#finding someone who sees her flaws and her strengths and absolutely adores her.... GOD the slow build.

[humbleboar]

girl help i accidentally made myself upsetty spaghetti over beaujes again

#life and times #crambles #seeing their friendship grow..... the trust and respect and the sheer fun they had together... best friends to lovers....... #jester working thru her comphet...... figuring out what real love is for her.. beau letting herself be vulnerable.. #finding someone who sees her flaws and her strengths and absolutely adores her.... GOD the slow build. #i haven't stopped thinking abt that time beau sat up w jester when she was sick and held her hair back. but sure! that was all lust.

[ulquichaan]

Let's talk about Marinette, shall we?

Hello! Your favourite black-striped white wolf is back!

Where was I? Oh, here and there. Working on school stuff, my own little projects and looking at posts and tweets... oh right!

There blew up a big drama about Marinette as a character. That she is a bad character and bad person... And don't get me wrong, I never really liked her. Some stuff she does are making me furious, but I don't think she deserves all that hate.

Now the more I start to think about her, the more I see what a good character she actually is.

So let's have a closer look at her, shall we?

Marinette's biggest flaw

As the drama is about how bad Marinette is let's see what are the arguments for that.

One thing that I will defenitely agree on is - she is a creeper. And no, not the minecraft creeper, although her antics are as annoying.

Marinette is obsessed with Adrien and there is no doubt about that. That makes her do things that we all are cringing on. Even Marinette fans! (The example is Puppeteer 2.0. If you didn't cringe at her antics when Adrien was pretending to be a statue....... I don't know if I should respect you, or be afraid of you...)

Those actions are pulling me away from her and yes I agree, those qualities aren't the ones children should try and copy. But there is something we can do - skip the cringe. Or at least that's what I do, lol.

So yea, this is reasonable. There is no explanation for this... or is there?

Marinette is 13-14 years old girl. She probably doesn't really know what love is all about. She does what she thinks is right. The worst part? No one tells her to stop.

This isn't entirely Marinette's fault. For me... Tikki is the worst here! She is an ancient being, with great knowledge from old times! Her experience SHOULD make her wise enough to tell her holder: "Hey, this isn't how love works." or something.

Yes I know that kwamis don't know what love is. Or do they?

They do know what love is about. They Do know the Platonic Love. Romantic Love is basing on Platonic Love. Long-term relationships are thriving because friendship is the basics of them. You know that person and you adore everything about her, both strengths and flaws, you comunicate, you spend time together. Marinette right now sees Adrien as some kind of God. She put him on the piedestal due to him being nice to her one time.

And Ephemeral shows that perfectly. When she finds out that Adrien is Chat Noir, she is doubting herself, because she doesn't like the idea/reality that her notorious, pushy partner is the one she claims to love.

At first she doesn't accept him. But later on, she learns how to love him. Both strengths and flaws and I'm pretty sure the whole stalking shit stopped.

So I wouldn't blame Marinette here. I would blame those who encourage that behaviour instead, as Mari is really just a kid.

(^Who doesn't hate that scene?)

Marinette and her treatment of Chloe and Lila

Now here we go to the juicy part!

I have heard beliefs that Marinette treated Chloe and Lila badly. That she should do something else. And you know what? I don't really think so.

Let's get Chloe at the front here.

Chloe the blonde rich-kid. Absolutely spoiled brat, rude to everyone else. And that's understandable with her backstory. But. At first Marinette didn't know about that.

What's more, in Origins we actually know that Chloe and Marinette have incredibly bumpy ride! Like... spikey ride even!

Chloe has bullied Marinette for YEaRs! And as a person who was bullied and isolated by their class in primary school, I can relate with Mari here. This isn't anything nice. You feel lonely, unimportant. You are hurting. So why would you want to be nice to someone who is causing you pain?

"Treat others like you want to be treated."

Every action has a reaction and Marinette is absolutely not obligated by anything to be nice to her bully. Maybe it isn't heroic, but it's human. It fleshes Marinette out.

By that I'm referring to the whole Queen Bee arc.

Yes, Marinette should go and talk to Chloe. And she did eventually! Chloe was the brat that didn't get the information "You may never be Queen Bee again" through her tick skull.

Marinette had all rights to not give Chloe the Bee miraculous again. She isn't comfortable around her so why would she push herself into trusting her bully with her life?

Now let's get to Lila.

And ooh, that one is juicy!

So, Lila is that new girl in school. She becomes very popular for some reason. And then bam! Marinette finds out that she is lying about her superhero persona to her crush! Well, wouldn't you be furious when someone is telling lies about you? When someone would try and use you for their own gain? Exploit you maybe?

That's what all of this was about. That's why Marinette bursted out on her. Should she do that? No, defenitely not. She should confront her more calmly. But. Aren't those types of mistakes what makes everyone of us human?

We all are slaves to our emotions and sometimes we do things by impulse and don't think about consequences. If anything, this situation fleshed her out as a human being even more.

A flaw that will probably be worked on in season 5

Marinette also has another major flaw that should be worked on in season 5. Like, Mari will learn how to not be so controlling.

Season 4 was perfect example of it!

What is it?

Having control over everything. Because when you have control, you are safe.

She admits it in two episodes: Glaciator 2.0 (MariChat in cinema) and Strike Back (Final scene)

Marinette is brought out on a piedestal, being it both as Ladybug and Marinette. She is the guardian of miraculous so she needs to protect the jewels and have a constant eye on them. She is the class representative so she feels like she absolutely needs to help everyone with their problems. She has a golden heart, and thinks that she needs to solve all the problems. She is Ladybug after all! She will find solution to anything!

Marinette needs to learn letting go of the control. Trust with this to someone else (Chat Noir) and lose up a little. She admitted that already and that's first step to working on it.

Marinette is Mary Sue

Absolutely not!

Mary Sue is a character who usually has a tragic backstory, is talented in everything and they doesn't make major mistakes.

Marinette isn't really fitting in neither.

She has a normal backstory, a one that any of us can have. A loving home, friends etc. Yes she has that part with bullying but everyone have some bad things happen to them in the past. They create us and our personality too, y'know.

Marinette isn't talented in everything. Yes she is very creative and has designing talent. Is kicking everyone's butt in games. But she is for example a horrible actor! Look up Horrificator. Or whenever they do a film project, she never takes a role of an actor.

Marinette isn't perfect and there are mistakes that are major. I am not only referring to those she made as Ladybug because they were grieve. Her confronting Lila in a way she did, was a major mistake that brought her an enemy.

But she isn't a bad person either.

Marinette is a very caring person and wants to help everyone around her. She has a golden heart, and as we all know, gold is not only valuable but also it's a very soft metal.

She has passions and hobbies like any person could. She is kind and sympathiseses with people.

She is not a bad person despite all her flaws. All they do is fleshen her out and make her more of a realistic character. :)

Marinette is better as main protagonist, than Adrien

I am bringing this topic here, because I wrote a roleplay with my friend and I have seen few things.

It's very hard to do something with Adrien. He is very secluded, can't really go out and the only way for you to get him out is like in Startrain - a fieldtrip and Adrien has to rebel. Or something like in puppeteer 2.0. Or Photoshoots. Something unusual. No hanging out outside of school, really. It's hard to put new characters when your main protagonist can't really meet them in normal situation. It doesn't make the story in a way they try it to do. A normal days of a child plus superheroing.

Marinette is totally reasonable choice here.

So, that's my take on this topic. What is yours? Do you have anything to add? Maybe you don't agree with me?

I'm open to discussions as long as they stay respectful to both parties ^-^

#miraculous ladybug #mlb s4 spoilers #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous marinette #marinette dupain cheng #marinette drama #character analysis #marinette analysis #mlb rant #mlb #mlb fandom #marinette antis #marinette stans #i guess... #what else to tag

[noordledoordle]

“There are fundamental things about ourselves that we know to be true. It's important to remember those things when you find yourself in a tough situation, or you need to make a decision from the heart, but it's equally important to know that you can surprise yourself, too...”

Novel-sized post under the cut:

I don’t say much on my art posts or on Tumblr in general, but as we’re in the home stretch before SU leaves forever, I thought I’d leave a bit of commentary for the five people who may happen across this.

I started watching the original series a couple weeks after Friend Ship aired in 2015, mostly because I love MST3K’s Joel Hodgson and heard he was playing Mayor Dewey. I know it’s a common refrain that you have to sort of “endure” SU up to Mirror Gem, but that was not the case for me. The kookiness, the gentle nature of the characters, the overarching mystery of the setting - SU had me hooked right off the bat.

I loved all the characters (and I still love all the characters! Even if Ronaldo is best left as a background role and Resident Plot Oracle), but I was especially fascinated by Steven. Outwardly, he was as laid-back as his dad, and seemingly took a lot of stuff in stride, even his odd living situation. And every time a Big Reveal happened that re-contextualized the episodes prior, he would react a little bit in the moment, but never too much. Like clockwork, this pattern kept repeating itself. He would continually focus outward on the immediate problem or person in front of him, and get deeply emotional for their issues instead of his own. He’d also get emotional for surface-issue things, like Cookie Cats and snakes.

I found that odd. And intriguing. At first I figured it was just a narrative device since he was the MC and my window into the world of SU, but it happened so often that I finally got suspicious. What was it going to take for this kid to really express himself? He was so good at getting others to open up, why couldn’t he do it, too? Yes, he had times and even a couple episodes where he’d tip his hand for a bit and show something deeper, but they were oh-so-fleeting.

As I started watching the remaining S2 and S3 episodes as they came out, this pattern kept up. The layers of the world and its characters slowly unwrapped, but Steven stubbornly kept to himself and was mostly content to point the audience away from him. (Not a bad thing, narratively, as the stuff with Peridot and the latter half of S3 were wild rides!) Back then, I felt pretty alone in giving a shit about him as a character when it seemed a lot of others didn’t, but, dammit, he was my favorite little mystery regardless and I just hoped his reticence was going somewhere, especially as the show’s stakes got higher and higher.

Sweet, sweet vindication came when Mindful Education aired. The second he started giving terrible advice to Connie, I knew we were finally due to for a good look into his brain. And then came the butterfly on the sword, and well, everything else. Yeah, he’d dropped enough breadcrumbs prior to Mindful Education implying he was proper fucked up about his identity, but this was a whole loaf of fresh French bread. It was now clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that Steven was bottling up the majority of his issues and probably had been from the start.

I mean, damn, the Pink Diamond reveal? Amethyst couldn’t drag more than a couple grumpy lines out of him over pizza, and like most things Rose related, was more about his feelings towards her than what that meant for him. When he flipped out at a hologram of his mom or cried for his dad, his family wasn’t present to hear his inner thoughts. Regardless, after CYM happened and he’d resolved his identity crisis, I was content enough that they’d acknowledged his constant deflection and almost tyrannical need to help others as character flaws and would have been fine with what we got as an ending. Still, there was a lot about Steven that had been left unsaid, and I was excited to see was S6 was gonna be about...

And then the movie and SUF came along, and I swear to God I don’t even know what to do with all this vindication. Rebecca Sugar may as well have beamed into my living room and screamed “LOOK HERE ARE 20 EPISODES OF CONTENT TAILOR-MADE JUST FOR YOU.” Finally, they’re really unwrapping the mystery of our main character. They’re tearing him apart right down to the core of tragic nougat at the center of his being.

So, anyway, here we are at the lowest point of Steven’s long story. He’s burned King’s Landing. He’s crossed the Rubicon. My son, my boy, has shut out everyone he loves and has an honest-to-goodness kill count, and it can’t be justified by saying he was backed into a corner or that he was fighting to protect someone. He didn’t mean to shatter Jasper, but it’s clear he meant to hurt her.

I was always adamant that he’d never shatter anyone, but now that he has, I get why.

Steven is all about that duality. He’s human and Gem, burdened with Special Magical Destiny yet supposedly free to choose his own human path. The closer he gets to discovering his future, the deeper he has to dig into the past. He’s a cute little critter who can quietly drool on himself while napping on a road trip and also an angry teenager frustrated over a life he never had. He’s trapped between reality and facade - all those healing Rose-style powers he worked so hard to get in the original series were a cover for something older, more ancient, more destructive. And, most pertinent to Fragments - he adores soft things like romance and weddings, yet also values tough things like strength and power.

And he’s having trouble walking the tightrope between all these contradictions. When it comes to power, for example, he loves gaining new powers in order to feel useful to his family, but, in fights where he isn’t pink, he’ll always stop just short of using them to their fullest and stay on the defensive as long as he can possibly get away with it. He’ll even apologize or warn his opponent if he tries to do something big. He’ll nearly always fall on the side of softness over power, but the power is still very much there, if unused. And even up to this last episode, he’d always stop just short of going full feral even when he was pink. Part of this is because Steven is a good kiddo at heart, but also afraid of what he can do to someone unchecked.

And now, here at a bad point in Steven’s life when he’s loaded up with PTSD and cut off from his usual support, Jasper (who is also...going through some things) gives him permission to indulge in the sort of thing he’s avoided since that day he summoned a shield with an ice cream bar. She tells him to not hide a part of himself, so for just this fucking once, he lets go. The ecstasy of battle overtakes him. He doesn’t tap into the soft, rounded Rose-style powerset for even a second. No bubbles, no shield, just that raw diamond geometry. And when he gets to the moment of the KO, there’s no stopping, no break to talk things out, no “yo watch out!” He even pins her down to make damn sure she can’t get away. It’s a surprising facet of Steven we have never seen, but it’s still absolutely him, just another one of those parts he squirrels away out of view. He didn’t need that “training” at all... it was always there.

When he told Jasper he’d been holding back, he meant it. He’s been holding back for years, in so many ways.

#steven universe #steven universe future #my art #steven universe spoilers #steven quartz universe

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

A) hi how ya doing? B) I miss you C) can you analyze anything of Aragon? Thank you :)

Hey anon! I’m doing good ❤️❤️❤️ thanks so much for asking! I hope you’re doing well too!

Aragon is really interesting to me, because her song is kind of like the bohemian rhapsody of six. Very few people will say that it’s their favourite, but everyone will instantly sing along because it’s so catchy! Plus, it’s a great song to follow ex-wives with. It keeps the energy up and introduces the audience to the plot of the show.

I will say this until the day I die: while I would love if more songs were as scathing as say AYWD...you could never start with those songs. It’s too much too quickly. You need the more catchy, light-hearted songs of Ex-Wives, No Way and DLUH to start with because it helps get the audience invested in the show and the plot as a whole. Six, first and foremost, will always need to work dramatically. That’s why the old, more openly bitter No Way was changed to something a little more light-hearted.

The first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Aragon is regal. She’s the queen who was married to Henry for 24 years and was a Spanish princess as well. She’s the refined, confident queen who knows her own worth and honestly? I get the vibe she just wants a little bit of respect from the other queens. While some people characterise Aragon as rather cold, I honestly don’t get that? The show portrays Aragon as a very loyal person despite all that Henry put her through, and she clearly cares for Mary and also, to a lesser extent, Parr as her god daughter (remember she calls Howard “the least relevant Katherine”...meaning she does see Parr as relevant.) and she often refers to other queens as “babe” even though she was just arguing with them five seconds earlier (harking on the idea of forgiveness, something I think Aragon is very good at in the show!). Plus, while there’s only one line referring to Mary, Aragon is always so protective of her and warm to her. In the album, Renee’s “aw, hi baby!” is the most adorable and heartwarming part of the song and it’s clear she adores her daughter, while the “oh, you don’t remember?” in the live versions is so protective of her baby. It’s honestly something we don’t discuss enough. Moreover, Aragon’s song is one of the most energetic, but she has her earnest moment of pleading as well, along with her undisputable strength of refusing to back down and accept Henry’s lies. She is also incredibly passionate when talking about something she loves or defending herself when she has to (which make sense! This was the woman who rode with an army wearing armour while pregnant. Aragon was not to be messed with!).

I personally disagree with people who try and claim that Toby and Lucy wrote Aragon as the “angry” queen because she never truly gets to the levels of boleyn or seymour (yes there’s the miscarriage argument where she does raise her voice but like...are we ignoring Seymour’s “boohoo Mary had the chickenpox” or the fact that Boleyn is also shouting in that argument??? And she usually goes louder than Aragon???) and yet she’s so often defined by that trait even though other queens share it and are even more extreme. And yes, Im fully aware of why certain people characterise aragon in this way and I’m so annoyed that even though we continually call out the fact that’s it’s problematic, it continues to happen. However Aragon does have flaws like every good character should. Aragon just won’t try and listen to the other queens. She refuses to accept that Boleyn or Seymour might have had a worse time than her. Now I personally never got the feeling that Aragon blames the other queens for anything. Her feelings are directed at Henry. Notice in now way she talks about how henry is “running around with some pretty young thing” and she refers to him having “one son with someone who don’t own a wedding ring”. Those people? They’re clearly supposed to be Boleyn and Bessie, two people who are actually on stage at the time. But Aragon doesn’t take an easy shot at either of them in her song. She doesn’t say their name or call them out or try and involve them in her song. Contrast this with DLUH where Boleyn grabs Aragon, forces her to be front and centre in this verse and then insults her constantly (“three in the bed” = airing Aragon’s and Henry’s ✨ intimate issues ✨ with the entire world while “Don’t be bitter, cause I’m fitter” and “he doesn’t want to bang you, somebody hang you” are both pretty self explanatory). I think it’s absolutely key that Aragon doesn’t blame Boleyn or Bessie or direct any misplaced feelings towards them in no way or the show. Her (very justified) feelings of anger and betrayal are (generally) directed at Henry. And that’s something so many people ignore! And I personally wish more people would be like Aragon in this regard in the real world. I don’t know if other people agree with me, but it’s your boyfriends/husbands job to not cheat on you, not someone else’s. I do know some people think that Aragon is slighting Boleyn and Bessie in that verse but if we’re sticking to tudor ideals, Aragon not mentioning them by name (in essence keeping their “dignity” and “honour” intact) would be the kinder thing to to. (Note I’m only saying this with Tudor ideals in mind. I also think Aragon fully knows that Bessie was 13 when Henry started making advances on her and again, refuses to blame Bessie for what happened because she knows she’s a victim).

However...Aragon doesn’t ever try and listen to other queens and will insult them if she has to. She (along with the other queens like Boleyn and Seymour) gets more and more defensive and petty as the show continues. However, she never gets to the same levels of hard hitting insults has say Boleyn. But I mean...Aragon was a queen who went through so much in her lifetime and never was able to really talk about it. Yes, she resisted Henry trying to get their marriage annulled, and she was one of the strongest women at the time, but she couldn’t deal with her emotions the same way that we can today. She never got to told Boleyn to go away or leave her alone. She never got to bad mouth Henry because he was the king. She was, first and foremost, a lady, and she was expected to act in a certain way all of her life. And now that she’s reincarnated in modern days, she doesn’t have to do all of those things. She can be annoyed and let it show, she can tell Boleyn all those things she wanted to do back in the day. Some actresses even lean into the idea that it’s sort of cathartic for Aragon to FINALLY just say what she wants to say without having to worry on how it would reflect on her as queen. Mind you, I still think that Aragon considers how her words would reflect on her (much more than any other queen) but she definitely has more wiggle room within the show than she did during her reign.

In addition, while the fandom also like to reduce Aragon to obsessed with her religion, I actually really like how her relationship with Catholicism is portrayed in the show. While I do concede that Aragon’s faith is sometimes reduced to the butt of the joke, that’s not always the case and I personally really enjoy how Aragon seems to gain a lot of strength from her religion, instead of it holding her back or hindering her. While I do understand why so many characters in media struggle with their religion or find it suffocating (my relationship with Catholicism is...fragile at the best of times), but I genuinely love this idea that Aragon’s faith is what guides her and gives her inner strength in times of need. I mean,,,when she’s pleading to Henry during now way, the music slows to something that sounds more like a gospel song, Aragon is kneeling with her hands clasped and there's bright white light around her (i also vaguely remember something that looks like a crucifix behind her as well? But I'm not 100 percent sure on that). At the time where Aragon is most vulnerable and needs to find inner strength and wants guidance...she turns to her religion and that's seen as a very positive thing!!! The same with Aragon's verse in Sox. Moving to a nunnery and finding friends there is something that's now postive and liberating instead of being stuffy and boring and restrictive like nunnery are often portrayed as in media. (yes I know that's also a play on Henry wanting to send Aragon into the nunnery after their divorce but I do think that there’s no malicious religion-basing in Six is a nice touch that’s often overlooked).

Finally, Aragon’s costume is quite important to her character. It is one of the more feminine outlines (especially the updated version on broadway) and I do think it’s an inadvertent issue that the queens with the more stereotypical feminine costumes are more catty whereas the more stereotypical androgynous or masculine outfits (aka Parr and Cleves) are often the voices of reason, but I don’t think that’s intentional or is intended to comment on anything. It’s just a coincidence. However, the gold of Aragon’s outfit obviously symbolises her love, courage and passion, along with indicating her status as a noble. While yes the rest of the queens were all noble in some way before they married Henry, Aragon was a Spanish princess and the daughter of two incredibly powerful monarchs. She was probably the highest standing out of any of the queens, and her costume reflects that. I also think that her wearing gold to flaunt her status could be her trying to make up for the years between her marriages to Arthur and Henry (where she didn’t have many provisions made for her as far as I know) and also the last few years of her life. (I’ve seen differing reports on how Aragon was provided for after Henry divorced her, with her claiming that she was living in poverty while others state she got 3000 pounds. If anyone has any confirmation then let me know). Either way, her wanting to flaunt her status after her reincarnation by wearing lots of bright gold makes total sense. I’ve also seen a few people say that the bust on Aragon’s costume is the most historically accurate but I can’t confirm that, although if it is then that’s a really nice touch.

Well this took ages, but it was fun to finally get to analyse stuff again AND do it on a queen who doesn’t get discussed very much!!! Aragon often gets reduced to “catholic” or “angry” within this fandom, even though she is just as complex as any other character within the show but she just expresses things in very different ways. And that’s okay! This whole show is about how women (and NB folk!) are different and do have different experiences and do express things differently and have different personalities and that’s okay! We should celebrate our differences.

#six the musical #six #sixthemusical #ask #anon ask #anonymous #anonymous ask #anon #ask answered #enya discusses: six

[sebastianshaw]

Shaw and Monet St Croix

OH EW OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!  I feel SO BAD for this but here!! Name: Aliya Faiza Jawaria Kinza Kiran St. Croix-Shaw. Look, Monet’s full name is  Monet Yvette Clarisse Maria Therese St. Croix she is going to ensure her daughter has an equally fancy, worthy name; each of them has a meaning specifically for her chosen by Monet. I was originally going to go with French names, since the names of Monet, her father, and all her siblings are French, but since more recent stuff has seen Monet looking more fondly to her mother’s faith, I chose names popular in Islam instead. Gender: Female. Cis or trans, idk, but female. If she is trans, Monet is still the one who chose her new name. General Appearance: Absolutely beautiful, because she’s Monet’s daughter, but her features are probably less “conventionally gorgeous” because she’s also Shaw’s daughter. But honestly? That works. I’ve talked before about how a lot of the top supermodels out there often aren’t conventionally beautiful because that’s bland and blends in with all the others, they typically have “striking” features that stand out in some way. Aside from that, she’s tall and moderately toned, though not as much as either parent (great shoulders though) and a skin tone darker than Shaw but lighter than Monet. Unlike Monet and the St. Croix twins, who have straight hair, Aliya has wavy to loosely curly hair, as well as a light sprinkling of brown freckles across her nose and arms that neither parent sports. Her outfits are incredibly expensive casual-wear that she doesn’t realize is too upscale for everyday-wear because they’re what she’s used to. She also doesn’t give a second thought to overdressing, not as in wearing too much but as in wearing an outfit that’s a 10 when everyone else is just chilling in their 5. Again, she doesn’t do this deliberately. This is just her version of normal. And like her mother, looks GREAT in red. Personality: Vivacious, bright, very confident and open and sunny, at least that’s how she SEEMS and the mask goes very, very deep because she’s been perfecting it her whole life. Under her carefree and friendly and flawless facade, Aliya is. . . kind of a mess, actually. See, Shaw didn’t get a chance to be as bad to Aliya as he was to Shinobi, since Monet would send him into orbit if he EVER so much as IMPLIED that what came out of HER womb wasn’t PERFECT, but Monet has her issues as well. It’s not that Monet pressures Aliya to be perfect like Shaw would, she simply ASSUMES that she already is by default. How could she not be? Because of this, Aliya feels her mother doesn’t love HER, she loves the IDEAL of her that she has in her head, but not the reality, not the real Aliya. I can relate to this deeply; I was a gifted child and my parents thought I was a genius and some great future writer and artist and all this stuff and while I know having parents who believe in you and brag about you is like. . . the least sort of parents you can have. . . .it left me with a bad sense of imposter syndrome and I think Aliya has the same issue. As mean as her dad is, at least she feels he sees the real HER, flaws and failures and all. Though she certainly doesn’t like being criticized by him either! Aliya will insult people casually because that was what both her parents did, she thinks that’s normal acceptable behavior, and it takes people aback because she seems so nice where did that COME from? And given how neither of her parents were humble people, she mistakenly assumes that if someone ISN’T stating their accomplishments, means they don’t have any. So basically if someone ISN’T bragging about themselves, Aliya thinks they just must be useless, the idea of modesty as a virtue, or that modesty exists to all, isn’t a concept to her and she’s kind of confused by it. So, like Monet, she can be kind of an abrasive ass, but it’s in an innocent way. Likewise, she’s always going to talk up her own accomplishments because that’s how she was taught to behave, and can come off as egocentric for it, despite her actual insecurity. Back to that insecurity, having two such EXCEPTIONAL parents has really skewed Aliya’s view of what normal/acceptable is. So because she’s not a genius like Monet or business savant like Shaw, she thinks she’s stupid, if she’s not automatically perfect at something she thinks she’s a dud, things like that, and she tries to conceal these “failings” from others, which means never admitting she’s wrong or doesn’t know something or can’t do something. .  .which, rather than making her look good/normal to others like she thinks, actually makes them think she’s a stuck-up pretentious asshole liar. Which she kind of is, but for far more sympathetic reasons than most people think. Also, unlike her parents, she does care what people think of her, but she grievously misunderstands what they think about her and why that is. Similarly, her parents never modeled how to apologize or forgive, and so she doesn’t know how to do either right.  Nor did they ever prepare her for failure because Shaw doesn’t think that should be encouraged and Monet just never thought it would happen. I don’t want to sound too down on Monet though because she definitely loves and supports her daughter, but having a mother as perfect as Monet, and who KNOWS she’s as perfect as Monet, is going to have effects. But she definitely adores Aliya, to be clear. Unlike Shaw, who is. . . Shaw. The biggest area her parents differ is their morality, especially their morality around helping others. Shaw not only doesn’t see it as necessary, he even sees it as wrong, that the weak should NOT be supported. Monet, by contrast, as a sense of noblisse oblige, that people who are “better” like herself should help those who are not. Condescending but kind, is how I think Emma phrased it yet. Shaw and Monet would impart their views to Aliya, and Monet’s route, to Aliya’s credit, is the one she chose. Especially since Aliya feels she secretly ISN’T better, she’s one of these lesser people, so she feels compassion for others out of kinship in that sense. Special Talents: She has all of Monet’s major physical abilities---flight, super strength, durability---but none of her psychic abilities. She probably has some kind energy rechanneling abilities from Shaw though. Who they like better: She definitely looks up to Monet more, and thinks Monet is the far better person (which, she is) Who they take after more: Monet, even if she doesn’t realize it Personal Head canon:  She likes power metal and Barn Courtney, and magnolia blossoms and these little yellow flowers that grow on the side of the road. Prefers to eat her tacos using the foil they’re wrapped in to hold them rather than touching the actual tortilla itself. Face Claim: N/A but I’m sure there are some BEAUTIFUL ones out there who would fit. It’s impossible to find Monet’s actual precise ethnicity (black/Algerian) in my experience, but I’m sure there are lots of gorgeous Black/White/MENA actresses and models out there for Aliya even if the MENA part isn’t specifically Algerian.

#kids #kid meme #aliya #idk I don't like the name Aliya for her but I can't think of one i prefer #shattered-catalyst

[theholycovenantrpg]

In the beginning was REVNA VOLK, a GIFTED loyal to the cause of the MORTALS. She is said to be TWENTY-FIVE and uses SHE/HER pronouns. In this New Testament she serves as a MEMBER of the ROUND TABLE. Blessed be her name.

THE INDELIBLE MARK.

To her, it feels as though the world is made up of threads—each time she plucks at them, she finds herself unable to stop, weaving together a tapestry that all have no choice but to acknowledge and perceive. She is able to warp other’s perceptions at her own will, however, the strength of her illusion is largely dependent on her mental fortitude and attention to detail. The slightest error in the illusion that she weaves might alert the subjects of her deception and give them the ability to break through it. However, by and large she is able to manipulate their sight, taste, touch, and smell though it takes a great mental toll on her. When she is particularly drained it seems that she falls into episodes where she is unable to differentiate her own reality from the illusions that she weaves. The longest thus far has lasted for three days. And, as all who have suffered and survived the Blood Plague, Revna’s scars are obvious and unsettling: her eyes are colorless and all that one finds when they look into them are the black of her pupils—an abyss.

THE HISTORY.

She came into the world howling in revolt at her forced relinquishment of peace.  Against her conscious will she had traded in the tranquility of the abyss for a world that was far too raw and wanting. The sun was far too bright, the noises—her own screaming—far too loud for her fragile ears. But her heart rebelled against her with every beat and she had no choice but to let it because, though she longed to, she couldn’t very well tear it out of her own chest. Such an existence would have been bearable if she had thought that it was shared, yet when she looked around her, eyes wide and unerringly sharp, all there was to be found were either souls burdened by their own monotony or fools who thought themselves liberated from the shackles of their mundanity. Being the middling child that she was in a family far too large and boisterous for their own good, it was difficult to forget that she, too, bore these chains—what made them chafe and bleed, however, was the fact that she knew they were there and she could never be free. It was as though she knew what heaven was, what it was meant to be, and she had been cast out of it for a sin that she couldn’t recall; how was she to confess it and receive absolution when her transgression sat heavy on her tongue yet remained unnamed?

For years she tried to swallow down the bitter pill of discontent with her own existence—and there were times where she thought she might very well choke on it. It held her by the throat when her mother’s eyes would rake over her in blatant judgement, when her father would wearily sigh whenever she dared to open her mouth. Other times she would look at herself in the mirror, prod and poke at the pale skin that was there, wishing and wanting for her mind to be less raucous, for her heart to stop beating so loudly in opposition to her loathing. And there was never a moment of peace to be found—she couldn’t very well escape the cacophony of her own mind, could she? Revna would glance around her and force herself to bear witness to the sunny and relentlessly perfect dispositions of her siblings, how they laughed and walked as though they were dancing, how their lips seemed to wear an ever-present smile, how their eyes would seem alight with the vitality of youth and life. For years she tried to emulate them so that she might receive the love and adoration that her parents so liberally laid upon the cheeks and brows of her siblings, sought to weave the illusion of a girl that was content with her existence, the allure of a woman who was able to dictate the stars. Though, the moment she closed the door, she always placed a veil over her mirrors so as not to glean her the horror of forsaking the lie that she had nearly begun to believe—to bear witness to the truth of her reflection was the cruellest of self-inflicted punishments.

It wasn’t long before she realized that to subject herself to this life was like pouring salt into a raw and weeping wound—it wasn’t a salve by any means, no, it only served to make the pain that much more palpable. During the Volk dinner parties she would watch as her parents’ lips curled in disdain at the barbed edges of the words that would leave her mouth, at the way she began to come and go as she pleased until one day she did not bother to return at all; it was to no one’s surprise that they did not bother to look for her. In a dress weighted with jewels and gold, she had taken one of the horses from the stables and road until her thighs ached and her lungs burned, barreling into the dark forest of the night. Before her were two paths, one that might return her to the abyss that she had longed for the moment breath had filled her lungs, or a path far more frightening and condemning than the one that she might have known. When she awoke it was with her face caked in the mud of a creekbed, shudders running through her body, and beside her a pile of age-old bones. All it took was a breath, a beat of her rebellious heart and realization dawned upon her nymph-like visage; it was then that she realized her cheeks were stained red.

She clambered upon the back of her horse and stumbled out of the woods, seeking help—only to find it in the arms of a widowed farmer, though the marks of the plague were clear upon Revna’s visage. The fever overcame her, visions and whispers overwhelming her while she could do naught but toss and turn. It burns, she longed to scream. It burns, she couldn’t help but howl. Her eyes blinked open and no longer were they the bright blue hues that they had once been. There was no comfort to be found, only the black of her pupils - an abyss, cried the widowed farmer, an abyss. Within the next handful of hours she was sent away, feverish still, with the bones tucked into her side, her horse being her only companion. With bare, bloodied feet she managed to make her way to the Holy Land, to institute for herself something akin to the life that she might have had if her longing were not eclipsed by her own revulsion. Though she is regarded with great renown, there is a heavy sense of fear that belies those who subject themselves to her presence. They call her the Daughter of Lies, the Great Deceiver, but she is content to let them do so for she knows now what greatness has been gifted upon her. Let them call her what they will, for they will soon know her, unerringly, as their Salvation.

THE CONNECTIONS.

ARIANNE & ROMILDA ALTIER: Trinity. When she first met them, she could feel nothing but envy for the relationship that they had—and the fact that they had one at all. They were so irreparably tied to one another that even the gifts that had been bestowed on them reflected it, it was more or less marked in their very bones. There are moments when she sees them interact with one another that she wonders of the relationship that she might have had with her siblings if she had not been born the way that she was. But then, just as quickly, they pull her into their arms and it is as if whatever ache that had been threatening to swallow her whole abates just the slightest bit. When they held her, it was the first time in all her existence that she had ever known the meaning of the word relief. The raucous sounds that clattered about her skull silenced, the ever-present burning of her skin seemed to abate, and the smile that tugged at the edges of her lips was genuine and sincere. It seems that, whether the Hundred-Eyed God decreed it to be so, that their fates were bound to one another in the most absolute and permanent of ways.

EVANGELINE TRAME: Rival. Evangeline eclipses everyone. She is a red lark against an azure-blue sky, a splash of rich, deep reds against a backdrop of white walls, a lone, beauteous statue amidst a room of ruins. She has never met someone who wasn’t drawn to Evangeline in a genuine and profound way, the woman had an innate ability to bring about the best in those around her and—try as she might to resist—Revna proved to be no exception. However, amicable as they are, she can’t help but be suspect by the perfections that the woman presented to the world. God could have carved her himself, right before Revna’s very eyes, and she would still remain doubtful that there wasn’t a flaw to be found in the woman. Perhaps it’s when she sees the smile upon Evangeline’s face falter, or how, in those spare moments, it slips from her face like a farcical mask. Now that the stars have fixed to set them upon one another like a wolf against a lion, Revna can’t help but wonder: is it not within the ripest of fruits that the most putrid of worms burrow?

GABRIEL: Solace. There has become a certain bitterness that she’s come to associate with softness. In answer to the petals of flowers, she has grown thorns. In spring rains, she harkens a relentless, thundering storm. And yet, whenever she encounters Gabriel she finds herself sitting in contented silence or engaging in blatantly baited arguments that have her smiling as she turns on her heel and strides away. It isn’t until she’s more than twenty feet away that she realizes how easy it is for him to coax these smiles out of her, to get her to share about her family, her life, her journey to the Holy Land in the span of a few conversations. Their repertoire, though biting and lively, often leaves her ill-at-ease when she reflects on them for too long; it begs too many questions that she fears the answers to. Could this relationship be nothing more than a ploy? A means of establishing more dominance in the Holy Land simply to gain favor through her? The possibilities are too probable, her own foolishness a likely catalyst to the undoing of the harmony that they had all worked so hard for. Once, angels had been thought of as guardians, as champions and saviors, but now? She can only see them as human: flawed, ambitious, and, above all,  deceiving.

MAMMON: Obsession. They feel all too familiar to her—the way that they bedeck themselves in such finery and conduct themselves. There is an ever-present curve to their lip, a salacious drawl to their tone, a disdainful glint in their gaze as their eyes drift about the room. They remind her of the family that she had left behind, though, in truth, they had abandoned her long before she had gathered the courage to run away. And, although she can never be quite sure, it seems as though they know it, drawing the noose tighter around her neck with every interaction, every glance, every word that is carefully tossed her way, driving itself deep beneath the carefully placed armor around her heart, intent on drawing blood. The fascination that they have for her is ill-begotten attention and largely loathed. But the fascination she holds for them? A fatal flaw if ever she knew it.

Revna is portrayed by He Cong and was written by ROSEY. She is currently TAKEN by JANE.

#lsrpg #literate rp #biblical rp #rpg #rp #g #mortal #w #revna volk #cw #c

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Hey, I’m here once again with the ranting (if you don’t mind)! I just finished playing Yakuza 5 and damn I have a lot of feels I want to share. When I was first introduced to the franchise, I thought that nothing could beat Zero for me, but here I am now, holding back my tears and thinking what a fine game 5 turned out to be! I really loved the bonds that characters formed along the way, it just felt so sincere and warm that my heart throbbed nearly at every dialogue Х) Like Saejima/Baba, Mirei/Haruka (and Akiyama too!), Shinada/Takasugi were absolutely delightful. And don’t get me started on the ending scene with Kiryu and his daughter. I fucking lost it there. So damn emotional and pure. And while I adore Zero for its majestic tragedy and fatalism, I also love the kind and inspiring atmosphere of 5. Of course, there were some flaws, like I didn’t find the main antagonist all that interesting (especially after Ryuji and Mine), but in the end I was ready to overlook it just because the heartwarming scenes between the characters were so well done. So yeah, for me it’s top tier along with Zero. What’s your personal opinion on the game (and your favorites in the series in general)?

Congrats! Oooooh, Game 5. I’ve got a lot of feels about Game 5 too ^^; It’s a real fav c: There’s an awful lot I love about it, but there’s one or two things that really stick in my craw. I’m not sure I could put it up with Zero, but it’s definitely a game I treasure c: 

I find it interesting that your interpret Zero as fatalistic and 5 as inspiring. Zero definitely has a lot of high-key tragedy, but I think the fact that we come through the other side, that Kiryu doesn’t go into the ground with Tachibana, that Majima decides that even though he could be happy with Makoto, it isn’t what he wants, I find that really powerful and even hopeful. Not inspiring perhaps, the choices we all make in that game are crushingly hard and frequently we’re punished for things that aren’t our fault. But seeing Kiryu confront his potential for the first time and, perhaps for the last time, deciding he’s not afraid of it, that this is a mantle he can carry and do good with, really does things for me. And I’ve gone on at length before about how we ought to read Majima’s choice at the end as not sacrificial, not denial, but rather a choice of identity. What stopped him from going with Makoto isn’t fear for what it would do to her (though certainly those protective instincts are still alive and well), but rather a... with nothing holding him back, he would still choose the life he started. He could leave it all right here but... there are things he wants to do, not has to do, wants to do. And he makes the choice to be yakuza, to be the Mad Dog, crucially, before he sees Kiryu. He could leave it all behind, but then he wouldn’t be himself. He wants to be yakuza. And he couldn’t do that if he was with her. I think that’s really cool and really life-affirming. 

Meanwhile 5... it’s hard for me to articulate what 5 is about because we have a bunch of different character arcs, some of which mesh quite nicely and some of which have nothing at all to do with each other. It’s probably best if I just break this down piece by piece ^^;

(spoilers follow for game 5 my little chili babies)

Kiryu’s arc, as I have articulated before, I fucking love in game 5. However, I do have my criticisms of it. In many ways, the conflict we’re facing in 5 is something that should have come up awhile back. But, even delayed, it is satisfying. It is satisfying to force Kiryu to confront his mistakes. It is satisfying to at least reach a turn on Kiryu, to have him decide that he wants to live and does feel worthy, even if it’s at the last possible second. Like, I interpret 5 as much more fatalistic because Kiryu’s dying in the snow in the middle of saying how he wants to come home to his daughter. Like... he may have finally gotten his revelation, but he was already in the middle of repeating the cycle. What would have been truly satisfying was to force him to live, to insist that he grow up and learn how to live with people because dying won’t fix it. This is a problem we’ve had since the beginning and have never really addressed. This was our chance to address it and it breaks my heart that game 5 comes so close and was going the right direction, but doesn’t quite give us that resolution that Kiryu’s going to continue his relationships and be okay now, that he isn’t going to back out this time. And if the creators had been brave they would have ended the fucking series here with that resolution. That’s SO OBVIOUSLY the main conflict in Kiryu’s plot and here, at last, we were finally fucking dealing with it and this SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE END. THIS WAS IT. THE ACTUAL FUCKING END, I- *breathes* Let me not derail this entire thing with game 6. Let’s just... never talk about game 6. 

That said... one of the things I ADORE about game 5 is this is the clearest sense of motivation we’ve had since Kiwami 1. For the first time in FUCKING FOREVER character choices made sense! HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH. I CANNOT TELL YOU what it did to me that it was Majima that got Kiryu into the game. I cannot tell you the breath of life it gave me, after all this fucking BULLSHIT, that the game came FUCKING HOME on the most important person to Kiryu is Majima. Daigo needs help? Kiryu can’t help. Haruka needs her dad? Kiryu can’t help. These are both mistakes, don’t get me wrong! Absolutely terrible decisions, but they make sense out of Kiryu’s depression, out of his fears and doubts and feelings of unworthiness, his guilt. He’s so caught up in “better off without me” and so scared and so guilty, he can’t answer people even when they ask for help. But Majima. He can’t turn away from. He hears Majima’s dead and Kiryu loses his goddamn mind. Because it’s his fault. Because he wasn’t there. Because he left him out there and now Majima’s dead. Kiryu asked him to do something and, for all Kiryu knows, Majima’s dead because of him. And... as much as Kiryu hates himself in this moment, as much as Kiryu is sure that it’s all his fault, he’s SO upset, he has to go help, he HAS to go fix it. Majima’s dead and with his last breath, Kiryu will make this fuckign right. He’s gotta try. Because Majima being dead is... unacceptable. He can’t handle it. I fucking love that. At long last, it felt like the same story I’d been watching from 1. At long fucking last, we got some fucking proof of Kiryu’s feelings. And for that alone, I love game 5. I’ve got some issues with it, but that was... vindication. Spent 3 games waffling and pretending we didn’t know him unless we’re literally in the same scene, but even Kiryu’s denial isn’t that strong. Majima’s dead and Kiryu can’t anymore. He’s gonna go there and, god help him, he’ll go into the ground with him. You look at that and tell me it was un-fucking-requited. 

On that note, I just gotta gush for a second about that scene where the girl is naked in Kiryu’s apartment and Kiryu just ???? He’s not even “no thank you” he’s like PAINED. Like... she hugs him and Kiryu looks like he’s being fucking tortured! That is not the reaction of someone with even an iota of attraction to feminine bodies! This gay icon! Like, if you’d done that to Majima he would have been like “You’re pretty, babe, but I am Emotionally Unavailable” like the bi icon he is, like... you may not take her up on it, but you can still appreciate her or at least turn her down gracefully. But Kiryu out here doing his best to touch her as little as humanly fucking possible like’ he’s TERRIFIED. That’s not someone being overly polite, that was “cannot conceive of being attracted to this.” Just... this gay fucking dad. Holy christ. 

Related GOTTA love Kiryu’s boss being “Hey, there’s a rumor going around that you’re gay! Any thoughts?” and Kiryu just “That Is A Thing People Ask Me” which is the EXACT RESPONSE of a queer person who doesn’t want to out themselves but also doesn’t want to lie. Game 5 fucking iconic for those 2 scenes alone, god bless. 

Moving away from Kiryu for a second, although this game is VERY about Kiryu’s story, let’s talk about Saejima! Saejima FINALLY gets to come into his own as a character, we get to handle him properly as a character and not as a crux in Majima’s character development. I love the marked differences in how Kiryu and Saejima respond to Majima and handle him. I love that they fucking NAILED motivation here. That Kiryu and Majima mutually code romantic, that they both make batshit decisions because of each other, in that way that you do when you’re madly in love with someone. Meanwhile, Saejima loves his brother but isn’t in love with him. Saejima’s relationship with Majima is stable and trusting. He’s not losing his mind over Majima’s death because he trust him and knows him. If he’s dead, Saejima trusts that Majima did all he could and it was just his time. That’s why he’s not losing his mind, he’s resolved. He just wants to know what happened. And it’s this stability that really tells us who Saejima is and how he functions as a protag. His strength is his trust in others, which at times IS naive, but it’s also what turns Baba. It’s what keeps Saejima strong when Kiryu’s falling apart. It’s so cool to see a character who isn’t paranoid, who isn’t tore up with guilt, in this series with very complicated leads. Saejima is functional and necessary because he isn’t any of those things. He doesn’t get swept up in big emotional turmoil. He cuts through a lot of foibles that would have tripped up his brother or Kiryu and it’s just really refreshing to see and exciting to experience Saejima’s brand of problem solving. He’s not terribly clever and he’s not subtle, but he’s honest and sure that counts for A LOT in this series. Gotta love Saejima. 

And, as I have gushed about before and will again, Baba. Baba. Saejima turning Baba hand me fucking ascending. Baba Known Whore Shigecki turning on a time because Saejima screams “Because we’re kyoudai!” I am LIVING. I love their relationship. I love that Baba’s a little shit. I love that he’s inexplicably a supermodel. I love that his constant vibe is “would like to choke til he cries on Saejima’s dick.” I love that Saejima has a gorgeous prison boyfriend. Well deserved! I love the idea of Baba getting integrated into the group. I need WAY more fic about him coming back to live with Saejima in Kamurocho and Saejima just has an ex-assassin boyfriend now and we all get to live with that. Ugggghhhh, bless. So good. No notes, no criticisms, just good.

Haruka was LONG overdue to be a protag, I’m so glad this game did it. But... pop idol? The thing she explicitly said in Kiwami 2 she didn’t want to be? *siiiigh* Like, I get that she can change her mind as she grows up and that that’s the Thing You Do with Japanese teenage girls, but... Imagine Martial Artist Haruka! Raised by the yakuza, surrounded her whole life by people with incredible fighting skills, who would gladly teach her self-defense. Imagine! Or even training her to become a yakuza! My wife and I joke about Seventh Chairman Sawamura Haruka, but imagine how satisfying that would have been! A whole Tojo dynasty of Kiryu’s kids! She’s so ripe for it! And I know the yakuza is a male-only organization but... c’mon, this is fiction and sexism is boring. I guess I can understand the creators unwillingness to depict violence against women, even if it’s being perpetrated by other women but uh... *eye twitch* game 5 is maybe not the BEST example of their... respecting women... 

*screams into a pillow for several minutes* *breathes* *screams for another fifteen minutes* Okay... I uh... I um... can’t talk about Mirei Park without having an aneurysm. PLEASE skip this bullet point if you don’t want to read Mirei Hate. I just... I Hate Everything About Her And I Don’t Know Why She Fucking Exists. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and if you like Mirei, y’all welcome to feel how you feel but... she is the only thing I truly Hate about game 5. I just... leaving aside my personal feelings about the... Majima part of her story which we just... Won’t talk about... Leaving that aside... I don’t know why she’s here? She’s the person who convinces Kiryu to leave his children. She’s predatory, she took advantage of a vulnerable young girl to live out some personal dream? Like, sure, economic opportunity, independence, but we don’t get a lot of motive from Haruka that it IS her dream to be a pop idol. She has said in the past that’s not what she wants, she makes mention of doing this for the money to support her family, Mirei LITERALLY SAYS she wants Haruka to do the things she couldn’t, and ultimately Haruka asides not to do this anyway because she’d ratehr be home with her dad! So what was the FUCKING POINT of Mirei Park? Is she a villain? Is she sympathetic? What the fuck was I supposed to take from her? How the fuck am I supposed to read her? She tells this TRAUMATIC story off-hand to Haruka to... justify her decisions? Motivate Haruka? Dragging in another long-term character for no good reason and reframing how we have to think about said character. But then THIS NEVER COMES UP AGAIN. The information wasn’t even important! It’s just traumatic! If it was supposed to keep Haruka doing the pop idol thing, it didn’t work! Haruka still leaves! If this was meant to deepen our relationship to Mirei or complicate her or whatever, IT DOESN’T, SHE WAS LITERALLY DEAD THE NEXT SCENE. I just... WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE?! What even the fuck was I supposed to do with any of this?! Leaving ASIDE my VERY intense feelings about what this did for Majima (for the sake of not going ogg Even More than I already am, I just won’t talk abotu it here), I just have no goddamn clue what the point of Mirei even was. She’s not useful to Haruka’s arc and she only serves in Kiryu’s arc to be a villain. We could have had Haruka leave home and decide in the end that Kiryu’s her dad and that’s where she wants to be a MILLION different ways, we could have done that MUCH more kindly and consistently with the rest of her character and values, but we don’t! We have this shitmess instead!

I’m really really sorry to anyone reading this who likes Mirei. You don’t have to agree with me! And I’m not trying to make you feel bad! I’m not trying to tell people how they should feel or what they should get out of the story. If you got something out of her, you related to her, you found her part in the story meaningful, that’s great! I’m genuinely glad that you did. I... didn’t. I have a lot of negative opinions about what happened. Usually I try to just not talk about it because I don’t want to ruin someone’s good time. I’m not here trying to start shit. So I apologize for my tone and I did try to put a warning before it and recommend it be skipped if it’s the sort of thing that would offend you. My Mirei rant is over now, I won’t talk about it again.

I have absolutely no idea why Akiyama is in this story, tbh? He contributed very little, but I’m glad Haruka got to hang out with someone cool and that one of her uncles was here watching out for her, since Majima was “dead” and Kiryu was in the middle of a personal crisis ^^; I love Akiyama, always happy to see him, but he really had nothing to do here ^^; I was sad for no Hana though 8C Wherever there is Akiyama, there must also be Hana!

Shinada... is adorable and actively injured the plot. I’m sorry, I just... no one ever talks about the fact that including Shinada in the story actively hurt it. I love him too! He’s an incredible idiot and very sweet, but why the fuck is he here? What did an ancient baseball cover up have to do with anything? This was the only way you could think of to put Daigo in the game again? Really??? And Daigo doesn’t even do very much here! So like... not really worth it. You could have had a whole substory of Daigo finding out what happened to Majima, fuck DAIGO COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE PROTAGS. THERE’S A THOUGHT. We could have utilized, y’know, characters we already have, but no, instead we introduce this dumb fuck to do... what exactly? Oh right, beat up Baba AFTER HE HAD ALREADY DECIDED NOT TO SHOOT HARUKA! Like, YOU DIDN’T EVEN NEED SHINADA FOR THE THING YOU NEEDED HIM FOR. Saejima and Kiryu were enough of an influence on Baba to stop him! And that makes sense out of Baba’s character arc, since it’s about personal redemption and learning to be a person and his faith and love of Saejima, y’know, the character he actually HAS a relationship with, is about that. The point of Baba was him learning it WAS his choice and him MAKING that choice. See, I can’t argue that Baba’s superfluous to the plot, but he WAS the threat! He was actively involved and he’s what makes Saejima involved. Shinada doesn’t occupy the same space, he has no horse in this race, he’s not yakuza, he’s only here because he and Daigo kinda like each other or whatever, and, again, HE WASN’T EVEN NEEDED! Baba’s arc was complete and the threat was terminated without this shit! Like, Akiyama has no reason to be here either, but at least he was a true neutral, neither helping nor harming the plot. We actively waste time to bring Shinada in and he hurts Baba’s arc by overly punishing him and potentially risking the decision he just made. Like if I was Baba, I might have gone “you know what, fuck you, I will shoot her just because your self-righteous ass decided to hit me for MAKING THE RIGHT CALL” Jesus... 

I hate to be nothing but a curmudgeon but just... no one brings that up and I just had to say it if no one else was gonna. 

As for villains, the game would have been a lot stronger without the “thwarted destiny, I should be on the throne” bullshit especially since the story has done a SHIT JOB with the legacy of Nishiki and in NO WAY utilized the fucking koi or the burden of Nishiki’s death properly for this to hit the way it should. It makes theoretical sense that Kriyu’s last villain should be the reincarnation of Nishiki, but the story did not build that up or support it so it falls really flat. That said, the main problem in Kiryu’s arc is that dying is not a resolution. Dying doesn’t fix a problem, it only delays it. THAT’S the thing we have to confront and we almost nearly do and... I’m just so excited that we finally articulated that, I’m willing to forgive A LOT. 

And finally we wrote Majima entirely out of the game only to confirm that his only reason for living is Kiryu and then, again, didn’t resolve it because, y’know, fuck ending things, I guess? But he did have that sweet fight with Saejima and can do shadow clones now I guess? Fucking ninja magic or whatever. Sure, Majima’s so OP he can do fucking shadow clones now. No, teleporting wasn’t enough, he can fucking shadow clone. That’s like a staisfying story arc right? ...right?

#Yakuza 5 spoilers #Mirei Park hate #this is probably saltier than it should be #I really do love game 5! #Just... it fucked up little things and it makes me sad #floweysky

[halfincubus]

got tagged by @riosgoodgirll for this game like [checks notes] almost two weeks ago, sorry it’s super late but it got long because I ramble about ladies I like

rules: list 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people 

under cut, because it really did get long

1.       Farscape – Aeryn Sun Where do I start with her? She is everything. She’s one of the earliest examples that I can remember seeing on tv of a strong female character that has trouble connecting to her emotions, while the male counterpart of her pairing is the one who wanted to talk about his feelings. She’s also a tough soldier for a dodgy race of militant space-humans (but not really humans) whose sole purpose in life is to fight and die, and through her relationship with her fellow shipmates, learns that there’s more to life than following orders and killing people. I just love her more than words can say. She definitely broke the mould.

 2.       True Blood – Jessica God, she’s so sweet. I love her character growth. She goes from this god-fearing teen girl, to spoilt, angry goth baby vamp, to total sweetheart with a serious vicious streak when it comes to protecting those she loves. Also she’s more beautiful than I have words for and I am so gay. Like, I could look at her for hours, wow what a face.

 3.       Buffy the vampire slayer – Buffy The OG strong female lead, the first of many in my life. Also one half of my first foray into enemies to lovers shipping – you never forget your first, as they say! I love her cheery wisecracks as she kicks vampire ass, the way she mimes staking, and her bouncy shampoo-commercial-hair

 4.       Harry Potter – Hermione I saw so much of myself in her when I was a young, frizzy-haired bookworm that I immediately identified with her, hard, and she’s left a permanent mark on my heart. I only liked her more as the series went on and more of her ‘flaws’ were layered onto her character, which really brought her to life in my mind. I say ‘flaws’ because I fucking love how vindictive she is and how much of a flaw is being intelligent enough to find dirt on people that you can blackmail them with, really? Especially if they’re sucky people. When she doesn’t like someone she absolutely destroys them, mad respect.

 5.       Penny Dreadful – Vanessa Ives I have a type, and she is it. Dark, brooding and with otherworldly good looks (I still remember Eva Green as the witch Serafina Pekkala the best) I still can’t recall her character without getting a pang in my chest. The show’s ending DID HER SO DIRTY but we won’t get into that, I’m just gonna talk about why she’s my fave, I promise. She is so mentally strong and yet simultaneously so fragile at the same time, I want to take care of her so bad. The Devil with a capital D has been trying to possess her all her life, and she is in constant mental battle against him, and she just never stopped trying (until the stupid finale but we aren’t talking about that!) and she’s so strong, I adore her. When she does a tarot card spread you can’t look away, her gaze is so piercing and haunting.

 6.       LOTR – Éowyn This is another one that got a strong hold of me in my formative years and shook me to my core. From the moment I read the ICONIC ‘what do you fear my lady?’ speech I was a fan for life. I strongly identified with her attitude to life (I, too, fear growing old and useless) and her totally boss moment against the Witch-King (more like BITCH king) made her my hero. Whenever I rewatch LOTR I have a stupid sappy expression on my face when she’s on screen.

 7.       The Walking Dead – Michonne Back when I watched this show, and when she graced our screens for the first time I was shaking with excitement. She had such an iconic look – the dreads, the bandana, the katana slung over her back. Her strong & silent archetype was something I was very into, and enjoyed watching. She just oozes cool. The only one on the show with the skills to use something other than a gun on a daily basis, so her kills were not only skillful but super stylish too! Oh and I really liked the vibe she had with Andrea – they should totally have been gfs but network tv are cowards

 8.       Killing Eve – Villanelle the inherent eroticism of a woman who is trying to kill you. I find assassins sexy, always have, don’t judge me. I really enjoy the fine line Jodie Comer straddles playing her as a sociopath with feelings that can get hurt. Also the chemissssstry with Eve is *chefs kiss*

 9.       Lirael – Lirael She spends her entire life up until early young adulthood feeling out of place and wondering why she doesn’t belong, and I just want to hug her. She is so lonely that she teaches herself a spell to MAKE HER OWN DOG (which is 100% relatable tbh) and then she and the dog strike out on their own adventure, which is super cute and heart warming to me. She’s so shy and withdrawn at first but then she really grows into herself with time, and teaches herself to be more confident in her own abilities, despite the fact that these don’t necessarily match up with the powers she has dreamed of her whole life.

 10.   GLOW – the whole cast Ok so it’s cheating a bit but how can you choose one favourite woman from that whole cast? Everyone is amazing and has their own strengths and character flaws, their own little quirks… it’s such good writing, real shame the show was cancelled (another ‘rona casualty)

and I’ll tag anyone who sees this and wants to do this because I can’t think of 10 whole people lol

[zuzuslastbraincell]

Katara!

KATARA KATARA KATARA

why I like them

oh god where do i even start. katara just contains so many multitudes - she's sweet and feminine and caring and attentive but she's never reduced to just that, she's never just 'the girl', she's also allowed to get mad, to be petty, to laugh at her brother, to be headstrong and stubborn, to express vulnerability, to cry and to laugh, to make ridiculous facial expressions and *be* very expressive. she's dealing with a lot of trauma not simply from the loss of her mother but that loss represents also how her tribe have been decimated by the fire nation, how she's the last waterbender, how all this pressure exists on her shoulders (but also pride, but also determination, to bring it back) and that is expressed subtly throughout the series with the same depth and love that male characters are afforded with regard to their respective traumatic experiences. and despite all this she never tries to stop making the world good? She's always pushing for change, she's always wanting to make things better, she's relentless and doesn't give up when it comes to her vision for a better world... she has such a big heart. and that coexists with a deep anger in her, and deep hurt. Not to make an ocean metaphor so early on but she's as deadly and deep as the ocean but she chooses to be kind and warm and that's so powerful.

why i don't

honnestly while katara's instincts to mother people are a sad symptom of how she was forced to grow up to soon and automaically asigns herself a role of emotional responsibility she has mixed feelings about, i know that if katara tried to mother me, i would be annoyed. but that sounds more like a me problem.

favourite episode

oh it's either the episode where she beats the fucking shit out of pakku or it's the southern raiders. the first one because it's so gratifying to see how she's grown and developed as a bender and really come into her own. the second because... god i love how *messy* the southern raiders is, and it really taps into what i love about katara - she's flawed, she runs off on an ill-thought out revenge mission with zuko, she's got a great capability for darkness as she quite seriously considers murdering a man she has every right to loathe and to kill - but she chooses against it, in the end. it would not be right for her, if not him. she chooses what's right for her in the end.

favourite season

I'm gonna be a wee bit controversial and say book 1 had the best conception of katara's arc from student to master and really saw her grow and flourish, from someone yelling at her brother' oafish prejudice to a real master, that really solidified her as an idealist and presented that as the strength that is, that showed her struggling with petty jealousy of aang's progress and had her stumble in ways that made her character comeplling and interesting - like what an introduction to her character! book 2 had some fantastic moments but i can't think of anything particularly remarkable about hee character arc - largely because it tied into aang's romantic arc i think at this point. book 3 had some absolutely fantastic moments (scam queens katara and toph!! painted lady!! southern raiders!! the final agni kai) that really shone but also book 3 lays a lot of groundwork for fanon i hate (e.g. katara as the mom friend - wish that headcanon would die tbh)

favourite line

fuck there's a lot of good ones but my underrated fave is when sokka says he's kissed a girl before but she's never met her and katara says 'Who? Gran-gran? I've met gran-gran' and it's bruuutaaall

but my favourite serious line is 'I will never ever give up on people who need me'. powerful.

favourite outfit

water tribe anything!! and i actually think her book one/book two braids are her best hair. underrated katara hair. personally she looks just adorable in her parka in the flashback to when she was like. eight.

OTP

katara/personal fulfilment

katara/happiness

katara/fulfilling her goals and dreams

katara/loving minor background character who is never named

there's some ships i like in AU situations - yuetara is actually one i lov, especially with waterbender yue, i just love the whole sea/moon thing as well as katara and yue rebelling in loud/quiet ways, being girlfriends who refuse to have their lives defined by the expectations of older men, who have a great sense of duty towards their nations and won’t let gendered expectations stop them.

and most of you know i like the messy drama of katara/azula in a lighter AU situation where they're like, school or academic rivals, and the legacy of imperialism isn’t quite so personal (and azula makes better choices, obviously), but it’s not as much as i “ship” them as i just find the potential dynamic interesting, they’re both driven by a sense of duty for their home, it’s just that means *very* different things depending if you’re SWT or FN.

none of them are OTPs though - they’re more just fun thought experiments

brotp

katara & sokka - absolutely love their sibling dynamic its amazing. both have been impacted negatively by the shit in their lives and are not always dealing with it in functional ways but theyre there for each other, through thick and thin, always have each other's backs, they roast each other and bicker and sometimes make stupid decisions and sometimes lash out but at the end of the day their love pulls through, they’re able to work past those conflicts.

katara & aang - honestly while i feel kataang was just so poorly executed in the show (listen guys I just can’t after ember island players, i know that was a bad episode, but i can’t) & i cant imagine katara wanting to leave the south pole after the war for long spells (it would have to be long distance love, lots of profound and heartfelt letters and occasional visits, if anything, but i dont know if that’s what katara wants or needs? so maybe it wouldn’t pan out?), but regardless, i really do think these two had a life-changing friendship where each really represented hope for each other, that's at the core of it, they both truly believe in each other, and inspired each other. katara & aang good.

a headcanon

chief katara anyone?? chief katara?!?! 

oh oh OH i also think that katara, while primarily a combat bender during the war, actually takes to healing a lot more after the show and gets proper healing training at some point with the help of a trained medical expert and maybe yugoda. tbh i feel like the show was a bit dismissive of healing as an ability - i feel like having that is *extremely* useful in any combat situation, you always have a medic on hand - but i understand why katara, who wanted to be recognised as powerful regardless of her gender, and wanted to hold herself in a fight alongside sokka & aang, pushed for combat waterbending training because that is what 'powerful' looks like to her in the moment. obviously katara is capable of incredible healing feats (see: saving aang) but i think given we see her as a healer in lok (not a decision i necessarily disagree with) would mean a shift in focus. i think katara actually comes to realise she likes healing a great deal, but really she excels in all aspects of waterbending and is the south’s most respected master who helped rejuvenate southern style waterbending  

unpopular opinion

the main reason people think katara is straight is because we see her have very few meaningful interactions with other girls outside of toph. ATLA as a show is a bit romance obsessed, and very heteronormative in that regard, and so interactions with minor characters almost always line up with a potential crush for sokka or katara, and later, zuko (suki, haru, jet, yue, song, jin....). we rarely see katara build friendships with other girls and it’s such a damn shame.

(anyway bi katara for life)

a wish

the version of the puppetmaster we saw was actually fire nation propaganda, i feel like katara would have felt deep compassion for a prisoner of war and after maybe some clashes, would have agreed to help smuggle her out of the fire nation and secure passage home for hama, and tried to assure her that she still has a place there. the treatment of hama in that episode was awful (but also hama was written to be almost cartoonishly evil, very much an evil witch in her cottage in the spooky woods? like the whole horror movie / spooky story opening was such a big tell) and tbh i reject the thesis that we saw ‘katara’s dark potential’ in that episode completely, or that bloodbending as a power is inherently dark, or katara’s use of it to stop hama ‘corrupted’ her. I feel like katara might feel this way as a teenager perhaps but with time (she can be a little black and white at times), and especially with more training as a healer, i think she might realise that’s not the case, she’ll realise that she was right to try and oppose hama, her elder (she was lashing out rather than really trying to oppose the fire nation), and it wasn’t a betrayal of her or her beliefs, but also her use of bloodbending wasn’t wrong or evil inherently at all? and maybe she’d find ways to use it for healing purposes? anyway my wish is that, i like the idea that they meet again, speak about their differences, reconcile a little / come to an understanding, and katara learns more from hama again

an oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen

anything where katara’s character is reduced to a comforter or a healing device for a man and his trauma. particularly zuko. (they don’t have that dynamic in canon thankfully, zuko would never, zuko respects her too much)

5 words to describe them:

idealistic, hard-working, powerful, headstrong, kind

my nickname for them:

chief. or comrade. :^)

#katara

[emeraldbirdcollector]

Why David Tennant and Catherine Tate are the BEST Benedick and Beatrice EVER.

I have just seen this version of Much Ado About Nothing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS1wo_8L3Yc&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBEyNB5pFhI&feature=youtu.be

It is STUNNING. Not just for the physical comedy, though Tennant is an absoilute master of physical comedy, especially that involving hips, and Tate is right up there with him. (Tennant chews the scenery just as much as Branagh did in the same part, but Branagh appears to be doing it to call attention to himself, while Tennant manages to convince you that the scenery is Tasty and he’s enjoying his meal thoroughly.) Not just for the kid who shows up at random bits and gets laughs by Being A Kid. 

But Tennant’s Benedick and Tate’s Beatrice get some things right that I’ve never seen a Benedick and Beatrice get right before. 

(This is going to get long, so I’m going to put the rest of this under a tag. Please excuse me while I geek out in geeky fashion. This is my favorite play and now this one is my favorite version of it.)

They get the seriousness of what Claudio does to Hero. Both of them do. It’s a hard thing to grasp in our modern age, where an accusation like that and a rejection might break a young woman’s heart and leave her the subject of unpleasant gossip for a little while. but no worse. In the context of the play, though, Claudio would have been kinder to run Hero through with his sword. He has effectively and completely ruined her life for good, denied her marriage of any sort, denied her any chance at a healthy adult life and family, left her a lonely pariah outcast and rejected by even her dearest family members (or at least she’s supposed to be, but while Leonato goes along with it, Beatrice, bless her, refuses utterly). Which is why when she is proven innocent, he needs to make a Very Public confession of how wrong he was and how innocent she was, to undo the damage he did to her (and even then, there’s probably some remaining). 

Leonato is bitterly shamed and furious - first at Hero, but then when he’s finally persuaded that she’s innocent, at Claudio and Don Pedro. But his fury is for the shame brought on him and his family name. Hero is a symbol to him, his Sweet Obedient Daughter who has been a Good Girl so far and made him proud, and he is perfectly willing to turn on her the moment she doesn’t fit that image any more. 

Only two people immediately and completely believe Hero innocent and stand by her. The Friar, who as a Man of God is pure of heart enough to see Hero’s purity - and Beatrice, who loves Hero as her sister, who sees her as a human being who has been bitterly betrayed and wronged, who reaches out to embrace and protect her, who is utterly furious on her behalf. Hero is a person to Beatrice as she is to no one else, not just a role being played or a mobile piece of decorative household furniture that has suddenly developed an unexpected and not-previously-visible flaw. And maybe Beatrice also feels a bit of guilt there, because she wasn’t sharing a bed with Hero that night and can’t prove her innocent, likely because she was busy mooning over Benedick. 

Benedick - and Tennant does this masterfully - is stunned and in shock, and has no idea which way to turn. His loyalties are ripped nearly in two by the wedding scene - he trusts and is fond of Claudio and the Prince, but here they’re doing something really shockingly awful to a woman beloved of his own darling Beatrice, and Beatrice is as convinced of her innocence as he is of Claudio and Don Pedro’s honorable natures. He’s sure there’s got to be some misunderstanding. He wants to blame Don John, whom he does not like or trust, instead of his friends. He wants to restore sanity, find the solution, fix things. He’s the one who keeps pulling Leonato away, preventing him from hurting Hero physically, who joins with the Friar in urging everyone to calm down and think rationally, who wants to hear everybody out and find a sensible explanation for all this.

And then he’s alone with Beatrice, and her grief visibly hurts him, to the point where he blurts out his love for her just because he wants to comfort her. And for a while, she does cheer up, and she confesses her feelings too, and for a moment he forgets the situation and rejoices in her love - and then she tells him to “Kill Claudio,” and he’s shocked back into the moment. 

What Catherine Tate gets right here is Beatrice’s RAGE. She is furious at what has been done to her innocent cousin (whom, given the difference in their temperaments, she has probably looked out for and been protective of all their lives). She is absolutely merciless as she outlines, piece by piece, just how badly Hero has been wronged, belied, betrayed - and how brutal Claudio has been, and how vital it is to stand up for Hero now. She is frustrated almost to the point of madness because she can’t do it this time, she can’t fight Claudio, she hasn’t the training or the physical strength, But she will damned well make sure someone does, even if it means sending the man she loves out to either die or kill his best friend. Claudio. Must. Die.

Most Benedicks here retain a sense of torn loyalty, and go off to fight Claudio reluctantly because Beatrice demands it and it is an essential task to win her heart. Tennant’s Benedick listens to Beatrice, hears what she has to say, genuinely respects her judgement - and he is persuaded. His loyalties rip completely, and he willingly chooses his side, not just because Beatrice is on that side, but because Beatrice’s side is the right side. He challenges Claudio because he firmly believes Claudio has behaved badly and should be called out on it, and he resigns from the army because he has been persuaded that Don Pedro is no longer a fit leader to serve.  He loves Beatrice not just enough to fight for her cousin, but enough to listen to her, to trust her, to respect her, to be convinced by her. And that is why he is worthy of her - and why Don John could not get him, ever, the way he got Claudio, because Benedick would have talked to Beatrice, one lover to another, and worked out what was going on, rather than throwing her aside like a piece of artwork he bought that turned out to be a forgery. 

And in the end, most Benedicks are relieved to be able to pin everything on Don John and cheerfully, completely reconcile with Claudio. Tennant’s Benedick doesn’t, quite. He gets, as other Benedicks have not, the significance of the line being “An you are like to be my kinsman, live unbruised,” instead of “an you are innocent, let us be friends again.” There’s a bit of menace in his delivery of that line, even a warning slap in the face on the “live unbruised” - what he’s really saying is not the usual, relieved, “Oh, good, you’re innocent and it’s all that bastard John’s fault, so we’re friends again,” but “I saw what you were willing to do to my kinswoman, my wife’s best friend and sister. She’s forgiven you, and she’s in your power now, so I’ll make peace with you for the family’s sake. But try that again, and I will END you.” (To his credit, Claudio accepts that as deserved, which it is.)

Tennant and Tate also do an absolutely brilliant job of convincing the audience from the beginning that they’re really crazy in love with each other, letting their love for each other show through their sparring, making it clear that the sparring is just a protective shield to keep the other from breaking their heart again (and it’s quite clear that they’ve had some sort of relationship, and it broke - probably because Benedick was afraid of commitment - and now they’re each convinced the other hates them, but they’re still unable to stop thinking about each other, so they cover it up by constant bickering and insults). Beatrice can’t help asking the messenger if Benedick is back safely from the wars - she frames it as insults, but she’s clearly been worried. Benedick is genuinely hurt by Beatrice insulting him to his disguised face at the ball (and oh, that disguise, and the way Tennant wears it, it’s gorgeous- those HIPS omg) - unlike Branagh’s Benedick, who seems more resentful of the blow to his ego and the insult to the wit of which he is so proud, Tennant’s Benedick is brokenhearted because he’s just heard the woman he really loves dismiss him with apparent contempt and dislike. Beatrice, when questioned by Don Pedro, makes it quite clear that she’s lonely, but that she’s not prepared to marry for anything but real love - and pretty much confesses outright, in that quiet and vulnerable moment with someone who cares and won’t mock her, that her heart is still Benedick’s. And just before the eavesdropping scene, in Benedick’s monologue, he adds just a little tweak to the description of the Ideal Woman Who Could Convince Him To Marry that makes it quite clear he’s thinking of Beatrice and her alone. The palpable relief they show when they can finally admit their feelings, and when they realize the other still loves them, is glorious. They can’t keep themselves from bursting into laughter at inappropriate moments, not just because the situation is funny, but because they’ve just got so many FEELINGS and they’re finally able to be let out and it’s such a relief that they’re both downright giddy. It’s adorable. 

I would also comment here that it’s not just Tennant and Tate, though they steal the show - the other actors in this are brilliant, too.  Elliott Levey as Don John is masterfully insinuating and sneaky, a talented gaslighter, while Tom Bateman’s Claudio is just innocent and gullible enough to be readily deceived, and manages to show a level of remorse and repentance once Hero’s innocence is revealed  that make me feel less sorry for Hero having to marry him in the end than I usually am. You get the feeling he might genuinely have learned from his mistake and might be a better person in future. Jonathan Coy, as Leonato, plays him as a comfortable, genial sort of squire whose world has been turned upside down, and who is furious and out of his depth and passionately determined to get his honor back, whether that means throwing away his cherished daughter or killing his former potential son-in-law. Someone is going to pay for publicly humiliating him (not Hero, him). 

 Adam James’s Don Pedro has an easy air of authority - until Don John’s treachery is revealed, at which point he seems genuinely shaken. And he makes his proposal to Beatrice seem genuine - he’s charmed by her and attracted to her, and while he’s not yet as much in love with her as Benedick is, you get the feeling he might be, had he been given time and encouragement. I didn’t believe that either Denzel Washington’s Don Pedro - though I loved him - or Reed Diamond’s had a thing for Beatrice, but I get that loud and clear from this one. Her rejection hurts him - but he’s an honorable enough man that his next move is to get her fixed up with the man she is obviously pining for, a man she considers worth rejecting a wealthy prince for. (And rejecting him is a big deal. When Leonato thinks Don Pedro is wooing Hero as himself for himself, he gives her quite clear orders that she WILL be wooed, because after all, he’s the PRINCE. Beatrice literally turns down Prince Charming for a man of far less wealth and status, and he realizes why, given that she’s practically confessed to him a few minutes before that she’s still got feelings for Benedick - “I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one...”) During the eavesdropping scene, he quite clearly says, “Would she had bestowed this dotage on me - I’d have doffed all other concerns and made her half myself,” and he’s only partly mugging for Benedick’s benefit, part of that is genuine, I think. And at the end, when he sees her happy with Benedick, he’s happy for her - but there’s some pining on his own behalf, too. Which makes Benedick’s “Get thee a wife!” a bit of a barbed phrase, and you can see the barb go home.  

I can’t find the name of the woman who played Margaret, but she was a delight, too, as playful and witty as Beatrice and clearly an old and cherished friend of both hers and Hero’s, as well as a servant. Certainly not afraid of talking back to her employers, well aware that Beatrice and Benedick have it bad for each other and quite willing to tease both of them mercilessly about it, but genuinely fond of both of her ladies and wishing both of them well (Borachio makes it quite clear that her seeming betrayal of Hero was innocent and unknowing, and that he was the schemer, not her). When Benedick tells the Friar and Leonato that he wants to marry Beatrice, she gives the most adorable happy squeal. I hope she continues as Hero’s lady’s maid - Hero needs someone tough and witty in her corner, though of course she’ll always have Beatrice (and now Benedick, in a brotherly sort of way) on her side as well.

John Ramm’s Dogberry and Mike Grady’s Verges get their parts thoroughly right, too - they are delightfully dim, but full of self-importance, trying SO HARD to be witty like the aristocratic characters, and they have NO IDEA what they are getting wrong. They overact like crazy, but they’re supposed to.

 Alex Beckett’s Borachio is first casually flip about his villainy and proud of his cleverness in getting so much money out of Don John and fooling the noble Don Pedro and Claudio - but then he hears that Hero died of it, and you can see the seriousness of that hitting home. He’s not as much a villain as Don John. It shakes him, that he killed an innocent woman, and you get the feeling that his confession to Leonato was not drawn from him by the constables, incompetent as they are, but came straight from him. And he takes all the blame himself and makes sure to exonerate Margaret. There’s some honor left in him.

All in all, this is the best version of my favorite Shakespeare play that I have ever seen. You should see it too.  

#much ado about nothing #david tennant #catherine tate

[hermitreunited]

💜💜Klave Fic Recs!! 💜💜

Surprising probably uhhh no one, I go absolutely WILD for Klaus and Dave, but this list is the restrained edit. It deffff could be longer. This ship means so so much to me, and that is absolutely the product of reading such incredible, beautiful fic about them. I have never before felt as strongly about a fictional couple, which I guess means it’s my first actual otp? So so many thanks to the writers who wrote fic about these two and taught me what longing and love are.

Ten Months by @fanthings​

It makes him sad, sometimes, that in order to find acceptance, Klaus has to travel back fifty years into one of the bloodiest wars of American history. Most of the time, he doesn't care. His family probably doesn't even notice he's missing anyway. --- Dave is looking at him, eyes soft and heavy lidded. “What did you say to that guy?” he asks, head resting on the wall, body turned towards Klaus. “Ah,” Klaus laughs, dropping his hand to take a drink. “Just mouthed off. You know how I am.” “That mouth will get you in trouble some day,” Dave says softly. Klaus looks up, swallowing. “Some people like my mouth,” he says. “I do.”

Rating: M⎜Word Count: 122k+⎜In Progress (10/14)

Fuck. Fuck! I can’t explain how much I love this fic. I’ve gone out of my mind over it. It’s so so good. Covering Klaus’ ten months in Vietnam, and his and Dave’s relationship. It’s so well written and detailed and all the characters even OCs are so well-realized and realistic. Dave is fully fleshed out too, with strengths and flaws and his own person, not Klaus’ prop. It made me realize that Klaus and Dave fighting is my favorite thing, because then they get back together. They always work to fix things with each other and ahhh god I’m emotional just thinking about it I adore this fic.

Oddities Observed, Vietnam 1968 by @charmingpplincardigans​

“There are people who care whether you live or die,” Dave said, because he felt it needed saying. He couldn’t imagine not caring. This man was erratic, but he was also fragile in a way Dave couldn’t quite put his finger on given how he was apparently also indestructible, and deeply intuitive about people and their moods. When he wasn’t as high as the army doctors’ pills and black-market heroin would allow, he was paying attention. Dave knew, because while Klaus was paying attention to the others, he was paying attention to Klaus. “Do you think?” Klaus pulled a joint out of his metal cigarette case, lit it, and took a hit. He offered it to Dave, who didn’t take it. He was always offering his things to Dave, even when he knew they weren’t things Dave wanted. “Yes,” he said. “I do.” (Or, Vietnam, but from Dave's point of view.)

Rating: M⎜Word Count: 17k+⎜Complete (1/1)

An absolute classic. I don’t think I’ve seen it on other lists this week and that’s simply a crime. One of the first Vietnam fics I read and still one of the best! It’s got such a good blend of that lethal combination of all Klaus and Dave fics - on fire with the fear and violence of their situation, but so full of tenderness and love. It’s got desperation, in the best way. It’s beautiful.

the kind of love i’ve been dreaming of by katplanet

“You agreed to be a designated driver,” Klaus says, because of course he’s as good at this as he is at every other thing he and Dave have done in bed together. “All your stupid Varsity Lacrosse friends started annoying you, so you were looking for someone else to talk to. And lo and behold, a sad twink in a crop top, alone on the couch with a half-finished vodka cranberry.” “What’s a twink?” “Me,” Klaus says. “I’m a twink.”

Rating: E⎜Word Count: 6k+⎜Complete (1/1)

The only explicit fic I’ve ever recced? I don’t read too much smut, but this fic. The tenderness in this fic is enough to kill you, and then also there is smut, which is a potent combination! This is the fic that gave me my Klaus and Dave tag, because reading this fic, I cried and came to some realizations about Love.

Slow is in My Blood by @sunriseseance​​

Dave touches him, sometimes. In dances through root systems lit by a diffused moon, Dave puts a hand on his lower back, his arm, his shoulder. To help, he says. Your balance, he says, it isn’t good. I don’t want you to fall. These pits are endless, he says. You don’t like the dark. A touch to help. It helps. A meditation on Klaus and allowing himself to be loved. Dave doesn't die at the end.

Rating: NR⎜Word Count: 1k+⎜Complete (1/1)

It’s so so gorgeous. It’s Klaus making the decision to love and be loved, even as he considers all the frightening ramifications of it. It’s had a huge impact on the way I think about their dynamic. I love it so much.

My night sky by apathyinreverie

The first time Dave sees Klaus, he is wearing nothing but a bloody towel, clutching a briefcase to his chest like his life depends on it and looking up at him with big eyes from where he is sitting on the floor next to his cot. And immediately, Dave is spellbound. Over the ten months they know each other, that doesn’t change.

Rating: G⎜Word Count: 3k+⎜Complete (1/1)

Such a great look at Klaus from Dave’s outside, but smitten perspective. Almost like a character study of him, during a time when he’s going through so much. And it’s so well-written - right from the start there’s a line about Klaus being made of contradictions that has stuck with me for so long.

Bad Habits by @siriuspiggyback

Dave shook his head. “I wasn’t asking you to- I wanted to talk. That’s all. Not-” “Why are you making this so difficult?” accused Klaus. “I made you mad. So I was going to suck you off, so you wouldn’t be mad anymore,” he said simply, like he was explaining something obvious. Or, after a lifetime of sleeping with guys just to get off the streets for the night, Klaus has a bad understanding of consent. Dave isn't okay with that.

Rating: T⎜Word Count: 3k+⎜Complete (1/1)

And if we are talking about things that have stuck with me, this fic is one that I must have read so early on that I just folded it in with my baby developing Klaus and Dave dynamic headcanons, and it’s never left me. I think this is the only one on here that is set in some kind of post-not-apocalypse where they are navigating what a ‘normal’ relationship looks like for them.

I’ll Be Cleaning Up Bottles With You On New Year’s Day by @sunriseseance

Sitting behind him on the windowsill, in a truth that still feels false, is Dave. Quiet, right now. Rubbing Klaus's neck. Kissing it occasionally. New clothes, even, though still only things Klaus saw Dave wear in life. The closest he came to fancy enough for New Year's was the outfit he wore on the night they first kissed. The dates still get muddled in his head. Dave still smells like Dave. Klaus can bring that back, too. The earthy-clean skin, the slight scent of sweat, the cotton of the polo. Something else, underneath all that. Something that Klaus could recognize anywhere, could follow to the end of the world, could die to protect.

Rating: NR⎜Word Count: 1k+⎜Complete (1/1)

I know I’ve recced this and her fics before but this fic is so incredibly beautiful that it really is the perfect fit for being the final one I rec for this event. Reading it feels like warmth. It’s a concentrated dose of the exact kind of happiness that Klaus and Dave share at the best of times. I love it, and I love them, and I love her, and I love everyone in this fandom who is sharing their love with everyone by posting their creations <3

thanks for this week nine days of positivity, @tuafeedbackfest and everyone who participated!

#tuafeedbackfest #tua fic rec #the ship that taught me that love is real and the gays invented it #it's my Klaus and Dave tag because I felt like I understood more about what love means after reading some of these fics about them #ooof I got a lot of sappy feelings fam #long post

[randomfandomimagine]

Amazing ‘The Amazing Devil’ Things (Horror and the Wild)

I need to fangirl for a little because I absolutely love The Amazing Devil and I was so excited for the new album, and it did not dissapoint!! They put so much love and passion into this and it is art! I have been saving a bit of money and since their music makes me so happy I might buy the album. I wanted to talk about my favorte things about it under the cut (warning: it’s long). If anyone wants to listen to this piece of art, they posted it on Bandcamp here :D

The Rockrose and the Thistle

The sound of wind in the background, such a cool little detail!

Joey’s soft voice and how it breaks on ‘thistle’, omg

The sewing metaphor, I absolutely love it!

Madeleine subtly joining in 😍

The atmosphere! How unsettling and moving the song is

‘The kindest thing is to never leave you alone’

The Horror and the Wild

I thought I couldn’t love this song more and then came the studio version

I am a nerd and have so much fun singing this one!!

Even if it’s almost impossible to sing both their parts hahah

The beginning reminds me of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir and I love it!

Some lyrics I trully adore, like:

‘You’re the words I promise I don’t mean’

‘and I am Time itself, I slow to let you play, I steal the hours and turn the night into day’

The change after ‘remember me I ask, remember me I sing’

How they move on to the chorus using a similar sounding word

‘Give me back my heart you wingless thing / think of all the horrors’

I absolutely adore how they sing ‘wild’ in this version

How Joey’s voice raises with ‘the’ and ‘your’ in the chorus

‘Fret. Not. Dear. Heart. Let. Not. Them. Hear’ and the drums!!

Joey singing that growly ‘remember me’

Then what is probably my favorite part of the song:

Just how cool it sounds, how fun it is to sing along, the awesome lyrics…

Fret not dear heart, let not them hear

The mutterings of all your fears, the fluttering of all your wings

Welcome to the storm, I am thunder,

Welcome to my table bring your hunger

The repetition of ‘old man’ and how the song slightly fades at the end

Wild Blue Yonder

How upbeat it is!! Catchy and fun rhythm!

When they sing ‘wonder’ and ‘yonder’ together

‘Hold’ (pause) ‘this time we’re done for’ 👏

‘So hold me like you used to, so tight I’d bruise you’

Everytime they use the word ‘love’ I melt

Or ‘dear heart’, ‘darling’ or anything like that, for that matter 😍

It is my absolute kryptonite, seriously!

‘All those books we both drowned’

‘I’m lost, I’m found, in you’

‘Can you hear that scratching’

‘robot vampire’…. just 😂

Madeleine’s voice when she sings the high ‘hide under the covers’

Welly Boots

One of my personal favorites!! (if you can’t tell)

The guitar!! Love that riff!!

The changes in tone, I love them so much

As many have said before, it reminds me of the Witcher episode 6

Just these lyrics!!

The change in rhythm after this last part!! So good!!

And I love you, don’t you know

That I’ll be with you all along, as long as you are kind

To those who are not strong and cannot find their scarlet welly boots

Cos when it’s cold

I’ll wrap my scarf around you

And when it’s hard

I’ll place your head into my hands

And when you scream that it’s not fair,

It’s like I’ve gone off to the coast

Left you behind just standing there

Pretending not to see your ghost

If only you could hear my voice

But you are screaming far to loud to hear me swear

Just because I left doesn’t mean that I’m not still there

The drums set the rhythm so well and I love them in this song especially!

‘But I’ll stick up for you, even though you haven’t got a clue, you haven’t got a fucking clue, And I’m so proud of you‘

Bonus points for Joey swearing 😂

‘I know you’re strong enough to do this on your own’

As always, Madeleine’s beautiful voice joining in 😍

‘Just when you’re about to give up every hope you have you turn around Perched by the stairs, someone’s gone and left behind, A brand new pair of scarlet welly boots’

That part hits me right in the feels and I can’t even tell why

The outro guitar riff, even if it makes me sad that it’s over

Farewell Wanderlust

THE PIANO FOLLOWED BY MADELEINE’S VOICE? I’M DEAD

THE SONG LITERALLY JUST STARTED, WTF? I’M IN LOVE

Joey’s voice lowly accompanying Madeleine’s 

‘I’m the hardest goodbye that you’ll ever have to say’

Just… Madeleine’s voice, it’s too gorgeous, I can’t handle it!!

How the piano stops at ‘I’m the Jesus of wishing to Christ he’ll come back‘

The way she sings ‘She’s down. She’s dead’ and the piano? Aaaaah

Joey whispering the lyrics and then his voice gathering strength

‘I promise you I’m not broken, I promise you there’s more’ gets me every time 😭

The way Joey sings ‘adieu’ is amazing and I don’t know why?

When they sing the chorus together it’s too much!! Omg, this is art!

The fucking ending is so brilliant, perfect end to a perfect song!

The tune also reminds me of an Avenged Sevenfold song, ’Acid Rain’

Maybe it’s the piano? Idk, but it just moved me all the more

Because Avenged Sevenfold is one of my favorite bands 😚

So when favorite bands collide I just can’t even hahah 😊

Fair

Probably my favorite along with Welly Boots (this is gonna be long)

This one reminds me so much of my series Soul of a Warrior (Jasnissa!)

‘It’s what my heart just yearns to say, In ways that can’t be said’

The first lyrics and I am already in love with the words in this song

Let’s just assume I fell in love with every single word of this one

Joey’s voice is so beautiful to listen to, I am s w o o n i n g

‘And he holds her close just to keep the world at bay’

‘It’s not fair how much I love you’ 😱😍😭

I really love the guitar in this one too

Again, those lyrics!!! Absolutely captivating:

The way his voice kind of breaks a little sometimes when he lowers it

And if you asked me to, if you asked me I would lose it all

Like petals in a storm, cos darling I was born

To press my head between your shoulder blades at night when light is fading

Just to let you know I’m old, waylaid and feels like I am wading into

carpet burns and carousels oh Christ you’ll be the death of me

And calm throughout his melodrama she will turn and say ‘dear heart It’s me, its me

You don’t need to pretend to be someone you’re not

The Office reference and the ‘that’s what she said’? Joey, you nerd 🥰

Also, how he kind of laughs as he is saying it? 

‘cos you make me ache you bastard’ aaaaaaaaah

That Unwanted Animal

This one gives me very specific vibes that I can’t identify

It’s like kind of medieval and dark but there’s something else

Still, I absolutely love them, this one is so unique!

When Madeleine whispers ‘you light the candle’, literal chills

Why is her voice so beautiful?! Stop it, ma’am, you are too powerful!

‘You try so loud to love me, But I cannot seem to hear’ 

The hushed ‘Throw the plate at the wall’ and the change? Amazing!

The vocals in the background are incredible!

More fanfastic lyrics, they never stop!

‘Be good to me, I whisper. And you say what. And I said nothing dear’ 

‘And these plates they smash like waves’ Battle Cries!!!

And you rip my ribcage open

And devour what’s truly yours

And our screaming joins in unison

I cry out to the lord

The lyrics never fail to amaze me, they are so damn good!

‘No, not I’ Joey? Sir, please, have mercy 😂

That ending with Madeleine’s voice and the drum and the guitar and the violin? *chef’s kiss*

Marbles

Again, knew this by heart because of the live version

And the studio version just improves it if that’s possible?

The instruments at the beginning already give me chills

And then Joey and Madeleine taking turns to sing? Ugh! 

When the drum comes in I absolutely love it

I think this version is a bit slower than the live one? I like it!

It’s also softer, they’re almost whispering at the start 💗

‘And you’re the thigh high hemline I just can’t stop staring at’ is, for some reason, such a fun line to sing :)

‘The flat we rented was a palace for my queen’

‘She sang do you think I’m sexy? And oh god I really did’

‘You’re not flawed darling, you’re just a little under-rehearsed’

My favorite part, even if I can’t exactly say why:

This song just tells such a compelling story!

And I’d sink to the floor, what’s the point anymore,

And you, you’d reply with a glint in your eye

(And you, you’d reply with a drink in your hand)

Saying ‘I don’t know, but I’m here, I’m all yours, dear heart don’t cry’

THE CHORUS IS PURE LOVE, OKAY?

‘Your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep but a place for crows to rest their feet’ is such a lovely thing? 

More amazing lyrics:

How Joey holds the note in ‘day’ and shifts back into the chorus

I’ve loved you, for a hundred years

Certainly fucking feels like it

The minute I met you the colours of my life begun to pour

I’m scared of the dark

And now, even though you’re mad and these memories won’t stay, it’s okay.

Cos now I get to meet you for the first time every single day

This song also reminds me a bit of the Witcher and Jaskier

‘The crows feet are new‘

‘Are you perhaps short of a marble?!′

Again, they nail the ending with Madeleine’s beautiful vocals

Battle Cries

As always, the guitar sounds great!

Something they often do that I love is how they sing different lyrics at the same time, Joey and Madeleine singing together is my weakness

THE LYRICS!

‘After summers of fasting I feel hunger at last’

But that breathing you hear don’t mistake it for sighs

Don’t you realise - They’re just battle cries dear

And these lines aren’t wrinkles dear heart

Hardly knew the words

They’re just dollops of paint on a new work of art

I’m dolled up love don’t I deserve to just

And as I walk away I know I’ve been through the wars,

But that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause

‘Our devils broke rank, and out of the depths came an army’

With you I could summon the gods and the stars

Watch them dance out the plays that we wrote from the heart

And we’d laugh at the ghosts of our fears. We were kids.

‘This isn’t a break up, dear heart, it’s a season finale’

This one just gets me with the tune and the lyrics together!

All it took to unearth in the dust and the dirt

Some release or respite from the heat and the hurt

Was taking the time now and then to ask how I am

And now at the end, at the end of all things,

I’m not going to scream, beat my chest at the wind,

I’m doing fine.

Also, Madeleine’s beautiful melody before the chorus, omg!

To summarize, this album made such an impression on me. I literally don’t remember last time I connected so much with someone’s music. They are all such incredible people and talented musicians, and Joey’s lyrics just stayed in my heart, he’s so incredible! 

#my fangirling got out of control for a bit there #the amazing devil #the horror and the wild #joey batey #madeleine hyland #if joey happened to like this post i will die of happiness #*would #but he probably won't hahah #i just want them to know how amazing they are! 😭 #rant #random #fangirling #long post

[roidesrosette]

Blood donation? Blood donation.

God bless @narekashi​ for coming up with this genius name and enabling me to do this, i dont blame you thou i have a lot of fun

Yes, it’s me with another of my (mayhaps) contentless OC, please enjoy while it last– Jkjk, I’ll try to throw more content of her on here instead of Discord next time :’)

BLOOD DONATION:  Salvie/Salva/Sal, short for Salvatore

Age: ??? Gender: Salvie doesn’t like to define herself as anything  Birthday: 6/24  Height: 160cm  Status: Got revived as a vampire 

PHYSICAL  Appearance: Black hair usually tied in a ponytail, red eyes, sharp teeth, a constant “you dare challenge your god?” mocking expression (but doesn’t have the intention) 

Accessories: Poker case set, saber and gun

SOCIAL  Affiliation: On her own Occupation: Salvie runs a casino and is involved in a mafia Relationships:

Count: First met him when she was “adopted” by the bunch of vampires. He was offering to give them residence, but they all turned him down. Met him again when she was touring the world alone and made him an acquaintance, they became really good friends after that.

Leonardo: Met him when she was touring in Italy with Count. He kept treating her like a small child (still do), and they would drag each other like how he and Count would. He likes messing up her hair, she likes stepping on him when he’s asleep. Also a pair of good friends.

Arthur: Arthur was interested in Salvie and find her dominating personality challenging, but he knew well enough not to lay a finger on her. You just don’t simply go against someone who could lop off your head and had associations with the mafia. On the other hand thou, they were drinking buddies, and sometimes Salvie would pick up girls with him. They gamble a lot together too.

Dazai: They have an odd relationship. It might be because they’re somehow similar in a way, they know what line not to cross. They just have this weird bond that no one can put a finger to determine what it is.

Isaac: They don’t really talk much, she only knows he really likes apple from what she heard from Dazai, but that’s probably a lie…

Theodorous: God how Salvie loves to tease and sass him. Much like Leo, they would banter every time they met, but Theo always ends up leaving, flustered. He was too young compared to her, maybe a couple more years and his bantering skills might improve. They weren’t really on good terms, especially with how Salvie was involved with Shakespeare and the goddamn mafia, plus how close she and Vincent is.

Vincent: Pure, innocent baby boy. “I’ve only met Vincent for 15 seconds and if anyone hurts him I’ll kill everyone in this room and then myself.” Absolutely adores him and prefers him over Theo. Salvie admires how innocent he was, and that nature of him would always make her worry about him. She will also give him everything he wants or needs, just to see him smile.

Sebastian: When Count first brought him to the world, she was intrigued by the human who managed to charm him. So she would frequently visit just to see how Sebas works… Until he starts digging her information. She knew his passion well and understood that, but she would prefer if Sebas exclude her from his mysterious notebook.  

Napoleon: Salvie was very interested in him, being a demi-vampire, but she does not question him about it. If he isn’t willing to say, then she had no reason to pry. Along with Jeanne, the three of them practiced sword fights from time to time. Salvie would always be fascinated by both of their skills. You could say that their relationship is quite well.

Mozart: Salvie does not talk much with Mozart, but lowkey likes his performance. She would always attend a ball or an activity if Mozart is the one playing the piano. Salvie also finds his prickly attitude fun to tease, but would rather see Arthur tease him. They would only exchange words when it comes to music and that’s it.

Jeanne: Aside from sparring with him, Salvie also supplies weapons to him. She doesn’t question why, as that was the nature of her business. She couldn’t refuse too, since business is business, and he was a resident of Count’s, which she promised the dad before that she would sponsor his residents too, because he was a friend of hers.

Shakespeare: Basically (kinda) love at first sight. Both of them were born with chaos in them, and so they attract each other. She did not meet him when he became the first resident of Count, but she did hear about it. She met him in a ball. It’s a long ass story how they get together but yeah, these two dumbasses are doing fine and dandy as a couple, have their banters and bickers sometimes but all is well. Unless….?

Paired with: William Shakespeare (Maybe…?)  

PERSONALITY 

Likes: Gambling, attending balls (especially masquerade balls), hunting, going off adventures with her beloved horse, sword fight, overly sweet stuff  

Dislikes: Following a schedule/orders, getting treated like a feeble maiden/young child, proper meal, proper sleep  

Strength: She’s superb at gambling and swinging her sword, mediocre at drinking, she aced in “not giving a shit” 

Weakness: Hides her feelings a lot, tends to distance herself from people who know her to a certain degree, can’t sleep in peace ever

Personality: Let’s just start with: Salvie is chaotic. Very chaotic. Even the name “Salvatore” already tells you she spells trouble. She doesn’t like being bound by rules, schedules or anyone’s orders, she’s a free soul who decides every step. However, she isn’t reckless, each action she took is calculated and rationally think through, as she does not wish to take a step she regrets. That careful and meticulous approach made her seem wise–despite how young she looks–mature even. Well, but sometimes Salvie could be bratty too, since “her adorable looks is the biggest fraud” (quoted from Leo). She also has a bold personality, and that results in her sassing the great men fearlessly, yet that doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect them, in fact, it’s the opposite. She looked up to them greatly, as they were awesome enough to get their name engraved in history.  

Her biggest charm is definitely her carefree attitude. She’s just, y’know, damn chill. Salvie doesn’t have a care towards anything, therefore her pronouns and attire choices. Although her easy-going characteristics is an appeal, it’s sometimes a flaw as well. It made it difficult to get along with her as the specifics about her is unclear. Since she was so chill with everything, it’s certainly hard to pin down what are her favourites and stuff. Contradictorily, that light-hearted manner doesn’t apply to people. She unintentionally looks after people, even if she doesn’t want to care, she would still unknowingly do something for them, like leaving them a cup of tea on the table every morning. 

On the other hand though, kinda like Dazai, Salvie’s breezy and free demeanor makes it hard to grasp her true character, not mentioning the fact that she tends to sweep everything under the rug. She has a way with words that always, somehow, avoid the topic about herself, and that made her mysterious in a way. She was very quiet of her thoughts, especially things on her mind, rarely talking about her problems. She would tend to fend off questions about that with a gentle reassuring smile and a wispy attitude, as she disliked someone poking into her problems (and of course because she didn’t want to seem weak). 

HISTORY 

Backstory: Salvie was not recorded at any point in history, yet she was revived. She did not know why and did not question so. When she was first revived, she did not remember anything except her name. Dozens of questions were in her mind, yet there was no one to answer her. For what feels like an eternity, she wandered on the streets aimlessly until she met her kind. They were strong, independent, and raised her as if she was a newborn. Well, she was, kinda. The days gradually passed, and she too, came to understand that she had been reborn into a person–no, an immortal with unrestrained freedom, with unlimited time (not really, but you get the idea). As soon as she came to that conclusion, she bid goodbye to her friends, (guardians maybe?) and took a flight to achieve her dreams–to live how she wanted in her previous life. 

Family: Salvie doesn’t remember (or rather, it was insignificant to her) her family in her previous life. She only recognized the group of vampires that took her in as her guardians. 

Other history: How Salvie was involved in the mafia is… Well, chaotic. She was supposed to be on the tour with Count to Italy, to visit his long lost friend Leonardo, but along the way she somehow stumbled into an illegal gambling den, challenged the don (with very extreme conditions), defeated the don and accidentally become the new don of the mafia. After going through all the messy procedures, the news about a new mafia boss named  “Lord Salvatore” quickly spread through Italy. His nature was depicted as cruel and ruthless as he gets anything he wants, and no one stands in his way. Yet what’s weird was that the “Salvatore Family” was rumored to be civilized and noble, as they were ordered that no blood should be drawn unless it was required to. You can imagine the horror on Leo and Count’s face when they heard about this, and the compliments from her guardians. 

TRIVIA

Special abilities: None. (Her face as an instrument of deception)  Pet(s): A white horse named Vlad. Hobby: When she isn’t gambling or drinking, she will be out doing mafia business or just wandering somewhere else  Secret(s): Had a past lover who she later recalled and somehow disliked that shares the same name with her horse (which she then became devastated knowing that she named her horse after her past lover)  Habits: When she’s stressed or troubled, she will smoke from a pipe 

#ikemen vampire #ikevamp #ikevamp oc #my art #traditional art #ok i did swear ill make a proper profile and full body design for my cradlesona #and then i didnt but i did this instead #but STILL I SWEAR I WILL #AND I PROMISE ILL SHARE CONTENT OF MY OC #**I REALLY PROMISE** #its mostly sketches so i uh usually dont put them out #i swear ill post non sketches----- #blood donation

[linkspooky]

I absolutely adore your Medaka Box Metas. Honestly reading you talk about the series got as much of an emotional response out of me as reading it myself. So now I'm curious to see how you'd tackle Iihiko, a character I've never quite come around to. What's Iihiko's Meta?

Thank you!

I have written about Iihiko before [here]. Since you bothered to send the ask though let’s approach it from a different angle. I’ve already talked about character so let’s talk theme. 

Medaka Box is a story about a story, as pretentious as that sounds. It’s also a manga about shonen manga. It’s a story that constantly comments on the fact that it is a story.

There are several characters who act like the archetype they are usually presented as in manga, Kumagawa is the antagonist who believes he could never win because he’s not a main character, Ajimu is the last boss/mastermind, Medaka is the main character, Zenkichi tries to become the main character. 

For some of these characters the roles they inhabit are a relief, a comfort even. Seeing real life through the lens of a narrative can give meaning to what is otherwise meaningless and senseless. In stories everything has a purpose, everything happens because the author wrote it that way with intention behind it, and in comparison the world is meaningless. Medaka Box is a manga that toys with the idea that it is a story over and over again, but eventually asserts life is nothing like a story and that it’s real. It rejects the idea of seeing life like a story. 

Center to all of this is Medaka herself. She is the typical shonen protagonist in almost every way, she’s pure, ditzy no matter how smart she is, kindhearted and willing to help everyone, she fights for her friends, she always wins every battle and gets a new power up whenever she needs it.

Yet, Medaka Box the manga is about how terrible it is to be a main character. Yes, it may be empowering to see yourself as the main character of your own life, but that narrative ultimately harms much more than it helps. 

Here is how we are introduced to Medaka at the beginning of the manga. She loves people apparently, but she also looks down at them the same way a god would a mortal. She is incredibly distant from them. 

But, in Zenkichi’s mind she is always right. The world seems to be rigged in her favor, as if she was a main character with an entire story written around her. Ultimately, even if she’s misguided, even if she has her flaws, she’s still always right in the end, because that’s what it means to be the main character. 

However, as good as this may seem it’s a role that is ultimately more restricting than freeing to Medaka. After all, Medaka’s view of her own birth is abysmal, she calls her mansion a coffin. She acts like this role is something that liberates her, but instead it’s a crushing burden that warps and isolates her. 

Main characters are terrible. Thinking the whole world revolves around them, how selfish really. In a more serious sense though we get the impression as Medaka’s mindset is further and further deconstructed as the manga goes on, that she really is selfish in a way as all of this exists not to really help other people, but to give herself her own personal meaning, to make sure she has somewhere to belong in the world, so humankind does not reject her.

The Ajimu arc is really where the idea of being a main character really starts getting deconstructed. Ajimu says it straight out, that if this world were a manga Medaka would be the main character. 

Ajimu is the most blatant one about it, but in a sense all of these characters to some extent apply narrative terms to real life like this. This is how Zenkichi sees himself, Medaka is the main event, and he is the sidekick, he is her pitbull, he’s the one who is supposed to help her with her ideals less of his own person and more of an extension to Medaka.

This is also the arc where Nisioisin starts to heavily show the danger of Medaka’s mindset and that Medaka’s role as the main character might not actually be a good thing. Once again, the villain of this arc is using all these narrative terms. When the villain tempts Zenkichi to her side, she doesn’t ask him to be a villain like her, she tells him to become his own main character. Being a main character is a bad thing. 

Being a main character does not help Medaka in any way. It makes her lonely. It makes her unable to understand other people because her own viewpoint of the world is so self centered, like the world is a story being told about her and everybody else is just side characters. While Medaka is a selfless person, the mindset that she embodies is unhealthy and even self destructive as she erases her own identity to try to fit into the role of a main character. It’s why even Zenkichi eventually turns against her for her own sake.

Medaka’s mother even lectures her about that. In the end there’s no good, or bad, reality is just reality, without any particular meaning, rhyme or reason to it. If you give yourself a role and stop being yourself, you’re not going to be embraced by people it only drives them away because they no longer see you as a person. Medaka in her attempt to find meaning in her life, actually made everyone else around her reject her even more even though she wanted them to accept her as a human.

Medaka thought it was wrong for someone like her to have been born with so much talent and privilege in life by what came down to nothing more than pure luck, she felt guilty just for living because she did not have to struggle with what everybody else did. Therefore, she tried to give a meaning behind her birth and desperately searched for that. She adopted the role of a main character, but that too was just another chain on her that made it harder to be herself. 

It’s a terrible thing to be a main character. It warps your perspective. It makes you egocentric and unable to empathize with others. You stop seeing them as people. 

So, Iihiko himself is not really a person. The reason you don’t understand him as a character is because he doesn’t really have one. He’s an entirely empty being that just occupies a role.

Iihiko is introduced as the opposite of Medaka, if Medaka is someone who was born to save the world, then Iihiko is a man born to destroy the world. 

Iihiko actually has a lot more in common with Medaka, or at least the Medaka we were introduced to at the start of the manga. He’s a “main character” in the sense that Medaka is, because he has an egocentric viewpoint of the world, and whatever he tries he suceeds at. In a way he’s a Medaka from the first few arcs who never grew up.

Just like Medaka he sees everyone as beneath him. Just like Medaka he doesn’t understand other people at all. Just like Medaka he forces his viewpoints onto others. He’s battle crazy like Medaka and seems to enjoy getting in fights with strong opponents, because otherwise there’s nothing to challenge him in this world. 

It’s explained that he’s a hero from a story book, and that’s why he does not fit in at all with reality. For example heroes from the greek era hardly match our modern definition of hero, heracles, theseus, they have all done things that would make us label them as jerks. However, cultural values were different 5,000 years ago. 

Except, Iihiko once again does not care about changing for other people, or the values of other people at all, he just wants to continue on living forever in his own storybook. hence why he displays such antiquated values and refuses to change them. He looks brutal because what was acceptable for his time is not acceptable now.

For Iihiko there’s nothing left accept his narrative, that’s why he alligns with the Shiranui village who just wants to perserve his own story. Iihiko so perfectly inhabits the role of a hero that it’s the only thing he has left now, it’s his entire identity. To admit that he is not a hero, that he’s nobody special, would completely destroy him. That is why, when he sees Medaka give up her ‘character’ as a hero, and just act like a person begging to have her friends life spared he’s confused. 

He wants things to play out the way they should in a story. Everyone should live respectfully to their roles. When they don’t, Iihiko gets angry and tries to force them. What Iihiko fears the most is that he’s a nobody. That none of his actions even if they were legendary had any particular meaning. That he was a normal mortal just like the rest of us. He fears the lack of meaning in the world, the same way that Ajimu embraces it. 

His definition of a monster is someone who does not see meaning in life. At the end despite having greater strength than Medaka, we see him lashing out at her if he’s nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum to prove his point. 

Being a main character is something that completely destroyed Iihiko’s identity, and all we are left with is the dregs of a person, the shell of his former self left behind. Hence why there’s not much going for him as a character, hence why he has little to no personality and there’s nothing to get invested in. It’s a terrible thing to be a main character, it prevents you from being a person. 

#yotomoe #mb meta #medaka box meta #metasks #medaka box #kurokami medaka #shishime iihiko

[lytefoot]

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger for the "Why I like them..." ask game :)

Ron Weasley:

Why I like them

What’s not to like about Ron? I think the thing I like most about him is the way he takes care of people.

Why I don’t

I think Ron’s biggest fault is that he’s a bit of a prude. Not that I think he, himself, needs to behave differently, but I hope he gets to be a little less judgmental as he grows up. (And never uses the phrase “scarlet woman” again ever.)

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

The Silver Doe, hands down.

Favorite season/movie

This is really hard, because I absolutely adore Ron in every book, but if I have to pick one, it’s Chamber of Secrets. Following the spiders is such an underrated moment, and when he appears at Harry’s window at the end of chapter 2 I just want to hug him.

Favorite line

Also incredibly hard, but I’d have to go with “It’s me. I’m extremely famous.” So many layers of nuance in this line.

Favorite outfit

The too-small jeans Hermione packed for him on the Horcrux hunt. Layers of nuance there, too.

OTP

Ronmione, hands down.

Brotp

Ron and Harry, Brotp forever.

Head Canon

Oh, gosh, just one. Ron learned to play chess from his dad. It was the thing they did together when they had a chance to have some just-the-two-of-us time. 

Unpopular opinion

It’s so hard to gauge what constitutes an unpopular opinion when it comes to Ron, because I’ve done a good job curating my fandom experience (if I do say so myself), so I tend to avoid the wildly popular bad takes.

I’m going to go with: Ron likes Harry and Hermione just the way they are. He likes that Harry is single-minded and that Hermione is ruthless. Ron hangs out with them on purpose, he could have been friends with Dean and Seamus instead but he wasn’t. Ron likes difficult people. He wouldn’t have them any other way.

A wish

Err… I have an extremely specific Ronmione fanfic I want to read? More generally, I wish I could find more “Ron and Harry go on adventures together” fanfic.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

If they ever do another TV or film adaptation of the HP series, I hope they get someone who likes the entire trio to write the script.

5 words to best describe them

Brave, kind, loyal, funny, sharp

My nickname for them

I’m not so good at nicknames.

Hermione Granger

Why I like them

I love characters whose strength is coldly logical intelligence, and whose weakness is not knowing how to be nice to people. I love characters whose personal arc involves learning how to be friends with people. I love characters like Hermione, and it’s so rare that we get to see this personality in a female character.

Why I don’t

After a while her character arc kind of stalls out. It becomes less about Hermione learning how to people, and more about viewing Hermione’s flaws as quirky or indicative of her strength.

Favorite episode (scene if movie)

Kissing Ron in the room of requirement.

A close second is the rhyming “Are you a witch or aren’t you!” in Philosopher’s Stone and “Are you a wizard or aren’t you!” in Deathly Hallows.

Favorite season/movie

Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone. Her growth from “sitting up in the common room waiting to tell on you” to “setting a teacher on fire” is adorable, and I love “Are you a witch or aren’t you!”

Favorite line

I can’t really think of any stand-out Hermione dialog, per se. I’m 100% sure that the minute I post this, I’m going to think of something.

Favorite outfit

Not all dressed up for the Yule Ball.

OTP

Absolutely Ronmione, all day every day.

Brotp

Hermione and Harry, though I’m working on building up my appreciation of Hermione and Ginny, just because there’s a friendship there that we don’t see enough about.

Head Canon

Again, just one… When Hermione went back to school to finish her NEWTs, she found she missed having the boys around to distract her terribly. Harry got her embroiled in politics before the end of October, working on House Elf rights. She was actually incredibly relieved, but never tell Harry that.

Unpopular opinion

I’m not sure this is unpopular overall, but I think it is in my circles: once she’d grown up a little bit, Hermione made a great Minister of Magic.

A wish

That her character arc hadn’t stagnated. I wish especially her sniping with Ron in book 6 had been framed differently. The birds make perfect sense for her, but I wish Harry hadn’t taken her side so much, and that she’d appeared to learn something from that whole experience.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen

If JKR could just stop talking about Hermione and her relationships, that would be great.

5 words to best describe them

Intelligent, driven, ruthless, awkward, generous

My nickname for them

‘Mione, occasionally, but not much else.

#ron weasley #hermione granger #ask games

[coldandforbidding-blog]

Task 001: Questionnaire

Tell me how’s the way to see; show me all that I could be.

APPEARANCE.

Hair colour: Blonde Eye colour: Steely blue, rather round. Glasses or contact lenses: Contacts. Fun fact: being quarter Veela does not make you impervious to having astigmatism.  Height: 5′9″ Weight: 135 Build: Dainty frame, slender arms, perfect posture; a dancer’s body.  Scars: None, though she will acquire them over time.  Birthmarks: Pale brown birthmark on her cheek. Of all the features that she was blessed with, this one is her favorite.  Tattoos: On her left side, rib cage, she has a small vine of Lily of the Valley flowers.  Distinguishing features: Her ethereal aura is the first thing everyone notices about a Delacour girl. Being a quarter Veela, one look at Fleur and you are simply captivated; she radiated allure and charm, though whether that comes from her genetics or upbringing, it’s a rather blurred line. Though separate from her silvery voice or the darling way she walks, when she lowers her guard and lessens the Veela charms, her defining features include her intense jawline, large eyes, and pale blonde hair that frames her face -- and most of her torso. 

PERSONALITY.

Bad character traits: 

Blunt; explicit; straight-forward; curt. In how many words can one say rude as hell? Fleur doesn’t understand why people get upset with her honesty. She tells men when there isn’t going to be another date; she lets girls know when their boyfriend should be dumped. She doesn’t sugar coat the frivolous day-to-day; it’s rather black and white. If you are unhappy, why stay that way? Many simply write Fleur off as rude, spoiled, and inconsiderate. Look to the way she speaks of the Boy Who Lived. Little boy, this. Scrawny knees, that. All she sees Harry as is this tiny, skinny boy who is constantly being circled by wolves. Her efforts to draw attention to his short-comings in conversation is her way of saying that he needs to be left alone, be his own person. Clearly he won’t live up to all of the myths spoken about him. And she doesn't feel the need to explain herself at all. She thinks that him being a “little boy” makes it all clear. On top of that, the language barrier makes her blunt opinions even more boiled down. Stubborn; though Fleur will always listen to reason and logic, she will not waver from her heart. As a Taurus, Fleur is incredibly practical and can be swayed with the right facts in front of her. On the flip side, it is incredibly difficult to change her mind once she believes she is morally in the right. You cannot sway her in a political conversation; not in the pureblood debate, not on magical creature’s rights, there’s very little point. Her convictions are just like her wand; inflexible.  Materialistic; vain; over-indulgent. This is how people see Fleur. She loves the good life, and will work her ass off to see herself remain there. One can always find this Ravenclaw done-up for class; it is very rare to spot her not indulging in the finer things. She wears clothing like armor, she must be impenetrable. God for bid she loses her voice in an argument without her pearl necklace or someone find her Achilles heel without her powder blue pumps on. For Fleur, it isn’t enough just to be pretty, you have to be the full package. Though she tends to play her cards close to her chest, there is clearly some deep rooted insecurities muddled in all of this. She sets impossibly high standards for herself, for that’s the best way she believes -- at least at this point in her life -- that people can take her seriously. Intimidation visually, respect verbally.  

Good character traits:  Loyal; supportive; unwavering. I based a lot of my writings and musings based on the star sign that I assigned to Fleur; Taurus. It just simply fits so well in my opinion! The ruling planet being Venus alone is explanation enough; “the planet of love, attraction, beauty, satisfaction, creativity and gratitude.” Like…that’s homegirl right there. Her loyalties are fierce and LOUD. And her reaction to betrayal is that much stronger. There is no question regarding which house she belongs to -- for someone who doesn’t care for Quidditch all that much, she still manages to boast her house pride. My best example from canon is her loyalty to Harry once he saves her sister in the Second Task. Absolutely floored by his selflessness, wanting only for Gabrielle to survive the horrid fate she was nearly resigned to. Fleur promised that she would never forget, and she never lost respect or loyalty towards Harry or the causes he rallied behind.  Affectionate; doting; romantic. @riss come back before you post from drafts Bright; capable; humorous; savvy. In the time between her departure from boarding school and her enrollment in Hogwarts Academy, she spent that buffer primarily teaching ballet to young children at the studio she grew up in. Though she threw most of her childhood into the craft, dance isn’t exactly her life’s passion. Fleur, much to the dismay of others, has political savvy. More than that, she had an activist’s spirit. She feels as if her mind, body, and heart must share worth and cultivate strength by working off of one another. Despite her own struggles, she knows how fortunate she is to have been born a Delacour woman. And that isn’t something that she often forgets. Beauty and charisma yet, strength and uncompromising will. And despite keeping her emotions close to her chest, she does NOT by any means keep her opinions to herself (unless there’s a reason i.e. not disclosing which side she favors, as to not make herself or her family targets). “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” damn right it is. She’s blunt, penetrating, and a down right riot if you catch her at the right time and place.     Optimistic or pessimistic: Optimistic. Introverted or extroverted: This is cheating but, she is an introverted extrovert. Good habits: Exercising her mind, body, and soul. Keeping on top of herself -- always trying to improve as a person. Don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?  Bad habits: Speaking before thinking, judging others upon surface features -- despite how much she loathes when people do that to her, drinking too much too late into the evening.  Pet peeves: Being interrupted, people assuming she’s heartless, disrespecting teachers, chapped lips, people snorting their snot when they should absolutely have blown their nose ten minutes ago.  Guilty pleasures: Speaking about someone in French, proving that she has brains to back up her beauty, the finer things™.  Fears: Falling from high heights (hence her distaste for Quidditch), bringing shame to her family’s name, and as the war brews, she will fear her family being targeted due to her efforts involved with the Order.  Secrets: I would like to spend more time with Fleur to figure this out <3 Political views: This will have its own post when I get to it. It truly is a dense topic for Fleur.  What do they consider an overrated character trait: Being polite. Nice is different than good. What do they consider an underrated character trait: Humor. She is putty in your hands if you can make her laugh.  What would they change about themselves if they could: Her relationship with women. Fleur is this ethereal entity, adored by men. And this negatively impacts the way she extends a hand to other women and vice versa; her insecurities versus their’s. Fleur is imperfect – at this point in her life, she fears and resents other women at times though struggles with also wanting to uplift them and stand strong as ladies should. It is hard for her to get past the way people judge her. She has issues with wanting to be liked and pined after -- she cannot deny that she loves the ego boost. Though if men she is attracted to pine for someone who is not her, Fleur becomes very cross -- she’s basically won the genetic lottery! Let’s say for example she has feelings for Viktor, who has feelings for Hermione. Fleur’s jealousy would flare up and her instinct would be to tear Hermione down -- how could he pick her over her? Comparing her to the other, trying to poke at Hermione’s flaws, only to gradually begin tearing herself down; do I bore him? Am I not his type? Am I trying too hard? Why does she have to not even draw a iron to her hair and he’s all over her? However, she knows that this isn’t healthy for her or anyone else involved. Improving her relationship with women -- and inadvertently men -- is a big goal this school year. 

PAST AND FUTURE.

What does their family consist of: Her mother, father, and her baby sister. Do they find family important: Intensely.  Do they have siblings: Her dear Gabrielle, whom she constantly dotes on.  What was your character like as a child:  Believe it or not, there was a brief time when the little Delacour girl was not a blunt, spunky – oh, how she hates that word – force to be reckoned with. It’s true; there was a simpler, quaint, and fucking quiet Fleur that existed before she reached her prime. Despite being greatly opinionated as a young girl, she normally kept defiant feelings and all of those snarky comments she wished she could make to herself – she didn’t need to be known as the troubled daughter, now did she? No, no, Fleur was supposed to be a simple girl – taking piano and “young socialite” lessons like her parents had greatly encouraged. She loved her mother and father dearly, wanted nothing more to be a good role model to her sister, the least she could do was play the part. Being part-Veela, the Delacour beauty was rather renowned. As she got leered at and comments from men from a very young age, Fleur was timid and hid herself in defiance. Large sweaters, the loosest slacks her mother would allow, only baring her shoulders in the comfort of the ballet studio. What was your character like as a teenager: The older her and Gabrielle got, the more she used her assets and genetic aura to her advantage. She became solid teflon. Sharp tongue with quick wit, wore clothes like body armor, lowering her guard to very few people. Fleur felt the need to protect Gabrielle from feeling as insecure as she did growing up. What advice would they give their younger self: The quote that I will use for Fleur until the day that I die: There are two things a man is always willing to believe about a woman. One, that she is weak. And two, that she is attracted to him. Best childhood memory: Helping her mother and father construct baby Gabrielle’s nursery, who was still in Apolline’s tummy. They didn’t allow her to do much heavy lifting in the process, she was still quite little. She can remember that day with such distinction; all windows were wide open, natural light baking the room to such a perfect golden brown that she hardly wanted to paint over the wall with the baby pink color that she had helped her mother pick out only hours before. She can recall buzzing with excitement in her chest as she spoke to Apolline’s tummy, peppering it with kisses, hoping that Gabi could understand and feel how much Fleur already loved her. And the unmistakable feeling of her heart breaking whenever her papa would remind her that her sister wouldn’t be coming home for a few more weeks.  What are their future ambitions: Fleur is still figuring that part out. All she knows is that she wants to make a difference, as cheesy as that may sound. Aside from her occupation, she’s at a loss. She is at a point in her life where decisions are starting to matter.  What do they want to be ‘when they grow up‘: Working for or with the Ministry’s Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is her biggest passion at the moment. She’s partial to the Beast Division, though the Spirit Division would be a close second.  

MISCELLANEOUS.

What are their hobbies: Ballet, staying up late, reading and researching, dueling, partying with friends.   What is their patronus: Upon taking the “full” patronus test with Fleur in mind, her patronus is a Unicorn! Which I feel is very fitting; unicorns are rare and sought after creatures, who are classically depicted with feminine qualities and they have a stronger affinity towards women in general.  What place would they most like to visit: At the moment? Muggle London -- though truly any Muggle-populated metropolitan.  What is in their purse or wallet: This could really change for any occasion but, I’ll go with a casual day at school. Her wand, an exact-o blade in case anything should happen to her wand, her glasses anything should happen to her eyes, compact mirror, tinted lip gloss, a rather well-loved note pad, a blue pen, and her latest copy of the Wizard newspaper in France -- her mother always send an owl with the latest copy, sometimes with notes in between columns.   What is on their bedside table: Her glasses case, whatever book she was reading the night before, her diary, and her casual jewelry tray.  What do they value the most in a friend or partner: Trust. Mutual trust. At the end of the day, Fleur doesn’t have time for instability. When she needs to lean on someone -- which doesn’t happen all the time -- she doesn’t have time for ulterior motives. Though she holds loyalty to a high degree, there is no loyalty if you have done nothing to gain her trust or display that you trust her entirely.  If they could have one magical skill perfected, which would they choose: Non-verbal magic. It is a skill that her father and mother have mastered with such ease, and she simply wishes to follow suit.  What would they ask a fortune teller: Likely about the crossroads she is in right now. Should she just return to France once her time at Hogwarts Academy is done? Or stay and fight for the causes she believes in? To be safe or to be free?

#hogwartsacademy: task #hogwartsacademy: task 001 #i am very tired after writing this #i sat down and wrote this in basically one sitting #it was super helpful! #but i will pass out now #{ you're not what he thinks that he wants || development } #i might edit this if it's trash when i wake up