#bc it’s lesser and she’s so much better now … but then he dresses her up to look like what the surface elves imagine drow nobles to look | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scorpionwins · 3 years

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Alright everybody today we're losing it over 3 things:

Pastel Jughead

Northside Jughead being adopted by Fred

Jughead & his many lady friends

SO HERE'S THE THING- IM CRYING, JUST, - JUG. JUG ALWAYS WANTING TO WEAR PRETTY PASTEL THINGS BUT HE COULD NEVER BC IT WOULD MAKE FP LOOK BAD, THEN BC he doesn't want to put a burden on fp. From a painfully young age, he knew they weren't well off, so yes, hand me downs would suffice, no worries.

There's also that lingering, possessive fear digging through his hopes, that maybe it won't matter, that people won't care, but-

but then he remembers Kevin getting slammed for wearing lip gloss on the playground, or how Archie stopped writing his songs with glitter pens after some douchebag made fun of him.

Or how Jason loved playing dolls and match dresses with Cheryl until he was stopped. And he's just- there's gentle advisory to hide all of that, and so he does?

But then they grow up, and Riverdale, at least in some places, does too. So when Betty kindly offers him some clothes to try on, offers to teach him how to do make up, Val, Polly and Veronica fast on call, having their little fashion shows, it felt... free.

SO, ns jug and ss sweet pea who met through fangs, whom jug found battered up behind the movie theater and took him home to patch up, and it was infatuation at first sight.

Sweet Pea is bold and confident and makes gold feel lesser and he loves the blush preening, bashful but fervid across Jug's face, illuminating the freckles he's found himself counting more than once, and he says he'd like to see it more often.

So Friday. Jug better be ready.

And so - so Jug IS, invites Sweet Pea to his room until he goes to tame his brother Archie, his sister Cheryl (bc in a perfect world Fred adopted Cheryl ok don't tale that from me) and Papa, " protective cave people. You know."

And sweet pea just watches him, a ball of indigant fluffy bed hair, hopping down the stairs.

" You can't ruin this for me! This guy is so sweet and smart and cool, why aren't we talking about Archie's unrelenting habbit of bringing a new girl over every week. I don't want to shame anyone but its really mean I'm the only one targeted!" And he snorts.

This dork will make such a good boyfriend, yes, he can already see it, boyfriend to husband to maybe possibly father of his children.

But he's not thinking too fast. No.

It's just- Jug is a good boy, starry eyed bright, sea water calming and tranquil, makes you want to drown, and sweet pea would. He doesn't know how something that pure goes hand in hand with all the dark he's wearing. A dark he doesn't even enjoy, by the look on his face.

But then. Then sweet pea sees. Pretty pink clothes, shirts and sweaters and skirts, pastel everything, some on the bed, some on the bean bag, and his insides freeze over. They look awfully close in resemblance with the other ball of pastel, sunlight forrest green that creep him out. And Sweet Pea assumes the worst.

Just- Jug coming back, excited, saying that he actually convinced Fred to let him ride on a motorcycle, but sees the dark on sweet pea 's face, watches fingers casually tear his pretty fabrics apart, then fling it at jug and jug- he's he's so upset, water pooling around his eyes, " w- why?"

" why? Cause you're fucking disgusting. THIS is disgusting," gesturing to the mess and rags of Jug's precious things, sliced by a talented blade, precise, masterful, gleeful. " God, I'm so glad I didn't let you touch me. You've got to be one of the sickest fuckers I've ever met. WHY would you bring me here, knowing I'd find out?"

Lips trembling, shaking like fluttering petals blew by wind, Jug, shame eaten, mortification boiling him from the inside out, " I- I didn't think you'd- you'd care."

There's betrayel, soft but noticeable, because he TRUSTED sweet pea, trusted Fangs' promises of their youthful viewpoints, how they're progressive even with their slightly traditional tracks.

Sweet Pea, floored, scoffs, like Jug is spewing some of the most offensive words he's heard in a lifetime, and shakes his head. " Northsiders are something else. Crazy fuckers, the lot of you. Dont look for me, or that pretty face of yours won't stay pretty for long"

He carries that bravado with him out the door, but as soon as he reaches his truck, Sweet Pea cries, you know he does, because there goes his heart, broke open by another northsider with too much time on their hands and not enough life in their hearts.

Meanwhile, Jug is cleaning his room, sobbing quietly, because the boy he likes hates his pretty clothes and thinks Jug is disgusting.

there's nothing Cheryl does better than revenge.

She watches Jug, shoulder to shoulder with a paired of concerned amber eyes, angry, wrathful, as her baby brother gently packs the clothes into a bag, shoulders trembling as if he's carrying so much weight on them Atlas would bow.

Watches him, head down, little trash bag filled with the same things that nerd was so bright eyed with excitement at just a few months ago, and knocks on Betty's door.

He apologizes, Cheryl knows, because of the loving, fond crease between Betty's brow, when Jug would apologize for seemingly nothing and shed say "why"? With her face alone.

She spots the blankness taking over as she opens that bag, slowly, eyes not changing once her and Cheryl lock eyes.

" Fetch my phone, Archie. This is a Code Red."

So here Jug is, under his fluffy blankets, cuddlin and hugging FP's serpent jacket, hoping a gentle hand would materialize out of thin air and brush through his tangle of curls.

When suddenly, it's yanked, and he makes a sad sound of dejection, upset because he wants to SNUGGLE and forget that he's but a mere goldfish in this bitch of a world but surprise surprise, lady friends.

Lady friends holding hair brushes and cosmetics, clothes of all kinds, all comforting, mischievous storms.

Jug whines, low in his throat, uses the leathers as shield. The bed shifts under multiple weights, but he can recognize them all- the soft, private gentleness Cheryl secures only for him, now more tender than ever through his curls.

Betty's ginger squeezes around his thigh, Val, feline agility, perfect grace snuggling around him.

Ethel's timid but strong pat on his shoulder, accompanied by Ronnie's playful tickle to his sides, sending him in a shriek that he needed. They're all there, all pieces of his heart that he'll never forget. " wh- what are we doing?"

" Revenge, dear hobo. Revenge. You know the best way to get it?"

" ...Success?"

" yes. And the best way to kill?" When he doesn't responded, Cheryl's eyes thunder. " Beauty."

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iwa-ch4n · 4 years

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haikyuu sibling hcs

i am returning from the dead because of this, which has me going insane every time i think about it. there will probably be a part two of this. i simply cannot get it out of my mind

nishinoya’s sisters

all of them are older than him, but I’d say one is a year older than him (3rd year), one is four years older (3rd year of uni) and one is six years older (graduated a year ago)

the nishinoya’s are a Loud family. they are constantly yelling at each other, whether in an argument or just to talk to each other. they’re also all very messy, with the middle sister being the lesser of four evils by actually returning cups and dishes to the kitchen (she goes to all their rooms while she’s at it)

the eldest is the one who got nishinoya into volleyball. she played in high school, and she taught little 9-year-old yuu in the back garden as a reward for finishing his homework. she played non-competitively at uni and dropped it after, but she’ll still always practice with him whenever she’s home

the youngest sister dresses like an egirl and has the bleached streaks at the front of her hair. she had leftover bleach when doing it, so she convinced yuu to do a matching style, which is the origin story of the blonde streak in his hair

the youngest sister also plays football (soccer), and they help each other practice. they’re absolutely best friends.

all of them are Fiercely protective of each other. he likes to think he’s the one protecting them all the time but in reality he is the baby of the family and they would all rather die than let anyone so much as lay a finger on him

the middle sister is the only one with good grades, and they always say she has all the brain cells between the four of them. she also sleeps until 1pm (which doesn’t mix well with yuu’s tendency to wake up at 7am acting like he’s had three energy drinks) and went through a lot of boyfriends in high school (yuu tried to intimidate all of them, and failed, because he was 13 and short as hell). they get along better now she’s moved out.

the eldest is only a mature functional adult because she had to stop the rest from injuring themselves or each other constantly when they were kids. she’s the go-to for advice for all of them, but will always go to her brother when she needs to rant

the eldest got All of the height. she is a tall woman and she likes to use her siblings as armrests to make them feel even smaller. gives good hugs but also slaps her siblings around the head as a form of greeting

they taught yuu about style and respecting women. he chose not to listen when it came to style and wears ugly tshirts with funny slogans anyway, but he would beat up a misogynist.

asahi had a bit of a crush on the youngest sister for part of their second year and will NEVER admit it

overall they are chaotic, loud and messy but they get along really well, simultaneous hell yeah and big rip for the parents.

suga’s brother

ok listen he’s 7 (11 years younger) and babysitting him is part of the reason koushi became an elementary school teacher

he is o b s e s s e d with dinosaurs, tsukishima begrudgingly and secretly gives koushi his old, more childish dino-themed things to pass on to the kid

absolutely idolises his brother. wants to be Exactly like him. he rlly tries hard in school because of it (even though he has a pretty short attention span)

also wants to play volleyball bc of suga, and is his brother’s biggest hypeman

terrified of daichi but loves asahi. its asahi’s biggest win

makes suga watch disney movies with him (he doesn’t actually make him, its unclear which one of them enjoys it more)

kyoutani’s sister

she’s 23 (6 years older) and the COOLEST BITCH

has a sort of indie / grunge style, basically that fun y2k-ish style but with more chains and fishnets

plays electric guitar, has a bunch of stick and pokes, wears doc martens and is doing a masters degree in journalism.

please i’m in love with her

she had a massive emo / punk phase back when kentarou was 10 and thought she was the most amazing person alive. he started trying to be punk like her and it stuck

they would kill and die for each other but argue All The Time. especially when he was like 13-14. basically hated each other but now they very much respect each other

(she’s the only person he fully respects other than iwaizumi)

they would play fight all the time that almost verged on genuine physical fighting. they still do sometimes, and she wins 90% of the time.

for personal reasons i am going to say she’s bisexual

if you ever think kentarou would have anything negative to say about women or gays, you are wrong. if you say anything bigoted its an attack on his sister and he will beat you up about it

literally has to keep her away from the volleyball team because they met her once and oikawa tried to flirt with her and he is never suffering through that again

she helps him cut and bleach his hair and he helps her dye hers fun colours sometimes

overall the literal coolest person ever i would die for her

kuroo’s sister

okay I’d say she’s probably,,, 22. four years older.

the most put together person you will meet in your life. its honestly scary how organised she is. time management queen.

the science genes run in the family. just started a master’s degree in biology and plans to do a PhD

every teacher that taught her expects tetsurou to be just as smart and capable. it annoys him, even though he gets the grades, because they assume he’s gonna be just as well behaved and organised as her. that man has not handed in a homework assignment in his life.

she has Long Ass, Thick Ass Hair and if she ever lets it get slightly out of hand it looks like a Nightmare

still hates tetsurou for making her practice volleyball with him when she was 12. she missed the season finale of a show she liked and then got it spoiled for her because she was helping him and she still holds a grudge about it

may be put together, but she’s still fun. will buy tetsurou alcohol if he asks her to (not too much tho, so parents don’t catch on)

he tries to flirt with her friends and she hates him for it (the newer ones that meet him when he’s like 18 seem to enjoy it and she hates that even more)

is Very intimidated by tetsurou’s volleyball team, will still bully him in front of them tho. when her and kenma team up they are ruthless and if he didn’t know they were joking he’d probably cry

yaku pretended to have a crush on her for almost a whole year in second year to annoy tetsurou. he even got her in on it and ‘asked her out’. it was the longest and most worthwhile con he’s ever pulled.

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thespiralgrimoire · 4 years

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So just realized that all of the female cast members (and probably some of the male ones) are based on fairytales Grey is Cinderella, Noelle is Snow White, Vanessa is rapunzal, Yuno might be Peter Pan or at least Sylph is tinkerbell

I got an ask similar to this quite a while ago, but it was a little more cumbersome and I wasn't sure how to respond to it....

I think this is an interesting take but personally I think it's a little reductive. There are definitely some similarities between the BC ladies and the Disney princesses, but I think to say that any of them are based on Disney princesses is a disservice to them as characters. While the BC universe is definitely loosely based in a European fantasy setting, I would think that the fact that it's written from a Japanese perspective would mean that the similarities to our classic Western fairytails can't be taken for granted.

HOWEVER, there is also the point to be made that the Disney Princess stories are based in tropes that show up in a LOT of traditions and stories, so maybe it would be more accurate to say that these characters' stories contain a lot of the same elements that appear in folklore all around the world?

That being said, I think it's fun to play with what we know, and I don't know a lot of Japanese fairytales. So let's take a look at some of the ones you listed, because I spent $75,000 on a Bachelor's degree in English literature and I don't get to use it much.

☘️ Of all of these, Grey is DEFINITELY the most obvious one. Like, it’s every element of Cinderella... The step sisters, the mistreatment, the false identity. But I think that’s is very important how it differs from the classic tale to play on Grey’s sense of self.

The classic Cinderella story doesn’t paint Cinderella as a self pitying damsel who needs to be rescued. She is upset with her situation, she knows it’s not fair, and she knows she’s entitled to a nice night out, especially after she puts in the work in to make an outfit appropriate for the occasion. Her step sisters’ vindictive nature ruins this for her, not any fault of her own, which is why her fairy godmother steps in to right the wrongs of her situation.

Grey doesn’t have the sense of self that Cinderella has. Be it through abuse or quirks of her own personality, she’s a rather passive victim to her step sisters’ bullying, and instead of doing what she does despite of them like Cinderella, she does everything she can to please them. The ending result is more or less the same: they can’t be pleased. In both cases the step sisters retaliate violently: in Cinderella’s case, they destroy the dress she’s made for herself, and in Grey’s case, they drive Grey into the woods, taking her attempt to please them as a personal insult.

Grey gets no fairy godmother, and no ball. And unlike Cinderella, she gets rescued by a “prince” character (as much as I loathe to call Gauche that, but an analogy does exist there, so let’s acknowledge it.) Gauche saves Grey in the literal sense, and he also gives her the courage to better her situation, which eventually leads her to develop a sense of self that is not “her step family’s doormat.” She varies from Cinderella in this way because Cinderella never had to make this personal jump in her narrative; she started her narrative already there. Whereas Grey was desperately trying to become something that someone would respect, Cinderella knew from the start that she was worthy of more than the world had given her.

But the nice thing about Grey’s narrative is that she IS working to be this person! She’s got to put in the work to get to where Cinderella is, but who knows? Maybe by the time she isn’t afraid to be her authentic self, she’ll get some help from an exterior source (a metaphorical fairy godmother character) or maybe that power will come from within (with this new magic she’s using to save Gauche?). If we stick with the fairytale princess narrative, her reward would be Gauche. Just like Cinderella was rewarded for her strength during an adverse time in her life, Grey will be rewarded for overcoming her insecurities.

☘️ I... gotta come clean here, I read “Snow White” but my brain went “Sleeping Beauty”, and I was all ready to talk about THAT fascinating analogy. So apologies if this one is a little lackluster while I get my fairytales straight.

I think this one is a little flimsy, but again, I prepared to talk about the wrong fairytale. Would we paint Magicula as the evil queen, wanting Noelle dead because she’s “fairer”? Or would her siblings be an abstract reading of the “evil queen” because Noelle looks too much like their mother, and therefore is the bane of their existance, like Snow White was for the evil queen? The Black Bulls as the seven dwarves is the one part of this I’m really digging, because it’s hilarious. But I think this one is a hard sell. Noelle has failed to be a victim to any serious threat for more than a few minutes because she’s always surrounded by people who fight tooth and nail for her, and she’s fighting every second to be stronger. Of course, that furthers the “Black bulls = seven dwarves” thing, which is just. So great. Snow White never had to do anything but housework. She doesn’t get stronger because strength was never a part of her equation.

☘️ Vanessa as Rapuzal is eh. She’s a classic princess trapped in a castle, but she’s the second one of those in the series (Charlotte being the other). In both cases, Yami saves them with a strange mix accidental concern and casual heroism. I think this says more about Yami as an accidental prince charming than it does about either of them as Disney princesses.

I haven’t seen Tangled, but from what I’ve gathered, there’s an analogy to be made here between Vanessa and Tangled Rapunzal being trapped by their mothers under the guise of caring for them. Hell yeah, can’t deny that connection! But it’s far from a sign of a fairytale princess. It’s just shitty parenting. Unfortunately, it’s rampant across all cultures, and therefore appears in all forms of media.

Charlotte’s case is, I believe, supposed to be a parody of a “strong independent woman” (which is a big problem I have with how she’s written but that’s a different conversation). There very well could be a specific fairytale that fits Charlotte’s case (Sh. Shrek?) but I think it’s meant to be more of a parody of the false persona she puts out than anything else.

Yami is really the one to look at here, since it’s not a coincidence that he’s rescued TWO of these fairytale-princess-knockoffs over the course of the story, and they both have unrequited crushes on him (although Vanessa’s is mostly for show). While Charlotte is a parody of a strong independent princess, Yami is a parody of Prince Charming. He doesn’t want the role, he didn’t ask for the role, he’s not looking for the role... He’s just doing what he’s doing and if he happens to rescue some ladies in peril, it’s just part of his day of wandering around busting through walls like the Koolaid man. That’s not a jab at Yami’s character. It doesn’t mean that he’s not a hero. Yami’s whole shtick is that you don’t have to be a conventionally handsome dude in a cape with a winning smile to be a hero. That’s the mantra he’s built the Black Bulls around. His whole character is a counterpoint to the traditional hero stereotype with Fuegoleon (and to a lesser degree, Nozel) as the point he’s countering.

Yami and the Black Bulls exist to make the point that there is more than one way to be right, to be strong, to be brave, to be heroic. You don’t have to look, act, think, or feel a certain way to be on the right side of things.

☘️ Okay so Yuno as Peter Pan is the one I’ve really been chomping at the bit to talk about because while I don’t think you’re right, I can’t decide if you’re wrong???

I don’t know what other stories and traditions could influence Bell’s design, so based on what I know, she’s a dead ringer for Tinkerbell. Moving past that.

Yuno as Peter Pan has me WILDING because he’s literally the host for an unborn baby. I don’t know how much harder you can drill in the “Never grow up” theme.

Does it really hold up past that though? I kind of want it to, just because the very premise of Yuno as Licht’s baby screams it so hard. But I don’t think it does.Which is a shame, because it could.

Yuno was a crybaby as a kid, which is a very infantile trait, but when he and Asta made their pact to be the wizard king, he went the opposite direction of “never grow up” and rapidly matured in order to accomplish this dream. We don’t really know how else Yuno may have changed besides “he doesn’t cry anymore”, but from the way he acts and the way he’s treated at the orphanage, it seems to me that a lot was placed on him. And that carries into his magic knight career. Because of his talent and his resolve, he was made to face some very adult problems at a very young age.

Major manga spoilers ahead!

This carries into the current events we’re seeing, too. There is no semblance of “never grow up” in the way that Yuno acts or is being treated as a member of the Golden Dawn. He’s the vice captain at... what, 16? 17? and he’s just found out that he’s also the next heir of a kingdom that he does not call his home-- that’s he’s considered the enemy for his entire career. Then he’s forced to handle the violent deaths of half his squad, the severe injury of the other half, and the kidnapping of his captain, which leaves him in charge. We see him give a big old holler about all this, but I what’s really interesting to me is that he doesn’t cry. The most infantile part of his identity, which he abandoned to get where he is now, does not come back to him in a moment of weakness, at a time where he very much has every write to feel like a helpless child. Whether he wants to or not, Yuno is no longer allowed to be a child, and he will never get the opportunity to be one again.

I guess you could say that this may mean that we’ll see him want to be Peter Pan, that he’ll grow nostalgic for the days where everything was simpler and he had the time to cry, the freedom to be scared and confused and feel sorry for himself. I would love to see that explored in his character, but I really don’t think that we’ll see it happen. In both the meta and the story universe, there’s no time for Yuno to have that breakdown and regression. It wouldn’t fit the pacing and Yuno’s got shit to do. Yuno isn’t Peter Pan. He’s lost the chance to be.

So in conclusion, I can see why a lot of people want to assign fairytale roles to characters in Black Clover, and I do think that the creators play with the concept themselves, but I think to boil any of the Black Clover characters down to a single character or fit them into a single fairytale is a disservice to the characters themselves, and overlooks everything else going on with them. None of the black clover characters are “based” on a fairytale character. Their stories may take inspiration from them, but there is far more going on with each and every one of them to ever take such similarities at face value.

#grey #vanessa enoteca #noelle silva #charlotte roselei #yami sukehiro #yuno #black clover #spinda tea #call me a big fuckin bottle rim glasses wearing pocket protector pointdexter nose in a book nerd #but I really miss writing essays #I would fucking LOVE to do more of these #if anyone wants me to #but no one probably does LOL #bc fairytales

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plush-anon · 4 years

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after many hours spent pausing the show bc good lord why did they do that, i have now finished Love Never Dies

annnnnd yikes 😬😬😬

I’ll start with the few positives I did enjoy from the recorded Australian production on Youtube:

1.) the camera work. This is the kind of thing I dream of for professionally recorded shows - it really allows for some lovely close-up shots of how the emotions play over their faces, it’s lush

2.) the costumes are well-crafted, and I desperately Want the Phantom’s long-ass swooshy trenchcoat cape thing he wore for the first half-hour

3.) the sets used throughout this are honestly very impressively used and put together for some really fantastic shots

4.) the opening, with ‘Til’ I Hear You Sing Once More’. This song is honestly very lovely, and really articulates the Phantom’s loss and heartache for Christine. It’s sung very earnestly, and had the rest of the show been more like this I might have liked it more.

5.) the Fucking Song, ‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’, is a guilty pleasure. It’s so over the top, and it is only about recounting that One Time they totally banged yo, and I love it. I think it’s the orchestration, but it’s also enjoyably silly even while it takes itself 100% serious.

6.) As much as I hate to say this? ‘Devil Take the Hindmost’. While I hate the gist of the song - that being Raoul and Erik betting on who Christine will choose, and pretty much deciding for her who will get to be her one true love forever, completely negating the entire point of the OF musical where her choice was the most important factor for all of them - the pacing and the lyrics as they dance around each other are absolutely fantastic. It’s kind of sad to say, but Raoul and the Phantom, in this scene alone, display more chemistry in their singing than they do with anyone else. Let the hatefcuking commence~

7.) Some parts of ‘The Beauty Underneath’ I enjoy, particularly the ending scene where the Phantom is trying to talk Meg down. It’s very slow, melodic, and shows his more manipulative side, as well as how he can crawl into someone’s head, I love it.

8.) This very interesting visual with a mirror in Christine’s dressing room. There are two separate scenes where someone is in the mirror singing. The first is the Phantom, between Raoul and Christine. The second is Raoul between the Phantom and Christine. It’s honestly a nice touch.

9.) The main three are excellent singers.

Unfortunately, that’s all on the list of what I liked. Everything else is a Giant Fcuking Mess.

1.) The Phantom is no longer a complex, messed-up, but still somewhat sympathetic character, no; this is just a giant asshole who takes everyone for granted and barely realizes that anyone else exists except Christine, and even then only really as his personal instrument.

He never actually apologizes to Christine for the shit he’s put her through and continues to put her through, but still demands obedience and forgiveness and understanding. It completely negates the entire point of POTO’s ending, where he actually realizes he’s done wrong by her and his actions pertaining her, and lets her go from his world entirely, and RESPECTING HER CHOICES AND LEAVING HER ALONE.

Not to mention This Bitch also threatens to kidnap/possible “lose” her child if she doesn’t sing for him, keeps pushing her around and telling her what to do, and manipulating her life to change her decisions for her.

AND HE’S FRAMED AS THE BETTER OPTION HERE

2.) Which reminds of me of the next big asshat: Raoul de Chagny, who has now become an alcoholic gambler who pushes his wife to do things she’s not comfortable doing to repay his debts, neglects his son entirely, and also is abrasive and controlling of Christine, to the point he yanks her back and forth on doing shit. Play this role! We should leave bc he was an asshole! No now we should leave bc Phantom is back! No take the role he’s paying triple! I’ll make a bet on whether she loves me to pay my debts! No wait you should quit ten minutes before you go on-stage bc I don’t want to lose you! MAKE UP YOUR GODDAMN MIND YOU MISERABLE PISSANT SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Like I can understand being overprotective to a certain degree, which could eventually morph into being controlling. But neglecting your son, your wife, drinking and gambling your fortune away? ALL of that?!? Really???

Shouldn’t he be desperate to keep his wife and son close to him at all times after the events of POTO? Never leave, never go anywhere, only do what’s safe? You COULD have set this up as a continuation of Safety versus Freedom with Raoul and the Phantom, show the good and bad of both and have her choose from there. Show the dichotomies and hypocrisies of both men’s standards.

But nope! We’re just totes gonna make the husband like this for no goddamn reason, especially since Raoul doesn’t start suspecting that Gustave (his son) isn’t really his until Devil Take the Hindmost. He’s just that much of an idiot!

3.) The presence of Madame Giry and Meg Giry. Oh gods, where to even begin? They’re pretty much only here so that Sir Andy doesn’t have to make new characters with different backstories and motivations and introduce them accordingly. Nope! Now both women are blaming Christine for leaving the Phantom Man-Baby, and talking about everything they sacrificed to help him make his stupid-ass circus, and talking about how they love him and GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Madame Giry in the POTO musical YOU LED RAOUL DIRECTLY TO THE PHANTOM’S LAIR SO HE COULD RESCUE CHRISTINE WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW SHE BETRAYED HIM

And, oh, Meg... she reaaaaaaaaaaaaally got the short end of the stick here. I just... poor dear, she was horribly treated in this.

Neither of them deserved to be like this, honestly.

4.) Christine, to a lesser extent. Experienced Literal Character Assassination, forced to choose between two horrible options, stripped of her agency entirely, used as a bet in a game between said two horrible options, lied to and dragged around constantly, should have taken Gustave and run off with Meg to run a music store together. Fcuk you Sir Andy, for using POTO characters to act out your bitterness and frustration at your ex.

5.) The entirety of the whole Boardwalk Circus schtick, spawning an additional Fuck You to Frederick Forsythe, who thought this was a tenable option for the story to progress.

6.) The Phantom’s deformity was literally just four lines drawn onto his face with crayon and some smeared lipstick:

what even the fcuk, you couldn’t make the make-up crayon drawing more detailed??? take more than ten minutes to draw it on???

I never thought I would say this, but even the 2004 film’s depiction was better than this! At least that one partially drew from a real medical condition, Sturge-Weber Syndrome. What the fcuk is your excuse LND?!?

7.) The Lyrics. Oh gods, the lyrics. Some songs were decent, mostly the ones I listed up top. But the rest? Did someone forget to give the writer a more advanced/creative guide to rhyming lyrics? I wrote better shit in middle school than Glenn Slater did for the majority of these lyrics.

Glenn my dude, what the fcuk is this nonsense? You’ve written good shit like the Tangled songs and stuff for Galavant! Why are you writing worse than an angst-ridden middle schooler? It is immensely frustrating, to say the least.

8.) The really WEIRD direction in acting. No one here acts like they know how to move their arms or hands naturally; there’s a lot of really odd and unnecessary gesturing that makes it look like everyone has just had their limbs replaced with faulty robotic arms. There’s also a lot of leaning the characters do, with their arms perfectly straight by their side and it just looks wrong.

9.) The Phantom’s pseudonym is Mr. Y. No, they never explain why it is he chose that particular moniker.

10.) Bathing Beauty. Just... all of it, here, tied to POTO, present and here.

11.) It’s been exactly 10 years since Christine saw/banged the Phantom, and her son is precisely 10 years old.

That’s... not how pregnancy works. At all.

12.) This weird scene with the American press, where they are absolutely obsessed with Christine, despite the facts they present, such as:

- She hasn’t performed in 10 years anywhere.

- She was a French performer, and

- She only starred in three operas at the Populaire (Hannibal, Il Muto, and Don Juan Triumphant, which wasn’t even finished. So technically 2.2 operas that we know of).

Why, precisely, would American reporters be so obsessed with her upon hearing she’s coming? I could see some interest given the whole shebang with the Phantom, but after 10 years of radio silence, would she really garner an entire crowd of reporters and photographers... in America, no less?

France I could definitely see. America? Not so much.

13.) Gustave is a flat, generic kid character, who apparently is totes the Phantom’s son because... he can play the piano well. And also has the same ideas of music as the Phantom, despite never being taught about them, or discussed such things with his mother.

Is musical talent only inherited through the father’s side of the family in this universe? I mean, we never learn about Christine’s mother, just her famous violinist father. Otherwise, why is it Gustave’s musical talent isn’t attributed to - oh, I don’t know - HIS FAMOUS OPERA SINGER MOTHER?!?

14.) Apparently the Phantom is also now the one who invented cars OH I MEAN “horseless carriages” 🙄 A carriage with no engine and a “ghost horse” appears, and everyone is just fcuking stunned by this, like they’ve never seen a vehicle move without a horse before. In 1907. 22 years after the first functional automobile was invented. Ugh.

15.) seriously tho who thought basing a sequel on the Frederick Forsythe novel was a good idea why did nobody think to stop him apart from Sir Andy’s pet cat Otto. why.

16) The Phantom’s interactions with Gustave are distinctly creepy and unsettling. I keep getting pedo vibes from him and I Do Not Like It.

17.) The death scene at the end is so goddamn over-the-top and out of nowhere I just want to throw something, ugh

18.) And finally, my last gripe with this mess: This takes place in 1907, and declares that it’s ten years after the original musical. Despite the fact that the OG took place in 1885. Yippy skippy. 😑

I can honestly say I am Not a Fan of this musical as a whole, mostly based on the plot and the character assassinations (one quite literal) and the poor lyrics. I can admire the camera work, the basic singing ability, the scenery and costumes, and maybe two or three songs. But I just do not enjoy it. It took me two days to finish watching it because I kept cringing from what shit kept happening, and had to walk around and listen to other shit to get it out of my head.

HOWEVER: People do enjoy this one on the sake of it being so bad and over-the-top, and I can honestly see the whys. It helps that most of the cast can sing, and the orchestration is done well. There’s a TON of stupid to mock, and a lot of over-the-top awkwardness to laugh at. This is a good one to watch and mock with friends, IMO.

For those of you who do enjoy it, I’m afraid I have to disagree on most of it. Still, it is nice being able to watch this one for free, even if it is a giant hot mess.

And that’s all for me on this one! Have a good week guys!

#plush reviews: final thoughts #lnd #love never dies #poto #musicals #this was an ordeal and a half i tells ya

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ironforgedrp · 4 years

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♛ LYSARA SEAWORTH

↳ details; female, twenty-five, ↳ date of birth; 20th november, 480ac

↳ status; heterosexual, unmarried, no children. ↳ faceclaim; ana de armas ↳ hails from; sea dragon point, the north ↳ loyalty; house seaworth of sea dragon point & house stark.

↳ title; ruling lady of sea dragon point. ↳ religion; the old gods of the forest. ↳ spoken languages; common tongue. ↳ reason for being in sunspear; attending with the north.

♛ PERSONALITY

↳ type; enfj-a (the protagonist). ↳ alignment; neutral good. ↳ star sign; scorpio. ↳ positives; apt, munificent, sanguine, audacious, dexterous. ↳ negatives; chary, unforthcoming, impatient, guileful, covetous, vengeful.

♛ BIOGRAPHY

↳ family lineage.

the origin of house seaworth tracks back to flea bottom, the poorest slum in king’s landing, and the birthplace of davos seaworth. davos seaworth was not destined for the district he hailed from, but much greater, as he would prove in the years to come, continuously advancing and making more and more of a name for himself and the family that would follow. starting off he was davos of flea bottom, whom ran with orphans and beggars, but later became davos the smuggler, received by merchants and lords. though not an honest living, he near made enough to do the wife he married, the three sons they bore, and himself good for years to come. just one last smuggle was all he needed when the storm lord, robert baratheon, revolted against the iron throne, the seas filled with blockades and pirates paid by each side to prey on the other. the war would ruin him, so he knew, but it was the thought of stannis and a small guard holding storm’s end against mace tyrell’s march, that would further him again. to prevent famine he snuck onions and salt beef past the tyrell galleys. once aerys fell and the siege was lifted by lord stark, he was granted a knighthood, keep of his own, and his sons taken into stannis’ personal service for his salvation of storm’s end. from davos of flea bottom, to davos the smuggler, and finally ser davos of house seaworth.

ser davos followed stannis in his pursuit to claim the throne until his death and then joined an alliance with jon snow. his pledged allegiance in the north led him to lose cape wrath and obtain northern lands at sea dragon point by the wolfswood in their replacement. the battle of blackwater bay took four of his sons lives leaving him with only devan, stannis and steffon once all war seized. ser davos would make a tradition for his remaining sons to travel east to see the wonders of the world, learn of the different cultures, religions, and trade routes to be educated and experienced with the world that made up their everyday lives. the tradition would carry on through upcoming generations.

when davos would pass, devan took over in his father’s place as ruling lord of house seaworth, and then his eldest son, and his. three generations later, in 470 bc, the sun of the north join the sea, ruling lord maric ii seaworth marry alysa karstark, second eldest of three daughters to the ruling lord of house karstark. maric and alysa would struggle for near eleven years to consummate before she finally gave birth to a blue-eyed, blonde-haired baby, their first and last. many would whisper about the baby’s hair, light as day, when her father’s matched that of salt and pepper and her mother’s black as night. she had her mother’s eyes and fair skin, but the remaining of her features . . unknown. lysara would also break a tradition of firstborn males for the seaworth family, but she would prove to be just as intelligent and strong as the many, leaving her father not the least bit displeased or wary, in his heart he knew the girl was his and even if any doubt raised, he would love her the same. woefully, precariousness would carry rumors of the girl’s “true father” from ear to ear as the days, months and years would pass.

as a young girl she grew up picking up new lessons and skills swiftly. whether it had been from the teachings of the maester, the embroidering of her mother, or the swordplay of her father. though, nothing quite suited her and led her to excel like learning of the world’s history. the idea of the world once being solely made up of children of the forests, giants, dragons, and so much more amazed her. many years of her life were devoted to learning of westeros and how it came to be, but it was essos that excited her. there, a land comprised of the free cities, the dothraki sea, the jungles of yi ti, and the thousand isles claimed to have hairless green people that pray to fish-headed gods; all the imagination and tales, she couldn’t get enough of.

what fascinated lysara and what she wanted for herself were at odds. everyone would tell her that what she wanted was to further their house, better it and heighten it, just as ser davos did. it got to the point where she believed that what everyone was telling her repeatedly, was really what she wanted. she would tell herself that she wanted to make house seaworth a great house like the stark’s or the targaryen’s. deep down, however, she would think to herself how ser davos sailed the seas and met pirates and people known to other worlds, exploring regions he would have never dreamed of. the sea carried him in his ventures, always, giving him a name, his family a name, and so much more. she wondered what the sea could do for her and if that was her true calling, to get out and explore.

lysara’s dreams tittered only in the slightest as she grew older. she spent many of her days praying for her family’s steady success by the weirwood circles that made up the highest hills of sea dragon point. but still, she would play in the many hidden coves and pine forests while the men built ships, and she would imagine sea dragons filling the entirety of and rising from the neighboring sea, taking her away. if daenerys could have dragons, then why couldn’t she?

she was always one for make belief and thrill, yet it wasn’t until her seventeenth name day that she would bring up and beg her father, maric ii, to allow her to go on the traditional voyage to essos to even capture a glimpse of the part of herself that screamed to be recognized. lysara figured if she spent only a few years away, that it would be enough for her to get the way intended for her and the way she truly wanted. her father was still young, after all, he had many years ahead of him, giving her plenty of time to venture out and come home to catch up. he sent his most trusted man with his daughter to keep her safe and out of trouble.

they began lysara’s trip to essos in braavos, there she would learn of the history of escaped slaves who went on to find the many bijou islands that formed the one, and adapted it into the wealthiest and most powerful of the free cities. she would take with her the memories of beautiful music, charcoal grey and purple dresses, and the ability to water dance. from braavos they would travel to pentos and end in lys, where she tasted fine red and white wines and learned some basic skill in creating draft and concoctions. in lys she would also witness slavery causing her to feel sympathy for the many and fueling her disappointment in the world, leading her to give more credit to where her family stood today.

when they ventured home she was about the age of twenty. a raven was sent to her while away stating that her father had grown ill, from what, no one had known, and his time was becoming short. he ended up passing days before lysara returned to seadragon point. lysara got on the boat, leaving home a little girl who fantasized immensely and had goals bigger than she was, but she got off the boat a ruling lady, with only the mere longing to make her father proud by keeping her house intact after spending many years away and unknowing of what was becoming of westeros. not the least bit prepared to take on the responsibility entailed and for the loudening of doubts from the people that did not believe she was rightfully intended to take over for the house, as they thought her illegitimate. a doubt she never had thanks to her mother and father always assuring her, but a doubt that left her prudent now.

↳ personality.

lysara was always a bright girl, thanks to her lessons, but she was also quite the idealist. her parents would watch on from the cliffs, as she ran along the ice-covered sands, around the men at work, wary that lysara would allow for her daydreaming to get the best of her. fortunately her daydreaming would only lead her to inquire what was accustom for the seaworths and the adventure she was able to pertain would lead to a perspective more pragmatic.

lysara has always been a generous spirit, putting others before herself and giving to those who had less. she has spent many of her days thinking about how she could make the world a better home for the lesser fortunate from her place of power. she would never fail to forget that her family started off in the slums and by luck, they became lords and ladies. not everyone was able to follow the same path as the seaworths.

though, now that she has lost her father, her closest companion, and has returned to a home she has parted from for so long, she is struggling to maintain the same views and confidence she once possessed. she understands that she needs to be a leader and to be a leader you must set a good example, be driven and accountable, but she questions if she had what it takes. when she saw slavery in lys, it was much different than just hearing about it, was that how it would be being in charge and having to be lawful? would she constantly be left in an eerie, troubled frame of mind that would ruin her innocence and turn her somber?

↳ the splitting of the kingdoms.

lysara is skeptical that history may repeat itself and that this time her house may not end up on the right side. the idea of the north being one of the few to stay devoted and not branch off leaves her perplexed considering the history of the lannisters. aye, they always pay their debt and they have been known to look after their supporters, but not without the uproar of chaos first. they had been proving themselves in most recent events, at least. she has no trust nor faith in anyone, but house stark, and will lead her house to follow in their steps and by their decisions. she is hopeful for the summit. at least they meet in the land of warm weathers and silks, she think, attempting to find bliss in a desolate time. she also hopes to offer her house to assist in trade considering the boats, docks and goods they worked on building and obtaining throughout her first few years as ruling lady.

♛ STATUS: TAKEN.

#house seaworth.#The North.#North.#taken.#taken female.#female.#ana de armas fc #tay.

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allsassnoclass · 4 years

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You’re right about the kid Dimitri thing it’s a cute element of the movie that adds to their relationship and also dimitris search bc he’s looking for the girl he saved. See I have an attachment to Rasputin&the bat which is half my issue but you’re right about the new guy just. Not being dangerous enough for it to work in the musical. Also pls go off about Newsies I wanna hear about that one

okay this is going under a read more because it inevitably will get very very long. also spoilers for newsies (1992 movie and musical) below:

first of all a disclaimer: I do like the musical and this isn’t me saying that they didn’t improve anything (Crutchy/Crutchie, actually developing their token female (although I do have thoughts about that as well), what they did with “Once and for All” etc.) but I was a fan of the 1992 movie first so my loyalties lie there. Also this is all just my opinion

First and foremost: all characters except for Jack, Medda, Crutchie, and Pultizer were done dirty. The background characters were my favorite part of the movie and the musical really dropped the ball with them, often at the sacrifice of historical accuracy

Mush Meyers, Boots, Kid Blink, Racetrack Higgins, and Spot Conlon were all real people actually involved in the strike (Kid Blink was historically the leader, they created Jack Kelly to have more freedom with characterization), and all of these characters were taken out of the musical or given lesser roles. They also (along with Crutchy) create the supporting cast (with Jack, Denton, David, and Les being the main cast), which means I was emotionally attached to all of these people and then they were taken away from me :( It’s clear that the people adapting the musical did not think they were important enough to keep consistent, which is just false

In general, because they spend so much time focusing on Jack and Katherine, all of the background newsies are less developed, which means that the Found Family vibes are also slightly less developed (especially when taking away the lodging house/newsies square as a definitive home base and Kloppman as a father/grandfather figure)

seriously I miss Kloppman that dude woke them up every morning, helped them with their spelling, lied to Snyder’s face about Jack’s whereabouts... MVP right there

Racetrack and Spot were done the most dirty (because the others don’t even exist). Allow me to explain: In the movie and in real life, Racetrack got his name because he sells at Sheepshead Races and bets on the horses there (the betting is more of a reoccurring thing in the movie). Therefore, in “King of New York,” he is the character to wish for “a permanent spot at Sheepshead Races,” and for absolutely no reason (besides laziness) they have someone else say that in the musical and also cut half his name??? He also is shown to be very good with kids (David telling him to watch Les when he goes after Jack, all of his interactions with Snipeshooter), and there’s an interesting thing to be said about how Wiesel will spot him papers. All of this is lost simply because they don’t have the stage time for the background newsies

SPOT CONLON! WAS RUINED! perhaps that’s a very strong opinion but they really did him dirty. In the movie he’s a shrimp with the aura of a mob boss. he wasn’t buff, and that made him more intimidating because he still somehow was arguably the most powerful newsie! also by cutting out the scene where Jack, David, and Boots go to Brooklyn to see him, we miss seeing him as a true leader and getting an actual introduction to him and how the newsies of different boroughs interact. I miss his slingshot and his pimp cane. I miss David calling him the key to the strike. I miss him showing up earlier than the second act so it actually makes sense for him to be seen as the strike leader that the musical is so desperate to make him (seriously what’s the point of him being in Pulitzer’s office at the end???). also by introducing him later we miss all of the sprace moments :(

I even have some beef with Katherine because, although she’s much more developed as a love interest than Sarah (rip Sarah 1992 maybe if they had actually kept her song Truth About the Moon in there...), I think it was cheap and unnecessary to make her Pulitzer’s daughter, and she doesn’t really have much of a personality outside of Strong Independent Woman who still somehow needs a man in order to get her big break. She was really written as a Token Female and while I love her and I appreciate that she wants agency and to fight for a cause, Sarah punching a Delancey brother was more feminist. Also, even David’s role in the story was lessened in order to give room for Katherine’s whole subplot and Dramatic Family Reveal and as an avid Javid shipper that made me sad :(

Now on to more plot-focused concerns!

The! Betrayal! Scene! The movie betrayal scene! So much better! Allow me to explain!

First of all, Jack just waltzing into Pulitzer’s office and getting captured? boring. cheap. Snyder and the police infiltrating the rally so we get to see Every Single Newsie try so desperately to keep Jack safe and yet he (and all the named newsies) still get captured? Heartbreaking! Engaging! Shows plainly the bond of the newsies!

(also allowed us to have the “on the grounds of Brooklyn, your honor” line at the trial)

The one-on-one confrontation between Jack and Pulitzer is much more engaging and more of a game of wits in my opinion. You don’t feel like Jack is the underdog and won’t win until Pulitzer directly threatens David, whereas having all of Pulitzer’s friends there in the musical means Jack is automatically going to lose and you don’t even get a chance to cheer for him

The Alley Scene!!!!

Then the actual betrayal scene, with Jack fully dressed like a scab. every single newsie feeling personally hurt and calling out to Jack, spot having to be forcibly pulled back by multiple people, and then David gets the chance to speak and nearly starts a fist fight when he was the one who always said they couldn’t beat up the scabs… “I ain’t got nobody tucking me in at night, like you. It’s just me, and I gotta look out for myself” “you had the newsies!”

I quote that scene so much y’all

I miss Jack meeting David’s whole family. It really shows what Jack himself is missing and longing for, it more blatantly shows David’s Jewishness, and makes Jack finding a family with David and the newsies that much sweeter at the end. I also liked how a nuclear family was something no movie newsies had (less historically accurate, I know) because I think that bonded them together more, because they genuinely only had each other in the movie (can you tell that found family is extremely important to me)

Jack’s background story. him lying about his name and then it all getting revealed at the trial was a very spicy moment, and I think it shows just how much he relied on Santa Fe as an escape for him. He’s created an entire other life in his imagination for himself, going so far as to change his name and fantasize about having a family, and I think that that makes his decision to stay in New York and accept both his reality and the newsies as his family sweeter

also in the musical it’s implied that Jack stole food and clothing for the kids in the refuge, and that’s how he got himself arrested the first time. I almost like it better if he was stealing for himself at first, because I like having a protagonist who doesn’t need to always be completely altruistic like he was starving and he stole some food and I think that’s justified, so I don’t like how they felt the need to turn him into some sort of saint who was stealing for someone else (that’s a really nitpicky thing but!)

The absolutely bonkers commitment to nicknames in the movie was very spicy. I think Jake (and Jack, who was lying, and David and Les, who started as outsiders) was the only one with a name and he was even a very deep background newsie. Wasn’t historically accurate but it sure created a lot of possibilities about the power of names that could be exploited in fanfiction

And now some nitpicky things about elements of a musical that bothered me:

they took away the upper harmonies in carrying the banner???? why would you do that you have Broadway singers and you take away the upper harmony???

switching Jack’s line of “I want space not just air” to “I need space and fresh air” idk I think the first one more fully portrays how trapped he feels in New York and in his situation also it’s more poetic

I’ve already talked about Race’s line in King of New York :)

how all of the newsies are supposed to be kids but instead were played by adults... I know this was because of child labor laws but that’s why newsies is going to be best done as a high school musical (or a combined middle school/high school like my school was... Mr. Holsen when you retire put in a good word for me so I can take over). if you don’t have at least 3 newsies who are small and young enough to be lifted onto another newsie’s shoulders then you’re doing it wrong

this is very much a personal preference but I really liked how the color pallet in the movie was a lot of browns and earth tones. with the musical doing a lot of steel and blues it definitely feels like the progression into the mechanical age but it also feels colder and more rigid and I liked the warmth of the movie.

In a similar vein that is also a very personal preference, I liked how the singing and dancing was a bit rougher around the edges in the movie. I’m a dancer so Of Course I love the Broadway choreo but it feels too polished sometimes. these are young scrappy kids and they’re dancing like professionals who went to julliard (which like. some of them probably did). the scruffiness of the movie makes it feel more down to earth and swallowable for me

Jack’s cowboy hat :( Jack’s costume in general :( his nickname is cowboy and they took away his cowboy hat and red bandana :(

This is obnoxiously long but I just. y’all I have so many feelings about newsies and everyone always talks about the musical when they’re really two different stories and I just want to talk about the movie so thank you for indulging me

#ask #pixiegrl

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e-one-seven · 5 years

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Warning: this post is long. If you are interested on my theories on DST lore you can click on “Keep reading” below. If you don’t you can skip it. This whole post is the ultimate evidence that studying Foreign Literature at university was a really bad idea as now I see hidden subtexts everywhere! And having had some years to work on this theory didn't help either... I will be happy to see it crushed by Klei guys themselves with the release of the actual lore in a few weeks, because they are up to something big and I'm ready to have my mind blown!

I think it's time for me to confess a little Don't Starve Together headcanon of mine I never really revealed to anyone until now: I seriously think that Wilson might be Charlie and Winona's younger brother, or at least a younger half-brother. I am not saying this just because their haircuts bear some similarities. There are some serious clues in game leading to that direction, and I found basically no counterarguments strong enough to deny the theory. I don’t know if these are funny coincidences or not, but they were enough to fill more than four Words pages and I am not one to believe in coincidences.

So the evidences I gathered could be summed up like this:

Charlie and Wilson act like they know each other in A New Reign Cinematic; she is the Night Monster, so of course they know each other! However, why did she choose to set him free revealing her true form despite her wanting to hide it and why did she let Wilson live to tell the tale?

It is confirmed that Charlie has one sister, but there might be other siblings or family members no one mentioned yet. And thanks to the information released by Klei it is possible to confirm that Wilson is young enough to possibly be Charlie and Winona's brother;

There are clues that Winona might be born into a rich family she estranged herself from because of her lifestyle (and possibly guilt for Charlie's supposed demise); the same applies to Wilson too, though the reasons of his estrangement are not clear;

We still have no way to know exactly where all these characters are from exactly, but it is implied that Winona traveled through all the USA and that Wilson at least completed his education in the USA.

It is confirmed that Wilson is a European immigrant; if we take Charlie’s Rose species name in account, her and Winona could possibly be of Anglo-Irish descent.

Wilson and Shadow Charlie share a similar haircut (and so does Winona to a lesser extend); Winona and Charlie's face structure is similar and it looks totally different from Wilson's, but there is an example in game that blood relatives could not look like each other at all (Maxwell and Wendy).

Wilson's new darkness quote is very similar to one of Maxwell's quotes about Abigail.

Wilson seems to have personality traits and interests in common with both Charlie and Winona;

We were told that Winona went to the Constant to save someone: despite their relationships being known, Charlie and Robert Wagstaff might not be the person she was looking for, at least according to her original character quotes.

The explanations and the results of some researches I made to confirm or deny my theory are better expressed below divided in four parts.

1) A New Reign Cinematic

This less than two minutes cinematic is mute like almost every Don't Starve related animation, but it's so full of emotion it's simply beautiful. And it is the only time we can see Charlie being herself before becoming the Shadow Queen, so I watched it again and again, even slowed down so I could fully enjoy every seconds of it (and a lot of DST fellow fans out there probably did too).

I have to admit that I always had the impression that Charlie booped Wilson's nose before setting him free, and that was for sure a factor in developing this theory as you boop your boyfriend or your little brother's nose, not a unknown person you just met. But Wilson being Charlie's brother would explain why she chose to set him free in the first place: before Wilson there was Maxwell, and despite all the powers he gained by being the Shadow King him being trapped on the Throne was still a torture. Wilson did not want to become the new King and so he was desperately fighting against Them and their corruption. Charlie hates to be seen, yet she chose to reveal herself to Wilson and she became the new Queen to prevent him to become like herself and Maxwell and this is a thing that every good big sister would do for their little brother. Furthermore, Charlie had to muster some serious self-control before doing that stunt because I am seriously convinced that any other character in Wilson's place would have died there and then. Charlie was smiling at the beginning of the cinematic, but her eyebrows betrayed her being extremely worried too. When Wilson is not in the Throne Room anymore she is much more relaxed, because she did what she came for and Wilson survived: it doesn't matter what will become of her from then on, and maybe that factor made the fusion with her Shadow self possible.

And about Maxwell, I think that dragging her theoretical little brother in that hellish world where Charlie herself could be the cause of his death would be a more than valid reason for Charlie to hate Maxwell's guts even more than she did before. That could be the reason why Maxwell’s death caused by Darkness is listed as "Charlie" instead. I checked it, despite Winona is canonically able to recognize Charlie as the Darkness like Maxwell, her death cause is still listed as "Darkness". But it is impossible to tell if it is a developers' oversight.

2) What we know about their backgrounds

Digging into the William Carter Puzzles Charlie's ad requisition caught my curiosity. It says "should have a curious demeanor and a keen interest in the mysteries of the universe." This description could fit Wilson too. We know next to nothing about who Charlie used to be before she became the Night Monster, aside that she was William Carter's assistant and she cared a lot about him. In her letters Charlie mentions only one sister, Winona, because she frequently visited her (or, more likely, they lived together when she was not working with Maxwell). But frequent visits to her sister don't exclude the possibility of other relatives or siblings existing somewhere else. This happened in 1905 and Charlie disappeared the following year, exactly fifteen years before the events of Don't Starve in 1921. Charlie and Winona were young adults and they probably moved away from their family. According to Charlie's last letter her family owned a cabin used as holiday house in BC, implying that Charlie and Winona's birth family was been rich enough to afford a holiday house in the first place.

BC commonly stands for "British Columbia" in Canada, a popular place for a family to have a holiday cabin nowadays. But it can also stand for Bay City, Michigan. Bay City is located near Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron, so it could be a possible place to locate a holiday cabin for the family. For some bonus points, Bay City merged with West Bay City in 1905; West Bay City was created in 1877 from the union of the villages of Banks, Salzburgh and Wenona. Wenona is an alternative spelling of the name "Winona": if the Bay City theory is correct she might have been born during a time where the old name of the area could have been still used by population and her parents might have liked it enough to name their first daughter like the old village. I wanted to see if BC could have another meaning and that was the result. But it might be just a funny coincidence.

Back to the job question, Charlie actually replied for an application that actually has not a great paycheck (during that time most performers were barely able to sustain themselves and Maxwell himself got some debts during his first years) and that required a cultured person who knew how to appear in front of an audience: during that time having an education was still a luxury for wealthy families and same goes with clothes dapper enough to look good by Maxwell's side. Her Shadow Queen's form fancy dress seems to confirm this theory. So the only real reason she could need to work is her living really far away from her family and that required her to look for any kind of job to be able to survive for the long run.

What do we know about Wilson? As he is in his 30s in 1921, he was a likely teenager in 1906, and as Klei recently said, "maybe a European USA Immigrant? We never really picked a home land for him." Thinking about this last statement, we can say that during that time that description could fit basically most of the American population back in the 1920s. They actually said nothing. BUT, in 2014, a fan posted on Tumblr another message from Klei that gives us some interesting information: these are the evidences that despite it all it might be legit:

I checked on DS and DST credits, there really is a Jan Hatchings.

The first thing Jan says is that Klei prefers to be the fan finding out about the past of the characters exploring the game: a nice way to say they are not allowed to spill too many beans. (I want the character updates and the new characters! I want to know what they are hiding!)

He confirmed some information we already knew (Wilson being in his 30s, the game being set in early 1920s) adding that he was living in New England at the time of the trailer: New England is the Northeastern area of the United States, it is bordered with Canada, three of the most important colleges of the United States are there (Yale, Harvard and the MIT) and there are a lot of woods. The perfect area for a lonesome scientist to live in.

He mentions his family not wanting to talk to him;

Jan invites the person who originally shared the message to join the official forum.

So Wilson most likely completed his instruction in the United States or he sought affiliation with American colleges, and that would be weird for a person who grew up in the United Kingdom, as he would be already close to some of the most prestigious and oldest colleges and academic associations in the world. That's why I think the "immigration" part might mean that he was born into a British family immigrated in the US and he actually grew up in the United States (and maybe not even Klei knows if Wilson's family moved in before or after he was born). As he had a nanny as a kid and, as already pointed out, college education was something that only wealthy families could afford back then, we can assume Wilson was born into a rich family that for some reason moved to America.

Like BC, New England area is pretty popular for its holiday cabins so it makes sense for Wilson to have lived into one of them. He was isolated, yet possibly close to a scientific center of interest like a university. Even if he bought the house or someone else did it for him, for sure Wilson needed some money to live in there and being a Gentleman Scientist is a risky profession for a safe paycheck. Quoting Wikipedia:

"An independent scientist (modern gender-neutral term historically also known as gentleman scientist) is a financially independent scientist who pursues scientific study without direct affiliation to a public institution such as a university or government-run research and development body. [...] Most independent scientists have at some point in their career been affiliated with some academic institution, such as Charles Darwin, who was affiliated with the Geological Society of London. [...] Self-funding has the disadvantage that funds may be more restricted; [...] It also permits the scientist to have greater control over research directions, as funding bodies direct grants towards interests that may not coincide with that of the scientist. [...] Scientists may choose to work on unusual projects with high risk of failure also when the grant system does not fund them. A scientist could be attributed the status of independent scientist if they work on such projects during a gap between two academic positions, for example."

So Wilson being a Gentleman Scientist means that he was the one and only person who worked on his own projects with no external funds from government and scientific institutions. If his research failed he could have ended in some serious economic trouble. He might have had some help from universities, but that could have not be enough. But it makes sense for Wilson being a Gentleman Scientist if his parents died and he inherited their money or a part of it. That would make him economically independent enough to perform his experiments with no considerable help.

But then, if his parents are presumably dead, who is the family who doesn't want to speak to him? It would be easy to say that his extended family thinks him to be a mad scientist and decided they don't want to have nothing to do with him. But this doesn't deny the theory "Wilson is Charlie's brother": if we take this theory in account, his only currently known immediate family members are Charlie and Winona. Charlie was presumed dead in 1906, while Winona probably got estranged from her parents because of her lifestyle and maybe even accused to have caused her sister's death. Even if their parents are dead, why Winona should think that her brother would be different? To her he is just a spoiled child who attended a fancy university and that probably spends all the day talking nonsense with other eggheads. Also her constant moving through the country will make keep contacts really difficult, so she simply didn't. Sadly a lot of people do it for even pettier reasons.

And, for some bonus point, Wickerbottom recognizes Charlie's Rose as a "Rosa Macdub", or a "Dublin Bay climbing rose". A rich Irish family immigrating from a country where uprisings were a Tuesday for at least one century would make sense. And it would not even directly conflict with the theory as the richest families residing in Ireland were of English descent and all Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom until 1919. So despite Wilson being a perfect "British gentleman" kind of character, the possibility of Charlie and Winona being Irish or Anglo-Irish descent doesn't deny the theory. But I don't know if this could count as a clue about Charlie's family origin as the Dublin Bay climbing rose was actually bred for the first time in 1975 in New Zealand, with peculiar characteristics and resistance that make me think that they might be the reason for it to be chosen as Charlie’s symbol despite its anachronism. And just because of this the thing that concerns me more about this rose is not the possible reference to Charlie's birthplace, but an explanation of how Wickerbottom is able to recognize a flower from 1975 without knowing what is a license plate!

3) The similarities between the characters in game

One of the things most evident in the cinematic was that Wilson and Charlie shared a similar haircut and hairline. Haircuts are not hereditary, but unmodified hairlines and hair textures are. Winona looks a lot like Charlie, but she doesn't resemble Wilson at all except their being two light skinned people with dark hair and solid black eyes in game. Also, Winona seems to have a different hairline than Wilson and Charlie when uncovered (except in the Gorge's vignette where she sports a small widow's peak), but the hairstyle is still similar to theirs, with only one "point" out of three. However, there are even deeper similarities between these characters: Charlie is the "bookworm" sister, interested in the "mysteries of the universe"; Winona hates books and prefers to work on her mechanical creations with a trial-and-error approach. And then there is Wilson, who sits perfectly in between these mindsets. That was one of the reasons why at first I was shocked by Winona when she was released: when I already suspected that Wilson and Charlie might be related it is revealed that Charlie's sister is a work-alcoholic engineer with a weird haircut and basically a female Wilson with a tape and the ability to dodge. (Piccolo approves.) Their similarities could be attributed to lazy developers, but what if that was actually a clue of them being actually related? Also, it is implied that Winona was grown up in a estranged wealthy family and it is confirmed that she dislikes fancy things and formalities: the same could be said about Wilson! Seriously, there are too many coincidences to be a random chance. (And that, ladies and gentlemen was the point where the theory became a full fledged headcanon. But I am not related to Klei in any way, so this is still the theory of a deluded fan that loves to make theories and Klei will destroy it in a few days with the new lore.)

And what about avoiding Charlie? Well, this could have a pretty simple explanation, reflected by their body shapes: Winona spent the last fifteen years of her life enduring all the kinds of manual jobs, so she actually gained some muscle mass and speed movement that she uses in game to avoid the attacks of her beloved sister. Not to mention that she seems to be closer to Charlie's age than Wilson is, so probably they spent some time playing together as kids (and probably back then Winona was the one winning the fight game). Wilson is more of a couch potato and according to the official timeline he is some years younger than Charlie and Winona. In case we take the theory "Wilson is Charlie's brother" in account, it means Wilson could not play with his older sisters like they used to do when they were younger and this causes him to be unable to dodge Charlie's attacks even if now he knows who is attacking him.

Another interesting possible clue is the new sentence Wilson says in DST when he is attacked by Charlie: "That presence... it's familiar! Hello?". Sure, he finally met her so he can recognize her presence... but the choice of words bears some uncanny resemblance to another quote from another character: "Hm? What a familiar presence." But maybe it's just another coincidence that this is almost the inversion of the words order of the sentence of a certain uncle recognizing the flower of his dead niece. Or I'm so into this theory that I'm seeing clues everywhere.

And for some more bonus point, look at Maxwell and Wendy in game: unless you know Don't Starve lore all you could say about them after looking at their designs and reading their quotes is "are these two guys in the same Shakespeare emo fanclub?" Their quotes have a similar dramatic tone, but there is almost nothing that suggests an actual family relationship between them. They don't even look anything alike!

4) The identity of the person Winona was trying to save

We were told from the beginning that Winona went into the Constant on her own because she wanted to save someone. We were also informed that she is Charlie's sister and she used to work for the Voxola Radio Company, so Charlie and Robert Wagstaff seem to be the only possible options as the person she was trying to save. Or aren't they?

As for Charlie, she disappeared in 1906 during a huge disaster that caused a lot of victims (the event overlaps with San Francisco's earthquake in 1906), and Winona came into the Constant fifteen years later. Probably on Earth Charlie was presumed dead and Winona went with it, as her quote of the Tragedy Marble Statue suggests ("We thought she was gone"). She grieved her but then she went on with her life. In 1919 she started to work for Wagstaff's Voxola until it burned down. However, unusually for a character who is supposed to be canonically playable only in the multiplayer version of the game, Winona has Adventure Mode related quotes that even got modified at some point. According to her original Adventure Mode quotes we can understand that she was actually shocked to find out that Maxwell's plots were behind Voxola's fire and Wagstaff's disappearance. Then Robert Wagstaff might not be the person Winona was looking for. Two years or more pass by and Winona joins the fun in the Constant, yet she never mentions her looking for someone, meaning that she already found the one person she was looking for. If this person is not Charlie or Wagstaff, who could they be? Wilson not only could be a valid answer, but if she knew where he lived and she found the Maxwell's Door inside his house she even had the mean to reach the Constant with no help at all!

But if they are estranged how did she know Wilson went missing? Well, some newspapers or radio transmissions might have announced his sudden disappearance, or the police went look for Winona because she might be the only family he has left. And the news did not leave her indifferent, so she went to his place looking for clues and found out about the Maxwell's Door. And for some bonus points, if Wilson left some notes behind (and he probably did as he used the typewriter when he was creating the portal during the cinematic!) she might have recognized something Charlie could have told her about fifteen years before that convinced her that Wilson was in trouble. So she activated the door. We know how it went.

#dont starve #dont starve wilson #dont starve charlie #dont starve winona #lore #headcanon #i need help #i need lore #why in heck did i check everything i could think of to confirm or deny this #because i need another hobby #I don't even know if it is intelligible #this is not canon #but includes real canon information

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bronzekenji · 6 years

Text

Bertrand has some thoughts

A thing idk

Hints of a less perfect Unity Tour than TRR suggests bc lets be real, if Riley’s marrying anyone other than Liam then everyone’s in it for the hot goss lmao it’d be like if Kate Middleton in the run up to her marriage to Wills decided to marry some lesser noble also this gets me right, everyone’s obsessed with Harry and William’s respective marriages but that’s IT their cousin Eugenie or Beatrice i dont remember got engaged around the same time as Harry and no one gives a shit lmao anyway that’s my rant about TRR unrealism over

Enjoy a hopefully cute thing about Bertrand’s reflections on Riley and Maxwell

MaxwellxRiley

“Maxwell Beaumont and Riley Jackson engaged?” was the heading emblazoned on the Cordonian Mail, followed by a lengthy article about how… strange it was. Speculation that, of course, an affair had started whilst Riley was courting the then-Prince Liam, that this was an effort to renovate the status of House Beaumont, that it was Maxwell Beaumont, someone who could not possibly be taken seriously as a Courtesan. Right?

It of course meant nothing to the pair in question, who Bertrand watched in quiet befuddlement. Looking at them now, he was surprised he had missed the signs. It was obvious that Maxwell was smitten and Bertrand actually felt guilty for being one of the reasons Maxwell had been so… hurt over the last months. It hadn’t been obvious but a brother knew. But he had not even thought to ask if he was okay. But it was better now, Max’s smile all the more authentic and… Bertrand was hit again by the crushing guilt. He had spent the last months pursuing this agenda, where Riley would marry Prince Liam and restore House Beaumont to greatness, and surely it had been that which pushed Riley to doing… exactly that. Pursuing him though her heart wasn’t in it, spending every spare moment with Maxwell whilst being unable to do anything. And Maxwell, going out of his way to make sure Riley could spend time with Liam, find a dress to Liam’s tastes, to prepare her to marry Liam. Bertrand knew his fair amount about heartbreak and it hurt that he had caused theirs. He sighed.

His initial reaction had not been good. Maxwell had come to him after the UN gala with a strange look on his face and quietly admitted that he had kissed Riley. And Bertrand had been apoplectic, he had screamed and shouted and yelled until he was red in the face and his throat could take it no longer. But Maxwell held strong and shook his head.

“We can’t make her marry someone she doesn’t want,” was all he had said before walking away. And that was it. It took some time for his anger to disappear, it took until he next saw them together. They were sat eating ice cream on a bench at the park and they didn’t know he was there, but it was better that way. If not, Bertrand would never have seen the way they were together. How happy they were. How soft. Yes. It was an unassuming love, one that stemmed from a great friendship. Bertrand remembered worrying a long time ago that their budding friendship could cause a frenzy on the rumour mill, and now… well, it was certainly ironic. But he could not think of anyone better suited for his brother. He had always been frustrated at his... eccentrics, his excitement for dance parties and frankly ridiculousness but Riley understood this part of him which anyone else would have dismissed for childishness. Riley smiled along, just as giddy, joking right alongside him but simultaneously she balanced him, knowing how to calm him when things got that little bit too much. No, Bertrand would not regret this match.

Riley laughed at something Maxwell said, the sound like tinkling chimes, and shuffled closer to him on the bench, letting him drape his arm around her shoulder. She took hold of the hand over her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Happy, yes, in a way they hadn't been for a while. Bertrand sighed and thought to the future.

Their marriage was doomed to be dogged with rumours and gossip, it was inevitable when Riley had once been favourite to marry the King, when everyone was convinced that he had broken off his engagement to Madeline for her, when she had so forcefully fought to prove her innocence so she could be free to marry him, everyone assumed. And naturally, that was what Bertrand had wanted. But things were different. The Unity Tour was a nice idea but it was naïve. Outside of the nobility, few people would care for the event except for the gossip and House Beaumont had a new set of expenses to deal with.

But looking at them both now, Bertrand did not seem to mind, not at all. They were happy, the rest would sort itself out.

#the royal romance #choices fanfic #maxwellxriley #playchoices #maxwell beaumont #betrand beaumont #long post #own post

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sometimesrosy · 7 years

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Rosy I need your amazing advice for my relationship. I'm starting to feel differently towards my boyfriend of 7 years on and off. He says the N word and thinks he can get away with it because he's hispanic (not afro-latino) and bc he makes these 'jokes' 'sarcastically.' I'm white and tried explaining why he should cease that and he just thinks I'm overreacting and getting offended for 'people who aren't even here.' He thinks I'm stiffing his humor and got really defensive. I'm repulsed (part 1)

(part 2) However, he’s been more family to me than my family has and he’s my only friend. I’m scared of being alone. I feel like it’s kind of silly to end such a long relationship over a difference of political opinion. Or is it more than that? I’m not sure. Otherwise we got along fine. He’s a feminist and has similar interests to me. Also, I’m in recovery for mental illness and he hasn’t even started his and doesn’t want to so there’s that wedge as well. The last wedge between us is that…..

……. (part 3) I’m more academic and he cares more about making enough money to have fun. I guess you could say I have more aspiration than he does. I think I know what I have to do, I just don’t know how to start doing it and I don’t know how to not be afraid of it. I truly love him and I want him to be the person I know he can be, but in the meantime it’s become hard to put up with him. I really care for him. He’s my best friend. :( But I’m starting to fantasize about life without him.

Listen, let me tell you a secret. Minority communities are not pure. They do not avoid racism. It’s not “okay” when they are racist because they are also POC. We are, all of us, a part of this racist society, and it affects POC also… not just as the victims of oppression but also as the perpetrators.

If someone ever tries to tell you that a POC can’t be wrong about racism because they are POC, they are selling you a bill of goods. We are all fallible. And we ALL are tainted by racism. We have to question our own racism all the time. But, as long as we think we are pure and always correct and good, we won’t ever question ourselves or call ourselves on our biases.

Internalized racism is a HUGE thing and it is almost more devastating than external racism. Because it attacks us from the inside, family members, parents, it’s horrible. It takes apart your self worth. I’m not gonna lie. I’m light skin. I didn’t get. I saw it directed at other people and I saw that I was given better treatment because of my silky hair and pale skin and european features. It’s all bullshit. And I’m not going to pretend that it was correct because I benefitted. I never wanted it. It made me feel sick.

And let me tell you also. The latinx community is very often racist. Skin color is a big deal. Hair texture is a big deal. Nose width. Where your family is from is a big deal. Accent is a big deal. Freaking whether you wear socks or not is like a whole “thing” that never made any fucking sense to me. Dominicans were, apparently too close to Haiti, compared to Puerto Rico, and therefore lesser. And it is about who is is more black and who is less black. He doesn’t get a pass. I’m a New Yorker, and I’m sure those on the west coast (more mexican, less puerto rican/dominican) have their own race issues, that I couldn’t really speak about.

It’s so freaking stupid. You’re not supposed to talk about racism towards other races when you’re a poc, and you’re not supposed to talk about the internalized racism that we suffer. But it’s real. We’re a messed up country, and racism is insidious.

But here’s the thing, and this is the advice for you… or I don’t know if it’s advice. It’s something to consider. Right now in time, we are being confronted with all these horrible charges about people we used to respect. And we’re seeing people we thought were worthy, showing their ugly sides. The thing is, we ALL have ugly sides. We all have ugly thoughts and we make bad choices sometimes and we say things that aren’t sensitive. And it doesn’t matter HOW hardline you are about moral purity (actually, the harder line people are about moral purity, the more I kind of expect them to be hypocrites, because there’s no way they’re pure and perfect) people are STILL going to fail you.

One of the things about love is that you have to accept their flaws. That doesn’t mean you have to say it’s okay and not challenge them (this thing about you being too over sensitive and stifling his humor? Screw that,) but it does mean that you accept this thing as something not so great about an otherwise great person. MAYBE as a person who can grow and learn and come to realize that racism is not ok just because he’s POC and joking about racism is not funny. This is the guy he is. A guy with this flaw. Doesn’t mean it’s okay.

I just got into a fight with my mom about her archaic ideas about how girls should dress. And how men shouldn’t get to dictate how a 10 year old girl wears a shirt because they’re pervs. She thinks that’s who we need to cater ourselves to, and I”m like, NO.

So here’s what I’m saying. This is an antiquated belief that is part of rape cuture and blaming the victim and objectifying girls and women. Does this mean my mom is a horrible person? No. It means she is a product of her life and her times and the society she has been living in all her life.

And it means I live to keep this battle going, and change the people around me. Yeah, my family thinks I’m a radical. But you know, I got my uncle to not vote for Trump, because he listened to my reasons.

I can’t tell you what is too much for you in your relationship, or what’s a deal breaker for you. But I can tell you that if you don’t want it to be, this doesn’t have to be a no. This can be a process for you. If you want to build a life with this man, you want a person who can change and grow. You want a person who thinks what you say is important and doesn’t treat you like you don’t know what you’re talking about. A man who lets YOU influence him sometimes.

Do you think that this man respects you enough to allow your thoughts to affect his beliefs and actions? Is this a man who is considerate enough to go away and think about what you say? Or to consider things in the world or valid points.

In other words. Can he learn? Can he change? Can he grow. THAT’S the kind of man you want. Not a perfect man, a man in process who is trying to be a better man.

If he has racist ideas? You need to consider if this is just who he is, or if he is the kind of person who is looking to be the best man he can be. Or is he just looking to be better than other people?

That’s an important question too, because if he treats other people with disrespect, then that is going to come out in your relationship sooner or later.

#rosy answers #relationship advice #racism #internalized racism #latinx #SUCH a hard question #absolutely a tough struggle you have here #good luck

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blackhtorns · 7 years

Text

warning: major character death. don’t like, don’t read. (alec’s death, feat. malec wedding)

this is a veeery unlikely scenario but i wrote this bc maximum angst. it’s looooooooong and i spent 3 days on it. it’s nearly 6000 words i’vE NEVER WRITTEN SO MUCH STUFF. you’re welcome. it’s all in lowercase bc i’m lazy af

let’s hope alec’s death doesn’t happen like this.

you can thank @catarinalosss for this horrible thing:) read at your own risk^^ thoughhh there’s fluff in the beginning><

major character death and heaaaaavyyy angst under the cut.

“I will not have a ceremony that anyone looks down on as lesser. I do not want you to have any less than the ceremony you could have had, to honor your vows to a Shadowhunter. I have had enough of making compromises in the name of trying to make peace. I want the Law to change. I do not want to get married until we can get married in gold.”

it’s not easy for alec and magnus. even after the end of the war, after the fall of the clave, they are still looked down upon, as are their children. it takes years of cleaning up and remaking the shadowhunter hierarchy, years after the war has passed, until shadowhunters mingle freely with downworlders, and vice versa, without much prejudice or disdain. and so it takes years until magnus and alec can marry each other without someone sneering at them, turning their noses up at them at every turn, years until their kids can legally take the name lightwood-bane.

it’s magnus who insists that they get married in idris, now that the law allows them to. and it’s alec who insists that they marry in each other’s colours - alec in warlock blue, and magnus in shadowhunter gold. It’s a sign of change, of equality and acceptance, and a door to a new, glorious era.

the wedding is the biggest one of the century. it’s the first downworlder-shadowhunter marriage that is properly recognised and accepted under the law without discrimination - not to mention both of the same gender. and the ones getting married are the heroes of the mortal war, a high warlock and a proud lightwood.

the night before the marriage, magnus asks if alec is nervous. no, no, he replies, because after all they’ve been through, this marriage is just another step forward. it’s important, but nothing to be nervous over.

(magnus cries when he recalls this. ‘nothing to be nervous over’. right.)

they exchange warm, sweet kisses on the bed, basking in the familiarity of each other, of this wonderful thing they have between them. i love you, alexander, magnus murmurs as he mouths at alec’s jaw. oh, oh, magnus, i love you, gasps alec at his release. they cuddle into each other, a familiar position that, they believe, would continue for years to come.

(i love you, alexander. please, please come back. this - this can’t be it)

the next morning, they wash each other’s scent off themselves, together, giggling like a couple newly in love. they leave the house they’re staying in with dopey smiles on their faces, handing over rafael and max to clary and simon, who gladly take them to change into their little suits, and part with a long kiss to prepare for their wedding.

isabelle is more enthusiastic about the wedding than alec is. alec, she says, it’s a wedding that will likely go down in history. of course i’m excited! jace laughs at her enthusiasm, but his tone turns solemn as he says, i’m proud of you, alec, and envelopes his parabatai into an embrace. isabelle joins in, the three lightwood siblings clinging to each other tightly. finally, they pull away, and alec pretends not to see isabelle wiping her eyes not-so-discreetly and jace blinking away tears.

(i’m so sorry, brother. please, please don’t leave, i need you.)

isabelle fusses over his hair, his face. jace helps tuck alec into the suit (blue, the colour warlocks use to wed, the colour matching alec’s own eyes), adjusting it so as to make it look better. he insists that they tidy themselves up, not to fuss over him, but they flock around alec, insisting, it’s your wedding, you’re the important one, and he’s overwhelmed by a rush of love for his siblings.

(i’m sorry for leaving you alone. i’d come back if i could)

halfway through his preparation, clary brings in his boys. you look great, dad, says max. i’m proud of you, dad, says rafe. he brings in his boys for a hug - they grow up so fast. he hopes that this wedding, this change, will bring a better future for them and whoever they choose to love.

(daddy, daddy, please wake up, where are you?)

clary takes them out with a smile and wink. daddy needs to prepare, she says. she ushers a giggling max and grinning rafael out the door, pausing to give alec a small nod. i’ll take care of them.

(please take care of them, now that i’m gone)

he and magnus had argued over who was going to walk down the aisle. they finally decided that alec would be the one to do it. jace would give alec away, and catarina would do the same for magnus. they also decided that, when they extended invitations to wedding guests, they asked shadowhunters to wear warlock blue, and downworlders to wear shadowhunter gold. another step to break the traditional customs of the nephilim.

the time nears until the wedding starts and alec’s excitement grows. he can’t wait to marry magnus, to kiss him in front of everyone, to put a runed ring on that elegant hand, and to have one put on him. he can’t wait to see the guests, dressed in colours that are not their own, mingling with one another, attending a wedding that breaks all old traditions and laws.

(he never gets to do that)

isabelle has to leave not long before the wedding starts to find simon, jace stays, for he will be the one giving alec away, and they make small talk for a while. until jace excuses himself for a while as well, telling him that he’d promised clary that he’d check on the kids for alec before the ceremony. alec thanks him, though he knows max and rafe will be alright. they’re in good hands. the door closes as jace gives him one last smile and alec is left alone in his room, left to his own thoughts.

(the last smile he’s ever going to give him)

he closes his eyes and thinks of magnus. he thinks of magnus’ gold-green cat eyes and blue sparks, of his caramel skin and plush lips. he thinks of magnus’ beautiful, perfect laugh, the way his eyes soften when he looks at alec. he thinks of magnus, his husband-to-be.

he thinks of how he’s going to be married to this beautiful, beautiful man, with jace at his side and isabelle smiling proudly at him, with clary and simon watching, max and rafe seeing their dad and papa bind themselves together, maia and lily wearing gold. he thinks of how magnus will look at him - with love, with pride. and he thinks of the way they’ll kiss in front of an audience, soft, sweet, a promise for a better future, a message that this world will -

(he’s so lost in his thoughts he doesn’t realise that the person who entered isn’t jace, until it’s too late - )

he hears the door open. the kids are okay, i told you, he teases jace, eyes still closed, but receives no response. he frowns, opens his eyes, and turns around -

it’s not jace. it’s not anyone he knows. and - they’re right behind him. he springs up, honed instincts kicking in - but he’s let his guard down. he’s too late.

before he can even raise a hand, there’s a sharp pain in his neck, numbing his body. it feels like he’s drowning it’s blurry and dark and he can’t breathe he can’t move is he falling what is happening -

magnus, he thinks desperately, and he goes under.

(i shouldn’t have left you alone, i’m so sorry, i should have known the kids would be fine, i should have stayed with you)

jace ruffles max’s hair and puts the little boy down before he kisses clary and leaves to go back to alec. he’s halfway up the stairs when - pain, blinding, excruciating pain - and it’s coming from his parabatai rune, and his soul - it feels like his other half is being taken away from him. no. nono. alec. he races up the steps, practically flying down the hallway until he’s outside alec’s room. before he arrives he can see that the door is open. nononononono -

he enters - and the pain in his rune escalates to an unbearable pain. his eyes are watering and. alec is on the floor. he’s lying facedown on the floor, and there’s a needle sticking out of his neck. a horrified sob builds in his throat. no. he - he can’t be dead. maybe he’s just unconscious. maybe what was in that needle wasn’t fatal. maybe alec is just playing a prank. he tries to tell himself all this, he tries to tell himself the pain in his rune and his soul isn’t real. he drops to his knees next to alec and presses two fingers to his neck, his pulse.

there’s nothing. he chokes out the ugly sob that had been building in his throat, but he can’t bring himself to cringe at the horrible sound. alec can’t be dead. he flips alec over, grabs his wrist - no pulse, no nothing. fingers under his nose. no breathing. desperate, jace presses his mouth to alec’s, despite the fact he knows it’s useless. nothing. no. alec is not dead. he’s supposed to walk down the aisle, exchange rings with magnus, and kiss him to consolidate a new era. he’s supposed to live his life out, long and fulfilling and happy, with magnus and jace and isabelle and clary and simon by his side. he’s supposed to raise his children to be the pride of the world. he’s not - he can’t be dead.

jace takes out his phone and dials magnus, tears falling down his face. he doesn’t stop them. it rings - once, twice -

is something wrong? magnus asks, and a sob falls out of jace before he can help it. yes, everything is wrong, jace thinks. jace, magnus says urgently. it’s alec, he chokes out before the tears consume him, and he sobs, ugly and heaving. please - please come. the next thing he hears is a beep and jace curls in on himself, clutching his parabatai rune, where the pain has faded to a dull throb, but jace - he feels the gaping void in his soul, the loss of his other half, his sworn brother.

(why did he leave why didn’t he stay why did he leave alec alone the kids would’ve been fine he should never have left his parabatai why was he so stupid whywhywhywhy - )

it’s alec, jace says, and magnus’ heart stops. no. he hangs up, his heart thundering rapidly. he dashes outside, ignoring catarina, where are you going, and grabs isabelle, who’s just outside his room, talking with simon. it’s alec, his voice shakes, and isabelle’s eyes widen, fearful. she tells simon something - he doesn’t know what, he can’t hear anything he can’t focus on anything - and together they race to where alec’s room is. magnus would’ve portaled if not for the fact that he’s never been there.

running has never been so slow. seconds turn into hours turn into years and when he finally arrives at alec’s room and sees alec on the floor and jace curling into his parabatai rune, sobbing, he all but flies forward. isabelle has frozen at the door, clutching at the doorframe as if it’s the only thing supporting her, but magnus pays her no heed. he reaches trembling fingers to alec, blue magic sparking around his fingers and feels - nothing. where alec’s life force usually would lie, vibrant and quiet and bright and still, there is nothing.

please, do something, isabelle begs. she’s slid down the doorframe, tears leaking out. and oh, does he try, he pulls the needle out and reaches into alec’s bloodstream and - oh. oh no. the poison - it’s - it kills instantly, he tells the siblings, and jace curls in tighter on himself, and isabelle collapses. the tears he has been holding back spill out.

no, alexander, no, please… he reaches out with his magic, tries to take out the poison in his blood - but it’s futile and he knows it. alec is dead. no amount of healing can bring him back. he tells jace and isabelle as such, voice breaking, and he collapses over his would-be husband’s still, unmoving body.

nonononothiscan’tbeitthisisn’thappeningnoplease. sobs wrack his body and he’s never felt so helpless in his life. he’s the high warlock of brooklyn, for god’s sake. he should be able to do the impossible. and now - now, even the impossible can’t bring his alexander back. he’s beyond magnus’ reach now. he’s gone. he can’t do anything.

do something, isabelle sobs. please, alec, please, jace wails. and magnus - magnus can do nothing but cry, heart shattered into a million pieces, scattered and he knows that he never will be whole again.

alec - his alexander doesn’t deserve this. not this, dying on his wedding day, the day that should have been the biggest day of his life, lying there unmoving, helpless, in his blue suit. the blue suit that is the colour of his eyes - a colour he’ll never see again, magnus realises in horror.

he’ll never see the eyes that he loves so much blink open at him in the morning. he’ll never see the way his eyes fill with love when they look at him, the way his eyes become protective and focused during a fight. never be able to gaze into those endless pools, trading kisses between them.

he’ll never have alec again.

he remembers, last night, how he reached out to caress alec’s jaw. he wants to do that one last time. he wants to see alec’s eyes, bright and beautiful and blue, staring back at him with complete and utter love. he wants to tell him, i love you, i love you, i will always love you, please don’t leave me, i love you. he wants to hold alec, kiss alec, one last time before he’ll never have him again.

but - but he didn’t even get to say goodbye.

(i should have been there for you. you don’t deserve this)

isabelle slides down the doorframe. this - this figure lying on the floor in a blue suit - that’s not her brother. her brother would never be this still. he’s never still, not when he’s standing or sitting or sleeping.

the figure lying on the floor, who looks like her brother, dresses like her brother - that can’t be him.

because - alec shouldn’t be dead. now - by now, he should be walking down the aisle, jace by his side. he should be exchanging rings with magnus, leaning up to kiss his husband for the world to see. he should be surrounded by people, shadowhunters and downworlders alike, offering their congratulations, welcoming a new era. he should be twirling his children around in joy, feeding them cake and laughing with the family he and magnus raised together. he should be with magnus, the love between them shining like a beacon, finally able to call each other husband after so many years of hate and prejudice and discrimination.

he should be doing all that, and more. he shouldn’t - this can’t be happening. it’s not happening. he shouldn’t be lying on the floor, like he’s - like he’s -

no. she’s - she’s in a bad dream, that’s all. alec is strong and experienced, he can defend himself. this broken, still body in front of her? that’s not her brother. that’s the only explanation.

because alec can’t be dead.

(you - you should have been able to live. to continue your life, with magnus, with us, doing what you’ve always been meant to do. you shouldn’t - shouldn’t be -)

isabelle tells simon, fear in her eyes, that something has happened to alec, that the wedding might have to be put on hold. then she runs away with magnus, both running like their lives depend on it.

and simon worries.

if anything - anything at all, happens to alec on his wedding day - that would be the worst thing simon can possibly imagine. alec has to be fine. it’s probably nothing, he tells himself.

he ignores the dread sinking deep into his stomach.

clary’s with the children. he tells her what isabelle told him, and her brow creases in worry.

is something wrong? max asks, seeing his aunt clary’s frown. she shouldn’t be frowning on a day like this.

nothing, blueberry, she says, blocking out the possibility that something terrible has happened. rafe hugs max and tells max proudly, of course nothing’s wrong! today is the best day in forever. everything will be perfect!

and clary - clary can do nothing to ease the worry that’s building in her mind. she can’t shake the feeling that - whatever happened, it’s terrible.

but she can’t let the children worry, so she smiles and applauds as max does a little trick with his magic.

alec will be fine. he has to be.

(he’s always been the strongest, out of all of us. he’s the most protective, the big brother. and now, now - )

simon hurries through the doors, speed-walking past rows and rows of guests dressed in blue and gold. the hall is grand, shadowhunter and warlock decorations combined to make a triumphant scene, and simon can’t help but think, what if all this was for nothing.

he ignores that thought and finds maryse, who’s sitting in the front row. he tells her, something’s happened, and she’s on her feet immediately, severe eyes, cutting into simon. her sudden movement draws the attention of other guests, and some start shifting, murmurs spreading across the room.

where is he, she demands. he tells her that isabelle and magnus and jace will be dealing with the situation. but he’s -, she breaks off at the end of the sentence. and simon doesn’t know how to answer. he doesn’t even know if alec is fine.

we have check on him, and simon sees the dread settle in her. she brushes off her blue dress and stalks down the aisle, simon hurrying behind her. maia catches his eye, raising and curious brow. he shrugs in return, but his worry is evident.

he follows her out of the hall, where clary is still with max and rafael. he doesn’t need words to tell her what’s happening; she can tell right away. she nods at him, ushering the children inside - whatever has happened, they don’t need to know about it.

maryse leads the way to alec’s room. her heels click faster and faster as they near it, getting more and more desperate. and simon, he’s desperate too because what if -

they turn the corner and arrive at the open door and -

simon takes in the scene of grief, or mourning, and the world stops.

(i always thought i’d die before you did. you were always the most resilient out of all of us)

it’s rare when a parent outlives a child. it’s just as rare in the shadowhunter society, where the older ones are the ones sent to fight.

as reckless as her children are. the thought that her children would die before she does has never even crossed maryse’s mind.

and that is why it takes maryse several seconds before she can register the scene before her, because the scenario is so unbelievable and bizarre and horrible.

isabelle and jace, grief written in every line of their body. magnus, hunching over -

all breath rushes out of her and she almost doubles over, because it’s her son who is lying on the floor, eyes unseeing and glassy and dead. her son. whom she bore and raised and loved, her flesh and blood, her pride and joy.

lying there. dead.

impossible, she wants to say, but in her mother’s heart, she knows, and there’s a hole where alec should have been.

isabelle looks up at her, makeup smudged, but in that moment, she looks like the child that she hasn’t been for many years. and maryse knows exactly what her child needs, what she herself needs.

she drops to her knees and draws her daughter into her arms. isabelle trembles against her, and maryse reaches out, gently wrapping her other arm around her remaining son. her children - two left, one lost - grieve into her and maryse lowers her head.

for the first time since robert’s death, maryse cries.

(i’m sorry for not being a better mother. i’m sorry for not being the mother you deserve. i love you, my son. i wish i had told you that.)

it’s barely a minute after simon has left when she feels a wave of grief and horror hit her through the parabatai bond. it’s a wave of grief so strong that clary reels back, overwhelmed.

oh no.

and when her phone starts to vibrate, she picks it up immediately. simon, what’s wrong she asks, because please don’t tell me it’s what i think it is.

when simon’s voice reaches her through the phone, trembling and thick with grief and tears, delivering to her the disastrous news, she collapses, right in the middle of the aisle. guests turn to stare and murmur, but they don’t matter, nothing matters.

rafael had said that today was supposed to be perfect.

she thinks that he couldn’t have been more wrong.

(i’m sorry for not being a better friend.)

it’s a long time before any of them can compose themselves even slightly. magnus recovers first, picking himself off alec’s body and reaching over to close his eyes gently. he stands, unsteady, and says in a shaky voice, we should probably call off the wedding.

jace and isabelle blink open their eyes from where they’re still nestled in maryse’s arms. maryse’s head remains bowed, showing no signs of hearing magnus. simon is gone, probably with clary.

there’s not a person in the room whose eyes aren’t red and raw, whose face isn’t streaked with tears.

there’s not a person in the room who isn’t completely, irreparably broken.

jace pulls himself out of maryse’s embrace, and she finally lifts her head. she’s - she’s undone, undone in a way that none of them have seen before. never has the mighty, proud maryse lightwood looked so broken.

jace walks slowly over to alec, each step weighed down and unsteady, heavy and leaden. after seconds that stretch into an eternity, he stands over his dead parabatai’s still body, and slowly, kneels down to wrap his arms around alec. silently, he cradles alec in his arms.

isabelle rises to her feet and jace heads over to her, magnus trailing behind. she reaches out a hand to place it gently on her brother’s jaw.

i’m sorry, she tries to say, but the words won’t come out, and she can only mouth them before the tears flow again. she squeezes her eyes shut, hand still on alec, and maryse places a hand on her arm, a show of support.

to the side, magnus watches the lightwood family, what’s left of it, and his heart aches like it never has before.

(why did it have to happen like this?)

when they arrive at the hall, heads held high as if they aren’t completely shattered inside, it’s mostly empty. simon and clary have called off the wedding, knowing the others would rather not do so.

they’re grateful.

magnus notes that max and rafael are absent - he doesn’t have it in his heart to worry, he trusts clary and simon.

clary and simon and sitting in one of the rows of seats, talking quietly. they spring up the moment they enter.

no words are exchanged. nothing needs to be spoken. gently, jace lays alec onto the dais. magnus walks over, and with a flick of his hand, and both their rings - rings that they have yet to exchange, rings that they will never exchange - appear in his hand. he wraps alec’s hands around the rings, takes both hands in his own, and presses them to his heart.

aku cinta kamu, he says softly, as though alexander can hear it, as though he isn’t impossibly far away. i love you.

he drops alec’s hands, taking back the rings. he’d place a ring on alec’s finger but - it feels wrong. he’ll keep it, he decides, both rings.

they don’t say a word when he steps back. jace walks forward and runs a hand over alec’s parabatai rune, and says, you will always be with me, brother.

isabelle kneels to place a kiss on alec’s forehead. thank you for taking care of me.

maryse holds him, like a mother does with her newborn. you were a better son than i could ever have imagined.

clary and simon stay back, knowing that this is something that the ones closest to alec have to do, but they lower their heads, murmuring, take care.

(i hope you’re happy where you are)

it doesn’t feel real. because alec is good and strong and bright, and he’s the one who facilitated the peeae between shadowhunters and downworlders. he’s loved, and it doesn’t feel real that he’s gone.

maia looks at her golden dress. it’s not a colour she ever thought she’d wear to a wedding - but thanks to all alec, that’s exactly what she did.

(she tries not to think that the wedding was for naught)

next to her, lily runs a hand down her own golden qipao, maia wonders if she’s thinking the same thing.

he was the best of those angel brats, lily says, breaking the silence. now all we have left is angel scum.

maia can’t agree with her more.

(why does fate take away the best people, and leave the worst ones behind?)

of course fate isn’t done with the nephilim, not after all they’ve suffered through and sacrificed. of course they’d take away the best of them.

aline clutches onto helen and is painfully reminded of how, so many years ago, alec had helped push her in the right direction.

aline knows that she’s not the only one he’s helped. he’s probably helped so many others put their life into perspective, helped them choose the right thing.

all the good he’s done - and he received the worst fate one could receive - dying on his wedding day.

sometimes, aline hates the angels, the almighty beings who are supposed to be good.

but if they are good, why would they take away alec? why didn’t they perform a miracle, and bring him back?

she thinks, as she cries into helen’s shoulder, that the angels are cruel.

(if it weren’t for you, i wouldn’t be as happy as i am now, so why am i happy when you’re just - gone?)

magnus thanks clary for taking care of max and rafael. i can go with you, she offers, but magnus gives her a small smile (all of his smiles seem pointless, now, now that alec isn’t around to see them) but denies her. i’ll be fine, biscuit.

(not now. maybe not ever. but he lies, and tries to believe it.)

he enters his loft - his loft, not their loft, now that alec’s gone - and follows the sound of childish laughter to the children’s room, where catarina is playing with them with her magic. she catches his eye and nods.

max and rafe turn around the moment he enters. papa! they cry, leaping at him.

what’s wrong? rafe, ever the perspective one, asks. aunt clary said that the wedding is cancelled. did something happen? where’s dad?

magnus swallows. good god, how is he going to tell them that their dad is dead - gone, like their grandpa robert, and never to come back? seeing them stare up at him with wide, innocent eyes, his fragile hold on his emtions crumble, and a tear leaks out of his eye.

papa, what’s wrong? max asks, urgency in his young voice. catarina is by his side instantly, her warm hand grounding magnus slightly. he braces himself.

max, rafael, he says, glad his voice only wavers slightly. do you remember what happened with grandpa robert?

yes, they say, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, not seeing how it has any relation to this situation. he’s in heaven, isn’t he? rafe asks. he’s somewhere far, far away. max adds.

magnus feels another tear fall out, and curses his weak control. yes, he says softly, and kneels down, taking their hands in his. and now your dad has joined him. you daddy is with his own daddy now, you see.

rafe isn’t even a teenager yet. and max is younger still. they’re so young. they shouldn’t have to deal with this.

he’s such a horrible father.

papa… there’s a dangerous hint of realisation in rafael’s voice, and magnus closes his eyes, not wanting to look in his sons’ eyes and see the moment they realise that their dad isn’t coming back. dad - he - he’s dead, isn’t he? and he’s not coming back.

somehow, hearing his son say it makes everything hurt more. ever since he found alec lying on the floor, magnus has been in a state of grief and shock. rafael saying this - it takes away the numbing shock, and intensifies the grief.

somehow, it’s worse.

max makes a horrified gasp. rafael lets out a strangled sob.

papa, it isn’t true right? max demands. he’s not dead. daddy’s not dead.

the tears fall freely now. (i’m so sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry) i’m sorry, max, rafe. he chokes out. but - but al - your dad’s gone. he’s dead. i’m sorry. i’m so, so sorry.

max wails, daddy, no, and rafael crumbles, and all magnus can do is gather his children in his arms and cry.

(you should have gotten to see max and rafe grow up - see them choose their own paths, see them fall in love. you didn’t get to. i’m sorry.)

the funeral is a sombre affair. there are many who wish to pay their respects to the hero of the mortal war, the one who spearheaded the peace between several species previously divided.

and so the funeral is a long one, figures in white coming and going.

but for the ones closest to him, they only wish to honour their loved one, one last time before they let him go.

maia and lily are there, along with several downworlders alec had befriended in his quest for unity. aline and helen and the blackthorns are there, standing a little way apart from the rest. clary and simon are there, their heads bowed in grief for their friend.

the lightwoods stand as the front. the lightwoods, once a proud family of six, are reduced to three. maryse cries for her eldest son, and jace and isabelle stare forlornly at their lost brother. next to them, magnus stands with max and rafael, the two boys huddled together, eyes red.

it’s a final gathering for alexander gideon lightwood, of those closest to him, of those he loved the most, and loved him back in return.

ave atque vale, alexander gideon lightwood.

ave atque vale, my friend.

ave atque vale, brother.

ave atque vale, father.

ave atque vale, my love.

hail and farewell.

look, look! max lightwood says excitedly, alec’s changing!! it’s a blue suit!

robert lightwood smiles proudly at his son, clad in warlock colours, and ruffles max’s hair. that’s our alec, isn’t it, max?

but then - it’s sudden, and it happens too fast for them to follow but the next moment, there’s a tall figure lying on the ground next to them.

no. it can’t be.

robert stares in horror as alec’s body, down on earth collapses. he turns his gaze to the figure on the floor, an exact replica of the one they were just watching.

alec? no, he can’t be - dead, max says, young eyes wide and horrified. he should be marrying magnus!

and robert takes max into his arms, because he’s in a similar state of grief and shock - alec shouldn’t be here, not now, not like this, not so soon - and together, they watch as alec, his spirit, stirs.

(i had hoped you wouldn’t join us until years after. the anggels are cruel - it should not be your time. not so soon.)

alec shifts. he feels - different, lighter. he blinks his eyes open. what happened? what -

no. he freezes at the sight before him, at the sight of his father, hugging his younger brother, as they both stare at him in shock.

both people who should be dead.

there’s only one explanation for this. it can’t be.

his voice is calm when he says, i’m dead, aren’t i? it’s calmer than he expected, because he’s - his emotions are a mess inside him, roiling and turning and he feels sick. but he knows he’s dead. that’s what the lightness is.

he can’t be dead right before his wedding.

his dread increases when robert gives him a slow, single nod. alec panicks.

magnus. what will he think? what will happen to him? and jace? isabelle? will they be okay?

will any of them be okay?

glancing around frantically, he sees a scene playing down beneath him. it’s a scene that adds to his horror - it’s his loved ones grieving over his body, broken in a way he’s never seen before.

he watches as theygrieve and take his body to the wedding hall. his heart breaks as magnus places the wedding rings in his hand, and presses them to his chest.

aku cinta kamu. he hears each word clearly, as if magnus is right next to him. as if magnus is with him, up here, right now.

but he’s not, he’s down there, and he’ll be down there for a long time, while alec will be here, watching and helpless and heartbroken.

he stays there, watching, as people clad in white pay their respects to him, but he cares not for them. he sees his friends, his family, he sees his mother and jace and isabelle, and magnus and max and rafael.

ave atque vale, they say.

my love, magnus says, and alec breaks.

i love you, he tries to tell magnus, but he can’t hear him, he never will again.

he should have gotten to say goodbye.

“…Part of what make Alec and Magnus so well-suited is that they’re not willing to accept compromises: when they get married, it’ll be in Shadowhunter gold and warlock blue, and it’ll be all the more fantastic and triumphant for that.” ~cassandra clare

AND. THIS MONSTER OF A FIC. IS FINALLY OVER. thanks for reading, if you had the patience, and i’m sorry if i shattered the organ that keeps you alive.

there are 123230948230394 plot holes and YEAH I KNOW I LET THE BASTARD GO but this focuses on the grief after alec’s death.

the bastard will die a slow, painful death i promise.

166 notes · View notes

gayregis · 4 years

Text

OK first episode reactions

OHHH that was THE KIKIMORE............... im glad we get to see the fight because i mean. i would want some money for doing that crazy shit too. also you noticed how he killed the deer because he was probably starving.

the moment of hesitation before he enters the tavern......... OK... [jaskier or yennefer voice] dont you just wanna stroke his gross dirty white hair

wait the uhhhh... “tavern scene” occurs in the witcher right, so i dont have to be scared bc this is the lesser evil, right, right, maybe not, idk what theyre switching around

the fucking cease of noise as geralt walks in.... the MOOD

cavill is like way too fine to be playing geralt rn i mean this shot where he says point me to the aldermans house is really showing off his profile. i feel sympathetic for this pretty pretty man

oh im regretting not rereading the lesser evil right now. i cant remember WHAT the fuck happens in that story. he goes to stregobor first though right??? right? he meets with the alderman and the dude’s like nah you cant get shit for that kikimore head, but maybe this wizard will give ya smth

my lesbianisms thinking renfri is pretty VS my morality knowing what shes like VS my witcher fan knowing what the hell happens in this story.... fight

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE RENFRI SO PRETTY!!!!!!! shes SO pretty and cute..... yall are making me like her fuck you fuck you SO hard.

the voice acting is sending me kind of... this is actually a good geralt voice imo if you dont mind me saying that. i still prefer polish tw3 dub but this is actually better than fuckin delvin mallory in the audiobooks. no disrespect, peter kenny, you did dandelion and yennefer and the hansa well, but geralt..... hm....

okay jk actually i need more geralt lines in order to develop my thoughts on his voice. ill wait until edge of the world where he SHOULD be more talkative

are we really going to stregobor’s fucking tower where a naked woman illusion waits on him and he offers to give geralt a go at this basically fuck doll illusion

“where are you from, geralt?” “rivia.” SURE.... YOU LIAR...... liar .... just WAIT until baptism of fire oooohhh just you wait

also this girl marilka is so sweet, also makes me think because milva said she was called that by some. but thats why she changed her name to milva

“because girls cant be witchers right” OK you reminded me 50% of ciri but now youre literally just proto-ciri

oh.... no foolery with the magic door knocker?

YEP I WAS RIGHT WE GOT NAKED LADIES!

wow this exactly what i pictured the inside of stregobor’s tower to be like lmaooo

WHY DOESNT GERALT KNOW STREGOBOR???????

oh its so weird to see ciri like. like old at cintra you know what im saying . like im like wait wait how is she alive if geralt hasnt been there as ravix yet. not BAD just weird for me

“speak normally” this reminds me of in bounds of reason dandelions like should i give the account in verse or in prose and then he starts speaking with the most flowery prose and geralts like PROSE prose please

“if you had been alive during falkas rebellion” please dont mention falka already we’re moving too fast soon enough leo fucking bonhart will be at our heels!

“and she possesses the power to destroy us all” “i dont believe anyone has that power.” WAIT UNTIL YOU MEET YOUR DAUGHTER DUDE LOL

wow he’s really full body dressed in black leather. huh . and people say hes heterosexual fml

okay i thought them calling the girls “girl” was kinda tender in the series but now its even more tender when heard aloud.

eist is like really present here and i like him enough its just that calanthe was like way more important than him in the series though right

“it needs to rhyme” and “pretty ballads hide bastard truths” so are we really just stealing every clever word that jaskier can say before he even comes into it

LOL CIRI LESBIAN LIKE WE DIDNT EVEN HAVE TO GET TO ANY OF THE OTHER BOOKS..... she said BEGONE HET!

OH I LOVE HOW THEY CONTEXTUALIZE IT SO WE KNOW THIS SHIT IS TAKING PLACE IN THE PAST..... WOW GERALT IS OLD AS HELL LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO calanthe was like 14 then right so LOLLLL GERALTS OLD AND TIRED lol

me: is a regis fan / also me: GERALT IS A SHITTY OLD BITCH LMAOO

uh oh spaghettios! its nilfgaard and one of their fun funky officers, son of ceallach! i havent seen him yet but im terrified anyways!

okay see this is how you do a PROPER adaptation. calanthe in the books committed suicide so she wouldnt be r*ped right as she sat in a stupid castle but this calanthe is on the fucking battlefield. this is why we stan middle aged women

eist: [dies] me: AAAAAA cahir: [is there Waiting] (i think its him maybe) me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ah fuck ah fuck fuck

ciri: why [is nilfgaard attacking] ? calanthe knowing DAMN WELL stupid fucking duny is her dad: uhHHhhHhH idk lol

“you will rule this land someday” nope again! [thinks about lady of the lake] nope and nope!

ciri’s “are you dying?” to calanthe on her deathbed is the new “was he human” yennefer asking if regis (as a giant fucking bat) was human

i love how looongggg these episodes areee omgg

but also i always thought of the fall of cintra as something you know like. it happened in two shakes, cahir kinda just took ciri up by her underarms (like longcat) and left

OHHHH THEY IMPROVED THIS SCENE SO MUCH I WAS HOPING WE’D GET THIS OMG OMG BUT INSTEAD OF TELLING SOME YOUNG GIRL WHICH HAD WEIRD KINDA GROSS CHEMISTRY WITH HIM ROAVCH GETS TO HEAR IT!!! THIS IS HOW YOU DO AN ADAPTATION YAYY

renfri: who were you talking to? geralt: .. my horse.......... all of the fans: [dialing 1-800-TROUBADOUR immediately]

ugh i really thought they were gonna adapt the sex between renfri and geralt out. ugh ugh . too much heterosexuality

WHOA. HOLD THE FUCK UP. HOLD> HE FUCK UP. CALANTHE ADVISED CIRI TO TAKE MERCY. THATS LITERALLY FORESHADOWING FOR WHEN SHE CHOOSES NOT TO SLAY CAHIR AT THANEDD. WOW. WHAT THE FUCK WOW. WOW’

ciri you are gonna regret stalling so hard when mr. ceallach marches in. just saying. RUN.

CAHIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRR I ALMOST SCREAMED AND TORE MY STITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

uh.... ok...................... hm not what happened in the books.... where ciri is shot off in the midst of battle and crawls up next to a dead man and acts dead ........ lol cahir is even more evil now how is this possible i didnt think he could get MORE evil

[cahir voice] he deflected the arrow with his sword! ive never seen anything like it!

also have i said already that the cinematography is amazing. like the room where calanthe was on her deathbed.... that renfri dream was pretty cool too... just a lot of things are very pleasing to the eye

due to a injury in the carotid artery blood would be gushing everywhere. also is she prophecizing ciri? stop this there are already so many women in the witcher universe that give prophecy. theres like the girl in baptism of fire, ciri, everyone in ciri’s bloodline, and now renfri?

LOOOOLLLL THE HORSE

cahir: nice, GG guys, im gonna go get that cool promotion now, this will be epic, my mom will be SO proud of me-- ciri: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA cahir: OH FUUUUCKKK

well that’s MUCH MORE of a report to file with your superior officers! “yeah so the girl fucking opened up a hole in the earth” instead of “ahh idk i fell asleep and when i woke up she wasnt there :/” .... cahir really is not getting that promotion now, huh

okay yall can say whatever you want about cavill as geralt but when he said “do not touch her” and moved his mouth like that? oh geraltisms.

this is a really nice episode i like how it just went into the action i wasnt convinced at first but ah this is quite nice. i like how it has JUST geralt and ciri in it and later yennefer will come in as her mom. renfri prophecizing was actually pretty ok, at first i thought i wouldnt like the change, but it makes it easier to digest for television. i like how they really emphasize that geralt is hated to all hell, and that ciri is powerful yet still babie. this is a good portrayal of both of them in these stages of their lives you know what im saying. also is cahir gonna chase ciri now for those Good Boy Black Rider points? bc there were shots of him in a forest. ah well whatever lets move to the next episode

#twn spoilers #thats what im tagging as yall #maj watches twn

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jhindraven · 5 years

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okay im gonna go on a long rant about paladins, and how the new skins are a bit of a travesty

first of all, i just wanna say that i’m no expert on character and/or game design, and i dont claim to be one either. i may be studying it at the moment, but i only know what ive learnt from my teachers and from youtube. keep that in mind.

also, this is a collection of all my complaints about paladins regarding skins. this isnt just one specific issue- this is everything i hate. this is all my opinion, you dont gotta agree, whatever.

okay now onto the actual rant.

alright. so. seris has a new skin out atm- cottontail seris. and its...

well to put it simply, it fucking sucks. thunderbrush, buddy, pal, what the fuck is up with this skin.

look, i get that its a skin. it doesnt have to be in character. whatever, cool, it isnt canon to what little story this game has (thats an entirely different rant for later), thats fine. but it... doesnt look like seris. you took her most defining features and threw them out the window. and thats bad. not only from a design perspective, but from a gameplay one as well.

now, lets have a look at seris’ default skin. what are the key features? and what’s her silhouette like?

her key features are a long flowing skirt, hood up, and a blindfold, right? yeah. her silhouette is clearly a dress, with the big triangle-like shape down the bottom. her head becomes almost like a triangle/diamond too, because of how it points on the top of her head.

now when we compare that to the new skin, we have an issue:

where did her skirt go? where’s her hood? without those things, her silhouette is wack. she looks like an entirely new character! she looks more like a long haired skye, or lian, or even kinda like ying. not seris.

when you’ve got abilities like cassie’s and talus’ ults, that allows you to see the other team’s silhouettes through the walls, this shit is important to think about. i probably wouldn’t have time to sit and go “hold up is that seris? or is that [insert literally any other female champion minus like two]”

this issue happened with inara too, but to a lesser extent. her battlebyte skin removed her big skirt/dress in favour of a pencil skirt-type thing, causing her silhouette to change a bit. but because she’s got her staff, her floating ribbon, and the floating crystals she looks (close to) the same.

and unlike seris, she’s tall. seris is about average height for all the female champions, and that makes her harder to pick out with this skin.

and you know its bc thunderbrush is like,, super horny and just has to sexualise every female character in this godforsaken game or he cant sleep at night or something. @.kinessie puts it best in this post here

on a different note

it has officially been one whole year since furia was released and since the rise of furia event.

why is thunderbrush still posting demonette/abyss skins????

on his twitter he says, and i quote, “I want more ‘demonettes’ in the realm as well as a chance to flesh out the Pyre some more. Pyre warrior drogoz is a good start but we need more.”

i mean that’s neat and all, but like... surely you can make a more interesting concept than just “tall demonette maeve”

dont even get me started on how sexualised this skin is, considering that she’s one of the youngest champions

i dont have much more to say about the demonette stuff other than just “surely you can do better than that”

my final thing

why do the same like 8 champions keep getting new skins?

im gonna make a whole new post with how many skins each champion has, and when their latest one was added. so yeah. ill edit this post and add a link to it once i do it. EDIT: its here

my whole point can be summarised with this image:

(credit: u/clertex on r/paladins)

SO, TLDR:

the new skins are boring or completely change the character, and thunderbrush keeps ignoring almost every character for the waifu-bait ones.

thunderbrush has no rights

#paladins #pcotr #thunderbrush #my post #long post #im fucking heated folks this shit drives me up the wall #ive got issues regarding the lore too: like how they up and deleted the 3 stories that came with imani + atlas' release #or how there's literally no lore for the sentinels OR the people with no side in the conflict #im mad #make an effort #i wont be surprised if this gets no notes #but i must scream

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takesuhigher · 4 years

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when is a box not a box and a ring not a ring? when the box is the ring and the ring is a box. the squared circle. the boxing ring. the fighter's cage. i know why the caged bird sings. gonna try not to do this again but my dreams were interesting. lots of workers working on the house. i didn't trust them in the house bc they were men, ye that was part of it, but mostly bc they were people and i don't trust people. maybe that skins clip was embedded in my chip or maybe it was a foretelling of things to come. how am i to know? all i do know is that i was never going to go. too much anxiety. too much uncertainty. i went three, maybe four times live. like the concerts? and one time i almost died. the first time i delayed my whole life. not really. i looked a mess. i wasn't dressed to impress. but bizarro world /s heh, you're the best. another time i was late bc i could hardly walk. had to leave the crutches behind like jamie ditched her chair. in the book. the movie didn't care. he gave back the book and never wore the ring. how depressing. he wore that ring til the day he died and that's the bottom line because the book said so. pictures lose the word's written intent. though written pictures miss the voice's emotion and all the context unless spelled out with proficient experience. but all they want are snippets. half-length books. i was rewriting a book in a dream. trying to make it better but as i was transcribing i realized it was already the best version of itself that it could be. the lightswitch was replaced. something better, they said. looked ugly to me. that's just bizarro world, distorting the picture in your head. it would be nice if the picture was good on his end, but that would be scary because that means i'm literally seeing something different. hear what you want to hear, see what you want to see, that's the m.e. the medical examiner is michael boden. how do you spell that name? i hate to break it you but joe biden looks just like you. but he's the lesser you. the one who runs the house and steers this ship is much more well-equipped. he sees through bizarro world's bullshit. wouldn't be surprised if louis had a mistep and actually sputtered that shit. been spending years making up for it and know look what's happened. a baby that looks like him and larry is only ever seen in bears. the bears won. i'll never forget. i had to apologize to him bc his team would lose. all hope had already been lost bc once the message was delivered it was set in stone. what will be will be. it's already taken place somewhere down that parallel line. each on each side of the track. you move i move. it's a chess match. inside a ring? such a smartass. ed said it more different than that. two riversides that hold back. when has my side ever held back? i'm talking when it mattered? the waiting. the resisting the urge to run right up to you, hug, you, give you the poem you deserved. the words you needed to know. that's what the main page is for. those words were delivered right on time. no postal delays. no weight too heavy to take. the book was orange. orange is the new black. no take backs. it had a little clover on it with a little pumpkin at his feet and a top reflecting me. remember how you said you'd stop doing this? always with the lies. it wasn't a lie. it was a hope that never arrived. yeah yeah keep on quoting those song lyrics and see where all that talking's got us baby? i love when you call me baby. i wanna suck those- hey now this kind of public affection isn't allowed. they were so good in person they changed their name to LIVE. with a long i silly. so long. good bye? i was just making a *ahem* reference. oh. i can be naive sometimes and a little shy. that's why i call you my little girl. i give you everything and you give me nothing. i just wanna keep calling your name. i don't want to wait in vain for this love. do you ever use your own words or just always steal somebody elses? all the words ever said and all the arrangements ever made were all made by me. just for you to hear. even the bad ones? they just provide emphasis. how are we gonna end this? with ten swords? too much pain? ten wands? my back can't tale the wait? ten coins? the markets are stealing that shit. it'll bounce back. are you going to finish or did you get sidetracked? about to go off on a cute little tangent? a detour that causes pain and so much agony? no. *shoulder nudge* oh my shoulder smudge, i miss him so. the cups silly. so much love it overflows. i tried explaining the cups years ago. fell on deaf ears. and now look at me, almost as deaf as a boy can be. that made no sense. you just wanted to rhyme. you know me too well. you got me under your spell. i misspell words all the time. yeah, and what do you find? meaning in the mistakes. because they were never mistakes. they were divinely guided through you like arrows that pierced my chest and split my ribbed cage apart. that's the only way to make a transplant. you want to contine this? i kinda thought the scene with the plant was worth mentioning. ah, a question that got an answering. that's beautiful. as on the outside, so is as are something on the inside. i'll give you credit for trying. you were always one step ahead and one step behind which means you are on time. ed said that too. we love ed. we love naill too. hopefully there's only one person who will climb this wall and have a glorious freefall. come one come all. all for one, one for all. you just like playing with this ball. eric was shocked she grabbed it and ran with it. all the way to the endzone. yes, i know you love foitball. i can't wait to watch it with you when they make their comeback and you can tell me about vaughn. there's much about him that's a mystery since i never learned the rules of the game he plays. i'm more on dani's team just writing and writing and hiding like a red flag in a black and white world. to be alive the colors must swirl. like ice cream in a cone. the commercials are strange. i've seen stranger things. okay i see you could do this all day. the connotation in that is interesting. you little vixen. okay christian, settle down. the flag is a room. a room and a box. maybe red is your favorite color. maybe i love all your colors. are you going to quote another song. i said what i said. i've said it all over the world and over your shoulder, whispered in your ear. that's what all the white noise is. you're hearing my waves crash upon your shore. if you're even half as much as romanic in real life that you're purporting to be... scratch that (itch), i want it all.

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kopinions · 6 years

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i’m really pissed because there are people out there who call me a hater. this is mostly because of my opinion on blackpink. i know there are blinks out there who are going to get so triggered and i was kind of scared of getting the hate but seriously this is getting out of hand.

i’m going to be honest here, I used to be a blackpink hater until i reflected and realized my hatred was misplaced. Originally, i was a huge big bang and 2ne1 fan, and my ultimate bias group was and to this day is still probably 2ne1.

from my earlier teen years (and now) i hated myself and hurt myself and put myself down because of my flaws. 2ne1 taught me to embrace my flaws, that it’s okay to feel ugly, it’s okay to feel terrible as long as you get back up, because none of that defines your worth. in a lot of way 2ne1 helped me, because they weren’t a particularly beautiful or outwardly elegant group. i didn’t particularly care that they were doing something new or anything like that, i loved them because they helped me accept myself.

I became a blackpink hater when yg disbanded 2ne1 and called blackpink a prettier version of 2ne1. That really triggered me, it was so painful, like being told that all the acceptance stuff was a lie. And i felt bad for 2ne1. when yg said that, i was pissed and i took it out on blackpink. i never listened to their music i purposely went out of my way to never see them because i believed they would be cheap knock offs of 2ne1.

I was wrong. For whatever reason i decided to give them a chance, and i was instantly hooked on their songs. like twice, their hooks were insanely catchy. i loved their music. i instantly fell in love with their music, they were catchy and had a good beat and jennie and lisa were half decent rappers. i was slightly disappointed when i learned that they hadn’t written anything or had a part in any aspect of its production but that was a given. kpop groups in general don’t usually get a chance to do any writing or get involved in the music production aspect, girl groups and female idols even less so. even cl only got involved after their debut.

BUT there are some aspects of blackpink i really dislike to the point i would call it hate. actually it isnt even about blackpink, it’s more about their fandom and the hype surrounding them. bc as much as i love them i will never call myself a blink because of the plain toxicity and immaturity of most of the fandom. I’m not saying that it’s everyone but i am saying it’s a majority.

The only thing i think i really dislike about blackpink is their aegyo. It’s just painful and they need to stop, because when you watch how they act when they think the cameras or attention isn’t on them, they seem so much more likeable. Even the whole thing about jennie’s unprofessionalism, i admit it was unprofessional and the fact that they have only five songs makes it look even worse, i feel like it’s because they are rookies.

yes they have been around for almost two years now, they haven’t had a single comeback, haven’t had any promotions or anything remotely like that so they haven’t had the experience of being in the spotlight/centre of attention repeatedly. Yes they have constantly in the public eye with all the extra stuff they are doing but there is a difference between that and the kind of scrutiny that idols come under when they make a comeback. They haven’t really gotten that exposure so they really don’t know how to act. They still have that sort of awkwardness that most rookie groups start out with, except other rookie groups go out of that by their second year because that is usually around their third-ish comeback. But effing yg and his headass won’t give blackpink their comeback and i’m kind of scared that the planned june comeback will be pushed back again. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before.

Now here are my issues with the hype surrounding them. people keep calling them ‘queens’ or ‘the only good girl group’ or ‘the only girl group that isn’t doing cutesy concepts’... To be considered ‘queens’ i think you should have more than 5 songs and at least an actual mini album. They have literally just started out. They haven’t proven anything yet. Im not saying they wont or cant, because i think they definitely have potential but like, you can’t judge them based on 5 songs.

you really can’t say the only good girl group. The sheer number of talented and hardworking idols out there is insane. Saying that they are the only good girl group makes you an idiot. Red velvet, twice, the former ioi, clc, dreamcatcher, weki meki, gugudan, gfriend, and now (g)i-dle. They are all talented and hardworking and magnetic, so stop putting other groups down because you want blackpink to look better or because you want to feel superior.

People call them ‘rap queens’ or ‘the best rappers of the new generation’ first of all, i think to be a true rapper you need to write your own lyrics. True we don’t know if jennie and lisa can pull that off, nor do we know they can’t. But there are some groups in that list that i think have proved that their rappers can write and perform sick raps. Jeon Soyeon prove herself on unpretty rapstar and i would argue that she is probably the most talented and versatile rapper of the new generation. Twice chaeyoung very recently proved her skill when she wrote and performed her rap, yeeun of clc has recently been given permission to write her own rap parts and she delivered in black dress. Not only that yeeun’s recent performances actually rivals jennies stage presence, although the rest of clc not so much (cube has actually done such a shit job of promoting clc until this recent black dress era that they are pretty much in the same boat as blackpink in terms of experience). But the thing is that jennie and lisa, especially lisa has such great flow that i think if given the chance they could actually pull it off.

The whole part about them ‘not being cutesy or girly’ is so untrue. First of all there is absolutely nothing wrong with being cutesy or girly, but blackpink not being cutesy or girly is very untrue. Then there are people calling them ‘edgy’, yeah no. they are not edgy, 2ne1 was edgy, blackpink is not and they don’t have to be. I think the image that makes them so cool and hot is their image of the hot, cool rich kid prep school girl vibe. It’s actually so hot (lol you see what i did there). It’s that whole ‘I’m pretty, rich and a little bit of a b*tch’ (not that i don’t mean b*tch as a bad thing, literally any woman that has attitude, ambition or zeal is kind of labelled as a b*tch) and the ‘i’m cooler than all of you combined’. It makes you feel like a queen, in a different way than 2ne1, but still makes you feel empowered.

The main thing to take away is that yeah they are cool, and interesting but they really haven’t been given a chance to grow yet. Give them some more time. Next, stop putting them on a pedestal and bringing down other girl groups around them to make black pink look better, yeah they are a great girl group but they aren’t that special. at least not yet. if they weren’t from yg they would’ve been bashed to hell for being wannabes and would have had to prove themselves a lot more but on the other hand i guarantee they would’ve had more comebacks and songs by now.

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