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tanoraqui · 4 years

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okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse. LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

#mdzs #the untamed #supernatural #ficlet #my fic #spn #ugh it'll probably fuck up hte bullet points again

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bettsfic · 3 years

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february pinned: the real & the ideal

in this month’s edition of my lowkey writing-related newsletter, in addition to my writing-related post roundup and consultation availability, i have short story recommendations for you and an essay on the nature of reality in fiction!

if you want to receive my lowkey writing-related newsletter directly, you can subscribe here.

in other news, i finished two fics this month:

digging for orchids (hualian, 43k, explicit, fake marriage au)

let ruin end here (hualian, 8k, mature, neighbors au)

full newsletter below the cut, or you can read it here.

oof,

what a month. january is already a rough time. throwing in a pandemic, a coup, and an economic revolution spearheaded by reddit just seems unfair. as for me personally, the spring semester came at me fast and even though it’s only week 2, i am already buried in grading. which i realize is my fault, considering i’m the one who assigned homework.

so after hearing your feedback, i thought i’d make this newsletter even more writing-related by writing more about writing. this month i’ll start off by talking about the nature of reality in fiction in a segment i call “been thinkin a lot about.” more on that below.

new resource

i’ve compiled a folder of PDFs of the short stories i teach most often, which is to say, the stories i like enough to re-read every semester. most of them are literary fiction but a few veer into fantasy, sci fi, and horror.

i know before the MFA, i didn’t really know what a short story was. like i knew, abstractly, the concept of a short story (it is as it sounds), but i could only list a couple i’d ever read as an adult, and i hadn’t read anything that had been published in the last decade. i remember wondering why i was even being asked to care about short stories. who writes short stories? who reads them? apparently, a lot of people. short storyists are a lot like fanwriters in that they make no money and when you talk about your writing in public, people give you that “why would anyone waste their time with that?” look.

so here’s why i was asked to care about short stories: a good short story gives you the entirety of a world in a very condensed space. moreover, it can sometimes leave you as satisfied as a novel in a fraction of the reading time. all the stories i’ve compiled here are ones that stuck with me, that i find myself recommending over and over to writers who want a good example of developing character, or weird narration, or establishing stakes.

if you’re a writer considering publication or an MFA in creative writing, i highly recommend familiarizing yourself with short stories, if for no other reason than to get the feel for them so you can write some of your own. if you can get a few short story publications under your belt, it’ll be easier to open doors when you’re ready to query agents for a novel. also, short stories make a great writing sample for grad programs, workshops, fellowships, residencies, and grant funding.

if you want to check out more short stories but have no idea where to start, the 2020 best american short stories just dropped in november, or if you want a cheaper one, used copies of 2019 and earlier are available on thriftbooks. if you want an overview of the history of the (american) short story, there’s also the best american short stories of the century. fair warning, though, while it’s more diverse than expected, it’s still a bit heavy on dead-white-dude writing.

content warning: the stories in the above-linked folder may depict instances of sexual assault, suicide, and/or abuse. i have not labeled them individually with warnings but i hope to soon, as well as provide a catalog with summaries.

i’m also still working on my essay and novel recs. more to come on that hopefully next month.

writing-related posts

how i quit my banking job to do a creative writing MFA

how i learned to read faster/stop subvocalizing

how to write when you have no time or energy to write

my experience writing fic in small/dead fandoms (aka fics that will probably not get any traffic)

how to describe facial expressions

how to ask for help from your professors

how to navigate tenses during flashbacks

how to separate yourself from your work

how (and why you might want to) write a shitty first draft

why you should consider making the climax the inciting incident

for a complete list of my writing-related posts, check out this masterdoc (which i still need to update it with the past few months’ posts).

stuff i’m into rn

i’m about halfway through the rhetoric of fiction by wayne c. booth which has more or less become my narrative bible. it’s a little dated (1961) but it tackles banal writing adages that are somehow still believed, like “show don’t tell” and whatnot, and breaks them down with amazing insight, clarity, and research. it’s a bit of a dense text so i’m only reading a few pages a day, i think the first time i’ve ever let myself read something so intentionally slowly. now i’m kind of obsessed with doing things slowly. reading slowly, writing slowly, cooking slowly. i even drive slowly, because it’s so rare to go anywhere at all, and i want to enjoy it. also, it’s very snowy where i am. also also, the battery died in my car this month and i really have to make it a point to drive more often.

february availability

i have 2 openings for initial writing consultations in february! if you’re interested, please fill out this google form.

you can learn more about my services on my carrd.

been thinkin a lot about

compulsory reality in fiction. many of us have probably received feedback along the lines of, or thought to ourselves as we read, “that’s not realistic.” many of us believe, consciously or not, that fiction that is more “realistic” is inherently better than fiction that is less “realistic.” for some of us, real means a saturation of details, the clear depiction of the surfaces of things. reality is found in the rendering thereof; if you can “see” it, it’s real. for others of us, it might be the development of complex characters and their growth across a narrative. and for yet others, reality is subtlety, or misery, or the idea of “slice of life,” a term i don’t think means anything, because aren’t all stories a slice of a character’s life? what would a story that’s not a slice of life look like? you’d either have to take away the “slice” part and render a whole life, which is impossible, or you’d have to take away the “life” part and create a dead story, which may be possible, but why would you want to? even if you wrote a story about a rock, the rock would be brought to life by virtue of being written about.

anyway. i think the word “real” is a shitty word for the same reason “slice of life” is a shitty phrase: everything is real and therefore nothing cannot be real. slices of life are all we know because we are alive and cannot truly perceive not being alive; reality is also all we know, and any depictions beyond reality are thus made real because they have been depicted.

so the “goal” for fiction to be “realistic” seems to me to be a false one. all fiction is real because it exists and no fiction can be truly real because it’s only a facsimile of reality. not to get all “this is not a pipe” but writing is just making squiggles, and we as a community of English-knowers agree that certain squiggles correspond to certain sounds, and certain sounds together make words which conjure meanings. and words put together into sentences into paragraphs conjure even more complicated meanings. and when those paragraphs are woven into narrative we create yet more and more complicated meaning.

every time you write anything — a text message, an email, a tweet, a fanfic — you are taking the infinite abstraction of your own cognition, narrowing it into a single concept, and representing that concept with patterns in the form of sounds represented by letters and given meaning with words, so that the infinite abstraction of your own conscience can be fractionally witnessed by the infinite abstraction of someone else’s. and even though we can’t definitively prove for ourselves that any other thing possesses a consciousness, writing shows us the shape of someone else’s mind, and tells us we are not alone.

and yet we still expect writing to be “real.”

have you ever read a story where a character sneezed? like just, a description of a sneeze for the sake of it, with no purpose or function in the plot? if not, is it because our characters aren’t real enough to sneeze, or because the sneeze isn’t relevant to their plight? what would a written sneeze look like, and why would somebody want to write it? moreover, why would somebody want to read it? that leads me to wonder, do we depict reality in the service of narrative, or narrative in the service of reality? in other words, do we write to portray reality (sans sneezing), or do we depict reality to constrain our writing, the way one might request bumpers when bowling so as not to fall in the gutters?

i’ve never read an artful rendition of a character pissing or shitting, either, even when those things are related to a character’s plight and circumstance — stories involving long road trips, living in the woods, being kidnapped. the only exception i can think of is when those things are eroticized (we do not kinkshame here in this lkwrnl), the same way it’s rare to find detailed sex writing that isn’t for the purpose of reader arousal. are there just some things about the nature of being human that are too intimate, too complex, or too boring to write?

once i wrote a murder that takes place in a small fictional midwestern town in the 90s (for the ~aesthetic), and it went uninvestigated by said town’s police force. early readers repeatedly commented along the lines of, “that’s not realistic.” and i thought, no, if anything, the incompetence of police is too realistic for the heightened reality i’m trying to render. have you ever heard of a cop solving a murder that didn’t come with an obvious suspect or immediately found evidence? i haven’t. that doesn’t mean those cases don’t exist, but i definitely think they’re less likely than mass media has us believe, and the average small-town police force has far less motivation (and possibly training) to solve crimes than we think.

i started working on the above-mentioned novel in 2016, and my goal was to depict a reality that hovers above the surface of plausibility. in this novel, which is based on macbeth, a preteen girl, mercy, becomes jealous of the love her best friend elisa shows to her father. mercy decides to get her older and very unstable brother to kill him. naturally the deed goes awry, but it does occur, and the cleanup is far messier than anticipated.

is it plausible for a 12 year old girl to plot and execute the murder of her best friend’s father? no. is that what this book is about? yes. a book about a 12 year old girl who has a perfectly healthy relationship with her best friend and who has no feelings toward her bff’s father one way or another is probably far more “realistic,” but that’s not the book i’d want to read and certainly not the one i want to write. my goal of a heightened reality is what henry james calls the intensity of illusion, the thing that allows a reader, through the witness of one’s distilled cognition into language, to exit physical, knowable reality, and enter a new and unknown reality. and isn’t climbing to that higher place, that intensity of illusion, the purpose of fiction? if it’s not, what is?

the best feedback i got on the aforementioned murder scene was from one of my professors, who, of the perfect calm of all children involved, said, “they just shot a guy. at least one of them would be freaking out.”

he was totally right, but it opened up a lot of questions for me. by what standard did he reach that conclusion? was it something in the chapter itself, was it his personal understanding of the work of narrative, or was it the logical conclusion of the slim plausibility of the scenario? moreover, where did i come up with the idea that all of my preteen characters would commit a murder and proceed to be very chill about it? if an implausible scenario begs the expectation of emotional distress, would it be more compelling to buy into that expectation or deviate from it? is it even my obligation to be compelling when i can never have a cogent grasp of the personal tastes of my audience?

that brings me to what appears to be reality’s opposite: idealism, the state those of us who write fanfic are often trying to achieve. we’re working in an entire genre of ideals, of happily ever afters, of hurt that is always followed by comfort, of glossily rendered sex during which everyone orgasms and no one has to pee afterward. we fix broken texts and continue incomplete ones. sometimes, we want to make existing things better, deeper, more complicated. but all the time, we want to make a text more than what it is.

some see this process, this drive for the ideal, as antithetical to realism, and i think that’s part of the reason fanfiction and other idealistic genres (romance, etc.) get a bad name — the assumption that more real (which for some means more miserable) is better, and therefore its opposite, the ideal, is worse. for them, i have this quote from vladimir nabokov:

For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.

the ideal, aesthetic bliss, the intensity of illusion. these are all phrases that boil down to the same thing: you the writer get to define the constraints of your own reality. you get to choose if your world even complies with the known laws of physics. and if it doesn’t, you get to choose which ones to break, and why to break them. you get to choose if your stories take place in a real house in a real town on a real day. if you wrote a story that takes place on september 11, 2001, would the events of that story be shaped by the events of that actual day, or are you writing a better world where 9/11 doesn’t happen? consider the consequences of both: why might you want to write reality? why might you want to write ideality? how do these things shape your identity and goals as a writer?

no matter where a work falls on the real-ideal spectrum, you have to accept that prose itself will only ever be a verisimilitude of reality and therefore an interpretation of it, one that might be interpreted differently by a reader. in writing and everything else, you can never have complete control over what others perceive. it’s like giving someone cash as a gift. they might buy themselves something nice with it, or they might spend it on groceries. the point is, eventually we all have to let go of our realities.

#lkwrnl #pinned

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mopeytropey · 4 years

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a beer buds series: chapter 6

Timeline: takes place during chapter 5 of ‘apu’ just before Lexa and Clarke get a little too drunk while watching movies (oops!) in which they fall asleep on Clarke's couch together (oops again!), subsequently commencing what I like to call The Separation

Beer: Free Rise (MOSAIC) DRY-HOPPED SAISON

This edition of Free Rise highlights locally sourced Danko Rye from Valley Malt and Mosaic in the dry hop. A nuanced fruity hop profile is balanced with subtle, crisp malt character and expressive notes of pepper and clove. Light in body, with a clean, bone-dry finish.

ABV 7.3%

Posted on AO3 here or below the cut :)

Free Rise: Trillium Brewing Co (Fenway/Boston, MA) :::

“This newer location is great, but you really need to experience their beer garden next summer on the green. Clarke is obsessed with it—chances are she’ll probably drag you there at some point.”

Lincoln says it so casually, and the image that Lexa begins to paint comes effortlessly.

She and Clarke on a day trip to Boston in mid June, sharing sips of beer and sampling local food trucks in the afternoon sun. Clarke’s rasping laughter drifting through the park as Lexa is further charmed, relaxing in the warm sun and nearby ocean breezes.

She would allow Clarke to drag her any number of places, Lexa thinks. Given the opportunity.

“I’m excited to see both locations,” she says to Lincoln, as if her mind hadn’t drifted into an idyllic landscape of some potential future.

It’s what she’s begun to sense as of late: possibility.

A recent glimmer of hope has been sparking at the periphery of Lexa’s consciousness. There’s the exhilaration of what might be possible for her and Clarke, even in its uncertainty. Even if she doesn’t have any control over it. She can feel the potential of things to come buzzing through her even now, as she and Lincoln walk under the looming, green shadows of Fenway Park.

“Have you been?” Lincoln asks, nodding towards the infamous baseball park that sits in the heart of the city, surrounded by bars and businesses and gawking tourists.

“Not yet.”

“We should go—I haven’t had anyone to hate watch the Red Sox with in years.”

Lexa smiles up at him. “A cherished pastime.”

They swap baseball stats and playoff predictions while walking down the stretch of Brookline Ave between historic Fenway and Trillium. The city air is crisp and cool, and Lexa almost wishes for a jacket, but the chill invigorates her already vibrant mood. Upcoming plans with Clarke have filled her with an unchecked buoyancy.

Costia had left that morning for her weekend away with a parting kiss to Lexa’s temple, a warm hand cupped around the back of her neck.

Safe, perfunctory. Everything that Lexa has begun to associate with Costia.

“Can we try to talk about this again when I get back?”

For once, Lexa hadn’t flinched at the mention of Costia’s research grant and its implications for their relationship. “Sure.”

The extent of their goodbye at the door of their apartment had been Costia’s soft look and Lexa’s small smile as she briefly squeezed Costia’s fingers.

There had been a time when impending distance felt torturous—longing would spring up after only hours apart, and Lexa would ache to see her again.

Those moments for them, like so many others, are gone now.

And, if they have lost their weight, if they are no more than performative interactions between them, Lexa has begun to wonder: what’s left?

What is it that has kept her clinging to Costia so willfully?

Lexa has always excelled at making sense of her life and maintaining control, even amidst the chaos and unpredictability that has so often plagued her. She considers herself a rational person with a reasonable sense of the world, particularly the mechanics of her interpersonal relationships.

Being with Costia had been no different. From the very start, they just made sense. Lexa has always found comfort in the expected, seeking logic and practicality in her daily life.

At least, historically.

Ever since Clarke (clumsily) breezed into her life, Lexa hasn’t felt entirely reasonable about much of anything. Clarke is still unfamiliar in many ways. Her entire friendship has been fortuitous, unprecedented. It’s the first time in Lexa’s entire life that she has been irrevocably drawn towards such palpable uncertainty.

“This weather is perfect—I love it up here at this time of year,” Lincoln says.

Lexa breathes in deeply, anchoring herself to this moment and quieting the thoughts of her indeterminate future. “It’s great,” she smiles and continues in stride with Lincoln’s comforting shadow cast over her.

:::

The taproom is stunning: polished wood in every direction, exposed light bulbs hanging from an open ceiling, and thirty-foot glass doors stretching along an entire wall. In the warmer months, Lexa imagines the doors opening to a cluttered patio. In the early autumn temperatures, the patio is empty and half of the room inside is bathed in natural light while the other remains dim and cozy.

Lincoln heads straight for the bar counter. While a handful of other patrons have favored the couches near the windows, the bar sits empty.

“Hey guys.” A woman around their age approaches from behind the bar. She slides two menus in front of them as Lexa takes her seat beside Lincoln. “Here’s what we’re currently pouring on tap. Cans are listed at the bottom. You need a minute?”

“That’d be great. Thanks,” Lincoln answers.

The woman walks away with a smile that Lexa catches only as she looks up from her menu.

Lincoln drums his hands against the counter top. “Oh shit, I know what I’m getting.”

“That was quick,” Lexa says, returning her attention to the draft pours.

“Their gose is ridiculously good.”

“I think I’m going to do the farmhouse.”

“Did you two decide?” The bartender is already approaching as Lexa glances up from her menu. “Sorry—I wasn’t trying to hover, but it’s pretty dead in here today.”

“No worries.” Lexa offers a brief smile and watches the woman’s face transform, brightening as she stops directly in front of her and braces her arms against the edge of the counter.

“I’m gonna do the gose,” Lincoln says.

“And, I’ll do the Free Rise,” Lexa adds.

“That one is my favorite,” the bartender responds, grinning at Lexa as she retrieves their menus. “Be right back with those for you.”

“Thank you,” Lexa says while reaching for her phone that has buzzed twice from the front pocket of her jeans.

She’s fighting a grin at the messages she finds, simultaneously typing her response as Clarke continues her barrage of nonsense, and doesn’t catch the odd look Lincoln is giving her until she slides her phone onto the bar top.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, still looking too pleased for Lexa’s comfort. “So, what else are you up to this weekend? You wanna come check out the new poke bowl spot with me and O tomorrow?”

“I’m supposed to watch movies with Clarke tomorrow night—what time were you thinking of going?”

“No idea. I’ll let you know though. Or, you know, bring her with you. We can make it a foursome.”

His suggestion has her ridiculously flustered for what could be no more than an invitation to hang out with three of her friends. But, it’s Lincoln, and Lexa knows better than to underestimate his scheming.

“Yeah, I mean, I’ll, um, I’ll ask her,” Lexa answers, almost immediately distracted again by the vibration of her phone.

She’s still rolling her eyes at Clarke’s entirely ridiculous diatribe about the validity of poorly written screenplays of the early 90s when the woman behind the bar returns with their drinks.

“Here we go. Should I start a tab for you?”

“Um, sure,” Lincoln responds. He fishes out his debit card from his wallet and slides it across the bar counter.

“I really love your sweater, by the way.”

There’s a brief, weighted pause following the sound of the woman’s voice, and Lexa looks up from her phone when she realizes the compliment was meant for her.

“Oh. Thanks.” She flashes another momentary smile before reaching for her beer and sending off her scathing rebuke for Clarke’s lack of cinematic prowess.

The absolute ire that it will produce and the irritated messages that will follow almost make Lexa giggle in public. Pushing Clarke’s buttons has become an accidentally honed skill.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you not the same person who told me—not two weeks ago—that having beautiful women flirting with you typically grabs your attention?”

Lexa closes her phone instantly, replacing it to her jeans pocket where she hopes it will be safe from Lincoln’s insightful observations. Like getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she attempts to clear her face of any guilt as she looks over at Lincoln because Clarke had not been flirting with her in the first place. They have merely been discussing preferences in film through a medium of quick wit and lightly antagonistic banter.

“What are you talking about?”

Lincoln’s voice drops to an even lower volume as he leans towards her. “That bartender has been chatting you up since we walked in, and you seem to be on another planet right now.”

“She was not—”

“Oh-ho-ho,” Lincoln laughs. “Believe me. She definitely was.”

Lexa chances a quick glance down the length of the bar towards the woman polishing glassware. She looks up before Lexa can avert her gaze, and that same smile is back. Lexa’s stomach drops regretfully.

She hadn’t registered the blatant interest from their bartender nor her physical features, which are, objectionably, quite attractive.

Damn it, Lincoln.

“How is it?” the woman calls out, and Lexa raises her glass with a forced smile.

She takes a sip, pretending it isn’t her first, and can actually feel Lincoln fighting a smile to her left. “It’s great. Thanks.”

“Maybe having multiple beautiful woman flirting with you simultaneously is throwing you off,” Lincoln stage whispers, gleefully watching Lexa’s discomfort until she kicks his leg with the toe of her sneaker.

“I’m ignoring you now.”

“Oh good,” Lincoln laughs, “this should be a fun hang then.”

Lexa’s phone continues to alert her of Clarke’s persistence, or so she assumes by the rapidity at which it vibrates. Clarke never sends one, moderate length text when she could send 12 fragmented messages in quick succession. She reaches into her pocket to silence her notifications when Lincoln gently pokes a finger into her tricep.

“I’m just giving you a hard time. You know I don’t give a shit if you text Clarke while we hang out. She’s my buddy.”

“Why are you assuming I was texting with Clarke?” Lexa can hear the edge to her voice and reaches for a drink of her saison to lessen her defenses.

“Wild guess.”

Even Lexa is relatively powerless to Lincoln’s smirking charm and fights a smile of her own when their eyes meet.

“We’re debating movie selections for tomorrow,” she shares. “Her taste in film is generally abhorrent.”

“You two are always fighting about something.”

“Not intentionally. But, Clarke can be very … frustrating,” Lexa admits with a soft scowl into her beer. Lincoln laughs in response and she exhales. “We’re extremely different people.”

“Yeah, but differences are good. At least she keeps things interesting.”

Lexa barely manages not to choke on her beer, swallowing inelegantly. “That is one way to put it.”

“So, Costia is gone until Monday?”

Lexa tries not to let the abrupt change in conversation jar her. “Yeah.”

“Where’s the conference again?”

“D.C.” Lexa clears her throat, tracing a ring of condensation with her index finger against the bar. “Johns Hopkins.”

“How have things been? Any better?”

“Define better.”

Lincoln grimaces sympathetically at Lexa’s unmasked cynicism, and she exhales a cleansing breath. She’s determined not to make this yet another installment of airing her grievances of a stalled relationship, like so many times before. Lincoln is too kind and too selfless—she doesn’t want to take advantage of his friendship by making everything about herself all the time.

“Sorry,” she says softly. “I guess I don’t know how to determine if things are improving or not. But, we’re trying to be more realistic about our relationship at the very least. Talking a bit more. She’s been pursuing this research grant, which would mean almost a full year apart as she works abroad.”

“Damn.”

“I know. I took the news spectacularly well, as you might imagine.”

“Lost your shit a little bit?”

Lexa huffs a laugh and pulls on the sleeve of her sweater. “I think you accused me of being particularly homicidal that morning?”

Lincoln tips back in his stool with a laugh. “Ah, yes—I knew it.”

“Thank you for gloating at my expense,” Lexa responds drolly.

“Sorry.” Lincoln clears the laughter from his voice and attempts composure. “So, what’s the plan? Wait and see if her proposal is accepted?”

Lexa swallows down a mouthful of beer and runs a hand through her hair. “I think we have plenty to talk about even if she doesn’t get the grant, but yeah. We’re supposed to talk when she gets back.”

“That’s really good, Lex.” Lincoln’s gentle timbre is warm and reassuring, all prodding humor gone from his tone. “I mean, it’s tough, but avoidance is also generally unhelpful.”

“Yes, I’ve realized.” Lexa smiles over at him, feeling better already.

Lincoln then asks, “What about Clarke?” and her momentary sense of relief vanishes.

She’s either gone extremely pale or is blushing fiercely because she feels both an icy chill and too hot all at once. She barely manages to respond without her voice shaking awkwardly. “What about Clarke?”

Lincoln is unfazed, lightly flicking his finger against her forehead as if they’re still thirteen and riding a noisy subway car. “She’s supposed to be your best friend, dummy. You should talk to her about this stuff.”

She’s never considered mentioning anything of significance about Costia to Clarke. It’s always seemed to Lexa, unsurprisingly, like a conflict of interest. Clarke will often inquire about Costia’s schooling, graciously concerned for her well-being within a demanding graduate program. In turn, Lexa offers her standard replies, never wanting to delve too far into their dynamic for fear it would reveal too much and ruin everything. Her life for the past several months has relied entirely on a delicate balance. Saying too much too soon could be perilous.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Hey guys, are we ready for another round?”

The unexpected sound of the bartender’s voice startles Lexa out of her thoughts, and she looks up to see that her beer is, in fact, empty.

“I’d like to try what he was drinking, actually,” Lexa tells her.

“You know what? I’m going to do the farmhouse,” Lincoln announces and slides their glasses closer to the woman standing in front of them.

She laughs easily while reaching for their empty glassware. It’s a nice laugh, ringing pleasantly in the quiet taproom. Even still, Lexa can’t help but register how much it pales in comparison to the addicting notes of Clarke’s distinctive laughter.

“Okay so two more of the same but in reverse,” the woman confirms. “Got it.”

As she leaves them, Lexa spins in her stool, determined to shift gears away from her indecisiveness. “Things with you and Octavia are going well?”

“Yeah,” Lincoln smiles. “Really great. She’s probably way too good for me, but I’m going to keep my mouth shut and hope she never figures it out.”

Lexa arches an eyebrow. “Do we need to sort through your abandonment trauma now? Because I thought we promised each other years ago that we would stop belittling our own self-worth.”

“No, no,” Lincoln laughs. “I’m good, I swear.” He shrugs a moment later and scratches his head. “Old habits.”

“There is no one too good for you, but if there were ever a perfect match out there, it’s Octavia.”

The bartender returns with their drinks before Lincoln can respond, but he looks at her as if Lexa has just gifted him the cosmos and reaches out to squeeze her shoulder. Their next beer turns to idle chatter, old memories, sports, and shop talk. Lexa checks her messages while Lincoln is in the bathroom and finds that Clarke has not conceded any of her poorly formed arguments by even a fraction. The fiery retorts on her screen breed a smile so wide that she doesn’t manage to temper it by the time Lincoln returns.

If she were at liberty to be more honest, she would tell Clarke that it doesn’t matter what movies they watch. She’s just happy to be spending more time together. Instead, she slides her phone back into her pocket and stands beside her stool, stretching the stiff muscles of her back.

“You ready to go?”

Lexa smiles in response and nods.

They thank their bartender and exit the taproom into a setting sun. The foot traffic down Brookline Avenue is busier at the 5:00 hour as city workers rush towards their staggering commutes home. Lexa is lost in thought, still pondering her evening with Clarke the following day, when Lincoln abruptly pulls her down a side street with his hand wrapped around her elbow.

“Oh wait—this way.”

“Um, where the hell are we going?” Lexa asks when their course has been rerouted away from Lincoln’s car.

“I just decided I’m gonna take you for the best burger of your life. Storrow Drive is a parking lot right now anyway—it could take us hours to get home if we leave now. Let’s eat first and then drive back.”

In no rush to return to her empty apartment, Lexa shrugs easily. “Yeah, sure.” Being in Lincoln’s company is almost always preferable to anything else anyway.

After a moment’s pause, he nudges her with his elbow as they walk and is grinning stupidly when Lexa looks up at him. “If you really want to make Clarke mad, tell her we’re about to walk into Tasty Burger.”

Lexa has spent the better part of the year feeling unmoored by a lack of purpose. She has been draped in uncertainty and self-doubt after abandoning her life in New York. And while she still feels plagued by indecision, she’s also grateful for the choices she’s made that have brought her here, walking in stride with an old friend.

She returns Lincoln’s smile and reaches for her phone.

:::

#a beer bud series #a pleasant undoing #apu #brewkru!#clexa fic

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melonsmessymusings · 3 years

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I just want to say I ADORE Operation Red Zone. It's a refreshing look at grief and loss that I've not really encountered before and Giles definitely deserved the screen time to explore his grief over Jenny's death in more detail! It led me to wonder how you go about writing something like that and not cry every time you think about it. Did you draw off any real-life experiences or is it all research based? I'm just curious because I'd be a mess if it were me lmao :)

Aww thank you anon <3 It makes me very happy to see stuff like this to the point where I start doing laps of the living room like an excited puppy. I’ve been truly humbled by how it’s been received actually, especially after being mostly inactive in the fandom until last year.

The only tears I’ve shed when thinking about it are purely from a ‘holy shit it’s awful! I’m going to delete that bullshit!’ perspective which I’m quite proud of actually. As to my references... Most of the plot is based off my own soap opera-esque late teens. I have no issues with sharing parts of it because it was a while ago now and I don’t give a fuck, though there are some potentially triggering things so it’ll be beneath the break. Also I don’t like getting to soppy because cringe, so it won’t be too detailed...

As I’ve said many times, Giles’ grief over Jenny’s death was never addressed and it’s infuriating. Especially as he’s one of the most interesting characters and Tony Head (other than being a genuinely lovely bloke) has it well within his skillset to pull something like that off. Jenny’s death in general was all but forgotten and something that doesn’t stand out as a ‘big moment’ in the series, which is unfair because it should be. You can’t just fridge characters because you’re a douche canoe and got bored of them. Hence my need for an AU where people actually DEAL with their emotions and try to start working through them.

Personal Context: To cut a very long, depressing, quite frankly disgustingly graphic story short, my best friend was killed in a drunk driver accident just before Christmas a few years back. It made national news being so nasty, there was a GRAPHIC Facebook post from the person who was there on scene when she died that was EVERYWHERE for months, it was horrific. I was 17, had no idea what the fuck to do and was pretty much left to it because of other stuff falling apart. I was always taught that what’s done is done so there’s no point crying about it. That’s toxic and harmful behaviour, but I ended up doing worse, ‘borderline’ illegal things because who cares about consequences when the worst has already happened? That whole year or so was the first time I’d properly experienced grief.

On my Lockdown 1 Buffy Binge, Passion came about and I found myself really relating to Giles. Obviously different circumstances, but it struck a chord that previous re-watches had failed to. There was a compelling need to use my ‘spicy year from hell’ as a skeleton reference for how the Scoobies would deal with something. Essentially, it came about because I wanted to express what I’d been through, using my favourite characters so that I could give them a happy-ish ending that I didn’t get. Also, I didn’t want to make it completely doom and gloom because there’s only so much you can take and although the situation may be dire, there is always some relief, no matter how small and if you can’t laugh, you’ll cry right? It sounds stupid but it’s the honest truth. It’s not just Giles either. Other characters’ behaviours and responses are based off what I’ve witnessed. Say what you will about trauma but by god is it an education for learning about life and making you wise beyond your years.

Of course, I do google some stuff because I’m British, so cultural differences are a massive thing that I totally underestimated. I’m still baffled by the Schooling system across the pond because like... what? I don’t remember the 90s on account for being too young, so there’s that too. And just general things because I’m dumb as fuck and know nothing about the world so I’m eager to learn. Yeah, I blagged my way through A Levels and into Law School, but do I have a functioning brain cell...? Not at all, as Em can attest.

Dunno if that answers your question but that’s where it comes from. Whack on the depressing playlist, scroll through the ol’ Facebook memories to jazz it up every now and then and we’re off...

#btvs #rupert giles #anon ask #fuck that got depressing #but we move #oh and lets not forget our queen #Jenny Calendar #what an icon

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strawberrysoup · 4 years

Text

Let’s Review || Chapter 2

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks.

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-con/dub-con elements, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, very dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Penny Parker worked, on average, 108 hours a week between three jobs to make ends meet for herself and Peter. His high school, a stupidly expensive private science academy, sucked the majority of her income up each month despite a scholarship. Rent was $1,200 a month, not including utilities. Peter ate like a quintessential teenage boy, which meant a pound of cereal every morning before school and the equivalent in the evenings when he got home from his clubs.

She didn’t sleep much and only had one rotating day off each week. After learning of Peter’s situation with Tony Stark, she slept even less and spent her days off doing any and all research she could into the man and her options for getting Peter away from him. By the time a month had passed since the revelation that her baby brother was being stalked by a super powerful, criminal mastermind pedophile piece of shit, Penny was a wreck of a human being. Even Peter, who was understandably wrapped up in his own head most of the month, had noticed the bags under his sister’s eyes and the harried look she carried about her at all times.

They joked that Penny had taken every bit of chaos from her parents combined genes, somehow managing to leave behind every ounce of intelligence for Peter. She was a walking, talking disaster on the best of days. He’d seen her stick a fork in a toaster, try to mix bleach and vinegar, hell one time she’d come home from work with a sprained wrist because she’d fallen off a ladder stocking some shelves despite the fact someone had been actively holding the ladder to spot her. But this was an entirely new level of disarray from his sister.

Peter could tell that she wasn’t coming up with any solutions that she was happy with. Despite their inside jokes, Penny had a weird sort of intuitive intelligence. She couldn’t do basic math in her head and forget anything to do with science, hell basic reading comprehension could be a trial at times.

What she knew was that Tony Stark had every police department in New York on his payroll, despite the act they put on that “they were doing everything in their power” to gather evidence on the 87 open investigations into him and his company. She knew that he had several politicians under the same thumb, not because it was public knowledge, but because somehow every bill that was put to vote that could be useful to Tony Stark passed into law (or however that sort of thing worked—Penny didn’t understand bills and laws and the senate or whatever, but who really did?).

She knew that the surrounding states were similarly within his range of power. That his companies’ holdings in California meant he had too much control there too. He had holdings in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico as well. It wasn’t public knowledge, but Penny could read between the lines when things seemed too good to be true. Or, too good to be true for one Tony Stark. Everything aligned in a way that was so suspicious, she couldn’t figure out why the FBI or CIA or NSA weren’t on to him too.

In the end, all it meant was that nothing Penny did would really matter in the long run. Tony Stark was infinitely powerful in a multitude of states, rich and influential in a way that one person shouldn’t ever have the ability to be. And Penny Parker had $3,000 to her name and a shitty apartment and an even shittier car. Compared to Tony Stark, she wasn’t even good enough to be dirt.

It meant that she had to be more creative. Penny wasn’t smart, but thinking outside of the usually accepted parameters was kind of her specialty. There was no good way to get Peter away from Tony’s sphere of influence, but there were some ways. Maybe just a single way. A very unpleasant, single way that would rip her heart to shreds. But Penny had decided as a 13 year old that she would do everything she could to keep Peter safe and happy and fuck if she was willing to stop now.

***

“Are you still stalking the webcam feed?” Tony wondered if it was possible to push anymore exasperation into his voice as he walked into the main living room only to find Clint once again watching Peter’s empty apartment on the massive TV.

“Something might happen,” it was the same defense the assassin always used when caught in the act, but Tony knew that the blond actually just wanted to catch a glimpse of Penelope Parker.

In all fairness, even Tony could admit that the young woman was rather beautiful. Where Peter’s skin was milky white and freckled, Penelope had a tan that betrayed her father’s Israeli heritage. She was shorter than Peter, held more weight than her lanky but growing brother. Her hair was long and held a natural wave, the same colour as Peter’s. They had the same eye colour as well, but Penelope’s were more narrow and slanted. It wasn’t Tony’s cup of tea, but he could objectively understand the appeal.

In all honestly, Penelope Parker wasn’t his cup of tea as a person. Every time her name popped into his head, he felt a seething rage begin to build in his chest. Penelope fucking Parker, responsible enough to be deemed guardian of the most precious boy in New York but not responsible enough to actually take care of him.

Back when he thought Peter lived alone off his meager inheritance, the living situation had bothered Tony but not enraged him. After all, sure a teenage boy would be fine living in a shit hole if it fit his budget. But no, his sister was the one who made him live in that rat’s nest. His sister, who worked so often it left poor Peter neglected and alone, was the reason he had to walk through dangerous streets to get home at night. His sister.

His fucking sister.

No wonder Peter hadn’t told him he had a sister. She was probably a fucking monster, as selfish and miserable as the goddamn evil stepsister from Cinderella.

He’d caught enough glimpses of Penelope Goddamn Parker in the last month to last him a life time. She and Peter hardly interacted where the webcam could pick up, although sometimes they caught snippets of audio. Mostly, they witnessed just how addicted to the internet she was. She spent more time on her fucking laptop than she did talking to her own brother.

It drove Tony insane, knowing that the longer he left Peter in her care, the more neglected he would be. His baby boy was trapped in an apartment with an uncaring bitch who spent 90% of her time working and the other 10% ignoring him for whatever bullshit Instagram, Facebook nonsense she was so obsessed with. Tony didn’t even bother keeping a record of her internet history, after the first two days of monitoring had revealed she spent the entire time on Youtube.

“Yeah? And has anything happened in the last, oh, 6 hours since she left for work?”

“No but she should be getting home soon—” Clint winced, having walked directly into the trap Tony set like a dumbass.

“Stop watching the bitch on my TV, all you do is stare down her fucking shirt anyway.”

“The bitch would make a pretty decent lay if you’d give a guy a break.”

Tony Stark did not roll his eyes. Tony Stark was a genius, ran a weapons engineering empire, had the most important politicians in the United States in his back pocket. Tony Stark did not roll his eyes.

So Tony Stark Did Not Roll His Eyes at the blond parked out on his couch with a bowl of popcorn and a beer. No doubt there was a cheap ass pizza on it’s way up the elevator, despite the fact Tony employed some of the best chefs in New York for his private kitchen. Clint Barton was the worst sort of best friend Tony had, but he’d still kill for the dumbass.

“What has Penelope Goddamn Motherfucking Parker done now?” Sam Wilson questioned absently as he walked into the living room from the kitchen, quoting Tony’s general tone of voice when talking about the woman.

“She hasn’t even taken her shirt off where I can see it, can you believe that? Fucking ridiculous. With a rack like that she should be shaking her tits on camera for money daily,” Clint whined in response, gesturing to the empty room on the TV, “I swear she sleeps on that fucking couch almost every night and not once has she undressed in front of the computer.”

“You’re a freak, my dude,” Sam smacked the blond upside the head as he walked past towards the elevator, “Time table still on track, Stark?”

“Steady as she goes,” Tony replied, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, “Where are you going? Movie night starts in 20 minutes?”

Movie night was almost the most ridiculous thing Tony participated in on any given day. His inner circle was made up of the only people in the world he trusted, was made of up assassins and ex-military super soldiers and all sorts of genetically altered freaks, and somehow movie night had become a staple of their existence. To miss a movie night without a doctor’s note or a mission was a crime punishable by near exile in the form of a group silent treatment. Pepper, Happy and Pietro were currently exempt, away on a business trip as executive, body guard, and assistant.

“Just going to change,” Wilson gestured to his workout clothes and shrugged, “need to shower.”

“Now if only we could make you realize that needs to happen more than once a month,” Clint muttered quietly, only to have a dirty shoe nail him in the face a moment later.

The blond fell off the couch with a shout, popcorn flying everywhere as the bowl escaped his grip. Sam, who’s aim was almost as impeccable as Clint’s own, gave the man the finger as the elevator doors closed dramatically.

“You are a disaster of a human being,” Tony commented absently, still watching his phone as the little dot that was his baby boy moved through the city.

He ignored Clint’s protests, flopping onto the couch and making himself comfortable while the rest of the tower’s residents slowly ambled into the communal living room. Bucky and Steve were parked out on the recliner, disgustingly cute and cuddly even from a distance. They, like Clint, had a stupid fascination with fucking Penelope and were watching the webcam feed while they waited for everyone to arrive.

Natasha and Wanda wandered in while chatting, each already having a drink in their hand. Thor, Loki and Bruce all came out of the elevator at the same time, Bruce having come from the labs and the two brothers from the coffee shop on the ground floor of the tower. Sam and Rhodey entered at the same time from the stairwell, both having freshly showered after a long day.

“What are we watching tonight?”

The following argument generally lasted a solid 20 minutes, but Wanda and Natasha won out with a comedy horror they’d all already seen before. It left plenty of room for conversation while the movie played in the background, a deck of cards finding their way onto the coffee table as well.

“So what’s the plan for your boy’s sister, Tones?” Rhodey questioned as Sam dealt cards for their third game of poker of the night.

“I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to get away from the bitch,” the man grumbled in response as he adjusted his hand, “He’d probably walk right out the front door and leave her in the dust if I asked. I figure I’ll give her an ultimatum: Peter comes with me and she shuts the fuck up, or Peter comes with me and she finds herself in a shallow grave.”

“I think I could draw her tits from memory from how often she’s on her computer and ignoring her brother,” Clint stated, because despite the fact he thought Penelope god awful Parker was hot as all Hell, he knew how much it hurt to have the person who was supposed to care for you most ignore you completely.

Rhodey hummed in agreement, “Maybe we should off her, just in case. I bet she gets some sort of welfare from the state for him and she shouldn’t get to keep raking that in.”

“She shouldn’t get it even while she’s got him,” Natasha stated from over her wine, spread out and lounging on the loveseat closest to the couch, “probably uses it for drugs. It definitely isn’t used for groceries to feed to the poor kid, he looks half starved.”

“Nah, that’s just teenage boy syndrome,” Bucky added a couple of bills to the pot on the coffee table, “Not that I think she’s winning any care taker of the year awards, but I’ve seen that him eat while doing surveillance. Kid could take down a whole ass McDonalds by himself if given the chance.”

“He’s been putting on some weight actually,” Tony felt the corners of his lips tip up in a small smirk, “Muscle mass, one of his friends started dragging him to lift weights on Thursdays.”

“Careful Stark, you get too excited by the thought and you’re gonna pop off in your jeans,” a round of snorts sounded at Rhodey’s words and Tony Stark, Who Did Not Roll His Eyes, gave his friend the finger.

“I say we just go ahead and kill her,” Bruce was focused more on his laptop and the reports there in than the movie, but made sure he always paid attention to the conversation during movie nights, “she’s a liability. It might help Peter adjust too, knowing that she’s gone.”

“And that he has nothing left and nothing to go back to,” Clint added, not mean spiritedly but pointedly and with an exaggerated head tilt.

“He won’t have anything left or anything to go back to,” it was pragmatic and a bit cold, but Steve never pulled his punches, “its best to cut all ties. The more he relies on Tony, the faster he’ll adapt to his new situation. Maybe its manipulative, but this is a weird situation and we might have to get our hands dirty to get him to a good place, mentally and physically.”

“By weird you mean kidnapping a kid?”

“For his own good!”

“Its only kidnapping until he turns eighteen, right?”

“I don’t think that’s how the concept of kidnapping works, Clint.”

“Excuse me, sir,” JARVIS suddenly interrupted, turning on the lights and turning off the movie, “I believe it is important that you watch the webcam footage I’ve been monitoring. The recording begins as of five minutes ago and is still ongoing.”

“Pull it up, J,” Tony ordered quickly, sitting forward on the couch.

Everyone in the room watched in confusion as the TV began to roll on Peter and stupid fucking Penelope sitting in front of the laptop, most likely at the kitchen table. Peter was slightly off to the side, the computer centered more on his sister.

“Penny, please just tell me what you’ve decided on? I’ve been watching you lose your mind for weeks, I know you came up with something last night.”

“You’re… not going to like it Peter,” fucking Penelope’s voice was soft, the laptop microphone too shitty to pick up the quiet cadence well, “If you can think of something better, we’ll go with that. But… I don’t think there’s another choice. I’ve gone through everything I can think of. Try to let me get through this without yelling at me, okay?”

They’d never really seen Peter and fucking Penelope interact before. Most of the time it was just her, on the laptop, all the fucking time. Peter came and went in the background, to and from school and clubs and his friend’s houses, but most of the time she closed the laptop when he was around. They were all a bit surprised by how much affection was in her expression as she looked at her brother. Peter nodded at her, lips already pursed in frustration.

“I’ve been doing as much research as I can on Tony Stark. He’s… God, he’s got more influence than the fucking president. There are entire states in his pocket, Pete. Can you believe that? From what I can figure out, he’s got just about every New York senator on his payroll and don’t even get me started on the police—”

“How’d she figure that out?” Rhodey’s frown was a mixture of concern and irritation, “There’s never been any sort of reporting on your dealings with politicians.”

“I don’t know.”

“The good news is, I don’t think he has any business in Oregon. I’ve looked through as much of the gossip as I can, he’s never spent any significant amount of time there and if I’ve been understanding the weird ass insinuations correctly, his businesses don’t operate in the area.”

“Oregon? Are we gonna go there?” Peter reached out and grabbed his sister’s hands, “I promise, I’m not upset over us having to move Penny, I—”

“Peter, I’m… I’m not moving babe, you are.”

The teenager seemed to draw back slightly, his eyebrows furrowing and his mouth dropping open as he searched for words but was unable to come up with any.

“I don’t think you remember them, the last time we saw them was before mom and dad died, but we have second cousins in Oregon, Paul and Olivia. They’re about ten years older than me, with one kid. When I got custody of you, I contacted them. I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me, I had a sure thing lined up for you. It was years ago, but they promised they’d take you in a heartbeat if I couldn’t care for you anymore, for any reason.”

“You… you wanted to give me to them?” Peter’s eyes were full of tears and they watched as Penelope reacted in horror.

“Peter, no! Never! I would never willingly let you go. I was worried, everyone around us was dropping like flies in freak accidents and I couldn’t let you go into foster care if I died. I just wanted to make sure you would have someone if something happened to me.”

“You thought you were gonna die?”

“My birth father died, and then mom and dad died, then uncle Ben, then aunt May. I didn’t want to leave you alone with no one. I didn’t think I was gonna die, I just… wanted to be prepared. Just in case.”

“Why are you bringing them up? And Oregon? What do you mean that I’m moving? Alone?”

Penelope What the Fuck is Happening Parker’s lips pursed, eyes filling with tears. There was a level of sheer pain on her face that was startling for them all to see, especially considering they’d managed to work her up as an unfeeling monster in their heads for fucking weeks now.

“I’ve tried a thousand ways for us both to go, but I just… I don’t have the money saved for us to move. We’d have to break the lease and even if we left with the clothes on our backs, we wouldn’t be able to afford getting to Oregon. The car won’t make it, I can’t afford plane tickets. I wouldn’t be able to afford to get to Oregon. But I’ve figured out a way to get you there.”

“How Penny?” Peter’s was obviously trying to sound stern, but his voice cracked slightly.

“Not tomorrow, but the day after, we’re going to put in an anonymous call to Child Protective Services and claim that I’m abusing you. Neglecting you. They’ll take you out of my custody and send you to Olivia and Paul, since they’re our ‘closest’ living relatives.” Penelope Oh Fuck Parker’s voice was cracking too, tears running down her face as she explained her batshit crazy plan to her baby brother, who they were quickly realizing was far from neglected or abused.

Tony felt his chest tightening at the sight of the siblings, both with tears streaming down their cheeks. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get it so incredibly wrong. Maybe he’d seen what he wanted to see, that his baby boy was easy pickings. That no one really cared for him so it would be easy to sweep him off his feet and spirit him away.

“You’ve never abused me! You’ve never neglected me! How could you even say that, Penny!? Everything you’ve ever done—”

“Peter please, listen,” Penny was nearly sobbing, grasping Peter’s hands tightly with her entire body angled downwards over them, “We have to pretend, okay? We have to pretend because they’ll send you somewhere safe.”

“You’ll go to jail!”

“That’s fine! That’s okay, Peter! As long as you’re safe, I don’t care—”

“You can’t ask me to do this, you can’t ask me to send you to jail, to send you away when you haven’t done anything wrong, ever! I wouldn’t even be able to visit you! I’d be a million miles away and you’d be rotting away in jail because I was too stupid to mind my own business!”

“Peter none of this is your fault,” the tone was so stern and determined as Penny sat straighter in her chair, squeezing her brother’s hands reassuringly even as her chest heaved with grief, “it’s that fucking pedophile, piece of shit Tony Goddamn Stark’s fault, don’t you ever think that you are at all to blame for any of this—”

“I probably deserve at least half of that rage,” Tony stated absently, almost guilty at the word ‘pedophile’.

“Half? Hah!” It was an absent response, more instinct than intention but got the point across even as the entire group was absorbed by the pain playing out on the TV.

“I went to that stupid tower!” Peter wailed suddenly, making Penny go stiff, “After you got that note telling you not to report the assault, I went to the tower because I knew he worked there and I wanted him to suffer. You wouldn’t go to the police because they threatened your family but I thought… It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was stupid and I went to fucking Stark Tower and that’s where he saw me. It’s all my fault.” Peter’s sobbing was viscerally painful to hear, even through the shitty microphone.

“What assault? A note? JARVIS, figure out what he’s talking about!” Tony barked, already on his feet and pulling out his phone, “Give me the surveillance footage from that day, who was my boy here looking for?!”

“As the conversation is roughly five minutes delayed, I took the liberty of deciphering Mr. Parker’s statements already, sir,” the AI stated calmly, “six months ago, Mr. Brock Rumlow of level six security sexually assaulted Ms. Penelope Parker in a club in Queens. In order to prevent any bad press upon the company, a persuasive letter was sent from the Tower’s security to Ms. Parker to ensure her silence on the matter. I assume the day you came across Mr. Parker was the day he arrived to confront Mr. Rumlow over the assault and threat.”

“Find him,” Tony snarled towards Rhodey, who was already on his feet and typing away at his phone, heading towards the elevator, “Alive, Rhodey!”

“I’ll see what I can manage,” the man muttered darkly as the doors shut and he began descending towards level six, leaving the rest of them in the living room.

“He… he saw you… there? Oh, god… Oh god he saw you because you went to the tower, oh my God you went there because of me and he saw you— Oh my God!” Penny’s reaction was so emotionally brutal that it verged on physically violent. Her entire body seemed to lock up for a solid thirty seconds before she threw herself out of the chair and they could hear retching in the background a moment later. Peter was still sitting on the far side of the screen, sobbing into his hands.

Almost five minutes later, Penny ambled back into view. Her face was so pale compared to her usually tan complexion that she looked like a ghost. A fine tremble ran through her entire body, goosebumps visible on her exposed arms.

“I’m so sorry,” Peter’s voice broke through his sobs, bone achingly sad, “I’m so sorry I did this to us.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, bud,” Penny’s eyes were almost blank, the pain so overwhelming that she couldn’t force any other expression, “I set all of this in motion. I made a mistake and I’m so sorry you’re having to pay for it. I should’ve protected you better, you never should’ve even known what happened, let alone who— it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Everything is going to be okay Peter. We have a plan and everything is going to be alright.”

“You’re going to go to jail, Penny! For a horrible crime that you’d never, ever commit! Because I was stupid and immature and—”

“Stop Peter,” Tony’s eyes watered as Penny gently ran her fingers through Peter’s hair and left it to rest on his cheek, “don’t blame yourself for this. No matter what you did, no matter what choices you made, you didn’t deserve to be frightened and stalked. What’s happening is happening because there’s a man out there with a sick mind, who thinks he can take whatever and whoever he wants for whatever he wants. That’s not on you, babe. That’s on him. And everyone who built him up and let him get to this point.”

She let Peter cry for several minutes and the group in the living room found themselves left to digest the situation to the sound of his sobs. Discomfort ran through all of them, for different reasons. Because they’d judged Penelope Too Good for This World Parker so wrong. Because they were the ones enabling Tony to do something terrible. Because they didn’t actually feel guilty for enabling Tony but they did feel guilty for the pain it was causing the Parker siblings.

“You’ll take such good care of him, Tony,” Natasha said quietly after a moment, seeing the pain in the man’s face, “He’s never going to want for anything ever again. He’s going to live in comfort and luxury for the rest of his life and that’s because of you.”

“He’s scared right now, Tones,” Clint jumped in quickly when it looked like Tony might protest, “They both are and we can’t blame them for that. But once they’re—he’s here, he’ll realize that it’s not a bad thing and that he has nothing to be afraid of. That we’re going to take care of them—him, all of us.”

Mind running at a million times per hour, Tony considered their words. Actually, he considered Clint’s words. Clint’s misspoken statements that implied both Parker siblings would be in the tower. Both of them would be safe and cared for. Both.

“They’ll never want for anything ever again,” Tony repeated quietly, all eyes in the room locked carefully on him, “Peter and Penny shouldn’t be separated.”

“You’ve given up everything for me, Penny,” Peter whispered after his cries calmed, “You dropped out of high school, dropped out of college, started working three jobs so I could go to that stupid school, you don’t sleep, you hardly eat, and I know it’s all for me. I can’t let you give up your freedom, I can’t let you give up anything else for me.”

“Oh my God no wonder she’s so skinny,” Wanda suddenly gasped, tears pouring down her cheeks in continuous rivers, “we thought Peter was skinny, but look at her, look at her collar bones! JARVIS, give me a record of all credit and debit card transactions she’s made in the last month and—” The redhead cut herself off when Penny began speaking again.

“All I want is for you to be happy Peter,” Penny whispered, the blank look in her eyes fading into grief again, “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. You’re everything to me, you’re my baby brother. I’ll do anything to keep you safe, bud, anything.”

“I won’t do it, Penny, I won’t—”

“Yes, you will, Peter,” resolve hardened Penny’s voice and she squeezed her brother’s hands, “You’re going to do as I say. Tomorrow you’re going to go to school and I’m going to call out of work. I’m going to throw most of your clothes away, all of the food in the house. I’m going to switch my stuff for yours, so it looks like I make you sleep on the couch while I take the bedroom.”

“Oh God she does sleep on the couch every night,” Professional Perfect Person Penelope Parker Stalker Clint Barton gasped in horror as he recalled his earlier comment on her sleeping habits and her undressing habits oh no.

“I’m going to trash the place as authentically as I can and I’m… God I’m going to destroy some of your stuff, Pete,” Penny looked pained at the thought, scraping a hand down her face, “But I’m going to transfer all of my savings into your name, so you’ll only be without your stuff for a little while. You can rebuy everything you need once this is over.”

“I can’t take your money, Pen—”

“Hush Peter. I don’t have much saved up, but I’ll put it under your name tomorrow. Now, when I turn 25 in a few months I’ll be able to use my portion of the money mom and dad left us. I’m going to transfer that to you as soon as I can, it should be enough for you to live off of once you turn 18 as long as you use it wisely.”

“Penny, please, you can’t expect—”

“I expect you to do as I say, Peter!” She cut him off with all the flare of a bossy big sister, “I want you to apply to universities outside of the United States. Focus on places like Norway, Australia and New Zealand. Avoid Mexico, Canada and the UK because I think he has business dealings in those countries and I don’t know how long he’ll be willing to search for you, so don’t risk it.”

“How does she know about our business in those places?” Tony threw his hands up in confusion.

“Sir, from what I can gather from Ms. Parker’s search history, she has done her best to track yours and your staff’s movements around the world for the last five or so years by means of social media and gossip blogs—”

“Well holy fuck, who would’ve thought to do that?” Sam’s eyebrows were raised nearly to his hairline, “that’s ridiculous, no wonder she was on the laptop constantly.”

“Once you turn 25 you’ll come into your inheritance too. By that time I’ll probably be out of jail but… Peter I want you to leave me alone, okay? We don’t know… we don’t know if Stark will let this go, if he loses you. He might use my location and contacts to find you and I can’t let that happen.”

“You want me to just cut you out of my life forever? Like you’re some horrible monster I never want to see again? I can’t—”

“We don’t have a choice bud,” Penny was quiet, soothing as she ran her fingers over his wrists and hands, “Tony Stark is a dangerous man and he has more connections and money than we could ever hope to fight. The police won’t help us, the law won’t help us. All we have is this plan and I need you to follow it. I need to be able to trust that you’ll follow the plan, so that you’ll be safe.”

“What about you, Penny!? You won’t be safe! You’re always so worried about, about me being safe and happy that you forget about yourself! Do you understand that you’re telling me you want to go to jail? That you want me to abandon you forever?”

Penny seemed to waiver for just a second, as if she might actually let some tiny ounce of selfishness set in and change her mind, before her resolve hardened once again and she stood, putting herself nearly out of frame, “This is happening, Peter. This is the plan. This is what we’re doing. Because I won’t let him hurt you. I will literally do anything to keep you safe Peter, this doesn’t even make a wave in the pool of batshit crazy I’m willing to go if I need to. I love you. Now go to bed, you have school in the morning.”

#steve rogers x oc x bucky barnes #steve rogers x oc #bucky barnes x oc #dark!steve rogers #dark!bucky barnes #dark!tony stark #dark!mcu #let's review #let's review chapter 2

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rametarin · 3 years

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Little note hider. Or, alternative title: “Ante up for arguments.”

So a few days ago I made a post about the tactics I remember from my youth.

Actual disruption and propagandists that filled little girls’ heads with emotionally charged political shit and encouraged them to, “stawt convuhsayshuns uwu” to, “change society.” And we’re talking kids being emotionally blackmailed to accept many of these subjective things as truth.

Taught to argue with other children, the age where they weren’t even really clued in on how to read or argue with academic buffoonery or emotionally charged appeals to authority.

I remember quite well the interactions.

Babby Radfem: “Our society is racist.”

Me: “No it isn’t. Societies can’t be racist, only the people in them.”

Babby Radfem starts citing known examples of racism talking about slavery.

Me: “Yes I know you can talk about things that happened, that doesn’t mean society is racist, it means there are racists in it.”

Babby Radfem: “Proof? You have any proof? :^) Because I have proof of what I’m saying! So YOU have proof for what you’re saying?”

And you have to understand; these little socio-politically programmed children didn’t just waltz into a library and grab up some Feminist Book of Statistics. They were coached, they were groomed, they were armed with bogus academia huffandpuff and then set loose to go after kids who’d never even heard of these issues before.

In my case, I learned what the concept of rape was because a baby radical feminist informed me because I was a boy, and, “epidemic societal rape” was a thing, that she could never wholly trust me of be comfortable around me, because, “men in our society are so violent and rape women.” Not really an appropriate mindset for a girl under the age of 7. Or a boy, for that matter.

It’s at that point they’d put on this big performance with that smug, disgusting expression on their face, setting up a bunch of articles and examples of things that’d happened in the past and examples of singular racist assholes operating, conflating that deliberately with, “a racist society.” Because you know, if one member of the hivemind super colony acts bad, I guess to socialists that’s, “proof” that “society” didn’t do its job in programming them right, or something.

And it’s at this point that no matter what you say, they aren’t looking for a reasonable discussion where you respect one another’s positions and perspectives, they’re looking for a show trial, and they think they’re being clever by trying to make you defend the actions of actual racists, since in their minds, you’re denying their actions ever happened.

No matter what you say, like broken interfaces, they’ll just sit there smugly reminding you, “you aren’t proving society isn’t racist yet! Do you even have an argument? Do you have proof? Any actual PROOF, not emotionally charged denials? Still not seeing any proof of what you’re saying. Guess you don’t have an argument. I’m sorry, I don’t accept crybabying nuh-uhs, I’m a rational person with a scientific mind :^)”

I say again, this shit, these big blowhard guns, were brought out and used on me. I was fucking 5, at the time. It’s not like I was going to stand up, shout, “Foucult was a boy toucher and a monster!” and show the 10 page report with bibliographed citations. You can’t spur of the moment refute someone handed a book wwwwaay about their age range just to tell you bogus statistics like women only make 50-75% of what a white man makes, “for the same job,” that demands you also spur of the moment disprove what they’re saying in order to dispute or disregard it at all.

Then plays to the peers around you like your outrage over the things you’re being accused of by proxy of being a boy, is just because you don’t like, “hearing the truth.”

And you know what this behavior influenced? Yeah. Annoying Youtube Atheists of the 00s. I’m an atheist, but the difference between me and An Annoying Youtube Atheist, is I don’t make not participating in an organized religion or believing in supernatural creators. While the other considers themselves an intellectual for arguing with probably the easiest arguments to disprove and discredit you can possibly engage.

So when I talk about shit like this that I witnessed and observed happening in the fucking late 80s, early 90s, of course I’m not going to have “proof.” Who the hell happens to have examples of such a random a sporadic thing in the wild? The odds are literally a million times better now than they were when our communication and interactions were in person, without internet, with only access to the information resources in the books you had in your local library or in your house.

The, 1.) Inflammatory Statement 2.) Whipping out a book that may as well have been written by Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro for all the bias it has 3.) “Here’s my proof. You have proof? Any proof to source your beliefs, or do you just have feefees? :^)” approach, predates on people being both unfamiliar with the subject matter, as well as not having the resources to effectively dispute the claims.

It’s predatory, it’s deceptive, and it is used to socially browbeat women into their corners, whom them become like enablers and believers and supports in the pew after their cryfests, powwows and ‘come to socialist Jesus’ moment.

But no, I don’t currently possess any proof of this phenomenon or effect, and the mercurial social nature of young girls means catching this interaction in the wild is very unlikely. Which is exactly why that disingenuous request for, “Proof? :^)” is so disgusting.

Even when you HAD proof, the next step after isn’t to concede they’re wrong. It usually went in a number of ways.

1.) The person requesting proof goes dead inside and ignores what you’re saying, and if they respond at all, it’s simply to speak as if you hadn’t just shown them the proof, still arguing as if it wasn’t shown. I guess in a silly attempt to socially override the new information from the discussion and give the speaker the burden of proof to try and make it stick to their denial filled, teflon minds.

2.) They meet all the effort taken to argue with stupid shit that wastes your time and energy. Replying to a thorough rebuttal that rebukes and dismantles the things they are saying with, “KUNG POW PENIS, *GIGGLE*” or just going “DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!” and giggling to show they don’t actually care what you have to say and won’t take you seriously. This one is done alone or only when they have other supporters there that won’t accept opposition as legit or genuine, proof or not.

3.) They’ll simply retreat and then scream if you follow them. If they retreat, the conversation effectively ends, and they won’t hear any more of it since it threatens to challenge them, OR they simply wanted to convince people to take what they have to say as fact and it’s a waste of their time to sell lies to people that know they’re lies. But they will scream and make the priority that you’re apparently following or harassing them, when they see argument is futile.

4.) They’ll nod along and pretend you’ve corrected them when you demonstrate you aren’t going to believe what they say, because you have both proof and conviction that their argument is weak, they don’t have a leg to stand on, or you throw in their face you know what they are. But, they won’t retract their stance, they’ll simply go on to, “stawt that convuhsayshun” with someone else, to try and convince them of their politically charged talking point.

5.) They’ll start crying or looking like a kid with their hands caught in a cookie jar, and admit, “I was just twying to stawt a... convuhsayshun..” Which is code that means, “I was trying to propagandize and make you think this thing was true, and make you mad about it as if it was the truth.” This typically happened when I called them out in front of adults that also didn’t agree with the things she was saying, had been programmed to say, and was around adults that could cite proof that what they were saying was false.

It happened so often I realized that at some point it might be in my best interests, to at least THINK about how to prove arguments to random strangers.

In the past, being sidewound by baby radical feminists that, “just started conversations” around the water cooler, axes to grind disguised as random conversations, was a thing. They were like social guerillas or velociraptors. But they were always tangentially rooted in whatever thing they’d been handed to read in order to sound smart.

So, if you knew the contemporary radical feminist talking points, had the time, literacy and resources to research and understand the holes in their claims, where they substituted for integrity, you could unravel them. Or could critique things like sample size or the likelihood they arrived at their conclusion and worked backwards to meet the result they were looking for, or started with a faulty premise.

And when they tried to stretch and flex and get believers and followers, presenting these, “facts” (that were not facts, but lies, subjective talking points, or just feelings) trying to use the trust bonds of friendship to get people to accept them as true for risk of hurting the relationship and their friend’s feelings (an exploitation of people, by the way) you could dispute them.

But they really do not like that, and once you reveal yourself as someone capable of shooting holes in what they say, they’ll only bring out their talking points to your mutual friends when you, ye that has identified yourself as capable of disputing what they say, aren’t around to dispute them.

Pre-internet, pre-cell phone, this was the methodology by which radical feminist zealotry was reproduced among young girls and young women. And drove them absolutely fucking nuts for a few years, until they resolved it and came back to reality. For one reason or another.

But do I have proof of this? Not on hand.

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pajama-nerd · 4 years

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Reading my way through Fazbears Frights, thinking about how none of these protagonists have ever interacted with any kind of horror media.

Reader Beware: Spoilers Ahead

Into the Pit didn’t read like time travel to me. It read more like a particular kind of haunting where the negative energy of all of the bad shit that happened at that location was locked into the one remaining 'feature' of the location: the ball pit. And Pit-Bonnie isn't the ghost of Afton, but rather the entity that was created from the memories of all that bad energy.

And the interesting thing to me about Pit-Bonnie is that - aside from the inherent creepiness of the situation and the fact that he had literally one facial expression (he can’t even blink for cryin’ out loud) - he didn't attempt to harm Oswald until Oswald went back to rescue his dad. Once Pit-Bonnie was away from the negative energy that had spawned him, he did Dad Things™. He did them in the creepiest way possible, granted, but we don't actually know how he feels because of his inability to express.

Maybe he wanted to stay. Maybe he just wanted a break from that place. Maybe that place has a hold on him, and being away from it allowed him a measure of free will.

And the fandom that I’ve seen about the Dashboard has locked onto Pit-Dad-Bonnie because the general attitude of the fandom - as far as I've witnessed - has been 'Oh. A scary thing! Well, now it's friend-shaped.' (or, in this case, Dad shaped) so of course my immediate question is, 'how would the story have changed if Oswald had made a more serious attempt to communicate with Pit-Bonnie?'

The immediate, cynical response is 'well it would have slaughtered him' but that's infinitely less interesting than the possible alternatives.

Perhaps he takes in the fact that Pit-Bonnie can't talk, and proposes an alternate method of communication. I'm talkin construction paper and crayons. And he gets Pit-Bonnie to tell his story a la Nephrite from Steven Universe. About how one day he just was. And how sometime after that, that version of Fazbear's formed around him. And how there were happy, smiling kids laughing in the pizzeria and he was happy, but how every time he tried to be friends with the kids something would happen.

The world would flicker and they would just be in that back room, like that. How he was desperate for some kind of a connection and could never have one because those kids – those memories – were doomed to die by the memory of his hands. How he noticed Oswald because Oswald didn’t fit – he was real – and how he’d wanted Oswald to help him figure out how to change what had happened (or to make it stop), but Oswald had run away. About how he’d tried to fish Oswald out of the ballpit and gotten his dad instead. About deciding to take his dad’s place so that he could get away from that place and how being here with Oswald was nice. Driving him to school was nice. Making him dinner was nice. Cleaning the house with him was nice.

(Imagine Oswald getting less and less afraid as he interprets the story, checking in with PB occasionally to make sure he's getting it right. Getting slightly annoyed tho, because he's not getting rid of this rabbit, is he? But he still needs to rescue his dad, so now what?)

Oswald eventually tells PB that he can stay, which surprises but elates the rabbit. Then Oswald tells him they have to get his dad back.

There's a negotiation. Obviously, they have to get his dad back. Has Pit-Bonnie been going to his dad's job? What about taxes? Things his dad knows how to do? What about Oswald's mom? Is Pit-Bonnie just going to pretend to be his dad around her forever? What if she wants to do...like...parent stuff? With her husband? If you catch my drift (PB does not, in fact).

Eventually PB agrees, and even drives Oswald back to the same block as the pizza place. He doesn't get close to it - definitely doesn't park in the lot - but Oswald just tells him to wait in the car and goes and wakes his dad up from the ball pit. His dad is confused. Disoriented. Way out of it. Let's Oswald lead him back to the car and sits in the back, too out of it to comment on the yellow bunny mascot in the front seat. They return to the house without incident, and his dad passes out on the couch.

Oswald eventually figures out that PB is the one making his dad so loopy - that the connection PB formed so that he could know how to drive the car, how to work the vacuum cleaner, how to make Oswald's meals, is also keeping Oswald's dad borderline comatose. It takes some convincing to get PB to give that up. PB is afraid to give that up - afraid that if he doesn't have an anchor, he'll go back to being an aimless product of rage and murder.

Oswald's solution is to spread the bond out. He'll take part of it. If PB splits his focus, it'll be less of a strain on his dad, and PB will have more than one anchor. This has the added property of giving his dad the ability to see the seven-foot-tall grinning plush rabbit (he doesn't react well. Neither does mom. Oswald has never had to talk so much in his life)

So now Pit-Bonnie is a part of Oswald’s life, and it’s hella weird at first, but everyone gets over it, because eventually you just get numb to weirdness. Except Oswald becomes obsessed with Freddy Fazbears, in an Unsolved Mysteries kind of way. Starts researching the place wherever and however he can.

Pit-Bonnie helps, in his way, after they figure out a way to communicate efficiently (modified Sign Language, because being bonded to Oswald means that Pit-Bonnie knows how to do all the things that Oswald knows how to do. So Oswald learns sign language. Which means that Pit-Bonnie knows how to sign now. He still only has the one facial expression, which makes asking questions a little complicated, but they work it out).

I imagine that Pit-Bonnie is very tuned in to the weirdness/darkness vibe that Freddy’s and its remnants (ha) give off. He starts reading local and then state, and then national newspapers, and whenever he gets the Fazbear vibe, he sets the article aside for Oswald to look at. Also he doesn’t sleep, so in the first week of Oswald’s obsession, he generates a lot of leads for Oswald by going through back issues of...everything.

This is a rambly thing, but my point is that most horror has a solution and most of the time this solution is subverted by having it happen to people who have no experience with horror movies, books, comics, or other mediums, which is…I dunno. Kinda cheap.

‘What if they ever saw Frankenstein and sympathized with the monster enough to have empathy for this thing?’

‘They’re not horror fans. And the ones that are have never seen or read the stories where empathy solves the problem.’

To Be Beautiful (a terrible, one dimensional story with a terrible message about self-image told the way that high school stories in the 80's-90's were told, which wasn't even accurate to how highs schools were in the 80's-90's) could have been solved by literally anyone being more than passively curious about the drastic changes that Sarah was undergoing. (Puberty doesn't work that fast. Her whole freaking face changed). Or by her mom going into her room at some point and asking about the 5 foot robot doll.

Count the Ways has many solutions, although, really? She shoulda chosen starvation. More time to escape or be rescued is always, always, always going to be better than a 'maybe I won't be bifurcated’ any way you slice it (I’m not sorry), but I'm fond of the idea of Oswald coming across an article about ‘theft of proprietary animatronics from a Fazbear Entertainment property’ and it leading him to Milly’s grandfather’s house in time to save her. Along with his seven-foot-tall grinning plush friend who can alter people's perception.

Fetch could have been solved by treating Fetch like a dog. Seriously. He is dog shaped. He is therefore a dog, first and foremost. Dog first, killer animatronic second. Which Greg didn't fundamentally understand (he strikes me as a cat person anyway). But Fetch spent that entire story trying to do what he thought his master wanted, and never got so much as a 'good boy' out of it. He didn't even try to defend himself when Greg went to town on him with a baseball bat because he just wanted to be a good dog for his boy. And even after that, when Greg expressed a desire to see Kimberly, Fetch still wanted to do something to get his master to call him a good boy. Honestly, if - after being warned about Fetch - Kimberly had planted her feet and said 'Sit!' I would bet actual Faz-dollars that Fetch's haunches would have dropped to the pavement out of surprise alone, because it would have been the first time in the story someone treated him like a dog.

Alec was doomed to be a teddy-bear from the moment his parents picked up a ‘how to raise my kids’ book, but he’s still alive. There’s no reason he couldn’t be rescued (by Oswald, who’s on the trail of all the weirdness related to Freddy Fazbear. I’d read that story. I’d write that story. I will probably write that story)

The Plushtrap story...had no flaws. That was the only solution, and good on those boys for making all the right choices except for the initial choices that put them in that situation to begin with. A+. Those teeth, Jesus.

1:35 am could have been solved with an apology. Come on. For a character that was supposedly in the Foster Care system being bounced from home to home, you’d think she could empathize with an entity that didn’t appreciate being thrown away. A sincere apology, a promise to never do it again, and Ella would probably have forgiven her.

I don’t remember where I was going with this. I started writing it before I clocked on for work, but that was eleven hours ago. Who can remember where a train of thought that far back?

#fnaf #fazbear frights #ramble #headcanons #how to change the outcome of a horror story

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obeyme-and-you · 4 years

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MC the Lamb Part 3

MC’s relationship with the rest of the brothers, minus Belphegor

Spoilers for chapter 16

Lowkey surprised that’s all I managed to spoil

Gabriel is Italics

Kimimela is Bold

MC’s Disciples

(The information used to explain the disciples was taken from this website https://www.britannica.com/topic/Apostle)

(Some of these Disciples don’t have much information about them or at all in some cases but they will be briefly mentioned for comparison sake still)

Fyi, even though 90% of the disciples are martyrs, and I do make jokes about them dying, I do not believe everyone is just gonna die, and I do believe that any character that may die, will come back.

James and Mammon

James- he was a member of the inner circle, “son of thunder”, witnessed Jesus’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, him and John asked to sit by him, on his left and right side, in his future glory, one Jesus said wasn’t something he could grant, James was later beheaded

Mammon- He is definitely apart of MC’s inner circle when it comes to the brothers. He was the first one to make a pact with MC, and is constantly bringing up the fact that he’s “MC’s first” because of it. He’s, at least in game canon, probably considered the closest in relationship to MC compared to the others. Not to mention the fact that he’s always around MC when he has the chance and often helps MC and also strings them along in his antics.

James and Mammon comparison

One of two “sons of thunder” does suit him because of the fact he’s very quick to defend MC and also willing to fight someone if they insult MC lol. The “sons of thunder” were known for being very direct, and very much known for not backing down from a confrontation.

The Garden of Gethsemane is pretty significant in the story of Jesus; that’s where Jesus started to stress out to the point of sweating blood, because he knew what was about to happen to him, and then was betrayed in that garden, which would result in his death. Mammon has been present multiple times for MC’s suffering. He was there when Lucifer tried to kill MC after they protected Beelzebub and Luke, he was there when Leviathan tried to kill MC, he was there when Beelzebub destroyed the kitchen and MC’s room, he was there when MC was trying to help Lucifer and Satan when they switched bodies. But, probably the most significant thing he was there for when seeing MC suffer, would be when he held MC in his arms when they died.

In terms of being essentially MC’s right hand, it’s very obvious he wishes for MC to rely on him. He wants MC to need him and count on him when they need it most.

One more important detail to mention, is that James was the first disciple to be martyred! So have fun with that little detail! (I’m gonna straight up cry if Mammon dies, but that’s a theory for a different essay oop)

John and Asmodeus

John- a member of the inner circle, “son of thunder”, him and James wanted to call down fire from the heavens to punish Samaritan towns who didn’t accept Jesus, most of his information is legends. Was also known as the disciple of love.

Asmodeus- this is probably the one I’m most willing to argue for and against, just because I would argue in favor of a couple of the other brothers being a part of the inner circle instead, but I’m not completely against it being him. The reason why, is because he really did change after making a pact in terms ongoing from “I don’t care about you” to “give me all the attention and also I love you”, granted, you could argue this with all the boys, but he is pretty desperate in being close to MC even compared to some of the others. He also does put quite a bit of work trying to be close in my opinion at least.

Asmodeus does kinda go for the confrontation aspects too. Asmodeus did fight with Mammon at Diavolo’s castle right after making a pact with MC, and got into a bad argument with Satan at Diavolo’s castle during the play rehearsals. He’s kinda a drama queen if we’re being honest. Not to mention, he would definitely suggest to rain fire down on people who didn’t like MC real quick.

( I mean, you’re not wrong)

Most of his information being legends ends up being correct too considering he isn’t mentioned in the Christian bible anywhere.

For the last point, love and lust are two sides of the same coin.

Phillip and Satan

Phillip- brought word that certain Greeks wanted to see Jesus, asked Jesus to reveal God, according to one tradition he died of natural causes, but in another he died on a cross.

Satan- There isn’t much detail about Phillip within the Bible, but one of the “significant” things about him was that some Greeks asked Phillip to see Jesus. The only real dots that can be connected to Phillip and Obey Me Satan, with this fact is that Satan does know a lot of people in high places, so it’s possible that others would go to him if they wanted to meet MC. (This is mentioned in the Devilgram “Why Do People Love Cats?”) This isn’t a really strong detail, but still worth mentioning.

The other significant detail is Phillip asking Jesus to reveal God and Jesus responds that by seeing him, he has seen the face of God. Satan hasn’t really had a moment where he’s asked MC to either “reveal God” or even “reveal Lilith” at this point within the game, but it’s possible it may or may not happen.

Bartholomew and Beelzebub

Bartholomew- not much is known about him, may have been Nathaniel, possibly martyred by flaying and beheading. Associated with miracles related to the weight of objects. (There was a statue in a temple named after him that the townspeople would carry and for some reason the statue became too heavy to carry. A wall ended up crashing down where they were headed, and if they were still able to carry the statue, they would’ve all been killed. http://saintbartholomew.blogspot.com/ )

Beelzebub- There really isn’t much to draw a comparison between the two. If he does some demon miracle that involves weights later than there you go. Also if he gets martyred too I guess. (Beel is the Largest one of the bunch if that counts)

Mathew and Leviathan

Mathew- also known as Levi, was a tax collector and because of this considered untrusting, because of this when Jesus ate with him Jesus was scoffed at for sitting with tax collectors and sinners, doesn’t know if he died naturally or was a martyr

Note: Tax collectors were seen as sinful because of their association with money and taking it from the people.

Leviathan- also known as Levi, his brothers give him a lot of grief for being a shut in who only sits in his room playing games and watching anime. They constantly give him trouble and make fun of him for this and go far enough to make remarks about MC hanging around him. They say he’s untrustworthy and unreliable because he’s just some shut in.

I honestly cannot believe that they really had to do the whole Levi thing, shit like this makes me question what is coincidence and what is research

PREVIOUS: MC The Lamb Part 2 / NEXT: MC The Lamb Part 4

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kotofvi · 4 years

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THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all have witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

Mun Name: Leo Age: 27 Contact: IM, Inbox, Disco

Character(s) I rp: Canon: Shiro, Sebastian, Dirk, Kyoya, Kurama, Nelliel, Maka, Dwicky. OCs: Hades, Google, Emogene, Dominic, Seirios, Iso, Felix, Reeves, Nyx, Zeru, Ren, Charlie, Dakota, Nemo, Bluejay, Koko, BD, Raven, Cora, Sammie, Lucie, Poppie, Ollie, Alphie, Bambi, Abbigail, Hiraeth, Bonnie, Rei, Rory. Which muse(s) inspires you the most atm?(for MM): Nelliel, Shiro, Rei, Bonnie, Hiraeth. Current Fandom(s): Bleach, V/LD, Naruto. (I’m not deeply involved in the fandoms themselves anymore.) Fandom(s) you have an AU for: Uhhhhh.. I basically have an AU for any fandom if I know it well and am asked for it. My language(s): English. (I’m learning other languages but I don’t RP in them unless it’s just a sentence or two.) Themes I’m interested in for rp: Fantasy / Science fiction / Horror / Western / Romance / Thriller / Mystery / Dystopia / Adventure / Modern / Erotic / Crime / Mythology / Classic / History / Renaissance / Medieval / Ancient / War / Family / Politics / Religion / School / Adulthood / Childhood / Apocalyptic / Gods / Sport / Music / Science / Fights / Angst / Smut / Drama / etc. Themes/Genres you have an AU for: Modern, Mythology, Medieval.

Preferred Thread length: one-liner / 1 para / 2 para / 3+ / novella. (I legit love all lengths, tbh, it’s more so with one-liners I tend to lose interest if there’s no substance to further it.) Asks can be send by: Mutuals / Non-Mutuals / Personals / Anons. Can Asks be continued?: YES / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO. Preferred thread type: crack / casual nothing too deep / serious / deep as heck. Is realism / research important for you in certain themes?: YES / NO. Are you atm open for new plots?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. (I’ve admittedly been v busy, so if you’re fine with me takin’ forever-- YES) Do you handle your draft / ask - count well?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. How long do you usually take to reply?: 24h / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3+ / months / years. I’m okay with interacting: original characters / a relative of my character (an oc) (It really depends here.) / duplicates / my fandom / crossovers / multi-muses / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / canon-divergent portrayals / au-versions (as main or only verse). Do you post more ic or occ?: IC / OOC.(I post more IC, but the gaps between IC and OOC make it seem like there’s more OOC at times???) Are you selective with following others?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. (This is entirely because half the fandoms some of my muses come from are absolute shit so I have to be careful.)

Best ways to approach you for rp/plotting: IM or Inbox-- tbh, Just kick my inbox in and screech that you wanna plot/rp with me so long as you’re a mutual. I’m honestly so laid back?? Sure, it might take me a minute but this is entirely because IRL things and not because I’m putting anyone off.

What expectations do you hold towards your plotting partner: Having fun? Having ideas? I guess, just, mutual interest? I mean, I’m here to write! I’m here to have fun! If you’re not interested in that much alone then?? I guess bye?? ‘Cause I’ll become very annoying to anyone who doesn’t have an interest purely because I’ll randomly ambush my partners with excitement and ideas.

When you notice the plotting is rather one-sided, what do you do?: Oh I’ll just straight up ask if they want to continue the thread or start a new one! I mean, I get it, you can lose interest or otherwise just not feel it anymore and that’s fine! If you’re not interested in that particular thread, then no worries, we can always start more! If you’re just being one-sided in general, however?? I’m not gonna be interested at all and I’ll likely tell you as such.

How do you usually plot with others, do you give input or leave most work towards your partner?: Normally it’ll just happen? I’ll do my “Hey what if they ___” thing and then a rapid bombardment of inquiries and excitement later, there is a thread. It’s usually mutual, the involvement of creating this plot, but sometimes it’s just me being excited and them being excited and then suddenly BAM THERE BE THREADS. S’all good over here!

When a partner drops the thread, do you wish to know?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: I mean?? I’d like to know, yes! But I get that sometimes it’s incredibly anxiety ridden trying to tell someone that you’ve lost interest in a thread. It’s alright if you don’t tell me, but if you can muster up the courage to do so I’d appreciate it! I’m not gonna be upset at you for losing interest/muse in a thread! If I cared deeply about the story, I might poke at you and then you can tell me?? Either way it’s fine and tbh, I don’t mind. However, please let it be known that you can take forever on a reply as well so don’t worry about just hoarding a draft too! Tbh, I had someone reply to a thread literally a year later and I was still excited for it! - What should your partner do when dropping a thread?: Just shoot me an IM or hell, make a list of threads you’re dropping and tag me in it??? Which ever! Or don’t even tell me at all, whatever works for you sugar!

What could possibly lead you to drop a thread?: Hmn, being overwhelmed-- I tend to accumulate a lot of drafts and 90% of them are long so sometimes I’ll drop a thread or two to help myself get by. Also lack of muse/interest is a factor. I won’t drop a thread purely out of being overwhelmed unless I just can’t muster up the muse to respond to it. - Will you tell your partner?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. Sometimes I get overwhelmed myself and I’ll drop a thread, forget to tell my partner, etc. Other times I’ll tell them before I even delete the draft!

Is communication in the rpc important to you? YES / NO. - And why?: Yes and no~ Yes primarily! I get that others can take a minute to muster up the courage to talk to others and would just prefer to keep things to a few sentences at first! However, I can and will ambush you with conversation and interest nonetheless. Because communication is important. If you’ve got something you wanna say to me, say it! I’m here for it! - Are you okay with absolute honesty, even if it may means hearing something negative about you and/or portrayal?: Yup! If you’ve got an issue or something that might come across as criticism to say, say it! Civil discussion is absolutely wanted here and I would like to work out any issues you may have with me or my portrayal. - Do you think you can handle such situation in a mature way? YES / NO.

Why do you rp again, is there a goal?: To write and have fun! To explore in depth the characters I create or take on! I mean, c’mon, lbr here-- my gremlin ass muses require some more in depth speculation and investigation into their characters! I love the creativity, the world building, the constant drive to do better and to make others feel something from words alone. The capability to rend emotion from another living being simply from reading and reacting to something I created is amazing and I want to make others cry, laugh, smile and think. I want to create.

Wishlist, be it plots or scenarios: Oh man, there’s an endless supply of things I’d like to do! I want to explore the depths of my muses’ histories more?? Like Shiro, I want to write out the things he must’ve seen, felt, experienced. How Nelliel was when she was alive, how Shiro fared in the Arena when he wasn’t fighting, Seb’s life torn between the various throws of data and reality-- there’s so much! And ALL THE AU’s!!!! All of them!!!

Themes I won’t ever rp / explore: Sure, I work with a lot of darker themes like torture, gore, etc-- but I will not write Rape, sexual abuse, nor will I write child loss.

What Type of Starters do you prefer / dislike, can’t work with?: I can work with most starters! However, if I’m randomly given a starter that I can’t work with for the muse selected, I’ll inform the person who wrote it! I appreciate the effort given but don’t expect me to be able to reply to every random starter given! Sometimes, they don’t even show up in my tag.

What type of characters catch your interest the most?: Okay, I’m a sucker for the underdogs, aggressive folks and the villains. I’m not even going to try and lie and say I don’t immediately look at the Aizens and Kenpachis and go ah yes, those fucking gremlins, give me ten. I also love the background characters? The side characters in a show that seem so unimportant but have a crucial role? I love characters that have such an obscure involvement that you have to stop and ask why and how their involvement was crucial. I also love the soft beans? The ones who are so hyped with positivity and gleaming interest that they just can’t be ignored?? But then turn around and whoop some poor sap’s ass with that sparkle sparkle smile. Also love the upstanding moral types that also acknowledge that some things can’t be avoided and that morality is a grey area dependent on the perceptions of the individuals themselves.

What type of characters catch your interest the least?: Hmn-- I guess the kind that don’t seem to have much substance to them? The ones that are just uncharacteristically too kind. Yes, I love the overwhelmingly positive types but?? Also?? The ones that are too kind and without flaw just?? Don’t strike me as interesting. Also the ones that are just cruel for some obscure reason just to give them a reason to be villains. I mean I understand but also?? Villains don’t have to have a reason?? They can be cruel just to be cruel. Idk that’s always just been a thing with me.

What are your strong aspects as rp partner?: I guess that I’m fairly laid back? I don’t mind if you take 10 years to reply, I’m going to get excited if you message me with some random idea, I’m not going to be bothered by any ideas you suggest?? I can also sometimes give u doodles?? I don’t have time to doodle a lot but sometimes, once in a blue moon, you’ll get a random offering of doodled booty for ur blessing. Also gonna hit you up with random HCs, ideas, threads, etc?? Always?? Idk, I’m not too good at thinking about positive aspects of myself lmfao.

What are your weak aspects as rp partner?: Hnnn, I’m too laid back at times. I take too long to reply and I’m busy af IRL. I’m often goaded into being irritated by some asshole or another so I can come off aggro af too when I don’t mean to be. Sometimes I can get overwhelmed and disappear for a week, other times I can end up overwhelming someone else by being too excited? I tend to watch how much I do and say because I feel like I might come off as smothering and am too used to being shut down and told to shut up so I just don’t?? Do anything sometimes. I’m also not very good at initiating contact sometimes so I tend to go days and weeks without speaking to others.

Do you rp smut?: YES / NO. Do you prefer to go into detail?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. Are you okay with black curtain?: YES / NO. - When do you rp smut? More out of fun or character development?: Usually only if it’s developmental for the characters involved. Sometimes it’s just fun to do! It really depends on the characters involved + if I have any muse in general for it. - Anything you would not want to rp there?: ???? Kinda vague, Idk? I mean if I don’t wanna rp somethin’ I’ll say so.

Are ships important to you?: YES / NO. Would you say your blog is ship-focused?: YES / NO. Do you use read more?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES. Are you: Multi-Ship / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — Multiverse / Singleverse. - What do you love to explore the most in your ships?: The relationship, the depth of two muses who can be wildly different or even similar. The multifaceted involvement of others to that relationship, the angst, the arguments, the sad moments along with all the happy things and how hard one might try while the other is cold-- etc. I don’t just want happy dates and sunshine, that’s not how relationships work after all! - What is your smut tag?: Kettledrums

Are you okay with pre-established relationships?: YES / NO. - And what kind of ones?: I like a lot of pre-established relationships! However, I can be a tad wary of child muses? Aka: The ones who are children of one of my muses. Reason being, sometimes even I don’t know how they’d raise a child so the muse in question would be off putting to me because it’s out of my realm. Beyond that, I’m down for just about everything!

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- What could possibly make your Muse interesting towards others, why should they rp with this particular character of yours now, what possible plots do they offer?: Since I have so many damn muses, I’mma just go with Shiro for all of this-- I suppose what they could find interesting is his very multifaceted dynamic as a soldier, human, technical non-human (Zombae), war worn, space exploring person. He can be rainbows and sunshine but also can suddenly become incredibly aggressive and cold. He’s not one or the other, he’s all and everything that he’s learned and encompassed while still remaining fragile and human in the end. Writing with him can be inspiring and can be soul wrenching, depending on the thread. As for plots, dude your character could be in space in one thread if the otherwise couldn’t be. There’s so many ways to go about writing with him?? He’s such an amazing character and the plots he can be instilled in are almost limitless with just his main verse.

- With what type of Muses do you usually struggle to rp with?: Hmn-- I guess the main one I have issues injecting him into place with would be the ones who are strictly non-tech oriented?? I mean, I can still have him there but getting him to fit is just?? Really difficult. Also with people who RP villains of his fandom and expect him not to be volatile. I’m sorry, but if you’re writing a S.endak or a Z.arkon-- you’re not going to get roses and butterflies with Shiro, plain and simple. If that’s something you can’t accept then don’t approach him with those muses. - With what type of Muses do they usually work well with?: He works really well with most anyone! So long as one goes into it knowing he can be hostile with soldiers, Galra, etc; then he can be used no matter what. He’s one of my most capable muses that doesn’t have much of an issue when it comes to responding.

- What interests your Muse(s) in general: Space, mechanics, biomedical engineering, people, freedom, fighting for a cause, flowers, his mother, violin, cats, sparring, getting stronger, constellations, nebulae, engineering, literature, alien languages, cooking. - What do they desire, is their goal?: The safety of others, the freedom of others, the ability to choose, hope-- he wants to make sure those he cares for and all others are free and safe from the Galra take over. - What catches their interest first when meeting someone new?: How they look at him. If they show signs of pity, of fear, he tends to walk away from any possible meeting with them. Otherwise, their appearance is what first catches his eye. How they dress, how they respond to him, how they talk and if he can make them crack a smile with an awkward joke. - What do they value in a person?: Hope, Strength, Loyalty, Purpose, Honesty, Patience. - What themes do they like talking about?: Shiro’s more of a listener than a talker, but honestly he’ll talk about anything of interest and question anyone’s as well to get them to talk about it. It’s what makes conversation with him easygoing most of the time. - Which themes bore them?: Himself. He’ll try to avert any conversation about himself if it’s too personal or too close to something. It’s not so much that it bores him but that type of talk is reserved for those insanely close to him. Also talk of command bores the FUCK out of him. He’s never been one to really like rank.

- Did they ever went through something traumatic?: So. Fucking. Much. Between being a prisoner of a war he was never involved with to being told he was a leader of a rebellion for said war, being a prisoner in the Arena and forced to fight and kill others, being held down and sedated as he tried to warn the others, DYING-- this boy has been thru too much. - What could possibly trigger them?: Certain noises, textures, Galra, medical equipment, certain lighting. - What could set them off, enrage them?: Galra, someone protecting him. - What could lead to an instant kill?: Any bloodlust towards him or those he cares for. Most of the time, he has this under control and tries to be merciful, give them a chance; but sometimes, especially during an episode; there’s no stopping him from gunning for someone’s throat if they had any intent to harm another or himself.

- Is there someone /-thing they hate?: Z.arkon, S.endak, L.otor, H.aggar, Druids, himself a lot of the time. - Is there someone /-thing they love?: The paladins, space fam in general, his mother, his friends, people in general.

Is your Muse easy to approach?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: Just approach him? Honestly, Shiro’s one of the easiest persons to converse with and get near. That doesn’t mean his guard is dropped, but he’s very easy going a lot of the time outside of battle. So long as you have a reason to approach him (even simpler ones like: his appearance, his arm, etc) then you’re set. - Where are they usually to find?: Oof, honestly? Anywhere. Space, Earth, other places-- he’s constantly on the move. If you want a set place, just say somewhere on Earth and I can work with that.

Something you may still want to point out about your muse?: Shiro is certainly easy to get along with, but he is not without flaw or issue. He has a plethora of issues even after the fall of the Galra Empire. He’s not without his scars, physical and otherwise. Approaching him is easy but getting close to him is not. Don’t expect him to be an open book. Just because he can talk about war, battle, fighting with a straight face doesn’t mean he wasn’t effected by it. He has suffered greatly and it will show the closer you get to him.

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by: @skyvar [ <3 ] Tagging: IF YOU WANNA PARTAKE IN THIS INSANITY, PLEASE DO AND TAG ME IN IT SO I CAN READ IT!!!

#Thx Snow I'm dying now #I think I just filled my word quota that I didn't even have #Dash Games;#Long post //#Shiro;#Shiro Tidbits;#But tbh this was fun to do!!

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hanabiira · 4 years

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THE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all had witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

MUN NAME: Bunny AGE: 26 CONTACT: IM & Discord

CHARACTER(S): OCs, and technically Kensei but I have neglected him as of late.

CURRENT FANDOM(S): Bleach

BLEACH FANDOM(S) YOU HAVE AN AU FOR: None that I’ve actually written yet but I have an Avatar LOK AU for Miki.

MY LANGUAGE(S): English, no other languages I can fluently write in. I can read hiragana and katakana and very basic elementary kanji.

THEMES I’M INTERESTED IN FOR RP: Fantasy / Science fiction / Horror / Western / Romance / Thriller / Mystery / Dystopia / Adventure / Modern / Erotic / Crime / Mythology / Classic / History / Renaissance / Medieval / Ancient / War / Family / Politics / Religion / School / Adulthood / Childhood / Apocalyptic / Gods / Sports / Music / Science / Fight / Angst / Smut / Drama / etc.

PREFERRED THREAD LENGTH: one-liner / 1 para / 2 PARA / 3+ / NOVELLA.

ASKS CAN BE SEND BY: MUTUALS / NON-MUTUALS (for OOC questions only) / PERSONALS (for OOC questions only) / ANONS. (for OOC/IC questions)

CAN ASKS BE CONTINUED?: YES (please do!) / NO only by Mutuals?: YES / NO.

PREFERRED THREAD TYPE: crack / casual nothing too deep / SERIOUS / DEEP AS HECK.

IS REALISM / RESEARCH IMPORTANT FOR YOU IN CERTAIN THEMES?: YES / NO.

ARE YOU ATM OPEN FOR NEW PLOTS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

DO YOU HANDLE YOUR DRAFT / ASK - COUNT WELL?: YES / NO / SOMEWHAT

HOW LONG DO YOU USUALLY TAKE TO REPLY?: 24H / 1 WEEK / 2 WEEKS / 3+ / months / years. / DEPENDS ON MOOD AND INSPIRATION, AND IF I’M BUSY I

I’M OKAY WITH INTERACTING: ORIGINAL CHARACTERS / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / MY FANDOM / CROSSOVERS (if I know the fandom) / MULTI-MUSES / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / CANON-DIVERGENT PORTRAYALS / AU-VERSIONS.

DO YOU POST MORE IC OR OOC?: IC / OOC.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WITH FOLLOWING OTHERS?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

BEST WAYS TO APPROACH YOU FOR RP/PLOTTING: Tumblr IM or if you know me, discord. Once you have my discord there’s no reason to IM me really. I’m more likely to notice a message from discord than tumblr since I have discord on my phone and laptop.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS DO YOU HOLD TOWARDS YOUR PLOTTING PARTNER: I mean, if we’re actively plotting something I at least expect some back and forth?? But if it’s just general spewing of shit about stuff our characters might do I don’t necessarily expect it to become a thread or anything. Sometimes I just like to scream and think about stuff with other people lmao.I don’t even really expect plotting all the time, unless you have a really good idea then I’m all for it!! totally!! I love a good plotted thread but I am also cool just going with the punches.

WHEN YOU NOTICE THE PLOTTING IS RATHER ONE-SIDED, WHAT DO YOU DO?: If the person doesn’t seem into it I’ll probably just drop it? I’m not going to pressure anyone into any sort of rp they’re not vibing with, it’s fine.

HOW DO YOU USUALLY PLOT WITH OTHERS, DO YOU GIVE INPUT OR LEAVE MOST WORK TOWARDS YOUR PARTNER?: I love that this meme assumes I plot a lot lmfao. Uhh...I find it quite difficult to come up with a lot of different active scenarios or stories but I do frequently like to discuss what ifs between my characters and whoever I’m talking to and that often can evolve into an idea for a thread which I am all for taking places. I wouldn’t necessarily call it plotting because it doesn’t always have to turn into something, but its just fun little banter about our characters and their reactions. If I am trying to buckle down and plot I will do my best to contribute to whatever we’re trying to plan?

WHEN A PARTNER DROPS THE THREAD, DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?: YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: I won’t be mad, just be like ‘hey can we drop this?’ and I’ll be like “cool”. I get that sometimes you just can’t find the words to reply to something and that’s ok. But just let me know so I’m not sitting there waiting for a reply I’m never going to get.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY LEAD YOU TO DROP A THREAD?: Either an natural ending of the thread or I just....can’t think of any juice to keep it going and get stuck behind a wall. I am MORE than happy to start something fresh and new when threads are ended or dropped!

- WILL YOU TELL YOUR PARTNER?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

IS COMMUNICATION IN THE RPC IMPORTANT TO YOU? YES / NO.

- AND WHY?: I think a lot of misunderstanding stems from a lack of communication. Do I talk OOC with ALL the people I rp with? No, but If I have concerns or questions about a thread or something we’re doing I am 100% going to talk to them about it to make sure nothing gets misconstrued. I get people get anxious but like...if you have the balls to write a character on the internet with a stranger you can send them an IM if you have a questions/concerns. None of us are mind readers, so don’t leave your partner in the dark about your thoughts and feelings. Obviously if they are writing with you they don’t hate you. 90% of us don’t bite and are just lame nerds behind a computer screen, so....

ARE YOU OKAY WITH ABSOLUTE HONESTY, EVEN IF IT MAY MEANS HEARING SOMETHING NEGATIVE ABOUT YOU AND/OR PORTRAYAL?: I mean, I’m not going to LOVE hearing something negative but if its a valid point or concern I’m absolutely going to listen to it and try to rectify it? Problem is a lot of people thinly spew hate or baseless negativity and then thinly veil it as “criticism” that stems their personal feelings about a character than it really is anything constructive, which is a no go for me. Will I 100% always agree with how everyone else plays their characters? No, but if its not hurting anyone and they’re having fun I’m not going to say anything to them. I 100% welcome constructive criticism or tough questions! It’s one way to improve.

DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE SUCH SITUATION IN A MATURE WAY? YES / NO.

WHY DO YOU RP AGAIN, IS THERE A GOAL?: My goal is really just to have fun and enjoy myself. The longer I am here the less I am worried about doing big deep threads or having amazing fancy graphics for that RPC clout. I’m here to have fun with my friends and play my OC that I love. Again, I don’t profess myself to be much of a writer so I’m not technically here to really further and deepen my writing skills. That sounds bad, I don’t mean to say I am adverse to improvement and I am always looking for ways or feedback that could make my storytelling better, but it is not my main goal or reason for why I rp, if that makes sense. Telling a narrative has always been something that’s been difficult for me (I HATED having to write stories in school and avoided creative writing like the plague) but I really welcome ways that could help me be better, because it hasn’t always been something natural to me.

WISHLIST, BE IT PLOTS OR SCENARIOS: I YEARN for a good thread with a Shunsui about Miki taking over the 8th division and how she changes it since his time there. She really worries about still holding onto his legacy while also making a name for herself and differentiating herself from him and how he ran things and would really want his feedback and approval. I would also really love if there were some characters that really took an interest in the kinds of stuff she does with the things she grows in her garden and greenhouse. It is more than just “ooh, look at the pretty flowers” and it is not really something I’ve gotten to explore despite my time here.

THEMES I WON’T EVER RP / EXPLORE: Anything gross. Rape/noncon/underage/furry or weird extreme fetish shit. I 100% do not vibe with racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc. I do not mind some darker themes but I don’t really have any interest on writing any threads where Miki is deeply deeply hurt or tortured or anything like that, which kind of falls under the gore category. Will I write her injured and do I welcome some kinds of sparring/fighting threads? Yes. But I won’t subject her to gross violence and having the shit being beat out of her. Miki is not infallible but I don’t want to write it.

WHAT TYPE OF STARTERS DO YOU PREFER / DISLIKE, CAN’T WORK WITH?: Starters that are too open ended, start with a general with a question and/or little scenario building. You know like the “why are you here”, “what are you doing”, “who are you” sorts of starters. They’re boring and I will most likely run out of ways to keep going with them. Set a scene for me and I will have a much easier time!

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE MOST?: That’s a good question...Miki tends to like friendly people (obviously) but also gets a kick out of interacting with cold or difficult to talk to characters (think Soi fon, Kensei, Byakuya etc) because she sees it as something of a challenge. She wants to see if she can befriend them. I also like characters that have an interesting theme or shitck .

WHAT TYPE OF CHARACTERS CATCH YOUR INTEREST THE LEAST?: Characters that are not really in her age group (think the karakura kids). I have the most difficult time thinking about how they might even interact in a way that is not on the most superficial level. Also characters that I can’t realistically see her meeting or running into.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRONG ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I am pretty easy to reach OOC, and once I’m in I’m in. I love talking about our characters interactions and will spam you with asks and shit if that’s what you want. I will talk all day about our characters if you let me. I will send you stupid memes. Even if I am not posting on tumblr I’m easily reached through discord. And Idk my oc is good??? maybe???

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAK ASPECTS AS RP PARTNER?: I would say I’m inconsistent? I know its covid times right now but I do work a full time job that takes a lot of my time and energy usually and I absolutely can’t write when I’m mentally exhausted. It won’t happen. So there may be times where you just won’t see any posting from me and it may take a long time for me to answer a thread or ask. As much as I also don’t like to label myself this way...I guess I technically do suffer from chronic pain (I have a hip malformation), and sitting is one of the things that really can exacerbate my hip and back pain meaning sometimes I just can’t tolerate sitting at my desk for very long or even sitting up in my bed which really prevents me from writing sometimes even when I want to. I wish mobile draft writing was better lol

DO YOU RP SMUT?: YES / NO/ DEPENDS.

DO YOU PREFER TO GO INTO DETAIL?: YES / NO / DEPENDS.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH BLACK CURTAIN?: YES / NO.

- WHEN DO YOU RP SMUT? MORE OUT OF FUN OR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT?: Too much smut is boring, obviously, and I’m not really a fan of smut really just for the sake of smut and threads like that tend to die for me. And I also don’t rp smut with just anyone, there has to be an established relationship between the characters. But if it flows with the story and it makes sense for the scenario then yeah, I’m down for a good smut thread.

- ANYTHING YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO RP THERE?: I’m pretty vanilla and I didn’t really give Miki anything that’s really nonstandard. I’m not going to shame anyone for what they’re into or their characters but there’s just kinks I couldn’t convincing write, would be ooc, or I just would be too embarrassed. So far I have not run into anything weird though.

ARE SHIPS IMPORTANT TO YOU?: YES / NO

WOULD YOU SAY YOUR BLOG IS SHIP-FOCUSED?: YES?? / NO. Though I mean ship not in a strictly romantic ship sense. I value all ships as in friendships and other relationships, mentor mentee, etc. and it really helps drive story for both characters I think. Miki CRAVES FRIENDSHIPS!! SHE WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND!! LET HER!! Even negative relationships have value.

DO YOU USE READ MORE?: YES / NO / SOMETIMES WHEN I WRITE LONG STUFF (ooc stuff).

ARE YOU: Multi-ship / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship — Multiverse / Singleverse.

- WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO EXPLORE THE MOST IN YOUR SHIPS?:

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS?: YES / NO. - As long as its discussed before hand or is easily implied (say like, an 8th lieutenant).

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- WHAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE YOUR MUSE INTERESTING TOWARDS OTHERS, WHY SHOULD THEY RP WITH THIS PARTICULAR CHARACTER OF YOURS NOW, WHAT POSSIBLE PLOTS DO THEY OFFER?: Miki is unique, I’d like to think. She is a blend of soft and gentle, but also stubborn, opinionated and desperate to prove that she shouldn’t be messed with. I basically wanted a character that just seemed like a living and breathing springtime breeze. I’m not saying necessarily that some of the tropes she holds are entirely unique to the series, but I think its the blend of all her aspects that make her different compared to other canon characters. Plus if you love that plant and flower aesthetique™ you have come to the right place. Plus she takes it further than just an aesthetic or a surface level “I like flowers” aspect of her personality. It runs so deep and she is so passionate about it in so many different ways.

- WITH WHAT TYPE OF MUSES DO YOU USUALLY STRUGGLE TO RP WITH?: Again, ones that I can’t find much of a commonality with so those who are not her age or are strictly human. Though it is not impossible to interact with humans, I prefer to develop her story within the scene of the Seireitei. Also characters that are super volatile and aggressive.

- WHAT DO THEY DESIRE, IS THEIR GOAL?: Peace, accomplishment, happiness mostly. Miki wants to be recognized for her hard work as well as desires to form positive relationships with others. She wants the Gotei to feel less disjointed.

- WHAT CATCHES THEIR INTEREST FIRST WHEN MEETING SOMEONE NEW?: The way they talk, their facial expressions, their eyes.

- WHAT DO THEY VALUE IN A PERSON?: Kindness, determination, drive, sense of humor.

- WHAT THEMES DO THEY LIKE TALKING ABOUT?: Plants, flowers, flower arranging, gardening, poisonous plants and their potential affects and uses, tea, shitty jokes, food, general day to day gossip, handsome men (lol), books, kido and other shinigami arts, human world stuff.

- WHICH THEMES BORE THEM?: Math, long convoluted talks about history, people who talk too much about themselves.

- DID THEY EVER GO THROUGH SOMETHING TRAUMATIC?: The thousand year bloodwar. The death of a romantic partner. The death of her mother.

- WHAT COULD LEAD TO AN INSTANT KILL?: It’s really hard to imagine a scenario where Miki would immediately go in for the kill zero questions asked with no context. Probably only if it’s someone known to be a threat, has done things that are terrible, and is likely to continue being a threat to others or is actively killing/about to kill someone else.

- IS THERE SOMEONE /-THING THEY HATE?: Birds. Hypocrites. Super self important people.

IS YOUR MUSE EASY TO APPROACH?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?: Just roll up on her. She’s easily found in her barracks.

SOMETHING YOU MAY STILL WANT TO POINT OUT ABOUT YOUR MUSE?: uuuuuh she bean.

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by: @bazzardburner technically but for quincy miki which I will also tweak and post there.

#(.:✿:. Bunny Mumbles; ooc )

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obaewankenope · 5 years

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On this whole "Amber punched Johnny in the face! Look! A photo! It's proof!!" thing, I have a story to share with ya'll about my biological father and my mother. Back when I was a wee baby in the early 90s, my mother and father were arguing in the kitchen because he wanted something or other and she refused. It might have been to be allowed to move back in, to have the car, to have sex one last time, I don't know. What I do know is this:

When my mother refused and told him to fuck off, my father told her she attacked him.

She didn't, but that's what he said. And when she laughed and threatened to smash his face in with the rolling pin because he raised his hands to beat the crap out of her again, he backed off.

Now, one time she raised that rolling pin, he ran away and came back with police who said that he'd told them she'd threatened him with harm. Even though he'd beaten the shit out of her a week previous for daring to ask for money for nappies. Yeah.

Anyway, back to this other time in the kitchen when I was a babe. He backs down and instead tries a different route. Now, we used to have a box freezer/refrigerator for frozen food in the kitchen. It wasn't super big but it did the job and was next to the counter top by the fridge. Anyway. If you know about box freezers then you know they're hard af and heavy.

My father, the abusive bastard who threatened to cut my brother out of my mother's stomach when she was pregnant with him, who used to beat shit out of my oldest brother because he wasn't his actual son, and who let a guy slam his elbow so hard into my mother's stomach when she was pregnant with me that she collapsed and then refused to let her get medical treatment. That guy.

He slams his own head down onto the box freezer. Repeatedly. Until he's got this huge big fucking split in his skull and blood pouring down. Then he leaves and is all "you attacked me!! I've never hurt you in my life! I'm a good husband and father! I work hard!!" about it to the police who come again to caution my mother for it all.

Now. The fun thing is that the police officer who comes to the door to call on her and give her a stern talking to, is the same one who showed up for the first rolling pin incident. He was also a dude who showed up for other times and other reasons and knows what's really going on with my mother and father but, since she never pressed charges, couldn't do shit. Yay domestic abuse sucks.

Anyway. He knows my father is lying about it all. And he listens to my mother's explanation, nods, and goes "have a good evening" and goes on about his life while my father just gets some hours stuck in the A&E to fix up the injury he gave himself to look like the Uberest Victim To Ever Victim.

What has this to do with Depp? Well, here it is. Depp is known for his violent outbursts and substance issues. He has been sued and charged and arrested in the past for attacking people on set in his job ffs. That is a violent, aggressive personality at its core. And violence in the workplace easily translates to violence in the home. I should damned well know.

Depp's bruise photo is difficult to believe because it's a lonely picture, depicts a scene that is sketchy and vague at best and also, as someone who's father has pulled the exact same self-injury bs to gain sympathy points and avoid consequences, stinks of an abuser trying to cover his tracks and make himself into the victim.

Now, I'm sure some of ya'll would argue and say I'm biased. And yeah, sure, I am. I know my knee-jerk reaction is to believe Heard over Depp because of my childhood trauma, father issues, and having grown up under the umbrella of domestic abuse. But I also know that I can take all of that bias and kick it aside to look at only the facts using studies and research to base my conclusions on. And somehow, strangely enough, I still end up with my original knee-jerk reaction.

Now, if Depp releases some major images of him hospitalised and police reports of Heard having been cautioned for attacking him and if he has witnesses who have never received money from him or anything else that could potentially undermine their credibility, I may well change my mind.

But until then, I stand with Amber Heard and I won't be swayed by one photograph when a defamination suit is going on because Depp has been getting dropped left and right from movies and the like because he's actually impossible to work with, not because he's an abuser. Depp's career is suffering due to his own actions, not Amber's.

Edit: ya'll can reblog it but do try and tag for domestic violence please, for anyone who is affected by it

#domestic abuse #tw: domestic abuse #cw: domestic abuse #johnny depp #amber heard #personal #kat talks

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monotonemanday · 6 years

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Our Days Divided - Mystic Messenger University AU - Chapter 3 Misunderstandings

Chapter 3! Y’all want a whole chapter of bickering? Because Samantha and Saeyoung have sharp tongues!!!

Enjoy!

“Uhhh, Hello? I’m looking for a…I don’t know if this is correct, it just says V? That seems weird to me though. V…That’s kind of scary if you think about it. Mysterious. Like what could it mean? Shit. I’m inner monologueing out loud. Uhm, is V here?” Samantha was walking around the large art room. It was empty and eerily quiet. Paint brushes were soaking, easels were stacked against the walls. She was glad no one had been around to hear her embarrassing herself. That was until she heard soft chuckling.

“Haha V is a pretty weird name, isn’t it? But it’s just a nickname. I’ll be out in a minute!”

Sigh. Great, she did make an ass out of herself. Honestly, she wasn’t surprised. She continued wandering around the room until she came across an easel with a medium sized canvas that someone clearly had been working on up until a few minutes ago. Sam was shocked and her eyes widened at the sight of the reference photo and what the painting had become so far. “Wow, V was it? This is beautiful! Do you know her by any chance?”

V had walked out from the back supply room with some acrylic paints. Samantha gulped. Great, this wasn’t just some art geek she had acted a fool in front of, it was Jihyun Kim. One of the prominent tuition kids. And he was hot. “I actually don’t know her. I just saw her in the courtyard earlier and couldn’t help but take her picture. Someone like that is definitely worth photographing. Plus I liked this particular photo so much I figured I’d try my hand at painting it.” The mint haired hottie settled in next to Samantha staring at the canvas for a couple of seconds in silence. “It’s coming along I think. Anyway, what can I help you with?” He stuck his hand out towards Samantha who gripped it for a light shake. “I’m-”

“Hot. No, Tim! Kim! I mean Kim! Jihot Kim. Jihyun! …oh my.” Samantha’s face was on fire, she hung her head in shame still lightly shaking the man’s hand. “What I meant is you’re Jihyun Kim…and I am a ridiculous human being.”

“No,” V had grabbed Sam’s chin and lifted her face to meet his eye line, “You’re Samantha Dae, and it’s very nice to meet you.” His smile was dazzling but due to her embarrassment, Sam was unphased. She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, great. You already know who I am. This bodes well for me.”

“I assure you I’ve only heard good things.” V realized he was still holding onto Sam’s face and quickly released her. The two backed away from each other abruptly.

“Liz.” Sam broke the silence.

“Excuse me?”

“The girl in the photo and the painting. She looks like her friends would call her Liz.” Sam gave V a sideways smirk and in turn, a smile crept across his lips.

“My friend Jumin learned a new term and I think he may be right in his assumption that you, in fact, are a dime, Samantha.”

“That’s me. Ha ha…all the curves in all the right places ha ha…amirite?” She wished she could just stop talking. She had no control over what was coming out of her mouth. “I’m sorry you are just so tall, no, hot, no hard! No! Talented! You are just so talented and work so hard! Is what I mean to say. I admire you from the things I’ve heard.”

“Thank you, Samantha. I don’t know a whole lot about you, just that we have Econ together. And of course, the information that Jumin gathered on you from his scholarship kid research.”

Suddenly he became painfully unattractive. Scholarship kid research? She knew this was related to the group Kaeli was trying to form. Here she had scolded her friends for making assumptions about the tuition kids, and now she hears they were researching them like they had something to fear or be worried about? Like the had to prepare to deal with them as “untouchable’s”

“I’ll have to let him know that you have such a way with words.” V gave Samantha a chuckle and a light-hearted wink. He thought they were being friendly but suddenly the room got cold.

“Yup. I sure do. Anyway, here.” Samantha pushed a slip of paper into Jihyun’s chest. “I came here to ask if the art department could lend us these supplies and paint a few of these pieces for our next production. If not I’ll figure something else out. Thanks.” She turned coldly and sharply, briskly walking toward the door. V reached out and grabbed her wrist.

“Samantha wait I-” Before she could turn around to release herself from his grip, someone had grabbed V’s own wrist and pulled it toward them.

“Don’t touch her. Not cool.” Saeran’s mint eyes sent a slight chill down V’s spine.

“Easy, Saeran. Down boy. Mr. Handsome doesn’t realize he’s insulted the lady. And I thought all rich kids had impeccable manners.” Saeyoung stood smirking in the doorway.

“Do you guys really have to follow me everywhere? You’re like a couple of leaches. Just drop it. Let’s go.” Samantha rolled her eyes and lightly stomped out of the art room. Irritated was an understatement. The twin boys shrugged at each other, Saeyoung saluted the mint-haired tuition kid, and the two followed after Samantha.

Samantha, Saeyoung, and Saeran were on their way to their part-time jobs. Samantha and Saeyoung, much to her demise and his pleasure, worked in the same small Record Shop. They sold new and vintage vinyl as well as comics and different odds and ends. Saeran worked a block away at a small local flower shop.

“So before that uncomfortable mess, what was that flustered trainwreck we witnessed?!?” Saeyoung elbowed Sam in the side.

“Ow! Cut it out!”

“But really Sam, I’ve seen you be dorky but that was Saeyoung level embarrassment. Like, you were possessed.” Saeran joined in on the teasing. He grabbed Samantha by the shoulders and began to shake her side to side, and back and forth. “Saeyoung! Get out of Samantha!!!”

“Hey!!! Stop shaking me and please watch your phrasing!” Saeran listened to her plea and let her go. She dusted off her shoulders.

“Yeah, Saeran. Watch your phrasing. Besides, Samantha would never let me inside of her.” The twins shared a smirk and a high five while Sam covered her ears.

“Stop! Oh my god. For the love of my sanity, please god. Stahp! That is so gross!!”

The three had reached the front of the flower shop.

“Alright bro, Have a good time at the shop. Don’t be afraid of the swarms of girls that come to flirt with you every day. They may seem scary but really all they’re after is your di-” Saeyoung was cut off by a swift elbow to the rib cage.

“Seven! Shut up! I am not spending a whole shift with you and your big mouth!” Samantha stepped in front of Saeyoung and gave Saeran a quick peck on the cheek.

“Sam! What the hell?! Quit kissing me with your gross chapped lips!.” Searan was rubbing the back of his neck, his cheeks bright pink. Samantha gave him a sideways smile.

“Have a good day at work, Sae. And you know I can take care of myself, but thanks for stepping in earlier.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Saeran mumbled his barely audible response. He wiped his cheek and quickly entered the shop.

The day was moving so slow. Samantha was flipping through a comic leaning against the front counter. Saeyoung was leaning next to her messing with the iPod that hooked up to the PA system in the store.

“Pick a song, or a break the iPod, Tomato Head.” Seven narrowed his eyes at Sam. So that’s how it was going to be today? Alright. the game is afoot.

“Hey, Samantha, why do you dress like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like a character from a 90’s Anime.”

“Because it’s cute. Why do you dress like a pothead skater from the matrix?”

“I’m wearing jeans and a hoodie!!!”

“If that’s how you see it.”

“Whatever. Why is it so dead in here today?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Why? Hot date with one of your robots?”

“HEY! You’re just jealous because I’ve made robots so advanced that you CAN date them.”

The two continued to bicker, not noticing a black Mercedes Benz pull up out front. A driver opened the back passenger side door and let someone out. The bell to the shop chimed and Samantha and Saeyoung both gripping each other’s collars looked towards the door to find someone they could only assume the identity of. Jumin Han.

“Pardon me, I am just here to browse.” Jumin began to look around the small shop, his driver standing by the door.

“Yeah, man. Welcome in. Let us know if you need help with anything.”

Samantha watched him for a few moments. He was incredibly handsome. Sophisticated even in his casual wear. She expected him to have this haughty air about him but instead, he seemed so peaceful. Saeyoung broke her trance.

“Eye’s back in your head, man. Dude’s wearing a turtleneck tucked into pressed khaki pants. That 90’s aesthetic. It’s like he was made for you, nerd.”

“At least he puts effort into his wardrobe.”

“Samantha. Why must you hurt me so?”

“Because you’re irritating. Hey, do you want to do a little training after work today?”

“Nooooo! Vanderwood always yells at me.”

“That’s because you’re always messing around! Besides you need a lot of work if you’re going to beat me for the next physical trial exams.” Samantha knew that would push Saeyoung’s buttons.

“The only reason the great 707 lost to Smelly Sammy, was because the stats were rigged!!”

“Oh really? If they were rigged, why didn’t you just fix them yourself, hacker boy?”

“It’s called Integrity.”

“No, it’s called you have tiny biceps.”

“Just because you can do an insane amount of pull-ups doesn’t mean my biceps are small, She-Hulk! My muscles are huge!” Saeyoung’s glasses were fogging up he was in such a rage.

“Excuse me, but I like this. Is this what one would refer to as ‘witty banter’?” Jumin had stepped up to the pair and interrupted their incessant arguing.

“Well, my responses are witty. His are just noise.”

Jumin chuckled at Sam’s curt response. “Well I didn’t find what I was looking for but Miss Dae, I was hoping later you could meet with me to clear up a misunderstanding from earlier today.” He handed her a small business card. “Please call that number and let them know if you can make it.” Jumin didn’t say anything else. His driver opened the shop door and ushered him into the car.

“Well Sammy, looks like you are going to owe that guy, and the guy with the pastel hair, an apology.”

“And what makes you think that?”

“Well you assumed the worst of them 'researching’ us, but there’s no way I guy like THAT, so unfamiliar with basic human interaction, had any bad intentions. Besides…” Saeyoung confidently walked away from Samantha. “Didn’t that Jihyun guy say the super rich one called you a dime?”

Samantha rolled her eyes and dismissed her friend, unable, however, to hide the blush on her face. She took out her cellphone and dialed the number on the card.

Saeyoung was organizing some of the records that had gotten mixed up and Samantha ran by him, throwing on her jacket.

“Bye, Seven! Lock up tight! Don’t forget training! Tell Vanderwood I’ll be late. See ya! Love ya! Mwuah!” She lazily threw a kiss in his direction.

“Sam, what the hell?! You’re leaving me for some hot piece of trust fund ass?!” The words fell on deaf ears because she was already out of the door.

His back was facing the counter and he was cutting the stems for a specialty arrangement. His head was pounding. All he could hear was whispering and giggling from a group of girls huddled in the corner of the flower shop. They had been coming up to him for hours now, asking him ridiculous questions and attempting to flirt with him. Saeran kept his responses short and simple. This was an everyday occurrence. He didn’t understand why girls were constantly in the shop flirting with him. However he hated that even he had to admit, he looked pretty adorable in his work apron. People always flirted with Saeyoung but he was outgoing and super fit. Saeran was a bit scrawny and didn’t really interact with people. Samantha and Liz were always telling him how handsome he was but he just never thought much of it.

“Excuse me, handsome flower boy.”

He turned around prepared to deal with the customer, holding in his irritation but instead when he saw Samantha in front of him his eye’s lit up.

“Sam, what are you doing here?” Wait, why was he so excited? He was sweating internally. He had to push that excitement way down and bury it. Their friendship was super important to him and there was nothing worth jeopardizing it.

“So is this how popular you are every day. I had to fight my way through a sea of ladies just to get to the counter.”

“What do you want Samantha?”

“I need you to make me a really nice flower arrangement. For a peace offering. And then you and I are going to get dressed up. And deliver it to a very prominent trust fund kid at a very fancy high rise.”

Saeran let out a deep sigh and made his way to the back room of the shop. Samantha knew that was his way of saying fine, he’d do it. Samantha sat on a stool in the corner of the shop waiting for Saeran’s shift to end. She laughed at all the girls trying to flirt with him, and how dismissive he was. She even told some of the girl’s things they should say to him and pretended to help them flirt.

The shift had come to an end, and the sun was beginning to set. Saeran threw his apron on the counter and went to the back to retrieve the flowers he prepared. Samantha hung up his apron for him and waited outside.

“Alrighty, let’s get out of here and go deliver these I guess.” Saeran had shoved the flowers into Samantha’s arms and walked at a quick pace. Samantha looked at the flowers and took in their wonderful scent. The arrangement was beautiful and despite how much he acted indifferently, Samantha knew Saeran put a lot of effort into it. She picked up a light jog to catch up with him, now walking side by side.

“Whatever you say, flower boy.” Samantha holding the flowers, and Saeran with his hands in his pockets, both staring straightforward in comfortable silence, Shy smiles tugging at their lips.

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xmenthefanficseries · 7 years

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Sigyn MCU Headcanon - Part Six

This is a continuation of my personal canon-compliant Sigyn headcanon which I would like to write into a fan fiction but it would take way to long. So here are the highlights.

Avengers Assembled Season Three (maybe?) First Half of Season

Okay, so it’s 1990, or just after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. This season is going to be built around the lead up to Janet’s ‘death’ ala Ant-Man. It will happen in one of the last episodes. Basically, this season will be Avengers Disassembled. Ah, spoilers?

So yeah. Lots of crap going down. I haven’t decided who the villain will be. That will all depend on what we learn from the new Ant-Man and the Wasp movie.

As for Sigyn, she’s doing her usual thing, though now she’s getting a bit, well, she’s been to every continent and nearly every country, some of which don’t exist anymore. But when Peggy calls to arms for another big threat, she comes.

There is still cold war shenanigans going on… and at one point they need to get some information from a Russian oligarch but without letting him know they got it. Sigyn is all “I’m on this.”

The oligarch is currently in New York, over-seeing something plot relevant, I’m sure. He’s having some kind of afternoon gathering of hoity-toities. Sigyn gets herself an invite because by this time she’s like super rich, like, come one, who wouldn’t get stock in [I dunno, IBM? I’m bad with financial stuff and the benefit of not writing this fic is not having to actually do all the research.]

Sigyn is trying to figure out how to get from the party at the Russian’s fancy estate house when she’s stopped by two guards. She’s just about to talk her way out of it when she’s “rescued” by none other than Loki.

Loki pretends to be her husband who has been looking for her and Sigyn just rolls with it until the guards leave. He’s dressed in 1990s attire. It’s awful. I mean, it’s rich person’s fashion. But still awful because… 90s.

(also he’s in Midgardian clothes because if this was a real TV show then getting Tom to do a cameo would probably entitle little work on his part and a scene that can be shot in like a day because the man is busy, he’s got shit to do, and I think these things through)

The guards walk off and Sigyn is like:

Sigyn: “Loki, what are you doing here? Speaking to a banished person is punishable by being banished yourself.” Loki: “Please, as if father would banish one of his own sons.” Sigyn: “You shouldn’t risk it.” Loki: “Heimdall cannot see me, for now, at least.” Sigyn: “You finally got that spell to work?” Loki: “All things in time, but time is what I have little of. It took me far too long to track you down. Shall we go someplace and talk?” Sigyn: “As many questions as I have about home, I need to find my way into [oligarch] study without him noticing.” Loki: “And how were you planning on doing that?” Sigyn: “Not as easily as I would have liked. But you’re here now. Go ahead, make yourself useful.” -much smirking abounds-

Loki and Sigyn now look like the guards thanks to his illusion spell. They easily walk into the study of the oligarch and Sigyn begins to go through the paperwork to find what she’s looking for.

Loki: “Just what are you looking for?” Sigyn: “[quick explanation of the stuff]” Loki: “What on Vanaheim for?” Sigyn: “I’m helping out a friend, well, several friends. I’m part of a group of individuals doing what we can to try to keep Midgard safe.” Loki: “Is that what you’ve been doing since your banishment?” Sigyn: “Yes, and we even have a name. The Avengers.” (I have always been intrigued by Loki’s sudden look at Tony when he says Avengers, so I got it into my head that Loki had heard it before, here, from Sigyn, and it’s a bit of an ‘oh shit, did I miss something?’ kind of moment for him in Avengers) Loki: -trying not to laugh- “That sounds like something Thor would come up. Him and those dull-witted friends of his.” Sigyn: “It does, doesn’t it? But don’t speak ill of my cousin, Fandral. He tries his best.” Loki: “My apologies.”

-there is a moment somewhere in this dialogue where Sigyn finds the paperwork and takes pictures with one of those old spy cameras and Loki is just like ‘omg, really?’ and Sigyn is like ‘give them a break, they still haven’t gotten past the combustible engine’-

Sigyn: “Finished. Now, how long do you have? I have so many questions, about my sisters, my family, Theoric.” Loki: “Well, what would you say if I asked your sister, hypothetically, that if I could get a message to you, what would she, hypothetically, say in such a message?” Sigyn: “Hypothetically.” Loki: -produces some kind of small, flat disk, that holds a holographic letter- “You might wait to start this message. It is fairly long, from what she said.” Sigyn: -takes it- “Oh, Loki, you are truly a dear friend. Thank you, thank you.” Loki: -takes Sigyn’s hands in his- “Sigyn, you’re going to hear something on there, and I feel that you should hear it, in person, from a friend.” Sigyn: “What? Did something happen to my parents, my sisters…” -see’s Loki’s face- “No, no not Theoric.” Loki: “He died a noble and honorable death, protecting innocent civilians. He will be praised in the halls of Valhalla.”

Sigyn starts crying though she’s trying not to. Loki takes her into a hug and lets her weep a bit. The look on his face is that he’s not entirely displeased with this turn of events. Did he kill Theoric himself? Did he lead him into a trap? Or is he simply taking advantage of Theoric’s convenient death after going through all the pains in getting Sigyn isolated from her home and family because damn it Loki, you are a piece of work!

Sigyn pulls herself back together, she has to be strong, like Asgardians should be. Loki encourages her to take this time to grieve, so that she can return to Asgard after her banishment is over, ready to start her life anew. It’s what Theoric would want, right, for her to continue to live her life to the fullest.

Then someone is approaching, so they need to leave and go their separate ways. End of Loki’s cameo, but it sets up for the tone of the rest of Sigyn’s arch in this season.

Wait, are we now only half-way through? I’m so sorry guys... so sorry...

#Sigyn #Sigyn MCU Headcanon #Loki

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journeyintowriting · 7 years

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Movie Reviews

Because my allergies has kept me on house arrest curled up with my air purifier, and I’m spring break for the next two weeks; I’m catching up with some movies I haven’t gotten to see yet and a few I thought I would never watch because Netflix has them and I”m bored.

First things: I now have a love/hate relationship with Supernatural. I finally caved in and watched it, and now I’m impatiently waiting for Netflix to put season 12 up because I’m NOT paying $30 on Amazon to watch it. I pay for Amazon Prime, I should be able to stream anything without paying crazy amounts. I have a love/hate relationship with Dean, Sam is kind of cute in a puppy way, Castiel is kind of annoying, the damsel of the week is REALLY annoying, their total lack of research on just about anything supernatural or myth related is EVEN MORE ANNOYING, the Impala is my favorite character, Mark Sheppard is amazing/adorable, Jim Beaver can be my grumpy Uncle, and my favorite episodes are (that I can remember): the one where Dean is afraid of everything, Swan Song, the one from the Impala’s POV, where Dean is Death for a day, where Sam tries to communicate with Dean’s spirit, a day in the life of Bobby, the arch where Sam is coming off the demon blood, where Dean dies and the last shot is of him opening his eyes, where Dean faces Cain, and the one where Sam keeps reliving the same day over and over again and Dean keeps dying in comical ways. OK Netflix, please put up season 12!

Right, movies.

The Jungle Book (the new one)- better than I expected. I really like the attention to detail with the animation of the animal characters and Mowgli was much better and a lot less annoying than the cartoon version. I also like how they went with the darker and grittier elements of the book rather than a straight copy of the cartoon version. While Jim Cummings is a better Kaa and the change to the songs was jarring, I enjoyed this version. Mowgli’s relationship with the animals, especially his pack, was better, and they didn’t shy away from Khan’s violent aggressiveness (his visit to the wolf pack was, unexpected) when they could have easily made him like his charming cartoon version. What I REALLY enjoyed was the move from the British Colonialism as depicted in the animated version to touching on and embracing the spirit of the Indian culture and Hinduism. Using the elephants not as a representation of British occupation but as the spiritual element in the film had me jumping off my couch I was so excited. I also enjoyed the touches of the original score sprinkled here and there. Also, Mama wolf taking charge of the pack and not putting up with Khan’s shit was breath taking. Lupita does amazing work and she didn’t fail! 3.5 out of 5

The Giver- I was worried about this one. It didn’t do well in the box office and reviews were spotty. As someone who loves that book, it added to my wariness. But, there were many times it followed the book, or was changed to add a new perspective on the message of the book that I enjoyed. I didn’t like the ending, as the book’s ending has a distinct purpose and message. But then I remembered that I was getting it confused with Fahrenheit 451′s ending and I was OK with it. Same idea, similar message, different books. The acting was better than I expected. Though it’s often difficult for actors to not show emotion when it’s something they’re trained to do. Jeff Bridges and Meryl Strepp were great at their roles. I was wondering when I wasn’t liking Rosemary (The Giver’s daughter), then I found out Taylor Swift was the one acting her. Mystery solved. What I loved most besides Jonas’s actor’s acting (say that five times fast!) was the choices in cinematography. Having it start off in black and white then moving to colors as Jonas is able to see color was beautiful. It was all crafted so well and it’s not often I praise cinematography. Overall, a faithful adaptation of the book. 4.5 out of 5

Kubo and the Two Strings- Holy cow stop animation has come a long way! Breathtaking to watch. It felt computer generated but it was all done by hand. If you’re familiar with how folk stories and myths go, the story line is a little predictable. There is a lot of symbolism, and once you catch on to it it’s pretty easy to find out what happens next. I’m not as familiar with Japanese mythology and folklore, so the material was new to me. Construction, all myth/folk stories are the same formula. But the story was fantastic. It also featured an instrument that is often heard but not often seen in Western culture. So it was great to see this particular instrument featured to educate. Some of the voices were odd choices (looking at you Beetle/Matthew), but overall it was a fantastic movie and a fresh look at non-Western stories. 4.5 out of 5.

Sky High- Yeah, I’m a bit behind on this one. Cheesy movie, stilted acting, bad costumes; I’ve been avoiding this one. It turned out OK. Not the best superhero movie, and I KNOW that’s not teenagers act, but it did something our modern superhero movies tend to shy away from or do badly. What I appreciated were the kids who had seemingly lame powers or were the outcasts were put in the spotlight to show their creativeness. And in no way were damsels being rescued. Pushed to the side or antagonized a bit, but they were right there saving the day. Cheesy, but entertaining. 3 out of 5.

Goosebumps- It was much funnier than I expected. Also had the fun twists and turns that you would expect out of a Stine book. Now, after meeting and talking with the real RL Stine, Jack Black’s version of the author was way funnier than the average film watcher would see it. Jack Black is hysterical in his own right, but his `mannerisms and dry wit and the sudden twists were very much in character of the author. What I didn’t like was the stereotypical nerdy kid and the Aunt, as they were both annoying and not really needed. What I loved was that it didn’t shy away from the scary element. Besides being funny, Stine has a way of scaring the living daylights out of you. The screenwriters did a great job of taking all of these monsters and nightmares and bringing them to life. If you’re an 80s/90s kid like me who grew up with these books, it brings back childhood fears in an anxiety-inducing way. OMG SLAPPY. That terrifying dummy still scares me. If you are a fan of Stine and his Goosebump series, or want to laugh while getting a scare, this is a good movie to watch. And, yes, Stine in his cameo is exactly how he is in real life. 4 out of 5.

Alice Through the Looking Glass- I’ve been putting this off due to the whole mess with Depp, but I love Mia and Elfman so I watched it. Here’s the problem with time travel movies. Unless you’re HG Wells or Doctor Who, time travel is often used as a bad plot devise and is often mishandled. I’m not as familiar with the book Thought the Looking Glass, so I can’t tell you how faithful it is. However, for a Wonderland story, it was weird and trying too hard. You could tell that the live actors were just kind of there, except Mia who was much more comfortable in her role and acting in general (Crimson Peak did her good!). It all seemed hurried and aimless in storytelling, which was disappointing because I enjoyed the first film and I’m not a huge Alice fan. Andrew Scott’s cameo was great, and I loved the character development in Alice’s Mom. However there was a cute man with Hamish’s group that the camera seemed to favor but he didn’t really have a purpose except to give Alice heart eyes. He looked interesting, focus on him! If they hadn’t messed with the time travel but use time in some other manner (running out of time for something) I think it would have worked better. 2.5 out of 5. 4 out of 5 for Mia.

I have Moana and Home to catch up on tomorrow. Maybe something else if it catches my eye.

#movie reviews #The Jungle Book #Sky High #The Giver #Goosebumps #Alice In Wonderland #RL Stine #Jack Black #Kubo

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