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alittlebitofloveliness · 3 days

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Johnny Cade and Steve Randle as Foils

Ok so the great thing about the Outsiders is how every character foils every other character in some way, but there is one glaringly obvious foiling is barely ever talked about and it drives me crazy because it’s brilliant. I’m talking of course, about the similarities between Johnny Cade and Steve Randle.

The brilliance of them as characters is that personality wise they’re almost complete opposites. Steve is cocky and self assured and has a bitter, occasionally cruel streak a mile wide. Johnny on the other hand, is unsure, quiet, and deeply kind. These differences are what people seem to focus on the most when discussing these characters, but as characters they’re actually INCREDIBLY similar.

Both of them are the members of the gang with the worst home lives, coming from downright abusive situations- yes, Dallas had a shit dad, but at the time of the book it’s established he’s living by himself at Buck’s, he’s made himself an adult and as such his home life doesn’t foil Johnny’s, not really. Steve on the other hand, still lives at home but gets kicked out every other week, and ends up crashing at the Curtis place or anywhere else he can find. His mother is deliberately never mentioned, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions, but it’s clear Steve doesn’t have much of a relationship with her. Either she’s a doormat who doesn’t defend him when his dad is hollering or maybe even beating him around, or she isn’t around at all and she left him with his dad. Either way, Steve has an abusive father (EVEN if it isn’t physical it is DEFINITELY psychological and emotional) and a neglectful mother. We have even more backstory for Johnny whose mother is an emotionally abusive ‘selfish slob’ and whose father beats him viciously. Of all the gang, their backstories and home life are the most similar, and their characters have been shaped by it as a result. (The way Steve is sometimes vilified in this fandom for his very real responses to childhood trauma and abuse, while Johnny is universally pitied is a whole other essay so I’ll save if for another day.)

Ponyboy even says as much early on in the book;

“Johnny was high-strung anyway, a nervous wreck from getting belted every time he turned around and from hearing his parents fight all the time. Living in those conditions might have turned someone else rebellious and bitter; it was killing Johnny.”

Rebellious and bitter, huh? Sounds like Steve Randle to me. His presence in the book is to show what kids in Johnny’s situation but without Johnny’s kindness turn into. Yes, Dally foils him a bit in this regard too, but I think Steve is a better, more in your face example of it. Their are other pieces in the book too, that highlight Steve and Johnny’s similar upbringing and the effects it has had on them, without directly calling them out as foiling characters, such as the fact they’re the two members of the gang who Pony calls out as examples when he’s talking about starting smoking young (woohoo nicotine as a coping mechanism am I right?);

“Johnny had been smoking since he was nine; Steve started at eleven.”

Here, the linking of their names even in what Pony views as an innocuous thing- smoking isn’t a big deal to him- forces us as readers to think about why they started. Knowing that smoking is used by the greasers as a tool to help them calm down reminds us that at their core these characters aren’t so different, and they likely felt the need for nicotine to deal with horrible experiences Pony never had to. Ponyboy smokes a lot, and he started young too, but whatever his catalyst was, it wasn’t the same as Johnny or Steve’s.

Yet another attribute that links them as characters is their fierce independence. Johnny is young, and the gang is protective of him, but as his core he is incredibly self sufficient because he has to be. He finds himself places to sleep, is forced to provide himself with food, and prior to being jumped was fine walking by himself. Steve works for a living, and much like Johnny, he too has to find himself a place to sleep and food to eat on the nights where he isn’t safe to be at home. Both Steve and Johnny are also incredibly protective in their own ways, especially of their more ‘innocent’ best friends (Soda is less innocent than Pony by a long shot, but he is still used to a modicum of security that Steve isn’t.) Steve gets angry at Ponyboy on Soda’s behalf when he asks about Sandy, even though Pony had no way of knowing what happened. Johnny kills Bob for Pony and looks out for him a whole lot in the church, then later sacrifices himself when he pushes Pony out of the fire. To their buddies, their main ‘safe’ zones, both Steve and Johnny are ride or die.

Finally, an important scene that rounds out my analysis of them as foils, is when Dally dies and Steve breaks down crying.

“Steve stumbled forward with a sob, but Soda caught him by the shoulders.”

Here we see Steve Randle pushed to his limit- and Steve’s breaking point leads to tears, whereas Johnny’s breaking point pushed him to kill Bob. There’s a subversion of their roles here, where the usually cold, bitter, hateful Steve shows a sensitive side, and quiet little Johnny Cade gets rough and cold. To me, this just shows once again, how they’re very similar characters, with similar trauma, that has simply shaped them differently and made them tough in different ways. Steve, with bravado, craving a fight all the time because he can’t fight the helplessness or the feelings of being stuck; Johnny, resigned to his lot in life and tough because of it, seeking out love when he knows he will never find it where he wants it; but at their cores the both of them are battered, lonely kids who were forced to grow up way too fast.

#the outsiders #johnny cade #steve randle #ponyboy curtis #dally winston #sodapop curtis

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azuretl · 24 hours

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Random Tsubakino rambling here…

A lot of people have been talking about Tsubakino and his pronouns since my last post. Thank you for loving him and respecting what he wants to be called!

But I think I need to clarify something…

His pronouns in the English translation are he/him. That’s what we were told by the manga editorial team. Editorial does not always reach out to tell the localization team HOW to address a character, and we’re incredibly lucky we got an answer. Just an FYI, I asked the project manager to talk to editorial literally months before we got an answer—it’s really rare that they get involved with things like this. I also asked the project manager if there were any additional notes or memos so I could get more insight on why Tsubakino uses he/him, and the answer I got was: no. The comment we got back was just “he/him.” Which I assume means the rest about this character is up to interpretation.

That might be why other language translations didn’t get the same memo. Localization and publishing might have also been done under a different umbrella and editorial couldn’t reach out to them? I wouldn’t know. So the localizers did their best and used their best judgement to address the characters(is what I think happened).

Tsubakino is a multifaceted character. He’s very complex and I wouldn’t blame ANYONE for thinking his pronouns may be she/her, he/him or they/them. And although editorial told us to use he/him, I honestly think, as a fan of the series, that Tsubakino wouldn’t have minded if someone else addressed him with a different pronoun as long as it’s not out of malice. He loves without borders or labels and that’s why we should treat him with the same respect.

That being said, there is definitely a part in the manga where Shizuka says that she sees Tsubakino as a sister. That can be taken in all kinds of different ways, like how a tomboy girl can be treated like a “bro” with the boys, or how I call my gay friend my sister. It’s an open-ended, boundless potential of what Tsubakino is as a person and proof of just how close and loving the two characters are for each other.

In my mind, Tsubakino is a symbol for everyone and anyone who just wants to love what they love. He can be anything you view him as because what’s important aren’t his labels but his boundless love. It’s important to keep in mind what he represents and not just what’s on the surface. Wasn’t that the lesson he was teaching us from the very beginning?

After thought: I have no idea who is translating the anime and I wouldn’t be surprised if they use a different pronoun for Tsubakino if/when he appears. I don’t know if they got the same memo or got any memos at all, so please be kind when he shows up in the anime. Everyone’s interpretation of him is different and I don’t think that’s really a bad thing when represents so much for so many people.

#wind breaker #Tsubakino #manga #localization

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krystal-kade · 3 days

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You know,the worldbuilding for hazbin and helluva are interesting but at the same time,I feel a bit bored by it. Sorry,it's just it has potential and all of that but hell is just like a nighttown that you can go there and suffered no consequences. And I know helluva is a spinoff to hazbin hotel except it's just destroys the both meanings of it. Especially since hazbin is about redeeming sinners while helluva boss is just don't get mad at me but just soap opera between an elitist with a peasant. I thought helluva boss is gonna be us seeing the IMP doing their missions and encountered many different challenges on navigating a business not seeing a dramatic retelling yaoi festizhization love story of stolas and blitzo. And with hazbin,it's just I wanna see hazbin having different customers and guests and how they interact with the hotel not a literal fight with heaven of all things. What's next? Do I need to get into getting myself info a lore Livestream of Viv telling us? No,I want subtle storytelling not an Italian soap opera,ah man. Ah,now because of this I have to entertain myself with fans making fanmade comics of both helluva and hazbin hotel and I'm not complaining because let's face it,fans does it better than the creator Viv does.

Vivziepop so quickly strays from her original concepts, and it makes both shows difficult to watch. The last Helluva Boss episode that includes I.M.P. going to Earth on a mission to kill someone is episode 5, ‘Unhappy Campers,’ and that was only Millie and Moxxie. The last time the whole team went was episode 4 of season 1! Helluva Boss is now just a show about Viv’s twinks and kinks. I genuinely think I’ve seen enough of Stolas for a lifetime. There’s so much potential with a show like this, and I would have loved to see Helluva Boss explore both Hell and the Human World, but it does neither. There are so many ways this show could be executed to explore the worlds and character dynamics, but we barely even know anything about how these characters interact with each other.

Hazbin Hotel does the same thing. We have the possibility to explore Hell and Heaven, but we don’t. Hazbin Hotel is also supposed to be more about the women characters, but we know very little about Charlie, Vaggie, Niffty, or any of the other women; we instead get episodes about Husk, Alastor, Lucifer, Angel, Vox, and Val. Hazbin was supposed to be about new people coming to the hotel to learn about redemption. The only person we actually get is Sir Pentious, who doesn’t even change or learn anything about virtue and redemption. We also kind of get Cherri, but she isn’t even part of the hotel. 8 whole episodes for two official people in the hotel. I’d rather we see people coming to the hotel and learning about redemption for an entire season instead of the drama we see go down with Adam and Heaven.

Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss just move WAY too quickly. I think it’s even difficult for fans to write fanfics and comics about these characters because they have nothing to go off of. Almost none of the characters have personalities, and we don’t know how they interact with each other. However, I do think that Viv’s Hell is an interesting world. I just wish it was explored more. We’ve only see a few of the rings, met a few of the sins, and seen very little of Hell at all. I have no hope that Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss will be better shows, the only hope I have is that in 30 years, someone reboots these shows, and actually makes them good.

#hazbin hotel critical #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #anti helluva boss #anti vivziepop #anti hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel critique #helluva boss critique #vivziepop critique #answer

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the-case-book-of-fanfiction · 23 hours

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Little Love

Love Bites, Chapter 3 // Love Bites {Masterlist}

Ship: Astarion Ancunin x fem!vampire spawn!elf!Tav/reader

Summary: Appearances can be deceiving, but they can also tell you everything you need to know. A second look at the elf you once called a friend is all you need to fill in the two-hundred year gap.

Word Count: 4,631 words

Warnings: flashback within a flashback (your perspective), alcohol, Astarion's parents (I gave them my own names), grave desecration, grief

☟ Continue below the fold ☟

Astarion never went back to the same tavern twice. Not for many years, at least. But, against his better judgment, he went back to yours, three nights later.

He wasn’t sure what was drawing him back, not really. It wasn’t as if this particular tavern seemed very promising. Its patrons were, well, regular people. Nothing about them seemed particularly special. In fact, it was probably more dangerous to be going back so soon—for all Astarion knew, Rahul’s friends were still loitering there and would kill him the moment they saw the man Rahul had left the tavern with. The last man who ever saw Rahul alive.

His other victims from the past two nights were inconsequential. They hadn’t insisted on telling him their names, the male druid and female elf who had each been a little more than an hour’s worth of his time combined. They had been easy targets, lonely people who were all too easy to seduce. He almost felt bad for them. But not as bad as he felt about Rahul. Both nights, Astarion had jolted out of his trances with a shout upon hearing Rahul’s screams in his dreams again. Both times, he’d been rewarded by Godey with a whipping.

Even as he walked into the tavern, Astarion wasn’t sure what he was doing. It was only after the door had swung shut behind him, hitting a little bell as it did, and you looked over from the bar and raised a hand in greeting did he realize why he’d come back.

He locked eyes with you as he made his way toward a small table in the corner. He paused, watching you. There was something in your eyes that made the tension in his shoulders disappear.

You’d done your hair differently today. It was braided back, a couple strands of it loose around your face, clearly having escaped during your work. Your beautiful face had morphed into an expression of surprise, like you were shocked to see him here again.

But there was something else in it—the slightest bit of repressed hope, an expression Astarion had seen all too often on the faces of his victims just before they died, when they still thought he might save them from his master.

On your face, though, hope was comforting. You looked almost…relieved to see him.

Before he realized what he was doing, Astarion turned toward the bar and sat directly in front of you. He heard your breath catch in your throat and your pulse speed up and for a moment he felt a twinge of regret. You, too, would make an easy target.

You recovered quickly, however. You finished wiping down the bartop and dropped the rag into the sink. You leaned on the bartop. “What can I get you tonight, sir?”

“A glass of your finest red wine,” he says after a moment of thought.

Something minute in your face changed. You blinked too fast and hid the look in your eyes, but for a moment the façade of a bartender serving a patron disappeared. It was only a second, but was enough for the gears in Astarion’s head to start turning.

You laughed with a smile on your face. “You’re going to have to be more specific, hun. The ‘finest red wine’ changes from person to person. What kind of flavor are you going for?”

Hun. The moniker stood out in Astarion’s mind, dominating every other word you’d said. Hun, short for honey, and for some reason, he could hear the complete word in your voice: softer, gentler, loving. Not at all the way a bartender speaks to her patrons.

Only after you raised your brow did Astarion remember you’d asked him a question. He shook himself out of his head. “Oh, something full-bodied,” he said.

“Now that I can work with,” you said. You turned to search your shelves and Astarion watched you release a long breath very slowly. You wiped your palms on your pants before reaching up and sliding a bottle from its place. You presented the bottle to him. “How about this?”

Astarion studied the label and vintage. “I’ll admit, I’ve never heard of it,” he said, shrugging idly. “But if you think I’ll like it, I’m inclined to trust you.”

He watched you cut off the wax seal and uncork the bottle. You poured enough for a tasting into the glass and slid it across the bartop to him.

“How does that taste?”

Astarion sniffed the wine before swallowing it down. Pleasantly, it didn’t taste like vinegar, like most wines he’d had the bad luck to drink in tavern after tavern. He could taste the alcohol and the grapes and the blackberry undertones easily, all melding together wonderfully.

“This,” he said, passing back the glass, “is absolutely what I am looking for.”

You grinned and filled up the glass. “I thought it might be.”

Astarion swirled his glass while you re-corked the bottle and set it in ice. He watched as you helped another patron sitting at the bar, a middle-aged woman complaining about her husband being out of work and asking if there was perhaps a job for him at the tavern.

You calmed her as you made her cocktail, talking soothingly and nodding in sympathy as she complained about trying to feed their infant. It was your sympathy that made Astarion feel pity for the woman.

Something about you was achingly familiar. There were times when you spoke, certain words that you said, that struck a chord in him, simply because they sounded familiar. The way you moved behind the bar, so graceful in a space that was unbearably small, seemed comfortable to Astarion, as if he would be able to anticipate your movements and react accordingly if he were to join you behind the bar.

It was almost painful, this feeling of familiarity and alienation combining in one person. It was like the nights when Astarion first realized he was forgetting his life before being a vampire where he would sit in the dark and grasp at straws for pieces of his life, only for his mother’s face to fade into nothingness and his father’s voice to be lost in the shadows forever and—

A twinge of pain split through Astarion. It was nothing compared to the pain Cazador or Godey regularly inflicted on him, but it was enough to make him flinch anyway. He rubbed his temple as if he could will the building migraine away.

Your eyes flicked over to him, watching the motion with concern, but it just confused Astarion further. You reacted to him so readily, so easily. If it hadn’t been for how innately close and familiar you felt, Astarion would simply have chalked it up to your attraction for him. It wasn’t unlike his prey to keep a close eye on him. But he hadn’t even picked you as his victim for the night, he hadn’t even attempted to seduce you yet. This was entirely of your own accord.

You gave the woman her drink and pulled your braid over your shoulder as you helped the female tiefling Astarion had seen and considered taking back to Cazador the other day. Suddenly he was very glad he hadn’t; the disappearance of a regular might have been enough to force him out of this part of town for several months at least.

Astarion glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the tavern. He didn’t see the group Rahul had been with anywhere; perhaps they had already moved on, without a care in the world for their lost friend or comrade or what have you.

Perhaps they thought Rahul had settled into a happy life with a nice young man and would be staying here to live out his days, enjoying nights of passion and drinks at a nice tavern and playing the protector of the pretty boy elf he’d left with.

Astarion wasn’t sure if it was for his own sake or Rahul’s that he wished that such a fantasy was what they believed.

As you gave the tiefling a glass of champagne, your eyes strayed back to Astarion. He caught your glance and grinned.

“Surprised to see me still sitting here?” he teased.

You shrugged. “You were here three days ago and vanished without a trace. Forgive me if I feel like you might blow away in the wind.”

“Sometimes it feels like I might.” The words slipped out without any thought behind them. For a moment, Astarion wondered what the hell was wrong with him to dare say such a thing, but your sympathetic smile soothed him.

The talent of a well-practiced bartender, he thought. Get your patrons to loosen up, ply them for more liquor, take home more money—all by smiling and charming and flirting. From one actor to another, I must hand it to her. She’s quite good at this kind of thing.

“Wanna talk about it?” you asked, propping your head up on your hand. The movement exposed more of your cleavage, but judging from the look in your eyes, Astarion guessed that wasn’t your purpose in the movement. You genuinely wanted him to open up.

Your gaze stopped him from speaking. Your eyes were clear and focused entirely on him. You weren’t like the other bartenders he’d chatted up in the past, with their shifting eyes betraying how they were never really focused on him but instead on their tavern and the other patrons they could squeeze more coin out of.

And, what’s more, your lips formed a soft smile. Joy and love and the sun itself seemed to radiate from you and your expressive face. You looked at him the way a young woman ought to look at her betrothed, with the purity of young love, much more genuine than the pseudo-love and lust he so often saw in his victims.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Astarion whispered, unable to stop himself from asking.

You realized yourself quite suddenly. Your face dropped and Astarion wanted to beg you to look at him like that again, to apologize and say he never wanted you to stop looking at him like that—he just wanted to know why? Why had you chosen him to be the object of your affections?

Your eyes dipped to the bartop, where his fingers still held the stem of his glass. “I’m sorry,” you said softly. “You— You remind me of someone I know. Someone I miss.”

“A lover?” Astarion guessed, attempting to make it into a tease.

“More than that,” you said, your voice impossibly soft and serious. You fiddled with the strings on your corset. “He was my best friend.”

Astarion’s heart sank in his chest. “Was?”

You nodded slowly. “He died. A long, long time ago.” You shake yourself out of the sorrow that settled on you like a blanket. “You just so happen to look a lot like him. Hells, you even sound like him, just a little bit. I’m sorry if that made…this…strange. You just…sort of brought him back to me, for a moment.”

“Not at all,” Astarion said quietly. “I’m…happy to have brought you that.”

You nodded, lost in your thoughts, your eyes fixated on his. Your lower lip trembled. You sought words, but came up empty handed. All you said was, again, “You remind me of him.”

~❊~

It’s him. By the gods, it’s really him.

You kept busy for the rest of the night, watching Astarion out of the corner of your eye. For he was Astarion, you were certain of that now. Hearing his voice, smooth and suave and the same as you remembered had confirmed it for you. The moment he’d requested your finest red wine, you could hear him calling you darling, could hear your name rolling off his tongue.

He didn’t remember you, that much was obvious. Some part of you was glad he didn’t, because you weren’t sure what you would have done if he had remembered who you were. You had to focus on that gladness, or else you were going to focus on the disappointment, which made you want to sit on the floor and cry like you had when you’d first received word that he was dead—the kind of crying that left you shaking and never seemed to stop and sounded more like screams than anything else.

You were also quite certain he would not be flirting with the young elf sitting next to him if he remembered you, his best friend since birth and lover of nearly two decades.

Perhaps even more obvious than his lack of memory was how he was alive—or rather, undead, for it was quite clear he was a vampire. He was careful to hide his fangs, but the red eyes were enough for you to know, combined with the paleness of his skin and the color of the skin around his eyes. It might have been two hundred years, but you knew your lover well-enough to know he had not been quite so pale in his life.

The realization of what he was answered a question that had lingered in your mind for years, ever since you’d paid a visit to his desecrated grave. The city had explained the dug-up earth to be the vandalism of the gang that had first attacked and killed him and had assured you and the Ancunins that Astarion’s coffin had not been touched; his body remained inside.

Clearly, they had been wrong.

You glanced at Astarion. The smug, seductive, confident look on his face was that of a practiced lover, nothing like the goofy and slightly shy boy you had made love to. You wondered what happened, but knew a lot could happen in the two hundred years between now and that terrible night.

~❊~

The Ancunins walked hand-in-hand. You were just ahead of them, leading the way to their son’s grave, a plot you had chosen to keep their beautiful boy in the sun at high noon. It was far from high noon now; they had chosen to visit the grave in the night, certain they would be attacked by the Gur who had killed their boy if they were seen mourning.

It was a beautiful night, the kind of night you and Astarion would have loved. He would have held your hand and helped you to climb up to the roof, and you would have sat there for hours, cuddling and talking and admiring the stars he’d been named after. He would have told you about his day at work and played with your bracelets and rings when talking about the difficult rulings he’d made that day made him anxious all over again. He would have wrapped his cloak around your shoulders when you got cold. He would have kissed your nose when you asked to go back to the safety of the bed you shared. He would have helped you climb down and would have put you to bed, only to go stand on the balcony to stare up at the sky for a few moments more.

He loved the night, and this was the kind of night he would have wanted to have lasted forever: not so cold that you shivered instantly, but cold enough to have a chill bite in the air. Bats danced in the air and wisps of clouds moved across the moon and stars. Pale light illuminated the world in a hauntingly beautiful way. It seemed particularly cruel.

His mother trembled terribly. Already, silver tear tracks stained her cheeks. You had never seen Selwynn so frail, so scared. Even when she’d found out her son had been murdered, she hadn’t been the skeleton she was now. No, then she had been a fire, screaming and raging and demanding answers until the tears started coming. Now she was a ghost, silent and pale, her veins stark against her skin. All the life and color had drained from her in the past few days.

His father fared better, but not by much. Thesan’s eyes were sunken, his hair matted and limp, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, though he had not cried at all since he heard the news, unlike his wife. He hadn’t been resting, but then again, none of you had. More than once, your mother had stumbled across you in the night to find you in the kitchen, staring sightlessly into the dark, a glass of water held limply in your hand.

You were glad you hadn’t let them see the body. Looking at them now, you were certain it would have broken them to see their golden boy without life. It had been enough to break you; let them, at least, live out their long lives with their last memories of their son being of him alive and smiling and kissing them goodbye as he left for work.

Somewhere in the graveyard, an owl called. Another answered. Mice squeaked and scattered nearby, scurrying for shelter amongst the fallen leaves and in the shadows of tall graves.

“Where is he?” Astarion’s mother asked. Her voice was little more than a faint whisper, lost easily in the slightest breeze. Gone was the strong, operatic voice that had once sung her son to sleep when he was little. “Where’s my son?”

“Patience, darling,” Thesan said, sounding just as—if not more—tired as she.

“He’s just ahead,” you promised. You looked forward to where you knew his grave to be. Through the grey dark, you read his name on the stone and it felt wrong, like it went against the grain of your life to see him like this—a stone instead of a young man.

The three of you came to a rest before the headstone. You took a step back and let them crouch before their son. Silence fell heavily over them and the cemetery. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes; you looked down so they couldn’t see you cry. They’d seen enough of your tears.

“Astarion,” Selwynn whispered, her voice wavering. She reached out to touch the stone, tracing her son’s name carved into it with care. For a moment, she seemed to be at peace, looking at his name. It didn’t last. In moments, she crumbled with a cry that was a cross between a sob and a scream.

She keeled forward, grabbing the stone and pressing her forehead to it. She inhaled sharply and coughed on her own tears. When she finally cleared her throat, helped by her husband rubbing her back, her cries became wails that shook her entire body. The freshly turned dirt beneath her began to stain her pale grey dress.

Thesan puts an arm around his wife’s back, comforting her the only way he could, and he put his palm on the top of the stone. He began murmuring in Elvish, too low for you to hear clearly, but you caught a few words and understood he was whispering for his son to find safety in the afterlife, until he was reborn. After a moment, his broad shoulders began to shake and your heart cracked in half as you realized he was crying for the first time. His tears interrupted his speech every so often.

You wiped your tears from your eyelashes and sat on the ground. You hugged your legs to your chest, biting your lip so hard you drew blood to keep yourself from crying again.

His father looked up at the starry sky, a fist raised in anger. “He’s still a child!” he shouted. “A child! And he’s in the godsdamned ground!”

A sharp cry came from Astarion’s mother and she got to her feet so quickly she knocked her husband to the ground. She looked at you and you rose from where you sat.

“I can’t stay here,” she gasped through tears. “He’s beneath me. I can’t— He— He shouldn’t be… He should be in my arms! In your arms! But he’s beneath me!”

She looked at the ground like she might start digging it up to see her little boy again. You took her hands in hers, holding her tightly.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to stay. You can go. It’s okay. He’ll understand. He knows, I promise you he knows,” you whispered. A tear rolled down your cheek.

Selwynn squeezed her eyes shut. “I just want him to be okay…”

“He is okay,” you promised. “He is with the gods. They’ll send him back to us, one day, in a new body.”

Her lower lip trembled. “But he won’t be my son anymore.”

“There can always be more children,” Thesan started, speaking hesitantly.

“No!” she snapped, almost screamed, at him. She drew in a deep breath and shook her head. Calmer, she repeated, “No.”

He nodded. “I thought not.” He wrapped her in his arms and she cried into his chest. He opened his arm to you and you joined them in their hug. “You are still our daughter, even if you are not marrying our son. You are…the only family we have left.”

A small sob escaped you. Your body trembled as you looked up at him; you had always thought Astarion resembled his mother more, but now all you could see was the man Astarion would never get to be in his father’s face. “Thank you.”

He kissed his wife’s hair. “Come, darling. We should get home. You need to rest.”

You led them out of the cemetery. It was only after you were closing the gate leading into it that Selwynn stopped short, gasping loudly.

“Flowers! I— I forgot to put flowers on his grave,” she moaned, folding her hands above her heart. She glanced at the flowers outside the gate door. “I have to go back—”

“I’ll do it,” you said. “Get some rest. You need it. You deserve it, after all of this.”

“He deserves flowers from his mother,” she said weakly.

“In the morning,” Thesan said. “When all of this has died down, we can come back and pay him our respects.”

You shared a look of understanding with him; even if it took weeks, months, years for Baldur’s Gate to stop reeling from this crime and for the Gur to calm down from the ruling—which was being reversed later in the week, much to the relief of everyone else who the Gur had believed complicit in Astarion’s actions and who had feared for their own lives—the Ancunins would visit their son again to say farewell when they could finally do so in peace.

You watched them go. Several long, silent minutes passed, but you waited until they were out of your sight and you were alone before you bent to pick flowers for your lover. You chose them carefully, plucking only the most vibrant and tallest and fullest for him. Once you had a sizable bouquet of wildflowers in your hand, you headed back through the cemetery and search out Astarion’s headstone again. You found it easily, but your heart stopped beating when you saw it.

Something was wrong. You knew it instantly. The already chill air seemed to turn frigid as you looked at the plot. It was too dark, too big, spilling into the spaces next to it. It looked nothing like it did only minutes ago.

An iron tang filled your nose, distinct and wrong and laced with something you could only describe as evil.

You ran, dodging around headstones to get to the grave—to get to Astarion—as fast as possible.

I couldn’t protect him that night. I have to protect him now!

Mud squelched beneath your feet, smelling strongly of blood and death. You looked at it in horror; it was a mix of dirt and gravel and clay from deep in the earth, all of it soaked in blood. All of it in piles, coming from the center of Astarion’s grave.

The smell was worse than the sight: chemicals of entombment, the body’s natural gasses, blood, vomit, sweat, urine. Something about it seemed alcoholic and heady, making you sway on your feet, though you knew that could easily just be from your disgust.

But worst of all, his stone was splattered with the terrible mixture.

Your stomach dropped to your feet and then rose to your throat. You cupped a hand over your mouth to keep back your bile. Tears streamed down your face.

A moment. You had been gone only a moment. And in that time, someone—or multiple someones—had come and desecrated your lover’s grave, as if killing him had been enough.

You fell to your knees with a gut-wrenching scream. You bent in half, clutching the flowers to your chest, clenching your teeth tightly. You bit down on your hand to keep from screaming again.

Muffled sobs ripped themselves from your chest. “Astarion,” you gasped. “Astarion, I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry! I— I— I’ll fix this! I promise! I’ll…I’ll speak to the town’s jury, I’ll get them to punish whoever did it— Gods, your grave. Your beautiful stone…”

Mindlessly, you put the flowers aside. You stepped around the muddy mess of chopped up dirt and pulled out your handkerchief. You cleaned the stone with it as best as you could, using your fingers and spit when the cloth was too dirty to do anything else but push the gunk around.

“There,” you said when it was as clean as you could get it. “Clean. Clean like you.”

You looked at the turned grave dirt. “I have to fix this, too. Your parents—I can’t let them see you like this, can I? They’ll be devastated.”

You got back on your knees and began shoving the dirt back over the grave, patting it back down and drenching your hands and arms with bloody dirt. As you worked, you spoke to him: “I’ll get this all sorted out in the morning, love, I promise. I’ll get you justice. I won’t stand for this, Astarion. I’ll talk to someone first thing tomorrow morning. They’ve already killed you, can’t they just leave you be? Is dying not enough for—for a simple ruling? Yes, I admit, it wasn’t the best decision you could have made, but there had to be a better solution than…than mugging you in a godsdamned alleyway and then desecrating your grave! At the very least, if they can’t respect you, can’t they have some respect for your parents? For me? Your mother doesn’t deserve this endless pain!” You sighed, leaning back and wiping your forehead. Some part of you, the rational part, was aware that you had streaked blood and dirt all over yourself, but the part of you working didn’t care very much. “Of course, I can’t make you too pretty yet, Astarion. I’m sorry, but no one will believe me if I fix you up perfectly. But I can at least make it look like you haven’t been graverobbed.”

You worked for several more minutes. At last, you staggered to your feet, a wave of exhaustion passing through you.

“You know what?” you said to the headstone. “I’m not waiting until morning. I’m going to go talk to someone right now. I can’t let you stay like this all night. Not when your stars are shining down on you.” Dimly, you were aware that you looked like a graverobber and that you looked insane—but that would probably help your case. “I’ll be back soon, Astarion. I promise I won’t leave you alone like this.”

You began to walk away from his stone. Only a few paces away, you paused and turned around. You stared up at the sky and pointed up at it as if you could command it to watch over your dead lover while you were gone.

Once more, you knelt to kiss his name.

☞ ❊ ☜

[Image Caption: I do not give permission to repost, translate, or publish my work on any other site or app by anyone except myself. I do not give permission for my work to be fed into AI (for audio, art, or writing).]

Baldur's Gate 3 // Astarion Ancunin

Taglist: {comment and let me know if you'd like to be added to the Astarion taglist!} @wayward-hel @cheeslyy @ofmyth-andmagicart @neetheslayer @whispering-depths @freesidexjunkie @lightsinmycity @the0ldmann @gobbodoggo @oooof-ifellforyou @beeblisss @fangboner @aquaarietes @fiercest-eigengrau-skies @niqhtfell @call-me-nyxx @lueji-m @ceres-xiv @tricksy-trinity @graynstairs @rosa-rubus @ynisthatyou @thegoodwitchs-blog @catching-fire-in-the-wind @kiyastrf94 @vincemachina @silverfangmarks @ravenswritingroom @hinata7346 @hellethil

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david-talks-sw · 7 hours

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I havent watched it yet, but I saw a lot of reports that The Acolyte promotes a lot of Jedi Order "hate" if you will. What did you think about it? As a Jedi fan, I kind of DONT want to watch it because of that.

If you ask me, it's a fine show :) it hasn't quite gripped me, the thick lightsabers that look like toys are a nitpick that keeps triggering me.

But overall it's nice!

Yes, there are some small jabs.

The Jedi in The Acolyte are really reticent towards using their lightsabers, resorting to hand-to-hand or even stun weapons.

From what I've seen on Twitter, people are speculating that this is to show how much more "good" the Jedi were back then, as opposed to the more "square, dogmatic, quick-on-the-draw Prequel Jedi," who lost their compassion and have fully detached themselves to the point of dehumanizing themselves.

Yord is clearly meant to be one of the first "Prequel Jedi" as described above.

It's played for laughs 50% of the time, but yeah. The narrative frames him as being a bit of a dick who's a bit too proud of himself. And I'm seeing reflections of Tales of the Jedi Mace Windu & what Filoni described Episode I Obi-Wan as.

Same goes for Vernestra, dogmatically insisting he return to Coruscant because "protocol" and literally shown playing politics.

I've seen folks draw a parallel between Vernestra's attitude and that scene in Episode II where Yoda and Mace agree that they can't let the Senate know their powers of foresight are waning... and yeah, people interpret that scene as the two of them playing politics.

The director commentary of Episode II states that's not the case. It's more about the fact that if they trying to keep the war from starting.

Parallels between Sol and Qui-Gon

Very evident. But again... if you ask me, Sol is just being a Jedi. Qui-Gon isn't the only one with those character traits. Look at Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace, Shaak Ti.

Finally, there's some hints that some evil shit went down years prior to the show and the Jedi were at the center of it.

I'm gonna hazard a guess that it's not as black and white as Mae or Sol makes it seem. A "big misunderstanding" type deal.

So yeah. Vernestra and Yord strike me as one-dimensional and a bit cartoonish. But overall:

Love seeing Jedi do some Kung Fu.

Love that they finally fixed how lightsaber blades look on camera.

Love the concept of a Jedi-centered detective story.

Mae and Osha are fun in different ways, but I'm kinda scared that, from their mantra, the show is gonna culminate in a "Gray Jedi is the way" kinda direction, and you know how I feel about that.

Love Qimir. And I get the feeling he's more than what he says he is, if you get my drift.

Love the acting in it, the set pieces, the production value, the way some Force powers are used (Sol with the Force speed, fuck yeah!)

Love that the title of "sith acolyte" is an actual thing now. It kinda helps us figure out what Dooku was between when he left in Dooku: Jedi Lost and his last episode in Tales of the Jedi. If I understand correctly, Sidious had an apprentice while grooming an acolyte... once the apprentice kicked the bucket, he promoted Dooku.

8/10 as far as I'm concerned.

#the acolyte

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alexanderwales · 3 days

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Pitchposting: a wayward mother's litrpg

[cw: child abandonment, bad mothers]

I came up with this idea while trying to describe a non-standard litrpg that wouldn't sell, and it gripped me enough that I've been thinking about it. Now's the time to set that idea free.

Our protagonist is a woman in her thirties or maybe forties. She's divorced with two children, but she left the children with their father. She's got all kinds of issues, and felt trapped in the marriage and her life, and overwhelmed by taking care of the kids what felt like day in and day out. I don't think the age of her children really matters that much, but they need to be old enough to play videogames.

She gets isekaied into the world of a videogame that her children most loved, the one that they had been talking to her about for years, the source of their obsession. She gets a videogame interface.

Let's start with what I find compelling about the premise: the litRPG isekai stuff is being used to examine a relationship between a mother and her child(ren). We can have some power fantasy, as a treat, but mostly we have this very firm and unique lens through which to look at the world, and we have things that we surely must want to confront, revelations about motherhood and about this specific character, whoever she ends up being. In theory, the thing we're moving toward is a synthesis where we have excised the tension.

So, some questions that pop out to me:

How many children does this woman have? I don't know that it matters all that much, but where you have multiple characters who fulfil the same role, it's almost always better to condense them down. The flip side to this is there's maybe less to explore, and I think there's a different tenor to a single child and what we must assume is true of the character.

Does it have to be a woman? Is there not as much meat on the bone if it's a father who left his children? I think that this could also work, certainly, the reason it was initially a mother instead of a father was that I was trying to pick a protagonist that would lose as much RoyalRoad audience as quickly as possible while still being technically in the litRPG genre. (There are obviously different stereotypes about men and women. I kind of think the central idea of "your mom gets isekaied into that game you were obsessed with and she never really understood" probably hits right for more people, but I don't know.)

What kind of game? Alright, yeah, fair. The main point of the idea is that it's a game the mother is only passingly familiar with. Maybe she went so far as to throw a themed birthday party at one point, but she does not understand it, and maybe over the course of the story, gradually comes to understand (though really, understanding her child(ren) through the game is the main point). I'm thinking some kind of JRPG. Definitely better if it's a game with a story.

Should this game be real? Another interesting question! If the game is a real game, say FF7, then we can assume that the reader knows things, and there can be dramatic irony. If we invent a game, then we have a lot more control over what the game is, and can stay in the mother character's head better as we're in mutual ignorance.

Okay, I think those are all the most salient questions, time to stop workshopping this. I have more ideas than I have time to write novels. Thanks @thewadapan for the idea of pitchposting.

#writing #litrpg #pitchposting

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cherikdogfood · 2 days

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Mutant!Erik and Human!Charles

A sneak peek of my fic for #cherikweek2024 4th of June, because I don't think I can post it on time (it's long okay T-T):

***

Erik Lehnsherr, better known as "Magneto", was the leader of the Brotherhood, a non-profit organization that advocated for Mutant Rights. Magneto's fancy cape, public stunts, and grand speeches about mutant powers (read: mutant supremacy) made him a well-known public figure. Mutants loved him, while humans liked and hated him in equal measure.

The humans' opinions of him did not matter, of course, because Erik knew he was doing this for his people -- for mutants like him who had once been too scared to be themselves.

But everything changed when he met Charles.

Charles, who was very much human and yet very loving and kind. Charles, who had opened a school and sanctuary for mutants, teaching them with patience and so much care. Charles, who looked at the displays of his power in amazement instead of fear. Charles, who said "there is more to you than you know" and "you're not alone".

It took three years of careful courting and wooing and dating and working through their differences, but the result was oh so worth it. Erik and Charles got married in New York, with Erik's mother, Edie, and Charles' shapeshifter sister, Raven, celebrating with them.

Life after marriage was still the same, if not better. Erik loved waking up next to Charles, fluffy brown hair in disarray, and Erik enjoyed using his powers to bring his husband breakfast in bed ("You're such a show-off it's embarrassing, Erik," Emma had said).

Life was simply wonderful.

Of course, Erik was still the Leader of the Brotherhood, even though Charles sometimes disagreed with his methods or speeches, the two of them were accustomed to their ideological debates over chess. No matter how big the fight between them became, they always, always returned into each others' arms.

Of course, since Erik (or Magneto) was a public figure, he knew that the media could be a dangerous enemy, so he always made sure to keep his private life private. However, there were bound to be... slip-ups.

***

#cherik #cherikweek2024 #cherik week 2024 #made by cherikdogfood #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #mutant!erik #human!charles

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rebuke-me · 3 days

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actually sorry i'm making this a separate post too so i can put it in the tag and itll show up. if u read my reblog on my previous post its literally just the same material sorry.

long post of my analysis of gender, tropes, and the musical be more chill ahead

so. i'm going to start with the wider overarching ideas of teen romcoms. im mostly thinking the mean girls/princess diaries/that sort of movie. early 2000s kind of cheesy kind of problematic at points but still having that nostalgia.

in most of these sort of movies, theres a very structured plot. the lead girl is an outcast, a weirdo. she's either childish or unattractive or a nerd or a loner. she frequently has a best friend (or a few) who are somehow more of insert "undesirable" trait here. usually, this best friend is also more eccentric, more outwardly strange, rejects the idea of the popularity.

the lead girl also has a crush on a guy who's unattainable, he's interesting to her, she's never talked to him a day in her life but she swoons over him. she's in love with the idea of A Boy. (and frequently, the guy has caught the attention of a popular girl who functions as her rival, whos prettier, and better liked, and has more of the traits the main girl desires.) she sees her male crush with the popular girl and loses hope.

the lead girl gets a chance to change her life- maybe she's noticed by a popular girl- who offers her a chance to be something else for seemingly arbitrary reasons. through this, she gets a makeover, a way to be as pretty as the girl shes a rival of. she also lies or embellishes herself to be attractive to people around her, especially the guy she likes.

the girl climbs the social ladder, she gains the attention of the popular boys and the romance she's been craving. she's desirable now. (and sometimes shes desirable in ways that aren't good for her, sometimes shes used as a way to show off or make people jealous, not for her, but for what she's become). she goes to a party that goes horribly wrong. her quirky weird best friend blows up at her.

the main girl also sees the intricacies of people she's never thought to have flaws, to have issues. even the girl who she's competing over a guy with. she realizes that idealizing people who are just like her, deep down, doesn't work. she hits rock bottom, loses everything, and then has to forcefully gain it back, make things right, and then she gets the guy at the end.

every single one of those plot points happens in be more chill, but everything is genderflipped. the main girl becomes jeremy, an insecure guy, making the narrative more about toxic masculinity than toxic femininity. the insults are about jeremy's looks, yes, but more prominently about his sexuality- something that men are traditionally a lot more insecure about than women, in most cases. he's a hopeless romantic. he's insecure. he's awkward and anxious. he's all the traits of a traditional teen movie romcom protagonist, but male.

the quirky girl best friend becomes michael, whos the outgoing, exuberant, eccentric friend. he's at a different place in his life than jeremy, whos fixated on popularity. he gets upset when his friend changes and leaves him behind.

the Male Love Interest becomes christine- unattainable but excitable. she's more than just a hunk for the main lead to be attracted to, but she serves the purpose of getting jeremy out of his comfort zone.

the popular girls become two separate archetypes of maleness, with jake and rich. jake takes on the romantic lead- popular, cool, athletic, effortlessly attractive, and the rival of the lead for the romantic attraction of the love interest. he's still operating under toxic masculinity. he lashes out with anger, he's not kind at times, he's seen as unintelligent.

rich takes on the almost gretchen-weiners-esque "popular girl" role. he's still popular and cool, but he's almost trying too hard. he's just as angry and aggressive, he's trying hard to be something he's not. he's also the one whos an analog for queerness, which is an interesting flip- think the "its like you're in love with me or something" bit from mean girls. he's the one who offers jeremy a chance for something different, a do-over.

the squip, while not a direct analog for anything in traditional romcom movies (since its kind of a nebulous. scifi concept) stands in for the literal themes of these sorts of stories. its toxic masculinity, its popularity, its the voice in your head telling you to tear others down, to pry out information, to push your way to the top.

the popular girls are particularly interesting, because as individuals, they kind of mess around with everything a bit. while everything else has been pretty cut and dry, they're all a mix of a bunch of things. they serve the roles of the popular guys in these sorts of scenarios while being very stereotypically feminine.

chloe is the mean girl, the leader of the pack. in teen movies, she'd be the star quarterback, the ex of the romantic rival, the one who is the peak of toxic masculinity- which the musical flips to make about toxic femininity with her (and brooke.)

the next paragraph is going to talk about Do You Wanna Hang and touch on SA, if you don't want to read it, skip to the next italicized section.

chloe also functions as something all too common in teen movies. she pushes jeremy into a sexual encounter he doesn't want to be in. she's not even interesting in him, as a person, but him as an object, something usually reserved for women in fiction. she does it as a power play, a way to get back at other people. she attacks his looks, his attitude, and this is when the downsides of "being popular" start to reveal themselves. (side note, this is an INCREDIBLY problematic trope to me, especially in its original form, because it enhances the idea of "if youre attractive you want this" type deal. a what were you wearing sort of attitude towards sexual assault. instead of treating it like a tragedy, its almost a status symbol.) and because the main character is a male- its never addressed further. its brought up in a singular line between the popular "guy" stand-ins.

i am done talking about this topic you're safe now

brooke is also intriguing, because shes one of the only characters in this concept that doesn't seem to have a direct parallel. if i'd have to give her something, i'd probably mark her down as the male sidekick to the popular guy, the one who doesn't get anything other than being the best friend. but she does get something, by virtue of her being a girl now. she's a viable love interest, or at least a status symbol.

jenna falls into a similar category to me- a character who only serves to bolster the reputation of the main character. she takes on the role of information spreader, which is a traditionally feminine role.

i could also talk about how i think that its interesting that while most of the actions in be more chill that are given to people of opposite genders (e.g. romantic rival, call to popularity, quirky best friend, the Do You Wanna Hang problem) the MOTIVATIONS for the actions are still aligning with the gender of the characters. like, rather than the gender of the original trope. if that makes sense.

anyways i scrolled back and realized i had like 10 paragraphs im gonna stop now but. yeah. gender in bmc is fascinating to me

#be more chill #bmc #jeremy heere #jake dillinger #michael mell #christine canigula #rich goranski #jenna rolan #brooke lohst #chloe valentine #media analysis #bmc analysis

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