#she behaves a LOT like some old liner

[seyaryminamoto]

As someone, who's favourite character is Zuko, let me just say that your analysis about the Southern Raiders is spot on. Something about that episode (especially the way Zuko acted) always felt a little... off to me. And I could never figure out what it was exactly and considering the fact that discussion about this episode centered around the Kataang vs Zutara, I thought I was the only one who felt that way. So, I guess thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

Oh, I really feel ya, anon. If you actually don't look at the episode from a shipping point of view, which seems to be the focus of most the fandom, a lot of unpleasant things really start sticking out. I'm personally neutral to the Kataang vs. Zutara debate, I see good points and drawbacks to both ships, and no one's going to convince me that this episode proved the superiority of either pairing, especially when the shipping interpretations have never been important to me when analyzing this episode. People can say Aang is right in the end, they can say Zuko understands Katara's plight better (which, considering Aang has lost even more people he loved than Zuko has, he certainly should have understood Katara's suffering quite well too), but focusing on whether Zuko or Aang are the angel or the devil on Katara's shoulders practically blinds everyone to the very glaring and mindboggling flaws in this episode's writing, imo.

In general, the concept of Zuko's life-changing field trips with the three Gaang members he'd wronged the most is fine and fun for most people, but from the first time I watched the show it felt like the production team knew they were pressed for time and needed some veeeery quick and effective solution for Zuko to gain acceptance in the Gaang ASAP despite all the bad blood there. I can imagine a lot of people love these episodes, but admittedly I wouldn't rank any of them among my favorites because, as interesting as some of their concepts could be, if executed right, my immersion certainly wasn't as strong as with the rest of the show due to the nagging feeling that this was all for the sake of redeeming Zuko in the eyes of each Gaang member... and not necessarily in the eyes of the audience.

They get away with it, of course, because by this point in time, the audience is 100% conditioned to love the Gaang and Zuko, and if you see them getting along, you should be rejoicing in their team-up... but if you put some emotional distance between yourself as a viewer and the events of these episodes, their writing leaves a lot to be desired, especially in the concept of giving Zuko a quick whitewashing in the eyes of Aang, Sokka and Katara, one after the other, so they can genuinely accept him as a teammate and friend. If we'd seen similar trips frequently or occasionally in the rest of the show, with two specific members of the team taking off on an adventure by themselves, it might not be so glaringly obvious (and even... artificial? I guess?) that they're trying to quick-redeem him for each of them here, but on top of it happening thrice, it's literally happening one after the other, too. There's no episodes in-between, it's just literally a four-parter arc of "let's help Zuko become friends with these three".

The plotlines to be dealt with in these episodes are basically catered to each Gaang member, tailor-made life-changing field trips based on whatever they'll value the most, all of it conveniently possible and doable in the span of time they have between Zuko's joining of their group and the show's finale. Aang needs to learn firebending, Sokka needs to save his dad, Katara is permanently grieving for her mother's death. And so, Zuko to the rescue! If he helps them with their personal character quests, he gets 50+ approval points! :'D Honestly, I'm absolutely not against the notion of Zuko befriending them, obviously not, but the methods through which they chose to make it happen simply might not be the finest...?

Zuko loses his ability to bend because he "lost his rage", but he's still angry pretty often, the show even spoofs its own writing by showing him losing his patience at Sokka... while at the same time trying to sell that Zuko "isn't angry" anymore? Zuko helps break out random prisoners from the Boiling Rock without taking a single moment to actually learn who they are, why they were locked up, and without pondering if they deserve to be helped or if perhaps they're genuinely dangerous? Zuko gives Katara every possible tool and information she needs to take revenge on Yon Rha, because, loosely quoting his own words, he "cares what she thinks of him"...?

How about if we'd seen Zuko trying to connect with Fire Nation people, to help his fellow Fire Nation citizens, especially the ones who were living in dreadful conditions, like the ones in the Jang Hui river village? How about if we'd seen Zuko saving lives rather than threatening to take them? How about if we'd seen Zuko actually reasoning with his anger, and either working his way out of it, or repurposing it consciously, or making legitimate, personal efforts to find a new source of strength for his firebending through self-reflection, above all else?

We didn't really need sudden one-on-one field trips to teach Aang, Katara and Sokka to trust Zuko: we needed Zuko to prove himself worthy of that trust, to show how much he has changed, to literally contrast his new behavior with the old, to actually see that the guy no longer jumps into violence-mode 24/7, that he's willing to listen to other people's opinions or wisdom, that he wants to learn better when he knows he's misguided or misunderstanding something or another. Would he have become BFFs with any of them in four episodes if this had happened? Well, it definitely would have happened with Aang, the other two would have been trickier, but they definitely would have been more willing to accept him if they actually got to SEE that the changes in Zuko weren't skin-deep. Katara can be as thick-headed and stubborn as she may want to be, but I have no doubts she wouldn't have been able to hate Zuko as much as she used to if she'd seen him helping people, much like she often wants their group to do. But instead, they don't get to see the actual changes and growth... they just get their biggest goals and wishes satisfied, and that's enough to decide Zuko's trustworthy, no matter whatever sketchy behavior he displays in later episodes.

I absolutely appreciate the worldbuilding context we gain for the raids on the Water Tribe through The Southern Raiders, but I don't think this was an organic way to tell the story of how Zuko became friends with the Gaang. If pressed, I'd even say that Zuko's overt desperation to be their friend is OOC, to a degree: if this guy actually knows how dangerous his father's plans are (and he's supposed to :'D), how isn't he focusing on that side of things, when he's always been such a go-getter? It's not like he grew out of this sort of ends-justify-the-means behavior, seeing as he's absolutely obsessed with stopping his father ASAP, by any means possible, in the finale, when there was no such urgency to be found ever since he joined the Gaang. How isn't he more worried about stopping Ozai than about becoming best friends with the Gaang? Immediately sharing everything he's learned about Ozai's intentions of destroying the whole world might not make them friends instantaneously, but it would certainly get someone like Sokka to take his information seriously and immediately begin strategizing how to counter Ozai's plans. Instead, Zuko spent all those weeks, over a month, even, teaching Aang firebending, going on field trips and hanging out with his new friends in Ember Island. Once you have all the cards on deck and you actually look at all of them at once, doesn't it feel like there were so many more ways to achieve what the show was going for, far more effective ways than through the "let's be friends with Zuko" arc?

Ultimately, there's very little display of growth, in my opinion, in this small arc, on Zuko's side, despite the most obvious and reasonable way to earn the trust of the Gaang would be by outright showing them how much he's grown. I won't deny I appreciate that the writers respected his personality and didn't just warp him into the perfect good softboi the way the fandom apparently interprets him, but even if Zuko was going to be cranky and speak one-liners like "I'm never happy", it wasn't impossible to write better situations for him to connect with the Gaang's members and gain their trust. Even if the writers were set on having these episodes happen exactly as they did, they absolutely could have been written in a much better way, to create an explicit and direct contrast between Zuko's early behavior and the new Zuko's behavior when it comes to things that matter (most the parallels I've seen the fandom drawing are things like "oh look he hated tea before but now he brews it for his friends! So much growth!"... would've been nice to see the growth when it came to a lot of other things, too, if the growth really was there? Am I rite...?).

I may just be influenced by other redemption arcs that focus mainly on characters having common goals and working together to achieve them, then becoming friends in the process... but I really don't see how Zuko's character benefited from these episodes. Yes, bridges were built... but they absolutely could have been built in a more organic way that didn't make people like myself (and a few others) question if Zuko had learned or grown at all, considering the way he behaves isn't all that distant from the Zuko we've seen and known throughout the rest of the show. And the fact that he really seems to have learned nothing in The Southern Raiders once you reach the show's finale... you're basically asked to take for granted Zuko did learn a lot of lessons because he says he did, to assume he's going to put them into practice sometime in the future despite he has chances to do it during the show itself but never does, simply because they drop the ball upon every opportunity to show how much he's changed.

I really don't blame his character at all, when it comes to these shortcomings... it's seriously, genuinely, a problem with the writing department. Take a look through the fandom and you'll see thousands of people who claim Zuko's character arc is the most touching, complex and beautiful writing they ever have seen... and why? Because we're in the face of tell-don't-show :'D most people's perception of Zuko's character are based not so much on HOW Zuko displays his growth, it's strongly based on him stating he made progress, even if there's too many instances where the growth simply seems to have fallen to the wayside or gone forgotten for the sake of a plotline or another. Zuko absolutely could have been written far better than this, he could absolutely have the redemption arc his fans are sure he does have, but for me... there's way too many gaps in logic, too many missed opportunities, to truly think his growth was as extraordinary as a lot of people are hung up on saying it was.

[agentnico]

The Suicide Squad (2021) Review

This may be the better of the two, but the first Suicide Squad film will always hold the crown for managing to win an Oscar... somehow.

Plot: The government sends the most dangerous supervillains in the world -- Bloodsport, Peacemaker, King Shark, Harley Quinn and others -- to the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Armed with high-tech weapons, they trek through the dangerous jungle on a search-and-destroy mission, with only Col. Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave.

“So that’s it, huh? We’re some kind of suicide squad?” says Will Smith in the original first film, with the line in itself being a poor attempt at a fourth wall break, yet, that movie never reached that promise of being a true Suicide Squad film. Because hardly anyone died, and as a whole David Ayer’s film was a generic mess, regardless of studio interference or not. In comes James Gunn from Marvel, who seems to have cracked the code for how to bring this comic book series to live action in proper gratuitous form, with even the ‘The’ in the title symbolizing that this is the one!

I remember going to see the first Guardians of the Galaxy film at the cinema, and back then I was still only just getting acquainted with watching western media, and that included superhero films. Heck my first ever Marvel movie was Thor: The Dark World! I know, what a banger to start with.......NAAAWT!! Anyway, I went to see Guardians and it was one of the first superhero films I came out of feeling like I truly witnessed something special. It had action, comedy and a good heart to it, and wouldn’t you know, my good old pal James Gunn was behind that flick. I don’t know why I called him my good old pal, I don’t even know the fella. Except in my dreams, but we don’t talk about that. So, flashforward to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which I absolutely hated, and for that movie I’m pretty sure Marvel gave Mr Gunn mostly full reigns of creative freedom, as long as he kept it family friendly, and the result was a mess. Hence naturally now I was really sceptical when James Gunn ended up at Warner Bros. following the controversial moment when cancel culture decided to aim it’s slimy fingers at him, as he was given directing and writing duties for this new The Suicide Squad film, and also it was heavily insinuated that Warner Bros. basically told him he could do with the movie whatever the f*** he wanted, excuse my French. And we remember how it panned out last time when James Gunn was given a lot of creative freedom. 

Flashforward to present day; here I am wondering and scratching my head thinking what in the heavens has happened, as by golly I am happy to report that The Suicide Squad is a total winner and a blast with a capital B - Blast! Gosh goodness golly goblin, this movie is so much fun from beginning to end. Right from the opening sequence you know that this film isn’t holding back any punches. It’s going at a 447.19 km/h speed of a Koenigsegg Agera RS crashing through any barriers like it’s nothing. Speaking of the opening sequence, it establishes why the movie is called what it’s called from the get-go. You straight away are proven how not a single character is safe, minus the obvious one that we know who it is, as there ain’t no way Warner Bros. would have allowed James Gunn to kill off that one character. But besides that person, everyone else feels like they could die at any given moment. That’s really a big charm of it, as it is frustrating how in many superhero films, let alone any blockbuster action flicks, so many characters always feel so safe and unstoppable, no matter how many times they get shot or how many buildings crash down upon them. And yes, this movie features a certain CGI character that constantly gets that treatment and survives, although it’s very self aware in that regard and is purposefully humoristic. But overall the entire set of characters feel easily disposable, and so so many of them die in such gruesome fashion, so indeed don’t get attached, as they don’t. 

Speaking of which, this movie is hardcore gory! You see limbs and intestines flying round left and right, a guy gets ripped in half by a humanoid shark, another’s face gets teared off by a shotgun bullet and so on forth in all kinds of gruesome fashion. Visually this is one for the big screen, as here’s the thing: you’re either a mummy’s boy or you grow some cojones and go see a man’s heart get stabbed with a piece of debris glass in 4K high rate definition! Your choice! Oh, and it’s not just the violence, also the cinematography and the practical set pieces all look incredible. This is easily James Gunn’s best looking movie. The entire think LOOKS incredible!

We also have to talk about the cast, as they are all great! There literally isn’t a single weakling among them. Each one, no matter how big or small their role is, brings something to the table. I can’t talk about all of them, as we’d be here all day, so I’m simply going to mention a few of the stand-outs. Idris Elba comes in to replace Will Smith as a character called Bloodsport, who is in some ways a different character but evidently is a replacement of Smith’s. But that’s no bad thing, as with any ensemble movie you still need a main character to latch onto and have an emotional hook towards, and he is that character. In fact, I’d say he’s arguably better than Will Smith in the last movie, or at least he seems to be having more fun here. He works as a solid leading man, however what works even more is his banterous competitive genital-size-measuring back and forth with John Cena’s Peacemaker, who by the way is awesome as that character. He is not a good character, in fact he is as bad as a bad guy can get, especially cause he’s someone who believes that what he is doing is right, making him much more of a dangerous wild card. This is easily John Cena’s best role, with him adding to the comedy one-liners, but also delivering such an interesting character who I’m looking forward to seeing more of in his standalone spin-off show confirmed for next year. Oh, and he wears a toilet helmet on his head which he defines as “a beacon of freedom” which says it all. We also have returning characters from the last film Joel Kinnaman and Viola Davis as Rick Flag and Amanda Waller respectively, and both are given much more room to stretch their talents and spread their beautiful acting wings like the Hollywood angels that they are. Kinnaman’s Rick Flag is the moral compass of the group, as even though Elba is our main guy, he’s nonetheless a villain still, whilst Flag is a genuinely good guy and what is defined as a true American hero, to which Kinnaman fits the part well. And Viola Davis as Amanda Waller is on an absolutely different level. You can tell she’s an Academy Award winner through and through, as she plays such a serious character in an otherwise goofy movie, and so her presence is felt and it is felt BAD! She’s such a despicable yet intimidating personality and she gravitates all of the screen presence to herself. Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn, and she gets even more chance to develop this character that she’s played in multiple DCEU films now, and as per usual the Harley Quinn shtick works well for her, though I do kind of wish she didn’t always get all the attention. Look, I think she’s a fun character and Robbie plays her well, however she’s constantly used to overshadow others in these films which I don’t think is too fair, and its evident as ever in this film too. Anyway, the remainder of the cast including Jay Courtney as Captain Boomerang, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, Michael Rooker as Savant, Nathan Fillion as TDK, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2 (who gave me strong A Plague Tale: Innocence vibes) and many more all play villains, but villains that don’t have particularly great superpowers. This is where the tragedy of Task Force X as a team plays a part, as many of these villains aren’t even good at being villains. They are useless, and the movie is really self aware of this and so treats all characters as they should be. Dare I also not forget to mention the CGI characters in this film, with both Weasel and King Shark being absolute scene stealers! 

The Suicide Squad is the type of wham-bam-thank-you-mam batshit crazy entertainment which exists for the pure reasons of fun. It doesn’t set out to be the best superhero film ever, nor does it need to be. It’s an exhilarating, shocking, funny and amusing ride from beginning to end, with the energy never stopping, and is easily the best time I’ve had with a comic-book film in a long while, and I’m even talking about before COVID! Do yourself a favour and watch this one as soon as you can, as I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - The Suicide Squad is a BLAST!!

Overall score: 9/10

[purplesurveys]

1502

What does your mother do for work? If she’s a homemaker, any specific reason for this? So she recently got a new job as an administrative assistant at another hotel! She’s been miserable for quite some time now at her (now former) workplace and even asked for my advice – conversations of that depth never happen between us – on whether or not she should take the offer. When I heard the benefits I didn’t hesitate to say yes, and now there she is. 

What about your father? What does he do? He’s an executive sous chef at a luxury liner. I’m a hotel and restaurant management baby basically hahaha. Funny how none of their children inherited the interest.

How do you like your coffee? Sweet. I’m fine with Americanos too, but at the end of the day I do like a little bit of milk and sugar and a drizzle of either chocolate or caramel with my coffee.

If you’re of age, what’s your favourite alcoholic drink? I exclusively order cocktails when they’re available. Sometimes I’ll get tequila. Beer is my absolute last resort but generally I’m not a fan and the burps I get from it are the most uncomfortable feeling.

Do you smoke? If so, did you start when you were 18 or were you younger? Very rarely and I haven’t smoked since my college years; I don’t know if I’d dabble in it again. I started in my 20s.

Did your parents approve of your smoking/alcohol use before you turned 18? I never did any of that before I was of legal age. Do you have siblings? If not, skip the next few questions. Yes, I have two.

Are you eldest, in the middle or youngest? I’m the eldest child, and also the eldest girl on my mom’s side. Second eldest girl on my dad’s side. Any Filipino would know the loads of responsibility and expectations implied there, lmao. 

How big an age gap is between you and your siblings? With my sister, two years; with my brother, five years.

Do/did your siblings cause trouble? We were generally very behaved kids, especially outdoors. We never got told off mainly because we were too shy to do anything or to talk to people lol. If anything, we caused trouble amongst ourselves because we were never close as kids; pulling each other’s hair, chasing each other with a knife, and doing our best to make the other cry was the norm among us lmao.

If your siblings are old enough, what do they do for work? My sister is graduating college soon and I think she may be headed to a production company as she’s into filmamaking. My brother is just starting college this year but I’m not sure what his career plans are or what course he’s taking. Have you ever been jealous of your siblings? Only as a teenager, in a sense that they always got away with things I would typically get chewed out for. But I’ve never felt jealous of them.

Do you still live with your parent/s or do you live alone/with a partner? I live with my parents and siblings.

What do you think about growing up? I don’t really have an opinion it other than it happens. I do wish children weren’t placed in situations where they were forced to mature early, for reasons like extreme poverty (happens a lot where I’m from), irresponsible parents...

What about having responsibilities? I value productivity. The only issue I have with it is the toxic and exhausting work culture in many places that eats up the work-life balance of people.

Do you know how to cook? If so, what’s your favourite thing to cook? What about baking? I have no idea how to cook or bake, and just turning up the heat on the stove freaks me out. I don’t think I have the potential or a future in moving around in the kitchen whatsoever, lol.

Do you ever drink tea? No, I was never into it although I’ve tried giving it many chances. I’ll only ever drink artificial, powdered iced tea and I know that barely counts.

Have you ever followed any of these fad diets that go around? I have never followed a diet in my life.

What do you usually order at your favourite restaurant? Tuna gimbap, usually unsliced because I saw Taehyung eat it like a burrito once and thought it was genius. I’ll also sometimes get jjajangmyeon and tangsuyuk.

Do you prefer a proper restaurant to a fast food place? Yeah, for sure. But occasionally I’ll get cravings that only a fast food place can fulfill, like McNuggets or Popeye’s chicken sandwiches lol.

Is there an arcade anywhere near where you live? Yeah every mall here has an arcade and we have a number of malls in the area, so.

Have you ever played pinball? If so, an actual machine or on a computer? I’ve played on both.

What’s your dream vehicle? What about your dream house? Oh man, I’ve always wanted a Mini Countryman. As for house...idk. Something overly modern and minimalist. Tall windows, cove lights, and I just want to be rich enough to afford 24/7 air conditioning lol.

What is the biggest dream of your life? To travel the world while not having to worry about money.

If you could travel to another country right now, where would you go? I would like to go to Thailand or South Korea.

What is a country you’d never ever visit? There isn’t a country I would say no to visiting. I wish some places in the West would lay off on the Asian racism though.

Are you good at taking care of your finances? No, but I am at least at a better place now compared to the spending shitstorm I got into last year. That bitch just kept spending as long as she saw money in her bank account.

Have you ever had any trouble paying your bills? What about your rent? So I’m paying my iPhone installments through my dad and for the first time I kind of struggled with paying him last month. I had to arrange Kimi’s cremation, my car’s battery died (and wow batteries are pricey as FUCK), and both dogs also had scheduled vet appointments, so I was really left with nothing lmao. I gave him a heads-up that I probably wouldn’t be able to pay him for June but that I’ll be extending my payment transfers to him by one month, and he just said not to worry about it. What do you think is the best thing about being an adult? What about the worst? Earning money and doing whatever the fuck you want with it. The worst part is probably losing people or pets along the way; and I don’t mean relationships that grow apart or having to cut off people, but losing them to death. 

Is there a person in your life, who wastes their life somehow? Not that I know of. Everyone in my circle is doing their own thing.

What is something you need to do, but you keep postponing it? Looking for a new job, haha.

Do you think life should just hand things to you? Or should you earn the things you want and need with hard work? Work hard, play hard, my dude.

Would you rather live off government benefits or earn your own money? Earn my own. I don’t think government benefits, at least where I’m from, are nearly enough to cover for my daily basic needs and expenses. And I definitely don’t want to receive any kind of support from the current administration.

When you take a survey, do you skip questions? If so, what kinds of questions? I will skip questions that are too philosophical/existential, or those that touch on subjects that are too specific to a country, like the Roe v. Wade issue. I know I hate it when people from other countries try to talk about Filipino issues and end up sounding like a know-it-all, so I refrain from doing that.

What type of a survey do you skip altogether? About Me’s because those are very 10 years ago, but I’ll take an exception if the  questions are crafted creatively.

Why, do you think, people write lyrics as the title for a survey? I think it’s creative. I’m much more likely to click on a survey if they come with a song lyric as a title tbh because from past experience they tend to have the better questions.

If you have a Facebook, what do you use it for? A lot of things. Looking at memes and keeping up with the trends, shitposting, watching videos, keeping in touch with family and friends, looking for local influencers for work, etc.

If you have a Twitter, what do you use it for? Mostly to fangirl over BTS and keep up with fandom news since updates are shared at a much quicker pace there. If you have a Tumblr, what do you use it for? Surveys and reading fanfiction.

If you have an iPhone, why? I’ve always preferred Apple.

If you have an iPad, why? I don’t have one. We technically still have the 1st-gen iPad from like 2010 lol but that hasn’t been charged for like a good 5 or 6 years now.

If you have the latest electronic gadgets, did you pay for them yourself? Kinda sort of? Hahaha. I used my dad’s card to avail my current iPhone but I’m paying him in monthly installments. Do you always put your litter in a trashcan? ALWAYS. If there aren’t any trashcans nearby, I put them in my pocket or purse till I find one. I don’t understand people who can leave their trash anywhere.

When you walk/ride your bike/drive your car, are you careful? I mean, duh? Hahaha. Unless I get road rage, but this hasn’t happened in a while.

What is the rudest thing a person could do or say to you? Have you ever been that rude to someone else? Insult my loved ones or my pets. No, I’m pretty sure I’ve never done either.

Do you think your parents are proud of you and what you do with your life? I hope so. I’ve pretty much achieved everything they had in their wishlist for me other than getting married and giving them a grandchild lmao.

Which would you rather be, famous or a “nobody”? Why? I think being friends with a celebrity would be cool. That’s the furthest I’d go.

Do you need to have the latest fashion in clothes and accessories? Nah. I rarely buy clothes and just mix and match the items I already own to keep up with the trends.

If you have a job, do you get along with your co-workers? Yeah, everyone is great.

What kind of hobbies do you have? Would anything in the whole world make you give up any of those hobbies? Going to the museums is one of them – and no, I would never give that up for anything. I need to visit galleries from time to time for my sanity, pretty much.

Have you had/do you have any pets? Yes. We’ve had goldfish, lovebirds, a rabbit, a chick, and a cat in the past. Currently, we have Cooper and Agi, both dogs. Kimi is memorialized in our living room.

If you aren’t already, would you ever get married? I want to get married and have kids and get that happily ever after in a nice house. But I don’t know if there’s anyone out there for me.

[marzipanandminutiae]

How would bad corset scars look? Like a deep red line across the belly? I’m trying to describe those on a 40 year old woman who was forced to wear one for years as a preteen to age 18, because her parents were abusive and wanting her to keep herself slim so she could win beauty pageants for them.

Well, there probably wouldn’t be scarring unless she was forced to wear them right next to her skin with no liner- and I can’t see why she would be. But if that somehow WAS the case, it would be the kind of scars you get from continuous chafing. Maybe at her armpits if it was an overbust, and anywhere else the skin would move a lot and rub against the corset material.

There’s just no reason for her to not be wearing a liner, though. They don’t add bulk, so even the most tightlacing-obsessed parents couldn’t object. And I doubt angry red chafe marks and eventual scarring would go over well with pageant parents, however abusive. If their whole thing is pursuing beauty at all costs.

If she stopped corseting as an adult and wore liners underneath as a teen, I don’t think there would be permanent marks on her torso. The lines you usually get from a corset are like the lines from fitted jeans waistbands or even bras. They fade pretty quickly once you take the garment off. Even Kathie Jung, world record holder for smallest waist, doesn’t seem to have permanent marks from her decades of tightlacing.

It’s also worth noting that corseting wouldn’t make her thin all over. It would just make her waist and possibly hips smaller, temporarily. The visible external effects aren’t permanent, nor relevant to the entire body. You can find old photos of tightlacers with double chins, sometimes. And if she lost too much weight, she wouldn’t have enough fat at her midsection to get a dramatic silhouette from corseting- which I’m assuming her awful parents would want.

(I have a friend who voluntarily waist-trained as a teenager- which I do not recommend, for the record -and she says it permanently moved her floating ribs. But you can’t tell to look at her, and she only knows from x-rays; her body looks and apparently feels unaffected.)

Honestly, I feel like there’d probably be more psychological than physical trauma so many years on. Breathing and eating habits can be consciously changed; ab and back muscle tone can be improved. If she was determined, she could probably make it impossible to tell she ever wore corsets.

Admittedly we don’t know what happens to adults who were tightlaced while still growing, since it was vanishingly rare even when corsets were common and would be HIGHLY unethical to experiment with. But the limited resources I have, while less extreme- my friend mentioned above, and YouTuber Bernadette Banner, who made a video about spending her teenage years in a back brace that happened to behave a lot like a 19th-century corset -seem to indicate a lack of permanent physical effects. I’m sure having parents treat you so horribly would leave some serious mental scars, though.

[the-creative-lie]

Quarantined

pairings: steve rogers x reader; nat x bucky if you squint

genre/warnings: the fluffiest fluff

word count: 2.3k

summary:  Steve and the reader are quarantined together and dancing around their feelings for each other, so Buck and Nat decide to take matters into their own hands.

notes: based on an ao3 request. we could all use a little steve love right now lol

 “This is the fourth time I’ve found you like this,” you hear Steve say. Honestly, how does he manage to be cute even upside down? From this angle, his disapproving frown almost seems like a smiley face.  Oh right, upside down. You’ve been laying on the couch, legs up, head dangling over the ground, for the past twenty minutes or so. You are certain your face is ruby red right now and you’re starting to feel a little bit dizzy, but the whole world is on quarantine goddamit, and you’re bored.

 “I heard sending a bunch of blood to your brain is supposed to make you smarter,” you justify, coming out of your not-so-comfortable posture and laying your now throbbing head on the armrest of the couch. He sits on the other end, lifting your legs and putting them back down on top of his knees.

 “And who exactly told you that?” he asks amused.  You look away, rolling your eyes at your own stupidity. “Bucky,” you mumble.

 “And you believed him?”

 “No. Well, yeah. But I’m not smart, that’s why I was doing this in the first place! That was the whole point!”

 “Seriously, Y/N. It doesn’t work.”

 “How do you know? You’re not smart either!” you protest. His nose wrinkles and his mouth forms a perfect O.

 “Excuse you?” he exclaims, pretending to be offended.

 You smirk. “I said what I said, Rogers.”

  His eyes twinkle with mischief and you frown, confused. Before you can ask him what the hell is going on in that blonde head of his, he grabs your legs and throws you off the couch. You groan from the floor and send him a glare. He giggles. Captain America giggled. And he looks so pretty when he does that. It’s kind of unfair.

 “I’m going to try to clean out my closet for like, the seventh time this week,” you huff “Feel free to come help me, if you’re bored.”

 “Sure. I’ll be right there,” he smiles, as he watches you leave for your room.

 From the kitchen, Bucky Barnes just stares in utter disbelief as his best friend sits on the couch with the goofiest grin plastered on his face, looking at the empty spot you just left beside him. He can tell Steve is head over heels for you, and Nat has already told him about your huge crush on him. He can put two and two together, but apparently you lovebird idiots can’t, because you’ve been dancing around each other since the quarantine started. And he’s starting to get bored too. So, he does the only thing that could make this lockdown more interesting and gives himself a mission. Well, him and Nat. There’s no way he’s doing any of this without her help.

                                   **********************************

 “I can’t believe you still have this,” Steve laughs, as he unfolds an old t-shirt that was rolled into a ball in the back of your closet. It’s a very old shirt, and to be fair, you bought it as a joke. It sports a very discolored picture of his shield on the front.

 You snort. “I just wear it to bed sometimes. It turned out to be incredibly comfy.” That’s totally true. I mean, yeah, it could also be the fact that it reminds you of him, but no. No, definitely the levels of comfort the t-shirt provides are what drove you to grab it in those five minutes when you packed as fast as possible before leaving the Avengers Tower for good, when the Accords mess was in full swing and when you decided to follow Steve Rogers to the end of the world and back.   It’s been a few months since that, and yeah, you are fugitives now, but honestly? It’s not so bad. You, Steve, Bucky and Nat got yourselves a small house on the mountains for the time being. You’re near a small town that you go to when you need supplies. Truth be told, it wasn’t like you’d go out a lot before the quarantine started, trying not to show your faces too much and all that, but you could still go for a walk, buy dinner somewhere. But isolation hits differently when it’s not by choice.

 “I still don’t get why you bought it though.” He places down the t-shirt and takes a sip off his mug. Currently you are both sitting on the ground, in your room, drinking coffee and laughing at your poor fashion sense. Hey, a lady can only do so much when running away from the law okay?

 “I just thought it’d be funny,” you say, folding some jeans and starting to make a pile. “Also the lady at the store didn’t recognize me at first, and that was hilarious. I got to pretend to be one of your fangirls, remember?”

 His face goes red and he covers it with his hand, embarrassed. “Of course I remember. I was there. You asked for a selfie with me and started to fake cry. ”

 “HA. I forgot about that part.”

 “I remain impressed by the fact that you can cry on command, by the way. ”

 “What can I say, Stevie? I’m an actor,” you say theatrically, standing up and bowing as if on stage. Steve starts clapping and wooing.

 “Then I’m your number one fan,” he replies. You stare at him, stammering for a moment before regaining composure. You two are always doing this, even more so now that you are forced to spend basically 24/7 together. You flirt, he flirts back, someone blushes. He says an amazing one liner; you’re left with your heart racing and your stomach doing flips. But it’s just friendly banter, right? It’s just the fact that you’re locked up together and that the only two other humans you guys see on a daily basis are Russian assassins.  Speaking of Russian assassins, your train of thought gets interrupted by Nat screaming from the living room that her and Bucky are about to facetime with Sam and that you two should get your tushies to the couch.  Yeah, she actually said tushies. Isolation is doing things to her.

 “Sam, babe, how you doin’?” You shout, climbing over Bucky to get the good spot on the couch. He bats a hand at you, annoyed, and you stick out your tongue at him. He sucker punches you in the arm but just when you’re about to pull his hair, Steve easily lifts you up like you’re made of paper and scoots you away from Buck. Sometimes you forget how strong he actually is.

 “Behave, children. Uncle Sam is on the FaceTime.” You lock eyes with Nat and you both let out a laugh.

 “THE FaceTime?” you ask, giggling.

 Steve frowns, confused. “Isn’t it called the FaceTime? That’s what you said last time.”

 “It’s just FaceTime, Steve. No the,” Nat corrects him.

 “Man, c’mon. We talked about this, Rogers. You did the same thing with the Google and it drove me crazy for like a month,” Sam chimes in from the screen.

 “Yeah, Steve. Get with the times, old man.”

 “Buck, we’re the same age.”

 “Yeah, but I’m hip and modern.”

  You roll your eyes. “The fact that the words hip and modern just left your mouth disqualifies you immediately, Barnes.”

 He huffs and returns his attention to Sam. “How about you, Birdman? How you holding up?”

 “Things are pretty chill, I guess. I’m using the FaceTime to have online meetings with the therapy groups. It’s not the same, and of course we’d wish we could have a more personal contact as usual, but we’re doing what we can, you know. Trying to get used to the new normal.”

 “Is the FaceTime going to be a thing now?” Steve groans, “Fuck, this one’s sticking right? I’m gonna regret it?”

 “Language,” you say, trying not to laugh. He just glares at you.

 Sam is, thankfully, not a fugitive. The government considered (after a few pulled strings and a trending hashtag on the Twitter) that he could be pardoned of his crimes, based on the fact that he did a lot of important work on the community; and that his participation on the whole Accords debacle wasn’t so big, and therefore, could be swept under the rug.  You four, on the other hand, were not as lucky. After all, here you are, aren’t you? In the middle of Germany, or Canada, or who knows at this point.

 “Anyways, guys, I just wanted to check on you. Y’all know this things can’t last very much or you risk exposure. I’m glad you’re all okay, and I’ll try calling again as soon as I can without raising suspicion. Take care!"

 A chorus of goodbyes and take cares erupts from the couch, and the screen turns black.

 You get up, stretching your back. “Well, I’m gonna take a shower. If you guys are hungry just have dinner without me, I’ll have something later,” you state, heading to the bathroom you all share.

 The only problem with you leaving is that Steve is now left alone between two giddy assassins, who both look at him like they’re Cheshire cats. Frankly, it’s terrifying.

 Steve gulps, considering running and risking his life by breaking the quarantine instead of dying here on this couch, because he already knows what’s coming. Every time you’re gone and the three of them are alone, the conversation always shifts to…

 “So, Y/N huh?”

 “Smooth, Buck.”

 “You’re the talker, woman, you do the talking!”

 “And what are you supposed to be?”

 “I’m the muscle. In case he tries to run away.”

 Oh no, there goes his only plan. Poor Steve.

 Natasha turns to him and stares him down, “Rogers, when are you going to tell that woman you’re in love with her?”

 “We- I- huh. Whenever I have time.”

 “You’re on goddamn quarantine. There’s nothing but time.”

 “Yeah. Loads of time.”

 “Seriously, if only you removed your head from your tushie for a little bit you would see she clearly feels the same.”

 “That’s right. Head, tush. That’s a no-no.”

 “This is your chance, Rogers. Y/N’s super stressed out with the locked down, she’s practically climbing up the walls. Do something nice for her, and tell her how you feel.”

 “Be a gentleman, yo.”

 “Barnes I thought we agreed I’d do the talking.”

 “Alright, damn. I was just trying to help. Also what is it with you saying tushie now? ”

 “IT’S A QUARANTINE THING!”

 Before things could get any further (or worse, for all that matters), Steve stands up and shuts both super spies up, “Okay, fine. I’ll do it. You’re right. Just, huh. Go to your rooms, please? I need to think.”

 Natasha smirks at him, “Sure thing, dad. Come on, James, let’s go watch some crap TV show in my room.”

 Steve looks around, panicked. And then he has an idea.

                              *********************************************

 After getting out of the shower and putting on some fuzzy pajamas and, why not, the infamous Captain America t-shirt, you head to the kitchen in search for some late night dinner slash snack. The lights seem to be out, so you assume the gang already ate and went to bed. But what surprises you when you get to the living room is the tiny table where you usually have breakfast, simply adorned with a white tablecloth and one of those crappy candles you guys keep in the bottom drawer in case there’s a blackout.  And standing next to it all, in his own fuzzy pajamas, is Steven Grant Rogers, looking like he’s about to pass out but still standing, and holding a piece of paper.

 “Steve? What’s all this?”

 He just starts to ramble, “Okay so. Huh. I’ve been trying to say something to you for quite a while now. And lately the voices in my head, that sound a lot like Bucky and Nat by the way, would not shut up about it. And I just thought, you know what? We’re on a goddamn quarantine. The world apparently has its own plans, and does whatever it wants, it’s not gonna wait for me. So fuck it. I’m saying it.”

 “Saying what?” you breathe out, heart pounding on your chest.

 “I’m in love with you, Y/N,” he smiled softly, raising his eyebrows as if to say and I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.

 You’re speechless. He stares at you and starts panicking, “Oh God. Huh, it’s okay if you don’t feel the same, I- This was all so stupid, and I just put you on the spot and- oh no, now you’re trapped with me because of the quarantine. I’m so sorry, I’ll just stay locked in my room so you won’t have to see me and Bucky can just pass me some crackers through the door-”.

��You cut his rambling, “Steve. It’s okay.”

 “No, it’s not, I shouldn’t have listened to them-”

 “Steve, I’m in love with you too.”

 He looks up at you like a deer in headlights, “You are?”

 “Yeah,” you shrug, smiling.

 He frowns, “Why?”

 “Must be all that blood going to my head, ” you close the distance between you two and wrap your arms around his neck, “Guess it just made me dumber.”

 “I’ll have to thank Bucky for that.”

 “Could you stop talking about Barnes and kiss me already?” he laughs and leans down to kiss you, sweet and gentle, and suddenly everything makes sense.

 You separate a little, arms still around him and look around.

 “What’s all this?”

 “Well I was going to ask you out, but because of the quarantine we can’t really go out,” he explains, sheepish, “So I thought we could go in, you know?” He lets go of you and points at a plate on the table, “Also, we´re having sandwiches for dinner because we haven’t gone on the supply run yet. And since I can’t buy you flowers- ”, he hands you the piece of paper, a bouquet of wild flowers beautifully drawn.

 “Steve, these are so pretty. This is perfect, it’s all perfect,” you beam.

 He brings out a chair for you, “Shall we?”

 You laugh. Maybe quarantine is not that bad.

[ricky4479]

Whiskey Business and an acurate portrayal of depression

So, I’m back with a bit of a controversial topic, modern Simpsons. Now, let’s make something clear here, I agree with all the people saying modern Simpsons is not as good as old Simpsons, especially the humor, which always made the Simpsons so special. Yet I have to admit that in my opinion modern Simpsons has some hidden gems, mainly in the way they portray certain topics. The episode I want to talk about here is season 24, episode 19 „Whisky Business“ and it’s portrayal of depression.

Why do I want to talk about this episode specifically? Why not season 29, episode 3 „Whistler’s father“ and it’s portrayal of child stars or season 19, episode 4 „I don’t wanna know why the caged bird sings“ and the portrayal of obsessive behavior after trauma? Well, „Whisky Business“ has always been close to my heart simply for the fact that I could identify myself in a lot of the things happening to Moe in not just this episode, but also a lot of the other episodes regarding Moe like season 14, episode 22 „Moe baby blues“ or season 3, episode 9 „Flaming Moes“.

Let’s start then. Disclaimer and trigger warning I guess, since I will interpret a lot into simple one liners or off side comments that the writers most probably meant nothing with but making a joke of the entire situation. I will also talk about abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies and a lot more in that direction, so if anything like that triggers you, you should stop reading or proceed with caution. It’s gonna get personal guys.

 So, I’m obviously only gonna talk about Moes storyline in this one and his first appearance already hit me close. Moe tries to talk to his friends, telling them he needs to talk about something important, but Homer, Lenny and Carl don’t even acknowledge his exsistence in any way, even when Moe literally calls out for help, saying things like „I’m begging you, please, please show me some love“, yelling it into the bar without any sort of response. This shows perfectly what it feels like for me when I’m asking for help. There are moments where I know I will do something to myself or have a panic attack or simply break down and I don’t want that to happen, so I reach out, may it be in subtle ways or full on approaching the situation as it is. I once had a really fucking terrible day, in fact a completely shit week and everything I wanted was for someone to show me some love, just to feel like my world isn’t breaking apart and like I’m okay, like things are going to turn out okay, so I asked my father if I could have a hug, nothing unusual to ask your dad I think. He just laughed at me and refused, jokingly asking why I’d need that and then going on about his day as normal. I felt completely invisible. I felt like I wasn’t even deserving of his attention and like he didn’t take me serious nor even listen to me at all. It really felt like yelling at someone that you need help and they don’t even realize you’re there. Like you don’t exist.

After Moe ties the noose around his neck, he sees the suicide hotline number on the wall and decides to call, giving „the new kid a chance to talk to the legend“. It’s like he’s glorifying his depression, like his reputation at that hotline is the only real thing he has ever achieved in his life and this feeling is even further enhanced when you see the pillow and blanket on the couch, almost seeming like Moe has been sleeping at his bar again, not even having an apartment. This feeling of worthlessness, having achieved nothing in your life is I think something we all have felt to a certain degree at some point.

But something that almost brought me to tears, as stupid as it sounds, was when Moe was going to go through with it, but then his phone rings and Moes face instantly lights up as he quickly picks up, answering after hesitating with a quiet and hopeful „Hello?“.

Now it’s going to get really personal because I’m going to tell you guys about something very few people know about me. I tried to kill myself on a class trip in eight grade. I’m not gonna get too into the details, but I was very agitated and stressed and I went to the only person who I trusted and asked if we could talk, but they just shoved me away, which was the last straw and pushed me over the edge. I passed out in the bathroom after a particularly bad panic attack, woke up around 45 minutes later, went into our room and was fully ready to take an entire bottle of painkillers I had packed because I’m stupid and break shit easily. In the end I snapped out of it, but I was fully ready to die in that moment. I had tried to cling to the last thing I thought could be help and it turned out to be shit. It was, similiar to Moe, the thing that inevertibly led to me almost dying and watching how Moes face lid up when he thought there was someone who cared brought me right back to when I tried to talk to that person. It was a moment I believe so many people who have gone through similiar things can relate to.

Turns out it’s just a prank call from Bart and Moe in his rage ends up falling off the chair and actually almost suffocating to death, but a bar broke and he crashed to the ground which alerted his friends, who then come running in and Homer applied CPR, saving Moes life. Moe seems happy afterwards, saying how thankful he is for another chance at life, although his „post suicide happiness“ doesn’t last very long and he goes right back to realizing how shitty the world is and how little he matters. Again something I saw myself in. On that trip after I almost od, my teacher with some classmates put on a little play and it was the funniest shit that entire trip. I was happy, I laughed, I forgot all about what had happened until afterwards. The person I trusted realized what happened, they berated me for it, took away any access to meds I had and left me alone. It wasn’t long after that I called my parents, who basically told me how they hated me for trying to be who I am and I was stuck in a house with people who hated me with a burning passion, so life wasn’t good. I felt like shit again and if I had had the oppertunity, I’d have tried again. It was again so good portrayed that it took me back and made me feel with Moe.

Marge barges in, asking Homer where the fuck he has been, Homer telling her Moe had an accident and Moe very casually says how he tried „to end it all“ but shortly after starts to cry after turning away from everyone. This very much shows how many of us, at least many of fhe people with depression I know, behave. We see it as almost normal, something that, although it impacts our lifes in the worst way possible, is just another part of us, almost like a character trait. But it’s not that, it’s hate and painful memories, feelings that shouldn’t exist, hopelessness, sadness, emptyness, it’s so much no person should feel, yet we tend to act very casually about it in public. Yet once we’re alone, it crashes, so much at once that most of the time I come home from school, the moment I close my rooms door, I start crying. It’s nothing to take casually.

Marge then decides to take Moe on a roadtrip and Moe starts joking, asking if Noosy can come too. Again, something I see in a lot of us. We joke about our depression, our lifes, things we simply shouldn’t joke about because they’re not funny, but it’s a way for many of us to deal with those intrusive thoughts, those feeling of worthlessness.

On the trip Moe is not enjoying himself because all he sees „are 2 million people happier than me“. Sometimes, even the things you love the most will seem extremely dull and pointless to you, because no matter what you do, there will always be countless people who are happier than you and suddenly you feel like you don’t deserve happiness or anything for that matter. Just like Moe feels like he doesn’t deserve the suit his friends want to buy for him, but after some encouraging Moe accepts it.

Moes new suit can be read as you changing to a „new you“, a you that is more acceptable in the eyes of society. You’re sick of society hating you, so you try to appeal to it and it works, suddenly people are nice to you, opportunities show themselves that you just have to take and for a while life seems perfect. Yes, this may not be the real you, but who cares, everything is what you always wanted and as long as you keep up the facade, it will stay this way. But facades break, or in Moes case, suits can rip. Now what is there isn’t the one everyone loved, but the one everyone hated or thought was a freak.

Moe desperately asks Marge for help and she tells him to just be himself, so he actually takes the advice, but everything just breaks apart. Moes partnership he had built with two businessmen over his self-brewed whiskey gets completely ruined since everyone seems to hate or be disgusted by suitless-Moe. It shows amazingly how it feels to have so called „friends“ turn their backs on you once you start to act more like yourself and even though you try your best to show them it’s still you, they leave.

The episode ends on a bittersweet ending with Moe returning to his normal life, only this time a bit more hopeful. He knows it’s not going to last forever, but for now life is okay, he can deal with it.

And that’s just a powerful message. No matter what happens, you will be able to take it and in the end you will emerge alive, fine. You’re going to be okay and even if everything crumbles, it’s okay, because you can rebuild it. Baby steps.

Of course the episode is trying to be comedic with all this, like a string of Moes suit getting stuck in the elevator door going down 98 floors, but to me it still presented depression in a very understandable way and managed to visually show what it sometimes feels like to have depression and to try and deal with it. In my opinion this was one of the better modern Simpsons episodes and I will always hold it dear to my heart just because of how accurately it portrays parts of depression once you scraped through the surface of bad jokes and lame punchlines.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, I hope it was understandable and please don’t cancel me just because I said I enjoyed some modern Simpsons episodes. As always, English isn’t my first language, it’s late at night, I’m dead on the inside, so please excuse any mistakes.

Stay squeaky.

[lostgirlrewatch]

1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is. 

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes. 

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children. 

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children. 

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo. 

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode. 

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust. 

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

[theussanvegad]

Character development questions: hard mode.

Special shout-out to @dxctxrii for reblogging this, I figured I’d just go ahead and answer all of them at once.

Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?

Lorelai has 4 siblings in the 24-36 age range, she is the second oldest child at age 34. She would most likely be closest with her older brother Kyle, who is the executive chef at Indigo.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?

Rather strained, and has been since she was 10, being born and raised on the resort planet Risa, her mom tried to push her into the “staff” field on this world. Given Risa’s reputation and culture, that meant a lot of sex work. Her mother disapproved of Lorelai’s dreams of joining Starfleet.

What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?

Leto McLaren always tried to do right by his children, even after the divorce. He stayed working for his ex-wife at Indigo resort hotel as a charter deep sea fishing guide to keep an eye on things and make sure Vanessa (the mother) didn’t go too overboard. He was the one who booked Lorelai on the first liner to earth when she passed her academy entrance exams with flying colors.

Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

Wolf 359... she was second officer on the USS Endeavor, the only ship to survive that disaster (badly damaged)... you don’t go through something like that unchanged... and yes, anyone who’s familiar with her service record knows

On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Her ring of lucky charms. (A simple old fashioned key ring full of charms, several from her former captains and teachers at the academy... she has one from her siblings and father, and a special one from her second officer LtCdr. Laura Winters.

Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?

Occasionally, most of her dreams are erotic in nature.

Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?

Watching 39 other starships coldly and efficiently destroyed by a single cube, her direct superior dying in her arms on the endeavor, and being assimilated

Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target?

Yes. Target at the practice ranges at Starfleet Academy

Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?

Yes, she went from a life that would have made her a glorified prostitute (albeit a legal one) to a decorated and respected starship captain in Starfleet.

Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

Usually less.

In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

The battle of Maxia, where on her first assignment out of the Academy, she was assigned to the USS Stargazer under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. She was a young jr grade Lieutenant, fresh from the Academy, and the ship came under attack from an unknown and unidentified ship, she was forced to take the helm after the helm officer was badly injured.

In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been?

The immediate aftermath of the Barzan gambit, where the task force the USS Anvegad (her ship, and first command) exited the Barzan wormhole on the completely WRONG SIDE OF THE GALAXY! The goal had been a covert insertion into the Gamma Quadrant behind Dominion lines to gather intelligence... the result, six starships scattered across the Delta Quadrant.

Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way?

No

Does your character remember names or faces easier?

Faces

Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?

No, she’s a Federation citizen and a Starfleet Captain in the 24th century... (watch some TNG if you don’t know what that means)

Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?

For her the two are nearly the same

What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?

A small powerboard or floater

Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

Wisdom. Experience has tempered her, teaching her the value of both, however, wisdom has been shown to produce more long term solutions and results than ambition alone.

What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

She’s openly sexual, has no problems flirting or seducing someone if it will help complete a mission, it has when she was dating a fellow lieutenant earlier in her career, she seduced her entire away team out of a very tight spot on a mission and allowed them all to get back to the ship safely... her boyfriend at the time did NOT like it.

In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?

At this point, she doesn’t care, people either accept her for who she is and what she can do, or they don’t.

If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?

She is more apt to analyze the situation, was something she did the cause or contributing factor? Was there a failure in the chain of command somewhere, did a mechanical fault lead to or contribute to the event. Was the action caused by another, if so did she underestimate them or were they simply better?

What does your character like in other people?

Passion, doesn’t matter what they’re passionate about, but that passion is something that she can identify with and reach common ground.

What does your character dislike in other people?

Deliberate ignorance (not ignorance, when they simply don’t know something,) but the abject refusal to learn from mistakes, refusal to better themselves because of misguided pride.

How quick is your character to trust someone else?

It depends on the person and the situation. Sometimes it’s an instant decision based on instinct, some times it takes time

How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

She relies on Natira Kosh, her Chief of security to investigate, to gather evidence, and to narrow down potential suspects before she makes her decision. “Everybody, including myself is a potential suspect until they have been properly cleared by my chief of security.”

How does your character behave around children?

She is polite and friendly, rather comfortable with them

How does your character normally deal with confrontation?

She will defend anyone on her crew vigorously, and with passion. She stands her ground, unless doing so would pose an immediate threat to her ship, her crew, Starfleet or the Federation.

How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation?

She prefers diplomacy to combat, something that she learned from her first Captain, but will not shy away from or hesitate to use force if it is necessary. In the case of a known hostile, and previous attempts at diplomacy have failed, the decision is instant and immediate.

What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?

Joining Starfleet and seeing the galaxy... obviously that did come true

What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?

A certain Kazon Maj... seriously FUCK that guy in particular!

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable.

Relaxing in a proper bath, with a glass of wine and an audio book playing.

Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable.

Waiting, particularly when she cannot affect the outcome one way or another.

In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

It depends on who is giving it, and why,

Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?

She prefers to analyze the results of the failed attempt first to determine why it failed, what effect it actually had, what if anything caused it to fail, and could these be corrected? Then she might try again... if time and the situation permits such a luxury of said analysis. In a battle situation, she’s likely to change tactics and strategy on the fly to adapt

How does your character behave around people they like?

She’s warm, friendly, approachable, courteous and polite.

How does your character behave around people they dislike?

In a professional setting, she remains courteous and polite, but with an undertone if cold businesslike professionalism.

Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?

Honor most times

Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?

Remove the threat... neutralize it, contain it if possible... destroy it if not

Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?

Fun fact: Risian Feather Monkeys do NOT react well to being tickled. And a young Lorelai had seven stitches to prove it

How does your character treat people in service jobs?

Growing up in such an environment herself, she treats them quite well, knowing the difficulties that such jobs entail.

Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?

She feels that she has earned everything she has gotten, through hard work, determination, and ability. If she hadn’t earned her captaincy, she wouldn’t be a Captain.

Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them?

Boothby, the grounds keeper at Starfleet Academy, Captain Picard aboard The Stargazer

Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them?

Every person under her command, as far as she’s concerned

How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?

Rather easy in the right situation, and though she doesn’t like to say it without meaning it... she can and has.

What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

She’s not sure what will happen, but she sees it as a new adventure.

[wilczawisnia]

Was just talking with some kids I work with and they were telling me stories about how their great grandpa got hit on the hand with a ruler for bad handwriting, and then tied his left behind his back with some string, and that it was normal at the time. Then happened to see the statement the AAP said about spanking. Cultural shifts happen relatively quickly imo- do you think Snape's behavior would have seemed more normal, (if not good) from JKR's point of view?

Not a question about judging Snape’s behavior, I’m just wondering about generational gap between JKR’s experiences of teachers at school (and maybe inspiration from her parent’s or grand parent’s too- hogwarts is archaic and traditional) and the world now. I know there’s a specific teacher he’s got a lot of borrowed characteristics from, I’m not wondering so much that as just the comparison of general expectations of what is appropriate for teachers across generations…

(like for example, one of my teachers was a very severe and loud man that would often shout and scare students into getting things done. I was totally used to this as a student from my expectations of how adults behaved and never saw it as weird or threatening. Now as a teacher, fifteen years later, (which is not much time at all tbh) there would be no way that sort of behavior would fly with the board or the students or the parents. It’s not the norm anymore. And I’m glad but also perspective)

First of all, hell, a fellow teacher :D I hope your kids treat you well :)

Now, to the main point. I can’t exactly speak for JKR herself, because I’m not her, however, I do suspect that she may have seen certain types of behaviour differently to what many people, younger and much younger than her, see these days. I think that Severus’ behaviour would be one of these things.

Like... I won’t even bat an eye if somebody my age will tell me some of their  teachers yelled at them or even called them names, whereas I’m pretty sure that people who are in school now would find such behaviour unacceptable. But we (means I and my classmates) would mostly shrug it off, because we were used to it. I won’t have much reaction if the same person will tell me they were spanked as a kid, because it was more than normal where I live for kids to get spanked when I was still a kid. Now many people would immediately call it abuse. (I do not support spanking, btw.) We all will probably agree that neither of these are good things but they were a normal part of childhood for people as old as me.

My dad for example will not even flinch if somebody his age will talk about being hit with a liner on their hand during a class (for misbehaviour). Because this also was a normal thing to happen when he was still at school. Go back even further and you’ll find out that once upon a time caning pupils was normal. And when I was at school, a teacher who pulled student’s ear was forced to give a public apology to the student and the one who actually hit a student was fired.

Now, imagine seeing this stuff ^ in a book that would describe contemporary times. Unacceptable, isn’t it?

I also think that some opinions will be influenced by personal experience, too. Someone with more positive experience may be surprised to learn that someone else’s was more negative. And all of this will affect the way in which one can perceive things. I, for example, am not so sure that I do judge Severus’ behaviour in the same way she does. Like in that scene in the first Potions class, where Severus yells at Neville and most people will probably see a rather unfeeling person only adding misery to the situation. You know what? I legit saw parents behaving in the same way towards their kids after said kids pulled some incredibly silly stunt, so it’s hard for me not to consider the idea that under that harsh scolding hides also a bit of concern.* (I think it shows that I didn’t grow in the nicest part of the city, hm.)

Do I think it’s proper to yell in that way on a person that is already scared? No. Do I think that there is nothing but malice behind such situations? Not really, but a lot depends on circumstances. Which in short means that I would definitely judge the same event differently, depending on the time frame. What was considered “normal” (although not exactly good) when I was a kid, not necessarily must be seen as such these days. Because that’s how much the whole culture of raising kids up and schooling them has changed over the years. 

And my general conclusion would be that JKR, just like me and probably quite a few people around, would not find Severus’ behaviour (in some aspects at least, because there is no denying that he crosses the line sometimes) as one of a kind - which some people insist it is - but more as something “not unusual” that happened, but perhaps not overly often. I think she’s rather proved that her opinion of him isn’t as harsh as some of HP fans, mainly because she grew up in completely different times, but I don’t think she would call it “good”, though. I mean, who actually likes being scolded and called names and so on .__.

* Both events, the real and fictional happen in the same time frame. And he does show concern in CoS when it’s revealed that Ginny was taken to the Chamber of Secrets. Well, in the books at least.)

[jeanjauthor]

Resting Writer’s Face

Just shared a post where black men have days & places where Resting Bitch Face is a thing...and it made me think of the fact that Resting Writer’s Face is also a thing, but I did not want to hijack that thread, because it is too important in tone and content, and this is like, veering away and doing a 270 loop to go off in a different direction.

With that said...

Resting Writer’s Face isn’t quite like Resting Bitch Face.

First off, what is Resting Bitch Face?  Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia both list it as essentially the expression on a face (usually a female’s) that appears to a particular viewer to be mean, contemptuous, annoyed, irritated, cold-spirited, etc...when in actuality the person (again, the vast majority being female) is actually not feeling any of those emotions, or any other emotion, really.

It’s most commonly seen in females, because of Culturally Widespread Male Expectations™ that women are supposed to smile whenever a man is near, because females are supposed to be (pressured by culture & society) constantly pleasant and be upbeat and deferential and adoring and *gagging noises*...you get the point. 

When a male does not receive this “beautification” of his world, he feels robbed of what he views as the “right way” that a woman should behave in his presence, or “the way that things are supposed to be.”  And when he sees a culturally beautiful woman NOT smiling, he doubles-down on how “wrong” this feels...because doesn’t everything we consume in entertainment, media, culture, society, fantasy, etc, etc, all demand that Women Exist To Make The World More Beautiful For All (even the vast majority, and thust very mediocre, of) Men? *more gagging noises*

Resting Writer Face is...a little different.

It’s not really resting, for a start.

It can actually get pretty lively, even.

The “resting” part is still valid in the sense of unconsciously doing what it is doing.  Because trust me, we writers aren’t always consciously thinking of what our faces are doing when we are, well, thinking.

Specifically, thinking about plots, characters, action sequences, dialogue, and the all important How Would The Character We’re Thinking About React In Such-&-Such Circumstances.

This. Happens. All. The. Time.

It happens at home oodles and lots (I’ll get to that in a moment), but mostly Resting Writer Face is a thing when it’s done in public.  Because it happens when we’re out in public, walking around between one errand and the next, between car and work, work and lunch restaurant, work and car, car and dry cleaners, pet food store, whatever, wherever.  And it happens simply because we’re thinking about, as I said, plotlines, character actions & reactions, dialogue, etc.

Talking to yourself in public used to be a shameful thing.  Nowadays...not so much.  So many people are conducting conversations on bluetooth headsets, into their phone at frikkin way too loud volumes that they’d never use to the person standing three feet away, but they use to the person on the other end of the phone three inches from their mouth, blah blah blah...but talking to yourself isn’t automagically a sign of mental health issues.

Besides, we’re usually talking to our characters, reciting bits of dialogue to test how it sounds out loud before committing it to a story, or we’re talking out our plotlines, or we’re poking at said plotlines or a particular scene to see where the holes are and whether or not we can patch them, or finding that perfect bit of clever dialogue that will goad one of the protagonists into slapping the speaker in outrage...

(My absolute favorite of that particular last one was from an old fanfic of mine, wherein one character goaded the other into slapping him by deliberately making their relationship derogatory by calling it nothing more than “a slap and tickle”...and ohhh boy, did she slap him!  He honestly did not want to be horrid to her, but needed to get her to avoid him for a while out of pure plot reasons, so it worked very well.  But I digress.)

However, even though it’s no longer publicly shamed, talking in public is still somewhat discouraged.  So, a lot of us writers will go about our business thinking through the possible thoughts and dialogues and perfect one-liner quips for that dramatic moment in the story arc.  We don’t say anything aloud, but we think it.

And that’s when Resting Writer Face comes into play.  Because if we’re really invested in trying to find the perfect response, the perfect, “If ___ happens, then I (my character) would react  in ___ way.”

And a lot of the time...our faces show those emotions, the grunts and grimaces, the scowls and grins, all in a mental rehearsal of our characters’ physical and emotional actions, reactions, and efforts...showing up unconsciously or subconsciously, or barely consciously, barely cognizantly, on our faces.

When we’re typing in front of a computer screen and another member of the household drops in on us and sees the Sometimes Very Scary Expressions our faces contort into during the mental gymnastics of feeling and thus recording the emotions we’re writing onto the .doc page (non-writers have no idea just how exhausting writing can be, for all it’s often “purely mental” in effort)...well, the first few times can actually be rather alarming for that other person.

I’ve had housemates and family members and friends all ask me if everything was okay, if I was mad at them, or upset at something they had done, and I”ve had to quickly break off what I was writing, give them a quick polite lighthearted expression, and reassure them, “No no, I’m (everything’s) fine!  I’m just writing a really intense bit in my story!  (No, really!)”

The first few times this has happened, I apparently looked pretty darn scary, and had to reassure them a few times that my Resting Bitch Face scowl or glare or whatever was actually Resting Writer Face, which is an actively emoting thing.  That the emotions on my face weren’t my emotions. 

By the fifth or sixth time I was getting interrupted...the other person usually just blinked, thought a moment, and asked  “Writing hard?” and that was that, because yes, I was...and I’d usually stop and chat, or say, “Gimme a few moments” as I tried to get the thoughts in my head onto the page...which could sometimes stretch on to several minutes and I’d have to type some keywords to help me remember, or they’d say they’d come back later, and once I got it all out of me, I’d have to go look for them to find out what they wanted.

But that’s at home at the computer...so it’s obvious that I was writing. (clicketyclacking of the keyboard keys, etc, etc...)

When writers are out in public and our minds are busy with Writing Thoughts...we get Resting Writer Face.  And by that, I mean Resting in the sense of relaxing our usual vigilance about Conforming To Cultural/Societal Expectations For Facial Expression Matching Publicly Acceptable Moods.

I’ve scared people by having Resting Writer’s Face about some fight scene, verbal or physical, while walking past those poor folks in public.  Most of the times when I notice I’m scaring folks, I just quickly assume a more pleasant expression, or even say something along the lines of,  “I’m not actually angry; I’m just thinking about something in a story I’m writing.”  Which either gets me a “Ohhh, cool!” expression of relief or the Dubious Side-Eye of “Oookaaay, Weirdo” as they move quickly on their way.

...On the bright side, when I’m in dubious surroundings (catcalling males, or dimly lit sidewalks in less than safe areas, mostly), I will adopt a cross between Resting Bitch Face and Resting Writer Face.  I will deliberately think about my protagonists being tough and badass and competently dangerous...and let those emotions and facial expressions take over.  Not just my face, but the way I walk, the way I stand, the way I carry and present myself in a particular space.  (I’ve actually even managed to get men to move out of my path by Doing This One Weird Trick.™ (lol))

I’ve also caught myself doing this to quell anxiety about things, like “What if a car crashes in front of me? How would I react to that?” or “what if someone tries to rob the bank while I’m in it?”  or “What if someone at a nearby table in this restaurant starts choking? What is the Heimlich Maneuver again?”  so on and so forth.  These things are the stuff that isn’t even going to go into a book, but we’re still thinking it through.

Actually, a lot of people do this last one, not just writers...but I’ve found it’s most prevalent as part of what it’s like being a writer.  And I’d definitely say the one group of people who are guaranteed todo it far more often than even writers do are actors.  Because that’s their job, as actors.

So.  Resting Writer Face.  What it is, why it happens, how it differs from Resting Bitch Face, etc, etc.

Just remember that most of the time, we writers aren’t even aware that we’re doing it.  We’re too caught up in the stories in our heads, both in trying to make them, and in testing how they play out, to see if any changes need to be made.  And that’s not a bad thing!

I mean, if we’re working out a troublesome plot point (”How does my male protagonist get the female to ignore him for a month, so that the bad guys don’t try to kill her because of her interest in me?  ...ooh, how about he makes her slap him, very publicly??”(or for whatever reason)), then it means we’re trying to make the story better.

And that’s a great thing for our readers...even if we make people a little wary of us at times during the story creation stages.  At least, until they get used to the Writer Things™ we do.

...Also, this is why writing isn’t just what we do when we’re physically writing out the story.  A lot of writing takes place in our heads before the words ever hit the page. 

And because nobody pays us what everyone assumes writers get paid (not even 10% of what people assume, tbh), we usually are stuck doing all this hard mental word whenever we have a moment to spare...which includes when we’re out and about in public, doing our day job, running errands, buying groceries, you name it.

[mezhane]

JUST MARRIED (...kinda)

PART 2

-A week later-

I woke up this morning , feeling pretty nervous . I was going to meet my husband,or should I say future husband this morning,over brunch , because yes, I actually gave in to my dad and agreed to meet the guy . My dad smiled and hugged me a lot this very morning, and my mom didn’t even wait a minute to call everybody back home and tell them my marriage was settled .

I found endless joy in making my people proud and happy and even felt a hint of self accomplishment. But I quickly fell off my cloud when my dad told me who the lucky pretender was going to be .

-A week ago-

Zhang Yixing .

Zhang fucking Yixing .

My eyes widened at the sound of his name . I choked a laugh, and cleared my throat to manage to make my voice come out .

“Zhang Yixing ? From the Triad gang ? Are we talking about the same man ?” I asked my dad though I already knew the answer .

“Well yes baby, do you know another Zhang Yixing ? You know me and his father have been partners for the longest time right ? Way before you and his son were born ... Just like me , his dad is going to retire soon and let Yixing take over the leadership. He thought it would be a good idea to get him married before he becomes the leader of the gang ... So here we are ! “

I sat down, taking every piece of information my dad was giving to me . My palms were sweaty and my hands were slightly shaking.

“So, what you are trying to tell me is that we are getting married, no, that I’m marrying this guy to allow him to acquire some sort of a respectable image in front of his gang members? HE is becoming the new leader, what does this have to do with us ?” I spat at my dad’s face , trying my best to show my annoyance but staying composed at the same time .

“It’s not only that sweetie , we are really close to the Triad gang , and also business partners! This marriage wil-“

“What? So you’re trying to tell me that you’re using me as an object for you business contract renewal with the Triad ? Is that what it is all about ?” I was whispering at this point, my voice being blocked by the tears bubbling in my throat.

“No!... Yes... I mean yes and no ! My first issue is you of course ! I was worried about you being in your mid-twenties and not having a fiancé, so obviously, when Yixing’s father told me about you marrying his son, I immediately said approved ! Plus, it’s not like you don’t know Yixing, right ? You practically grew up together! You guys used to be close when you were younger! “ My dad was really trying his best to sound as cheerful as possible...

“Younger? You mean when I was the biggest tomboy ever and he would only talk to me because I was the only girl that wasn’t crazy about him and I was like his little sister?”

My dad sighed at this and sat down next to me .

“Well yeah, you were always in good terms with each other ! And aren’t you best friends with his cousin sister? It’s like you’re part of their family already!” He was smiling and I, was unconsciously smiling too.

“Marina and Yixing are two different persons, dad... I haven’t had a real conversation with Yixing in years ! I’m not even sure he remembers me like I remember him ... I mean after all the time he spent studying abroad...” I sounded nervous. Why did I sound so nervous?

“Yes. I know that, but I’m sure he remembers you the same. Don’t worry too much , okay ? “ He kissed my hand and grabbed it firmly with both of his . “So.. is that a yes pumpkin? Are you willing to meet him and discuss this marriage?”

“I guess , yeah , I’ll give it a try “ I replied feigning annoyance.

He hugged me while telling me how much he loved me and how I made the best decision of my life ...

-Present time-

So here I was now, watching myself in the mirror, trying out dresses back and forth to make sure I was gonna leave the best impression possible, checking my eye liner to see if it was even on both eyes , putting one lip colour on, taking it off , putting another on, and whatever nonsense girls do before their first date except it wasn’t a date . I was going to meet my fiancé and his parents, to talk about our arranged mariage , settled by our fathers , both leaders of two of the most influent and feared mafias in Europe . It is a whole lot to take in . And I’m not gonna lie , I am petrified.My dad came to my room to tell me we should leave. On our way to the restaurant, I kept thinking about what I should do , how I should behave,or how should I eat. My mom was sitting next to me . She might have seen the worry on my face and squeezed my hand to reassure me . We finally arrived, and as we were making our way into the restaurant, I could feel myself getting hot . I took a deep breath and thought « it’s gonna be okay Mina, he’s not a stranger , you’ve known him your whole life, relax .»

« Mina?! Is that you ? Oh wow ! You’ve gotten taller, but apart from that , your face haven’t changed a bit , huh, Babyface? »

« Babyface. My heart dropped as I heard the surname. That’s how he used to call me .Yixing. He still had that smile. The very “corporate” smile as I used to call it . He inspired respect and professionalism on all points . Everything about him was perfect. His hairstyle , the way the colour of his tie matched his socks perfectly... Hell, even the amount of shirt coming out of his jacket sleeves was just the right amount of inches ! Yixing was the incarnation of perfection alive and I suddenly felt so little and flustered about him calling me “Babyface” ... Because yes , I lied when I told my dad I didn’t have a crush on him growing up . I did . I fell for him . Hard . And somehow, this stupid crush, this attention towards the 13 year old , tomboy me that I mistook for love, never went away. It was still here somewhere inside of me . He hugged my mother, shook my father’s hand and opened his arms towards me .

“Come here ! “ He hugged me tight and and whispered in my hear. “You’re absolutely gorgeous “ . I gasped quietly and pulled away from him smiling, but never looking at him in the eyes properly. He, Yixing, thought I was gorgeous. Words cannot even describe how hard I suppressed the squeal of joy to come out of my mouth. I shook my head realizing how I was thinking. I still wasn’t over my crush on him .

Here we were again .

Fuck .

[fatrainbowmermaidunicorn]

3AM Drive - Thru (JJKx You x The8/Minghao) // Chapter 9

MASTERLIST

Jungkook grab her hand.

“Y/N I need to talk to you. Please,” he then turned to Minghao who starts to stand up. “And it would be wise if you do not interfere. This is between me and her,”

                                                  ////////

“Yah Y/N. Why are you talking to MY Kookie and his oppas like that, you psychotic fan!? Dont you know who he is? Who they are? Who I am?”

“Minji, stop it. Just-”

“Its okay Jungkook-ssi. Minji-ssi, I apologize. I will asks someone else to assist all of you for the broadcast,”

“Y/N, you dont have to-”

“Let go of my hand Jungkook-ssi. Please respect Minji-ssi’s feelings. Afterall, I am not of importance to you,”

———————————————————-

Since that night, Jungkook’s mood is noticably happier. He wakes up every morning whistling and his steps has more bounce, a smile never seems to leave his face.

Yes, he admits he feels some kind of way watching how close Y/N’s is with Minghao, but he also feels some kind of way just by seeing her. Something he will never admit to anyone else. He managed to exchange numbers with her that night, and so does the rest of the boys (to Minghao’s displeasure), and they started to text each other since then.

The conversation might consist innocents how are yous, have you eaten and random what are you doing, and most of the time she only give a one word reply, but its enough for Jungkook. He just really miss you. Y/N, after all, used to be his best friend.He justified her not too chatty reply with her being busy. She is next in line to be the CEO afterall.

Despite Jungkook texting her every day without miss, he never actually met up with her other than the occasional dinner with Minghao and the other boys. Until the manager informs Jungkook and his hyungs that they will be doing a reality variety show with the in house production from one of Y/N’s broadcasting company.

He took this opportunity to invite Y/N to hang out with him and his hyungs, using ‘You should get to know us. It will help the recording process better’ as an excuse. Its important to him that Y/N gets to know the most importabt people in his life. Y/N, naive as she is, didnt think anything of it and agreed for the sake of her work.

“Hyungs, please, please behave okay. Especially you Tae,” Jungkook point his finger to Taehyung who is doing weird things with his bowls.

“Why is it always me!?” Taehyung exclaim.

“You know why Tae. Don’t ask stupud questions,” Jin chimed in.

“Hey, but are you so nervous? I thought she is just the head producer or something? I’ve never seen you like this when we were filming before,” Namjoon rubbed his chin, confused with the maknae. “Is she-”

“Hello everyone,” Y/N who had just arrived bowed to all of them. Hoseok eyes went wide when he realize you are the Song Y/N that he saw on TV the other day. The rest of the boys also just realizing the fact.

“Hey! Aren’t you-”

“This is Song Y/N,” Jungkook cut off Taehyung. Y/N smile, bowed and shake hands with everyone. After taking a seat besides Jungkook and getiing comfortable, the other boys starts to get to know Y/N. Y/N answered every question that is thrown her way comfortably and full of charms, which the boys enjoy. Jungkook is amazed at how smooth and amazing Y/N is at handling his hyungs and making everyone she met for the first time comfortable.

“So you and Jungkook looks close. How do you guys know each other?” Namjoon asks while stuffing some beef wraps into his mouth.

“Oh we used to be-” “I’m close friends with Minghao-”

Both Jungkook and Y/N answer at the same time but with totally different answer. The rest of the boys looks at them, confused. Jimin raised his eyebrows, sensing something is off. Jungkook looks at Y/N. Y/N just avoid his eyes and continue to answer like nothing happen.

“I am close friends with Minghao from Seventeen,”

“Oh, The8?”

“Yes. He introduced me to Jungkook and the rest of their 97 liner group. That’s how we know each other,”

Jungkook cant believe Y/N didnt even want people to know that they had been friends, and even more, way before she even met Minghao. That fact alone feels like a thousand needles poking through his heart, but he guess Y/N really just wants to forget the past. Their past. He just wish she would stop mentioning Minghao’s name.

The meet up goes well. His hyungs sang praises for her, even long after she went home. Jungkook already expected it. Y/N is incredible, who wouldnt like her? I should have introduce her to them way before. Maybe even while we were still together. Jungkook sigh to himself. He excuse himself to take a walk to clear his mind.

“Okay JK. Be safe. Are you going to go see Minji?”

“Urm.. urm.. yeah,” Jungkook just nodded, to avoid more suspicious questions. Minji havent been on his mind for a while now. In fact they havent seen each other for about 2 months. She’s busy with her comeback and he’s busy with…, well, he’s busy with Y/N.

But he did see Minji posted screenshots of their text messages and sometimes his voice note wishing her 'goodnight and I love you Minji’ , which to be honest, he didnt do it as a sweet boyfriend act, but because Minji forced him to do it. She wanted something to feed the fans. Afterall, as she had mentioned a thousand times before, they are idol relationship goals.

The route of his walk seems familiar even though he didnt plan it. He realized its the way he always uses with Y/N when they walk for her 3am midnight snack , way back when they first move into their apartment after graduation.

“I wonder if you will still crave for fries and chicken nuggets when we are 60 and too old to actually walk here,”

“I dont mind walking here even when we are 70 and need a walker, as long as you are in the walker next to mine,”

“I think we need about 3 hours just to get here then,” Jungkook giggled.

“More time to spend with you then. I love you so much Kookie. I would be the happiest girl alive to just be 70 and eating McDonald’s fries as long as its by your side,” Y/N tip- toed and kiss him.

“Then I promise I will make you the happiest girl alive. I love you Y/N. I will always love you. I dont think I know how to do otherwise,”

“Promise?”

“Promise,”

Jungkook snapped out of his memories when he felt his cheek is wet with tears. He no longer need to hold it in and start sobbing. The memories of being with Y/N came back one by one, all of them mocking him for his stupid selfish mistake. I’m sorry Y/N. If I could turn back time I would, and I will keep my promise to make you the happiest girl alive. But I promise I will make things right again.

——————-

Jungkook stepped out from the van and enter the building. He feels great! Today was the first day of recording for the reality variety show, which means he will be spending a lot of time with Y/N. What’s not to feel great about?

“Kookie, baby!” A high shrill voice calls out to him, followed by a sound of high heels running. He whipped his head around to see his supposed girlfriend, Minji, and her group members. Both BTS and 2Hearts greeted each other.

“What are you doing here Minji?”

“Didnt they tell you? Both of our group are doing the show together Kookie. The manager thinks it would help the ratings as we are the power couple and both of our groups had toured together before,” Minji latched onto Jungkook’s arm.

This can’t be happening. Jungkook shakes his head. What if Y/N sees? Then again, what’s wrong if Y/N did see? Jungkook and Minji is officially a couple and even Y/N herself know about them. Jungkook felt a lump in his throat and the good mood he wakes up with definitely dissapeared.

“Okay, BTS and 2Hearts, this is the main studio where we will be shooting the series. Since its only 30 minutes per episode, I dont think it will take long to shoot each episode,” Y/N explained to them. Jungkook keeps on looking at Y/N, even with Minji still latching on his arm. He’s nervous and sweating like crazy. He just reconcile their friendship and he would like to keep it thay way. But Y/N acts perfectly normal and unaffected. Showing them around and briefing them regarding the shoot.

Y/N came in the dressing room to check up on them before the shoot. Due to the friendship between Y/N and BTS that has formed when Jungkook introduced them the other day, the boys had told her to just be comfortable with them. While Y/N is laughing and joking with the boys, Minji is giving her the stink eye.

“Unnie, why is she so close to them? This is so unprofessional. How can a production staff act this way. How can they hire a fan girl as a staff?”

“Yah Minji. She’s not just a staff. She’s the-” one of her group members try to explain who Y/N is since Jin has told her earlier about Y/N’s status and her forming friendship with BTS. But she was cut off by the fuming Minji.

“Yah Y/N. Why are you talking to MY Kookie and his oppas like that, you psychotic fan!? Dont you know who he is? Who they are? Who I am?” both BTS and 2Hearts members turned to look at her in shocked. “Don’t you know we are idols? International stars? I cant believe they assigned a fan girl like you to assist this production!”

“Minji, stop it. Just-” Jungkook stood up. Trying to stop his crazy girlfriend. Minji is fuming and is now standing in front of Y/N.

“And stop flirting with Jungkook! Dont you have any shame? He’s an idol and you are just a nobody. Plus, how dare you flirt with him in front of me, his girlfriend!,” Minji latched herself on Jungkook’s arm again. Y/N’s face, which was calm before, scrunched a bit when she heard the word flirting and a nobody.

“Stop it Minji,” Jungkook finally raised his voice, shrugging her off. Minji was shocked that Jungkook would use that kind of tone with her, her mouth fell wide open and her hand on her chest. “You don’t-”

“Its okay Jungkook-ssi. Minji-ssi, I sincerely apologize for my behaviour if you deem it to be inappopriate. I will asks someone else to assist all of you for the broadcast,” Y/N cut Jungkook off, bowing to apologize.

Its not that she admits that what Minji did is right and nor is she afraid of her. But she’s the soon to be CEO and she needs to handle the situation calmly and profesionally. Minji is not the first celebrity with the diva syndrome that she had ever encounter. She works in a broadcast company, she met handful of celebrities every day.

“Y/N, you dont have to-”

“Let go of my hand Jungkook-ssi. Please respect Minji-ssi’s feelings. Afterall, I am no one important to you,”

Y/N shrugged off her hand from Jungkook’s grip and went out to find another staff to assist the recording, leaving Jungkook speechless. ——————

“Miss, are you okay?” A staff rushed after her.

“Yeah I’m fine Jin Hee. But please assign two of the senior staff to assist the recording ya. We need to make sure this project runs smoothly,” she smiles at her staff. She nodded quickly.

“Aish, what a diva! Its not like she’s Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Dont she know who you are miss?” Jin Hee huffed. Y/N shakes her head.

“She doesn’t and its fine. And dont say that. Be profesional okay. Now go,”

“Miss, you are really too nice for your own good,” Y/N just chuckle to that. She grabbed her files and move towards her office. Oh well, she can just monitor the show from the updates then.

Y/N decided to take an early day and just go home. She entered her office to grab her jacket and purse and her smile turn wide by what’s waiting in her office. All her worries seems to flew away.

“Hello miss CEO. Want to grab lunch with me?”

“You will never find a day where I will say no to that, Minghao,”

——————–

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Jungkook screamed at his so called girlfriend. Once Y/N went out from the room, Jungkook immediately drag Minji outside to knock some sense into her.

“What do you mean Kookie? Everything I said in there was true. How can a mere production staff treat you and your oppas like that? And how dare she flirt with you?! You are my boyfriend Kookie! Right in front of my eyes!”

“Urghhhh. Just shut up Minji. Dont you know who she is? She’s the freaking soon to be CEO of this company!” Minji mouth dropped open.

“Wh..what?”

“And even if she’s not, even if she’s just a production staff, why is it a crime for her to be friendly to us? We are just idols Minji. This is just our job. We are not Gods! And my hyungs and I are fucking friends with her!!” Jungkook is losing it.

Minji’s mouth open and close like a fish, speechless. “Fine. Maybe I was wrong about that. But it still doesnt give her the right to flirt with you Kookie! You are my boyfriend!”

“She wasn’t flirting!!” Jungkook screamed. “I would know. And even if she is, so what? That would be the happiest day of my life is she did!”

“Wha..what? What the hell did you just say? What do you mean by that Kookie?”

“Shut up. Just shut up! And stop calling me that. I hate it when you call me that. Arghhh, I don’t know anymore. I just need to get away from you!” Jungkook screamed once more and stormed off. He needs to find Y/N and explain things. What should he be explaining, he himself doesn’t know, but he just knows he needs to see her now.

He was worried and panicking. Is Y/N okay? She seems like she didn’t care back there. Does she really not care about me anymore? Jungkook pushed the thoughts away and focus on finding her.

He stormed into the huge cafeteria. With not so many people around since its past lunch hour, he saw her at a secluded corner, but she’s not alone. Sitting across of her, wiping crumbs from her chin while she’s happily laughing is Minghao. Xu freaking Minghao. Dont get him wrong, Jungkook loves all his friendd very much. He even treasures their friendship but when it comes to Y/N… its a totally different issue.

Losing all rational thoughts, Jungkook stormed into their direction and grab Y/N’s hand.

“Hey, Jungkook. What are you doing he-” Minghao greeted his friend but was rudely cut off.

“Y/N I need to talk to you. Please,” he then turned to Minghao who starts to stand up, confusion in his eyes at Jungkook’s action. “And it would be wise if you do not interfere. This is between me and her,”

———————————————————– Chapter 10 preview

“What is really going on between you and Jungkook, Y/N? Please tell me the truth. Please, please, tell me that I won’t be losing you to him,”

//////

“All my life, all I know is how to love him. I never thought I would know how to do anything else. Until I met you Minghao. I think I’m finally ready to learn something new…”

[capricornzoso-blog]

V/Taehyung's Natal Aspects

Planets in Houses*

Sun House 8

Moon House 12

Mercury House 9

Venus House 9

Mars House 9

Jupiter House 7

Saturn House 11

Uranus House 9

Neptune House 9

Pluto House 6

Node House 5

Positions of Houses

House 1 6°21' Gemini

House 2 0°13' Cancer

House 3 21°51' Cancer

House 4 15°35' Leo

House 5 15°31' Virgo

House 6 24°29' Libra

House 7 6°21' Sagittarius

House 8 0°13' Capricorn

House 9 21°51' Capricorn

House 10 15°35' Aquarius

House 11 15°31' Pisces

House 12 24°29' Aries

* Planet/ * *Aspect * * Planet/ * * ORB *

* Point * * Point#2 *

Mars Conjunction Neptune 1°48'

Mercury Conjunction Uranus 2°14'

Mercury Conjunction Neptune 2°23'

Mercury Conjunction Mars 4°11'

Venus Conjunction MC 5°06'

Mars Conjunction Uranus 6°26'

Sun Conjunction Jupiter 8°58'

Pluto Opposite AS 4°27'

Moon Square Neptune 0°34'

Moon Square Mercury 1°49'

Moon Square Mars 2°22'

Moon Square Uranus 4°04'

Moon Trine Jupiter 3°53'

Venus Trine AS 4°07'

Uranus Trine AS 7°05'

Uranus Sextile Pluto 2°38'

Mars Sextile Saturn 3°31'

Mercury Sextile Pluto 4°53'

Saturn Sextile Neptune 5°20'

Sun Inconjunction AS 1°42'

Mars SesquiQuadrate AS 1°27'

Sun Quintile Saturn 0°46'

Moon BiQuintile Pluto 0°42'

Here, the aspects with the smallest orbs will be the most prominent in influencing V's personality and life, ofcourse as I stated earlier major aspects like the conjunction hold more effect at 10° than an exact(less than 1° orb) minor aspect like a quintile. The most important thing would be the aspects that a planet forms in a birthchart, then the house that the planet occupies and then the least important is the zodiac sign in which the planet is situated. For example-Someone with a Pisces moon(often regarded as a soft and whimpy moon sign) square Mars and conjunct Pluto(Both of them co-rulers of the dangerous and manipulative Scorpio sign/8th house) in the 1st house(ascendant, our image projected towards the outer world) at 0° exact would not be soft and wimpy like other Pisces Moons, if not at all. Ofcourse, it could retain some of the characteristics of a Pisces moon but on most occasion, that person would show Mars and Pluto more often than Pisces.

Also Important is the chart ruler or the ruler planet of the ascendant sign, for V it would be mercury since mercury rules Gemini, his ascendant. All aspects formed to Mercury would be much more prominent

.

Astrology is withheld to no single human being or entity. As we go on, we gather knowledge from others, but that knowledge is not ours to keep so we cannot put restrains on it.

Of course we ought to respect someone's intellectual property and not demean it via unlawfull use and plagiarism.(I am not going to sue you don't worry)

All of us are human and have fallacies, I or you,my reader are no better a person than my subject.

So off we go-

Mars Conjunct Neptune

(My sister has this too, exact. I know)

People with this aspect have delusions about themselves and their life, they often fantasise about accomplishing their dreams but fail when they have to put it into action, because they give up before they can complete it. Procastination is also a possibility, so is the possibilty of extreme passiveness, they are often late when meeting deadlines. If you told them they have weird fantasies and/or that they are delusional, they are rarely going to accept it. Self-deception is quite common. These people should be carefull not to engage in occult phenomenon or with mediums and psyshics, they can quite easily come under psychic attack by negative entities, they lack physical boundaries and their physical space is often invaded by other people without their consent. On the plus side, they can have great artistic talent and could be good at water sports including swimming. Since this conjunction occurs in the 9th house, we will see V behaving like this in an educative environment(he probably wasn't a dilligient student who always did their home work on time. Lol everybody is like that)or while travelling. Their is some danger from water while travelling.

Mercury Conjunct Uranus

A sharp mind, lightning sharp wit. He always comes up with the quirkiest of ideas and since Uranus(the planet of innovation and progress) is conjunct his chart ruler mercury, this aspect is very integral to his personality. He hates old or conventional methods of thinking. (Like if some man shaves with a razor, our V is going to shave with a scissor. Chill its an example.) He has many original ideas and his mind cannot stay still for more than a few seconds. He has the ability to comeback with witty one-liners in a conversation much faster than most people. He has a brilliant mind but needs to channelise his ideas into productive endeavours instead of just thinking 'em. He has a good sense of humour. He is a progressive thinker. Someastrology sites call this the genius aspect, the moniker is not undeserved as these people are brilliant at coming up with solutions a lot faster than me and you can. Their over-active brains however often result in distorted speech. They might think that they cannot express the ideas that they conceive, as they tend to forget them as quickly as coming up with them.

Mercury Conjunct Neptune

Another aspect for distorted speech, he has trouble accepting his insecurities and other people's criticism in favour of living in his own reality, this results in avoidance of telling on the truth in lieu of making up false stories or half-truths.( A friend with this aspect is incredibly insecure when voicing her opinion and often tends to take a diplomatic stance on every issue for fear of being ignored, she doesn't even notice this at times. )

On the plus and plump, he more likely than not has a good taste in artistic pursuits. This aspect also makes him sensitive to psychic phenomenon. He could even develop telepathical skills.

These people should be checked for going around a topic, avoiding a conclusion as they can have problems coming up with the exact thing they want to articulate.

Mercury Conjunct Mars

These people can be very aggressive when talking, especially when they feel someone has challenged them. They feel challenged most of the time BTW. You don't want to be around them when they are angry, with their scathing words they are going to make you feel like a total piece of shit... You cannot win a debate against them, they will run over you with a bulldozer. Shouting, Screaming and Swearing(for some) are extremely common occurances. They have the proverbial "mercurial" temper. Often the moniker "mercurial" is used to describe Guns n Roses frontman(lead singer) Axl Rose, famous, aside from his very talented singing ability, for leaving the stage whenever anyone did ANYTHING to displease him. He has a video on Youtube where whilst singing a man disturbs him. He is quick to jump off the more-than-7 feet tall stage into the crowd saying "Okay then Goddamnit", why? Because (In his words-"Thanks to to the lame ass security I am going home" ) *Throws Mic* he has this aspect too(at an10° orb)

Venus Conjunct MC-

The MC is our image to the public/our profession according to some astrologers, people with their Venus conjunct Midheaven or MC would express their sense of beauty, their taste in art and their values to the outside world or even integrate these into their workplace. They are likely to be preceived as beautifull and talented. In his case, he is precieved as knowledgeble in the industry's undertakings due to his sense of astistry. Industry insiders probably think he is an expert in the idol game. He likes to maintain an ambivalent environment and since his Venus is in Aquarius, he comes off as a mediator to his friends. He holds his values to himself in professional settings. Some people may find him somewhat of a do-the right-thing kind of person

Mars Conjunct Uranus

Very short-tempered but his temper falls down as soon as it rises up. You will never know when he would go off into a rage. He is extremely unpredictable, you will keep guessing but never know what he would do next. He is very progressive sexually and probably isn't quite okay with homophobia and racism on a sexual level.

At the same time, he tends to very erratic when using his energy. His drive to accomplish tasks at hand comes and goes at an unhealthy pace. He could at times experience severe bouts of hypochondria, doing one thing after another and then regressing like a sunflower at twilight.

Sun Conjunct Jupiter

This aspect makes V extremely optimistic, and LUCKY. Just when everybody is down with sorrow, he will light up the atmosphere with his positivity and confidence. Although, this aspect is mostly positive , we do observe some narcissistic tendencies here or even an inflasted sense of self. Overconfidence is more common however.

Pluto Opposite Ascendant/Pluto Conjunct Descendant

When a planet is opposite your ascendent, it is immediately conjunxt your descendant. The descendant is our behaviour is romantic or nonromantic committed relationships and partnerships. The descendant also provides a clue to the kind of partner we are attracted to or what kind of person is attracted to us. His descendant is conjunct Pluto, making him extremely Scorpionic in a one-on-one relationship. He is very controlling, like to know where you are at, what you are doing, manipulative to get what he wants from his business or romantic partners. He is extremely suspicious and its not easy to attain his trust but once you do, he will stand by you come rain and thunder. He is also very jealous and possessive of his romantic partners. He is a Scorpio in relationships or he could attract these kind of partners and relationships. He is the kind that will have your hair cut if some other guy compliments your hairstyle.😲 There is also the possibility of attracting dangerous and violent partners that want to control him, he could attract stalkers, obsessed people and/or criminals

Next time, we will be looking on to the other aspects .

Till then. ZoSo~♤

[slipteeha]

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Hitler wasnt a coward. In WW1 when the telephone lines were cut bexause the srtillery fire was so heavy a runner was called. That was Hitlers job. Its one perk was he didnt sleep in trenches. He ran around them all day but slept in a more traditional barracks. He was wounded, and also ended the war blinded from poison gas. Shen Chamberlin was touring the Berghof with Hitler in 1936 he was surprised at a giant painting of a WW1 British Tommy. Knowing Hitler had been a German soldier and also fought specifically against the British asked why he had the painting. Hitler lit up and explained that it was a picture of a Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt British soldier (it was, I forget his name but you can google this, Chamberlin called him when he got back to England and the man remembered the incident and rued he didnt shoot) who was a hero that Hitler encountered. In late 1918 Hitler was running a message and had just lost his weapon in a shell blast. He gathered himself and realized a British soldier was bearing down on him from about 40 feet with his Lee Enfield. Hitler thought it was his end and kinda just stood there.

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In the truck later, I was thumbing through it. Lots of great art there. We stopped so the boss could go inside his house and do whatever it was he did when we stopped there.         I got to the end pages, and then the back jacket. I was reading that, kinda like the liner notes on a record, but for a book. I’m reading it to the end, learning about the author when all the sudden a pike of money slides out. It just kept coming out. Bill after bill.. I could feel it was old. My hands felt kind of musty. I got scared. My ears were hot. I couldn’t think so good. I bundled the wad of cash up, tucked it into my Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt. Here comes the boss. Back on the job I’m sweating it. What is this money? Who’s is it? Is this some kind of test? Is it God? It is X Mass time… I went inside the outhouse and counted out $1137.00. I never told anyone about it outside of my family for years. I was afraid soneone would claim it. I’d be branded a bad guy. It sure made a poor ass families Christmas that year though.

Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt, Hoodie, Sweater, Vneck, Unisex and T-shirt

Corgis are beautiful, loyal, intelligent, fun-loving, calm, sweet-tempered, and all-around amazing dogs. The spirit and heart of a big dog inside the body of a little dog. They love to play, yet they also live to lie there quietly while you rub their little tummies. Those stubby little legs and adorable little butts- omg, they will melt your heart every single day. Perfect dogs for first time dog owners, but challenging enough for Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt experienced dog owners. They will train you almost as much as you train them. Those big brown eyes…! Lord in heaven tho, they shed fur- especially as they go from their winter coats to summer coats. They are also not robots who will obey every order. They have minds of their own but I like that about them. The best dog breed as far as im concerned. No wonder The Queen has always loved them!

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So holiday gone and i am hurt that she would cause a Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt to my family or anyone for no darn good reason and at xmas time to boot. well we still behaved as perfectly as we have been raised and only decided maybe i should ply her with baked sweets . well bless their young sweet hearts but im retired before her and no thanks on all that effort to win over someone so callously irrational and its not like she was lonely reaching out she had all kinds of guests cars parked over there we only had the mini bus she gets the “largest coal lump EVER SANTA”( And to think that the she said the previous nieghbors killed her pet? well perish the thought none of us would ever, but its no wonder and the other neighbors were white, go figure its not race but a class she thinks she needs to fear and try to drive away from her in one day lady malevolent next door idk but im sad for her to treat us this way i wanted so to make this a memorable holiday so the kids would want to spend it here. I no longer look forward to gardening out in my yard in the least as all i can do is feel like someone (her for one) is watching me not wanting me to be there. God dont like ugly, old lady who lives next door, and that was some xmas BUNK you really could’ve just kept for yourself.

(Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt)

I flung the mouse to the ground and jumped down. I got my paw around it and shot it up the cat tree. It landed on the 4th level. I jumped up to it from the floor to the 4th level, swatted the mouse through the cubby hole leading to the 5th level and then went through the hole myself to the top level of the cat tree. I shot that mouse back and forth time and Official Vintage 1977 Cassette Tape 44th Birthday Shirt 44 Years Old Shirt again between my paws. I finally threw it back to the floor and purposefully did another gallop to try to impress them. I figured a good cat should not only be sweet and like to get picked up but should also be able to show true hunting skills through play and look cute by galloping.

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Now You See Gemma Chan

Moving between blockbusters and indie hits, Gemma Chan has kept one foot in stardom and one in anonymity. But this year, she's going famous full time.

BY ,ALICE WIGNALL 06/01/2021

When is a celebrity not a celebrity? When you’re Gemma Chan, of course – or so says Gemma Chan. ‘I don’t think of myself like that at all,’ she says. ‘My life is fairly low-key.’ What, because you don’t drive a gold Cadillac? She laughs. ‘I don’t live in a mansion, I don’t have an assistant,’ she says. ‘All that kind of stuff.’ Beauty Truths With Gemma Chan by Elle UK Previous VideoPlayNext VideoUnmute Current Time 0:39 / Duration 6:34 Loaded: 25.84% Fullscreen CLICK TO UNMUTE I remain unconvinced, and mount my counterargument, ticking off the evidence on my fingers: one, a starring role in an enormous movie franchise (Sersi in Eternals, part of the world-conquering juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, due for release in late 2020 but Covid-delayed until late 2021); two, a new contract with L’Oréal Paris as an international spokesperson; and, three, another recently announced UK ambassador role with Unicef. Guaranteed blockbuster, cosmetics contract, high-profile charity patron: this is the star-making Big Three; the trifecta of global fame. Come on, I say. This year, your face is going to be everywhere. ‘Er, yeah,’ she says, looking genuinely quite alarmed. MARCIN KEMPSKI Chan's path to this point has been one of steady progress, rather than precipitous acceleration, which is maybe why she finds it hard to contemplate the quantum leap her career is about to take. At 38, and with more than a decade and a half of experience behind her, she’s done it all: BBC bit parts (including Doctor Who and Sherlock) and a breakout TV role in Channel 4’s Humans; high-brow theatre and big-budget films (in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and, indeed, a previous Marvel movie, as the sniper Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel. The two characters are unrelated but, as she points out, ‘I was painted blue for that whole job, so it’s not like I’m very recognisable’), but nothing on a scale likely to upend her life. The closest she’s come to that so far is her performance as Astrid in 2018’s surprise smash hit Crazy Rich Asians, which made $238.5m against a budget of $30m and became the top-earning romantic comedy of the Noughties. ‘[Because] Crazy Rich Asians did so well internationally, I definitely felt a shift at that time,’ Chan says. ‘Like, on the Captain Marvel press tour, not being able to walk through [Singapore] airport. Then again, things have settled and the slight craziness of that time has gone away. I do feel like I can – touch wood – go about my life normally now.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI The biggest impact, she says, was professional: ‘Before Crazy Rich Asians, I wasn’t being considered for lead roles in feature films. There [is] a very select group of actors in that pool and I wouldn’t even get an audition, I wasn’t in that conversation. Whereas now... I’m being talked about for certain things and then you may meet the director, or you at least get to have your shot. So that feels a bit different.’ Her most recent project is certainly the kind of job you can imagine being fought over in casting rooms around the world: hey, how would you like to get on a luxury cruise liner with acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh and a killer cast including, oh, I don’t know, Meryl Streep and make an intelligent comedy drama about betrayal, responsibility and enduring love? Who wouldn’t? But Chan was the one who was picked for Let Them All Talk, which was filmed on board the Queen Mary 2 as it crossed the Atlantic from New York to Southampton. It tells the story of a lionised novelist, played by Streep on magisterial form, en route to collect a prestigious writing award in England, accompanied by two old friends and her nephew. Chan is her recently promoted literary agent, who has also bought a ticket for the crossing, in the hope that she can clandestinely find out what her secretive client’s much-anticipated next book is about. I wasn’t being considered for lead roles in feature films ‘Obviously I jumped at the chance,’ says Chan. ‘It was a dream project.’ Though not a stress-free one: ‘A lot of the dialogue was improvised,’ says Chan. ‘There’s a scene, a lunch in New York with Meryl, which was actually the first scene that I shot. So I arrived on set and the restaurant was full of 200 extras; you could hear a pin drop. I went in and sat down, then Meryl came in and sat down, and we just had to improvise a scene. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a clenched bum! I was petrified. There I am, with possibly the greatest actress of all time, and... “Action!”’ There is an alternate timeline, of course, in which Chan genuinely isn’t famous. If she’d followed the path that her early years suggested, her current life would be, if not stress-free, less likely to include head-to-heads with multi-time Oscar winners. MARCIN KEMPSKI Raised in Kent to Chinese parents, she attended an academically selective school before studying law at Oxford. She also played violin to a high standard and swam competitively at a national level. All in all, the perfect image of a relentless high-achiever, bound for success in a stable career – until she took a post-graduation gap year swerve into acting, at first with evening classes, then a full-time course. Even now – when the gamble has decisively paid off – she sounds tentative when discussing her original ambitions to act. She did some am-dram at school, ‘but never thought, I could do this for a job.’ Embarking on her acting studies, the idea of a career was there, but ‘at the back of my mind’. That might be because this period of Chan’s life was fraught: her parents were alarmed that she declined a training contract with a prestigious London law firm, and thought she was making a mistake. Perhaps she still finds it hard to unequivocally state that the path she chose is not one they initially approved of. ‘The key for both of them and therefore for myself, and my sister, was the importance of education,’ she says. ‘It allowed my father to have a completely different life to his father, mother and some of his brothers and sisters. Both of my parents are immigrants who came from very humble backgrounds,’ she adds. ‘They definitely instilled in me a work ethic from a young age and a sense of, “The world doesn’t owe you a living, you have to make your own way.” At one point in my dad’s childhood, he was homeless. My amah, his mum, raised six kids on her own. They had absolutely nothing, they lived in a shack on a hillside in Hong Kong. I’m one generation away from that.’ You can sense the shadow of the lawyer she could have been when she talks, and almost hear the weighing up of pros and cons she has done to determine what steps to take. Of L’Oréal Paris, she says: ‘I have been a little bit cautious when it comes to brand partnerships and things like that. I wanted to wait till it felt like it was right. [I chose] L’Oréal because the brand stands for uplifting women and empowerment and they have a strong philanthropic side to what they do, such as their partnership with The Prince’s Trust.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI She talks about carefully considering joining the Marvel universe, knowing it could mean giving over a share of the next 10 years of her life (‘You’re not signing up for one film, because they have additional films and spin-offs and they cover themselves’). She chooses her words with utmost caution when talking about Eternals: ‘Marvel is pretty strict about these kinds of things and I’ve got an non-disclosure agreement like that,’ she says, miming a massive wodge of a legal document. She insists that alongside this diligence there’s a flip side to her personality: ‘I have a slightly rebellious nature. I wasn’t always the best behaved and, yeah, I do work hard but I’m also quite chaotic. Hopefully I’ve found a bit of balance but when I was younger I was like, “I’ll leave it as late as I can, then I’ll pull an all-nighter.” That’s kind of the person I was.’ It’s impossible to tell if this ‘rebellious’ streak would register on most people’s radars, or if it was only noticeable in the context of her own – or her family’s – high standards. I suspect you’d have to know her very well to find out, and she’s far too protective of her private life to make peeking through the veil a possibility. Despite – or perhaps because of – two long-term relationships with high-profile men (she dated comedian Jack Whitehall from 2011 to 2017, and has been in a relationship with actor Dominic Cooper since 2018), she doesn’t discuss her personal life. It’s not exactly a state secret – she makes mention of ‘my partner’ when talking about what she did in the first lockdown (volunteering pretty much full-time for her friend Lulu Dillon’s charity, Cook 19, delivering meals to London hospitals) and Cooper makes the odd appearance on her Instagram account – but she’s certainly not going to give rolling updates on her romantic life. Anything I share could become a story on a slow news day ‘Over 10 years, you learn the importance of privacy, what you choose to share and what you don’t. When you start out, you don’t even know what is important to keep for yourself – I didn’t anyway – whereas now I think there are certain things that I absolutely know, “That’s mine and it’s private.” For me, my comfort level is to have a clear distinction between what is for me and what I’m happy to talk about.’ I ask if she’s had any bad experiences with the press. ‘Nothing too horrendous, but some experiences of not having my wits about me. I’m aware now that anything I say could become a clickbait headline – well, on a slow news day.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI (As if to prove her point, in the week that we talk, Jack Whitehall makes headlines in multiple news outlets in the UK – and, indeed, around the world – for making an off-hand comment in an episode of his Netflix show that he ‘could have got married’ to Chan, but he ‘f*cked up my chance of that’. And, given that this was midway through a global pandemic, it wasn’t even a particularly slow news day.) What she's happy to share on her social media – in fact, what makes up the bulk of her feeds – are her thoughts on a range of social and political subjects, from domestic abuse campaigns, to equal access to education, to Black Lives Matter, to protesting against anti-Asian racism. Which doesn’t always go down well: ‘Every time you say anything political, if it’s in the most uncontroversial way, you’ll be criticised for it; you need to be prepared for that. Every time I post something [like that], I lose followers, so it’s probably not the best business sense...’. But she’s not going to stop: ‘I want to highlight things that are important to me but without preaching. I’m still working it out, how to be an advocate in the most effective way.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI I ask if she feels hopeful about the future, given the myriad challenges she mentions. She pauses. ‘I’ve definitely struggled and felt hopeless,’ she says. ‘I think most of us have realised how powerless we are in terms of the day-to- day governing of our [country]. There no longer seems to be any accountability; there’s a lack of shame. Things that a minister or an advisor would have resigned for 10 years ago, now there are no repercussions. That’s incredibly frustrating, especially when people’s lives are at stake. But, I do have hope – mainly because of the next generation. They’re more politically aware than I was, more involved. Often in the media the most boorish voices seem to monopolise headlines, but actually there are decent people who want to make things better for their fellow humans. There are more of them than youmight think. During the pandemic, obviously it was a terrible time, but there were things that sprung up on a local community level of people trying to help each other. That was encouraging.’ Every time you say anything political, you’ll be criticised for it And, of course, last year Black Lives Matter protests pushed questions about race and identity to the forefront as never before. How does Chan feel about her own role in increasing representation as a British Asian? ‘I get moments where I think, I wish we didn’t have to talk about race anymore. In the same way I wish we didn’t have to talk about why it’s unusual to have a female lead. Why is it still the exception? Why is it still so unusual to have half of the human race being centred in these stories? It seems ridiculous to still be flagging that as a talking point.’ She talks about a structure that actor Riz Ahmed has described: on tier one, a minority actor will play stereotypical, reductive roles. On tier two, your race is still prominent, but the character is nuanced and well-rounded. ‘And the holy grail is tier three, where you’re just viewed as a human. But, while we’re still working towards that goal of much more equal representation, it’s going to be something that we have to be more consciously aware of, and it is going to be part of the conversation.’ It’s a classic Gemma Chan answer. I can feel the burn of her frustration, and I see how she’s thought through her best approach. She’s got a goal, and she knows how to get there. MARCIN KEMPSKI As for her own goals – well, there’s a packed schedule ahead: when we talk, she’s about to join Florence Pugh and Chris Pine for director Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling. Then, when the pandemic allows, there are the delayed back-to-back shoots for Crazy Rich Asians 2 and 3, not to mention the release of Eternals. She’s also set up a production company, which is working on a range of projects focusing on ‘women whose stories haven’t been given their due, who are these unsung heroes of history’. She loves producing (‘You get a bit more control’), so much so that one day it might be all she does. ‘There may be a point where I want to take a step back from the acting side and, if the producing is established by then, that would be great.’ Hmm, I think. The thing about being globally famous is that once you are, it’s kind of hard to stop. But if anyone can manage blockbusters one month, normal life the next, it’s someone with a big brain, a ton of experience and her eye on the prize. Someone a bit like Gemma Chan. So, when is a celebrity not a celebrity? We might be about to find out. Gemma is an international spokesperson for L’Oréal Paris and the face of Revitalift Filler Day Cream. ELLE's February 2021 issue hits newsstands on January 7 2021.

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Now You See Gemma Chan

Moving between blockbusters and indie hits, Gemma Chan has kept one foot in stardom and one in anonymity. But this year, she's going famous full time.

BY ,ALICE WIGNALL 06/01/2021

When is a celebrity not a celebrity? When you’re Gemma Chan, of course – or so says Gemma Chan. ‘I don’t think of myself like that at all,’ she says. ‘My life is fairly low-key.’ What, because you don’t drive a gold Cadillac? She laughs. ‘I don’t live in a mansion, I don’t have an assistant,’ she says. ‘All that kind of stuff.’ Beauty Truths With Gemma Chan by Elle UK Previous VideoPlayNext VideoUnmute Current Time 0:39 / Duration 6:34 Loaded: 25.84% Fullscreen CLICK TO UNMUTE I remain unconvinced, and mount my counterargument, ticking off the evidence on my fingers: one, a starring role in an enormous movie franchise (Sersi in Eternals, part of the world-conquering juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, due for release in late 2020 but Covid-delayed until late 2021); two, a new contract with L’Oréal Paris as an international spokesperson; and, three, another recently announced UK ambassador role with Unicef. Guaranteed blockbuster, cosmetics contract, high-profile charity patron: this is the star-making Big Three; the trifecta of global fame. Come on, I say. This year, your face is going to be everywhere. ‘Er, yeah,’ she says, looking genuinely quite alarmed. MARCIN KEMPSKI Chan's path to this point has been one of steady progress, rather than precipitous acceleration, which is maybe why she finds it hard to contemplate the quantum leap her career is about to take. At 38, and with more than a decade and a half of experience behind her, she’s done it all: BBC bit parts (including Doctor Who and Sherlock) and a breakout TV role in Channel 4’s Humans; high-brow theatre and big-budget films (in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and, indeed, a previous Marvel movie, as the sniper Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel. The two characters are unrelated but, as she points out, ‘I was painted blue for that whole job, so it’s not like I’m very recognisable’), but nothing on a scale likely to upend her life. The closest she’s come to that so far is her performance as Astrid in 2018’s surprise smash hit Crazy Rich Asians, which made $238.5m against a budget of $30m and became the top-earning romantic comedy of the Noughties. ‘[Because] Crazy Rich Asians did so well internationally, I definitely felt a shift at that time,’ Chan says. ‘Like, on the Captain Marvel press tour, not being able to walk through [Singapore] airport. Then again, things have settled and the slight craziness of that time has gone away. I do feel like I can – touch wood – go about my life normally now.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI The biggest impact, she says, was professional: ‘Before Crazy Rich Asians, I wasn’t being considered for lead roles in feature films. There [is] a very select group of actors in that pool and I wouldn’t even get an audition, I wasn’t in that conversation. Whereas now... I’m being talked about for certain things and then you may meet the director, or you at least get to have your shot. So that feels a bit different.’ Her most recent project is certainly the kind of job you can imagine being fought over in casting rooms around the world: hey, how would you like to get on a luxury cruise liner with acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh and a killer cast including, oh, I don’t know, Meryl Streep and make an intelligent comedy drama about betrayal, responsibility and enduring love? Who wouldn’t? But Chan was the one who was picked for Let Them All Talk, which was filmed on board the Queen Mary 2 as it crossed the Atlantic from New York to Southampton. It tells the story of a lionised novelist, played by Streep on magisterial form, en route to collect a prestigious writing award in England, accompanied by two old friends and her nephew. Chan is her recently promoted literary agent, who has also bought a ticket for the crossing, in the hope that she can clandestinely find out what her secretive client’s much-anticipated next book is about. I wasn’t being considered for lead roles in feature films ‘Obviously I jumped at the chance,’ says Chan. ‘It was a dream project.’ Though not a stress-free one: ‘A lot of the dialogue was improvised,’ says Chan. ‘There’s a scene, a lunch in New York with Meryl, which was actually the first scene that I shot. So I arrived on set and the restaurant was full of 200 extras; you could hear a pin drop. I went in and sat down, then Meryl came in and sat down, and we just had to improvise a scene. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a clenched bum! I was petrified. There I am, with possibly the greatest actress of all time, and... “Action!”’ There is an alternate timeline, of course, in which Chan genuinely isn’t famous. If she’d followed the path that her early years suggested, her current life would be, if not stress-free, less likely to include head-to-heads with multi-time Oscar winners. MARCIN KEMPSKI Raised in Kent to Chinese parents, she attended an academically selective school before studying law at Oxford. She also played violin to a high standard and swam competitively at a national level. All in all, the perfect image of a relentless high-achiever, bound for success in a stable career – until she took a post-graduation gap year swerve into acting, at first with evening classes, then a full-time course. Even now – when the gamble has decisively paid off – she sounds tentative when discussing her original ambitions to act. She did some am-dram at school, ‘but never thought, I could do this for a job.’ Embarking on her acting studies, the idea of a career was there, but ‘at the back of my mind’. That might be because this period of Chan’s life was fraught: her parents were alarmed that she declined a training contract with a prestigious London law firm, and thought she was making a mistake. Perhaps she still finds it hard to unequivocally state that the path she chose is not one they initially approved of. ‘The key for both of them and therefore for myself, and my sister, was the importance of education,’ she says. ‘It allowed my father to have a completely different life to his father, mother and some of his brothers and sisters. Both of my parents are immigrants who came from very humble backgrounds,’ she adds. ‘They definitely instilled in me a work ethic from a young age and a sense of, “The world doesn’t owe you a living, you have to make your own way.” At one point in my dad’s childhood, he was homeless. My amah, his mum, raised six kids on her own. They had absolutely nothing, they lived in a shack on a hillside in Hong Kong. I’m one generation away from that.’ You can sense the shadow of the lawyer she could have been when she talks, and almost hear the weighing up of pros and cons she has done to determine what steps to take. Of L’Oréal Paris, she says: ‘I have been a little bit cautious when it comes to brand partnerships and things like that. I wanted to wait till it felt like it was right. [I chose] L’Oréal because the brand stands for uplifting women and empowerment and they have a strong philanthropic side to what they do, such as their partnership with The Prince’s Trust.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI She talks about carefully considering joining the Marvel universe, knowing it could mean giving over a share of the next 10 years of her life (‘You’re not signing up for one film, because they have additional films and spin-offs and they cover themselves’). She chooses her words with utmost caution when talking about Eternals: ‘Marvel is pretty strict about these kinds of things and I’ve got an non-disclosure agreement like that,’ she says, miming a massive wodge of a legal document. She insists that alongside this diligence there’s a flip side to her personality: ‘I have a slightly rebellious nature. I wasn’t always the best behaved and, yeah, I do work hard but I’m also quite chaotic. Hopefully I’ve found a bit of balance but when I was younger I was like, “I’ll leave it as late as I can, then I’ll pull an all-nighter.” That’s kind of the person I was.’ It’s impossible to tell if this ‘rebellious’ streak would register on most people’s radars, or if it was only noticeable in the context of her own – or her family’s – high standards. I suspect you’d have to know her very well to find out, and she’s far too protective of her private life to make peeking through the veil a possibility. Despite – or perhaps because of – two long-term relationships with high-profile men (she dated comedian Jack Whitehall from 2011 to 2017, and has been in a relationship with actor Dominic Cooper since 2018), she doesn’t discuss her personal life. It’s not exactly a state secret – she makes mention of ‘my partner’ when talking about what she did in the first lockdown (volunteering pretty much full-time for her friend Lulu Dillon’s charity, Cook 19, delivering meals to London hospitals) and Cooper makes the odd appearance on her Instagram account – but she’s certainly not going to give rolling updates on her romantic life. Anything I share could become a story on a slow news day ‘Over 10 years, you learn the importance of privacy, what you choose to share and what you don’t. When you start out, you don’t even know what is important to keep for yourself – I didn’t anyway – whereas now I think there are certain things that I absolutely know, “That’s mine and it’s private.” For me, my comfort level is to have a clear distinction between what is for me and what I’m happy to talk about.’ I ask if she’s had any bad experiences with the press. ‘Nothing too horrendous, but some experiences of not having my wits about me. I’m aware now that anything I say could become a clickbait headline – well, on a slow news day.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI (As if to prove her point, in the week that we talk, Jack Whitehall makes headlines in multiple news outlets in the UK – and, indeed, around the world – for making an off-hand comment in an episode of his Netflix show that he ‘could have got married’ to Chan, but he ‘f*cked up my chance of that’. And, given that this was midway through a global pandemic, it wasn’t even a particularly slow news day.) What she's happy to share on her social media – in fact, what makes up the bulk of her feeds – are her thoughts on a range of social and political subjects, from domestic abuse campaigns, to equal access to education, to Black Lives Matter, to protesting against anti-Asian racism. Which doesn’t always go down well: ‘Every time you say anything political, if it’s in the most uncontroversial way, you’ll be criticised for it; you need to be prepared for that. Every time I post something [like that], I lose followers, so it’s probably not the best business sense...’. But she’s not going to stop: ‘I want to highlight things that are important to me but without preaching. I’m still working it out, how to be an advocate in the most effective way.’ MARCIN KEMPSKI I ask if she feels hopeful about the future, given the myriad challenges she mentions. She pauses. ‘I’ve definitely struggled and felt hopeless,’ she says. ‘I think most of us have realised how powerless we are in terms of the day-to- day governing of our [country]. There no longer seems to be any accountability; there’s a lack of shame. Things that a minister or an advisor would have resigned for 10 years ago, now there are no repercussions. That’s incredibly frustrating, especially when people’s lives are at stake. But, I do have hope – mainly because of the next generation. They’re more politically aware than I was, more involved. Often in the media the most boorish voices seem to monopolise headlines, but actually there are decent people who want to make things better for their fellow humans. There are more of them than youmight think. During the pandemic, obviously it was a terrible time, but there were things that sprung up on a local community level of people trying to help each other. That was encouraging.’ Every time you say anything political, you’ll be criticised for it And, of course, last year Black Lives Matter protests pushed questions about race and identity to the forefront as never before. How does Chan feel about her own role in increasing representation as a British Asian? ‘I get moments where I think, I wish we didn’t have to talk about race anymore. In the same way I wish we didn’t have to talk about why it’s unusual to have a female lead. Why is it still the exception? Why is it still so unusual to have half of the human race being centred in these stories? It seems ridiculous to still be flagging that as a talking point.’ She talks about a structure that actor Riz Ahmed has described: on tier one, a minority actor will play stereotypical, reductive roles. On tier two, your race is still prominent, but the character is nuanced and well-rounded. ‘And the holy grail is tier three, where you’re just viewed as a human. But, while we’re still working towards that goal of much more equal representation, it’s going to be something that we have to be more consciously aware of, and it is going to be part of the conversation.’ It’s a classic Gemma Chan answer. I can feel the burn of her frustration, and I see how she’s thought through her best approach. She’s got a goal, and she knows how to get there. MARCIN KEMPSKI As for her own goals – well, there’s a packed schedule ahead: when we talk, she’s about to join Florence Pugh and Chris Pine for director Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling. Then, when the pandemic allows, there are the delayed back-to-back shoots for Crazy Rich Asians 2 and 3, not to mention the release of Eternals. She’s also set up a production company, which is working on a range of projects focusing on ‘women whose stories haven’t been given their due, who are these unsung heroes of history’. She loves producing (‘You get a bit more control’), so much so that one day it might be all she does. ‘There may be a point where I want to take a step back from the acting side and, if the producing is established by then, that would be great.’ Hmm, I think. The thing about being globally famous is that once you are, it’s kind of hard to stop. But if anyone can manage blockbusters one month, normal life the next, it’s someone with a big brain, a ton of experience and her eye on the prize. Someone a bit like Gemma Chan. So, when is a celebrity not a celebrity? We might be about to find out. Gemma is an international spokesperson for L’Oréal Paris and the face of Revitalift Filler Day Cream. ELLE's February 2021 issue hits newsstands on January 7 2021.

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