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hateswifi · 4 years

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No More Second Chances: Chapter Six

I honestly have no idea what this chapter is, in my opinion it’s kinda cracky, but yeah leave what ya think, also ask to be tagged and stuff. Btw u proud of me twice in the same month, it’s a miracle. Also it’s a bit on the shorter side.

The Master: Master List

No More Second Chances: Master List

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As soon as she left, Damian left and holed himself up in his room. He spent hours doing research on his cru-- friend’s new sister. He realized she fought hard even sometimes when her partner, who he figured out was a blonde model named Adrien Agreste, who may or may not be her boyfriend, decided he didn’t like Adrien, he left her to fight alone too much. She had won some of Gabriel’s competitions before he was sentenced to life in jail for obvious reasons, she was offered an internship with Audrey Bourgeois but had given it up in hopes of finishing high school, she worked as Jagged Stone’s personal designer, probably one of the reasons why Drake recognized her.

He sighed and tried to go to sleep, but his thoughts were just filled with her. He wakes up in a daze, still his thoughts were filled with her. He gets dressed and almost falls down the stairs. He stumbles into the kitchen and grabs a cup of coffee.

“Demon, you good? You hate coffee,” Jason says, opening the fridge.

“Fine, I just didn’t sleep well,” he grumbles into his mug.

“Were you thinking of the magic girl?” Dick asks, entering the kitchen.

“Why would I be thinking about Marinette?”

“Oh? She’s Marinette instead of Dupain-Cheng?” Jason snickers.

“She’s not Dupain-Cheng because she decided she is going by Wang after her parents disowned her,” Damian says, grabbing food.

“Speaking of her being disowned, does she have people lining up to be her parents, or is it like free real estate?” Bruce asks, pouring himself some coffee.

“Bruce, you realize she’s a person, right?”

“Sorry, I know, but I stayed up a majority of the night trying to figure out how to get her in our family,” Bruce yawns.

“The easiest way is Damian to marry her, but that may be as hard as adopting her,” Tim yawns, taking the pot of coffee from Bruce.

“That’s funny and impossible,” Jason laughs.

“What’s so funny about the notion of me dating her?” Damian asks, almost looking offended.

“Do you like her?” Dick asks, looking up from what he was doing, the silence was enough for an answer. “Oh my god! You do like her!”

“I do not,” Damian denies before leaving the kitchen.

He’s silent as he is driven to school by Alfred. As the car pulls up to school he sees his friend and the girl he may or may not have feelings for, he hasn’t figured it out yet. He gets out of the car and greets the two raven-haired siblings.

“Father stayed up all night trying to figure out how to adopt you and Dick is convinced you’re a magic girl,” Damian says.

“I’m technically a magic girl, and your father has to get in line, there’s Adrien’s aunt, then,” Marinette starts, and Jon cuts in. “My parents are also trying to adopt her.”

“Well Jon, we don’t want a repeat of last time out parents fought, do we?” Damian asks, raising an eyebrow.

“That was before you or eye were here, and also that was for a stupid reason, this would be for a great reason,” Jon shrugs.

“No matter who adopts, if anyone does, I’ll get siblings, but I’m not some doll to be fought over, just remember that,” Marinette says over her shoulder as she leaves the boys to bicker, or whatever an argument including Damian is called. She sighs and grabs her things from her locker, she was exhausted after she left the Manor last night. She ate dinner, did the little homework she had to do, and went to bed, totally didn’t pass out from exhaustion, hahaha.

When she had woken up that morning, she was met with many notifications mostly from her ex-classmates and Adrien asking how she was doing and stuff. She blocks the unwanted messages, including those from her parents, and chooses to just answer, Adrien and Aunt Amelia’s, she was asking how she was doing and how open she is to adoption, there was even one from Felix! He was checking up on her and made sure she got a reasonable amount of sleep.

She’s brought back to school by Damian clearing his throat behind her. “So magic girls get tired then?”

“Could you not talk so loud? Just because it’s in European news doesn’t mean people know who I am, also yes we do get tired, we are humans, also I am not tired just a bit distracted,” Marinette sighs, closing her locker.

“I’m not one to be tired or distracted so no, I don’t know. Back to you being a magic girl, as Dick called you, the League will most likely contact you about your situation.”

“It doesn’t matter what they do, they laughed in our faces and practically called Chat Noir and I a joke, well no so much they, more like Green Lantern, that’s not the point they didn’t help us, so why would I try to be on their good side, my team was left to struggle against a mental villain that takes advantage of any negative emotion,” Marinette says, walking to first period.

“You’re being dramatic, except for the terrorist that attacks mental and emotional health more than physical.”

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, they will never know the extension of the damage that they left Paris in, now can we drop it? I just want a nap before first period”

“We can drop it, also this proves you can be tired.”

“I already told you we’re humans and can be tired, in fact Adrien lived on coffee for a majority of out schooling while still in Paris.”

“Your caffeine addiction may be bad, but its nothing compared to Tim’s, by the way, can you come back over today to work on the project? We didn’t finish enough for me to be satisfied yesterday,” Damian asks, sliding into his seat.

“Yeah sure, whatever floats your boat, Dami,” Marinette sighs, putting her head on her desk. She swears that the whole class was silent, so she looked up. Everyone was looking at her in some stage of shock, she looks over at Damian, his face is red. She shrugs and puts her head on the desk trying to get a power nap before class.

Little did she know during her little preschool nap news would spread all over the school about the Ice prince turned blushing boy, Damian, and the epitome of innocence Marinette and their supposed “relationship”. She just wanted to sleep and all the talk was stopping her. Heck, what does a magic girl have to do to get some sleep in America?

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Tag List:

@sturchling @maribat-is-lifeblood @sonif50 @thestressmademedoit @myazael @mochinek0 @messymessyml @amayakans @weird-pale-blonde-person @animalgirl05 @justafanwarrior @kalianoble @mewwitch @elmokingkong @noirdots @itsmeevie01 @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @tis-i-beanbandit @thetinymoonflower @whats-she-gonna-post-next @alwaysnumberonetruth @hauntedwintersweets @not-annoying @wargraymon0709 @tired-butterfly @heldtogetherbysafetypins @toodaloo-kangaroo @feliciakainzofspades @lozzybowe @imnotfluffy @moonlightstar64 @angelofmusickaterinapetrova @pirats-pizzacanninibles @sassakitty @gwennex @whats-she-gonna-post-next @dawnwave16 @ccwkm6967 @softlysobbingpostendgame @pale-lady-dreamer @a-star-with-human-name

Tag List extended:

@sociallyanxious-1

#maribat #marinette dupain cheng #batfam #damian x marinette #marinette x damian #ml salt fic #damian wayne #ml x dc #damimari #adoption war #crack magic girl #blushy boi #marinette just wants sleep

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feathered-serpents · 3 years

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TMA/Dragon Age AU because fuck it I’m combining my current hyperfixation with my all time hyperfixation for the Ultimate Fixation

Let’s get started!

Jon is a city elf, a mage, and recently made First Enchanter of his Circle. This is...surprising, to many of the other mages as he seems underqualified for the position to put it mildly. No one however has brought this up, as he was hand-picked by Knight Commander Elias when the former First Enchanter died suddenly, and to Elias’ word, without a successor. Jon is...doing his best in his new position but definitely feels unsure and overwhelmed by the responsibility.

Martin is half-elven, his father a city elf, and his mother a human. Most half-elves in Dragon Age look human, Martin however is one of the rare exceptions that looks more elven than human. His mother became bitter about this once his father left. Martin too, is a mage, and his magic appeared when he was about 15, but he hid it as best he could in order to care for his mother. He was able to live as an apostate for ten years before finally being discovered and sent to the Circle. He has been having a hard time adjusting, though he’s been trying his best to help and learn.

Georgie is not a mage, but a (Chantry?) scholar with an interest in magic/demons/etc. She was allowed into the Circle’s library under special ordinance to study what they had, at the time, Jon was a researcher, and would help her. The two began a very low-key romance. Mostly consisting of hiding love letters in books, maybe a kiss if a templar wasn’t looking, but nothing more than that. It couldn’t be more than that. The relationship ended on a rather heartbreaking note because of this. Georgie has since written some books on her studies, and some of them have found their way into the library.

Elias is the Knight Commander of the templars, and thus runs the tower. He’s not known for any particular cruelty, and the opinions of his charges regarding him are mixed, some seem to think he’s creepy, but others agree that he’s not as bad as he could be. In truth, Elias is Jonah, a blood mage, centuries old, jumping from body to body of Knight Commanders to lead the circle. Slowly working towards an ultimate goal (I don’t actually know what that means yet)

Other stuff:

- Tim and Sasha are also mages. Sasha’s an enchanter and Tim just a mage

- Basira and Daisy are both templars. Daisy more brutal about it, but Basira says nothing. Basira eventually leaves the order, followed much later by Daisy, who has trouble with her lyrium addiction.

- Jon’s been in the Circle since he was eight years old. There was an “incident” in his village and his grandmother turned him in. He holds no ill will towards her for this, as he believes the Circle is indeed the safest place for mages. Jon’s not a gifted mage, but not a bad one either. His skills are admirable, just not anywhere near the skill you’d expect to be chosen for First Enchanter.

- Jon’s bitterness towards Martin continues, fueled largely by the amount of time Martin spent outside of the circle. He considers Martin as untrained and lesser, probably referring to him as “Apostate” for the first year.

- Martin’s mother turned him over to the templars. Elias knows this. Martin does not.

- Jon’s not very “Freedom for mages!” at first. That’s something that would have to come over time. He genuinely believes the Circle to be the best place for mages until he’s very harshly shown to be wrong. (There’s probably some sort of equivalent to “gouge your eyes out and run away with me” with Martin eventually)

- I’m aware Jon having an illicit relationship with Georgie probably isn’t super in character but I needed somewhere for him to go and hide when he inevitably escapes the circle and I like Jongeorgie so leave me BE

- I’m not sure what Jonah is beyond “Powerful blood mage” being able to body-hop or avoid death isn’t a new thing in Dragon Age, and I don’t know how powerful I want him to actually be. I’ve gone through everything from an old and powerful but ultimately human bloodmage, to one of the original Tevinter mages that entered the Black City, which would make him almost godlike in power. I think I like the first option better.

- Melanie is there! Somewhere! Not sure where! But I promise!

- I don’t really have a storyline for this yet, but I don’t want it to be just TMA with a Dragon Age skin over it. I might work on expanding it, I might not, this is just for fun!

#Long post #dragon age #the magnus archives #tma

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blueberry-beanie · 3 years

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I’ve been tagged by @flamingplay to talk about four songs I’m listening to on repeat at the moment. Thank you, N! Higher Power - Coldplay (American Idol version) N and I renamed this song Kwa Kwa in honour of the sounds Chris makes in the beginning xD I have a somewhat complicated relationship to this song, and actually to the band at the moment. But ofc Kwa Kwa doesn’t care about that and gets stuck in my head anyway, thanks. The studio version is a disgrace in my opinion, because Jon’s guitar is basically nonexistent for no reason (nobody tell me about how his guitar wouldn’t be radio-friendly or “I’m about to explode”).

Sometimes I just can't take it Sometimes I just can't take it and it isn't alright I'm not gonna make it And I think my shoe's untied I'm like a broken record I'm like a broken record and I'm not playin' right

Can’t Deny My Love - Brandon Flowers This song is a masterpiece, album version or live. Also I absolutely love the music video. The aesthetics and this whole story. Can we have a movie about this? I love listening to the lyrics, because they really seem to have a deep meaning and they resonate with me because I often think about how humanity is sailing together on one ship into some sort of inescapable fate. Not inescapable in the sense of we can’t change it, but in the sense of that we will not escape the consequences of our actions, no matter if we close our eyes or run. For some reason this song always makes me think about this.

The eyes of God are watching over us So we don't break the golden rule The seven seas, have we learned Or are we sailing on a ship of fools? I always thought I had a full tank to go (But not tonight, you're running low) I always thought we'd get there someday

Beautiful Thing - The Stone Roses This song is connected to a special moment for me. In 2017, when I was preparing to move into my first own flat I thought I will listen to it when I finally depart into this new chapter of my life. Long story cut short, on the day in question I was actually crying in the car backseat. For me this song is like an ongoing promise that I will one day depart on a journey and be able to sing it without sadness. I feel like I still haven’t been able to enjoy the beautiful thing and said bye bye.

So soul sucking vampire How you love to steal the vibe All wrapped up in your addiction So we'll have to say bye bye It's a beautiful thing that I say bye bye Hear me, It's a beautiful thing so I stay so high

Where’s My Love - SYML Another case of me being caught up in the past. It’s a lovely, but quite melancholic song. It appeared in the documentary about Olympos in which Yannis was featured. Somehow it brings back memories from last summer in London when us Foals fans were spoiled daily with pictures from Olympos with flowers and sunsets by the sea. Feel like I’ve visited that place myself by now.

Ooh, If you bled, I bleed the same Ooh, If you're scared, I'm on my way Did you run away? Did you run away? I don't need to know But if you ran away, if you ran away, come back home Just come home

Thank you for tagging me, N! This was a lot of fun. I tag @xandwhy, @betweendevilanddeepbluesea, @bellezzamortale. You don’t have to do it if you don’t feel like it! Anyone who would like to share their favourite songs, just say I tagged you!

#asks

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thecaffeinebookwarrior · 5 years

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More Female Characters to Avoid in Your Writing

A long while back, I typed up some posts ranting about characters and tropes I disliked. These were Male and Female Characters to Avoid in Your Writing, and they’ve become my most popular posts yet. Recently, I was struck by some topical inspiration, and decided it was time for a sequel!

One again, these are my personal, subjective opinions! No one dictates your writing or portrayals but you, and no one can or should decide how you consume fiction. Also, as you may notice, I actually like most of the ladies below; I just don’t like certain aspects of their portrayal.

Enjoy, and happy writing everybody!

1. The Daenerys (i.e. the spontaneous war criminal)

Image source

Who she is:

The formerly heroic Mother of Dragons, who randomly charbroiled a city full of innocent people.

Why it sucks:

I’m not even talking about this from a feminist standpoint, or how one of the most consistently heroic and powerful female characters took an abrupt and undignified backflip into the Dark Side. I’m speaking from a writer’s standpoint.

Regardless of whether you liked Daenerys, she was rivaled only by Jon and Brienne as the show’s most consistently heroic character From locking away her dragon children to ensure the safety of her subjects, to freeing countless enslaved citizens, she’s spent a decade proving herself to be an altruistic and noble figure. And then, in the final two episodes of the entire show, the writers dracarys-ed that shit.

For some comparison, just imagine how ridiculous it would be if Jon Snow suddenly went batshit and started hacking up citizens because he was feeling stressed. That’s about as plausible as Dany’s sudden passion for genocide.

And for the record, I’m not opposed to Daenerys becoming Mad Queen. If it was done properly. This would mean informing the actress far in advance so she could modify her portrayal accordingly (which they didn’t), and building up to it through foreshadowing and established attributes. Not at the last fucking minute.

Honestly, the only characters who remained narratively consistent to the very end are Drogon and Ghost, who are both precious babies who did nothing wrong.

How to avoid her:

Decide as early as possible where a character arc is going. Contrary to what Game of Thrones seems to believe, the character arc is important. It should have a beginning, challenges that incite development, and a satisfying conclusion that showcases how a character has changed and evolved.

And if you didn’t decide early? You still have to come up with a conclusion that makes sense for your character, and not slap on the most unexpected ending possible in the name of Subverting Expectations.

On that note? Subverting expectations isn’t always a good thing, and a reader predicting your ending isn’t the worst possible outcome. Focus on telling a good story.

2. The Rayon (i.e. the transgender stereotype)

Who she is:

A transgender woman (portrayed by the male, cisgender Jared Leto) dying slowly of AIDS in Dallas Buyer’s Club. Her role in the narrative is to teach the supposedly heterosexual (more on that later) main character that queer people are human beings.

Why it sucks:

Rayon is many things in Buyer’s Club, and most are firmly rooted in stereotypes. She’s a sassy, flirtatious, clothing-obsessed, self-loathing, drug-addicted prostitute. She’s hypersexual, but never treated as romantically desirable. She’s tragic, but also one of the few consistently comedic characters in an otherwise bleak film.

It’s her job to gently goad the main character into treating her with basic respect, but he never quite gets there. He refers to her with male pronouns throughout the entire film, and never acknowledges her as a woman. At one point, he aims a gun at her genitals and offers her a “sex change operation.” Which, is supposed to be comedic.

This isn’t to say that there are no sassy, flirtatious, clothing-obsessed, self-loathing, drug-addicted transgender sex workers, nor is there anything wrong with “stereotypical” trans people. It isn’t the job of the marginalized to dispel stereotypes. And if real trans people had created and portrayed Rayon, she could have been a realistic, dynamic, and compelling character.

And I say “created” because Rayon is strictly fictional. Outside of this film, she didn’t exist.

“Well, at least they tried to offer representation!” you protest. “What else was it supposed to be about? A straight dude in the AIDS epidemic?”

Well, no. Though the main character, Ron Woodroof, is presented to us as a violently homophobic, transphobic, womanizing asshole, the real Woodroof was, by all accounts, kind-hearted, open-minded, and bisexual.

What could have been a powerful story of a queer man defying his diagnosis, living joyfully and meaningfully, and helping to prolong the lives of countless AIDS-sufferers, was instead watered down to a story of a straight, pugnacious asshole and his stereotypical, long-suffering, transgender sidekick who dies to Teach Him Compassion.

How to avoid her:

Read books by trans people. Consume media they create or endorse.

List of youtube channels created by trans people here, and 21 books for trans awareness month here.

Put out a special call for transgender beta readers to point out mistakes, misconceptions, and offer tips on an authentic portrayal.

Garner insight into their perspective and experiences, and give them personalities outside of being trans.

3. The Piper Chapman (i.e. the unflavored oatmeal)

GIF source

Who she is:

The “protagonist” of Orange is the New Black, and its least compelling character. She and Larry are the sort of people who would ask me for a threesome on Tinder.

Why it sucks:

Piper’s hook is that she’s a privileged, affluent white woman who unjustly finds herself in prison for -- well, for crimes she committed. But expected to get away with, because, Privilege.

This isn’t to say Piper is boring. She’s far from likable, but being likable and being boring aren’t the same thing. In another series, watching a relatively cushioned, naive, bourgeoisie woman string along various significant others, thoughtlessly incite violence, and navigate an unfamiliar prison setting would make for thought-provoking and hilarious satire.

But when compared to her charismatic supporting cast, with richly developed backstories, motivations, and relationships, she’s painfully bland. I would much rather watch a series centered around Suzanne, Nikki, Taystee, Poussey, or even Pennsatucky. They’re just more developed, opulent, enjoyable characters.

It could be argued that Piper is the viewpoint character, whom the audience is supposed to relate to. But I can assert that I don’t relate to Piper. At all. Her lack of empathy towards others -- such as leaving Alex after the death of her mother, cheating on her fiance, and inadvertently starting a *ahem* white power gang -- alienated me to her.

Which might not be such a bad thing, but Piper is (supposedly) the protagonist. We don’t need to like her, but we should probably be able to relate to her.

Or maybe I’m just jealous that hot women aren’t inexplicably fighting over me.

How to avoid her:

Your protagonist doesn’t have to be the most likable character in your story. They don’t even necessarily have to be the most interesting character in your story. And certainly not the most morally good, powerful, or knowledgeable. But the viewpoint character is the character who we spend the most time with, and from whose eyes we perceive the story. It’s important that we understand and relate to them emotionally.

Look at examples like BoJack Horseman, Holden Caulfield, Tony Soprano, Beatrix from Kill Bill, Mavis from Young Adult, Nadia from Russian Doll. All are complex characters, with varying degrees of moral ambiguity. Yet we can empathize with them emotionally and identify with them. Even if we’ve never been in their situation, we see where they’re coming from.

4. The Charlie (i.e. the dead lesbian)

Who she is:

One of the few recurring openly queer characters in the incredibly long-running Supernatural. A lesbian who’s journey was (sort of) brought to an end when she was killed and dumped in a bathtub to incite drama.

Why it sucks:

I love Supernatural but it can be remarkably tone deaf towards queer people, women, and marginalized groups. Which, probably merits fixing, considering its following is largely comprised of queer people, women, and marginalized groups.

I probably shouldn’t have to explain why killing off women and queer people for drama is Bad, but I’ll delve into its history a little: from what I’ve read, censorship laws of the twentieth century forbade the portrayal of queer people unless they were ultimately killed or “reformed.” This is why so much LGBTQ+ fiction is essentially gay tragedy porn, and why gays are so frequently buried to aid in the emotional narrative of their straight counterparts.

That’s not to say queer people can never be killed off. I might not have an issue with Charlie’s death (especially in a show as violent as Supernatural), if she weren’t the only openly queer character at the time.

And there’s plenty of room for representation! If Dean was openly bisexual, if angels were vocally confirmed to be nonbinary, and if there were more recurring, respectfully portrayed female and sapphic characters, Charlie’s death might not feel like such as slap in the face. But as it is, it feels like a contribution to an ugly pattern.

In fairness, Supernatural has since improved in its portrayal of queer people: two gay male hunters were introduced and given a happy ending, an alternate universe version of Charlie was introduced to the cast, and God is portrayed as a bisexual man.

Yes. All of that happened. You have to see it to understand.

How to avoid her:

Educate yourself on the history of censorship in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as hate crimes and decreased life expectancy. Make sure you aren’t contributing to the suffering of queer people.

If you have only one confirmed queer character in the midst of a very large cast, I’m inclined to think you need more. You could say I’m BI-ased on the matter, though.

Look up “fridging,” and think about how many stories use the death of female characters to incite drama for men.

5. The Allison (i.e. the reformed feminine)

GIF source

Who she is:

She’s one of the most interesting members of the Breakfast Club, and that’s saying something. A self-proclaimed compulsive liar who will “do anything sexual” with or without the promise of a million dollars (as well as one of the most quotable characters in the film) she demonstrates the emotional pain and complexity that’s often ignored or shrugged off as teen angst.

And then she gets a makeover and a hot boyfriend, and suddenly everything’s better.

Why it sucks:

It would be one thing if Allison’s problem was that she didn’t feel pretty or desirable. But she never (to my recollection) offers any indication of that, and that’s part of what makes her such a refreshing portrayal of insecurity. She’s emotionally neglected by her parents, and that is appropriately treated as devastating.

It’s a complex and beautifully-portrayed problem that deserved far more than such a superficial, slapped-on solution.

Similarly, there’s no reason why Allison is paired up with the jock at the end of the film. Neither showed any romantic interest in one another until her unnecessary makeover.

A much better ending to her arc would be her finding acceptance among her newfound friends, and finally garner the recognition and acknowledgement she never got from her parents.

I was torn between using Allison for this example, or Sandy’s makeover from Grease. In both, girls are encouraged to alter their appearances to solve plot-related problems. And both were “fixed” to conform to some standard of femininity or feminine sexuality that they didn’t meet before.

How to avoid her:

If a character feels the need to change their appearance to accommodate others or be respected, that should probably be treated as a negative thing.

Your character’s appearance can be a good tool to represent emotional changes. If they alter their appearance, there should be a meaningful reason behind it -- outside of fitting into societal norms or garnering the approval of others.

A girl putting on makeup isn’t a groundbreaking plot point, and girls who don’t perform to standards of femininity aren’t broken or deficient. They don’t need “correcting.”

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #game of thrones #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #game of thrones spoilers #transphobia #orange is the new black #supernatural #fridging #homophobia #charlie bradbury #the breakfast club #grease #sexism

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acharlatan · 4 years

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TASK // 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔞𝔩𝔶𝔰𝔦𝔰

Full name: Jackson Sawyer Raemers Pronunciation: Jac-sun, S aw-y uh r, Ray-m uh rs Nickname(s): Jackson often prefers nicknames to his full name, anything in the name of making a situation more informal. Jack, Jacky, Jackson of a bitch, he’s open to creativity. Birthdate: 11th of November 1990 Age: 29 Zodiac: Saggitarius,

Strengths: Generous, idealistic, great sense of humour Weaknesses: Promises more than can deliver, very impatient, will say anything no matter how undiplomatic Sagittarius likes: Freedom, travel, philosophy, being outdoors Sagittarius dislikes: Clingy people, being constrained, off-the-wall theories, details

Gender: Male Pronouns: He/Him Romantic orientation: Heterosexual Sexual orientation: Heterosexual Nationality: American Ethnicity: Caucasian Current location: Miami Living conditions: Motel rooms, Jackson currently resides in a motel room shared with Derek, a cat and a large dog. He’s never been too attached to a place and moves around quite often from one place to another. The goal in Miami is to find an apartment with a garden for Bella (The doberman)

Background

Birthplace: Phoenix, AZ Hometown: Phoenix, AZ Social Class: Lower., Jackson has never had money and so the vacancy of it in his bank account is nothing he’d ever raised a brow towards. Being thrifty to make ends meet is in his DNA. Educational achievements: Graduated high school Father: Jackson Raemers ✝ Mother: Marilyn Johnson Sibling(s): None Birth order: There can only be one Pets: 6 month old doberman named Bella Previous relationships: He dated Neve Kaplan for 2 years, and everyone is more than aware that it was Neve who cut it off and Jackson had to run and buy a dog to distract himself from the heartbreak. Arrests: 2 Prison time: 3 years in a confined medical programme created for felonious mutants with powers that could be useful for creating new pharmaceuticals.

Occupation & Income

Current occupation: Gambling and stealing Dream occupation: Stunt double Past job(s): Taco Bell employee as a teenager, a mechanic in a garage before stealing the best car in that place and heading west. Spending habits: Money smart, only spends on what he needs and doesn’t let is dictate him. He probably spends more money on his dog than himself. In debt?: No, but that doesn’t mean he’s exactly stable either. His account dips from being secure to overdrafted from week to week. Most valuable possession: A wristwatch bought for him by Neve that’s worth more than he could afford.

Skills & Abilities

Physical strength: Above Average Speed: Average Intelligence: Average Accuracy: Average Agility: Below Average Stamina: Above Average Teamwork: Works very well in a team, he likes having orders and things to do. He’s a better follower than a leader. Talents: Survival knowledge, fixing things, stealing, identity theft, being a simp Shortcomings: Clumsiness, impatient, occasionally very immoral. Languages spoken: English, gibberish Drive?: Yes Jump-start a car?: Yes Change a flat tyre?: Yes Ride a bicycle?: Yes Swim?: Yes Play an instrument?: No Play chess?: No Braid hair?: No Tie a tie?: Yes Pick a lock?: Yes Cook?: Yes

Physical Appearance & Characteristics

Faceclaim: Casey Deidrick Eye colour: Brown Hair colour: Dark brown Hair type/style/length: Always kept short and maintainable. He’ll buzz it out of boredom every now and again, it’s really his beard that he puts all of his attention into. Glasses/contacts?: No Dominant hand: Right Height: 6ft 5 Weight: 194lbs Build: Muscular and lean. He’s mostly legs if i’m honest. Exercise habits: Daily runs and weight training every other day Skin tone: Fair Tattoos:

Torso; upper- Roman numerals of fast and furious’s first release date on his collarbone, moth on sternum, doberman on the left side of his abs, questionable DIY sun with sunglasses the size of a quarter on his ribs

Arms; full-body skeleton on his bicep, lucky dice, snake, joker card and distorted smiley face smoking a cigarette all dotted around the lower arm, all on his left arm.

Legs; dancing frog in a grass skirt that’s drinking beer on the top of his thigh, burning match stick near his ankle, Bon Jovi quote spelt incorrectly above his knee, a glass half full the back of his thigh, grim reaper on a skateboard his shin, all on the right leg

Back; Arrow through compass central, magic 8 ball lower left hand side, large peony left hand shoulder blade

Misc; Neve’s name on the inside of his lip, ‘angel’ and ‘devil’ script on his shoulders

Piercings: None Marks/scars: Small scar going down from the front of his hairline just touching onto his forehead, skateboard accident when he was younger. Clothing style: Tacky, short-sleeve button-up shirts worn open over plain tshirts, comfy denim jackets, graphic tshirts, jeans, all black converse or boots. He’ll wear anything he’s given for free or got a good deal on at goodwill. Jewellery: None Allergies: Shellfish Diet: Clean eating most of the time, cheat days go hard. Jackson’s weakness is anything the has been deep fried and served with BBQ sauce. Physical ailments: None

Psychology

MBTI type: ENTP Enneagram type: Type 6, the loyalist Moral Alignment: Chaotic neutral Temperament: Sanguine Element: Fire Emotional stability: Stable Introvert or Extrovert? Somewhere in the middle Obsession(s): None Compulsion(s): None Phobia(s): Bugs, small places Addiction(s): Nicotine, adrenaline Drug use: None Alcohol use: A lot, he’ll drink when he’s upset, he’ll drink when he’s happy. It’s something that he knows would always be there for him but does his best to not abuse it. Prone to violence?: Only if provoked Prone to crying?: No, not if anyone is looking anyway Believe in love at first sight?: Yes

Mannerisms

Accent: Southwestern Speech quirks: Rambling, going off topic Hobbies: Driving, skateboarding, cooking Habits: Impulsive decisions, smoking Nervous ticks: Stutter, scratching the back of his neck Drives/motivations: Fun, liberation Fears: Fear of being unworthy Sense of humour?: Dad humour Do they curse often?: Yes

Favorites

Animal: Any dog Beverage: Cherry cola Book: Into the Wild Colour: Red Food: Onion rings Flower: Peonies Gem: Topaz Mode of transportation: Chevrolet Scent: Oranges Sport: American football Weather: Sunny Vacation destination: California, Lake Tahoe

Attitudes

Greatest dream: Total freedom and owning a red mustang. His dreams change weekly, next time you ask he’ll be wishing for a tesla. Greatest fear: Isolation from others, being left alone or losing everyone Most at ease when: Driving late at night blasting Fleetwood Mac with all the windows rolled down Least as ease when: Speaking to someone with authority or having to do something precisely Worst possible thing that could happen: People favouring his power over his own identity Biggest achievement: Making 20k in one night at a casino and donating most of it to Mutant orphanages and rehabilitation clinics. Biggest regret: Bon Jovi tattoo on his leg spelt ‘Jon Bovi’

#mrtask #( about )#( musings )

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centaurianthropology · 4 years

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The Magnus Archives Season 4 Binge-a-thon (Contains spoilers through the finale)

I’m back! Life and work have been crazy, but I really wanted to binge the half-season since I last listened in order to get in on the season finale. It’s been quite the experience. The last time I binged TMA was season 1, since I started listening at the beginning of season 2. I had really wondered which way was better listening: twenty minutes every week, having things play out gradually, or in one huge go.

I have to say, things flow really well as one run-through binge. I couldn’t say I hands-down prefer doing it this way, but that the structure really holds up as a binge. Plus, the evolving storyline begins to run at a less gradual pace. The build-up of tension is strong, and I really ended up enjoying my binge.

I think part of the danger of listening to each week is that you get lost in the minutia. It lets you pick over everything, which can be great, but it can also be frustrating. The character choices are that much more maddening when you have to wait a week to see how things turn out (and one character in particular in this latter half of season 4 I found particularly frustrating, so I think that listening week by week to that would have been a challenge).

I figured I’d go through some thoughts on the episodes, starting with where I left off at ‘Decrypted’ and going from there. I’ll be talking about episodes in little chunks as I go, with random comments in each section:

Decrypted, Infectious Doubts, Threshold

It’s interesting how much the Lonely was infecting the whole Institute at this stage in the story, although during these episodes it seemed like everyone hadn’t quite noticed it. Or they’d gotten so used to it during Jon’s coma that they stopped noticing how bad things were getting.

Listening now, it seems like Basira got hit the hardest, and that combines with the fact that she also seems to notice it the least. While in season 3 she was the level-headed one, here she’s trying to take that level-headedness too far. She wants all the answers so she can make the best decisions, but she refuses to wait for answers, and she refuses to acknowledge that those answers might be complicated.

The Lonely may also be the explanation for her detachment. As in the plot as she is, she’s desperate to not engage emotionally with any of it. Even Daisy seems to be held at arms-length, and Jon is labeled a monster without any unpacking of that term or what it would mean. She also seems to refuse to address how close Jon and Daisy’s behaviors have been, at their worst, and that Jon is in the throes of his hunger, while Daisy was starved of hers forcibly. She chooses to remain calm and chooses to work to overcome the Hunt, but her initial detox program was very much not of her own choosing. She has simply chosen to stick to it, to embrace the good thing that came out of her imprisonment in the Buried. Jon is struggling because he’s not being forcibly weaned, and no amount of Basira calling him a monster is going to prompt him to stop.

I think that Basira, at this point, is perhaps the most blinkered of the characters. She’s so focused on results that she refuses to do any sort of self-inventory. She’s so convinced of her own rationality that she misses the places where she’s irrational: Jon has always been a semi-threat to her, so she can much more easily slide into thinking of him as a monster. Daisy, on the other hand, was her partner; someone she trusted and cared about. It’s much harder to look at someone you love and call them a monster. She can see the shades of gray in Daisy, but it’s easier to ignore them in Jon.

As much as I think Basira likes to think of herself as the rational one, I think Melanie and Daisy fit that better at this point. Both have passed through their own marking by one of the powers, and both have had their own time as monsters. And that gives them both an outsider’s perspective on the situation, and an insider’s perspective. And both had to be forcibly wrenched away from their respective powers. As much as Melanie resents being torn away against her will, without any say in how it happened, she now has the perspective to look at Jon’s monstrousness as both something very not good, but something complicated. Her own feelings toward Jon are complicated. He helped her, but he took away her free will to do it. He’s a monster, but so was she.

Daisy is even further along that path of understanding, having been given a LOT of time to think in the Buried about herself and her choices. She understands far more than Melanie, and far far more than Basira how the lines between monster and personal choice blur until there is no hard line between them. She has to own all her choices, because she may have been deep in the hunt, but being chosen by a power often happens because you love it as much as you fear it. With perspective, she knows that her choices were awful. That she was awful. But in that moment, she chose the Hunt every time.

She wants to help Jon and Martin, but also knows that people need to want her help before it can really be given. I think that’s why she left as soon as Martin told her to go. If he wanted to reject her help, she couldn’t stop him.

Melanie is also embracing perspective, choosing to go to therapy. Choosing to make herself better. If she’s doing that, her demand that Jon also do better carries more weight. He’s not yet wrenched free, but he like Daisy still has choices to make. They’re just a lot harder when he’s inside looking out.

Jon, of course, is deep into his own monsterhood, his guilt, and his isolation. The guilt is keeping him at least a little grounded, but the isolation is definitely not helping him not become a monster. People overcoming addiction have to make the choice themselves, yes, but they also need support. They need people to hold them accountable, but also know what they’ve been through so genuinely useful advice can be given. Confronting Jon was necessary to prevent him descending further, but I feel like Daisy’s understanding and Melanie’s therapy probably helped more than Basira’s “You’re a monster; don’t eat people” statement.

Martin wasn’t in any of these episodes, but he continues to reach out in ways that keep him at as much of an emotional arm’s length as Basira, simply without any of the confrontation. He gave the tape to Daisy and the others after he found out about Jon feeding on people, but didn’t confront him himself. He’s avoiding all contact with people, making it ‘easier’. He may have a plan, but he’s also deeply infected by the Lonely. Like Basira, I wonder if he has much perspective on himself. They both think they’re playing things smart, but they both seem to be missing glaring parts of the world closing in around them.

Weaver, Extended Surveillance, Concrete Jungle

Jon’s addiction is tied into desire, and also into terror, and also it’s as much a choice as it is for people addicted to drugs to take their next hit. They do know it’s not good for them, but they make the choice, because it feels good, because they love it as much as they hate it. And that analogy, in spite of never being directly brought up in these episodes, continues to be driven home by the statements he reads. A relationship with an addiction is complicated, and is often used as a substitute for something else initially. How much of Jon’s embracing of the Eye was originally driven by his terror of the Web, deep seated and still child-like? I think he fears Annabel Caine more than any other avatar, because she strikes at his worst fear: to be manipulated, to be pushed back to his childhood helplessness, to be lured and consumed against his will. Isn’t it better, from his perspective, to be consumed by his will, by a power he knows and in many ways loves?

One thing I’ve noticed is that the people who are servants of powers embrace those powers as much as they fear them. It’s not a new revelation to say that Jude Perry loves the Desolation, or that Jane Prentiss both loved and feared the Corruption. But seeing that in Jon is harder, because he has something that they seemed to lack: moral qualms about what he’s doing. He can acknowledge that the Beholding is as bad as any of the others, but how much of that is an intellectual acknowledgement? How much of him revels in the Knowing in a way in the same way Jane reveled in the song of the hive?

But of course, in his isolation, he’s struggling to hold onto those intellectual moral qualms, when the hunger is so strong. He can recognize the justifications for harm in other monsters, and even in himself, but his recognition isn’t the visceral pull that the hunger is. And with a very rickety support system, it feels almost inevitable that he’ll tip over and feed again. His one saving grace right now seems to be that his skill at analysis is just as powerful when turned against himself as it is when it’s turned outside. He knows he’s slipping. He knows that he no longer cares as much about investigation, about the victims of statements, as he does getting his next story, his next hit. And no amount of admonishment is going to stop that craving.

The other thing that seems to keep him anchored is Martin, but that’s an anchor growing more and more distant, closer to his intellectual understanding and further away from the deep-seated emotional attachment that might be enough to overcome the hunger. Jon is continually concerned about Martin, wondering how he is to anyone who will listen. I think of Gertrude being Agnes’ anchor, both holding one another to the world. That was done to them, but I have to wonder if Martin and Jon have started anchoring one another simply through affinity. Martin is trying to cut off all ties, but he keeps looking out for Jon. He can’t help but try to keep Jon good and as human as possible.

The conversation between Georgie and Martin was interesting. Georgie has chosen to help Melanie because Melanie isn’t as deep in it as Jon, and because Melanie is actively seeking therapy and help. Georgie seems firmly in the camp that she’s willing to help, but will only help those actively helping themselves. And I get that. She is an outsider reaching in. And she needs to protect herself as well; she’s right that tying oneself to Jon is probably going to get one killed. She’s not obliged to die for him, or for anyone. And from her perspective, he isn’t even reaching for the ropes being thrown to him.

Contrast that with Martin’s perspective, which is that Jon needs help, and that waiting until he helps himself could be disastrous. This is also right, but the problem is that if Jon is drowning, Martin isn’t really getting in the water any more than Georgie is. He’s avoiding Jon, but is offended that Georgie is doing the same. I can only hope she held up a mirror to his own decisions. He’s choosing to protect himself every bit as much as he’s ‘falling on the grenade’ in order to try and stop the Extinction. And trying to protect Jon from afar is as much a defense of himself as what Georgie is doing. Both are reasonable. Jon is self-destructing. But Martin was also right that he needs help. And for someone to help Jon, they almost certainly have to wade into all the danger that being around him entail. Georgie’s decision not to be that person is frankly the healthier decision. No one owes anyone drowning with them. But that’s a decision each person has to make: how much are they willing to help? How much of a life-line do they throw? Georgie has helped, but also protects herself and respects Melanie for doing the same. Daisy is helping a decent amount because she’s been there, and with a few bad days she could end up right back where Jon is. It’s why people with addictions are often the ones to help others with addiction. You sort of have to understand it from the inside.

Martin doesn’t know he understands it from the inside, because he doesn’t realize how much he’s falling to the Lonely. Disappearing whenever personal confrontation occurs isn’t healthy. He was an open wound of caring and emotion before, so it’s understandable that he’s swinging the pendulum to be less vulnerable, but he’s swung it too hard, and he’s drifting away. And as much as he wants to help Jon, he’s not. If he really wants to be Jon’s anchor, he has to be willing to open up all his emotional wounds again. And he has to make that hard decision knowing how much it could cost him. Or he has to let go entirely. He’s in limbo, Jon anchoring him, but the tie between them is frayed.

‘Cul-de-Sac’ offered up a way to take hold of that tie and make it strong again. The Lonely very nearly claimed the narrator as a victim, but in the moment he was almost totally lost to it, a call from his husband and the words “I love you” brought him back. It gave him a way out, and as much as he believes he has to trust Martin’s decisions regarding his work with the Lonely, he also knows that the Lonely is seductive, that it has you do its work for it, that Martin is plagued with self-doubt and self-esteem issues, and that the Lonely is feeding on that. Jon is trying to trust, but Jon also needs to reach out and help, just as much as Martin needs to do the same, if they both choose to take that route.

Basira has also apparently not made any real choice regarding whether or not she’ll help Jon. She continues to be around Jon, but isn’t helping. She’s very intelligent, but increasingly … black-and-white, which makes her blinkered. And Elias was right: it also is making her predictable. It’s like she’s trying to be more like Daisy as Daisy becomes more like Basira used to be. But her taking a harsh tone with Jon and telling him ‘just don’t do it’ is likely to go exactly as well as everyone who’s ever told a drug addict to just stop. Stopping is usually the hardest thing an addict ever has to do, and increasingly, Basira seems to want things to just happen. If Daisy has learned patience, Basira has lost hers. And that means that she also seems like she’s lost perspective.

And then there’s Melanie. I really like that Melanie is sort of taking the middle-road of Georgie’s approach and Daisy’s. She’s stuck there, and she’s still interacting with Jon. Hell, her reactions to him pulling facts out of the ether are more like frustrated rolling of eyes than genuine anger at this point. But she’s also unapologetic that helping the Eye—whether it be passively or actively—is wrong. For her own good, she’s opting out. She knows she could get sick. She knows she could die. But she is making a choice. And like Georgie, I can respect that choice.

Elias continues to be an evil delight. Seriously, what a fantastic villain. He gloats, he’s gleeful, but also urbane and intelligent. The little moments of vulnerability sometimes feel like manipulation, so it’s hard to tell exactly how much he could be damaged. He, of all people, seems to have taken Annabel’s advice to heart. He is always either under- or overestimated. And that just makes him fun.

Big Picture, A Gravedigger’s Envy, Love Bombing

Simoooon!!! My favorite wacky wizard is just as much a delight as I had expected. He’s a ton of fun. He’s old and he’s full of joy, and he’s horrible. He’s my favorite. I also managed to predict that he was centuries old! So pleased to find that out.

It’s interesting to find out that so much of the rituals are bound up in the feeling and the fear. All the ways the powers manifest or work are based on those feelings. So rituals are made up because they ‘feel’ right, and it seems like they all fail because none of them genuinely generate the fear necessary to bring one power into ascendance over the others. It seems that the balance is not only something most are dedicated to, but that it’s harder to upset on a global scale than people thought. Robert Smirke, for example, seemed to think that the world was balanced on a knife’s edge, one second away from falling to a power. And every fear took a cue from him and generated a ton of rituals. But none of them have worked. Because the truth definitely seems to be that none of them know what they’re doing. They’re groping around for greater meaning, when it’s all really based on feelings and impressions. That may make Simon one of the most effective avatars, as well as one of the most sanguine with the way the world works. He’s not trying too hard to make the Vast win because he’s realized how difficult and potentially pointless that might be.

The end of ‘Big Picture’ has another confrontation between Basira and someone, this time Martin. She’s taking the same tack with him as she did with Jon: telling him she doesn’t trust him, that he’s an idiot for working with Peter, etc. Again, acting as Daisy might once have done, and again, I don’t see that she accomplished much. She let Martin know that Jon’s heard of the Extinction, that he trusts Martin, and that’s about it. Beyond that, they’re much in the same position. Whatever her goals are in this situation, they’re either escaping me, or she has no real goals aside from being angry at everyone around her for not being as useful to her as she wants them to be.

Helen, on the other hand, is as helpful and delightful as Simon, while being just as dangerous and malicious. She’s becoming more and more the Distortion, less an less Helen as she lets go of her guilt and embraces the feeding and the hunger. She’s Jon’s ally, but is also unpredictable and is clearly playing her own game, learning the maze under the Archives, but refusing to let him in on what lies at its heart. Their discussion about Jane Prentiss, about choice, throws more light on Jon’s choices.

And the thing that sets him apart from the other monsters: his guilt, his burning humanity. And his connection to others. She looks at this as temporary. Not the feelings, which may well persist, but the effect those feelings have had on his actions. And I think that’s the hard truth that Basira has failed to impart as an outsider: Helen, as an insider to being a monster, gets that there is no hard line between the one-you-were and the one-you-are. She gets that being a monster is as subjective as the powers or the rituals are. It’s about feeling. And Jon clings to his feelings and his connections. And because of this he’s been finding excuses for his behavior. But he still chooses it. He knows that he shouldn’t want the drugs, but he keeps giving in to the temptation before the guilt spiral starts over again. They all choose, and their choices may be guided by having no good alternatives, but the choice has always been his. Of course he gets to keep what makes him fundamentally Jon, because Jon is the perfect Archivist. He didn’t need personality traits grafted onto him. They came ready made for the Eye. How long had it waited for someone just like him?

But the thing about choice is that it’s yours. Accepting that he makes the choices and that they are his alone means that he can control them. He can take whatever control he can muster, even in the face of danger and death. He can make the choice Melanie did, or a different choice. He can choose to act, knowing that his actions are owned only by himself. There’s power in that, every bit as much as there is responsibility.

And Daisy is the perfect example of that. She doesn’t want to go back to the Hunt. She’d die first, but she also will let that Hunt slip back in just a bit to protect Jon from Trevor and Julia. Hearing her and Jon work through her impulses to listen to the blood, to find her way back to calm with his help, was one of the first indications that he really does get that choice. And I find myself hoping that if he can help Daisy, he can learn to make those same choices, and that she’ll be there to guide him back when he needs it.

Bloody Mary, Cost of Living, Reflection

Jon going looking for knowledge the Eye didn’t want him to know was encouraging, and the revelation of Eric Delano’s page was a hell of a thing. First, of course, there was James Wright (watching everyone through pictures and any eye available) before there was Elias, and Elias ‘changed’ a lot. Another point for the Elias-is-Jonah theory, perhaps.

There was also the confrontation of Gertrude with a former assistant, how emotionally distant she was from him and the others, and how hungry she was for knowledge. She wants explanations, not stories though. More practical and less lyrical than Jon. And less emotional. Jon feels thing deeply and desperately. It might be his salvation, as I’ve mentioned, but also it makes him just as human as her, despite his more outward monstrousness.

Eric was definitely in an abusive relationship with Mary, but after the betrayal and what Gertrude put him through, she seemed preferable. And that’s thing, isn’t it? Betrayal and under-handedness hurt worse than straightforward evil in the TMA world. And so Eric accepted Mary and blinded himself to get out of the Institute, and wasn’t even too hurt that Mary turned right around and killed him for his sacrifice. He found the way out because he had someone he loved: his son. Much as tearing the bullet out of Melanie broke her free of the Slaughter, Eric tearing his eyes out let him free of the Beholding.

Could Jon help but entertain that fantasy? Running away, tearing out the part of himself that is a monster once and for all? No more hunger, no more temptation.

But Martin’s right. He can’t do it. Because Jon is still choosing the Beholding, he still loves to Know. He’s turning away from freedom actively. And for Jon, running away with Martin was just this perfect potential ideal, but would never become reality without some really fundamental commitment that both of them lack right now. As much as Jon is sunk in his love for what he knows, Martin is sunk in denial about how much he might actually mean to Jon. He can reject Jon’s proposal easily, because he can’t believe Jon would ever really give up power just for a chance to run away with Martin.

Martin is sunk deep, and Jon, who could reach him if he tried, isn’t trying. Just as he isn’t tearing his eyes out. He’ll be passive, and he’ll look at Martin like an ideal, but the real issue is that neither of them is reaching out to one another as a PERSON. As more than the ideal that they’ve both seen one another as. Being an anchor is all well and good, but eventually you need to dig in and get to know one another to have a true reason to stay human. And they’re both lacking that right now.

Martin is drifting hard. Realizing that he might only think he misses Jon’s voice, that he cares about Jon, that even his love is getting lost to the Lonely is very hard to hear. Because Martin threw himself into all this to save Jon, and he’s not even horrified that he’s losing the original motivation for giving himself to the Lonely. He seems to be going through the motions, letting everything happen, taking the easiest and least ‘noisy’ way out. And that’s the draw of the Lonely right there, isn’t it? There’s no real pain to lose yourself, because by the time you’re lost, you just don’t care. Martin is being eaten by apathy, and that’s the hardest thing to shake. He just doesn’t care enough to do it.

I really appreciate Jon finally confronting Basira about her hypocrisy. The fact that she’s willing to give Daisy over to the Hunt to keep her alive, but is demanding that Jon starve himself to death if he has to is the height of hypocrisy. It’s also deeply disrespectful of Daisy’s very difficult choice. I appreciate that Jon stood up for Daisy’s stand, and I hope that it causes Basira to reflect about how she’s gone about her approach to Jon and Daisy.

Because honestly, they’re both questioning their natures. Daisy understands better, but Jon is actively exploring his nature, and the nature of monstrousness. ‘Cost of Living’ is the perfect example of the entitled nature of a monster’s survival. Each time she was confronted with their death, she found someone to exchange a life with. And what was at first a one-off quickly became a continuous vampirism, one ‘unworthy’ life after another. At each step she blamed the victim, explained her actions by the good she was doing. Jon feels the same pull, but also a revulsion for her self-justification.

And some people would rather do anything other than serve that sort of monstrousness. Melanie gouged her own eyes out, leaving the Archives as definitively as possible. I’ll miss the hell out of her character, but I am so glad that she found a way out. I’m glad that, of all of them, she was the one who seized Eric’s solution. Jon would never do it. Basira won’t do it. Martin won’t. But Melanie still could. She tried so hard to leave for so long that it’s fantastic she gets to go on her own terms. And I’m so glad Jon respected her decision; that she left as bravely and calmly as possible for leaving by ambulance.

Rotten Core, Panopticon

So Martin or someone else left his final tape to Jon. Peter might have left it, Annabel could have done, so many others could have. But the simple question is, what will Jon do with the information that Martin is walking off to oblivion?

Dekker’s final statement was something I wasn’t expecting. It makes sense with the Extinction storyline gearing up, but it’s still strange to hear the end of this remarkable and remarkably eventful life. And to go out in such a horrific way is tragic. He searched for the Extinction so long, only to get taken down by the Corruption. Just accidentally stumbled on John Amhurst, and though it’s good to know that Dekker properly contained Amhurst, it leaves his work unfinished. But then, I think the work of people like Dekker or Gertrude always have unfinished business when they’re finally killed.

Jon is not nearly so sanguine with death. Hearing that the Extinction may be slow or strange or not real at all, he can’t not follow Martin down into the tunnels. He tried to get a second opinion from Melanie, who is with Georgie—in all senses of the word—but she’s out. He tried to go to Helen, who is not interested in helping because it entertains her more if he finds out what’s in the tunnels on his own. She may think he’d just go home and give into his hunger, but the one thing that anchors him is in those tunnels. So Jon is definitely going in.

At least he waited for Daisy and Basira, as much as it must have killed him not to go charging in. And he’s lucky he did. Peter Lukas set the Not-Them loose again, and Trevor and Julia are also back to finish Jon off. And of course, Elias has also made a jail break to be there for the final show of whatever it was that Peter planned.

And it directly affects him, of course, because we finally got that confirmation: Elias Bouchard and Jonah Magnus are one in the same. Jonah left his body behind in the Panopticon that lies at the heart of the labyrinth, permanently jacked into the All-Seeing Eye. That was the Watcher’s Crown, attempted first as himself, and again in other bodies. Peter wants to overthrow Elias, to replace him with a willing puppet in Martin. The temptation of having that sort of power must have been undeniable.

But it all still hinged on Martin choosing to serve the Lonely, to give himself freely to the Panipticon and to Peter’s power. And Martin has been playing this game well. Telling Peter what he wants to hear, all to see what his end-game was. Listening to Peter and Elias duke it out verbally over him, Martin clearly knew that this was never about the Extinction. This was just a stupid bet about whether or not Peter could steal Martin away.

So Martin refuses. As much as he wanted to kill Jonah, he refused the game (but in so doing handed the victory to Jonah).

The reason he knew that Peter wasn’t being straight with him about the Extinction was more than a little heart-breaking, but very in keeping with why he couldn’t believe Jon would really run away with him: Martin cannot believe that he’s important enough to be made a priority, let alone to be made a hero. And so, even though Elias won the round, Peter had one more game to play: he threw Martin into the Lonely, and both he and Elias waited for Jon to arrive. Because consuming the Archivist would certainly wrench the ultimate victory from Elias’ hands.

But Elias is far too calm, and far too pleased with this turn for it not to be just as much set up in his favor as Peter’s. He might have verbally warned Jon against going into the Lonely, but he was all too eager to show him the way. This is just more of his game, and I’ll be interested to see how it plays out.

The Last

Which leads us to the penultimate episode of the season, Jon plunging into the Lonely after Martin. The end-game of whatever bet or game Peter and Elias have been playing with one another turns out to have hinged on first Martin giving into the Lonely, and then Jon following him down. Elias’ biggest pawn is on the line, and Peter has put himself on the line, letting something like the Archivist into his world.

At first, Peter clearly has the home advantage over Jon. He confronts Jon with the fact that he and Martin have been chasing the ideal of one another for so long, but they don’t really know one another. But Jon is pissed, and Jon is hungry, and when faced with dying for Martin, he didn’t even hesitate. Peter doesn’t understand love, or any connection. And so he can’t understand how deeply tied Jon and Martin are to one another. Hell, I don’t know if they quite understand it, except that they’d walk through hell to find one another.

So instead of giving in, Jon fakes his own drift into the Lonely to draw Peter in close, and then goes after him hardHearing Peter’s story was interesting, but not particularly sympathetic. He was created to be a Lukas, certainly, but he also relished it and wallowed in the upper-class life he was given. He wallowed in his loneliness, and hated everyone around him. Sure, his family messed him up, but he embraced it while other siblings didn’t.

So hearing that Gertrude took down his ritual with a call to a newspaper? Amazing. Wonderful. Perhaps my favorite takedown of hers ever. I laughed out loud at Peter Lukas drowning in community outreach.

And hearing Jon tear him apart? Also amazing. Potentially terrible, because once you open that door, it’s hard to close it, and Jon’s “Stubborn fool” is as close to truly being lost to the monster as we’ve heard Jon on tape. But if Jon had to feed, tearing Peter apart wasn’t a bad way to do it. But of course, that means Jon doesn’t get an answer as to how Elias gets him.

But Jon does get Martin. And that reunion? The “I see you”? So beautiful. They’ve built to that moment for so long that the quiet conversation, walking out of the Lonely hand-in-hand and so gentle, was utter perfection.

Which is why having this be the second-to-last episode of the season is so ominous.

The Eye Opens

Here we come to the end, and we begin with domesticity and a continuation of the gentle quietness started last episode. It seems, from the date of the statement, that Martin and Jon did get at least some time together before this episode to settle in and be together, and it shows. There’s a comfort and a familiarity between them I’ve never heard. Whatever time they’ve spent getting to know one another, they clearly fit together exactly as well as they’d hoped.

They may be on the run, uncertain if Trevor or Julia or the Not-Them are still alive, but it has an almost honeymoon feel to it. They’re in contact with Basira, but seem distant from all that, here in their coccoon in the woods with its crackling fire and poetic cows.

And it’s really lovely. Hearing them together, quiet and gentle and happy, was wrenching if only because it came so early in the episode. And then it hits. Jonah, smuggled in as a disguised statement, slipping in and taking over Jon’s body and forcing him to read against his will. You can hear Jon struggling not to read at first, perhaps knowing what was coming, but Jonah’s will was too strong. He’s too good at control to let Jon slip his noose here at the end.

And the end, as it turns out, is the end of the world. It’s discarding the Watcher’s Crown as a botched job, and instead embracing a new ritual: the Magnus Archives. The transformation of Jonathan Sims not into the Archivist, but into the Archive.

And Jonah will become king of the ashes of a ruined world.

Jonah, Rayner, Lukas, and likely Fairchild all came together to become not only the first to realize that the world was almost guaranteed to end, but to figure out how to handle it. Only Smirke kept to his guns and refused to embrace the end. He tried to use balance to prevent it, to keep it from ever tipping over, but one by one the others embraced one power and decided that if the world was going to end, then it should end to their benefit.

Jonah tried the Watcher’s Crown, sitting in the Panopticon, but failed except to become a mind freed of his body. He built the Institute to help himself with the race, trying the Watcher’s Crown again and again, each new body dying and giving rise to another.

And then he realized that the Watcher’s Crown was a flawed ritual from the off. All the rituals were flawed. All the rituals were doomed to failure, because every ritual only involved a single fear. And so there wasn’t enough fear to keep it going. Every one, even the ones not stopped, failed under its own weight.

The true ritual was the Archive itself. Turning a person into an Archive, and through him, with every other power burned into him, tearing open reality. Because the true ritual HAD to have all the fears involved, because all fears are one fear, each blending into each, each reliant on another. And so all powers had to come through at the same time, with the Eye watching over all.

And Jon has been marked by every single fear, chosen by Magnus after he survived Mr. Spider. Stabbed by Michael, burned by Jude, thrown into freefall by Mike Crewe, cut by the Slaughter when he tried to save Melanie, went into the Buried bodily to rescue Daisy … more and more and more until he went into the Lonely to save Martin and took the final step. He consumed stories, consumed lives. He embraced his own power in destroying Peter. He chose to be the Archive at every turn, built himself as a record, wove a tapestry of every fear to create something greater than each alone.

And so Magnus used his Archive. He used Jon’s body and his power, and then left Jonathan Sims, both tied to and gutted by the world he created, behind as the world cracked open. We finish the season with Jon and Martin, clutched together in their cabin, Jon knowing that the whole world has been consumed by the powers and by his own embrace of the Archive.

“Look at the sky, Martin. Look at the sky! It’s looking back.”

The Future

And so we head toward the final season of ‘The Magnus Archives’. Daisy and Basira may both be alive, or Basira isn’t sharing the fact that she’s already killed Daisy as she promised. Melanie and Georgie got out, but there’s not a lot of getting out of an apocalyptic world.

And the world is apocalyptic. Jonah intends to sit the throne of this world, but I’ll be interested to hear if things go to his plan, of if the powers are so much larger than him that he is swept aside as every other living being will be. This seems like the sort of plan born of hubris, from a man so desperate not to die that he’ll burn the whole world to survive it. And I just don’t see fully manifested fears giving much of a shit about Jonah Magnus.

And that leaves Jon and Martin. Jon is having a well-deserved breakdown over his part in this, but I don’t think he’ll get to do so for long. If the Archive was needed to rip the world open, it may be the only way to repair it. Whether that requires Jon to die, or Jon to lose every bit of Archivist in himself to do it, or something else entirely remains to be seen. But he at least has Martin this time, and I genuinely hope that whatever path they walk in the final season, they walk it together. That they fall together or rise together. One or the other being alone at the end would be the worst possible outcome for them at this point. They anchored one another in the Lonely, and they might well be the thing that pulls one another through to saving the world. Going down together might be a sort of bittersweet happy ending for an Archive and the man that keeps him human. What will the world be like now that all the powers are here? Would people like Simon and the other avatar glory in this new world, or does a complete manifestation of all the powers make moot all the appeal of their gods? I’m interested to find out who might be interested in a return to a normal world, and who love their new reality.

40 more episodes until the end. It’s been a hell of a binge, and honestly? I’m very interested to see how thing play out come April.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis #I'm back!#whoo!

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hqsloane · 4 years

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hello !! it’s ally back at it again with another muse !! for those of you who don’t know, i also play violet ( the taylor hill fc ) !! but this is a very new muse that i’m v excited about, so if you want to plot just like this post & i’ll slide into your dms <3

chicago’s very own sloane windsor has been spotted on madison avenue driving a rolls-royce dawn , welcome ! your resemblance to charlotte d'alessio is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twentieth birthday bash . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re insatiable , but being gregarious might help you . i think being a libra explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be designer sunglasses disguising bloodshot eyes , vintage abba records , a room full of first place trophies. ( i just got out of rehab for a drug addiction ) & ( cisfemale + she/her ) + ( ally , 21 , she/her )

full name: sloane ( warrior ) madeleine ( of french origin woman meaning ‘ woman from magdala or high tower ’ ) windsor ( english last name ). nickname(s): s, princess. age: twenty. birthday: 3 october 1999. zodiac: libra. gender: cisfemale. pronouns: she / her / hers. sexual orientation: bisexual. languages spoken: english & french. hometown: buckhead, georgia. occupation: vlogger. parents: darcy sinclair ( rachel mcadams ) & spencer windsor ( jon hamm ). siblings: two older brothers. pet(s): forrest ( golden retriever ) & jenny ( border collie ). religion: southern baptist. drink / drugs / sex: yes / yes / yes. height: 5′5. right/left handed: left handed. tattoos: a rose on her hip ( x ), this on the back of her right elbow, & a quote on her ribs ( x ). positive traits: gregarious, discerning, tender, impartial, dignified, courageous, independent, empathetic, & audacious. negative traits: covetous, controlling, aloof, rebellious, daunting, compulsive, tactless, vain, cunning, obstinate, & snarky. hobbies: photography, traveling, procrastination, meddling, partying, late night instagram live streams, dancing on tables well past last call, visiting art museums, & video editing. habits: tying her hair up in a loose ponytail when she’s stressed, fleeing the country on a whim, chewing the insides of her cheek in order to hold back what she truly wants to say, chewing the ends of brightly colored pens, binge drinking, & doodling. labels: the catalyst ( the independent one ), the doctrinaire ( the perfectionist ), & the aesthete ( the muse ). aesthetics: cat eye sunglasses shielding emerald hues, mascara tear stained cheeks, shattered trophies, polaroids, disposable film, late night notifications, hiding any ounce of emotion behind a camera, paint splattered jeans, parisian architecture, sunday brunch, missed phone calls, & the longing for her mother’s approval. style inspo: nicola peltz, bella hadid, kendall jenner, rosie huntington whiteley, meghan markle, & alexa chung. here are just a few examples of her wardrobe !! ( x x x x x ) muse inspo: monica geller ( friends ), caroline forbes ( the vampire diaries ), serena van der woodsen ( gossip girl ), lydia martin ( teen wolf ), peyton sawyer ( one tree hill ), nancy wheeler ( stranger things ), & emily fitch ( skins ). net worth: 30 million.

background ;;

before spencer & darcy got married in 1989, they knew all they wanted was one child: a girl. yet, their life did not go according to plan. after they welcomed their first child into the world ( a boy ), they figured that the next one would be a girl. they of course loved their son more than anything in this world, but they knew they wanted a daughter to complete their growing family. however, when darcy discovered the sex of their second child was a boy, she knew she wouldn’t stop having children until they welcomed their perfect girl into this world.

soon after the birth of their second son, they discovered they were expecting again. this time, with the daughter they had always wanted !! sloane was born on october 3rd, 1999 in a wealthy suburb of atlanta, georgia. & from the day she was born, an enormous pressure was put on her.

what you need to know about the windsor family ( other than their strong southern roots ) is that they’re extremely rich. they are high key based off the carrington’s from dynasty bc i’m #trash. buttttt what you need to know is that they own a multibillion dollar international oil company called windsor industries ( formerly known as windsor petroleum group ).

if you aren’t familiar with oil conglomerates, all you need to know is that windsor industries are responsible for literal power. they are one of the leading producers for oil & gas in the world which is why they have offices all over the country. & let me tell you, they don’t conduct business ethically !! they are notorious for fracking & their continuous use of fossil fuels. when people talk about climate change, they constantly bring up windsor industries & how much they have contributed to global warming. & to make matters worse, spencer & his eldest son put millions of dollars into the pockets of politicians to get them to support their cause & vote against climate change regulation. so if we all burn up one day, you can blame them !!

the windsor family has lived in georgia for generations ( big yikes ) & that’s where they started the family business in 1942. spencer’s grandfather came from a long line of prominent politicians in state politics which is why his family was ready to disown him when he decided to go into business over politics. but when his business took off & he was making more money than everyone else in his family by the age of twenty-two, they quickly shut up & started supporting him.

since then, windsor industries has been passed down from generation to generation. spencer was handed the business on his thirtieth birthday ( twenty years ago ) & has been dominating ever since. once his eldest son turned eighteen, he quickly got him involved & he is expected to take over the family business one day.

as successful as his business is, spencer is known as the bad guy in america. he is a billionaire who doesn’t know what it’s like to come from humble beginnings. he was literally handed a multibillion dollar business & the rest was history !! he definitely is a bad guy since he doesn’t care about the environment or anything else. all he cares about is making money no matter who gets hurt. he was even considered to work for trump at one point but quickly declined !! he just wrote him a big ass check instead bcsjkhdfs

but he does love his family. he would do literally anything for his family despite his tough love approach to his two sons. but when it comes to sloane, he is a complete softie. she can literally do no wrong in his eyes which is why they have such a great relationship !!

darcy, on the other hand, did not come from a lot of money. like her husband, she’s also from georgia but she’s not from a rich suburb. she is from a rural town where she literally grew up in a trailer. & from an early age, she always knew she wanted more. she was always ungrateful for her life & could have cared less about how hard her parents worked to support her & her three other siblings.

things for darcy changed by the time she was eighteen !! she became miss. america which isn’t that big of a deal for most. but she took pride on receiving that title after years of competing in local pageants. despite not coming from a lot of money, she always knew how to fool the judges & everyone else for that matter. she really could have cared less about school, all she cared about was winning pageants.

so when she made it into miss. universe, she thought her life was going to be complete !! yet, it didn’t go according to plan. darcy lost the competition & her short lived media coverage quickly died. no one knew who darcy sinclair was until it was announced that she was marrying one of the heirs to windsor industries.

the reason why darcy wanted a daughter so bad was so she could also be a pageant contender. she didn’t want her daughter to grow up to be a doctor, a lawyer, or anything else for that matter. all she wanted for sloane from the day she was born was to be a pageant queen.

by the time sloane turned five, her mother had already registered her for her first pageant. & unlike the ones darcy used to compete in, this was prestigious. her entire childhood consisted of tap dancing classes & pageants taking priority over school. & because her parents pride themselves on their southern values, they really could have cared less about their daughter attending school. so it came as no surprise when she started to slip up !!

& of course, they bribed her school to fix her grades. from the outside looking in, everyone wanted sloane’s life. she had it all: money, family, looks, everything. but in reality, her mother was working her like a dog. she would be practicing for pageants seven days a week with little to no breaks. but once she was crowned little miss georgia, they knew she was destined for greatness.

the older she got, the more pressure her mother would put on her. & sloane took that pressure extremely seriously. all she ever wanted was to please her mother, so she would strive to be nothing less than perfect. & in order to keep up with the strict demands of her mother & her life, she started turning to drugs. at first, she would start taking adderall to have more energy that way she can cater to her hectic schedule.

even sloane will admit that her high school years were a blur due to her growing drug abuse. the only thing holding her together was her growing addiction to pills. her mother knew. she saw the empty pill bottles lying around her bathroom & there was even a late night where she had to call 911 after finding her only daughter unresponsive. but she never told anyone. she never even asked sloane if she was okay or if she needed help. she only cared about her daughter becoming miss. universe since that was a title that she was robbed of.

all her life, sloane has tried to please her mother. everything she has ever done has never been good enough for her. so by the time she was a senior in high school, she decided the only way to escape her life was by going to college. she knew she didn’t have the grades to get in anywhere far enough from atlanta, even if her parents ensured her transcripts were nothing short of flawless. but when she sat her parents down & told them that she wanted to attend college, she was surprised by their reactions. her father, who has always supported sloane, was willing to do anything she wanted even if that meant delaying his wife’s plans for her. & even her mother came around on the idea after she promised her that she would go back to training for miss. universe once she finished college.

& following her graduation from high school, she packed her bags & went to the university of chicago. she figured that this was a school far enough away from her mother which is why she told her father this was the school of her dreams. sloane never questioned anything during her applications process. all she knew was that she needed to leave her mother’s grasp & learn to live life for herself.

at college, she had decided to study photography soon realizing that is one of her passions in life. & she’s damn good at it too. & even though sloane started living life in college, her drug addiction only worsened. there, she was introduced to even more drugs & the craze of combining uppers & downers.

things started to get crazy last year during the college admissions scandal when it was revealed that spencer & darcy had paid to get sloane accepted into the university of chicago. the school agreed to allow her to finish the semester before they would ultimately expel her due to the negative press coverage. & of course on her last night at school, sloane ended up in the hospital.

after combining far too many uppers & downers at a frat party, she overdosed. this was not the first time she landed up in the hospital after a night out, but it was the first time her father found out. & once he found out, he ensured that she would seek the help she needed.

so that’s where sloane spent the entire summer !! in a private rehab center seeking treatment for drug addiction. however, her family could not afford anymore scandals. so they quickly buried any stories about their youngest child’s overdose & told the media that she was traveling the world with friends this summer. sloane’s scandal is something that they are without a doubt ashamed of despite how many times her father has insisted the opposite. they are willing to do anything to bury this secret, no matter the cost.

now, she’s twenty years old & living in new york. following her discharge from rehab, she wanted to move as far away from chicago as she could. she knows she can’t enroll in college anytime soon given her family’s involvement in the college admissions scandal, but she is wiling to do just about anything to avoid moving back home.

nowadays, you can find sloane vlogging !! she has a v successful youtube channel that is similar to matt king’s ( if ya’ll know who that is ily ). but all you need to know is that she is a daily vlogger with an artsy style & she definitely does q & a videos & all that fun stuff. she is still very dependent on her father’s money but she is making a lot of money off youtube.

personality & misc ;;

personality wise, i’d say she’s pretty easy going. her taste isn’t the usual which i’ll probs go into a little bit, but that doesn’t mean she’s not approachable unlike vi.

truth be told, she’s all over the place & has a lot of depth. she has the ability to light up any room she walks into but that doesn’t mean she lets people walk all over her. after dealing with darcy sinclair for eighteen years, sloane knows when to fight back & channel her rich bitch side.

she’s also really fucking smart despite her fuck ups & she would know her true potential if she just stopped getting fucked up all the time. even though she went to rehab, she isn’t clean but that doesn’t stop her from telling her dad she is.

has never had a serious relationship tbh

instead, she’s had flings that are like relationships without the title.

she may act like an independent bitch but she is also a 100% a daddy’s girl & calls him up for money every other week

very artistic

aside from photography, she is great at painting & drawing & you can find dozens of sketches lying on the floor of her room ( you can also find baggies on her desk tbh )

extremely possessive of her family despite her relationship with her mom. she won’t let anyone else insult her other than her.

hella impulsive

speaks fluent french

also has an apartment in paris that she visits all of the time

tbh, she’s just in love with art. you will always find her at a museum just gazing at art for hours

she’s also constantly leaving the country for vlog material

doesn’t want to think that she has an accent but low key does

even though she’s a huge perfectionist, her room is literally always a mess but she doesn’t let just anyone see that

overall, she is a perfectionist art h*e tbh

if you made it this far ily. here’s her pinterest board if you want to take a look !! it’s v late for me rn & i have to get up early tomorrow so i don’t have any wc listed out but i promise i will bombard you all with plot ideas okay ily

#wealthyhq:intro #hi #love me plz #drug addiction tw #drugs tw #uh idk what else #emotional abuse tw

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jae-writes-fanfiction · 5 years

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I Can’t Help...

Prompt: Headcannons for Game of Thrones charactersand what they’re like in love

Notes: Needed a break from the denser drabbles, have some fluffy/romantic delightfulness! Enjoy! 😘❤

Eddard Stark

Ned Stark in love is feeling at home with a person rather than a place, knowing in his eyes there are no imperfections only pieces of you, the person he loves.

He’s not one for dramatic gestures or public displays of affection beyond the occasional kiss.

Lots of hand holding in public, will offer you his arm while walking around.

Big on saying “i love you” knowing how powerful words are.

While newly in-love he’s all smiles, constantly beaming with pride that you’re his, unable to stop thinking about the details of your smile, or the way your hair falls around your face.

When you can’t sleep he strokes your hair and tells you stories of growing up in the north to try and lull you back to sleep.

Although his position as Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North demand his attention his family is always his first priority, and the first in his heart.

He’s a family man and as soon as he knew you loved him too, he’d start talking about your future together unable to envision a life without you by his side. He’s the most loyal man you’ll ever meet.

- - -

Yara Greyjoy

Yara Greyjoy in love is freedom: to be yourself, unapologetically, always willing to try new things and explore new aspects of the relationship.

She can be dramatic at times, and openly flirtatious regardless of time or place often acting more brazen than most women.

For Yara in public or private there is little difference on how she ardently cherishes you, easily the most passionate.

She’s never had to choose between being a lover or a fighter and it shows- she will fight people over you. She’ll win.

Doesn’t really get into the “i-love-you” thing, more comfortable in claiming her partners as her’s than using the romantic language. She might say it once she thinks you’re asleep, mostly to confirm it to herself rather than for your benefit.

While newly in-love she’s full of teasing, wine, and late nights wanting to just have you- as much as she can, all at once.

When you can’t sleep she can be quite tender, trying to sooth and relax you with honeyed words and heavy hands.

As Queen of the Iron Islands she’ll often have you with her at court to show the others that you aren’t a temporary companion for her but someone she trusts and wants to keep around..

- - -

Tyrion Lannister

Tyrion Lannister in love is insatiable, his life has seen two great loves both that have ended dubiously and to find you, someone who loves him completely without room for doubt, is almost addictive.

His first concern is how people treat you, and as a result he would be hesitant to show any public displays of affection, fearing people would treat you poorly for loving him.

In public he likes to keep you close, after all he fell in love with your mind first and would enjoy showing you off around the capital.

He isn’t quick to tell you he loves you- but falls in love almost instantly. Once he’s confident in the relationship he says it often, regardless of when or where.

While newly in love he’ll make up excuses to see you, feeling so alive in your presence- fully accepted even before you tell him how you feel. With Tyrion, its like he’s always newly-in-love, each day as wonderful as the one before never growing tired of you.

When you wake with nightmares, or struggle to stay asleep he’ll soothe you with wine and will read to you until you’ve quietly snuggled against him and faded back to sleep.

Although his position as Hand of the Queen keeps him busy, he’s always excited to share it with you. Most nights he’d come to you with jokes and stories of the happenings on the small council.

Tyrion rarely takes anything too seriously, and adores your laugh often doing anything to hear it filling your life with stories, jokes and errant teasing that brings a lot of joy into your life.

- - -

Sansa Stark

Sansa Stark in love is like she’s gone back in time to when she was younger and giddy with every new thing, always surprised at the ease and simplicity of loving you.

She’s always hesitant to do any public displays of affection, as the reigning Lady of a great house, knowing many of her banner-men wouldn’t approve of her love for you.

She relies on you as her support and in turn tries to do the same for you, showing her love through keeping you as her confidant and adviser, always by your side during meetings with banner-men.

Sansa says ‘i love you’ often in private, or in quiet stolen moments in public wanting to make sure despite the official air she has around others, you know how fully you command her heart.

Newly in love with you Sansa would relish in how different it was from her girlhood crushes, and experiences as a grown women with the uncouth flirtations of others compared to the softness and adoration you showed her.

When you have trouble sleeping Sansa will play with your hair and talk softly, sharing stories from her childhood until you’re both asleep.

Although her position as Lady Stark, Warden of the North keeps her quite busy whenever she passes you in the halls, she makes time to pull you into a nook or out-of-the-way alcove to hold you and whisper how she had missed you throughout the day.

She’s easily the smartest, and upon discovering her newfound feelings for you will strategically find out if you could or might feel the same way.

- - -

Tormund Giantsbane

Tormund Giantsbane in love is a lot like an over zealous hound dog trying to jump onto your lap, forgetting its no longer a puppy yet happy enough to keep doing so anyway.

Tormund is a 0 or 100 sort of man, everything he does is done at the best of his ability, wholeheartedly and loving you is no exception, he’s the king of grand gestures. Tormund is a brazen and often suggestive flirt in public, never shying away from public displays of affection of any sort.

He’s aware how intimidating he can appear and upon becoming completely smitten with you would try to be more endearing. This would usually be in the form of prolonged gazes and suggestive glances while in public.

Although he makes jokes and jabs about how you’ve ‘caught’ him, he’d be quick to reassure you how happy he is with you if you ever felt his teasing meant he was insincere, and is always telling you he loves you in one way or another.

When newly in love he’d get so excited to see you he’d forgotten his own strength and almost knocked you over when greeting you.

It’s rare when you can’t sleep around Tormund, if you can’t its probably his fault wanting to tell you something or bored without your attention.

Although his position as de facto leader of the free folk wasn’t desired, Tormund appreciates the reputation it gives him, and the respect the free folk have for you by extension, meaning you were completely safe among them (not that anyone would cross your giant of a man).

His love is the most intense, all those powerful feelings measured out in kisses and late nights.

- - -

Ser Brienne

Brienne in love is finally having a place where she belongs. All of her life she’s felt like an outsider and now she’s found someone she loves that loves her back.

Brienne is absolutely against public displays of affection/grand gestures, but if you ask nicely she might spar with you, something important to her that often brings the two of you closer.

While in public Brienne will act very professional, making sure that no one disrespects you or threatens you in any way she’ll do this because she’s unsure about how relaxed she can be as it isn’t something she’s used to.

When alone Brienne will often and fervently tell you she loves you, a new thing for her as you’re the first to truly lover her as she is for who she is, and she feels comfortable and safe enough with you to be open about those feelings.

When newly in love Brienne would be extra anxious in public trying to look unassuming and professional, but whenever you walk into the same room she can’t help smiling.

When you can’t sleep, especially if you have a nightmare, she’d hold you tight making sure you feel safe and secure.

Although her position as a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms forbids her from taking a husband,

(Female Reader) Brienne will be excited when you explain that means she can still marry you.

(Male Reader) you’ll talk to Sansa about marrying you in secret knowing it’s something important to her.

Brienne is the most loyal person in the world, and that shows in your relationship- although there isn’t much room for rumors or gossip during war if there was any she’d never believe them, she knows you for who you are and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks/says.

- - -

Jon Snow

Jon Snow in love is like waking up in the middle of the night to watch the snow fall- simple yet breathtaking and absolutely perfect.

Jon Snow isn’t the most outwardly expressive person, but when in love, he’s quite the romantic and will often surprise you with small things and stolen moments, during dinners or meetings he’ll keep a hand on your thigh just to know you’re there.

When in public he’ll light up when he sees you, breaking into one of those rare enthusiastic smiles, however he likes to keep you separate from his duties as King of the North to keep you safe.

Jon Snow likes to tell you he loves you whenever he can, even around others, most often in little whispers or kisses pressed to your temple.

When newly in love everyone knows because he looks happy, almost like nothing in the world could could wipe the smile off his face. (And gods isn’t it a beautiful smile? it just lights his whole face up!)

When you can’t sleep Jon will gather extra blankets, make sure the fire is still roaring, and snuggle you close making sure you are comfortable and cozy. He’ll lull you to sleep with little stories of the future he wants to build with you.

Although his position as King of the North weighs heavy on him, having you by his side makes it worth it. He’d do anything to ensure a safe future for the person he loves as his family

Jon Snow is easily the most romantic partner and while in love will make time to spirit you away to somewhere peaceful to be alone with you, giving you his full attention to make sure you know how strongly he feels.

- - -

Daenerys Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen in love is like a summer night, when everything somehow feels absolutely perfect, and outside of time. When you're together and in love nothing else feels real except for you two.

Daenerys wears her heart on her sleeve, and as a result knows you and everyone else already knows what she’s feeling in the moment. As a result she’s largely comfortable with public displays of affection such as hand holding and other subtle things.

When she’s in love Daenerys will try to include you in every aspect of her life, she’ll value your input sometimes over the advice of her other councilors if you make enough of an argument.

She’s hesitant to tell you she loves you, even after you’re together. Everyone she ever cared for, even slightly, has had some sort of trouble or pain in their life and she blames herself. But once she says it the first time, in a little whisper after a hard day, she’ll never stop.

When newly in love she’ll want to tell you everything: all the stories she heard about her family, about Viserys and how he betrayed her, about Khal Drogo and the witch that stole him from her- everything because it’s part of who she is, and she wants you to know every part of her just like how she wants to know you.

When you’re having trouble sleeping she’ll draw you a warm bath and make sure you’re completely relaxed before even getting back into bed.

Although her position as Queen demands focus and discipline, while in love Daenerys is carefree and can find happiness almost everywhere you are.

After her previous experiences, Daenerys will make sure she knows you, and trusts you, investing a lot of her time in simply being your friend with no expectations of romance, before confessing her feelings.

- - -

Jorah Mormont

Jorah Mormont in love is an absolute gentleman, wanting no more than to prove the extent of his love through support, loyalty, and absolute adoration.

Jorah isn’t against public displays of affection, so expect kisses and touches but not overly noticeable ones, he prefers to keep all of those moments for him.

In public he’s your protector, companion, and confidante all at the same time, taking pride in how he keeps you safe and takes care of you.

He says he loves you all the time with his actions but he’ll say it first, simply and already at peace with rejection, unsure how someone like you could love an older disgraced man with no house or keep. When you say it back, he’s shocked and he’ll never stop telling you.

When newly in love he’ll beat himself up about how he isn't’ good enough for you and will be careful to show you at every opportunity how much he loves and cares about you.

When you cannot sleep he’ll pull you close and stroke your hair, telling you stories in low whispers with his soft and melodic voice.

Although his position as Daenerys’ adviser and protector often puts him in danger he makes sure to keep himself safe, always focused on making sure he returns to you at the end of the day.

He would wait for a thousand years to love you. He’d be the perfect friend, treating you with nothing but respect and with no expectations of romance. He’s patient, and will happily be your friend for ever, if it means being around you.

- - -

Arya Stark

Arya Stark in love is an adventure, every moment unexpected and more amazing than the last, always something new to discover in your relationship.

It’s hard to predict how Arya feels about public displays of affection. It’ll never happen around her family, or others who might recognize her lofty heritage but when among strangers or common folk she likes to tease you with small lingering touches on your arms or shoulders.

In public she’s confident and moves about commanding people with her determination, except for you. She loves you quite dearly and consults your opinion for help, and gives you free reign over your own life as long as she knows you’re her’s.

Saying ‘I love you’ is not a common thing. You’ll probably say it first, long after you’d already gotten together late one night, half drunk, half asleep and so utterly in love you just say it. Arya would joke or silence you with a kiss, and eventually would tell you too.

When newly in love Arya is driven by her dedication to you, knowing how cruel the world can be she’ll try to push you away at first, before resolving on keeping you close so she knows you’re okay.

When you can’t sleep she’ll give you space, knowing her late nights can often disturb your sleep, once you would fall into an uneasy sleep she’d make sure to stay quiet and not disturb you.

Although her day-to-day duties as an adventurer keeps you both quite busy, you still journey North once in a while to visit with Sansa and the rest of her family. They quickly accepted you as one of their own, and each visit is a welcome respite from travel for you both.

If you’re ever harmed, much like anyone she cares about, she’ll go after whoever hurt you. They won’t make it, especially if you were really hurt.

- - -

Theon Greyjoy

Theon Greyjoy in love is surprising. He follows both the take-what-you-want mentality of the Iron Islands, and the opposite Stark ideals, these contradictions make him a complex partner from the start.

As a younger man Theon never saw a problem with public displays of affection as they meant everyone knew you were his. Later, after things had changed it would make him anxious but over time small things like holding hands would be okay.

In public when he was younger he was a bit of a menace always trying to prove himself to the Starks, and everyone else that he’s just a good a man in every way except courtly behavior; meaning he has a tendency to be rather brash and reckless. After the war, after he’d regained a bit of his confidence he wouldn’t be afraid of his own voice, but he’s more judicious in what he says and how he treats you around others.

He wasn’t really into saying “I love you” before the war, taking your position as his partner as a given. He was more into showing you he cared by speaking up for you if the Stark girls were ever demeaning. As after the war he made sure to tell you quite frequently in private,and keeps you close so even when he isn’t saying it you know.

When newly in love Theon is always around you- something that never changes in your relationship. At first you thought his increased teasing, and how he followed you around was some sort of a joke but over time you realized he couldn’t stay away.

When he can’t sleep, you’re the first thought in his mind, especially when he’s older. After a nightmare he’ll pull you closer and use you as an anchor to the real world. If you ever had trouble sleeping, especially if you couldn’t turn off a busy mind, he’d do anything to help you.

Although his position as Prince of the Iron Islands, and advisory to his sister after the war’s end keeps his mind reeling, your relationship becomes his happy place where you’re both safe and loved, where you both can rest.

In a world where Theon sacrifices himself for Bran Stark, his last thoughts would be of you and how he knows wherever you are he’s making you proud by doing what he knows is right and taking a stand.

#hc #hcs #got #eddard stark #yara greyjoy #tyrion lannister #sansa stark #tormund giantsbane #ser brienne #brienne of tarth #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jorah mormont #arya stark #theon greyjoy #game of thrones #game of thrones fanfiction

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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National Enquirer, May 25

Cover: China Lied About Where COVID-19 Started

Page 2: Duane “Dog” Chapman got engaged so a new ladylove Francie Frane just ten months after the cancer death of his beloved wife Beth but pals fear they are rushing their romance and want him to get a prenup

Page 3: Spooked Jennifer Aniston is worried sick about Matthew Perry especially now that it’s over with galpal Molly Hurwitz who kept him on the straight and narrow

Page 4: Scott Disick bolted from rehab after a week when photos of him there went public and pals are worried he could be back on the booze but his lawyer said Scott wanted help for past traumas and that the rehab visit had nothing to do with cocaine or alcohol

Page 5: Secret police files in the Natalee Holloway investigation have surfaced on the 15th anniversary of her disappearance in Aruba and suggest how Joran van der Sloot and two pals cheated justice with the help of corrupt lawmen on the Caribbean island

Page 6: Frantic Meghan Markle using magic to regain mojo -- New Age Meghan is warding off negative vibes with “evil eye” pendants but the duchess’ war against bad vibes hasn’t been working and may have even had to opposite effect as her lawsuit involving her father Thomas Markle isn’t going her way and her highly anticipated Disney debut in Elephant was panned by critics and husband Prince Harry is openly homesick

Page 7: Celebrity Cov-Idiot of the Week -- Madonna decided she would make light of the vicious coronavirus after finding she may be immune

Page 8: New dad Anderson Cooper is raising his newborn son with ex-boyfriend Ben Maisani and there may be wedding bells in their future

Page 9: NBC News has been thrown into turmoil as allegations of sexual misconduct and potential cover-ups by network bigwigs are reportedly under investigation in a probe conducted by the New York Attorney General -- Matt Lauer, Tom Brokaw, Andrew Lack and Chris Matthews were among multiple high-profile names whose behavior was under scrutiny

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Sarah Silverman, Robert Downey Jr. getting into his purple pickup truck to meet up with a friend for a socially distant bike ride, Princess Charlotte, Ashley Greene and husband Paul Khoury in their Vanderhall Venice sports car

Page 11: Grieving widow Vanessa Bryant made a heartbreaking discovery the day before her 38th birthday -- a final love letter from her late husband Kobe Bryant, Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson are duking it out for the role of Tinker Bell in the upcoming Peter Pan movie -- Scarlett has been relentlessly trash-talking Margot and vice versa as they’ve fought over a few other roles over the years and this is pushing their dislike of each other to a whole new level

Page 12: Straight Shuter -- Pierce Brosnan in the shade in Hawaii, by the end of filming Will & Grace the feud between Debra Messing and Megan Mullally was a war and the two women will never speak to each other again, Anna Wintour was slammed by former right-hand man Andre Leon Talley and now other associates are adding their two cents, outspoken Elisabeth Hasselbeck is considering a return to The View if she can get past Meghan McCain who loves being the daytime show’s solo conservative voice

Page 13: Reese Witherspoon revealed that she and co-star Laura Dern are dying for an eventual third season of Big Little Lies and that Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube are tops on their wish list of actors they would love to join the scheming Monterey Five, Kevin Spacey is whining that the past three years of his life have been a living hell, stick-skinny Renee Zellweger is putting her life on the line with an extreme 500-calorie-a-day diet and she’s deluded herself into thinking she’s in the best shape of her life but friends are begging her to eat more and exercise less

Page 14: True Crime

Page 15: Roy Horn is on the road to a miraculous recovery after cheating death twice (OOPS!)

Page 16: Real Life

Page 18: Hollywood Head Cases -- balding stars’ best and worst cover-ups -- Jamie Foxx, Ben Affleck, John Travolta, Jude Law

Page 19: Guy Ritchie, Elon Musk, Kevin Costner, Matthew McConaughey

Page 20: Health Watch

Page 24: Ford Dynasty Heirs at War over $350M -- ailing brain-addled heiress Kathleen DuRoss Ford is caught in the middle of a no-holds-barred legal battle over auto tycoon Henry Ford II’s $350 million family trust

Page 27: Denise Richards is mired in a pandemic meltdown believing that she and holistic healer husband Aaron Phypers have been marked for death by U.S. government agents following her and Aaron because of his alternative medical practices, Carmen Electra is plotting to bust a business move by reclaiming her pinup past and launching her own porn site -- she’s back in the spotlight after baring all about her raunchy relationship and nine-day marriage to Chicago Bulls superstar Dennis Rodman in the hoops docuseries Last Dance

Page 28: Jacqueline Kennedy and second husband Aristotle Onassis got injections of methamphetamine to boost their lovemaking according to a blockbuster new book but it was her first husband President John F. Kennedy who introduced her to the highly addictive drug

Page 29: How to cut your hair

Page 30: Cover Story -- China’s Deadly Web of COVID Lies -- Beijing hid where outbreak began, how virus spread and refused key help for vaccine

Page 32: Tom Brady is ready to tackle the next phase of his career with a new team -- the Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- and tackle his marriage by having a new baby and being in Florida has been like a second honeymoon with wife Gisele Bundchen with the power couple working overtime to add a tiny new player to their home team, Hollywood Hookups -- Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott back together, Ashlee Simpson and Evan Ross expecting, Dwight Yoakum and Emily Joyce wed

Page 36: Bar Rescue star Jon Taffer has called upon lawyers to rescue him on more than one occasion -- Taffer faced assault and discrimination suits and though he settled his cases out of court they could damage his career

Page 38: Jeremy Renner is hitting the pause button on his acting career and his party-animal ways in a desperate attempt to reconnect with his seven-year-old daughter Ava -- Renner is fighting a custody battle with ex-wife Sonni Pacheco and his life’s been hell from all the fighting between him and Sonni and he wants to show Sonni and the courts where his priorities are and he wants to prove he can be a superdad, the hits keep coming in the ugly $2 million lawsuit over Tiffany Haddish’s best-selling book in which she claims her ex-husband William Stewart was an abusive stalker -- according to new court documents filed in the case Stewart alleged Haddish defamed him and damaged his good reputation to boost up the sale of her 2017 memoir but Haddish’s lawyer claims she’s got the #MeToo movement on her side

Page 42: Red Carpet Stars & Stumbles -- Laura Dern’s winning looks

Page 47: Odd List

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acsversace-news · 5 years

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Rather than offering standard gore and merely giving us the willies, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Ryan Murphy’s second installment of American Crime Story on the FX channel (now available on Amazon Prime Video and ITunes), is one of the rare serial killer dramas genuinely interested in sexual mores, complex character, spiky history, and salient issues of class. Demanding, sometimes confounding, but nevertheless searing and absorbing, the series piles on layer after layer of pain, irony, and god-awful coincidence, its counter-clockwise structure designed to take us deeper and deeper into a human abyss.

Andrew Cunanan, the elusive Minotaur at the heart of this real-life ’90s labyrinth, is a deadbeat on the lam, a name-dropping, designer-obsessed social climber. On a tried-and-true procedural-thriller level, the limited series, chronicling the curly-haired monster sacré’s notorious murder spree and suicide, sheds light on the largest failed manhunt in U.S. history—a fascinating botch, the whole law enforcement fiasco resulting from rampant homophobia and pure incomprehension regarding “a gay parallel universe,” as Vanity Fair reporter Maureen Orth labels it in Vulgar Favors, her juicy recounting of the roller-coaster case. Another key factor is the homicidal young con man Cunanan’s startling ability to evade the cops. A wizard at blithely rearranging his Filipino-Sicilian heritage to suit his gold-digging needs, Cunanan could blend with chameleon ease into different communities—Italian, Greek, Latino, Asian, etc.—as “a multi-purpose ethnic.” Since the fugitive Cunanan had never been arrested, the only fingerprints to be found were on his California driver’s license.

The series is set in 1997—a pivotal year in LGBT history, as it marked the discovery of a viable treatment for AIDS, so the dread disease was no longer an outright death sentence. The show’s backward historical movement is a strategy that illuminates the beleaguered gay world of the period and ably avoids a Psychology 101 approach to motive and pathology, creating a dramatic and poignant memorial to the fleshed-out lives of Cunanan’s victims: we get the appealing, even ecstatic early moments of Cunanan’s relationships after we’ve witnessed the desperate, unraveling scenes and harrowing murders, and the effect is unsettling and difficult to shake.

As the far-reaching series spins further away from Versace’s sumptuous life in South Beach, “the pleasure capital of the gay world,” and from the spirited realms of high fashion, its trajectory and intent become a little puzzling, but the last few riveting episodes suggest Murphy’s main focus is to plumb Cunanan’s lethal mix of unhinged aspiration and greed and to link Versace’s well-documented life as a lauded fashion king, an openly gay man (challenged by AIDS-related illness), with the accomplished lives of Cunanan’s other gifted gay victims. Protean Andrew, a glad-handing, money-flashing teller of tall tales, functions as a soul-crippled shadow version of the flamboyant Italian designer. It’s primarily the last two episodes, “Creator/Destroyer” and “Alone,” that underscore the genius of Murphy’s overall design.

In his native Calabria, the child Versace, shored by his seamstress mother’s approval, sketches and discovers his interest in fashion, developing his métier, despite cruel bullying by his Catholic teachers and classmates. In contrast, Cunanan is raised, in neurotic, almost farcical fashion, to be a petulant Filipino-American prince by his dictatorial, cock-of-the-walk father, an embezzler and reflexive con man, so it’s clear Andrew’s propensity for around-the-clock deception is a direct result of his appalling daddy’s over-the-top spoiling, with a pinch of his Sicilian-American mother’s religious mania and mental illness added to the stew. Andrew is flimflam Pete’s and frail MaryAnn’s Frankenstein child. What we see of Cunanan’s shaky upbringing also clicks with his penchant for hooking up with “beaucoup-bucks” johns and well-heeled patrons: just as his father gave him the best and biggest room in the house, Cunanan lives and moves, for the most part, from one gravy train to the next.

Facing jail time for financial crimes, Cunanan’s dad flees his wife and children for good, but later an unusually determined Andrew tracks him down in Manila. In a savage moment, in what amounts to a 180-degree turn from his previous paternal adoration, Pete slaps and spits on Andrew, calling him “a sissy boy with a sissy mind.”

On Murphy’s hit series Glee, Darren Criss had the heart-on-his sleeve emotionality of a young Streisand or Garland, gradually emerging as the most expressive musical talent on the show, which was praised for—beyond its weekly ebullient songfest—its groundbreaking emphasis on “baby queers” and high school bullying. It seemed enough that the dynamite Criss could sing. In The Assassination of Gianni Versace, he gives a prismatic performance as Andrew Cunanan: he’s voluble, sly, strung-out on drugs (even shooting up between his grubby toes) or he’s coolly, scarily detached—a crystal meth Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. As the series progresses, we get to follow Andrew-in-a-social-whirl scenes (frankly a relief after the brackish murder segments) and to observe: the precocious, nose-in-a-book child reading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited; the attention-grabbing, boundary-less teen sneaking off in cars with married men; the deluded, self-loathing bon vivant; the facile, coke-fueled charmer, with a geisha’s skill at entertaining rich men; and a relentless operator (with an IQ of 147), lying through his teeth, working the upper echelons of the gay community.

In several of its telltale social scenes, the show resembles John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, a drawing-room tragicomedy about a similarly adept gay con artist, and Anthony Minghella’s elegant 1999 film version of the Patricia Highsmith classic, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I remember watching Ripley when it first appeared and actually being reminded of Cunanan: what is it about the prospect of losing the good life that unhinges once-struggling or working-class people and sometimes drives them to murder? Is the luxury and the freedom money brings really so hopelessly addictive?

Melding rock with rebel fashion and, according to Orth, “a diehard infatuation with rank and power that smacked of new money vulgarity,” Versace’s brash, innovative work was “inspired by antiquity and sadomasochism.” In revealing counterpoint, Andrew Cunanan, an outcast aiming for an A-list life with a kind of “If they could see me now” fury, keeps his S&M habits, sideline drug dealing, pimping for the rich and closeted, and serious crystal meth use on the down low, so as not to scare away his upper-crust friends, lovers, and patrons. A bondage scene in the first episode, set to Phil Collins’s breezy “She’s an Easy Lover,” is the sort of libidinous freak-out Ryan Murphy has been serving up since the late seasons of Nip/Tuck;Criss does an impromptu, preppy-trying-to-be-wild dance before his duct-taped john that’s so perfect and right for the era that I almost laughed. He’s his own demented go-go boy.

Criss gives a tour-de-force turn as Cunanan, but the moving supporting performances are also stellar: Edgar Ramirez (as Versace); Ricky Martin (as the designer’s longtime partner); Jon Jon Briones (as wily Pete Cunanan); Cody Fern (as Cunanan’s dream man, a wheat-haired Midwestern Apollo); Mike Farrell and Michael Nouri (as Cunanan’s classy, wealthy, older lovers); Finn Wittrock (as a decent, brave but disconsolate Navy man caught up in Clinton’s swampy Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy); and the always-reliable Judith Light (as the blinkered wife of one of the murder victims, a honeyed Home Network purveyor of perfumes, cosmetics, and folksy advice). Penelope Cruz gives one of her most ferocious performances as Donatella, the world-weary fashion insurgent; Cruz uses the trademark Donatella snarl and swagger in such a creative way that it becomes almost lovable, suggesting the impassioned, caring sister underneath all the come-hither leather and glamorous packaging.

Despite some initially mixed, even dismissive reviews, this second installment of American Crime Story recently garnered 18 Emmy nominations, six of which went to the risk-taking actors. Murphy has, in the past, been all about shock and showmanship, but Assassination represents a newfound candor, fraught complexity, and daring in his work: he’s gone for something deeper and subtler here than his dynamic crowd-pleaser, The People Vs. O.J. Simpson, 2016’s most lauded show, or even his affecting, Emmy-winning TV version of Larry Kramer’s AIDS drama, The Normal Heart.

Just as the emboldened right has renewed its predictable attacks against the LGBT community, Murphy’s piercing, intricate series delves into the tyranny of the closet—the toxic effects of suppression, bigotry, and mainstream rejection. I’ve never admired Murphy’s bold, baroque eye and vision more.

#acs versace #the washington spectator #article #review #darren criss #penelope cruz #december 2018 #january 2019 #.thanks musexmoirai

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ncfan-1 · 5 years

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ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives: S4 EP122, ‘Zombie’

Well, it turned out that I was wrong, and that the first episode of Season Four did not take place in medias res, though I still think the teaser with Martin they dropped on us took place before ‘Far Away.’ Anyways, we have another parallel for Jon, another warning about just how bad things can get if he doesn’t get a handle on himself, we have the messy and ambiguous question of just what is it that separates a human from a monster, and we get the news that unspecified Bad Shit went down in the Archives while Jon was in his supernatural coma.

Come hear my disorganized thoughts on The Magnus Archives!

- It would seem that Georgie did indeed recognize Oliver as an avatar of the End; I really do think this is a matter of like recognizing like. The fact that Basira didn’t press her further when Georgie replied to her “How do you automatically recognize an avatar of the End?” with “That’s really none of your business” is about the only moment we had with Basira that didn’t worry me on some level. That she didn’t follow up on this with demands for more information, badgering Georgie until she told her what she’d once told Jon, shows that she isn’t yet so deeply entangled with the Eye that she would feel compelled to follow that thread until she’d reached the source. But throughout the rest of the episode, Basira seems… I can’t tell what it is, if she just seems very disconnected from everything going on around her, or if she’s just on her guard with Jon, because she can’t yet tell if Jon still is Jon.

There’s apparently been a lot of bad stuff going on at the Archives in general while Jon was in a coma. Basira doesn’t seem to be doing so great herself.

- It’s unclear if Oliver brought the tape recorder Georgie found, or if it just materialized out of thin air. Given how increasingly overtly paranormal the tape recorders are, the latter explanation wouldn’t shock me.

- We’ll find out later that there’s something up with Melanie (same as there is with everyone, really), but that Basira intercepted Georgie’s attempts to make contact with Melanie, and seems to have refused Georgie access to her, suggests that there really is something seriously wrong with Melanie. Basira’s seemed protective of Melanie for a while, and I get the impression that she didn’t want to expose Melanie to anything that might… “destabilize” her. I worry that Melanie’s pre-existing pull towards the Slaughter might have intensified over the past six months: her anger feeding its hold over her, its hold over her feeding her anger, a vicious cycle that just goes on and on until she’s too constantly furiously angry and erratic to cope.

- …And they’ve found another tape recorder on the floor, possibly under the bed.

- Jon decides to let Georgie and Basira know he’s awake… by scaring the crap out of them. Or scaring the crap out of Basira and startling the crap out of Georgie, anyways. Oh, Jon.

- That Jon recovers so quickly from having been in a coma, “everything but brain dead” for six months really isn’t natural, and Georgie, at least, loathes the implications of it. So do I, to be honest. I knew Jon finding the impetus to wake up would come with a price, except the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet. Listen carefully in the episodes ahead, everyone.

- “Jon, is it still you?” That is the question of the century, isn’t it? Because Jon still sounds like himself, and you can make several different arguments for his lack of deep, emotional reactions to all the news he receives over the course of the episode. You can argue that he’s still very weak from having been in a coma for half a year and can’t dredge up emotions. You can argue that he gets hit with so much bad news at once that he just can’t process most of it, and the reason the only thing he really latches on to is what’s happening with Martin is because he actually has something resembling a concrete idea of the danger he’s in. You can argue that he just doesn’t want to run away with his emotions, since when he does that, bad things tend to happen.

But what gets me is his relative lack of reaction when Basira mentions Melanie being in a bad way. Unless I am very much mistaken, Jon freaked out when he first learned Melanie had been shot in India, and their only relationship back then was that of two people who occasionally met up to shout at each other. I’m worried that his knee-jerk protective reaction to the news that Peter Lukas is doing something with or to Martin was just due to the influence of the Beholding, making its avatar respond to a threat to another of its adherents.

And what else gets me is his apparent lack of concern for Basira herself. I do think there’s a chance that Basira is just refusing to drop her guard around Jon, since it’s at best highly unclear if he’s still himself and the monsters around these parts can seem very human, up until the moment when they open their mouth and let all their fangs show. But she spends the episode sounding very zoned out, very distant. To me, it sounds like the Beholding has definitely been having an effect on her, and Jon? Just doesn’t seem to care very much. And the worst part is, that can’t automatically be taken as a sign of Jon having changed, because Jon has always been the Asshole in Charge at the Magnus Institute. For as long as we’ve known him, he’s always been that guy who has a hard time understanding other people’s emotions and remembering why he should care about them. He was the guy who had no problem telling Naomi Herne to her face that she probably imagined everything that happened to her, the guy who had no problem constantly bad-mouthing Martin when he had to have known there was a chance Martin could listen to the tapes and hear him saying all this horrible shit, the guy who didn’t see anything wrong with stalking Tim, the guy who early on had no problem dismissing every last thing a statement-giver said as hallucinations or lies unless it was something related to his trauma. Jon’s always been a bit of a self-centered asshole, so him being a bit of a self-centered asshole now doesn’t necessarily indicate anything.

After finding out that Basira just happened to grab a statement on the way out the door of the Institute, after discovering that Jon’s first impulse upon waking up is to go ahead and feed the beast (I see that addiction is still running strong), and finding out that Jon no longer calls himself ‘Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute,’ but simply ‘The Archivist,’ all very reassuring signs (how long before Jon stops even sticking his name in before ‘The Archivist?’), we get into the statement.

- Lorell St. John provides us with another parallel and potential foil for Jonathan Sims. From the beginning, she is positioned as such, as a person who is disconnected from other people, has a hard time thinking about and visualizing their feelings, and is fond of animals. She’s someone who acts like other people don’t exist, or matter, which does sound a bit like Jon.

- There’s something St. John says about the difficulties of making sense of the world and the universe, saying that [paraphrased] “it’s all rubbish, people trying to think the universe into making sense,” feels like commentary on the Powers. Was it Jonny Sims who said that anyone who thinks they know what’s going on with the Powers is dead wrong?

- St. John is introduced by a friend (I entertained the possibility that Danielle was St. John’s girlfriend, but to be honest she sounds so disconnected that I can’t see her as being able to put in the work required to maintain a close relationship with anyone) to the concept of the “philosophical zombie.” The philosophical zombie is someone who appears outwardly human, but inside is empty; they have no inner life, they can’t feel anything, and any attempt to pretend otherwise is all just an act. It is, as Danielle says, just a thought experiment, but St. John becomes obsessed with the idea, and eventually becomes convinced that an increasingly large number of the people around her (by the time she gets to the Institute, it seems to have spread to everyone around her) is not a real person, but is in fact one of these zombies: an empty thing that apes humanity, but can only ever pretend to be a person.

Eventually, this delusion seems to have attracted the attention of one of the Powers, which sent an agent out to harass her. @centaurianthropology thinks it was the Spiral; myself, I’m torn between the Spiral and the Stranger. Visual and auditory hallucinations are definitely part of the Spiral’s purview, but to me, there’s the matter of St. John’s specific delusion, the thing that drew this agent to her. Her delusion was that the people around her weren’t actually people, but inhuman, uncanny things that pretended (in her opinion, badly) to be human. To me, that has the Stranger written all over it. I think what complicates it is that there is potential for the two Powers to bleed into each other when it comes to St. John’s delusion, so really, it could be either one. The fact that the agent doesn’t really do anything, just keeps repeating the same phrase over and over again, seems more indicative of the Spiral to me. I think an agent of the Stranger would have actually tried to do something to her.

(And personally, something about the agent, the changing colors of his shirt, I think, reminds me of the coffee billboard from ‘Fatigue,’ and that was definitely a Spiral statement.)

- The cruel experiments St. John carries out on her roommate whom she had become convinced is a zombie, slicing him with a knife and later killing his pet, which she feels no remorse for because she feels that he is not real, serves as a warning for Jon, of where he could end up if he doesn’t try to remain engaged with humanity, doesn’t keep reminding himself that other people do matter. I personally interpret it in a very particular way, based on my own experiences.

I am someone who does not have the easiest time interpreting my own emotions, let alone the emotions of others. I have thoughts, but I don’t automatically connect them with emotions. I have physical reactions, but I don’t automatically connect them with emotions. I have to work at figuring out and understanding what other people are feeling, and though I do try to figure it out, sometimes they’re just incomprehensible to me. As you might have gathered, I have issues with cognitive empathy.

St. John exhibits a lack of both empathy and sympathy with how she engages with the world, neither understanding people’s feelings nor caring about their feelings, and to me, the latter is a lot more inherently dangerous than the former. It’s one thing to not understand how other people feel, to have difficulty putting yourself in their shoes. It’s another thing to either be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes with no difficulty, and decide that you just don’t care about their feelings, that their feelings don’t matter to you at all, for no other reason than because you can.

For Jon, there’s a lot more danger to not caring than not understanding. And I think he may be on the verge of falling down that rabbit hole now, and never coming out.

- When the question of what separates a human from a monster is raised, we aren’t given an answer—and to be honest, I’m not sure there’s any answer that can neatly delineate humans and monsters in a way that completely separates the two from each other. We hear of many people in the real world whom we consider monsters, but in the universe of The Magnus Archives, are completely human in makeup. You have people deeply entangled with the Powers showing signs of caring for others, to a certain extent. The child Agnes Montague saved a boy she barely knew from becoming a spider egg sac. Gertrude may have treated the people around her as pawns, to be used and discarded at will, but she cared enough about the world in a general sense to want to keep it from being warped and mutilated by the ascension of any one of the Powers, including the one she was tied to. We see Distortion-Helen grappling with feelings she doesn’t recognize as guilt. There is no one overwhelming criteria that makes someone human, or a monster. In a world where humans are capable of doing horrific things and monsters are capable of feeling guilt, you can’t point to any one thing as being the thing that absolutely 100% of the time separates them.

And I don’t think we have any real answer for the question of at what point a human is no longer a human, and has become completely monstrous. Because that is a completely internal measure, and none of us have a hotline into anyone’s minds but our own. I think that Jon is still recognizably human right now, but that he’s less human than he was before he left to stop the Unknowing. And I think that, if Jon is no longer human by the end of the series, if he has become completely monstrous, we’ll all be at a complete loss to pinpoint the exact moment that it happened. After all, at what point was Jane Prentiss no longer Jane Prentiss? Was it when the worms had eaten her eyes and her tongue and she could only see because of the Filth’s influence, only speak because of its influence? Was it when she thrust her arm into the wasp’s nest and the worms first burrowed into her flesh? Was it when she fell under the sway of their song? Or was it when she was a grade schooler, listening to one of her classmates talk about how a blackhead is a hole in your face that you have to keep clean, or else it will spread and your whole head will rot?

A final note in all of this: Jon’s voice becomes considerably stronger over the course of reading the statement. At the beginning, he’s hoarse and weak, but by the end, he sounds as if he was never in a coma at all. Just something to chew on.

- As I mentioned up above, we have it from Basira that Bad Shit has been going down at the Archives. It seems that having Peter Lukas in charge has not been good for the Institute or the people working in it, though we don’t have any specifics as of yet. Apparently Martin’s been engaging in off-the-books work with him, and again, no specifics, though I can’t imagine it’s anything good. The ‘Martin is a secret Lukas’ theory might be gaining increasing amounts of traction this season, might even be confirmed. Melanie’s not doing well. Tim is confirmed dead and people think Daisy is dead as well, though I personally think Basira might know more than she’s letting on as regards to Daisy, and doesn’t trust Jon with the information.

And something happened to the change of clothes Jon keeps in the Institute that rendered them unwearable. It’s been an action-packed six months. I personally wonder about that. There’s a lot of people in the supernatural community who’d have a lot of reason to have a grudge against the Magnus Institute. Learning that Elias is in prison and the Archivist who replaced Gertrude is out of commission might have made them decide the Institute was too vulnerable a target to be ignored. I suppose we’ll find out next week.

#ncfan listens to The Magnus Archives

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nevermorered · 6 years

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Requested by @addicted-to-his-knife

#59: “I’m yours.” with the special request of Sansa being a stripper and Sandor the bouncer.

Pairing: SanSan

Rating: T

Warning: minor description of assult

It was very early in the relationship that Sansa saw Joffrey for who he really was, but by that time it was too late. Her parents were dead, Robb was dead, Arya had run off, Jon was away with the military, and Bran and Rickon were gone. Joffrey had done a fine job of making it stick in her head that she was all alone in the world aside from him and she had no friends to turn to with no money to go anywhere.

It was a year into the relationship, if it could still be called that, when the Joffrey took over his late father’s gentleman’s club. Sansa was unsure how The Royal Stag could claim anything about gentleman’s given their cliental. The men, and few women, that came around were all rich and powerful with enough money to get whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. The girls were all young, fit, and outrageously gorgeous and if the right men paid the right amount, they would give them the time of their lives. Sansa felt sorry for most of the girls. Joffrey and his crew kept them on drugs and liquor so they were more controllable. But when Joffrey came up with the grand idea of Sansa dancing at the club, it wasn’t drugs or drink that convinced her. It was self-preservation and the desire not to be at the end of his anger any more than she had to.

It wasn’t so bad, she convinced herself. Dancing was fun and if she were completely honest, it was a bit of a rush to get on stage and completely control a room of powerful men with just the sway of her hips. Cersei had managed to somehow convince Joff that she shouldn’t do any ‘private room’ deals, so it was only on the main stage that she had to perform.

It did make her a little ill at times, when the old men would get a little too bold and grab at her or whistle and yell nasty things. The number of times she was crowded just off the stage and propositioned with all manner of indecent things made her skin crawl. Those things didn’t happen often, though, and the men never lasted long in the club afterwards. Sandor Clegane made certain of that.

Technically it was his job to keep the clients and guests under manageable control, but since Sansa had reluctantly started working there, he kept close to her stage, always with his eyes on the crowd and never on her naked body. He was quick to toss out anyone that got too boisterous or handsy. And he always stayed passed the end of his shift so he could be there to drive her back to Joffrey’s since Joff couldn’t be bothered to stay sober enough to do it himself.

Three months had gone by like that, with Sandor acting more like her personal body guard than an actual bouncer, when she realized she was in love with him. It took all of two seconds after that revelation for her to realize it couldn’t ever be. She was a shiny possession for Joffrey to show off and Sandor was treated as nothing more than a dog. Both of them would be in a world of pain if they had any sort of relationship.

Tonight, Joffrey had pulled Sandor off the floor just after Sansa had finished her routine. Something about a guest from Dorne not wanting to pay for services that he claimed where given at the girls own desire. Like every night when her dances were finished, she would dress in some scant clothing that Joffrey picked out for her and serve drinks. Since her ever present shadow was missing this time, one man decided he didn’t need to keep his hands to himself. When Sansa pushed him away a few times and tried to politely inform him that all she was available for was a drink, he got mad. Mad enough to knock the tray of drinks out of her hand before yanking her down onto his lap where he clutched the back of her hair hard enough to make her head jerk back. He was demanding some rather crude things when the flashing multicolored lights from the stage were suddenly blacked out. The man looked up behind her and she watched at the blood drained from his drunk flushed face.

“Let the girl go and I won’t break both your hands.” Sandor’s graveled voice demanded lowly and the guy quickly released Sansa. She nearly tumbled off his lap, but Sandor grabbed her arm to steady her.

“Go to the bar, Little Bird, and stay there.” He reached down and jerked the man up but the shoulder of his suit jacket. “I’ll be right back.”

Sansa watched as he pulled the man off and hurried back over to the bar to wait like instructed. A few minutes later, Sandor returned and she noted that he was wiping his right fist off with a handkerchief that he then stuffed into the back pocket of his black jeans.

“You alright, girl?”

“Yes.” Sansa assured him. “Thank you, for saving me.”

Sandor scoffed, then shook his head. “It’ll happen again.” He looked at her and his grey eyes seemed to be in pain. “I can’t be there all the time. It’ll happen again, and maybe next time I won’t be there in enough time to stop a lot worse from happening.”

“Don’t say things like that.” She nearly begged, her stomach roiling with the thought.

“That, or your cunt of a boyfriend will start demanding you do more here, more than you’re going to be willing to do, but you’ll do it anyway and I won’t be able to stop it.”

That made Sansa mad. It felt like an accusation, like he was blaming her.

“I would leave if I could.” She matched his stance, facing him head on. “But I have nowhere to go and no money to get me there. Joffrey has done a fine job of keeping me his prisoner.”

Sandor flinched, the burnt corner of his mouth twitching before he scrubbed a hand over it.

“Keep out of trouble.” He finally said. “And I’ll see you after closing.”

Fighting against tears, Sansa spun away from him and grabbed the next set of drinks to be delivered.

The rest of the night went by without incident, mostly because Sandor was back to looming over her wherever she was. After closing, she changed into a pair of yoga pants and a hoody before meeting Sandor at the back door like normal. Only, he didn’t seem normal. He seemed antsy and tense and he actually grabbed her elbow to hustle her out the door and through the parking lot when he normally walked a step behind her.

“What is it?” she asked once they reached his SUV.

“I’m taking you home.”

“I know.” She said slowly. “You do every morning.”

“No.” he shook his head, stepping closer to her and keeping his voice low enough that if anyone else where in the parking lot, they wouldn’t hear. “I’m taking you home. Away from here and all this shit. You’ve a brother on the Wall, don’t you? I’ll take you to him.”

“The Wall is a restricted zone for military personal only.” She reminded him. “I can’t go there. Besides, I don’t know if Jon would want me there anyway.” She and her half brother had never had the closest relationship growing up, which was probably mostly her fault.

“Your uncle, then, in the Riverlands?”

“Uncle Brynden died last month.” She sniffed, wiping a hand under her eye. “My uncle Edmure was put into prison a little afterwards by Joffrey’s uncle. I truly have no one, Sandor.”

“You have me.” He nearly growled, reaching out with both hands to hold her upper arms tightly. “I’m standing here asking you to let me take you away. I don’t give a bloody hell where we go, I just need to get you away from this…this hell.”

Sansa stared up at him in shock. She blinked a few times, her body starting to tremble under his hands from the intensity of him. It was comforting though, if not a little overwhelming.

“Then take me away.” She lifted a shaking hand up to touch his burned cheek. “It doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s far, far away. And…and if you’ll stay with me.”

For a brief moment, Sandor looked shocked and confused, then he blinked and everything in his face seemed to soften. He stepped forward, his forehead dropping down to press against the top of her head.

“I’m yours, little bird.” He rasped, hands sliding around her back so he was hugging her instead of holding her.

“And I’m yours.” She tipped her head up so that her lips were just inches from his. Sandor hesitated, and then closed those last few inches until his cruel lips were pressed so sweetly against hers. No matter how much either of them wanted to, they both knew they couldn’t linger. Not here in the parking lot of Joffrey’s business. Sandor pulled away, still looking a little stunned, then ushered her into the vehicle before getting in himself. They went to Joffrey’s, but he wasn’t there, like they both knew he wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t come in for another few hours, reeking of booze and drugs and other women. Sandor waited with the SUV running out front while she ran in and stuffed everything she owned into a duffle bag. Then she stopped off in Joffrey’s office. The idiot used his own birthday as the code to his safe. Inside was enough cash to get them wherever they wanted to go. Stuffing it inside the duffle as well, she jogged out and jumped into the passenger seat.

“Ready?” Sandor asked, putting the car into gear.

“More than ready.”

#SanSan #prompt fic #request

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g-on-ef · 6 years

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Dusk till Dawn

A/n: Guess who's birthday it is ??? This girl's !!!!! and in celebration of my birthday I am going to update all my stories this week ^^ starting with my favorite Dusk till Dawn hope you guys enjoy this chapter ^^

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3: Rejected?

“I would kindly as you too not do it,”

Nine little words that have been floating through Damian’s head since he left the café, after Jon headed for the break room Damian wanted to run after him and ask him what he meant by that but before he could Kon, Jon’s older brother stopped him and told him that it would be best if he left him alone and kindly asked him to leave.

He didn’t want to leave if anything he wanted to fine Jon and talk to him but the look on the older boy’s face told him he should leave now unless he wanted trouble and if he were honest the last thing he wanted was for the paparazzi to find his hiding spot and give Kara as well as himself trouble.

His father made it clear that he wanted no trouble, no PR nightmares, no bad press from the media at all. With the wedding coming up soon his father was doing everything and anything to make sure nothing soiled the Wayne name.

Which is why Grayson was forced to stay away from Wally and spent as much time as he could with Gordon while Todd wasn’t allowed to be seen anywhere near Star City since people were already hinting he and Roy may or may not have something going on between them.

It bothered Damian to no end that he, Todd, Drake, and Grayson had to hide their sexualities from the world, but his father and Selina made it clear that everyone had to know or at least believe that the Wayne brothers were as straight as a pole. Which was stupid if you ask him.

One look at Grayson and you would no he was anything but straight. Rubbing his forehead, he entered the Mansion and was annoyed to find Melody and Selina sitting in the living room talking about Allah knows what.

“Should’ve gone to the park,”

Maybe if he was quiet enough he could sneak pass them and into his room so that he won’t have to deal with either one of them.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to walk by undetected, Selina caught Damian trying to sneak pass them.

“Damian,”

Damian cursed himself for not moving fast enough, turning around he saw Selina walking over to him, it took everything in him not to run the other way or yell at her and call her every horrible word he knew, and since he knew almost ten different languages he knew plenty of horrible names he could call Selina.

“What,” he asked rudely, Selina ignored his rudeness and instead continue speaking to him as if his hatred for her didn’t mattered.

“As you know, tomorrow is Gotham Fashion Week,”

“Yeah, I already know that,” he grumbled.

“Which is why you and Melody must be seen everywhere and anywhere as much as possible, it is important that nothing, and I mean nothing ruins the Wayne name before the wedding. Everything has to be perfect or as perfect as we can get it with you and your brothers,”

Damian just rolled his eyes and stopped himself from saying the first thing that came to his mind and that was telling Selina to shut up and not worry about his brothers or him since neither one of them had control over what the paparazzi say her and his father however...still Damian chose to say something that wouldn’t cause an argument which would result in his father punishing him,

“I already know this Selina, now, can I please go to my room there are somethings that I need to do,” she looked at him for a moment before dismissing him with the wave of her hand.

Damian rolled his eyes before he headed for his room. He’s twenty years old and yet Selina treats him like his sixteen or worse five.

Still, he had no time to worry about Selina and her stunts right now he had other things to think about. Once he entered his room he turned on his computer and waited for the monitor to finish loading. Once it was completed he began his search.

“It’s not stalking, I just want to know more about him,” one thing that his mother always drilled in his head was this, knowledge is a powerful weapon and the only thing that can make brute force fall to its knees.

He needed, wanted, had to know everything he could about this boy. From what he gathered is he is Kara’s nephew so assuming if she’s either related to Jon’s father or mother he should probably start with Kara first and work his way from there.

Looking through Kara’s social media he found some photos of Jon lucky for him she tagged him in them. Smiling to himself he clicked on Jon’s username on his Instagram and cursed out loud.

“Fucking hell! Why did you have to have it in private?”

Looking at Jon’s IG he saw that it was private and the only thing on it was a picture of him smiling, his arm around a girl with orange hair and freckles on her cheeks. She was cute, she was more than cute she was beautiful and her and Jon…they looked good together, maybe that’s why Jon asked him not to flirt with him, maybe Jon was already dating this girl and he didn’t want to cheat on her, Damian felt a little bad for flirting with someone who was taken.

Despite all those cheating rumors, Damian hated cheating, despise to the point where if he saw anyone doing it he would do everything in his power to ruin them, maybe that’s why he hated Selina. Oh, who was he kidding it was exactly why he hated both Selina and his dad.

Taking a deep breath Damian rubbed his temples, he did not need to think about his dad or Selina; right now, what he needed to do was go back to Kara’s café and apologize to Jon for even trying to flirt with him.

Sure, he didn’t know he was taken but he still felt bad for even thinking of asking the boy out. Taking a deep breath, he turned off his computer grabbed his keys and headed back for the café, if he explained his reasons maybe the boy would forgive him and hopefully they could be friends. Maybe not friends since the only thing that he will be thinking about is having the blue-eyed angel beneath him, or above him whichever works well for him.

“No, stop Damian bad thoughts very, very bad thoughts,”

Leaving the room, he went through the back door of the mansion to go see Jon, no way in hell did he want to see either one of those money grabbers at the moment.

“Damian,”

Damian stopped dead in his tracks. Cursing everything he knew he turned around as his father stepped closer to him.

Most people say he looks like his dad but then again, if anyone saw his mother they would surly change their opinions and say he was an exact replica of his mother.

Bruce Wayne was a good man, sometimes when he wasn’t trying to control of his sons lives, of course his status of playboy billionaire did back fire even if it was just a ploy that he for some reason wanted the world to believe he was.

Because of his sleeping around resulted in four children being born out of wedlock. Dick Grayson was an accident that happened when his father was only 18, Bruce met a woman who was traveling with the circus a one-night stand resulted in his older half-brother.

Unfortunately, Grayson’s mom died in a horrible accident when Grayson was only eight.

Todd’s mother was a prostitute and didn’t want her son to do anything with Bruce Wayne, sadly for her she had no choice but let him in Bruce’s life, when it was discovered that Todd was his second son, Bruce filed for custody and won, because of her addictions as well as her profession she was seen as an unfit mother despite her doing her very best to make sure that Todd had a happy childhood, still, the court didn’t care if the child was happy they only cared about the money and Bruce’s lawyers paid them a lot of it.

Drake’s mom wasn’t anything special, she just slept with him, had the kid, dropped him off at Wayne Manor and left. No one knows where she went or who she really was since Bruce found out that everything about her was a lie and vanished into thin air.

The final woman his father had a child with was Talia Al Ghul. A beautiful woman who was once an actress, then model, then a fashion designer. She was a successful woman whose career ended before it began but that was something Damian did not like to think about if he did he would feel more anger towards his father and that harlot.

“Yes, father?”

“Where are you heading off to?”

No way in hell was he telling him where he was going, the only people who knew of the café where his brothers and all four of them sworn to secrecy and never tell Bruce about it. It was their go to place to be whenever they needed to escape the craziness that is their life.

“I was going to the park,”

Bruce looked at him before saying,

“Well, your stroll to the park can wait you and I are needed somewhere,”

“Where?”

“We need to go with Selina and do some wedding shopping, I also need you to be seen with Melody as much as possible,”

“We’re going to town so that the paparazzi can see me walking with the beard?”

His father glared at him,

“Melody is your friend and I already promised Dick after your break-up with Kitty you’ll be taking a break from bearding,”

Damian rolled his eyes, both he and his father knew he only said that bullshit to Dick so that he will get off his back about Damian and the unnecessary bearding.

“Then why does Melody have to come? More importantly why don’t you and Selina go off by yourselves and let me head over to Maya’s instead?”

“I already told you Damian, the wedding is all Gotham and the world is talking about and everyone knows about your relationship with Selina and how you don’t get along with her-“

“Not my fault,”

“Damian,” his father turned into a disapproval tone one that made him roll his eyes.

“I already told your brothers and you from the beginning that I do not want anything to ruin this wedding and the public needs to know that you and Selina are getting along,”

“You mean they need to see me getting along with her and they need to see me dating a girl so no one assumes I’m anything but straight right?”

Bruce stared at his son while Damian glared at him,

“Of course the public also needs to see me as a cheater, a liar, and someone who breaks their precious blond princess, they also need to see me as white as possible so that my music could sell faster, of course that doesn’t stop them from calling me every horrible name in the book because my mother is Talia Al Ghul, but of course they already saw me as a horrible person when I punched a guy for calling me and Maya horrible names and instead of helping me you allow the story to spin to see me as the bad guy and Kitty as my ‘savior’,”

Damian glared at his father as he continued with his speech, he wasn’t sure why he was lashing out at his father, but he felt great about to do it,

“You and Selina say you don’t want any PR nightmares or for the Wayne family name to be soil but don’t you think it’s already too late since both you and Selina were the ones who allowed The Word, and every other source of media to talk shit about me, hell you guys were the ones who decided to give me the playboy image, but now with this stupid wedding coming you want me to be well behave young man? Fuck that,”

Bruce’s face was bright red as Damian threw every horrible thing the media has said about him back at him and while he didn’t want to admit everything he said was true he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for putting Damian through all of the crap he’s endured and instead of helping him he made it worse.

Before Bruce could even form a retort the door from the back open and in came Maya.

“Hello Wayne family!”

Maya was a beautiful woman and Damian’s best friend; the girl wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or tell the world that she was a proud lesbian. It swelled Damian’s heart with joy that his best friend was free and able to be herself, she was an amazing person and deserve to be happy. Like Damian, Maya was a singer as well as an actress and she was amazing in both. Her voice was incredible and was able to go through different styles of music, she even won a Grammy for her album.

“Maya, what brings you here?” Bruce asked confused as to why she was hear.

Maya smiled brightly at him before she hooked her arm around Damian’s and lead against his shoulder.

“The answer to that is simple, Damian and I made plans for lunch and I decided to swing by early so that we can head over to our favorite diner since it’s always pack during lunch time,”

“I see,”

“Welp, if you need us you know where we’ll be,”

She then pulled Damian out the door before Bruce could say or do anything, once the two were out the door they looked at each other before sprinting to her car. Knowing Bruce, he’ll come out the door and order them to stop whatever it is they are doing and force them to go with him and Selina to go wherever it is they were going.

Once they reached her car, they both got in and drove off.

“Where to bro?”

“Kara’s café, I need to see someone,”

“You, need to see someone at Kara’s café?”

Maya knew about the café, she was one of the few Damian trusted to know about the place, not only did she know but she was also a frequent customer, the two loved the place and always enjoyed going there together whenever they could.

“Yes,”

“And who is this someone?”

“Some guy I met,”

“Oooh, Damian Wayne met some guy and he wants to see him?”

“Yes, but it’s not like that,” he quickly said before she could form an idea that he did not want to hear.

“You sure?” she asked giving him a smirk.

“Positive, I just need to talk to him and apologize,”

“For what?”

Damian’s became a bright red color before he said,

“Flirting with him when he has a girlfriend,”

Maya looked at her friend, if there was one thing she knew about her friend in shock.

“Did he tell you? More importantly did you know?”

“No, and no,”

“Then how do you know he has a girlfriend?”

“Because I was going through Kara’s Instagram and found his Instagram and in his profile pic was of him and cute red head hugging each other and smiling with one another,”

“And that made you think he had a girlfriend?”

“Yes,”

“You know, that might just mean they are friends, right? I mean you and I cuddle all the time and we’re still friends,”

Damian thought about her words, of course she might have a point, the two might be friends but then again…

“I don’t think they are friends,”

“What makes you say that,”

“Well, when I was at Kara’s café earlier today I saw him and flirted with him and he looked uncomfortable, so I think she might be his girlfriend,”

“Ahh, okay so maybe he is taken,”

“Yeah so I need to apologize to him,”

“Question,” Maya asked as she pulled into the parking lot of the café.

“What’s that?”

“How are you gonna tell him that you know he has a girlfriend without sounding like a stalker?”

Damian’s eyes widen in fear, he…hadn’t thought of that…

#damijon #jondami #damian wayne #jonathan kent #jon kent #dusk till dawn #famous person au #my writing

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