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#also i don’t even know if it’s supposed to be an essay bc it said statement not essay and didn’t give a word count so im scared if it’s
nyaagolor · 3 months
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Merry DL6mas!
I wrote an inordinate amnt of words about Edgeworth and MVK and dynamics and meta and w/e, stuck it below the cut so I don't obliterate ur dashes
So originally I wanted to make a relationship flowchart for all the characters and then realized that the amnt of caveats would make the image entirely text so I’m just forgoing the image altogether and doing this group by group starting with the VKs bc DL6mas and whatnot. It’s an essay and also unorganized so um. Have fun or apologies in advance? 
Anyway. I think AA1 intending to be standalone and then getting these additional games does some fun things to the characters but especially for Manfred. I’m of the opinion that he was not created or written to be deep or nuanced or anything. He’s the final boss, we weren’t supposed to get more on him, he’s honestly just a symbolic representation of the forces Phoenix works against rather than a character in his own right (in AA1 at least). He’s cartoonishly evil and that was supposed to be it— and then we get JFA and Franziska and suddenly Manfred gets all this retroactive characterization as the story is built beyond its initial parameters. That’s part of the reason why I’m so interested in him— all this new information comes exclusively through other characters and insinuations rather than him actually being on screen up until Investigations and even then it’s like 4 lines. We get more on Manfred, yes, but it’s a shadow on the wall. I’m sorry to bring up allegory of the cave about the gay lawyer simulator but w/e I’m a melodramatist, it’s an allegory of the cave situation. The reason I bring that up is because I don’t really think about Manfred in the same way as other characters; I piece together how I think of him though his relationships and impact on others rather than as an independent dude. His past is inconsequential to me and the ppl who flesh him out are the real troopers but he matters to me more as a vessel for narrative themes than anything. This is all to say that everything I’m doing is conjecture and just kind of filling in the gaps based on my current understanding of the text. Headcanons for the broad and far-reaching audience of me, myself, and I. 
That being said. The whole spiel I just went on about “Manfred as defined by his relation to others” works quite nicely as tie-in to how he feels about Edgeworth, because I think Edgeworth occupies this symbolic space in MVK’s mind. Yes, Edgeworth is a kid he mentors and who lives in his house and who he is legally responsible for, but Edgeworth is also this physical manifestation of his failures. Edgeworth is a child, yes, but to MVK he’s a ghost, a consequence, a punishment. He may not be a VK, but he IS karma (sound the turnabout melody I am kissing you on the lips for this line btw). 
This also means that the way MVK views Edgeworth as an extension of his own thoughts about the DL6 incident rather than solely as his own person, which is something that changes pretty drastically over time. The way he talks about and to Edgeworth goes beyond who and what Edgeworth is as a person because for MVK, there was always an aspect of the self in there, and MVK interacting with Edgeworth is as much a reflection of his own identity as it is how he feels about Miles. 
If there is one thing the entire VK family does extraordinarily well it's projection, and I think MVK has been doing this since he brought Edgeworth into the picture (and before that, but it’s only relevant to me now). This is personally how I rationalize how absolutely batshit half of MVK’s actions are. I know the actual reason is “we expanded the characters around him which necessitates certain actions to drive the plot and inconsistency results from this expansion” blah blah blah paratext more or less confirms this, but we are going full Watsonian in this bitch. 
I have talked at length about the actual medical stuff around gunshots and how bullets are typically removed from joints specifically because of how badly they damage the surrounding tissues over time, I’ll link the post if anyone is curious, but tldr bullet wound symbolism. I bring this up now because I think the bullet acts as a physical representation for DL6, it literally and metaphorically tears him up inside. No one else knows about this murder, most people have forgotten the penalty, but he never did, because he can’t. For someone who has structured his entire self on the idea of perfection, this is an event of unprecedented magnitude, and the living proof of it is eating dinner at his table every night. MVK sits with the weight of what he’s done, and whether or not he feels justified or guilty or w/e doesn’t even matter because it’s making him lose his goddamn mind. His behavior gets more intense, more irrational, because before he was just a massive, scheming, paragon of perfection (and corruption but shh) but now he is in this inescapable cycle as the result of his choices and his choices exclusively. I don’t propose to know nor care about how he felt about it or what the specific emotions he felt were because they’re not particularly important in my mind, only that the lingering ghost of DL6 is driving MVK kinda bonkers and that drastically alters how he interacts with Edgeworth and Franziska. 
I’ve seen a lot of debate about why MVK took in Edgeworth, but my hot take is that he actually doesn’t know. I don’t think MVK ever processed DL6, I think he is filled with contradictory feelings (how ironic) and that this is what eats at him through all those years. Why did he take in Edgeworth? Because he felt guilty? Because he wanted to train him into everything his father hated as a twisted kind of revenge? Because he wanted a prodigy and saw himself in Edgeworth? It’s all of them, it’s none of them, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t know. Why did he prosecute Edgeworth right before the statute of limitations ended? Was it revenge? Hatred? A way to test his prodigy? To project his own gnawing nest of emotions onto the person he felt embodied the incident? Same deal. (the real answer is that it doesn’t really matter bc we were not supposed to think about it this hard but. Shh. dw about it.)
I don’t take much interest into Manfred’s inner world because I ultimately think that a lot of his actions, while completely under his control, are him acting on impulse, on him doing irrational things because DL6, in a sense, killed him too. He comes out of that elevator a different person (not worse (can’t go down from rock bottom), not better, just a different kind of asshole), but destroyed from the inside out by a murder he committed. He’s so arrogant, so entitled, that he could never let this go, and I think that drives so much of the insane shit he tries to pull. He has centered his life around the axis of DL6 and he will always be pulled back into its orbit. The further we get from DL6 the more time he has to think, the more it tears him apart, the more the contradictory feelings about it rear their heads in turn and create this guy who is just desperate and angry. And when it’s days before the statute of limitations he just becomes completely subsumed by it all. He was always cruel, but now he’s cruel and desperate and completely willing to drag everyone down with him. The desperation is the important part. 
I will say though that he is, irrefutably, his own downfall. He molded Edgeworth in his own image, he created Phoenix Wright the defense attorney as a consequence, and it is the two of them who send him to his death. He is the one who planned the murder of Turnabout Goodbyes. From beginning to end, it’s his own hand. Manfred is one of the only characters in this series whose actions are not precedented by extenuating circumstances. It’s allllll him. He’s the bitch. He has been and will always be a selfish prick and for as much as he is lashing out because of DL6 he does so by dragging others in. 
Extremely long prelude to say that I think how he treats edgeworth varies so wildly over time and is so irrational in its presentation because of everything I mentioned before. He is Edgeworth’s greatest kindness and his worst nightmare— at the same time!! Multitasking king. He takes in Edgeworth as a snap decision for reasons he doesn’t entirely understand, and I think because of that he never quite views Edgeworth as a son (at least in the traditional sense). Edgeworth is not his child in the same way that Franziska is his child (and we will get to her in a different post I promise), but he’s not just some random kid either. Manfred is emotionally tied to him through DL6, and I think the fact colors the way that Manfred treats him. It’s a dynamic that I can’t really put a label on, because it’s mentor/student with so much extra baggage that it feels different than that. There is an emotional connection between them, a sense of atonement and revenge, and I don’t think either of them will ever be able to articulate what that means. Manfred does not address Edgeworth as his child, and I think there is an attempt in his language to distance himself from Edgeworth, but he finds himself drawn to Edgeworth all the same (bc Edgeworth is DL6 etc etc). He did not ask for a child, he does not WANT a child, but he has one! Get fucked!
MVK is obsessed with his own image, with this idea of perfection, and insofar as Edgeworth is DL6, Edgeworth is an extension of MVK. He pushes his ideals and tactics onto Edgeworth the second Edgeworth decides he wants to be a prosecutor, because even more than Franziska, Edgeworth is MVK’s living legacy. He is quite literally Manfred’s midlife crisis and I think Edgeworth wanting to be like him and becoming this Demon Prosecutor is this insanely fucked up kind of catharsis in MVK’s mind. And as Edgeworth becomes more like him, as he takes up MVK’s mantle, he becomes a mirror— that is where shit gets fun. I don’t think I need to spell out the ways in which MVK was simultaneously caring and cruel to his kids— you’ve seen Sound the Turnabout Melody, you’re seen Turnabout Goodbyes, we know this song and dance. 
The more time Edgeworth spends around him, as Edgeworth reflects more of Manfred back at himself, MVK simultaneously becomes proud and revolted. Edgeworth is growing beyond the consequences of DL6 and into a mirror of his adopted father figure mentor person. He is, from the ashes of DL6, becoming Manfred von Karma, and I think that drives MVK insane. He is becoming firmly entrenched in MVK’s life at this point. For as much as Edgeworth is DL6, he is now MVK himself. He becomes a walking contradiction, and Manfred’s projection then manifests as this rapidly oscillating clusterfuck of reactions. Edgeworth is out of his control but he’s super important to MVK— recipe for disaster. 
He builds Edgeworth up, teaches him everything he knows, starts to treat him like a son while at the same time irrevocably traumatizing for the rest of his life. He loves who Edgeworth is becoming while hating everything he stands for, and I think this absolute garbage pile of a child-rearing philosophy is as much a projection of himself as anything. It was never about Edgeworth the person. At first, MVK does not care in the slightest about Miles Edgeworth and it is only when he does, even a little bit, that shit hits the fan in my mind. Edgeworth the physical manifestation of DL6 is being overtaken by Edgeworth the Demon Prosecutor, and MVK starts to be proud of him— but this is an eventuality he did not plan for and cannot do anything about. For both of them, it’s personal now, and no amount of pushing each other away is really going to fix that. 
Anyway I don’t think literally any of this was intended. Manfred is not this deep, I am making literally all of this up, but it’s fine. If you got this far I salute you. Miles time. To pivot to Edgeworth’s POV for a while, I think that from the very beginning, Edgeworth looked up to MVK. It’s not the same idolization that Franziska does, but it’s up there. Obviously he idolized his father, but DL6 not only served as a complete evisceration of his family but also his ideals. Gregory the man was dead, but if criminals can kill his father and get away with it, that collapses the foundation on which Miles built his understanding of justice. Gregory the defense attorney– his ideals, his legacy, his philosophy– he died in that elevator too. Edgeworth pivots, completely independently, from a man who wants to protect to a man who wants to punish (and I firmly believe that this was his own decision and not Manfred pushing him into it, if MVK had not adopted him he still would have become a prosecutor just not so much of a dick). 
But so Manfred takes him in, and was spectacularly ill-equipped to handle this. I always saw Manfred as emotionally distant on the best of days (he’s born in the 50s what did u expect) but for Miles, who he barely considers a son at all, he isn’t capable of being the emotional support he needs. He never would be and never wanted to be. That’s layer one of baggage. What MVK does provide for Miles, though, is a purpose. Miles does not wallow in his father’s death, because he is taken in by someone who acts as a paragon of Miles’ new worldview. Manfred never lets a criminal get away. He is perfect in that way, and it gives Miles a tangible (albeit impossible) goal to strive for. MVK mentors him in this worldview and gives him the tools to outlet his grief and rage into something productive— fucked up and wrong, maybe, but productive. That’s layer two of baggage. 
For as complicated and twisted and contradictory as MVK’s feelings towards Edgeworth are, Edgeworth for most of his childhood sees MVK as this pillar of everything that is good and treats him with intense amounts of respect. He accepts any cruelty as tough love, he adopts his ideals and his tactics and his suit. Edgeworth needed *something* after the grief of DL6 and MVK is what he got, so Miles latches on and never lets go, for better or for worse. Miles Edgeworth is not Manfred von Karma but he actively tries to take his shape because whether or not it’s reciprocated, Edgeworth loves him and everything that he stands for. Manfred cares about him in that respect at the very least. And ultimately, this is my big take on Edgeworth: I think Edgeworth actively chased MVK. He became MVK on purpose. It’s a result of trauma and built entirely on false pretenses, but Miles is the one who takes the initiative and Manfred indulges him— And then Turnabout Goodbyes happens. 
Everything Edgeworth is, everything he made himself become, is wrong. Edgeworth has molded himself into a person he does not recognize and that person turned out to be a monster. The person Edgeworth idolized, respected, and maybe even loved is the very person who destroyed his life. He is wearing the skin of the monster he wanted to destroy, and he did it on purpose (in his mind). This is not to say he had much if any agency in this situation— this is not a path he would naturally take, this is structured entirely under false pretenses, and he was clouded by grief, traumatized, and most importantly nine, but what matters here is that Edgeworth FEELS like it’s his fault, and the complete collapse of his worldview AGAIN is what drives all the bullshit of RFTA. Edgeworth is not MVK (and you can tell because he is capable of self-reflection which MVK is ostensibly not (or at least unwilling to)), but it still drives him to this complete and utter devastation. He sees Manfred in himself and it isn’t until AAI1/2 that he’s able to see Gregory as well. MVK filled a need for Edgeworth at the lowest point in his life (and absolutely made him worse but that’s not the point). Edgeworth respected and loved Manfred’s ideals, STILL chases the idea of the man, and because of that still cares about him. He becomes aware of who the monster he loved is, and how has to reconcile with what it means to be that person’s reflection and legacy despite knowing— and feeling, and BEING— all the harm he caused.
Those contradictory feelings that I talked about earlier? Love and hatred all mixed together— questions that cannot be answered and actions taken without knowing why? That’s Edgeworth’s final gift from Manfred: he inherits the bullet and the legacy he carries forward. Unlike Manfred, though, Edgeworth takes that pain and shares it, lets other people in, scoffs at the veneer of perfection and allows himself to be hurt and vulnerable and it is only in that way that Edgeworth can break out of VK’s shadow and break the cycle. He holds onto the ideals that he learned from Manfred, separates them from the nastiness and acknowledges the place they came from. It’s obvious in the way that Edgeworth carries aspects of that legacy forward that he’s capable of disseminating everything that Manfred is, acknowledging the way he’s been influenced by him and what he still respects about the man despite it all, and make peace with the rest of it. The cycle of violence and corruption started with Manfred and Edgeworth makes sure that it ends with him too. 
I have a ton more to talk about with respect to his teaching methods and the nitty gritty of how he interacts with his kids but that’s for the Fran post. This is more of the “whys” than the “hows” but I’ll get there :)
Anyway, I think that’s it. I’m sure there’s more that I’m missing but my head is beyond empty rn and I can’t think of anything else I wanna talk about with respect to these two. I know I literally just spewed 3k words about into this textpost but I do love chatting about them (total shock I know) so if u also have thoughts or ideas abt anything related to them lmk :3
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hoodharlow · 1 year
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That's What You Do When You Love Somebody
AN: shootout to 5sos for making 5sos5 bc Bad Omens are that bitch and gave me fic inspo. And shout out to Mother Karol G for x si volvemos bc she fit the song too <3 NO PART 2
Requested? No
Warnings: smut that leads to angst, talks about toxic relationships
Word Count: 3.1k words
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Jack knew what he was about to do was just him acting on pure jealousy and possessiveness. It was a bad idea, but how was he supposed to act seeing her grinding up on some guy. Granted they have been broken up since December and he was the one who broke up with her, but still. She shouldn’t be doing that unless it was on him. Luckily the song ended she excused herself from the guy and made her way to the makeshift bar. 
‘Fuck it’, he thought. Jack got up from his seat and made his way over to her. He shrugged off Urban’s hand as he tried to stop him. Some of the guys called after him, knowing he was about to do something stupid. 
“Adriana.” he greeted her casually. He glanced down at how the short skirt was hugging her ass. 
“Jackman.” she said, not looking up at him.
“Is that your new boyfriend?” Jack asked her. 
Adriana looked up at him, unamused, “Don’t start.” She took her drink and pushed past him. 
Jack waited a few seconds for her to give him a flirty smile but she didn't and kept walking. 
“Wait, is he?” He called after her. 
She ignored him and kept walking to her friends, by instinct he followed her. When they saw him behind Adriana, they all shot him daggers with their eyes. At the moment he wasn’t their biggest fan. They never were, mainly because he and Adriana have been on and off for the last few years and they didn’t like that he was, allegedly, leading her on and that their relationship wasn’t going anywhere. In his defense it wasn’t that he didn’t see a future with Adriana. He did, but he couldn’t give her what she wanted right now. She understood that and never pressured him for more. She also had a lot on her plate and Jack knew of her goals and aspirations. 
Jack had known Adriana since they were in high school. She was his tutor for all his science classes and he would give her pointers in her writing because essay writing wasn’t her strongest suit. All through high school they had that ‘will they, won’t they’ vibe and were even voted ‘cutest couple that never was’ during their senior year superlatives. They didn’t act on their feelings until almost three years later. Adriana and Jack began dating in late 2018 after the release of Loose when he dedicated Sylvia to her as Sylvia was her middle name.
They stayed together until the release of SWEET ACTION and Jack’s fame skyrocketed. They tried to make it work, but Adriana told him they should just stay friends. Them being friends didn’t last long, they got back together just in time for the release of his debut album. People knew of her, he never hid his relationship status from his fans or the general public. Surprisingly there wasn't much uproar on the fact that he was dating her, save for the few entitled fans that didn't like that he wasn’t single. What got in the way of him fully committing to Adriana was his work. There were times where he couldn’t see her with how busy he was with touring and everything else that kept him away from Louisville. That was the start of their messy cycle of being on and off for the next two years until they agreed that it wasn’t healthy for them to keep breaking up and getting together. 
“Fuck off,” Harmony told Jack. 
“I haven’t done shit.” he said defensively. 
“Yet.” Desiree mumbled loud enough to hear him. 
“Why are you here? Don’t you have some influencer to fuck?” Yesenia sassed him.
“Can we talk?” Jack asked Adriana, ignoring the others. 
“No!” her friends answered for her.
“Fine, damn.” he said, walking back to his friends. 
Adriana turned to her friends. “Five minutes.”
She couldn’t help it. No matter what she still had this unconditional love for him and vice versa. She knew Jack loved her, but what they wanted wasn’t ideal at the moment because of how busy they were. Jack with his music and Adriana with med school. They weren’t in any rush to start a family or get married. As pathetic she sounded, she was willing to wait for him
“¡No seas pendeja!” Desiree scolded her.
“Girl,” Harmony gave her a pointed look. 
“Adri, be so fucking fo’real.” Yesenia whisper-yelled. 
“Let me just hear him out. I owe him that.” Adriana reasoned.
“Why do we bother, we know your ass isn’t going to listen.” Desiree rolled her eyes. 
“It’ll only be five minutes. I swear.” she said, getting up.
She grabbed her bag and went after Jack. Adriana knew that when she got back to her friends they were going to drag her. Before they went to the party, they were at the host’s birthday dinner. The birthday dinner was for only the core friends of the group. During the birthday dinner they made sure Jack wouldn't get near her and that she was always with someone so Jack wouldn't swoop in and talk to her. They knew that with a simple hey, she would be under his spell. Fortunately Jack sat on the opposite end of the large table with the guys, but that didn’t stop him and Adriana from eye fucking each other from across the table. 
Jack was waiting for her by the stairs. 
“Five minutes.” Adriana said, going under the chain that said that upstairs was off limits.
Jack was a few steps behind her. She led him to a guest room at the end of the hall where they could talk more privately. The second they entered the guest room, Jack was on her. 
“Jack, no,” she pushed him off.“You said you want to talk, so talk.”
“It’s like that? I haven’t seen you in almost four months.” he pouted. “You didn't even come to my birthday party.”
“I didn’t go to your party because someone didn’t invite me.” she said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. 
“I missed you.” Jack said, sitting across from her on a desk chair. 
“I’ve been here.” Adriana shrugged. “If you wanted to hang out or whatever, you could have just hit me up.” 
They stayed silent for what seemed like an eternity. Adriana got annoyed. She was always the one who initiated everything for them to get back together and Jack would just go along with it. 
“This was a mistake.” she sighed. 
“Adri, wait.” Jack said, gently pushing her back down on the bed. He reached down for her hands and gently rubbed her knuckles. “I know I’m not the best at talking about us and my feelings. But I do miss you. I hate waking up and not seeing you reading those big ass textbooks beside me. I miss seeing you in your t-shirts singing to old school reggaeton while we clean. I miss going out to eat and having you pick an appetizer by doing that Mexican shoe saying. Most of all I miss you because I love you and I don’t see myself with anyone but you.”
“I love you too, Jack.” Adriana said softly. 
“But,” 
“But we can’t keep doing this.” 
Jack nodded. She was right they weren’t going to be able to move on if they kept regressing into each other. They sat in a comfortable silence. He removed his hand from her hips and placed them on her shoulders. His bright blue eyes stared into hers then he slowly leaned into her, capturing her lips. The kiss was slow like a test in the waters. Lust quickly took over as their kiss intensified. He held her in place with his other arm as his lips dominated her. She was practically on his lap now. Adriana whimpered into his mouth when Jack deepened the kiss. 
It didn’t take long for them to get naked. Jack laid her down in the middle of the bed and got on top of her. One of her hands found its way to Jack’s curls while the other dug its nails onto his back. She moaned out into his mouth, feeling his hips rut against her bare core. She wrapped one of her legs over his waist as he deepened their kiss. 
What felt like an eternity later, he pulled away and kissed down her body. He pulled away from her lips and kissed down to her chest. He tweaked one of her nipples while he nipped and sucked her other breast. Satisfied with the love bites on her chest, he captured her lips once more. Jack pulled away and kissed down her body, settling between her thighs. He placed her thighs on his shoulders and peppered kisses all over her thighs.
"Mhm." He hummed in pleasure, dipping his head in between her thighs.
He placed more soft kisses on the insides of her thighs, lightly nipping them. She squirmed at the feeling of his lips. They got closer and closer to where she needed him the most. She let out an inaudible gasp of pleasure when Jack licked her. She tried closing her legs, but Jack's grip on them kept her in place. He moaned at her taste and savored her, taking his time with his tongue. He pushed one of her legs to her chest, giving him better access to her as he sucked her clit.
He inserted another while he pressed his thumb on her clit. She felt pleasantly overwhelmed with Jack's fingers and tongue. Jack felt it too. He sped up his fingers and circled his thumb on her clit roughly.
"Jack!" She moaned out.
Jack lapped up her release. He pushed himself up and reclaimed her lips. Adriana brought one her hands down in between them, reaching for his cock. She slowly stroked him, making him bury his face in the crook of her neck and rut his hips. Jack pushed her away and knelt in front of her. He collected some of her arousal with his fingers and stroked himself. He lined himself up against her and slid into her. Adriana gasped and dug her nails in his biceps. He knew she was going to leave marks.
"Too much?" He asked her.
"It's been a while, but I’m good." She reassured him. 
Jack nodded. He did a few shallow thrusts, slowly pulling out and pushing himself back in so she could get used to the stretch. She felt so good around him. After a few minutes he picked up the pace and her moans filled the bedroom. 
“Your pussy is made for me.” he grunted as he thrusted in her. She moaned in response. “I fucking love, Adri.” 
“I love you too–AH!” She clawed at his back. 
He brought her head up so he could kiss her. He wrapped one of her legs around him, bringing them closer as he took her. Her breath hitched at how good it felt. Jack must have noticed, and continued thrusting in that spot. The familiar feeling came over her once more. Adriana was about to come, and Jack knew it. His thrusts got more precise, hitting where she needed him.
“Come on, Adriana, let go for me.” He encouraged her. 
With that Adriana came. She repeated Jack’s name over and over until her high faded. Jack continued thrusting in and out of her. His thrusts grew sloppy. He pulled out and got off the bed. Before Adriana could ask him what he was doing, Jack grabbed her hips and pulled her to the edge of the bed. He flipped on her stomach and continued where he left off. 
Jack placed one of his feet on the bench on the foot of the bed, taking Adriana at a better angle. She pushed back rougher to meet his thrusts. He gripped her hips with one hand while the other went back down to her clit. Jack worked his fingers roughly as he pushed his hips into Adriana. 
He put his foot down and got fully on her. He buried his face in her neck, kissing her sweet spot. Her quiet praises filled the room, egging him on. She quietly whimpered his name, lazily meeting his thrusts before her orgasm took over. As she repeated his name, Jack intertwined his free hand with hers. His orgasm followed soon after. He cried her name and pushed himself deep inside Adriana, spilling every last drop in her. 
He pulled out and went to the bathroom in the guestroom. He found some baby wipes and wet a washcloth. He cleaned Adriana and himself before getting dressed. She took the hint and also got dressed. 
“Do you wanna go to the 24 hour dinner? I haven’t gone in weeks and a milkshake with curly fries sounds really good right now.” Adriana said, fixing her skirt. 
“Adri,” Jack scratched the back of his neck. “You said it yourself…we can’t.”
“So you sweet talked me into a quick fuck.” she scoffed, shaking her head. 
“I didn’t.” 
“Then why the fuck else would you say all that shit!” she yelled. He tried to reach out to her, but she pushed him away from her. “Fuck you, Jack!”
“Adri, wait.” he called after her, but she was already downstairs. 
Jack didn’t mean for it to come out like that. He wanted to tell her that he wanted to take things slow. One of the mistakes they would do when they get back together is continue where they left off. According to his therapist that’s what causes issues between them. They have to get to know each other under a new lens. 
He walked around the house looking for her and didn’t find her. He also didn’t see her friends, so he figured she left. Jack decided to also call it a night and went home. He got in bed and pulled out a picture. It was of him and Adriana from the ‘Thru the Night’ music video. It was one of his favorite pictures of them. They looked so young and full of love for one another. He wished he could have done things differently, but he couldn’t change the past. 
He fell asleep soon after. About an hour later his phone began ringing. He reached for it and slid the screen, not checking to see who was calling him.
“‘Llo?” He answered, stifling his yawn.
“Is Adriana with you?” Harmony asked. 
“No, why would she?” He said. 
“Because we haven’t seen her since she went to talk to you.”
Jack sat up. “What do you mean you haven’t seen her? I thought you all left after we hooked up.” 
“We tried tracking her location and nothing.” 
“You’ve got to be shitting me. Let me help y’all look for her.” he said.
He hung up and grabbed his keys and shoes as he walked out of his house. He started the car and drove out. He tried calling her as well, but it kept going to voicemail. He passed the diner she wanted to go to before they argued and then braked, realizing she could have gone there. He did an illegal U-turn and pulled up to the diner’s parking lot. He spotted her in the back and pulled out his phone to text her friends that he found her. 
He entered the diner. He pointed to the back. “My friend is in the back.” he told the hostess as he went to the back. 
Adriana was nursing a large tray of curly fries and vanilla milkshake. Jack was about to lecture her for not answering, but decided not to when he saw how she looked out of it. Her mascara and eyeliner painted her cheeks. She sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve. 
“Hey,” he said sitting across from her. He reached for a curly fry and dipped it in her milkshake. 
She gave a pointed look then slid the malt cup to him. It was the leftover milkshake from her’s. They silently ate the fries and milkshake. When they finished, Adriana reached for her card inside her phone case, but Jack pushed her hand away and set a hundred dollar bill down on the table. He led her to his car and helped her inside. 
“Can I stay with you?” she asked him softly. 
“Yeah.” he nodded. 
Jack pulled out of the parking lot and drove them back home. They picked the house together when Jack bought it. They spent countless nights talking about their future plans with the house and the extra rooms. They talked about starting a family and how they imagined their kids. But those talks usually ended with them agreeing with how they’re not ready because of their busy schedules.  Adriana lived with him for a few months. When they broke up a few months back, he offered her the house, but she said it was his house since he paid for it. As of now she lived with Desiree. 
He was about to press the button to close the garage before Adriana ran out to the bushes and threw up. Jack held her hair back and rubbed her back as she continued to throw up. They stayed like that for a bit until she let out everything. They made their way inside. She went to a bathroom by the kitchen to wash her face and rinse her mouth. Wordlessly she followed Jack upstairs to his bedroom. He gave her a t-shirt and a new toothbrush. She took them and went to change in the bathroom. 
Jack was waiting for her to get settled so he could go to sleep in one of the guest rooms. He texted her friends and let them know he brought her back to his place. They replied, thanking him for finding her. He saw her phone on the bed and plugged it into the charger. It lit up, alerting him that it was out of battery. 
“Can you stay with me?” she asked him when she came back out. 
“Okay.” he agreed. 
He laid in his spot and she attached herself to his side, wedging her leg in between his. He rubbed her back.
“After tonight, this really needs to end.” Adriana said, fighting back more tears. “We have so much on our plates. We can’t keep doing this. We’re going to burn out and hurt ourselves even more. ” 
“I know, but tonight I want to pretend like you’re still mine.” he said, intertwining their hands together and placing them on his chest. 
“I will always be yours, Jack.” 
Taglist: @cherryxcreme @heavyhitterheaux ​ @carma-fanficaddict ​ @youngharleezyxo @youngharleezy ​ @babyharleezy ​ @that-90s-girllll ​ @alinaharlow @whywontyoulovemecami @meyocoko @harlowcomehome @nattinatalia @webinurcloset @gassyandsassy1 @jackharloww @awhore4moree @noescapricho-essentimiento @a-moment-captured @neon-lights-and-glitter @purecinnamonextract
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wander-wren · 10 months
Text
today i am angry because lightlark keeps (kept? i think it’s dead) getting compared to the hunger games
i don’t know if tumblr saw the lightlark drama and i’m not interested in rehashing it especially bc some of it got uncomfortably personal towards the author at one point and also it was months ago so just! suffice it to say lightlark is a book by alex aster, it is a terrible book, and i did not put myself through the torture of reading it but i did watch a 7.5 hour video essay
(i think the essay could have been 6 or even 5 hours, and i think this person went a little too hard on the critique at some points, so that rubbed me wrong a little but it was also extremely thorough and i was bored.)
but anyway. one of the big things about lightlark is that it was marketed as “hunger games x acotar” which is….fine. but every time someone compares a book to thg i’m automatically suspicious because no one does it right.
and of course, neither did lightlark.
the book is a complete disaster so i will try to stick only to the relevant points but seriously. there’s so much.
the official premise of lightlark is that six realms in a fantasy world have been cursed for hundreds of years. each curse is (supposed to be) a twisted version of the realms magic, and the curses also cut them off from their main island of lightlark. except for once every century, when the island becomes accessible for 100 days and the six rulers travel there to try to break the curses via death tournament.
but then you get to the book and learn that the curses are only broken if a ruler dies without an heir, since their special ruler magic just transfers to the heir and no one gets anywhere. this was only a caveat so we could have a young protagonist ruler, i’m sure. ALSO, IMPORTANTLY, if a ruler dies without an heir, their entire realm also dies.
and obviously that’s bad so the rulers have to consider carefully who they want to kill, and they keep putting the killing off bc it’s not easy to condemn thousands of people to death.
so why, pray tell, the FUCK, are you doing a death tournament every century.
(they’re not, by the way. the first 50 days are dedicated to some demonstrations that are definitely hunger games inspired and meant to allow the rulers to forge alliances bc even though there’s only six of them they’re also required to partner up for some reason?? but there’s almost no fighting and almost all the fight scenes end very quickly with no real damage to the main character. it got really annoying really fast.)
but like, let’s pretend for half a second that lightlark IS about six rulers fighting to the death to break a curse. it’s still not even close to being like the hunger games.
the hunger games was about teenagers under constant surveillance forced to perform and then kill for the masses, many because they weren’t rich enough to buy their way out or into good training.
no one except the rulers and the essential staff is even allowed on lightlark, and no i don’t know why that is. and the characters spend the entire book trying to avoid killing each other as much as possible (well, minus two cases) bc they want to find another way to break the curses. i don’t understand why it’s billed as this big bloody dangerous battle even in-universe when everyone involved really REALLY doesn’t want to fight.
also, this isn’t related to the thg nonsense, but if i’m talking about lightlark i have to talk about That Twist. alex aster really loves her twists and is very proud that no one can see them coming but that’s because reading the twists is like watching the street for cars, then trying to cross and getting hit by an airplane.
as i said, the characters keep trying to find a new way to break the curse, even though it’s been 500 years and many of the rulers have been alive that long (no i don’t know if that’s normal or a ruler perk, it’s not explained) so they SHOULD have tried all of these fairly obvious methods by now but SURE, JAN. this book would make so much more sense if it was only the first century and everyone was still scrambling to figure the curses out. but whatever. alex aster wanted her protagonist to be in a love triangle with two 500yo men
(there’s nothing inherently wrong with that and i actually really loved grim, not for the reasons i was supposed to bc the writing was bad, but i liked him, until—well, put a pin in that.)
ANYWAY. THE POINT. our protagonist, who i guess i should say is named isla, needs to find “the heart of lightlark” which “blooms where darkness meets light.” everyone assumes they’re looking for a super special flower but they can’t find it. then, isla decides this random-ass bird that’s only almost gotten her killed twice is DEFINITELY going to show them the heart, so they follow the bird.
and at dawn, the bird lays a fucking egg. and it falls out of the nest. and cracks. and the yolk. floats. into the air. in time with the rising sun.
I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW MUCH IT IS A LITERAL FUCKING EGG
no foreshadowing. isla has an internal monologue where she thinks she always did see the moon as an eggshell and the sun as yolky, but the yolky sun description happens twice in 400+ pages and the egg moon description happens Never, so like. shoutout to aster’s copy editor??
i can’t take this book seriously bc it is a literal egg an EGG isla has to carry an EGG YOLK to break the curses. there are scenarios where i could accept that but this Serious YA Fantasy Book is not one of them.
and since i mentioned the one thing i did actually like, i will explain isla’s one love interest, grim. technically her only love interest bc nothing about the other guy struck me as romantic but idk maybe her inner monologue was yearning or smthn. anyway, grim.
grim is from the least trusted/most stigmatized realm. he’s described as a huge hulking nightmare of a man, a demon, every badscary description under the sun. but like. the times he is alone with isla? he takes her to a chocolate shop during their first meeting and hand feeds her truffles, which is a little weird and overly sexual but…still. chocolate. then he hides her from another ruler no questions asked even though he has every right to be suspicious. he opens up to her and shit. he calls her “hearteater” (it’s a reference to her curse, her people eat human hearts to survive, no that doesn’t make sense either) (also isla is magically not cursed so our protagonist doesn’t have to be scary and gross and worry about that during the novel haha!) (guess what else is never properly explained….)
anyway grim calls her “hearteater” but like, almost in a teasing/endearing way, which is fun, and when they start to fall in love he just calls her “heart” which is ALSO cute imo i’m weak for nicknames. he’s like. the narration and aster really really want me to think he’s the scary bad boy but he’s just such a soft dude.
and then. ohhhh, and then. one of the other hit-by-airplane twists is that the weird sexy dreams isla has been having all book about grim? they’re not dreams. they’re memories. the two of them used to be together for about a year before the book started, and grim erased her memories as part of a plot to betray her yada yada i was braindead by this point so i don’t fully remember all 17 elements of the betrayal. but like…..first of all that retroactively makes all of their interactions but especially the chocolate thing kind of weird and creepy? also WHAT was the FUCKING POINT pf making her forget she loves you if you’re literally just going to seduce her immediately anyway. like. the book makes a halfhearted effort at having grim avoid her but it really didn’t feel like he was purposely being mean to push her away. because every time they did interact he was so sweet! sir!!
anyway he betrayed isla probably mostly to keep up the ambiguity of the love triangle and so aster could brag about more twists and i hate that bc WHY. he was doing so well.
anyway. i got so far off track. lightlark is a wild fucking ride and i did not even scratch the surface of the plot-hole filled mess that this book is. my sister does own it and i did check a few things bc i straight up could not believe they were real (like the egg. i cannot get over the egg.) so.
also this book only got published bc it went viral on booktok so that kind of tells you everything you need to know. the good news is it does give me some measure of hope/an ego boost bc if lightlark exists in the world…..surely whatever i’m doing can’t be too bad.
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pinkacademic · 2 months
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okay i’m really sorry if you already did something like this…but do you have any advice on how to do proper research? i love writing essays and i’m thinking abt practicing doing research papers, but i don’t really know how? like i know you’re supposed to use sources that use .gov and stuff, but how do i find them?
ALSO HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🩷🩷🩷
Ok I’m just gonna do a quick version, but I’ll 100% do more in-depth if anyone wants!!
Quick notes: I know about arts and humanities, not STEM, so that’s what I’m focusing on. Also, I do my essays for fun when I have TIME (a rarity these days) so do as I say and not necessarily what I do lmao.
Start with what you know
I don’t mean topic-wise (tho that too). Wikipedia is not a source, but the reference section on a Wikipedia article can be a very good jumping off point.
Also, Google Scholar my beloved!
Newspapers are a good, reliable source. Even if the newspaper is utter tosh, it represents the views of its readership, and therefore can be used. You mention .gov, and yup! That too!
Oh and 12ft.io is my gift to you on this fine February day.
If you don’t know the names of the famous essays, you’re firing keywords into Google Scholar, and you’ll get some ideas!!
This is just off the top of my head bc I’m just doing a quick one considering it’s my birthday lol, but like I said, I will put more effort into this if you want!!
And as a last note: @apricitystudies shares her favourite essays etc every month!! So, depending on what you’re interested in, it’s useful to have some vetted by someone else lol
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hopefull-mindset · 7 months
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Hi I'm the anon who sent the "rambling" ask about Nagito from like 2 weeks ago. I forgot to check for a response lol.
I wanted to elaborate on what I said about Nagito's backstory bc it was vague and I have Thoughts.
I actually don't think his casual attitude towards his past makes it harder to take seriously (if anything I think that adds to the tragedy of it). I was mostly just referring to the specific things that happen. One of my gripes about DR is that I feel like some characters have unnecessarily dark/tragic backstorys. Either bc I feel like they don't really need a dark past at all (eg Akane), or it's excessive to the point of being ridiculous.
I know Nagito's backstory is supposed to unbelievable to show how extreme his luck is, and that DR as a whole isn't exactly grounded in reality, but I feel like it would hit harder if it was just a little more believable.
Like, maybe his parents die in a car crash instead of a plane crash (or just make it a normal plane crash without the convoluted "the plane gets hijacked but then the hijackers get hit by a meteor but that also kills his parents"). The cancer is fine, but the dementia is overkill. Then there's the kidnapping thing which like. I find it hard to believe that the killer would just let him go after not getting what they wanted. It'd make more sense for him to have escaped on his own. Or we could just get rid of that entirely. If you want to drive home the fact that he has no family, just have him end up in some shitty orphanage or something.
Which brings me to my next point. It's implied that Nagito just lived alone after his parents died. But I find it hard to believe that an elementary school-aged kid could live by himself and have full control over his own finances. It'd make more sense if he ended up in some kind of foster care (or maybe just on the streets). I also think him being an orphan who doesn't get adopted/gets bounced around between foster homes would be fitting with his perceived worthlessness and desire to be loved, perhaps even more so than him being totally isolated.
Ok I think I covered everything (as far as canon events go at least). Sorry this turned into an essay lol.
Oh hello anon! Thank you for clarifying, I was a little perplexed as to how I should’ve responded to your ask. I don’t have much to really say about the events themselves, but I’ll try to add my two cents.
I do agree that it makes it sadder how casual he talks about it, I think I was more talking in behalf of the people that didn’t rethink his words when he claimed he was lying because of how unserious it felt with the music playing behind it. It’s so normal for him to experience these things that his layer back attitude is very unnerving for the normal person, which is utterly tragic.
I do see what you mean about not need every character to have some tragic messed up backstory, especially when it has no actual impact in the story itself. It’s good to expand a character through side content, but it gets too much. I think it works in favor for the sdr2 cast considering it shows that all of them have the potential to turn to despair due to their past experiences, and how Hope’s Peak doesn’t actually care for the students themselves and their own feelings towards their talents, but canon kicks itself in the crotch by never expanding more with these backstories in the actual storyline and how dr3 was handled ughh.
When it come to Komaeda’s backstory however, I do think it works for him when it comes to the absurdist writing because his entire existence is drenched in the absurdism danganronpa is known for. It would probably hit harder if Komaeda was more realistic and I understand that, but ultimately that’s not what Komaeda is. He is purposefully hard to relate to and hard to believe, only with real effort you can find yourself in him, and he even rejects that effort itself. Komaeda cannot survive in a series that isn’t Danganronpa because he is Danganronpa, a clunky mess that somehow works in its accidental genius.
I sound absurd myself, but when it comes to Komaeda you can only rely on your own suspense of disbelief to sympathize with him. Sorry for being a bummer to your roll because your criticisms are not at all wrong, I just personally don’t find it to be a problem myself.
About the killer and orphan thing, I think I could try to give some insight on them? Here’s one thing you forgot: he’s canonically implied to be a rich kid. Even if he isn’t thrown into situations like being on the streets or the foster care system, he still had other family members to be dropped onto, his status would still give him privileges like a nanny to watch over him, etc.
The killer, while I did find strange that he decided not to kill the rich kid after all, he definitely did target him because he was from a wealthy family. So what could that mean? Well obviously we could go for the heartbreaking answer of nobody in the extended family wanted to help him because of his problematic luck or annoyance of his existence, we could go for another that none of them were alive to actually get anything out of him since it took place in middle school, and he did say that his luck took direct action against him right before he was eventually taken into Hope’s Peak academy because of his lack of family left. It depends on when during middle school this happened.
So I guess there wasn’t any real consequence to leaving this lonely wealthy child on his own since there’s nothing nobody could actually do to lead back to them or would care enough to do anything. Upsetting I know, the unfortunate irony of being thrown away like trash for Komaeda is… well anyway I think the point of this event was to drive in Komaeda’s feeling of being unwanted, even by the worst of the worst of society, at least that’s what I think of it.
The only thing I question is how Komaeda himself personally describes his good fortune after what happened to his parents. What would a kid in elementary really need immense wealth and freedom for??? I find myself perplexed by his choice of words because it implies a lot. I know we could go the route of “his parents were terrible” when it comes to the freedom part, but I think there’s a better answer to this.
This is an example of Komaeda justifying what happened to fit a narrative he’s formed because of, most likely, what society/the people around him has fed him and what he’s chosen to believe. I’ve already mentioned this before, but his mentality reflects specific societal beliefs to an exaggerated point because his life is exaggerated. Where any of these came from to make Komaeda think this: who freaking knows.
Sorry if this isn’t exactly what you were expecting, and I wish I could add more. I hope this was satisfying enough.
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star-girl69 · 1 month
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Baby don't even apologise for late responses cause regardless of when you reply to me, the response will most definitely have me in space and floating on cloud 9 for the rest of the day.
- ❤️
(Honey I miss you all the time and I think your beauty is unmatched. I call you a gorgeous goddess for a reason❤️❤️❤️)
(You're good at chemistry🤭🤭🤭dammmmmn beauty and brains??? Cause how am I supposed to not fall in love????I can't wait to read what you're writing(remember we are patient and understanding don't push yourself) You sound so hardworking 🤭)
(I LIVE FOR YOUR YAPSSSS. I NEED MOREEEEEE. Tell me about today??? (no pressure though ❤️❤️❤️))
(You're amazing❤️)
i saw i got this ask and then jumped up and down right? like as one does and then my bff said “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU” and i was like “GIRL YOU DONT WANNA KNOW” and then she grabbed by phone from me and i was like “girl you’re not gonna like it” and then she threw my phone down and started fake gagging like i toldddddd youuuuuuuu
anyways….
(honey 🤭🤭) ALL THE TIME?????? RAHHHHH i was so sad yesterday bc idk what time zone you’re in but i had to go an ENTIRE DAY without a reply and i was like having withdrawals…. not even funny
i love when you call me gorgeous goddess it makes me like not okay in the head yk? like. i think you can infer how it makes me feel…. 🤭
i’m INSANE at chemistry im taking ap chem next year in fact but i actually have a complaint
Tumblr media
THIS SHIT took me forever and then my teacher wasn’t even here today so i could have had an entire day more to do it but WHATEVER. WHATEVER ITS FINE 🙄🙄🙄 it’s not hard or anything it just takes forever and also there’s so many numbers and i SUCK at math so there’s a possibility that i messed up my calculations but IDC!!!!!!! i’m too tired to check it
because of you is turning out so bleh. i don’t like it lmao 😭😭 but i mean idk i’ll still publish probably tmrw hopefully tmrw aka tuesday
i KNOW you all are patient and understanding but i am NOT so 😭😭😭
i fear you are wrong and i am not hardworking do we not remember me talking about how i procrastinate 24/7
THANK YOU IM GIGGLING FR I CANT EVEN DESCRIBE THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL 🤭🤭🤭
today is fine so far but OH MY GOD my ap lang teacher handed us back our synthesis essays and then asked me if i could read mine outloud as what to show everyone NOT to do i was like GIRLLLL NO WAY 😭 but it’s ok i think mrs b still loves me ☹️ it was like bc my topic sentences did not align w my thesis and i was like ok i mean you’re right but wtv… i’m struggling so bad w writing rn idk what’s going on. i mean i still got an 8/10 while most people got 7 or 6 so i still ate.
also i love baby hippos
and i have sat prep class today after so that SUCKS let’s hope it’s not like last week when i had that BLINDING headache good lord. did not rival the great headache of 2022 but still
idk. anyways sorry i hope you know this makes me like AHHHHHH giggle kick my feet all the stuff i’m not good at expressing it but ☹️ you get the point hopefully…
giggling 🤭 YOURE amazing 💋💋
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ourflagmeansgayrights · 10 months
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Hey! On your poll I was going back and forth between yes and secret third thing BECAUSE I do think Izzy displays homophobia in the show. However, I interpret the incident you referred to as mostly misogyny i.e. that "real men don't show feelings." I think the derogatory words and actions towards Lucius and Stede are way more homophobic, but they're connected for sure.
I think the emphasis on boyfriend is making fun of him for being emotional that a man he loves isn't there and he wanted to remind him that (to Ed's understanding) Stede didn't care enough.
Tldr - izzy is homophobic for reasons outside of this scene, but his gorilla grip on societal standards of men bleed into his view of queer men, especially those who aren't "masc" enough for him
anon my beloved i must apologize in advance bc i had a very weird and emotionally draining day today and i am very tired right now. so i don’t know that this is going to be coherent. but also i like this ask and i want to say words about it before that poll expires tomorrow so i’m just gonna slap some shit together here and hope it makes sense
so first thing’s first, i definitely agree that izzy does homophobia all over the show. the reason i picked out this scene and that line specifically is because imo “pining for his boyfriend” literally sounds like a dumb middle school boy bullying his classmates on the playground. which is to say that it sounds like the most simple-minded homophobic taunt in the world. like i always think abt this scene in the last season of the magnus archives when the main character and his boyfriend roll up to some dumb meathead bully type who goes “who’s this, your boyfriend?” and the whole fandom was like “wow i can’t believe this guy is homophobic.” bc even if the bully is literally correct and the guy is actually his boyfriend, saying “boyfriend” in that tone is saying “boyfriend” like it’s an insult. which, clearly, is homophobic.
so yeah mocking ed for the pining bit is kinda more on the “boys don’t cry” misogyny side of things like you said, but the way izzy tilts his head and draws out the first vowel in “booooyfriend” to me reads like the single most straightforward and undeniable instance of izzy being homophobic in the entire show. bc even if (and this is a big if) izzy doesn’t actually care abt ed having a boyfriend and is just trying to goad ed into being blackbeard again bc izzy needs blackbeard to feel safe, the way izzy is choosing to go about bullying ed into being blackbeard again is through grade school level homophobic taunting.
however you are not wrong that there is also misogyny going on in that scene. and that is because these things are all so deeply intertwined it’s impossible to say where one ends and where the other begins. and this is where i don’t think i’m going to be able to maintain coherency lol but i’m gonna do my best!!!
like the thing with homophobia is that at it’s core, it’s about men not doing gender right. bc gender roles in western society are a fucking shitshow and the expectations for how men and women are supposed to behave extend into every facet of people’s lives. like we all know the basic “boys don’t cry, women are caretakers, men are tough and macho, women are soft, men are hard, etc etc” stuff. but one of the biggest areas where society has strict expectations of how men and women should behave is about sexuality.
men are expected to be attracted to women, obviously. but also men are often expected to be overtly sexual. having a high sex drive is tied to many guys’s concept of their own masculinity and their sense of personal identity. like this should feel like common knowledge right, the idea that some guys build their identity around “getting bitches” or whatever?
(the societal expectations for women and sexuality are a whole other shitshow that people have written entire essays and articles and books on, but im not gonna get into that here bc we’re talking abt ofmd, and this show is focusing on challenging society’s ideas about what it means to be a man)
the other thing with gender roles, and with male gender roles specifically. is that of the two genders that western society has expectations for, manhood is seen as superior. so when a guy is unable to perform masculinity to society’s standards, he is seen as less than a man. and what’s less than a man?
a woman.
men who fail to adhere to a certain expectation of masculinity are insulted by being likened to women. it’s why guys will literally say “don’t be such a girl about it” when another guy gets emotional about something. hell, it happens to stede in the show!! calico jack calls him “the big gal,” the british describe him as “a heavyset woman in a silk dressing gown.” stede is someone whose gender presentation does not match what is expected of him At All, from his clothes to his crying to his picking flowers to just his mannerisms and how he is. and stede has faced constant ridicule because of this.
so like. it all gets real tangled together. and a lot of the time it’s hard to say which is “more” present, homophobia or misogyny. insulting a man by calling him gay, insulting a man by comparing him to a woman, those things go hand in hand. having a gorilla grip worldview on how men “should” behave leads people to policing how men, both cishet and queer, perform gender and experience attraction.
so like, izzy’s general vibe of not caring if ed has gay sex, but absolutely caring if ed bottoms during that sex and caring if ed actually falls in love and cares about a man? that concept of masculinity, which calico jack is also shown to adhere to? homophobic. just like how his treatment of stede and lucius for being “less masculine” is homophobic.
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sewercentipede · 9 months
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Spill the deets on why you hate mac/rob so much I really want to know I'm kicking my legs in anticipation I love reading about why people hate things, genuinely. He's one of the weaker characters in iasip tbh imo.
literally every single thing he says and does irl and as mac is soooo so annoying, he’s by far the weakest actor of the cast and mac the weakest character, all of the decisions behind sunny that are objectively bad/why the show has suffered in later seasons are because of him, he’s unironically doing/becoming all the things that the show is supposed to make fun of which is alarming to me, he’s a poser hollywood sellout. i always disliked him for being the weakest actor and for mac being the lamest character but the podcast confirmed my suspicion that he as a person Fucking Sucks and that the show is good *despite* him
i totally get the desperate fail toxic masculinity of his character but it’s just not fun or interesting to watch on its own, it only works bc the rest of the gang makes it work and no other character is like that. i simply cant relate to mac girlies they are like those super obnoxious teeny bopper girls who are obsessed with yaoi manga and make tumblr posts about how soft boys’ bodies are, they project themselves onto mac but also fetishize him n wanna fuck him
if u watch him he has two facial expressions, the deer in headlights and the angry/confused furrowed eyebrows thing he does when he’s trying super hard not to break. watch any scene and you’ll start to get so annoyed by it and you’ll notice that glenn is carrying every scene they’re in together and most scenes in general and if you were to only watch rob none of the jokes would be funny cuz they rely on the gang’s reactions and he is incapable of reacting with anything but his 2 faces. this alone is enough for Rob/mac to earn my disdain
thanks for letting me rant <3 i fucking love complaining
btw i love loving too I could write essays on all the things I love about Dennis and Glenn’s acting; I still find Dennis repulsive/unattractive, I don’t wanna fuck dennis.. And I don’t care for Glenn as a person. i have no trouble separating my feelings for the character, the actor, and the person. I just happen to hate mac and robs acting and rob individually
I do wanna fuck both charlie kelly and charlie day though im only human. but again like he’s not my fav character even if he mightve been at first. after having seen every episode literally hundreds and hundreds of times, the rewatch value of this show (besides the obvious writing plots etc) rests almost entirely on glenn howerton playing dennis reynolds. when alls said and done, he’s the reason I still laugh out loud at scenes I’ve seen so many times I could recite them by heart. Mac could never. Rob literally doesn’t have the range
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yonemurishiroku · 2 years
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speaking of the hades integrated au again: the deities that live on the underworld all love nico; charon sometimes gives him rides for free, hypnos will let him nap on his coat, the furies will spar with him. i would also completely ignore rr’s treatment of the chthonic deities and just say nyx loves him very much as well. i have a bias and its nico being loved by people.
Wisp i am sooo close to print out your asks and hang it on my walls right now.
YES YES YES ABSOLUTELY OBSESSING WITH NICO AND THE CHTHONIC DEITIES ALWAYS!!!
- Omg do you know that there’s actually a Hades x PJO fic in which Alecto has a soft spot for Nico?? Like Zagreus takes Nico on a day of work and they encounter Alecto and she’s just like,,, “Nico go hide behind a pillar or something while i deal with Zagreus” akdhkwhdkahska I’M SCREAMING!!! And she actually parries the fight away from him???!!! Alecto is definitely the scary aunt.
And Meagara. I read in another fic she calls him “Young Lord”, once, and i haven’t been normal ever since. Then she’s like “You’re grounded!!” and i can already picture the three Furies help raise Nico over the years as his secondary guardians. Alecto plays the sternly reprimanding one and Meagara gives punishments (most grounding) and Tisiphone just straight up fights him or takes him around poking fun.
Btw it’s so funny to think that the Furies fight with Zagreus daily but would take it easy when it comes to Nico. “Why can’t you be cute like your little brother?” Zag doesn’t mind tho he’s just amused. Would be ten times funnier if you consider the ZagMeg ship. (I know little about this tho)
AND ALSO Alecto did in fact acts like Nico and Bianca’s guardian in the PJO series. That’s it. She treats them like her own children bc i say so.
- Charon. My man. I read somewhere he calls Nico “Your Majesty”. And my mind has been haunted ever since.
The Charon in Hades would probably growl all the while listening to Nico complaining and whining about his problems, LMAO. Nico supposes he can’t talk other than growling so it’s like a confession so there’s that.
- Yes, thank you Wisp, Hypnos would definitely let Nico nap on his coat. Oh and he would send piles of fluffy cotton pillows stocking in Nico’s huge canopy bed just because he can. And also the little kid can really use some sleep to lighten his eye bags.
I haven’t mentioned this but I do have an obsession over Nico sleeping. Like he looks so peaceful, so at peace that my heart melts. So when Zagreus storms in the room for a play day, Hypnos would hastily cover the sleep Nico’s ears before kicking Zag out.
And yes, he would fight Morpheus if it’s what needed to keep Nico’s nightmares at bay.
Hypnos criticizing Hades’ choice of bedroom furnitures for Nico aldhakhdka this just came up and now i can’t stop cackling——
- Nyx. Oh my gods my Fair Lady of the Eternal Night (no actually i just made it ip). I love her so much as a deity yet Rick did her dirty. :(
If I’m not wrong, I do recall Nyx as a mother figure in the Hades game? Pretty sure she is. She seems loving to Zagreus. So I don’t think she has any reason to dislike Nico. If PJO’s Nyx was any like Hades’, perhaps Nico wouldn’t have suffered that much in Tartarus.
Btw I have another essay post about Erebus, the personification of darkness, adoring and blessing Nico. I stand by what i said.
- And Wisp you forgot my signor Angel of Death, Thanatos. He’s totally complaining to Nico about Zagreus and his piling work. He teaches him how to shadow travel efficiently. He greets him when they meet in the palace or wherever. He calls him “little Prince” and fixes his hair.
Nico stands between Thanatos and Jason’s soul. The god looks at him, pity and sadness hidden under the coldness in his eyes, his voice is calm and gentle, like coaxing an upset child. Nico probably looks like it. “I have to finish my job, Nico.” Before Nico can even breathe out another beg slash threat, Thanatos extends a hand. “But perhaps, we can find another way with your father.”
Nico hasn’t realized he has been shaking until then. Thanatos looks sympathetic enough, and Nico suddenly remembers that the god has probably seen enough of the living clinging to their deceased loved ones. He thinks about how Thanatos might be feeling and he can’t bring himself to resent the god’s pity anymore. Instead, he feels embarrassed for lashing out at the reaper, who is only doing his assigned job and yet takes his time to be gentle with a demanding child like him.
Nico takes a quivering breath and lets go, nodding for Jason to take Thanatos’ welcome hand, as he too makes his way to the god’s side. A steady hand on his shoulder, Nico meets Thanatos’ gaze, a silent encouragement in his deep pupils and pursed lips. “You’ve got this.”
He doesn’t know if it’s true, because Thanatos is just a reaper and despite Hades’ favoritism, Nico’s just a helpless half-mortal compared to the absolute of death, but the demigod musters all his strength for a soundless thank you and hope it reaches the god as the shadows engulf them all.
And if you consider the ThanZag ship, they would have helped Nico come to better term with his own sexuality. The Cupid incident wouldn’t have happened and Nico wouldn’t have been so cruelly played with. Or it could happen all the same, and then Zagreus pries the earth open to stab Eros in the chest.
- And how can we forget the princesses!!! My fair ladies, Makaria and Melinoe. Well Melinoe probably doesn’t like Nico that much due to Persephone’s quest, but Makaria can take Nico to a relaxing afternoon in Elysium and tell him stories about the heroes. She shows him every corner of her paradise. She cups his face and hugs him close, a hand draws circles on his back when he’s shaking like a leaf, his voice shatters when he asks her, “If they have done so much to be seen as heroes, shouldn’t they be allowed to live longer to get their own happiness?”
Is this all? I don’t know. My mind is still laying ideas like eggs and this ask isn’t helping at all.
BUT AGAIN THANK YOU FOR THE ASK I NEEDED IT TO KEEP LIVING
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menalez · 8 months
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https://www.tumblr.com/menalez/723707154787352576/naur-have-you-seen-coloredcanvass-essay-reblog-to
^ it gets even worse lmfao cuz she wrote her own essay reply to her (i think 6b4t blocked her cuz i can’t see it in the notes) and it’s even longer and more deranged.. the essay wars kek
yeah uh i saw it and there’s literally so many issues i have w so many parts of that response that idek where to even begin. she’s straight up talking over an eastern lesbian of colour repeatedly, minimises homophobia from OSA women, argues OSA women don’t have the power to perpetuate homophobia, compared op to incels, and more… she even argued that straight women are put in conversion therapy by their husbands??? it was really weird.
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saying a lesbian of colour “sounds like an incel” for saying that radfems should be separatists (???????)
argues that libfems calling for a sex strike when roe v wade was overturned is somehow a bad thing, bc apparently encouraging women to sleep with men (who are unlikely to even sexually satisfy women to begin with) & risking getting pregnant from it when they can be literally prosecuted for getting an abortion makes sense..? like at least the libfems were trying to make a statement about how if women have no rights then women aren’t gonna waste their time sexually pleasing men!
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this was just bizarre. i could also compare russia to taiwan to argue that asia has the best gay rights and europe has the worst but at the end of the day we know that the west is ahead in terms of human rights (women’s rights, gay rights, individual rights, etc). no, not all of the east has it bad & not all of the west has it good. op never even argued otherwise! she said that western women overall have more privileges than eastern women, western gay ppl overall have more privileged than eastern gay people, and so they can afford to be less extreme in their fight against discrimination & oppression in a way that the rest of us cannot. she did not say that every western woman is super privileged and lazy or something.
also i love the assumption that tokyo is like, a good example of a place where homosexuality is accepted.
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we were talking about lesbians specifically and if the fact that women have no agency in a huge portion of the world and are often forced into marriages and there’s phenomena of lesbians taking vows of chastity JUST so they don’t have to be with men doesn’t clue u in on how many lesbians have resigned to the fact that they can never actually be with women, then idk how to help.
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my god. do we really need to explain how there’s significantly more & better representation of female heterosexuality than there is of female same sex attraction then?
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conversion therapy? for being attracted to men? are u being serious right now… the rest is true and idk how this is supposed to support the idea that women should keep on marrying men. but women are not sent to conversion therapy for being married to men.. thats not a thing
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minimising homophobia from women as if lesbians haven’t been abused, disowned, sent to conversion therapy, forced into het marriages, duped into situations with men, etc etc with the help of OSA women..
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not all men
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saying things are far less common in the west & women generally have it better in the west is different from saying they don't exist in the west. yes, all of those horrible things exist in the west. no, overall, misogyny in the west is not as blatant and overt and accepted and indeed western women have a privilege over eastern women in that sense. women where im from literally cannot even go to police for being raped bc that often means losing everything. shi'a women where im from cannot initiate divorce even when theyre being abused. marital rape is legal where im from. these are just a few examples of things we experience and its not wrong to say that.
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calling an eastern woc a “racist, classist piece of shit” for saying western women tend to face less extreme misogyny than us sure is something.
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if every woman was fully aware of her oppression and combatting misogyny then things would be very different today. even women in the middle east will argue they don’t have it bad. my own mother argued she never faced misogyny in the workplace while also saying she quit work because they kept sexualising her and telling her she’s too “alluring” as she’s the only non-hijabi in her workplace. people face oppression, it doesn’t mean they are aware of it or accept the nature of it as oppression.
there’s a couple more things she said that i take issues with but there’s a limit to how many screenshots i can share so let me summarise the remaining stuff:
1. thecoloredcanvas offended on behalf of eastern women and putting “eastern” in quotations, but not doing the same for western women. odd behaviour because i’ve never come across an eastern woman who even takes issue with the term.
2. saying “no radfem is seriously claiming that they can’t live or function without sex” immediately followed up with “sex absolutely is a need”…
3. saying woc & lesbians aren’t being “chased out of” radical feminist spaces. she even argues that if we leave radblr, it’s on us as if this space isn’t hostile to us and protective of racist & homophobic women. she ignores the entire history of “the lavender menace” & political lesbianism & racism & lesbophobia within radical feminism.
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apompkwrites · 1 year
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I wanted to continue off of my Mei!Al-Asim idea with appearances, but anon asks dont allow images… *disintegrates*
So instead I’ll go over how their power works, since TWST and Honkai are VASTLY different in terms of how magic works. I’ll just go over how they got them, rather than how they use it and how powerful it is- so this’ll be in parts bc i don’t want to write an essays worth of words today.
I’ll try to go without spoilers since you said before you hadn’t played honkai before, and I wouldn’t want to spoil it in case you ever wanted to try it out. Btw, I had Mei!Al-Asim being the oldest in mind while writing, since I feel it works better.
———————
When people conceptualise Yuu overblots, I’ve seen people say things like “Yuu absorbed some of the blot from the characters who have previously overblotted”. Kalim’s family is very rich and well off, and to my knowledge has to have safety measures to prevent kidnappings and assassination attempts. Mei!Al-Asim was kidnapped when they were either a child or very young teen. They were taken to an abandoned research facility and were to be used as a hostage to exploit as much money as possible from the Asims. The building wasn’t in the best shape and was the base for many unethical experiments. Mei!Al-Asim, being in close proximity to the toxins absorbed it. The experiments were likely trying to introduce foreign chemicals into the body to make it compatible with a serum that was supposed to enhance and bestow new powers to the subject. Mei!Al-Asim coincidentally was compatible with one and was able to take it in with no major side effects, but being a new compound(?) in the body, it had to be housed in a new part, which manifested itself as a stigmata (it’s what it was originally called in Honkai. I just have no idea what to rename it to). It on their back but is not visible unless its power is being used.
Mei!Al-Asim was deemed ‘unfit to be the heir’ of the Asims by their parents. They were shunned by their parents and the servants, who thought “If the Asims do it, who cares if I do it too”. This led to Mei!Al-Asim having to learn basic skills like cleaning on their own since no one would do it for them anymore. Even so, they developed a hobby for cooking, and enjoyed doing it.
———————
And I will end it there, since I will have to introduce a Kiana into the idea (Kiana is Meis best friend. They go way back). This was just me taking Mei’s original story and trying to fit it into the twst world, so it’s subject to change. A quick question: do you mind me making an OC to fit the role of Kiana? I just don’t know who I’d use to fit the role. I’m open to suggestions. Also I’d definitely recommend playing Honkai. The characters and story are amazing and it’s rlly fun too. It can be confusing at first and the lore is a bit tough to understand, but I’m happy to explain things (im Lvl 75 i the game). If not, thats fine!
Anyways, I’ve talked long enough. I’m gonna end it here. Take care!
-🦋 anon
interesting :OO
im probably gonna try out honkai impact soon :DD but i really like this idea! love the overarching theme in black sheep of really unprofessional servants being mean to them </33
i dont have much input in terms of who could take up kiana? so i'll leave that up to you guys who have more experience in honkai :))
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sandovers · 1 year
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redacted the username here bc i am very much not posting this to be mean or judgemental or anything like that—it’s just that this just came up on my dash and it occurred to me that i could offer some advice, particularly now that i am on the “elder” side of both tumblr and grad school (as measured by this app, i mean. i’m hardly a tenured professor, but i do have five years of grad school experience; five years experience of teaching (particularly writing requirement) undergrad courses; and seven years experience of university writing centre/other tutoring/mentoring under my belt).
my advice is: don’t do this. for several reasons! enthusiasm like this is so rare and so so so wonderful for instructors to see, but there are better ways to channel it for both you AND them. for one thing, imagine you’re an already underpaid & overworked TA who has to mark 50 3-page papers in 1-2 weeks, and suddenly people are turning in EIGHT-page or longer papers instead. yeah! i might cry too!
more importantly for YOU, though, as a student who is meant to be learning from this class: that’s a wholly different assignment that you’ve turned in. a paper that much longer (or shorter!) than what was assigned is an entirely different beast, generically speaking, to what you were supposed to do. which means you haven’t actually done or learned what you were meant to from this assignment.
what was it you were meant to learn? writing skills more than the topic itself, almost certainly: how to condense and present information, how to organize an argument, how to construct an academic paper, how to collate research and then reiterate it in your own words. concision, which is an important skill. and i can tell without even reading the paper that these skills haven’t been applied properly here. not just because the papers are so long, either—unless you’re james joyce, or someone else who is utterly in control of the stylistic choices of their writing and is making them with purpose and intention, a seven-page paragraph is bad writing. i’m sorry, like i said at the beginning, i’m not trying to judge this specific person or be mean about enthusiasm in general—it’s a really good thing! one of my favourite things, in fact! but imagine trying to read a seven-page paragraph and keep it all straight in your head. exhausting, right? paragraphs exist to organize prose into coherent ideas and sections, and to make reading easier. just like writing a paper more than twice as long as the assignment guidelines shows that you don’t understand that you’ve vastly changed the genre of essay that you’re working in, a paragraph that long signals to your marker that you don’t understand yet how to organize your ideas. because, again without even reading said paragraph, i can tell you right now that it is 100% possible to either break it up or edit it down—likely both!
tl;dr restrictions in length etc on written assignments exist for a reason, and it’s not just because your prof doesn’t want to read all of your thoughts. they’re to teach you writing, argumentative, and critical thinking skills that you can then take forward and apply to much longer papers—making those papers much better than they would be without that baseline.
and like i said, this level of enthusiasm is a joyous thing! so what can you do with it? well, i don’t know a single person who leads classes who isn’t overwhelmed with joy when they have students who actually want to contribute to classroom discussion. office hours are also a great way to talk through your passion and ideas with your instructor to get to the kernel of what the paper itself will be about—and again, they are likely to be so happy to get to have that kind of discussion during them. you could also approach your instructor and tell them about how over the word count you’re going. you never know! if the instructor thinks you’re already a strong enough writer to handle it, they may encourage you to keep with the longer paper—whereas, depending on your marker and their policies, handing one in without any forewarning may result in… well, in a lower grade you were expecting, even for a paper you’re proud of, because technically speaking you didn’t actually do what was assigned. or if they want you to follow the bounds of the assignment, they might have another way for you to channel that passion! maybe they’ll help you turn it into an article for an undergraduate journal. maybe they’ll recommend some other project you can do with it. maybe they won’t be any help at all, because some instructors really do suck, unfortunately. but most of them want you to succeed, especially if you’re actually trying. so instead of ignoring your assignment guidelines, because that will eventually come back to bite you, even if it doesn’t in these instances, give them the chance to help you explore your options, and yourself the chance to learn and develop your skills
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dynamicspacebud · 1 year
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was just doing my moms dishes bc i felt bad for her when i just really started to dwell on how she is as a mother like WOW is she a SHIT mom and i mean that like my god she is awful. I don’t like to remember stuff like this or hold it in my head like how i really have to dig deep to re-remember all the ways my father is horrible but right now with her i don’t know i want to write down what i was thinking about. How less than a year earlier we had to change the locks on the door because he threatened to come even though she said no and i got really scared and started having terrible nightmares about him coming in and killing us and then she just surprise told me he is was coming over one day and completely disregarded my concerns and feelings about how i told her i felt uncomfortable and unsafe with him around she just did not care and was so selfish even though this was supposed to be my home too. Or how that night she was like I’m an adult i can have casual sex when i simply asked if he was staying the night and she was like i’m just being honest when i went wtf as though a year prior she didn’t blame me for him financially/ sexually abusing her for getting money for sex and she blamed me because i was using her credit card and not paying bills as though i wasn’t a teenager who didn’t even know any of this was happening i just got blamed. How could she even put that on me i knew then and now it wasn’t and had never been my fault but that’s such a sick thing to say honestly it makes my stomach curl. Her asking how and why my relationship with my father has to reflect and effect my relationship with her as though i didn’t write a whole fucking peer reviewed essay about how it does like how is she so fucking awful as a mother like i’m very glad i was born but god she should have never been someone to take care of someone else or anything else like how she also abandoned her cat when her boyfriend wanted her too. It’s so sick i don’t and never did deserve the terrible parents i have. I don’t want them. I cant wait to get to a place when i can genuinely never have contact with them again. Seeing and being reminded of it all holds me back i know that. I don’t want that. I cant have that. And every year in close and closer to breaking away. I’ll get there i know i will and i’ll never have parents i’ll only have s** and a***** but i’ll still watch bluey and cry cry cry because someone has those parents and that makes my heart warm enough. And maybe i’ll even be that parent one day. Mine are so beyond awful i will and can never be them it’s not even possible. I’m very lucky i got out i mean look at my shit brother that hateful bigot. Good for him tho he barley talks to them i wish i were him in only that way. They hurt him more than me and because he’s cishet and grew up in a rich highschool i think that’s why he turned out that way. I don’t know i want to say maybe he has changed but as a cop i know it’s impossible he has. I won’t have any contact to my immediate bio family. My uncle today asking me how long it’s been since i talked to my brother and me saying years. I mean often i genuinely forget i have a brother which is funny in a way because we lived together until i was like 19 it’s not even like we didn’t grow up together or he left when i was young. My mind just has such a strong way of blocking everything out. It’s for my own protection but i don’t know how good that is honestly. Like with hannah it did the same thing. Nes being like I REMEMBER how do you not ??? you were so close and i have to really think about it or see pictures or texts to remember and when i do it’s strong and im sad. I guess my mind doesn’t want me to be sad. But i don’t know i don’t think that’s a good thing. Not entirely. Ok funny enough im rewatching the 100 and they have kind of touched on this subject with raven not remembering finn and jaha not remembering his son but them being “happy” because they can’t feel the pain of losing them even though they don’t remember the happy and good stuff either. I think that’s kind of what my mind is
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wander-wren · 1 year
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one thing i’m really excited for in Three of Swords (po3 rewrite) is figuring out how to balance fanon and canon interpretations of characters. especially since i have to choose which fanon interpretations to use!
i got into warriors around what i’m unofficially dubbing the middle age, bc i like naming things, it’s fun. this coming after the golden age of the fandom, yknow, firestar doesnt like waffles and sss warrior cats and emo scourge and cringe ocs. to my eyes, the fandom culture after that was focused on improving art (better animation and art and fanfic overall, i remember a ton of guides on how to avoid common fanfic mistakes) but still had a lot of the same trappings of early fandom. especially in the opinions about characters—remember everyone hating dovewing and loving ivypool?
then in the past few years its like things have shifted. the demographic as a whole feels older now, but maybe that’s just me—i don’t know how popular wc is with the current eleven year olds. but i’ve seen a lot of “x character deserved better” and “i was wrong about y character” type sentiments (i was one of them! sorry, dovewing). some of the same topics keep being retread, but the consensus on them has changed. there’s probably an essay in there somewhere.
but back to Three of Swords. i haven’t actually reread po3 in a while (it’s on my list, lol), so all my own thoughts are also colored by nostalgia and years of fanon. i have a lot of space here to explore breezepelt, since the story will be windclan-centric, and i have to decide what to keep from canon and from fanon, as well as deciding what role i want him to play. i want to make the Three a little scarier, more powerful and more mystical, really set apart from their clanmates, but i don’t want to lose too much of their canon personalities.
even starclan could go several ways. are they malevolent, benevolent? powerful or incompetent? with crowfeather now being the three’s mother and nightcloud being present but not directly a parent, how does that change their characters? i still think crowfeather was absolutely unprepared to be a parent to breezepelt, but the circumstances are wildly different now.
and what about onestar and firestar? with the three in windclan and firestar still receiving the kin of kin prophecy, how long will it take to put together, and what does that do to clan relations? what version of onestar do i even want to write, with how inconsistent he is?
and i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: what the hell am i supposed to do with sol? i definitely want him to play a bigger role, but i’m still throwing around ideas as to how to do that and how he ties into the larger dark forest plot.
the final thing i’m really adamant about is portraying these cats as, well, young. nightcloud, crowfeather, leafpool, and squirrelflight all started the new prophecy as apprentices. in my rewrite, by the time the Three are born they’ve only been warriors (or medicine cats) for 4-5 moons. that makes them adults for a little less than a year by the time the Three are apprenticed, which is when i’m thinking of starting Three of Swords unless i can think of something interesting to do in their kithood.
they’re very young and have had really tumultuous apprenticeships/early adulthoods, and that’s not stopping anytime soon. the Three are incredibly young, and every individual thing they deal with would be a lot, but all of it? i know the fandom view on hollyleaf specifically has been shifting from this sort of badass murder queen to the scared, confused kid making bad choices she was, and i want to write about that. and give lionblaze a character beyond “fighty man goes dark side.” and give jayfeather a character other than “grumpy snark. also is blind.”
annnnd this got away from me oops. happy anniversary. i have a love-hate relationship with po3 because it’s got SO MUCH happening but also NOTHING happening.
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rollercoasterwords · 2 years
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i agree with what you said about dumbledore. people make him out to be the villain and keep forgetting who the real villain is. like dumbledore is far from perfect but theres only so much one person can do right? like its a war people will die, not much one can do about that (this sentence is giving vanessa hudgens omg)
also, do you genuinely think he knew sirius was innocent? bc as far as he knew sirius was the secret keeper right?
ok i’m not sure i communicated what i was trying to say abt dumbledore super clearly if that was the takeaway haha let me clarify really quick (i say as i prepare to write another essay)
so like. i think one thing that i sort of want to challenge when it comes to war stories is the whole “good-versus-evil” dichotomy and the idea of “the one true villain” -- like a lot of times in the fantasy genre especially moral lines are very clearly drawn and we’re basically spoonfed that there’s this one Big Bad Guy who is ultimately responsible for everything bad that happens.
i’m not a huge fan of this because i think what it ends up doing is basically creating a fall guy for all the other characters, so that the reader doesn’t have to critically examine their actions and can rest easy knowing that all the bad shit happening can be blamed on this one Really Evil Guy who’s just sucked everyone else into his Evil Schemes. and i don’t really think that’s interesting or productive; war is a situation in which many good people do evil things, and i think we should be grappling with that and asking tough questions, like -- can you be a good person if you participate in violent conflict? is there such a thing as a noble fight? how much responsibility does an individual hold for their choices and actions in wartime? what can we forgive? what can we not?
obviously, the source material for harry potter is very simplistic when it comes to morals, and Voldemort is supposed to be the Big Bad Guy who is unequivocally morally in the wrong, and responsible for All Bad Things. and i agree, Voldemort is evil, the death eaters are awful, what they’re doing is wrong -- i am in no way a death eater apologist, trust me. BUT i don’t think it’s as simple as saying that Voldemort is the “real villain” -- he’s a villain, and so are his death eaters, and so are the Aurors and Ministry officials who threw people into a prison where they were all tortured into insantiy or death. So are the Order of the Phoenix members who killed and maimed those they were fighting against. everyone who has participated in violent conflict is a villain to someone--because who the villain is depends on which side of the battle lines you’re standing on.
SO, in terms of dumbledore--do i think of him as a villain? no, not exactly. in writing this story, though, what you have to understand is that i’m not exactly thinking of voldemort as a villain either. i’m thinking of him as a politician. i’m thinking that all the things that voldemort and his death eaters do aren’t the product of some big dark Evil -- they are very human actions, committed for the most part by people who genuinely believe in what they are doing, who think that they are working towards a noble and worthy goal. that, to me, is the scary part about war. 
i’m sure that people could debate all day about who’s the “real villain” in harry potter and whether dumbledore is just as (or even more) evil as voldemort, i’m just...not really interested in that debate. i don’t think dumbledore was a good guy. in fact, i think he was a pretty horrible person, and extremely manipulative. i think he believed in his cause, and i think that his vision for the wizarding world was a better one than voldemort’s. i think he did horrible things to try and make that vision a reality. i think he used people as a means to an end, and just because that end might have been good doesn’t necessarily make that okay. i think you’re right, there’s only so much one person can do. i think dumbledore could have done more. i think people still would have died, even if he did more. i think all of these statements can be true at once, because war is many things, but it’s never simple. 
anyway...to answer ur question about whether dumbledore actually knew sirius was innocent: i honestly don’t know! i go back and forth on this. right now, i think...he probably wasn’t certain about whether sirius was actually the spy or not. i also think he probably could have figured it out for sure, if he wanted to. but i think he didn’t want to, and having sirius out of the way in prison was convenient for him because it gave him unimpeded access to shape his chosen one’s life in the way that best served his own goals.
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hard-candy-writing · 1 year
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Babe you got us ALL in love with drummer boy 🥰 honestly sounds like my dream guy haha and I am the same with the age thing like my celebrity crushes tend to be WAY older, some older than my parents even 🫣 dunno what happened with Joe that one was a fluke haha and til season 4 my ST obsession character was Hopper lol like… oooooo maybe I’ll write some Hopper stuff eventually… I’m just going off on tangents everywhere here haha. Younger and smaller guys can definitely still be dominant though, it’s all like an energy thing, he could definitely surprise you.
I have wanted to play D&D for so long, even bought another tabletop game from warhammer, bought dice sets but ugh I don’t really have anyone to play with and the thought of playing with a group of random people or trying to break into an established group scares the shit outta me. I’d love to meet a guy through gaming like that it sounds so fun 😆 …and like where is this store I gotta go haha honestly though I’d also be a nervous bumbling mess and wouldn’t talk to anyone first 🥺
And another thing haha this is getting a bit long but whatever, I just love to listen to guys going on and on about stuff they love, like genuine interests that bring them joy… just watch their whole face light up honestly it’s enough to make someone 10 times fucking hotter I swear like yeeeeesss tell me about your dice baby, tell me about your legos, tell me about that super rare/card that’s extra special to you tell me everything 😍 haha talk nerdy to me 🫠
Right I’ll end this ramble now 🫣
honestlyyyyyy i'd be so down for hopper stuff omg. i saw this shirt that said "i <3 dilfs" and in the heart was hopper's face and god i wanted it so bad!! so whenever i have a crush around my age (like joe or even freddy carter) i kind of lose it a little?? like wtf this isn't what i'm supposed to be doing lol
omg i felt the same way!! luckily my bestie invited me to a group bc he knew i was interested, turns out a couple of the people in the group were new as well, and we've been going for like... five or six years? and every person who enters the group becomes a friend, there's like zero awkwardness, we just all wanna play. so it's totally possible to find a group that will welcome you! yeah it may feel weird at first but once you get into it you'll thank yourself later i promise!!
and ugh yes. passion. like... fuck. all three of my exes had zero passion. idk like... no hobbies outside of gaming, and even then they were like, "oh i don't love games i just like em." and so i just sit there like...
(i'm dating myself here) you know that one episode of the simpsons where lisa writes an amazing essay and they're sure that her parents helped her, so one of the judges "interrogates" homer and she's like, "are you interested in politics?" and he goes *shrug and i dunno sound* "are you interested in anything?" *shrug and i dunno sound*
that is me talking to men. this is why enjolras attracts me so much bc like... fuck. YELL ABOUT SOMETHING. BE EXCITED ABOUT SOMETHING. BE PASSIONATE ABOUT SOMETHING. FUCKING CRY IN FRONT OF ME OVER SOMETHING THAT MATTERS TO YOU. fuck ENOUGH with this macho, unfeeling, too-cool-for-it bullshit. go on a fucking rant about something that makes you mad, that has deep lore, that doesn't matter to anyone else but it matters to you. i go on so many gd rants about history and fiction and mythology all the time, i want someone to match that energy and at this point idc what subject it is!!
stop with the apathy. get excited about something. it's all you fucking have.
anyway now my response is getting too long haha <3
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