#the good shit! the REAL betrayal accept no imitations

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

Arthur The Ventriloquist Penn is definitely not meant to be a parental figure to Oswald, despite that being said back when season five started by people working on the show.

The reasons for my disagreement being: Oswald already had a mom and a dad.

Oswald looked at Carmine Falcone like a father, he even to a similar yet mostly gay extent admired Jim Gordon. These things are important because Oswald has an obvious respect for men that he admires or sees as a sort of or complete father figure.

He treated Arthur like garbage, he treated him like he hated him most of the time. Which makes no sense if he respects him or sees him as a parent.

Arthur to me is an obvious Ed replacement, to a small extent in season four but to a much larger degree in the final season of the show.

Mr. Penn reminds me of Ed in the first and some of the second season of the show: both men tend to dress in a way that is bland, they stick to muddy colors that appear to cause them to blend in with their surroundings, their clothes often looking cheap, and ill fitted for their thin frames. Penn like Ed before he became The Riddler is socially awkward and often seems nervous, falling into being a “jittery loser” as Oswald referred to the Ed he first met. Penn just like Ed in the first half of season three cares possibly too much about pleasing Oswald and earning his praise and validation which we see primarily in season five, except unlike Ed he doesn’t get it.

Oswald loves Ed, he doesn’t love Arthur. Arthur is a pale imitation of Edward from the “good days” before Oswald fell in love and before Ed betrayed him.

With season four when Oswald finds out that Penn had been working for the Falcones he was pissed, but much like Ed pretending to help Butch in early season three it’s a soft betrayal especially because we know Penn had no real malicious intent. So we see Penn back by Oswald’s side, except being treated worse now.

I think Oswald took out a lot of his frustration and anger he had towards everything that had happened with Ed out on Arthur, he makes sure to never treat Arthur good like he had Ed, in fact he treats him like he’s not even a person. Just a thing that he owns. I’m not saying what they had was romantic and definitely wasn’t sexual, but the tensions and subtext of Oswald and Arthur feels like a romantic relationship, it feels like a twisted not right version of what he wanted with Ed. To live in city hall, the place him and Ed had once claimed before everything went to shit, running the guns and a good chunk of the city, even down to owning a dog albeit Ed definitely would not have let Oswald name their dog Ed. Except he isn’t sharing any of this with Ed, instead he has Arthur who seems like an older pathetic version of the Ed he had met years prior.

Even when Arthur dies Oswald isn’t incredibly upset, he’s bothered by it but it isn’t a death that haunts him because strangely enough Ed comes into his life soon after Arthur dies. Then when they settle into a new relationship we get an episode where Ed is annoyed by Oswald’s lack of commitment to building their submarine that Oswald named after his mother aka a way to claim it as his and his alone despite doing none of the work. The two bicker and Ed’s obviously hurt and upset by Oswald still after all this time being selfish and incapable of just being there when Ed needs him.

Then Arthur comes back with a puppet named Mr. Scar face and suddenly for me he’s a lot like Ed.

Ed became The Riddler because of Oswald and because of Oswald Arthur became Ventriloquist. Both villains have a personality disorder, both created an altar that is stronger and more bold than they themselves could be. Watching Arthur confront Oswald for the way he treated him, for the fact he didn’t even try and check for a pulse or heart beat or give him a burial but instead just left him there to be tossed onto the streets mirrors Ed’s season three pain at finding out Oswald’s obsessive selfishness lead to him having Isabella killed. What turned both men against Oswald were actions he took because he’s ultimately a selfish man.

I also like how Ed spends a lot of the time being irritated by Arthur and irritated to find out Oswald made another villain. That Oswald really hasnt changed. What cements Arthur as a rebound romance for me is that Oswald does end up faced with two men he had close ties to and hurt in different yet similar ways he confesses that he treats those in his life he cares about like shit. He treats people badly and pushes them away and he knows he’s doing it and he knows he’s alone because of the way that he is. As I said in another post, Oswald places people in boxes of what use they have to him, and a lot of times this results in those people hating him like we saw with Butch and Ivy and Barbara and Ed and Arthur. He could have had better and longer friendships or in Ed’s case a romance with these people if some part of his brain hadn’t slotted them in a box of “tool”.

The pentacle of this all being very gay and very much about romantic relationships is that after the puppet is....killed, Arthur is grateful to Oswald and also straddling his lap which is super gay, but also that Oswald seems like he would be willing to try to treat him like a person this time around....Then Ed kills Arthur when technically there was no cause to do especially because that could have triggered Oswald to turn on Ed. Ed explains Arthur was a lunatic and they needed to get rid of him, which I can’t argue with but Ed also is unpredictable in the same way as Ventriloquist. Ed explains that he accepts Oswald for who and what he is and that this thing of theirs works because Oswald accepts him as the trainwreck that he is. Oswald says maybe they are meant for each other and....all of that is gay.

Due to network interference it couldn’t be gay, but season five really drove it home as hard as they could. And Arthur was very very clearly a rebound romance and a placeholder until Ed came back into Oswald’s life.

Also just general shoutout to getting to see Ventriloquist in live action, like all of that was exactly how I would expect the puppet and character to look in real life.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, BREE! You’ve been accepted for the role of BIANCA. Admin Rosey: I think the first thing that came to mind was how powerfully you captured Bunny's voice, Bree. You. Absolutely. Killed it. Your plot points built upon one after the other which shows how you plan to lay the foundation for her and force her to grow, no matter how much she kicks up her heels about it. It can be difficult trying to force a character like Bunny to grow without taking away from what makes her so intriguing and fun, but wow. Am I so very glad to have her added to the ranks, ready to bring us chaos and absolute ruin. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Bree.

Age | Twenty.

Preferred Pronouns | She/her.

Activity Level | I’m studying engineering and running collegiately, so the short answer is that I’m not entirely sure. The long answer is that my activity will ebb and flow depending on my schedule; some weeks are easier than others. But I’ll do my damnedest to be around, even if that means firing off ugly-formatted replies on mobile (or having Rosey or Kiersten format them for me… we’ve done it before).

Timezone | CST.

How did you find the rp?  | English class my senior year of high school, with the help of Rosey (no, seriously). I’ve been watching from afar, and I couldn’t stay away.

Current/Past RP Accounts | here, here, and here

In Character

Character | Bianca; Bernadette “Bunny” Dupont

What drew you to this character? | Well… originally, I wrote her. But since that sounds like a cop-out and I can never pass up the opportunity to wax poetic about one of my literary children, I’ll bite. ;)

She’s a piece of work. No, not that kind of work, not artwork—given her art forging expertise, that would be a cliché, and neither I nor Bunny are particularly fond of those. I mean that she’s single-handedly both the easiest and the most difficult character I’ve ever written and, I might argue, will ever write. Self-absorbed and yet oddly self-aware, vulgar in the delicate way only someone with a face like hers could be, and so tenderly cruel it’s endearing—she’s awful, but writing her has never been an inkling as heavy as writing equally diabolical characters has been in the past. She’s somehow able to be a light-hearted character in an environment where that sort of label tends to be reserved for characters like Maeve, all flower petals and naivete and ripe for the slaughter—without encompassing any of that. I don’t know, maybe it’s her youthful appearance, maybe it’s her love of candy and strawberries and her tendency to act so much like a child, or maybe it’s that careful balance between what she appears to be, what she’d like to be, and who she is, but she manages to check off some boxes that appear at first glance to be mutually exclusive. She lacks any concrete ambition outside of being revered, yet she possesses the potential to climb, to do some terrible things, because of that unfocused ambition. Her selfishness makes her a target for manipulation while being an avid manipulator herself. Her priorities are bottoms-up and she’s hardly got what most would call a good head on her shoulders, but damn if she isn’t a coquettish kind of cunning.

I thought I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but I’m having trouble finding where to end. The point is, I love this little brat.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | Where do you see this character developing, and what kind of actions would you have them take to get there? 3 future plot ideas would be preferable.

Piss off, Picasso: It’s only fitting, I suppose, that a little girl so proficient at mocking her sister (and her friends) behind her doting parents’ backs should grow up and learn to put that art of imitation to good, more mature use in the mob. She’s got it all going for her, really; wealthy upbringing, an eye for detail, and a shameless disregard for plucking coins from the purses of others to feed her own greed—what could go wrong? Plenty. And while I’d definitely like to explore the aftermath of what might happen if she got sloppy and was found out, she’s got her fair share of trouble on her plate right now with her—er, bad publicity. So first, I’d like to see her do well. I’d like to see her get overconfident, make connections, be successful. Once she’s finished throwing her little tantrum about my next plot idea, she’ll probably be inclined to hone her skills, sell a few more paintings to get out of the hole she stumbled into. After all, respect isn’t earned in Bunny’s world; it’s bought.

Paparazzi: It’s not what it looks like. Come on, he isn’t even that cute. Bunny’s moment of weakness, if it can be called that, presents obvious potential for her to either pull herself up by the bootstraps (imagine) or dig herself even farther. This might be the first time she’s gotten into any real trouble, especially the kind that Daddy Dupont couldn’t fix, and she’s not going to handle it well. But her knee-jerk reaction should make for good comedy and some even better plots. How far will she go to prove that she’s still just as loyal to the Capulets as she’s always been (which is to say, not particularly?)? What other mistakes can she make? It’s time to get her pretty little hands dirty, I think. She’s too proud to ask her sister for help, but all bets are off when it comes to Cyrus. Hell, maybe even her connection to Boris can come into play here (counterproductive, probably).

This Is What Makes Us Girls: The relationship Bunny has with Maeve and Juliana is one of my favorite parts about her, because it’s one of the best means for me to flesh out and play with all of the different sides of Bunny. They’re a pretty integral part to the image she keeps up—both that of a dignified daughter and a girl still steeped in candy-lacquered youth, and it’s for that reason that her secret dislike/jealousy of them both is so… telling? Bunny’s conceited, sure, but she is—at her core—insecure. And insecure people—insecure teenage girls, although she’s aged out of that territory—do pretty terrible things. I want to explore the dynamic within this friend group. I want to see her sabotage something important to Juliana. I want to see her have Maeve do her bidding, see her put her friends in harm’s way. Betrayal doesn’t always call for bloodshed; sometimes cutting deep doesn’t call for a knife.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Eh… as much as I’d love to give the usual “yes, give me all the angst,” I’m not really sure that Bunny is the type of character whose death will serve a purpose/further the plot, to be honest. Only the good die young, and she’s anything but.

If at any point the plot calls for it, we can talk about it, but I don’t foresee her developing in such a way that I’d suggest it.

In Depth

What is your favorite place in Verona? |

That’s a stupid question, she thinks, smoothing out the hem of her skirt and settling contentedly into the plush armchair, half-business and half-play. It’s a copout, almost—the daytime equivalent of asking someone’s favorite color in truth or dare. It’s a wasted turn, a missed opportunity. If she wanted to write love letters to the streets of Verona, she’d pick up the noble art of journaling.

In any case, the answer was most certainly a harrowing tie between her clawfoot bathtub and the half of her king-sized bed farthest from the window—but that sounded so infantile even she might’ve quirked an eyebrow at such a response. This, she realizes, is what it’s like to grow older: to make terrible small talk over lukewarm tea and lie in more dignified ways than she had in her youth.

(She’s twenty-one years, two months, and three days old. This is middle age. This is melodrama.)

“There’s a little candy shop a few blocks from the foot of the Castelvecchio. Their chocolate-covered strawberries are to die for.”

What does your typical day look like?

She likes this one—likes the way it sounds like a question straight out of the magazines she reads in her near-infinite free time, all gloss and understated glamour. In fact, she’s spent a perhaps embarrassing amount of time crafting responses to such a question in the event that she were ever asked, and although this isn’t exactly the avenue she’d had in mind, it’ll do.

Let it never be said that Bunny Dupont cannot compromise.

“I like to wake before the sun,” she lies elegantly, matter-of-factly, knowing damn well that just this morning she’d slumbered until noon but eager to portray the image of a young woman with her shit thoroughly together. The corners of her pink lips turn up in a smile, as if the very thought of a sunrise sways her to cliché thoughts of new beginnings and second chances, of the kinds of phrases befitting the tacky dollar-store decorations Maeve collects like an old man does stamps. How very carpe diem of her.

“I wash my face, have a cup of tea, and try to get a bit of reading done.” When she puts it that way, it sounds quite a bit more like a sophisticated heiress devouring novels in the early morning light than the slightly-less-respectable-but-nonetheless-true alternative of a troublemaker surveying last night’s damage, pastries piled with whipped cream within arm’s reach.

“I like to meet my friends for brunch. Juliana and I are regulars at The Phoenix and the Turtle,” she says delicately, deliberate with her inclusion of the Capulet girl’s name and her exclusion of any others. “I’ll paint a bit in the afternoons…” The little blonde trails off, green eyes darting about as if calling the remainder of her routine to mind. The truth is that she’s already grown bored, and perhaps that’s her own fault; it can get exhausting, pretending to be responsible, truly exhausting—but playing pretend is too fun. “And home for dinner, always.”

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

She twirls a strand of cotton-blonde hair around her finger, a coy display of sheepishness befitting a schoolgirl. What was her biggest mistake? The question demands a certain sort of humility, a level of introspection and honesty she’s never had the need to stoop to in all her years as the Dupont family darling, and if she were a tad less shameless it might even be a little—what’s the word?—unnerving. There was a reason she’d been dutiful enough to go to church on Sundays with her father but had avoided the confessional like her mother avoided carbs, and that reason had nothing to do—okay, fine, but only a little— to do with an aversion to being on her knees.

But she’s nothing if not an opportunist, a performer, and she treads the line between timid and cruel when she remarks, “I held a Montague boy’s hand once. Went home and went through two bars of soap.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“Firing a gun,” Bunny admits, leaning in as if to let the intern in on a secret, “It’s harder than I expected. “Pulling the trigger, I mean. Takes a bit more pressure than they show you in the movies.” Leave it to her to turn such a grim discussion to something a bit less uncomfortable, a bit more palatable. Leave it to her to dodge the—well, difficult—questions. When have you failed? When have you struggled? How have you grown?

In two words: she hasn’t. (In another two: not yet.)

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

Lingering in the air like her favorite perfume was a rule oft-spoken and waiting to be broken: no politics, it’s simply not lady-like. Her father’s banks backed the Capulets, and where the money went, the Duponts surely followed. For all her selfishness and disdain for anything which drew the attention away from her and her needs, Bunny Dupont understood the necessity of these things—of petty grudges and not-so-petty crimes—for people like them. Wars, even wars like these, needed money: a lot of it.

“I don’t feel I know enough to say much about it,” she says carefully, the gleam in her green eyes looking more like a trick of the light and less like a clue. “I only wish there weren’t so much blood.”

Why? It left a nasty stain.

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here! This is OPTIONAL.

Headcanons:

When she was little, she wanted to be an actress or an only child: the former, she told her parents, and the latter, she told her sister.

Her hard liquor of choice is vodka, the flavored kind—the sweeter, the better. She’s mastered the art of taking shots of it with a straight face after many years of practice.

Strawberries are her favorite. Chocolate-covered, in champagne—you name it.

In high school, she got her kicks by scaring off boys who approached her to get a leg-up on wooing Juliana. So many potential suitors shot down, convinced that Cosimo would have them shipped off to some foreign land without their heads or their manhood.

Once, she promised Maeve she’d get her crush to ask her on a date. She was only half a virgin after that. He never called Maeve.

She’s a Gemini (May 30th).

[queerasart-blog]

Rubyfruit Jungle| Issue 2

Ruby fruit Jungle

by Audrey Karnicheff 

Molly Bolt is smart as a whip. A deadpan smartass who doesn’t care about being “natural”, about doing what girls are “supposed” to do. She doesn’t care for religion, either. Have you ever wondered if Mary and Joseph even liked each other, if they bickered? Molly did, because a Nativity Play in school is more an opportunity to produce realistic theatre than it is a sacred mission. Liking girls is not quite a cosmic reveal - her first kiss makes her stomach weird, the good kind of weird, that’s alright and that’s it. In fact, most of the book’s soul-searching regards her upbringing as an adopted child.

Molly seems invincible, with a reckless attitude - until, slowly, she’s on the verge of breaking, tired of being “written off” by those who stopped being her friends after she comes out to them. “Written off” by lovers who won’t accept the fact that themselves are girls who like girls. “Written off” because she uttered the word “lesbian”. She talks about her sexuality in passing, like she always does, because it’s a fact of life and not an abomination, not a betrayal of same-sex friendships, not a fundamental misunderstanding of men. She doesn’t shout it out loud for the whole world to hear, but she doesn’t lie, and her sexuality is not played for angst.

"Madam, I am a full-blooded, bona fide lesbian. As for the way I look, most lesbians I know look like any other woman. However, if you're hot for a truck driver I know just the place.”

Molly could have collapsed a thousand times, every time the all-American ideal slammed the door in her face. Her college scholarship doesn’t get renewed “for moral reasons” while her girlfriend is sent away on a conversion therapy.

But then Molly pulls herself together and moves forward. That no-nonsense attitude is what makes Molly a fresh, compelling character.

"Let's stop this shit. I love women. I'll never marry a man and I'll never marry a woman either. That's not my way. I'm a devil-may-care lesbian."

That’s why Rubyfruit Jungle stands out, because it’s not a book about a woman coming to terms with her sexuality. It’s a book about an unapologetic woman, not a stand-in for a young reader confused about sexuality, religion and morals.

Arguably, Molly Bolt isn’t a flag-bearer and expresses her annoyance of labels on several occasions.

“So now I wear this label 'Queer' emblazoned across my chest. Or I could always carve a scarlet "L" on my forehead. Why does everyone have to put you in a box and nail the lid on it?”

Rita Mae Brown shares many a thing with her heroine - her childhood, her academic background, her passion for latin… Unlike her heroine, Brown was heavily politicized in the 70s, first through student movements then as a part of the Lavender Menace. Brown was a key-figure of lesbian feminism, and took part in the writing of the manifesto “The Woman-Identified Woman”. While Brown’s commitment to second-wave feminism brought a lot of attention to the discriminations lesbians were facing, some parts of Rubyfruit Jungle show their age regarding its treatment of butch woman. Molly doesn’t seem to get that being a woman sometimes means having short hair and being buff, without wanting to resemble a man.

"That's the craziest, dumbass thing I ever heard tell of. What's the point of being a lesbian if a woman is going to look and act like an imitation man? Hell, if I want a man, I'll get the real thing not one of these chippies. I mean [...] the whole point of being gay is because you love women.”

It’s important to remain critical of most exclusive aspect of lesbian history to remind ourselves that the advancement of LGBT people in society must be the advancement of all LGBT people, not only those who happen to conform to society’s view of gender and sexuality.

Rubyfruit Jungle is a lesson of resilience and strength - albeit an individualistic one.