would’ve sucked because I really have nothing else going for me lol (that’s... mostly a joke by the way...) 

And if I can help someone get a better understanding of what the art education system CAN be like, particularly here in the UK, then hopefully my Struggles were worth it lol!

As always, if you have any questions about anything I’ve written about, feel free to ask! 

And a massive thank you to everyone who supports me, my art & these posts <3

[justjimedits]

princeescaluswords

The sheer privilege of that reply to your post @camelotpark is staggering in its entitlement.  

A person came into a show about a Latino character, which the production said was about a Latino character, which the actors said was about a Latino character, which the narrative said was about a Latino character, and said “I wasn’t a fan of Scott’s actions sure, but I didn’t dislike him or hate him.”  

People like this came into a show where the first season was focused on the Latino character being attacked and hunted, where the second season was focused on the Latino character trying to navigate a war, where the the third season was focused on him rising to a leadership position, and the only thing they could draw from this is that he ‘wasn’t innocent.’

But it’s absolutely wrong to suspect that these people are influenced by racism.

Anyone has the right to respond to me until I don’t want to put up with their ad hominem bullshit.  But when they used an argument that has been clearly influenced by racism, I have the right to call them out on it.  If you look at how Teen Wolf was presented, at how the characters spoke, at what conclusions it drew, Derek Hale was never supposed to be the hero in the first two seasons.  He wasn’t.   They literally had other characters tell him this to his face!  

By the way this phrase – “ how Scott was not the innocent puppy with a certain naivety I actually had envisioned” – is an example of racist influence in action.  There was no evidence that Scott was an innocent puppy, except to people who wanted to focus on the white characters as the more important more relatable ones. “Innocent puppy” is a character that doesn’t have to be paid attention to, doesn’t have to be listened to, and might be amusing in it’s oh-so-adorable way.  But that character is never the focus of tragedy, of horror, or even of growth.  The ‘innocent puppy’ is the character who gets sent to the little kid’s table while the adults talk.

That isn’t Teen Wolf.  That was never Teen Wolf.

The production and Scott fans never indicated he was innocent, and they certainly never said he was a puppy.  What happened, to my eyes, was that you came in with the – yes! it’s racist – idea that Derek was the really important character, the true motive force behind the narrative, and Scott existed to “learn the lessons” Derek had to teach him, instead, as the narrative kept insisting to fandom’s disbelieving eyes, of the other way around.   ___ Actually, I didn’t come into the show with any expectations at all since I started watching two years ago, when the show was done. I never saw articles or TV commercials (I don’t watch TV, I watch online streaming on my computer so no commercials) and I certainly didn’t hear about any hypes here in the Netherlands but that’s probably because I’m in my thirties and thus don’t attend school to get any talks about it. I was browsing shows to watch, came across season 6 of TW and was like, hmm, werewolves, maybe that’s interesting? I never liked werewolves much until Hemlock Grove. So I started on season one. And honestly, the first episode didn’t have me hooked... I didn’t like the young faces of the actors, didn’t think any of the characters spoke to me much except Melissa McCall (Loved her in Chicago Fire and Walking Dead). But I soldiered through a few more episodes. It was pretty clear to me Derek wasn’t the really important character, I mean, most of the first episodes he was lurking in the background not saying much. He was brought into the show as seemingly the bad guy who had bitten Scott and I certainly wasn’t a fan of his lack of talking and explaining.Unfortunately, I always seem to like the brooding bad boy types and as the show went on and Derek was constantly put into bad situations when he tried to do the right thing (Also due to his lack of communicating) and more of his past came to light. I wasn’t a fan of Stiles, his ADHD was badly overplayed with the abuse of his meds and the gangling hyper ape Stiles appeared to be in season 1.  I never thought Derek was the force behind the lessons Scott had to learn, I mean, Scott made it pretty obvious he wasn’t interested in learning anything from Derek and Derek was not a very helpful nor patient teacher. I think over the seasons they did learn from one another but they were both dealing with the situations at hand, one they both had been forced in, as well as all other characters from TW. Derek learned to not see killing as the only solution thanks to Scott and as Derek evolved into his own character more and more, I liked him more. After season 4 I was sold, I wanted to write as Derek Hale (I’m a roleplayer and sometimes muses just feel right. Derek Hale felt right) and I rewatched the show many times since the first time to be able to get writing as Derek right.  Also, putting Scott as innocent puppy isn’t said to be him to the sidelines. Why can’t a leading hero not be that? Why do you have the instant notion that it makes Scott less of a leading man because of my wording? You’re putting words in my mouth, and you have a habit of doing that, it’s why you blocked me in the first place, because I went against you. To me, and that’s how I viewed Scott before I was forced to look closer to his actions, he did come off as naive and innocent. He was a teen, and that’s how he acted, and he was all about saving people and not killing them (Unfortunately Scott’s ways got more killed but that wasn’t something he realized), he had those moments where he appeared innocent with big eyes and big smile, a pup since he was a teen and wolves are lupine but I guess I should have said cub? A youngster not prepared for what he was thrown into. Like when he pointed out to Allison and Kira how they mom-ed him, and the I’m the hot girl scene or the juice scene. Those kind of scenes were cute to me. I haven’t watched season 5 and 6, I sped through it once so I can’t speak on those seasons. First 4 seasons, that’s how Scott appeared to me, and there’s nothing dismissive about it.  So what entitlement did I show? That I disliked being called out (Like other Sterek fans) that we’re the problem in this Fandom Peace post? That I pointed out that my first introduction to Scott Stans was aggressive towards me and insulting and me wonder if I wanted to stick around? You interpreted my words to your own liking, made assumptions about me which weren’t correct and that’s how you spoke to me. You were wrong.

[screensirenfic]

Black Leather - Chapter 3

“Come and Get Sheetfaced.” Clever wordplay, if you were in fourth grade. The crude illustration of what was supposed to be a tipsy ghost did little more to advertise the marketing genius of head cheerleader and reigning bitch queen Tina.

She’d shoved the neon orange monstrosity into my hand with all the finesse of a football player, cornering both me and Steve on our way out of third period Chem.

“Hope you’ll both come.” She chirped, though I wondered how much of her enthusiasm had been aimed at me, and how much was for my much more agreeable compatriot.

I never liked Tina. Not since she stuck gum in my hair in sixth grade, forcing my dad to get the scissors to my hair when peanut butter failed. It was okay though; I rocked a Mohawk. She’d always been a bitch, but that was fine; she thought I was one too. At least we understood each other.

So; for the sake of appearances, and the almighty sacrifice of actually getting along with some of the populars, I took the damn flyer, determined to dispose of it at a more convenient time.

“So Tina’s throwing another Halloween bash. That should be cool.” Commented Steve, rushing up to walk beside me with his flyer in hand.

I just gave him a look, because Steve already knew what I thought about Tina and how little her boozefests appealed to me.

“Come on, Lo. It could be fun to let loose a little...” He continued to try and convince me with one of those easy smiles that worked so well on Nancy. On me; not so much.

“Drink a little, dance a little. Get crazy!” He grinned, wide eyed with his hands in the air, as if he could embarrass me into relenting.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve had enough crazy in this past year to last a lifetime.” I half joked, but it came off flat. We’d both seen what Hawkins was truly capable of. The kind of horror movie tropes that didn’t even belong on the midnight feature.

Steve’s smile had fallen a little; his happy-go-lucky attitude more forced as of late. It had me wondering how deep that night had really cut him; how many nightmares had him staying awake in the middle of the night.

I’d seen my fair share of shit; been pretty much born into the middle of it. It took a hell of a lot to faze me, and some weird Venus flytrap looking monster wasn’t going to be the thing to send me overboard.

Steve was different.

He was born into the life of perfect privilege; his dad a highflying lawyer in some fancy business firm, his mom a bonafide 50s catalogue housewife. He was a picket fence away from Nancy Wheeler level of holiday special suburban dream, but I suppose being filthy rich stretched some of the parameters substantially.

Sure; he had his problems. The fact that his dad was having an affair on his mom was Hawkins worst kept secret, but his mom was no idiot, and kept Mr Harrington on a tighter leash than a Rottweiler in heat. That meant Steve had his first taste of independent living, with a bachelors pad that could rival Hugh Hefner.

What Steve could see in a girl like me was a mystery. I guess I was pretty; in a drug addict kind of way, and my jokes weren’t too bad once you got past the fact that my humour was drier than the panties of an eighty year old virgin.

Still; Steve could do so much better. He had Nancy, and Tommy, and Carol and a whole list of populars who were just lining up for a minute of his time.

King Steve; they said, though I guess every court needed an outcast. A black sheep to do the dirty work and keep the king’s confidence when his crown got a little off kilter.

“Please don’t make me go to this alone.” He asked; and the honesty in his voice was almost enough to break me entirely. It was easy to forget that being royalty could be draining at times; even for someone as naturally charismatic as Steve.

“You won’t be alone. You’ve got Nancy.” I remarked, honing in on the one indisputable point in my argument for playing hooky just this once.

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same...” Steve argued, though his tone was still light; eyes trailing up to the ceiling as if he saw something interesting up there.

“She doesn’t scare people off half as well.” He joked and I couldn’t help but chuckle, because Steve had the vanity to glance at me to see if he’d won on such cheap shot.

“Steve Harrington; are you asking me to be your bodyguard?” I asked; a smile still stretched across my face because I could play his game too, and fuck; if I wasn’t gonna beat him at it.

“Bodyguard’s a strong word. More like assassin. You can stop me from saying something stupid before Nance kills me for it.” He retorted, and despite our conversation resting firmly in joking territory; I couldn’t help but hear some truth in there.

“Think the word you’re looking for is babysitter.” I corrected him, because I wasn’t quite ready for this conversation to turn serious again just yet.

“Well; you always did say I was immature for my age.” Steve concurred, because only he could make self deprecation seem like a winning strategy.

“So will you come?” He asked; all jokes aside, because I could only dance around the question for so long.

“Steve; I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.” I replied, my voice soft and sincere.

As much as I liked to joke otherwise; he really didn’t need me to hold his hand through everything. He was more capable than me; at least when it came to social settings. I just lurked in the background with a drink in my hand, looking every inch the outsider in my muted shades of black leather.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want you there.” He countered, and it brought a smile to my face.

After all this time things hadn’t changed. He was still Happy-go-lucky Harrington; dumb perky rich boy with too much hair and not enough sense, and I was still Hellfire Hopper; bitter as a sour ball and twice as hard to stomach. Times changed but people didn’t; not when it came to the things that mattered.

“I’ll think about it.” I offered sincerely as I opened my locker, because that’s the best he was gonna get out of me without blackmail; and we both knew I had far more on him than he had on me.

Steve just nodded, accepting the compromise as a starting point before hurrying off to basketball practice.

He was sweet like that; quick to trust, and quicker to make a fool of. We’d really have to fix that some day, by for now I was thankful.

I screwed up Tina’s party invitation into a satisfying ball that rather festively resembled a pumpkin, before tossing it into the depths of my locker, soon to be forgotten in a mess of colourful cafeteria receipts.

Steve could grill me about it later, and as it was; his grilling was more like a light toasting; thank god for small mercies. His forgiveness was easier to get, and you know what they say; better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

—————————————————

I tried to stand my ground; I really did, but when Steve dug his heels in about something, it would take more than hell or high water to move him. For a teenage boy; he really did nag more than a neglected housewife, and I was finally understanding why my dad never remarried.

I’d almost made a clean getaway, right up until the last bell before final period when I’d opened my locker and that perfect shaped ball of orangeness decided to fall at the feet of one Steve Harrington. He’d unscrunched it, despite my insistence that it was a used cafeteria napkin and probably had something gross like chewed gum in it. Then his face fell, and it hit me like a punch in the gut.

Steve didn’t pick many hills to die upon; always was more of a lay down and roll over kind of guy, but when he picked them; he’d hold them valiantly. Honesty was one of those noble qualities that Steve valued so highly, and was one of the things I could definitely live without.

In the Hopper household; dishonesty was a proud trait held up with the likes of pettiness and just pure grit. If it didn’t kill anyone; it could go without saying, and if it did; well, we’d dealt with that before too.

With Steve, my dishonesty had always been a point of strain, testing our friendship in a way that was usually reserved for married couples.

I lied to him. He knew that. Whether it was to save his feelings, or just to save face; I’d lie more than a politician on Inauguration Day, and with far more credibility. Usually Steve never took it to heart; understood it came with being friends with a compulsive omitter who avoided social responsibility at all costs, but this time was different.

After having chewed my ear off for the better part of study period; he’d relented, but only after the promise that I’d go to Tina’s stupid party, if only to drink her parents booze and maybe tp that obnoxious rose bush in her front yard, but of course I never told Steve that.

So with a very crinkled flyer in tow, I offloaded my books into my locker, very much not looking forward to going to Melvald’s to pull together a costume that said “I’m here under duress.”

“Hey Lola...” Called the unnervingly upbeat voice of Nancy Wheeler, because only she could make Halloween a day of sunshine and rainbows.

I turned to her, noting Jonathan standing beside her with yet another one of Tina’s orange monstrosities in hand. Was everyone going to this party?

“See; even Lola’s going...” She said to Jonathan and I was suddenly aware I’d walked into a conversation I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of.

“What?” I asked, thinking that if this conversation was about what I think it was, Nancy was being awfully presumptuous.

That, or Steve had a far bigger mouth than I gave him credit for. Scratch that; Steve did have a big mouth.

“I was just telling Jonathan that he should totally come with us to Tina’s party.” She informed with such conviction; I half believed that Steve had somehow managed to talk me into some pseudo double date neither parties had an interest in going on.

“Actually, I was thinking of skipping this year instead and staying in with my dad.” I peddled in with the lamest excuse in the book, which wasn’t entirely a lie.

I was planning on staying in; with Eleven, not my dad, but the night’s itinerary would be roughly the same; too much candy and bad horror movies.

“What?!” Nancy exclaimed, and for a minute she reminded me of Steve.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” She lamented, as if the idea of anyone shunning the moral wasteland of a popularity contest that was Tina’s Halloween party was foreign to her.

Jonathan got it; his smile was testament to that.

Ever the social outcast; sometimes I felt like he was the only other person who had no desire to be involved with the social niceties that came with being part of the in crowd.

“Sorry Nance. Looks like some people aren’t interested in getting sheet faced” He joked; and I laughed because I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that pun was total trash.

Nancy soon realised her approach wasn’t working; the social outrage over the rejection of the party of the year hardly a relevant motivator to those who’d already accepted their place at the outskirts of society.

Instead she took a new angle; putting those optional classes on investigative journalism to good use.

“Okay. You’re gonna go trick or treating and you’re gonna be home by eight...” She began, realising Jonathan was the easier target and taking advantage of that as we strolled towards the school exit.

“Listening to... The Talking Heads... and reading Vonnegut, or something...” She plucked the words out of thin air, summarising Jonathan’s existence beautifully in a a harsh combination of vain existentialism and edgy romanticism, because maybe he was a cliche; but so was me, Steve and Nancy if we were being honest.

Jonathan just shrugged, unfazed at her attempt to highlight his predictability.

“Sounds like a nice night...” He commented, and I laughed, because I could see what he was doing there; and it had nothing to do with his love of American New Wave.

“Sure does; could you use a plus one?” I teased, aiding him in his attempt to drive Miss Nancy Wheeler wild with incredulousness.

“Come on guys! Don’t be a bore!” She griped, because she knew reasoning was getting nowhere, and immaturity may be more Steve’s thing; but my god; if it wasn’t effective!

“Okay, Okay!” I relented, only because I’d agreed this much with Steve, but Nancy didn’t need to know that.

However, she did need to know the very strict conditions of my attendance which I wouldn’t budge over.

“But if the new guy so much as looks at me; I swear to god I’ll...” I began, but couldn’t quite finish before I was swept up in someone’s arms.

Normally being hoisted two feet up in the air would be a cause for alarm, and the shriek I let out was far too feminine for me to pass it off as anything else.

Of course; when the raucous laughter of no other than Steve Harrington was muffled into the back of my jacket, the shock quickly wore off.

“Jesus Christ, Steve! Don’t do that!” I lectured as soon as my boots touched the floor; reaching out to slap him on the shoulder, just in case he got any other ideas for unwelcome surprises.

“Why? You loved it when we were kids...” He countered, releasing his grip around my waist so he could look at me with that dumb too-happy smile.

“Yeah; when I was twelve and you were at least a foot shorter...” I snapped back, because of course; Steve would still act like we were in middle school; immature little shit that he was!

Still; my chastisements always fell short when it came to Steve; his smile just a little too bright to be dimmed by something as dull as maturity and personal space.

Instead; he just beamed down at me, still resembling that lanky kid who’d give me piggybacks all those years ago. Same old Steve.

“And how is the most beautiful girl in the world?” He asked; his attention finally turning to his actual girlfriend, who was waiting far more politely for him than I’d have in her shoes.

“Who? Me?” She asked incredulously; a teasing lilt in her tone, only emphasised by the exaggerated hand on the chest routine. “I thought you were talking about Lola.”

Despite her slight dig, there was no love lost between the pair; teasing giving way to pure gooey eyes that would’ve made me barf from anyone else.

Steve And Nance were lucky I liked them enough for it to be endearing.  Then they started kissing and all bets were off.

“And that’s our cue to leave...” I commented, grabbing Jonathan by the arm and towing him away before tongues came into play.

[mangledguts-pretending]

the thing about the hotel scene

I've been reading a lot of posts about how Skam France's hotel scene was much more intense, but to me, I saw something completely different

My whole thing about france vs og is- France always feels like it's telling *me* the story- it's meant to be told to me, to us, to everyone. Skam feels like I've been picked up and dropped there, while the characters' lives carry on. I'm almost intruding- like I'm looking on somehow, too intimately and it's some sort of secret privilege. I understand how the first can appeal to some people but to me what's magical about skam is the way they tell you the story- how achingly raw and authentic it feels.

I rewatched OG s3 only a couple of days back, and I've finally put my finger on why france is not doing it for me the same way as og,,, Norway was just so *controlled* that it blew my mind.

In France, we're constantly told- Elliott is spiralling now , what will all the sinister laughing and zooming/in cutting away and back (i do think that editing was VERY unsettling, hats off), we're told that Lucas is distraught and we're shown, a lot.

In og, if you look away for a second- you'll miss it.

There's a sort of relentless persistence that something, something is wrong and you can see that in Isak's eyes. He doesn't instantly go glum but the real worry and confusion is practically screaming at you from the tiny tiny changes in his face. It builds.

Even is awake and wandering around the room. The screen occasionally goes black, leaving you in the dark and the buzzing in your ears only mounts. The sense of uneasiness is making itself more known now. There's something lurking in the waters but that's all it does, lurks- and that puts you on edge for every second.

Even is gone now. Isak is frantic- pressing elevator buttons like his life depends on it. He's walking through the streets and with him, you're distraught. You're beginning to have trouble breathing. The sound in the background does nothing to help.

Sonja arrives. Even is safe, at least. Isak is told Even doesn't love him, never loved him. You can see the hollowness in his eyes. A muscle jumps in his jaw.

A single tear falls down his cheek and his face, in that moment is more devastating than any amount of sobbing. Everything feels numb. The screen goes black. They won't help you through this, cry with you

You're alone. Isak is alone.