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kazukazuhas · 1 year

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˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ old friends, lloyd garmadon.┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ act one ;; scene five┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

୧ ⎯⎯ GREEN NINJA

୧ ⎯⎯ WARNINGS ;; some stalking ;; alluding to robbery and possible murder ;; some injures ;; lloyd being a cute dude ;; reader has anxiety and not have that strong of a will to live

୧ ⎯⎯ NOTES ;; who knew that i would forget to included the other main character for a little bit. i tried to write anxiety to the best of my ability, but i'm tired af rn

୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

୧ ⎯⎯ 1 IMAGE ;; TEXT [CLICK FOR BETTER QUALITY]

maybe this was a bad idea: coming to the store by yourself without anyone else to accompany, to chase away and ease your nerves. anxiety began to rack its thin finger against your heart as the car parked off to the side of the pavement. nya checked her phone quickly, angling the screen just short of out of your sight but you don't bother about what she's busy with both out of decency and being out of it.

the car's safety tried to call you back, singing a song of comfort as you reluctantly stepped out of the vehicle to complete your own tasks of the day. nya, while in the midst of your worrying and fastening breath hidden behind the disposable mask you grabbed, mentioned something you don't quite understand entirely from the slightly deafness you felt but nonetheless the least go along with it as she starts the car, waves and finally drove off to her own destination. maybe you should've let pixal when she offered to accompany you– well too bad it's too late now.

it's quick, you think to yourself to reassure the panic from settling in, a simple in and out. all you needed was a few things and you'd be out in a jiff, and the house was nothing but a good ten minutes away– you choose to believe that it is near instead of its realistic distance being further rather than closer. you hesitantly step inside the small convenience store, counting all the heads you see before walking around the side of the aisles to find the one you needed exactly.

relief flooded you like a thin stream of mist, the bell rang as the last person and their child, who was half embarrassed by their mother, left the store while bidding a rather noisy goodbye to the clearly tired cashier, who only rolled their eyes before continuing on with their own personal work. you pick the things you need up quickly, checking their prices quickly before grabbing a pack of some ramen you liked and a few energy drinks from one of the neatly packed fridges. skylor did say they normally restocked the night before saturday. with a good attempt, you tried to seem calm while walking up to the cashier.

they greeted you softly, still in their own haze of thought and daydreaming when you get to them after a quick moment. they half-smiled before continuing on with their job, taking each of the items from your short list and cashing them. their calm energy radiated and softened your nerves for a moment. they were just someone no older than you, mostly fresh out of high school and maybe even trying to make ends meet? or they were trying to earn enough to cover the cost of university or college, you couldn't tell.

it was something so fascinating about the whole — outside a single perspective, were the interesting lives of thousands of millions to billions, all filling the pages of their books with ink crafted to them in their own unique writing.

they handed you the bagged items and slip after they received the cash you handed back to them, letting out a small farewell greeting and going back to their own work and continuing on with their day. never caring of whether it was the last time you'd see them or if this was just the first.

but your mind was at ease– maybe you were hyper fixated by anxiety thumping against your head at first but it ceased, at least until you made it halfway down the road. something warned you, a gut feeling that meshed with anxiety and worry that told you to turn back and call someone to pick you up. your heart picked up the pace the faster you began to walk, your breath left you in a heave and pant.

regrettably, you spare a look behind you.

nothing.

the anxiety rushes forward, sending your nerves on an electrified run the moment the presence lurking after your steps vanishes from your sights and senses. it crashed roughly and flooded rationality, but you kept the fast pace and reframed from breaking out into a desired sprint back to skylor's place.

the steps became loudly, your sometimes false suspicion was now correct; someone was following you and not so discreetly. from the sound of the footsteps, they were heavy and following your exact direction you were heading. and you doubt they were of good intentions.

"fuck– please go away," you whispered under your breath, the only person who would have only heard was yourself, but you heard the desperation and fear that something might happen.

if only you were in shape, it's been forever since your last workout or try to keep yourself fit and in good health. since your high school career started coming to a close in your last couple years, it swiped you of any energy and time you had left outside your preexisting tuitions and classes. sometimes you wonder how you were still standing when you didn't have any of those energy drinks.

there was a drunken snicker from behind you, warily you glance back and catch the sight of a stranger watching you walk at a fastened pace with the utmost interest and caution.

you turned, a wrong one by your misjudgement and settling panic rising further than before. you notice you're panting slightly at how your body is coming to terms with how hard its work to keep you moving. vaguely you noticed the mistake you made, you were supposed to take the turn after. and it might cost you gravely.

your skin itches, a crawling feeling stretches up your arm and it becomes unreal how disgusting you begin to feel the moment the stranger grabs your arm. they grabbed you— it takes a moment to register that they managed to get a hold on you, but now your back hits the hard wall with a thud that rings heavy against the street's bare, lonely walls. the pain cracks through your body, a thick hurt fleet from your back and along your body with a burning touch. that's a faint sound of the contents from your run earlier meeting the ground, its vague against the loud ringing echoing in your hazy mind.

the stranger asks of something from you, their face blurry with the sky and wall meshing together. they ask a second time, louder and much clearer but it still didn't reach your hazy mind.

silver, no. a shiny grey moved from side to side in your sight, it was getting hard to see from your hazing eyes and tiredness getting to you. nothing seemed real at the moment, maybe your head hit the wall as well– oh that could be a concussion.

there was yelling, there was someone else who caught the attention of the stranger who thought of taking advantage of your half conscious state to take your hard earned cash, maybe something darker, death. it would be fine if the latter had occurred, you think. you close your eyes reluctantly.

"hey, hey–" the other stranger called to you, the one who chased the other one off. you found their clothing funny, all clad in green and black with a hood and mask hiding their face from everyone. "what's your name? can you tell me?" you tried to focus on their voice, the stranger sounded as young as you. you answered them with your name, fading from consciousness for a moment. their voice brought you back, "do you know who i am?" you shook your head as much as you could manage to, resting your face in the hand they held it, your face with.

"i'm the green ninja." ninja? so they were real?

"gonna pick you up- okay there we go. i'm going to take you to the hospital, do you have an emergency contact?" the ninja asks slowly, letting you process each word before saying the next. they wait patiently but not saying a word, but kept moving, you don't notice the rooftops and breeze until you reopen your eyes.

"skylor chen." the ninja chuckles, seemingly knowing of who to call. they quietly thank you for the answer before jumping to the next rooftop and onwards until finally reaching the hospital.

haze. haze all you felt.

you all but remember that day, except you'll remember the person in the strange clothes. they were quite interesting.

୧ ⎯⎯ PREVIOUS ┊MASTERLIST┊NEXT

୧ ⎯⎯ TAGLIST ;; @spoopy-fish-writes // @spoops-inliyue ;; @decaffeinatedcloudkryptonite // @shaantiofher ;; @sunangelstears ;; @comicbookweirdo ;; @cl0udyw4ter ;; @chamille-trash ;; @candy884422 ;; @rossivette // [pm/send in an ask to join]

˗ˏˋ ꒰ 💌 ꒱ kazukazuhas copr. 2023 darling┊ ˚➶ ｡˚ ☁️

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foxes-that-run · 16 days

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There was an AMA with Rob Sheffield in the Taylor Swift subreddit today. In one of the replies he said that TS is writing a lot of Great Gatsby fanfic songs and she is writing songs about a lot of other literary characters. Do you think that could be the case for the songs in which its hard to pin down who the muse is exactly?

Hi, she does refer to Gatsby a lot. Some songs are certainly entirely about another artists work of a film, book or biography, and she blends aspects of books with her autobiographical work also.

Great Gatsby references

"I hope she’ll be your beautiful fool / Who takes my spot next to you" is a Great Gatsby reference: “she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” Harry and Taylor have both used 'fool' in reference to their relationship before (in Fools Gold, Boyfriends, Cardigan, Illicit Affairs and in Long Pond Taylor said it 7 times about James in Betty.)

"All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness" is another Gatsby reference.

The Tour visuals for "Who's afraid of Little Old Me?"

Taylor also references Gatsby in:

This is why we can't have nice things - the whole song

Don't Blame me "I once was poison ivy, but now I'm your Daisy"

She has lots of other books, especially biographies:

Just Kids by Patti Smith comes to mind because I just finished reading it (it's very good!) the title is in loml. I posted about how Patti uses Peter Pan and Lost Boys as a metaphor for Robert in it which I think inspired Taylor, Taylor used it as a metaphor for Harry. Patti also refers to visiting William Burroughs near the Bowery Hotel. This section at the end also reminded me of OOTW and I wondered when Taylor read Patti's biography:

In one of our last sessions I wore my favorite black dress. He handed me a blue morpho butterfly mounted on a glass-headed dressmaker’s pin. He took a color Polaroid. Everything read black and white offset by the iridescent blue butterfly, a symbol of immortality.

Tortured Poets Department refers to Patti Smith and Dylan Thomas, I have his collection of short stories "A portrait of an artist as a young dog" next on my reading list.

She has also posted the Burton & Taylor Biography Furious Love which tells of when they filmed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Burton is Welsh, like Dylan Thomas. Taylor has likened Harry to Burton before and I think the Dylan Thomas reference could be an extension of that.

So she certainly takes inspiration from film, books and novels about historical hollywood biographies as well as her life. It doesn't make the song not about her personal perspective, but also songs are rarely literal of her life.

#Gatsby #taylor swift #patti smith #Dylan thomas #burton and taylor #burton to this taylor #who's afraid of little old me?#tortured poets department song #ttpd #loml #peter

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quirkyfries · 14 days

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I’m seeing more tagged ruin slander so I’m gonna tag some ruin positivity

Guys, hear me out. Villain characters can be good characters, you with me? Villain characters can be good characters even if you don’t like them. I’m half sure that Davis had Solar, the popular side character, be caught in the crossfire of Ruin’s plans so that viewers would take Ruin seriously. The unfortunate side effect of that was the viewer’s general opinion of Ruin plummeting.

It’s one thing for Ruin’s plan to come to fruition, in which he destroys countless dimensions. It would be fair to have everyone act like said event was bad, and be horrified. But, it’s another thing to have the consequences of that event directly impact the main characters, which kickstarts the next arc.

This is to say, Solar’s death was optional, Davis could’ve just said that the Creator from Solar’s dimension was also a complicated situation like the main one is. I think that Davis had Solar die so that there was weight to Ruin’s actions. No one would’ve cared if Ruin deleted thousands of dimensions if it just stopped at that.

I think Moon would’ve reacted to Solar’s death mostly the same way no matter how Solar died, it just happened to happen during a period of near-constant stress for Moon, and if you gave him a person to blame for that death… well. Here we are.

I love Ruin, and maybe this is coming from a biased perspective because he’s the character that convinced me to watch TSAMS. As a new viewer, I started off in the “jigsaw” portion of the show and then watched the recap.

I was a little disappointed that “jigsaw” was cured, I liked Ruin a lot better when he was unapologetically maniacal and played the game by his own rules and sang his silly theatre songs. But, the new Ruin grew on me in time. (Imagine my pleasant surprise when it turned out that Ruin was acting the whole time!)

Whether you believed Ruin was always evil or not prior to the reveal, I think he was always an enjoyable character, an outsider that didn’t have a reason to care about anything that happened in the show prior. He would certainly use show events (villains like Bloodmoon and Eclipse) to his advantage, but he had no reason to feel any sort of way towards any of the main characters.

But, as a villain, I think his motive is solid on paper— I personally think they could’ve had a little more showing how Ruin was affected by his past, but decades of acting would cover that up pretty well, huh?— and the twist was something the viewers were probably meant to pick up on, with characters like Moon constantly ending episodes with “I have a bad feeling about that guy” and Ruin being the main suspect of several things and a few comments on the similarities between jigsaw and ruin (like the tune they both hum.) You were waiting to see when Ruin’s time would run out. But when it did, it was too late.

As far as I know, Ruin is one of the villains that got (mostly) what he wanted, what he set out to do. While it didn’t work 100%, it definitely worked partially.

I really like that Ruin is an eclipse in the context of the show, but I love that he’s an eclipse in a slightly different font. In the context of the show, Eclipse is the remnant killcode left behind in Sun when the brothers seperate. It’s established that Eclipses tend to be workaholics (not stopping until they complete a goal, which afterwards they don’t know what to do with themselves), usually get themselves killed, and want to be accepted or loved in some capacity. However, Ruin came to be by the combining of the brothers. He technically has all of the components of an Eclipse, and generally has the same traits as one. He worked to complete his goal, and didn’t care if he died or not after everything was said and done. He adapted to his situation to avoid dying, acting infected (which probably became a coping mechanism over time) and maybe silently mourning the loss of the world and people he knew. He wouldn’t have set out to kill the other Creators if what his Creator did didn’t personally impact him in some way. I believe that the last trait is a bit of an exception when it comes to Ruin— or maybe it’s something that he’s grown out of over the years. He doesn’t feel the need to belong to a group anymore, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try in his own dimension.

I also agree with the sentiment that Ruin’s story isn’t over yet. Davis could have easily killed him off soon after the reveal and Solar’s death, but he’s still contributing to the B plot.

I don’t know how I’d feel about a Ruin redemption arc. I see Ruin as the sort of character to be fully convinced of his own perspective, and has realized and accepted the consequences of his actions but won’t say that what he did was wrong. He’s an anti-villain— a character in a story that does bad things in the name of good. He had good intentions, but he went the extreme route.

But, I also want to see him alive and well and happy, and if a redemption arc is what it takes for that to happen, then I guess I could learn to like it. I severely doubt that the rest of the main cast would allow for any one of those things though.

I just realized that this is getting long, but, I really like Ruin both as jigsaw and eclipse. I like that he defines himself as an actor, slash compulsive liar, in order to survive and fit in. I like that he’s a little dorky, a theatre kid at heart and watches things like anime on a few occasions. His body language is charming, and he’s super fun to watch move around and dance and wave his hands. Davis’ vocal performance is very satisfying and fitting for a character like Ruin, and is a big part of his charm as a character.

I like that he has a tragic backstory, one that he sometimes references in half-lies, and was forced to grow and adapt for it, which lead to him choosing the end-all solution to what caused him pain in the past, under the guise of preventing future tragedy. He says he’s doing it to save people, but I think he wanted closure to his own traumas and revenge, in a way. At least, I think that’s more realistic than Ruin caring about dimensions being torn apart by errant creators. He doesn’t care that the dimensions die via the creators— he doesn’t want what happened to him be repeated to others, if that makes sense? It just happened to be that the Creator was the cause of that, and the Creator’s motive (studying the effects of the wither storm) was what disgusted Ruin. Everything that happened to Ruin’s dimension and family was done in the name of research. I would be furious too! But, because Ruin is an eclipse, he was smart enough to figure out how to go about his closure/revenge/preventing future tragedy. Mind, he says he’s not as smart as Dark sun who’s been shown to be dimension hopping and whatnot, but he’s definitely been able to study other dimensions extensively.

One thing about Ruin that I found a little bit odd was that he was able to use magic. Not that there’s a reason for him not to have it, or that it’s a bad thing, it’s just something that you don’t expect from a character like Ruin. But it does make sense, given the dimension stuff, combining of moon and sun, etcetera.

TLDR I think Ruin is a worthwhile character in TSAMS and we shouldn’t dogpile him because he killed a popular side character, and please stop tagging character hate I just want to see my boy. okay goodnight

#tsams #tsams ruin #ruin tsams #quirky rambling #it’s almost midnight at the time of writing this I apologize for errors

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hagnanimous · 7 months

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Tess of the d’Urbervilles is one of my favorite classic books, so as a huge Ice Nine Kills fan I have to talk about Tess-timony at least once a month or else I melt. Spoilers for Tess of the d’Urbervilles ahead! Also mentions of fictional murder.

I always found it so strange that after spending an entire book following Tess and her experience, her perspective suddenly drops out of the narrative near the end. In the final moments of her story - Alec’s murder, her escape, her death - we completely lose access to her thoughts and emotions about the events. It places her as a passive receiver of the narrative.

This is why I find it so interesting that Tess-timony focuses on that exact period of the book. Intentional or not, INK chooses to tell her story during the moments in the novel when she is silenced. The song gives her a voice when she was denied one by the narrative.

Another part I love is the surprisingly nuanced understanding of Tess’s power over the story. I’ve read and heard two different interpretations that I disagree with. One reading assumes that she is totally powerless over her life, unable to change her circumstances. This assumption, coupled with her absence from the narrative at the end, implies that Tess doesn’t even form reactions to her experiences. This analysis reduces her from a character to a symbol: instead of being an agent within her own story, she’s merely an embodied metaphor for innocence and naïvety. She’s an instructive device.

The other reading that I dislike is the one that assigns her too much power - the “Tess is a girlboss” reading. This assumes that Tess’s revenge on Alec means she somehow wins in the end. As empowering as her revenge is for her as a character, she still suffered for years, and Alec’s murder doesn’t erase that for her. It only leads to her death, a fate that was always coming for her.

Tess is an active participant in her story, but she doesn’t have the power to change her fate. That’s what I think Tess-timony captures really elegantly. Tess has power, but she is still doomed. Even as she finally gains the voice that was denied to her by the novel, the impending tragedy still looms over her. This is captured so well by the end of the song:

“So officer please, that's the man who's destroyed my existence / Yeah, he begged and he screamed just like I did / And for this I was willing to die / It was all I could do to survive.”

The version of Tess we hear in the song has fought tooth and nail for every scrap of agency she could get, but it still wasn’t enough. (And she never should’ve had to fight like that in the first place.)

I don’t even know if any of this was an intentional choice by INK when writing the song. Regardless, I think Tess-timony is a deeply meaningful reception of the novel.

#ice nine kills #every trick in the book #tess of the d'urbervilles #thoughts #music #classic literature

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that-nerd-who-writes-fanfiction · 3 months

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Hello....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

I can’t remember if I’ve done this before but it’s changed again recently. Most of these are gonna be books because I’ve had way too much time sitting around lately so I’ve had enough time to actually enjoy books without destroying my sleep schedule for it.

1. BBC Merlin is my all time favourite, I don’t feel like I need to elaborate, it’s pretty much all I post about on here.

2. Song of Achilles is still my all time favourite book and number 2 behind Merlin. I think I’m nearing 20 rereads total for it by now. It’s never boring and keeps me interested every time. Cannot recommend enough. I’d give anything to be able to read it again for the first time.

3. I’ve been reading quite a few classics recently, I had a lot of free time. I met another Greek mythology nerd so Iliad and Odyssey make my top ten again because they’ve been on my mind a lot more than I care to admit. (I know it’s technically two books but I always read them together)

4. And I finally got around to reading Iron Heart (sequel to Crier’s war) and it’s amazing. One of the best books I’ve read recently. I’m gonna leave it at that or I’ll start ranting but I can’t recommend it enough so definitely go read that if you get a chance.

5. BBC Musketeers is also really good, I started watching that recently. I’m only on episode 6 but it’s great so far. Santiago Cabrera’s hair is fucking gender. Also the show got me researching 17th century weapons and now I know a fair amount about capes so that’s fun. BBC is still shit at historical accuracy, but no surprise there.

6. The Great Gatsby because I’m that kind of nerd and I’ve been mostly rereading recently. Everyone is such an arsehole in that book but it’s so interesting to analyse and annotate. I read it in year 7 and hated it, then again in college and it wasn’t bad but 3rd times a charm I guess. I found it really interesting from an analytical perspective, but I wouldn’t read it for light reading or fun.

7. I’ve been avoiding anything new other than musketeers, just because I haven’t felt like getting to know a new set of characters and a new world. That being said, I rewatched the first season of Good Omens, Crowleys still one of my all time favourite characters and the show is great.

8. I rewatched Stars Align, always a fun one. It’s a great show and the art style is really cool.

9. Seraph of the end because I love vampire stories. The plot is really interesting, I still need to read the manga but the anime is brilliant so I want to read that soon. Also no romance (ignoring shipping) which my aroace self appreciates.

10. The Tempest because my cousin was studying it in school and asked for help so I reread it for her and got a little bit hyper-fixated for a few days, now it’s still just sort of in the back of my mind and I’m a Shakespeare nerd so might as well add it.

Thanks for the ask!

#asks #bbc merlin #the song of achilles #the iliad #the odyssey #iron heart #criers war #bbc musketeers #great gatsby #good omens #stars align #seraph of the end #the tempest #shakespeare #books #i’m bad at tagging

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silver-wield · 3 months

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Hi! I feel like I've found my people in you. After beating Rebirth, I've had extremely complicated feelings towards the ending and though it's slowly marinating with me. One of the reasons why the ending has been bothering me is because I've just felt off about Aerith's characterizations.

I was endeared by Aerith in remake but in rebirth I totally see the qualities that some people in og did with just how tone deaf she can be. In a way, I find that her character is interesting since she's flawed but her pushiness to cloud just rubbed me the wrong way. If ppl get Aerith in chapter 8's date we see Cloud clearly mourning Jessie and the only thing she cares about is if Jessie was a gf...like girl come on. Do people not see how this comes off?

Which brings me to say, I just don't get Aerith. The devs portray tifa and aerith as close so clearly she knows about Tifa's feelings and even seems to push the two together at times but then she constantly seeks Cloud's affection and even says they went on a date in front of Tifa? That's where her character loses me. Her constant seeming to push CT together yet constantly seeking Cloud's affections despite knowing Tifa has feelings for him and a shared history just doesn't sit well with me.

I can appreciate Aerith recognizes she doesn't know the real Cloud but this is why I'll never understand why Cleriths are so insistent that CA are "romantic" - she dies so she *never* gets to see who the real Cloud is. They clearly have a deep bond that helps enrich the story but the fact that Tifa's role was greatly expanded on in part 2 should be telling but some fans and Cleriths just straight up ignore that. Cloud is also the one who initiates everything with Tifa...the only time he's ever vulnerable and VERBALLY opens up his true feelings is with Tifa (Gongaga) and it baffles me how Cleriths just bypass this entirely. It makes me realize they're just here for the ship and not for the overarching story.

I just feel like I'm being gaslit by Cleriths or some fans who insists that Cloud loves both girls. I'm definitely not denying that the og had more leeway with this but in Remake and Rebirth? I would say the opposite. Tifa is the best suited for Cloud *and* he feels the same way. I am all about shipping whoever you want but CA's are always spewing nonsensical things. The theme songs, the over analyzing hand holding debacle and bringing up japanese culture as if a kiss isn't the most intimate thing between two people regardless of culture. Ignoring the most central theme of the songs which are regret (Cloud's guilt in hollow of failing to save her) ...Yes NPTK is about Aerith TO Cloud but we never see anything from his perspective TO Aerith. Guess who does? Tifa. Cleriths also conveniently ignore that Tifa was pushed to the forefront the entirety of rebirth until the final 2 chapters for obvious plot reasons and they all dismiss Gongaga's near kiss between CT.

Then there's Aerith's dream date at the end...Cloud has no agency in that date, he can't even choose the items himself! It's HER dream and things are predetermined for him. And is it just me or is Aerith basically re-creating her date with Zack in CC? I get why CA's think that dream date is romantic but objectively it doesn't read romantic at all...it just reads tragic because Aerith knows she's about to die - one last ditch effort for her which just doesn't amount to anything other than Cloud caring deeply for her as a person/friend. Or am I just not seeing something that "everyone" else is? Aerith herself sounds unsure how she feels towards him. Yes she has feelings for him but she's never been able to fully define them ("There's liking and there's liking"...huh?) This is also the perfect opportunity for the devs to have both girls in equal footing and cloud still doesn't kiss her or makes his supposed romantic feelings known. I like to understand the "bigger picture" in the narrative and the bigger picture to me is just obviously spells out Tifa in the end - just from a pure narrative standpoint.

And do Cleriths not see how Cloud reacts to Aerith? As someone who actually likes Aerith minus her pushiness to Cloud, even I was surprised at how he straight up told her to stop calling it a date in Costa Del Sol. Cleriths argue it's "cute banter" but this is where they lack media literacy because lmfao if anyone said this to me irl I'd be mortified because Cloud really does not give any indication that he's "joking." And Cloud doesn't even remotely have any kind of dialogue like that towards Tifa at all...even all of Tifa's optional choices are sweet at best and neutral at worst but you can straight up be an ass to everyone else including Aerith.

I just hope that in Part 3, the devs just kill the LTD with finally cementing CT and tying everything nicely with them and Aerith and Zack. Zack is one of my favourite characters ever and I feel like they did him so dirty in this game...having Marlene straight up tell him to his face that Aerith loves Cloud like???? He deserves his happy ending and perhaps WHEN Aerith and him reunite (cause they're both dead they have to right?) then it'll all click to her.

Also, Cloud is a really well written character and I really do not think he'd go after his dead best friend's girl who he just remembered. It's such a disservice not only to Zack but to Cloud's own character. The fact that Cloud says "Zack fair, head over heels for Aerith" is telling, no? Objectively and narratively CT and ZA make the most sense but again I feel like I'm constantly being gaslit into seeing CA when I really don't and the only thing CA has going for them are the last 2 chapters which are Aerith heavy for a reason because you know...she dies lol.

Sorry I didn't mean for this to be long but just wanted to have some engagement on the topic (I know you always get asks but just wanted to get something off my chest!) Thank you so much!

Couple points: hollow isn't about Aerith in any capacity. Hollow is set before Cloud arrives in Midgar and an instrumental of it plays in the wasteland outside Kalm near where Zack died, so yeah, not about her.

And nptk is about zack. If it wasn't then why tf is she crying at the end? If it's about Cloud then why doesn't he acknowledge this obvious confession in her date or any other? Why does he take Tifa's hand? Literally the opening verse about how she didn't know how much time passed until she saw someone who reminded her of Zack is the only part featuring Cloud and it's hardly complimentary. It highlights she only took an interest in him because he reminded her of Zack. Idky anybody would want something that skeevy.

Tbh I hate both songs. They're shit.

Gaslighting is what those dumdums do. They don't play the game, they skim YouTube and lie about the clips they saw.

The best thing to do is block and ignore them.

#ship war #for the plot

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moldygreenblue · 2 months

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headcanons regarding the man over there + some others

When I wrote this fanfic of TMOT's perspective of the beginning of the Jellicle Bal and this semi-related fic that includes Old Possum lore, I also wrote half-baked headcanons for him and others as minor background/character details. I ended up expanding on them, and I like what I came up with.

The Man Over There

Name: Thomas [Frank] Stephens. He doesn’t like it when people call him Tom or Tommy, unless said people are family or his close friends.

Age: ~40

Family: Younger sister Anne (~36, nurse), and his mother Esmé (~74, retired actress). Anne has a cat, Apricot. Thomas considers Apricot family, depending on who he’s talking.

Occupation: Veterinarian. Thomas enjoys taking care of animals and seeing their owners’ happy faces (if the owners are pleasant and actually care for their pets).

Due to being a vet, Anne jokingly asks Thomas if she ever goes to his workplace, he should give her a discount (Anne actually takes Apricot to a different vet clinic).

Is the man who threw the boot down during Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats. How did Thomas get the flat that resides over/near the Junkyard? The price was a steal and affordable, sold to Thomas by Mr. Farber, a Man in White Spats…

Frequents pubs. Main two are The Victoria and Westminster Arms (but Thomas met Mr. Faber at The Princess Louise). At any pub, he asks for gin (neat), a gin fizz, gin and tonic, or a Freddie Bartholomew mocktail (he doesn’t care if he gets stares).

Originally wanted to be in theatre (acting, singing), but Thomas eventually realize it wasn’t for him. His preforming skills are as good as he was back in the days.

Headcanons Regarding The Man Over There's Sister, Anne

Name: Anne [Helen] Stephens. Anne doesn’t have a nickname. While her family does call her ‘Annie’ it’s said when the situation/topic is serious, or to help calm her down.

Age: ~36

Family: Older brother Thomas (~40, veterinarian), her mother Esmé (~74, retired actress), and cat Apricot [Jellylorum].

Occupation: Nurse. Anne told her family when younger due to her fear of blood, she will never work in a medical feel. Anne grew out of said fear, and here she is now.

Anne is something of a ‘no hesitating’ sort of person. She will do or jump into action without any second thought (most of the time).

Knows how to play the guitar and piano. Anne loves to play covers of pop songs, mainly from the 60s and 70s, though she can play older (and newer) songs if she tries.

Anne loves a good story, be it told to her at a pub or café, or reading said story in a book on the sofa or bed. Anne could be caught up in a book for hours if she doesn’t set an alarm that limits her reading time.

Anne is 100% certain Apricot is supernatural, having once her heard talk on a full moon.

Headcanons Regarding The Man in White Spats

Name: Faber [Andrew] Faber. Yes, his first name is the same as his last name. This is not a joke. There was a communication error between the nurse and his mother.

Age: ~80

Family: Younger sister Georgiana Verdure née Faber (~75, retired nurse, amateur singer), brother Henry (~70, retired banker, amateur artist/painter), brother-in-law, Elias Verdure (~76, retired retail purveyor of ales and beers, amateur chef), a nephew Isador (~41, took over his father’s job as purveyor of ales and beers), niece-in-law Jacqueline (~38, teacher), and one grand-nephew name Donaghue (~8, student).

Occupation: Currently working as an agent of small furnished flats and has yet to retired.

Owns the Junkyard that the Jellicles gather to and/or live and call home if strays. Old Deuteronomy knows of this fact, and is grateful for this.

Really enjoys eating fried gammon and peas. There’s something about the combination that Faber likes. Funny enough, this combination is the only way he’ll eat peas.

Loves hot air balloons since he was a child. Faber rides in a balloon once every year, even if it means he has to travel outside the city to do so.

Wears the white spats as a weird fashion statement from an argument he had with his siblings when children. Faber likes his title of ‘The Man in White Spats’ very much.

Faber is worried that the Junkyard is at risk of getting destroyed by outsiders. For the last few years, he been trying to find his replacement, but it’s been troublesome.

Faber thought about giving his title of replacement to Isador, but he lives outside of London. The traveling makes it an inconvenience.

#cats musical #cats the musical #old possum's book of practical cats #headcanons #the man over there #cats musical oc #the man in white spats #i have more headcanons for jellylorum and her owner but i'm saving that for a future post that includes other heacanons

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astriexxe · 3 months

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Here is my very long post about what I think of Les Misérables (2012) after watching it again recently

Tldr: the music which should be great somehow just isn't, the camera angles are fucking weird, Russel Crowe isn't as bad as I expected, Hugh Jackman was worse than I remembered

When I watched Les Misérables (2012) the first time it was the first experience I'd had of Les mis other than the odd YouTube video of one day more (or occasionally do you hear the people sing). I didn't know what it was about I didn't know many of the songs.

I found it fairly boring, the music was ok, the middle section with the revolution was the highlight. My favourite character was Javert followed by Enjolras (but that's biased because I'm a moulin rouge and n2n fan and it was Aaron tveit).

When I watched it back I entirely expected to hate Russell Crowe as Javert but have more respect for the music and the rest of the film as I have since watched the staged concerts and been to see it live and it's fucking great I love it.

I was wrong the music still sucked and I still found it kind of boring despite absolutely loving the stage production.

The orchestra is too quiet I think which means the music loses a lot of it's grandeur and the bad singing is more obvious.

Russel Crowe has a weird tone when singing (this we already knew) and when compared to other Javert's he sucks but when compared to Hugh Jackman it's a relief whenever it's his part because holy fuck Hugh Jackman was bad. Russel Crowe honestly wasn't that bad, I quite like his Javert from an acting perspective and the singing was alright, I know when I first watched the film stars was my favourite song (just imagine how amazed I was when I heard Philip Quast's version). I wish Javert's suicide was better in the film.

Hugh Jackman was far worse than I remembered him being perhaps I have more to compare him to now, bring him home was awful that's not how that should be sung and he had me bored for like the entire bit at the start where it's basically just him (end of prologue/ VJ's soliloquy).

One day more was a bit messy but not as bad as I was expecting.

The scenery was pretty epic like they had some great cinematic shots (ship at the start, the Seine, the cliff during VJ's soliloquy) like a big musical like Les Mis deserves some cool shots like that.

The camera angles were fucking weird. I find how shows use different camera angles quite interesting but I can't figure Les Mis out, it doesn't enhance the story or characters or anything it's just distracting and adds to how boring it is. I thought the camera angles during VJ's soliloquy looked like he was vlogging. Some dramatic shots could have helped that scene a lot I think. The camera angles got a little more exciting but the weird close ups were a theme and I personally think they were poorly used and distracting.

The Thenardiers were pretty good the first time I watched it but like having seen the show since it just doesn't work they're nowhere near as funny.

When my friend watched Les Mis and said she didn't like how all the dialogue was sung and I was like ok maybe she just doesn't like sung through musicals fair enough. No the film is just weird. They like added bits of sung dialogue but they seem to have forgotten to give these bits any tune.

VJ got a new song which was a bit of a shock because honestly I don't remember it from the first time round, I think the concept of the song is pretty cool but poorly written (it was sort of boring and didn't feel like it fit with the musical).

Les Amis were once again a highlight, the pace picks up, the singing gets better, all in all it's a good chunk of the film.

Fantine was better than I remembered and Anne Hathaway went for acting over singing in I Dreamed a Dream which worked but only because it was a film.

Eddie Redmayne was good as was Sam Barks I enjoyed their bits.

Aaron Tveit was also good you can tell which of the actors are theatre actors because they can act and sing at the same time (/hj). And of course respect to George Blagden.

The child actors (I don't know their names) were also great!

Yeah I think that's it if anyone read this to the end congrats on making it

#les miserables #i really wanted to go into watching the film again with more context and try to enjoy it #but it was worse than i remembered

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lucifer-misadventures · 24 hours

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Differences between Lilith parenting Charlie and Luci parenting Arthur:

I think the Hazbin Hotel fandom didn't realize or forgot that many parents have their own way of parenting and how it could affect their children and will it affect their lives and mindsets... Characters in shows would be no different, honestly... Though, I think people in the fandom tend to forget that Charlie was raised by Lilith herself and Lucifer isn't often present most of her life. Like Father like daughter? In Luci and Charlie's case? Nah! Not in this blog!

Arthitus Hesper Alister Phoenix Morningstar and Charlotte Lucia Morningstar aren't that close as siblings from the beginning. Arthur was singlehandedly raised by Luci while Charlie was raised by Lilith.

Lilith is one of the big main antagonist of this blog, she's a red flag of a wife and a mother. She has reasons of what she does, and they're not good, from emotionally manipulating Luci into being blindly in love with her to ruling Hell to the worse and worse to the point the realm it's inhabitants are almost unfixable and she did it all by being manipulative and by singing songs like a siren. Lilith raised Charlie herself, She raised Charlie into thinking Heaven is the paradise every human soul could live in peace while it's actually not true, which is the result of Charlie's dream of redeeming sinners and doesn't even bother to look into the possible consequences more, and Lilith also raised Charlie into thinking that singing would express the heart of every soul though, we know for a fact Lilith's singing voice has the power to control sinners and I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie inherited it from her(There's a theory that Charlie unknowingly was controlling her friends but not by minds but by perspective so that they're similar to hers because of how much she sings, yeah, I'm using that theory here). Knowing Charlie, she's really naive and really stubborn about her naivety and idealism... Which gave me a feeling that Charlie hasn't mentally and emotionally matured at her 200 years of living. She thinks everyone everyone including the most evil souls have good in them and they can be redeemed which is entirely untrue. She hasn't realized her dream is not entirely helpful, and that she's unknowingly controlling her friends to backing her up and worse of all... That was a result of Lilith parenting and again she has no good reasons for that matter (We'll go into that next time). So, Lilith's parenting is down right shitty and bad, and worst of all she did that on purpose and felt no remorse for that.

Luci is the main star and protagonist of this blog as this is about some what if scenarios and headcanons and as well as personal theories. Arthur is Luci's first child and he raised him all by himself as Arthur refused to be near Lilith or even let Lilith be near Luci. Arthur may be a cold-hearted aristocratic prince, who's ruthless in battles, and a blunt bastard who can also can be a bit manipulative just to get some information he want but he has a bleeding heart of gold deep down inside who cares about his people, his kingdom and his realm who would do anything to protect and make it a better place. When Luci say he doesn't want his children to end up crushed by naivety, harsh assumptions, and misinterpretation, and idealistic goals, he meant it! He raised Arthur with genuine care, love and most all important life lessons, metaphorically, figuratively and literally which gets more mature as the prince grows up. Luci taught his son his point of view of life and how it should be lived, he also told him stories about his life in heaven, his adventures in hell before he became it's ruler and his family, the good, the bad, the heartbreaking, the infuriating, everything. Luci tells Arthur about his life because he wanted his son to know not to repeat the mistakes he made, and wanted him to carve his own path that it better the one Luci has. By the time Arthur turned 18-21(The Morningstar children stopped aging when they reach early adulthood) he set out his own first adventure with his cousins to explore the outside of the Cities within the Rings Of Hell, it was thrilling yet there are also traumatic events that scarred him and his cousins forever which is one of main reasons for his cold-hearted personality, THOUGH, it was also one of main events of his maturity. Luci was there when Arthur needed him, when he's stressed, when he's sad, when he's burnt out, when he's having panic attacks, Luci was there and there are also times when Arthur returns the favor when his Mama experience the same things. And Arthur is secondary Main Character as he's helping Luci with his goal of making Hell a better place and/or reshaping and reforming it into his own version of heaven and also help his subjects in this newfound society by helping sinners regain some their humanity within deep inside them and help giving Hellborns humanity within their soulless hearts, and Luci's siblings The Seven Deadly Sins are there to pitch in along with their own children as they also rule hell and wanted to establish the same law and rules to their own rings and it them batter places. Luci also wish to make peace with Heaven and maybe help them realize that their status quo and belief were not actually by his father God's word but rather a twisted misinterpretation that could just make things worse... It's a lot but hey! Luci and Arthur are royals so of course their jobs are meant to be a lot! And they're no stopping them! So, in conclusion, Luci's parenting is grade A good parenting! He's a sweet misunderstood soul and will do anything to make sure everyone has their sense of safety and humanity!

Bonus note on Lancelot Morningstar, since he's born and raised by Luci after the divorce it will be no surprises there Luci will raise his youngest baby boy the way he raised his first born baby boi~!

#hazbin hotel lucifer #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel au #hazbin hotel oc #hazbin hotel adam #helluva boss #helluva boss au #arthitus morningstar #arthur morningstar #hazbin hotel charlie #charlie morningstar #lance morningstar #lancelot morningstar #hazbin hotel lilith #lilith morningstar

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thepunkmuppet · 11 months

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so i have been writing my ideal version of season 14 in my head laying awake at night for weeks now and someone else needs to hear about it before i go insane. so.

concepts that would make miss ruby sunday ✨interesting and spicy✨ without going against the evidence we already have:

she is from the near future (2046 possibly?? i heard that year floating around in relation to robert ap gwillam)

she is from the further future, potentially WAY further, but was sent back in time by weeping angels hence her seemingly modern clothing. also this makes way for a weeping angels episode. you’re welcome.

she either has splinters like clara or there is a spatial genetic multiplicity thing going on (like with gwen cooper and gwyneth), and she exists in multiple time periods (eg, 60s and regency like we have seen in promo photos)

she is some kind of creation of jinkx monsoon’s character or “the duchess”. we don’t know anything about these characters but they are described as “the doctors most powerful enemy yet” and “beware the duchess”. i think creating a companion would be a pretty cool thing for a villain to do (and would probably end in utter tragedy, in the interest of fucking the doctor up, which is always fun)

she is a zygon, other alien or even a time lord who thinks she is human living on earth. i have thought about this and it’s my absolute favourite. there is potential for a queer / outsider allegory which is always great (i don’t belong here, i feel like i’m hiding, etc). she can still be from the modern era, but would have a unique perspective and presence on the show due to actually not being from earth. if a zygon, she would be able to shapeshift, a helpful and never-before-seen skill to have on adventures with loads of fun possibilities. and it would just make the whoniverse feel interconnected, not just retconning important world events with “time can be rewritten” but actually acknowledging that yeah, there are zygons living on earth! remember that? now that ive thought about it, i really want this option…

she is actually from the 1960s or the regency era, and we are seeing it out of sync and/or assuming based on promo stuff that her modern clothing is her everyday clothing and the historical stuff is just for funsies. i would love a 60s companion because a character from the time of the shows creation next to a black doctor?? what a fucking boss move it would be so awesome

she is mia tyler. im adding this because it’s popular, but people are really grasping at straws here in my opinion and i just… don’t like this idea? if mia tyler ever appears i want them to make it damn well clear, at least with foreshadowing and stuff. i’m going into season 14 wanting new and fresh and original. not supernatural nostalgia-bait soap opera shit. “I’M YOUR DAUGHTER FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE” gimme a break i don’t like this one

she’s a unit or torchwood agent. this could actually be real! i like this one it’s fun, we know there’s gonna be a unit episode including kate stewart, why not have her be involved? love me a badass spy lady, plus it could open up martha jones and spin-off opportunities so….

she’s a secret villain. very broad and vague i know, but it’s never happened before and the shock horror twist of it all would just be so awesome, especially because millie has a background in soap operas lmao

her timeline is funky in some way. maybe she’s like river song, maybe she’s like clara, maybe she’s stuck in a time loop or is from an alternate universe or there’s something very wrong about the events of her life that means timey wimey stuff ensues

she’s a time lord / gallifreyan and possibly a relative of the doctor. possibly linked to susan in some way, or an otherwise relative of the doctor’s. a secret sibling (again, millie gibson’s soap opera background!!), his child / susan’s parent, someone linked to the doctors daughter jenny, etc etc

she’s a time agent. the idea of time agents is really cool but woefully unexplored, we only ever meet jack and john and sure you can’t beat the wives but i want to see the full potential of them, there’s so much you could do

if you can think of any more, please do share in tags and comments i wanna know other ways i can get my hopes up way too high!! :))

#doctor who #dr who #dw #new who #nuwho #millie gibson #ruby sunday #rtd2 #ncuti gatwa #14th doctor #15th doctor #fifteenth doctor

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anne-bsd-bibliophile · 9 months

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame has been one of my favorite movies since I was a child. I still have the Quasimodo doll I carried around everywhere with me. Even though it is one of the darkest Disney movies, I've always loved the music, the story, and of course the main character Quasimodo.

As an adult I have had the opportunity to watch the live stage production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When adapting the script for the stage the plot was change to be more like the original novel by Victor Hugo. The silly songs the gargoyle characters sang were taken out, Frollo was made into a much more complex and interesting villain, and the ending is not as idealistic. When leaving the theater I heard plenty of comments that the play version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame isn't anywhere near as child friendly as the animated movie is.

I realized while watching the play that this story is like bookends for the most traumatic years of my life. When I first watched the animated movie I had no idea that there would be so many parallels between my relationship with my own father and the relationship Quasimodo has with Frollo. When I watched the stage play as an adult it was after my lifelong battle against my father was over, because my father had recently passed away due to health issues, and the play put a lot of what I had been through into a new perspective for me. The Hunchback of Notre Dame has always been a story I related to and revisited frequently, but it wasn't until I watched the live musical that I understood for the first time how horrible growing up with a narcissistic father truly is. And it made sense why no one believes that I've lived through what I have.

I'm not sure if what I've written here will make sense to anyone who is unfamiliar with The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you haven't watched the Disney movie, seen the musical version, or read Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, the novel the movie and play are based on, then I would recommend reading or watching any of them. I've done my best to put my experience into words honestly and clearly, so I hope that it will make sense even if you are unfamiliar with the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I hope that by explaining how I relate to specific lines and songs from The Hunchback of Notre Dame musical that I can more easily explain what I've lived through. It's difficult to put into words what having a narcissistic parent is like and the trauma I live with because of it. The few times I've tried to explain it the other person thought I was exaggerating or making it up. When I was in counseling my therapist didn't realize the situation was as bad as I said it was until we had a few sessions with my father in the room. After that I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, and severe anxiety. And the fact that I'm autistic makes everything that much more difficult for me to deal with and process, and it also made my father treat me that much worse. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my father treated me in a way that is very similar to how Frollo treated Quasimodo. I hope that by comparing my life with the play The Hunchback of Notre Dame I will be able to convey what I want to in a way that is more understandable to people who haven't lived it. And I don't have anyone who would listen to me talk about this in my personal life, so I hope it is okay for me to write out my thoughts here.

I also want to preface this by saying that I do not in any way think individuals with narcissistic personality disorder are monsters. Everyone is capable of being cruel and we all make mistakes. But in my experience people use personality disorders as a way to excuse abusive behavior. Abuse is still abuse, no matter who does it. People in the past have liked to tell me that I am also responsible the poor relationship between me and my father, and many of my family and friends have accused me of causing it. It took me years to figure out that as a child I didn't do anything to cause my father to be emotionally abusive to me. Yes, I'm not perfect and I could have responded better in a lot of ways, but I was also a child figuring out how to protect myself and understand why my dad was treating me the way he did. As a teenager when I was fighting back and trying to distance myself from him I was told constantly that I had to "love him through it" as if it was my responsibility as the child to accept and love my father even though he was emotionally abusing me constantly. So while I'm not in any way saying that individuals with narcissistic personality disorder are terrible people, I also want to convey what I experienced as honestly as I can. I am only talking about my experience with my own father, nothing more.

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The Bells of Notre Dame (at 5:44)

Frollo: Oh Lord, you have sent me a test. This child is my cross to bear. ... See this loathsome creature from whom lesser men would flee, I will keep and care for him and teach him at my knee to think like me.

Sam Vaknin, a professor of psychology who has done a lot of work on narcissistic personality disorder, described narcissism as a religion in which the narcissistic individual is both the god and the sole worshiper. In my mom's words, my narcissistic father always had to be the smartest person in the room. He didn't think that anyone else was smart enough, talented enough, or good enough on their own and that everyone needed him to guide them down the right path. And because I grew up in a religious family that belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints (or the LDS church), I was taught my entire life that my father is the patriarch of the family, that he received revelation from God for the good of the family, and that I needed to honor and obey my father because that's what God wanted me to do. In a literal sense, I grew up believing that if I disobeyed my father I was sinning and that idea was heavily reinforced at home and at church, where my father held a variety of leadership positions throughout his life.

Frollo's line, "See this loathsome creature from whom lesser men would flee, I will keep and care for him and teach him at my knee to think like me," gives me chills every time I hear it. This is exactly how my father thought of me. He told me constantly how weird I was and that I had to listen to and obey everything he said or else no one would love me. He viewed me being autistic as being a mentally deformed monster and it was his job as my father to fix me and make me normal. Normal meaning to think and act exactly how he wanted me to. And because my father thought of himself as being on the same level as God he also believed it was okay to punish me when I disobeyed.

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Out There (at 0:47)

Frollo: You are deformed and you are ugly. And these are crimes for which the world shows little pity. You do not comprehend. Out there they'll revile you as a monster. Out there they will hate and scorn and jeer. ... be faithful to me, grateful to me. Do as I say. Obey, and stay in here.

I've always been hyperaware of rules and I do everything I can to follow them. I was also aware from a young age that my father's love was conditional, so I tried desperately to do what he asked. What child doesn't want their father to love them? Of course I wanted to be a good daughter. Of course I thought my father loved me and wanted what was best for me. In that sense I was very much like Quasimodo. I didn't know any different so I wasn't aware that what my father asked me to do was very controlling and selfish on his part. I didn't know that he was essentially brainwashing me to think my father was on a pedestal while I was a monster who needed his guidance in order to find salvation. I was told constantly that if I talked about my interests I wouldn't have any friends, if I told my sisters to follow the rules that I was being tyrannical and mean, if I didn't have milk on my cereal then I wasn't normal and everyone would think I was weird, if I didn't do everything my father said then I was an ungrateful child.

Even though my father is dead, I still have his voice essentially programmed into my subconscious. He is still there telling me how unlovable I am, that I'm incapable of loving others, I'm selfish, ungrateful, annoying, weird, etc. My first instinct is to blame myself for anything that goes wrong because that's what my father would do. And he had convinced everyone in the family, at church, and in the community that I was all those things. He was a religious leader and he acted the part of the perfect father for everyone else. None of them knew how emotionally abusive he was at home. And if my sisters would agree with him then he would reward them generously, so they went along with everything he said. My sisters' friends all thought I was mentally unstable, angry, and hateful. But in reality the people who knew me but didn't know my father thought I was kind, intelligent, patient, loving, and that I was too hard on myself. My mom and counselors have reassured me that I'm the opposite of what my father said I was.

I didn't realize until I was an adult that the reason people viewed me as weird and selfish wasn't because of who I was or what I did, but because my father convinced everyone that was what I was. My father was the one who saw me as a monster. Just like how in The Hunchback of Notre Dame the character Frollo raises Quasimodo to believe that he is deformed, ugly, and that he needs Frollo to teach him and protect him. I believed for most of my life that my father was right, I was weird and unlovable, and that I had to be better in order to deserve love and kindness. The difference between my life and Quasimodo's is that my father didn't want to hide me away. My father wanted me to do and say things that made him look good. He wanted to be able to brag to others about all the good things I did in public while telling me I still wasn't doing good enough in private. I had to act the part of his perfect daughter everywhere I went. I wasn't allowed to be myself because I wasn't good enough in his eyes.

My relationship with my father changed drastically when we were in public. When other people could see us my father would compliment me, smile, joke, buy me things, brag about me, etc. But at home he wouldn't listen to a word I said, blamed me for everything, never said a kind word about me that wasn't a backhanded compliment, punished me severely for the most insignificant things, etc. Here are just a few examples:

I told my father the same thing about my day five times while he was "listening" to me and playing a video game at the same time but he didn't notice, which proved he wasn't listening at all.

My sister came home late from hanging out with her friends and my father got mad at me, saying that if I was a better older sister she wouldn't have rebelled and disobeyed him.

My sister and I got into a little fight over whose turn it was to do their hair in the bathroom we shared and my sister threw the blow-dryer at my head. I had to do my hair in my room from then on, and my father made me use my first paycheck from my first job to buy my sister a new blow-dryer, shampoo, conditioner, and anything else she said I had "ruined" by using (even though I had never used any of them).

I was banned from talking whenever my sisters were in the room. At family dinner I tried to ask my mom to pass something down the table to me and immediately my father and sisters got after me for talking. Later in counseling my father insisted he had to ban me from speaking because he had to "protect my sisters from being bored." Everything I had to say was viewed as boring and worthless, so he saw nothing wrong with silencing me completely.

When I got my drivers license it became my job to drive my sister to school. My sister was always late to everything, which made me late for class every day. I was an honors student, had a near perfect GPA, and I was proud of how well I did in school. But after my sister started making me late people thought I was slacking off and didn't view me the same way. When I threated to leave my sister if she wasn't ready on time one day my father yelled at me, told me I was a horrible example, accused me of being mentally unstable, and said he would take my keys away and make me ride the bus if I ever left without my sister. So until my sister was old enough to dive (two years later) I was late to school every day.

I hate drinking milk, and I didn't put milk on my cereal. My father thought that was unforgivable and forced me to sit at the table and eat a bowl of cereal with milk until every drop was gone because "it's not normal, and people would tease me" if I ate my cereal without milk. I have never eaten breakfast cereal again, and the thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. I found out later that I'm lactose intolerant and that is why I didn't like milk.

I didn't make my father feel like I was grateful enough for him "allowing my mom to take me to lunch," so he threatened to never let me see my mom again. He admitted constantly that he was jealous that my mom and I were close and he did everything he could to keep my mom from spending time with me. He thought it was incredibly magnanimous of him to allow my mom to take me to lunch once a week. And when he would go on vacations with my mom, and they were on vacation roughly four months out of the year, he would be very angry when my mom and I would talk on the phone. My father thought my mom needed to pay attention to only him because they were married.

One year on my birthday, I went through a type of coming of age ceremony in the LDS church called an Endowment. It involves a lot of specific actions and procedures that you aren't allowed to talk about outside of an LDS temple, so everything was new to me. I get very nervous doing new things in front of people, one of my autistic traits, so I wanted to only have my mom with me when I did my Endowment. My bishop and therapist, who is also LDS, were very supportive. My father, however, was upset that I didn't want to have everyone in the family and people from church there. The week before my we had a counseling session with my therapist where he encouraged my father to be supportive and make the day what I wanted it to be since it was a big milestone in my life and it was my birthday. Instead, my father complained to the entire family that I was excluding him and told everyone how hurt he was by my selfishness. I have an hour long recording of one phone call where my father is berating my mother, saying that if she had forced me to do everything his way that the family wouldn't have been torn apart by me going through a religious ceremony. It has been five years since then and my extended family still has never talked to me since, not even at my father's funeral. This is also one of the big reasons why I am no longer a member of the LDS church.

Listing these things out makes me scared that people will think I'm too sensitive and that I'm overreacting. Nothing in this list seems bad enough on its own to cause the kind of trauma response I experience while thinking about them. But whenever I was with my father these kinds of things would happen constantly. The only break I got was when my father was out of the house. I had a wonderful childhood until I was about eight years old, and I wondered for years about what I did wrong to make my father treat me so much worse after that. But I realized that I didn't change, the situation did. When I was really little my father was so busy making a name for himself at work, at church, and in the community that he was rarely ever home. That is why there were no problems and I wasn't a "bad daughter" until I was eight and my father started to spend more time at home. From then on I lived with constant emotional abuse from my father, and that is why I have PTSD now.

When learning more about narcissistic abuse I came across a video by Sam Vaknin that where he explains: "The narcissist wants you dead. He wants you dead because he is already dead. ... The narcissist wants you to join him there, and to do that he needs to kill you. I'm sorry to break the news to you. He needs to break your spirit. He needs to destroy what some of you call the 'soul.'" What makes me who I am, or my 'true self' if you want to call it that, was something my father viewed to be wrong and threatening. Everything that made me who I am and not who my father thought I should be, and he wanted me to be another version of himself, my father did everything he could to destroy. That's why I have been diagnosed with PTSD; I spent most of my life fighting a war against my father and everyone he brought to his side. I was fighting to preserve myself. I was fighting to be an individual and to be recognized for who I really am and not all the lies my father spread about me. I grew up thinking that emotional abuse was normal. Emotional extortion and manipulation were constantly part of my life.

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Heaven's Light (at 0:43)

Quasimodo: I knew I'd never know that warm and loving glow, though I might wish with all my might. No face as hideous as my face was ever meant for heaven's light.

This song always makes me cry. I was envious of Quasimodo the first time I heard this song live. By the time I was an adult I didn't hope that anyone could love me anymore. I still feel like I'm too weird for anyone to love me. Who would want someone who is autistic, has PTSD, is depressed, and has severe social anxiety? If I wasn't the monster my father thought I was then he'd turned me into a different kind of monster. I wish I could be as hopeful as Quasimodo and be able to hope that someone I admired could love me back in some way. I remind myself all the time that I'm not really that hopeless, that there are a few people who care about me. But it takes a lot for me to believe that someone thinks I'm a good person or would want to listen to and spend time with me.

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Hellfire (0:50)

Frollo: Beata Maria, you know I am a righteous man. Of my virtue, I am justly proud ... Beata Maria, you know I'm so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd ...

Hellfire (2:00)

Frollo: It's not my fault. I'm not to blame. ... It's not my fault if in God's plan, he made the devil so much strong than the man. ... Now gypsy, it's your turn. Choose me or your pyre. Be mine or you will burn ...

Frollo makes it very clear that he thinks he is better than everyone else because of how righteous he is and his position as the Archdeacon. He considers his word to be the word of God, and if people do not listen to him then they are wicked and deserve to be punished. In Frollo's mind he can do nothing wrong, every action of his is justified, and because he thinks of himself as a spiritual giant if he can't resist temptation then that means no one can. This song is very dark, especially for a Disney movie or musical. If you didn't think Frollo was evil before you definitely would at this point in the story.

In the LDS church they teach that before we were born we lived in with God, and in God's plan he needed someone to be a savior to the world and atone for everyone's sins. Satan wanted to force everyone to do what is right so there would be no sin, but Jesus Christ volunteered to atone for everyone's sins so we could repent and be saved. Satan's plan would have taken away our agency to choose for ourselves and learn from our mistakes, which is seen as evil in the LDS church. Taking away someone's right to choose for themselves would be what the devils wants, not what God wants.

Now this is where it becomes obvious how hypocritical my father could be. He prided himself on his church callings, being a priesthood holder, and loving his religion. But at the same time he insisted that he, as the patriarch of the family, knew what was best and we all had to do everything he said and accept what he said without question. Essentially, he was so controlling he wanted to take away any choices we had to make, from major life decisions to something as simple as whether or not I wanted to have cereal with or without milk. When I told my mom that I thought my father's controlling tendencies were following Satan's plan she confided in me that she had thought the same thing for years, but she didn't want to say anything and make us children think poorly of our father.

My father would also never admit to being wrong. He could be caught red handed and still insist that he didn't do it. One of his favorite phrases was, "It wasn't my intention to do that." He thought that if he claimed to have good intentions that he wasn't responsible for the results if they were bad. Even when he did something as obviously abusive as banning me from talking, to his dying day he never once thought that was wrong. And in counseling when it was brought up that his actions had caused me to be scare to talk about myself and open up to other my father acted like it was better if I was scared to talk. If the result was what he wanted he saw nothing wrong with it, and if I went against him by talking about my interests with anyone then I deserved to be punished. And the punishments were always severe. Just for talking when my father thought I should have been silent he tried to take away my phone, my car, keep me from going to extra curricular activities, and when I was an adult and he couldn't hold those things over my head anymore he would threaten to never let me see my mom. Luckily my mom was better at establishing and enforcing healthy boundaries, because she stood up for me and wouldn't let my father keep her from doing what she needed to as my mother.

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Made of Stone (at 2:55)

Quasimodo: And now I'm on my own, never again to wonder what's 'out there.' Let me remain unknown and my one human eye will evermore be dry until the day I die, as if I were made of stone!

This song is a new addition to the musical, so people who are only familiar with the animated movie will not be familiar with it. If I had heard this song as a child I would have been too innocent and inexperienced to relate to Quasimodo. After being pushed so far and living through hell long enough you lose hope. Feelings and hopes don't serve any purpose anymore other than to remind you of what you cannot have. When you are in the depths of despair and there is nothing you can do to climb out of the emotional pit you find yourself in, what other options are there than to become numb and unresponsive as if you were made of stone? As an adult sitting in the theater listening to this song for the first time, I related so much to how Quasimodo feels that it took everything I had to keep from bursting into tears. When I got home I cried for hours because I finally realized that the character I've loved for as long as I can remember is more like me than I ever wanted to admit.

There is a method that victims of narcissistic abuse use to protect themselves called "the grey rock method." Essentially, if you don't react then the narcissist doesn't have anything to react to either. By showing no emotional, avoiding eye contact (which is natural for me because of my autism), and giving short answers or no answer at all you don't give the other person any fuel for their fire. It is like you are made of stone. And eventually, after grey rocking for long enough, you do stop to feel emotion in those situations. For about the last five years that my father was alive, I had gotten to the point where either I felt absolutely nothing at all when he was around and acted like a statue whenever he was in the room, or I would be so angry and emotionally volatile that I didn't even recognize myself. Most people who know me are shocked that I can even get angry, and when I do get a little mad my coworkers think it's a little comical because it is so unlike me. But the last argument I had with my father it got so heated that I started to literally look for a giant rock to bash his head in with. I scared myself so badly at that point that I turned off my emotions completely, walked away, and never spoke to my father again.

You can't change a narcissist. There is no cure for narcissistic personality disorder. And while I know that my father was sick and had no control over how his brain worked, similar to how I can't cure autism in myself, interacting with my father in a healthy was was too difficult for me to achieve. While in counseling, it became clear that my role as a child made it practically impossible for me to set healthy boundaries with my father. He never listened to me or considered anything that came from me to be valid or important. He blamed me for everything, no matter how little sense it made to do so. He wouldn't even pretend for the counselor anymore that he wanted what was best for me. I realized he didn't care about me the moment he insisted that banning me from speaking for years was the right thing to do because he felt he had to protect my sister from me saying something that might be boring to them.

In counseling I mourned the relationship I thought I had with my father. I realized he had never been capable of loving me from the beginning. The reason I have a hard time loving myself and knowing who I really am is because my father taught me that I was some kind of monster. So six months ago when my father died I didn't have anything left to mourn. When he died my biggest worry was that I would be too happy at his funeral. For me the lifelong war I had exhausted myself fighting was over. It was a war no one could win and everyone involved was a casualty of. All I could hope to achieve was to not let my father destroy who I am. I don't think I succeeded completely, but now that he is dead I have been able to start recovering from the abuse he put me and my family through. Life has been so much better without him.

Like I mentioned before, I still have my father's voice in my head telling me horrible things about myself over and over. Now that my father is gone there is no one here to tell me it is wrong for me to be myself, which is much more freeing than I anticipated it would be. I'm learning more about parenting my inner child. I'm studying Taoism and learning about how to live in a calmer way and how to discover and accept my true self. I'm no longer part of the religion I grew up in that I've realized encouraged the narcissistic abuse (I realize that wasn't the LDS Church's intention, but that doesn't change the fact that the religious culture gave my father justification for abusing his family).

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Finale (From 12:48-13:42)

But here is a riddle to guess if you can sing the bells of Notre Dame: What makes a monster and what makes a man?

This is a riddle I'm still trying to solve in my own life. By the end of the musical it should be obvious that the seemingly righteous Frollo was the true monster all along and that Quasimodo who looked deformed on the outside was far more compassionate and admirable than Frollo ever was. I wish my life was as easy to understand as that. But people are more complex than even stories and classic literature like Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo makes them out to be. I can't simply classify my father as a villain and myself as the hero. I don't want to be stuck in a victim mentality anyway because it wouldn't help me.

Luckily for me, my story didn't end the way the musical version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame did. Instead of being killed like Frollo in the play, thrown by Quasimodo from the top of Notre Dame, my father died from health issues. In the play, Quasimodo watched Esmerelda die and hides with her body. Years later his skeleton is found embracing Esmeralda's skeleton. In my story me and my mom survived and we have the chance to start over and be who we want to be for the rest of our lives.

I would never say that my father was a complete monster, but he definitely felt like the villain in my life. Him suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder does not excuse him abusing others. Narcissism is difficult to understand. I spent most of my life wondering why my father thought the way he did and felt like he was doing everything right when what he was doing was abusive. The more I learned about narcissism the more I realized my mind won't be able to go to the same place my father's did. I will never truly understand him. But I need to understand enough that I can know what is and isn't my own fault. I have a playlist of videos on YouTube with experts on narcissism and narcissistic abuse explaining narcissism and what it is like for victims of narcissistic abuse. I put the playlist together because I don't think people will believe me when I tell them what I am dealing with and what I've lived through. I wanted to have sources from professionals and experts that are easy to understand and access. I wanted to share the link to the playlist in case it is interesting to anyone or if it can be helpful.

My mom made all the difference for my situation. Without her I would have lost myself from the start. She accepted me, my father, and my siblings for who we are and did her best to support and protect every member of the family. My mom is my best friend and the one person I know will always care and do what is best for me. And through the toughest years of my life I was fortunate enough to have a friend here on Tumblr who has helped me more than I can say. Then when my father was dying and I was dealing with emotions, supporting my mom as she was taking care of a dying husband, and coping with everything another online friend reached out and has been here to check on me and help me through it all. At various points in my life I have been able to find the support and kindness I needed to get through. I feel very lucky to have had those people in my life.

I have the rest of my life to figure out "what makes a monster and what makes a man?" The Hunchback of Notre Dame presented that riddle to me as a child in a movie theater and I was still trying to figure out the answers as an adult sitting in a theater watching the musical version of the movie I grew up with. Honestly, I don't think there is one perfect answer to "what makes a monster and what makes a man?" People are too complex for there to be a simple answer, and we are constantly changing. I'm sure I will constantly be learning and finding new perspectives throughout my life that will change what I think the riddle's answer is. I do know for sure that never want to make anyone go through what I experienced because of my father. I don't want to make anyone else feel that they are unloved, unwanted, and monstrous. What I want is to be aware of who I am as a person, how I influence the world around me, and be as compassionate, kind, understanding, and accepting as I can be.

#coping with narcissistic abuse #the hunchback of notre dame #Youtube

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