#(2) calls her his most ambitious and exceptional child

[2rats1gogh]

Same anon here with more- people need to stop conflating Aegon with Joffrey Baratheon.

Aegon has done some despicable things that I won’t make excuses for but he’s not the rabid dog that Joffrey was. Cersei, Tyrion and Tywin struggled to rein him in at 13 years old and once that crown was on his head a monster was let loose. Alicent can actually reason and get through to Aegon at pivotal times. Cersei could not do that with Joffrey.

Aegon above all craves Alicent’s approval and affection, he turns into a sniveling mess at Alicent’s scolding at his big age. Alicent is not afraid to tell Aegon exactly what she’s thinking. She doesn’t placate, pacify or coddle like everyone had to do with Joffrey because he was out of control, cruel AND stupid at the same time. Helaena is the most important person in the world to Alicent and Aegon is not going to harm the most precious thing in the world to Alicent. Helaena doesn’t have to fear Aegon bashing her head in with a rock or choking her after she has just had a stillbirth….

He called her an idiot at 14, yes it wasn’t nice but it was completely normal. At 14 I called my sister a cunt right across the dinner table, but I've also fought for that same sister. They are siblings and that interaction that made them seem more human as opposed to their 2 dimensional team black counterparts who always just smile and have kind words for each other- except when Jacaerys was beating the shit out of Luke on the beach, but no one is saying how miserable Luke was despite Luke actually seeming unhappy with parts of his life. He was even vocal about these things. Whereas Heleana who is a blunt speaker, has not said anything like that.

Helaena doesn’t look afraid of Aegon, she doesn’t look afraid of anyone in her immediate family (including Criston) as much as team black would like her to be. At the most Aegon ignores her, like she said. Honestly ignoring her is preferable to what Viserys was doing to Alicent. She had 3 children before she even reached 20. Aemond and Helaena are almost Irish twins. In the show Helaena and Aegon just have the twins who are maybe 4-5 years old, so Aegon is not forcing himself on Helaena.

We don’t know much about Helaena in the show because they decide to delete certain scenes and include other stupid filler scenes when they contain fan favorites…but Helaena in the book was happy. Her input towards the war was valued. She loved her children and everyone could agree she was a wonderful mother.

Her life isn’t perfect, there is no woman in that time period whose life is. Her husband is so far from perfect but that doesn’t mean Helaena lived a life of misery.

The book even says basically that Helaena died with Jaehaerys that night and Alicent didn’t kill Jaehaerys. That was Daemon Targaryen.

And when pointing the finger at Alicent, remember that she didn’t make Helaena on her own. She had a useless father who ignored her and her siblings her entire life. Viserys withheld his love from them out of some twisted loyalty to his first wife that he killed and his oldest child by this wife. These things would have a deep emotional impact on a person, it certainly has on her brothers. Stop letting Viserys off the hook.

(the way you called Joffrey a rabid dog omg I’m cryingggg😭😭😭😭 shxjskkzkvzlclwgzjpf)

but yeah, you are so so so right.

I hate it when people, mostly TB, compare Aegon to Joffrey. Like the ONLY two things they have in common is an ambitious (?) widow mother queen and also the fact that both aren’t very nice people. But that’s about it. Aegon at his worst doesn’t even come close to how horrendous Joffrey was on a regular day. Aegon never killed people for fun, he didn’t publicly humiliate Helaena like Joffey did with Sansa. And as I say, I am ignoring the fact that he’s a rapist because it was literally added out of nowhere, makes no sense, and has no relevance to the plot whatsoever. It was added purely to make Aegon and TG look bad. Canonically he is literally just a lazy alcoholic.

And I absolutely agree with what you said about Helaena. TB often say that “aLiCeNt MaDe HeR LiFe HeLl” but she literally didn’t? She would NEVER have her marry Aegon if Aegon was like Joffrey Baratheon. You can call Aegon every insult in the book, he was neglectful, he ignored her, he wasn’t really present in the lives of their kids, but he was NOT an abusive husband or father. And as you said, unlike Viserys, he never forced himself on Helaena. He wasn’t obsessed with the idea of having as many children as possible with her. Literally not at any point his nonexistent “abusive” behavior is shown, not even in the show. During the dinner scene Helaena literally jokes about her relationship with him, she seems comfortable and chill.

Sure, as you said, her life was far from perfect. In the books she does give birth at 14, in the show, since everyone is slightly older, she most likely was 16? Not that uncommon actually. She still had her mother, and her brothers, she has sir Criston. Aegon’s behavior was controlled by Alicent, so he would NEVER hurt her. If you remember how Alicent reacted to Aegon forcing himself upon Dyana (dumb scene overall but still) you can only imagine how she would react if he treated Helaena the same way.

#house of the dragon #hotd #pro team green #anti team black #anti team black stans #team green #asoiaf #pro aegon ii targaryen #aegon x helaena #aegon ii targaryen #helaena targaryen #pro alicent hightower #alicent hightower

[zealouscanonindeer]

The Ramsey-Kallie babies.

I thought I'd introduce you to the Ramsey-Kallie kids. In my HC, they continue living in Ethan's apartment, only moving to a double condo on a different floor when they are pregnant with Tatum.

The age gap is 3 years between the girls and baby boy is born years later. This is sort of like a part one, I'm thinking of doing one more of when they're all grown up.

1. Jade Ivy Ramsey.

Born : February 3 

Nicknames : Jadie girl/Jadie-bug (by Ethan), doll (by Aspen) 

Aspen found out she was pregnant with Jade three weeks before their wedding,they decided not to tell anyone immediately so they waited until she was two months along before breaking the news.

Funnily enough,it was Ethan who broached the topic of trying,he had a serious case of baby fever when he visited the paediatric ward and found Penny helpingSienna with the toddlers. After that,all he could think about were their babies together. They talked about it and Aspen always wanted to have kids so they decided there was no time like the present.

Two weeks later,she was pregnant! They were both shocked by how quickly it happened. They did find out the gender,Aspen was too eager to know and Ethan secretly was hoping for a baby girl. He took most things in stride,while during the second month Aspen worried about the baby having all the diseases she could think of(and she knows way too many). 

10 hours of labour later,Jade was born. She has Ethan eyes but her mothers smile. Her hair is dark blond,which surprised both her parents cause most people in their families had darker hair except River, Aspen’s sister. She is left handed, just like Aspen. 

Personality wise, she is kind, understanding, she has her father's sarcasm, stubborn, ambitious, has a tad bit of a temper. 

Ever since she could crawl, she’d follow Ethan everywhere and that didn’t stop anytime soon. She is always pretty good in her academics and later decides to pursue CA course at U Penn. She is the queen of late night study sessions but can't wake up early in the morning. 

She LOVES animals, and growing up with Jenner around is a dream come true for her. She also trains in gymnastics and has an amazing voice. 

She is a daddy's girl and Ethan is wary of any guy who she might bring home, the thought of it fills him with slight dread. 

2. Tatum Caroline Ramsey.

Born : April 16

Nicknames: Tate(by Aspen), Tater tot and little rookie ( by Ethan) 

When Jade was a year old, Aspen wanted to start trying again but Ethan felt it was a little too soon for him. However, the idea of having another bundle of joy, the tiny little toesies was enough to make him cave. 

It took them almost a year to get pregnant with Tatum, they had crazy schedules, Ethan immersed in the welfare of the hospital and Aspen leading the team, they had a serious lack of quality time. Whatever they did have, they would spend with Jade. 

Aspen was distraught with every negative pregnancy test and just before finally getting pregnant, she was seriously worried she couldn't have another child. 

After a few months, they both did get tested and everything was fine, they never really thought it would be this tough, especially with how quickly it happened the first time around. 

The pregnancy was smooth going but the little lady decided to make an early appearance. She was born almost five weeks prior to the due date. The two days, she was in the NICU were singlehandedly the most terrifying days in Ethan's life. 

Tatum is a mini version of Aspen, with the same dark brown locks and dark honey orbs, cheeky smile and teasing attitude. Just like her mother, she is hilarious and she has definitely inherited her mother's sass,including Penny's love for sleep. Ethan loves seeing his Penny in his daughter. 

He has a special place for Tatum in his heart( not that he loves any of his other children less) with all the complications leading up to her birth. It's a tiny version of his wife and he is absolutely delighted. He often calls her little rookie. 

She is definitely the quieter one of the two. She loves her cuddles, content to sit in her daddy's lap when he's reading research papers and case studies or even working in his home office. That's how she learns to read, at the age of 4. Loves food and cooking, often Ethan and her will cook while Jade and Aspen prefer to do the dishes. 

She is a math genius,skips two classes and graduates from HS a year early. She purses a career in acturial science, graduating from Northeastern University in Boston. She trains in swimming and loves observing people from afar, so she takes up sketching. 

As a child, she always gets into some kind of mischief, once breaking her leg and even having a pulled elbow. Ethan is always on his A game, ready to catch her anytime. 

Here are some adorable Tatum videos, I'll make a masterlist of the Jade ones soon. 

3. Jonah Kallie Ramsey

Born : August 19

Nickname: Bud or buddy other than that he prefers being called by his name.

This time around, Ethan insisted on having Kallie as the middle name. He had always assumed they would hyphenate but when Aspen had taken his last name, she wanted all the kids to have just Ramsey.

With Jonah, they weren't trying, it was unplanned. He was born 8 years after Tatum, so the age gap was pretty big. Both the girls wanted a baby brother and their parents shared the sentiment.

Aspen was pregnant at 39 this time around so they were wary of any complications. She had a minor blood pressure issue and had to be on complete bed rest the last 3 months. It was the most difficult pregnancy of the three for her, with her being at a higher position at the hospital and such, however Ethan, who had stepped down from his position as Chief shortly after Tatum's birth took Aspen's place as she decided to go on a much needed sabbatical.

Jonah was born 4 days after his due date and her labour almost lasted for 19 hours. Jonah was the easiest baby, never really crying too much and easily falling into a schedule.

His first word was actually 'Tate'. He is the baby of the family and both his sisters spoil him to death. He and Ethan go bike riding all the time and he loves carpentering with Alan every time they visit Providence.

He loves detective stories and mysteries which Aspen would read to him at bedtime. He plays basketball and tennis. He also plays the piano and enjoys gardening with his Nana.

He goes on to join the CIA earning a double major in criminal justice and foreign affairs from Florida State University.

He is very polite and just, shares Ethan's moral compass and values at the same time realises the reality of grey areas in life. He is passionate, calm outgoing, friendly and a good leader. He looks very much like Ethan, the only real difference is that his eyes are a little on the greener side as compared to his father's.

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

Just a little side note, I just hit 100 followers!! Thank you to everyone who hit that follow button and I can't begin to describe how grateful I am to reach here. 🥺💕

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

#aspen milla kallie #open heart mc #ethan x aspen #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #dr ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey #open heart choices #open heart fanfic #oh fandom #oph fics #oph edits #opedits #open heart #ethan ramsey x f! mc

[whitegoldtower]

What I love most about my OC, Severin Nervayne:

People who meet him in the modern day see a kindly Dunmer. A single dad (widower) who works as a professor in the college of Winterhold, teaching the history of necromancy and its dangers. A benevolent looking lil’ guy with circular glasses, a messy black bun. A guy who looks after everyone and would drop whatever he’s doing to help you out, and who would defend you to the corners of Nirn and back.

But he used to be a fucking Telvanni Mage specialising in Necromancy, highly ambitious and extremely arrogant. A tough mf with a history even further back of pit fighting and tomb raiding to pay his bills and fund his skooma addiction.

Nobody sees that side of him any more. Well, except for those who saw him in Windhelm when Rolff Stone-Fist called him and his daughter ‘filthy grey-skins’ and told him to ‘fuck off back to Morrowind’. Dude woke up the following morning stuffed into one of those big urns in the Grey Quarter, with the last thing he remembers seeing being Sev’s fist flying towards his face.

If he takes his glasses off, you know you’re about to get your shit rocked

Also he has never harmed a child before but he did absolutely blow this little nord shit’s puny mind with his ✨vibrant✨ vocabulary after the kid kept making fun of Llevana’s burns and teasing her until she wouldn’t leave the house.

All Llevana remembers of it is being upset, Severin fussing over her until she told him what happened, him asking her to point the kid out, and then him leaving the house for like 2 minutes tops. She looks out of the window to see her dad fucking crouched down in front of the kid, with a deadpan expression as he talks to him. Sev comes back in, she goes back outside and those kids have fucking GONE. He still won’t tell her what he said to this day.

#tesblr #skyrim #skyrim oc #dunmer #college of winterhold #my oc: severin nervayne

[mldnightxxrain]

[ annabelle wallis, cis  woman, she/her. ] ✧·ﾟ is that [ constance hatchaway ] who just stumbled into town? rumour has it that they’re the [ 38 ] year old originally hailing from [ disney’s haunted mansion ]. if they had to choose a side they would consider themself [ evil ]. i’ve also heard that they’re [ clever ] but [ vain ] and have [ 2 ] child(ren). i could almost swear i heard [ maneater by hall and oates ] playing when they appeared. 

* tw: alcoholism, death mention // @scatteredintros​

𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙸𝙲𝚂:

Full Name: constance hatchaway Aliases/Nicknames: connie, the black widow bride Age: 38 Birthday: august 9 Zodiac: leo Occupation: housewife

𝙿𝙷𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚀𝚄𝙴:

Height: 5’7 Hair Color: blonde Eye Color: blue Scars: none Tattoos: none FC: annabelle wallis

𝙵𝙰𝙼𝙸𝙻𝚈:

Mother: emma hatchaway Father: john hatchaway Children: 2 Notable Relatives: ambrose harper - ex husband, frank banks - ex husband, marquis de doome - ex husband, reginald caine - ex husband, george hightower - ex husband

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝚃𝚈:

Sexual orientation: heterosexual Gender: cis gender woman Pronouns: she/her Species:  human, former ghost

𝙿𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙾𝙽𝙰𝙻𝙸𝚃𝚈:

Traits: vain, clever, witty, ambitious, cruel, determined, greedy, cold, distant, flirty, calculating, greedy, seductive, thorough, organized, unfeeling, psychotic manipulative, Alignment: chaotic evil MBTI: entj Enneagram: type three , the achiever  Archetype: the ruler Hogwarts House: slytherin Element: fire Pop Culture Kins: mrs. white from clue, georgia miller from ginny & georgia, rosalie hale from twilight, 

𝚂𝙺𝙸𝙻𝙻𝚂:

Languages: english, french Weapon(s): hatchet  Strengths: persuasive, good at math, sewing, cooking, Weaknesses: money, looks

𝙿𝙰𝚂𝚃:

Constance grew up in a small and poor town. She was the youngest of four children. Her childhood was anything but easy, even at a young age. Her parents were poor farmers, who lived in a small town. Growing up, Constance was put to work doing chores around the farm. She hated it. She would rather keep busy by keeping the home. Her mother was a kind and lovely lady, but her father was cruel and an alcoholic. He hated Constance and her mother, abusing both of them regularly. She began to hate him, and most men as a byproduct.

As Constance grew older, she grew more beautiful - too beautiful as some would say. She cared deeply about her appearance, to the point of vanity. Her cruel father would call her awful names. However, Constance’s mother always told her daughter how proud she was of her. Constance always had higher aspirations for her life, which involved more money and a higher social status. The moment the opportunity came to marry Ambrose Harper, son of a long-standing wealthy farming family, she took it. Anything to get away from her poor, abusive father. However, three years into their marriage, Ambrose met his early demise by a hatchet accident - leaving his money to Constance. This wasn’t enough. She wanted more.

She would go to marry five times in total, all meeting their demise by hatchet accidents and leaving their fortunes to her. She never stayed married for too long, with the exception of her last husband George Hightower. Each of her husbands left her more wealth and status than the last. Marrying George, Constance finally had gathered all the wealth and stature she dreamed of. She was finally satisfied, and didn’t completely hate her fifth husband.

However, something that wasn’t part of the plan was having children.  She was anything but a loving mother. If anything, it threw a wrench in her plans. Her firstborn was young when their father died mysteriously. She would marry again before having her second child. She always thought George was soft-hearted when it came to their daughter, and had no problem telling him such. It was twelve years into their marriage before George ultimately met the same fate as her previous husbands. After his death, Constance and her children remained in their mansion.

It was rumored Constance died of old age, and would haunt the attic where the remnants of her past life were kept. She didn’t have many friends in the mansion, keeping mostly to herself and her children.

#introducing me : constance hatchaway #scatteredintros

[ragingbookdragon]

My Brother's Best Friend Is The One For Me

Wally West x Batsis!Reader One-Shot

Word Count: 3.6K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: Got to rereading my Batsis fics and came across the "What A Flashy Romance" and wanted to do another one with Wally because I love him. Enjoy! -Thorne

Being the middle child and also the only girl in the Batfamily meant two things:

1. She had four brothers that treated her like a porcelain doll, despite the fact that she could throw a punch at 336 PSI.

And

2. She followed an unspoken rule that Dick and Jason’s friends were off limits when it came to dating.

In all, neither of those things were major problems. She’d learned at a young age how to avoid Dick and Jason’s overbearing-protective-brother-modes, and Tim and Damian were younger, so she didn’t have to worry about them. The second one was also avoidable—most of her older brothers’ friends were the same, and she wasn’t around most of them to develop any feelings.

Well, there was Wally, but it was just a crush. A stupid, little school-girl crush—that she’d never really grown out of—that didn’t matter in the slightest. Except whenever Dick brought him over to the house and she had to pretend that sitting next to him didn’t make her heart race like she’d run a mile.

And the most annoying thing about the whole crush is that she couldn’t tell if Wally was ever interested in her or not. Most of Dick’s friends, Garth, Kyle, Roy, they treated her like a little sister—hell, they even said “Love you lil sis!” to her regularly. And yet, Wally didn’t. Now, there was the occasional head pat, but even that was an affectionate gesture that siblings and SO’s did all the time. It was infuriating, and so was Wally—but she was going to sort it all out the next time he came over because the worst thing he could say was “No”, and either she needed to hear that…or “Yes”.

***

Normal Sundays for the Wayne household usually meant Ultimate Waffle Breakfast and sitting on your ass all day until patrol—it was the one day of the week where they could do anything and nothing and didn’t have to stick to schedules. Everyone loved Sundays, especially (Y/N), because it meant that all of her family was home, even Jason (who tried to deny that he enjoyed coming home to hang out, but if that mile long grin was any help, he was lying). And while everyone was home, that usually meant that everybody’s friends were coming over too.

***

She swiped the syrup out of Jason’s hand when he swung it back around, grinning at him when he glared at her.

“I was gonna use that, (Y/N),” he griped, and she shrugged, uncapping the bottle.

She tipped it over and watched the syrup lazily pour out of the container onto her waffles.

“You were taking too long.” Her eyes twinkled with humor. “I guess you were as…slow as molasses.”

While most of the table groaned at her terrible joke, Dick snorted into his milk, causing it to splatter on his plate and across the table.

“Nice one,” he coughed, wiping his face and the dark oak surface.

(Y/N) bowed dramatically. “Well, I did learn from the best.” When Dick’s face lit up, she turned to Alfred and smiled. “Alfie, thank you for teaching me your ways.”

The old butler merely tipped his head, a hidden smile crossing his lips at the way the eldest son’s jaw went slack. She turned her attention to Bruce who was quietly chewing, eyes following along the research paper she’d asked him to check out.

“Dad, what’s on your agenda for today?”

He swallowed and flicked a line out with a red pen, etching his own comment in the margin. “Lucius has a few ideas about some new gadgets he wanted to run by me.” Another line went out. “I’ll call him after breakfast.” Bruce looked at her. “You?”

(Y/N) nodded at the paper in his hands, then slapped Jason’s who was reaching over to take a piece of bacon from her plate. “Waiting for you to finish tearing me a new one so I can redo the paper.” She cut into the waffle with the side of her fork. “Once I salvage what little scientific dignity you’ve left me with, I’ll probably laze around.”

“You mean what you do normally?” Bruce quipped, grinning when she glowered at him; his eyes went back to her paper. “You’re doing well so far.”

She huffed. “Tell that to every red line you’ve marked out in that paragraph.”

He flashed the paper. “I’m writing in the margins how to change it. This isn’t a dissertation, sweetheart. You’re allowed to make mistakes. We all do.”

(Y/N) grumbled as her cheeks warmed and she went back to her plate as the conversation flowed around her.

Most of it was the discussion of what everyone was planning on doing, Damian was going to play video games, Tim was going to join him (which she knew was going to be fun while the moment lasted until the petty sibling rivalry got in the way and their gaming dwindled into a physical fight that she and probably Dick were going to have to break up), Jason was going to use the workbench in the cave to upgrade some gear, and Dick apparently,

“Wally and Garth are gonna come over later and hang out.”

She paused, mid-stab of her fork and looked at up. “Wally’s coming over?”

He nodded. “And Garth. We were gonna go to the mall and get some new clothes.”

Jason snorted, laying an arm over the backs of Tim and (Y/N)’s chairs. “Spending money with daddy’s credit card, Dickie?”

Dick smirked. “Just like you.” Jason merely matched his grin, and while the entire table was cracking up at Bruce’s frown, (Y/N) was silent, heart beating faster at the thought of seeing Wally.

“(Y/N)?” She startled and looked up at Dick.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were okay. You got quiet all of the sudden.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, just thought about all of the corrections I’m gonna have to do because somebody CAN’T STOP MARKING OUT MY PARAGRAPHS.” Bruce merely smiled and knocked out another line.

It was a lie. It was the biggest lie she’d told right next to the one she told when Bruce had asked her where she was on prom night her senior year a few years ago—she was totally not saving a different sector of the universe with Kyle Rayner, she was dancing with Sam Reilly all night—she strongly believed her dad knew the truth—Batman knew everything.

Bruce handed the paper back to her and she groaned as she scanned the red lines on every page. It was going to take her hours to go over this.

Jason leaned over and read the title, “Cellular Division and Mutation Under Extreme Elemental Circumstances…a composition by (Y/N) Wayne.” He cocked a dark brow. “Go big or go home, huh, baby girl?”

(Y/N) hummed. “Doctor Halberd wanted us to pick challenging topics for the research paper this term.” A crooked smile crossed her lips. “I’m nothing if not ambitious about proving I’m smarter than everyone else.”

“You need another source,” Bruce murmured, sipping the steaming black coffee. “One-fourteen is good, but I’d go for one-fifteen.”

She groaned and dropped her head. “Are you kidding me? I had enough trouble gathering that many.”

“Why don’t you use Barry?” Tim piped up, mouth full of whip cream and strawberries.

“Master Timothy, we do not talk with our mouth full,” Alfred admonished, and Tim blushed.

(Y/N)’s head shot up and she stared at her brother. “That’s actually a good idea. Speedsters would make for perfect references about cellular division.” An idea popped into her head and she glanced at Dick. “And since Wally is com—”

“Nope,” Dick interrupted, pointing at her. “Wally is coming over to hang out, not to be poked and prodded to finish a paper.”

She let out a whine and turned to Bruce. “Dad, tell Dick to let me at least talk to Wally about it.”

Bruce turned his attention onto Dick. “Let your sister talk to Wally about her paper.”

“Oh, come on,” he complained and (Y/N) stood from her seat, hurrying around the table to stand behind Dick’s seat.

She draped herself over his shoulders, tucking her chin in the crook of his neck. “I promise I won’t be annoying if you let me come with you. I’ll ask two questions every thirty minutes and I’ll go do shopping on my own, so I won’t be in the way.” (Y/N) craned her neck and pulled the most pitiful puppy eyes she could. “Please?”

Dick’s eyes darted to her face and then he looked away. Just one more push.

“Please frate?” she begged and when his eyes went wide from the usage of his native tongue, she knew she’d won him over.

He deflated and let out a sigh. “Fine,” he grumbled. “You can come with us.”

(Y/N) squealed and pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, as she grabbed the paper and hurried towards the door. She halted and spun around, looking at her father.

“What do I need to be most specific about?”

“Division under elemental circumstances.”

She glowered at him. “No shit Sherlock. Specifics.”

“Molecular division under terrestrial gamma-ray flashes.”

“That’ll work,” (Y/N) nodded and exited to room.

Jason looked out the door then back to his brothers. “She’s way to excited about science sometimes.” They merely laughed.

***

She raised the red lace, cold shoulder V-neck shirt to her chest before frowning, and switching it with the full lace blue shirt with mini golden lightning bolt charms hanging off the trim. After a moment, she pulled the blue one down and sighed.

“You know, if you want to impress him, I’d wear the red shirt.”

She jumped and barely managed to suppress the scream that was coming up in her throat as she swiveled around to face her door. Jason stood in the doorway, a knowing look on his face. She could play this one of two ways: she could be truthful, or she could lie—she chose the latter.

“What do you mean?” He snorted and walked into her room, taking a seat at her desk.

“I mean if you’re trying to impress Wally, wear the shirt that’s the color of his suit, (Y/N).” She looked away and into the mirror, but she couldn’t escape the eyes boring into her back.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked quietly, and he laughed.

“That you’re head over heels for Dick’s best friend? Oh yeah. Totally.”

She sighed and sat on her bed, pulling the red top over her torso. “It’s just a crush.”

“Seems like more than a crush to me, baby girl.”

(Y/N) pulled the fabric down and looked at him. “Are you gonna tell Dick?”

Jason scoffed. “Do I look like a narc to you?”

She cocked a brow and deadpanned, “Just the other night you told dad that Damian lifted Two-Face’s wallet when he was being put in a cruiser.”

“Well, that wasn’t something important,” he countered and nodded at her. “This is.” He paused and shrugged. “Nah, I’m not gonna tell Dickhead. Play this out however you see fit, baby girl.”

(Y/N) stared at him for a moment then averted her gaze and let out a sigh; Jason huffed.

“That sounds like a heavy sigh, (Y/N). What’s wrong?”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know if Wally would be interested in me. He’s him and I’m me.”

Jason stood and walked over, kneeling in front of her. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

(Y/N) met his eyes. “Anytime he’s had a girlfriend she’s always been super strong or really outspoken.”

“And you’re not?” he quipped, causing her to huff.

“You know what I mean, Jay.”

He nodded. “Okay, so you’re not an Amazon or shoving your head up someone’s ass for a story. But you’re you.”

“And that means?”

“You’re the only daughter of the World’s Greatest Detective who’s a wicked smart science major by day and a badass vigilante by night.” He cupped her cheeks. “You are intelligent, warmhearted, talented, and absolutely beautiful.” Jason smushed her cheeks together and grinned as she giggled. “And if Wally doesn’t see any of what I just said, then he’s a damn fool and not worth your time. You hear me, baby girl?”

She nodded. “I hear you.”

Jason gave her a firm nod and let go, standing to his feet. “Now come on let’s go do your makeup.”

(Y/N) blinked. “You can do makeup?”

“Baby girl, I can do a lot of things. Now hurry up. That razor sharp eye liner and golden eyeshadow isn’t going to do itself.”

***

She waited beside Dick with a pleasant smile on her face, and despite the fluttering heartbeat in her chest, Jason’s pep talk kept running through her head and with every passing moment, she felt her confidence rising. He was right, if she told Wally and he didn’t feel the same, then it was his loss and her gain to move on and find someone else.

A black sedan pulled up at the manor and the passenger window rolled down, revealing Wally at the wheel and Garth in the passenger’s seat. Dick waved at them.

“Hey guys,” he greeted. “How was the drive over?”

“Oh, you know, we saw three carjacking’s and one armed robbery,” Garth quipped. “I assume that’s normal for Gotham though.”

“It’s a bit below average actually,” (Y/N) piped up. “Hi Garth. Hi Wally.”

Wally smiled and Garth waved in return as the two siblings started getting in the car.

“You’re coming with us, (Y/N)?” Wally questioned and she nodded.

“Do you want me to lie to you or give you the truth?”

He chuckled. “I’m always open for a good story.”

“I wanted to buy out Victoria’s Secret and piss off any boyfriends who are in hot water with their girlfriends.” The guys laughed and she admitted, “Truth though, I need one last source for a research paper.”

“Gonna find that source shopping?” Garth asked and (Y/N) caught Wally’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.

“Actually, my last source is Wally.”

They fell silent and looked at her, though the speedster’s focus was on the road.

“What are you gonna source Wally on?” The Atlantean inquired.

“My paper is over cellular mutation under distress from elemental conditions.” She smiled at Wally. “Our speedster here, is a walking subject perfect for the paper. I can only hope that he agrees to be a willing participant.”

Wally chuckled. “I’d be willing to part with a few secrets for you. Of course, I’d have to—”

“Remain anonymous.” (Y/N) winked. “I’m sure my professor would be okay with me citing ‘The Flash’ so long as I had a picture with him to back it up.”

“I like pictures,” he murmured, pulling into the parking lot.

“That’s good to know,” she replied and when he put the car in park, she took her purse and added, “So I’ll leave you boys to do your shopping and Wally, I’ll text you any questions I have.”

“You’re not gonna hang around?” Garth asked and she shook her head.

“Nah, I don’t wanna be the annoying little sister who follows her older brother and his friends around.” She smiled at them. “Besides, Dick was kind enough to let me come along. Least I can do is stay out of your way.”

(Y/N) opened the door and waved at them. “Text me when you’re ready to leave and I’ll meet you back here.”

***

Despite the initial joke that she was going to buy out the lingerie store, there was actually some truth in the statement, and she drew her fingers over one of the lace baby dolls as she looked at her phone, grinning like a dope at Wally’s response.

Well, I wouldn’t say I’d grow a second skin from how fast my cells regenerate, but I can make my body heal instantaneously. -W

Can you regenerate limbs or major organs? –(Y/I)

Major organs or useful ones? -W

(Y/N) paused at his response and thought for a moment. It was risky. Sending the text, she was thinking about was risky, but it’d sure get her point across that she was into him. With her heart hammering in her chest, she pushed send and stuck her phone in her pocket.

Whichever ones are useful to you, Wally? ;) –(Y/N)

Her phone didn’t buzz for a good minute, and Wally took less than a second to reply, so he was doing one of two things: A.) Telling Dick that his younger sister sent a flirty text, or B.) Trying to figure out how to let her down easy. (Y/N) didn’t know which one was worse. Her hip buzzed and she inhaled shakily, pulling her phone out of her pocket with one eye cracked open to see how screwed she was.

Do you have a useful one in mind, beautiful? -W

She had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from letting out the biggest gasp any human had ever made, and she nervously looked around her to make sure no one else was staring at her. She grinned as she replied to him.

Oh, I could think of one…or two or three…Why? Is there gonna be a pop quiz over this later? I’ll have you know I’m an excellent test taker. –(Y/N)

Is that so? Well, what happens if you were to fail this particular pop quiz, (Y/N)? -W

I guess you’d have to stay the night for a study session and help me make a better grade ;) –(Y/I)

As she waited for another response, someone’s hand touched the small of her back and she reacted, immediately stepping away from the offending touch to spin on them. Her eyes went wide when she saw Wally standing before her, a grin on his face, phone in his hand.

“I think an overnight study session is possible, (Y/N).”

Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly, like a fish until she finally got her brain to work and asked, “I thought you were shopping with Dick and Garth?”

He shrugged. “Told Dick you asked me an advanced question that’d be easier to answer in person than over text.” He wiggled his brows. “You know, advanced equations and scientific gibberish.”

(Y/N) huffed a laugh and turned back around, trying to ignore the heat in her cheeks as she picked up one of the teddies. And when she realized what it looked like, she only felt more flustered. Crimson with baby blue trimming and was practically a shoelace.

“Well, that’sa hint if there ever was one,” Wally quipped, and she pulled the lingerie out of his line of sight.

“It was just the first one I grabbed!” she exclaimed, snapping her mouth shut when people looked over at them. Her cheeks felt like they were wildfires, and she pressed her head against the cool metal of the rack, sighing with what little relief it provided.

“You know, (Y/N),” he started softly. “If you’re not comfortable, this doesn’t have to go anywhere. I can forget this ever happened if you want me to.” (Y/N) opened her eyes and peered at him, at the concern but also the kindness in his gaze.

“I just—” she murmured and trailed off before letting out a sigh. “It’s kinda complicated.”

“Okay,” Wally nodded. “My mouth might work faster than my brain sometimes but lay it on me.”

She cracked a smile and thought back on Jason’s words. If Wally doesn’t see any of what I just said, then he’s a damn fool and not worth your time.

(Y/N) took a deep breath and looked at him, admitting, “Wally, I have…feelings for you.” His eyes widened and though she felt the sting of embarrassment, she pushed out her words. “It’s stupid, like one of those dumb childhood crushes that just sticks with you, you know?”

She averted her gaze and looked at her peep toe heels. “I just don’t wanna screw anything up because even if you don’t feel anything like I do, I don’t wanna lose you as a friend. Because I do value your friendship.” She sighed. “And Dick. I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable about coming over to see him if there’s a chance you’ll have to see me too. I just—”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Wally interrupted gently, a smile growing on his face. “You’re thinking way big here, (Y/N). Bigger than you need to right now.”

She met his eyes. “Right now?” she repeated, and he reached out, taking her hand in his. His fingers felt tingly against her palm and he smiled.

“I like you, (Y/N).”

She blinked at him, practically dumbfounded. “You…you do?”

Wally nodded and confessed, “Have for a couple years, but I didn’t wanna make a move not knowing if you were interested.” His cheeks tinged pink, and he said, “But I’m glad you are. Like super glad.” (Y/N) giggled, suddenly feeling really foolish for all her worry and Wally let out a chuckle too.

She stared at him for a moment, relishing the coolness of his skin before pulling away, toying with the teddy in her other hand.

“So, about tonight…you staying over?”

Wally let out a groan and looked between her and the lingerie. “Probably, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get away long enough to spend some time alone with you.”

(Y/N) let out a ‘pfft’ and winked. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Flash. You are the fastest man alive.”

“You’re into quickies? Good to know,” he grinned.

“Shut up,” she giggled.

#batfamily x reader #batfamily x reader imagines #batfamily x reader imagine #batfamily imagines #batfamily imagine #batsis x batfam #batsis x batfamily #batsis imagine #batsis imagines #batsis x batfamily imagines #wally west x reader #wally west x reader imagines #wally west x reader imagine #wally west imagines #wally west imagine #dc comics #dc imagines #dc imagine #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #damian wayne #robin #wally west #the flash

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

~~

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

#me every time i read a comic book article by a rag not exclusively about comic books: i know more than you. #marvel #spidey #DCU #MCU critical #mirrorfalls #asks answered #submission #unearthed this and bashed it out in one sitting ... i have not been working on it since you sent it last year XD

[dwellordream]

“...If any precedent might have preoccupied Livia, especially in her early career, when she was attempting to mould an image fitting for the times, it would have been a negative one, provided by the most notorious woman of the late republic and, most important, a woman who clashed headlong with Octavian in the sensitive early stages of his career. Fulvia was the wife of Mark Antony, and his devoted supporter, no less loyal than Livia in support of her husband, although their styles were dramatically different.

Fulvia’s struggle on behalf of Antony, Octavian’s archenemy, has secured her an unenviable place in history as a power-crazed termagant. While her husband was occupied in the East in 41, Fulvia made an appearance, along with Antony’s children, before his old soldiers in Italy, urging them to remain true to their commander. When Antony’s brother Lucius gathered his troops at Praeneste to launch an attack on Rome, Fulvia joined him there, and the legend became firmly established that she put on a sword, issued the watchword, gave a rousing speech to the soldiers, and held councils of war with senators and knights. This was the ultimate sin in a woman, interfering in the loyalty of the troops. 

In the end Octavian prevailed and forced the surrender of Lucius and his armies at Perusia. The fall of the city led to a massive exodus of political refugees. Among them were two women, Livia and Fulvia. Livia joined her husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, who escaped first to Praeneste and then to Naples. Fulvia fled with her children to join Antony and his mother in Athens. Like Octavia later, she found that her dedicated service was not enough to earn her husband’s gratitude. In fact, Antony blamed her for the setbacks in Italy.

A broken woman, she fell ill at Sicyon on the Gulf of Corinth, where she died in mid-40 bc. Antony in the meantime had left Italy without even troubling himself to visit her sickbed. Fulvia’s story contains many of the ingredients familiar in the profiles of ambitious women: avarice, cruelty, promiscuity, suborning of troops, and the ultimate ingratitude of the men for whom they made such sacrifices. She was at Perusia at the same time as Livia, and as wives of two of the triumvirs, they would almost certainly have met. In any case, Fulvia was at the height of her activities in the years immediately preceding Livia’s first meeting with Octavian, and at the very least would have been known to her by reputation. Livia would have seen in Fulvia an object lesson for what was to be avoided at all costs by any woman who hoped to survive and prosper amidst the complex machinations of Roman political life. 

In one respect Livia’s career did resemble Fulvia’s, in that it was shaped essentially by the needs of her husband, to fill a role that in a sense he created for her. To understand that role in Livia’s case, we need to understand one very powerful principle that motivated Augustus throughout his career. The importance that he placed in the calling that he inherited in 44 bc cannot be overstressed. The notion that he and the house he created were destined by fate to carry out Rome’s foreordained mission lay at the heart of his principate. Strictly speaking, the expression domus Augusta (house of Augustus) cannot be attested before Augustus’ death and the accession of Tiberius, but there can be little doubt that the concept of his domus occupying a special and indeed unique place within the state evolves much earlier.

Suetonius speaks of Augustus’ consciousness of the domus suae maiestas (the dignity of his house) in a context that suggests a fairly early stage of his reign, and Macrobius relates the anecdote of his claiming to have had two troublesome daughters, Julia and Rome. When Augustus received the title of Pater Patriae in 2 bc, Valerius Messala spoke on behalf of the Senate, declaring the hope that the occasion would bring good fortune and favour on ‘‘you and your house, Augustus Caesar’’ (quod bonum, inquit, faustum sit tibi domuique tuae, Caesar Auguste). 

The special place in the Augustan scheme enjoyed by the male members of this domus placed them in extremely sensitive positions. The position of the women in his house was even more challenging. In fashioning the image of the domus Augusta, the first princeps was anxious to project an image of modesty and simplicity, to stress that in spite of his extraordinary constitutional position, he and his family lived as ordinary Romans. Accordingly, his demeanour was deliberately self-effacing.

His dinner parties were hospitable but not lavish. The private quarters of his home, though not as modest as he liked to pretend, were provided with very simple furniture. His couches and tables were still on public display in the time of Suetonius, who commented that they were not fine enough even for an ordinary Roman, let alone an emperor. Augustus wore simple clothes in the home, which were supposedly made by Livia or other women of his household. He slept on a simply furnished bed. His own plain and unaffected lifestyle determined also how the imperial women should behave. 

His views on this subject were deeply conservative. He felt that it was the duty of the husband to ensure that his wife always conducted herself appropriately. He ended the custom of men and women sitting together at the games, requiring females (with the exception of the Vestals) to view from the upper seats only. His legates were expected to visit their wives only during the winter season. In his own domestic circle he insisted that the women should exhibit a traditional domesticity.

He had been devoted to his mother and his sister, Octavia, and when they died he allowed them special honours. But at least in the case of Octavia, he kept the honours limited and even blocked some of the distinctions voted her by the Senate. Nor did he limit himself to matters of ‘‘lifestyle.’’ He forbade the women of his family from saying anything that could not be said openly and recorded in the daybook of the imperial household. In the eyes of the world, Livia succeeded in carrying out her role of model wife to perfection. To some degree she owed her success to circumstances. It is instructive to compare her situation with that of other women of the imperial house. 

Julia (born 39 bc) summed up her own attitude perfectly when taken to task for her extravagant behaviour and told to conform more closely to Augustus’ simple tastes. She responded that he could forget that he was Augustus, but she could not forget that she was Augustus’ daughter. Julia’s daughter, the elder Agrippina (born 19 bc?), like her mother before her, saw for herself a key element in her grandfather’s dynastic scheme. She was married to the popular Germanicus and had no doubt that in the fullness of time she would provide a princeps of Augustan blood.

Not surprisingly, she became convinced that she had a fundamental role to play in Rome’s future, and she bitterly resented Tiberius’ elevation. Her daughter Agrippina the Younger (born ad 15?) was, as a child, indoctrinated by her mother to see herself as the destined transmitter of Augustus’ blood, and her whole adult life was devoted to fulfilling her mother’s frustrated mission. From birth these women would have known of no life other than one of dynastic entitlement. By contrast, Livia’s background, although far from humble, was not exceptional for a woman of her class, and she did not enter her novel situation with inherited baggage. 

As a Claudian she may no doubt have been brought up to display a certain hauteur, but she would not have anticipated a special role in the state. As a member of a distinguished republican family, she would have hoped at most for a ‘‘good’’ marriage to a man who could aspire to property and prestige, perhaps at best able to exercise a marginal influence on events through a husband in a high but temporary magistracy. Powerful women who served their apprenticeships during the republic reached their eminence by their own inclinations, energies, and ambitions, not because they felt they had fallen heir to it.

However lofty Livia’s station after 27 bc, her earlier life would have enabled her to maintain a proper perspective. She did not find herself in the position of an imperial wife who through her marriage finds herself overnight catapulted into an ambience of power and privilege. Whatever ambitions she may have entertained in her first husband, she was sadly disappointed. When she married for the second time, Octavian, for all his prominence, did not then occupy the undisputed place at the centre of the Roman world that was to come to him later. Livia thus had a decade or so of married life before she found herself married to a princeps, in a process that offered time for her to become acclimatised and to establish a style and timing appropriate to her situation. 

It must have helped that in their personal relations she and her husband seem to have been a devoted couple, whose marriage remained firm for more than half a century. For all his general cynicism, Suetonius concedes that after Augustus married Livia, he loved and esteemed her unice et perservanter (right to the end, with no rival). In his correspondence Augustus addressed his wife affectionately as mea Livia.

The one shadow on their happiness would have been that they had no children together. Livia did conceive, but the baby was stillborn. Augustus knew that he could produce children, as did she, and Pliny cites them as an example of a couple who are sterile together but had children from other unions. By the normal standards obtaining in Rome at the time they would have divorced—such a procedure would have involved no disgrace—and it is a testimony to the depth of their feelings that they stayed together. In a sense, then, Livia was lucky. 

That said, she did suffer one disadvantage, in that when the principate was established, she found herself, as did all Romans, in an unparalleled situation, with no precedent to guide her. She was the first ‘‘first lady’’—she had to establish the model to emulate, and later imperial wives would to no small degree be judged implicitly by comparison to her. Her success in masking her keen political instincts and subordinating them to an image of self-restraint and discretion was to a considerable degree her own achievement.

In a famous passage of Suetonius, we are told that Caligula’s favourite expression for his great-grandmother was Ulixes stolatus (Ulysses in a stola). The allusion appears in a section that supposedly illustrates Caligula’s disdain for his relatives. But his allusion to Livia is surely a witty and ironical expression of admiration. Ulysses is a familiar Homeric hero, who in the Iliad and Odyssey displays the usual heroic qualities of nerve and courage, but is above all polymetis: clever, crafty, ingenious, a man who will often sort his way through a crisis not by the usual heroic bravado but by outsmarting his opponents, whether the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, or the enchantress Circe, or the suitors for Penelope. 

Caligula implied that Livia had the clever, subtle kind of mind that one associates with Greeks rather than Romans, who were inclined to take a head-on approach to problems. But at the same time she manifested a particularly Roman quality. Rolfe, in the Loeb translation of Suetonius’ Life of Caligula, rendered the phrase as ‘‘Ulysses in petticoats’’ to suggest a female version of the Homeric character. But this is to rob Caligula’s sobriquet of much of its force.

The stola was essentially the female equivalent of the toga worn by Roman men. A long woollen sleeveless dress, of heavy fabric, it was normally worn over a tunic. In shape it could be likened to a modern slip, but of much heavier material, so that it could hang in deep folds. The mark of matronae married to Roman citizens, the stola is used by Cicero as a metaphor for a stable and respectable marriage. Along with the woollen bands that the matron wore in her hair to protect her from impurity, it was considered the insigne pudoris (the sign of purity) by Ovid, something, as he puts it, alien to the world of the philandering lover. 

Another contemporary of Livia’s, Valerius Maximus, notes that if a matrona was called into court, her accuser could not physically touch her, in order that the stola might remain inviolata manus alienae tactu (unviolated by the touch of another’s hand). Bartman may be right in suggesting that the existence of statues of Livia in a stola would have given Caligula’s quip a special resonance, but that alone would not have inspired his bon mot. To Caligula’s eyes, Livia was possessed of a sharp and clever mind.

But she did not allow this quality to obtrude because she recognised that many Romans would not find it appealing; she cloaked it with all the sober dignity and propriety, the gravitas, that the Romans admired in themselves and saw represented in the stola. Livia’s greatest skill perhaps lay in the recognition that the women of the imperial household were called to walk a fine line. She and other imperial women found themselves in a paradoxical position in that they were required to set an example of the traditional domestic woman yet were obliged by circumstances to play a public role outside the home—a reflection of the process by which the domestic and public domains of the domus Augusta were blurred.

Thus she was expected to display the grand dignity expected of a person very much in the public eye, combined with the old-fashioned modesty of a woman whose interests were confined to the domus. Paradoxically, she had less freedom of action than other upper-class women who had involved themselves in public life in support of their family and protégés. As wife of the princeps, Livia recognised that to enlist the support of her husband was in a sense to enlist the support of the state.

That she managed to gain a reputation as a generous patron and protector and, at the same time, a woman who kept within her proper bounds, is testimony to her keen sensitivity. In many ways she succeeds in moving silently though Rome’s history, and this is what she intended. Her general conduct gave reassurance to those who were distressed by the changing relationships that women like Fulvia had symbolised in the late republic. It is striking that court poets, who reflected the broad wishes of their patron, avoid reference to her. She is mentioned by the poet Horace, but only once, and even there she is not named directly but referred to allusively as unico gaudens mulier marito (a wife finding joy in her preeminent husband).

The single exception is Ovid, but most of his allusions come from his period of exile, when desperation may have got the better of discretion. The dignified behaviour of Livia’s distinguished entourage was contrasted with the wild conduct of Julia’s friends at public shows, which drove Augustus to remonstrate with his daughter (her response: when she was old, she too would have old friends). In a telling passage Seneca compares the conduct of Livia favourably with even the universally admired Octavia. After losing Marcellus, Octavia abandoned herself to her grief and became obsessed with the memory of her dead son. She would not permit anyone to mention his name in her presence and remained inconsolable, allowing herself to become totally secluded and maintaining the garb of mourning until her death.

By contrast, Livia, similarly devastated by the death of Drusus, did not offend others by grieving excessively once the body had been committed to the tomb. When the grief was at its worst, she turned to the philosopher Areus for help. Seneca re-creates Areus’ advice. Much of it, of course, may well have sprung from Seneca’s imagination, but it is still valuable in showing how Livia was seen by Romans of Seneca’s time. Areus says that Livia had been at great pains to ensure that no one would find anything in her to criticise, in major matters but also in the most insignificant trifles. He admired the fact that someone of her high station was often willing to bestow pardon on others but sought pardon for nothing in herself. 

…Perhaps most important, it was essential for Livia to present herself to the world as the model of chastity. Apart from the normal demands placed on the wife of a member of the Roman nobility, she faced a particular set of circumstances that were unique to her. One of the domestic priorities undertaken by Augustus was the enactment of a programme of social legislation. Parts of this may well have been begun before his eastern trip, perhaps as early as 28 bc, but the main body of the work was initiated in 18.

A proper understanding of the measures that he carried out under this general heading eludes us. The family name of Julius was attached to the laws, and thus they are difficult to distinguish from those enacted by Julius Caesar. But clearly in general terms the legislation was intended to restore traditional Roman gravitas, to stamp out corruption, to define the social orders, and to encourage the involvement of the upper classes in state affairs. The drop in the numbers of the upper classes was causing particular concern. The nobles were showing a general reluctance to marry and, when married, an unwillingness to have children. It was hoped that the new laws would to some degree counter this trend. 

The Lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, passed probably in 18 bc, made adultery a public crime and established a new criminal court for sexual offences. The Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, passed about the same time, regulated the validity of marriages between social classes. The crucial factor here, of course, was not the regulation of morality but rather the legitimacy of children. Disabilities were imposed on the principle that it was the duty of men between twenty-five and sixty-five and women between twenty and fifty to marry. Those who refused to comply or who married and remained childless suffered penalties, the chief one being the right to inherit. The number of a man’s children gave him precedence when he stood for office.

Of particular relevance to Livia was the ius trium liberorum, under which a freeborn woman with three children was exempted from tutela (guardianship) and had a right of succession to the inheritance of her children. Livia was later granted this privilege despite having borne only two living children. This social legislation created considerable resentment—Suetonius says that the equestrians staged demonstrations at theatres and at the games. It was amended in ad 9 and supplemented by the Lex Papia Poppaea, which seems to have removed the unfair distinctions between the childless and the unmarried and allowed divorced or widowed women a longer period before they remarried. 

Dio, apparently without a trace of irony, reports that this last piece of legislation was introduced by two consuls who were not only childless but unmarried, thus proving the need for the legislation. Livia’s moral conduct would thus be dictated not only by the already unreal standards that were expected of a Roman matrona but also by the political imperative of her husband’s social legislation. Because Augustus saw himself as a man on a crusade to restore what he considered to be old-fashioned morality, it was clearly essential that he have a wife whose reputation for virtue was unsullied and who could provide an exemplar in her own married life.

In this Livia would not fail him. The skilful creation of an image of purity and marital fidelity was more than a vindication of her personal standards. It was very much a public statement of support for what her husband was trying to achieve. Tacitus, in his obituary notice that begins Book V of the Annals, observes that in the matter of the sanctitas domus, Livia’s conduct was of the ‘‘old school’’ ( priscum ad morem). This is a profoundly interesting statement at more than one level. It tells us something about the way the Romans idealised their past. But it also says much about the clever way that Livia fashioned her own image. 

Her inner private life is a secret that she has taken with her to the tomb. She may well have been as pure as people believed. But for a woman who occupied the centre of attention in imperial Rome for as long as she did, to keep her moral reputation intact required more than mere proper conduct. Rumours and innuendo attached themselves to the powerful and prominent almost of their own volition. An unsullied name required the positive creation of a public image. Livia was despised by Tacitus, who does not hesitate to insinuate the darkest interpretations that can be placed on her conduct.

Yet not even he hints at any kind of moral impropriety in the narrow sexual sense. Even though she abandoned her first husband, Tiberius Claudius, to begin an affair with her lover Octavian, she seems to have escaped any censure over her conduct. This is evidence not so much of moral probity as of political skill in managing an image skilfully and effectively. None of the ancient sources challenges the portrait of the moral paragon. Ovid extols her sexual purity in the most fulsome of terms. To him, Livia is the Vesta of chaste matrons, who has the morals of Juno and is an exemplar of pudicitia worthy of earlier and morally superior generations. Even after her husband is dead she keeps the marriage couch (pulvinar) pure. (She was, admittedly in her seventies.) 

Valerius Maximus, writing in the Tiberian period, can state that Pudicitia attends the couch of Livia. And the Consolatio ad Liviam, probably not a contemporary work but one at least that tries to reflect contemporary attitudes, speaks of her as worthy of those women who lived in a golden age, and as someone who kept her heart uncorrupted by the evil of her times. Horace’s description is particularly interesting. His phrase unico gaudens marito is nicely ambiguous, for it states that Livia’s husband was preeminent (unicus) but implies the other connotation of the word: that she had the moral superiority of an univira, a woman who has known only one husband, which in reality did not apply to Livia.

Such remarks might, of course, be put down to cringing flattery, but it is striking that not a single source contradicts them. On this one issue, Livia did not hesitate to blow her own trumpet, and she herself asserted that she was able to influence Augustus to some degree because she was scrupulously chaste. She could do so in a way that might even suggest a light touch of humour. Thus when she came across some naked men who stood to be punished for being exposed to the imperial eyes, she asserted that to a chaste woman a naked man was no more a sex object than was a statue. Most strikingly, Dio is able to recount this story with no consciousness of irony. 

Seneca called Livia a maxima femina. But did she hold any real power outside the home? According to Dio, Livia believed that she did not, and claimed that her influence over Augustus lay in her willingness to concede whatever he wished, not meddling in his business, and pretending not to be aware of any of his sexual affairs. Tacitus reflects this when he calls her an uxor facilis (accommodating wife). She clearly understood that to achieve any objective she had to avoid any overt conflict with her husband.

It would do a disservice to Livia, however, to create the impression that she was successful simply because she yielded. She was a skilful tactician who knew how to manipulate people, often by identifying their weaknesses or ambitions, and she knew how to conceal her own feelings when the occasion demanded: cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita (well suited to the craft of her husband and the insincerity of her son) is how Tacitus morosely characterises that talent. Augustus felt that he controlled her, and she doubtless was happy for him to think so. 

Dio has preserved an account of a telling exchange between Augustus and a group of senators. When they asked him to introduce legislation to control what was seen as the dissolute moral behaviour of Romans, he told them that there were aspects of human behaviour that could not be regulated. He advised them to do what he did, and have more control over their wives. When the senators heard this they were surprised, to say the least, and pressed Augustus with more questions to find out how he was able to control Livia. He confined himself to some general comments about dress and conduct in public, and seems to have been oblivious to his audience’s scepticism.

What is especially revealing about this incident is that the senators were fully aware of the power of Livia’s personality, but recognised that she conducted herself in such a way that Augustus obviously felt no threat whatsoever to his authority. Augustus would have been sensitive to the need to draw a line between Livia’s traditional and proper power within the domus and her role in matters of state. This would have been very difficult. Women in the past had sought to influence their husbands in family concerns. But with the emergence of the domus Augusta, family concerns and state concerns were now inextricably bound together. 

…Although Livia did not intrude in matters that were strictly within Augustus’ domain, her restraint naturally did not bar communication with her husband. Certainly, Augustus was prepared to listen to her. That their conversations were not casual matters and were taken seriously by him is demonstrated by the evidence of Suetonius that Augustus treated her just as he would an important official. When dealing with a significant item of business, he would write things out beforehand and read out to her from a notebook, because he could not be sure to get it just right if he spoke extemporaneously. Moreover, it says something about Livia that she filed all Augustus’ written communications with her.

After his death, during a dispute with her son, she angrily brought the letters from the shrine where they had been archived and read them out, complete with their criticisms of Tiberius’ arrogance. Despite Tacitus’ claim that Livia controlled her husband, Augustus was willing to state publicly that he had decided not to follow her advice, as when he declined special status to the people of Samos. Clearly, he would try to do so tactfully and diplomatically, expressing his regrets at having to refuse her request. On other issues he similarly reached his own decision but made sufficient concessions to Livia to satisfy her public dignity and perhaps Augustus’ domestic serenity. 

On one occasion Livia interceded on behalf of a Gaul, requesting that he be granted citizenship. To Augustus the Roman citizenship was something almost sacred, not to be granted on a whim. He declined to honour the request. But he did make a major and telling concession. One of the great advantages of citizenship was the exemption from the tax (tributum) that tributary provincials had to pay. Augustus granted the man this exemption. When Livia apparently sought the recall of Tiberius from Rhodes after the Julia scandal, Augustus refused, but did concede him the title of legatus to conceal any lingering sense of disgrace.

He was unwilling to promote Claudius to the degree that Livia wished, but he was willing to allow him some limited responsibilities. Thus he was clearly prepared to go out of his way to accede at least partially to his wife’s requests. But on the essential issues he remained very much his own man, and on one occasion he made it clear that as an advisor she did not occupy the top spot in the hierarchy. In ad 2 Tiberius made a second request to return from exile. His mother is said to have argued intensively on his behalf but did not persuade her husband. He did, however, say that he would be willing to be guided by the advice he received from his grandson, and adopted son, Gaius.”

- Anthony A. Barrett, “Wife of the Emperor.” in Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome

#livia drusilla #livia first lady of imperial rome #octavian #fulvia #history #roman #ancient #anthony a. barrett

[bearielfdancer]

A new Legacy Challenge

The Grecian Mythology Legacy Challenge

Synopsis: Before there were what we call the modern gods and goddesses of today from Mount Olympus, or The Olympians, there were those that came before them. Like every story, it has its origins. Gaea, birthed from Chaos, and Ouranus, birthed from Gaea, who then began to create their own legacy. In this Legacy Challenge, you will tell the story of the gods and goddesses from it’s very core to what it is today, from Gaea to Zeus and his many, many children. 

Getting Started/Rules:

 Disclaimer: For the purposes of this challenge,we’re just going to start out with Gaea and Ouranos as there are MANY MANY children born from Chaos and Gaea, followed by Ouranos and Gaea, and that is just too much time and energy spent. CC and Mods are also very much welcomed!

It would very much help to start a New Game, and by creating your sims. They must be married and of the opposite gender. Gaea=Mother Earth and Ouranos=The Father/Starry Sky. They may look however you please, if you have the Expansion Pack Get To Work, they can be aliens, if you have The Game Packs Realm of Magic, Vampires. You are very much welcome to make them into Mages or Vampires, the choice is up to you! If you have seasons you may start in any season you see fit. 

After you are done creating your founders, you MUST move them into Newcrest on the biggest Lot which should be Twin Oracle Point. (It even sounds mythological XD). If you want more of a challenge try living Off-Grid.

You may not have any kind of job as you are just starting out, so in order to make your living wages you may:

Fish

Garden

Paint

Wood Working

Sculpting

And sell Collectibles (anything found)

Generation alpha : The Creation

Gaea, also known as mother earth, very much loved her children, too bad Ouranos didn’t feel the same and locked them all away to never be seen again… supposedly… 

Gaea:

* Career: None

* Aspiration: The Freelance Botanist

* Traits

   * Loves Outdoors

   * Family Oriented

   * Mean

Ouranos/Uranus:

* Career: None

* Aspiration: The Curator Aspiration

* Traits

   *Hates Children

   * Ambitious

   * Perfectionist

Game Play:

All aspirations must be completed before the generation is over

Max out Mischief Skill

Max out Sculpting

Max out Gardening

Max out Herbalism (if Outdoor retreat is owned)

Home/Building:

You must start your build as a single hut and grow from there, limited to garden decor, but not exclusive to plumbing, lighting, and cooking.

Basement must be built… for obvious reasons

Children:

You can have as many children as you’d like but the main focus is Cronos.

Once Cronus is of age, he may start looking for his “Rhea”

Succession:

When Ouranos/Uranus is an elder he must fight with his son Cronos and be banished from the lot. (You can get creative with this or just have him move out)

This will end Generation alpha with Cronus taking over. 

Generation Beta: The Creation 2

Just like his father before him Cronos found out through the prophecies that one of his children will overthrow him and become ruler, Rhea is not pleased by this and devises a plan just like her mother (in law) before her. You may start to have jobs/careers this generation

Cronos:

* Career: Criminal

* Aspiration: Public Enemy

* Traits

   * Hot-Headed

   * Hates Children

   * Glutton

Spouse:

Must Have:

AT LEAST family oriented trait

Game Play:

All Aspirations must be completed before this generation is over

Max out Mischief Skill

Max out Fitness/Wellness

Home/Building:

Keep the basement from the previous generation

You are no longer restricted to just garden decor

No Modern Decor

Children:

Like his father before him, Cronos and Rhea should have Zeus’s siblings first, then Zeus. Have Zeus be sent off to live with some mages (if you have Realm of Magic) or make a foster family. And never have contact with him again until he is a teenager (You may switch back and forth between the households) 

Zeus may start to look for his “Hera” 

Succession: 

Like the previous Generation once Cronos is an old man who fights with his son (teenage) Zeus multiple times. Cronos then dies from exhaustion or anger (you can cheat this) and Zeus takes over. 

This will end generation Beta with Zeus succeeding his Father.

Generation Gamma: A New Age and Ruler

Once Cronos is out of the picture for good, Zeus can marry his beloved sweetheart Hera. But, he can keep his adulterous ways to himself, right... right?

Zeus

* Career: Astronaut

* Aspiration: Serial Lover

* Traits:

  * Romantic

  * Family-Oriented

  * Non-Committal

Spouse:

 Must Have:

AT LEAST Jealousy trait

Gameplay: 

As a toddler and child max out almost if not all skills and 

Must have fulfilled serial romantic aspiration and have as many kids and lovers as possible

Get caught cheating

Must reach level 10 in the Astronaut career

Max out Charisma Skill

Max out Fitness Skill

Max out Logic Skill

Home/Building:

Get rid of the basement, it’s no longer needed.

Children:

Have four children with Hera (Ares, Hebe, Eileithya, and Hephaestus(by Hera cheating on Zeus))

Have Athena (different woman)

Have Apollo and Artemis (twins and different woman)

Have Persephone (different woman)

Have Aphrodite (different woman)

Have Hermes (different woman)

Have Heracles(Greek)/Hercules(Roman) (different woman)

Have Perseus (different woman)

By the end of this generation, you should have 12 kids in total. (This is also where things get tricky. Pick a number 1-9 and you will have to play that child’s legacy or you stick to the route I’ve provided!)

Generation Delta: The God of War

Ares never did have the proper love he wanted from his father and mother, as he was constantly being outshone by his dear sister Athena; and as a result he grew bitter, and began to tread down a dark path, knowing that nobody had truly cared what he did… all except one.

Ares

* Career: Secret Agent

* Aspiration:Public Enemy

* Traits

 * Mean

 * Hot-Headed

 * Loner

Spouse:

Never marry but have a girlfriend move in with you

Gameplay

As a toddler have the independent trait

Reach minimum skill level for toddler

Reach level 10 in the Secret Agent Career (Villain Route)

Max out in Mischief

Go to War (The Trojan War via cowplant OR if you have Strangerville The Mother Plant)

Make as many enemies as possible

Have your family despise you

Make AT LEAST three friends

Children

Harmonia

Deimus and Phobos

Eros

This will end generation Delta, which leaves you one of two options, You can choose Eros’s route or Harmonia.

Generation Epsilon: Eros, God of Love

You are Eros, God of Love, taking after your mother. Growing up you could see why the rest of the family despised your father and made a vow to never turn out like him, unlike your two brothers.

Eros:

 * Career:Freelancer

 * Aspiration: Soulmate

 * Traits

  * Romantic

  * Art Lover

  * Perfectionist

Gameplay

As a toddler have the charmer trait

You are your mother’s baby boy, max out in everything

As a child have a crush on your best friend (Psyche)

Your mother and crush dislike each other

Your mother forbids you from seeing your Crush and you have to hide yourself in a bear suit until you are a young adult

Have an argument with your mother and secretly elope with your best friend/lover and move out and live happily ever after.

Generation Epsilon pt. 2: Harmonia, Goddess of Concord and Harmony

Like your brother before you, you came to quickly realize why your father was despised by everyone he ever came across, and was doted on by your mother as to distract from how terrible your father was… but will this come back to bite you in the butt?

Harmonia

* Career: Law

* Aspiration: Friend of The World

* Traits:

  * Bookworm

  * Neat

  * Good

Children:

Ino

Polydorus

Autonoe

Agave

Semelee

Illyrius

 Gameplay

As a toddler have the charmer trait

Max out every skill as a toddler and most skills as a child

Have 5 friends as a child

Have 10 friends as a teen

You fall in love with your childhood crush Cadmus

As a young adult/adult marry Cadmus

Inherit an heirloom (it can be a misc. Decoration item)

Choose a negative lot trait, this lot trait will be passed down from generation to generation.

Generation Van: Semelee

You are Semelee, and just like our mother you followed in her footsteps to work in law enforcement.

Semelee:

 * Career: Law

 * Aspiration: Big Happy Family

 * Traits

   * Gloomy (this is because of the heirloom, and lot trait)

   * Good

   * Ambitious

Gameplay

Have Logic skill level 1

Max out cooking

Max out Gardening

Get pregnant

Die after having child (you can cheat this)

Generation Van pt. 2: Dionysus

Dionysus

Career: Actor (if you have Get Famous)

        Entertainment Career

Aspiration: Party Animal

Traits:

* Romantic

* Materialistic

* Bro

Gameplay

As a toddler, have the wild trait

Host a party every sim week

Create a club with nothing but women (if you have Get Together)

Max out in Gardening 

Max out in Charisma

Max out in Cooking

Have your mother come back to life

Die by Cowplant

Have your mother bring you back to life

While partying one night you fall in love with a beautiful woman

I worked really hard on creating my own Legacy challenge, as I’ve been super into Greek Mythology as of late. I sincerely hope you guys enjoy this short, but very fulfilled Legacy Challenge

#Grecian Mythology Legacy Challenge #GMLC #BearieSIMple #TS4 #thesims4 #sims #sims 4 #The Sims #maxis match #basegame #basegame compatible #sims4challenges #challenge #ts4legacy #origin: bearielfdancer

[klarolinelibrary]

Hi KC readers,

We have decided to create a list of KC stories that were updated during the week which we plan to share every Friday. This is one of the ways we plan to promote different KC authors and stories in our community. 

For our first weekly releases, we have collected stories on FFN and AO3 that were updated during the week of April 16 - April 10! We hope you enjoy the new stories.

Happy reading!

FFN

He's got you mesmerised (while i die)

Author: klavscaroline

Rating: T

Length: Drabble

Summary: You gave him your sweater, it's just polyester. But you like him better a.k.a. unrequited carolijah (high school au)

Date of update: April 10 2021

Klaus POV - The Trouble with Spells (chapter 20)

Author: ilovetf

Rating: M

Length: Multi Chapter

Summary: The Trouble with Spells as seen through Klaus's eyes and his POV. Over the years, people kept liking this story and some even asked for Klaus POV, so I decided to give it a try. Hope you enjoy it. All feedback is more than welcome. Good or bad.

Date of update: April 10 2021

Black Roses (Chapter 29)

Author: xKlaroStylesx  

Rating: M

Length: Multi Chapter

Summary: Vampires, witches and werewolves are welcomed at the Whitmore Academy for the Supernaturally Gifted but that doesn't mean they all welcome each other. Ambitious student witch Caroline Forbes shares a mutual loathing with arrogant yet mysterious vampire Klaus Mikaelson. A spiral of events occur when their two dueling worlds collide and a life changing connection is formed.

Date of update: April 13 2021

Our darkest moments (Chapter 8)

Author: CookieDuo

Rating: M

Length: Multi Chapter

Summary: Discovering her entire life has been a lie, Caroline is determined to find out the truth and travels to the small town Mystic Falls in search of answers. Meanwhile, in the woods outside of Mystic Falls, a "monster" prays on unsuspecting young woman. In time the connection between the two becomes clear... Dark Klaroline!

Date of update: April 14 2021

A Failed Sacrifice (Chapter 3)

Author: CookieDuo

Rating: M

Length: Multi Chapter

Summary: She ruined the sacrifice to save her own life, and in order to survive she turned to the only other vampire who'd been able to survive the wrath of Klaus Mikaelson. She gets away, and learns from the master, but when Klaus eventually catches up to her, her life will never be the same again.

Date of update: April 16 2021

AO3

Always Finding Trouble

Author: Cupcakemolotov

Raiting: M

Length: Drabble

Summary: Assassins in love were so cliche, but here she was. Married, even.

Date of update: April 10 2021

In Your Hands

Author: ThrowMeAStory

Raiting: E

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: 4x16 au, Part 6. The date.

Date of update: April 10 2021

The blood in your mouth

Author: perfectpro

Raiting: T

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: After Liz Forbes's untimely death, Caroline finds herself at the helm of her mother's empire. She's been trained for this role, but Klaus Mikaelson is a man she hadn't known to expect.

Date of update: April 10 2021

I AM SORRY BABY 2

Author: wincefish16

Raiting: Not rated

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: CONTINUATION OF I AM SORRY BABY. THIS WILL FOCUS ON KLAUS'S CHEMO AND THE PROBLEMS THAT COME WITH IT.

Date of update: April 11 2021

Give Me A Sign (Chapter 2)

Author: PumpkinDoodles

Raiting: M

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Caroline Forbes is happy that she left founders' parties, competition over guys she'd known since elementary school, and even Mystic Falls itself behind years ago. She's not second-best to Elena anymore. Even Liz would be proud of her new life working on the side of the law. Mostly. (If you need to compel someone into giving up stolen goods, is it really a crime?). Of course he's the one person from her past who comes looking for her. Klaus does that.

Date of update: April 11 2021

The Wolf II (Chapter 31)

Author: Yokan

Raiting: E

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: The Guerreras' threat still looms over the Mikaelson house as Caroline tries to adapt to life as a vampire, away from her daughter. But an unexpected family reunion makes everything worse, taking away the little peace Klaus, Caroline and Elijah managed to find after the war that nearly broke them. [It's The Originals Season 2, but Caroline was a witch, had Klaus' baby and now she's a vampire. Klaroline, obviously.]

Date of update: April 11 2021

A smutty anniversary (Chapter 5)

Author: kcatdino

Raiting: E

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Caroline and Klaus celebrate 3 months together with a day full of smut.

Date of update: April 11 2021

One of a Kind, Two of a Kind, or the Three Musketeers (Chapter 9)

Author: Phandancee74

Raiting: T

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Caroline recognizes how hard it is for Elena to be a doppelgänger, her fate predestined as well as her face. It's pretty tough being the last of your kind too though, and Caroline is determined to protect them both, with some very helpful Bennetts on their side. A fic that integrates Malivore and the larger supernatural universe into TVD from the start.

Date of update: April 11 2021

Humanity (Chapter 8)

Author: FandomizedArtist

Raiting: Not rated

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Now with the power of an Original vampire Lucien had everything, everything except his complete revenge on the all mighty Klaus Mikaelson. With the help of a witch he had tracked down the only woman who in thousands of years Klaus had fallen in love with. Miss Caroline Forbes. Adding her name to his list of evil todo’s he created the plan to kidnap, drain the vervain and compel the newbie vampire to be his. In this fanfiction Klaus does have hope but Caroline did not have Alaric’s twins.

Date of update: April 12 2021

Magics Miracle (Chapter 5)

Author: 1Jemmagirl22

Raiting: T

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Caroline is in Paris with out her humanity after the death of her mother. It seems her friends aren't happy with her new state so they inform the one person capable of turning her emotions back on. Klaus. When a prophecy about a second Tribrid comes about in New Orleans, shock to sweeps through the city. It seems nature doesn't consider Hope such an abomination after all as an even greater one is about to be created. The hands of power are changing and when they're done even the worlds most powerful witches won't be able to stop it.

Date of update: April 12 2021

We are young (Chapter 11)

Author: kcatdino

Raiting: T

Lenght: One shots

Summary: Basically, Klaroline flirt in front of their kids who they are barely older than, and Landon is appropriately confused. Edit: Now a series of one-shots!

Date of update: April 12 2021

When Blood Calls for Blood

Author: Cupcakemolotov

Raiting: M

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: At sixteen, Caroline helped kill monsters. Hers, his, and theirs. Ten years later, and Klaus returns to Mystic Falls with unfinished business.

Date of update: April 12 2021

The War of Succession

Author: BelleMorte180

Raiting: E

Lenght: One shot

Summary: When King William I dies without a living male child, the whole of England spends two generations at war over who is the true heir to the throne, sending the houses of Lockwood and Mikaelson into battle. When the love of her life is slain in battle, Caroline realizes that her hand is betrothed to the victor since she is the only grandchild of the late king. Upon her wedding to the new king, she vows that she will hate him for all eternity but time is a fickle thing and so it the heart. Written for Au Season Enemies to Lovers. Kind of based off the War of the Roses.

Date of update: April 14 2021

Some ancient call that i've answered before (Chapter 2)

Author: klarrolines

Raiting: T

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: According to Greek mythology, humans were created with four arms, four legs, and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves. Or all the lives throughout time that Klaus and Caroline found each other in.

Date of update: April 14 2021

Soulmate visions (Chapter 3)

Author: kcatdino

Raiting: T

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: On your soulmate's eighteenth birthday, you see through their eyes for an hour, but they don’t know. And if your soulmate turns eighteen before you are even born, you never get a vision. Klaus gets his soulmate vision right after he orders Tyler to bite Caroline on her birthday.

Date of update: April 15 2021

World Enough and Time

Author: perfectpro

Raiting: E

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: Caroline is perfection in and of itself, and Klaus thinks that he could search the world twice over and never find a creature so endlessly fascinating, so perfectly enigmatic that he is still finding things to learn about her a thousand years later. Or, what gift is suitable to celebrate the passing of a thousand years?

Date of update: April 15 2021

LITTLE TENSE

Author: wincefish16

Raiting: T

Lenght: Drabble

Summary: PROMPT- HUMAN MARRIED KLAROLINE. THINGS ARE NOT LOOKING GOOD IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP. DAMON IS CAROLINE'S BROTHER AND KLAUS'S BEST FRIEND. HE TRIES TO FIX THINGS BETWEEN THEM.

Date of update: April 15 2021

Reasons Not to Date a Mikaelson (Chapter 2)

Author: kcatdino

Raiting: T

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Bonnie and Caroline gain a new roommate for their freshman dorm when a vision leads them to tracking down a pregnant Hayley in the Rockies. Also, Bonnie may or may not have raised a certain dead Original instead of Jeremy and Klaus takes a job at Whitmore teaching, to be annoying. He’s very good at it. This is a season 5 rewrite where the Originals never leave for New Orleans. But you know, with comedy.

Date of update: April 15 2021

Quiet Light (Chapter 4)

Author: coveredinthecolors

Raiting: E

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Caroline Forbes sets off to the Bahamas with her boyfriend, Elijah, where she'll finally meet his brother for the first time. But as it turns out... she knows Klaus Mikaelson a little too well.

Date of update: April 16 2021

AO3: Contingency Plan (Chapter 3) FFN: Contingency Plan (Chapter 3)

Author: Eliliyah  

Rating: M

Length: Multi Chapter

Summary: When Stefan's idiocy threatens Caroline's carefully laid plans, she has no choice but to turn to Klaus Mikaelson for help. Unfortunately, the criminal king of Philadelphia won't be swayed by simple seduction and has a different kind of proposition for her. It's a good thing she has a contingency plan. Never try to overthrow an empire without one. Dark Klaroline Mafia AU. COMPLETE

Date of update: April 11 2021

AO3: Last Love FFN: Last Love

Author: kirti_01

Raiting: M

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Klaus had promised to be her last love, was sure that Caroline, will come to him. Maybe in a year, or a 100, perhaps. But Caroline decides not to wait for that long. After graduation, Caroline moves in with Klaus to give her feelings for him a chance. And Elijah finally lets go of his obsession with Katherine and finds himself attracted to a university student, his student, a human named Samara.

Date of update: April 12 2021

AO3: A Beautiful Symmetry (Chapter 153) FFN: A Beautiful Symmetry (Chapter 153)

Author: Uppity Bitch

Rating: M

Length: One shot

Summary: A collection of random AU one-shots featuring Klaroline. *2019 KC Award - Best one-shot series* Chapter 153: The Blonde Identity. Spies on opposite sides always had one mission, and nothing should ever compromise an operation. But Klaus always had a weakness for a woman who wore murder in her eyes.

Date of update: April 14 2021

AO3: Always and Forever (Chapter 8) FFN: Always and Forever (Chapter 8)

Author: WingedLadyColette

Raiting: E

Lenght: Multi chapter

Summary: Always and Forever is put to the test when the Mikaelson siblings  all gather together once more to throw the balance of nature into disarray when the Petrova Doppelganger reappears once again in a little Virginia town of Mystic Falls. But that's not the only thing that catches the big  bad wolf's attention.

Date of update: April 16 2021

#klaroline library #KCL weekly releases #klaroline fanfiction #klaroline

[tsukihimeyfan]

Sorting the main cast of AtLA into Hogwarts Houses

I know I’m late to the party because I’ve seen many different people tackle this before, but I feel like it is my civic duty as both a Potterhead and an AtLA stan to put in my two cents, since every single time I’ve seen it talked about people either misinterpret what each House values in their members or pick a House by taking into account only one aspect of their personalities. I want to make it clear that these are my own opinions, which I’m basing on the definitions we’ve gotten of the main traits of each House over the years and the “core values” of each AtLA character, and that I’m in no way am I trying to insult anyone who thinks differently. That being said, here goes nothing!

Let’s start with the easy ones. Namely, the Fire Siblings:

1) Azula is 100%, undoubtedly, definitely, incontrovertibly Slytherin. Just doing a quick rundown of the qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his handpicked students, as stated by the Sorting Hat, Albus Dumbledore and Pottermore: Cunning? Check. Resourcefulness? Check. A disregard for rules? Check. Using any means to achieve her ends? Check. Shrewdness? Check. Ambition? Check. Self-preservation? Check. Pride? Check. An argument could even be made that, as a member of the Fire Nation Royal Family, Azula also kind of meets the “blood purity” criteria. I’m sure most of us agree on this. Even if she does exhibit a lot of loyalty to her father as well as courage and intelligence, there is just no contest. Azula is one of the most Slytherin characters I’ve ever seen outside of the Harry Potter universe.

2) In the same way, Zuko is irrefutably a Hufflepuff. Hear me out! I know that he’s very brave and daring, but when we think of Zuko, what is his most essential trait, what do people tell us again

and again

about Zuko’s character?

He’s a hard worker. And what’s the House of the hard-working?

"You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true, And unafraid of toil.”

You guessed it. Hufflepuff. Of course, that’s not the only trait valued by this House that he exhibits. Who is more loyal in the series than the child who got half his face burned off and still did his best to earn the love and respect of the one responsible? Who never faltered in his loyalty even when he was sent away on an impossible mission? Who spouted angry words most of the time yet was willing to let his ticket home go temporarily in favor of ensuring the safety of his Uncle and his crew? That’s right, our boy Zuko. That very loyalty to his father is what unfortunately bound him for the longest time, until he was forced to face what a monster he was and let go of it in favor of more important things, namely his own morals and his loyalty to his Uncle.

He also has an incredibly strong sense of justice, as proven by the above statements, as well as this moment:

and he can be incredibly patient when he needs to be, as seen during The Blue Spirit and the Southern Raiders episodes.

Hufflepuffs are also said to be fair (which he clearly is), dedicated (need I say more?), honest (which Mr. shouts-his-feelings-at-the-top-of-his-lungs and can’t-lie-without-being-obvious-or-glancing-away-and-has-been-found-out-every-time-he-tried of course is) and modest (this one he starts without but by the time he joins the Gaang there isn’t anyone more modest or humble)

As “an idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor” , Zuko is the Hufflepuffiest Hufflepuff to ever Hufflepuff and I will die on this hill

3) Another easy one is our girl Suki, whom I’d say is a Gryffindor through and through, even if she is very loyal to her friends.

The rest of the Gaang under the cut.

The other members of Team Avatar are a bit trickier because they all exhibit a pretty even mix of traits from more than one House, but still if we just concentrate on their defining characteristics we can get to an answer. 

4) I’d argue that Sokka belongs in Ravenclaw, even though he is of course quite brave and extremely loyal to his loved ones, not only because he’s a strategist and an inventor, but also because, as best stated by Master Piandao:

Ravenclaws most value wit, learning, intelligence, creativity and wisdom (this last one is a bit iffy but I’m sure he’ll get there when he’s older), as well as priding themselves on being original in their ideas and methods. That’s Sokka to a T.

5) Katara gave me a hard time. She’s unbelievably loyal to her friends and family, she’s compassionate, patient, fair, hard working and dedicated, with a REALLY strong sense of justice, so a case can be made for Hufflepuff easily. However she can also be quite cunning when she wants to (most obviously during The Waterbending Scroll, City of Walls and Secrets, The Painted Lady, and The Runaway), she has a lot of ambition (if you count every variation of “I will make the world a better place by force if I have to”), she disregards the rules when it suits her (again The Waterbending Scroll as well as The Runaway) and she can be proud at times, so we could argue she’s a Slytherin. She’s also undoubtedly very intelligent and even quite wise for her age. It took me a while to decide but then I pondered; at her very core, what are the statements that define her? What words just scream “that’s it, that’s Katara”? They are, of course, these two phrases:

The first sounded incredibly Gryffindor to me, and the second is half Gryffindor half Hufflepuff, so it had to be between those two. As such, I decided to look into Gryffindor first. Katara is, of course, astoundingly courageous, but what else? I had to actually look up definitions for the Gryffindor traits besides courage because they all just kinda meant “brave” to me initially 😅, but what I found was:

*Nerve: “one's steadiness and courage in a demanding situation”. Yep. Who’s the most level-headed, steady and reliable person whenever the Gaang is in any kind of pinch? That’s right. Katara

*Daring: “adventurous or audaciously bold“. Yep. I’d say she ties with Toph for boldest in the Gaang

*Determination: “firmness of purpose”. Yep, absolutely. See the above image from the Painted Lady. ‘Nuff said.

*Chivalry: can mean 2 things, one is “sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms”. All of that is true of her (her “arms” being her waterbending), but I found it interesting that to be chivalrous can also mean “gracious and honorable toward an enemy, especially a defeated one, and toward the weak or poor”. I’d argue that this fits her even more. Once again, just take a look at The Painted Lady episode. 

*Courage and bravery: they can mean the same thing, namely “the ability to do something that frightens you” and of course that fits Katara, but the word courage in particular has another meaning, which is “strength in the face of pain or grief”...

I’d say she’s pretty good at that. I think that settles it, Katara is a Gryffindor.

Turns out that when it came to the water tribe siblings Bato was right all along

6) For Toph I was split between Gryffindor (thinking of her brash, bold nature) and Slytherin for a while, but after looking into Katara and researching all those definitions I think I have to give it to Slytherin. Of course, Toph doesn’t seem to be very ambitious unless you count “being recognized as the greatest earthbender in the world”, but she is quite cunning. She knows exactly how to use her “poor helpless blind girl” persona to get what she wants, as seen both on The Blind Bandit and The Runaway. She’s also an extremely good actress, being able to play the “reserved and obedient little girl” to her parents for years, and being easily able to pick it back up when it suits her. 

She’s also stubborn, proud, and 100% willing to use any means, regardless of laws or rules, to get what she wants. 

As for self preservation? Remember that her response when asked to teach Aang, which was crucial to save the world but would’ve compromised her secret, was this:

Slytherins can also “hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes before deciding exactly what should be done “ and my first instinct was to say that it didn’t fit Toph at all, but what is Toph if not a person who “waits and listens before striking”? Slytherins tend to favor Neutral Jing it seems. 

Almost forgot that as a daughter of the Beifong family she’s sort of nobility and she technically also meets the “blood purity” criteria.

7) Finally, we get to my boy Aang. He was really difficult. He’s loyal, patient, fair, kind, modest (usually) and just but I can’t really call him a hard worker most of the time.  

He’s brave, adventurous, determined and chivalrous but he does tend to get discouraged during demanding or stressful situations (his friends always make it better though)

He’s creative, very wise for his age, and quite smart (except when he’s playing around with Sokka in which case they share one brain cell 😂)

He can even be cunning when he needs to be. If he ever went to Hogwarts, he’d definitely be a Hat Staller like Harry. I heard someone say once that they considered Aang a Gryffindor because he liked to show off a lot, but that’s not really a Gryffindor trait (think of Neville Longbottom, Remus Lupin, Harry Potter and Minerva McGonagall. I think any one of them would sooner Stupefy themselves than go show off their skills in front of a crowd for no reason other than to brag).

Once again, we must pin down what it is that defines him, what his core is. After much thought, I decided it’s this: 

It’s his compassion, which he learned from his people, and his desire to value and protect all life. It’s his loyalty to the ideologies of the Air Nomads of which he is the last remaining bastion. It’s his strong moral code, his sense of right and wrong, his wish to make friends and to believe the best of everyone. That’s his center. That is what makes him Avatar Aang. In light of that, I think we can consider Aang, first and foremost, a Hufflepuff.

In the end, Team Avatar is made up of one Ravenclaw, one Slytherin, one Gryffindor (two after Suki joins), and two Hufflepuffs

Ironic, that the House least valued in the Harry Potter universe is the one that houses arguably the most pivotal characters of Avatar the Last Airbender: Zuko and Aang. Fitting, that even in this they parallel each other.

This is already long enough so I don’t think I’ll do Mai, Ty Lee, or Iroh. Maybe some other time.

#atla #Avatar The Last Airbender #the gaang #fire siblings #team avatar #Zuko #azula #suki #sokka #katara #toph beifong #aang #Harry Potter #hogwarts houses #gryffindor #hufflepuff #ravenclaw #slytherin #thyf rambles #meta #atla meta

[idy-ll-ique]

Matchmaker.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

Requested: Nope

Warnings: None

Summary: Steve Rogers, and Bucky Barnes' niece Erica decide to play matchmaker. It doesn't really go as planned...

Author's Note: This was already posted on my old account with the same name but since I deleted it, here you go again.

Y/N- Your Name.

---

Y/N and Steve stood outside Bucky's house. "First time here, how do you feel?" Steve smirked at his best friend. She shrugged, chuckling nervously. She did hear stories about Steve's suave, notoriously flirtatious friend from him before, but hadn't actually met him. Steve rang the bell and the duo waited for a few seconds. To Y/N's absolute surprise, a little girl opened the door. "Uncle Steve!" she cooed, running towards him.

He picked her up, laughing. "Erica! Darling, it's been so long since I last saw you!" he grinned broadly, kissing her cheek. "How's Aunt Peggy?" Erica smirked. Y/N burst out laughing as Steve went red, putting Erica down on her feet. At the noise, Erica finally turned to Y/N. Her eyes went wide as she saw the beautiful woman standing next to her Uncle Steve. Who allowed her to be so pretty? Erica liked her immediately.

"Are you Y/N?" she asked, remembering the words of her Uncle Bucky. "Uncle Steve is coming to visit us in the evening, he's bringing his best friend along. Her name is Y/N," he had said to her. "I am! It's nice to meet you, Erica." Y/N and Erica hugged each other. "Are you ever going to come in?" a deep, soft voice called out from inside the house. Y/N looked up to see the most handsome man she had ever seen grinning at them. "Buck! How are you, man?"

Steve and Bucky gave each other a hug. Erica was still hugging to Y/N and the grown woman had her arms around the girl. "Erica really likes you, Y/N," Bucky commented, smiling at her. When he got a good look at her face, her smile and how her eyes twinkled with happiness when Erica talked to her, he was instantly enamored. Y/N was certainly beautiful and he wanted her to be his. "So, Erica, how old are you, love?" Y/N questioned softly.

"I'm 10! Going to turn 11 in 2 months, I hope I get my Hogwarts letter!" Little Erica was a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. She loved the books more than the movies and had finished reading all of them more than 3 times already. She loved reading. "You like Harry Potter, too? That's awesome! Which house do you think you'll be sorted in?" The three adults settled down on the couches. Erica, meanwhile, made herself comfortable on Y/N's lap.

She didn't want the beautiful woman to leave the house again. It got super lonely being the only girl in the house, since Uncle Bucky's friends were all boys. Now that Y/N was with her, she felt relieved. It helped that they shared interests. "I want to be a Hufflepuff! They're sweet and they like food!" Erica laughed, grinning at the woman. "Really? I rather like Gryffindor. The brave house," Steve smiled, flexing his muscles.

Erica poked his muscles, giggling. "It's Slytherin for me. Cunning and ambitious," Bucky smirked. "You know, Y/N will make a fine Ravenclaw. She's super smart and witty, Erica. Did you know, she's a doctor?" Steve commented and Erica looked at Y/N, a wonder-filled expression on her face. With the beauty came brains? Awesome! "Well, not a doctor, per se. More like a doctorate, I have a PhD," Y/N blushed, rubbing the back of her neck.

"In which subject?" Bucky asked, surprised. He had a huge grin on his face. "Criminology," she answered and he nodded, amazed. "Do you catch thieves and murderers?" Erica asked, shocked. "Kinda, yes," Y/N chuckled. "Erica, why don't you show Y/N your drawings? Go get them from upstairs!" Bucky said suddenly. Erica nodded, hopped off Y/N's lap and ran towards the stairs. "Your daughter is wonderful."

As soon as Y/N saw Bucky, she was infatuated. He was sweet, caring and not to mention, handsome and smart. He was perfect in her eyes, but she couldn't help but feel guilty, too. He had a daughter, and probably a loving wife, too. Though, she didn't hear any woman in the house. "Oh, no, she's not my daughter. I'm her uncle, she's my sister's girl. Rebecca died a few years ago. This poor child had no one, so I took her in."

"How nice of you! I'm so sorry for what happened," Y/N frowned, tearing up. She shouldn't have commented. "It's okay, Y/N, don't worry. We're good," Bucky laughed, shaking his head. Y/N nodded and wiped her tears away. "You know, Y/N, Bucky's very much single right now," Steve smirked and the two looked at each other, blushing. "Cut it out, Rogers," Y/N hissed, nudging him in the ribs. He scowled at her, rubbing his side.

"How's Peggy? Doing okay?" Bucky blurted out, desperately changing the subject. "She's fine, as well as she could be," Steve chuckled. Soon, Erica ran down the stairs, tons of sheets of papers in her tiny arms. She dumped all the papers in Y/N's lap, grabbed Steve's hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. "I have to talk to you!" Bucky and Y/N, watched, confused. "What's— Oh, drawings. They're beautiful," Y/N smiled, going through the drawings.

Most of them were Erica and Bucky figures. Some were unusual, like nature or buildings. Bucky sat next to Y/N, explaining all the drawings to her. She listened patiently, unconsciously scooting closer to him. They were lost in their own world. Y/N could listen to his voice the whole day and Bucky could happily sit there and talk to her if it meant they would get to spend time together. Meanwhile, Steve turned to Erica. "What is it, troublemaker?" he whispered, grinning.

"Troublemaker? More like matchmaker! We have to do something about them!" She pointed to the couple in the sitting room. Steve nodded. "I was planning that, too. They'd be perfect for each other," he realized. "What can we do?" Erica asked, standing on a chair so that she could be of Steve's height. "I dunno…" he muttered. "Let's leave them alone for a few more minutes and see if their own conversation leads somewhere," Erica whispered to him. Steve turned to her, smirking.

"You'd make a fine matchmaker. Let's stay here." Suddenly, the chair under Erica tipped and she fell down with a huge crash. Bucky and Y/N looked up, alarmed. "Is everything fine?" Bucky asked worriedly. "A-Ok, Uncle Bucky! We're bringing snacks!" Erica lied easily and Steve gave her a thumbs up. Bucky and Y/N shared suspicious looks but gave up, shrugging. "That duo is chaotic," Bucky laughed, keeping Erica's drawings away.

"So, what do you do, Bucky?" Y/N asked him, smiling. "Just got out of my last job, I have applied elsewhere. Hopefully I'll get it," Bucky chuckled, running a hand through his hair. He leaned back on the couch, placing his right ankle over his left knee. "You will! I trust you. You're smart and I'm pretty sure they won't reject a handsome man," Y/N chuckled, realizing a second too late what she had said. "You think I'm handsome?" Bucky smirked.

Y/N went tomato red, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she stared at her lap. "I- uh," she stammered, laughing nervously. Bucky couldn't resist putting his index finger under her chin, tilting her head towards his. Their faces were too close now. "For the record, I think you're beautiful yourself," he breathed out, smirking at her blush. "Stop," Y/N chuckled, finally finding her confidence as she pushed his hand aside, looking away.

"Aw, come on Y/N, I mean it," Bucky whined shamelessly, scooting closer to her. He didn't have the title of 'notorious flirt' for nothing. Except, with Y/N, something was different. He meant every word he said. She was pretty and he wanted her to be his indefinitely. Not like the other girls is the best way to put it, he thought. She wasn't like any girl. She wouldn't give in to his flirting. The girls would've already kissed him by now.

"Bucky, there are kids around," Y/N hissed as Bucky leaned over, burying his face in the crook of her neck. "She's in the kitchen with Steve, they don't have to know." Y/N felt his smirk against her skin. She giggled softly, putting her hand on his thigh. "I would at least like a date first," she teased and Bucky pulled away, grinning. "You got it! How about this Saturday at 5?" he asked excitedly. Y/N laughed at his excitement, nodding. "That sounds good." Bucky leaned over again, kissing her cheek.

Steve and Erica watched from the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. They looked at each other, shocked. "Looks like we didn't have to play matchmaker," Erica whispered to the grown man, who nodded. "Say, Bucky, Steve and Erica have been gone for a long time, what are they even doing?" Y/N asked curiously, looking at the kitchen. Bucky put his arm around Y/N, also turning to the kitchen. "Guys! What are you doing?" he bellowed.

Just then, the kitchen door opened and out stepped Erica and Steve, a bowl of chips in Steve's hand. "Told ya we were bringing snacks," Steve shrugged, setting the bowl on the table between them. Erica walked up to Y/N, pushed Bucky's hand away and made herself comfortable on Y/N's lap. Bucky pouted at his niece as Y/N laughed, wrapping her arms around the sweet girl. "Hey, no fair! That's my date!" he whined.

"Good for you," Steve snorted, taking a handful of chips. "Leave some for us," Y/N chided, picking up one. "Are you two really going out?" Erica asked happily. The two adults looked at each other, nodding and smiling. "I'll babysit when you have to go," Steve said, giving Erica a high-five. "Yes! Aunt Peggy and I will drive you up a wall," Erica smirked. Steve groaned as Y/N and Bucky laughed. They looked at each other, soft smiles on their faces.

---

A/N: Leave a like if you liked it! It would mean a lot :)

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x female reader #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes fluff #winter soldier #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x y/n #sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x female reader #sebastian stan characters #disney #mcu #marvel #avengers #fanfic #writing #writeblr

[playing-stories]

Why Playing Inside Made Me Hate Myself

There’s a level in Inside (Playdead, 2016) that sees the player-character, a nameless young boy, sprint from cover to cover as supersonic booms blast at timed intervals. I discovered pretty quickly that being caught out in the open during one of these blasts kills the boy in a horrifying explosion. His dismembered limbs go flying towards the camera before the game cuts and asks the player to try again and again. 

Even thinking about this level inspires a visceral horror in me. It took me so many attempts to finally get it right. Not only that, but this level was what made me understand what made Inside such a disturbing game - it made me loathe myself. But why self-loathing? Seeing a young helpless boy struggle through a brutal and hostile environment and seeing him die over and over is upsetting but why do I hate myself in particular? 

Perhaps in all these bad feelings I directed some of them towards myself. Do I hate myself for making me see these horrible things so many times? Maybe I feel betrayed in some way because I’ve exposed myself to something sickeningly sad and violent. 

No. There’s definitely more to it than that.

The level with the sonic booms is an excellent example of why Inside makes me hate myself for two reasons: 1) It’s deeply impersonal and 2) I’m really bad at it. Let’s address these both in turn.

It’s Deeply Impersonal 

The sonic boom level comes at mid-late point in the game. At this point, I have played enough of Inside to understand the situation at hand. I am playing as a young boy and my goal is to enter a mysterious facility. What I am running away from or towards is unknown. I have so far seen piles of dead pigs, security systems that kill trespassers, and limp men who can be controlled by whoever is wearing a special helmet. These men are being paraded in front of others; some stoic bourgeoisie types.

Notice that in my description of the game, I heavily focused on the environment of the game. The mindless slaves, the pigs, and the security systems were things that I, through the player-character, experienced but none of these were put there for me specifically. I didn’t cause any of this, and I will not be able to stop any of it. 

Then I come to the level with sonic booms. There is some sort of experimentation going on in this facility, that’s for sure. These booms are just a part of this. Everything is so big around me and I am so, so tiny. I am inconsequential here, dwarfed and alienated by my surroundings. The booms are procedural. They are not targeted. They do not care for young human boys. They are not malicious, they are completely apathetic. 

I must contend with the only human agency being present in this scene being my own. Now, in single-player videogames the player is always the only human agent, but in other games an illusion is built that NPCs have feelings, that can harbour ill will towards you, or that they can actively desire the player-character to save them. Taking all this away means that I am forced to reckon with my own complicity in killing this small scared child. Other levels that have the player chased by a pack of furious dogs or smothered to death by a mermaid at least had something that I could shift the blame onto when it killed me. In this level though, the sonic boom level, all I had was myself and the knowledge that I put the boy in this lethal situation

Tobi Smethurst, a games academic, also found this in Playdead’s other game, Limbo (2010), which has another young boy protagonist. Smethurst underlines how the levels in Limbo grew to also feature this alienation between player and environment more and more as the game progressed. Smethurst similarly points to how these games are so affective because they force the player into a place of complicity. Smethurst points out in their paper ‘Playing Dead in Videogames: Trauma in Limbo’ (2015) that in Limbo rag-doll physics mean that all of the young boy’s deaths are visually different. Becoming de-sensitised to the gruesome deaths therefore becomes more difficult. Failing one level may mean the boy falls in a way that bends his neck at an unnatural angle. Failing again may mean that this time he flops onto his front. The player must reckon with the reality that is their agency that caused a young boy’s death. I have not added a picture of a death in Limbo and I only advise looking one up with a hefty content warning.

While I found playing Limbo deeply upsetting, it did still give me a purpose to cling to. I knew from the very first level that I was looking for my lost sister. A little girl needs me is what I told myself. I clung to the fiction that I needed to rescue her. Without it then how was I supposed to face the fact the the person killing this little boy was me? Nothing was chasing me at the start of the game, nothing was out to get me. It was me, me who had walked the boy into a environment that was totally unsuitable and deadly. Inside takes the sister away. There is something at the end of the boys journey, but the player does not know this until late in the game. Whether or not the thing at the end is a good thing is also another question entirely. As I exposed the boy to killer explosions, attempted to make him jump between tall buildings, and led him deeper into the hostile facility I hated myself. I was doing this cruel horrible thing to him. All me.

I’m Really Bad At It

Which leads me on to my own lack of skill. I’m not a great gamer by any means. I love playing, but key tenets of game mechanics like pressing buttons or keeping to rhythms are things I struggle with as a . In Smethurst’s paper, an important point is made. It’s that even though Limbo makes it near impossible to complete every puzzle on the first try, it is not impossible. Both Limbo and Inside are trial and error games. In Limbo some puzzles purposely subvert behaviours that it just taught players moments ago. Nonetheless, even though it is very hard to achieve a no deaths run in either game the slither of possibility means that each death weighs on me even more.

I could have gotten the boy past the explosions this time. If it only weren’t for my lack of skill. If I were only more careful. Why am I so bad at this? I keep killing this kid. I’m going to see him die again and its my fault.

Inside not only highlights my agency in playing and failing at the game, but Inside has been actively made to be like the game environment itself. Brutal. Uncaring. Apathetic. Even though the game is hard, I cannot blame it for killing the boy without also blaming myself to a certain degree. And so I hate myself. The game has convinced me to hate myself while I’m playing. 

Killing Little Boys in Videogames

Before I end this piece I’d like to address one more videogame boy that I’ve killed. What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow, 2017) is about the curse of the Finch family and it shows the player through a series of vignettes details of how each Finch family member died.

Calvin is just a child when he dies. He’s ambitious. He wants to swing his tree swing all the way around the branch. He swings, ignoring calls from his mother to come in for supper and goes higher and higher. The tree branch creaks and wind whistles by his ears and he’s almost made it. Then he loses control, and the player watches from Calvin’s perspective in horror as the boy flies over his garden to his untimely death.

Pretty sad cutscene, right?

Except it isn’t a cutscene. It very well could have been a cutscene. The game creators, however, elected to have the player make Calvin swing. The player is tasked with pressing two buttons in time to make Calvin slowly pick up momentum. The player knows where this is going and that this is dangerous. Yet if they want to continue playing they must kill Calvin. Again, the player is complicit in Calvin’s death with each button push leading Calvin closer to losing control of the swing.  

For a game that is thematically interested in facing trauma in order to process it, this is a perfect encapsulation of game mechanic echoing game story. By making the player a part of this scene, making their engagement essential, Edith Finch makes its players similarly face something that is uncomfortable and upsetting. Because they are active in Calvin’s death, the players are unable to stop looking at the screen, close their eyes, glaze over, or  reject what they are seeing in any other way. Sure, the controls are easy, but they still importantly require a level of effort from the player. The player can shift blame in this scenario. Unlike Inside or Limbo, survival is not an option for Calvin and so the player can easily argue that it isn’t their fault. This time, however, Calvin’s death being anyone’s fault is not the point. The engagement with the trauma of his death is what this scene is most interested in.

I would like to discuss how all of these characters being little boys might also be a contributing factor in why these games make me hate myself. I feel it would risk being too tangential so I’ll merely include a question: How do these little boys affect me simply by being little boys? For now, I will go and wallow a little more in the self-loathing that Inside has managed to make me feel.

Sources Cited:

Tobi Smethurst, ‘Playing Dead in Videogames: Trauma in Limbo’, The Journal of Popular Culture (2015).

#inside #limbo #playdead #what remains of edith finch #giant sparrow #videogames #Game Theory

[joachimnapoleon]

Meet the Bonapartes--Louis (2/4)

(Part 1 can be found here) (And here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 on Pauline)

***

Napoleon's plan to marry Louis to Hortense was met with a marked lack of enthusiasm by both parties. Aside from having acquired a jaded view of women (possibly as a result of the affliction he suffered in Italy), Louis also happened to be in love with someone else. Prior to the wedding, he would write a twenty-page letter to Hortense containing what was essentially his life story, and in which he confessed his love for a woman named Sophie, describing her, and his feelings for her, in great detail. Hortense, meanwhile, had acquired a negative view of Louis, because of his behavior in an earlier failed love affair between him and one of her cousins. However, Hortense claims, she was willing to give Louis the benefit of the doubt, and dismiss "his conduct toward my cousin" as "merely thoughtlessness on his part." Her former mentor, Madame Campan, visited Hortense to speak in Louis's favor. Hortense was not entirely convinced. "Louis seems to me to be kindhearted and good," she conceded to Mme Campan, "but I do not like the disdain with which he pretends to look upon women and which often appears in his conversation."

[Hortense de Beauharnais]

But Napoleon was adamant about the match, seeing in it a strengthening not only of the ties between the Bonaparte and Beauharnais families, but also as a safeguard for a potential Bonaparte dynasty. "We may never have children," Napoleon told Josephine (according to Hortense's memoirs). "I brought Louis up myself; I look on him as a son. Your daughter is what you cherish most on earth. Their children shall be our children. We will adopt them, and this adoption will console us for not having any of our own." But Josephine, who had initially favored the idea, grew increasingly ill at ease over the marriage as the wedding approached. Hortense also claims that Louis's older brother Lucien poisoned Louis's mind against her, after his own request to marry her was shot down by Napoleon. "I do not know what he said," Hortense writes, "but Louis became uneasy." It was then that Louis wrote his twenty-page letter to her and "begged me in return to describe my past life to him in full. It would have been difficult for me to give him any striking facts on the subject and, when I returned his letter, in accordance with his request, I merely replied that for a long time my life had been known to him."

"If your popularity and society have not spoiled you," Louis replied, "you must be an angel. There can be no middle ground. You must be all good or all bad." Hortense took this as a compliment. "I could not suppose that, admitting the existence of the two alternatives, his opinion could be otherwise than favorable."

The marriage contract was signed on 3 January 1802 at the Tuilleries. Napoleon provided Hortense with a dowry of 250,000 francs, to which Josephine added another 100,000. The civil service took place the next day, and the nuptial blessings were held afterwards. After Cardinal Caprara had blessed the newlyweds, Joachim and Caroline Murat came forward, and requested to receive a nuptial blessing as well, as their marriage had taken place before the religious ceremony was reinstated. "This double ceremony left a disagreeable impression on me," writes Hortense. "The other couple were so happy. They were so much in love with one another.... I felt as though all the happiness lay on one side, all the unhappiness on the other."

The "honeymoon" period was almost nonexistent. Napoleon had flown into a rage at Louis over complaints Louis had made about the marriage not being announced publicly. The personalities of Louis and Hortense never quite managed to synchronize on any level. Louis found fault with Hortense over the most trivial things, and Hortense could barely disguise her increasing dislike for her husband--or the fear his unstable, unpredictable behavior had begun to instill in her. 

My nerves gave way. Only tears brought relief. My husband, touched and affected by the sight of my grief, sought to console me, but the harm had been done. My only sentiment towards Louis became one of fear. I dared no longer smile or speak in his presence. It always seemed to me he was on the point of losing his temper.

Nevertheless, the couple's first child--Napoleon Charles Bonaparte--was born the 2nd of October, 1802. Another son, Napoleon-Louis Bonaparte, followed two Octobers later. The Pope himself officiated the ostentatious baptismal ceremony at Saint Cloud.

[Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, first child of Louis & Hortense]

Napoleon continued to show favor to Louis; but Louis occasionally had a different view of these "favors" than his older brother. He saw Napoleon's appointment of him as governor of the "Department beyond the Alps," which would have required his relocation to Turin, as a form of exile, and refused to leave for this new station until after Napoleon's coronation as King of Italy. When the time came, he pleaded ill health and did not accompany Napoleon to Milan for the ceremony. Suffering from acute rheumatism, he had temporarily lost the use of his right hand. By this point he was something of a hypochondriac, and often imagined his illnesses to be far worse than they actually were. His doctors recommended mud baths in St. Amand. Napoleon, still clinging to the idea of making a soldier of Louis, gave his brother command of a reserve corps in the Army of England which would enable him to set up his headquarters close to St. Amand to take the suggested cure. He departed with Hortense and their two children. The mud baths seemed to improve his health.

During the 1805 campaign, Louis remained in Paris as Grand Constable. To everyone's surprise, after his initial reluctance to take over the role of military governor, he displayed remarkable energy. He was not yet aware that Napoleon was in the early stages of preparing him a throne. But rumors soon spread that the Prussians were planning to invade France via the Netherlands. Napoleon ordered Louis to form the Army of the North, to defend the northern departments, as well as Antwerp and the Batavian territories. Louis arrived in Antwerp the day before the battle of Austerlitz; in spite of the war coming to a rapid end, he received orders from Napoleon, via Marshal Berthier, to stay put in Holland. He was also instructed to make sure the Dutch covered "all the pay and supplies of the Army of the North; it must also buy and supply you with all the artillery and transport horses you may need... the Army of the North is not to cost the Emperor anything."

Despite Napoleon's orders, Louis handed over command of his new army and headed back to France upon learning of the peace of Pressburg. Napoleon was not pleased by the unexpected meeting with his brother in Strasbourg. The Emperor finally confided to Louis his intentions of forming a kingdom in Holland, but did not yet go so far as to say that he intended Louis to rule it.

But Napoleon could see only two viable options for Holland: it must either be annexed to the Empire directly, or preserve its independence by accepting an imperial prince--Louis--as its king. The Dutch government were reluctant to forfeit their republic, but recognized that resistance to Napoleon was futile. They assented to the rule of Louis, with the understanding that no French officials would be appointed except in the king's personal household (Louis would break this promise soon enough), that freedom of worship would be maintained, and the current system of Dutch law left in place. Once these points were arranged, Louis was informed by Napoleon that he was to be King of Holland. Louis himself had little choice in the matter.

Louis was initially reluctant to take the throne, but soon warmed to the perceived advantages of being out of his domineering brother's direct grasp. Hortense, meanwhile, dreaded the idea, as well as the visible change in Louis's demeanor.

I admit that my husband's calm manner surprised me. I did not believe he was ambitious, yet I recognized that he was well pleased with what had occurred. Until then every change had been a source of annoyance to him. But now he enjoyed the idea of becoming his own master and, what was more, becoming my master at the same time. No longer would any social decorum, any sense of obligation restrain him from exercising his rights over me. Freed from the proximity of his brother he had no longer any cause to fear him.... For a moment I had the idea of flinging myself at the Emperor's feet, revealing all the torments I suffered with my husband, and begging permission not to be obliged to follow him into a foreign country where nothing would restrain those traits in his character, which I knew so well and dreaded so intensely.

The official Dutch "offer" of the throne was presented as representing nine-tenths of the populace. The formal proclamation of Louis as King of Holland took place at the Tuileries on 5 June 1806. He was solemnly reminded by Napoleon that he was still a French prince. In his response, Louis spoke of his pride in having worked to defend the Dutch people from invasion the year before, the honor he felt in being called to rule over them. He assured Napoleon that his people--he was now referring to the Dutch--would feel love and gratitude towards the Emperor and France.

[Louis Bonaparte]

Louis and Hortense left Paris a week later. The Dutch gave them a joyous reception as they made their way through the country, every small town vying to outdo the other. Hortense held a dismal view of it all. "The martial escorts, the honors, receptions and speeches only wearied me." At one point, she remarked darkly to Louis that the receptions were similar to those the French had held to celebrate the arrival of Marie Antoinette.

Though he had been thrust into the role against his will and accepted it with some reluctance, Louis was determined to be a good king to his subjects, and take care of their interests--which would inevitably put him at odds with Napoleon, just as it would for Murat in Naples years later. "From the moment I set foot on Dutch soil," the newly-crowned Louis declared to his legislature, "I became Dutch." "Which explained in a sentence," writes biographer Andrew Roberts, "the problem Napoleon was to have with him over the next four years."

***

Sources:

Atteridge, A. Hillard. Napoleon’s Brothers, 1909.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny. 2014.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Spirit of the Age. 2018.

De Beauharnais, Hortense. Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol I.

Masson, Frédéric. Napoleon et sa Famille, Vol I (1796-1802), 1907.

Roberts, Andrews. Napoleon: A Life. 2014.

#Meet the Bonapartes #Louis Bonaparte #Hortense de Beauharnais #Napoleon #Napoleon Bonaparte #history #19th century #Napoleonic

[strade-fuckers-anonymous]

so wtf even is Lazarus's deal? Like can you explain it more?

Aha, I was kinda waiting for this one.

So when BTD first came out, I actually played Strade’s route last. I started with Rire, then Sano/Akira, and then Strade. I was super into Rire and everything Darqx was doing, and eventually made my own OC, and that quickly spiralled into making my own entire universe.

Demons and humans are split into 2 different planes of reality, the demonic reality is known as Bo’Hami. Bo’Hami itself is split, literally, into 5 different sectors, labeled as sector 1-5. There are also 3 different subtypes of demon, those being menial/low-grade demons, intermediate demons, and your royal/monarchal demons. These subtypes are defined by the innate power level of each demon, which can be explained most easily through the way their bodies react to a (fake) mineral ore called Zansorite.

I wanted to keep this short but it turns out I’m incapable of doing so, more under the cut

Menial demons, when exposed to Zansorite, will experience near immediate death. The reaction of Zansorite with their blood creates a fast acting poison which will kill them as soon as less than a minute to as long as a few days after the initial exposure, there is no known cure for Zansorite poisoning.

Intermediate demons are negatively effected by Zansorite, but it will not kill them from base exposure. One of my muses, Azaela, has a permanent scar and lost all vision in one of her eyes as the result of a Zansorite tipped dagger.

Royals are fully unaffected by Zansorite, wounds caused by Zansorite weapons will heal immediately, as will any other wound from any other weapon. The only thing that can kill a royal is another royal.

“Bones” I hear you saying, “What’s the difference between a royal and a monarchal demon?”

Well my friend, the answer is. . . Nothing! They’re the same in every way, shape, and form! Being a monarch does not actually bring you a kingdom of any sort, it is simply a highly sought after title. Monarchs will live solely in the first sector, whereas royals live mainly in the second sector, except in the uncommon occurrence of royals marrying monarchs.

Monarchal society is not terribly complicated, but should be explained to better contextualize Lazarus and his siblings. Monarchs will rarely have more than one child, this is due in part to the fact that many of them see the process of creating and raising children as tedious and time consuming, but also because of the fact that they raise children with the goal for that child to one day kill them. Monarchal society is based heavily around lineage, and it is seen as shameful to the lineage if a monarch is killed by a rival monarch, or by a royal come to claim monarchal status. Instead of facing this shame, monarchs would rather raise a single child, teach them how to fight properly, and let this child kill them. In cases where monarchs have more than one child, though there are incredibly few cases, the children must fight and kill each other before they can attempt to kill their monarchal parent.

Now to explain more specifically about Lazarus and his family. Laz’s parents are an incubus demon king, and his tribubus wife (ask me what a tribubus is, I dare you, I wanna talk more about it). The thing about this specific breed of demon (incubi, succubi, tribubi) is that in royals specifically fetishes/kinks are passed genetically, to the point they could be traced in a Punnett square. Lazarus’s parents are both massive sadists, and they had the funny idea to have multiple children and force them to fight to the death for the monarchal title of their father. Their first child was exactly what they wanted. He was strong and ambitious, and is currently the most likely candidate to take his father’s monarchal title. Then, they had Lazarus. What his parents hadn’t realized was that they both carried the recessive trait for masochism, and if they did know they didn’t tell each other before having children. As luck would have it, Lazarus was born with both recessive genes for masochism, and as a result removed himself from the fight for the monarchal title. Lazarus’s parents were ashamed of him, and his tendencies to let himself be beat up by other demons, including lower tier demons and even humans. This eventually lead to them disowning him, and kicking him out of their house. The rest then is history!

#lazarus tag #answered asks #yes I am writing a book based in this universe

[apenapaperandadoofus]

What Disney character would the RFA members be?

Yessss! I actually love this so much, I adoreeee Disney 🥺 I’ll add V and Saeran too! Btw this is just my opinion!

Also I for some reason did way to much research on this? Like?? I dunno lmao I got super into it pfttt

And if you want to add some other characters and stuff, feel free to do so!

RFA+ V and Saeran as Disney characters:

Zen:

Ya boi it’s Flynn Rider! First of all, they’re both super flirty lmao, and it’s just, you cannot tell me that Zen isn’t Flynn like holy shit! They’re both ambitious, and when they care for someone they will do whatever they can to protect them. Both Flynn and Zen have sad pasts who make them who they are now, aaandddd! They also have different names! Just wanted to point that out lmao.

If he were to be another one I’d say Pirince Naveen, from Princess and the Frog. They’re both super playful, and want to have fun, and they also really care deeply for people close to them!

And to add another one: Aurora! Both of them are elegant and hopeless romantics!

Yoosung:

Our sweet child Yoosung is Anna from Frozen!

Both of them are sweethearts, and they really want to find someone they can spend the rest of their lives with! At the same time, even though they may be a bit naïve, they’re both pretty brave! I mean (spoiler for Yoosung’s Route) the poor boi literally got his eye hurt for MC, and no matter what he insisted on going to Mint Eye with Seven. Both of them also really care about family, and they’re super loyal to them and everyone around them.

Another thing, it’s that both Yoosung and Anna are super playful, and bubbly! So I honestly think Yoosung would just be Anna. Imagine him singing love is an open door tho, that’d be fucking adorableeeeee

Jaehee:

Tiana, from Princess and the Frog!

First of all, they’re both so similar with the work a little harder theme, like honestly that’s all they ever do! They’re both super workaholic, which may sometimes get in the way for spending time with family and friends. Both Tiana and Jaehee are super intelligent and strong women! And they’re always there to help their friends. Honestly Jaehee and Tiana are queens 👑

And they both are passionate with something to do with food! Jaehee with her coffee shop and Tiana with her restaurant, so I think they’re just super similar.

Jumin:

Alright listen! So when I was doing this I mostly do it on similarities on personality and such, and for Jumin both Belle and Jasmine seem the most similar

First of all, Jasmine! Both Jumin and Jasmine are in a role where they have to be the perfect heir. While Jasmine rebels against it in various ways, Jumin is more subtle about it. Whenever his father tries a new business idea because of a woman he met, Jumin firmly tells his father no. Even when Sarah Choi or whatever her name is (fuck herrrr lmao) is supposed to get married to him, Jumin yeets her and goes nope. They both care deeply about what they’re supposed to be ruling (?) over, Jumin with his company and Jasmine with her kingdom. And lastly, they both care deeply for their friends and family, and would do anything for them!

Now with Belle, Jumin loves reading. That’s a thing they have in common, and the both of them are super smart, and love learning about new things. Like Belle, he doesn’t have many friends, and is pretty confident, Iike our boy Jumin ;)

Saeyoung:

Peter Pan

But not the animated one, it’s the one we all had a crush on when it was like 2003, this Peter Pan:

It’s absolutely perfect. Both him and Peter are super playful, they like joking around and just you know, living the high life.

But at the same time they’re both scared of their feelings. At one point, when Peter Pan and Wendy are dancing (best scene ever btw) Wendy asks Peter about his feelings, and Peter yells that no, he doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings and that he has none. He tells her that in the end everything was pretend and he doesn’t want to grow up, or admit his feelings for Wendy.

It’s like when Saeyoung was pushing away the MC, so they wouldn’t catch feelings for him. He wants to ignore his emotions and he feels they are useless. Also the gif above it’s perfect for my sweet child it’s adorable lmao.

There’s also Aladdin, because they’re both playful but they can be serious at times!

V:

Now for our boy V! I choose Tarzan and Elsa! Now you may be wondering, Amanda, what the hell?

Well let me explain!

First of all Elsa! (Ignoring the whole Let It Go part of course lmao) Both Elsa and Jihyun have had super traumatic experiences. V with Rika, and Elsa with literally almost killing her sister. Due to that, they both isolate from their friends and loved ones, to protect them. Elsa to protect them from her power, and V does it to protect them from Rika and Mint Eye. They both only want the best for their loved ones, and they don’t care if they have to sacrifice themselves. Jihyun and Elsa are scared of hurting those around them, Jihyun doesn’t want anyone in the RFA to be involved with Rika, to get hurt. That’s why I think Elsa and V are just super similar. They both repress how much they’re suffering on the inside, and they are always the ones acting as a shield for the rest. (Also it’s part of perfect because Yoosung is Anna holy crap Frozen/Mystic Messenger au????)

Now for Tarzan, of course it’s not everything that’s similar, but one thing they have in common is that they care deeply for family, no matter what. Even when Tarzan is being shunned by gorilla dad (or Yoosung -oh damn-) because he says that he’s not part of the family, Tarzan still does whatever he can to protect them.

Saeran:

Now, since our boy is actually like 6 boys (Unknown, Ray, Suit, Saeran GE, Saeran SE, and Saran Judge and Forgive)

So I did the ones in another story and Saeran post SE!

Ray: So! Our boy Ray reminds me so much of Rapunzel from Tangled! Both Ray and Rapunzel are both being kept in a tower (Ray’s tower being Mint Eye.) They’re both smart and creative, and well, they’re loyal (except to Saeyoung lmao.) I feel like Ray is also pretty artistic (he made the cute little emojis for himself and everything, just adorableeeee.) I honestly totally forgot about a Disney character that doesn’t want to be abandoned (maybe Jessie?) because Ray is scared of other people leaving him.

Now Suit! He was my favorite to do :P

He is The Beast! First of all, they’re both hot headed and they’re mad all the time, but beneath all that, they’re both hurting and lonely. Honestly I need a freaking AU of Suit Saeran as the beast, they’re just so similar! Even though they may seem distant and grumpy, they care about the MC in the same way. When the beast saw that Belle was actually pretty sad and everything, he got her a room (I mean he did feel pretty sad you could see it in his little face :( ) and Saeran actually tries to postpone the MC’s Mint Eye ceremony because he actually cares a lot about them (awww)

And for GE Saeran: I just see him as Pocahontas. They’re both mature, kind and loving, but they still have a playful side to them. Also they both love nature, and they are pretty smart. Good Ending Saeran just reminds me so much of Pocahontas honestly, because Saeran can be serious when he needs to, but he is also pretty mischievous and playful (I love the call where he’s like “HA got you to say what I wanted lmao”)

And now, SE Saeran: He reminds me of Kristoff.

At the beginning of the film, Kristoff is actually pretty selfish, and is uninterested on Anna’s stuff lmao. He’s a loner, and pretty cold (you know that’s what ice does to you pft) but he actually cares deeply about his family and friends, and he does have an actual fun side to him! Saeran in the SE is a loner too, he mostly shuts himself off and doesn’t really like to socialize (me thoooo) but even though he acts distant and like he doesn’t give a fuck, Saeran actually does give a fuck. He secretly cares about MC, his brother and maybe even the RFA members, even if he doesn’t show it. He is also pretty cold, and fiesty.

Bonus:

Since Hamilton is on Disney+ now, technically they’re all Disney characters so here are the RFA members as Hamilton characters, like imagine if they were to do the musical this would be the roles they’d get (also I won’t elaborate on my choices pft) oh and for the MC’s here’s a little guide just in case lmao

MC 1: Brown hair, no eyes the one and only lmao

Mc 2: Blonde hair, (I feel like she’s a Karen but don’t tell her I said that)

MC 3: red curly hair, she’s actually pretty hot like wtffff

MC 4: short hair, she’s the one that would be done with everyone’s bs lmao

MC 5: the beautiful unicorn pony thing lmao

Now, Hamilton:

Hamilton: Zen

Aaron Burr: Jumin

John Laurens/ Phillip: Saeran

LAFAYETTE/Thomas Jefferson: Saeyoung, yes Saeyoung

HercULES MULLIGAN: I dunno, MC 5 probably pft

Angelica: Saeyoung once again (he FOUGHT for the role alright?)

Eliza: Yoosung

And Peggy: MC 1

George Washington: Jaehee (hell yeah)

Charles Lee (I’m a general WHEEE): Rika fuck her pft

James Maddison: MC 2

Mariah Reynolds: Saeyoung once again, it was supposed to be MC 3 but Saeyoung pulled some strings and became Mariah Reynolds at the last minute and when Zen finds out after the whole ‘Say No to This’ he is triggered and is about to kill him

James Reynolds: MC 4

And that’s all I remember for now lmao, hope you enjoyed it :D

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #saeran choi #choi bois #jumin han #jihyun mysme #yoosung kim #jaehee kang #mysme zen #ray mysme #suit saeran #mysme

[vapcrwaves]

━♡ guess the 24 YEAR OLD JULY baby just arrived to dallyeog! it makes sense, because AOKI IMOJEN is just as BLAZING as the month of JULY. wait, why do they remind me of HIRAI MOMO? beyond that, they seemed SELF-RELIANT & BUOYANT upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of INSURGENT & RECKLESS though. i hope they get acquainted here in COMPLEX # 3 / APARTMENT # 2 / FLOOR # 2 ; they seem to have a lot going on with HER job as TATTOO ARTIST / BASSIST. 

bonjour , y’all !! my name’s jade ( she/her , twenty-one , gmt+8 ) !! and i’m super excited to meet and write with everyone !! this is my spunky kid , imojen , and i hope you’ll come to enjoy her as much as i did writing everything about her :D if you wanna plot , do not fret because i’ll be dropping in everyone’s IMs hehe , but if you prefer to plot over at discord , don’t hesitate to tell me !! <3 

*   𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊   ╱  ʙᴀꜱɪᴄꜱ   .

name  :  aoki imojen  nicknames  :  yoki , jen . age  :  twenty - four . birthday  :  july 27 , 1996 . zodiac  :  leo sun , aquarius moon , sagittarius rising . place of birth  :  tokyo , japan . currently living  :  seoul , south korea . occupation  :  tattoo artist , bassist . pronouns  :  she / her . orientation  :  bisexual biromantic . ethnicity  :  japanese .  spoken languages  :   japanese , korean , english .  character insp.  :  kat stratford from 10 things i hate about you , bridget vreeland from sisterhood of traveling pants , effy stonem from skins uk , young carol rhodes from gossip girl tv series , rhonda smith , mia’s backstory from if i stay . label  /  tropes  :  hoyden , icarian , insurgent , reveller , the rebellious spirit . pinterest  :  here .  aesthetics  :   scared of commitment , but has 7 tattoos. a habit of endlessly lighting a lighter. platform boots to boost your height. but then again, sneakers for comfort while running from the cops. forgetting to discard empty cigarette packets from your bomber jacket. spilling your fifth espresso onto your drawings and designs , maybe it’s time to sleep. a frightening look on your face which millennials like to call a resting bitch face. the heat ruining your collection of leather jackets. finding comfort in your friends who seem to understand your mood swings. having a pet cat who’s as feisty as you. spontaneous adventures live inside your head and your friends fall victim to those ideas. liking the rays of the sun more than the moon despite being a night owl. oversleeps anyway. trimming your bangs yourself because you couldn’t be bothered to go to the salon. overcooking your sunny side up eggs. sleeping to forget problems. drinking to forget problems. epitome of a ride or die. 

*  𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗    ╱  ᴘᴀꜱᴛ   .

aoki imojen was born to understand what it was to live a life with no structure. her father was part of a rising band in the 90s, toured all over small venues in japan that they slowly rose to a known local name, and imojen has seen all the chaos unfold from backstage in the arms of her mom. however, slowly transitioning into the year of 2000s, the economy was still struggling from the lost decade and the income from touring never sufficed for a growing family. imojen’s father was forced to leave the music scene with the help of her mother’s influence: “it’s time to be serious”; and work multiple jobs in order to fully provide for his first child and the another growing one inside his wife’s womb. 

growing up, imojen’s no stranger to music and her father loved to introduce rock music and bands to imojen’s upbringing. she adored b’z and the gazette, and it leaves no doubt that imojen’s father had been her greatest influence in life. as she grew older, not only did they share identical music preferences and influences, but imojen’s learned to play various instruments— the bass being her favorite. imojen’s also stemmed from that infamous reckless behavior his father’s known for back in the day, and when the teenage years came, so did the impetuous reputation begin. 

imojen and her mother aren’t exactly as close as she was with her father. in fact, their relationship was a toe out of the civil line. it got worse when imojen started to focus on the band she created with friends instead of school and late night practices turned to never returning home for a few days and having the audacity to blatantly lie when asked where she was when asked. it’s hard not to blame her mother when she assumed things for the worst. imojen’s gone quite defiant especially when she discovered that her and her father’s relationship had began to run askew. imojen blames her mother’s interference with her father’s music career as much as her father did, she loved him so much that she was completely blindsided to always take his side. and when the divorce papers came and went, imojen chose her father as she always would. 

her father got a job as a musician locally and eventually overseas, however, money didn’t come by so fast and easy initially. instead of going to university, imojen invested in learning the arts in tattoo design and worked as a tattoo artist to help with the bills. the pair finally thought to settle in korea when imojen’s father got a permanent job. and at this time, imojen has decided to try pursue a career as a musician as well, hoping that the thrill in her early band days are still well stored in her system. 

*  𝖘𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖉 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗    ╱  ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ   .

imojen can never be satisfied of living in the same area for so long, or at least under the roof with the watchful eye of her father. work’s payed well and imojen decided to move out and get an apartment of her own. hence, she found dallyeog, parties almost every single day, drags everyone into spontaneous adventures, comes home terribly drunk and wakes up with a huge hangover—well, still pretty normal. aside from the norm, imojen working at the tattoo parlor and taking gigs at bars as a bassist, imojen’s investing in writing music as well. she hopes one day to finally finish at least one song she’s been procrastinating for far too long and convince her father to make them a rock duo instead, but a band of her own would fantastic too.  

*  𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖉 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗    ╱  ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ   .

imojen looks quite mean at first glance, and it doesn’t help that she’s indifferent towards anyone who isn’t part of already her friend. she doesn’t hate, hate is such a strong word, she simply doesn’t have the attention span for people that don’t interest her or she doesn’t know fully well to enjoy a conversation with.

honestly has the gina linetti energy “how was i supposed to know there’d be consequences for my actions” as she literally does anything she wants before her brain can even weigh the pros and cons to it.

imojen enjoys taking risks despite the relaxed attitude and seemingly nonchalant view in life. it might be a surprise to learn that she’s quite ambitious, but underneath, she does aim for the highs (both meanings) in life, except there isn’t exactly a time frame for those and would much rather pursue them steadily. 

everyone can depend on imojen to have a good time, or if someone needed a friend to vent to, she can surprisingly be all ears, but never follow her words of advice. she does mean well, it’s just that she doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time and is quite reckless,, like ask her to pick between two choices and she’ll advice you to take the riskier one bc “it’s fun don’t be a prude”.

she is more sympathetic than she let on. imojen’s not very vocal especially with her emotions and on what she exactly feels about other people’s situation. serious conversations? catch her yeet away from those. they render her uncomfortable, most especially if it is about her. however, seeing her friends gloomy doesn’t sit right with her that she does anything to make them crack a smile. 

believes that people should be left to roam free and that authority is useless and ruins the fun— hence why she’d always be caught defying them. yes, she uses her brain, but acts more towards intuition and what she felt like doing that day. so yes, she might loves setting her life on the line.

*   𝖋𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖍 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗   ╱  ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴꜱ .

plastic hearts   ╱   someone whom imojen shares a passion for music with. the both of you are like peas in a pod as you both are in the same wavelengths as each other. they may not have the same types of music, but open enough to share a plethora of music playlists.

angels like you   ╱   the typical bad-good influence trope wherein imojen’s reckless behavior and liberated thoughts on legalities have gotten your muse in various dangerous but fun adventures. on a flip, your muse may be the reason why imojen’s woken up at 8 in the morning, bright, well, and not hungover.

prisoner   ╱   an angsty and toxic relationship that imojen could not get enough of. everyone sees this partnership (romantic or platonic) of destructive nature, both of you may or may not know, but regardless it can never be broke off no matter how hard both try. 

gimme what i want   ╱   the typical fwb relationship, we can add spice to it, but on the base that’s the idea. 

night crawling   ╱   imojen’s ride or die, the person she would instantly run to for an adventure, midnight strolls, alcohol escapades, and vandalism. but as things you both do burst into haywire, you’re both aren’t afraid to be open to each other too and spill secrets or bodies hidden in the closet. 

midnight sky   ╱   perhaps a new acquaintance?? friend?? that doesn’t exactly have a first good impression of imojen?? maybe vomited on your muse the first time they met, or jen was really mean for no reason under the influence of alcohol?? she’s chaotic so perhaps it wasn’t a good first meeting. 

bad karma   ╱   imojen hasn’t been exactly an angel all her life, and perhaps karma has run around to bite her in her ass. your muse might’ve been somebody who hurt imojen; either a terrible break up or severing trust, let’s explore :D 

golden g string    ╱   a band :D maybe nothing too serious, just a group of pals playing and making music together :D  or maybe the group's been playing gigs for awhile now and wants to head into the big leagues :D

honestly im so down with anything so !!!!!!

#[ PINNED POST ] #dallyeog:intro #this has gotten too long SORRYsdfsdf #but thanks for reading <3