#the white women on that show get babies and coddled | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

1800duckhotline · 24 days

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https://www.tumblr.com/1800duckhotline/748414044204154880/i-seriously-think-this-show-was-created-in-a-lab?source=share

hi! im not able to send you dms but i really want to know what you think about hazbin. i downed the entire thing in a day out of morbid fascination of seeing how that artstyle animates, but the quality of the script and handling of the structure of the show are so dogshit that the show has been lodged in my mind. and my friends who i can rely upon for their thoughtful analysis are not people who would watch it.

basically Hello Send Help

Honestly you summed up most of my plights within the show already, its just dogshit all around flaming and whatnot and i cannot believe there's 30 years old who eat this slop up. i can forgive teenagers for liking it (i am very self-aware as someone who read fucking homestuck when i was 13) but i cannot forgive fully grown adults for thinking this show has any sort of nuanced or well-written story

i finished watching the show feeling less aggravated by the designs and visual dev of the whole thing (though obviously its still really bad), and instead more by how insultingly and exhilaratingly bad the writing was.

i could literally take out my blocknote review of the whole show starting from ep 1 to ep 8 but i want to spare my friends who dgaf about hearing about this show. so ill just try to resume concisely my thoughts using my notes as crutches

this will be a very long one and again to spare people of pain ill put it under a readmore

vivienne medrano does not care about the female characters in her own show. idk about helluvaboss and i honestly dont want to watch it unless someone watches it with me, but from what i hear hazbin hotel was supposed to be the show "focused on the girls" while helluva boss was supposed to "focus on theboys". you'll never guess what happens in this show. the main 2 girls, who are supposed to be protagonist, are completely flat characters, that are given the slightest margin of spotlight THE LAST TWO EPISODES OF THE SEASON, and no 8 episodes isnt a justification for the dogshit writing they have. vaggie is the "angry mean militaristic lesbian of color who also coddles her white girlfriend" and charlie is "goody two shoes who doesn't use her powers as literal PRINCESS OF HELL because it's 'too mean' and who is babied and is also written like a baby that doesnt know how to act besides being 'positive and whimsical'". they are literally a ship trope shipped together because idk.

most of the development in the show is handed onto the guys, obviously, as they get the most songs, most exposure to their backstories, and most interactions that are somewhat written less one-dimensionally than the girls. (not to say the guys aren't also walking ship tropes for fanfic purposes). like you can't spin this in a way that doesn't sound bad, the men just get more spotlight and that's a fucking fact. so much for "focus on the girls". fucking SIR PENTIOUS GETS A SONG AFTER HIS DEATH, GUYS

none of the angel vs hell lore makes any fucking lick of sense, and i dont mean to say it needs to be biblically adjacent, it just doesnt make fucking sense even in the "original" lore it is constructing. how is hell supposed to be a threat to heaven when hell denizens dont have access to heaven?? this question alone makes anyone question what the hell the exterminations really are for. also, like, i really fucking hate adam, he's literally the most annoyingly written villain, like he's not even funny in a trashy way. if you want to make your main villain a hypocrite who's also a massive misogynist and sexist, writing him like a frat bro makes sense if your story is set in a college campus. this is HEAVEN AND HELL. all of his lines are just stupid and senseless for the context this all takes place in (also like lute being essentially a tradwife for him is literally such a stupid choice, if you want to make a meaningful commentary about misogyny among women this isnt how it works)

all of the sin and pure shit and repenting deal is like... literally awful. for a show that prides itself on owning the bigots who think gay sex and doing drugs and doing crimes is all inherently evil, the writing really does not do itself a favor of subverting this real-world bigoted way of thinking. as unintentional as it might be it kind of just reinforces it when the character they decide to 'repent' is fucking angel dust, a literal sex worker stuck in a cycle of abuse with an abusive rapist pimp and who does drugs as a way to cope in his life. because obviously sex work (and bdsm) is inherently sinful and disgusting and the only way to repent is to give up disgusting gay sex and sinful drugs and just stick it to the abuser that has you literally by the leash! i dont think this was intentional but it comes off as hilariously stupid and straight up tactless. (also we don't talk about how the storyboarded for the song poison apparently also drew rape comics of angel dust and valentino before as a kink thing)

oh on the topic of valentino, i dont fucking get people liking him. he is literally shown to be abusive and a rapist. people will see a thin man who's not straight and hump his legs like their life depends on it. at least he isnt white but i'd actually say this makes everything worse because vivienne medrano LOVES making the characters in her show of ambiguous ethnicities/backgrounds and ends up making most of the awful ones, of color. again dont think this is INTENTIONALLY done but it still comes across as horrid nonetheless. whew!!!

also i hate alastor in all types ways sauces and forms. he exists to attract fangirls and rabid fans who love tumblr sexymen. other than his design being tremendously aggravating, he's literally just fucking useless, and i hate that the show tries to shoehorn in halfway that he's supposed to be a "dad figure" to charlie when he literally never has done anything dadlike for her in the whole show (and yes i watched the pilot, i still dont think this counts). the only saving grace for alastor is his voice acting. everything else needs to go. there is no saving this one

and, on the topic of alastor, i'm not the first one to point this out but something about him owning husk's soul (the one character being voiced by a black VA, who coincidentally also has a design that is conveniently ambiguous with him being a fucking. winged cat furry demon ig) has like some really bad vibes about it that i can't quite put my finger on. i'm not entirely qualified to like dissect the issues this whole show has with like... the way certain implied characters of color act within it (i say implied because vivziepop is allergic to giving the main characters of her shows actual dark skin colors that arent grey, except maybe some one-off side characters) but it was just so jarring i had to mention it

i also hate lucifer because again, made for purely fanfic ship tropes and rabid fans who are obsessed with 'pathetic sopping wet cat men' with that signular character trait. his persnality is: Depression and Dad. I literally hated every fucking moment in this show where he was in a scene and was treated as "just some guy". same with charlie. Like the lack of authority they have for a supposed KING AND PRINCESS OF HELL is just... i dont know? stupid?

conclusion is that i hate the show, i will however bee seeing season 2 just because at this point im in it for the long run, its just like, other than the visuals being awful; it was legitimately the least aggravating part for me (THIS DOESNT MEAN I LIKE THEM, I DONT, I HATE THEM TOO) but the whole writing is just... wow. i just don't understand how they got a24 to back this up. like you cant make this shit up this bad even if you tried. and im sure there's a trillion other things other people have more eloquently explained in how and which ways they are bad; these are just some of my thoughts.

my concluding statement is that i also feel really bad for people who do entire rewrites of this thing as 'fans'. i dont get it. like i get doing redesigns because it can be an exercise and because lets be real, like, everyones design is bad, hardly anything is salvageable or makes sense. but rewriting... guys please just make your own stories from scratch. at the cost of being told "omg this is just like hazbin hotel!" you have to persevere and just write your own shit. because doing the redesigns means unpacking heaps of 'lore' that doesnt make any whatsoever sense...

#i REALLY dont want to tag this #i hope the shartbin fartel fans dont find me not bc im scared of them but because i have shit to do now. i gotta work ok?#asks #almost forgot to disable reblogs omfg

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weirdo09 · 9 months

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“you wouldn’t have worn that last year.” i didn’t have a top like that last year because my momma was actin like you were so special that i couldn’t wear those kinds of tops because “Troy, a grown man will see you!” you don’t see how harmful that shit is?? y’all was literally the reason i hated my body because parts of them weren’t “appropriate” to show around you, like something as simple as some damn side boob. all because your ass would get turned on by it, and grown men wonder why now they are being limited to see BABIES literal children because “oh you might turned on by her cleavage!” or “oh they might get turned on by your ass!” like sighhh

really, men are coddled.. idc if you’re a person of color who was like amab. you were most likely coddled because women thought that y’all wouldn’t be able to handle seeing body parts. yk like when you get out into the real world and you’re so excited to see naked women? that was because you were coddled n taught that a woman’s body was private, something so forbidden.

y’all(mostly white men in this scenario) will be treated like children until you are like a grown ass man. men did create the system but women contributed by the weird ass comments about how little girls shouldn’t wear tank tops because “your shoulders!!!” or “your boobs are developing, no no!!” like ugh

#cade’s things #cade’s thoughts 💭

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seerofmike · 2 years

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i've never felt comfortable with the way ppl talk about loba. everyone calls her a cunt and a bitch for being a bad friend to bangalore. like yeah it sucks but like...i think it's more of a bad writing thing than anything else. also mirage is a shitty friend too but i don't see people say anything about that. it's just that the fandom hates woc and trauma victims who don't exhibit squeaky clean symptoms

literally this, especially over on reddit. i think loba HAS acted like a bitch before, but i love her for it, the same way i love bangalore even if sometimes she's a jackass, especially to wraith. to a lot of people though, women being mean=BAD, even though mirage was equally, if not moreso, ableist to wraith. like i've seen people on reddit legit go "mirage has always been such a nice guy", completely ignoring that the season 6 quests were literally dedicated to showing how much of an asshole he was.

but god, i remember s5, the broken ghost. everyone celebrating caustic choking loba out, calling her a bitch for getting their beloved white waifu wattson hurt. then when caustic was revealed to be manipulating wattson and being a traitor...suddenly crickets? suddenly "oh he's so misunderstood and tragic because he doesn't know how to properly convey love". FOH

to be honest though it isn't always as clear cut as women=good and men=bad, trauma victims like you said get treated like SHIT by the apex fandom when they aren't perfect sad babies. during TPS people were cropping one of octane's statements out of context and there was like ZERO empathy from half the fanbase talking about an abuse victim...*acting* like an abuse victim. and then this goes in reverse, too, octane stans coddling him while calling lifeline a cunt for the way she treated him.

like no!!! they were BOTH cunts!!! but also even if you think they handled their situation poorly can we at least extend nuance to the conversation because we know they've both been abu--ah, nope, fandom verdict is octane is just selfish for the sake of selfish and lifeline is controlling for the sake of controlling.

actually ive pinpointed the root cause while writing this, which is that like half of the apex fandom has the comprehension of a brick. since most of the female characters are actually well written nuanced people and most of the male characters are shallow as fuck, that's why there's a deep divide on top of the normal flavor of misogyny. because the apex community takes everything done at surface value and goes "wow loba is a cunt but mirage is my perfect little baby tho"

#this applies mostly to reddit btw #and if u of the apex legends tag can see this it means it does not apply to yoi #because i block everyone on apex tumblr with an annoying opinion <3

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thatbangtanbloom · 3 years

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unspoken | bts [1]

unspoken

teaser | [1]

characters: kim namjoon, kim seokjin, min yoongi, jung hoseok, park jimin, kim taehyung, jeon jungkook, reader

pairings: ot7 x fem! reader

categories: angst, fluff, smut

genre: idol!bts, idol!reader (maybe obsessive!bts??? yandere!bts???)

warnings: reader has her life TOGETHER (???appears to anyway), jungkook being sad about reader giving others (mostly tae) attention, make out on the couch, sex on the couch, all the boys kinda obsessive behavior mentioned at the end?, bts members are possessive (mostly jk!!), (uhhh may be slight yandere themes? no violence to)

a/n: this follows immediately after the teaser, so it mostly focuses on jungkook!!! other members will be introduced in the next chapters

It wasn’t like you weren’t used to holding things together. You had been trained for years to be a top idol. Five: those were the years you spent bringing your lyricism to perfection, years dedicated to personality training for variety shows and publicity conferences, years conjured up in between vocal training sessions and dance practices to make you every bit of a fourth generation idol that you could manage. As the leader of one of the the top girl groups in Korea, you had grown used to taking constructive criticism and turning it into perfect moves. You leveraged commercial film deals with ease as you opted for optimal screen time for each of your members easily. You easily quelled squabbles between the four other members in your group over bouts of jealousy and short term argument. For years, you trained as a lone gem to bring both men and women to your knees alike with the mere turn of your wrist or seductive smile. You were trained for everything.

What you were not trained for were your seven boyfriends. The seven of them did not hold a single provision in your years of training nor was there any booklet for explaining how to juggle their varying needs and degrees of affection they desired from you. None of them has been forecasted as an event in your already packed schedule between V-Lives, fan meetings, press conferences, or music shows when collecting win after win. You still managed your best.

When you were not preparing for a new album, learning a new dance routine, or writing new lyrics, your time was divided up amongst the seven of them. You often accompanied Seokjin as he played Maple Story with you settled into his lap with a giggle whenever he complained about the new skins. Or, you could be found sitting in the studio with Yoongi drinking iced americanos (a drink you detested more than the monthly evaluations you had as a trainee) working on lyrics together with your fingers entwined together. With Hoseok, you spent the bulk of your time dancing to your hearts content or pressed against one another in ways that would appear amoral if not for the spoken seductions he would whisper to you. Namjoon’s own commitment to giving you an endless list of recommendations as you laid in his arms, conversing about the black ink on white pages with full hearts. Jimin often meant being cuddled under heaps of blankets as you watched animal videos together and played with his hair when you were not reassuring him of how well he had done the day before. Taehyung meant practicing the scripts together for the dramas you would audition for and splashing each other to your hearts content as you washed the dishes of the dorm after Seokjin cooked. And lastly, being with Jungkook meant impromptu video shoots all the time; the boy wanting to remember every moment he spent with you as though it would be his last.

You may not had been the most organized, but you did know how to cherish each of your boys just as you did the other valuable people and aspirations within your life. While not meticulous, things almost always went to plan for you when you worked hard enough… but even that meant that surprises (especially the pleasant surprises) could make all the difference.

So it was given when you woke up at five in the morning the next day to find Jungkook sitting rigidly on the sofa, you had an inkling of how your day would go with this very uncommon occurence. The youngest of your boyfriends often opted for staying up only when playing video games or producing new tracks for his highly anticipated mixtape, but you saw nothing in hand but his phone.

“You’re awake.” You comment as you lean over the couch to press your lips gently against his temple. All the tension in his body seems to leave when his arms snake around your waist to send you plummeting into his lap.

Jungkook had always been rather fond of using his strength against you.

“You were with hyung again, last night.” He stares more so as a statement rather than a question. It had been one of those days when things felt a bit too overwhelming and Taehyung had sensed it before you. It was not intentional you found yourself being coddled by the raven haired man, but it seemed to be happening more and more as contract recertification was coming and the girls growing increasingly antsy about future concepts.

You can hear the displeasure in Jungkook’s voice. “Is something wrong?” You ask as you sit up in his lap to touch his cheek.

“You’re always with him.” Jungkook whispers with a frown settling on his lips. “You know he’s not your only boyfriend, right? There’s me... and the others..”

You bite the inside of your lip as you think about the delicate balance of your relationship with the seven of them. Their feelings weren’t as easy as dodging invasive questions in a press conference or could be corrected after a quick meeting with producers. Perhaps you were not as prepared as you thought. You just wanted to hold it together again.

“I know you’re my boyfriend too, Kook.” You say as you snake your arms around his shoulders. “You know that I love you all equally, right?”

Scoffing, Jungkook pouts. “You say that,”

“Jungkook.” You frown deeper as you press your forehead against his. “I mean it. I love you all the same! Each of you have your own charms that make me realize why I wanted to be with you in the first place. I love you just as much as I love Taehyung and I love Taehyung just as much as I love Seokjin. And I love Seokjin as much as I love Nam-“

“야.. 야... I gathered that much. You could have stopped with loving me.” Jungkook jokes, making the familiar flutter of your stomach return. You were happy he understood. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easily.”

“You’re not?” You muse with a raise of your brow.

“Mmm.” Jungkook replies as his hands grip both of your hips to pull you closer before pressing you flushed against his chest. “I can think of ways for you to make it up to me, baby girl.” He is no less subtle as his hands run up along your sides and settle over your breast. He opts for teasing the right one first, circling the sensitive bud between his index finger and thumb. “I can think of a very good way for you to make it up to me.”

He lifts up your white shirt and tugs down the cup of your bra to place an open-mouthed kiss onto your right breast and then your left with a long sigh. “So. so..so fucking pretty and all for me,” His words send vibrations along your skin. He reluctantly pulls back, watching your shirt fall back over your frame and rubs the small of your back gingerly. “I always want you, you know that, right?”

“If you want me, you know you already have me.” You quip prior to kissing along his jawline. He was a sucker for kisses there- he always had been. The thought of your kisses alone could have him cupping the base of his cock and edging himself for release when he thinks about your soft lips on his jaw, his neck, his lips, his cock.

Nevertheless, you scoff at his words. He always amused you when he pulled out that nickname in particular, but you couldn’t deny that it combined with the taunting look in his eyes did provoke some part of you. “I have to get back to the dorms before the girls wake up, Jungkook.”

“I’ll drive you.” He offers with a smile as devilish as Lucifer himself. Jeon Jungkook was equal parts crafty as he was intelligent.

“As enticing as it is to do that and we both know how badly I do want you,” you preface as you toy with the golden chain that dangles around Jungkook’s neck. He had known you were far too fond of it. “That will draw attention.. they’ll recognize your car.” You frown in attempts to reasoning with him. He doesn’t back down though; he never does when it comes to you.

“We can figure things out,” He whispers as he begins to kiss along you neck slowly. The sensation of his lips are gentle in comparison to the way his hips rut against your own. “Just wanna be inside you.. it’s been so long.”

The youngest of your boyfriends always had a bit of an appetite. During award shows, he often was the first to come find you in some miraculous show of stealth. Even during concerts when BigHit would hold its annual New Years Eve Live, he would linger backstage to catch a glimpse of you. You have dated him long enough to know the subtlety was not his forte. Now was no different.

You tug lightly at the ends of his hair to make him look at you. It is instinctual; the moan falling from his lips as his grip on your hip tightens. It does not stop either as he expertly rolls his hips against your spread ones.

“Wanna feel your tight pussy around my thick cock,” He rasps into your ear as his right hand slights down your hip to your ass and cups it. His hands are a stark contrast to how his lips kiss your skin like a brush on the canvas. He wants all of you. He wants to feel a part of you in the deepest way. “Please? I need you so badly, baby.” He whispers as his member presses more in between your thighs, just over your clothed sex.

You let out a curse from his wandering hands. “You really know how to provoke me, huh?” You shake your head in amusement as you pin Jungkook down onto the couch. He follows easily - he’s always been a good boy whenever you’re around you.

“You shouldn’t hold back. You know I like it rough, YN-ah.” He presses his tongue against the side of his cheek. It’s always been a tell of his when he can barely hold it together - can barely hold back from wanting to feel all of you. “No teasing either.” He’s always been eager to test you, eager to see how much you would let him get away with.

You straddle his hips with practiced ease while untying his gray sweatpants, “You’ve always talked too much.” You halfheartedly remark as you tug down the taut fabric down his tanned thick thighs.

“You love it when I talk,” He quips back. He’s smug as his hand reaches out to stroke your cheek gingerly. He watches you with nothing but admiration and lust in his eyes. He’s always enjoyed how you take control, but that does not mean that he is not one to challenge you. What was the fun in fully submitting when you could make him? “But you like it so much more when my head is between your pretty thighs, don’t you? You like the way my tongue thrusts into your tight pussy until you’re on the brink of cumming?”

You give a noncommittal hum as every so often, his thumb presses down over the denim of your jeans to your clit to intensify the flex of his thigh. He’s always loved this view of you hovering over him, moaning from the slightest action he gives you and wanting more until it drives you over the edge. He knows you could quite possibly cum just from this alone, but Jeon Jungkook has always been a generous man.

With this in mind, he takes advantage of your hips lingering over his right thigh after shifting to toss his sweatpants to the side to press his flexed thigh against you and sends you flush against his chest with a smirk. He likes seeing the contorted look of frustration on your look from the sudden change of pace and he only raises a brow. “What’s wrong, baby? Did you think I would give in easily?”

“Oh, Jungkook,” You give a breathy sigh as your eyes meet his own full blown ones. He’s always had gorgeous chocolate brown eyes; the usual galaxy colored in them eclipsed by something far darker. Before you can reprimand him, he presses down harder onto your hips until you straddle his thigh and flexes his thigh once more. The sensation makes you sensitive, especially when he manages to brush your clit with the slightest action.

What a brat, he was.

You don’t hold back the moan that escapes from the back of your throat. He is more keen to feel all of you when your hands fall to his chest to try to regain your posture, but Jungkook finds it more endearing the way you still grind against his flexed thigh like a fucked out kitten.

He knows that he could cum simply from hearing your moans alone, but you’ve taught him well at holding out. He watches the way your hips press harder against his own thigh, wanting to feel all of him despite the two layers of clothing that separate him from you.

He takes initiative to unbutton the top of your jeans before rolling them down your thighs. He is speedy as his arm grips your waist to press you against his chest and they soon join the puddle of his own jeans on the floor. He has always been insatiable when it comes to you, often eager to drop to his knees and eat you out until the sunrise, and a burning sensation in your stomach tells you that this time won’t be any different.

“What was that about needing to get back to your dorms?” He asks with smirk on his face as he turns your chin to look at him. His words are accusatory, acting as though you were not riding his thigh to fruition. “I can think of a better way to do this, though.”

“So can I,” You reply after finally getting over the initial high of him teasing you.

“Mmm,” Jungkook whispers without another word. Normally shy around others, he never could quite control himself around you. He had no intention on doing so either, especially not when you were half clothed in front of him and he had gotten the taste of you he had wanted, but still, Jeon Jungkook remained insatiable. “I have a request.”

“A request?” You repeat back to him with a tilt of your head. You can tell that he is the temptation incarnate as his hands begin to cup your sex and slowly his middle and index finger begin to tease your wet folds through your panties.

Nodding, he indents his sense with a tug at your panties to send them down your thighs. “Mmm. A request-“ He says before once more rolling on top of you and pinning you down into the couch. He never did get tired of manhandling you-the way your body fell limp under his just with the swiftness of his moves was more than enough to have his cock grow harder to be inside of you, but he would wait. He would be good until you told him not to be.

“And that is…” You find it hard to keep up the conversation, especially when Jungkook drops to his elbows to carefully cup both of your hips and draw you nearer to him. Your pussy grows wetter just from the way his index finger continues to brush over your clit before swiping down your slit to get a bit of your essence and he licks his fingers.

He does not answer you, only opting to connect his lips against your aching cunt without warning. Soft like petals, his lips kiss your clit ever so slightly prior to him moving closer to you like a man starved to begin to send stripes of love against your cunt with his tongue. The first of them has you bucking your hips to entrance his face between your thighs, but the rest nearly have you twitching for more. Perhaps you were a bit more worked up then you anticipated.

Your hands immediately find chase in his hair, wanting to remember each thrust into your tight pussy from Jungkook’s thick tongue. He is careful to savor each drop of your essence that begins to paint his jaw with love. He honestly thinks he can grow drunk from the amazing taste that dribbles from you.

“Fuck, you taste so good.” He rasps against your cunt, only adding to the vibrations of your tight pussy. “I just wanna stay between your thighs forever.” His licks are ultimately calculated, but every now and then he grows lost in your essence as his nose begins to bump against your clit every so often. The added sensation has you nearly stuttering out his name. “Fuck, I really want to be inside this tight pussy. You like the way I eat your pussy, don’t you?”

You are keenly aware of Jungkook’s love of praise and you ultimately have no problem giving it to him as you choke out on your moans, “That feels so good, Kook-fuck- baby boy, knows how to eat pussy well, doesn’t he?“

“Fuck, I almost just from hearing that,” He rasps out, making you realize how he grinds against the cushion of the couch at the same cadence of you bucking your hips. He’s so fucked out at this point, barely able to hold it together when he can feel how tightly your walls clench around his wet tongue. It turns him on to no end and he can only think of how tightly you would fit around him. “You know,” He pulls back slowly, but his fingers still return to scissor inside your wet cunt as he leans forward on his knees to hover over you. “You know you could have all of us to yourselves, right? For a whole week… no distractions,” He curls his fingers inside of you, making you moan louder in pleasure from how good it feels. “It’s been a long time since you’ve felt Yoongi-hyung’s tongue inside of your pretty pussy, huh?”

The thought of Yoongi alone make you tighten your hips a bit more and you nod. Yet, you still question, where is he going with this?

“I’ve been thinking.. well,” He stops rubbing your clit for a moment to make sure you have his full attention before adding another finger. Before he can continue, he finds himself growing more lustful for the essence that pools at your hips and returns his mouth onto your wet cunt with a sigh of relief. He’s in euphoria with each moan that escapes your mouth. “You taste so fucking sweet “-and we want to go on a trip. The eight of us. You’ve got break and so do we coming up. I’m sure we could fit things together, right?”

Fitting things together - all you can think about is how perfect Jungkook would fit inside of you if he weren’t eating you out right now, but you are not one to complain. You are more than happy to spend time with the boys, “Of course… I would love tha-“ You suck in a deep breath to mask the moan when Jungkook finds your g-spot without much need to look. He memorized you like the back of his hand.

“Mmm, I can tell you’re close.” He smirks as he slaps your ass. The added pain as you wiggling your hips for more friction against his tongue, but he likes seeing you like this. Completely at his mercy and every whim to treat you as he pleases. You who seemingly always held things together, crumbling right in front of him as a slobbering mess as he eats you out. It was so hot.

“Shit-“ You rasp out as you feel the familiar twinge in your stomach. Your walls only tighten more around Jungkook’s fingers as he speeds up the pace to watch the way your face contours into pleasure. Your back arches when he curls his fingers inside of you for a third time and unknowingly to you, Jungkook finds his own release chasing after yours when his cock throbs more in pleasure. “I’m so close Jungkook-“

“Me too, baby, fuck,.” He whispers as he increases the thrust of his fingers inside of you to match the thrust of his own hips to bring you both to your eyes. His thighs flex as the familiar tension in his stomach bubbles up and he wants to cum all over you. God, he wants to lick every drop of your cum from your body as it mixes with his own.

Without another word, your high comes crashing down as your eyes shut closed and your hips buckle one last time around Jungkook’s fingers. You call out out his name before realizing it and tightly encapsulate his fingers between your thighs as you lazily ride out your high.

Jungkook does not fair any better as he uses his free hand to cup the base of his cock and pump the aching desire that begins to consume him. Seeing you cum is more than enough to have his stomach tense one last time before white ribbons paint your stomach, making him grunt in pleasure from how sexy you are and the intensity of the orgasm that he had just experienced.

He collapses on top of you, sighing into the crook of your neck as he nuzzles his face affectionately into your own. Despite the ache in your core somewhat subsiding, Jungkook still grinds his softening cock against your thigh for the last of his high, “Fuck.. that was so good.”

“You did well,” you reassure him as you pant up and down. You turn your face to press a kiss against his lips and smile. “I’m also excited for this trip you guys are planning.”

Jungkook blinks as he thinks about the trip and nods shyly. He leans more into your touch, wanting to feel all of you as he snakes his arms around his waist to hold you close. “I am too… I just really want to be with you, but the others also want it too…”

“I want to be with them too. I love you and them, you know?” You whisper quietly into his ear while gingerly stroking his cheek.

“I love you too,” Jungkook whispers against your skin while leaving butterfly kisses along your shoulder. “But.. can I ask you something else?”

You nod, “Mmm?”

“Please don’t spend so much time with Taehyung,” Jungkook whispers as he finds himself growing more demure. HE doesn’t want to see your reaction; the way your features furrow into confusion at the request in fear of you rejecting him. “I’m not saying to avoid him.. but .. but please try to be with me a lot, too.. I. I worry you’ll stop loving me… or won’t think of me.. and forget me.” He felt incredibly vulnerable in front of you, especially now when he has done his best to give it all to you, but it still makes him nervous.

“Jungkook,” Your features soften at his words and you gingerly stroke his cheek. “I think of you so much. You know that right? I love you a lot and will do better since it worries you. You mean just as much to me as everyone else does.” You smile warmly, “So don’t worry about it… okay?”

Your words provide him some solace, so Jungkook shyly agrees, “Okay..” He whispers, but his grip on your hand doesn’t let go. Nevermind that he was your boyfriend, along with his six haunts who you loved equally just as you loved him. He could sense the growing tension between the seven of them as they all tried to vy for your attention.

He knew of Jimin’s own interest of whisking you away from everyone with his pretty eye smile and wanting to teach you contemporary dances so you could see the way that Jimin would lead you away. Hell, even Jimin had suggested that he would be eager to take you away from everyone if he had the chance. Namjoon was no better, only thinking of the sparkle I your eyes as he suggested a new book to you, a new concept that ultimately left you in awe of him to where you would ideally follow him and never move away.

Seokjin had made it clear of his own intents to have you and you alone when he suggested taking you back home to meet his family and see the traditional way of doing things in Korea; the smile his parents would give from finding someone so prim and proper like you. Though appearing aloof, Yoongi had his own stake in luring you into his own embrace through words of eloquence, rhymes to make your heart dizzy, and a tongue to course you into things unimaginable. Hoseok’s own methodology of spoiling you to no end with attention and suggested dancing was the first part of many to guide you into his charms; the others focusing on learning every bit of you until the end for him to ruin.

Taehyung had been the most bold of it - eagerly molding himself to be whatever you wanted under the guise of practicing monologues and scenes from his favorite movies. Too keenly aware, Jungkook could recognize how very much their own behaviors were no different from his own as he laid in wake to catch you alone and make you his at every opportunity he could with a voice like a siren and bright galaxy eyes that made you want to give him anything he asked for. He had to be keenly aware of this when it would be so easy to let go with six others wanting your attention alone.

To make you let go. And he would be damned if would let you go, either. If he couldn’t have you, no one else would be able to either.

- - - -

Don't be a silent reader! how do you think the relationship is going to go now that you know a bit more about the relationship dynamic?

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symphonyofthewrite · 3 years

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If These Walls Could Talk

Freaking GORGEOUS cover art by Junki Sakuraba on Instagram and Deviantart!! Definitely go check him out!! His art is incredible, and from what I can tell he’s really nice dude. He absolutely went above and beyond with this prompt. 10/10 would commission again. (And probably will once I save up enough money XD)

The wonderful art later in the chaper is by niuan_ on instagram!!

It wasn’t made/commissioned for this fic--(though I’ve since commissioned her to make cover art for me, so stay tuned for those!)--but when I saw it I couldn’t believe it!! That’s one of my favorite images in this chapter, and I couldn’t believe another artist made a piece for the same idea independently!!

I'll put the links to their profiles either in the replies or a reblog (since tumblr is dumb about links)!!

Also, FYI, I'll be using this post as my "reblog post" meaning I'll reblog this post with the later chapters of this fic, so they're all in one place. So if you want to read more of this fic, check the reblogs on this post, chances are more chapters will be there!!

Comments and reblogs are MORE than appreciated!! If you have a spare minute you will really make my week, and motivate me to keep writing!!

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Summary:

“My mother’s name was Lisa, and she was mortal…She actually showed up at his front door. She found the castle and banged the door with the pommel of her knife…She was remarkable. She beat on the door until my father let her in, and then demanded he teach her how to be a doctor.”

Chapter 1: "Lisa”

“Is this how the castle felt to you before my mother first arrived at your door?”

The castle doesn’t like children.

Well, maybe that’s too strong to say. It simply isn’t the place for them. Its existence is a signpost: leave me alone. It is not used to having company—much less a family—inside it, nor is it ready to welcome for a crying, puking, giggling thing into the world. It does not intend to be a cozy place to coddle him into adulthood.

The castle itself pierces the sky, its turrets and towers the dripping stain of the sun’s blood across the moon.

The bare walls hold no colorful tapestries for a child to enjoy, no paintings of its many inhabitants to tell of—for there was only ever one (and maybe that ought not change. It is safe to say the castle doesn’t like change). The royal red and gold carpets are more suited to kings; not designed for spit-up, mud, and scuffing. ‘Don’t play with that’ would be a motto around here; so many contraptions either easy to break, or which could break the child. The fireplaces, while almost always lit, only ever coughed warmth onto the floor before them—they provided no snug space to curl up on a winter’s day. Even the mirrors here are empty, holding nothing but a reflection of the bare walls they sit upon.

There are certain people who were seemingly born as they are; they never owned toys, never crawled on the floor, never walked with clumsy steps—their footfalls were always this calculated count—never burped on their mother’s nice shirts, and surely never had anything so dull as a childhood. They were always just…here, on the world. There was no innocence, and no losing it. So it was with Dracula.

The very thought of Dracula ever owning toys, even in some nice cottage far away from here, with a doting mother and an absent father, with a funny last name like Cronqvist, defied sense to the castle. So no, no toys here, nor any simple charts for learning; the books divulged their secrets to more mature minds. Just blood and books, gold and gears, forgotten magic means, mirrors that reflect nothing, and a pile of prayers to a good God they used to justify their ungood, and ungodly deeds.

All these things—or their absence—do not make for the picture of a baby-proof home.

The castle has grown accustomed to being cold and dark, and listening to one master alone. It’s not a quaint place lovers look on and think we’ll raise our kids here someday.

Its master isn’t the ideal father either—after all, the castle only reflected its king. Its master knows only of blood and nails, fangs and wails, words too big for a child’s mouth, and worlds too dark for a child’s heart.

Can he be soft? Can he be gentle? Can he keep those claws, which have ripped out better men’s hearts, from piercing a child’s—his child’s…how could one who killed so many have a child?—skin? He knows many spells, but is there one that can turn those screams into laughter?

He has been soft before. Once. And that is with this woman.

Many women have walked the castle’s halls: shivering, shrieking damsels at his feet; cold and calculating queens; fragile bodies on the floor, that he broke with the same regard a child does a vase that matters to someone else.

Those ordinary people who do come often have pitchforks in their mouths, and fiery words in their closed fists. Curses stacked on the end of stakes, banging like the castle is the church bell signifying their own funerals.

It is for this reason that the castle does not like outsiders, does not open its doors easily. But it cannot deny anyone entry. Unlike the humans’ doors, which find his master guilty until proven innocent.

They always came at night. At night, when the loudest sound is your own breathing. At night, when their fires echoed loudest, and their shouts burned brightest.

They came when the flowers were closed, when only the most eerie and vicious of animals played with the skins of their prey, and the moon waxed the world in cold, drunk shine. The sun could not watch them, could not show their blood-struck hands in their full glory.

She came at sunset. When the sun still glazed her deeds in sanguine auburn, but was just deciding to turn its gaze and let the kids have their fun. Not quite day, when the sun would kill things like Dracula, but not quite night, when the hours are named after witches, and lust is strongest—be it for the body, or the blood within it. Somewhere in between death and life, violence and peace.

This woman came with a knife in her hand, yes. But a knife, at least, was not a sword. It was not a pitchfork, a spear, a whip, or a stake; all weapons that signify, if the fight wasn’t there, you were bringing it with you. Not a war-starved weapon, pointing with mal-in—and -con—tent towards the castle doors and all the things inside it. Not a thirsty thing. Something that by default faced the other direction. Something that can start a fight if it wants to, but doesn’t crave it.

The golden woman came at sunset, with a knife in her hand, and looked upon this thing, this castle that others called ‘ugly’, and ‘monstrous,’ and ‘grotesque,’ looked upon it with awe, and gasped in wonder.

She knocked. She didn’t bang her fists upon the stone, didn’t ram pitchforks and assorted insults against the innocent doors, like how-dare-they protect their master.

She knocked, and the doors opened before she could raise her fist a second time. Maybe, just this once, not because they didn’t have any other choice.

The doors—foreboding, menacing, and all the other spooky -ings one can think of—opened to a world strewn in light; the demon’s castle looked brighter, more beautiful, more alive, than half the churches she’d been to.

Her footsteps were gentle against the castle’s floors. Not a slow, forced gentleness, but also not a piercing, purposeful march. There was no apprehension to her footsteps; her feet carried her as if anxious to take her to as many rooms as they could.

At first her steps were the only sound, enough to fool some into thinking they’re alone.

And it became clear both that she was not alone, and not a fool.

But when she saw the demon, she put the knife away, and used her words.

She used her words to repeat those she herself had heard: stories. But not the kind that make monstrous men run at the doors with naughts and crosses, the kind pious people buried along with all evidence that the world wasn’t made of black and white.

Not all the stories told that this place was cold and dark and full of death.

Amongst all the stories about death, there were others that said Vlad Tepes brought this castle to life with science, forbidden knowledge, and a little bit of lightning. Stories that say there is life here.

And, in exchange for proof that these life-stories true, Dracula asked for a trade, a trade that would prove the other stories true too. He gave up the killing a while ago—(the castle has been in one place a very long time)—but he was still not used to giving for free, and definitely not used to getting for free. Vampires trade in blood and names, not diamonds and declarations. Vampires trade in things they can swallow. This castle, too, had been a gaping hole set to swallow the world and everything that entered. Never once had it given.

And she dared to say, that this place, its master, should learn to give, when the humans have done nothing but take from them—or try their best to. He ought to be the one to invite her in, to ask what she would like, to dispense pleasant words and kind actions, when the humans forgot they invented hospitality, and showed no invitation for him to even enter their homes.

But she didn’t come with a mouth full of garlic, and hands full of superstition. Her feet did not drill holes in the floor with their sharp toll, they wandered the scenic route.

She was used to being cheated. Dracula and his castle were too. But that was not why she was there. She was not there for cheap tricks, or death. She wanted something real. A little bit of the life the castle has to offer.

Her defiance wasn’t that of a terrified citizen, or angry queen, either; rather the calm resolve of someone who is asking for something they know in their heart is good, and knows they will get it. The kind of person who believes there is good in everyone, and that this good will ultimately always win, and who won’t leave until they convince this good to show its face.

The castle has watched countless men and women cower at the foot of count Dracula. Some, do have a measure of god-sanctioned defiance; they come with whips and scourges to defeat him. The castle and the king are bound together in their resolve against them.

Except one. Except this woman. One human whom both master and castle found themselves reluctant to deny, cast away, or kill, maybe even…taken with.

She may be human, but she was not like the rest; she did not light the night on fire with her thirst for blood.

So maybe, just maybe, they could let one ray of sunlight slip through the cracks.

She was also not devoid of life, and maybe that was the key.

‘Devoid of life’ was an accurate portrayal of the castle. Bats flying out of blackness is a good description of a cave, and caves don’t usually come with the brochure ‘teeming with life’, or ‘great place to take your kids!’. The castle had a soul-sucking quality to it; those who entered often found themselves leaving less alive than they arrived. It took after its vampire master. Those who didn’t actually lose their lives within its walls, often remarked upon leaving that the flowers bloomed brighter, the birds sang louder, the grass was greener, and that they missed the sunlight.

Sunlight. Such a base thing; vampires don’t need the light or warmth to be happy.

Sunlight. Such a base way to die; wanting to get out of the cold and the dark.

“Is this how the castle felt to you before my mother first arrived at your door?”

Castlevania was alive once. Once Dracula set the pumps, and its heart began to beat. He turned the gears, and its lungs inhaled. He forged the lightning, and it began to think. Once the books, full of unknown knowledge, jumped off the shelves to get the vampire king’s attention. He filled the bottles and beakers, and they bubbled, as if laughing at a joke only they shared.

They were both alive, once.

That waned, with time. The gears got arthritis, the books caught pneumonia, the experiments atrophied. The castle ached before she came.

And Dracula, alone in the halls, picking up books and putting them down again without so much as a polite glance through them, because he read them all before. Dracula looking into fractured mirrors that could take him anywhere, but deciding there wasn’t anywhere he wanted to go. Dracula, looking into old mirrors that don’t reflect him—like there was never anything to reflect, nothing alive here to begin with, and there isn’t a master for this castle after all. Nothing but a grave. Dracula sitting alone in his study, staring into the fire. No one to talk to. No sound but flipping pages and crackling fires—nothing alive. Alive but dead. This castle. Its master. Undead is the proper term.

The other women who came through here reflected the castle, or else the castle took the life out of them the moment they entered. Queens with malice-stained past, and cracked, icy future in their eyes. Just as cold as the walls. Subjects, humans throwing gruesome insults, silky flattery, or fluttering pleas at his feet. Just as empty as the mirrors.

Only one refused the castle’s bite. Only one walked in looking for life, rather than death. Looking for a thing no one thought existed here. Already presumed dead. Put six feet beneath the ground. But maybe it was here all along; maybe the light hid in the castle’s corners while the dark came out to play, and she just had to coax it out of its hiding places. Maybe the bell was ringing all this time, she was the only one who came close enough to hear it; the only one who came to put flowers on the grave.

Maybe when she felt the machinery pumping she knew the rhythm was a heartbeat. Maybe when she heard the gears clanking she knew it was the sound of inhaling and exhaling. Maybe when she saw the lightning, she wondered what it was thinking. Maybe she looked at these books, these instruments, and saw what the vampire king saw once; something alive. They weren’t dead yet—un- or otherwise. Just sick, and in need of proper treatment. She was a doctor after all. Maybe her first subject was the very books she learned from.

Lisa, who looked at this blotch on the sky, with Death in its towers, and darkness splattered on its walls, and thought that’s where I’ll learn to heal people. Lisa, who gaped in amazement at the beast of a building. Lisa, who didn’t shudder upon entering. Lisa, who didn’t scream when its master touched her, but turned to him with calm resolve, and told him she’d teach him to be more human. Lisa, who’s life eclipsed the undeath in this place.

And there was a trade that occurred that day. For Dracula’s immortal knowledge, Lisa would teach him how to live a mortal life. To travel the world as a man, to walks as a man, to eat and drink, laugh and cry, as a man. Immortality for mortality. They gave each other the world, as so many lovers promise to do. Vlad would make her immortal, and Lisa would make him mortal, with no exchange blood.

(Except to create a thing with both their blood running through it.)

So maybe, after all this talk of life, it is fitting that she wants to create life inside this castle.

Fitting, maybe. Fitting for her. But the castle is not mortal yet, and wishes it could protest that it isn’t the right size, refuse to try on the idea.

Dracula is apprehensive as well, for the castle and he are used to each other, they take after each other, because the cold, and the dark, and the death, and the alone does something to you after a while; you start talking to the walls. After the cold queens and quaking colleens leave, or leave their bloodstains the floor. After the beasts and their silver-stained bullets turn back into righteous men in the sun. After he simply outlives everyone else. When all the living things hate, fear, or else betray you, when all the living things can die, and you, who are undead, cannot, it’s the lifeless things that stand firm by your side. When the day ends and the shadows come out to play, when you’re the only one left, in the end you still have the walls. And then…the walls are all you have. And if you talk to them long enough you make a sort of pact, spoken or silent, with those speechless stones: ‘you’re the only one I can trust.’

Dracula speaks to them one day, says he wonders if he can do this, be a father at all, not to mention a good one. The castle cannot reply. But something deep inside the walls wonders if it might be nice to hear Dracula laugh. It might be nice to put on some different clothes. It might be nice for someone new to listen to from time to time. It might be nice to live again.

The castle is concerned. Used to doing things one way, being one way, and only hearing one voice. But that doesn’t mean it is unwilling, that it intends to kill the child.

It never kills anything—Dracula does that. It cannot do anything on its own, and that includes change.

The castle doesn’t like change.

…But that doesn’t mean it won’t.

And if its going to change, its master must change first. They must change together.

Vampires do not have reflections. But Dracula has a castle, and that castle will be damned if it isn’t his mirror.

Reflections are simple to change; put on some makeup, some war paint, a new change of clothes, get a piercing somewhere. Simple, yes, but not easy, to change completely, because that doesn’t mean anything’s changed inside.

The castle did not come equipped for child-rearing; there are no rooms full of toys and cradles and school supplies.

So if this is to be, they must build their son’s world themselves.

Together they set aside a room for the child’s arrival. Just one, single room. And the castle too knows, from the start, this room will be different from all the rest. They will put paintings on the walls, and banners in the halls; things to interest him, to tell him of his parents, at least, even if there are few other relatives to spend Christmas with. The carpets will be darker, instead of the stringent red, and they will make their words smaller, the books easier to understand. The rest of the castle is warm in color, but cool in atmosphere. This room will be cool in color, but warm in atmosphere. The fire will always be set in its place, and they will try their best to make sure the warmth reaches him; if the fire fails, they will knit blankets; if the blankets fail they will make him tea, or warm milk with honey; and when everything else fails they will hold him. If there are tears here, scornful stares will not greet them, instead, kisses and lullabies will be behind door number three. If this room lives, it will be because of something much softer than pounding metal and lighting.

If a child is to live here, they must change that reflection. Everything Dracula’s castle appears to be, this room will be the reverse. Separate. Something… other than the castle.

This room will bottle all the laughter had in this castle. This room will be made of and for living, not the death the rest of the place is steeped in. So much so that this room will not stand for bloodshed.

Lisa brings in supplies from her town; color and cloth, boards and brushes, needle, and thread, and paper; all the things one needs to build a universe.

It is Dracula who takes the paint, who changes the color to something other than the blacks and reds of the rest of the Vampire’s world, cementing on the walls themselves You will not be dark here, my castle. You will be kind to him, Castlevania. The castle doesn’t know its master to work with his hands like a human, but Vlad is not the same within this room either—this room is part of the trade. He doesn’t use magic, or science, as if he is telling himself with every hammer that they are going to change together, the way one does when talking to the mirror.

Lisa sits in a chair and stiches together cloth and fur to make little creatures, toys for the boy to play with. Soft things, not sharp. They are reflections too, littler, simpler ones, of the creatures howling and prowling outside the castle’s walls, or scurrying within them.

But it is the ceiling that is the crowning jewel of the room. Something they paint together—splashing it onto each other’s clothes and noses.

His parents love the stars. They often walk outside the castle walls, fingers knit into each other’s, to gaze at them. They are scholars at soul, and have charted the constellations. They want their child to be able to do the same, to watch the stars, even if he’s not outside. At the end of every day they want him to be sung to sleep by the symphony of the night.

For them, maybe, but to the castle, one of the most interesting things about this room, is the mirror. This is strange, as, while there are other mirrors in this house, they are nothing more than a silver decoration; they have no purpose here, unless they float in shards and possibility. This is an ordinary mirror. It does hold something now, however, and that’s Lisa—only giving more credence to the idea that she is the only living thing in this castle. The castle wonders if they think it will reflect the child, as if they are hoping he will take after his mother and the room.

The mirror, and the windows. In the rest of the castle, the windows are always closed, curtained, or too small to let any real light in. But here they are big, and inviting to all the wiles of the day. Dracula protested—fearing he would burn. Lisa insisted—hoping he would shine.

The mirror, the room, are empty now. The windows closed. The books and charts dormant as the rest. It is not dead, but it’s not alive either. Not even undead. Just a question. An almost.

The room lays on Frankenstein’s table; just one lightning strike—(or one child’s laugh)—away from breathing.

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distinguishedhoundflapauthor · 2 years

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Avatar fandom really does not care about Katara.

While I understand the rightful concern with Aang and Katara being a couple considering the age differences, immaturity level of Aang, and the inconsideration of her feelings in many different factors. But the problem with The problem with Zutara is that many people forget Katara is a 14 year old girl who lost her mother to the Fire Nation, her people and culture were on the brink of extinction thanks to Fire Nation raids on their in the past thanks to Zuko’s Grandfather and her mother was killed via the Southern Raiders. While their fight against the Fire Nation was admirable the result was still the same: they lost. Katara became a adult fiqure at an earlier age than she should have because her mother was killed in the raid and she had to take up maternal duties when she was old enough. While I am totally against Aang and Katara becoming a couple I have many doubts about Katara and Zuko. My first concern is the famous prison scene in the Ba Sing Sa prison, while this is an interesting and cute scene I should remind everyone before this Katara and Zuko never had any romantic scenes they were enemies! While Zutara on the surface is alot better there is a dark underneath while Zuko may have redeemed himself in the eyes of Team Avatar his country on the other hand has not. The Fire Nation did an extreme amount of damage to the Water Tribe that many people want to brush over because they either project themselves on Katara and imagine themselves as Zuko’s wife and Queen. interesting fact that white feminist need to know that sex and the power of friendship will not clean up what happened in the Northern Water tribe!!! Golden eyed dark skin half fire nation babies will not bring back Princess Yue who sacrificed herself so the Moon Spirit could live due General Zhao killing it for his desire for conquest!!! Katara marrying Zuko after the war does not help her country in the slightest because how is she going to help rebuild the tribe as Zuko’s wife and how doesthis heal the would the Fire Nation plus Katsura is a 14-15 year old girl who barely had a childhood,was not raised to be a Princess, and the only reason you bitches want her with Zuko is so she can coddle your black hair edgy fire bending dreamboat without having any agency of her own. You are viewing this fictional relationship through the lenses of white supremacy because that’s in some cases is how Avatar was written because notice how the brown skin native water benders are sexist and won’t let women fight while the pale skin Fire benders have more open minded attitude with women so you feel you a with a pale skin character that has an imperialist background Katara has the ability to be herself instead of with her own people. The disturbing fanfics where she is Fire Lady but coddles him and is the aggressive of the two…Yeah I see it…🧐

The Fire Nation raided the Southern Tribe of Waterbenders and placed said water benders within a prison that made being a liquid related situation impossible and possibly tortured them. Kya was Murdered on the spot and her body was left for her children and husband to see and grieve over .Bato and the other men of the Southern Tribe left behind their family and village in a massively vulnerable position and what will her father say when he finds out Zuko threatened to burn down the village in pursuit of Aang and held his mother hostage… Yeah that be interesting first conservation for a in laws on how they met. Before you say the moment when they went to avenge Kya Zuko did that to get in Kataras good grace to show he had changed not the Fire Nation as a whole. Remember he betrayed them in Ba Sing Se and before you bring up taking a bolt for her he probably would have done that for anyone he was friends with including Aang… The only thing these white bitches are paying attention to is the fact that Zuko is rich and the Crown Prince so they will be living the life of luxury and that Katara is a healer so she can take care of him like she is a care taker similar to Aang. They are not thinking about the fact Katara has not seen her culture during its glory days and could use her skills to help rebuild her home, or seen her family and childhood friends in years, or that her she needs to rebuild her relationship with her father. No let’s focus on vacations to the South Pole and what dress will Katara where for her wedding at 16 years old and and white fandom’s personal favorite: How ‘wild’ her wedding night will be🤯😰😡😡…

Then how the hell is Zuko Katara’ emotional and intellectual equal when in the series did they plan or strategize together…When…Cause the fight before Azusa does not count when Zuko probably asked her at the last minute…? In the emotional content when the hell did they( outside her hugging him saying she forgave him for betraying her and crying in relief that he was alive from being shot in the chest with a bolt of Lightning and the Ember island prayer play when Katara told him that Aang kissed her when was there an emotional moment between the two… When? All I see is when these two are paired together is caretaker to a prince vs the avatar who outside of being a spiritual leader doesn’t have much influence or wealth. Zuko did the bare minimum in basic human kindness and with treating her with respect and they should be a couple because of the “bare minimum.”

What is so wrong with Katara going home reconnecting with her family and friends that she has not seen in years. What is so wrong with her and Sokka going home to rebuild their home and bring it back to it’s glory days before Sozin’s raid? What is so wrong with her falling in love with someone in her culture and staying home with people who love her why does she have to marry within her late teens and move away to a far away land full of strangers who would look down on her cause of her ancestry and class status? Why does she go from spiritual leader caretaker to royal caretaker. Why does she need to live in luxury catered to by servants when for all her life she taught to be independent and self sufficient?Why does Katara need to aid the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom when she has an entire tribe in the South that loves her and could use her skills to rebuild their homes and revive their culture. Plus she could bring in a new era of Southern style water bending at home…

#katara defense squad #katara deserved better #zutara critical #atla #Katara #anti kataang #white feminism

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binniedeactivated · 4 years

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mentality. || yeongyu 💦

╰─▸🖤❝ @[𝒃𝒖𝒈𝒔𝒃𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈.. ] ✎𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈: 𝒚𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒋𝒖𝒏 𝒙 𝒃𝒆𝒐𝒎𝒈𝒚𝒖 ✎ 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: 𝒔𝒎𝒖𝒕, 𝒅𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒍𝒆¡ ✎ 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕; 1.5𝒌 [@𝒃𝒖𝒈𝒔𝒃𝒊𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆] 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒈𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇𝒇...

┌ in which the priest’s son is ordered to give private religious lessons in exchange for the neighborhood boy’s salvation. ┘

→ tw:// mockery of religion, offensive language, smut - read at your own risk

“what’s with the pink shirt?”. yeonjun’s father immediately asks, his eye snagging onto the bright fabric like glue. yeonjun toyed with the hem of his sweater, “what? it’s just a sweater”. he replies thinking nothing of it. he grasped his backpack off of the hang rack. his father stares at the dainty color in discontent.

“you look gay. go put on another sweater”.

“dad are you serious? I’m going to be late for the tutoring session. I can assure you that I’m not gay. pink is just a color”.

“you know you aren’t gay but what about everyone else? some man is going to look at you and surely think the opposite”.

“and why should I care about what they think?”.

“because you’re my son and I’d rather not raise a bunch of homosexuals”. he blankly responds. he glares at his second born son who jogs down the stares behind yeonjun tiredly rubbing his eyes and shifting his disheveled hair.

“take your brother soobin for example. see? even in the house he’s wearing something manly. a good ole t shirt and sweatpants”.

“what are you guys on about?”. soobin questions underneath his breath. yeonjun rolls his eyes while watching soobin stumble into the kitchen and raid the cabinets to satisfy his growling stomach.

“dad thinks I’m gay because I’m wearing a pink sweater”.

“soobin won’t you tell your brother there are more colors to wear other than this girly color he has on?”.

soobin sighs. conversations like this was almost second nature at this point, especially being the priest’s son. he was well aware that his father was not only strictly religious but he was also strictly a homophobe. soobin stuffs a cookie in his mouth too tired and hungry to pick a side in their argument. he just repeated his father’s words.

“yeonjun hyung there are more colors to wear other than the girly color you have on”.

he grumbles before exiting to the living room. his father folds his arms and gives yeonjun a look as if to say, ‘i told you so’. yeonjun stared at him and huffed his breath. he knew there was now way around it so he just marched himself back up the stairs and changed into a black sweater instead. he stopped by the bathroom mirror to fix his hair up a bit after seeing how messed up it gotten from his quick change. he made sure his blonde strands were parted perfectly to the left.

“and who the hell are you trying to look so good for?”. taehyun smirks before walking into the bathroom behind him. taehyun was the youngest. the baby of them all. also the most misbehaved one of them all, but you didn’t hear that from yeonjun.

“shut up and take your piss”. yeonjun replies with a quick smack upside his brother’s head before he shuts the door behind himself. he rushed down the staircase and announced that he was leaving. he quickly grabs his backpack again and close the front door in one swift movement in hopes of avoiding another interrogation by his father.

yeonjun wasn’t a stranger to beomgyu’s home. in fact he’s already been there a few times and his parents knew him very well, which is why it almost took nothing for them to open the door for him each time. being the priest’s son made them think that he was the best kid ever and that beomgyu needed to take notes from such an example.

like always, yeonjun took his shoes off beside beomgyu’s bedroom door and knocked promptly.

“who is it?”.

“yeonjun”. he responds, rolling his eyes. who else would be coming at this time of day?

with a few quick shuffles beomgyu opens the door to his room inviting yeonjun in. it reeked of this tropical scented perfume. it actually smelled nice to yeonjun, but it would smell even nicer if beomgyu was a girl of course.

I mean seriously, what kind of teenaged boy wore perfume?

yeonjun shrugs off the scent and sits on beomgyu’s bed. his dad made it his mission to redeem anyone and everyone from their sins and he ordered his sons to do the same. only--the sin they were being redeemed from were never specified.

yeonjun draws out his pencils and notebooks from the last time they met. he clicked his pen a few times and then scribbles on his paper making sure it worked perfectly. beomgyu watches intently from the corner of the room, his hands folded behind his back. he adored yeonjun.

yes, adored.

he thought the older was so gorgeous. he was so witty and funny and he was so smart. his voice was smooth and low when he talked and god his smile was to die for. he most importantly loved how small he was in comparison to yeonjun.

meaning that yeonjun could crush or throw him whenever he wanted and that idea alone made beomgyu’s dick twitch in his pants.

“hyung before we start is it okay if I show you something?”.

yeonjun rolls his eyes and exhales annoyingly. “beomgyu if you think you’re about to get a kiss out of me you’ve lost your damn mind. that shit is gay I already told you”.

beomgyu bites the inside of his cheek and frowns, “no it’s something different this time”.

“beomgyu--”.

“please hyung?”. beomgyu whines sweetly. yeonjun shakes his head in frustration, “whatever-fine. make it quick because you’re running behind on these lessons”.

“you have to close your eyes”. beomgyu orders. yeonjun covers his eyes with his hand. “fine. they’re closed”.

unbeknownst to jun, beomgyu strips himself of his trousers and slips on his pretty pink pleated skirt with his white high knee socks to match. he straps and pink heart shaped choker onto his neck and pulls his baby blue v-neck sweater over his head and tuck the edges in carefully. he fixes his crinkled chestnut colored hair. he nervously folds his hands, he hoped yeonjun liked it.

“you can look now hyung”. he orders once more. yeonjun’s eyes flutter open at the sight of beomgyu’s skirt steadily spilling over his slim milky thighs. his sweater hung gorgeously to the side displaying his collarbone and choker. it didn’t help that the sun’s rays slipped through his window, glowing his frame that much more. he looked like an angel almost.

wait--what the fuck is yeonjun saying?

“beomgyu what the hell is that?”. he says instead.

“I want to show you my new outfit. my parents would kill me if they ever saw me in this”. beomgyu states while looking down fiddling with the pleats.

“you know that gay scale I was telling you about? yeah. this is at like 100% right now”.

beomgyu sat himself on the bed across from yeonjun. “I’m happy when I dress like this. you don’t think it’s pretty?”.

“you can’t call yourself pretty. you’re a boy. that word is an adjective for girls and women”.

beomgyu bit his upper lip shamefully. his eyes dart down. he sighs and makes another move. he climbs onto yeonjun’s lap with his thighs on either side of yeonjun’s legs. he wraps his arms around his neck and sits his face only inches apart from the older’s.

oddly enough, yeonjun could feel his heart began to pound.

“what can I do to be pretty to you, hyung?”. beomgyu questions with his whole heart. his coffee colored eyes bore in his with desire, need, and lust. yeonjun took a couple of swift glances at the boy’s plush pink lips.

no--look away yeonjun. what are you doing?

“you can start by getting off my lap”. yeonjun hisses, but beomgyu knew he didn’t mean it. he adjusted himself, letting his cock get good rub on yeonjun’s thigh. feeling this, yeonjun’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.

“kiss me hyung”. beomgyu begs, ghosting his lips over the older male’s. yeonjun’s breathing hitched while beomgyu leans in and kisses him anyway. the both of their lips danced in perfect sync and parted whenever their lungs begged for air.

beomgyu takes yeonjun’s wrists and slides them up his thighs and yeonjun mindlessly allows his hands to roam gyu’s inner thighs. he could feel gyu’s lengthy thick cock twitch against his hand. beomgyu pushes yeonjun’s chest down onto the mattress, now on top of him and relishing the way he could easily grind his hips against yeonjun’s clothed cock for more friction.

yeonjun felt more than ashamed of himself when he felt his dick grow beneath him. he couldn’t believe how turned on he was from this. he wasn’t gay--no this didn’t make him gay. beomgyu was dressed like a girl after all.

“beomgyu get off of me we have to stop”. yeonjun breathes. beomgyu slides his tongue along yeonjun’s lips and give them a chaste kiss. “mmm. but I want to suck your dick. it’s so hard beneath me”. beomgyu smirks and reaches back to palm it. yeonjun winces at his touch.

beomgyu glides down planting sloppy kisses along yeonjun’s happy trail before sliding his pants down. his dick sprung free and slapped against his stomach. bright red and oozing precum. gyu teasingly gave the boy a couple of cat licks towards his tip. the feeling of gyu’s wet tongue against his needy cock was exactly what yeonjun wanted.

it isn’t what he wanted--hell no--because he wasn’t gay.

he wasn’t gay.

right?

“you should see the way your dick jumps when I do this”.

yeonjun glares down and sits on his elbows, “beomgyu I don’t think we should be doing this. just get up I promise I won’t tell anyone about it”. he utters in distress.

beomgyu takes his lips and kiss the tip before letting his disappear between his lips. his teeth lightly grazed it but gyu was sure to tuck them away, refusing to let yeonjun see the animalistic side of him when it was there first time doing anything sexual.

his tight warm mouth coddled yeonjun’s cock in the most delicious way. even as he worked his way down yeonjun relished the way it filled his cheeks until he choked. and when he did, he came back up with teary eyes and puckered drooling lips full of precum and saliva. the squelching noises of beomgyu’s mouth made yeonjun’s heart pound. he drops his head back between his shoulders and closes his eyes in bliss.

“fuck beomgyu”. he groans and it made beomgyu excited. he’d been waiting for this moment. waiting for the time he could touch and suck yeonjun as much as he wanted. waiting for when he could make yeonjun moan for him and him only.

beomgyu elicits soft dainty moans while his mouth was filled with yeonjun’s cock. he uses a hand to stroke the remaining portions of his dick and repeatedly slobs over the throbbing tip. not to mention his back was arched perfectly in the air, displaying the skirt that didn’t look as ugly as yeonjun portrayed it to be.

yeonjun hips began to twitch into the younger’s mouth. he reaches down to grab beomgyu’s soft locks as his eyes rolled to the back of his head once more. “ffuck is it supposed to feel this good?”. he asks honestly.

beomgyu grasps the base with one hand and covers his tips with another, he lets his mouth wrap around the shaft of his dick and hungrily licks and sucks up and down continuously. the sensation felt like a punch in the stomach to jun who wasn’t used to it. he doubles over and bites his lips, tugging at beomgyu’s roots harder.

the wet sounds of beomgyu’s mouth and tongue bounced off his bedroom walls and yeonjun thought he was going to lose his mind if beomgyu didn’t stop. his dick throbbed harshly between the younger’s lips. “o-okay beomgyu you can stop now”. yeonjun exhales with breathing becoming shaky. an overwhelming feeling was washing over him euphorically. beomgyu continues bobbing his head against his dick making sure he captured every spot.

“b-beomgyu I said you can stop”. yeonjun warns again with his hips stuttering into his mouth. “I want to see you cum”. beomgyu muses, stroking his dick one last time with his hand before yeonjun’s hot liquids were darting everywhere.

he can’t believe he just did that. what the fuck?

he panicked, “beomgyu if you tell anyone I’ll kill you”.

#yeongyu smut #yeonjun smut #beomgyu smut #txt smut #txt #yeonjun #beomgyu

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joanna-lannister · 3 years

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I was reminded of the perfect quote from Sean T. Collins’ review of Breaking Bad in 2012:

By failing to indulge every whim of the the male antiheroes around whom their shows are built, the women become obstacles to those men getting exactly what they want when they want it at all times, which is the core fantasy of antihero fiction. Cold cunning, ruthlessness, rage, self-interest, a propensity for physical violence – we gender these unheroic characteristics as male, and celebrate them; passivity, bitterness, grief, emotional enmeshment, a knack for attacking and deflating egos – we gender these unheroic characteristics as female, and loathe them. Skyler White, Betty Francis, Megan Draper, Catelyn Stark, Sansa Stark, Cersei Lannister, Carmela Soprano: On the sole count of “being women,” Fan Court finds you guilty as charged.

OMFG I've never seen that quote before but this put into words exactly what I mean when I say if Cersei had been a man, she would have been praised and adored by everyone. Fandoms always endorse male characters worst behaviors, excuse and brush over their evil deeds and coddle them "uwu meow meow baby" but when it comes to female characters, if she shows any flaw or make a bad decision, she is the "worst bitch ever and deserve to die in the most painful way"...

Also, this lowkey reminds me this post on Justine Larbalestier's blog, I don't know her or her works tbh, but what she says is very true, "the same behaviour from a male character is okay but someone inexcusable in a female" And that post is from 2009 and still stands to this day 12 years after! One day I'll need to read the comments, but I'm lazy 😪 Almost in 2022, and the (internalized) misogyny is still going strong, UGH

Love this quote mentioned Sansa and Cat as well as Cersei tho, because those 3 women were the first female characters I fell for when I started the show and then, you quickly find out they are the top 3 of the most hated female characters by the fandom, like... 💀

#anon #answered

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phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess · 3 years

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Any tips for an aspiring social worker

+Be aware of any of your own trauma. Dont be one of the people who think they can do therapy AND get a degree at the same time. You will burn out, there are hundreds every year. Please dont be the person in lectures who takes yup 45 minutes crying over past trauma every session; you need to seek counselling for that from a professional who can help, not from your newbie classmates.

You may think its an exaggeration, but No. Unfortunately, no.

This ties in to your own biases, what you are likely to take to heart if the person fails, etc. You need to work with your supervisor around clients that may trigger something for you; or reconsider the role you are aiming for, etc.

+Have personal skills, you will be making and repairing relationships often. You can’t be someone who is super introverted and unable to start relationships with the clients; because often you are going to be the one doing the Hard Talks about difficult subjects. It doesnt mean you have to be a drill sargeant, but it means you need to have the confidence to talk with anyone.

If you’re a bit shy, work on talking to people and even looking into little courses. You’re not needing qualifications in public speaking, but you do need to have yourself in a position wherein you can talk to someone, even a whole family, or even lawyers, and police. Via phone, video, face-to-face, etc.

+Have work clothes and home clothes. Also court clothes, if you work in areas that need it.

Wear smart casual, you need to look presentable but not be like, dripping with diamonds and playing ‘rich person ministers to the Poors’. It happens, they get told off.

DO NOT WEAR SKIN TIGHT CLOTHES. Or ripped skinny jeans, or have your cleavage/buttcrack hanging out. Please. Strapless backs and short shorts also no.

Students sometimes turn up in this and it is dangerous. Especially the ladies. Sometimes you work with people who are very dangerous, who will interpret clothing for consent, and/or have incredibly low respect for women. When something happens, they will point to the workplace dresscode and absolve themselves of the situation.

Do not wear dangly earrings, scarves or thick necklaces/anything you do not want taken. And if in a hospital role, there are additional rules about what can and cannot be worn (bare below the elbow rule).

Also, enclosed shoes. IF you are in a service that assists families with dysregulated lives, or in the hospitals, etc, you will have strict policies about footwear for your safety.

+Get the flu shot. Trust me. Do it. You talk to so many people, by the time one catches a cold and you start showing symptoms, you’ve seen like twenty people and they all have families.

+Be used to working to tight deadlines. They are always there, esp in hospital social work where you legit have to account for every minute of the day and patient seen on this awful little system.

We are understaffed in most areas, and you will need to work hard.

BUT, self-care is imperative. Even if it is only making sure you leave before 9pm each night lmao.

+Be able to let insults go. You are going to be dealing with people often in the worst part of their life, be it mental health, in the justice system, having their kids removed, being disabled and persistently denied assistance, having significant alcohol/drug concerns, people who have experience extreme sexual harms or domestic violence, people who are being stalked, people in crisis etc.

At some point someone will call you some horrific things, or threaten you, or make nasty comments about you, etc. They may try to make constant complaints, etc. And as frustrating as that is, you have to understand their frustration and anger and fear.

You do not have to sit there and listen to them swear at you, that’s not what this means. It means that when someone is heightened and calling you a cunt, or something more inventive, you don’t give them the reaction they want; you can acknolwedge that they are upset/etc, or give them space by ending the call/leaving the room.

Think about when something happened for you and it was the Worst and you swore or threatened, etc. When you are calm, it seemed ridiculous, didn’t it? But that was you processing big, complicated feelings in the only way that felt right at the time. Same for them.

+You need to be aware that some clients have done or experienced terrible things, but you need to be open to the individual within the trauma. For example, someone may not be showing their emotional distress or pain or grief etc in the way you think they should, so you might discount it. When, someone who has gotten to know the client is aware that they tend to do ____ behaviour when they are having flashbacks, which is not a behaviour normally associated with the trauma.

Also, biases again. Just because someone is on drugs and denying to you that they have a problem, does not mean some part of them isn’t aware they do have one. Relapses are common. Soemtimes it is about discussing what was happening for them this week that made them use again, what they could try next time, if they are using their support networks. And never putting them in the Hopeless box.

If you are really struggling with a client, lean on your team, talk to your supervisor and see what else can be done or if there is another social worker with more experience who can be involved even for a short-term intervention.

+Don’t throw jargon and insider terms around when talking to clients, it’s rude. Explain things, use pauses so they can think.

+Look into the primary populations of your area/the area you intend to work in. Are there a high level of Indigenous persons? Refugees? People whose first language isn’t english and may need extra help with engagment?

What are your immediate thoughts (learned stigmata/stereotypes) about these peoples? How can you learn more?

In Aus, we work closely with Indigenous communities and agencies around social work matters. Making sure everyone is supported, heard, and can understand the concerns being raised/what is needed to help the client move forwards. There are many people out there who see this as ‘coddling’ or ‘unfair to non-Indigenous people’; but it is simply making certain that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are on the same footing as any non-Indigenous client.

And that cultural options are put on the table, such as having a family member step up to take in a child whilst the parent is not well; or trying a community-focused approach to helping with a drug concern, and using the right agencies so that they have appropriate supports.

Would it be fair to have a non-english speaking client in a courtroom without an interpreter? Why? Would you claim that they should know english and the entire legal system bc they were in your country? Of course not, that’s absurd. But some people think that way.

Would it be fair to ask someone in a wheelchair to file a form on the top floor of a building with no elevators, by 5pm, or lose their home? Why? Would you think they are complaining or ‘lying’ if they were able to mobilise a few steps without the chair, on a good day? That they were being ‘lazy’ and ‘deserved’ to lose their housing? Of course not, that’s absurd. But some people think that way.

When the military put men into service in the wars, they made anyone who could pass an english test an officer and the rest priovates who would die first in battle. Was this fair? Why not? Because it ensured the rich white dudes with private tutors got the best spots (totally unqualified) while the poor, poc and refugees were used as cannon fodder. Many could have been good officers if the test was about competence, but it wasn’t. Some people feel this was fair.

There are still people who think they ‘did the right thing’ whilst participating in the Stolen Generations; but then, they also thought taking babies from single mothers was appropriate too. That women couldn’t vote or be trusted with money, that is was ‘kinder’ to take a stillborn away and dispose of it without the mother ever seeing... rather than let her hold them, and say goodbye the way she needed to. Not to mention the english children shipped over to Aus to be used as little slaves and cruelly abused by Priests and Nuns and ‘upright christian citizens’. Not to mention lobotomies for when people were too emotional/refusing to play the game. Forcing hormone treatments on men and women to stop their homosexuality or sexually abusing them to ‘fix them’. Not to mention all the Twilight births nonsense where they tried to remove the pregnant person from the equation entirely, and it kept causing post partum depression. Not to mention... Not to Mention... NOT TO MENTION...

We have a lot of broken little old men and women and nonbinary (who do or don’t realise it) now, because of these “helpful interventions”.

You need to be aware of the harm that has been done, and aware of your own practice, so this damage can’t happen again and again.

Understand that your perspective and the worries/concerns you hold are often different to those of the client, because you are individuals who grew up in very different ways.

And remember, being a rich white person in a high paying job with good social standing doesn’t mean you can’t be charged for drug possession or have child safety knock on your door about the bruises you leave. Never think people are Above being awful, and never Assume people are because they are poor, a different colour, have not had your advantages, or have a disability/poor mh or addiction.

Clients are people, like you. Never think that you are above needing help too, one day. We all do, humans are built to rely on the group, on the social bonds we make from the minute we are born.

+Do you overreact to things? Sometimes a client will tell you about something that happened years ago, but they may phrase it like it happened yesterday (because of how it has returned to their mind, etc), and if you were to overreact to that immediately it can break the relationship/cause harm. You could say, “I can hear that this is very distressing for you, thank you for telling me about this difficult event in your life. Would it be alright if I asked you a follow-up question about when this occurred?” Sometimes a client will disclose things to you, and the goal is to remain in the conversation. They do a lot of this preparation at university, but you also need to have a personal ability to not panic off the bat.

+Ask yourself, is there anyone I would refuse to work with... and then examine Why. How would you react if a person like that came onto your caseload?

+Do not become overly emotionally invested in a client. It will be said in training over and over again, but you need to have clear boundaries; and being too invested in their success can hinder your ability to provide appropriate assessments for the client. Meaning they are not getting the care they need; which can sometimes be a harsh conversation about how you can see they are trying, but have backslid recently, so what is happening?

+Look at any internal biases and prejudices you may have. Did you have extreme mental health concerns that may make you feel more sympathetic to a parent or client, and this could blind you to the other concerns present? Didyou grow up rich and now have unrealistic expectations of what is necessary to be a good person? Do you think that all ‘those people’ should ______ ? Why? Question yourself. If you find yourself stereotyping or pigeonholing someone as ‘just another ____ trying to _____’ stop. Think about it. Where did you get that idea?

+Be aware of professional boundaries, do not be friends with the clients, but don’t be cold. Always let your bosses know about potential conflicts of interest to protect you.

Like, don’t loan the client $5, don’t hang out at the cinema because they’re ‘a great person’, etc.

And be aware that you have more power in this dynamic, so you have to be careful not to abuse it.

+You need to be good at record keeping, and honest. Everything you do is documents, referrals, reports, affidavits, forms, and a million little notes for this and that. It is imperative you are accurate, use the format required, and be honest. If you saying “Have you tried not taking drugs?” to a client sends them into a rage, you don’t write “Client was heightened and threatened me without reason at today’s session” in the notes. That’s putting a knife in their back.

”Client was triggered when I, the practitioner, made an inappropriate remark (”Have you tried not taking drugs?”) today. They told me I am a “fucking whore who should kill myself” and threw their chair across the room before leaving the building. I have discussed this matter with my supervisor, and we are going to call Client at 3pm today, to provide a formal apology for this statment and attempt to repair the professional working relationship, as they have been making significant progress with this agency until today’s event.” Whole scenario, tells the real story. You will make mistakes, but it is about being able to accept this and move forwards.

Accurate documentation is a must, may be needed for court.

+You will need to have a good memory. A good way of keeping little notes to unlock the full encounter when you write casenotes and reports.

+Make connections. Every client will need a support system around them, and if you have an inroads with different agencies, it will help them out. For example, if your client has drug concerns, then being aware of the agencies and counsellors in the region broadens their safety net.

Knowing the practitioners gives you someone to ask for professional advice around, say “Good Morning Kim, I know your agency handles Centrelink application often for non-english speaking clients. I have a client who is new to the country and is struggling to complete the financial aid forms, they speak Language. Would I be able to refer them to your agency, or will they need a more specific agency who handle Language -speaking persons?”

You have, in a deidentified way, sought help for a client through a known agency and can now refer them pending the answer. Etc.

+If you are not sure about something, ask your supervisor. They have several years on you, and almost all areas of social work prescribes to one or another Acts (legal requirements) which they are required to have a strong grasp on.

Get to know any legislation in the area you are aiming for. This will help immensely.

+Doing a degree gets you two fieldwork practicals, in different areas. These really help you identify which area you want to go for; your main goal going into a degree may not be the one you settle on. Many people have an idea where they want to work and change their minds after their placements, or really feel connected to a different area, etc.

+Mostly, be certain this is what you want.

Have your own support network.

Be aware that you must uphold confidentiality, at all times. No posting to social media people, please...

Be aware that in small communities you are likely shopping at the same place as clients. Ask them how they want you to react when you see each other in public (eg. please don’t acknowledge me, or happy to give a wave) so they feel comfortable.

Don’t disclose personal information to a client. There’s a difference between “Yes, I can see that you are having trouble with baby; I recall they get quite fussy at teething time, have you tried a cold biting ring?” and “My son, Chadley, is eight but when he was two he used to just keep biting the furniture and his poor teacher, Mrs Allyways! At least he’s grown out of it now, but I just know Bailey’s going into that phase soon, the dangers of having kids a few years apart!”

I know who your child had as a teacher, and now the school as well, esp if its a small town. I know you have two children, their names, and your last name so I could go get them from school if I wanted to. I know you work until 5pm, and someone could pick them up.

Etc.

Mostly, be a decent human being who does their best and doesn’t walk in thinking they’re better than everyone, and you can do okay. Have a good support network, use them, and seek help if you struggle.

Uni is drawn out and a bit boring, but you will get a lot from it (even if you only see it in hindsight).

#dunno #kind of on the spot there for this one #Anonymous #also if you were the fucking nightmare bully bitch at school who is now thinking they're a caregiver type who should be a nurse or social w #the answer is NO

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harveywritings92 · 4 years

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father!Connor x Reincarnated! Modern reader!

Burning and calling out for your dad that's the last thing you remembered when the ceiling collapsed and the flames consumed you, next thing you knew you were freezing your eyes looked around wildly as you took in the surrounding area, this wasn't the streets of [city/town], it was night time and you were in a forest?... and it was winter now? Not not possible it was July, you were sure of it!

*How did I get here?!*

You wondered as you tried to stand but couldn't move you looked to see what was restraining you. and felt your stomach curdled when you saw that you were swaddled in a soot covered blanket next to body of a woman who had her limp arms wrapped securely around your now tiny body, her dead eyes stained with frozen tears as they stared blankly at you it didn't take long for you to register that you were now in the body of a newborn and were very sure this woman is...was your mother.

Struggling between fear and confusion you did the only thing a baby could do in this situation wail at the top of your lungs and hope someone finds you, before a wolf or bear comes around.

Connor's pov

He was returning to the homestead from Boston after ordering some upgrades and repairs for the Aquila, it was getting colder as the night settled snow crunched under the hooves as they trotted down the road home, when the assassin's nose caught a whiff of smoke in the air, he assumed some hunters had made camp somewhere and kept on route when his ears caught a high pitch scream in the distance, at first he thought it was a fox, rabbit or maybe a cougar? But something didn't feel right about it.

Connor's gut felt twisted as he brought the horse to a stop got off and strained his ears to hear through the wind before pinpointing where the scream was coming from and followed it, the screaming slowly turned into a the wails of a baby, causing the hairs on the back of Connor's stand on end as he quickened his pace to the location.

There the assassin was met by a sickening sight as his eyes wildly swept over the remains of still smoldering cabin, he felt bile bubbling up in his throat as the smell of smoke and burning flesh invaded his nose triggering visions of his mother's death as his gaze soon landed on the snow covered body of a woman holding onto a screaming infant.

He stared down at the pair he locked eyes with little one soon Connor eyes started burned with tears as a rogue sob escaped his throat he crouched down and hesitated before his shaking hands gently took the baby from their mother's body, he held the baby close trying to keep them warm as he managed to calmed down investigated the surrounding area, where it became very obvious that the fire was no accident.

Connor eyes noticed a mark on what was left of the walls he ran finger along it felt oily; Bear grease. the fire had started here after someone dumped bear grease around the cabin and lit aflame with the woman and child still inside, the mother's body had marks and what looked like rope stuck to her burns, the fire must've burned through the bindings and she used what all the strength left in her to get her baby out.

Someone wanted them dead, but why? there were footprints leading away from the site; Connor would've followed them, but his concerned gaze went back to the baby who was oddly quiet now and was alarmed at how cold their cheeks felt. The assassin made the wise decision to return to the homestead.

Achilles was not pleased when Connor returned late but his frustration soon turned to confusion and shock when he saw what his student was carrying a baby, his shock was replaced by fear when he noted how blue the child was looking he brought a hand up and felt the their cheek the old man retracted his hand.

"Give me that child, and go take of your robes and shirt sit near the fire" Connor gave Achilles a incredulous look. "Do it" the old man barked before snapping a Faulkner to wake up and go get Dr. Lyle the sailor was confused until he saw the situation sobered up and ran out of the manor like a bat out of hell,

Connor was sitting in front of the fire place as he watched Achilles take the wet blankets and dress off the baby which turned out to be a girl, and handed the unresponsive child to native man as his mentor showed him how to hold her. a the old draped a blanket over them as they waited those few minutes that passed felt like hours.

Achilles mumbled to himself wondering what was keeping the doctor, Connor while kept nervously starring at the baby she wasn't as blue looking anymore, but she was still unresponsive it was unnerving, finally the door open and Faulkner and a sleepy Lyle walked in the doctor was immediately on high alert when he saw the baby in Connor's arms.

"Oh, my what happened?"

"Cabin fire she was the only one alive when I got there."

"Good job at keeping her warm, however she doesn't seem to be breathing too well... may i see her?"

"..."

Connor reluctantly handed the baby over, Lyle carefully held her over his knee and gave her back a few small slaps which caused the native man to jump out of his chair. "What are yo-" the baby suddenly threw up before letting out a wheeze followed a series of small coughs as air filled her lungs, her skin had a more healthier hue now before bursting out crying, doctor White wiped her mouth before handing her back to Connor.

"She was choking the poor thing! must of inhaled a lot of smoke... Your lucky you found her when you did." Connor just hummed as he tried to calm the baby down but failing, Achilles huffed and took her from the young assassin then snapped at him to put his shirt on as he rocked her, the baby instantly quietly down as Faulkner handed Achilles a blanket to cover the baby with.

While Doctor White was instructing Connor to observe the baby overnight to make she was alright which caused a bit of a stir with both mentor and student. "W-Wait your not suggest that I take care of her?!" the young man sputtered as he awkwardly eyed the baby who seemed more alert now.

"Well of course, who else?" Lyle hummed Connor started trying to make up excuses why he couldn’t do that! they don't have a cradle, clothes, how was he supposed to feed her? Achilles pointed at his son's old cradle that was stored under a table which also had some old baby clothes inside, and was sure Prudence wouldn't mind helping with the feeding problem, she's been complaining about making too much milk to the other women.

Connor sighed pinching the bridge of his nose it was clear he wasn't going to win this, he then looked back at the baby who eyes were looking around the den tired and curious, She was small, alone and defenseless he felt his heart throb before sighing. "Alright, I will watch her and will send for help should something happen, thank you doctor." Lyle nodded bidding Connor and Achilles a good night.

[skip through Achilles showing Connor how to dress the baby and put her to bed.]

back to your pov

*What happened?* you thought waking up fully and looking around the room; happy that you were dry and warm, but but exasperated about still being in the dark on where the hell where you were, your e/c eyes scanned the ceiling brows furrowed somehow this room was familiar; you've seen it before, but where? you sighed and struggled to move your head to get a better look around, but your neck refused to move. *damn newborn limbs!* you huffed frustrated as your tiny hand made a fist damming whoever thought it would be a good idea to bring you back as a baby!

The the sound of footsteps and voices talking got your attention. "She's in the library, and didn't make a sound all night." a worried male voice stated, Odd you could've sworn you've heard that voice before, But damn if you can't remember where! the male's voice was followed by a reassuring female voice. "Babies can differ from one and another, I sure she's just fine." Goddamn you knew that voice too! *Just where the hell am I?* you babbled loud and annoyed as the voices were now in the room with you.

"See? she's chatting up a storm now!" the woman's voice exclaimed as a large shadowy figure came into your sight, You felt kind of scared at first at the man's imposing figure before he leaned in giving you a better look at his face ,you jaw dropped in a form of a toothless grimace when you realized who it was. *Holy Shit It's Connor Kenway,* then the second realization *Holy shit I'm in a video game!* of course the only thing that came out of your mouth was an nonsensical babble.

the assassin hummed at the sound before he carefully took you out of the cradle and presented you to Prudence "Aw, look at you! hello pretty one.~" She cooed with big smile the second she saw you and took you from Connor. *why was she here?* you thought not seeing Connor leave as the farmer sat down in a chair you awkwardly watched the new mother [Hunter's two moths older than you.] lifted her shirt up presenting her breast to you *oh...okay." You probably would've fussed or resisted but your empty stomach gurgled leaving you no choice but to got to town.

[Skip, after feeding time, and 3rd pov]

Prudence was soon joined by Diana and Catherine who were cooing and coddling at the two babies sitting on the couch next to each other as Warren had dropped Hunter off fawned over you too before returning to work, said boy looked down right confused to see another baby for the first time, while You were having an existential crisis about your current situation which the women giggled at as they talked about you two becoming friends, sharing clothes, toys, extra blankets they had for You, however their meeting was soon interrupted by Connor arguing with Achilles.

"My answer is no, she can't stay here!"

"Funny you didn't have a problem about it last night, old man!"

"Don't be a hypocritical and That was an emergency!"

"Well, this is an emergency as well, someone wants that child dead and I intend to find out who! So until then she stays!"

Connor's decision as final causing Achilles let an annoyed bellow before seemingly leaving the manor to cool off, there was an a tense silence filled the air as Connor's foot steps came upstairs and he appeared in the library doorway and awkwardly stared at the women who starring stunned at the native man.

"Ah, I apologize you all had to hear that." he coughed before looking at you and Hunter sitting on the couch you were being propped up by pillow while Hunter was on his belly starring than up at Connor confused while his mom and the women found their voices mainly questions as to how exactly did you come into Connor's care?

If reader is of native decent:

[At First they thought you were his child as it appeared you were a native as well, your skin had a similar maroon tone like his, but at a second glance it seemed getting a bit lighter/darker than his, also you shared no facial features that resembled Connor's what so ever, your hair looked black, but they could see it was falling out and patches of [Blond,Ginger,Brown.] hair was growing back in it's place, and it's type was turning out more [Wiry,Coarse,Curly,Wavy.] then Connor's and you're eyes were [Blue,grey,amber,green,hazel,brown] it became increasingly obvious that you were half or at least have some native in your bloodline.]

English,Hispanic Italian,Asian,African. descent:

It was obvious you weren't his child as your skin was too/had [fair, bronze, marigold, or chestnut ] tones to it and your eyes were [blue/green/gray, black, hazel] and your hair was looking too curly/wavy/straight [red/blond/brown/black hair, and your facial features showed a clear sign you were of [English,Hispanic Italian,Asian,African.] descent... that and the fact Connor would've told at least told one person in town (Norris) that he was seeing someone and was going to be a father, the native man answered as truthfully as he could.

The women's maternal instinct were now on high alert and stated if he was going to be this baby's guardian he was going to need help and started giving Connor child rearing advice and teaching him how to change her nappies, and assured him that they watched her if he had to go on another exposition, Connor thanked them before Diana realize they didn't know what the wee one's name was.

Connor looked down at you for a few moments thinking hard before a ghost of a smile played on his lips. "Y/n. Her name is Y/n." all the women cooed and started greeted you by name, meanwhile you were reeling in annoyance. "Seriously? " you huffed blowing a raspberry at Connor who blinked before wiped up the drool dribbling down your chin as a result.

*I get reincarnated and you give the same name I've always had, you couldn't think of something cooler?* your e/c eyes glared daggers at hoping he'd hear you; of course he couldn't hear you or your complaints, guess you'll just have to have to live with it, what could go wrong?

#connor kenway x reader #assassin's creed 3 #davenport homestead #achilles davenport #assassin's creed imagine #fanfiction #dad!Connor kenway #reincarnated au #ratohnhaké:ton

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lizzybeth1986 · 4 years

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I don't think you play TRR/TRH anymore but you should see what they did to Kiara in the newest chapter. It's so dumb and makes me so angry, especially considering the current climate of events. I've already seen people on Reddit be like "but we helped her overcome her trauma" (we didn't lol) and someone called her the c-word, very classy. Honestly PB's been low key racist in the past but all the stuff right now makes it high key...

(Apologies for the long post and not being able to place this under a cut)

I'm pretty glad I got these anons because truth be told I wasn't sure how many people - besides the few that I already knew were constantly speaking about Kiara's treatment in the books - would care enough to ask any questions about this. Most of the posts I saw expressed a disturbing eagerness to throw her under the bus, without exploring nuance or asking questions, and at this point I'm not very surprised.

I've always maintained that the treatment for Kiara is what happens when both the writers and the fandom are heartless, and these past few weeks have only been proof of that.

There are questions you could raise about this finale re: Kiara - questions almost no one seems to bother asking. I have three:

1. In this Coventus Nobilis...how is it that I see four Heads of House, and only one heir?

2. If Kiara - who is not head of house - is supposed to represent Castelserraillian instead of her father Hakim (who presides over that estate), why do I not see Madeleine? Why do I not see Penelope?

3. Why are we suddenly seeing Adeleide popping up out of practically nowhere to rep Krona/Fydelia, and Landon conveniently rep-ping Portavira?

Some of the answers to these questions lie in the questions themselves. Why else would Madeleine and Penelope not be present in this meeting - if it weren't to purposely distance them from this awful moment? After all, both of them have inbuilt subplots ready for the next book that would require interactions with the core group. How else do you think the writers could ensure we kept coddling them and pandering to them in Book 3, except by distancing them from this "betrayal"?

Why else would the narrative choose to pit Kiara - the lone woman of colour we'd been shitting on for most of this series - against Olivia - the white woman who has been given innumerable individual PoV scenes and her own mini-book (and whose reputation we had to help rebuild in said mini book whether we cared about her stupid duchy or not).

Why else would they force Kiara to alert us mere minutes before the meeting begin, if not to distract us with crumbs ("See? At least we wrote her as warning you. Of course we don't hate her!").

Why else would you have Olivia and Kiara pitted against each other like this - if not to show these two women side by side, on opposing ends - and compel us to believe that the white woman we spent 4.5 books propping up and pampering, is the most loyal one. When in fact we have done absolutely nothing to deserve any fucking loyalty from Kiara or her family to begin with! (Ezekiel and his white bride notwithstanding).

What we finally got as a result, was a narrative that (as @queen-of-effing-everything summed it up when I discussed this with her) in one full sweep "glorifies Olivia, shields Madeleine and Penelope and sets up Kiara". Very few of us even noticed. And even if we did notice, is there any guarantee that we would care??

Remember how I mentioned in my last ask that I wished we expanded the same energy that we did with Aurora, to speak up against the ill-treatment of other black characters? Kiara was undoubtedly one of those.

After this, we as a fandom will speak very easily now of her "betrayal". We will call her the b-word and the c-word. We will boast of how we will "take her down" along with Adeleide and Landon and Bartie Sr. We'll boast about how we "never liked her" to begin with, as if doing so required some...idk exemplary foresight. We will make memes about how Olivia was "the only bitch we ever respected". We will make huge, sweeping claims about how Kiara was our "friend" and how (as you've mentioned, anon) we "helped her overcome her trauma" (!!!!) and claim by that token that we were entitled to good treatment from her. I'm pretty sure when TRH3 finally comes out, her every word and action will be screenshot, put up on blogs, mocked and torn down just so we can write essays on how awful she is.

Yet I saw very little of this energy in Book 3, where the MC could first emotionally manipulate her into supporting the Unity Tour, and where we actively suspected her at a time when she was traumatized. At most there was some lukewarm acknowledgement of how she "deserves better", all while people still continued to write fanfic that positioned her as creepy and obsessed and villainous. Almost no one had a problem with Savannah not acknowledging Kiara's earlier support of her, and in fact I'd seen posts that clubbed her with the other ladies of the court who likely "treated Savannah badly". Her father Hakim was made to join the tour alongside her by default, without the expectations that Landon/Emmeline and Godfrey/Adeleide were allowed to have, and the fandom was mysteriously silent about Hakim being made to "bow to his knees" in a way the others did not have to. Very few people even bothered to notice or talk about how often Penelope was allowed to hold the MC's baby, or how Kiara was never really allowed to hold her even once. Which "friend" treats someone like this??

When I finally published this essay on the treatment meted out to Kiara especially in Book 3, what I got was a lot of neat, but ultimately hollow, little platitudes about how Kiara "deserved better" (How and in what way? Who knows, who cares). Out of those many many people who reblogged and responded, only a handful held the MC and Drake in particular (and Maxwell, who thought it appropriate to joke about "one suspect down") accountable for choosing to suspect and interrogate just her, and for showing ZERO remorse in forcing her to reopen those wounds. How is it that we can judge Kiara for this latest "betrayal", yet pretend that the MC and Drake had nothing to do with the pain THEY caused to her? How is it that this fandom was so fired up over her comments, yet would have such a weak, muted, carefully-generalized response to the screenshots where Drake was openly suspecting her and optionally minimizing her trauma?

Following that, why should we be entitled to good treatment from Kiara when we never really gave her even half as much?? Why is it so easy to divorce characters from their words and actions in Drake/MC/Maxwell's case, but so hard for a character like Kiara? (One may claim this is because Drake and Maxwell are potential co-protagonists, but the aforementioned essay already proves that you as a main character can get punished for not treating a mere side character with kindness).

Another thing that fascinates and repulses me even further is how the fandom has created myths around this one character, and how PB has constantly leaned into these "characteristics" even though the text itself tells an altogether different story:

1. Kiara is a snob. This is especially hilarious considering that she is established in Book 2 as being the only person who befriended Savannah before her departure and cared about what happened to her when she left. Never once in the books has she looked down on us for class-related issues, or outright mocked people for not knowing the languages she knew. In fact, she was the first person to acknowledge our skills if we showed any before Lythikos in Book 1. On the other hand, Penelope can be uppity and look down on us in Book 1 (there is even a dialogue option in Chapter 10 that leads to her calling us a "commoner wench") if we don't do well, and yet she's a cinnamon roll. Olivia can engage in snobbish , entitled behaviour without the fandom having a problem just because she's their favourite. Madeleine can look down on us and pretend for 3/4ths of the social season that we're not worth her time yet somehow Kiara is the snob. Okay. Okay. 😐

2. Kiara is "obsessed with" Drake and constantly comes on to him. This is said by the same group of people who saw Olivia fucking Nevrakis plant a WHOLE FUCKING SMACKER on Liam's mouth, and said..nothing. Kiara on the other hand, has admired Drake's abs once, mentioned she'd always liked Drake once, spoken normally to him about his sister once, flirted with him once (Paris tea party), and ordered a wine from him when he was bartending. In the next book she either looks at him wistfully or admires his suit. Yet somehow she's the creepy, annoying, stalkerish. Okay. Ooookay. 😑

(This one was particularly damaging, because post the TRR3 hiatus, all efforts from PB were focused on reversing Kiara's position as an alternative LI. This included "confirming" on livestream that her affections were one-sided, at a time when Olivia was finally allowed to have some romantic moments with a single Liam, pushing forward a buildup scene to Drake's eventual secret wedding that had him acting extremely rude and confrontational to Kiara mere minutes after suspecting her (while she was expressing joy at his upcoming wedding in his playthrough!!!), and involving a subplot where he openly and by default suspected her. Sure, he spends a minute to be nice to her and chat about trauma if the MC chooses. But that's like a drop of sewage water floating in an ocean of shit).

3. Kiara Pretended to Be Our Friend And Then Dropped Us: This is false. Kiara only ever promised to put in a good word for us to the rest of the court, no more, no less. And she fulfilled that promise. Otherwise she never pretended to be friends with us nor made friendly overtures either way. In fact if you're going to accuse anyone of duplicity, you have Penelope and Madeleine. Yet somehow Kiara is the dishonest one. Okay. Okay. 🙃

4. Kiara Was Insensitive To Penelope and Didn't Understand Her. I'm not sure how Kiara is supposed to magically understand something that her friend isn't telling her. Plus this argument deliberately leaves out the fact that she stood up for Penelope when people chose to be mean to her, and even explained to the MC that she employs "tough love" because she can't always be around to protect Penelope. It also leaves out how one-sided this friendship is and how Kiara is made to do most of the heavy work in this friendship. Meanwhile, at Kiara's most difficult time period, in Castelserraillian, Penelope says absolutely nothing as the MC forces Kiara to join the Unity Tour, while making bedroom eyes at Kiara's brother. In fact the only reason Kiara's brother even exists is to give Penelope a love interest. The Kiara-Penelope friendship practically revolves around Penelope. I have never really seen Penelope look out for Kiara or attempt to actually support her in any way, and Kiara was the one who got the knife wounds. Yet somehow I'm supposed to believe that Penelope's the better friend of the two. Suuuuure. 😡

And this steaming pile of crap doesn't just make its way into shitposts and short opinion posts. It creeps into fanfic and fandom opinions. It finds its way in the tags and in other social media. It eventually even finds its way into the books, even though nothing in the earlier narrative ever really supported these extremely stale takes.

Because PB didn't care for Kiara the way they cared for their white characters, they had no problem framing her narrative the way this fandom so desparately wanted it. Book 3 has the MC claim behind her back that Kiara is stuck-up and acts like knowing ten languages makes her better than everybody else, even though this is not backed up by the text, and in fact you will never see any acknowledgement of how Madeleine forced Kiara to make herself sound "exotic" in Book 2, or of how Madeleine and the MC (optionally) could downplay or question her skills unless they wanted to use her. Also, Penelope is never allowed to be talked about like that no matter what she's done. PB even had a scene (in the Hana playthrough) where they aggressively retconned the events of Madeleine's bachelorette party, where Kiara supposedly shouted at Penelope until the latter cried, and Madeleine was the one "having fun". Kiara was literally being thrown under the bus to make Madeleine look better. Madeleine. Imagine that. Madeleine.

Given how desparate the fandom was to nitpick and overdramatize everything Kiara said and did, is it any wonder that the team got away with the writing they gave her in Book 3? Considering that all the false arguments I stated above have made a resurgence in the past few weeks or days...is it any wonder that the only "support" this fandom is capable of re: Kiara, is lukewarm platitudes, cold takes and rank hypocrisy??

Yes, we can hold PB solely/largely accountable for the treatment meted out to Kiara now. They made these choices over and over, and continue to do so, while tossing us occasional crumbs of faux-sweet behaviour from the MC. And they did this in insidious ways, which were so hard to catch that even a Kiara stan like me had to observe multiple playthroughs just to unravel even half of what they'd done.

But let's not pretend a huge chunk of the fandom was just as responsible for this - with their unfounded opinions, their disgusting bias, their favouritism of white characters, their refusal to observe anything besides their favourites, and their godawful fanfiction where Kiara is a creep or evil or killing the virtuous main character. Out of the huge body of fanwork that I've seen for TRR that features Kiara - at least 90% of it features her stalking Drake, or harming the MC (particularly the Drake MC), or in cahoots with the villains, or generally being referred to as a creep (why Olivia, who kissed Liam without his consent in Book 1 and was entitled enough to be angry about him not returning her feelings in TRH1, never got this sort of writing - I fail to understand). There is a tremendous gap between the vitriol dumped on her when she does something the MC doesn't like, and the milquetoast response when harm is done to her. There have been times when I've had to comb through pages and pages of hate just to read even one positive post on Kiara in her own goddamn tag.

When the next book arrives, I know you folks will continue to gas up the white women in this book every chance you get, and mask your racist vitriol for characters like Kiara (and Hana, let's not forget the way y'all treat Hana) behind the same self-righteous judgements and the same tired, stale takes. I know that PB - despite what I will still believe is their hollow promises today - will write every single one of those stale takes into existence. All because it will be "justified", because Kiara is a "bad person" or "untrustworthy" or "fake". Whatever. Y'all can stick to Olivia The Black Hole and babysit Madeleine and Penelope, I guess. Kiara always deserved better than these writers and most of this fandom anyway.

#long post #kiara theron #the royal romance #the royal heir #trr kiara #lady kiara #i'm sorry kiki we didn't deserve you #i chose not to play trh2 and that's because this is EXACTLY what i felt would happen after they tossed us those crumbs in the book 1 finale

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highandlowculture · 4 years

Text

MEET THE NEW WEST, SAME AS THE OLD WEST

In the second act of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, washed-up actor Rick Dalton is on the set of a TV western as his stuntman and best buddy, Cliff Booth is revisiting Spahn Ranch, a former set for movie westerns. The ranch has been taken over by a bunch of hippies who follow some guy name “Charlie”. The heavy of the hippies is a fella by the name of Tex Watson. When conflict arises between Cliff and the hippies, one of the girls runs off to fetch Tex, who’s busy showing a tourist couple around the ranch. Hearing that there’s trouble brewing, Tex snaps to it, galloping across the western landscape on horseback and wearing a black hat. It’s a sweeping shot straight out of a John Ford film. That’s when it clicked for me…

Tarantino has made his third western.

Although there were always spaghetti western elements in his films (especially in Kill Bill vol. 2), QT hadn’t made a full-fledged western until 2012’s Django Unchained. Though entertaining and with an African-American lead, the film is his most straight-forward movie. We know who the heroes are, we know who the villains are. Wrongs are righted with a six-shooter and a hero’s grin. Its followup was another western, 2015‘s The Hateful Eight, a much darker and far less heroic film. All of the characters are flawed if not outrightly fucked-up. If Django Unchained was the sumptuously shot crowd pleaser, The Hateful Eight was the claustrophobic, nihilistic reversal. The western myth of heroes and villains is subverted by an unsavory group of characters who drag each other through snow, blood and racial slurs. Maybe the Old West was a pretty rough place to live in after all!

And now, in 2019, QT transports us to another Old West: 1969 Hollywood.

Fifty years ago. Half a century. Pretty old, right?

Already contentious with reviewers, one of the main debates surrounding Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood is its handling of Sharon Tate and the Manson Family. In the summer of ’69, when Tate, her unborn baby and her houseguests were brutally murdered by three members of the Manson Family, it sent shockwaves throughout Hollywood and America. The utopian dream of the 1960s was over. That’s the sanitized, less complicated history anyway. At the time many people were blaming satanism and Tate’s husband Roman Polanski for his hedonistic ways. Plus anyone deep in the trenches of late 60s hipdom knew that some of the peace-and-love spouting Flower Children might be psychopaths that could turn on a dime. Such darkness was foreshadowed in the music of The Doors and Velvet Underground. As Joan Didion recalled in her seminal work The White Album:

“Black masses were imagined, and bad trips blamed. I remembered all of the day’s misinformation very clearly, and I also remember this, and wish I did not: I remember that no one was surprised.”

Knowing this I find it disappointing just how many reviewers fail to see how sympathetic QT is to Sharon and her friends. They’re shown as cool people with a good vibe (only Roman is shown to be prickish when he speaks rudely to a dog). Sharon and Jay Sebring like to listen to records and enjoy life. No satanism. No orgies. And Sharon’s a generous person. She picks up hippie hitchhikers and buys her husband a Thomas Hardy novel. She relishes the communal experience of watching herself in the Dean Martin film The Wrecking Crew. It’s not just about her. She’s enjoying the connection she’s making with the theater’s audience. On the infamous August night, the film’s narrator talks about how Sharon, in the late stage of her pregnancy, was feeling hot and anxious. In short, Sharon is humanized. She’s a thoughtful, spirited and benevolent presence throughout the film. I think reviewers who view her just as “a Barbie doll” are revealing more of their own lack of empathy than QT’s. And people getting hung-up on how many lines her character speaks have some skewed priorities. As if the only way a person has worth is if they talk a lot. Talking. Talking. Talking. There are so many empty vessels running at the mouth these days. Social media voices bombard us constantly. There’s something to be said for some quiet dignity every once in awhile. Regardless, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood isn’t Sharon’s film and it’s not a biopic. It’s Rick and Cliff’s film and it’s a western.

If comedy is “tragedy plus time”, then the same can be said for any work of art. The mythology of the Old West often mixed historical and fictional characters. Whether they were Billy The Kid, Wyatt Earp or Butch Cassidy, we’ve seen countless retellings of their exploits, never exactly the same, never entirely accurate. That’s what makes it a myth. A good portion is made-up. Going back to Homeric and Arthurian legends, the foundation of storytelling has always been a collision of fact and fiction, chronicle and embellishment. People make too much of QT altering historic events. Are the Nazis of Inglourious Basterds and the Manson Family of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood any different than any other mythical villains of earlier works of art? If a filmmaker can’t riff on a fifty-year-old historical event, then what are we really doing here? Do we just want the cinema of Marvel Comics and discreet biopics? QT doesn’t treat history any different than the filmmakers of the 1960s treated the events of the 1860s. Tex Watson, galloping away in his black hat, is a signpost for this. It’s QT’s way of saying: “Every time has its myths, every time has its black hats and white hats”. And the Manson Family, filled with bloodlust and megalomania from the top down, fulfill the role of black-hatted villains quite perfectly.

Does this make Rick and Cliff, two middle-aged white guys who love booze and hate hippies, our white-hatted heroes? Hell, no. With the exception of Django Unchained, that was never QT’s bag. He’s all about the anti heroes of spaghetti westerns and Sam Peckinpah films. Men who have done plenty of bad, sometimes unspeakable, things. They’re only the hero because they wrestle with their past and because there’s always a meaner, badder fella waiting to shoot it out with ‘em. Clint Eastwood’s character in the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is only “Good” because Lee Van Cleef is so clearly “Bad” (and Eli Wallach “Ugly”). In 1992’s The Unforgiven, Eastwood’s character talks of killing “women and children” in his past. Yet he’s still clearly our hero. The Old West is a morally complex time in which one’s heroism is often defined by a greater and competing villainy.

So when it’s revealed that Cliff possibly murdered his wife and got away with it, he’s stepping into the role of anti hero with a dark past. Is Cliff haunted by his past? Not seemingly. He’s more inclined to shrug it off with a smirk and swig of beer. Shit happens y’know. This makes him exactly the type of guy murderous hippies shouldn’t fuck with. They justify their bloodlust with a self-serving philosophical bent: Entertainers taught them to kill via TV and movies, so it’s okay to kill the people who are involved in making TV and movies. QT makes the bold and provocative choice to not confirm whether Cliff did or didn’t kill his wife, but if he did, he probably wouldn’t dress it up as anything other than a burst of brutish violence that he was lucky to get away with. He loves his dog though, and he’s a good friend. In real life that might not justify liking the guy, but in a western that’s usually enough. Ultimately these character choices made by QT are to set up a mythic showdown between Cliff and the Manson Family. He’s good because they’re bad. It’s the same reason Cliff was shown going head-to-head with Bruce Lee. Masked racism by QT, a known lover of Asian and martial arts films, or a way of building up Cliff’s status to mythical proportions? There was once this ex war hero, who became a stuntman and maybe killed his wife, and he once threw Bruce Lee into a car door on the set of The Green Hornet! Cliff is Paul Bunyan. He’s Bill Brasky. A folk hero for stuntmen and for his time.

And did you hear that one tale about Cliff and the Manson Family…?

Rick’s bread and butter is now guest-starring on various TV shows in which he plays the heavy and gets his ass kicked by the show’s star at the end of the episode. Rick is a boozy, bloated hot mess of a man who’s prone to crying. A lot. His first burst of tears in the film is at the Musso & Frank parking lot, after an agent gives Rick a harsh dose of reality regarding the state of his career. Cliff, always keeping his cool, gives Rick his sunglasses and says, “Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans.” Remember — this is a western. Anyway, if Cliff fills the role of macho, gives no fucks, murderous outlaw, Rick is the contrasting “modern man” or, to use a western term, “tenderfoot”. The film begins with a behind the scenes segment for Rick’s old show Bounty Law. In it an interviewer talks to Rick and Cliff about what a stuntman does. During the interview there’s a quip about Cliff carrying Rick’s load. So right out of the gate, QT brings our attention to the idea that Cliff is the real deal and Rick’s the actor playing a role. This notion is repeated throughout the film (even one of the Manson Girls, “Pussy”, makes reference to Cliff being more authentic because he’s a stuntman rather than an actor). Regardless of whether Cliff murdered his wife or not, he’s an ex military man and war hero, so obviously he’s killed people before. So in addition to taking falls and performing dangerous stunts for Rick, he’s more of a bona fide western anti hero than Rick ever could be. Fittingly, while Cliff and the Manson Family black hats are sizing each other up at Spahn Ranch, Rick is busy acting in a TV western. And Rick keeps crying. A lot. He even cries in front of a little girl who simultaneously coddles and reprimands him. No doubt, Cliff would view this as potentially worse than crying in front of Mexicans. But Rick can’t help himself. He’s both a man of his time and out of time. He can’t roll with the hippies and spaghetti westerns but he’d never last a day in Cliff’s shoes let alone the wild frontier. Even at the end, in which Rick finally gets the chance to become an avenging hero (involving possibly the greatest payoff in cinematic history) if one steps back and thinks of the climactic set-piece, Rick is merely stepping in at the end to grab all the glory after Cliff and his wonderful dog Brandy did most of the heavy lifting. Thus Cliff is yet again carrying Rick’s load.

But this doesn’t mean Rick doesn’t have a victory. He does. It just comes at the midpoint, and it’s the closest thing to a real-life victory in the film. When Rick shows up to play the heavy in the TV western, he’s reached his low-point. Like a different part of the anatomy going into ice-water in Raging Bull, Rick is submerging his face into ice-water in his trailer, struggling with a hangover and hopelessness. Making matters worse, the artsy director shows up and tells Rick he wants him to play a hippie-style outlaw with a fringe jacket, mustache and long hair. The only thing Rick does more than drink and cry is insult hippies. He’s living his worst nightmare as an actor. QT makes another one of his most interesting choices by showing the subsequent scenes from the TV show in the same film stock and style as the main narrative. Thus when juxtaposed to Cliff at Spahn Ranch, Rick’s battle with his growing irrelevance as an actor is given the same cinematic weight. This isn’t just a TV show within the movie — it is the movie! This battle or showdown is just as important as Cliff’s eventual showdown with the Manson Family. Rick struggles. He fucks up his lines. He comes totally unglued in his trailer. This looks like the end of the road for him as an actor. He eventually gets his shit together, embraces the role and goes for broke. It’s a credit to both QT as a filmmaker and Leo DiCaprio as an actor that the villain Rick plays in the TV show ends up being more intense and visceral than the one he played in the main narrative of Django Unchained. Rick’s chops as an actor are restored and he decides to go to Italy and star in spaghetti westerns. He learns to maximize his talent in order to roll with the times.

A protagonist who is at odds with changing times might seem regressive or even reactionary to some people today, but it’s also a hallmark of westerns, especially the westerns of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From Once Upon a Time in the West to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, an impending future of railroads and industrialization is always treated with uneasiness by the heroes. These changing times aren’t going to include them. Their wild and free ways will soon come to an end. Nowhere is this theme most prominent than in the work of Sam Peckinpah. In many of his westerns, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the heroes are viewed as endangered creatures who are all too aware of their fate. The character of Cable Hogue even meets his end when a motor car rolls over him. He’s killed by the modern age! Another Peckinpah film from this era, Junior Bonner, is set in 1972 Arizona but can also be considered a western (creating a template for QT’s western that’s not set in the canonical “Old West”). The protagonist and title character is an aging rodeo star (brilliantly played by Steve McQueen, who perhaps not so coincidentally also appears in QT’s film). In Peckinpah’s film, Junior has lost his edge and returns home to take a breather and maybe get his chops back. His struggle is not unlike Rick Dalton’s. They’re both aging entertainers and they both fear they’re washed-up. And as with all of Peckinpah’s westerns, encroaching progress is a threat to Junior’s simple cowboy ways. All of these above mentioned westerns are filled with a bittersweet quality; a nostalgic snapshot that’s destined to become yellow and brittle. The power of myths is they suggest immortality for our heroes.They might be long gone but they live through these tales. Whether’s it’s the Old West of outlaws in dusty little towns or the Old West of ’69 Hollywood, people once lived in these places and they lived vibrant, foolhardy and sometimes dangerous lives. Maybe they didn’t live or die exactly as the tale accounts, but they did indeed live and they did indeed die.

In his film QT references another “man out of time” western: The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Written by John Milius, directed by John Huston and starring Paul Newman, the film is a highly-fictionalized account of the life of Judge Roy Bean. At the climax an elderly Roy Bean reemerges from a self-imposed exile to have a showdown with businessmen who have surrounded his beloved town with oil rigs. When his enemies ask who he is, Roy Bean shouts “Justice, you sons of bitches!” This is immediately followed by a shootout in which Roy defeats his foes, blows up the surrounding oil rigs and goes out in a blaze of glory. In real life Roy Bean died in his bed after a heavy bout of drinking. What’s most interesting is how QT referenced The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. After the climax of Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood there’s a triumphant but wistful epilogue in which one of our heroes is faced with a future that we all know is a fantasy. Over this scene is an evocative piece of music that sounds like it’s from a fairytale and it plays over the end credits. The piece of music is entitled “Miss Lillie Langtry” and it’s the main theme from The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. Lillie Langtry was a British-American socialite Roy Bean was enamored with and he even went so far to name the saloon in his town after her. “Miss Lille Langtry” plays over the end credits of Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood and the opening credits of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. But before the credits in Roy Bean we see written in storybook fashion:

“Near the turn of the last century the Pecos River marked the boundaries of civilization in western Texas. West of the Pecos there was no law, no order, and only bad men and rattlesnakes lived there.

…Maybe this isn’t the way it was… it’s the way it should be.”

With Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino pays homage to a socialite/actress who was tragically murdered before her time and two endangered heroes—one an outlaw stuntman, the other an entertainer—neither of who existed but men like them did. For two hours and forty-five minutes, the onward march of tragedy and time is defeated through a spirited, Old West mix of bravado and audacity. Maybe it’s not the way it was…

But it’s the way it should be.

#Quentin Tarantino #Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #western #hollywood

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loopsforlupin · 4 years

Text

Wolfstar Through the Eyes of a Mother

Walburga :

Walburga Black was not happy, not one bit. Her eldest “child” was consorting with those nasty blood traitors, the Potter’s, and those two half-blood creatures, Peter and the weird wolf named one, Romulus? No Remus, that was the sandy haired one’s name. Weird kid, had nasty scars across his face, and she suspected the rest of his body as well. Whatever, she shook those thoughts from her head, and focused on glaring at the boys gathered on the train station platform. Her precious child, Regulus was gathered with his own friends, but they were of the respectable sort, except for that Snape child, but he was a dark wizard, and a powerful Potion maker, so she was willing to allow their friendship. The other four boys were standing close to one another, the parents of the other three were gathered around the friends, but Walburga was staring at her son more than her usual gaze. Something was going on. Her eldest was standing particularly close to the tall sandy-haired one with scars, their hands practically brushing every time the boys moved. Her son, instead of doing the proper thing, and stepping away, swayed closer to the boy, tilting his head up to keep staring at the boy. Hmmmmm…… It would appear her eldest son was more of a useless creature than she had thought previously. First he was born with a white core, then he was always smiling and playing with those pathetic muggle children that had loitered around the park near their home. Then the boy went and got sorted into the stupid Lion house, a complete disgrace for their house. And if that hadn’t been bad enough, then he started flaunting his differences in her home. Putting up those disgusting muggle women posters, and changing the room’s color to that dreadful red and gold combination that made her eyes sore. Everything he did was against her very beliefs and core. Now the daft idiot had gone and fallen in love, with a male no less. If the man had been a Pure-blood, maybe she wouldn’t have minded as much, however, the useless child had to go and fall for a half blood. Not even a dark half-blood either, judging by the boy’s core, he was just as light magic as her oaf of a son.

Perhaps she should start making those plans for his marriage, Orion, seemed to think she should hold off another year, but judging from the closeness of the two boys, and the indulging looks of their friends, she didn’t have a year. She gave herself a pat on the back, yes, she would plan the boy a wedding, maybe she could even get a couple male’s interested. Perhaps if she offered a marriage with another male, with the understanding that Sirius would have to provide an heir through the use of a male pregnancy potion, than maybe the boy would stop fighting it. Maybe just maybe she’d get the boy under her thumb yet.

Euphemia:

Euphemia Potter was feeling a contradicting set of emotions; ecstatic and horrified. Her two sons were home with her, where she could watch over them. However, Sirius was still a battered and bruised mess. His ribs were broken, now just sore muscles around the once broken bones, his back was a mess of broken and scabbing skin after his carrier’s loving tender mercies. His lips were starting to heal again, the scabs opening less and less as she made him apply that potion to aid them in healing. His eyes were no longer black and blue, and his arm was out of the sling finally, it had been a struggle to get him to stop using the limb for the required three days, for the skele-gro to finally fix the broken bones there. Now her two sons were lounging on the couch in the living room, James playing with that practice snitch, and Sirius was tucked up in the corner of the couch, a book perched precariously on his knees. The young dark haired boy seemed so much more relaxed now, his shoulders no longer tensing when anyone new entered the room. He was starting to trust them.

James had asked her the other day, if Remus could come over. He said Peter had been on a small holiday with his mother, and that was why the smaller boy wasn't invited. She had agreed, the taller boy was so soft spoken compared to her sons, but she knew that his sharp mind and tongue were well within her active boy’s league. He was a nice calming influence on her two active boys, but he could also be quite the little instigator. She had watched him one time, talk James into jumping on Sirius, before the boy had lived with them, and tickling him. All because Remus had decided that Sirius was being to morose. She loved that the sandy-haired boy looked out for both her sons, and their friend.

Fleamont’s personal elf, Custer, announced the arrival of Master Siri’s friend. She stifled a grin, Sirius had absolutely refused to be called Master Black, or even Master Sirius, and insisted that all the elves referred to him as Siri, however the elves had added Master in front of it, and Sirius was too frustrated to argue more. Remus walked in the room and her heart fluttered at the beautiful smile that lit up her youngest son’s face. All the pain and fear was immediately wiped off, and replaced with sheer joy and dare she say it, love, for the boy, well wolf, who had walked in. Remus immediately made a beeline for Sirius, cheerfully calling out a greeting. The taller boy pulled the youngest of the group into a firm hug, leaning his head down to rest on the dark hair. He whispered something, but Euphemia was to far away to hear what he said. When Sirius pulled back, Remus smiled at him kindly and kept one arm around his body while he greeted her eldest son. That hug was brief compared to other one.

The boys settled back on the couch, this time with Sirius wrapped up in the arms of Remus, while James was talking to the taller boy, sitting with Sirius’s feet in his lap. She smiled at the sweet sight, her youngest being loved on by the two older boys, not even fighting the coddling, simply relaxing against Remus’s chest, letting the other adjust him until they were both comfortable.

Euphemia Potter couldn’t help but notice that Remus and Sirius were awfully comfortable with touching one another. Remus had let his one arm hang down over Sirius’s shoulder, so that his hand was dangling near Sirius’s stomach. Sirius was playing with that hand, even as he spoke to the other two, he was intertwining their fingers. Remus payed no attention to this, letting Sirius do as he pleased. After some comment, which had James squawking in indignation and Sirius laughing, Remus leaned down and placed a sweet kiss to Sirius’ s hair. After he had done so, Sirius had tilted his head back and smiled another gorgeous smile at the boy. He then leaned up and pressed a kiss to the grinning wolf’s chin. James said nothing about their actions, just continued to talk. His large grin however, showed how happy he was for his friends. Euphemia smiled, her youngest son was well taken care of for now. She knew exactly how fiercely protective James was of the younger male, and that Remus could easier hold Sirius down if needed. She set off to find her darling husband, she had to share the exciting news that both their sons had wonderful people to hold their hearts.

Hope:

Ever since that fateful night, Hope Lupin was constantly worried about her baby boy. She had been terrified when he had gone to Hogwarts, terrified that her special baby boy, who was so traumatized by his accident that he didn’t like to talk to people, would be so lonely. She had fretted over how he would handle the full moons as well, she knew how the wolf in him liked to bite and scratch at itself. She always hated to see how battered and bloody her son was after the full moon. The first week of her son’s classes she had been inconsolable, stressed and miserable as she waited for her son to write the first letter. And then it had arrived, and instead of being homesick and lonely, her son had written about the amazing boys he was sharing the dorm with.

James Potter, a quick, cheerful sort her son had written, who had busted out a stash of chocolate and pumpkin juice the very first night, and they had celebrated being at Hogwarts. Peter Pettigrew, the boy Remus had shared a compartment with on the train to school. He was quiet, Remus said, but he had a quick mind, and a dry with that was almost on par with Remus’s own. Then Remus mentioned Sirius Black. Oh her son had a lot to say about Sirius Black. The dark haired boy, who had bounded into their compartment on the train, asked if they would like to join him and another boy, James, in their compartment for a small feast of candies from the trolley. Then he had spoken about him again, as the boy apparently went against 50 years of tradition, by being sorted into Gryffindor, despite his family having all been Slytherin. Her son spoke of Sirius’s rebel streak, and the brilliant mind behind the sometimes cold exterior. How the grey eyes could light up with mischief, how his smile was like a special treat, only appearing every so often. How Sirius, James and Peter had gone above and beyond to help him with his situation.

Over the years, Sirius Black was a common name, along with the others. But somehow, Sirius was the most popular name mentioned about the group. Almost all of it was good, and even the few bad things mentioned, would end up with Remus smiling fondly at the memories associated with his stories. More often then not, when she asked Remus about school, he spoke of some new prank Sirius had came up with, which had somehow used a new topic their teacher’s were trying to teach them. If Hope didn’t know better, she would have sworn Remus was irrevocably in love with Sirius. However, she was certain that her son would tell her such information.

After six years of only seeing her son’s friends at the station, and hearing about them from her son, Hope had insisted that Remus invited his friends over for a couple of days during the summer. Her and Lyall’s house at the lake was large enough to accommodate the additional three boys, if they didn’t mind pairing up. She thought the boys could do with some good old fashion running around, and they could spend lots of time in the lake. Her son had loved growing up having the lake to swim around in. The day had arrived, her son was a nervous wreck, he had cleaned his room twice over the last two days, making sure nothing embarrassing was laying around. He had even started to clean the rest of the house, but Hope had slapped his head, and forced him to sit down and drink a cuppa.

The first to arrive was James, who had immediately pounced on her son, hugging him tightly, talking so quickly she could barely hear the individual words coming from his mouth. Remus however, just hugged the dark haired boy just as fiercely, somehow understanding what the other was saying. When the two separated, James Potter, turned to her, and immediately blushed, realizing he had just jumped her son while she was watching him. He apologized before introducing himself, and thanking her profusely for allowing them to come. She immediately liked the eager young man. He was a ball of energy, and so loving towards her son, she couldn’t help it, she grabbed him into a tight hug, assuring him it was no problem to invite them. Peter arrived next, and greeted her son, though not quite as enthusiastic as James had. The boy introduced himself to her as well, and presented her with a small tin of cookies, his mother made apparently to thank her for taking them in.

The last to arrive was Sirius Black. The boy stepped out of the fire place his eyes automatically shifting to find Remus. When he saw her son, his face lit up, and he immediately pulled the taller boy into a tight hug. She noticed that her son clutched Sirius to him, the hug lingering as if neither wanted to pull back. When they did, Sirius immediately turned to her, and smiled angelically. His eyes still bright and happy. He introduced himself, and also thanked her for having him. He reached into a satchel hanging from his shoulder and pulled out a single red and gold rose and a pack of something called chocolate cauldrons. He presented it to her, telling her it would last forever, and that the gold and red were the colours of her son’s house, and the chocolate cauldrons were something her son thought she would enjoy. She smiled, and thanked him for the kind gesture and pulled him into a tight hug. He seemed unsure when she first hugged him, but soon relaxed into her grasp.

The boys were then sent out to find their rooms and to change into something they could go into the lake with. Under ten minutes later, the boys were rushing outside, and she could hear the happy yells and shrieks as they rough housed in the water. A couple hours later, she called the boys in for dinner, hearing them pick on one another as they entered the house. Lyall stood at the door, drying them off with a spell, before letting them further into the house. They eagerly gathered around the dining room table, waiting until Lyall joined them before starting to eat. They talked and laughed over the food. Her son’s face was so happy, Hope actually had to remind herself to breathe and look away from his face. After dinner Peter, James, Remus, and Sirius helped clear the table, despite her best effort to tell them they didn’t have. Once everything was cleared up, the boys settled into the living room, Remus putting on a movie for the four of them to watch. She sat in her arm chair, pulling out her hand work, she was working on knitting a baby blanket for a friend’s daughter. James and Sirius were more captivated by her and her hand work. They approached her, letting the other’s watch the movie.

James and Sirius said that Euphemia Potter and Fleamont Potter were teaching them to knit as well, however they weren’t quite as good as her, and wanted to watch her to see if they could learn anything new. She smiled, happily readjusting her work, and telling them about the pattern she was doing. The lesson continued until the movie ended and it was decided that the boys should head to bed, if they wanted to explore the town tomorrow like they planned. James and Sirius thanked her for her lesson, and went to bed. After another two hours, Lyall and Hope also retired, however Hope looked into the room her son was sharing with Sirius, and noticed that instead of sleeping on the floor like she expected, they were both curled up together on the small twin size mattress.

She stood there for a while, observing the two “friends”. Remus was laying on his back, with Sirius laying on top of him. The dark haired boy’s head laying over her son’s heart. She couldn’t see Sirius’s face, but her son was wearing a small smile even as he slept. His face half buried in the dark hair. Sirius twitched in his sleep, and Remus let out a small growl, and Sirius immediately settled down. She had a hand pressed to her lips. Oh her sweet baby boy. He was in love, and he was deeply loved in return it would seem.

Over the next couple of days, Hope Lupin got to see how attached her son and Sirius were. Sirius was never more than an arms length away from her son, and more often then not was tucked up under Remus’s arm. His own arm wrapped around Remus’s waist, almost possessively so. James was usually trying to pull Sirius in one direction, however Remus never let him get to far away. At one point, she had walked into the den, with none of the boys noticing her, watching as the Remus pulled Sirius down on his lap, while he was sitting in the recliner. The dark haired boy didn't resist, and instead wiggled around until he was comfortable, and pulled out a bar of chocolate, which he immediately shared with her son. Sirius held the bar in front of Remus’s face, and after her son had taken a bite, Sirius had kissed his cheek. Remus smiled down at the younger boy, and kissed Sirius’s forehead before tucking the boy under his chin.

Hope Lupin was so happy. Her boy was no longer a baby, he was a teenager, a very responsible one, who seemed to have found someone who loved him completely. Someone who not only knew about his accident, but loved him despite and because of it. Sirius didn’t shy away from her son’s condition, and instead, he joked about it, making her son smile about something he had once hated so much. Lyall came up behind her, his head resting on her shoulder as he whispered in her ear. “Our son did good. He’s a good boy.”

#wolfstar #Sirius x Remus #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #James Potter #Euphemia Potter #Fleamont Potter #Hope Lupin #Lyall Lupin

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reading-writing-revolution · 4 years

Text

Heather Cox Richardson:

July 26, 2020 (Sunday)

Reality is disrupting the ideology of today’s Republican Party.

For a generation, Republicans have tried to unravel the activist government under which Americans have lived since the 1930s, when Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and invested in infrastructure. From the beginning, that government was enormously popular. Both Republicans and Democrats believed that the principle behind it—that the country worked best when government protected and defended ordinary Americans—was permanent.

But the ideologues who now control the Republican Party have always wanted to get rid of this New Deal state and go back to the world of the 1920s, when businessmen ran the government. They believe that government regulation and taxation is an assault on their liberty, because it restricts their ability to make money.

They have won office not by convincing Americans to give up their own government benefits—most Americans actually like clean water and Social Security and safe bridges—but by selling a narrative in which “Liberals” are trying to undermine the country by stealing the tax dollars of hardworking Americans—quietly understood to be white men—and redistributing them to lazy people who want handouts, not-so-quietly understood to be people of color and feminist women. According to this narrative, legislation that protects ordinary Americans simply redistributes wealth. It is “socialism,” or “communism.”

Meanwhile, Republican policies have actually redistributed wealth upward. When voters began to turn against those policies, Republicans upped the ante, saying that “Liberals” were simply buying Black votes with handouts, or, as Carly Fiorina said in a 2016 debate, planning to butcher babies and sell their body parts. To make sure Republicans stayed in power, they suppressed voting by people likely to vote Democratic, and gerrymandered states so that even if Democrats won a majority of votes, they would have a minority of representatives.

This system rewarded those who moved to the right, not to the middle. It gave them Donald Trump as a 2016 candidate, who talked of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and treated women not as equals but as objects either for sex or derision.

And, although as a candidate Trump talked about making taxes fairer, improving health care, and helping those struggling economically, in fact as president he has done more to bring about the destruction of the New Deal state than most of his predecessors. He has slashed regulations, given a huge tax cut to the wealthy, and gutted the government.

If the end of the New Deal state is going to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity, it should be now.

Instead, the gutting of our government destroyed our carefully constructed pandemic response teams and plans, leaving America vulnerable to the coronavirus. Pressed to take the lead on combatting the virus, the administration refused to use federal power, and instead relied on “public-private partnerships” which meant states were largely on their own. When governors tried to take over, the Republican objection to government regulation, cultivated over a generation, had people refusing to wear masks or follow government instructions.

As the rest of the world watches in horror, we have suffered more than 4 million infections, and are approaching 150,000 deaths.

The pandemic also crashed the economy as businesses shut down to avoid infections. It threw more than 20 million Americans out of work. Republican ideology says the government has no business supporting ordinary Americans: they should work to survive, even if that means they have to take the risk of contracting Covid-19. Schools should open, businesses should get up and going, and the economy should rebuild. As Texas’s lieutenant governor Dan Patrick said to Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson in March, grandparents should be willing to contract coronavirus for the U.S. to “get back to work.”

The coronavirus has brought the Republican narrative up against reality. Just 32% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, and only 38% of the country think the economy is good. Americans believe that the government should have done a better job managing the pandemic, and they do not believe they should risk their lives for the economy.

To try to deflect attention from the failure of his approach to the coronavirus, Trump is once, again, escalating the narrative. He has launched an offensive against Democratic cities, trying to convince voters he is protecting them from "violent anarchists" coddled by Democrats. He is using federal law enforcement officers in unprecedented ways, not to quell protests, but to escalate them. In Portland, Oregon, as officers have used tear gas, less-than-lethal munitions (which nonetheless fractured a man’s skull), and batons to attack protesters, the events, which had fallen to a few hundred attendees, grew again into the thousands. And now the administration is planning to send in more officers, to escalate further.

The Republicans’ ideology is also making it impossible for them to deal with the economy. We are on the verge of a catastrophe as the $600 weekly federal bonus attached to state unemployment benefits runs out this week just as the moratorium on evictions for an inability to pay rent ends. At the same time, state and local budgets, hammered by the pandemic, will mean more layoffs.

The House passed a $3 trillion bill in May to address these issues, along with providing more money to combat the coronavirus, but Republicans in the Senate rejected it out of hand. Today on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) went back to his ideological roots. “The only objective Democrats have is to defeat Donald Trump, and they've cynically decided the best way to defeat Donald Trump is shut down every business in America, shut down every school in America," he said. House Speaker "Nancy Pelosi talks about working men and women. What she's proposing is keeping working men and women from working." "Her objectives are shoveling cash at the problem and shutting America down.”

Instead, both Trump and Cruz want a payroll tax cut, which will do little to stimulate the economy since the tens of millions who have lost their jobs would not see any money, and this late in the year much of the tax has already been paid. But the payroll tax cut is popular among Republican ideologues because it funds Social Security and Medicare. Cut it, and those programs take a hit.

Today Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took to the Sunday talk shows to try to reassure people that the Republicans would, in fact, manage to cobble together a relief bill in the next few days (after not writing one in the last two months). They are talking about passing piecemeal measures, but, recognizing that this means Republicans will call all the shots, Pelosi says no.

Meadows and Mnuchin say they want liability protection for businesses and schools if they open and people get Covid-19. They were also clear they would not agree to extending the $600 federal addition to state unemployment benefits, arguing that it simply “paid people to stay home.” They say they want to guarantee people 70% of their wages, but the reason the earlier bill had a flat $600 payment was because it appeared impossible for states to administer a complicated program based on a percentage, so this might well just be a straw argument.

The Republican approach to handling the coronavirus and the economy is apparently not to turn to our government, but to put our heads down, go on as usual, and hope for a vaccine. What will end the pandemic is “not masks. It’s not shutting down the economy," Meadows said. “Hopefully it is American ingenuity that will allow for therapies and vaccines to ultimately conquer this.”

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symphonyofthewrite · 4 years

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If These Walls Could Talk (Ch1)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Summary: “My mother’s name was Lisa, and she was mortal…She actually showed up at his front door. She found the castle and banged the door with the pommel of her knife…She was remarkable. She beat on the door until my father let her in, and then demanded he teach her how to be a doctor.”

Notes:

This is a fic I’ve had up for a while, that people seem to really like!! Not sure why I took this long to post it over here XD I’ll post the next chapters I have over the next few days or so, but if you can’t wait they’re over on my fanfiction blog @antihero-writings, as well as in my fic masterlist over there!! (And technically in my masterlist here, but it's messed up right now XD)

I was writing a different Castlevania fic--(”Such Fragile Things”, if you’re curious)--when I started describing things as if from the castle’s perspective...and I thought that was a very interesting idea, so this happened. The idea was also inspired by Sypha’s “it’s fighting me!" I thought that was really interesting because she was speaking almost as if the castle were a living thing. I was originally planning on posting this as one long thing (and I may still do so after I finish), because the sections are very much connected and meant to flow into each other, and I think it’ll be easy to miss things if they’re separate. But I realized it would be easier, both for me to post, and for people to read, in bite size-pieces. Plus it has very clear-cut sections that are easy to split into chapters. So... here you go!!

If you enjoyed this, I’d really appreciate if you could leave me a comment and/or reblog!!

If you are a fan artist who is interested in making cover art for this fic PLEASE don’t hesitate to message me!! I have a very specific idea for cover art for the chapters but it would cost too much to commission so many pieces...So yeah, if you’re interested, I’d love it if you could reach out!!

Chapter 1: "Lisa"