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punkeropercyjackson · 16 days

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Ultimately the reason Percabeth is such horrifically bad ship yet gets praised so much is that while Percy and Annabeth canonically love eachother,they also canonically don't like eachother LMAO.Percy's constantly wishing Annabeth was extremely different than who she actually is because he finds her unbearable and hard to be around and finds escapism in being around people who're unlike her with the biggest example being him having been in love with Rachel before they settled into still close exes

There's also his friendships with the Grace Sibs,Thalia had infinitely better progress with him in TTC than Annabeth has in the entire saga and he admires her a lot more too and it's a running theme that Jason is Annabeth's opposite and Percy became instant best friends with him upon first meeting and all three of their first meetings are more charming and unique than Percy saying his type is princess-y girls in his narration but Annabeth hating being seen as one because she's gnc and 'You drool when you sleep'.I also think if anybody is Percy's cosmically intertwined soulmate it's not any s/os but Nico and Hazel and by that i mean in a found siblings with him also being their pseudo-parent way.All their dynamics are interesting and richen their characters and they're from different time periods which only adds to how special their bond is

And on Annabeth's end.......She kinda straight up hates his existense.She's always talking about how stupid he is and that he's useless without her and i get that Rick tried to sell it as affectionate teasing but she's angered by it so often it's obvious it's just Rick being a cishet nt white old man.She gets angered by finding him attractive too?????This trope can be good but Percy never actually does anything,he's literally just existing and that includes not actively pursuing her back since he dosen't want her even half as much as she thinks she wants him.It's rare compared to her mean-spirited comments he explicitly never consented to and finds unnecessary and one of the many thing's he wishes she wasn't and he never returns her physical assaults so 'they're demigods and it's normal!' excuse dosen't add up

Yeah,they're dating in canon and gonna get married.Percy's also gonna not only go to college but a demigod college when again and again and AGAIN he says he dosen't want to be a half-blood and he's only going so he can live out a traditional lifestyle with Annabeth so so much for 'his thether to his mortal side' i guess.Annabeth never got any shit from Poseidon like Percy did Athena or terrorizing like Aphrodite does everybody else she talks to and Percy was forced to narratively forgive Luke,again,only because of Annabeth when he groomed him for a bit and abused him tons too and it's so vile to gaslight us into thinking Luke was anything but a serial pedophile and beyond far right to Percy's lifelong outcasthood and anarchy and Annabeth as a direct victim of his sick sexual 'interests' in plausible deniability font due to being a pg series.Percabeth is the peak cishet romance norms taken up to 12 like the Olympians and it's embarrasingly obvious nobody saying they're t4t has ever been in a transmasc4transfem relathionship

That's why this moment is so fucking depressing.She knows him and she dosen't like any of what he is and he dosen't say it outloud because he's scared of the truth,that he ended up with the wrong person,that he fucked up again and she's hollower whenever she's around him because she exists FOR him and for almost nothing else.They weren't eachother's choice,they were eachother's destiny decided by everyone but themselves.This fucks up my autistic ass so much man,no wonder i only ever liked that lesbian!Percabeth au with transfemme Percy and butch Annabeth that was popular when i was a kid,that's deadass the only way you can make it work,they'd need an entire rehaul but at this point i don't care to try because the shippers don't deserve it after how demonic they've been since the 2000s.Percabeth was never a good ship,you were just a tween

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welivetodream · 5 months

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How much do you think Richard lied about the story?

Because I think he was lying about a LOT of stuff. I do not trust words that come from this man. He is sus.

Since he is talking about the past, it could all be misunderstandings and blurry memories (he was high half of the time) Or it could be just lies.

My favourite headcanon is that Richard was writing a book about his college life. He is a bit delusional and grandiose so when he went to college, he expected to have this main character vibe going on. But his college life was as normal as any of ours and he was disappointed. So, he tried to live vicariously through a book, which he wrote as an "autobiography" (he literally starts the book with "this is a story of my follies"). Richard is telling us, the reader, "his" story. He is acknowledging it as a "real" story. But that too is a lie. Richard made it all up. All the characters were written by him.

That's why Camilla was portrayed as an angel, she is the heroine, his damsel in distress, love interest. Henry was the mythical Jay Gatsby to Richard's Nick Carraway. Henry was someone he could obsess over and idolise. Francis is the gay one, he is another 'kind of' love interest, he is always making passes at Richard, he is snarky and a bit grumpy, that's his entire character. Charles is the mean villain, he is abusing Camilla and committing incest, his existence makes all of them appear better than they are. Bunny was homophobic to a degree that didn't make any sense, he was in a fucking Greek class and was friends with all these people with major gay vibes, what did he expect? If Bunny was sympathetic, we wouldn't have accepted the murder so quickly. And Julian is Julian, he is so out of reach and ethereal; depicted as a type of teacher we would love to have, the story's John Keating.

Now when we come to the ending. The only one who gets to live a "normal" life and has any success (at least graduating college) was Richard. Yeah, Camilla turned him down and all but, he doesn't seem that mad about it (he admitted he loved Henry too, which gives major Nick Carraway vibes) He doesn't really face any consequences of what they all did (he is an accomplice to murder after all)

Camilla is traumatised, she is still in love with Henry and he fucking died in front of her. Her relationship with Charles is ruined and that would be traumatising as well.

Francis is forced to stay in the closet with no choice in the person he dates. And he almost dies of a suicide because of that. He is done with life.

Charles tried rehab but then ran away with a woman in her 30s that was married. His life is a complete mess and he has no contact with his old friends or sister.

Henry commited suicide and Bunny was murdered by his own friends.

Out of all these situations, Richard was the lucky one. He still has ties to Camilla and Francis and they still are kind of friends. He graduated and got a job. He dates one of the most popular girls at college and moves in with her for some time. He is doing something in his life.

In the end, Richard got the best of all of them. Maybe because that's just his real life. He doesn't have a crazy backstory. He doesn't have a huge personality. He doesn't have many connections to these characters. He gets the best ending. He is always the outsider. He is the narrator. He is a liar. He is a storyteller.

It's Richard's world, we are all just living in it.

(I know this theory is not at all true. Donna Tartt was not going for it to be like this. But I find the idea of Richard faking the entire book for his own entertainment and delusion, fascinating. And it's even plausible because of his personality)

Just imagine if TSH happened in the present day. The afterward would be just Richard going to his desk job with four hours of sleep and revealing he was writing an OC self-insert fanfiction about a modern Greek tragedy in AO3.

(okay, this turned out so funny. I get Richard, I want to escape from my boring life with writing too)

#dark academia #chaotic academia #the secret history #donna tartt #tsh #henry winter #richard papen #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #franics abernathy #bunny concoran #julian morrow #tsh memes

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depressedhouseplant · 2 months

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🔞 Just Fucking Write - Day 67 🔞

Prompt: Royalty - Yunho x Fem!Reader

Tags: Narrator is female, unprotected sex, childhood friends to fucking in a garden, squirting, dirty talk

A/N: I feel like this is the lovechild of Day 24 & Day 37. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Yunho is cheating because he’s not technically engaged yet, but it’s the same vibe. You be the judge.

Yunho was waiting at the table in the gazebo when I arrived.

“You said six pm,” I said, checking my watch. It was 5:50.

“Maybe I wanted to make sure you were on time,” he said.

“It’s not my fault you’re always early,” I sat down across from him.

“Is that any way to talk to a prince?” Yunho teased.

“Is that any way to treat your best friend since we were toddlers?” I smiled. His smile faltered.

“What?”

“I’m getting married,” he blurted out.

“You’re what?” I stared at him.

“My parents just told me a little while ago. She’s some duchess from a place I’ve never even heard of. I told them I wasn’t going to marry a stranger, but they wouldn’t listen. I guess her family has money or land or something they want. I’ve never even met her, but they’ll be here tomorrow and they’re holding an engagement ceremony tomorrow night,” he was practically hyperventilating when he finished. I got up and knelt down in front of him.

“Breathe. It’ll be okay,” I held his face in my hands.

“How? My parents aren’t going to change their minds and I don’t want to marry a stranger. I don’t want to marry anyone,” he looked at me, the lights shimmering in his eyes.

“We are only 25,” I agreed.

“No, it’s not that. It’s because I’m in love with someone else,” he replied.

“What? Who? Why didn’t you tell me?” I went to pull my hands back and he caught my wrists.

“Because it’s you. I love you and I never knew how to tell you,” he said.

“How long?” I asked.

“Since I figured out what love was. I think I knew for sure when you went to college and I saw you with other guys. I got jealous,” he replied sheepishly.

“You know most of my male friends in college were gay, right?” I asked.

“I guess that didn’t matter to my lizard brain,” Even in the dark, I could see him blushing.

“Or your dick,” I smiled a little.

“I do think with my big head. Sometimes,” he smiled in return. I stood up, straddled his lap, and kissed him. I wasn’t one to examine my feelings too closely, but the kiss jolted something inside me. Something deep. Something old. Something that felt a lot like what I’d been told love feels like.

“That…” I began when we parted.

“Was something I’ve been wanting for a long time,” he finished.

“What else have you wanted?” I asked even though I was sure I knew the answer.

“You on my cock,” he replied, emboldened by our kiss.

“I think I’d like that too,” I kissed him again.

“I don’t have a condom,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I got off his lap so he could open his jeans and pull down his underwear just enough to let his cock loose. His huge cock.

“I guess it is true what they say about guys with big hands,” I joked as I pulled off my panties. My pussy was almost dripping. Under any other circumstance I might have been embarrassed, but Yunho was my oldest friend, about to get engaged, and I wanted at least one ride on his cock before his parents forced him into a lifetime commitment.

“You know no one can hear us,” I said against his cheek when I seated myself on his dick.

“I know,” he replied.

“Then let me know how it feels to have my pussy on your dick,” I pulled the top of my dress down and unhooked my bra, letting my chest hang out. I didn’t usually wear dresses, but I was grateful that I had tonight. His hands almost completely held my boobs, periodically flicking my nipples as he ran his hands over them. I began to ride him hard.

“You feel so fucking good. So fucking wet. Everything I wanted,” he whined.

“Everything?” I tangled my fingers in his hair and kissed him again.

“Everything,” he confirmed. “I’m not gonna last.”

“That’s fine. I want you to make a mess of my pussy,” I replied. We couldn’t have been going for more than a few minutes before I felt his cock twitch inside me the first time.

“That’s it, baby. Let that fat cock wreck me. You’re gonna come in me so hard that you black out for a second,” I breathed.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

“But not before I squirt all over you. Bet you didn’t know I could do that,” I told him.

“Oh fuck,” he moaned as I clenched around him. I came, squirting all over his lap. A second clench and he was coming inside me. He bucked and moaned, emptying everything he had into me.

“This was not how I imagined our first time,” he said after he caught his breath. I was resting against his chest, still mostly exposed, playing with the collar of his shirt.

“But?” I prompted.

“But I’m glad I got to be with you once, Y/N,” he kissed my hair.

“Me too,” I agreed. “Me too.”

Damn his parents. Damn the monarchy. Most of all damn me for not seeing it all sooner.

#just fucking write 2k24 #minors dni #ateez smut #ateez fanfic #yunho x y/n #yunho x reader

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kesleyjo · 8 months

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I'm having some finale wine and I think I've got it. My final resolute head canon of Riverdale.

Keep in mind I have not watched the end of season 5 through the end and have absolutely no intention to, but I've seen and heard enough about *gestures vaguely* all of that to still stand by this.

Disclaimer: I do not believe this is what the writers intended whatsoever. This is all my imagination. I do however believe in this canon whole heartedly and its as true to me as whatever RAS's vision is to him. You choose who to trust.

Okay so first and foremost the entire series is written by Jughead. It's all his writings that are probably all sitting in a google docs draft folder.

I justify this due to the following:

He is the narrator

The entire series is obsessed with Betty Cooper for good or ill (I'll get to it)

Its all kind of sort of been alluded to that its all Jughead's writings anyway. At least in S1, again. I'll get to the why of that in a second.

He started writing season 1 in his junior year (so a year after the events of the S1). He read In Cold Blood (on his own, not for class, very important to him that you all know this) and was like "Hey my town had a murder and I have some trauma around it, so I should totes do this." And thus S1 is born.

This is why that season is (relatively) more grounded and far more realistic than the rest of the series because its based on a real true thing that happened and the real feelings and emotions of people involved. It has the least amount of exaggeration (but enough, because Jughead) and has the most coherent plot, which would make sense since Jughead isn't making anything up, he is recalling events.

This is also the only season that directly ties Jughead's narration and the plot to the book Jughead is writing on page, and thus tying them both together. Because again, its a thing that really happened.

So the characterizations, motivations, and actions of everyone in season 1 is the model of how and how these characters actually are and are a base for further exaggeration.

Seasons 2-4 are also based on true events but are exaggerations/interpretations of things that really happened, but are altered to make them more interesting to Jughead's readers (heh).

I don't want this post to be a novel so here is a brief listing of that I am thinking here for some of the main plots (but if you have a plot you want me to fit into this canon let me know):

The Black Hood: When Jughead showed Betty his first manuscript (S1) the positive constructive criticism she gave was that, "True crime is really popular right now, so this fits in with the zeitgeist." And Jughead ran with it. Fred also had his first heart attack at this time...we all know where I'm going with that so I'll just leave that there. RIP.

Making Hal the Black Hood: Hal leaves the family after the Polly debacle and finding some racy pics on Betty's computer (she sent them to Jug, she wasn't a camgirl) and decides to start his life over with a woman who is far more moral (and probably like 2 years older than Polly)

The Serpents/Class War with Hiram: Not a gang, just those under the boot of the rich that Hiram tries to eradicate through good ol fashioned gentrification. Archie and Veronica also start spending more time doing rich people shit and that drives a divide between the two main couples of the core four. But less about political plots and more about teenagers growing apart because of different interests

Season 3: Putting this all together because Jughead was having a hard time finding a plot here. So he focused on Alice's new weird young boyfriend who actually ended up taking off with Polly (leaving her twins), his newfound obsession with DnD (Betty was exhaustedly supportive of this) and Kevin's endless talk about the new megachurch he just joined. He and Betty also started watching a lot of horror films and Hitchcock at the time which leads us to...

Season 4: He and Betty go off to different schools but its because of college, not because Jug is the chosen one (again see why he is writing all of this himself). He meets a lot of pretentious people that challenge his relationship with Betty and he turns it into a mystery.

So now we have made it to 4.17. Ugh.

Okay so Jughead has written all of this, and reading everything back feels that Archie and Betty (who go to the same college now and are friends again after growing apart after he dated Veronica) have grown too close and Jug self destructs.

He self sabotages so hard and makes a story up in his head that Betty would be much happier with Archie who is doing perfectly mediocre at college while Jughead flunked out.

So he and Betty break up after a lot of frustrated fighting.

And he begins to write Betty differently. Wildly differently.

(You can't tell me this doesn't make more sense than whatever the hell happened in the show.)

Jughead dejected from his failure at school and his breakup Writes on and off for the next few years. His next main attempt is S5. His attempt at more realistic writing.

(Its also after Betty enters his life again, because at her core Betty is his muse)

He works through his fictional frustrations of Betty and Archie as a possible couple (They never dated. Archie is actually a aromantic pansexual who does not do commitment) and realized that he made it all up and they have nothing in common.

Jughead and Betty get back together at the end of "Season 5" but Betty tells him that writing about their real life is what tore them apart, so he needs to not use their relationship in his writing anymore.

So Jughead decided to get weird and wildly experimental with his writing. And because Jughead is not a particularly good writer S6 and S7 are born.

Betty, absolutely running out of positive things to say about his last few writing attempts tells him that maybe these exaggerated versions of their lives that bear no resemblance to the real world have run their course, and he should try something new.

So Jughead wraps up this now unrecognizable series of writings and moves onto something new.

With Betty diligently serving as his editor. She got distracted with her new job and left him unattended for those last few seasons and look what happened.

Also I realize that Archie/Veronica/Cheryl/Toni are absent in this so briefly

Archie: He always was in awe of Archie and slightly jealous of what he perceived he had over Jughead...this is why he is the quasi-hero and also why he tortures Arch and treats him like an idiot.

Veronica: I cannot stress this enough. He and Veronica have no relationship. She is his friend's girlfriend and his girlfriend's best friend. The only thing he really knows about her is she is rich and hot. So he makes that her core personality and slaps on whatever traits fit her best for whatever plot he is writing at the time.

(This is also why almost all the women Veronica, Tabitha, Jessica, and Toni all are at some time his love interest. Self instert fan fic Jug. We see you.)

Cheryl/Toni: He and Toni are friends and Cheryl is her girlfriend who endlessly terrifies him. That is the core of her characterization.

I already regret the fact that I am sharing this long-winded mess with the world...but I can't take it back now.

Enjoy. And if you don't that is fine. It's my head canon not yours. Go make your own.

Have fun on finale night folks.

#rd spoilers #not really but for safety #head canon #this is a mess #but I stand by it #I didn't proof this and I'm a glass of wine in so be gentle

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mississpissi · 9 months

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i was talking to keri the other day and i realized that the way carlos defined his intentions for being in night vale is very specific.

in the very first episode, cecil reports: “Carlos told us that we are, by far, the most scientifically interesting community in the US, and he had come to study just what is going on around here.”

(this gets really out of hand so be warned)

i thought it was interesting that carlos highlighted that what was scientifically interesting was the community of night vale. that he came to study what is going on in night vale. i thought maybe this could just be weird wording, so i. i did read through every mention of carlos in the transcripts from episode 1 up to the most recent episode.

the next time we hear about carlos’ reason for being in night vale is in episode 25, when cecil says, “[Carlos] came to us to investigate our town, because he said it was scientifically extraordinary, and downright bizarre.”

interesting that carlos is investigating the town, and that he finds the town extraordinary and bizarre. it is repeated multiple times that night vale is the most scientifically interesting community. “Community” is the word used every time.

also of note is how carlos describes the desert otherworld. he calls it “the most scientifically interesting place in the otherworld” (58). he also says that his time there is “the most scientific. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scientific, and you know how much I love science.” (59).

i point this out because carlos calls the otherworld the most scientifically interesting place, not community. part of this could be that there wasn’t much of a community in the dow at this time, but there were still people out there with him, but i think this wording is intentional. he even corrects kevin on this later: “Kevin: I think you once called this desert otherworld ‘the most scientifically interesting community in the U.S.’ Carlos: Well…no, my exact words were–” (70a).

i also point out that carlos emphasizes how scientific his time in the dow is because it seems as if it is a significant difference from what he had been doing in night vale- almost as if the nature of his research had changed from studying a community to a place.

later, when reflecting on his arrival in night vale, carlos says, “When I came here, I understood this town as scientifically fascinating” (111). again, the emphasis is that the town is what’s fascinating. the community.

in this most previous arc, we get even more insight into this idea. carlos has come to define for night vale what science looks like (which i could and will go on and on about at a later date). this is widely acknowledged- carlos is repeatedly referred to as the towns leading scientist, as the scientist (which, i know, its by cecil, not a reliable narrator, but thats the narrator we got and im taking his word as bible). when the uowii comes in and starts doing science differently, cecil contrasts their work with that of the night vale community college, saying, “See, this is what real science is all about. Dangerous, frightening experiments conducted on an unknowing populace with a vague aim and no clear end date” (223). and, yeah, this def sounds like a cecil/night vale little quirk, seeing that cecil is. intimately familiar with how the. top scientist does his work (sorry), i think it’s worth noting that he sees science as something done to a populace. i might be stretching with that one but i dont care.

then, when lubelle is directly addressing carlos, she says, “I knew you when you got it in your head that there was somewhere in the great deserts of the United States a town that was the most scientifically interesting community in the country. Oh the attention you got for this so called discovery, nonsense though it was. You got headlines, you got grants, an entire research team for this fully funded expedition” (230). she says again, community. he got grants and attention and headlines for discovering this community (which does make me wonder what he was putting out there to get headlines and attention. or how he found night vale to be credited with discovering it. again, a post for a later date).

now to what im trying to get at.

i do think it matters that carlos is coming to study the community of night vale. when lubelle gets to town, she jumps right into trying to find the most interesting thing, the biggest scientific breakthrough. when carlos gets to town, one of the first things he does is call a town meeting. he tells the town why he’s there. he warns the town of things that might harm them, investigates that which is actively affecting the community.

i think of the anthropological nature of that idea- of studying a community. of entering a community you find interesting, declaring your intent, and trying to learn what you can about how the community works. to learn about the culture. to be curious about how things move in that world.

i think about carlos trying to distance himself from marine biology, from the phantom ocean, and deciding that studying a community of people in the middle of the desert just might be different enough for him to reignite his passion for science and research.

i think that its really interesting how actively carlos resisted becoming personally entangled with anyone in town, with cecil especially. we know carlos liked cecil fairly quickly, but didn’t move as fast as cecil hoped. i think it’s really interesting that carlos defines home as “a grouping of objects connected by a shared personal experience of time” and a town as “a collection of objects and people, no more meaningful than any other” (100, 210). those definitions seem very distant to me. i think it’s really interesting that carlos was so resistant to the idea of calling night vale his home town.

i think, if someone had come to a town intending to study the community, they would be very wary of becoming too involved in the community, of putting their results at risk. studying strange phenomena would be excusable, especially for someone who deeply believes “science is a tool, helpful and dangerous, but we will use it only for our fellow humans, with the benefit of the least of us always in mind” (230). but becoming involved personally, allowing personal biases to sully the objectivity of the research, tainting the data with something as unscientific as feelings- this would be unacceptable to someone who saw science as the ultimate motivation.

i just think it matters that this wording is repeated. i think it matters that carlos spent years terrified of calling night vale his community, because it was one he was only ever meant to research. one he was only ever meant to report on. like. a certain someone who has also had to shift the nature of his work because of a man he fell in love with.

i think it matters that carlos recognizes when he has let his scientific integrity slip, when he calls himself “complacent” for “no longer see[ing] the strangeness, but only [his] home” (111). i think it matters that carlos comes to realize that sometimes, an explanation takes away the fun of things (it devours), that even if the sun doesn’t set at the right time, “the sunset was really beautiful, so at least there’s that” (111). that a magic trick doesn’t need to be explained (222), that every mystery of the strange community he is studying doesn’t need an explanation. that his focus was not on tearing apart the community in the search of truth, but “the science of discovery, of research, of humility, of using these tools to make our lives better” (230).

i think it matters that, even as carlos did become irrevocably involved in the community he was meant to study, he always made sure to keep “most of its mysteries… intact” (212). he still maintained that level of scientific integrity, and pushed to reinforce this when people threatened to do otherwise.

i think it matters that carlos, when faced with someone from his past, someone who knew exactly why he was there and exactly what he had left and exactly what the correct scientific procedure is, says, “I speak now not to my adversary, but to my community” (230). his community. yes, the most scientifically interesting community in the united states. yes, the community he had come to study. yes, the community he had, somewhere along the way, become a part of. and yes, his community.

i think this is such a cool example of character development, and maybe i just couldn’t fully appreciate or understand the importance of him saying “community” every time without what was revealed in this last arc, but i really like considering this angle. i love thinking of carlos trying to remain distant before realizing his community, his love, his family had all become one, and he could still find wonder and make scientifically interesting discoveries from within the community. i love that he found a home, one much more personal than simply a grouping of objects and people, but a community that is his.

#um. i think about carlos a regular amount.#shoutout to keri and bulk for encouraging this. it's their faults. blame them.#wtnv

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deconstructthesoup · 16 days

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I saw a D&D AU with the Voices, and I decided that I also wanted to do a D&D AU with the Vessels, so here goes:

*cracks knuckles*

The players are the chapter 2 vessels, who have joined together after they were each mysteriously attacked---and nearly kidnapped---by worshipers of a primordial god only known as The Narrator. Even though they're all vastly different people with vastly different motivations, they have to work together in order to figure out how they've somehow angered a long-forgotten god.

The Tower is a scourge aasimar and an Oath of Conquest paladin, who devoted herself to The Apotheosis, queen of the gods and the embodiment of justice and retribution. She acts as the self-appointed leader of the group, even though a good chunk of the other players are having none of her self-righteousness and narcissism. She doesn't believe that the Narrator actually exists, and considers the quest to just be another heretic-killing spree.

The Adversary is a tiefling Ancestral Guardians barbarian, who grew up in a rough-and-tumble all-barbarian community and is slated to become its next leader. She's just happy to travel around the world bashing heads, and she winds up clashing the most with Tower---mainly due to their very different backgrounds. She genuinely doesn't care who or what the Narrator is, and just wants to kick ass and have a good time.

The Spectre is a ghost and a necromancer wizard, who actually died when she was attacked and has brought herself back in order to track down her killer and to take her revenge. She kind of lost herself in the ivory tower of academia when she was alive, and part of the reason she's sticking with the others is so she can actually form connections before it's truly too late. She's studied several old cults in her time, but the only thing she's found of The Narrator is an old painting of a crow with sharp teeth...

The Nightmare is a dhampir and an Undead warlock, who draws her magic from the dread vampire queen who turned her. She is no stranger to being hunted, for people fear and shun vampires and their spawn, but she knows full well that this time is different. And during the attack, she managed to devour a dream of her would-be captor, getting a little glimpse into the ancient powers of the god that wants her gone... and, well, who can resist the allure of taking down a being as old as time?

The Witch is a tabaxi Circle of Spores druid and an Arcane Trickster rogue, who's been living on her own in the woods after suffering a great betrayal and heartbreak that damaged her trust in anyone. She's only working with the others because she believes she'll get further if she does, and while she initially intends to backstab them once they're no longer useful, she finds herself growing closer to them as their journey continues. All she really wants is to go back to her old life... but her goal may change as her walls begin to come down.

The Prisoner is a human Armorer artificer, who once angered an archfey and was cursed to always be bound in chains. Undeterred, she turned this to her advantage, reforging her chains into armor that she could use as a weapon. She starts traveling with the rest purely due to self-preservation, as every time she resolved to just hide, The Narrator's worshipers found her again---but she's definitely the practical mind that they needed.

The Damsel is a half-elf College of Creation bard and a Beastmaster ranger, and she's a princess whose kingdom was usurped by an evil family member, leaving her on the run. She's very naive about how the world works, mainly due to being sheltered her entire life, and is sure that this situation can be solved with a nice conversation. Thankfully, she has someone to help her...

The Beast is a fey that was cursed to take the form of a barely-sapient panther, and she barely recalls her life in the Feywild. Still, she has a soft spot for the innocent princess she came across in the woods one day, and she will protect her for as long as she can.

The Razor is an elf Soulknife rogue and a College of Swords bard, and she's actually a pretty well-known circus performer. She's absolute chaos personified, and she really doesn't give a shit about The Narrator either way---she's just ready to kick ass, stab people, and hang out with her new best friends. Even if not all of them are super into being friends with the crazy blade lady.

And last but not least, The Stranger is a changeling Divine Soul sorcerer and a Grave Domain cleric, who unknowingly draws their power from the long-forgotten goddess of change, transformation, endings, and new beginnings. They woke up one day with no memory of who they were, and were immediately attacked for reasons they could not explain---so, needless to say, they're pretty traumatized. It also doesn't help that they don't even know what they really look like, so they're constantly changing to reflect what people expect of them... which isn't the most healthy thing, but they're an amnesiac, give them a break.

So... yeah!

#the chapter 3 vessels are either gods or monsters #slay the princess #dnd #stp the tower #stp the adversary #stp the spectre #stp the nightmare #stp the witch #stp the prisoner #stp the damsel #stp the beast #stp the razor #stp the stranger

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artroidsart · 15 days

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Can we get some YDKJ Host/Weapons Drawn Host HCs, please?

If not, that's ok with me, too

12:02 am, 4/8/2024

Headcanons? Absolutely! Buckle up, I've got a lot of them!

YDKJ Hosts:

Cookie is a BIG eater. It's a bad idea to leave a bunch of snacks in front of him because he will eat ALL of them if he isn't stopped. Schmitty has seen him devour an entire bag of chips in one sitting without batting an eye.

Schmitty uses his cane as a mobility aid. He has a bad balance, and the cane helps him stay stable. He's gotten better over the years since he used to need a wheelchair as a little kid.

Nate can ride a skateboard and perform a bunch of cool tricks. He's been able to teach Guy some techniques, but the other hosts have been less successful.

Guy enjoys a LOT of sports, but his go-to is basketball. He's probably the most fit out of the hosts. He tries to make sure the other hosts stay in shape too. (Looking at YOU, Cookie.)

Buzz is the youngest of the YDKJ hosts, something the others playfully tease him about. He's also the shortest, which doesn't help his case.

Cookie is confirmed Bisexual, Schmitty is Gay but went through a bi-denial phase, Guy is Pansexual, Nate is Bi, and Buzz is Asexual.

Schmitty WAS married to a girl named Sandy, but things didn't work out. It's implied Sandy was neglectful in their marriage, leaving Schmitty feeling ignored and unwanted. (This was during his bi-denial phase.)

Nate was a radio host during college, long before starting YDKJ. Now he has a podcast on the side.

Buzz collects a bunch of bee-related things. Bee plushies, bee figures, bee decor, and whatever else strikes his fancy.

Cookie and Schmitty were the ones to stick with Jellyvision, (which would turn into Jackbox Games). They all keep in touch and are all very close, but the others went to do other things. Guy works at a gym, Nate has a podcast, and Buzz got into programming.

Binjpipe ROYALLY messed them up. Cookie has trauma over being directly controlled, Nate was mentally altered into a paranoid conspiracy theorist for "Truth Talk 23/7", and Buzz worked feverishly to break them out. Schmitty is worried sick about everyone Binjpipe got her claws on, and Guy does his best to support and comfort Buzz and the others.

Weapons Drawn Hosts

Lord Tippet comes from Old Money, meaning his family has been rich for a LONG time.

His family has a lot of connections, including the Ham family ([REDACTED]'s family of the Murder Hotel)

Tippet and [REDACTED] have been family friends for many years, and Tippet is one of the few who know his true identity. (He doesn't know much about the whole murdering side of his bestie.)

He's easily spooked. Loud noises like lightning or slamming doors make him jump. He usually clings to someone when startled.

Tippet is the most DRAMATIC guy you will ever meet. Ya boi has a fainting couch at the ready.

The Narrator is a living manifestation of evil, specifically of murder. She's been around for a LONG time.

She's more powerful than Binjpipe or Felisha, but not as powerful as The Wheel of Enormous Proportions. There's a sliding scale of power for Jackbox entities.

As an entity of murder, she has an awareness of all killers, such as the detectives. Should she become interested in certain killers, she can easily learn whatever she wants about them. The Narrator can discover all their crimes without even being spotted.

Tippet and the Narrator have a love-hate relationship. He hates how much trouble she (indirectly) causes, and she enjoys teasing him (in a cosmic entity kind of way).

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jeremywhitley · 1 year

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The Death of Gwen’s Butterflies

This post is just the slightest bit spoilery about Love Unlimited #46 staring Gwenpool which came out this last Thursday. If you’re worried about being spoiled, don’t click the keep reading.

There is nothing more rewarding as a comic book writer than coming up with a concept in a script that illustrates something that isn’t physical or easily visible and having an art team just get it and knock it out of the park. That is what @bailiesartblog and Kelly Fitzpatrick did for me on this most recent chapter of Gwenpool and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s about the process of going through a relationship right? And there’s this moment at the end of issue 2 where Gwen has been bemoaning that she just doesn’t get this feeling that other people get. She wants to get butterflies in her stomach about another person. Then she’s almost smashed by a big monster and she’s literally swept off of her feet by Julie Power. Like so:

and, as you might imagine, it has this effect

Of course it does. Who wouldn’t swoon over Lightspeed, national treasure, bisexual who leaves a literal rainbow trail when she flies rescuing them. Gwen is not the first.

Julie also feels it and they grab a meal at a diner

And it all results in Julie eventually asking Gwen out and Gwen accepting.

Surprising everyone, things go great. Gwen enrolls in Julie’s college, they do superhero stuff together, they go on romantic walks. As Gwen tells us, things are perfect. She keeps telling us that. But there’s this tension growing behind her words that we wanted to illustrate because Gwen thinks she should be happier. She should want the things that she has. The things that everybody theoretically wants. After all, she has this moment to point to. This moment where she felt those butterflies that everyone’s told her about.

as she is telling the story of her relationship with Julie she keeps coming back to this moment and talk about how she feels...felt...

And I had this idea that as she’s telling us about her relationship and how great it’s going, she keeps bringing up that moment in her mind, but the feeling is fading and we can see this because behind her, the image is fading.

And so many of us know that feeling, regardless of the reason. You know that at one point you felt this way and now you just want to get back to that feeling but the more you try to pull it back the more it fades. Especially for Gwen, this was a moment of self-discovery when she felt a way about a person for a first time and in her case it was the first time that she’s attempting a f/f relationship and it’s with somebody she really likes and cares about, but at a certain point she just can’t deny that...

It isn’t the same any more. Butterflies have a short lifespan and you can’t force yourself to feel a way you don’t feel, even if you felt that way before. She wants to want something. She wants to hold onto this feeling she had. But it’s faded. That feeling has gotten away from her and she hits a moment where she just can’t pretend any more.

And gosh, it’s a powerful feeling and it’s so amazing as a writer to see that idea come to life on the page. Bailie and Kelly really illustrated a feeling through the use of Gwenpool’s actions in the foreground and the color in the background even as Gwen’s narratation is trying to do the opposite. Man, that feels so cool to see!

#gwenpool #gwendolyn poole #marvel #comics #jeremy whitley #marvel unlimited #love unlimited #queer characters #lgbtq romance

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estherdedlock · 2 years

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Of course, now I can’t stop thinking about where the remains of our Greek class would be today.

The trouble with this exercise is that we’re not sure how old they’d be, because we don’t really know when the events of The Secret History take place. Donna Tartt does a good job of giving us almost no chronological milestones to ground the book in a particular year. Richard is narrating from nine years after Bunny’s death: since TSH was published in 1992, that would put the story’s setting in 1983. But references to certain things in the book would suggest a later time. Richard goes to see a Vietnam War movie starring Charlie Sheen with the fictitious name of Fields of Shame: its real-life counterpart, Platoon, was released in December 1986. Later in the novel, we find mentions of compact discs and laptop computers, which would place the story in the late 1980s or even the early 1990s (part of me thinks that these were editor’s suggestions to make the book feel more up-to-date).

Since Donna Tartt attended Bennington from 1982 to 1986, she would have started her junior year in 1984. Richard transfers to Hampden at the start of his junior year, so I’m going to use that as my benchmark and say that the action of TSH takes place between the fall of 1984 and the spring of 1985. Francis is 21, so he would now be 58. Richard and the Macaulays would be 57.

Francis is the easy one, because Donna Tartt herself told us what became of him. In The Goldfinch, he makes a brief appearance as one of Hobie’s wealthy New York friends/clients. There’s no mention of “Mr. Abernathy” having a wife or children, so we can assume that Priscilla has been out of the picture for quite some time. Francis appears to have a reasonably good life, even if, as Theo Decker says, he seems to have “some ill-articulated scandal or disgrace in his past.” (Such a tease, that Donna Tartt!) This is what Francis was up to in 2013, at least---unless he got very sick or started a relationship with someone, there isn’t any reason to believe that he’d be doing anything different by now.

Richard, I think, predicted his own future when he was speculating about Henry’s: “I had always pictured Henry teaching Greek, in some forlorn but excellent college out in the Midwest.”

(I’ll briefly pause so we can all recover from the terrifying prospect of having Henry Winter as a college professor.)

Whew, okay. Moving on...

I can’t imagine that Richard would have stayed in California, not when he hated it so much. And yet, I can’t see him returning to New England, or anywhere in the Northeast: too many memories. The Midwest would be a perfect place for Richard to have landed...and for some inexplicable reason, I’m specifically thinking Wisconsin. Of course he’s a professor: his education hasn’t really trained him for anything except academia. But not Greek---English literature. He’s rumpled and tweedy and still rather boyishly good-looking. At least a quarter of his class has a crush on him. He may have been married at some point, but no longer. He doesn’t have any children.

I’m probably getting too Sebastian Flyte-ish with Charles, but I’m sorry to say that I think he’d be dead by now. I think he may have committed suicide, or just let himself decline so far into alcoholism and eventual drug addiction that it was basically a slow suicide. Or it may have been the sort of accident that plagues troubled people: a car wreck, a house fire, a bad fall down the stairs. But then again, you never know. If Charles somehow managed to pull himself back from the brink, I think he’d only have been able to do it with the help of some kind of religion---not because of his substance abuse issues, but because of his guilty conscience. I don’t see him getting deep into Christianity, though, maybe something like Buddhism. Perhaps he’s up in the Himalayas, with a shaved head and orange robes. And there we’ll leave him.

Camilla is a novelist. She would have needed to make money somehow, but I don’t see her doing blue-collar work or embarking on a corporate career (for which she would have had to go back to school, anyway). When we last saw her in TSH, she seemed to have committed herself to taking care of her grandmother and eking out a living on whatever was left of the family money (so Southern Gothic!). That would have given her ample time to write.

Funny thing is, I see her being financially successful but not the sort of writer who’s a darling of the critics or a household name (she doesn’t write under her own name at all). Maybe she’s had a career like Andrew Neiderman, who’s been writing as “V.C. Andrews” since the real Andrews died more than 30 years ago. Or maybe she reliably churns out cozy mysteries and romances, the kind that you buy at the drugstore, read at the beach, and then leave for someone else at the laundromat. This is by choice: Camilla doesn’t want to be famous. She wants to be comfortable, and left alone. She still owns the family home in Virginia, which she’s beautifully restored, although she doesn’t spend much time there. Mostly, she lives at the beach, where her well-appointed bungalow is peak Coastal Grandmother aesthetic.

She’s not a grandmother, though, or a mother, and has never been anyone’s wife. She is as solitary in her habits as she ever was...no, more so. She takes long walks on the beach, alone. She goes to mass every Sunday and holy day, but never receives Communion. She reads Greek in the evenings, listening to the waves roll in.

She has never stopped loving Henry.

#the secret history #donna tartt #dark academia #francis abernathy #richard papen #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay #henry winter

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claidi · 4 months

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So I finally read the new Percy Jackson book and I have Opinions.

First, I did enjoy it! It was nice to go back to Percy's narration. There were a lot of funny moments and Percy's always a delight. I also enjoyed the original trio back at it again. Their dynamic is solid.

But like this was a wacky book. A weird book. It's like a short story with a page count.

So much fluff. So much. Like I'm happy to see Percy happy, especially when so much sucks for him, but it's definitely different than the usual.

Also the conflict of this honestly makes me believe Percy would be justified tearing down Olympus. This is ENTIRELY a problem of petty gods. It's Zeus making Percy's life difficult on purpose. After everything.

All the real obstacles are gods. Monsters are easy in comparison. Even the snakes are difficult only because Iris put in the stipulation that the quest be cruelty free.

Like I get the commentary of a system rigged against you. I understand that college admissions can be confusing, a lot of work, and a lot of stress. But...

There's a thematic through line of aging in the book. Percy is fighting to go to his next stage of life, to grow up. Meanwhile he faces Hebe who deals in nostalgia and literally deages him. She has to be the youngest in the room. Iris sends him to deal with an old relic she doesn't use anymore- not so she can use it or anything, just clean up her past staff so it's like it used to be. He gets the questicular cup by embracing old age, what he wants to do anyway.

Meanwhile his quest giver is a teenager who has been forcibly kept as he is for beautiful and Percy is angry for him. Furious enough to risk his life in what should have been an impossible fight.

(there's also the baby announcement, Percy being able to give successful relationship advice to Grover, and just how much he wants to be done with highschool already. The strange thing about him suddenly aging out of camp after graduation??? Since when was that a thing?)

Yeah, maybe Percy is getting a better relationship with his dad in this one. Athena didn't turn him in. But the fact remains that Percy shouldn't have to squeeze random questing in between doing his homework (especially when he's trying to get two years worth of credits!). He's in a mess created by Zeus, trying to fix a mess originally created by Zeus. It's unfair and while I know that is the Point, the mundaneness of this conflict strikes me. The world isn't at stake and yet Percy is Still going through it.

#chalice of the gods #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo cotg #cotg spoilers #percy jackson #pjo #my ramblings

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thekatebridgerton · 7 months

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I want the backstories to all of these weddings

I would love to read about amanda and eloise going dress shopping

Okay so the modern Bridgerton Brides backstory would have been told from the perspective of Genevieve (Ginny Delacroix) who is the Bridgertons jack of all trades wedding planner.

She's organanized all the Bridgerton weddings except Francesca's 2nd and Lucy's 1st. But she still keeps the Dress pictures in her portfolio for future reference.

And I just had this idea of Mme Delacroix just going over her best work and adding little notes on what the bride was like, how the groom proposed and whatever she thought was interesting about the dress. So the story would have been in 3rd person with a very unreliable narrator. Because Ginny Delacroix knows things but she doesn't know everything that happened.

Simon and Daphne: they supposedly were engaged for a long time, Hollywood director x Hollywood starlet kind of romance, it wasn't until Ginny was called to organize the wedding of the century in like a week, that she found out that Saphne was actually a publicity stunt and now they had to get married because Simon's investors were suspecting him of running a long con to get his hands on the movie deals he wanted and give the starring roles to Daphne. Delacroix &Co was given free reign on the budget and to this day it's been the most extravagant affair she's organized for the Bridgertons.

Anthony and Kate: bitter Buisness rivals, Anthony crossed the line by chatting up Kate's sister in a club and Kate made it her mission to block all of his major deals for the next business quarter. Nobody knows what was happening behind the scenes, Ginny always suspected they were banging because come on, those kind of flaming looks they gave each other at the Saphne wedding. But anyway flash forward a few months later, Ginny gets called in the middle of the night to plan a wedding for next week, because all the news trending on Twitter had pictures of the award ceremony in which the paparazzi caught Anthony with his hands on Kate's boobs. Ginny knows that in reality Kate's dress had a bra malfunction and Anthony's first instinct was to cover up her boobs with his hands before she could flash the whole internet. But he claims he was proposing to her in a very intimate way and is now suing the press for invasion of privacy. There was a bee involved in that whole mess, but Ginny never got the whole story. So in the end for the sake of saving face with Kate's family they got married in a wedding that was a mix of Indian rituals and British marriage traditions

Benedict and Sophie: Ginny actually gave them a discount for this one, because Sophie is her friend. Benedict apparently got injured in the racetrack one day and Sophie was hired as his live in doctor. Turns out they had history together, because she had a one night stand with him, back when Benedict was in college and then just never called him. They had some sort of whrilwind romance where Sophie refused to sleep with him, because she felt he really didn't care about her as a person and everyone in the comment section of his Instagram thought that she was holding out for a ring because he's rich. So when Benedict resigned Bridgerton industries to follow his dreams of being a painter it came as a surprise that Sophie was fully okay with being the main breadwinner while he got his feet off the ground. They had a very simple wedding on the beach and Sophie refused to let Anthony fund any of it. Benedict too, paid out of his own earnings, not his family money. And yes, she was indeed waiting to be cleared from charges after a wrongful arrest when Benedict proposed. Nobody has let him live it down yet

Colin and Penelope: long story short Penelope and Colin used to be friends, but Pen realized she was being taken for granted and took a break from hanging out with Colin, which in turn made Colin needy and woke him up to the fact that he couldn't live without her. okay so maybe it's a little harsh to say Penelope got proposed to by a stalker, but that's because Ginny is still mad at Colin for literally tracking down Penelope's wreabouts using Ginny's Instagram posts, since back then, Ginny was in France photographing Penelope for a new ad campaign that was going to be in Delacroix &Co website. And then to add insult to injury just when Ginny thought she'd have 3 months to plan the wedding between her long time friend and the guy said friend had a crush on since forever. Violet Bridgerton calls and asks for the wedding to be ready in 3 weeks because Pen is pregnant... EXCUSE ME! Ginny knows for a fact that Penelope has an arm implant. Colin said whaaat?. Ginny's revenge was that see trough, sexy, wedding dress, the wedding planner wanted to make sure that Penelope's something blue would be Colin's balls. And Portia's outrage was only a bonus

Eloise and Phillip: Ginny really has very few details on this one, Eloise never wanted to have a wedding, never even wanted to get married. But she had to download a dating app for an investigation piece at her feminist magazine and the first guy she met was a Cambridge professor who agreed with everything she said, and they hit it off or so they claim. Ginny was under the impression that Eloise was simply taking advantage of the guy's house in central London since Phillip let her crash there on the weekends without paying for a hotel. But no it turned out that Eloise did like him and she liked his children too. Whatever happened with Phillip and the twins inspired Eloise to go more into activism that focused on domestic abusers. Honestly Eloise only agreed to get married for legal reasons (like being allowed in a hospital if they were sick) and because she felt that Phillip and the kids didn't have enough positive memories in their lives and it would be a shame to rob them of a family moment like a wedding, even a barely there wedding. No matter how much she does still think marriage is a piece of paper. One day Eloise took Amanda to the mall, showed her around the boutiques and told the kid to pick any dress she wanted her new step mom to wear. Phillip let Oliver pick his tux. Everything was off the rack and barely cost much, the rest of the Bridgertons ended up meeting Phillip and the twins the weekend before the wedding. When Eloise remembered to contact Ginny about organizing a quick after-party to soothe her family's anger. She's so independent honestly forgot to tell them she was dating someone, honest. Now, everytime anyone forgets to tell her something, they remind her that she forgot to tell her them she was even getting married

Francesca and John: this wedding is the crown jewel of Ginny Delacroix wedding planning work. Everything was perfect, years in the making, no shenanigans, Violet was so proud! Anthony was so proud! Ginny herself was so proud! St Paul himself would have been proud... aaaand the groom died 2 years later. Yeah not something Francesca likes to talk about

Francesca and Michael: the wedding that made Ginny Delacroix blacklist a Bridgerton! How could they do this to her. Not only did Francesca get married in Vegas wearing a dress that was basically a mini dress with a white tablecloth tied to the hips. But she married the playboy billionaire Rock Star cousin of her deceased husband. Francesca really said go big or go home, went from the cute, interior designer wife of a Scottish lawyer to the ball busting manager wife of a Rock Star. Ginny knows there's a story there! She just knows Michael did some sort of voodoo on Francesca during that trip to Vegas. But she's never managed to pin them down long enough to confirm her theories

Lucy and Ricky: the slimy stingy toad of a man that is Lucy's uncle, planned that wedding, and it shows because it was ugly as hell. Gregory conned Ginny into attending as his plus one and you could tell Don Abernathy was embezzling his niece money by the cheap way the wedding was set up. Ricky Haselby had more chemistry with his groomsman and at one point when the cops showed up to arrest Lucy's uncle and Rick's father, the bride actually took a knife from the buffet table and slashed her dress to make it shorter and run for her life. Good for her! Good for her!!

Gregory and Lucy: Beautiful mess, Ginny pulled every string she could to give them a wedding worth talking about within days of Gregory's dramatic kidnapping proposal. Good for her for wearing pants too! How it happened? Ginny Delacroix doesn't have details either. Something something about Lucy being Gregory's wingman with Hermione and ending up seduced herself. Ginny doesn't care, what she cares about is that Lucy's uncle went to jail ! That was incredible entertainment! Also, she totally gave Haselby and his groomsman her card when Gregory and Lucy were having their first dance

Hyacinth and Gareth: The official story is that Hyacinth and Gareth met as children in his grandmothers Academy and then as adults they reconnected and he proposed in a very normal way, with a flash mob and a boom box, you know, if Hyacinth broadcasting her entire relationship in TikTok is considered normal. I think Hyacinth got so much sponsorship deals just to turn her wedding into a event for her followers that it didn't even matter that Gareth was indeed pretty much flat broke at the time because his father disowned him for chosing Hyacinth over the St Clair fortune and demanded he breakup with her. He proposed instead. She wanted to elope but her mom wanted her to have a nice wedding and so did grandma Danbury so Hyacinth did the next best thing and turn her wedding into profit 🤩🤩🤩. Ginny was impressed by how many internet strangers were sending Hyacinth and Gareth money to film her wedding after she told all her followers that her wedding was going to be a private affair. Well joke is on St Clair senior because the bank Hyacinth's TikToks made with Gareth, actually covered all of the wedding expenses. And After that they just decided to become full time content creators. Last Ginny heard of Hyacinth and Gareth they had a great TikTok and YouTube variety channel

And that's more or less the backstory of this au

#bridgerton #genevieve delacroix #Bridgerton modern brides au #polin #Kanthony #Saphne #Philoise #Franchel

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randommusingsstuff · 1 year

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Devi, Ben, and the Power of Happy Endings

Never Have I Ever is about to go down in the history books as one of the most thematically rich coming of age stories produced in the streaming era.

While the thought of parting from my beloved, Devi Vishwakumar, makes me want to curl into a fetal position, I’ve been struck with the sudden inspiration to document my predictions. Every wild, outrageous opinion.

Maybe this post will be nothing more than fodder for your morning coffee Tumblr scroll, but my hope is that it will convey a sense of optimism. Not only do I think that Never Have I Ever will have an explicitly romantic ending for Ben and Devi, I think that it fundamentally has to. But we still have a long journey ahead.

1. Devi: T-minus 5 Seconds to Heartbreak

This is Devi Vishwakumar, walking into school for her first day of senior year, smiling like the lovestruck nerd that she is, having finally figured out that she wants to be with Ben.

I mean, just look at her gloat! This is the gloat of someone who is ready to join forces with her soulmate so they can terrorize the school with their combined obnoxiousness!

Only to walk in and see this:

Oh Ben... To quote the great Logan Echolls, “no one writes songs about the ones that come easy”.

2. To boink, or not to boink?

I’m not convinced that Ben and Devi had sex.

Now, hold on-

Let me first caveat and say that Never Have I Ever always manages to surprise me. While I can pick out the broad narrative strokes and character arcs they are aiming for, they manage to awe and delight me with the details.

I think that following through on the “one free boink” scene is the more interesting route, but it also makes the writers’ jobs much, much harder.

I cannot fathom Ben and Devi having sex and then Ben immediately rebounding to Margot. That level of womanizing would make Paxton Hall-Yoshida tremble in his tiny swim shorts. In order to keep the audience on Ben’s side, the writers would have to spend a considerable amount of time unpacking his trauma and explaining his perspective. It’s not impossible, but I’m dubious.

The show never rewards Devi for making a decision based on her own insecurities. She wants to have sex with Ben, but her catalyst for getting there is the sext Fabiola accidently sends to her instead of Addison (i.e Devi is insecure about being the only virgin in her friend group left).

Maitreyi confirmed that season 4 would pick up immediately where season 3 left off. Do I think we’re getting play-by-play? An under-the-cover post boink scene? Them starting to make-out then something happening? I’m betting on the latter.

3. The Ben Problem

Picture this:

Mid make-out, Devi casually lets slip that she is staying at Sherman Oaks for senior year. Suddenly, sex with the love of his life is an actual relationship that he has to contend with. All the trauma and pain from season 2 comes flooding back. And it’s important to remember that Ben was deeply traumatized from the events of season 2.

His actual brain catches up with his er… primal instincts, and they agree to see where things go. It's just vague enough that Devi thinks they’re going to be together, but Ben is scared. Scared of being more in love with her than he already is and scared of being hurt again. He goes with the safer option of neglecting his feelings, because his arc of vulnerability has yet to be fully actualized.

This manages to set up the same conflict and angst between Ben and Devi and give Ben a starting point to make amends without having him abandon Devi right after she has sex for the first time.

It’s a much more palatable fallout for the “one free boink scene”, but I digress.

4. Never Have I Ever... Been a Wallflower

We catch up with Paxton in episode 3, narrated by Gigi Hadid, and he’s kind of shy?

He has always used his popularity as a crutch and now has to grapple with his new identity. Much like Devi and Ben, Paxton’s insecurities are an ongoing battle, as he realizes that his choice to go to college was partially defined by his desire to escape the “dumb jock” label. Tucked away in his dorm room, watching life pass him by, he realizes that he doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone else. He can pursue his athletic aspirations and still defy the labels that people have placed on him. By the end of the episode, Paxton makes the decision to come back to Sherman Oaks as a swim coach assistant.

I’ll admit, I think it’s a strange choice to reignite Devi and Paxton’s romance by making him a faculty member at the school. The writers might as well hold up a big red sign that says, “The only reason we can think of for Devi and Paxton to interact is if they are stuck in high school together”.

But I want to make one thing clear: I do not think this undoes his arc from season 3. To realize that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you have to is a very natural extension of gaining personal liberty.

And I, for one, am proud of him.

Also, I’m getting season 2 vibes from this scene.

Devi and Paxton fans can probably expect callbacks, sweet moments, a kiss, and an emphasis on how important they have been to each other's personal growth.

5. Where are Ben and Devi?

Hidden behind a Michael Cimino-sized red herring. They are going to give us as little as they possibly can about Ben and Devi during promo season. The same way they have in *checks notes* every single season prior.

I’ve written about this before, but it is integral to their individual arcs that they are honest about their love for each other. It is the bedrock of the story. But between Michael Cimino’s washboard abs and closing out Paxton and Devi’s arc in a way that feels satisfying and emotionally resonant, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Ben and Devi’s domestic bliss phase.

Put another way: The love triangle and push-and-pull romance is not a side story, it’s a source of narrative conflict that’s integral to the plot. Would you resolve the final battle in a fantasy series three episodes before the finale? Resolving the Ben and Devi plot early would be like sucking all of the tension out of the story. It would not give us the euphoric high of Ben and Devi blurting out that they love each other at the eleventh hour after trying to suppress their feelings. The show has always saved these big moments for finales, and this season will be no different.

But for anyone worried that Ben and Devi will be fighting the entire season, I think we’re in for our most Benvi-centric season yet, filled with great moments and their trademark banter.

They go to New York to visit colleges. Neither of them admits it, but they are relieved to know that they will remain constants in each others’ lives.

They study for finals together while bantering, skirting around the topic of prom, and just generally being the only two idiots who don’t know they are in love. *Buries self under 10 pounds of cement*

This time, Ben asks her to dance. The angst, unspoken feelings and tension are palpable.

They fight over valedictorian and it’s practically foreplay. Devi wins, and Ben is proud of her, underscoring his growth and ability to put aside his competitive nature to be supportive.

And that is just a fraction of what’s in store for our obnoxious, loveable nerds.

6. 🎶 It's the circle of life 🎶

“Hey, gods. It's Devi Vishwakumar, your favorite Hindu girl in the San Fernando Valley. What's a-poppin'? It's the first day of school, and I thought we should have a check in. I think we can all agree that last year sucked for a number of reasons. So I thought of a few ways you guys can make it up to me.”

“One: I'd like to be invited to a party with alcohol and hard drugs. I'm not gonna do them. I'd just like the opportunity to say: ‘No cocaine for me, thanks. I'm good.’”

John Mcenroe Voice: Devi, you seem a little drunk.

“Two: I'd love for my arm hair to thin out. I know it's an Indian thing, but my forearms look like the frigging floor of a barber shop.”

The mehndi on her hands symbolizes her love for her family and heritage. Juxtaposed with her western clothes, it signifies her acceptance of her intersectionality.

“And lastly, most importantly, I'd really, really like a boyfriend, but not some nerd from one of AP classes.”

The picture that I want to get my hands on is currently stashed away in Netflix’s top-secret headquarters, but I’ll settle for this one of Ben’s adorable, dopey smile.

7. The Finale: Why Devi and Ben Must Have an Unambiguously Happy Ending

For the longest time, I believed that Never Have I Ever would go the way of its spiritual successor Crazy-Ex Girlfriend and give Devi the “I choose myself” ending” with hints of her ending up with Ben in the future.

It was only when watching the season 3 finale that I realized how wrong I was. In fact, I was so fundamentally wrong that I overlooked the obvious: Never Have I Ever has never done anything halfway. The writers of Never Have I Ever know something about the audience that we often fail to recognize ourselves, which is that we desperately want a happy ending.

Season one could have ended with Devi’s heartfelt goodbye to her father and reconciliation with her mother. What do we get instead? A sweeping, romantic shot of Malibu while Devi and Ben share their first kiss.

In the season 2 finale, Devi proclaims that she will not settle for “some weird secret thing behind closed doors” and that she wants to be “someone's public girlfriend.” And what does she get? Exactly what she wants.

But it’s only in season 3 when this pattern becomes apparent. The season could have easily ended with her deciding to stay at Sherman Oaks. We had already said our farewell to Paxton, and gotten this chemistry-choked, almost-love-confession between our favourite dorks:

And we think that maybe, just maybe, the season will end with Devi single and ready for her senior year. But the show says “subtlety be damned”. It demands a triumphant ending, with Devi showing up at Ben’s door, leading to what will certainly be one of the most intimate moments in the entire show.

Tonally, the story makes bold choices, and the reaction from fans is always electric. In a world of being told “no” and being conditioned to temper our expectations, Never Have I Ever is like a warm hug reminding us that even the most broken people can heal and find love.

And this brings us back to “the Ben problem”, the idea is that he must overcome his fear and confess his love to Devi. And Devi, in turn, must love herself before being able to embrace her narrative mirror.

On a show that prides itself on big endings, escapism, and romance it seems unfathomable, and almost cruel, for Devi and Ben to be in love and not be together.

The writers do not want people finishing the show, shrugging, and saying “that was a realistic ending.” They want us to watch the finale with grins too big for our faces, our hearts bursting with excitement. They want us to know that all of Ben and Devi’s suffering over the past four seasons meant something, that when Devi finally makes the right decisions, she “will find someone who loves her exactly as she is.”

Love, unvarnished and without fear. That is the true narrative promise of Never Have I Ever.

#never have i ever #benvi #ben x devi #nhie #benvi meta #devi vishwakumar #ben gross

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bengiyo · 2 months

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Love in the Big City Part 2 Check In

I’ve been struggling to start this essay for a few days. I sent the discussion questions to Shan Sunday evening after reading all of part 2 the day before because I wanted some time to sit with it and spend the day interacting with other people and reckon with what stood out for me. Like with the last section, I remained worried about how isolated the narrator (who I will now refer to as “Young”) has been and was unsurprised to see that connected to his experience with his mom.

We read through some pretty heavy sequences in this section, including Young being hospitalized by his mother as a teen when she discovered him kissing a boy under a street lamp, only to have the doctors classify him as a victim of PTSD and requesting that his mother enter treatment instead. He felt like he could never understand Hyung, and noted that he seemed to only be a booty call. He reached his breaking point and almost killed Hyung. He spiraled and almost killed himself.

When reading stuff like this, I always have to back away emotionally from the narrator, because otherwise I feel like it’s easy for me to get lost in the spiral of their emotions, particularly because Young seems to have mostly repressed his feelings about these situations if not the memory of them. It’s a bit difficult for me to read Young because I understand a lot of what he feels, and I am lucky that I was able to build relationships with other queer people in my 20s and avoid the spiral he’s fallen into.

With Hyung, I think @doyou000me provided some useful context for the level of paranoia Hyung deals with, given the living history he’s part of. He remembers people being disappeared. Even though he may have been a leader in a small organization at one point, it’s clear that his progressive friends at the time had no concept of their own homophobia and how it might impact other people in their movement. Like Young noted, he and Hyung are just doing regular jobs now, and Hyung’s rude friends are living a wealthy existence. For Hyung, his homosexuality is a barrier within himself, and his need to intellectualize everything means he cannot come to terms with it as he views it as the result of some sort of external influence on his being. There was never any way for him and Young to be happy because he hates himself too much to be anything reliable to Young.

Something else that continues to linger with me about Young is that he’s aware of how visibly gay he is to people. It doesn’t always come across in his writing, but the dialogue he shares with others indicates that he gets suspected or clocked a lot, and often resents how people treat him as a result. It happened with the guys in college when he stood up for Jaehee, and it happens here with Hyung fighting with Young for being so obvious about it. Hyung may try to pass and stay closeted, and that’s never going to work when you’re only able to chase after guys who can’t pass.

Regarding his mom, I get the sense that the mom’s paranoia about the dad and her controlling nature have forever ruined Young’s ability to have a wide array of meaningful relationships in his life. It seems like he can only really have one. No other people in his life get much mention in either of the first two sections except for Jaehee, Hyung, and his mom. It’s hard to see Young recognize that he’s messed up and possessive and be unable to do anything about that. He ends up spinning his mother’s remaining years caring for her and being jerked around by a closet case.

I’m struck by the audacity of Hyung in the end. He edited that man’s diary and then sent it back years later asking to meet up one last time. That’s absurd in the extreme, and yet I get it. Being right is all that man has. He has nothing else to offer. It’s such a sad existence. I am glad the two of them didn’t work out, and I worry so much about what I know is coming for Young since it seems that there’s a tendency to punish himself in so much of what he does.

#love in the big city #litbc book club

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homomenhommes · 2 months

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … February 27

6th Century BC – Sappho, Greek lyric poet, born. Of course, this is another one of those dates that is arbitrary. Sappho was the greatest of all the early Greek lyric poets, born on the island of Lesbos. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments. She was called "the Tenth Muse" by no less than Plato.

Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various personages and both genders. The word lesbian derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos, while her name is also the origin of the word sapphic; neither word was applied to female homosexuality until the nineteenth century.

The female narrators of many of her poems speak of infatuations and love (sometimes requited, sometimes not) for various females, but descriptions of physical acts between women are few and subject to debate. Whether these poems are meant to be autobiographical is not known, although elements of other parts of Sappho's life do make appearances in her work, and it would be compatible with her style to have these intimate encounters expressed poetically, as well. Her homoerotica should be placed in the context of the seventh century (BC).

A tradition going back at least to Menander suggested that Sappho killed herself by jumping off the Leucadian cliffs for love of Phaon, a ferryman. This is regarded as unhistorical by modern scholars, perhaps invented by the comic poets as a sort of ironic "revenge of the gods." or the legend may have resulted in part from a desire to assert Sappho as heterosexual.

1905 – One of the most infamous hateful racist homophobes and general misanthropes Charley Eugene Johns was born on this date.(d.1990). Johns was an American politician and the thirty-second governor of Florida from 1953 to 1955. Why cover Johns? Because most of us don't know this history and it's important to know what happened so it doesn't happen again.

Johns is most remembered for his support and chairmanship of the infamous Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, nicknamed the "Johns Committee" because of Johns' chairmanship. This committee participated in the Red Scare and Lavender scare by investigating communists, homosexuals, and civil rights advocates among the students and faculty of Florida's university system. They were responsible for revoking teachers' certificates and firing university professors. By 1963, the committee had forced the dismissal or resignation of over 100 professors and deans at the University of Florida, Florida State University and the University of South Florida. One professor attempted suicide after being investigated by the committee.

The state legislature ended funding for the committee in 1964 after it released a report called Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, which infamously became known as the "Purple Pamphlet". Its many photographs depicting homosexual acts outraged legislators and reportedly copies of the report were being sold as pornography in New York City.

In 2005, UF Today, an alumni publication of the University of Florida, included Johns in a list of 81 "outstanding" UF alumni. Johns attended UF only for a few months and did not graduate. The editor apologized for the error, and the alumni association said that including him was a mistake.

1927 – James Leo Herlihy was born on this date (d.1993). Herlihy wrote "Midnight Cowboy" and "Season of the Witch." Born in Detroit, Michigan, Herlihy attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a small, experimental institution whose faculty included Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Willem de Kooning, and other innovative figures in the arts. Herlihy studied art, music, and literature.

Like his close friend and mentor Tennessee Williams, Herlihy was a gay author whose works delved into taboo subjects and broke new ground for what was acceptable to major publishers. His 1958 play Blue Denim confronted teenage sexuality and abortion and was praised in a newspaper column by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Along with Williams, Herlihy became part of a circle of friends and lovers in Key West- mostly gay writers and "theater people"- that included James Kirkwood Jr., co-writer of A Chorus Line and author of cult novels and plays including There Must Be a Pony!; Evan Rhodes, the author of The Prince of Central Park; one-time singer and agent Dick Duane, to whom Herlihy dedicated two of his finest novels, All Fall Down and Midnight Cowboy; and to a lesser extent, visiting writers like Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Author Christopher Isherwood paints the scene in an entry from his diary in August 1959: "(Broadway producer Walter) Starcke came by, en route for Japan and round the world . . . 'Now I live by grace,' says Starcke. 'I live every hour of every day to its fullest.' Actually he is in Key West, dealing in real estate and having parties with Herlihy and his friend which sometimes go on until morning. Lots of sex."

Herlihy's novels often feature protagonists living outside mainstream American culture, like Joe Buck, the male prostitute in Midnight Cowboy and Witch Gliz, the female teenage runaway in Season of the Witch. He wrote about aspects of the Gay subculture in urban America in much of his fiction. Most of his books are now out of print, although they were very popular at the time of their publication.

Herlihy committed suicide, aged 66, by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in Los Angeles.

1932 – Dame Elizabeth Taylor, DBE (d.2011) was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty and distinctive violet eyes.

National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. Her much publicized personal life included eight marriages (twice to Burton) and several life-threatening illnesses.

Taylor devoted consistent and generous humanitarian time, advocacy efforts, and funding to HIV and AIDS-related projects and charities, helping to raise more than $270 million for the cause. She was one of the first celebrities and public personalities to do so at a time when few acknowledged the disease, organizing and hosting the first AIDS fundraiser in 1984, to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles.

Taylor was cofounder of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) with Dr. Michael Gottlieb and Dr. Mathilde Krim in 1985. Her longtime friend and former co-star Rock Hudson had disclosed having AIDS and died of it that year. She also founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF) in 1993, created to provide critically needed support services for people with HIV/AIDS. For example, in 2006 Taylor commissioned a 37-foot (11 m) "Care Van" equipped with examination tables and xray equipment, the New Orleans donation made by her Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation and Macy's. That year, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, she also donated US$40,000 to the NO/AIDS Task Force, a non-profit organization serving the community of those affected by HIV/AIDS in and around New Orleans.Taylor was honored with a special Academy Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1992 for her HIV/AIDS humanitarian work. Speaking of that work, former President Bill Clinton said at her death on March 23, 2011, "Elizabeth's legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired."

1971 – Derren Brown is an English illusionist, mentalist, painter, writer and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in television specials, stage productions, photographic memory, and British television series such as Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat.

After studying German and Law at the University of Bristol, Derren Brown started out as a traditional conjurer specialising in close magic before moving into stage hypnotism and eventually into television on Channel 4, where he has produced several controversial series using a combination of 'magic, suggestion, psychology, misdirection and showmanship'.

Using his knowledge and skill he appears to be able to predict and influence people's thoughts with subtle suggestion, manipulate the decision making process and read the subtle physical signs or body language that indicate what a person is thinking. His sometimes disturbing shows have included Derren Brown's Mind Control, Russian Roulette, Seance, Messiah and The Heist. He often uses his skills to debunk religous, supernatural and paranormal beliefs. He has written several books on magic and tricks of the mind and regularly takes his show on tour.

Brown had been in the spotlight for several years before revealing himself to be gay in an interview in a Sunday newspaper supplement in September 2007. In an interview with the Radio Times in 2011 Brown talked more about his sexuality, stating that he is blissfully happy in a relationship. He said,

"I spent a lot of time thinking about me and working on what I wanted to be before I came into a relationship. In some ways, it's bad because you come into relationship quite late without a lot of experience and you have a lot to learn. But that can also be exciting. Certainly, it's lovely to have somebody love you and it's lovely to love someone else."

1975 – The American screenwriter and director Christopher (Beau) Landon was born today. Best known as the writer of 2007 film Disturbia and as the son of filmmaker Michael Landon.

Most of Landon's films deal with LGBT themes and issues, including $30, one of five components in Boys Life 3, a collection of short films dealing with issues faced by gays, and a spec script about the relationship between a straight man and a gay man. More recently, he has written the screenplays of the 2007 films Blood and Chocolate, The Flock and the acclaimed Disturbia. Disturbia was one of his spec scripts which was brought to Montecito Pictures and subsequently DreamWorks Pictures, and went on to become No. 1 in cinemas upon its release. Since then he has worked on The Lesson, a film for DreamWorks, and the 2007 television series Dirty Sexy Money, his first television project, eager to expand his repertoire. He has also worked on the screenplay of the film adaption of Lisa McMann's young adult novel Wake. He has recently been achieving some success as a writer on the Paranormal Activiy franchise.

Landon came out as gay in 1999 having only written the script of Another Day in Paradise, unafraid of his sexuality harming his career potential. He was aware that homophobia may have harmed his potential in the industry. "I may fall off some list because of my sexuality. But if that happens, then I really don't want to be on that list anyway," he said, speaking of homophobia in Hollywood and the film industry.

He says that growing up he was labeled a faggot by peers at his high school. His mother, a Christian, initially hesitated to accept his sexuality, but he told her, "I don't even know if I believe in God, but if I do, he gave you a gay son so that you can start confronting some of these issues and get yourself out of the box you've placed yourself in for so long." His stepmother, Cindy Clerico, his father's next wife, told him that both she and his father always suspected he was gay.

Some rather indiscreet pics which have surfaced on the internet reveal that, like his father, he is very well-hung.

"Little" Joe

2017 – When We Rise, an ABC mini-series, premiers on this day. It was a docudrama miniseries about LGBT rights, created by Dustin Lance Black. The 45-year saga tells the evolving history of the modern gay rights movement, starting just after the Stonewall riots in 1969.

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lostonehero · 4 months

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Tell me things about corpse Mike pls

He's more so a walking skeleton being held in place by what remains of skin turned leather and fabric he stitched together

He's really fucking depressed and not a reliable narrator when it comes to his views of the past and how he was treated before the bite incident

He was born in 1970 on September 13th

Charlie was born August 31st 1970 she's less then a month older than him

Jeremy is actually a year older then Micheal but he lies about his age because he panicked when he first met Micheal and didn't want to explain why he was held back a grade

William never hated Micheal he was actually his favorite but he blamed himself for Charlie's death and more so Elizabeth's death and didn't exactly go to therapy he turned to the bottle and distanced himself because he didn't want to hurt Micheal or Evan (this didn't work obviously)

William is basically a skeleton in the spring lock suit. The majority of his bones are crushed or broken his skull is the only thing intact

Micheal again is very depressed and Henry doesn't let matches or anything that can cause or spread fire in his home because he has caught Micheal a few times trying to set himself ablaze

Micheal thinks Jeremy is only with him as a science experiment and doesn't actually like him or care about him

Jeremy lobes Micheal so much and wants to help him and has been working closely with Henry to make Micheal a new body. Jeremy doesn't know why or how Henry is already so good at this, even giving the ability to eat food. He doesn't question it but he has his theories

Micheal has been using YouTube since it started he hasn't really looked at his subscribers or comments till recently he's a little intimated that he has been basically using his channel as a way to just talk to someone but it turns out he has a massive audience and has been constantly bombarded with offers to make money he basically thought he was talking to a void

Micheals bones are majority broken like his father ennard really used all his skin as a suit breaking bones in the process. He really doesn't like talking about that week he was trapped.

The kids in the hospital. Jeremy mostly works in the children branch of the hospital mostly the terminal or long stay patients they all enjoy him and how fun and chill he is. He doesn't treat them like they will get better but he also doesn't treat them like glass which the kids love. Micheal helps so much more because he helps with the kids with scars and missing limbs.

William is 100% gay but he doesn't realize it he just thinks his childhood was normal (it wasn't he basically grew up in a boarding school for boys till he got into college)

Henry found Micheal by accident because one of Margaret Young grandkids found micheals YouTube and was asking him questions about it because his great uncle Henry owns fazbear

Clara is the bad guy here

#asexual mumbles #corpse micheal #scooped michael #five nights at freddy's #fnaf #micheal afton #henry emily #william afton #michael afton #jeremy fritzgerald #charlie emily

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