#alyssa draws things

[littydoodlez]

Obligatory yearly Tumblr post just so y’all know I’m still alive :D

These are all OC except the last one is something I sketched for Reigen’s birthday a whole back :P

#alyssa draws things #artists on tumblr #my art #art #alyssa draws stuff #ocs #reigen arataka #mp100 reigen #littydoodlez

[tomaturtles]

I rotated Sparky really hard in my mind in a desperate attempt to free him from the oc freezer. anyway he’s Lilly’s Just Some Guy neighbor

#sparky the cat #lilly watts #yarrow watts #melon blake #toma ocs #toma draws #[pours milk on him and slams him against the wall] #my little guy my kitty cat i missed him #i was having a hard time figuring out how to introduce him... i wanted him to be kinda around since the beginning but #also didn't want him as part of the main group just yet bc i want the first arc to focus on the main 4 #so this works for me for now bc it leaves him sorta connected to them by being lillys neighbor friend but without being part of it yet #(he sees yarrow as lillys scary cousin and snap and melon as her dangerous friends who keep getting into Shenanigans) #i forget what his last bio says but uumm. hes kinda nervous and a scaredy cat and a stickler for following rules. #hes also sweet and tech savvy and likes to be helpful. and also a nerd. also he has no powers #things are prone to changing but im just happy to have a starting point w him again and getting to draw him :) i missed him #alyssa is next...... as soon as i figure something out

[nordiccowboy]

i got that margot robbie brainrot so i rewatched birds of prey and it made me think that alyssa sutherland would make a great poison ivy to margots harley quinn

#the height differences too 😩😩😩 #*adds to list of things to draw #margot robbie #alyssa sutherland #harley quinn #poison ivy

[marciabrady]

Hi Marcia! I read your meta about Snow and Aurora's ages and it was very well thought! I wanted to ask you about how do you view the issue of Ariel's age? Unlike Aurora and Snow who are timeless or 16 in a fantasy world where it was the age of majority for young women, Ariel was written much like a very modern teenage girl. I remember that in the DVD commentary both Mark Henn and John Musker stated that they wanted Ariel to feel more like a real teenage girl in aspects like wanting to grow up but still being innocent or even in details like her fawning over Eric's statue, which Musker made the comparison of a teenage girl fawning over her favorite rock star poster in her room. She was also partly inspired in Alyssa Milano who was 16 at the time to model her physical appearance (alongside Glen Keane's wife and Sherri Stoner who were both adult women). Because of that, many people have issue that she married at age 16, because many feel as if an actual high schooler got married. I still don't buy it, because I remember in a magazine that Ron Clements said that through the movie Ariel grows from a teenage girl to a young woman and Glen Keane stated that her story is that about a teenage girl becoming an adult, in other words, her story is one of coming of age, but what do you think about it?

Thank you so much for letting me know how you experienced my thoughts! The Ariel topic is a very divisive one but, as always, I have an opinion about it lol

So, I can definitely tell you've done a ton of research from all the references you listed! I totally agree that there's an argument to be made about The Little Mermaid, in some ways, being a coming of age story for a young girl but I always felt it was more of an allegory for the gay experience and found the former take just substitutes as the straight, sanitized version of this. With the original author being LGBT and Howard Ashman adapting it, there's so many gay allusions and parallels that go over so many people's head, and it's so much more than just a straight woman who doesn't fit into her society. The inclusion of Ariel being sixteen, like in Aurora's case, was a nod to the original fairytale (though in most versions I'm almost certain that the mermaid is fifteen), and the film admittedly suffers from slight tonal issues because it's caught between being a fairytale and the newer shift to intentionally making stories more modern (despite the fact that the previous films all had timeless storytelling, I think every generation just thinks they're reinventing the wheel; I remember reading interviews Lesley Ann Warren did when the '65 Cinderella came out and she was claiming it was a much more realistic and modern take on Julie Andrews's Cinderella and, in retrospect, Julie's seems to emerge as the more realistic and modern one).

I think saying Ariel is sixteen does give the audience insight, as I mentioned in a previous ask with Snow White, of how much less...cynical she is about the world around her. She isn't blind to the horrors that humanity is capable of committing, but she has such an untainted view of life, especially in comparison with Triton, and she's his direct foil when it comes to the storyline of the film. I, personally, still take this with a grain of salt though because it's undoubtedly a fantasy film and the reason that we're clutching so tight is because 18 is the legal age of consent in our modern times, in America, but even if this was a super literal take...16 would've been the age Ariel would've gotten married anyway in the time she comes from? That's not even counting what the age of consent would've been in Atlantica or in Triton's kingdom, and those rules are probably different than ours. Besides, we don't know how much time passes between Triton turning Ariel into a human and the wedding happening. Also, nothing is sketchy about her and Eric's relationship because it's impossible that he's more than two years older than her, which still places their relationship in a healthy dynamic in terms of consent.

I think Mark and Glen and the directors, and even Jodi's, take on Ariel is valid but I think the most important, when examining artistic intent is Howard Ashman's, as he and Hans Christian Andersen, are the creators of Ariel. Jodi even says that she mimicked Howard's reading of the lines and, if anyone ever loves Ariel, it's because of Howard Ashman's take and how he coached her. Everything about Ariel comes from Howard, and I think the reason we never see Ariel in the sequels the way she is in the original film is because of the loss of that fundamental gay perspective. So, yes, technically Ariel could just be seen as a realistic teenager who's coming into her own but I personally see her as someone who's learning to live life in a society that oppresses her, against all odds, and in the face of a family that doesn't understand or accept her. It's about Ariel discovering herself and finding her place in the world and I think it's safe to say these things could be true about any teenage girl, and I think it's a great diversion for directors who want to make a film marketable to middle America and generally present it as more acceptable, but those things are so much more true to the gay experience and community. How do you live in a world where you constantly have to hide yourself, change who you are, lie to your family for your own safety, feel like an outsider? Where the life you want is seemingly accessible, but also out of reach? How that move, which will in so many ways be validating and help you feel like a participant in life as opposed to a prisoner, will at the same time give you a new life and love and family, while completely alienating you from everything you've ever known and is dangerous and can cause you to lose everything- even your own life? Does having a voice matter that much if you're stifling yourself and who you are on a daily basis? Or is the voice of authentic self-expression more important? I swear, I could talk about this forever, but to answer your question, I think the teenager coming into her own take is fine (and Ariel being sixteen...again, she came from a different time when people got married much younger, Eric wasn't that far apart from her in age, and we don't know how much time passed between her becoming a human and the wedding), but I ultimately think it's the story of a gay person finding their place in the world and having to navigate through life alone and risking everything to be able to live authentically. There's a reason the Disney studios credit Howard with "giving a mermaid her voice."

#ask #anonymous #it's so cute that you all call me marcia lol #also the alyssa thing is definitely credited and publicized a lot but alyssa didn't really make it to ariel's final design #disney often does things like that to draw more mainstream buzz for a character #like audrey hepburn was the inspiration for some concept art but she ultimately wasn't the physical source of aurora's look and nothing #of her made in the final form of what we see in sleeping beauty #so that's kinda another instance

[writtenbymisunderstoodnerds]

Are you sure they like each other? (Alyssa Naeher x Reader)

Barely edited and I don't know if I happy with this, but I wanted to put something out. I hope you enjoy :)

Summary: Alyssa and reader are together, but very stoic and not affectionate in public. Think the team know they're together, apparently not. Start to question if they even like each other. Alyssa and reader turn into soft, love sick people when alone.

Warnings: Tiny bit suggestive, some swearing

Words: 3.3K

Alyssa had slipped out, taking our bags up to the room while I was surrounded by some of the team. I had offered to help, but she had insisted I stay to catch up, leaving before I could protest. Neither of us would be considered extroverts, though I was the one who liked to talk a bit more. Kristie pulled me into a tight hug before a few of the girls following suit, "How was your break Y/n?"

"It was pretty good. Alyssa and I just took it easy. Spent some time fixing up some of the stuff around the house I haven't had the time to do. Visited family, that sort of thing."

Confusion covered their faces, Kelley being the first one to speak up, "Wait. You spent the break with Alyssa?"

Now it was my turn to be confused. Alyssa and I had been together for almost 5 years, living together for 3. It wasn't something that had been hidden. Our relationship wasn't public knowledge, but friends and family knew we were together, or so I thought anyway. We weren't an affectionate couple in public or even with our friends, barely ever touching past an occasional hand on the back, a short hug after a game or if we were going to be apart. Occasionally, we would hold hands at home with family or I would lay with my head in her lap during movie night. I loved Alyssa more than words would describe, there was no doubt in my mind she felt the same. Public affection just made us both very uncomfortable.  

"Why wouldn't I? We live together."

"Wait what? You and Alyssa live together?"

"You didn't know? We weren't hiding it. You know we're together right?"

Kelley looked as if I had grown a second head, "You and Alyssa are dating? No we didn't know that! What the hell Y/n?"

Alyssa's hand touched my lower back, letting me know she was there before dropping back to her side. "What's happening here? Why is there yelling?"

"Apparently they're just finding out we live together and have been together for the last almost 5 years."

"5 years?!? And you didn't tell us?"

Even Alyssa looked confused at this point, "What do you mean didn't tell you? It was never hidden. We assumed you knew."

Accusatory glares were sent our way while Alyssa and I just stood there confused. This was not how I expected my morning to go. "You've never kissed, held hands, cuddled or done anything remotely couple like. How were we supposed to know?"

"We've held hands a few times and I sleep against her on the bus sometimes. I get her coffee and breakfast every morning, Alyssa gets me flowers every week even at camp. Pretty sure we've mentioned our anniversary before. We say 'I love you' to each other all the time. Did none of you find that weird?"

"You're always sitting next to each other on the bus so no and we just figured you were close friends or something. I think there's been one time that you've gotten flowers from her in front of us."

"I've seen that a few times actually, but its always when she seems to have a bad day," Tierna spoke up. 

Alyssa shrugged, "Well yeah, I get them every week, but if she's having a bad day then I'll get them on that day to cheer her up. Look, we just don't like PDA, we weren't hiding anything from you. We really thought you knew about us. And before you even ask, no we're not going to prove it. Now we're going to our room."

As soon as we entered our room, I flopped down on the bed, scooting over slightly when Alyssa lay down next to me. I pushed myself into her arms, leaving kisses on her jaw, her hand slipping under my shirt to draw random patterns. "You unpacked my stuff."

Alyssa held me closer, kissing my forehead. People held the impression that Alyssa disliked physical touch, which she did with most people. In reality, Alyssa loved cuddling with me, she loved holding my hand and kissing me. Just touching in general actually. When we first started dating, it was a welcome surprise. I expected some affection, but not as much as I received. There was definitely no complaints from me, I loved cuddling with my partners. "I always do, don't I?"

"You do and I appreciate it, but you don-"

She cut me off with a quick peck before speaking up not giving me the chance, "My love, how many times have you said I don't have to, yet I do it anyway?"

"Pretty much every camp," I mumbled against her neck, knowing what her response was going to be. It was always the same.

"Exactly. I do it because I love you and I want to make your day a little bit easier so how about you just accept it and let me do it."

It wasn't that I didn't like it, in fact I loved that she did it. I just always felt slightly bad when people did things for me. "Fine. I still can't believe they didn't know about us. I really thought they did."

"So did I. Maybe they just don't listen to us at all. It was all kind of entertaining though."

"It was, I can't believe they were so clueless. I have a feeling Emily is going to be annoying though. She had her mischief face on."

Alyssa's hand traveled further up my side as she rolled on top of me, "Unfortunately, I think you're right, but right now there are other things I would rather do than talk about Emily."

---

Just as I sat down for breakfast, Emily and Kelley slid onto the chairs in front of me. They just stared at me until I snapped, asking what they wanted. This was not what I needed early in the morning especially when I had only been awake for like half an hour. Alyssa was always down for breakfast after me, preferring to take her time to get ready and do her puzzles, while I just wanted coffee. 

"So you and Alyssa are together right?"

"Uh yeah, why?"

"Just checking. How long have you been together?"

"Almost 5 years."

"How did you meet?"

I looked at between Emily and Kelley, trying to figure out why I was being interrogated once again, about my relationship. At this point, I was pretty sure the team believed we were lying or something. "You know this already."

"We forgot."

Alyssa approached, giving me a quick smile which I returned, "Perfect timing. I'm being interrogated about our relationship again."

"Why?"

I shrugged, pushing Alyssa's breakfast in front of her receiving a quite thank you. I didn't answer Kelley's question, instead deciding to eat breakfast before it got cold. "Are you two being forced to be together?"

Both of our heads shot up at that. It was such a ridiculous question. There would be no logical reason for us to be pretending to be together especially considering we weren't public knowledge. I bit back my laugh before answering, "What? What makes you think that? Why would that be a thing?"

Emily shrugged, "You just don't seem to like each other like that."

"Go away Kelley," Alyssa mumbled before going back to her breakfast. I ignored her again, getting up for Alyssa's coffee instead. When I returned, Kelley and Emily were still there, giving Alyssa a suspicious look. I handed Alyssa the cup before sitting down again.

"Thank you love."

Emily narrowed her eyes at us, "Suspicious."

Alyssa rolled her eyes while I flipped Emily off. This whole thing was starting to get old. "Go eat your breakfast."

Later that day, we were back in our room, enjoying the time we had before practice. Alyssa was reading, while I lay in the sun on the balcony. I started to want cuddles. I wouldn't say I was clingy because it was true. We could spend hours doing completely different things. Sometimes though, I just craved touching or being held by her. I gave her a few minutes before calling out to her, knowing she would come to me without hesitation.

Alyssa groaned, but got up, slipped off her shirt and sat down behind me with my head in her lap. We met in the middle, lips connecting briefly before I wiggled around to get into a better position. Alyssa eyebrows raised, amusement shining in her eyes, "Comfortable?"

I smirked, lacing my fingers with hers that rest on my stomach, "Very. Do you like me Lyssa? Is someone forcing you to date me?"

"Not even a little bit. Don't you know I'm only with you for your body?" 

"That's what I thought. Maybe I should confess that I'm only with you for your abs."

She smirked at my response, "I had my suspicions. You're obsessed."

"Not my fault they're great abs."

Fingers ran through my hair as Alyssa leant down to kiss my forehead, "You know I love you right Y/n/n? I don't want you to ever doubt that because I don't show you affection in public."

"You know how I feel about PDA, I don't like it, I never have. I have never once doubted your love for me Alyssa and I hope you haven't doubted mine. I love you."

"Good. I have never doubted your love either."

---

Anger and worry coursed through me when I saw Alyssa go down. It was always my worst fear during games, but it didn't really happen during practice. I know we got competitive, there was no reason for it to happen during practice though. I ran up, kneeling beside her, hand grabbing hers, "Are you okay Lys?"

"This ones going to hurt," Alyssa winced, but quickly grabbed my arm when I turned to Rose who had taken her out. "Hey, it's not her fault, it was an accident. Go see if she's okay and be nice."

I took a breath to calm myself down before walking up to Rose. Rose started fidgeting nervously as I walked up to her, "Hey, are you okay Rose?"

"Y-yeah. S-sorry"

I hugged her, feeling her relax against me. Hugs weren't necessarily my favourite thing except when it was with Alyssa, but I knew Rose liked them and I didn't want her to feel bad. It wasn't actually her fault. "Rosie, it was an accident. Don't beat yourself up because of it, but maybe don't make a habit of taking out out keeper during practice, we kinda need her."

---

"You guys coming to dinner?"

"Uh yeah, just going to drop our stuff off."

Once we were in our room, Alyssa sat on the edge of the bed as I knelt behind her, arms wrapping around her shoulders loosely. She lent back against me with a sigh, kissing my hand. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Think my shoulder might bruise, but I'm okay hun. Don't worry so much."

I lift her shirt over her head, lips meeting the spot that was already starting to bruise then moving around to her neck, cheek and lips, "You know I can't help worrying about you, even if it's a bit ridiculous."

Alyssa turned around, pushing me back and hovering over me, "Well, I'm the same so I can't really say anything. I love you Y/n/n."

I looped my arm around the back of her neck, pulling her down so I could peck her lips, "I love you Lys, but you need to get off cause we need to go down for dinner."

She rolled off me with one final kiss before standing up, "Fine."

"Shirt."

---

My eyes fluttered open to the feeling of lips being pressed to every part of my face and neck. I giggled, arms wrapping around her neck to bring her lips to mine. You wouldn't guess it, but Alyssa always kissed me softly, as if I was something precious. It honestly drove me crazy. 

Alyssa pulled away slowly, grin plastered across her face, "Happy anniversary love."

My grin matched her, as I pecked her lips, "Happy anniversary Lys. I love you."

We spent a little longer in bed than usual, lazy kisses and cuddles shared before reluctantly dragging our selves out of bed and into the shower. Unfortunately, we had training today so we couldn't give in to the clear desires we both had, instead rushing through the shower and downstairs before there was anymore temptation and we ended up late. 

Alyssa and I were discussing dinner plans when we walked into the meal room. We never went out on our anniversary, always staying in and just being with each other in the comfort of our own home. This year was different because we were in a hotel, but we would make do. Just as we sat down, Kelley sat across from us, our conversation ending as we waited for her to say something. "Do you guys even like each other? I mean you guys just seem so indifferent around each other, sure you talk and even joke around sometimes, but it's no different then if you were talking to team mates, we've never heard you talk about anything remotely relationship like."

My arm rest on the back of Alyssa's chair, playing with the baby hairs at the base of her neck. That wasn't a usual occurrence, but it was our anniversary. I was feeling a mix of different, slightly overwhelming emotions from love to happiness, and nerves from the fact I was proposing tonight. I just wanted to be close to her right now and the usual leg against mine wasn't enough. Alyssa must have sensed it because her hand rest on my thigh under the table, squeezing gently as I spoke, "Of course we do. We were literally just talking about our plans tonight for our anniversary."

"That was talk about your anniversary? It sounded like you were talking about grocery shopping."

"We were, but in relation to our anniversary."

"So what are you going to do for your anniversary?"

"Chill out in our hotel room. We never do anything big."

"Yeah okay. That tracks with the appearance of your relationship."

Alyssa had gone back to our room after training while I had gone to the store to pick up a few snacks to sneak in and some flowers for her. She always got me flowers so I wanted to return the favour for once. We were planning on ordering in and watching movies before likely ending the night doing inappropriate cuddling.  It was our favourite way to spend our anniversaries. Thankfully, we had an off day tomorrow so we could get away with it. 

After placing the bag down on the table, I called out for Alyssa, getting a response from the bathroom almost instantly. My arms wrapped around Alyssa when she emerged from the bathroom, leaving a lingering kiss against her lips. Her eyes dropped down to the bouquet in my hand, a small smile appearing. "This isn't your actual gift, but you always get me flowers so I thought it was my turn. Your gift is running late."

"They're beautiful, thank you Y/n/n. You know you didn't have to get me anything."

"I know, but you also always get me something despite me saying the same thing, therefore shut up."

Alyssa laughed, pushing me away gently and taking the flowers, "You speak to me so romantically my love."

I pulled her back into me, peppering her face with kisses, "I love you."

"I love you. I ordered dinner already, it should be here soon. Also here," Alyssa handed out a small wrapped box. Inside was a gold chain with a small keepers glove attached. It was something I had mentioned wanting, a way to have her close when she wasn't there physically. 

"You remembered. I love it Lys."

"Of course I did."

After a short make out session and dinner, we cuddled up in bed to watch a movie. Maybe 15 minutes had passed before I started getting restless. My focus dropped from the movie, instead playing with Alyssa's fingers. I never was the best at staying still. My mind soon drifted to the pool downstairs, it had been a while since I got to go and the urge was suddenly there.  

When I shifted position once again, Alyssa chuckled and paused the movie, "I've lost you haven't I?"

I grinned up at her, kissing her softly. Alyssa always knew me so well. "Do you want to go swimming? It's late so no one will be around."

Alyssa knew I loved swimming so she agreed pretty easily, after some teasing of course. We made our way down to the pool, both wearing tank tops and shorts. No one was around so it didn't matter what we wore. I jumped straight in, swimming around a bit while Alyssa sat on the edge of the pool. After a few minutes, I swam up between Alyssa's legs resting my arms on them as I lent up connecting our lips in a lingering kiss. 

"Come in."

"It's cold."

"Love, it's a heated pool."

"Okay fine, I just enjoy watching you swim around."

"But, if you come in then we can cuddle, kiss," My hand ran up the inside of her thigh, "Touch."

Alyssa instantly slid into the pool, arm wrapping around me and pulling me against her. "You're a tease."

My hands slipped under her tank top, nails scratching down her back and over her stomach, "It's only teasing if I leave it at that. Just wait until we get ba-"

A loud voice interrupted the moment, annoyance crossing Alyssa's face as she stepped back slightly, but didn't let me go. "Oh my god! They really are together."

I groaned, turning to glare at Emily and Kelley, "Fuck off and stop ruining our anniversary."

Once they were out of sight again, I pulled myself out of the pool, Alyssa rest on my legs as I had done earlier. "What are you doing?" 

I pulled the towel that I had hidden the little black box in closer. Inside was a a plain gold band with a round cut diamond. Alyssa didn't often wear jewelry and she liked simple things so I knew she would love it. "I have something for you."

"You waited until we were at the pool to give it to me?"

"Well it wasn't the original plan, but I got nervous." My fingers laced with hers, Alyssa looking up at me curiously. "Never in my life did I think I would fall for someone as hard or fast as I did with you. From the boring, quiet days at home spent doing housework or errands to the movie nights and dinner dates, I love living life with you. I love the adventures we've had, I love working with you, fuck, I just love being with you Alyssa. I look forward to every new day because I get to do it with you. With you by my side, anything is possible. This is a shit speech, but I'm nervous and you love me anyway."

Alyssa chuckled, tears already forming in her eyes before I revealed the little box. "I love you Alyssa, I love you so much more than I thought possible. I want to live life with you forever. With that being said, Alyssa Naeher will you marry me?"

Arms wrapped around my waist tightly, lips connecting with mine, in a soft, emotional kiss, "Yes, yes I will marry you Y/n."

I slipped the ring on her finger, connecting our lips again. Alyssa pulled away too soon for my liking, reaching for her own towel, pulling out a black box similar to the one I had moments before. Alyssa opened it, revealing a plain rose gold band with three small gems set into it. I soon realised it was both our birth stones and one I wasn't quite sure of. "You beat me to it, but will you marry me Y/n?"

"I suppose I can't say no seeing as I just gave you a ring."

Alyssa laughed, sliding the ring onto my finger before kissing me again. "These are our birthstones, what's this one?"

"When we first started dating."

"I love it, I love you."

A crash from behind us instantly caught our attention. About half the team stood there, sheepish smiles in place and a phone pointed in our direction. Seeing as they were caught, everyone started talking over each other, congratulations being thrown our way. I rolled my eyes, turning back to Alyssa. "Let's get out of here before they surround us. We have celebrating to do."

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #woso x reader #woso imagines #alyssa naeher x reader #alyssa naeher imagine

[kamotecue]

Yeah with Alessia Russo x Reader, thank you so much I will wait no problem!!

It ended in a draw but Portugal almost scored what would meant history for the country and the USA wouldn't pass the group stage.

-🤞

her solace - alessia russo x reader

you pulled on your jersey, the match against the usa would start soon. it was the most nerve-wrecking round, as it would decide who would enter the round of 16. dolores, the team’s captain handed you the armband as you looked at her confused.

“you’ll wear it.” she said, as you gave her a short nod, accepting the armband before wearing it around your left bicep.

it seems like you’re captain for today. as it was time to leave the locker room, you took your place behind ines, the team’s number one goalkeeper. you looked beside you to see lindsey horan, the captain for the other team. she noticed your stare as she gave you a small smile. you gently grabbed the hand of your mascot, as both teams started walking out of the tunnel.

the anthems were sung with pride, as the excited part was near. you zipped down the trainer jacket, as you handed it to the kit man joining your teammates for the starting XI picture.

in the 16th minute, nazareth breaks down the middle of the pitch and plays a smart throughball to silva, who rushes behind the usa’s defense and towards the box. as she’s one-one-one with alyssa naeher, usa’s number one goal keeper, however the effort drags wide.

the first half has ended, with both teams not scoring a goal. you had this frustrated look in your eyes as you entered the tunnel, there were claps from the portuguese fans. you hoped for things to change, and it did, the odds were in your favor.

in the 79th minute, borges goes down in the us penalty box, after a pressuring tackle from julie ertz. there were calls for a penalty, and the penalty was rewarded.

you were tasked to take it, so you eyed the keeper and her movements. as the whistle blew, you did a short run up before kicking it, drilling it to the bottom left corner, but it was saved by the goal keeper as she dived.

it wasn’t out yet, you ran forward but it was cleared by emily fox, earning portugal a throw-in. even in the additional time, no one has been able to score. the whistle blew and it was over for you guys.

you fell to your knees, overwhelmed with emotion as dolores patted your back in a comforting way. you felt your tears fall, as you covered your face hiding it behind your arms.

“if only i didn’t miss the penalty.” you said

“we all make mistakes, little one. however we learn from it.” borges said, as she overheard your words. you spent the rest of the time greeting fans, and did a walk around the pitch before you headed back to the locker room.

there were comforting hugs by your teammates, as you headed to the shower room. when you were done, you walked out in a pair of shorts, followed by a white nike sport bra.

you wore your headphones, blocking out the noise as you closed your eyes. the trip to the hotel was short, as you were woken up by dolores who monitored you. she knew that you blamed yourself for the loss, it was a habit you had.

you quickly slumped on the hotel bed in disbelief, as your phone rang loudly, it was less.

“love?” alessia’s voice rang throughout the room, as you had put it on speaker. you didn’t have a roommate which you were thankful for, you didn’t want them to see the breakdown.

“i could’ve done better-“ tears fell, as you heard alessia’s voice.

“you were already a good player, love. you’ve done your best, you wore the jersey with pride as you already made history. don’t blame yourself, when you done all you could do.” you sniffled, as you looked at the camera to see alessia’s blue eyes, the one you have fallen in love with.

“there’s my pretty girl, you’ll bounce back alright. we’ve just started our careers, you’ll play in more world cups.” alessia continued, as you nodded.

“thank you, my stargirl.” as you gave her a soft smile, to which she returned.

“i’ll always be here.” alessia said, you both had spent the night talking about random talks, childhood experience, and it lasted until the morning. you both were asleep, and your phone had died.

#alessia russo #alessia russo x reader #alessia russo imagine #woso imagine #woso x reader #woso one shot #engwnt x reader #lioness x reader

[atopvisenyashill]

patterns of abuse with jaehaerys

this post made me deeply depressed and i reread f&b which was my first mistake.

tldr i’m making the argument that jaehaerys definitely sexually abused saera and alysanne, and likely viserra and gael, and also i hate this man. if you disagree and want to say so *nicely* that’s cool but if you hardcore love jae and don’t want to hear criticism, maybe just scroll past bc i’m not nice to him at all (obviously, i’m accusing him of csa lol).

breaking this down by each woman, so there’s 6 sections: saera, viserra, daella, gael, alysanne, and alicent.

saera targaryen

If she were the king’s firstborn, or better still his only child, she would be well content. Instead she finds herself the ninthborn, with six living siblings who are older than her and even more adored. Aemon is to be king, Baelon most like will be his Hand, Alyssa may be all her mother is and more, Vaegon is more learned than she is, Maegelle is holier, and Daella…when does a day go by when Daella is not in need of comfort? And whilst she is being soothed, Saera is being ignored. Such a fierce little thing she is, they say, she has no need of comfort. They are wrong in that, I fear. All men need comfort.

that’s septon barth’s opinion on her and barth is always right. simply put, she’s a deeply neglected child who acts like a brat to get her parents attention because she’s learned the only way they’ll pay attention to her is if she’s causing a problem.

Before she was eleven, she was stealing wine and ale instead. By twelve, she was like as not to arrive drunk when summoned to the sept for prayer.

The king’s half-witted fool, Tom Turnip, was the victim of many of her japes, and her unwitting catspaw for others. Once, before a great feast where many lords and ladies were to be in attendance, she persuaded Tom that it would be much funnier if he performed naked. It was not well received.

stealing alcohol at 10 and being a committed alcoholic at 12 is not normal behavior. it is a sign of something deeply at wrong at home. also, the way she kind of, sexually humiliated tom, someone who is too “innocent” to even realize she’s sexually humiliating him…gives me the ick re: how she views sex.

Saera had learned the art of getting anything she wanted from her father: a kitten, a hound, a pony, a hawk, a horse (Jaehaerys did draw a firm line at the elephant). Queen Alysanne was far less gullible, however, and Septon Barth tells us that Saera’s sisters all misliked her to various degrees.

i don’t like this. nothing wrong with giving your child gifts (see ned going above and beyond to get arya not just instruction on how to fight but also a specific style that would gel with being smaller than your average opponent) but in conjunction with “jaehaerys ignores saera unless she’s pressing him for an expensive gift which he immediately gives her and alysanne doesn’t get why he caved so quickly” its an alarming dynamic.

also speaks to how isolated saera specifically was, that the only siblings that like her (aemon and baelon) are usually out and about, and there’s a clear wedge between saera and her sisters, even viserra.

The screams were coming from Tom Turnip, who was lurching helplessly in circles trying to escape from half a dozen naked whores, whilst the patrons of the house laughed uproariously and shouted on the harlots. Jonah Mooton, Red Roy Connington, and Stinger Beesbury were amongst those patrons, each one drunker than the last. They had thought it would be funny to see old Turnip do the deed, Red Roy admitted. Then Jonah Mooton laughed and said the jape had all been Saera’s notion, and what a funny girl she was.

again with sexually humiliating tom.

it continues with her friends. it’s not unusual for a 15 year old girl to want to fool around with other 15 year olds but alys and perri are all guilt ridden and upset and alys is with child. it reminds me a lot of cersei sexually abusing taena in affc. when she’s caught (now, mind you, she’s been marched in front of her parents sitting on the throne and not brought to them in their private rooms. she’s being treated right off the bat as if she’s guilty of a crime and not guilty of being a shitty teenager):

“She went from denial to dismissal to quibbling to contrition to accusation to justification to defiance in the space of an hour, with stops at giggling and weeping along the way,” Septon Barth would write. “She never did it, they were lying, it never happened, how could they believe that, it was just a game, it was just a jape, who said that, that was not how it happened, everyone likes kissing, she was sorry, Peri started it, it was such fun, no one was hurt, no one ever told her kissing was bad, Sweetberry had dared her, she was so ashamed, Baelon used to kiss Alyssa all the time, once she started she did not know how to stop, she was afraid of Stinger, the Mother Above had forgiven her, all the girls were doing it, the first time she was drunk, she had never wanted to, it was what men wanted, Maegelle said the gods forgave all sins, Jonah said he loved her, the gods had made her pretty, it was not her fault, she would be good from now on, it will be as if it never happened, she would marry Red Roy Connington, they had to forgive her, she would never kiss a man again or do any of those other things, it wasn’t her who was with child, she was their daughter, she was their little girl, she was a princess, if she were queen she would do as she liked, why wouldn’t they believe her, they never loved her, she hated them, they could whip her if they wanted but she would never be their slave. She took my breath away, this girl. There was never a mummer in all the land who gave such a performance, but by the end she was exhausted and afraid, and her mask slipped.”

What does Jaehaerys ask after all of this? “Have you given any of these boys your maidenhead?” Her response:

“True?” said Saera. It was in that moment, with that word, that the contempt came out. “No. I gave it to all three. They all think they were the first. Boys are such silly fools.”

Now mind you, Alyssa and Daella have both died of childbirth recently and her parents are mad she had sex as a 16 year old bordering on 17 year old, and not the fact that she like, at best peer pressured her besties into having sex and now one of them is pregnant. jaehaerys has only asked if she’s still a virgin.

“I will be married,” the princess said. “Why shouldn’t I be? You were married at my age. I shall be wedded and bedded, but to whom? Jonah and Roy both love me, I could take one of them, but they are both such boys. Stinger does not love me, but he makes me laugh and sometimes makes me scream. I could marry all three of them, why not? Why should I have just one husband? The Conqueror had two wives, and Maegor had six or eight.”

i keep trying not to give my opinion and just lay it all out but the thing is i’d just be reposting the whole scene because it’s just filled with so much weird sex stuff. if you don’t remember it, go reread it. it doesn’t feel (to me) like regular “george is bad at writing sex” vibes but “george is purposefully trying to skeeve you out” vibes but i am willing to admit i could be wrong and he really just doesn’t understand what he wrote.

anyways remember how i said saera acts out to get attention from her parents? all she’s done here is act out, her “crimes” are basically nonexistent; beyond how alys feels about being pregnant, saera consensually had sex with boys around her age who aren’t married, and then blithely compared herself to some asshole relatives. if your teenager idolizes dick cheney that’s probably worrying but not a crime! this is not how jae treats it however.

When the princess heard his words, she rushed toward him, crying, “Father, Father!” but Jaehaerys turned his back on her, and Gyles Morrigen caught her by the arm and wrenched her away. She would not go of her own accord, so the guards were forced to drag her from the hall, wailing and sobbing and calling for her father.

The king was angry and unyielding, for his shame was deeply felt, and he could not forget Saera’s taunting words about his uncle’s wives. “She is no longer my daughter,” he said more than once. Queen Alysanne could not find it in her heart to be so harsh, however. “

saera tries to escape.

This time the princess was not allowed to return to her own chambers. She was confined to a tower cell instead, with Jonquil Darke guarding her day and night, even in the privy.

Princess Saera watched from the window of her cell. Jonquil Darke, her gaoler, made certain that she did not turn away.

that’s as her dad is murdering stinger btw. is he a creepy 19 year old? yeah. but like, making your 15 year old watch you murder her 19 year old trust fund baby stoner boyfriend sure is something.

so then they sent her to the silent sisters where she’s beaten all the time and has to pray all the time and she runs away, becomes a sex worker and literally never looks back.

The truth did not come out until a year later, when the former princess was seen in a Lysene pleasure garden, still clad as a novice. Queen Alysanne wept to hear it. “They have made our daughter into a whore,” she said. “She always was,” the king replied.

“You need her as a Dornishman needs a pit viper,” Jaehaerys said. “I am sorry. King’s Landing has sufficient whores. I do not wish to hear her name again.”

but before we move on, let’s look at one more related ick, when saera’s sons show up to the great council:

From Essos came three rival competitors, grandsons of King Jaehaerys through his daughter Saera, each sired by a different father. One was said to be the very image of his grandsire in his youth.

after her drinking, acting out, and jaehaerys’ focus on calling her a whore, explicitly pointing out that one of her grandsons looks just like jae is a choice. i know they’re super inbred. it’s still uncomfortable in context.

viserra targaryen

alysanne makes no sense here but i’m just gonna quickly explain instead of lay it out or we will be here all day bc viserra’s engagement is completely nonsensical. theomore manderly is old, ugly, has a shitton of heirs, and viserra clearly doesn’t want to marry him. also if she wanted to be queen, why is she going after baelon, aemon is still alive. anyways jaehaerys is no help here, then she goes to baelon for help, but she’s also super drunk.

Frustrated, Viserra next turned to her brother Baelon in hopes of rescue, if court gossip can be believed. Slipping past his guards into his bedchamber one night, she disrobed and waited for him, making free with the prince’s wine whilst she lingered. When Prince Baelon finally appeared, he found her drunk and naked in his bed and sent her on her way. The princess was so unsteady that she required the help of two maids and a knight of the Kingsguard to get her safely back to her own apartments.

she gets drunk with some friends again, goes riding, breaks her neck. i wanted to point out this pattern of drinking and acting out at a young age. as well as this pattern of targaryen daughters who aren’t “meant” for a brother and are promised to men who are old and with heirs

daella targaryen

i wanted to add daella because her getting married at 15 makes as little sense as viserra, and her match to a old man with several heirs is equally nonsensical. but also this:

“I would never marry her,” the boy said, in front of half the court. “She can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for that’s the only sort he will ever have of her.”

where did vaegon get that mouth.

Daella was not clever, even her septa had to admit. She learned to read after a fashion, but haltingly, and without full comprehension. She could not seem to commit even the simplest prayers to memory. She had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing; she always got the words wrong. She loved flowers, but was frightened of gardens; a bee had almost stung her once.

Jaehaerys, even more than Alysanne, despaired of her. “She will not even speak to a boy. How is she to marry? We could entrust her to the Faith, but she does not know her prayers, and her septa says that she cries when asked to read aloud from The Seven-Pointed Star.”

The queen always rose to her defense. “Daella is sweet and kind and gentle. She has such a tender heart. Give me time, and I will find a lord to cherish her. Not every Targaryen needs to wield a sword and ride a dragon.”

so daella is 12 at this point.

Her sixteenth nameday was fast approaching, and with it her womanhood. Queen Alysanne was at her wit’s end, and the king had lost his patience. On the first day of the 80th year since Aegon’s Conquest, he told the queen he wanted Daella wed before the year’s end. “If she wants I can find a hundred men and line them up before her naked, and she can pick the one she likes,” he said. “I would sooner she wed a lord, but if she prefers a hedge knight or a merchant or Pate the Pig Boy, I am past the point of caring, so long as she picks someone.”

i just don’t like this. other “simple” targs are not required to marry, like vaella and aelora, two of daeron ii’s grandfaughters so i don’t get why daella is pressured into marrying before she’s even of age. at least jae 2 forced rhaella and aerys because of a prophecy? what is jae’s reasoning for so sexualizing his daughter?

gael targaryen

this one is definitely a reach but i’d like to point out that this is basically all we know about gael:

Princess Gael, a sweet, shy child of seven, became the queen’s constant shadow and support, even sharing her bed at night.

and our information on how she dies is so shady:

A sweet-natured girl, but frail and somewhat simpleminded, she remained with the queen long after her other children had grown and gone, but in 99 AC she vanished from court, and soon afterward it was announced that she had died of a summer fever. Only after both her parents were gone did the true tale come out. Seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, the princess had given birth to a stillborn son, then, overwhelmed by grief, walked into the waters of Blackwater Bay and drowned.

how does gael get pregnant by a traveling singer when she never leaves her mother’s side? why doesn’t anyone in court know gael got pregnant and killed herself until after aly and jae both die and how was this even found out?

am i implying that jaehaerys sexually abused all four of his daughters? yes because he literally sexually abuses his own wife.

alysanne targaryen

“I am forty-two years old,” she told the king. “You must be content with the children I have given you. I am more suited to be a grandmother than a mother now, I fear.”

King Jaehaerys did not share her certainty. “Our mother, Queen Alyssa, was forty-six when she gave birth to Jocelyn,” he pointed out to Grand Maester Elysar. “The gods may not be done with us.” He was not wrong. The very next year, the Grand Maester informed Queen Alysanne that she was once more with child, to her surprise and dismay.

he uses the birth that killed their mother and that is condemned by rhaena and alysanne as reckless and cruel of rogar to force on her. that birth.

at this point as well, he had abused saera and daella, then they’re gone, then viserra starts drinking and dies, then jae marital rapes aly into having gael, giving him access to another young girl to abuse…i’m aware this is a very uncharitable reading of him but…

alicent hightower (and kind of alyssa targaryen)

Ser Otto’s precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent, became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.

saera is the one he fixated on yet again but notable that he’s fixated on his daughters as he dies and not his sons, despite jaehaerys turning to drink after aemon died bc he was so upset.

He announced his intention to wed Lady Alicent of House Hightower, the clever and lovely eighteen-year-old daughter of the King’s Hand, the girl who had read to King Jaehaerys as he lay dying.

The Hightowers of Oldtown were an ancient and noble family, of impeccable lineage; there could be no possible objection to the king’s choice of bride. Even so, there were those who murmured that the Hand had risen above himself, that he had brought his daughter to court with this in mind. A few even cast doubt on Lady Alicent’s virtue, suggesting she had welcomed King Viserys into her bed even before Queen Aemma’s death. (These calumnies were never proved, though Mushroom repeats them in his Testimony and goes so far as to claim that reading was not the only service Lady Alicent performed for the Old King in his bedchamber.)

i know it’s just mushroom being a perv but a rumor that 15 year old alicent “serviced” jaehaerys existing besides rumors that he mistook 15 year old alicent for the daughter he last saw when she was 17 - and viserra was 15, gael 19, and daella 15, all around alicent’s age and all died before age 20. all the targaryen girls that weren’t born “for” a brother exit the narrative after some sort of sexual abuse that centers around jae, as teenagers; daenerys was born for aemon, alyssa for baelon, and maegelle for vaegon before they both fucked off and maegelle was too pious (and too old). this idea of being “for” a brother leads directly to alyssa’s death before 30:

“You were made for battles, and I was made for this. Viserys and Daemon and Aegon, that’s three. As soon as I am well, let’s make another. I want to give you twenty sons. An army of your own!” It was not to be. Alyssa Targaryen had a warrior’s heart in a woman’s body, and her strength failed her. She never fully recovered from Aegon’s birth, and died within the year at only four-and-twenty.

and alysanne being “for” jaehaerys is how he excusing sexually abusing her into a risky pregnancy. essentially what i fear is that because saera, daella, viserra, and gael aren’t “for” someone, jaehaerys gets it into his mind that that are for him. even without him raping them tho, that subtext is there! he is entitled to saera’s virginity and calls her a whore multiple times, even decades after she’s left, and murders her boyfriend in front of her. he claims a weird sexual ownership over his neurodivergent daughter daella and his alcoholic, depressed daughter viserra, and we get zero information on gael’s pregnancy or his reaction to it. but jaehaerys deciding his daughters are “for” him certainly has a basis in canon just judging from the erratic and worrying behavior of his younger daughters.

jaehaerys is a creep and i hate him and i don’t know how much of this is on purpose (like, will aegon vi or dany find out jaehaerys was a shady pedo and it shatters their world? will dunk and egg find it out and it affects their plot somehow? did george just put it in there to make a comment on power and monarchy and misogyny, similar to aegon iv raping the bracken women? or is just there for window dressing creepiness, like “i will pepper in the fact that jaehaerys is sexually obsessed with his daughters” thing?) or if george just made jaehaerys sexually obsessed with his daughters on accident?

on the one hand, it seems out of character for george. he romanticizes drogo thru dany’s eyes but it’s clear he’s meant to be seen as a creep (dany talking about being pregnant followed by “she had just turned 14” is sickeningly jarring for a reason) and also, drogo dies bc of his own pride. sansa doesn’t like any of the old dudes touching her; she is at least marginally freaked out by her wedding night, the unkiss, and lf & dontos taking liberties with her, and rightly. the story that’s told about the mountain raping a girl and making the father pay him is meant to disgust us. the walk of shame is a harrowing chapter to read, because whatever cersei’s crimes, this sexual humiliation is not something she deserves. on and on. yes, we all hate the way arya is sexualized in the mercy chapter, but crucially, she’s not blithely and happily seducing these pervs, she’s going hard candy on their asses. is this just messy set up for something like that?? i think, given how little dany knows about her family’s crimes that somehow learning jae sexually abused (and maybe even impregnated) his own daughters after she herself experiences sexual abuse would be huge. the same goes for aegon vi learning that sexual abuse runs rampant in his family tree; would he empathize with saera hiding out in essos to escape the sexual abuse of her father, see some of elia and his own plight in her? in gael?

or did george really just. not realize how sexually obsessed jaehaerys was with his daughters?

idk how to end this. where’s the winds of winter george i need answers.

#anti jaehaerys targaryen #anti fire and blood #valyrianscrolls #saera targaryen #viserra targaryen #gael targaryen #debated the vs tag bc i know it’s probably gonna annoy some people but. i do actually wonder if this will be a plot point in the books #or if it was an accident #rani attempts meta

[arcadiabaytornado]

Something I would have loved in Life Is Strange is the opportunity to warn more people about the storm. Some examples for how that could have played out and with who: 

Warren - Warren generally trusts Max and sees what's going on with the weather in Arcadia Bay. In this scenario, Max would have a chance to talk to Warren at the party entrance in Episode 5 after she reunites with Chloe. Here, she could tell him to "watch the weather" without detailing why, or she could admit her powers and tell Warren that she KNOWS a storm is coming because she's lived it. He'll once again comment that this is a "weird fucking week," but he'll promise Max that he'll go to the bus stop right away, and it’s presumed he keeps his word.

Alyssa - Max would have the option to tell Alyssa about her powers in Episode 4 IF she saved her every single time. Alyssa would take Max’s word for it because it does make sense of how Max was always able to save her just in time, and then Max would get the chance to warn her about the storm. Since all of her other warnings have saved her from bad predicaments, she’ll trust Max and reveal that she has some family that live outside of Arcadia that she can stay with.

More Undercut

Brooke and Daniel - In Episode 4, when Daniel is sitting under the tree, IF you let him draw your picture in Episode 1, he'll tell Max that he's going with Brooke to an art exhibit that weekend. But first, he says he's going to the Vortex Party to show the bullies he can do what he pleases. Max can wish him a fun time, or she can encourage him to skip the party and leave early because "it's a waste of time to party with the vortex club." If Max tells him to go, he says he'll ask Brooke if they can go on a small road trip instead of a day trip. It's assumed that they do because you won't be able to find them at the party if you tell them to leave. 

Samuel - Samuel seems to know something is happening in Arcadia Bay, so it makes sense that he would believe Max about the storm. If you talked to him while looking for Nathan, Max could admit that she was having premonitions about a bad storm. Samuel would take her word for it, and then at the Vortex Club party, Alyssa and Stella will ask Max if she knows why Samuel high tailed it off campus.

Those are just a few ideas, but I can think of plenty of characters where it would be neat to get the chance to warn them! I’m glad that we at least get the chance to warn the homeless women because it’s heavily implied that she left before things got bad. 

#LIS #Life Is Strange #max caulfield

[the-desilittle-bird]

Author's Note- Well, just because I love Matt Smith and Daemon Targaryen though I have not watched House of the Dragons.

Thank you and Enjoy your reading!

Realm's Desire

Daemon Targaryen x Sister!Reader

Part 1 ☆ Part 2 ☆ Part 3

Warnings- I think it gets angst-y towards the last. Daemon is himself a warning and jealous Daemon is certainly a warning. Mentions of arranged marriage, typical Westros stuff I guess.

GIF credits to @torahana

Summary- (Y/N) Targaryen was the youngest daughter of Baelon and Alyssa Targaryen, two years junior to Daemon. If Rhaenyra was the Realm's Delight, then (Y/N) was Realm's Desire.

Daemon had never thought in his life that he did have to watch (Y/N), from a distance, dancing and laughing with Jason Lannister. As a princess, (Y/N) had to fulfill her duties and somehow, being able not to deny a lord with a dance was one of them.

Daemon never ever felt this jealous about anyone. He was aware that everyone in the realm found his sister attractive- she was undeniably gorgeous after all- but never had he thought that his sister found anyone good enough to pay her attention to except himself.

They had been close since childhood. Best friends attached to each others hip, sharing stories and secrets. That companionship soon changed into something more. Their innocent laughter and conversations of night changed into soft whispers and promises of forever.

(Y/N) could feel a heated gaze of someone on her backs. From the corner of her eyes, she spotted Daemon glaring at Jason. A small smirk plastered on her face. Maybe dancing with Lannister is not that bad, she thought to herself.

"... and once I killed a huge boar on my own, my princess," Jason Lannister finished one of his many boring stories of his "greatness". (Y/N) smiled in a flirty way, stepping a bit closer to him. "Oh really, my lord? I am sure, it would have been delicious," she whispered, looking at him through her lashes.

"It really was delicious, my beautiful princess," Jason said with a victorious smile. (Y/N) could see Daemon move from his place on the table, moving towards them with murderous gaze directed to the Lion of the Rocks.

Jason had started another pathetic story about some hunt when Daemon interrupted them. "Sister, wouldn't you spare your lovely brother a dance?" It was not a question but a straight and direct order for his sister to comply with.

"It seems we have to cut our dance short, my lord," (Y/N) curtsied and placed her hand in Daemon's extended one, leaving a dumbfounded Jason behind.

Daemon possessive hand on (Y/N)'s waist, stepping close to her such that their chest were almost touching. His breath danced over her face, making her gasp a bit. Their bodies moved in a sync, something that always have happened. Smooth steps, gliding between hundreds; they were in their own world.

"Ao vestragon naejot raqagon aōha jēda lēda bona nādrēsy," (You seem to enjoy your time with that bastard) Daemon's deep voice whispered close near (Y/N)'s ear, an involuntary gasp leaving her throat. "Gaomas ziry jenigon ao, lēkia?" (Does it bother you, brother?) Their mother tongue danced over their lips, so effortlessly and melodic.

Daemon's grip on her waist tightened, drawing her closer. "Kostilus, dōna hāedar." (Perhaps, sweet sister) The smirk on (Y/N)'s face was smug, her mission accomplished. "Sir, ao gīmigon skoros jān rȳ tolvie rēbagon tubis," (Now, you know what I go through every passing day) she gritted through her teeth, glaring at the Rogue Prince.

"I fail to understand you, my little sister," Daemon said amusingly, glancing back to where their brother sat. Viserys had never been a fan of Daemon staying near (Y/N). He had always though Daemon would taint their sweet, little sister's innocence though, Daemon won't blame Viserys for thinking such things. After all, he had a certain reputation in the court.

"You are completely aware of what I mean. Watching you wed that woman from Vale," (Y/N) said, jealousy dancing in her voilet eyes. Daemon let out a chuckle. "And who says she is an issue?" Daemon asked, an amusing smile on his face.

(Y/N) snorted loudly, finding his amusement, annoying. "If you aren't aware, brother," she hissed, glaring at the representative of Vale in the court. "You can't marry me until she is gone or your marriage is annulled."

Daemon always knew it but why couldn't he wed her in the traditions of their house? Aegon the Conqueror had two wives, both of them his sisters. Then what was the problem, if Daemon wanted to have two wives, one of whom doesn't even care about his existence.

"You are aware that I have tried talking to Viserys about it, my dear," Daemon said, the amusing smile slowly vanishing as the conversation turned serious. "Viserys had called me last evening to talk about my betrothal. He wishes to marry me off to Stark," (Y/N) said, her (E/C) eyes casted downwards.

"Stark? Is he mad?" Daemon sneered. They had stopped dancing ages ago, now, standing between the laughing and dancing couples. "Dragons don't live in cold, (Y/N). We deserve to be here," he continued, gripping her waist tightly.

"Is everything alright here?" A voice made (Y/N) pull away, turning to find their niece, Rhaenyra, standing there with a coy smile. "Yes, Nyra," (Y/N) replied with a stiff smile.

"Father wished to introduce you to your betrothed," Rhaenyra informed the pair, glancing cautiously towards Daemon. (Y/N) nodded with a fake smile plastered on her face. "Thank you for sharing this with me, Nyra. I will be gone then," she said, turning to face Daemon whose eyes were now hard and cold like the North itself. "Thank you for the dance, brother."

With those words, Daemon watched as she slipped through the crowd, making her way to their brother and the Wolf of the North. "You messed up, uncle," Rhaenyra whispered gently, leaving Daemon behind to join her aunt.

"(Y/N), sister, meet Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell and your betrothed," Viserys introduced with a warm smile. (Y/N) dipped down in a curtsey, smiling at the older man. "It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord." The customary sentence was said and met by just a stern nod.

Cregan Stark was just how (Y/N) had imagined him to be. Stern and cold just us the books define the Starks to be. She had always heard that Starks were honorable people. She hoped it was true.

"Your engagement will be announced tomorrow in the court, dear. And perhaps, in a moon's time, you will be wed; if Lord Stark allows," Viserys said, glancing at Cregan for confirmation. Cregan nodded stiffly. "I would be fine with anything you wish, your grace," he replied.

"Then it is sealed," Viserys cheerful voice seemed too distant as (Y/N) glanced at Daemon. Duty was the death of love, and it seemed (Y/N) has to do her duty to the crown and forget her love in the process.

Her fate was sealed and this time, unlike other times, she didn't fight it anymore.

Author's Note- Let me know what you think and if you want a Part 2 of this.

#daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen #daemon au #daemon x y/n #daemon x reader #cregan stark #house targaryen #targaryen reader #viserys targaryen #angsty

[dailycass-cain]

My 10 Favorite Batgirls covers

You know something we never talk about much is some of the stunning covers Batgirls had (would you believe the series had over seventy-two different covers for a nineteen-issue run + Annual).

That's-- A LOT.

What happens when you get regular and virgin #1 covers that were available in other shops. Now these are my own preferences. I mean, to say the least, Batgirls covers never missed really. These are just my favs.

So are ten of my favorites plus a few honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention #1:

Batgirls #16 International Women's Day Variant by Lynne Yoshi. I just love the way everyone is framed in this with Babs being "the Batgirl" but in a past B&W motif while Cass/Steph are the present Batgirls being juxtaposed in color.

Honorable Mention #2:

Batgirls #12 90s variant by Paulina Ganucheau. I love the homage here the splashy page homage with a nice role reversal with Cass subbing for Tim here. My favorite Steph-centric cover.

#10

Batgirls #13 1:25 variant by Rian Gonzales. Her final one for the series, and man did she go out with a banger. Love the Powerpuff Girls homage with most of the supporting cast (Kyle, Maps, and Alyssa) with random Kon and Kate appearances.

#9

Batgirls #3 variant by Kim Jacinto. Jacinto would do a few variants for the series too, and this is my favorite one of them. Love that each had a fluidity with them but that up-close claw of Cass coming at ya is why this one is my favorite of Jacinto's Batgirls covers.

#8

Batgirls #1 the Glass Cabinet Hobbies variant by Dan Mora. This is one of those "store" exclusive variants, and probably my favorite Batgirls cover Mora did on the series.

I love the poses Cass/Steph have here, along with Bab's silhouette. I just LOVE the yellow dips down and to the right even making a rather striking cover. If anything negative I wish Babs was bigger and Dick was taken out of this cover altogether. Still love Bruce on the right though.

#7

#7 Batgirls #1 (though I forget which store had this exclusive) variant by Babs Tarr. If there's one thing I do enjoy about Burnside Batgirl it is the way Tarr drew Steph in it. Just captured that fun attitude perfectly. Also, love the first "official" drawing of her Cass.

I also love the homage to a famous Batman cover but the personalities of each Batgirl stand out in this one. Plus the pink just makes this one stand out and be so striking.

#6

Batgirls #14 variant 1:25 cover by Dan Hipp. Again, the pink is a nice striking contrast but Hipp one-ups it with the little details sprinkled throughout this cover. The easter eggs sprinkled in are PERFECTION here. Probably the best "layered" cover with so much behind it.

#5

#5 Batgirls #18 AAPI variant cover by Crystal Kung. The second of the two AAPI covers Cass got in the series, I love the colors in this one along with the pose Kung gives Cass here. There's that gremlin nature of Cass I love here.

Along with just the wash the background gets further back. I also love the secondary color Kung gives Cass's cape to make it stand out more.

#4

#4 Batgirls #17 cover by Jorge Corona. My favorite cover of the series with all three Batgirls in them. I love how Corona gets the personalities of the three in here while also the starry background along with the Clocktower. Sooo good.

#3

Batgirls #6 1:25 variant by Rian Gonzales. My favorite Gonzales cover of the series. I love the watercolors Gonzales does the most here. Just the wash of Gotham City in the background with Cass/Steph lying in the pool. Also Haley on the little batmobile float. SOOOOOOO CUTE!!!

#2

Batgirls #14 cover by Jorge Corona. The best issue of the entire series and the peak for me of Corona as well with his covers.

Just the somber mood of the cover sets the tone alone. I also LOVE the way Corona has Cass and Steph's capes here. The way each pop sells it all.

So if that's my #2, what can be my #1?

Well... something that just uplifts me anytime I look at it. Something you'd probably not truly expect.

#1

Batgirls #6 AAPI Heritage Month variant by Audrey Mok. There's just something every time that I look at this cover that fills me with a warm glee.

I adore Mok's use of Cass here and the way the traffic around her lights a part of her up. I adore the pose as well that mid-grapple swing too.

I love the "mini story" this one tells too. Just everything about this cover is perfection to me.

So there are my favorite Batgirls covers. This was tough! 😅What are your favorite Batgirls covers? Please share and comment on which ones are yours, or if you share the same as I do!

#dc comics #batgirls #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #barbara gordon

[anxiousnerdwritings]

We know that in the books Viserys and Daemon had a little brother, who, unfortunately perished with his mother Alyssa shortly after his birth. But what if only Alyssa died and he survived by some miracle but had a weak immune system and had to stay inside of his room most of the day; his only company was his books and his trusted pen, who he always writing stories with it. Because of his creativity he was the family's story teller! Making his brothers feel safe with him and making them shielded from the harsh reality of their life. As you can imagine Viserys and Daemon became deeply attached to their little brother (which seen by others as "a little bit unhealthy"). And this brings us to the present day, the civil war and family drama. For their little brother it doesn't go so well and he's stuck between with his two older brother (+their families).

I really love this idea!

Even thought they’re family and both equally love and care for their little brother, Viserys and Daemon could never come to agree on what was best for their brother’s wants and needs. Each would want the brother to stay with them, Viserys wants him at King’s Landing meanwhile Daemon wants him with himself at Dragon Stone. But neither are going to let the other move their brother away from them. It’s too much of a risk for their brother’s well being. Also, whenever Daemon brings up wanting to take their brother out of King’s Landing, Viserys would always throw back at him how unpredictable and irresponsible he can be and how much consistency their brother needs because of his health issues.

Viserys would absolutely hang on every word the Maesters had to say about his brother’s condition and what would be best to treat it, to keep him healthy and happy. But Daemon doesn’t trust the Maesters, he thinks their full of shit and has no regard for them whatsoever. Not when it comes to his precious baby brother and them having control over his health. They basically hold his brother’s life in their hands and Daemon doesn’t take lightly to it.

I really love the thought of Rhaenyra being very close to her Uncle!Reader (not in the same way she is with Daemon). Like, ever since Rhaenyra could remember Uncle!Reader would always read to her and write stories just for her when she’d come to see him. If he drew then he’d draw things for her, even illustrations for the stories he’d made for her. Viserys would absolutely adore the kind of bond and connection that Rhaenyra and his youngest brother had. Two of his most treasured people spending time together just filled him with complete joy. And when Aemma passes both Rhaenyra and Viserys would go to Uncle/Brother!Reader for consoling and to just be with in their moments of grieving.

When it comes to Viserys needing to remarry he’d go to his baby brother and ask for their advice on the matter. Or to even just talk out his own thoughts and gripes about it. If there was any better listener in all the Seven Kingdoms it would be Viserys and Daemon’s little brother. Rhaenyra would probably do the same, seeking her Uncle to talk about her own thoughts and feelings about the situation to him.

I can’t help but imagine Alicent being attached to the brother too. Most likely romantically. It’s not a surprise that she’d probably be the one to really care for and tend to him, similar to how she tended to Jaehaerys before his death when she first came to King’s Landing after Otto became Hand. She’d spend the most time with him, talking, listening, just basking in his presence. Even though she’s just there to care for him and be his company throughout the day, she can’t help but feel some type of way with him. Especially if his chambers is like a makeshift safe place for not only his brother but Rhaenyra too. It would make sense that Alicent too would take comfort in the Reader, whether it’s just his presence or how calming and serene he is. Of course he’d be the first one Alicent would tell about marrying Viserys, confessing that it isn’t whant she wants, even possibly confessing her romantic interest in him right then and there.

Alicent would also totally bring her children with Viserys to the Reader. Of course when they’re all first born Viserys brings them to show to his brother but Alicent would go further than that. I could see her making Viserys’ brother a surrogate father figure for her children. And after Jace, Luke, Joffrey, Baela, Rhaena, Aegon III and Viserys II come into the picture, Alicent would feel threatened. Her children’s time with the Reader would be taken up by Rhaenyra/Daemon’s children and that would really irk her.

Once Viserys’ health gets worse he wouldn’t be able to visit his brother as much if at all out of fear and worry of getting him sick. That would really hurt Viserys. Not being able to see his beloved brother especially before he dies. It would have to be through Deamon, Rhaenyra and Alicent that the two could communicate. Unless the brother were to sneak out of his room to see Viserys, even if it is one last time.

I’d say though that it’s after Viserys’ death that shit really hits the fan and it’s made apparent where the Brother!Reader’s position is in this whole debacle and it’s smack dab right in the middle. Rhaenyra and Daemon are hellbent on moving the Reader to Dragon Stone to be with all of them, his real family. Meanwhile Alicent is desperate to keep the Reader with her just because of her own feelings for him, she doesn’t want him to be taken from her cause she knows that’ll be the end of it. And if the children were just as attached to the Reader, even viewing him as more of a father than Viserys was to them they’d do everything they could to help keep him in King’s Landing. And Alicent has no problem using the Reader’s health as an excuse to keep him where he already is. Using it to guilt trip and garner a sympathetic response from Rhaenyra, but it’s really Daemon who she has to convince and it’s not going to work.

Also, you can bet Rhaenys would also have quite the attachment for her youngest cousin. Especially if he were to have been encouraging and supportive of her when she was in line for the crown. She would have come to him after Laenor and Laena’s deaths, and of course after Viserys’ death as well. I could even see while Viserys and Deamon were always fighting about where to have the Reader reside, Rhaenys had her own wants for the Reader to stay with her and her family at Driftmark. She just knew better than to say anything but now she’ll do whatever to get her cousin away from the Greens.

#anxious answers #yandere viserys i targaryen #yandere daemon targaryen #yandere rhaenyra targaryen #yandere alicent hightower #yandere rhaenys targaryen #yandere house of the dragon #yandere house of the dragon concept #yandere game of thrones #yandere game of thrones concept #yandere concept

[valyrianfreehold]

Meleys, the Red Queen

Sporting glamazon status cheekbones there, Mel.

I relied more on hotd's design and gave our queen here tan horns instead of FB's copper because honestly it was going to look better in this piece. I'm all for continuing to shill my Dreamfyre and Mel are Tessarion's moms theory and Mel having copper horns feeds my insanity fuel.

Mel had only two riders: Alyssa and Rhaenys Targaryen, two women with big personalities and I think Meleys is no different. Famous for her swiftness, Meleys was in her 50s during the Dance and the second eldest on the field before her death. Killed in a trap by Vhagar and Sunfyre, this tough fuckin broad went down fighting. She took Sunfyre out of commission by nearly ripping his wing off. Archmaester Gyldayn claims she could have had a chance facing Vhagar alone which gives you an idea of her size. I often wonder why Rhaenys chose to stay and fight instead of trying to flee, considering Meleys's famed speed. I don't doubt she could have outpaced Vhagar without any trouble and if found alone I don't think Aegon would have changed taking her on. Alas, we will never know their minds!!!

I originally wanted to do a profile shot because next to Syrax miss Mel has my favorite snout profile and I wanted to show off the back of the cool headdress I was envisioning but I was most happy with the face structure I was getting from a front view so scrapped the old sketch. I also was first planning on something a bit sleeker and was looking at ff dragoon armor but I was vibing so hard on her rizz that I went in another silly anime direction with a rad grand mantle. Unfortunately shit was just not coming out how I wanted it and I was getting frustrated and had to cut out her pauldrons for the sake of my sanity. Just gonna add on to my forever things I want to draw to do list doing maybe silhouette outfit studies of all the dragons I did

#meleys the red queen #meleys #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf fanart #my art #i cast bam gijinka ur dragon

[tomaturtles]

I finally made a new ref for Sabrina!! For anyone unfamiliar, she's Lilly's cousin and the youngest daughter of Greg and Natalie :] I updated the lineup with her and also Mr. Alder for an adult size reference

#sabrina amaryllis #toma ocs #toma draws #i sketched out her ref like a little after last year's art fight but bi tim drake happened and distracted me from oc endeavors 😭 #maybe it was worth it tho i'm rly happy to finally figure out a color scheme i like... her colors have been giving me trouble for Ages #very happy to finally get her out of the oc freezer also!! still working on it but i wanna get to alyssa and sparky eventually too #mr. alder's ref isn't new i just lousily shaded him to stylistically match the kids' refs bc i wanted him there djbdj #the metric height chart thing is by pretty-angel on da idk how accurate the numbers are but it's nice to get an idea of em #wait i forgot to tag the others #yarrow watts #lilly watts #snap butterscotch #melon blake #garin slate #mr. alder #oc refs

[willyoubemypartner]

Alyssa Cho - An Essay

Preface - Why is Alyssa so unsympathetic?

One of the things that’s odd about Alyssa’s character is that readers have rarely been so divisive over a single character, particularly about whether or not a character is sympathetic. There’s generally a consensus about the complicated nature of characters like Kousuke or even Rand, but Alyssa discourse feels very different.

During the formal arc, Quim has mentioned a few times that many scenes had to be cut due to Webtoon’s concerns about mature/dark content conflicting with adsense policies. Quim has recently mentioned weaving these scenes back in wherever possible, meaning that things were still happening in universe, we just couldn't see them. But now when these themes come up later to be more explored, they have to be introduced in a roundabout way for it to make sense. Instead of us getting what was intended and being able to build off that foundation as we follow the story and naturally understanding the pacing as it goes.

Now how does this tie into Alyssa? Alyssa in particular had important scenes cut from the formal - parallels we lost with Alyssa and Shin-Ae, the understanding and characterization of the Kims and other elites, the reality of her life in the idol world. It turned the formal into more of a ? than it needed to or should have been, and pulled the foundation of understanding Alyssa’s character right out from under us. We went essentially 200 chapters without really getting a look at her. She was introduced (like many ILY characters) in a certain way, but it took so much longer for her to get to show her depth and development beyond that mold. And it makes it so much harder for readers to see her objectively. People don't want to have to flip their entire understanding of and feelings towards Alyssa at chapter 230.

The foundation for Alyssa being more than just the attention seeker has always been there, we just didn't get to see it.

I don't always love Alyssa. But I feel for her. She's a real person as much as every other character. She’s not just "a girl who makes the wrong choices" nor is she just “the bad friend” or just “the trapped victim” - she is all of them . Alyssa may be misguided, but that’s just it - she's misguided because she never learned how to conflict. She tries to make the right choices, and fails. She’s trying her best and it never works out for her. And so she makes mistakes and she hurts people - including herself. And a lot of them are big mistakes, with very real consequences. She can see what’s really happening around her, but thinks that maybe it can work. And so she keeps making those wrong choices, because the core that she needs to change isn't something she feels safe to rectify. She’s miserable, but she can’t get out. She draws herself to the only light she can see, like a moth to a flame.

She’s introduced as this foe, even the mini Yui. And we're supposed to originally see her that way and know that that's now Nol has come to see her. But we are simultaneously supposed to break that down and see that she is also trapped. She idolized Yui and fell so far into the deep end without realizing it and now has to be Yui's puppet. The puppetmaster imagery is both Alyssa taking after Yui and falling for it, AND Yui taking advantage of her and Alyssa having no choice anymore but to play along and be taken advantage of. There’s that inherent dichotomy to how Alyssa acts and who she is and why she is.

Something about Alyssa is that her motives and feelings are almost always far more complex than they appear. Alyssa is so plagued by those parts of herself that she’s afraid of. Alyssa gets so much criticism for making her choices because for us it's so easy to see where she's going wrong. But, if she could really see it, she wouldn't be here. We know how this really ends and what would actually help, but all Alyssa has seen is that the way she handles things is the viable option. The whole point with Alyssa is that nobody helped her navigate these things . She's as much a victim as everyone else, even though she's hurt arguably our two most sympathetic characters.

Everyone thinks that she is an attention seeker. That she's successful and aloof and just drops people. Nobody is taking a second to see her childhood trauma, understand her real motivations, look at how trapped she is, how miserable. Nobody is extending a hand to her because they don't understand. And with nobody understanding her, nobody can give her an actual way forward, because everyone's attempts will be for a problem that isn't the real issue. Like many, if not all, of our characters, in order to understand Alyssa we have to acknowledge that the reason this is happening is because of unmet and unaddressed needs, lack of personal insight, being in survival mode - the person feeling like they had no other choice.

The people Alyssa hurt are our two main characters, and we are supposed to feel a way about that. But so much of the point is about how our emotional reaction to Alyssa isn't all there is. That she’s not any more or less evil just because the people she hurt are the ones we’re emotionally connected to. That she is a person who has her own story, her own motivations, her own mistakes, her own needs, her own fears, her own traumas. Not that it negates all the harm, but just that there is more to it. That we have to be able to examine and sit with our complex feelings towards her.

Unconditional Love & Chasing The Light 

At the core of Alyssa’s character is the desire to be seen and accepted for herself, at odds with the belief that who she is can’t possibly be okay.

We get some important insight into this throughout the Shinlyssa arc, but especially at Alyssa’s house and with the bullies. In Alyssa’s bedroom we see portraits of Hedy Lamaar, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Melba Roy Mouton, Alan Turing, Vera Rubin, and Sally Ride. The portraits were identified and analyzed by Kimione back in 2022 (https://new.reddit.com/r/ILoveYoo/comments/ws18yg/alyssa_cho_symbolisms_notes_and_scribblings/) as well as this recent post (https://www.reddit.com/r/ILoveYoo/comments/15sh4k7/the_portraits_in_alyssas_room_in_episode_190/?sort=confidence).

Recurring themes in the portraits are all of them being involved in groundbreaking science, contributions to communication or space, being both scientific and artistic, experience of inequity and adversity, and nonnormative sexuality. For all of these people, resilience and passion in the face of a world which did not see them clearly, which did not initially support them, carried them through to their success. For many of them, a key figure (or several) in their lives provided that support that helped them reach the world. Hedy Lamarr said that her father “made me understand that I must make my own decisions, mold my own character, think my own thoughts.”

In Alyssa’s case, we can see based on her choice of portraits and conversation with Shin-Ae that she wants to be seen for who she is, leave her mark on the world through her passions, be genuine in an off-beat way. Like those on her wall, she has a natural skill for both arts and science, but intends to pursue her passion for science, perhaps using her skill in the arts to inform her manner of thinking. The difference, however, is that she does not appear to have that support network. She says that her parents follow her every whim and she’s never been able to develop a real sense of self. We see that her mother puts on a face, appears weak, passive, the trophy wife. When Alyssa was home sick from school, we see her struggle to cope with conflict and rejection, curling up in her room and refusing to talk to anyone but Shin-Ae - yet she “flips a switch” the second she hears her father walk through the door. Something that she does often, as her mother even expected it. Alyssa establishes in that moment that it is not her emotions flipping a switch, but rather the fear of what happens when her father comes home and she is not who he wants her to be. She likely fears her strict father, and resents her passive mother. Either way, Alyssa clearly doesn’t feel supported in herself - she must be the perfect poster daughter, has no role models to look up to, has no understanding of how to make her own decisions, mold her own character, think her own thoughts.

Alyssa frequently exhibits self-doubt and feelings that nobody is listening, that nobody cares. That she must mold herself to whatever others want. That she has to keep parts of herself hidden. That what she wants to be is not something that she can pull herself up in the world through. That she has to bide her time and assuage people to earn her freedom. That she is trapped and isolated.

Although not directly confirmed, we get many hints throughout the Shinlyssa arc that Alyssa is a lesbian, that she had feelings for Shin-Ae. Alyssa being gay in a homophobic world, desperately trying to fit the social mold and find unconditional love, creates such a tragic outcome. While there are obviously so many more types of love than romantic, to have something Alyssa feels such shame for, something that she can not escape or pretend away, something she did not choose, something so wrongly yet so often considered a disease, an abomination, wrong, unnatural, nonconformist tied so directly to the experience of love creates such an all-consuming conflict in Alyssa. Even if she were bisexual, she could suppress enough of herself to fit the mold and find that love (as much as it would still hurt). With her being a lesbian, it enters the fact that she will never be able to find that kind of love while she’s hiding herself. That in her quest to fit the social mold to find love and validation she’s completely closing off that gate. There is something so incredibly tragic about that self-fulfilling prophecy, and it fuels so much of Alyssa’s conflict.

Something important is how much the Shinlyssa event affects not only Shin-Ae, but Alyssa. And, when talking about the Shinlyssa event, something so important to keep in mind is how young they were. They were children, only 12 or 13 years old, in a new environment - especially for Alyssa, who had never been outside the social environment of her home.

Shin-Ae is a character whose light shines bright, which everyone is caught in. That same light that she’s sharing with Nol. A light that even Alyssa was in back in middle school, but that she couldn’t stand in, because Alyssa couldn't accept all of herself. If she stayed in Shin-Ae's light, it would have illuminated the truths she's afraid of. Alyssa is so afraid of the light shining on parts of herself she doesn't want seen that she lets the light go out all together.

It's better in the dark.

So she snuffed out her own light.

She just wants to be accepted and thinks that nobody will accept her because of those parts of herself that she can’t accept. That she’s been taught are wrong. So she can not find acceptance and belonging, she can not stand in the light. And she settles for the closest thing she can find, that artificial light that lets her keep those parts of herself hidden. But that light will never come close when she has to hide so much of herself.

There’s likely only one time in Alyssa’s life that she felt that sense of unconditional love - in her relationship with Shin-Ae. How Alyssa felt the emotional support she desperately needed, that love she craved, that acceptance for her authentic self. How she felt seen with Shin-Ae. How she pushed her away because those are feelings she's not allowed to have. Not for an outcast. Not for someone so brazen. Not for a girl. Not for someone who sees Alyssa as she genuinely is. And now that feeling of actual love and acceptance may be something she never finds again. Only conditional. Only for her image. Her persona. Only when she does what she's told. But none of it true.

Alyssa doesn’t chase fame or adoration, she’s chasing acceptance while being unable to look at herself. She is in this career, in Yui’s grasp, as a direct result of the Shinlyssa event.

Nobody ever showed her safe unconditional love. So naturally she thinks that the only way she can be loved is by chasing adoration. And, as she got older, nothing has proven that wrong for her. The Shinlyssa accident factors so strongly into why Alyssa doesn't see another way. She did have Shin-Ae, but things still went so wrong. It was ingrained into Alyssa that she can not rock the boat, can not be in conflict, has to play nice with those around her. Shin-Ae was unconventional, unpopular, and unafraid to stand up for herself. That created tension between them, and a lot of problems between them and the other kids. Alyssa, in her world, kept trying to keep Shin-Ae and not cause problems at school, but it kept blowing up in her face. And, in the end Shin-Ae falls out a window. This is a horrible way to experience your first taste of interpersonal conflict and likely just solidified for her that you absolutely can not rock the boat, you have to placate people and fit the social mold. It's also likely that her parents were involved in the aftermath of what happened in middle school, considering how much it all got swept under the rug. With her feared, strict father and her good family image mother, I can only imagine what sort of treatment she was welcomed to at home after the Shinlyssa incident. Personally, I also believe that her parents wouldn't have let her anywhere near Shin-Ae afterwards.

Hidden behind the large home and private lessons is how neglected Alyssa was. Treated as a trophy to compensate for the eldest daughter being a disappointment to their overbearing father. Living in a home as the trophy daughter with the trophy wife. Alyssa’s statements of wanting to be part of a power couple come from that resentment, the deep desire to not be that kind of submissive, docile woman.

And then in comes Yui - this godlike woman. Mother. Businesswoman. Charitable. Charismatic. Powerful. Married to an honorable man. Promising everything Alyssa needs - love, validation, adoration, success, belonging. Offering Alyssa a chance to shine, compliments, (fake) love, the potential to become powerful and adored like her. And she idolized Yui, so she took the chance.

It was everything Alyssa needed, on a silver platter … until it wasn’t.

Yui knew exactly how to play her. Manipulated a 14 year old girl just like she does everyone. And by the time Alyssa could see any which way, it's already too late. We can see that she's exhausted. Miserable. Isolated. Always 'on.' Always playing her role. Always on high alert, in survival mode. With Yui over her shoulder, groupmates that hate her, having to be dolled up for everyone she meets, no true allies anymore, being watched and exploited at home, at work, at practice, in the dorms, in public, at events - there is truly not a single place Alyssa feels safe, let alone accepted or loved. And yet she can not leave. She can't stop. They won't let her go now. If she were to stop, she'd have to fail . She has never been allowed to fail. Her life now is miserable, but she sees the price of failure as being even worse.

I think that we're going to see Alyssa continue down a dark path. She's never lived in a reality where it feels okay to be herself. She's pushing so much down and trying so hard to become what other people want her to be so that she may finally fit in. Be loved. Feel like she belongs.

Every one time someone says she's doing great it's like a hit for her, but it's so fleeting. So she has to keep chasing it, because she doesn't know where else to get it. But the more she chases it, the farther and farther down a dark path she goes, running after a torch instead of the sun. And the farther she gets, the harder it is to find an exit. So she has to keep chasing the only light she can see and just hope that it gets her somewhere.

Survival & Safety 

In the case of Alyssa, so many people underestimate the effect that an emotionally volatile upbringing can have on you and how you interact with the world. So many people are choosing to ignore that Alyssa is emotionally neglected and likely abused at home. Shin-Ae feels more like the victim to us because we're seeing the story through her eyes and we know that without money you can't physically live, but the thing Alyssa has lacked all her life, the thing that she needs is to feel like she's accepted and loved. That she, herself, is enough.

At the core of all of her actions, beliefs, choices, is one simple fact - Alyssa feels unsafe.

And even Alyssa’s song - she knows full well that she’s trapped now. The imagery points right to Yui. As Alyssa said, she’s not dumb. The entire time that we’ve known Alyssa, she’s known where she stands with Yui. When she talks about Yui at the formal her eyes are closed. The entire time she’s talking about Yui being charitable, nice for giving Shin-Ae a job, not being where she is today without Yui, wanting a mother like her, wanting to be like her. Her eyes only open again when she says she’d love to be part of a power couple. These are all things that Alyssa likely believed about Yui when she first met her, but has since seen the writing on the wall. The savior she ran to in order to escape her unsafe family life turned out to be even worse. And this is even what leads her to Gun Kim in the recent chapters - in the same way she desperately needed to escape her family, now she desperately needs to escape Yui. But since Alyssa doesn't believe in herself, can't let herself shine enough to brave the world and gain control on her own, she needs someone by her side. Needs to be part of a "power couple." This time it's Gun who comes in, the sparkling savior. Except Alyssa does know better this time, we can see that she's uncomfortable around him, that she knows the sparkles fade. But it’s too late now, and Alyssa just hopes to play the game long enough to gain some of her power back.

"Everything will go to waste I’m trying to find my way back But all these red hues keep me locked in place I can stay captive a bit longer So long as I end up on top"

Alyssa has been playing the game because it's the same game she had to play at home. Keep your head down. Do what they say. That way they won't hurt you as badly.

And when we remember that Alyssa's socioeconomic status is closer to Kousuke's than to Shinae's we can understand even more the implications, because it's not just about Alyssa’s weaknesses. It's about how it reflects on her family. Alyssa and Meg act as parallels to Kousuke and Nol, the golden child and the black sheep. Constantly told to not embarrass the family, don't make them look bad, live up to your potential. Nol and Meg are seen as wildcards, burdens, disappointments, people who do not fit the social mold and make everyone's lives more difficult. So Kousuke and Alyssa feel such intense pressure to fit the mold exactly. To never be out of line. To be someone that lives up to their family name. That brings respect. That doesn't cause trouble.

We see this same concept play out in the juxtaposition between the reaction to the girls’ catching Yui’s eye.

When we think about the parallels of Yui swooping in and "stealing away" both Shin-Ae and Alyssa the biggest difference is that Nol could see Shin-Ae, see how miserable she was even if she didn’t explain it to him. And, even then, the only reason even Shin-Ae ever opened up and leaned on people was because she had to. Because Nol had already seen it. He was able to nudge it out of her after seeing her eviction notice and pile of bills. After seeing her so blatantly miserable at the formal. And once someone had seen her weaknesses and supported her, she gradually was able to build back that trust that she spent so long unable to draw upon. But she didn’t start that by choice, she just chose to continue.

While for Alyssa he can’t see it - so much of her misery has been out of his view, she doesn’t open up and lean on people and is so good at putting on her brave face. The more people know your weaknesses, the more they have to use against you, and Alyssa sees so many weaknesses in herself that she can’t trust anyone. Alyssa has been trained all her life to hide anything negative. Never step out of line. Nol was able to see it in Shin-Ae because she’s easier to read, but nobody can see it in Alyssa because she’s been taught how to hide it. Shin-Ae’s biggest strategy for hiding her state was to avoid people - Alyssa is able to hide in plain sight.

Alyssa is always a strong contrast with Shin-Ae, and we can see it throughout the formal. Something so important to this parallel are cut scenes of Alyssa that foreshadow the recent developments we’ve seen of her with the Hiraharas and the Kims.

Such a theme of the night is how lucky Shin-Ae was that Kousuke and Nol didn't have ill intentions around her and were looking out for her. Everyone was looking out for Shin-Ae that night, but no one was looking out for Alyssa. Even her own parents, the people who above all else are supposed to keep you safe, sold her out to the entertainment industry and never looked back. And, to be fair, we come back to her self-fulfilling prophecy - Alyssa is afraid to be herself because she thinks her true self isn’t worthy of love, so she pushes people away, and then has no one. But, at the same time, Shin-Ae has also been pushing everyone away. Nol has to stalk her to gain her friendship, she coldly and pointedly rejects Dieter, she keeps Maya and Rika at arm’s length, she doesn’t tell anyone (even Min-Hyuk) about her problems with her home and her dad. But the difference between Alyssa and Shin-Ae is, in many ways, how well they hid it. With Shin-Ae it was obvious that she was keeping people at arm’s length because she had been hurt. With Alyssa, she’s keeping people away because she’s afraid, but she’s been taught very well how to keep up appearances, so it looks as though she just doesn’t care, that she’s more concerned with herself and her image and her career. So people leave her alone, while they chase after Shin-Ae. While everyone was off chasing Shin-Ae, Alyssa was alone with the elites - no one looking for her, no one caring where she was.

Alyssa is, at her core, so very alone.

Unreliable Narrators & Nolyssa 

One of the most pointed failings of Nolyssa, especially in comparison to Stalkyoo, is how much Nol and Alyssa really don’t know each other at all, despite being more privy to the details of each other’s lives than almost anyone else. Both of them are in survival mode, putting on masks day after day, not letting each other in, seeing each other as something they are so very not with goals and desires that only scratch the surface. On the one hand, neither of them have really put up a fight, but also the circumstances were against them. They weren't in a position to help each other. They were both kids with needs that weren't met trying their best to survive. Children forced into playing an adult’s game.

Nol and Shin-Ae are both unreliable narrators. Shin-Ae actually acknowledges this, specifically in relation to Alyssa, saying that she only ever has her side of the story. In Nol’s case, he sees Yui for what she is, and wants others to see it, too. But he also believes that everything is his fault, that it all stems from his existence, that Yui may be a villain but it’s because of him, not that Yui does what suits her best. And that makes it so hard for him to even begin to guess that Alyssa sees Yui for something else, that Alyssa fell for Yui’s manipulation for reasons that he couldn’t see and that she realized after what had really happened. That she could praise Yui, focus on her career, devote her time to this game, and be lying about it all. He sees that validation seeker and he didn't see beyond it because she didn't let him see anything more than that. He’s good at being able to tell when people are putting up a facade, but not so much why .

Alyssa is so much more complex than just someone seeking validation, and she is meant to make us sit with complex feelings. Meant to make us figure her out, to see beyond our unreliable narrators. To accept that she is more complex despite how negative her interactions with our two most overtly sympathetic characters are. We are supposed to be clued in to her more than they are, to see those things that none of our narrators can see.

Nol states that she knows how his family makes him feel, but does he know his family makes her feel? How this whole game makes her feel? That she wants off this ride but it's too late and she can't do anything?

Ironically, Nol is being used as Alyssa’s protector, but not in any intentional way. Nol said that he tried to steer Alyssa clear of Yui, but honestly it doesn't seem like he really tried. When Shin-Ae gets the invitation to Kousuke's apartment Nol just says that Yui is a nice lady. I think that Nol tries to save people from Yui by encouraging them to appease her and then wean away from her, thinking that as long as they do what she wants Yui won't hurt them. But obviously that's not how Yui works. And, Alyssa fell right into the trap, just like Shin-Ae.

But, where Nol is protecting her is by being the “boyfriend,” protecting her from the predators around her. Even if it's not much, having Nol as a boyfriend keeps those close to the Hiraharas who may try to take advantage of her just a bit more at bay. They can't step on the Hiraharas’ toes. I especially think that now that we've seen more of Alyssa's world, how she got where she is, and what likely lays ahead for her. And, it honestly works well for Alyssa - Nol is respectful, not interested in her, doesn’t push her, she doesn’t have to do anything to appease him, doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Doesn’t even have to pay attention to him (although she should, if even as just a friend). And I think that Alyssa does know this, and that’s part of why she fought so hard when he did for once express his own needs and desires and tried to break it off. I think that, once Nol is gone, it's basically open season on her, and it's going to be so incredibly hard to watch - that fake relationship is probably the final barrier keeping her in some semblance of safe.

But, the thing is, Alyssa's fate isn't Nol's responsibility. Alyssa does not deserve to be preyed upon, but Nol also doesn't deserve to be trapped and suffocated. We can see how much being in this relationship hurts Nol, suffocates him, how it's keeping him on a one-way path to misery. How, as much as she does not deserve what likely lays ahead for her without Nol, he does not deserve what lays ahead for him with Alyssa.

As much as I defend Alyssa, urging people to understand her complexities as a character, how her choices are born out of her own survival mode, how she is falling back on the methods that she learned from her home life were the only way to survive, how she has never felt safe and that leads directly to the choices she makes and how she feels that she does not have a choice at all - Nol is not the one responsible for her path, her choices. Some combination of Alyssa, the adults who failed her, and the adults who groomed her are responsible.

I mentioned earlier how Alyssa ended up here as a fallout of the Shinlyssa event, and that implicates Nol’s position too - both in relation to Alyssa and to Shin-Ae. If Shinlyssa had survived, Stalkyoo would never have been. All of this growth between Nol and Shin-Ae, chasing that future - it never would have happened. It’s even possible Nol wouldn’t be around anymore. Everything is a chain reaction. Sometimes there is no choice where everyone turns out okay. No matter which way it happened, one of them was going to be in a bad place. Which is the same way things are going with the potential ending of Nolyssa. Either Nol suffers or Alyssa is in danger - there's no scenario where they are both okay.

Shin-Ae is likely going to be a foil to Alyssa, and she may watch and have to understand. To see why Shin-Ae is so capable of being what she isn't. That at the end of the day Shin-Ae was always enough. That Alyssa was always enough. How different things would have been if she could’ve accepted herself and stood in that light. That if she could, people will come along who love her for who she is. That there was so much she couldn't see at that time and now it's too late.

Conclusion 

Despite how easy it is to dislike Alyssa, to to write her off as the validation seeker, the bad friend, the self-serving naïve idol - there is so much more to Alyssa to see. The girl seeking to fill that unmet essential need for unconditional love. The girl who has never felt safe. The girl who was never taught how to handle conflict. The girl who is so afraid of herself that she pushes everyone away. Who hides herself so much that no one knows who she really is. Who’s reputation for herself and her family rides on her back. Who is miserable but sees no way out. Who is trapped by choices she made as a child. Who still makes all the wrong choices because she doesn’t see any other way. Who is just as much a victim, desperately trying to survive, as everyone else.

Now she is trapped in this prison, abused and trafficked No way out in sight No one on her side Only empty love and adoration Chasing artificial light, snuffing her own out from fear of those inner truths, never feeling safe, having to keep going to have any hope of getting out but keeping going being so so bad and likely never going to get her there

Above all else I hope that Alyssa can learn to accept herself. That, even if she realizes it far too late, she can see that was all she ever really needed. Because she can’t have that love that she wants while she’s so afraid, so much in hiding, so fearful of the truths within herself that could be revealed if she stands in the light. The thing about Alyssa is that she pushes genuine people away because of this fear. And therein is her self-fulfilling prophecy, but she makes these choices because she doesn’t know what else to do and ends up further and further trapped. I feel an intense sadness for Alyssa as she, like all of our characters, is in survival mode herself and just trying desperately to fill an unmet need.

And, again, it's not about liking or disliking Alyssa. Absolving or convicting her. It's not that simple. As complex as she is as a person, so is her role in the story, her perception within us. But it's about understanding her - who she is, why she makes her choices, how she got here.

I will reiterate again a point from earlier - the people Alyssa hurt are our two main characters. We are supposed to feel a way about that. But so much of the point is about how our emotional reaction to Alyssa isn't all there is. That she’s not any more or less evil just because the people she hurt are the ones we’re emotionally connected to. That she is a person who has her own story, her own motivations, her own mistakes, her own needs, her own fears, her own traumas. Not that it negates the harm, the wrong choices, but just that there is more to it. That we have to be able to examine and sit with our complex feelings towards her.

In the words of Hedy - “I’m a very simple, complicated person.”

And that concludes my full length essay about Alyssa and why I have feelings

#i love yoo #i love yoo webtoon #Alyssa Cho #I love yoo alyssa #ILY Alyssa #ILY #Shinlyssa #I love yoo shinlyssa #ILY Shinlyssa #my writing #I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Alyssa okay #My heart aches for her #She's not perfect and she certainly makes a lot of wrong choices but she's not a villain either

[ratwavegamehouse]

Terminal and the Inspirations from Other Places

Around the start of the month I did a big post on Terminal and how the Matrix inspired it as well as generally espounding on my thoughts around influence, pastiche, and analogues. I found it interesting, and some people enjoyed reading it, so I figured I'd do a post on all the other things that inspired Terminal.

Ok, almost definitely not covering all the other things. But some of them. The big ones maybe. Or the thing that are easiest for me to explain.

(This will also involve previewing some of the full game. Any art in this post is by Gormengeist and any completed layout was done by me, while any text will have been written by me and edited by Alyssa.)

Let's start of by sharing the Inspirations and Influences pages from the book itself.

Some of these will only probably ever make sense to me, and that's fine, that's how creating things goes. I won't go linearly, I guess I'll go in order of what seems important. At least to start, I'll probably end up following some whims.

Black Sails/Treasure Island

I think this is something I got asked on both The Weekly Scroll, by Zach on This is Your Lifepath, and also just by people. "Why'd you add pirates?"

I actually tried looking through some notepads where I first jotted down ideas to see if I recorded my actual thought process as it happened. No dice. "Zion as Pirates" is one of the earliest notes I have.

I think my early logic was about avoiding just doing a complete 1-2-1 of how reality was in the Matrix. First this just started as "I don't wanna do the sun blocked out thing and the energy stuff" and I think that evolved into the shattered moon and flooded Earth which made arriving at pirates logical; sailing the seas rather than jetting around underground tunnels.

It was in righting and exploring these early ideas I found a resonance with pirates that made me excited to make that such a core part of the book; themes about rejecting society and civilization, loyalty among a crew, the idea of being an outlaw, the Robot Authority as the British Navy.

Being honest the line I often used of "The Matrix x Black Sails" was more using Black Sails as a touchstone to convey an idea, rather than crediting for my conception of pirates. It speaks to a pirate epic and the focus on pirates creating a home.

Libertatia was down as the placeholder name "Pirate Island" for much longer than you'd expect (I think I had some crews written at this time but nothing about the setting). Someone suggested the name when I asked for ideas and doing some research the pirate legend ended up informing the development of the setting. Libertatia is implicitly anarcho-communist rather than the more heirachy based structure of Zion seen in the Matrix films.

I also like how this created such a different relationship with your home setting that the one in Inevitable, the books system influence which focuses on protecting a kingdom. In Inevitable you are given quests by your king, or more often the king's advisors, and you're an agent of a crumbling monarchy. In Terminal people suggest things that someone should deal with but none of the NPCs have any authority or ability to command your characters, you have to choose to listen to them.

Twin Peaks/Lost Highway/Blue Velvet

I'll go to this next as it was the third influence that got shouted out in articles. The answer to "why" Lynch was such an influence is basically that I'm a fan and so his work is on my mind frequently enough that it's a common influence.

The sort of eery dream-logic is part of the influence, though that also draws from lots of other things. I notice dream logic or living dreams are a recurrent theme in a lot of my work, which is interesting for someone who never remembers any dreams. The way your dreams are walked through by sinister forces was definitely aping some of Fire Walk with Me.

The inclusion of doppelgangers, of yourself, of people you love, people who loved you, that's coming from the Return for sure. It's also hitting a theme of embracing your own imperfections and messiness as some of these antagonist doppelgangers are explicitly versions built around expectations characters couldn't or wouldn't live up to.

The Puppeteer, a villainous program who strives to manipulate people emotions to inflict psychological torture, has some of the Mystery Man from Lost Highway in him as well as the Man from Another Place's desire for armonbozia" (pain and sorrow). The fact that The Seer, our prophetic program who serves as a tense pirate ally, is always met on a lost highway is more in the realm of a reference.

The Crash, the name for Terminal's major story arcs, Tortures of the Killer combines a lot of Lynch influence. The Killer has influences from Frank from Blue Velvet and BOB from Twin Peaks though without the sexual violence being a major aspect of the character, instead the Killer's focus is in blackmail and threats. The video tape element draws from Lost Highway while the setting of that scenario draws on Blue Velvet as well.

A pair of linked characters, The Arm and someone more mysterious, are another thing more in the realm of reference rather than attempted analogue. I think the big influence for those characters is my own interest in the ideas of partitioning off aspects of yourself, and then having to deal with those aspects brought to life, because of some of my personal experience.

Paprika

Paprika was the fourth big influence I explicitly shouted out in marketing. This relates to the dream hopping element.

In Terminal freeing someone from the simulation involves delving into their dreams and guiding them to a door they must open to wake themselves up. The reason I came up with this was that basically because of how the red pill/blue pill symbolism got used after the release of the Matrix I felt I needed to avoid anything to close to that. Dream delving came to me probably because of my aforementioned fixation on dreams in fiction, and also the way that distinction between dreaming and waking is so blurred in Neo's early life.

It also put me in the mind of Paprika, which in turn influenced the Crash The Dying Dream, specifically the Dream Parade influenced a lot of how that developed. I think following a whim I'll do a section on all the stuff that ended up combo-ing to form this Crash, cause it's maybe an interesting insight into how I wrote.

The Dying Dream

My memory isn't super exact but I recall the early writing process in Terminal, once the big central idea and themes were sketched out, involved some jotted down ideas for Crashes and then I ended up writing a big list of characters. I think I wrote a document of routine programs, a document of obsolete programs, a document of Robot Authority characters, a document of Special Agents (at that time called officers) and a document of pirates. I think with some characters written I began combining them with Crash ideas that i started writing in full.

There was a lot of jumping around. This wasn't an linear process at all. There were some ideas for Crashes that could quashed and then ended up creating other parts of the story (initially finding the Omen was a Crash and they were going to be an NPC, quashing that Crash came with jumping to writing the stuff about characters becoming Omen, together). I interrupted this to properly sketch out Libertatia and with that came a lot of new pirates. I think there's a chance the Hedonist has an associated Crash at some point before I decided I liked her better as an a sort-of-not-really ally.

Anyway when I wrote the Special Agents I had a few ideas; a "standard" agent who exposed the ways other deviated, a agent deliberately created as a woman to poke at gender-based hang-ups some characters could have, 0 our agent-turned-malware and then a pair of agents; one who'd been corrupted and deleted and their partner who's reaction to this was question everything they thought they knew.

(The reason I initially named the Special Agents Officers was to make them seem a little further away from the Matrix agents, but once I decided on this angle with a character questioning their role I enjoyed the wordplay in fact that the agents lack agency so renamed them.)

So I had this pair but no idea what Crash they'd end up in. The Archivist was an early Crash, the idea for Multipled by 0 came early on, "hacked pirates" was the note that lead Corruptions of The Passenger. But I was a little stuck on Crashes full stop and none of them served as a home for these two agents, and I wanted these two in the book.

I ended up thinking about Inevitable and what purpose the story arcs, called Dooms there, played. The Tower Wizards Doom takes your cadre into the dangerous Wizard's Bluff to retrieve a dangerous artefact that's crash landed there. I tried to think of what a Crash could look like where the threat wasn't a specific character but a situation.

This brought me to the Dream Parade from Paprika and so I settled on a dying dreamer's nightmares corrupting a domain. The corrupted agent I had in my notes (Special Agent 7) got changed to have been corrupted by this situation and their partner (Special Agent 5) had a place as a possible obstruction, ally, or strange encounter.

Figuring out what the artefact at the centre of the Dying Dream was was part of what lead to Transmit, the last Omen, emerging as such a major character (the other thing that contributed to this was the need for the Omen code to have been modified) and that lead to a hidden story arc in the book that reflects some of the core themes about the power of positive connection being able to save you from people who want to control you and make you feel crazy.

Some Smaller Inlfuences, Explained as Well as I Can

The Wizard of Oz is on the list partly for doppelgangers, but also partly for the way its influence is felt in The Matrix and David Lynch's work (hence Lynch/Oz, the video essay film, being included). It's also there because the character of The Wizard, an obsolete program with the power of recognition, the ability to see what's already there, is an extended Wizard of Oz joke.

Inception is there because of dream hopping, even though my version of dreams is much more Paprika than Inception.

Stuff like Fallen Angels, Taxi Driver, and Fight Club are there for a mood that I was channelling in writing at certain points. I find making these lists interesting, when I do them, because I could restrict to to the obvious, explainable stuff, but personally I like including things where my only explanation was "I was thinking of it while writing and maybe that bled in".

Pacific Rim is there because the description of drift compatibility and the neural handshake influenced the way I described becoming the Omen and connecting your hearts to share the code. (I do find it interesting which things I knew were influencing me as i was writing - Matrix, Twin Peaks, Paprika, etc - vs things I only really noticed after the fact like this Pacific Rim influence).

I mentioned in the Matrix influences post that The Hedonist was partly influenced by Carrie Ann Moss's character in Mass Effect 2. That's part of why that's on the list. The other thing is that the eventual way I settled on travel (a map for the Wake with various mind docks that you travel to via sea and then plug you into different domains) was partly influenced by the way the overworld space travel worked in the game.

Transistor influenced depictions of certain places; the inner workings of the Terminal, corrupted domains on the verge of system crash. Additionally it was something that I think, this is a part in reflection, influenced two character's relationship.

Metal Gear Solid was an influence of the tagline "Digital Pirate Action", I think there were other reasons I added it to the list though I can't recall them right now.

Finding Yeezus, a pop culturual investigate docu series about the creator of a viral ARG game, is on the list for being part of what got me thinking about the Matrix again so much.

The music list is mainly music I listened to while writing, in some cases certain lyrics felt very resonant to me.

Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World are there, and there together, because there's an optional move around physical intimacy and in developing that I read back over the sex moves in both games.

Dream Askew and Dream Apart is credited because of how the "Pick questions to ask left and right" technique became a big part of character creation.

Orbital Blues is there as it influenced some of the ship creation stuff.

Influence Comes from Lots of Places

So like I said a YouTube series is there because it was part of what got me thinking about the Matrix again. It wasn't the main thing though. That was because my therapist at the time used multiple Matrix metaphors with me in sessions. (I managed to resist replying to her first question of "Have you seen the Matrix?" with "Yeah, I'm trans" and I'll never get enough credit for that).

I like learning about the things that inspire people. I do a whole podcast about, so you'd hope that's the case. But I know that's not always as clear cut as influences from other works of art. That's a big thing, obviously, and it's a thing that can help with marketing in a way that talking therapy doesn't. But this life stuff is also pretty huge.

This is the title page for Terminal (subject to change, credits for the stretch goal writers need to be added in). I think the thanks are as important, honestly more important, in terms of saying what made the book what it is. In many ways Terminal is a break-up album. If it's a love letter to anything it's to my best friend before it's to the Matrix. It's about the way I've felt crazy, and against the people who wanted me to feel that way. One of the domains is a thinly veiled Canary Wharf because that's a place I really hate. Also auteur theory is bullshit and the book is also only what it is because of Gormengeist and Alyssa in combination with me.

When it comes out I hope people like it, and I sincerely believe this book is great and enjoying it doesn't rely on understanding any of the things I've spent two overly-long tumblr posts going on about.

“The connection we share is deeper than the sea, realer than blood and tougher than steel blades. It’s the connection you feel when you look at someone and know that you are the same, that they’re one of yours and you’re one of theirs.” - Ariadne

#indie ttrpg #game design #ttrpg #cyberpunk #the matrix #pirates #terminal

[coolcattime]

A Moment of Rest (A Mianite YTTD Snippet)

Written for Day 2 (AU/Post canon) of MCYT Yuri Week created by @mcyt-yuri-week

Content Warning: Contains discussion of off screen deaths and violence

Relationships: Captain Capsize/Sonja Firefoxx

Characters: Sonja Firefoxx, Captain Capsize, Spark Conway

The following takes place in the brief rest period between the end first Main Game and the beginning of the next set of sub games. At the current point in time, nine of the participants remain alive.

As their first day in this death game draws to a close, Capsize and Sonja sit together thinking about the events of the day. Despite neither wanting to think about the main game, Capsize feels the need to thank her new friend for her defence.

AO3 Link

Full AU Tag

Tom and Alyssa were both sleeping as peacefully as Capsize and Sonja assumed possible given the situation. Even if said sleep was fitful, it was surely better than nothing. They’d been here a day, and they'd watched three people die horribly. Even having only just met those who had died, it had been horrific, neither could imagine the full effect of the situation on the two they were watching over as they waited for the next floor to open. Neither particularly liked the silence that had settled since they had managed to coax Alyssa into getting some sleep, it let their minds wander too much into the reality that they found themselves in, but that wasn't really something they could avoid thinking about now. However, no matter how much she wanted to avoid thinking about it altogether, there was a certain part of the Main Game, beyond the horrifying deaths that had marked its end, that still itched in the mind of one of the two.

“I haven't thanked you yet," Capsize broke the silence, causing Sonja to abruptly be broken out of her own thoughts. She looked a little confused towards the other woman, not thinking of anything she needed to be thanked for, but it had been a hell of a day, maybe it’d slipped her mind. The singer avoided her eyes, drumming her fingers against her knee rhythmically wishing she had an actual instrument to focus her thoughts. “When everyone was accusing me of being a murderer, you defended me and I, uh, I really appreciate it.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that!” She spoke a little too loudly at first, causing a brief stir from Alyssa, before hushing herself. She didn’t mean to be loud; she just still couldn’t quite believe what a mess the Main Game had been, how little it took for everyone to start turning on each other. How quickly it had turned from everyone working together to trying to pick out the most useless of the group and people lying to save themselves. She’d barely wanted to show the version of the paper she’d pieced together from the shredder. Even with it having an obvious mistake, it still pointed towards Tom being a murderer, and she didn’t want to throw that landmine into the discussion. She’d been so glad when Tom brought out the scrap piece he’d found, when she saw how clearly it matched up with the tear line to show that he wasn’t a killer. The fact that it immediately pointed towards Capsize as the killer instead felt like a gut punch. “Them all turning on you, like you hadn’t spent the whole time helping, it was disgusting. Besides, it’s not like my defence did much.”

“You told them all it was bullshit, that’s good enough for me,” They both laughed, though it was a quiet and hollow feeling. Capsize wondered how close she was to getting voted up. What would’ve happened if Red hadn’t revealed himself as the murderer, as her brother? It felt repulsive to think about, the sort of thing she really didn’t want to think about because the entire situation was beyond messed up. She was happy to be alive but at the same time, they’d voted to kill someone. She’d voted to kill someone. Even if they’d been forced to, it still felt beyond uncomfortable. It was an odd mix, both were happy to be alive, but that came at the expense of two people who weren’t. No one had deserved to die, so how could they really be happy beyond the fact that they haven’t turned on each other?

“Well, I had to do something. You’ve been helping this whole time. You were willing to lose an arm for me. Even if you had killed someone, I can’t believe you were a bad person,” She honestly hadn’t been sure. Seeing the words ‘Dunbar … Murderer’ on the torn-up sheet was enough to make her question, but when she’d been locked in that deathtrap, when everything had seemed hopeless, Capsize had placed her arm in front of the arrows aimed at her, smiling as if risking her arm being shot point blank by multiple arrows was no big deal. Sonja’s mind had been set, regardless of what Capsize might’ve done outside of the game, she was a good person. Oh course, most of the others haven’t cared. “I owe you so much.”

‘It must be nice to just be able to see a pretty face assume morals based on that. Really, do you have any logical thoughts?’ She’d been dismissed just like that, treated like she was wrong for speaking emotionally. It wasn’t as if her point had been devoid of logic, she was just making a different point than the majority. It would’ve felt belittling if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Instead, it just made her blood boil and she’d yelled more. She was pretty sure she’d made the situation worse, lead to just more intense demands to Capsize to tell the truth. It hadn't mattered once Redbeard yelled over the lot of them to reveal his identity, but what if he hadn't been there? Why did everyone just decide guilty until proven innocent even despite previous actions?

“You don’t owe me anything. Just seriously, thank you,” She said, making sure to sound sincere as it was important to her that Sonja knew how much the defence had meant to her. She mulled over the whole argument that had happened. She’d felt so lost, nearly everyone turned on her so quickly, and she’d just floundered. But it had been nice to have someone still believe in her, still try and fight for her when it looked like she might’ve been the worst kind of person. And she remembered what had been yelled at Sonja, and wondered if she should say more, if there really was anything more that she could say on the topic without making assumptions. But Sonja decided to continue the conversation instead.

"Do you really think there's gonna be a way out of here? No more death or having to vote?" She asked carefully, not quite being sure if she herself believed such a thing possible. Capsize looked at her, at downcast eyes and hands playing with the fabric of her apron. She thought of the two they were watching over, of Alyssa screaming as she watched her dad be killed by the same collar still fixed around all of their necks, of Tom desperately trying to deny reality as the results of the Main Game were announced. It had been as horrible as the deaths themselves, hope sucking. She couldn't blame anyone for losing hope, but she couldn't. 

"Yeah, there has to be, I'm not dying in someone's idea of a sick joke. There's stuff I've still got to do," She spoke as if there was no doubt in her mind, like she had the whole thing figured out. Sonja looked more towards her and saw the same smile she had had during the death trap, one so reassuring that said despite reality that everything was going to be okay. And she wanted more than anything to believe that smile. "And, even if we are stuck in this mess, I'll keep on protecting you lot. So, you don't need to worry."

"You shouldn't place a burden like that on your shoulders."

"It’s not a burden..." Capsize paused, drumming her fingers on her leg again, wondering if she should actually say what she wanted to. She feared sounding too forward, that it'll be weird given the situation, but one of them could be dead tomorrow. She had enough regrets without adding another one born of cowardice. "And... we are both gonna get out of here. I know we will ‘cause, well, I was kinda hoping we could maybe go somewhere maybe grab a drink, a coffee, together just the two of us once we got out of here, so it'd really suck if we didn't."

Sonja hummed in response, it not quite clicking what had been said until after she had already done so, causing her to suddenly jolt at her own seeming indifference. She turned to see Capsize looking almost sheepish, an odd look for someone who had been bold and loud the whole time. And Sonja was almost sure she misheard because the pretty punk girl she'd met in a death game had just asked her out for coffee. She almost wanted to laugh because it almost felt like the world itself was playing a trick on her. Though she didn't, which was without a doubt good for Capsize's confidence as she already felt that she'd put her foot in her mouth. Sonja instead lent a little closer to her, taking her hand that was currently at rest and lacing her fingers between half-gloved ones. She looked at her with as much a smile as she could muster.

"I'd love to get coffee whenever we get out of here," She said. For the briefest moment, the two women looked at each other and it almost felt like they weren't in a live or death situation, like there was no chance of these being their last few days alive. They were so close to each other, close enough to hear the other's heartbeat. And maybe it was just the whole 'we might die soon thing', but they did lean even closer, close enough to feel breath on their face, to know what was about to happen. To lean even closer, their lips practically touching--

A loud clearing of a throat got them to jump away from each other with red faces. Sonja shrank inwards while Capsize glared with no end of annoyance at Spark who lent against a wall with a grin on his face. Did he seriously have to look so smug?

"Sorry to interrupt, but the next floor's open. Thought you might want some help carrying these two," He said, nodding towards Tom and Alyssa. The atmosphere was beyond awkward. Though it was certainly a no win situation for the man as, had he waited until they were done, the tension in the air would have certainly been worse. A groan left Capsize as she had to acknowledge he had a good reason for interrupting but didn't want to. She wanted to live in the previous moment, but it had already passed and flittered out of reach. She pressed her wrist against her forehead, forcing herself to take a breath, to collect her thoughts before speaking.

"You're definitely not sorry, but carry Tom and I'll consider forgiving you," Capsize said, bluntly but there was the slightest hint of levity in her tone. Spark counted himself lucky as he wasn't sure anyone else would've gotten a response so calm from her. He decided to take that as a compliment, even if it did look like she wanted to throttle him.

As Capsize scooped up Alyssa, and Spark figured out the best way to move Tom without waking him, Sonja fidgeted. Now wasn't the time to be embarrassed, and she wasn't, not really, but she couldn't help but worry about the detective telling the others what he had interrupted.

"Hey Spark, you, err," She started, sorting through her head for the right phrasing. "You aren't going to tell anyone that we were gonna--"

"That you were going to kiss?" Spark asked, an eyebrow raised. Sonja squeaked and Capsize grimaced in preparation for the answer. But he shook his head and laughed quietly. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with Mr Detective."

'If only all our secrets could be so light-hearted.' Spark thought as saw the relief wash across their features. They couldn't be of course, and he dreaded some of his own being revealed, but at least he could give some reassurances to other people, however small, as they proceeded into whatever horrors the next stage of this game was going to offer.

#mcytyuriweek2023 #sonja firefoxx #captain capsize #foxxsize #sonja firefoxx/captain capsize #mianite #mianite fanfiction #cat's fanfiction #mianite yttd au #spark conway #not pictured: them finding private bedrooms on the next floor and going somewhere cockblock detectives can't