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hyenagurl · 8 months

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I haven’t really super analyzed/seen the twin peaks/fire walk with me stuff but I am super curious, what’s Laura Palmer’s whole thing? She seems interesting if not tragic & I love to hear people talk about characters they’re passionate about so I thought I’d pop by and ask!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING ill try to keep this thing as coherent as i can. basically when twin peaks starts out laura palmer is basically just the Dead Girl and it appears at first that there isnt going to be much depth to her. that shes a mystery to be solved. her corpse is discovered washed up on the beach wrapped in plastic, and it sets the stage for the whole first season of the show: Who Killed Laura Palmer? and its like okay its gonna just be a murder mystery, albeit a fun offbeat david lynch sort of mystery. the fact that the first few episodes have an almost parody sort of feel that was poking fun at soap operas at the time didnt help either.

but the show creeps along and its a lot more than that. every person in the small town of twin peaks is unraveling bc of her death, her closest friends and family most of all but even people who barely knew her and we spend plenty of time exploring how every person is reacting to it. it becomes clear even before the audience knows her and the circumstances of her death that it has left a huge hole in the town, and her absence is constantly felt in every episode. shes gone but shes very much there. before long shes as much the protagonist as Dale Cooper, the FBI agent who is working on her case. i dont wanna explain too much about the details of the process of him uncovering her life and her murder, both to avoid spoilers and bc its convoluted david lynch mind fuckery, but the deeper he gets into the case, he starts seeing visions of laura palmer, begging him to help her, aiding him where she can.

when her killer is revealed at the end of season 2, its a gut punch not bc its so much as a surprise but because there was plenty of foreshadowing as to who it is, and youre hoping that its not true because its just so awful but you cant look away. Dale Cooper travels to the Black Lodge, a sort of hell where souls in anguish go (its david lynch fuckery, my best approximation of it), and he sees there Laura Palmer’s “doppelgänger”: that is, the part of her that is still tormented by her horrible death, and has been stuck there the whole time the show has been creeping at its slow pace, and dale cooper has been stuck unraveling the mystery. and when he finds her there, she shrieks. she is shrieking not just with pain and horror but with pure, unadulterated rage at what as happened to her. she cant get out and there is no escape for her here and she didnt deserve it.

youtube

this is the scene. it wont spoil anything if you watch it, but i consider this scene to be what really made me so fascinated with laura palmer and i consider it to be almost the heart of the show. dale cooper finds her here, and this is where he becomes “trapped” in the Black Lodge; any person who shows fear in this hellish realm will have their souls destroyed and can never leave (again, lynch stuff). so this is where he remains until season 3, 25 years later.

but even that is only scratching the surface. after season two, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is released, as the prequel to the show. its here where we see Laura Palmer’s final week on earth and we see what she was really like. Again, I dont want to spoil it, but its here we really see that she knew her murderer and that she was being sexually abused by someone in her family, she was addicted to hard drugs and was promiscuous and leading a that double life completely unknown to her friends and family. as beloved as she was by people in her small town they had no idea the person she had really become and no idea of the agony she was suffering. not until it was too late.

now reading that its easy to think that this movie could have turned into an offensive, voyeuristic mess. but between lynch’s directing and sheryl lee’s phenomenal acting, the whole movie just aches with compassion for Laura Palmer. we’re with her every step of the way until the very last minute, and it manages this without showing any of the actual abuse or dehumanizing her (which since this came out in 1992 is very shocking to me).

and do you know what? when this movie came out, people MOCKED it at cannes’ film festival. they hated this movie, they thought it was campy, overwrought and goofy. and maybe some parts of it are, but it’s very clear that lynch intended this to be a very serious and compassionate look at a rape victim’s trauma.

theres a lot more, i mean you can write novels on the tv show alone, but when people talk about twin peaks they tend to talk more about lynch’s eerie imagery and less about laura palmer’s character, which is strange bc its such a potent emotional core of the show.

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reaperkiller · 3 months

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For Alex:

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

🍸 COCKTAIL GLASS — what is your oc's favorite alcoholic drink, if they can drink?

For Ryan:

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

For Dev:

🤔 THINKING FACE — what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms?

🖊️ BALLPOINT PEN — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos?

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

🤓 SMILING FACE WITH GLASSES — is your oc chatty or quiet? are they at ease in social situations, or are they more shy?

For Dev's unnamed brother:

💍 RING — does your oc have any piercings? do they want any (more) piercings?

🤩 FACE WITH STARRY EYES — is your oc a planner, or are they more spontaneous in their actions?

Hope this isn't too much!

ALEX.

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

YES!!! he plays the guitar and the piano [: wouldnt necessarily say he is like. theee single most talented guy ever. but he's pretty good at what he does. it's more for fun than for like. the purpose of producing music/being in a band/etc. fun little side hobby that kept him busy when he was still alive,,, maybe he will pick them up again one day. who knows!!!

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

he is left handed. he does Not know how to swim. and the scar on his nose is from when he ran into a kitchen counter when he was younger [:

🍸 COCKTAIL GLASS — what is your oc's favorite alcoholic drink, if they can drink?

i have never had alcohol before in my life so i really Cannot think of anything for this one WHDGSHJGHJS he wouldve loved a strong drink from time to time though i think,,, they wouldnt do a single thing to him now though. he could drink gasoline and be completely unbothered.

RYAN.

❤️ RED HEART — what are three of your oc's positive traits?

wouldnt necessarily say it's optimism, but more of a very carefree attitude about things?? very much an "it is what it is" kind of person. things happen. it sucks!!! you move on. of course it isnt always that easy but this outlook has helped her get through life relatively unscathed, and also helps her keep calm in stressful situations, which tends to help others around her stay calm too. her self confidence also helps with that 10000% you can insult her all you want but she knows she is better than you and is not afraid to tell you.

🐷 PIG FACE — what is your oc's favorite animal?

she LOVES a good frog. fascinating little slimy specimens, as she likes to call them. she has made so many earrings and tshirts with frogs on them that she wears almost every day.

DEV.

🤔 THINKING FACE — what are some of your oc's quirks/mannerisms?

she has a tendency to click her tongue a lot before starting a sentence. it's like. an on switch for her brain. the second she stops talking it's off again until next time she has something to say.

🖊️ BALLPOINT PEN — does your oc have any tattoos? do they want any (more) tattoos?

that is something im gonna have to spin around So much more to get a better description but like. what i have in mind for her so far is mostly very fine linework, lots of suns + moons. very ethereal. some tarot related,,, little lines and stars on her hands/fingers. are you seeing my vision.

💯 HUNDRED POINTS SYMBOL — share three random facts about your oc that others may not know.

she's allergic to cats,, she worked at a funeral home for a day and immediately quit the next day, and she absolutely LOVES eating sunflower seeds.

🤓 SMILING FACE WITH GLASSES — is your oc chatty or quiet? are they at ease in social situations, or are they more shy?

on account of having talked to ghosts most of her life, it's really helped her be more confident and easy going + VERY easy to talk to. she can strike up a conversation with pretty much anybody these days.

THE BROTHER! WHO STILL HAS NO NAME. SORRY.

💍 RING — does your oc have any piercings? do they want any (more) piercings?

he has two earrings in each ear and a nostril piercing [: he wants more, but it is very much against his better judgement bc he almost passed out after he got every single one of those piercings.

🤩 FACE WITH STARRY EYES — is your oc a planner, or are they more spontaneous in their actions?

much like his sister, he also sees ghosts but it's way less fun for him, they're more of a nuisance and are VERY annoying, to the point where he cannot sleep or even think sometimes. and because of that, he tends to act without thinking, which does lead to some problems, but it at least makes everything quiet for a little while.

#oc alex #oc dev #oc ryan #oc tag #< last one so i can sort it out later when he has a name [:#IT WASNT TOO MUCH AT ALL THANK YOU!!!

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isaacathom · 1 year

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ds9 time, s2e8 and s2e9

hellO? Hello! madame? madame! oh mon dieu. introduced staring dramatically out the window as the thunder rolls, simply sublime, madame. it a good outfit also. oh shes a queen. oh i love her. shes got such Verve. oh shes excellent. im like 80% sure she dies based on my memory of the wikipedia summary for this episode (versus the netflix summary) but man. shes great. shes got charisma. i know thats not the point here but nevertheless.

i like that this season they seem to be expanding who gets to be the log character. like its uuuusually sisko but there was one that started with Bashir, and this one starts with Odo. Im a fan of that.

oh thats a good fucking opening sequence. going from odos utterly exasperated log to quark and rom being devious. yes!

oh that mans about to be fucking murdered again for real. oh like for real for real straight murdered his ass okay.

excuse me bashir how the fuck did you just pronounce the word 'trauma'. trama???? sir?

i mean yeah you should accuse rom until rom sees fit to explain shit, but its very funny that sisko chooses to describe rom as a 'family friend'. thats kinda sweet. when are the boys gonna go on a roadtrip (later in the season yes i know)

YO THE CHANGE TO A FLASHBACK WITH LIGHTING CHANGES YEEAAAAH

GUL DUKAT?

Oh this is fascinating. oh this fucks.

KIRA NERYS????????????????????????????????

"i better get back to my bar" "🙄 hes not dead yet rom" god odo is so fucking good

"it wouldn't have mattered to the cardassians" "it mattered to me" ooooooh my god

oh here we go heres the bit where odo trips ass backwards into something, love you man but my god you have improved as an investigator with time

got his ass kira

god shes so hot (is this about kira or mrs vaatrik? yes)

god her OUTFIT. her VIBE. impeccable. exceptional.

the way she acts out her little emotional shifts, the way she acts when the door closes, augh! its so good. like idk what the fuck shes doing but shes doing great.

im just engaged honestly this rules

i love that it leads you to believe for a bit that kira killed vaatrik, then one two weeoo.

rom going from :D im a hero to D: i saved my brothers life, on god, comedy

OH SHES GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH. THE OUTFIT. THE FIT!!! THE FIT MADAME I ADORE YOU

'youll never be able to prove i killed my husband because i didn't' 'i know' oh SUBLIME

oh so there was the misdirect that kira was doing something unrelated but no, no she was involved?? OHHHH THATS CLEVER. she knew what happened on lvl 21 because she was INVOLVED but not the one DOING it, oh thats clever man i like that.

god thats actually really goo- oh no theres the ground upon which a romance will be built. oh man. at least the two are very compelling so this is fine.

odos genuine look like.... sadness? when kira says that he was worried telling the truth would affect their friendship? lads. oh yeah. like that scene is DEFINITELY serving as a ground floor to build a relationship on later, i know this already, but fuck thats dramatic. god. exceptional shit. mwah.

man that episode fucks! that episode was so good! genuinely really like it. the misdirect with the wife, the misdirect with kira, its EXCEPTIONAL stuff.

okay im in the mood, lets pop in another.

oh this scene is cute. its just really sweet. ive been missing jake a little as like, an opportunity to see soft sisko. very nice.

i dont remember how this episode was synops- nevermind i remember how this episode was synopsised on wikipedia, hello madame. oh shes also get an exceptional look. these last two eps theyve taken their two guest female leads and put them in some LOOKS.

Fenna is a recurring character, isnt she. im POSITIVE i saw that name in multiple synopsis. or maybe that was unrelated. its taking a lot of self control not to go check.

uhoh lads we got an alien situation on hand, not unusual given the circumstances but an unusual situation in specific, we're hallucinating hot women on the promenade.

ohh this is the star one, okay, there are many eps with similar synopsis (i was pulling up a transcript for reasons)

its always funny and a little heartbreaking when the way character A realises somethings up with character B because theyre too upbeat and cheerful. like yes, very funny that Kira immediately id's thats smths up because hes friendly b4 his morning coffee but also :( ykwim

eugh. flashing. nasty.

see my thing is im sitting here going, wasnt reigniting a dead star a plot in a tng ep? or, maybe that was trying to save a DYING star. there was some dead or dying star involved. i believe it exploded? there are possibly a couple come to think of it. there was definitely one of a similar thrust though i think.

"i never fail. well, i did once. but i found it didnt agree with me, so i swore never to do it again and i never break my word" this guy rules

this guy. feels familiar. do i know you sir. im gonna find out. he is not anyone i know, nevermind, hes just got one of those faces.

Heterosexuals™️. like listen i think shes attractive also but this went from 0 to like 75 very quickly. okay i read the summary this is very very heterosexuals.

cringe.

okay the little bit with him and dax? cute. they do have a good dynamic. that was cute.

obrien in the background of this like "? i feel like everyones in on a joke im missing. what the fuck." and thats frankly a mood.

oh she still has a nice outf- ohh i see. okay so we're operating on an extremely basic visual level here - Fenna wears vibrant colours and clothes that are more revealing, less restrictive (no sleeves, whatever the boob window situation is), Nidell wears muted colours that are fully covering, Okay, Okay, boring zzz. like i get it. i know what theyre Doing. i just think that its a kinda boring way of doing it. does that make sense? maybe i just think so because if i was free to dress how i liked, using psychic projection, id be dressed like an edwardian dandy or smth, like my most uninhibited self isnt just me with my tits out. but when the character will be present for a single episode (?) you cant really get too deep in the weeds, you need to operate on the more basic level of it.

my feeling is this episode kinda sucks but there are little good bits. Quark offering sisko a drink was good, honestly. like theres good like character dynamic bits. in fact id say that the dynamic the regular cast is having with sisko is the strongest part of the episode, which is bas considering the main POINT is the relationship between him and Fenna.

benjamin kisses her, she disappears into energy, he immediately facepalms and groans, sir youve been fucking supernaturally romanced my good man

okay so this guy does suck but his delivery on 'dont ask me why [she loves me]... but she does' kinda hits. theres a bit of genuine emotion buried under his bravado and facade.

"theres nothing i can do" was bashir not available this episode aside from the dinner scene- oh i guess you are currently isolated in space, nevermind.

heterosexuals™️

yeah that episode kinda sucks, sorry lmao.

#ds9 blogging #necessary evil was very good. second sight... was not #alas alack! not much for it

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incorrectbandofbrothersquotes · 3 years

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You Better, You Better, You Bet - Chapter 9

As Long as You’re Mine

Ron Speirs x Juliet Fletcher

Summary: Juliet Fletcher reaches a breaking point in her life. When she is at her absolute lowest, she meets Ron Speirs, and something happens between them that neither of them will ever forget.

Word Count: 4.1K

Tag List: @vintagelavenderskies @how-are-those-nuts-sarge @iilovemusic12us @hesbuckcompton-baby @tvserie-s-world @whovian45810 @50svibes @cagzzz107 @evelynshelby @piano-isnt-my-forte If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy this update!

Warning(s): None :)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

AO3 link

Chapter 9 let’s go!!!

“Okay, how does this sound?” Juliet asked Ron, who sat on her bed as she put together her story of the trial. He was careful not to recline, lest he disturb her pages of notes carefully organized atop the quilt. “Meredith Fisher confessed to the murder of six-year-old Peggy Lee in front of the courtroom before her trial began. Mrs. Fisher was arrested and charged with the murder in September of last year. Her lawyer, Mr. Harvey Cooper, originally planned to plead not guilty, but in a shocking turn of events, Mrs. Fisher herself admitted to the jury she killed Peggy Lee before even opening arguments could be made.”

“I’d read that,” Ron replied.

Juliet huffed and looked around her room at the Blue Boar. Papers littered the floor, pens were nowhere to be found, and her typewriter was mocking her. Now that the trial was finished - with such a dramatic twist - she was hard at work, trying to ensure she reported it just right. An impossible task, it felt like.

“Okay, but would you read it because I’m your girlfriend or because of the writing?” she asked.

“The writing,” he told her. “It’s simple, it explains everything.”

“It feels a bit long for the lead,” she said. “Perhaps I should put the bit about her arrest in the nut graph.”

“That does feel more like background information,” he agreed.

She pulled a pencil from behind her ear, scratched out the sentence, and began again. “So, it’d go like this - Meredith Fisher confessed to the murder of six-year-old Peggy Lee in front of the courtroom before her trial began. Her lawyer - I’m gonna take out his name and have that later - so, Her lawyer originally planned to plead not guilty, but in a shocking turn of events, Mrs. Fisher admitted to the jury she killed Peggy Lee before even opening arguments could be made. Then I’ll go into when she was arrested, the details of the murder, then the evidence the prosecution had prepared, and finish with her sentencing date. How’s that?”

“I think it’s perfect,” he said.

She chewed her lip. “Should I use the word shocking? I don’t want to tell the readers how to feel.”

“When she confessed, what was the first thing you heard?” he asked.

“Gasps,” she answered.

“There’s your shock,” he said.

Juliet had to concede that point. Ron almost didn’t believe her when she told him the story. The judge had barely gotten the words “How do you plead?” out before Meredith let out a wail like wounded animal and confessed to the whole gruesome thing. She sobbed that she was sorry, but she knew she had to be punished. She wasn’t safe. And truthfully, Juliet felt bad for her. It was truly one of the most pitiful things she’d ever witnessed.

But the one thing Juliet could never forget, the image that would stick with her for all her days, was the look on Peggy Lee’s parents’ faces. The Lees watched, dignified, proud, yet misty eyed as the person who killed their daughter begged for mercy. Their grief was profoundly felt, despite their stately manner. They said nothing. They did nothing. And they spoke to no one upon their exit from the courtroom.

“Jules?”

Ron’s voice brought her back to the present, his hand on her shoulder making her turn to look at him.

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “Just...it’s so unfair. If anyone had a right to be screaming and crying it was the parents.”

“They must be very English,” he said.

“Oh, they were proper English,” she agreed. “Stiff upper lips and all. The mother did at one point hide her face in the father’s arm, but other than that, they were stoic.”

“Thinking about including that in your story?” he wondered.

“God, no,” she replied. “I’ll mention that they were there and offered no comments, but this isn’t that kind of article.”

“Just the facts, huh?”

“As usual.”

“Juliet.”

“Yeah?”

“The article’s gonna be great,” he said.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Because you care this much,” he said. He accentuated the point with a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve got a staff meeting. Are you alright here?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for being so patient with me.”

He kissed her again. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you later, Ron,” she returned.

With that, he left. Juliet started trying to condense the lead again, still feeling like it was too long. There had to be a better summary. But it was a lot to try and fit into one sentence, so she resigned herself to making it more than one line. She hadn’t chosen a headline yet, either, but she usually liked to write the article first. That way she could pick out the singular most newsworthy part and headline with that. As she organized further, the phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Juliet, it’s Lottie.”

“Hey, Lottie, how are you?” Juliet asked.

“Fine, same as usual,” Lottie returned. “Otis just rang and told me about the trial. I hope you’re hard at work.”

“Absolutely,” Juliet assured her. “I’ve nearly got the lead down. I’ve just got to get the facts organized. I’m thinking of doing a follow up story about the shortcomings of Operation Pied Piper, since Cooper’s little tidbit did prove to be true.”

Sad as it was, Harvey Cooper was right. There was no process for vetting the families agreeing to take the children. The committee had been in such a hurry to evacuate, they had not even considered that some children could end up in more danger than they were at home in the cities. Juliet found the whole thing fascinating, and it could open up a conversation about war time protocol - be meticulous or swift?

“I think that’ll be fine,” Lottie said. “But have you gotten any war news? I know I wasn’t enthusiastic about it initially, but you’re the only reporter I’ve got with the Airborne.”

Juliet bit her lip. While the prospect of war news had originally driven her to accept the Peggy Lee story, she found herself conflicted about it now. Her relationship with Ron threw a wrench in it.

“I think it’s a conflict of interest for me to cover the Airborne,” she said.

She could practically hear Lottie’s eyes roll. “Oh, come on, Juliet, don’t be absurd.”

“It isn’t right, Lottie!” Juliet insisted. “I’m in an intimate relationship with one of the soldiers, there’s no freeing me from bias there.”

“You could use it to your advantage,” Lottie said. “Obviously, you can’t use him as a source, but couldn’t he lead you to the right person?”

“I can’t ask that of him,” Juliet said. “I don’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

“What wrong idea?”

It was something Juliet had already put a lot of thought into. As badly as she wanted to cover the war - and it did seem like things were ramping up even more in Aldbourne - she was hesitant. She had actually considered asking Ron for a source and then immediately hated herself for it. She would not use her relationship to get ahead in her job. She couldn’t. It just wasn’t right, simple as that.

“That I’m using him,” Juliet explained. “If I ask him to get me a source, he might worry that it’s the reason I entered the relationship, and that’s not the case.”

Lottie sighed. “So, you just want to give up on covering the war?”

“I didn’t say that,” Juliet returned. “I’d be happy to cover something else once I get back to London, but-”

“Forget it,” Lottie cut across her. “Just focus on the trial for now and then Pied Piper, if that’s what you want.”

“Lottie -”

“Good afternoon, Juliet,” Lottie said harshly, hanging up before Juliet could protest any further.

She sighed, hanging up as well, and sitting back in her chair. She had a feeling the conversation wasn’t quite over, but she’d hear more about it on her next trip home. For now, she wanted to focus on what happened at the trial. The sentencing would be in another few weeks, so she needed to get this done.

***

Ron was right of course. The article was published and the London Pursuit sold the most copies it had in years. It surprised Juliet a little, but perhaps people were tired of war news and what better than a dramatic murder trial for a change of pace? It was morbid, sure, but Juliet knew she’d handled it as well as she could.

Lottie called, absolutely elated by the circulation numbers. And honestly, Juliet was thrilled too. She found Ron later that day and leapt into his arms as a display of her unmitigated excitement. She’d done it, and done it well! It was cause for celebration. So they went to London for the weekend - staying with Nancy of course, since she would have had a fit at missing an opportunity to see Ron - and they went to a nice dinner, champagne and everything. Juliet could hardly believe her luck. Everything was going so perfectly.

And that night, as they lay together in the afterglow, she looked at his face and knew she loved him. The kind of love she read about in books and poetry. The kind that crooners sang about on the radio. She’d found it. It was scary enough to admit to herself, but she determined that she would - one day soon if the opportunity presented itself - admit it to him.

He caught her gazing at him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied. “I’m just happy you’re mine.”

***

The sentencing hearing was not as interesting as the trial itself, but Juliet was relieved to report that Meredith Fisher was going to prison for life. There would be no chance for parole, either. So justice was served.

However, Juliet couldn’t help but notice the look on Mr. Lee’s face. Mrs. Lee had not come for the sentencing, so it was just father. When the judge announced Meredith’s fate, Mr. Lee only closed his eyes and let out a long breath. He nodded, put a hand over his heart, and inhaled again. A single tear rolled down his cheek. It made Juliet look away so that he could have that moment for himself. To take in whatever feelings came to him. To remember Peggy and take some solace in that her killer was going away.

“I thought I’d be happier,” Juliet told Ron as they prepared for bed that night back at the Blue Boar. “But it still just feels...rotten.”

“Nothing can bring the girl back,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I know,” she replied. “But I just....I suppose you’re right. What else could anyone have hoped for in this situation?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“I’m also grateful we didn’t have to hear that lawyer make that ridiculous argument in a courtroom,” she said. “I don’t think I could bear the looks on the parents’ faces at that.”

“That would have been awful,” he said.

“Even so, it feels rather anticlimactic,” she said. “Especially for the prosecution who spent months putting everything together.”

“They still got the result they wanted,” he pointed out. “So what does it matter?

She shrugged at that. She still felt unsatisfied, as if there was something more to be done. Even though logically, she knew there wasn’t. She would write an update for the paper, and that would really be the end of it. That was when it hit her. What was really upsetting her was that now that this was over, there was no more reason for her to be in Aldbourne. Especially now that she didn’t want to cover the Airborne. It meant that she would go home to London, in turn reducing her time with Ron significantly. And that was a dreadful thought.

***

“What do you mean you aren’t coming back to London?” Lottie cried through the phone. “What about the Pied Piper story?”

“I reckon it can wait,” Juliet said, entirely unconvincing, but she hoped Lottie was buying it. Her reasons for remaining in Aldbourne had nothing to do with her job and everything to do with the man she was in love with. “And maybe with some time, I can find my own sources on war news.”

Lottie remained silent for several minutes. “So, you’ve just changed your mind all of a sudden about covering the Airborne?”

“Not completely,” Juliet lied. “I...I’m just not sure I’m quite finished here. And what if there’s something else about the Peggy Lee story that comes up? I could -”

“Give it a rest, Juliet,” Lottie groaned. “I know you want to stay for your boyfriend.”

“That’s not -”

Lottie cut across her protests. “Please do not insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise. You want to be near him.”

“You don’t sound quite as sympathetic as I hoped,” Juliet said, giving in.

“You have a life in London, Juliet!” Lottie reminded her harshly. “You have a job to do, your mother is here, and you want to put everything on hold for some man?”

“He’s not just some man!” Juliet argued indignantly. “He’s...different from any man I’ve ever known. And what we have means more to me than anything I’ve ever known.”

She glanced down at the necklace that sparkled against her skin. A constant reminder of how much she meant to him as well.

“Oh, come off of your cloud, will you?” Lottie snapped.

“Lottie,” Juliet said seriously. “The whole time I was with Arthur, did you ever know me to put him before work? Or my family?”

“No, so why is this Ron fellow -”

“Because it is different,” Juliet emphasized. “This is it, Lottie. He’s the one.”

That seemed to stump her. “Has he...proposed?”

“No, he hasn’t,” Juliet said. “I don’t even care if he does.”

Lottie scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t just carry on living in sin.”

Juliet rolled her eyes. “Could you please pay attention to what's important here? There’s a man in my life who I genuinely see a happy future with and I just...I want to focus on that. Is that so wrong?”

“I suppose not,” Lottie sighed, and Juliet inwardly celebrated a moment of victory. “But I can’t pay you if you aren’t working. At least be making the proper phone calls to follow this Pied Piper story. Conduct interviews of other families there who have taken in children from the cities. Part of the story is there if you know where to look.”

“No problem,” Juliet said. “You’ll be glad to know I’ve already begun. I’ve got an interview with the Barnes family next week, who are housing a little girl. I’ll ask them about how the process went for them.”

“Perfect,” Lottie said. She paused for a beat. “And, Juliet?”

“Yes?”

“I really am happy for you.”

Juliet smiled softly. “Thank you, Lottie.”

***

Spring fully thawed the winter out by the time April arrived. Aldbourne was rather charming in bloom. But Juliet wasn’t sure if it was the flowers or that she was in love. She found herself humming a lot more than she used to - these days she didn’t even need food to start a merry tune in the back of her throat. She had more energy, despite spending rather long nights in Ron’s arms. And she found her enthusiasm for work - even though her priority shifted - a great deal easier to come by as well.

The interview with the Barnes family went splendidly. They were also housing a couple of lieutenants from the Airborne, though they were not in Ron’s company. Juliet only exchanged brief greetings with them, as they were heading to work just as she was entering the house. She nearly melted at the connection they had formed with the girl - Ann - which was clear in their goodbyes to her for the day. She seemed particularly close to the tall redhead.

Juliet told Ron about it that evening over drinks.

“Yeah, that’s Winters and Welsh,” he told her. “Good officers.”

“Do they spend much time here?” she wondered, indicating the Blue Boar.

“Welsh does, but Winters doesn’t drink,” he said. “He spends most nights there with the family.”

“I can tell,” she said. “I mean, it was seriously precious. She hugged his knees and he patted her on the head and I think I fell a little bit in love with him for a moment.”

He scoffed. “Good luck, I think he has a girlfriend.”

“Has he?” she questioned.

“Yeah, the nurse,” he said. “She works for the regiment.”

“You lot have your own nurse?”

“She’s got some connection to Colonel Sink,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve never actually met her.”

“And what about the other chap?” she asked. “Welsh?”

“He’s engaged,” he told her. “Her name’s Kitty.”

“You know that but not the name of the nurse?” she questioned.

“I only know because Harry never shuts up about her,” he said. “The whole regiment knows at this point. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Krauts knew.”

She giggled. “I think that’s sweet.”

“It’s obnoxious.”

“You mean, you don’t brag about me to the whole regiment?” she teased. “Romance is dead.”

“Sorry for your loss,” he retorted as he took a swig of his drink.

“Not as sorry as I am,” she returned. “Now I’ll have to spend God knows how many hours in mourning.”

“At least you look good in black,” he said.

“My saving grace,” she agreed with a smile. She paused for a beat. “Seriously, you don’t talk about me at all?”

“I do if you come up,” he told her.

“And what do you say?” she wondered.

“Whatever’s relevant,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“I prefer not to broadcast my personal life,” he said. “All they need to know is that you’re mine.”

She smiled as she leaned over to kiss his cheek. “That’s true.”

***

April was drawing to a close. Juliet stood in her room, preparing to go and interview another Aldbourne family about their process in fostering a child from London. These interviews were restoring the bit of faith she’d lost in covering Peggy’s story because most of the families were very kind, and doted on the children. They were proud of doing what they could to ensure the future of England. And the children were mostly happy. What happened to Peggy was a tragedy and an outlier.

She was just getting ready to leave when Ron entered her room. A grim shadow of doubt on his features made her smile disappear as fast as it had come. Something was wrong. He definitely had bad news.

“We’re moving out,” he told her.

She had expected this at some point, but she still blinked in surprise. Her shoulders drooped as the reality of it percolated through her.

“Oh,” she said. “Well...when?”

He hesitated. “This is off the record -”

She scowled at him, momentarily offended that he felt the need to clarify.

“Everything between us is protected, Ron,” she said sharply. “You and I are always off the record unless stated otherwise.”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, picking up on her tone. “I know that, I just -”

“When?” she demanded again.

“End of May,” he said. “I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

The if hung in the air, but remained unsaid. This was it. The moment she had been dreading since she met him. Well, maybe not that long, but since they had started getting to know each other there in Aldbourne. The war was taking him from her, like it took everything.

“I see…” she trailed off, her annoyance easing up. That was sooner than she had hoped and she didn’t want to waste any precious time being angry at him. “Um...where - wait, I can’t ask you that.” She bit her lip. “When - oh, no, you’ve just told me, that’s right -”

“Juliet.”

“Yes?”

“Wait for me.”

Once again, Ron failed to disappoint her. Despite all the reassurance, she worried that when they shipped out, he would take the opportunity to break it off with her. Instead, he was asking - in his way - for a commitment from her. She held his gaze for a long moment, waiting for him to say more. But he didn’t.

“You really want to stay together?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said assuredly.

“Oh, thank God,” she sighed, and she threw herself into his arms for a kiss.

He returned the kiss with enthusiasm, his lips fiery and desperate against hers. As if he were leaving the following morning instead of a couple of weeks. But Juliet wanted the intensity. She wanted to savor every touch, every kiss, every moment she had before he was gone. She also wanted to let him know that she absolutely would wait for him. She would do anything he asked of her. She just wanted him. Forever, if possible. And if the war robbed her of that, she would at least have the memories of kisses like these. Of nights in his arms. Of his unwavering dedication to her.

***

The arrangements were made for Juliet to return to London once Ron and the rest of the Airborne were off. On his final morning in Aldbourne, they of course made love again, only it was the after that they relished even more. Juliet etched into her brain the feeling of his embrace, the warmth of his skin, the sound of his voice. She wished desperately that she could freeze time and hold onto him for just a little longer. She had found something so wonderful and now it was being dragged away from her.

“Jules,” he said, voice low as if there might be someone listening on the other side of the door.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to France,” he said.

She blinked and adjusted her position so she could look him in the face. “France?”

He nodded. “I wanted you to know.”

She couldn’t explain why that felt more intimate than anything they had just done in her bed.

“Why tell me now?” she asked, curious.

He swallowed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, but his arm gave her shoulders a squeeze.

“Trust,” he said.

She pressed her lips tenderly to his chest to let him know how much she appreciated his trust. There was no longer a need to specify on or off the record. His statements were privileged. Anything he told her would remain between them.

For a fleeting moment, she considered telling him right then that she loved him. Because if he was going to France, there was a chance he would never come back. And shouldn’t he know just in case? But her heart told her to play it safe. If she didn’t tell him now, perhaps whatever power there was would protect him enough so that she could say it later. If there were still things left to be said, hopefully that would keep him alive.

There were no guarantees, of course. All they had was each other and their promise.

That afternoon, the trucks began rumbling out of Aldbourne. Juliet walked Ron as far as she was allowed. Her chest felt tight as the impending goodbye hung in the air. She hated this. It was too painful. How could it be that the very war that brought them together would also be the reason for their parting? What was fair about that? Nothing, that’s what.

A kiss from Ron drew her out of her thoughts. He held her firmly against him, almost as if he were afraid she would disappear right out of his grasp. When they parted, they were both breathless.

“Be careful,” she said.

His eyes searched hers. “You too.”

Her brain was practically screaming at her to tell him now just what she felt. But she was too afraid. Too afraid it would doom him. Too afraid he wouldn’t say it back. Or even worse, say it only because of the passionate nature of the moment. It had to be when they weren’t so desperate. When they really meant it because whatever was coming was not a threat.

“I’ll write,” she told him.

“I’ll respond when I can,” he returned.

She nodded. Her throat was dry and thick. The lack of tears in her eyes surprised her. How could she not be crying when she could feel her heart breaking so badly? She kissed him again. Just to prolong the last moment where he was only hers.

“Stay safe,” she told him.

He nodded.

With one last kiss, they said goodbye without saying it. Juliet went to the train station and headed home to London. And Ron went to war.

#band of brothers #ron speirs #juliet fletcher #ron speirs x ofc #hbo war #you better you better you bet series #Easy Company #band of brothers fic #hbo war fic

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ofcowardiceandkings · 3 years

Note

I think you mentioned listening to podcasts? Do you have any favorites to reccommend? I've run out of content :(

that i do !

im not entirely sure what kind of podcast you'd be interested in but i'll throw out a few of the goodies in my huge library of stuff , i'll miss out a few of the HUGE podcasts that have been all over tumblr though

a LOT of it is true crime or human interest stuff , or history because im nerd ,, and a few of these dont have nearly enough attention so [shrug] i'll try to keep this short i guess lol this isnt EVERYTHING ive got in my library or listened series' by any measure

i AM gonna pop a shout to both Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff You Should Know from iHeartRadio because their HUGE archives have kept me from losing my mind many times over , and they cover a wide range of both important and wacky topics

BomBARDed (ongoing) this is the only fiction podcast i have happening right now really but its DAMN GOOD ONE .... it's an actual-play D&D 5E podcast in the DMs own musically-inspired world, focussed on a group of multiclass bards going to music school !! and all players (+DM) are members of the Texas band Lindby !! and they actually use and play music in the show with one original song an episode !! Kyle's worldbuilding and storycraft are truly incredible, and (Nick) Goodrich, (also Nick) Spurrier, and Ali's characters are in depth and interesting as well as an absolute powerhouse :') i actually made a piece for its first fanzine, Bardic Dreaming, which published earlier this year and is free to view now, all the players and the community are super wholesome its just very good overall 💙

History & Humans;

Fall of Civilisations (ongoing) legit one of my favourite podcast finds, im so glad my youtube autoplayed one of these ... it took me like 2 hours to realise it was 1) not the same as what was playing before and 2) had been on for 2 hours and wasnt near finished lmao. anyway, this is a series by historical fiction writer Paul Cooper, and is honest to all thats good one of the best documentary series ive encountered in years - and ive consumed a LOT of documentaries. it covered the downfall of various civilisations through history, and the episodes run from an hour to FOUR hours depending on the topic. its so chill to listen to and just get done, but over the pandemic all of the episodes have been given full movie-quality video versions too on youtube if youre more of a visual person.

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast (on series break) yeah that says that lol ... its a SUPER niche topic but its very interesting and treated very well despite being kind of comical at times, the hosts are just naturally funny lol ... it delves around from the history of cannibalism in whole regions to specific incidents as recently as the 1970s, and of course the first episode is about the Donner Party, and it covers things ive never heard of despite being kind of important ?? anyway Alix and Carmella are good eggs

Sawbones (ongoing) i probably dont need to mention much here other than say that Justin and Sydnee saved me from being SO BORED sooo often, the history of medicine is wacky as hell and its what most of my history GCSE was on so [shrugs]

Cautionary Tales (on series break) this was a wild-card find lol ... it's by Tim Harford "the undercover economist" who writes for the Financial Times, and its topics kind of weave modern topics and science with how to learn from historical errors ... its a bit weird but well worth a go, also each series has a few celebrity guest voice actors which is pretty awesome

Ephemeral (ongoing) this is a very strange but thought provoking series about sounds and other things just barely saved. topics include the last castrato, the hello girls, hand-stamped records, the spread of kīkā kila music, and acoustic fossils of wild places.

Neat! The Boozecast (ongoing) history and bartending whats not to like lol ... hosted by Teylor Smirl and now their dad Tommy, they're just digging around in how important booze is to human culture

True Crime (white collar and weirdness);

Swindled (ongoing) this is an amazing show full stop. A Concerned Citizen details some of the most impactful and unruly things to happen in white collar and corporate crime. very factually accurate but given the sheer bullshit of the topics the deadpan snarking is [chefs kiss] absolutely warranted ..

American Scandal (on series break) this one is a series within a series type, and spends a few episodes at a time poking holes in some of America's biggest scandals, from a dramatised but fact-based point of view. such as what the hell was going on with Enron, how big tobacco was forced to own up to covering its own ass, how Iran-Contra happened, etc. it also now has a sister show called British Scandal, which does the same thing for British cases but with a slightly different format.

Missing in Alaska (finished) this was a fascinating series, a deep dive into what happened to two US government officials who disappeared on a small chartered flight in Alaska in 1972. it goes some really strange places, but it actually turned up a lot of previously unknown information through the audience. John Walczak's new series in a new feed is Missing on 9/11 which looks into what happened to Dr Sneha Philip.

Pretend (ongoing) Host Javier Leiva holds interviews with anyone living a lie, or who have been touched by them. con artists, snake oil salesmen, former cult members, catfishing victims, anyone and everyone.

Power: The Maxwells (finished) hosted by journalist Tara Palmeri, the story of media tycoon Robert Maxwell from nothing to empire to mysterious death and the scandals uncovered after he was gone.

Lets Talk About Sects (ongoing) Sarah Steele covering cults from around the world, in particular those in Australia - where she is from. She often has former members on the show to share their stories, and share knowledge of how they left. each story has the relevant content warnings at the start of each episode.

Brainwashed (finished) investigation of the CIA's covert mind control experiments, centred on the experiments performed at a hospital in Montreal, and its cultural impact.

Dr Death (2 series finished) two series investigating huge cases of fraud and medical malpractice, and how they were brought to a stop. series 1 covers Dr Duntsch and his horribly butchered neurosurgery, series 2 covers Dr Fata and his fraudulent cancer clinic

The Immaculate Deception (finished) untangling the weird and disturbing fertility fraud of Dr Jan Karbaat, who fathered children himself through his fertility clinic, and the impact of his deception. later episodes also touch on other similar cases.

True Crime (Violent/General);

The Casual Criminalist (ongoing) Simon Whistler of-the-many-youtube-channels cold reads a script about the case of the day, with some of his daft commentary thrown in.

Southern Fried True Crime (ongoing) Crimes from the American South hosted by Erica Kelley, she puts all the facts out there but refreshingly for true crime she doesnt hesitate to tell you if she thinks someone is human garbage lol

They Walk Among Us (ongoing) probably one of the most popular UK crime podcasts, very measured and well put together, not weird or annoying about it either.

All Crime No Cattle (ongoing, feed slowed down for now) specifically about crimes from Texas, hosted by Erin and Shay, they're very sensitive hosts and a lot of the cases they cover shed light on why the Texas criminal system is how it is or show an impact at a national level

Canadian True Crime (ongoing) Canadian crime from an Aussie who's lived there for a decade, Kristi is again a sensitive and measured host covering some important topics

True Crime (Violent/Deep Dive);

Hitman (finished) journalist Jasmyn Morris digs around in the sticky tangle around a book published by fringe publisher Paladin Press, and its apparent use as a blueprint in the killing of a mother, her friend and her 8 year old boy for financial gain.

Camp Hell: Anneewakee (ongoing) this series is exploring how a wilderness camp "correctional facility" was endorsed by the Georgia care and juvenile reform system, despite widespread abuses and shady practices the whole time. warning for csa and child cruelty throughout.

True Crime Bullshit (on series break) this one is a huge huge rabbithole but a very interesting one where the host Josh Hallmark has spent years digging into the life and potential crimes of Israel Keyes. Keyes is often mentioned as a serial killer with no pattern, but in picking it apart thats not quite true, and has sparked some re-evaluations of missing persons cases and stumbling upon information the FBI has redacted organically. there's also a series in the middle looking into the crimes of Kelly Cochran

Forgotten: Women of Juárez (finished) this series looks into the huge numbers of missing women of Ciudad Juárez, the strange circumstances surrounding them, and the potential cover-ups and corruptions on both sides of the border, trying to give a voice to all of the forgotten women and girls and their families without answers. the series itself is finished, but a spanish language edition is being released every week now.

aaaaaand i'll call it there before i list everything lol, i hope you find something to plug your boredom hole with !!

#audio #rory's ramblings #podcasts #asks #anon #long post

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petewentzisblack1312 · 3 years

Note

hey dils!! was listening to sunshine riptide and thought of u so i wanted to say i hope ur taking care and also ask if u have any favorite fob videos/interviews?? lately i have been obsessed w the promo video patrick did for the honda civic tour where he drove around LA and said the only reason they got the tour was because he already drove a civic ahsjdbd

first of all it is SO flattering that listening to sunshine riptide made you think of me 🥺

secondly i was molded out of clay to answer this question, 100% i have a lot that i think about like way too often

the one where petes giving a tour of his parents house where he lived at the time and was showing off his stuff and was particularly very excited about the fact that his band was turned into action figures and then half way through andy shows up and is like "were best friends forever!" and petes like "yeah andy comes over for sleepovers a lot, we hang out in my basement and make zines and stuff" and then at the end he gets all excited cuz he hears his moms car pull up and he goes out and shes coming out of the car and then patrick gets out of the car carrying groceries and petes like "here mom me and patrick can put the groceries away you finish the interview" and shes like "no- pete i just got home from work im a mess" and hes like "what? no! no mom you look great, you can finish the interview well take in the groceries" and then she did and the camera crew came back to the two of them messing around and putting groceries away.

"pete wentz is honestly the only way to describe pete wentz. hes the most complicated guy i know." [cut to] "if anyone can make a strike without touching the lane i will pay you $300" *throws bowling balls straight into the air* *runs down the lane*

ok but in all seriousness i love that interview not only for that iconic moment but because later the footage is like blaring i dont care and pete goes and grabs a stuffed giraffe out of the prize thingie and hes like "what do you mean :)? we bought this with our tickets!!" and the editors are very much trying to make it a bad boy rebel without a cause moment except if you looked the woman behind the counter had a smile on her face and was laughing and then afterwards he gave it back and said "we werent really gonna steal it" but it really seemed like she knew that already

and then at a different point a couple fans showed up and they were all shy and excited to meet him and he was just like "hey are you guys coming to the show later" and they were like "yeah" and he was like "cool! thanks for coming out :) do you want a picture?" and they took a picture and it seemed like he was still kinda excited that people were excited to meet him. marcus (their bodyguard) was like trailing behind him and smiling and laughing throughout most of these antics and i just think thats sweet.

later in this same interview once again as they were on the ride back to their hotel or whatever theyd brought back a fake moustache and patrick put it on and did a bunch of dumb impressions.

patrick: if i wasnt doing music i think id be like a music critic or music journalist or something

andy:...i thought you said youd work at walmart

theres this one srar era interview thats just joe and patrick riffing for like 15 minutes. like it looks like they just straight up forgot the interviewer was there its so funny theyre such good friends.

this one joe and pete interview where i dont even really remember what they were talking about but theres a moment where joes talking about music with this intense passion and pete just kinda looks at him with this level of brotherly pride that keeps me going

this one andy and pete interview where 1) there were waterfowl chillin behind them which was deeply fascinating to andy and 2) they took a moment to swivel their chairs and hug each other bc theyre besties

band superlatives, specifically the moment where theyre all separately like "technically marcus isnt in the band but like. its marcus." bc that was sweet, unofficial 5th member of fob. and also "whos the most talented" "patrick. patrick. its patrick, hands down." "hm. petes like a really good soccer player" like thats a moment out of a fucking sitcom

halloween asmr with pete wentz. the man cant act but god can he commit to a bit.

there was this like live text chat that they all were in with fans on some radio station website. there were a lot of very fun moments, including joe saying "this is very current technology." as a comment on how very dated the live chat was and andy being like "can we set an icon i wanna change mine to an XVX" and pete and joe being like "oh are you vegan straight edge? we had no idea." and then pete was like "actually i wanna change my icon to andy hurley" and andy was like "no pete im not gonna send you a picture of me" and he was like :( and then a minute later he changed it to andy and he was like, and i swear this is almost a direct quote "BOOM! i love my life haha" and andy was like "goddammit" like i have no idea where to find this but it was so good.

theres this one "this or that" interview with joe and andy wherein the interviewer was a woman and like she seemed pretty at ease around them and got to the last question and imo seemed kinda uncomfortable and kind of established (in a way that seemed like she didnt usually do that) that it was a gross question, which was "would you have sex with a super hot celebrity but shes just died" and both of them were like "hey. what the fuck. absolutely not." and shes like "oh thats a first" and they are both like "do people say yes to that????????" and shes like "youre literally the first people to say no haha" in a way that made it seem that she did not find it funny and i just find that to be an interesting moment and i hope shes doing well and has a better producer now.

theres this one interview w andy on a hardcore podcast where the interviewer asks andy "do you every wish fall out boy were more political?" and he said (paraphrasing) "fall out boy is political, in its own way. we may not be as explicit with our politics as my other stuff, but kids find fall out boy, and through me, with all my other bands, or through joe, since he does a lot of metal, find heavier stuff, and are introduced to this stuff and to being vegan straight edge or anarchist or just more radical politics, and i dont think that just because we arent being super political in our music we arent a political band" which was really something to me bc i had just been thinking about that as a concept i call "gateway punk"

theres this one interview i recently found of a very small chicago music news outlet where a young lady interviewed pete and asked far more interesting questions than any other interviewer id ever seen and one such question was how he felt about the legalization of marijuana in illinois and he said that it was cool that it was legal but everyone locked up for it right now should be released and i like that he got to be political

theres a moment on the badass jew podcast episode joe was on where the interviewer whomst i do not recall was espousing some veiled antiblack sentiments wrt some antisemitic comments some famous black people had made and joe just completely rebutted it immediately and pointed out that black people not only are not a monolith bht are at a greater disadvantage

and also he made a joke that i could never make and cant fully get bc im not jewish but it was very funny and i love hearing people make jokes that arent for me.

this one interview before patrick had kids where he was saying how everyone kept asking him and elisa when theyd have kids and he was like "you cant just make that happen yknow? how do you just do that?" and pete immediately grinned and leaned over and mock whispered "you have sex" and patrick punched the air and was like "i hate you so much"

that one interview about abap where pete was like "we actually got the guy who did the whistles on patience by guns n roses to do it on this" and then he looks over at patrick and patrick shakes his head and petes like "you couldnt let me have this?" and he was like "i was gonna but then you looked at me and i just couldnt."

"whats the most important thing to you right now?"

patrick: star wars

joe: my daughter.

patrick: ...my son?

the puppy interview. everyone involved including the puppies was having the time of their goddamn life.

i have to stop this is too much its been like an hour

#dils declares #theyre so stupid.

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blissfulparker · 4 years

Text

Seasick pt.3→peter Parker

Parings→peter Parker x reader

AU: best friends to lovers! Fake dating!

Summary→ when you lie to your mom about having a boyfriend before vactation peter steps in to help. But being in a fake relationship isnt as easy as you thought. especially not easy when you two have feelings for one another.

Warnings→rude comments, mostly fluff, still slowburn, and sadly I’m a slut for the one bed trope so yeah😔

A/n→ this is a little late I know! It’s also pretty long, a lot longer than I thought. I hope you enjoy! I’m going to try and do weekly updates but I’m now in school so I’m not sure how much I can update. Masterlist is coming for this soon so if you wanna be on the taglist send me an ASK!(I also lost the original seasick Taglist I’m so sorry!!)

Soft blue Hawaiian shirt, grey khakis is what Peter wore. You told him to dress casual, and even after he told may he didn't need any help packing, he was still hoping she slipped in some good outfits. He looked out the small window getting a glimpse of the waves crashing outside, it didn't help his fear, it only fed it. But he needed something to distract his mind before tonight. He was already scared of his decision even though technically it hadn't been one full day on the cruise.

“So..uh..” he turns and sits on the bed. “How long has it been since you've seen your family?” He starts a conversation.

“My mom and dad? Christmas. My sisters? Thanksgiving. And my aunts...gah i don't even know how long but...um...i talk to my aunt laya a lot so she will be the most excited.” you tell him as you slide the hoop earring through your ear. After this trip, Peter might know the most about you more than anyone in the group, that scared you a little bit.

But christmas, thanksgiving? Those were all so far away. He knew you, MJ, and Betty took a road trip for spring break so he did not question the lack of seeing your family then. The idea of not seeing your parents since christmas shocked him because he saw May almost every weekend when he wasn't busy and called her every other day. He couldn't really imagine ever not wanting to see her, he's sure that when he gets settled down one day he'll move into the neighborhood he grew up in with May nearby.

“Wow.” he mumbles to himself before his phone rings.

Two missed messages from May, a text from ned, and a notification from an app. He goes to May first. Hers simply just tell him to have fun and not stress out, call him if anything happens. Ned on the other hand is more playful.

Ned: Having fun loverboy?

Ned: You two kiss yet?

His teasing words make Peter roll his eyes and shove his phone back into his pocket.

“Who was that?” you come out of the bathroom all dressed up. The dress is long and down to your ankles but a slit going up the thigh. The soft blush that tickles your cheeks and the gloss that brings up your lips. It was almost like aphrodite crafted you herself. Your skin looked so soft and golden. At this moment, you looked so golden.

“U-Um just May.” he clears his throat and presses his lips together. You walk up to him and hold his shoulders. You stand close and lean in, he wants to press his eyes shut for this feels so much like a dream, your touch, your scent, spending a whole week on a cruise with you, all of it feels so much like a dream.

“Im taller than you.” you groan as you let go of him. He wakes up, he wakes up from his daydream and looks at you with confused eyes.

“W-What?” he stutters and you sit on the bed taking off the wedges you had just strapped on. You are already hating the dinner and you didn't even show up yet. You slip on some sandals, something easy to kick off after the night ends.

“To save you, I'm just gonna wear flats.” you tell him standing again and this time you're now eye level and face to face with him. He doesn't really understand why you can't be taller than him but you're far more stressed out about this dinner than he is.

“You look really pretty by the way.” he tells you. For your understanding hes saying this as fake peter, the fake boyfriend peter. But to him, deep down, he means it with his whole heart.

“Thanks.” you look down and then look back up at him looking at his shirt. You come up and unbutton one button so it doesn't look like he tried so hard. “You look really pretty too.” you smile and then look over to the door.

“Are you ready?” and just like that you two were off to one of the most confusing dinners of each other lives.

When you two arrived at the restaurant he immediately noticed how nice it was, all the families, couples, friends were dressed well for a night under the ocean's stars. He swallowed hard before you took him by surprise, grabbing his hand you held it tight.

“Hey,” you looked at him. “Don't be nervous okay? I'll take most of the lead, just follow me.” you told him and he nodded.

“I think it's normal for me to be nervous about meeting my fake girlfriend's family for the first time.” he laughs it off a little just thinking back to the pep talk Ned gave him before he left. Don't be scared peter, it's just (y/n). He reminds himself as he takes a deep breath.

As you two approach the table he can start figuring out whos who. He knows your mom and your dad already, he can see two women who look to be in their mid twenties who look like you, your sisters. Then he sees what seems to be your aunts at the table as well.

“Oh, (y/n) its been so long.” your sister kisses your cheek and you hum into the kiss. Her eyes then pan to peter, your biggest stressor.

“And you must be perry?” her voice is already annoyed and you groan as you're not ready for the things she's about to say to both you and peter.

“Peter, actually.” he reaches his hand out for her to take and she does with a wimp grasp. She shakes it almost as if he was sick and just wiped his nose. She looks at him with a more disgusted look, her bright red lips in more of a scrunch and she takes her hand back quickly when shes done.

“Right.” she nodded and then looked at you. “He's so…cute.” she scrunched her face before sitting back down. Ouch. Peter thought.

“Oh and the fun begins.” you whisper in his ear as you two sit next to each other. At first the two of you were stiff but then realized that would make it too obvious. He pretended to get an eyelash so it looked like you two were comfortable. His hand also rested on your shoulder as the conversion began.

“So…” your other sister who had not had a proper introduction leaned in to pay attention to you and peter. “When did you two lovebirds meet.” just by her words, she had gotten attention from half the table.

“Oh i can tell this story angel.” he rubbed your thigh for everyone to notice. He was good, better than you thought. You never took peter as a leader, especially for someone as a kid who would almost every time cry after having to present something--which he of course stopped after he got into highschool.

“We grew up together basically, I met her through our mutual friend. I'm sure you all know MJ.” he pauses and you catch your sister already rolling her eyes as she brings her wine glass to her lips. Your other sister was still amused but it was only to be polite to peter. “We spent highschool together and then we had a europe trip going into our senior year and that's where we found out we had mutual feelings but we sorta put them to rest after we--” and he goes on a little, you're more fascinated after the story with how far he told it. His hand rests on your thigh and suddenly you're relaxed with your lie.

“Wow, that's so sweet.” your youngest eldest sister, maya, hums as she takes a sip of her drink. “Like little soulmates.” she scrunches her face and once again you were annoyed. Yanked out of your paradise just like that.

“And now they go to Columbia, of course.” your older sister hums under her breath and Peter furrows his brows a little but ignores it.

“Peter majors in computer science and is minoring in physics.” you wrap your warm around his shoulders and get close. “He had all A’s last semester and is top of the class, he also works at the stark tower, he maintained an internship there every summer in highschool.” you kiss his cheek.

“And he went for you?” your sister asks in the most petty way possible.

Peter didn't have any siblings, his closest thing to a brother was Ned, his closest thing to a sister was probably betty. He knew families could argue, have feuds, but he never thought a sister would be this rude to another. Especially not an older sister to a younger one.

“Yeah he did-” you start but your mother glares you a look. Peter's hand rests a little more harshly on your thigh to remind you he was here.

“You should be giving (Y/N) a reason to stay then, she talked about transferring to NYU at thanksgiving. (Y/N) are still planning on transferring?” Peter's eyes went straight to yours after your mother's words. Did MJ know? Did Betty know? Did Ned know? Were you going to transfer without telling anyone? He even notices how your face goes from smiling to scared and shocked after your little secret is revealed.

“I-uh,” you look over at peter. Your sister smirks almost like she was glad. “I'm still thinking.” you chuckle off and look down at your dress, you look down at peters hand.

“All of us transferred mom, it's only natural she’ll do the same.” your sister says with a sigh, a more evil one and peter knew that too.

The table started on something else again. taking the focus away from you two as they started talking about your sister and her life. You were just glad that things didn't go too far.

You and Peter eat in silence. This was probably some of the best food in his life but it was hard to enjoy because of all the things happening.

“(y/n) you should try a juice cleanse,” your sister chipped in. “i heard it helps lose weight and with stress.” she gives a smile and even through your sisters pretty eyes, soft hair, coconut scent, and beautiful summer dress, she was still the worst.

Peter starts to open his mouth but you quickly push him back a little as a smile rises to your own lips.

“No, I don't think I will.” you tell her before going back to eating the same pasta you've been ordering on this cruise since you were 16.

How could sisters be so mean to each other, especially at such an old age. Peter was shocked by the comments about him to you. Maybe the reason you never brought them up was to save yourself, to spare yourself the pity.

He watches as your dad pays the bill, he watches as the family gets up and you do too. Your mom pulls you in for a kiss and hug before she sends you off for the night, the sister who did the least teasing gave you a hug but peter a most lasting one with a kiss to his check which made you roll your eyes. Your eldest sister gave you a quick hug before giving Peter a fake smile, and your aunt who barely spoke the whole night pulled Peter into a hug first.

“Take care of her kiddo, she deserves it.” she whispers into his ear and he gives him a soft nod and smile.

“I will.” was probably some of the truest words to come out of his mouth the entire night.

The hotel door slams shut and you once again make your way to the bathroom. Leaving peter in the middle of the room he turns on the T.V. and starts to unbutton his shirt. At this point he doesn’t know how things will go, he thought it was just going to be a family who was excited to see him, not ones who will tear each other down.

As a kid, Peter dreamed of siblings. Having a brother and a sister, playing airplanes with them and maybe getting into fights over toys but nothing like this. That’s why he’s always dreamt of his own family one day too, he wants one but is always conflicted with his secondary job as the cities hero.

He takes off his shirt and throws it into the suitcase, he picks up an old AC/DC one from years ago but still was comforted by it.

“Hey pete I’m out of the—woah—“ you cover your eyes as you just saw him half naked. He immediately covers himself up with the shirt, a look of shock takes over his face as he burns red and his mouth drops open.

“S-Sorry! I didn’t know that you would come out—“ he stuttered and then slid on his shirt.

“I’m just gonna…take the couch…” you grab a pillow and he stops you.

“Why?” He asks as he crawls into the left side of the bed.

“Because it’s one bed, and besides I dragged you into this mess the least I can do is give you the bed.” You tell him and he shakes his head.

“You said the bed is big enough for the both of us remember? So it’s fine we won’t touch each other.” He shrugs and you give him a look of defeat. “After everything tonight I think you deserve it.” He told you and you sighed climbing into the bed. The sheets feel just as soft as last summers, the cotton plump around your body and the bed memory foam. Makes you think your dorm bed is a rock. Makes peter almost fall asleep instantly as he’s never felt anything like this before expect the times he sleeps at the stark tower.

“Sorry about tonight.” You fumble with the sheets. He bites down on his lip before answering.

“You never told me about any sisters, you never told anyone about any sisters.” He says and you take a deep breath.

“Can you blame me?” You chuckle and his eyes filled with pain for you, he sees how much the friend group really means to you now, how you use them as an escape from your normal life. But a luxury life like this couldn’t be so awful all the time could it?

“I mean sisters fight don’t they?” He tries to help but you rub your face in response.

“Yeah, over toys and makeup, hair straighteners and shampoos, maybe school and boys but you’ve only seen the surface of them peter. if you thought that was bad come back on Friday and tell me what you think.” You roll to the other side. Peter wants to reach out and touch you, he wants to touch the hair that fell loose, he wants to comfort you so you don’t hurt the whole time.

“What did my aunt Layla say anyways?” You asked from the other side and his heart begs to tell the truth but he can’t blow the cover, can’t make things awkward.

“Just..she was happy. Tis’ all.” He told you and you seemed to believe it.

“Thank you for everything by the way.” You turn back to him and look at him fully. You never noticed how he has a scar on his eyebrow, or all the freckles that paint his face, or even the colors of his eyes are different on the outside. You never noticed anything until now. “You’re really, really good at this.” You told him with a soft chuckle.

“You too.” He nods, swallowing hard he watches you turn back to your side and leave him be. Soon enough he can hear your snores and drifts off himself.

Day one down and he knew this would be the longest week of his life.

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#peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #peter parker fic #peter parker fan fic #peter parker x you #peter parker angst #peter parker au #fake dating!peter #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader

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cattles-bians · 3 years

Text

exes au part 10

post directory

obsetress:

obsetress: this is actually exes au owen and viola and i. hate it

obsetress: i think exes au owen and vi actually really get along like

obsetress: same w hannah and vi

obsetress: like hannah and owen just… water off a ducks back yknow

obsetress: hannah side eyes her a lil more than owen but they always enjoy joining dani n jamie when they go to vi and beccas sometimes

em: big dumb family

obsetress: my big dumb found family

em: i think owen and vi realise they have a mutual passion for: annoying the shit out of jamie

obsetress: rip jamie taylor

em: one day i will stop bullying jamie taylor but its not today!

obsetress: interesting how

obsetress: jamie no parents dani no parents viola no parents

em: (holds back tears) fascinating

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: viola late to brunch, coming from therapy: so have you all heard of reparenting

em: viola is um. peak ‘i don’t do small talk’ she just goes straight into. tell me about ur trauma

em: she doesn’t have time!

obsetress: which honestly tracks for all of them. jamie first date mum woz looez taylor

obsetress: but yeah viola like. all the time more so, can't be assed

em: damie taking the time to make a space for these nice little earnest heavy convos god bless and then violas like (slams take away coffee on table, startling damie, rebecca unphased) so. today in therapy

obsetress: yeah and like she says she's late because she's coming straight out of therapy but she had time to get her $12 cappuccino?

---

obsetress: vi walking into isabel's room n seeing her curled up w rebecca while rebecca reads her a bedtime story

em: ah

em: AH

em: Ahhhhh

obsetress: rebecca looks up n sees her looking and smiles softly back

obsetress: rebecca kisses isabel's forehead and pulls her covers up and slips out to meet vi in the hallway and then just. rests her palms against her chest and beams up at her

obsetress:viola's just kinda staring yk

em: i think a lot about how like, as a woman of her status viola was absolutely sharp as a razor

em: knew like five languages, a lady and a scholar type deal

em: like the closest we get to that mentioned is her insane business n strategy savvy but

em: idk! viola talk dirty to me in middle french

obsetress: all of the above

obsetress: exes au viola speaks french (because duh) n portuguese n mandarin i think

obsetress: yknow business and globalization and all that

em: beautiful

em: oh my god the horses i forgot abt the horses

obsetress: THE HORSES

em: idk enough about horse girl culture but she has that crop for a reason

em: and not just to make me flustered

em: exes au viola has a country mansion or a stable or whatever and an obscene flat

obsetress: her family home

obsetress: LONG WEEKENDS AT HER FAMILY HOME

obsetress: so much potential

em: she’s walking the grounds and she’s pointing out all of the history and violas face lights up for exactly two things

em: destroying a competitor and family

---

obsetress: idk if you've ever watched dead to me

obsetress: different context but, all i could think was

obsetress: vi and rebecca stay over at dani and jamie's once in a blue moon and dani's still asleep and rebecca's working out or smth and jamie wanders into the kitchen and viola's making a french press

----

em: maybe a little buzzed but perhaps. post break up toxic danvi

[spotify link to love me dead by ludo]

obsetress: now i’m thinking about how dani and vi def hook up after they break up and how it def happens multiple times :/

obsetress: dani tops vi every time :/

em: posts danvi post breakup hookup and falls asleep... a cage of my own making bc now I’m thinking about it

obsetress: it’s what you deserve

obsetress: i hope you think about it all day with no outlet because that’s definitely what i’ve been doing

em: i have an outlet i’m gonna draw horny art

obsetress: viola like. inviting dani to a meal post breakup for closure or whatever and dani knows better but she does it ANYWAY because part of her still feels..... y’know. there’s always gonna be something there

obsetress: and viola tells her she’s found a therapist and working on herself and dani just like

obsetress: they finish dinner and dani kinda looks at her and she’s like “can i come home with you?” all matter of fact

em: olivia rodrigo voice i guess that therapist i found for you she really helped (now you can be a better woman for your brand new girl)

obsetress: and then like. dani keeps leaving stuff or viola will be like oh i found another thing of yours and the second dani comes in every time they’re both just. all over each other

obsetress: anyway um dani likes it because she doesn’t have to worry about emotionally regulating viola and can grow and be her own person but then finally they’re in bed one night and vi’s like “what if you just... moved back in”

obsetress: and dani’s just like

obsetress: she YEETS

obsetress: and then they don’t talk for however long and live their lives and never see each other again until the video store

em: i love like um. messy constant on and off danvi

em: actually dani maybe you SHOULD stop fucking your ex

obsetress: honestly SAME idk how we didn’t think of this sooner

---

obsetress: also. remembered i came up with a bunch of stuff for kmd in my notes app when i was tryna fall asleep last night so i opened it up and

[Hannah Notes App Transcription:

Danvi exes - dani actually thinks shes v empowered hooking up with her ex lmfao she’s proud of herself for not getting emotionally involved and doing something for her and thinks thats growth fjdndnkdkf]

obsetress: dani after breaking up with viola, on her way to hook up with viola

em: dani is all my mutuals that are constantly rt things about growth and cutting off toxic ppl in her life n putting out good energy

em: like i um agree w the sentiment but ur not gonna catch me rting it

obsetress: yeah

obsetress: i love her

obsetress: she's so dumb

em: danis severe astrology phase

em: brief but severe

obsetress: her crystal collection

obsetress: i can't stop thinking about the whole. dani hooking up w vi after theyre broken up

obsetress: literally have not been able to stop thinking about it since

obsetress: ugh

em: drunk em is like

em: i dont know where that came from

em: i am terrified of where that came from

obsetress: just absolutely

obsetress: unhinged and so enlightened all at once

em: i cannot stop thinking abt it

obsetress: cannot! stop!

em: i think if dani isnt gonna necessarily be stuck w eddie for like. 2 decades she can get her fix of dumb bitch elsewhere

----

em: more damie vibecca parallels: phat ass gf and lean (well. scrawny mothefucker jamie taylor) gf

obsetress: jamie why are all the women around me always so hot taylor

dani and rebecca and viola: well, actually, you’re—

jamie: wot

em: a truck or a train or whatever goes past n blares its horn every time someone’s abt to reveal to jamie shes Hot

#the dani jamie viola rebecca exes au #it’s been a while akhdkdhdkd

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misterbitches · 3 years

Text

i keep thinking about this and coming to more conclusions like both as an artist and me.

we always think first about the aggressor and not the victim. so, for example, with history 4 and yong jie what will their relationship look like now given the trauma? if they have no interest in fleshing this dude out and having him just be an annoying clingy little ugly bitch then acknowledge that pain and how it will affect them. it’s so easy for xing si to get over being raped? what about xing si’s relationship with his mother? what about the fracturing this does to the family when there’s an intense violation that was aided and abetted by the mother?

that would be far more fascinating trying to figure out and they could still have them be together if they so desperately need it but they can’t ignore everything. that means the trauma will permeate through every part of your life. it’s hilarious that so many fans say the portrayals are realistic because they are not. these shows do not have the time and many of the writers or producers do not have the care or prowess—or will have to cut things to please the state—to execute this. they expedite the healing process but we are left reeling.

in film school one of my teachers was always like, “what happens in the world when the film ends?” and this is something to ask. are we approaching it from: a man falls in love with his brother who raped him and the mother encouraged it and the shock and taboo of that or are we approaching it from a man is forced and trapped into a rship and stockholm syndrome and how that plays out. even if they stayed together even so it would give us more reason and understanding and then we see and know the foundation is built on nothing but darkness and may never recover. after this chapter ends there may be destruction; it’s possible because that’s how it all started.

but after this story ends, in the way it is presented, what will happen? it’s not just entertainment and that doesn’t mean it’s as big of a deal as i think it is even as i write these things. these are just things to keep in mind and things i think the younger viewers absolutely need to see. for themselves like as creative people and enjoying the media they consume and seeing what works and what doesn’t especially when a work serves a purpose. nothing is made for no reason so don’t expect it to be. to me i’m like: why was this made and what could have been better?

there is NO improvement which is why we run around in the same circles. the way to untangle that is being clear about the message and its faults. the audience can’t be clear about it if the show isn’t doing its job for a team of professional fucking writers trying to entice people by poorly approaching topics and leaving them empty handed. life is not as hollow as these things make it and yet we eat it up hook line and fucking sinker.

time and time again we see what these things must establish and how far they can push themselves. it isn’t until the material world gets better that we see a turn in the media but time isn’t linear. sometimes things are worse in years, sometimes things are better. these tropes last because they are a direct reflection of life and the failures in society. so of course it’s about the perpetrator and how they can get their prize but not how we can manage these things when there is a clear victim and we pretend like it isnt there under some sense of potential reform. 1. people do not need to be reformed in a story and that isn’t what this needs 2. is that compelling? 3. yes morally grey things exist but this is not morally grey when it is a violation adn that person’s action was not morally grey. there was a victim and he neeeds to be away from that victim. if he is going to stay we need to see the affects of him being there as real things and there is nothing realistic about that. in no fucking world would someone like xing si a grown adult fucking man be able to temper things that quickly as in the show. NONE. that shit lasts forever but we are supposed to see them kiss and be liek “aw wow morally grey” like what about him is morally grey in relation to xing si? specifically. whihc is the personhe will be with forever.

no it’s how do we get ourselves to see him and engage with him. you can engage with him or be enraptured sure but that doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t mean the writers are even doing anything with it! i’m glad eveyrone can garner there own idk ideas or get what they want out of a work but what about the victims? what about the relationships? what happens when the story ends? what are dinners like? cos their lives don’t stop when it’s not being recorded (as in these worlds we are shown are always going to exist so they continue on even without us seeing it. so the characters don’t have a stop point we just usually see their happy ending and many times with shitty relationships it’s like why are we here now?) at this point it’s comical and it’s boring.

there’s a film i like with cameron diaz where she falls in love with someone who kidnapped her for a job. there’s no perosnal connection which really helps as well. he did it for a job, doesn’t know her, they fall in love. they get together at the end. that still affects her but it’s also way less psychological trauma then somoene stalking and grooming you and violating you and trapping you by direct action and constant manipulation. there’s no way to turn that around and it’s even worse when you try to with literally no other explanations. like who are these fucking characters and why should we even want them to continue to be here? yong jie could have even been a vehicle to help xing si like idk unpack everything in his brain in a helpful way even through his violation. they chose none of that lmao i could write a better fucking script and im a moron

why should we believe in their love? why should we believe in yong jie? why should we believe in any of these people when they don’t prove shit to us. they just exist. why is that interesting? why do we root for them? that’s certainly not something they even asked themselves cause they sure as shit don’t know. the writing here cannot make up its mind on its own morality and i think the idea of morally grey only works if you have a fucking idea of what you want to do not just throwing shit at a wall. and we feel something for these “morally grey” characters—frankly this term is also a mistake because it’s so much about good/bad and ignores history and peoples lives and what leads to events and it is a super WASP-y concept in its current iteration anyway with a belief that punity is justice when it is not. that is why i say get the fuck away from this dude instead of going to jail. we could see yong jie grow but FUCKING OUTSIDE OF XING SI.

aey from lovely writer is one where im like wow i feel so bad 4 u i think ur gonna like kill urself someone get this messy ass bitch some help. people hate this kid and they totally can! i feel bad for him! dont love him and maybe i wont even want the best for him but rn im like “omg i dont want u 2 die sir.”

i dont feel that way in many other shows. i feel fucking nothing for these men. not yong jie and not even the old guy from modc im just like ok you exist and i’m going to ignore you. there is nothing in my chest lmao. i look at them and feel cold, couldnt be drier, cos it’s stale and boring and trite and nothing new at all. it’s not realisitc and it’s not even entertaining. it’s just...there.

i mean it’s there with the reminder of “oh man i am not interested in your love story also isn’t your boyfriend like 40 and you’re 17? why do you like each other again? does this kid have parents? Wait, what’s happening? uhhhh am i supposed to like this? where are his parents? what’s gonna happen when he turns 23 and realizes how fucked up that shit is? can we see that?” and before u know it the sex on screen is over so that was just unpleasant all around.

and i cannot give u a single reason for so many couples why they like each other. like literally what on earth is there for the two of these people to be attracted to. at least one is being swayed by power but what’s the other one doing? oh nothing he just sucks? ok got it.

if we don’t approach it from a “how do we get people to like a shitty person or a person who does things that harms others” it continues on like this. questioning questioning questioning the comfortableness and never thinking about what the fuck the victim can do, what the fuck is even going on in their heads. and if they can’t do that then we go back to the question: what is the purpose of it? if the answr is “just because” then you have a failure on your hands and a lot of annoyed people. sorry not sorry

#history 4 #history 4: close to you #lovely writer #a thot

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happikattwuzheere · 4 years

Photo

ok i was gonna try and actually draw out noah’s first time meeting gansey in this au but then i realized idk how to do that without like actually scripting/drawing out basically a whole actual comic complete w/ background and everything and like, i might do that someday but not today so we’re just gonna do this in text BUT

more deer boy au, this time feat: Its My AU And I Want Noah To Get To Be Happy And Safe So He’s A Fey This Time

SO. out somewhere in a forest in eastern europe/western russia possibly, the nearby people know that the forest is ruled by a powerful entity that they call Czerny. he’s a leshy--the old man of the woods, a king within their own lands, mischevious and capricious with travelers, but Czerny in particular is known to despise humans. Most leshy just mess with them, trapping them in their forests to wander in pranks that are harmful but in a very fey-dont-know-how-fragile-people-are way and which can be subverted by turning your clothes inside out which is frankly very fun but ANYWAY. Czerny will do that too but he’s also just in general far more likely to be unkind to humans who pass through. people aren’t sure why, it’s suspected some personal grudges may be in play; he’s a very old entity with a long memory.

there’s one sort of exception to this, though--leshy are known to guide children cursed by their parents to a group of people called the forest people, but czerny in particular is known to take a very direct interest in the lives of the castaways; he’s more or less outright adopted some before and at the very least checks in. any kids who choose to leave and rejoin civilization are warned that, while the forest will always be kind to them, they will never see him again if they do so.

anyway so the point of all this is to say that barrington “certified asshole” whelk manages to get his hands on czerny’s true name, which is unfortunately still written down somewhere despite his best efforts to wipe all those out, this is why he hates humans, but the point is, whelk manages to trap and imprison czerny and drag him back to england with him, use his power for some nefarious purposes for a while, czerny is DEEPLY unhappy.

meanwhile ronan and gansey are just setting out on the road to head toward the village most of the story takes place at, and they run into All This Nonsense, and gansey catches on to Whelk having forcibly bent some powerful magic entity to his will and, being gansey, is like, well that’s not nice at all let me just set you free

and the moment he does all the candles in the room snuff out and the air gets very heavy and ronans like “gansey that may have been very stupid”

czerny won’t even physically manifest at first. he is VERY grumpy and absolutely planning on screwing the person who freed him over. he doesnt like owing ANYONE a life debt, but that’s what this is now, and he’s had a VERY bad time being forced to work for whelk, let’s get this over with

so his booming terrible voice echoes through the room all “state your request, what favor would you ask?”

and ganseys like oh gee i wouldnt dream of asking anything of you, i just felt bad with you trapped in there

and czerny pauses. and goes. “you. you know im a fey right” gansey: the possibility had occurred, yes? oh wait shoot thats a thing with fey, isnt it, uh. cant we. cant we call this one a gift?

czerny:

czerny: ok i will give you some credit here i haven’t laughed that hard in ages

gansey: i didn’t....hear anything??

the conversation basically continues like that and czerny slowly realizes that this guy really is seriously trying to get out of being owed a life debt, which has czerny utterly flabbergasted and very quickly revising his opinion on the guy. at the very least he’s fascinated and curious enough that hes like. well now i have to see what happens. so he ends up agreeing to travel with them, since, no, the life debt is non negotiable--he does, however, leave out the bit where he doesn’t actually have to stick around, he could very easily just go home and gansey could come and call on him whenever he DOES think of a favor for czerny to pay him back in kind--gives them the name “noah” when they ask what to call him, because, hey, that guy with the boat and the animals was pretty cool, it works, and disguises himself as a boy about ronan and gansey’s age

but there’s a bit of a joke in his disguise; a dual-layer glamor, basically--the primary glamor is making him look like, you know, human sized, instead of a giant man with moss for a beard and huge horns like gnarled branches and so on and so on, but he gives himself pointed ears as a private joke and places an additional, very minor glamor over those so that it’s not that people don’t see them so much as people don’t notice. basically whitelists gansey though so that minor glamor doesn’t work on him.

he does not, however, whitelist ronan.

ronan notices the pointed ears anyway, because he’s a cambion, not that gansey knows that yet, and nor does noah.

ronan does point them out and say “hey those might be a problem” and noah, now immediately VERY suspicious, goes, “oh sure i’ll put a glamor on them” but doesn’t actually change anything about his setup, and, upon figuring out that ronan hasn’t told gansey what he is/that gansey seems to be under the impression that ronan’s human, decides, “well ok now it’s a game”

so noah’s playing a game of “we’ll see who gives the game away on what we REALLY are first” with ronan that ronan doesn’t know about at all

ronan, as a result of this exchange, assumes noah must be a really weak fey to have made that kind of rookie mistake. like, a brownie or something. noah’s happy to leave it that way indefinitely but noah’s p terrifyingly powerful and kept in check only by the force of fairy law and also his desire to continue using the life debt as an excuse to hang out in england as long as he wants and watch this very interesting human and the also extremely interesting people he seems to be able to keep finding while slowly revising his very old very set in opinions on humanity as a whole

bonus pic for reading all that which was gonna be part of me drawing out the scene before i realized that wasnt gonna work:

#trc #the raven cycle #noah czerny #deer boy au #lolsketch #longpost #noah out here living his best life: the au #he rly is just having a blast out here #also he locks whelk away to forever endlessly wander the space between spaces as punishment for the bs he was put through #he did not enjoy getting kidnapped!#very undignified and also a hassle.#>:(

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houseki-no-suffering · 5 years

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honestly in pad's perspective, them being in a coma didnt make rutile happy and them being healthy still didnt make rutile happy so it's like fuck you. try fixing me then, here's a piece of something that fixed me, see if you can replicate it if youre so stubborn about it. meanwhile, im gonna pay back the gem that actually helped me by giving myself to them cause you clearly only care about being able to fix me and not my recovering itself

after trying to answer this concisely, I found out that i had a lot of thoughts.

So have a meta about Padparadscha’s wish for death, Rutile’s insecurities and why Padpa came back to Rutile.

to latch onto your ask, the only time padpa speaks about making rutile happy is when we first see them.

they just woke up from a centuries long sleep and rather than spend time with rutile, they go for a walk with phos, the ‘youngest little squirt’ who always tagged along sensei. the little jewel Padpa probably didnt have that close a relationship with, compared to other gems they have known for a longer time.

during this conversation, we quickly realize how similar these two characters are. Both of them need constant replacements: phos breaks all the time and the seventh treasure theory pushes them (unbeknownst to them) to lose and acquire new parts of their body. This is similar to padpa’s condition, with the difference that padpa’s has a much harder time accepting new pieces.

it’s ironic. phos could live the same life padpa does if their body wasnt so accepting of replacements (and we get a glimpse of it when they acquire lapis’ head and during the 220 years time skip). Padpa could live the same life as phos as well if their body wasnt as picky. Add pain, loss, the weight of a meaningless but timeless existence, of war, of crushing self-hate and helplessness.

You can see that padpa and phos are aware of the similarities they share. So padpa moves it one step forward.

Padparadscha says they want rutile to give up on assembling them because they dont want to be a burden. For this we can assume two things:

1) like most of the old gems (and some of the young ones too), padpa has lost any interest in living.

they arent alive for their own sake or because there is something they want to do or prove or see. Even after they go to the moon, they say they will sacrifice their whole being in seeing that phos’ mission is successful. They want to help phos and maybe they have new faith in change thanks to phos’ revolution but, ultimately, they still end up sacrificing themselves.

Padpa never stopped considering their life like a chip they could bargain, they never stopped thinking about death.

2) Padpa doesn’t hate Rutile and they are living for Rutile’s sake out of kindness and resignation. perfectly aware of Rutile’s obsession with fixing them.

To be “discreet and composed” is possibly the most recurring advice in HnK: be prudent, think before you act, have patience, wait, consider everyone else’s feelings, dont rush. Ultimately, this is just a cute wrapping for what these pieces of advice really mean: let it all go.

Padpa let it go when they decided not to confront Rutile and they always stayed true to their resolution. They’re fond of Phos and fascinated by Phos’ ability not to let go, the one that made them an outcast, but even while helping them Padpa is still nonchalantly putting their life on the line.

Padpa let it go. They dont speak with Rutile during the night raid. they dont think that communication will solve their problems. And the same is happening now.

Padpa’s face when they salute Rutile and give them a piece of their gem is like that of a mother who sees their lost child. If the child just doesnt understand, what good is to speak about things?

They’re resigned, there’s tenderness in padpa’s eyes. It’s like they’re telling Rutile: “here, i’m back, sorry for the trouble. i did the thing i was meant to do. I’ll give you this piece so you can say you fixed me, like back then. It will be like old days: I’ll live for your sake again.”

This is directly connected to Yellow’s line in chapter 70, the one that sums up Rutile and Padpa’s relationship perfectly: “Padparadscha woke up! Isn’t that what you wanted?”

It isn’t.

What Rutile wanted was to have absolute authority over their craft. If anyone can fix padpa, what’s Rutile’s skills good for? If they are disposable in a society where your worth and your value depend on how essential you are for the survival of the species, what good is Rutile?

It is ironic and profoundly sad and it shows you just how messed up the lustrous society is.

I can think of few gems who are as un-disposable as Rutile. Euclase maybe, because they have a good grasp of the defects of their society and made themselves irreplaceable, Sensei, Bort… But Rutile is the only doctor, an excellent doctor. They truly are useful and their craft is praised and acknowledged as indispensable. And yet they too are disposable, because anyone can do their job if they train hard enough. Sensei can do their job better than Rutile.

So Rutile decided to embark on an impossible mission. They would fix Padpa. If they could succeed where everyone else had failed, where sensei had failed, they would be irreplaceable. They would be unique, needed, useful, worthy.

Rutile is the umpteenth victim of the system.

They didn’t tie their destiny and their self worth to a lost cause because they’re a psychopath. They’re just profoundly insecure, because insecurity is the only ground upon which a society and a community that refuses to mature emotionally and that teaches apathy can be built.

This is not to say that Rutile doesnt care at all about Padpa. Rutile is probably unaware of the true meaning of their actions, but if you read between the lines you get a glimpse of the truth. For Rutile, it didnt really count whether Padparadscha woke up or not, what counted was that no one else but Rutile had a chance to wake them up. As long as the gems agreed that Rutile was the most suited for this task and could progress further than anyone else could, it was enough.

This is where Phos was wrong. Taking padparadscha away didnt make things easier for Rutile, it took away from them their very mission, their self-worth, their guarantee that they were important and needed and worthy of existing in the lustrous society.

This is why Rutile isnt devastated when Padpa falls unconscious after talking with Phos. This is why rutile tries to take Padpa’s replacements away during the night raid, this is why the say that they want to make Padpa worth something again “by my own hand” in chapter 62.

This is why Padpa comes back to Rutile.

The problem is not whether Padpa can make Rutile happy or whether Padpa wants to upset Rutile and show them that Phos is the one that helped them in the end. Because yeah, Phos did, but Padpa wasnt looking for help. This is the umpteenth problem Phos couldnt fix: Padpa had let go.

Padparadscha is a keen observer. They are smart. They have been living for Rutile’s sake for hundreds of years, perfectly aware that they were not a person but a project, a puzzle that cannot be solved. By fixing padparadscha, Phos and the moon people have thrown away Rutile’s reason d’etre, they have stepped on their self-worth and destroyed their sense of security and confidence in their skills. They have taken away Rutile’s place in the world. Rutile cannot forgive them.

Padpa knows, and that’s why, I believe, they never stopped thinking that they had to come back to Rutile. They have let it all go, with cold, simple rationality. They did what they could to help Phos, now they come back home. It doesnt matter if Rutile will decide to cure Padparadscha or not now, what counts is that, with that piece in their hands, Padpa has given back to Rutile power of life and death over them, purpose, meaning.

“Here,” they tell a mad Rutile, tossing their heart into the air for them to catch, “I’m yours to fix as you please.”

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #hnk spoilers #padparadscha #rutile #meta #best #anonymous #edit: sorry i forgot to put the cut

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izartn · 3 years

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MDZS JGY fic promt

I’m thinking about Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao and I think I would love to read a fic of him snapping in the opposite direction of his desperate grab for power and respect from his shit father. We know, thanks to JGS gruesome murder that at some point, after already being a shitty human doing murdery things, JGY snapped hard and said: “if i’m gonna do the shitty things of running this sect i’ll do them for myself and fuck you to death”. Quite literally.

So I’d like to imagine a world where he, like, not necessary becomes a much better person; I dunno about the JZX and WWX kill plot, or about NMJ. I think he’s very set in his auto-preservating self-beneficing ways, and if you don’t really work well with that part of his chara then he’s not JGY anymore.

But instead of being, I’ll become the highest in the cultivation world, so i will be finally respected and listened to (uhm, didnt’ work especially well did it? they never let him forget his mother profession when it was his father who was the absolute worst) he decides that while cultivation is still something to aspire to -can’t forget about his mother dying dream, also longer life and health benefits + being a hero, doing the decent thing- he realises the cultivation sect system as it is horrible.

He was in the middle of the war, he saw it from both sides. He then went to low to high but still a servant. And it’s always blood what counts. He sees what happens to his other bastard brothers, to WWX when he decides enough is enough, and how he himself is still treated by his Sect despite his intelligence and abilities. And instead of trying to take refuge in the system, he is a bit more self-aware or inquiring; maybe he is more idealistic in some ways? But still oh so bitter, and decides to destroy the system from within.

You know what? Do it so he still rises to Leader of the Jin Sect (without prostitutes murdering and necrophilia; he is now more on the side of the common, so maybe he gets the help of Sisi or someone he knows to aid him poison his father and after he gets them a nice reward and packs them to a new life in Japan or something. Or he simply uses another subtle method without intermediaries or with unaware ones, he is certainly able of doing that when he isnt being an ironic murderer shit.) because it’ll serve him, and to be the leader responsible of making sure the so estimated Jin blood is disposesed will make him smug pleased. To slowly gain power and bit by bit erase the division between the noble clans and people who learn simply bcs of talent, scouting youngsters witht the excuse of replenishing the clans after the war and quiting the idiots nobles from their spoiled positions.

Hell you can even make LXC and NMJ (did he died before or after JGY becomes Sect Leader? Well if he is still alive, NHS doesn’t destroy him, but then WWX doesn’t come back. If he dies before, then the vengeance is still in play, but it’ll be even more fraughted bcs now JGY goals and methods are a lot more morally grey and watching WWX and LWJ confront that would be super interesting O-O), you can make them see those policies and be like, oh sure, that’s a good thing you’re doing A-yao. But also conflict with their positions in the nobility system, as time pases and JGY subtly passes more changes and brings to ruin those sect leaders more entrenched in the old ways and abusing of their people.

Programs for literacy, for the spread of knowledge and the civil use of cultivation techniques with the excuse of avoiding beforehand the formation of ghosts and resentment appealing to the lazy nature of the rich while eliminating bit by bit the necessity of their existence, like boiling a frog, the creation of the watchtowers still fits nicely and we know in canon he faced oppposition there so here it’s more important still, even more so Su She I think, will be elated with this turn of events and even more loyal lmao if JGY sells it well and JGY sells his ideas really well.

Maybe he helps XXC and SL bcs it’s in his interest they find success although he finds them naive; but JGY has a canon soft spot for people who treat him well regardless of his common born status, so. Maybe he intercedes with XY and convinces him to work with him taking out nobles reasonably (I bet XY will like that), and manages to avoid somehow XY elaborated revenge on SL and XXC? or executes him when he is too much of a wild card, but we know how that ended in canon... The best bet is making XY see on his own best interest to help in JGY vision but that’s well. almost crack fic lmao.

OH! Maybe he finds XY before the massacre of the Chang clan bcs he is searching for someone to help him above table and gets to him by offering a more subtle but still suitable appropriate revenge with the pro bonus of getting to do the same to others after and access to WWX manuscripts. You know this has a much higher chance of working, let’s go with this scenario. So he keeps XY out of his father reach, when he is searching for someone to gain control of the stygian seal and wen ning. Yeah, this will appeal immensely to JGY xD

You know, and JGY being beloved by the people, and having more than a facade of being just or fair, but proving it although it isn't in the interest of the nobles. And as he is politics savvy, although with more effort he could certainly make it so he avoids assassinations or walking in a minefield like wwx etc.

Depending on the NMJ situation... You could make it so NMJ doesn’t die and then they enter a stalemate of grudging respect bcs JGY wants more an ally in swaying people for his cause than his revenge, although he sure could make non lethal things to inconvenience NMJ lol. And NHS as sect leader wouldn’t have the same power to his decisions and reach, no matter if he is more manipulable; after all isn’t NHS a pampered noble in JGY eyes? Who could be sure if he even would follow JGY anyways...

And you could give it different endings depending on the development of JGY: a success where he gets to the point were factually the sects aren’t bloods based anymore, just a few like the lan (those traditionalists lol) resisting an unavoidable wave of change taht comes for everybody, and the money doesn’t flow in their pockets like a river to the ocean but instead it goes back to the people.

You could make it so it’s a partial success bcs JGY is still himself and does more than a few morally grey things that come to light with the NMJ murder reveal, but his changes linger and the common people plus others of the same ideal now trained and in process of being cultivators won’t let themselves be cowered by the awful nobility -another big conflict breeding, and maybe it won’t be successful but people have long memories and books and the new ideals of equality would spread regardless, so it would start again and again each time a bit better-. I think WWX POV in this case would be delicious omg, LXC conflict even more pointed. This would be, I think the more realistic and interesting to write take on the idea. Iand you now, I’m in favor of a novel setting and characterization, but to make it more painful, use the 16 gap of the show and nothing else (i haven’t see the show beyond the first episodes bcs i couldn’t take it lol) so JGY has more time to make changes.

You could make a downer ending (this I wouldn’t like lmao, but it’s there) so that shows the cruelty and inability of making changes to something so integrated and supported by itself, that JGY loses much to his revenge he takes more and more radical actions that come back to bit his ass with NMJ and JGS murder revelation. I think XY in here would be appropriate, in an antagonist role as in MDZS. But it still has an impact; JGY’s life, despite his faults was still more inspirational, made better impact than his canon self. Make it poetically tragic and a comment on the futility of trying to change society by oneself, but find beauty in the attempt itself which has created community, which will in the future do the true work of overthrowing the yokes of the high ups, educating and helping each other in their messy human lives.

All this ending, and JL conflict, who at this point has learnt much at his uncle JGY side, who has decided to (dunno about marrying QS and A-Song’s death. depending on your take and ending it’ll have different impact) go on with his labor bc he sees the good on it and swears to not be like the worst of JGY. A legacy he can reconcile with himself thanks too, to the experience of meeting WWX. JL is in a more fraught position with JC in this verse, I think, bc for one, he is more mature/not so spoiled and that would make JC glad, but his ideas are at the same time understable and anatema to JC who puts so much of his life on honoring the clan on making sure the Jiang carry on and his name isn’t forgotten but who recruited from nothing during the war. Who sees the danger in alienating the powers of the cultivation sects bc he saw what it did to WWX and he believes in protecting his own and to hell with the rest.

So very interesting!!!

You could spin so many takes from this, it’d be so fascinating and satisfying. I’d love to see the chara of JGY developed in this direction, bcs he has so much potential to waste it in so petty goals. His ambition is certainly big enough to believe he will damn well do a silent revolution well.

Just, using the classics to argue for equality and education and a good life even if you’re a peasant, using the cultivation basis and its suppose use to better oneself and the world in making a point of avoiding wars and violent retribution (to the public, he’s still a bit of an hypocrit bcs it serves him well to have a stick with which to beat his enemies lmao) and instead use diplomacy and a sort of rehabilitation or service thing. Because those ideas are there, in the different clasics and schools of thought (not confucianism, not as much) it’s just that the nobles and high scholars were never interested and used them to argue for a sort of natural hierarchy were they’re in top.

Let JGY create a new school of thought, and LXC and others seeing the merit on it. JGY has the reach and the intelligence and the ability.

The best revenge is living well and destroying the system which allowed the other to harm you, the ideas, the means. Create a fantasy fulfillment ^^

#meng yao #jin guangyao #mdzs #cql #the untamed #i think tv folks will appreciate this #meta #writing prompt

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grxceblqckthxrn · 4 years

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hi @chocolatecarstairs came up with these post-CHOG questions and i really want to answer them because im sad that im finished reading it :((

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

what was your favorite part, 1 or 2?

Honestly I loved both parts, but I’d say I loved part two just a little bit more for the time that James wasn’t under the curse anymore and LOVED Cordelia

which scene in the book was your favorite?

EVERY scene that had Matthew and James being wholesome parabatai in it!!! my favourite chapter in this book was Blue Ruin, the one after Grace takes the bracelet back from James (aside from the whispering room ofc).

what scene (or scenes) made you cry the most?

ok ngl i didnt spend much of this book crying, but the only scene that actually made me tear up was when james was dying and matthew could feel it and jesse (WHO I FUCKING LOVED MORE THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD) gave him his last breath :(((((

what scenes were unsatisfactory?

there were not enough Christopher scenes (but to be fair, even if the entire book was just Christopher it still wouldnt be enough for me)

but fr, i cant think of any off the top of my head but i’ll edit this if i do later

what made you laugh the most?

matthew!! james!! thomas!! christopher!! also some of the things Jesse said

what bored you?

this wasn’t boring, but the whole charles/alastair plot line didn’t have me very invested. I did love the alastair/ cordelia scenes tho, so it was just charles that was the problem

also no offense to james bc he was my first actual fictional crush after reading TMH/NBS but like whenever he talked about being in grace i would literally zone out lol the bracelet curse makes him so boring but whenever he isnt in the curse/ is with someone who is NOT grace i just!! love him!!

what disappointed you?

cassie honestly had me kinda shipping matthew/cordelia for a solid FIVE SECONDS there when he stepped in to dance with her after james left her standing there, but that was one of the only scenes that made me feel like they had natural chemistry (along with the scene where he drops her off at her house). I felt like the during the rest of their interactions in the book, cordelia was kind of uncomfortable, which made me really sad because even tho she has every right to feel that way, i felt bad for matthew. I kind of want him to fall for someone else completely and for it to be reciprocated. also, i just really want for matthew and cordelia to become good friends because i feel like they could have such great natural chemistry if matthew didnt love her.

what is the top thing you wish had been done differently?

see above.

what things did you predict that came true?

JAMES BURNING DOWN BLACKTHORN MANOR I FUCKING SAID HE WOULD DO IT TWO FUCKING YEARS AGO IF YALL WANT ME TO LINK THE THEORY LMK

what are some things that were really unexpected?

ok there’s quite a few things here so bear w me babes:

- James genuinely loving cordelia from the start. I wasn’t expecting him to naturally feel nothing for grace at all, so i was expecting a slow burn jordelia, but finding out that he actually loves her makes me so happy but the end where cordelia thinks he was just pretending breaks my heart :(((

-matthew liking cordelia lol definitely was not expecting another parabatai love triangle but i hope it doesnt last. i do think it adds to the plot and i love it, it just hurts to see matthew so emo :(((

-I was expecting to like cordelia as a character, but i ended up LOVING her so fucking much???? she’s so three dimensional to me, and it’s interesting to see how her personality adapts around different characters as people adapt around different social circles irl

-liking jesse as much as i did

-ok so james’ entire character was a surprise to me. it’s so fascinating to see how the bracelet actually affected his personality.If you recall him in The Midnight Heir from TBC. he’s like an entirely different person. i still loved him in TMH but i went into CHOG thinking that if he was gonna be like that the entire time i’d probably get over him really quickly. i was pleasantly surprised by how much i ended up loving him even more tho

-i didn’t expect oliver hayward to die and im going to stay emo about it

- Christopher is so much more clear headed than he was made out to be prior?? like there were so many scenes where he was fully there and when he defended anna to alastair i just kfdsnfkld i love him

are there characters that you didn’t like before that you like now?

yikes umm... Alastair, maybe? he’s somewhat okay to me now, I dont dislike him as much as I used to. ooh and Hypatia Vex. the only scene i remember liking her in QOAAD was when she helped out kit, ty and dru (me, going a whole TSC post without somehow mentioning kit? not possible)

are there characters that you liked before that you don’t like now?

I started CHOG ready to give Grace the benefit of the doubt, and I was surprised by how timid and shy she seemed at the start, but it was interesting to see how it was all an act and how she doesn’t have an actual personality yet. one could argue that she actually does love james, but i doubt it at this point. i dont hate her yet, even tho she IS fucking up james’ life, but she’s on thin fucking ice.

who was your favorite new character?

does new character mean completely new or just never been in a novella new? because for the first, it would be Cordelia (i LOVE her sm!!) and other wise it would be james, matthew and co. also!!! jesse!!

what places in the book would you like to visit?

that hell dimension sounds pretty lit ngl

did you like the ending?

ok so. we KNOW that jordelia is gonna be endgame. cassandra clare always takes the hardest path to get there, but when has she not delivered? it’s just a matter of waiting. so, yes, i did like the ending in sense of the plot because it was a great twist, but i also feel really bad for all of them even tho ik they’re eventually gonna be together :(((

what did you think of the epilogue?

i wasnt surprised, since we alr know that Tatiana is shady asf, but i just really wanna know how she partnered up with a GREATER demon like lol wtf. again, im really happy in terms of plot with this

what are your thoughts on the engagement?

i feel so. fucking bad. for cordelia. and james too, even tho he’s under the bracelet’s curse so he doesnt even KNOW he’s being manipulated. but i love how even through the curse, james still loves cordelia in his own way.

what did you want to see that didn’t happen?

matthew getting therapy periodt

umm honestly i just want more “merry thieves” content like i just love. all of them.

what do you wish had been resolved that wasn’t?

i really want matthew to tell james or cordelia what happened because i just need him to be loved and supported lol i want to give him a hug.

what is your favorite pairing as of now?

jordelia!!! and lucie and jesse are kind cute rn, and i like them if theyre gonna be pining after eachother but i feel like if they actually get together i wont like the relationship as much.

which characters would you like to see more of in the next book?

CHRISTOPHER CHRISTOPHER CHRISTOPHER

ANNA!!! i lovED reading about her she’s so badass

matthew!! jesse!! also i wanna see more of those bitchy girls lol just so we can see anna or cordelia tell them to stfu

what is one character whose death you would undo if you could?

ok i know that jesse is still very much a conscious character despite being dead but like,,, i want him to be the way he was before and also i want him to come back to life

and barbara!! she seemed so sweet

which characters got bad/unsatisfactory endings?

ummm barbara? i cant really say much on this yet bc its still only the first book and when has the first book ever ended up with anyone being happy.

oh but also can we sign a petition to make cassie let matthew actually survive the series because my heart aches just at the THOUGHT of eventually having to read a scene where he dies

which characters got what they deserved?

literally. none of them yet. :(

who should have died but didn’t?

Tatiana lol also lowkey charles but i also feel pity him to an extent

what plotline are you most excited to see in the next book?

okay the entire jesse plot has me hooked because i LOVE his character. also i love the bracelet plot but its making me MAD because i just want james to be happy but

what is one scene that you wish hadn’t happened, but you know was unavoidable?

THE ONE WHERE GRACE PUTS THE BRACELET BACK ON JAMES. i mean obv there was no way he was completely done with grace, but i literally got so sad at that part like why HIM of all people smfh let him be happy

which pairing do you like the least?

alastair x charles, grace x james, lucie x matthew bc neither of them actually like either imo lol

what are some theories you have for chain of iron?

- not necessarily for COI but i think matthew is gonna get exiled and turned into made into a mundane

- the bracelet will break (?)

- jesse will come back to life (like actual life) at the end of the book

-grace is gonna do something to help the main characters, making it hard for us to hate her.

what characters do you think should have gotten more plot time?

lol are yall gonna hate me if i say christopher again (also anna)

anyways this was really fun!!!!! PLEASE ASK ME STUFF ABOUT MY OPINIONS AND STUFF OR JUST SAY ANYTHING ABT THE BOOK BC IM DESPERATE TO TALK TO PPL ABOUT IT

#chain of gold spoilers #chain of gold #james herondale #Cordelia Carstairs #Matthew Fairchild #lucie herondale #anna lightwood #thomas lightwood #alastair carstairs #charles fairchild #christopher lightwood #grace blackthorn #jesse blackthorn #tatiana blackthorn #the last hours #tlh #cassandra clare #the last hours spoilers #chog spoilers

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aardvaark · 4 years

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i know everyone gets mad at judy for always checking things like whats happening in the police precinct with the crimes or talking to detectives about those cases and all. i can totally see why jen and all are having a problem with that (steve is technically another example but he can - and lowkey did - die in a hole). it does look dodgy and weird and the situation is stressful for her (”her” being jen - from now on im just gonna refer to jen bc ew steve, so yeah sorry).

i mean i dont like that jen was still being rude or speaking to her like a child except worse and more angrily. she was condescending. but i do understand, at least, the fear resulting in anger at judy.

but ive been thinking about it, and i think the reason judy has a hard time sticking out of these issues is probably because she has previously had to solve every single issue shes experienced alone, when she was young. and she had to be constantly aware - has someone noticed my mother isnt going to school events? has someone noticed that im cooking and cleaning for myself? has someone noticed im tired and stressed? because if a teacher finds out, theyre going to do something, and i dont want to upset my mother because im sure somewhere deep down she really does care and love me sometimes. i dont want to upset anyone at all.

you’d fear massive changes in your life - everything needs to stay the same, even if its not stable, theres a kind of makeshift stability in constant instability. in always having to manage a crisis. theres steps, theres a mental checklist, theres things to do. she probably thought change would still be worse than this; a total upheaval in the short-term. no guarantee of stability in the future. as things were, she had the guarantee of instability, but it was still a guarantee.

she’d have to just reason that she could cope with anything. its what i always hear about kids in neglectful or abusive situations, its a pattern i think a lot of us have experienced: “you’re so mature for your age!” / “you’re special (or smart)” / “you’re so grown up!” / “you’re so responsible!” / “you’re sorry kind and sympathetic to your peers!”. this isnt meant to hurt, it doesnt necessarily hurt, its often from other adults who have no idea whats happening. but the behavior theyre seeing is more along the lines of: quiet, constantly alert, anxious, sad, upset, fearful.

[imo, theres a harmful misconception that quiet/stressed/rarely happy = growing up, becoming more mature. i do think its kind of awful that you’re not meant to have that child-like fascination and excitement with the world when you get older, but its true that just does often go away a little with time, completely naturally. but it can also be harmful to make that A Thing, because childhood depression and anxiety or experiencing potentially traumatic or otherwise stressful and upsetting situations can also lead to showing similar signs - just faster, earlier. and these can be misread as just being very mature for your age. but thats a separate issue i have with the world, lol.]

anyway, so shes found the only option is to hide the problems and present as totally fine. make excuses. lie. keep secrets. these behaviours have stuck with her, too. and so would the feeling that there is constant danger. she must know what the exact extent of the danger is at all times because she must monitor everything. she needs to be on the lookout for threats, because there are always threats. she has to check, be responsible, no one is going to help her, theres an order to the disorder, theres a way to manage the chaos and only she knows how because this is just another crisis. her average state, a day-in-the-life of judy hale.

shes always had to do that, in the context of her growing up. but although its the same feeling of stress, its a different context now, and that behaviour is a lot more suspicious in this situation. especially now, because shes an adult. and now shes not alone in the stressful environment, other people (eg jen w/the murder) want and need a say in how problems are being sorted out. and jen is kinda right, you know, you cant go around checking in with the police, it looks pretty odd. judys form of crisis management isnt applicable here, but judy doesnt really think about that, shes thinking about how best to keep herself safe. and thats how she thinks she is going to be safe, because thats what has worked. in fact, she was doing it because she wants jen to be safe, too.

shes doing the best she can with what she has, but her childhood was terrible and she never had the opportunity to form normal, more effective, adult-life socially applicable crisis management skills. all she did get was what she had to do as a child, to protect herself in a horribly twisted way, because she was a child who did not get to grow up in the way everyone else did. she missed out on a lot of things that you gain when youre not under extreme pressure just to survive and hide major problems while also having to live with those major problems. she didnt get to learn how to find more subtle ways of getting information, or when it was better to just not interact at all.

what she learnt let her live back then, it prevented her world from unravelling. how can she be expected to let go of those makeshift survival skills? how can she be expected to go against the instincts that have clearly saved her before? how can she be expected to confront her slowly growing understanding that her life should never have been like that, that she was robbed of her childhood, that she has had a horrible thing happen to her, that countless horrible things have happened to her, how can she be expected to accept that she deserved better than she has ever gotten? how can she be expected to allow herself all these feelings and fears she has been pushing down her entire life?

admitting/realising that she doesnt know what to do, that she isnt safe and cant control the situation by herself, means admitting far too much: it means admitting that she was never meant to be capable of coping by herself, that she actually couldnt cope with literally everything life threw her way no matter what - shes not okay, she didnt have some supernatural ability to somehow deal with everything, and she wasnt supposed to. that her mother knowingly put her in an unsafe situation, and she was not meant to just learn how to cope.

i dont think jen does or really truly can currently realise that, but i hope she starts to see that if she learns more about judy’s mom and all... she definitely didnt get that judy was stressed and actually doing what she thought was great, and also that what she has been doing isnt out of naivety or something, but kind of the opposite - more like she knows too much, has been too exposed, and now shes just applying those things here but it doesnt work here.

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