#and can I say the daughter in this is like a girlboss already cause what she did DRG:kfhgdkljkhfdlkhj ALRIGHT GIRLIEEEEE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chuluoyi · 5 months

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noooo 😭😭 who you gonna use the s-chips on then 😭

UNHOLY BLOOD!!! It's my 1st Vampire-related manhwa and it's so good!!! Hayan is such a GIRLBOSS! I LOVE THE MAGICIAN DUDE AND HIS LION 🥹🥹🥹 But yes Euntae and Hayan's relationship was too slow I couldn't take it... But at least they had such a cute relationship at the end 🫶🏻

do you know the manga artist has a new webtoon? I'm not sure what it's called but I heard it's good! I've yet to read it myself... On another note, I love the art so much it's so unique and different from other manhwas!

And hmm few of my faves are "Death is the only end for the villainess", "No longer a heroine!", and "The Couple breaker". The last 2 are by the same artist! The 1st is a regular "I died and was reincarnated as a villainess" kind of story, BUT It has a twist! It's in an otome game instead of a storybook! Quite interesting... The 2nd is based on the life of an actress. It's pretty realistic and is a little dark... Not much romance tho...The last is really drama HAHAH It's crazy like the name says it all. As for childhood friends to lovers, I recommend "The Secret Bedroom of a Dejected Royal Daughter". It's a little bit enemies to lovers too. And it has 18+ Scenes 😁🤭 That's a bonus.

For status?! Honestly I don't get how that works LIKE you don't feel anything for him? And yeah! I agree that we definitely want the real thing. Woahh but 23 isn't that bad! Exactly I don't wanr boys I want men.

And HAHAHA don't worry bae you're not lecturing at all! I kinda like it when people give me advice.

It's not hot but it's too rainy 😭 I love the rain but I'm on school break now and I wanna go out with my friends 🫠

HAHAHAH I FEEL YOU OMG! Like its so gut-wretching and painful but IT FEELS SO GOOD TO READ!

Impulse buying HAHAH Makeup ain't Impulse buying it's a necessity 🫶🏻 WOAH 10 EPS IS A LOT- My best was like 4 eps maybe HAHAHHA

Omg You're so right my Twitter was always untouched until I started receiving notifs of Gojo being alive theories... And Gege continues toying with us till the very end...

AHHAHA To be fair I started Aot cause of Levi like PLS HE'S SO HOT idc if he's like 8cm shorter than me- But it's really ... complicated.... Too complicated for my liking...I understand where your girl friends are coming from ...

HAHAHAHA Karma hitting him hardddd

Also Karma is the guy on the screen (Gojo) coming straight home to youuuuu [If you listen to Taylor Swift you'll understand haha]

Also I flunked my excel exam... Idk why I have this module it sucks cause I'm not tech savvy... I think I aced my accounting test tho so that's good! Thanks for believing in me tho 😭😭😭 so touched rn..

We'd PAY to be Suguru's monkeys 🐒 🙈

Lmk once you read it omg I wanna know what happens I LOVE this AU it's so cute!

And hang in there, Chu!!!! You can do it!! Ik its already Saturday but still!!! Atb for next week babe!!

p.s. so sorry I took so long to reply, I'm overseas now...

-🪩

hii disco anon!! sorry for the late reply too i was just back from my weekend break!🥹

for christmas event?🥹 there must be a christmas event… right? i haven’t checked the chinese server yet but there must be! (#trust💁🏻‍♀️)

RIGHT it was so good and i’m glad i found people who also like them bcs my friends don’t seem to be interested😭 i know it’s so slowburn but the story is so great too. I KNOW I LOVE HIM TOO but wait i also forgot his name😭 but euntae is so hot i can’t—

really?! i’m looking into it now!! i really love her story and art so it must be good🤭

oooh i never have much affinity for isekai manga but now that you said it’s good then i’ll def check it out!!👀 i read no longer heroine too!! aaah that was so good i was on the edge of my seat every chapter🤧 and hey couple breaker seems interesting?? i’ll eat that up this weekend and oooh what’s that in the end👀👀 okay thank you sm for the recs!!🫶🏻

i have a rec too!! must be a happy ending! have you read it? the art is soooo majestic and the plot got me like 😩🥲🫣🤭 many times i love it so much from the start to the end!!

honestly i don’t really understand to till this day actually, but yeah she didn’t seem to like him that much because as she said it herself it was all out of “curiosity” which is a big red flag in and of itself💀 mind you not even a year later they broke up 🙄

(aww i’m glad you feel that way <3 when we’re close i tend to run off my mouth so…)

ahh school break!! i used to sleep in most of the time🤭🤭

it’s necessity for us but some boys are just too nosy *sigh* they be like “i love natural look!” and then be 🙃 when they see our bare face 😩 HAHAH yeah back when i had so much free time i spent it all on binge-watching🥲 do you have any show recs?? can be anything, even anime too!!

HAHAHHAA omg there’s this one twt account that always makes points about how gojo will live until this day 😭😭 i have accepted it by this point but evidently twitter nation is still going strong🥹

OMG SAME like i know levi but i didn’t know eren at firstt🤧🤧 he seems so cool and so fine (my bf 🙄 again at me when i mentioned that) even with one eye missing in the recent last part of aot too!!

OH YEAH I LISTEN TO HER THESE DAAAYS omg i must make a confession; her songs are the inspiration for my fics these days🥹🥹 like everything is so relatable and the tune are so easy to remember i love her songs 🫶🏻

ohmy i’m sorry🥺 i used to be sooo bad at excel (esp macros) too but ever since i’m following some yt tutorials i started getting better! and let me give you some shortcuts too:

chat gpt. believe it or not it works on codes! my friend who is a programmer cheats from chat gpt sometimes🥲 not totally recommended but it can be your last resort

excel forum. whenever i get confused regarding codes or formulas, i drop by the forum to ask. there are many kind people there! and most of their codes and formulas work too

whaa accounting!! i used to be so bad at it like i would tear my hair out to find “why are they not balanced?!” 😭😭 i love science subjects better🥹 and aw you’re welcome!!

i haven’t read the bakerlon card yet but i will tonight!! will update you once i do!!🥹

awww thank youuu disco anon!!😭🫶🏻 you’re so sweet thank you for interacting with me!!! and it’s totally okay! waaa i hope you enjoy your vacation!!✨

#🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻#—chu’s mailbox 📬#💌: 🪩

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erigold13261 · 4 months

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Part 2/2 for the FR-NY AU!

Jonathan and Peter B team up (maybe even talks in people like Jess or Charlotte Webber to join the fight against The Leopards Eating Powered People's Face Company; since this place would prolly spiral out of control trying to take powers from everyone including the counselors)

Liv is now fully hellbent on getting rid of people's powers, no longer hiding the hatred she has for them since she now has justification and LOTS of funding, and Fisk is also trying to rake in some money from the whole situation

George is going to be so upset at himself for allowing to get his daughter caught up in this mess, and possibly even get a reality check of rage from any of the Arachinikids Parents (Miles never told Rio and Jeff about George since he was worried he might end up getting Gwen back home)

Which parent is going to join the heist? Rio, Jeff, George, Pav's family, Inspector Singh, and possibly Suguru's parents might join

(Margo's parents are def not coming, nor are Peni's aunt and uncle. Ganke, Noir and Kento's parents might be on the fence)

Sorry this is long!

-Nueva York is absolutely going to start spiraling, and any counselors who were on the fence are most likely wishing they had helped the arachnikids when they had the chance.

-I love Liv and Fisk just being pure evil assholes in this AU so much! Especially Liv! Girlboss amiright? :D

But yea, she is absolutely benefiting from all of this. Probably trying to campaign with Fisk about synthetic powers for people as I think most people are fine with things like cybernetic powers (as they can easily be controlled compared to natural powers). Miguel does not have knowledge of this plan and would immediately shut it down if he did (so he is kept out of the loop).

-Jeff and Rio are probably gonna have a lot of parents mad at them as well because it was their son that caused all of this and landed their kids in a worse situation than they were already in (especially Pav's family who honestly believed in Nueva York until "Miles ruined it" and turned this whole place into a prison).

George is obviously not liked at all, but neither would Rio or Jeff. Perhaps they find solace in being hated and the three form a good team together (especially after George explains what happened and how it was all a shitty misunderstanding because of his stress and how he never mean to hurt his daughter. Him saying daughter would probably sway Jeff and Rio to his side).

-Rio, Jeff, and George are definitely at least doing their own heist. I think Pav's family might just step away because they aren't used to powers like this (perhaps they plead to Eve to step in instead). Inspector Singh is absolutely going to try and get to Nueva York (and when he meets the other three he will join them). I can see Suguru's family trying to do what they can, but they are most likely going to be stopped by the Gojo clan who could tell Suguru's family might try and do something to save their kid (and possibly Shoko and Satoru).

Ganke's parents to me are really rich, so they would try to pay for their son to be let out or are possibly the ones funding the heist, but I don't see them going themselves. Noir's parents are a no, but Ham's aunt is definitely joining in. And perhaps Kento's family would join in? They might also just be there for Yu's family, especially after Yu's sister somehow got away from them and went to Nueva York.

-And it's alright this was long! Thanks for splitting it up into 2 asks! :D

#spidertalk #jjktalk #nsrtalk #eriverse #eritalks #noart #asks

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mintytrifecta · 2 years

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Do you think we could hear more about ur Buzz and Zurg AU? The one where Buzz knows Zurg is his dad? I love it, and would love to hear more HCs about it!

Oh for sure!!! I will warn you this gets,,,, very self indulgent but I'll take any chance I get to talk about it jkhbgljhvj - So Buzz sort of,,, always knew that Zurg was his dad - Mainly cause his nana wouldn't shut up about it, going on and on about how her daughter married That Guy Specifically - Buzz does know his mom and she is alive and well and the biggest girlboss to ever girlboss - She's a retired Space Ranger who runs a nightclub (not that anyone in Star Command believes him when he says that) and is always super super busy with it so she couldn't really be Buzz's primary caretaker so Nana stepped up to the job - I don't really have a name for her yet so let's just say it's Carmilla for now khgvkhgvfk - Carmilla's a native Morphian and moved with her mom to Capital Planet after a siege on Morph by non-Zurgian evil forces - She becomes a Space Ranger in undercover roles, trying to gain infromation and find all the Morphians who were forced into hiding but somewhere along the line runs into Zurg - Zurg, as it turns out, is also a Morphian, something he reveals only to her - She develops a soft spot for him but in a monsterfucker "god you're so annoying c'mere lemme kiss you" kind of way - They begin a secret relationship on the field and off and eventually Carmilla doesn't really want to be a ranger anymore so she kind of sort of fakes her own death and elopes with Zurg for a while there - Lo and behold a while later she has a son - But she can't really raise him to be evil, can she?? It doesn't matter if her husband is an emperor it's unjust and she wishes he had a better career than this :// - So she leaves to go back to Capital Planet and leads Buzz down a lawful path - Anyways that's enough backstory let's get to some fun things - Buzz and Zurg have a very Doofenshmirtz and Perry style of relationship where work is work and outside of it if they're not causing any harm to eacho ther they're family and just,,, vibe - Family cookouts on sunday are Mandatory - Buzz has Zurg's number and Zurg spams him with evil pro-zurg memes - This is after he's tried blocking Zurg sixteen times already - Buzz is a weird case in Star Command because he's been there practically since he was a child and nobody ever tries to conceptualize what his life is like outside of SC because of that - Which leads to absolutely nobody believing him when he says anything about his personal life cause it's so different from the Space Ranger Persona he has - It might also be why he does Shiv Katall so well - Zurg defo looks back on Shiv Katall after finding out it's Buzz and being like "god fucking dammit of course he can fool me with that act he's carmilla's son" and sulks for the next week - Warp genuinely had no idea - Like zero - Zurg is a blabbermouth but he's never going to admit that His Son beats him like every week - They do celebrate each other's birthdays and whether it involves a prank scheme or foil I cannot say - Buzz knows personally every minion Zurg has and just talks with them causally whenever Zurg kidnaps him - Team Lightyear only finds out about this during a mission where Zurg has them all hostage and he's just full on rambling while Buzz tries to get him to shut up like "Zurg... Zurg.. Zurg... D A D" and then it works and that's how they find out - Commander Nebula also has no clue and Buzz woudln't allow his team to tell him - Now the team has inside jokes about Buzz's home life - Mira: Damn Buzz and I thought I had issues with my dad and royalty Buzz: For the last time Mira just because he says he's an emperor- - Buzz's neighbors do know about it because The Emperor Literally Comes To His House Every Sunday but he never does anything evil so they're all like "yeah whatever idc he can stay" - Buzz learns Morphian dialect from Zurg cause he never had a chance to study it as a child - Carmilla does rub Zurg's losses in his face she thinks it's hilarious - and she's right

#that's all I have for now sfgvbsgb #Hope it satisfies you dear asker!!#Buzz Lightyear #Buzz Lightyear of Star Command #Blosc #Zurg #Emperor Zurg #I don't have a tag for this au so uh #that's all I'm gonna tag ghvchkgc

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transsexualhamlet · 3 years

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asmr i psychoanalyze my favorite war criminal, aka calling out norman the essay

basically all of my thoughts on norman on one callout post because i care him (both manga and anime are discussed)

LINK TO RAY PSYCHOANALYSIS: https://chaoticgaymess.tumblr.com/post/646749875570196480/ray-81194-the-long-explanation

this is going to be ungodly long so here’s a keep reading, essay below the cut

((tw for suicidal ideation and self harm, brief discussion of eating disorders))

Disclaimer: no shipping is included here this is just about norman also they’re kids who call each other siblings

Thoughts: So you may be thinking, Rowan, why do you yell about the colorless war criminal so often? Well the answer lies in your honor the court hates to see a girlboss winning. Norman is a girlboss :) Yes norman is a tiny twink who can't lift a milk jug. And he is a girlboss :) Obviously I don't condone, um, eugenics and all, but that's not the point the point is that he satisfies my need for more characters like Levi motherfucking Calder from Unwind because I’m apparently an edgy 13 year old. Also all of his problems are violently things I can fix and I keep him around as a pet project because someone needs to give him a hug and slap him on the face

I diagnose him with things:

-pisces man :pensive:

-is he albino? Not literally. Is his skin so pale he would catch fire if he went outside at noon? Yes.

-autism: Yes I’m aware that calling him autistic makes him, problematic rep by perpetuating the autism unfeeling savant stereotype whatever but have you considered i’m autistic and I’m projecting also he’s L with standards? Anyway traits of AuTism he has: hyper fixation, canonically breaks and fixes things over and over because like ofc he does, doesn’t understand Emotion, hyperaware of body language at the same time as it all somehow flying over his head, low empathy, sensory experiences™, min maxed in certain areas, and I don’t think he’s got social interaction quite right? There’s something off about it

-gifted kid (derogatory) This is self explanatory but basically him being the smartest and the best in a competitive environment caused most of his issues, such as the perfectionism, the need to succeed, the lack of self esteem and ridiculously high expectations on himself, giving himself no breaks or time to relax, the “i must be productive with every second of my day or i will die” deal, the “peaked at 11” thing, the way in which he goes through life like there’s going to be a fucking test on it

-Eldest Daughter™ lmao. Norman’s always had to be mature, he’s always had to be the best, he’s always had to do the things Ray got out of bc he’s a snitch and Emma got out of because Isabella likes her. Norman gets respect from Isabella only if he excels, and her bar for him is astronomical. He doesn’t have the Mommy Issues that Ray has, but it’s because for him Isabella basically just reflected his expectations on himself, whereas with Ray it was more personal.

-low empathy (part of the autism thing): this one needs more explanation, but it’s not a bad thing in and of itself. Cognitive empathy is a thing and he can use it, but he does not instinctively understand other people’s emotions, or even recognize them properly, especially when the person is not like himself. This is obvious in Emma. Man has no fucking clue what’s going on in her head or why she does what she does, but he can predict what she will do in any given situation very well. He could understand the suicide attempt from ray he predicted more because Ray’s an easier equation to solve, and someone who’s more similar to him. I know he gets it because, well, motherfucker’s just as self desctructive as him, just in a more dignified manner.

-he’s got some sort of chronic illness. This is also me projecting and a headcanon but he’s got something going on, even before lambda pumped him full of growth hormones or whatever which they maybe should have Not Done but oh well. (I assume this just didn’t happen in the anime, since he’s still so fucking short) But he's So weak. He passed out when it was too hot. He passed out when it was too cold. He can’t open a pickle jar. His skin is too pale and he’s skinny af. He’s much more prone to sickness and probably has asthma too? But in the case that he did actually have something going on, I don’t think grace field would see the need to treat it, if it didn’t impact the quality of his meat? Isabella’s probably just “you have chronic pain and you get migraines? Great, take some tylenol and do some calculus.” Can’t say that probably helped anything.

personality type: ISTJ

Basically, he’s the most boring personality type to exist, and personally as an enfp i do not respect him. But basically this means he’s a fucking nerd that gets his projects done for school the day they’re assigned, is probably the president of the Anime Student Council™, and could probably get away with premeditated murder (ok actual istjs this is a joke don’t skin me)

The only trait that norman doesn’t have on the istj thing is telling the truth. Yeah, he values the truth, but like, that doesn’t apply to him, clearly. Bitch is a notorious liar.

The only other personality type he has any similarity with is intj, which is the same except it’s more rare and a purple theme instead of a blue theme. Sadly, that’s not him though, because although he can care more about some kinds of philosophy overall this isn’t the case and ray already occupies this personality type tbh.

strengths and weaknesses: This one’s kind of obvious, but he is aside from the crazy insane intelligence good at planning. Extremely good at planning. He can predict any outcome and figure out how to prevent it, using all his resources. For example he’s physically weak and someone could literally just walk up and stab him, but it doesn’t impede his progress on his goals because he’s surrounded himself with strong, mentally inferior people who would die for him in a heartbeat. He never gets stuck in some “everything is shit and i can’t do anything” deal like Emma and Ray do, he always works through it and has confidence in his abilities (in as much as he will solve the problem or die™. Weaknesses other than his twink body include his Low Wisdom score. It’s funny how he’s often associated with an owl, the mans is 14. He thinks he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. Plus obviously his fundamental misunderstanding of so much of everything going on around him, the fact that he lies not just to the world but himself, his refusal to take care of himself and his incredible cowardice. His achilles heel is being forced to, actually confront his actions.

what he likes about himself: He does pride himself on his mental abilities, and his judgement, which in his opinion is the only correct opinion and the only correct way. In the past, he likes being seen as a leader, he likes being responsible for other people. He likes his ability to manipulate and lie, because he sees it as an asset, and I honestly think he enjoys being william minerva more than he enjoys being Norman. He prides himself on his unhealthy expectations and the fact that he is able to meet them. Honestly, he does think he’s better than everyone else, mentally, though it’s humbled by his self hatred. Cursed thought: If Norman had self esteem he would be light yagami.

what he doesn’t like about himself/insecurities: Oh god, nearly everything. His appearance, his status, his superiority, his physical inability, his own mess of a mind, also have I mentioned his appearance. He’s obsessed with self control. He wants everything he sees wrong with himself gone. And I understand why having control of everything is necessary and appealing, everything for him has always been rigid and planned out from moment one, he was even more regulated in lambda, and though he desperately wants to Not Be Food, he has no idea what to do with the chains now that he’s broken out of them. So he just wraps them around himself. Regulates to an unhealthy degree when he sleeps, what he eats, when he actually takes even minimal care of his own problems, what he looks like, how much of himself he lets show, the expressions on his face, the literal thoughts inside his own head he will shut down if they are not Correct. It’s literal self harm. Norman, please stop it.

motivations/goals in life/general philosophy: To be honest, I’m not sure he knows what he wants. He sure thinks he does, he could sure give you a memorized answer, but it means nothing. He wants to excel. He wants Emma to be happy. He wants to be perfect and for that to make everything perfect. But he doesn’t realize everything he’s working towards will do pretty much the opposite of that. He’s a crippling perfectionist, and pretty much everything he does is motivated by his fear of failing. He picks the certain path, he doesn’t wait for anyone else, he doesn’t care if it’s not nice. Emma foils that a most of the time because he cares about her, but it can only go so far, especially after he’s had so much time without her to develop a Complex. His philosophy is very contradictory, basically the tokyo ghoul “everything bad that happens to you stems from a lack of ability”. All of his problems are his fault. All the world’s problems are his to fix. If he can’t fix them, it’s his fault, it’s because he wasn’t strong enough, and not being perfect condemns someone forever, including himself.

how he’s perceived by others vs how he actually is: In most people there wouldn’t truly be much of a difference, but with Norman things are different, because, well, most of his personality in grace field is a put on, as well as the tough guy dictator thing he radiates after lambda. How he appears to someone is determined by the context of their meeting- the kids at grace field see him as a nerdy, weakish, pretty boring kid who is really caring and kind. The researchers at lambda see an obedient, beaten down and perfectionistic boy. The lambda kids see him as an infallible leader, ruthless and genius, a good man who knows what’s right. But in truth none of that is him. It’s a fucking chess game to him, putting on different faces, lying and pretending and treating everyone differently. In truth? He’s a fucking coward. He’s scared out of his mind and he’s tired and he can’t take pain, he’s obsessed with reaching some goal he deems is necessary that in the end is going to be his death because he doesn’t want to face the consequences of his actions. He’s taken on the role of someone evil, though deep down he’s not, he feels it’s easier to live that way because it strips him of his conscience.

interpersonal relationships: In general, Norman sees all relationships in a pretty dim light. He sees everyone as black and white, for the most part, and other people make no sense to him intuitively, he has to figure them out like a puzzle. He’s manipulative and not particularly kind, but he follows all societal expectations to a T, overly focused on his appearance and placing the person he’s interacting with into a Category™. So he can be truly kind, to people he feels deserve it, to people who he values and doesn’t see flaws in. He gets incredibly attached to people he loves, protective, though he often doesn’t take their own feelings on the matter into consideration, and he’s ruthless with anyone who he deems a bad person. With people he understands and relates to, though, things can be different. If he sees someone as like himself, he will drop all the social interaction police bullshit and cut to the chase of whatever he wants or needs from them, and he’s not very forgiving in any manner, if he thinks what someone did is actually bad.

Emma: Norman obviously cares a lot about Emma, and honestly views her as better than anyone else. He realizes her moral integrity and all of the things she has and he doesn’t, and admires it. Because of his black and white view, Emma is like an angel to him. She couldn’t do anything wrong if she tried. But he comes to treat her as something to be protected instead of respected, and although he realizes she wouldn’t like what he’s doing, he fundamentally cannot empathize with her and doesn’t try to understand her. Their personalities are very literally opposite. Norman really needs to fucking listen to her. And Emma needs to understand that Norman doesn’t have a single ounce of empathy and you really do need to spell it out for him. Emma can only convince him when she has logical reasons for her actions, which she, doesn’t often have. And Emma gave Norman too much slack, because she didn’t see past the surface, and Ray never wanted to warn her, even though he knew the dude was showing a bunch of red flags, because you know. It was kind of an unspoken deal between them. (on ray’s part)

Ray: His relationship with Ray is a lot more complicated than with Emma. He understands Ray, where he doesn’t understand Emma, and he can see right through anything Ray does. And this makes things really tense between them, because Ray doesn’t, take kindly to being psychoanalyzed. If someone perceives him he will deck them and Norman is just there silently perceiving him at all times when Emma doesn’t see it. They are both constantly in competition with each other, but they care about each other a lot, though it’s kind of in a derogatory way. They both recognize each other as fundamentally fucked up, and silently agree never to bring it up with Emma. They’re nice to each other when she’s around, but all pretenses disappear when she’s gone. Ray is always frustrated with Norman, because Norman’s never been intimidated by him, and though he tries his best not to be vulnerable around him, Norman can always see through it, whereas Ray can’t crack Norman’s fake fucking smile no matter what he does. Norman will always take Emma’s side, and doesn’t see Ray as a good person at all, but he still understands and can excuse him, he takes measures to be… worse than Ray, which is better in his mind, because it’s rational, and ‘not selfish’.

Isabella: She has always had ridiculously high expectations for Norman, and treats him kind of harshly compared to the others. Bitch has heat stroke and Isabella’s first question is a calculus problem instead of like, “are you ok”. She knows he doesn’t complain about anything ever and she doesn’t stop him from being Terrible to himself, because it makes her job easier. They want smart kids, not mentally adjusted kids. She does really care for all of them, but she basically overrides it, she gives them what they want, not what they need, lets them be exactly what they’re making themselves. Isabella is distant with Ray but gives him anything he wants, she’s close and super nice with Emma, but Norman is… it’s weird. Isabella is proud of him because he meets her astronomically high bar. But at the same time, Norman never really cared for her that much and has never pretended to. Once they discover The Thing, though, he has a revelation, and it doesn’t take him long to switch his entire perspective about her. He’s pretty much like. Oh. She’s like me. That explains it, time to treat her like I treat myself: fucking brutally. Passive aggressive as hell. The kind of energy the :) emoticon at the end of an email gives. He does like just go “yeah we should kill her” at one point, which. You know, ok. When he got shipped out it was hhhh really interesting because Isabella knew full well he knew he was walking to his death and Norman was like “are you Truly Happy?” and just went :) and she was like h u h and tried to get him to talk while they were walking there because she feels Bad about it and he just. Did not. He didn’t say a single word just kind of smiled menacingly at her and I think it was half a sort of rebellion and half because he viewed her as similar to himself and therefore felt no need to put up any front with her, no words were necessary for him to impart exactly how he felt about it

Lambda kids: His relationship with the lambda kids is weird and bittersweet. I think he really truly does care about them, they were in a similar situation to his and he wants them to get what they want. However it is not a healthy or beneficial relationship, they see him as a god and don’t realize that he’s killing himself to give them what they want, he’s basically adopted them when out of anyone norman’s the one that should least be in charge of kids. I think he’s honestly younger than them but I’m not sure if they even know. He acts like their fucking mom, and that’s from what he thinks mothers are like… like isabella?? Giving them what they want, not what they need, lying to them, showing a front, caring deeply for them but at the same time using them for his own ends. And it’s not helpful for him. He thinks he knows what they need, but what he’s doing is what they want. What they need is therapy,(and so does norman), and he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with using them as weapons because they love him. It makes him feel good, to be seen as perfect, to have people who don’t know how weak he really is. But it’s only making him worse, and he’s enabling everything the lambda kids are doing wrong as well. They need like, Yuugo and Lucas. Some actual adults who are actually wise and have the ability and the knowledge to take care of them and understand their mental problems and maybe actually address them. And actually be nice to them. But um sadly.

what he’s doing wrong: It’s pretty obvious, but… Norman, you maybe *shouldn’t* commit genocide? You’re not helping emma, you’re not making anything better. You’re not helping the lambda kids, you’re enabling them. You’re not helping your friends from grace field, you’re ignoring what they want. You’re not helping the world, you’re eradicating an entire race from the face of the earth and murdering the poor for the crimes of the fucking 1%. You’re not being a martyr, you’re a selfish piece of shit liar you little coward, you just want an easy way out and you want to die on your bloody fucking hill instead of admitting you’re wrong. Grow up, cringe little man.

why he went wrong: I think most of the reason this happened was the way he was raised combined with the kind of person he is. Norman would have turned out fine, if there has been good adults in his life who actually cared about his well being. Instead he got people who just wanted to control him and make him what they needed, and family who largely didn’t realize there was anything wrong. Ray being an ass to him most of forever probably didn’t help but well, that’s just Ray. Even then, he would have managed alright if he escaped with the rest of the kids because he would never have been separated from the experiences that caused the rest of them to realize demons weren’t all evil. In lambda he didn’t have anyone supporting him or telling him when things went too far, so he fell into relying on himself alone, pushing himself further with absolutely no limits. All he saw was enemies and allies, and things got stratified. He never had a lucas or a yuugo or mujika when he would have needed it, instead he found children who wanted him to be in charge and a world that made it so he had to be. Everything was an echo chamber for his worst thoughts, so they just became more and more dominant.

what he needs: To put it simply, he needs Emma and Ray to cut to the chase and slap him across the face and make him take care of himself. He needs to be forced to see everything for what it really is- this edgy 14 year old committing atrocities to feel better about himself? He needs to be told that what he’s doing is irrational, because in reality, it is. There are better solutions that he’s ignoring, both to his own suffering and the demons, and the way he’s going now no one will truly be happy because of it, that there is no requirement that things be perfect and this bullshit doesn’t make him stronger. He needs someone responsible to take the fucking dagger out of his hands. He also needs someone to babysit him and make him go to bed at a reasonable time.

i describe his personality through songs on my spotify playlist for him:

-outrunning karma by alec benjamin: this one super applies because it calls him out for making shitty decisions, being manipulative and a liar, and having blood on his hands in a very calm and subdued manner, that he knows this is wrong and yet he chooses to keep running faster and faster towards destruction, that he means to escape it through death

-empty by boyinaband and jaiden: yes this is a song about anorexia yes it also applies to norman i’m not saying norman literally has an eating disorder (but honestly it wouldn’t be far out of character if he did) but metaphorically this applies to his method of ignoring his needs, both emotional and physical, in favor of seeming in control

-toxic thoughts by faith marie: this one speaks to his gifted kid trauma. Man’s got perfectionism running his entire soul. He’s terrified of failing, because he’s always been at the very top, he’ll beat himself up over any miniscule mistake and forces himself to keep at bad habits that keep him Productive, but he won’t ask for help no matter how much he’s suffering because that would be failing, he fights with his mind, this song basically tells him “yeah i feel you but you need to stop that”

-no time to die by billie eilish: ignore the romantic overtones but this is emma and norman, emma who trusted norman and was lied to, betrayed, for norman’s greater good, and norman who refuses to feel or hurt because of it, who refuses to apologize or see himself as wrong, pushes forward because he’s going to Pass Away

-achilles come down by gang of youths: hhhhh it's like. His vibe. Obviously you can disregard the lifestyle specific shit but it's. It's achilles come down you have to understand it’s like the same deal as friend, please just like french and longer

-friend, please by 21 pilots: i feel like i don't have to explain this one but it’s more to the manga (not the anime where he kind of figures out he done did wrong by himself instead of committing unforgivable sins and still going yeah this is valid before emma is like holy fuck). He is like sorry emma I cannot fix anything I’m going to die :) *coughs blood* and emma going like stop it stop it stop it fuck you see you fucked up and i forgive you just stop don’t walk away while he’s like “no<3”

why im a repressed little norman kinnie even tho he’s my exact opposite: I don’t generally kin ppl like norman, honestly he’s an infj I have no clue how it happened but I’m pretty sure it’s because of my intense desire to project onto a little man who cannot lift a milk jug and has chronic pain and decides you know what I AM tired of being nice i DO wanna go apeshit. Also he’s a twink. A little bastard. He’s a terrible person and I go mood every time he does anything. I said mood when he fell out of a tree. Don’t know what this says about me, I swear I wouldn’t commit no genocide. He’s like the inverse of Yoichi Saotome, and somehow i kin him too. Damn.

Miscellaneous headcanons:

-man’s SO attached to his william minerva cloak. He’s a wispy little bitch, you know he’s wearing that thing inside the house, he’s fucking cold. It also makes him Look Important he can retreat into it like an emo middle schooler with an oversized sweatshirt

-although you could probably get Mad street cred from having two whole brands you know he’s not gonna whip it out and show off his lambda thing he’s incredibly self conscious and his chest hasn’t seen the sun in years

-norman’s got MAD laundry skills to be able to wear like, all white all the time while constantly murdering people. I think he’s the only one who knows to do the laundry. And Ray is the only one who knows how to cook.

-but even then there’s gotta still be a few questionable stains on that thing, but if anyone asks he’s like “ketchup” “I’ve literally never seen you eat anything with that much color” “ketchup :)” *coughs blood*

-he’s probably thought “well i have not literally coughed blood yet today so I am not legally obligated to take care of myself”

-He probably adopted much of his current personality from taking on the persona of william minerva. I’m calling him out for being like me, he’s a blank motherfucker, he absorbs personality traits from characters he plays! He’s just not in theatre so it’s a bit more intense!

-the first time he sees barbara Eating Demon Meat he kinda stares and goes oh cool! not for me and violently exits the room. Like it's hilarious bc he thinks that's really gross on a moral level though he understands why she would do it

-Which is even funnier bc I’m not sure about the canon on this but there was That Chapter Cover that one time that kinda seemed to imply norman eating demon meat which i absolutely latched onto because I’m terrible. He was just politely eating it. With a knife and fork like why dude. As to a possible reason for him doing that I can come up with, of course barbara does it out of spite, but man we don’t know the properties, if it had some sort of painkilling aspect to it or it was like, caffeine, you know he would, but he would Definitely not talk about it

-I kinda disagree with what the anime did in episode eight? It was good I liked it and the imagery was fantastic but also have you considered Norman could not kill someone with his own hands if he tried, or even physically injure them? That’s what his minions are for shawty. That doesn’t make it any less bad, of course, but the manga captured it perfectly by the fact of he carries around a dagger and a scepter in the capitol battle, but he never even raises it out of more than intimidation. He walks through calmly like he’s not scared at all but he makes sure all the lambda kids do all the actual murder, he just stands there impartially, clearly The Mastermind, as the kids fucking murder the queen of the demons. And I think that’s more profound because he’s, a coward. And he doesn’t realize being the one who orders the strike makes you just as responsible as the one who sticks the knife in someone. The knife is just there to Compensate™ for the fact that he weighs like eighty pounds.

-he’s more of like lady macbeth (because he’s a girlboss) than macbeth himself. He has blood on his hands, but it’s the kind of blood that you can’t wash off. He never killed anyone himself, and he cannot admit he never would have been able to.

-the last thing is that there are definitely epic things about the anime, episode 8 was my favorite so far, goddamn that imagery and the bitch walking through the city while it burns down with the screaming asmr going on behind him my god. We stan. But like the downside of, letting Emma and Ray get to him before he commits first degree murder makes the whole thing lose a lot of his value. In the manga (oh my god look at me being a pretentious manga fan please) it fit more of his ideas- he never backed down, and he planned for Emma coming and trying to stop him. Of course he wanted Emma to stop him, he wanted it with all his fucking heart he was pleading for it to happen but the man wouldn’t give himself what he wanted if he was held at gunpoint. He knew she’d come and he made absolutely sure she wouldn’t be able to stop him. So when she came and he said “you’re too late”??? It kind of said it all, in the fact that he was disappointed that he got his way. He still thought he did the right thing, but deep down there where he shoved all his thoughts and feelings he desperately wanted to be saved from himself.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Feel free to eviscerate me if these are not Correct he is just my favorite girlboss who I feel the need to yell at

#tpn #the promised neverland #yakusoku no neverland #tpn norman #norman tpn #essay post #god why do i do this to myself #dear god help me this is 5000 words #rowan's hyperfixation essays

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searidings · 3 years

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dude (gender neutral) ive spent the last few hours absolutely feral about the feelings “run the red out” had brought forth from my being. a few maximum damage moments:

- “Lena is her people, her person. Kara smiles at the man, slow and predatory. “Try me.” this quote literally hit so close to home, especially after yesterday’s ep with lena telling alex to tell her person. plus protective kara 🥵

- “Like, for example, the fact that she can’t stop touching Lena. She wants it, needs it like an insistent itch beneath her skin, addiction scratching through her veins.” this reminded me of a alex/sam+reign fic called “Don’t Close Your Eyes” by Promsie on Ao3 i definitely recommend it Reign had similar..trouble ;)

- “She was a weapon. They tried to turn her into— but what about us? Underneath the powers, what about us?” IM TAKING YOU TO COURT FOR EMOTIONAL DAMAGE U BASTARD /lovingly. that truth inducer scene where kara confessed her love is a joint filing

- “She never forgets Mikhail’s face. She still sees it in her nightmares. But the memories of his screams, of the burnt-out remains of his home, are joined now by memories of children smiling and laughing,”🥲 *whispers* stop

- “It wasn’t a one-time, Truth-Inducer-induced-only deal, you know. I told you I would keep telling you,” she says at Lena’s stunned silence. “Until you can believe it.” I saw the “i love you”, looked at how much of the story i had left and just kneww the angst train was coming 😃

- i cant even pick a quote to encompass all i felt about kara addressing her abandonment issues eleanor shellstrop im a legit snack meme totally cant relate to kara though

- “I want to. I want a record of you.” + “She fishes out the Polaroid camera Alex had given her last Christmas, invests in a few packs of film, and starts snapping.”= jail time, stop making me yearn dang nabb it

- “She follows Lena – at a frustratingly human pace – corners her at the end of the corridor and scoops her up....” before even getting here i was BegGing kar-bear to go after her cause all the straights™️ be like “i DidnT knOw tHat yoU wAnTed Me toO” looking at nick parker from parent trap DisRespectfully

- “Lena meets the children. They tug on the trailing belt of her winter coat, reach out stubby fingers to touch her silky hair. They’re enamoured by her, all of them, following her around as they stare wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Kara knows the feeling.” We’ve all been their for our favorite capitalist overlord gatekeeping girlboss 😌🤚

- “She’s very special, your girl,” he says, his strong accent rolling the words into something thick and warm and welcoming.” + “It’s not like I can’t afford it,” Lena mutters, embarrassed, ducking her head so her hair obscures her face as she confirms her account setup.” YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO COME INTO MY HOUSE WITH THIS!!! THE SOFT¡ THE tenDerNESSS!!! if you ever write a part two, can they adopt from this orphanage plz

- “We could take it back there,” just propose already jesus 🙄

- LITTLE DID I FREAKING KNOW HUHHHHH

- “She moves as you move.” is a love language and no i will not take criticism

- “She pulls back after a moment to reach for a small box on her desk, which she presents to Kara with a tear-filled smile. “Hold on, and don’t let go.” even with the imPlicaTions i had not the imagination nor the hOpe to fully fathom how beautifully you would write it

- “Because the one thing they all have in common is that they all want you.” HOW DOES FEEL TO BE SO BIG BRAINED. all i could think about is ur young kara fic and the black mercy fic and now red daughter. just really makes me think of that post somewhere thats like “ i love fanfiction because i get to watch the same idiots fall in lover over and over again. in every universe, in every situation, they come together. against time, space, and any other obstacle- they beat the odds” anyway just wanted to say thank you for giving me that faye, i love your work

im. deceased

#anon cmere i wanna give u a kiss on the mouth #oh my GOD this is one of the most incredible messages ive ever received in my LIFE #as if quote-back commenters arent my number 1 kink anyway you really had to go and do it with commentary on the WHOLE DAMN FIC #i honestly. barely know what to say #this got me tearing up legitimately #also YEAH i didnt even think about the 'lena is her people. her person' parallel with 6x01 but DAMN #not to toot my own horn but i called that one #CWSG TAKE MORE INSPIRATION FOR CANON FROM SUPERCORP FANFICTION CHALLENGE #do u think i could get this entire comment tattooed on my body. would that be taking things too far #im actually in love holy shit and all your references dude the parent trap and eleanor shellstrop you and i are sharing a mind #anon i love you not kidding #you have made my entire WEEK #anon i hope you and you specifically are having the best day of your life today #GOD im just #🥺🥰❤#asks #anonymous #god tier

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arbitrarygreay · 3 years

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I watched all of Killjoys with @mimeparadox! - This being my third time through seasons 1 and 2, I probably enjoyed Dutch-D'avin the most I ever have, really seeing what the show was trying to convey with that relationship. That said, I still do not like the show's attempt to make them do insipid romantic fluff at the end of S4 and S5. They still work best as comrades. - There is no best season of the show. S2=S3=S4 > S1 > S5. S2 is the best the show does with its class conflicts, having discarded the Pretty People Dramz of S1. S3 is the most coherent in its character themes, everything lensed through the tragedy of Dutch and Aneela. S4 does the most payoff for all of the relationships in the show.

- Oh, poor S5. This is the first time I've rewatched it, and I did still have a good time. Basically, S5's weaknesses all have to do with it being the final season. The Prison arc is actually quite fun...so long as it has nothing to do with The Lady. In general, the show is not as good as when it remembers that they have to tie things up and finish off this alien invasion storyline. They're great at the serialized character/relationship elements, less good at the serialized plot parts. - The Prison arc shows that Lovretta could definitely be the showrunner for a classic spy competence porn show a la Nikita. - The Lady is still great as Khlyen's third failure as The Worst Dad to Murderous Teenage Daughter. The reason I love her as a garbage fave, whereas Angel's Connor is a (hah) narrative killjoy, is that The Lady's behavior does not cause the other characters to betray themselves. For the most part, The Lady incites the others to do more competence porn, whereas Connor just incited tedious interpersonal Dramz (with maybe the exception of the return of murderous Fred). - mimeparadox and I have discovered across watching multiple shows that the best character archetype is an ultra-competent slightly neurotic uptight character getting blindsided by their Feelings (bonus points if said Feelings are romantic). We have named this archetype Paris, named after Paris Gellar from Gilmore Girls. The Paris is such a powerful type, especially as a Big Bad, that Killjoys does it twice in a row, with Aneela and The Lady. - Intriguingly, I finally saw what the show was trying to do with a series-long arc for Johnny. - In S1, the seeds are planted for the fact that Johnny wants to do more than survive, he wants to have a stronger emotional anchor than just being with Dutch (he is Dutch's gravity, but the reverse isn't true). In S1, this manifests in his being intrigued by Scarback spirituality. In S2, this manifests in his becoming more invested in Westerley's class politics (with Pawter) than Dutch's more self-centered investigation of the Hullen. And in S5, he decides that being a rootless Killjoy isn't viable in the long term. He doesn't want the warrant to be all. - Of course, the execution gets muddled, because Johnny on the mission Fun Train is entirely too compelling, as are his dynamics with everyone else on the team. Note how S3 and S4 aren't mentioned above, as in those seasons, with the exception of the Hackmod Arc, Johnny is focused on Dutch's war with Aneela and The Lady. The fact that there's no issue with the character dropping his series arc for two seasons shows that this arc isn't really critical to his character at all. - And that's exactly the conclusion that the show itself comes to, with the Oneyer absence tossed aside in the end for a "one for the road" of indefinite length. - Part of this, though, is not a betrayal of the series arc because at the end of the series, Johnny is not still simply a Killjoy, for whom the warrant is all. He's a new Level Six, and so has a purpose to genuinely care about (which also happens to enable his pursuing the other missions he wants on the side, like The Factory). - I got a better sense for Dutch's series long arc, too, which was really interesting, because she is never actually a hero in her own motivation. She is basically selfishly motivated from beginning to end, but just slightly growing the circle of who she considers under her protection. Dutch's driving motivation at the beginning of the series is to flee anything that might impinge on her personal freedom. Then, she decides to fight back instead of flee, which means that she seeks having just enough power to do so. S4 is about how she balks at the responsibility that comes with it, which we discover is rooted in how she's having an identity crisis about her biological family. In S5, she comes to a more stable place in her identity and how much responsibility she's willing to take on to defend her home, but grapples with some of the remaining things impinging on her emotional freedom (the loss of the certainty of Johnny, and then cycle of Khlyen's abuse). - Which is to say, it's pretty cool that we get to have a science fiction where where the central protagonist gets to be basically a shameless charismatic hedonist. She's all but said that she's basically outsourced her morality to the rest of her team. This is a rare character complexity for any genre show protagonist, much less a lady. And it makes the writing extra impressive for setting up the plot and world so that such a protagonist gets guided into doing heroic actions entirely on following a selfish priority through the incentive gradients. - This is all really only possible because Turin is a good boss, though. If she had a RAC supervisor who played power politics with her, she'd be toast (and probably quit the RAC to fly away in a heartbeat). Of course, that Turin is a good boss is meant to illustrate how the RAC is a an outfit that takes in misfits, people who are loathe to (and already failed to) play traditional social politics as opposed to mere sportsmanship competition (thing-oriented people over person-oriented people). They have to be the kind of people who could ever believe that the Warrant is all in the first place. - Killjoys never truly grapples with its politics. I stand by my previous stance that this is a good thing, because the very core build of its protagonists prevents that. This show, ah, kind of embraces ACAB as a good thing, nothing of which to mention how Delle Seyah and Aneela becoming allies therefore results in a "yasss genocidal girlboss aristocracy slay" conclusion? ("Colonialism is good if they appoint an emotionally invested immigrant warlord as governor") - Killjoys' broader wonky politics doesn't bother me, because FUN TRAIN! DO NOT STOP THE FUN TRAIN!! Seriously, there were definitely plot holes in this show that never went away, and I did not really care because almost every given moment of the show was delightful. The lore of how Hullen/The Green worked was laughably inconsistent, and I did not really care because the lore was whatever it was at the moment to enable storylines that were really fun. In fact, joking about the inconsistency of the lore therefore became its own pleasure, because it still did not detract from my enjoyment of canon. Altered Carbon shows how the prestige version of Killjoys would have been no fun at all. Down with Prestige TV. Which isn't to say that I've changed my mind on character vs. world-building as source for plots! I remain dedicated to my apathy to Wynonna Earp, which is a show which nominally builds its world/plot to service character, but leaves me cold. What Killjoys has, in contrast, is a rock solid world-building foundation, and then we watch the fireworks of character reacting to the setting and each other, with characters themselves serving as expressions of world-building. This is why Killjoys' writing is weakest when it has to plot for the sake up wrapping up plot and character threads, instead of plot as per how character interactions with the world organically develop. The way this doesn't contradict with the above is that Killjoys firmly declares what parts of the world-building are really important, which is the setup of institutions that determines the power-dynamics between any two given characters. Plot elements that aren't about that can be wishy-washy without therefore making the characters look incompetent. (With the exception of "stick a knife in the necks of all of the Hullen already!" because that's a very tangible action anyone can do, as opposed a squishy genre detail.)

#killjoys #killjoys syfy #syfy killjoys #category: tv #category: craft

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linguisticparadox · 3 years

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wrt the Cruella DeVille movie I would actually be okay with seeing a sequel where she has a redemption arc.

And that could feature flashbacks to explain how she became such a monster! Maybe she DID undergo trauma as a woman trying to establish herself in the world of fashion or something, and as a result she became goal-oriented to the point that she was blind to the harm she was doing. Maybe she had an abusive Girlboss mentor or a sexist, overly-demanding male boss? Maybe the same thing but with her father or mother? idk I'm spitballing, the possibilities are endless.

Anyway, regardless, through the movie she would deal with that trauma and come out the other side with renewed compassion. She could turn her mastery of cutthroat tactics and ruthless pursuit of her goals to good causes. Who better than a redeemed Cruella Motherfucking DeVille to get Congress to stop sucking Big Oil's dicks? If nothing else she's clearly wealthy enough to get their attention!

But the crucial thing is that she would realize what a monster she'd been! Yes, from the flashbacks to her past we might come to say "wow ok, I can actually see how she got to that point, that was not an environment conducive to any kind of positive growth holy shit," but without actually going "well she was a Girlboss so it was fierce and Feminist™️ to try and skin 99 puppies for a stupid coat, actually."

Like, the live-action Disney Cinderella put in a couple mentions of how her stepmother suffered as a woman in a patriarchal society, she had to make sure to marry well to provide for her daughters and she panicked at the thought that her husband loved anyone, even his own daughter, more than her or her daughters, and she lamented the loss of her first husband, whom she'd loved but who had been poor and left them penniless at his death.

And yet, we never questioned that she was abusive and horrible. We never said "Actually Ella should have sympathized with her and forgiven her." She was NOT a sympathetic character, even thought she had really suffered. The narrative was clear: "Cool motive, still abuse."

Now, imagine if they brought that same nuance to the Cruella DeVille movie!

They won't, of course. The very fact that they chose to do a prequel suggests as much. Of course, even then they could go the route of "the protagonist is not the Good Guy," but they fucked that up with Artemis Fowl and that movie's plot was literally already written for them, in the book. So most likely they'll make her somehow a "good guy," because Disney (at least recently) cannot, and WILL not, handle moral nuance.

#also!#like not to bring my hyperfixation into it but Petey from Dog Man???#original #cruella deville #to be clear i don't want them to do like a heavy-handed moral lesson either #I just want them to tell an interesting story with a clear concept and purpose #i would LOVE to see some gray areas and complexity as long as the horror of what she did in 101D isn't brushed over

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kittenfemme27 · 3 years

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The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

I don’t know about you, reader, but it’s been actual years since I was able to properly sit down and finish a book. My last one was Lovecraft Country in 2018, and many, many years before that. Reading used to be a big passion of mine, I loved to get lost in the worlds. I loved the movie that played out in my head as I read, as if it was projecting itself into my mind more-so than i was actually reading the words themselves. For a kid who didn’t always grow up with the internet or video games available, Books from my local library were a great escape.

So, having found myself getting more and more into horror around 2019 in all forms of media I consumed, I was more than happy to bookmark a tweet from a horror artist I follow on Twitter who had a list of all the horror books he’d read that year. This would be my chance to get back into reading, finally!

Cue.. 2 years later, and I’ve finally started on that list. The top of that list, “The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires“, was something I found immediately intriguing from the title and cover alone. I’m now regretting that decision so much that I’m not sure I’ll bother with the rest of the list.

(CW: R*pe, Gore, Racism)

“The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires” is an awful book. The only compliment I feel I could accurately give it is that it’s not written incompetently enough, from a purely technical standpoint, as to be unreadable.

The story stars Patricia Campbell, a housewife in the 1980′s-1990′s that is more apology than character, and her rag-tag group of similarly middle-aged, middle-income southern white wine sipping housewives who do, and I cannot stress this enough, almost nothing but test each other’s and the readers patience for nigh on 310 out of 357 pages. They bicker, they fight, they treat Patricia as crazy when she repeatedly shows them evidence that children around them are dying, and most of all they refuse to do absolutely anything, leaning more into pure disbelief until the problem has literally violated one of them. The book club women don’t lead interesting lives, either. They’ve got husbands who are not in love with them, children who hate them, and friendships with each other that can be broken by what feels tantamount to bringing the wrong wine to a meeting. Throughout the story, Patricia is accosted by the resident Vampire-like creature, more akin to a human mosquito than any sort of real “Vampire”, that moves in after his aunt dies. A man named James Harris. He smoothly worms his way into everyone’s lives in the charismatic way a vampire does and convinces everyone that Patricia is more or less insane for ever suspecting him of being a vampire after she watches him feed on a child. This leads to her attempting suicide after being pushed into a corner by her doctor husband who seems to have been ripped straight from the 1950′s and thinks women should be Seen and not Heard. She gives up and more or less goes comatose as a character for roughly 3 years until finally she snaps to her senses after seeing a ghost of her dead mother in law who knew the Vampire when she was a small child, who leads her to one of the bodies he’s got stored in his attic, and convinces everyone else in her book club, who has routine abandoned her at this point, to help her kill James. They do, chopping his body to bits while it taunts them and then throwing the bits into a fire. Patricia divorces her husband at the end and somehow that makes her children lover her, happy-ever-after ending.

That’s the rough synopsis, but it doesn’t really do the grossness of this book any justice. That first child James kills, is a black 9 year old named Destiny who later kills herself as it’s revealed that the Vampire-like creature’s bites feel so good and so sexually pleasurable, that if you are deprived of them after becoming addicted you’re likely to just commit suicide. This is AFTER she’s taken away from her mother by child services because they assume the bite marks are syringe injection marks and that her mother must be a druggie. She’s not the first black child to die this way either. In-fact, by the time Patricia becomes wise to James’ ways, she’s the third. They’re all from a poor black neighborhood that is literally described as shady, dangerous, and being full of “Super Predators” called Six-Mile, which is the de-facto feeding ground of the Vampire for a good 75% of the book, as well as the home of the literally only surviving named black character, Ursula Greene, who herself is nothing more than a “wise old negro” trope along with being a maid to these rich white people who think of her as trash. This is probably the biggest overarching problem in the book. It tries, in the authors words, to explore the relationships between the white, rich women who brag about how their cul-de-sac is so safe and pure that nobody even locks their door, and the poor black characters from Six-Mile. The book thinks its clever, because Mrs. Green constantly points out that the white characters let the black children die callously so that their white children would live, to which they can only reply about how guilty that makes them feel and how they’re sorry. I’m not sure what the author hoped to accomplish by pointing out the institutional racism of the 90′s, but whatever he hoped to accomplish, it fail flat on its face in the most racist way it could.

I wish that was where gross things ended for this book, but its not. At one point, the Vampire-like creature rapes one of the book club members and she is more or less outright stated to be pregnant with a monster from that rape and it is also revealed that the rape gave her an “Auto-Immune Disease” that the characters husband immediately likens to AIDS and that is very quickly killing her. This information causes her to choose to have her body cremated so nothing can spring forth from her corpse when she dies. The implications this has are frankly appalling. The books decision on whether or not a woman who gets pregnant from rape is worthy of life is to resolutely and proudly say no and treat that as if its a feminist answer. That if you’re raped, it’s akin to something like AIDS and life simply isn’t worth living. it’s one of the grossest things I’ve read in a long time.

It’s not even the only shock value the book uses to make it’s events feel real and scary, others include Patricia’s son “Blue” being obsessed with Nazi’s, for genuinely seemingly no reason. He just brings them up to make you, and everyone in the story, uncomfortable. There are constant overwrought descriptions of gore or simply gross scenarios, such as an indepth description of Patricia’s ear-lobe being ripped off, or rats gnawing the flesh off on a old woman, or a cockroach crawling inside someones ear. There is also the repeated child murder or child suicide, which doesn’t really serve a purpose other than to shock the middle-aged mothers this book was meant for, with multiple sentences in which Patricia thinks about how much it would hurt if that were her children, inviting the reader to do the same with their own.

And we couldn’t forget that this book is just unrepentant in its horniness. It’s outright stated that being fed on is the most sexually pleasurable thing one can feel, which makes it all the more awkward when you consider that the Vampire’s first set of victims are children, later Patricia’s teenage daughter who she walks in on in the middle of being fed and who she has to stop from literally masturbating in that moment while attempting to punch the Vampire off of that same teenage daughter. But, of course, it doesn’t end there. It’s a book about almost entirely women written by a Cis Male Author, which means there are constant depiction of female bodies in the nude or in violence. It’s no “She boobed boobily”, thankfully, but it’s not much better than that. Describing pubic hair, breast shape, and even making it so that the Vampire-like creature drinks from a penis-esque proboscis that extends from it’s throat and right into the upper thigh of it’s victim, which is mentioned twice to be right next to the vagina. It even goes so far as to try and sexualize its own rape, aswell as having Patricia tell the rape victim how good it feels with this section between the two. Something I’m including here in its entirety because no amount of words I can write describes how gross this passage is, in context.

“Grace already... told me,” Slick said, opening her eyes, pulling her mask away from her face to speak. “I made her... give me all the details.”

“Me too,” Patricia said. “I was out from what he did to me.”

“How did... it feel?” Slick asked.

Patricia would never have said this to anyone but Slick. She leaned forward.

“It felt so good,” she breathed, the immediately remembered what he’d done to Slick and felt selfish and insensitive.

“Most sin does,” Slick said.

I think the thing that angers me the most about this book is that it’s tricked a lot of people who read it into thinking its a fun, feminist read. All of the main characters are overworked mothers who struggle with being that overworked, and then come out on top anyway because of their motherly intuition and love for their kids. It’s the kind of book that a single struggling mother would read and think “Yeah, I’d do that, that’d be me! I’d save the day!” and it makes them feel good about themselves, and about being a mother, and about how hard it is to make the kids lunches and clean the husbands dirty underwear and make sure the house is clean and dinner is on the table by 6 PM all while looking hashtag fabulous and like a girlboss. A quick trawl through any review site will show roughly the exact type of single mothers this book is written for giving it 5 stars and calling it hilarious and empowering. And y’know, I don’t have a problem inherently with prose written for that demographic. But this book gets away with a ton of racism, sexism, and outright disgusting content by hiding itself under that veneer and I think that’s just awful. It should be held to scrutiny for what it is, for how bad it is, and it clearly never was.

Don’t read this book. It sucks. It sucks so fucking much. I want my night I spent reading it back.

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