#this fandom has been up in arms since day one about the pocs in the show | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

palmett-hoes · 3 years

Text

i said in this post that i have original characters and backstories for neil's extended family. it took me,, a really long time to write it all down. it's been a full month since the original post, and this is still just a run through of things, not full prose, which i might be interested in doing one day but not anytime soon

now, some things to note about what i'm writing, why, and how. methodology, basically. this might not have come through yet in my posts, because i just don't post about my half-finished ideas, but i research a LOT. i like to base what i write about on real life, even if it's just headcanons and fanfic

also, i love helping people with research, so if anyone wants help with research for a fic or just their personal headcanons or anything hit me up!!

as a white person who wants to write characters from different ethnic backgrounds, i feel i have a responsibility to really do my due diligence and research as much as possible to consider things from every angle. and part of that for me is making sure that every character of color has a backstory. they don't just appear somewhere, i have to give them a reason for being there and a story for how they got there, even if that's not what i write their STORY about. people, come from places, basically. i follow a lot of demographic census information and population averages, as well as a lot of history, from as general as transatlantic trade in the last 500 years to as specific as the changes in a single city in a certain year

talking to other writers in the fandom i know i'm a little overzealous, but this is what gives me peace of mind to feel like i am putting the effort in to get things right

so anyway, as for what that means here:

i like writing neil as mixed black/jewish. it works well thematically for his character, as well as just what FEELS right for how i visualize him in my head

only, that can't simply come from nowhere. we know who his parents are. they need to also be poc for neil to be one, and they're a complicated pair to handle in that lens

one choice i made about that, for multiple reasons, is that everything about neil's parents' backgrounds should mirror each other. it can't simply be that one if them is black and one is jewish, or even that mary is both and nathan is white, because that says something i don't want to say any way you slice it. additionally, i want both facets of his ethnicity to be important to neil, and i feel as though he would want to ignore the half of himself from his father.

so: they both have to be mixed, giving them a sort of,, ideological equal footing, as it were. that way, i can also write three different experiences, rather than accidentally implying that This is what being black is, or This is what being jewish is, or This is what being mixed is. and that's also important to me, even if it's just in my head or not even directly addressed. it's still a big consideration of mine anytime i write about any of them

now, finally, onto mary and nathan! i'll put it below a cut because this is already long enough, the under-the-cut is much longer, and i don't want to wear out your thumbs if you don't care

mary hatford

canon timeline, neil was born in 1988. as a tentative number let's say mary was around 30 when he was born, meaning she would be born in the 50s. say her parents were roughly the same age, so they were born around the 20s

like i said, what's happening where in history is very important to me for building these backstories, and major historical events tend to have a lot of influence on population shifts. and well,, jews and europeans in the early-to-mid 20th century? there's no getting around involving world war II. nothing explicit, but it is mentioned and part of the story

mary’s paternal family are the hatfords. they're from the british west indies, largely jamaica, but they've been involved with shipping and trade all over the trans-atlantic region for generations.

they have a complicated relationship with the british empire, having both worked for them and against them at various points, sometimes both at once. similarly, they've tried multiple times through the generations to relocate the family to england permanently, but have been turned away or pressured out

they associate england and the british empire with power, and they both disagree with and desire that power in degrees which vary person to person. they do have a general idea between them though that living in england is a sign of status and authenticity, and while they don't want to leave jamaica permanently they do want their center of power to be in england, and there is a deep resentment against the anglos for not allowing them to stay permanently despite their wealth and influence, the fact that their work will always be looked down on and seen as lesser

i did come into building the hatfords with the primary idea of them being black british, and looking into the organized crime connection second. them being jamaican/west indies is a reference to the jamaican posse, who have a large presence in the london crime scene, although that's really the only connection. the hatfords aren't really yardies in any sense

the hatfords' status as organized crime is a little iffy. mostly they skirt the line between legal and illegal, owning legal trading companies and doing plenty of legal shipping. their main business in the criminal underworld is being middlemen moving supplies for other groups. they have a lot of contacts, and they serve an invaluable role in international smuggling, but they rarely get their own hands dirty. they move things from one place to the other and don't question too much what it is, though they don't deal in people

mary's father is named samuel hatford (first name in reference to samuel bellamy, the gentleman pirate king of the early 18th century). he was born in England, raised largely in Jamaica, then moved back to England as a teenager/young man. he's light-hearted and a bit idealistic for someone from a crime family, seeing the best in people even when they're cold and often believing in principle over profit, which at times put him in conflict with what's best for business

he almost enlisted in world war II, but instead convinced the family to work as weapons and supplies runners supporting the Allies and guerilla resistance groups

mary's mother is named cima ben nahman (ladino/judeo-spanish/sephardic names, doesn't really reference anything or anyone in particular). She's is an algerian jew. Born in algeria (city undecided, though algiers had the largest jewish community at the time), she moved to france for a few years as a young woman, probably for education. she joined anti-fascist organizations which became resistance groups once germany invaded

she's stoic, and has a ruthless mind for strategy. like most algerian jews, she's caught between her home country and its colonizer. the french empire played the algerian muslim majority against the jewish minority as a way to create infighting and distract the algerians from uniting and turning against them, but the algerian jews also then became reliant on the french for protection. (it's a really, really complicated situation)

cima sort of hates them both, both algeria and france. her only allegiance is to being jewish

(contrast this to samuel, who feels that he is BOTH british and caribbean, even when those two identities may be in conflict)

cima and samuel met when samuel provided weapons and supplies to cima's militia group. he took particular interest in them and went out of his way to help, above and beyond the other groups the hatfords were supplying

in the waning period of the war, cima was seriously injured, i'm currently thinking a land mine accident. she survived, but her recovery was slow. she lost an arm and had burns across half her torso, neck, and face. samuel brought her to england supported her through her recovery. in the hospital, they spoke a lot about why they each chose to fight, and the ways they did because neither were formal soldiers fighting for a country. samuel was in many ways fighting for an ideal, while cima was fighting for her people. cima also talked to him a lot about judaism and religion during this time, which samuel took an interest in. eventually, cima decided to stay

they got married. samuel converted, which was somewhat controversial with his family. however, cima agreed to join the family business, where she became an integral but sometimes ruthless member. after algerian independence, she brought some of her trusted family and community into the fold as well, some moving to england and others to france

both cima and samuel believed very heavily in responsibility, though what it meant for each of them was different. cima believed in preparedness and follow-through, samuel believed in family and protection, doing what's right outside of the bounds of the law. this contributed a lot to how they raised their children

when they were born, mary and stuart were raised in england (and i like to think they have an oldest brother). the hatfords were a big family, and influential, although careful about balancing the legal and less-legal sides of their business. the ben nahmans were smaller, and most of them were in france so mary and her brothers saw them less often. they were raised very religiously and culturally jewish, though close with the caribbean side of their family too, as well as being the first generation who were born and raised in england. this put them at a cross-section of three very different cultures, and was where mary first learned about changing and blending in with different groups

mary was the youngest and a little bit spoiled by her father, aunties, and uncles. her mother however was much less tolerant of her. clearly very affected by her time in the war, cima became extremely distrustful and suspicious, and tried to instill in her children a similar sentiment of secrecy and self-sufficiency, avoiding attention and casual relationships. she could be harsh on them, especially mary, who was the most resistant to this

growing up, mary was irresponsible and fun-loving, goading her brothers and cousins, getting in trouble, and starting fights. she didn't understand the tenuous balance of being organized crime, and at times put the whole family at risk by overestimating their sway. her mistakes affected the whole family but it was usually her mother who confronted her about them first and most harshly

she resented her mother's control, and didn't understand the reasons behind it. she also couldn't differentiate between the boundaries her mother sets as a result of her own trauma, and the necessary boundaries she set for the safety of the family, viewing them as one and the same, and leading her to hate any kind of control exerted over her

really, a lot of cima's character is just who mary ends up becoming after being married to nathan and being on the run. i like the story of a child becoming the parent they once hated. rather than learn from her mother, both her failures and her successes, mary becomes her, doomed to make the same mistakes. this is also why cima is wounded by a landmine, because mary dies in fire

---

nathan wesninski

nathan was HARD to come up with a story for, mostly because,,, WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS GUY WORK FOR THE JAPANESE YAKUZA

wesninski is a VERY polish name. the japanese-polish connection is,, not super strong

so anyway, working off the idea of the wesninski family being a polish jewish one, WHERE is he going to meet a japanese crimelord to get into a multi-generation debt/business arrangement with?

turns out, the answer is brazil

brazil actually has a large jewish population (roughly 10th largest in the world). it began with its colonization by the portuguese, but the 19th century to modern population largely comes from central and eastern europe. brazil ALSO has the largest japanese population outside of japan

also this story ended up being WAY more detailed and prosaic than samuel&cima's story, which is basically just bullet points. there's no reason for this i love both stories very much just for some reason the words flowed for me here and not there

to avoid having a second jewish story where wwII is prominent, the wesninskis get a page out of my own family's book: nathan's grandfather (neil's great grandfather) came to the americas fleeing the russian pograms around the turn of the 20th century

Wesninski came to brazil (city undecided, have a lot more research to do about individual cities in brazil). he had waardenburg syndrome(a hereditary genetic condition that can affect eyes and hearing) which runs very strongly in his family (his son, nathan, and neil will all inherit it), and he is completely Deaf. while he came to brazil alone, in his new home he connected both with the local jewish community and the local deaf community, and eventually marries another Deaf Jewish woman

eventually they were able to establish a kosher deli and restaurant in the city, one which became a common hangout for the Deaf community. then one day (probably around 1915), a group of japanese men came in, and kept returning

these were the moriyamas, recently arrived from japan, in a place with very few japanese people and businesses. they liked the wesninski deli because they didn't share a language with anyone in there, couldn't even be heard by most of them, and it would also be difficult for the authorities to question them. two layers of protection for a crime family in a vulnerable place

wesninski and the moriyamas were amicable to each other, but as they didn't actually have a way to communicate that was the extent of it. but the moriyamas were polite and payed well and didn't bother the other customers. als, as a jewish establishment, they had a lot of education resources, which were helpful to the moriyamas in learning about brazilian society, including beginning to understand portuguese

now, in japan, the moriyamas were a small yakuza family. they got driven out by their bigger and stronger and more established competition around the time when japanese immigration to brazil was just starting, so that was where they went. though they had little option in where they ended up, they also had little competition in establishing their business

i still have a lot of research to do about the moriyamas. about both how the yakuza operate and about how brazilian organized crime works, and about life in brazil for early japanese immigrants. so a lot of the moriyama details are pretty vague

now the wesninskis had a son, meyer (nathan's father. name in reference to meyer lansky, famous american jewish mobster of polish descent) who was around 14 when the moriyamas arrived. he himself was not fully deaf like his parents, though was hard of hearing and raised in the Deaf community. as he goes through his rebellious teenage years, well, the gangsters are right there

in the early days the moriyamas were still more concerned with mostly the japanese enclaves, but they had aspirations of expanding. meyer wasn't japanese, but he was helpful to the moriyamas who came into the deli to study. he was perceptive and bold, could keep a secret, knew his way around knives from working in the deli, and knew the city. he was a good asset to them, and he was interested in causing some trouble

over the next ten years or so, meyer got increasingly more involved, alongside the moriyamas becoming increasingly more established throughout the city. he goes from someone who helps out occasionally and relays information beyween parties to getting involved with minor shakedowns, bribery, evidence disposal. by the time he's in his 20s he's thoroughly enmeshed

his parents were older when they had him, and his father died relatively young, leaving meyer the store and his mother to take care of. they were vaguely aware of his connections to the moriyamas and didn't approve of what he did with them but he also kept the worst from them, and was always a diligent son, and the only one they had. he assured them no matter how far he went that he wasn't "really" part of the gang

"yakuza have tattoos, and see, ima? no tattoos. i'm still a good jewish son, not a gangster"

now the problem arises when meyer falls for camara da machado, a young Deaf woman who frequents the store

(based on/inspired by/FC yaya dacosta (where the name comes from) and rutina wesley)

she was a Deaf girl born to a hearing family who struggled to give her the support she needed, maybe even just a single mother, and she'd spent a lot of time alone at the deli from a young age (12-ish?). she was shy and quiet and a little bit of a shrinking violet, but the wesninskis became very fond of her. she started tentatively helping them out around the store which became a job. she was often included in family meals and holidays, and always had a bed in their apartment above the deli if she needed one, and more than once had helped patch meyer up after he got in trouble to hide the extent of it from his parents

she was a couple years younger than him but he'd always been sweet on her. and she'd had a crush on him from basically the moment she'd layed eyes on him. they'd known each for years and camara was basically family, and then one day when they were both in their 20s it just suddenly clicked for them

so meyer and camara fell in love. meyer was head of the house, had to keep the deli running, and had his mother, camara, and possibly camara's mother (undecided at this juncture) to worry about and he decided he didn't want to continue working with the moriyamas in case it dragged his family into danger. being a gangster was a fling of youth and he was ready to grow up

when he informed the moriyamas of this though, they,,, did not agree.

while MEYER might not have considered himself part of the gang, THEY didn't think he just got to walk away. he'd worked with them for too long and knew too much. there might even have been a desire to tie him to the family permanently through marriage. and well,, one man against a growing criminal empire can't do much

it was a huge shock to him, and made him truly realize how naive and reckless he'd been. he'd been a dumb kid who wanted to start some trouble, the moriyamas were career criminals. they expected that once you were in, you were in for life, and they did not take kindly to meyer disagreeing with this

he didn't know how to explain this to his family... so he didn't. they'd all told him they wanted him to stop, but he'd meant for the announcement to be a surprise. after learning that he would not be permitted to walk away, he chose to just hide it and continue with business as usual

it worked for a while, maybe a few years, a time during which the moriyamas were getting a lot more brutal as they got more established and increasingly looked to expand, putting them in competition with other gangs and greater law enforcement, until they were a true crime empire spread across whole regions of the country. meyer had lost a lot of esteem in their eyes by asking to leave, leading them to put him under increasing scrutiny and giving him more incriminating tasks, to ensure that he would be incriminated if he ever tried to turn them in. it's during this time that he first had to kill for them

then camara got pregnant

and meyer was terrified. he didn't know how the moriyamas would deal with a kid. the only marriages and children he knew of within the family were endorsed by the boss, many arranged by him, and he knew his wouldn't be approved. yakuza wives were heavily involved with the business too, and he absolutely did not want that for camara

he broke down and told her everything. she's horrified, and furious that he kept it from her, but she didn't want to give up her baby. it would be hard, but she believed they can keep it hidden, and if the moriyamas found out, maybe it wouln't be so bad?

(spoiler: it would)

they have a son, born natan da machado, under his mother's name

meyer and camara never got married. meyer was going to propose after he left the moriyamas but that obviously didn't happen. marriages were supposed to be blessed by the boss, and meyer never dared to ask. they already lived together, anyway

but with natan, they decided that meyer couldn't acknowledge him as his own. in the deli or in the streets, he didn't acknowledge natan. he was camara's bastard son, and meyer didn't want anything to do with him

it was a flimsy disguise at best. natan was mixed, but there was a strong enough resemblance to his father. even if his hair was a darker red or he had brown skin, they had the same eyes

they tried to keep him away from the moriyamas as he grew up, hoping they wouldn't see him and make the connection, but they also kept him very hidden in general, just in case. he spent a lot of time inside, with his grandmothers

and that was how natan grew up, feeling like a secret, his father cold and distant, only acknowledging him in their apartment. cut off from other kids his age. a hearing boy in a Deaf family (natan himself was HoH but still had most of his hearing. meyer and his maternal grandmother could both hear, but they had gotten out of the habit of it and mostly communicated through sign)

natan developed a deep feeling of resentment towards his father and shame about himself from a young age. he felt like a mistake, defective somehow. so wrong he had to be hidden away from everyone

there's only so long that you can hide a child, though, and when natan was around ten the moriyamas found out about him, and they were not happy.

they didn't like split attention or loyalty. they kept children and family under very tight wraps. they should be one hundred percent enmeshed in the moriyama empire, raised to be loyal and helpful in whatever way they were needed. the fact that meyer wanted and was willing to leave for this family, and then hid his son, was a huge betrayal

still, they gave him an opportunity to prove his loyalty: kill camara or the moriyamas would kill them all: her, natan, meyer, and both their mothers

but meyer couldn't do it, and instead he told camara to run and hope they didn't actually care enough to chase her down. and she did. and she couldn't take natan with her. (i haven't fully fleshed out why yet, currently thinking that meyer was given this ultimatium when they already had natan)

so camara left her son, and got away

i built the story of mary's mother as a reflection of mary's story if something had been different, and i built nathan's story the same way. his wife takes her son and runs away with him when the moriyamas try to take him from her. nathan's mother was in the same situation and left him behind

over the next forty years of his belonging to the moriyamas he gets to marinate in that resentment. from the father that ignored to the mother who ran away from him, he internalizes it as being something wrong with him, not the circumstances. the more he's taught to torture and kill and the more he excels at it, the more this belief gets cemented. he's good at killing, he was meant to kill. he's twisted and broken and wrong inside and he always was and his parents always knew

and then when it happens again but differently this time he throws away a decade and millions of dollars and his standing with his boss to hunt down his son and his wife because he didn't get to run away so why should they? why does mary love nathaniel more than camara loved natan?

from here, the exact detail's of nathan's story aren't quite solidified. whether he was raised by his father from then on or by his grandmothers (or whether his grandmothers left with his mother) or whether the moriyamas put him somewhere else entirely, but from then on he lived under the moriyamas' direct supervision, and they taught him how to turn a knife on a man

they took his mother's name from him, though, so he's natan wesninski, not natan da machado, because they own the wesninskis now

and when the moriyamas decided to expand beyond brazil when natan was a young man instead of a child, and settled on the east coast of the US, they renamed him nathan, because it sounded more "american"

---

so that's it. obviously there are still a lot of unfinished details in both stories, but they're strong enough at this point to stand on their own and i haven't changed or rethought a lot of the major details in a long time

i've become extremely attached to these OCs and their stories, and i hope they interest other people too. some day i'd like to write them out in prose properly, along with the story of nathan and mary meeting, but that'll be a while away considering the pace i move at

so until then i just wanted to put this out there

#aftg #tfc #neil josten #nathaniel wesninski #mary hatford #nathan wesninski #txt #my fics #my writing #my posts #black neil josten #jewish neil josten #cw gangs #cw organized crime #cw ww11 #cw wwII #long form post

89 notes · View notes

phantom-of-the-keurig · 3 years

Note

idk why u act like being a brown person frustrated that some media that im a fan of implied that having lighter skin is superior is me walking around angry all the time. u minimizing the feelings of poc just shows how privileged u are to not constantly be assaulted by the message of how we're inferior for our race. youre insensitive, entitled, and just an unsympathetic person towards issues of race when it involves things u like. why do u not care about poc? 🤔 or do u just care when it doesnt inconvenience u

Ooo, my first angry anon in this fandom. How nice. I’m going to try and go through this line by line so I don’t miss anything, stick with me.

idk why u act like being a brown person frustrated that some media that im a fan of implied that having lighter skin is superior is me walking around angry all the time.

Sorry, but I don’t recall saying that? From day one I have agreed the whitewashing of the bad batch isn’t cool, and it should be heavily criticized for how it stomps on POC representation within Star Wars. I did say, however, that people trying to make Galaxy Brain takes about the bad batch (ex. This show is bad because it tweaked how one specific scene in a comic went down, or this show is terrible because it makes the chipped clones seem like droids) is stupid and people should calm down a little bit. I also said that it’s okay to enjoy something while also pointing out its valid flaws, and you don’t need to strain yourself trying to reach for any petty criticism you can find when there are actual legit, real flaws we can talk about. Trying to make everything an issue takes away from the real issues (like whitewashing) and shifts the focuses from what we should be discussing / criticizing.

u minimizing the feelings of poc just shows how privileged u are to not constantly be assaulted by the message of how we're inferior for our race.

I’m trying to figure out how to answer this one without giving too much away about myself and typing too much out. I guess I’ll put it like this; please do not assume that I do not know what it is like to have my race thrown in my face and been made to feel inferior. I am indeed privileged over the rest of my family in that I’m white passing, but at the end of the day I am mixed race. I know, shocking, right?

My Mother is Mexican, her first language is Spanish, and her parents (my grandparents) were migrant workers that traveled up and down the west coast picking crops and doing labor jobs. I spoke Spanish growing up, and i used to be brown as hell when I was younger. Oh, and my first name? Yeah it ain’t white sounding at all, its Spanish as hell and I’ve never in my life met another person with my name.

With this in mind, you think when i moved to the Bible Belt as a kid I didn’t have that shit thrown in my face? You think I didn’t constantly have other kids, and their parents, make comments about my name, or ask if my Mom could speak English? You think I didn’t have to hear the teacher mumble about “that dirty beaner” under her breath? I’m super pale now because I never freaking go outside for one reason or another (depression, its hot and humid here in cornfield hell, etc.) and haven’t for over a decade but I still get shit about my name constantly. My Mom, sister, and brother are all a hell of a lot darker than me, in fact I look like the adopted white kid when I’m around them, but my mom and i sure as shit still get followed around by loss prevention when we go shopping.

Just last year I had a lawyer keep getting more and more aggressive as he demanded to know if my grandparents needed a translator, and he refused to believe me when i told him no, they could speak English just fine. Hell, there’s a client at work that only refers to me as “that little Spanish girl” and if that isn’t a little slap in the face idk what is.

So yeah my dude, I’m white passing and there is without a doubt a level of privilege that goes with that, but please do not assume to know my life, my experiences, or the experiences of my family.

youre insensitive, entitled, and just an unsympathetic person towards issues of race when it involves things u like

Now I don’t know about that friend, that’s assuming quite a lot about me? Especially when I am 100% firmly of the mindset that whitewashing and overall POC representation in Star Wars is a major problem. This is an absolutely valid criticism of Star Wars and should continue to be discussed until the creators start making an effort.

why do u not care about poc?

Again, a pretty bold assumption and one I really don’t appreciate. But I guess I’ll go let my Mom and Grandma know I no longer care about them. May as well call all my Tias and Tios and tell them to fuck off too, since tumblr said I don’t care about POC. (This is sarcasm, by the way. Just wanted to make that clear.)

or do u just care when it doesnt inconvenience u

No, I’d say I care all the time actually. Especially when they inconvenience me, because if I’m bothered by something I can’t imagine how hard it is for someone it has a real impact on.

Anyway to sum this all up, I find people getting up in arms about stupid stuff (minor changes in canon, crosshair’s chip working, etc.) is ridiculous. However, I do think it is absolutely okay to call out media for its legit flaws (whitewashing, POC representation) while still enjoying the good parts.

#I hope this clears things up anon #reply #sw salt #the bad batch

44 notes · View notes

luobingmeis · 3 years

Note

Yeah,,, as a black gay girl whos been fandom stuff since I was a kid, the weird defensiveness of white fans over "fandom culture" really makes me exhausted some days. Even if fandom was my first introduction to being queer, it still aas isolating. Like some of these people will make fun of racist "Karens" and say "Listen to poc!", but when I bring up any criticism on how Ao3 isnt a safe haven for everyone Then come the hurt tears and "Fanfiction is so important to queer people and me! How could you!". Anytime someone even alludes to a fandom fave having racist undertones or the fandom only likes them cause theyre a white boy, suddenly its a extreme attack and actually this character isnt being understood. The ENTIRE culture of being defensive over Ao3 MASSIVE underage (pedo) content, makes me sick. Being in fandom can just become so tiring, ya know?

yeah like, there is this really, really big need to defend fandom and like, that post that i reblogged really said it all, and while after being in fandom for a Very long time and having some thoughts, as a white person, my opinion isn't the one that needs to be centered and also a person of color has most likely voiced that same opinion in a much better and more valued way, and at the end of the day, no matter how conscious i try to be, i still need to be checking myself and how i deal with fandom, especially when there is criticism on something i enjoy (and also, not specifically to You anon but more so to whoever might be reading, i recommend checking out whatever i have linked here because i am more so just reiterating what others have said, and i would much rather people turn to boosted voices instead of my own)

but just from some things i've read and heard people talk abt, i once saw someone say that you can't expect fandom to be taken seriously and yet be above criticism, and i think that's what A Lot of white fans want. like, for example with fanfiction, people will go to bat for it to be considered Just As Good as published fanfiction, but then the moment someone says "hey, your biases, subconscious or not, are showing in this fic and that makes this fandom an unsafe place, you should fix that," all of a sudden it's an affront on fandom as a whole and suddenly people are getting up in arms abt censorship and how fandom is a place of Freedom and a way of Expression and like... i don't know, it's definitely exhausting and i'm sorry that this has been something that you've had to deal with

and just something that i always think abt when people talk abt fandom and what is perpetuated in it is that someone always pulls the "fiction doesn't effect reality" card and that makes me want to scream bc it's objectively wrong (to add to that, downwiththemouse on tiktok, who talks a lot abt film/media analysis, has done a couple tiktoks about things like the effect of minstrelsy/the jim crow era on american theatre and film, and they have also spoken a bit abt a lot of the racist tropes represented in film today). and yeah maybe people watch a film abt a murderer and leave that film still Knowing that murder is wrong, but this idea of "fiction does not effect reality" feels like its becoming this idea of "well the stuff i read/write doesn't actually matter so i should just be able to write whatever and not think abt the implications." i know "critical thinking" has kinda become a buzzword that people poke fun at, but at the end of the day, that questioning of "well who was this written for? who was it written about? are there any underlying motives or biases present?" can't be forgotten because, like you said, people are now using stuff like ao3 as a shield from criticism

(this isn't necessarily to you, specifically, anon, but more so for anyone interested, an article i read a little while back that i really liked is "who actually gets to escape into fandom?" and i think it really puts into perspective that fandom, for how "inclusive" it tries to be, is still unfortunately inaccessible and not the same form of escapism for everyone, especially fans of color)

i understand what you mean about fandom getting tiring, and i hope you have been able to find some moments of reprieve in it all <3

#i know i just input a lot of my personal thoughts so if any of this was an overstep please let me know #and i can take out my reply #answered

14 notes · View notes

1-800-roflmao · 3 years

Text

Wash Day Delight Pt. 5

Rating: General Audiences

WARNINGS: None

Fandom: Undertale (Video Game)

Relationships: (Papyri Harem) Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Papyrus (Underfell)/Reader, Papyrus (Underswap)/Reader, Papyrus (Undertale) & Reader, Papyrus (Underfell) & Reader

Characters: Papyrus (Undertale), Reader, Edge (UF Pap), Blue (US Sans), Stretch (US Pap), Sans (Undertale), and Mentions of Other AU Skeletons

Add. Notes: Reader Is POC - mainly mixed/black coded with thick curly hair. I try to keep descriptions vague. Anyone is welcome to read.

*Papyrus has a moment to himself. Enter Sans, Blue, and Stretch. Edge proposes a toast.

**EDITED SINCE TUMBLR MIXED UP THE PARAGRAPHS

PREVIOUS || FIRST || NEXT

Papyrus was practically beaming at the opportunity he had caught by the horns that morning. What a spectacular way to start his day! He’d been only a little worried that she might shoot down his idea. Okay, he had been very worried. Especially considering she had explained she planned to do chores today as well. Thank goodness, his brilliant mind was in tip top shape today! And he didn’t have the little human here to fluster him. It had also been lucky that Blue was there. The excitable version of his brother had been quite eager to help him convince her to come over once he realized who he was texting and what was going on.

“REMIND HER HOW MUCH SHE LOVED OUR MASTER BATH!” “SHE’S SUPPOSED TO BE PAMPERING HERSELF AND RESTING. CHORES ARE NEITHER OF THOSE!” “WE CAN ASSIST HER WITH THOSE CHORES IF THEY REALLY NEED TO BE DONE…” “TELL HER I’LL GET MY BROTHER’S HOODIE FOR HER!”

That last suggestion he remembered had resulted in a long pause before Blue had laughed awkwardly under Papyrus’s questioning and only slightly judging gaze. His judgemental gaze was soon pulled to his phone as she had replied with a wide-eyed emoji and then stars and then finally:

Fluffy: Promise?

He didn’t know whether to be impressed by Blue or disappointed in his friend that it had taken the simple promise of a hoodie to get her to agree so quickly. Was it because it was Stretch’s specifically? There was no way to tell since they had not offered anyone else’s clothing. It stung for some reason. Idly, he rubbed at his sternum to ease the odd pain away as he sent a reply back.

CoolDude: THE GREAT PAPYRUS! AND MALEFICENT BLUE! NEVER BREAK A PROMISE.

CoolDude: WE’LL BE OVER IN JUST A FEW MINUTES TO PICK YOU UP

Fluffy: Could you give me thirty?

Fluffy: I need to get dressed and pack a bag.

CoolDude: OFCOURSE! SEE YOU SOON!

Needless to say, it wasn’t long after the two had convinced her to come over that the whole household was made aware they would have a guest today in the family group chat. Blue had run off to find his brother with a promise to come back in time to go. Papyrus assumed he was going to try and convince his brother to give up his hoodie for the day. They technically didn’t need it till later though. Most likely she would be rushing off to the bathroom as soon as she stepped foot into their home.

Pocketing his phone, he settled into finishing the task Blue had been helping him with. There were only a few more dishes left to clean from their late breakfast--brunch? Was it still technically too early for brunch? Shrugging, he lost himself in cleaning and tried not to watch the clock obsessively. So hyper focused, he didn’t notice his brother shortcutting into the kitchen just beside him.

○●○●○●○●○

Sans just watched Papyrus currently wiping at the same spot on the counter for what seemed the umpteenth time. “hey, bro, think you missed a spot,” he finally decided to make presence known. He was rewarded with very on brand screech as his taller sibling nearly jumped through the ceiling in surprise. Quite a feat considering they had purposely high ceilings.

“SANS!!!” Sans’ lazy perma smile just perked up as his brother stomped a foot and crossed his arms, sockets narrowing. “WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT USING SHORTCUTS IN THE HOUSE?!” Papyrus scolded, foot tapping away.

“not to,” he answered without a care. His tone said it all. He’d do it again and again. This was a war Papyrus would not win. He bit back a laugh as his brother just sucked in a breath, palms pressed together in a praying motion in front of his teeth. “aw, paps, come on, it’s not that bad,” he pleaded playfully.

“YOU ARE CORRECT,” Papyrus started and Sans arched a brow bone in mild surprise, “IT’S NOT THAT IT’S BAD. IT IS SIMPLY FRUSTRATING THAT YOU HAVE TWO PERFECTLY FUNCTIONAL LEGS AND YET, YOU FIND EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO NOT USE THEM!”

Sans just smiled in turn and that smile just stretched wider as he watched his brother literally flinch and glare even harder. “NO.” His sockets were practically curling with how big his smile was getting as Papyrus continued to command him to cease. It was too late though. It was already in motion.

“just trying to get a leg up on life, bro.” It was like music to his nonexistent ears as Papyrus screeched that signature NYEH! of his. He would have tossed a few more puns his brother’s way, but… “so, what has your spine in a twist?” While he could guess what had his brother stressing--considering a certain human was visiting today--it did not hurt to ask.

His brother’s lazy pun had done its job to lighten his mood significantly. He had expected more, but instead Sans had thrown a curveball. The question was sobering. He wasn’t stressed. He wasn’t worried. He wasn’t… right? Picking up the rag he had used to clean the counters, he brought it to the sink and started ringing it out. “MY SPINE IS PERFECTLY ALIGNED AS USUAL, SANS,” he replied, tossing the rag in to a small hamper just outside the connected laundry room.

Silence followed and he could feel his brother’s eyelights boring into his back. “uh huh…” Yeah, that tone said he hadn’t believed a word of it. Rather than pushing with words, his brother had settled for simply staring and tapping at the counter. It was a battle of wills at this point.

Just as the tapping of his brother’s phalanges against the countertop was starting to tick away his resolve, the tension was shattered as Blue reentered the kitchen with his own brother in tow. Papyrus could hear the energetic version of his brother nagging at his lazy self to wash his hoodie before lending it out. Finally turning around, he aimed a bright smile at the swapped brothers; pointedly, he ignored his brother’s judging gaze. “BLUE, I SEE YOU’VE SUCCEEDED IN CONVINCING YOUR BROTHER!” he declared, marching up to the two.

A little amused huff escaped Blue, “DIDN’T TAKE MUCH CONVINCING HONESTLY,” he admitted.

“OH?” Papyrus looked to Stretch for elaboration and the other just gave an easy shrug.

“little miss has been eying my hoodie for a good bit,” he stated, an amused lilt to his voice, “was honestly surprised she never tried to sneak it or ask for it before now.”

“SHE DIDN’T ASK FOR IT,” Papyrus found himself saying before he could think better of it. It wasn’t a lie, but why did it feel like he said something mean. That odd feeling was pressing at his sternum again.

Stretch simply rolled the lollipop held in his jaws from one side to the other. The hard candy clicking gently at the back of his teeth as he leveled a seemingly unbothered stare on his doppelganger, but Papyrus knew no matter how much the slouching brother seemed to act like his brother, he was still a Papyrus and Papyri were more observant than they often let on. He knew those honey colored eye lights were searching for every little cue to put together the puzzle put before him.

“THAT IS TRUE. I DID OFFER IT,” Blue cut in, a shared moment of eye contact between the older brothers missed by the younger.

A little hum could be heard from Stretch as he straightened up with a roll of his shoulders in a mock stretch. “hadn’t meant it to come off like that so let me reword,” he started with a short chuckle. “she’d been wishing on all our sweaters and hoodies,” he amended, his lazy smile pulling up at the corners as he now had to look slightly down at his doppelganger without his usual slouch.

That ugly, heavy feeling wasn’t pressing as insistently after Stretch’s words. “OH…” Papyrus hoped his voice came off as neutral. Sadly, he could feel his magic betraying him as his cheekbones warmed.

“you all can’t tell me you’ve never noticed,” he challenged the room, finally breaking his staredown with Papyrus as he looked to the other two occupants.

Sans was the first to input his agreement with a shallow nod as he leaned on the counter. “she tries to be subtle about it,” he remarked, an easy smile on his face as he rested his chin against his palm, “sneaking little glances here and there, dropping little hints…” His sockets closed with a happy curve as his deep laugh rumbled in his chest as he remembered the offhanded questions and shy beating around the bush their friend opted for instead of simply asking outright to borrow one of their jackets.

Opening his sockets, he resumed watching his brother. His light pink flush had dimmed and he had lifted a hand up to his mouth, digits curled as he seemed to be thinking. He just smiled more as Papyrus seemed to be relaxing as he worked through his thoughts. The more anecdotes they shared, the more his sockets seemed to widen with understanding.

“LET’S NOT FORGET SHE HAD TRIED ACQUIRE YOUR SWEATER JUST LAST NIGHT, CREAMPUFF.” Edge’s voice cut through the chatter. They had all jumped and seemed to move as one to look at the sharp skeleton currently shutting the fridge door. When had he come in? Had they been so engrossed they had somehow missed him coming in? Edge just smirked smugly at all of them as he carried the carafe of lemonade over to the island.

Sans just chuckled and turned his attention back to his brother. His brow bones perking as he saw Papyrus’s smile wasn’t strained anymore and his tense posture had fled. A glance to Blue and the other gave him the tiniest shrug before following it with a sneaky thumbs up. Yeah, everything was good again. Let’s not question it for now. “hey, bro, don’t cha have a guest to pick up?” he commented.

The energetic duo both looked to the clock on the wall. A rather impressive synchronized gasp left the two. “NYEH!” “MWEH!” “WE’RE LATE!!” The smaller skeleton just barely managed to catch the taller by the hand as he went to dash out the door. “SORRY, PAPYRUS! NO TIME FOR THAT!” Blue rushed out an apology before the smell of ozone filled the kitchen and barely a second later they were gone.

○●○●○●○●○

“hey, Edge, mind pouring me a glass of that lemonade?” Stretch had settled at the island with a hopeful smile.

His request was met with a huff as Edge opened the cabinets above and retrieved a glass for himself, “POUR YOURSELF ONE, ASH TRAY.”

The orange clad skeleton just hummed around his lollipop before grabbing the sweet, honey flavored treat by it’s stick and removing it from his mouth. “aww, why not? you poured one for Sans there and he didn’t even ask,” he pouted playfully, gesturing to Sans who was nursing his glass of lemonade just beside him.

“don’t have to ask when you’re-” Both Papyri still in the room shot him a warning glare before he could even finish and he lifted his hands up in mock surrender. “fine, fine , tough room,” he joked. Edge just rolled his eyes, while Stretch let his glare linger a bit longer to make sure Sans didn’t try to sneak it in.

“I REFUSE TO WATCH YOU RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD GLASS OF LEMONADE AGAIN,” the sharper skeleton stated as he poured his own glass and took a sip, sighing at the refreshing taste.

Stretch feigned insult, “i’m not the only one who puts honey in their lemonade, edgelord.”

“NO, BUT I WOULDN’T SAY YOU ARE PUTTING HONEY IN LEMONADE WITH YOU,” Edge started, wrinkles forming on his nose ridge in disgust as he spoke, “NO, WITH YOU IT IS MORE ACCURATE TO SAY YOU PUT LEMONADE IN YOUR HONEY.” He took a long sip like he could taste the sticky sweetness on his tongue and needed to wash it down.

“you got me there,” Stretch popped his lollipop back in his mouth and settled in, laying against the counter with a resigned sigh. He could hear Edge grumbling about how of course he was right. Rolling his lollipop, he moved his attention back to Sans. The prime doppelganger had simply been sitting quietly with an easy smile on his round skull. As if sensing Stretch’s stare, his white eyelights locked with honey colored ones.

“need something, pal?” The words held no threat or warning, just an invitation to ask away.

“what was up with your brother earlier?” Stretch already had a guess. He just wanted confirmation at this point. The stout skeleton apparently had no plans to play along and just shrugged noncommittally.

“no clue what you’re talking about, Stretch,” Sans replied, finishing off his lemonade with a satisfied sigh, “thanks for the drink, Edge.” He sent a genuinely thankful smile Edge’s way before the smell ozone once again filled the room and an empty glass was abandoned on the countertop before a now empty seat.

Edge fought down a smile that tugged at his teeth. It wasn’t too hard with Stretch still in the room though. Currently, the laidback skeleton was watching him with a curious look. “WHAT?” he snapped, scowling as a knowing grin was aimed at him.

“you’re in on it,” the other stated matter of factly.

“I AM IN ON NOTHING. AND QUIT THAT CLUELESS ACT,” Edge snipped, crossing his arms with a cocked hip, “I WAS THERE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE YOUR POSTURING EARLIER.” It had been a surprise to see the usually passive skeleton standing to his full height and purposely towering over their prime version. He cut off Stretch’s denial with a sharp growl, “I WON’T LISTEN TO BULLSHIT, STRETCH.”

Stretch just gave a defeated chuckle as he sat up in his seat. “two for two today, Edge. you’re on a roll,” he commended.

Edge didn’t see nor hear any regret from his alternate. The two simply took a moment to stare each other down. A silent measuring up before the standing skeleton reached up into the cabinets and set down a new glass. Curious honey eyelights watched as a lemonade was poured to only fill half the glass before it was slid over to him with a gentle push.

“what’s this?” Stretch questioned. He leant forward in his seat and tilted his skull as he shifted his stare from the half full glass to Edge who was refilling his own.

“LEMONADE,” he answered smartly and Stretch didn’t bother restrain his rolling eyelights.

“i can see that.”

“THEN WHY ASK?”

“you know that’s not wh-”

“JUST FILL IT WITH YOUR INFERNAL HONEY ALREADY,” Edge snapped, cutting Stretch off with an impatient scowl.

Knowing he wouldn’t get anywhere with his darker counterpart, he fished in his pullover pocket and pulled out his signature bear shaped honey bottle. Snapping the top, he upended the bottle over the glass and squeezed. The viscous, thick amber liquid cut through the pale white lemonade and pooled at the bottom of the glass. It took a minute to build the thick layer he wanted and once he was done, Edge handed him a spoon begrudgingly to stir his monstrosity. Finished, he looked to Edge again questioningly only to see the other holding up his glass. The sharp toothed skeleton had a cocky smirk on his skull, “IF YOU’RE SERIOUS ABOUT THAT CHALLENGE EARLIER, JUST KNOW YOU HAVE COMPETITION.”

Stretch was sure his jaw was on the floor as he realized what was going on. He had known the tougher skeleton was soft on their human, but he hadn’t thought it went further than platonic interest. That only left Willow and Mutt from the Papyri who seemed to show no romantic interest. At least he hoped. That may change considering today was the day for surprises. Sucking in a breath, he sat up and raised up his own glass, tapping it against Edge’s with a less intense smirk of his own. “noted,” he acknowledged, “but the true competitor is Creampuff, ya know. you’ve seen those two together.”

Edge nodded. It was hard to miss the looks those two often sent to each other. It could be absolutely suffocating at times to be in the same room as them when they start acting sweet and fluffy. He took a moment before tapping his glass against Stretch’s for a second time, “A SECOND TOAST TO THE IDIOTS FINALLY WAKING UP,” before they each took a sip of their respective drinks.

25 notes · View notes

for-a-muse-of-fire · 4 years

Text

before the otherness came (2)

the wench and the witcher

“before the otherness came”

Fandom: The Witcher (2019)

Paring: Geralt of Rivia x Fem!POC Reader.

Summary: Two years go by.

Warnings: Language, some violence and sexism.

A/N: Part 2 of my “As It Was” fic set. Once again, big love to my darling Tumblr wife, @inber ,for helping me sus these bad boys out. This was a beast to write, and I think the longest think I’ve banged out. I will always and forever second-guess my ability to write angst, but I did it and it’s y’all’s problem now.

@coconutxraikage - @onyour-right - @ly–canthrope - @kianya-loves - @c-s-stars - @gczanetti1 - @alwaysnatz - @agniavateira - @inber - @owillofthewisps - @hina-chans-stuff - @yespolkadotkitty - @wastingmypotential

Part 1 can be found here.

Tell me if somehow, some of it remains How long you would wait for me? And how long I've been away

Heartache has a particular bite to it. It’s bitter – metallic - like holding a copper coin in your mouth, it sits heavy on the tongue. You’ve been trying to choke back the taste of it since Geralt left.

He always takes a piece of you with him when he goes but gods it feels different, this time.

This time the empty space left behind is jagged. It splinters. It breaks off sharp little pieces that slice deep as you try to go about your life. As you try to pretend that it’s fine, when you try to keep moving, and working – walking and talking and living as if there isn’t a piece of your own heart missing. It’s exhausting. You end your days almost too tired to sleep, curled up in your empty bed and each night. Your fingers reach out and drift over the space where he should be and the chasm widens.

More jagged bits break away. More cuts, more pain.

You hadn’t started to worry, really worry, until Geralt had been gone for two months. It wasn’t uncommon, but the longer you went without hearing word, the more you worried. When you still hadn’t heard anything in four months, the fear set in. The Continent is vast and wide, though – he could be anywhere.

After six months, the fear turns to dread. After ten months and no word, nothing, you’d reached out to Jaskier, but even his connections had their limits and that was when the sorrow found you. There was a chance the White Wolf didn’t want to be found, but the more likely alternative, well.

The Path is dangerous. Geralt of Rivia is big, and bad, but he’s not invulnerable.

You haven’t seen him in over two years. No one has.

With a shaky inhale, you pull your gaze from the flame of the candle at your elbow. You make another attempt to focus on the open ledger in front of you with middling success. The sharp bits, the cutting bits he left behind have mostly been pieced together. Some days you can almost ignore them, but today it feels like you’re on the verge of breaking apart again. Swearing quietly, you tally the last of the earnings for the week and flip the book closed before rubbing at your aching eyes.

You take the small flask from your desk drawer. The brandy is smooth and warm on the way down, dulling the edge of your pain until you feel like you might be able to stand and smile in the land of the living. Another sip and you decide to try and do just that.

It’s not terribly crowded tonight, but the people eating your food and drinking your ale are in good spirits. It warms you some, watching them smile and laugh over your recipes. You cast your gaze across the room, grinning and waving when your name is called until your eyes light on a newer face at the bar. He’s certainly handsome. Curly copper-colored hair, pretty green eyes – some manner of tradesman by the cut and styling of his clothes. Not poor, but certainly no well-moneyed type; that lot doesn’t drink here. The copper-haired stranger catches you looking. He has one of those secretive smiles, dimpled and cheeky, and you find yourself returning the one he flashes your way.

You touch the necklace at your throat. It’s almost enough to give you pause, but…

The redhead’s name is Nathaniel.

A carpenter and a shameless flirt, you let him buy you a pint of your own ale and don’t mind when he touches your hand. He listens to you when you talk about the tavern and your cooking, tells you that you make the best rabbit he’s ever had, and you let him slide closer as the evening wears on. His hand is warm on your lower back, his voice lilts in a sweet Skelliger brogue, and he’s entirely too charming for his own good.

When he starts to call you ‘darling’, you don’t feel like correcting him.

You let him tuck you against his side, relishing in the way he bows his mouth close to your ear and you nearly miss the way the room goes quiet. You’re not sure what makes you tear your gaze from Nathaniel’s lips, but then you meet a pair of honey-gold eyes across the room, your heart stops.

Geralt’s face passes through a number of emotions in a split second before you see him shut down.

Gods on high. The bastard’s alive.

Elation and relief make you feel dizzy, you such in a breath and it feels like being punched square in the ribs. Fuck’s sake. The bastard’s alive – he’s been alive this whole godsdamned time.

It suddenly feels as if the stays of your bodice are laced too tight. The room is too loud, too crowded, and the copper-haired man at your side far too close. Nathaniel’s hand brushes down your spine and you bristle, squirming away with a muttered apology. You hear him call after you and ignore it, at least until he grabs your wrist and pulls.

“Hold on, darlin’,’ the redhead leers down at you. “I dun’ think we’re through yet.”

“Let go – “

“Nooo, I dinna think so – “ He pulls again, hard, and his palm chaffs against your skin until you hiss in pain. “You cannae just leave a man high and dry like this, lovey,” Nathaniel says with a smirk. “Come on. Why don’t ye take me upstairs and you can make it up to – “

Over the Skelliger’s shoulder you see the hulking form of the white-haired Witcher and you’ve never seen Geralt so angry. Soft lips are curled back into a deadly sneer, bright eyes flashing with malicious intent. You say his name, warning him off to no avail; you’re not his focus. He grips Nathaniel by the collar and pulls; the smaller man is yanked away and you stumble as his hold on you is broken suddenly.

“Geralt, stop,” you bark.

Nathaniel regains his footing before glancing between you and the Witcher. He looks gobsmacked, at first, and then he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. It’s mean; spiteful.

“You let a Witcher have you?” he scoffs. “Fuck all, love – if I’d-a known you were that easy, I would’nae tried so hard. You’ll let jus’ about anythin’ settle between those pretty legs, won’t ye?”

Geralt snarls, actually snarls, before grabbing the redhead by the shirtfront and slamming his fist across his face. You shout at him to stop. Nathaniel breaks the grip on his shirt with a sweep of his arm before returning blows; man and Witcher ignore your furious cries for cessation, trading blows like brawling idiots, until you roar, “Enough!”

You throw all your weight at Geralt, shoving him hard enough to knock him off balance and away from Nathaniel. “I said enough!” you bellow.

Man and mutant are panting, the former bleeding from his nose and the latter sporting the beginning of a good shiner. Nathaniel sneers at you, “Mutant-humping bitch.”

With a snarl of your own you spin – a flash of metal, and the point of your dirk sits at the redhead’s pulse. “This is my bar, boy,” you snap. “You don’t speak to me like that. Set foot in here again and I’ll finish what he started – do you understand me?”

Nathaniel’s eyes go wide before he glares and spits at the hem of your skirt. Regardless, he does as he’s told. You watch him skulk out the door with your teeth grit so hard that your jaw starts to ache. The rest of the bar is silent as the grave and you can feel embarrassment flush your cheeks with heat. Poor Lucja behind the bar gapes like a fish in a dry stream. It takes a second to find your voice. The dirk slides smoothly back into your bodice.

“I’m sorry for the disturbance, friends,” you call out, grateful that you sound steadier than you feel. “Accept a round, on me.”

At the bar, one of your old regulars makes a show of clearing his throat. “See that, lads?” he growls. “That’s why you don’t tangle with the lady of the house.”

The unbearable tension breaks, laughter rippling lowly over the room. You almost smile, and then you look back to see Geralt. Something awful and prickling hot starts to claw through you when you meet his gaze. The terrible, gut-wrenching feeling only gets worse when you turn towards your study and he follows. You know the sensible thing would be to throw him out on his ass, but you let him follow and turn to face him when the door slams shut.

He just… stares at you. His gold eyes are flat and impassive, handsome face gone hard, and the heat in your gut goes so cold that it hurts. You’re on him in two short strides, both hands shoving hard at his chest. Geralt barely wobbles.

You haul back and slap him hard across the face instead.

The momentum snaps his head to the side; you hear him exhale, slowly. When he turns back to pin you with his gaze again, his eyes flicker dangerously. “Don’t,” he growls.

You strike him again.

He bursts into movement so quickly that you give a short scream of surprise. You swear at him, punching at his chest, trying to kick at his knees – or his groin – before your back hits the wall hard enough to rattle your teeth together. Geralt pins your wrists with bruising force, presses his full weight into you until you’re immobilized. “Don’t you fucking hit me,” he snarls.

You bare your teeth at him. “I oughta black your eye. Put me the fuck down.”

“You gonna calm down?”

“Try it and find out.”

Each short exhale rushes over your face, disturbing the curls that have fallen over. Geralt moves slowly, flint-cold eyes fixed on yours as he eases back. You yank yourself away from him as soon as your feet hit the ground and rub at your sore wrists. Beneath the anger, beneath the hurt and embarrassment, you feel the sharp stab of your old heartache. It shifts in your chest, pieces of jagged glass that drag over the bits of yourself that you had so carefully packed back together.

Oh, it hurts. It scrapes you raw. The pain snags at the breath in your lungs, but your fury surges to the foreground and you shake with it. Your nails dig crescents into the flesh of your palms.

“You asshole,” you spit. “You do not come here and attack my fucking customers – “

“Sweetheart – “

The petname makes you see red. “Don’t fucking call me that. Don’t you dare – you do not get to storm in here half-cocked after you vanish and try to, what, defend my fucking honor?”

Geralt growls from low in his chest. “He all but called you a whore.”

“And you all but treated me like one,” you bite back.

“That’s not fucking fair – “

“Not fair? You fucking left, Geralt. You were gone – “ You choke on the words - they sit too heavy in your mouth.

“For fuck’s sake – it’s my life, the Path! What the fuck am I supposed to do –“

“Try picking up a godsdamned quill.”

Geralt’s teeth click together. You see his jaw twitch, watch his golden eyes flash with barely contained anger and you feel your eyes begin to smart. His face goes hazy and you hate it – it feels like weakness when all you want to do is put your fist through something. The tears spill over your lashes and you wipe at them, angry and embarrassed.

“Two. Years,” you snarl. “Two fucking years I waited, and you couldn’t be arsed to send word?”

The Witcher barks out a laugh, sharp and cold as splintering ice. “You call that waiting? Found the first hard prick looked like he had money and hopped on, so maybe the ginger cunt wasn’t wrong - “

The rage, the hurt surges – bonfire hot – and you turn, grabbing the inkwell from your desk to pitch straight at the Witcher’s head. He dodges with curse and the glass shatters, but the cacophony does nothing to cover your howl:

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD, YOU BASTARD!”

The words tear their way up from your heart, breaking open the makeshift cage where that fear had been desperately packed after weeks, then months of nothing and damn him. Jagged bits of yourself run you through and let the grief well up. You try to grit your teeth against it, try to force it down, but those sharp pieces cut and bleed you.

“You unimaginable bastard,” you hiss. “I thought you were dead and – and Jaskier didn’t know where to find you – no one did. Gods damn you, Geralt. I thought I would never see you again.“

Your voice cracks. Geralt’s stares at you, wide-eyed, and you have to drop your gaze. You bite your tongue and close your eyes, shoulders trembling with each silent sob. If only the earth could open up and swallow you whole – you wish for it, pray silently for it, to no avail. The sound of the Witcher’s footfalls breaks through and you expect to hear the door closing as he leaves. Instead, you feel his fingers close on your elbow. You open your eyes, staring hard at the ground; you can see the toes of his heavy, dirt-caked boots butted up against the edge of your skirt. Geralt’s fingers pull once, gently, and that’s all it takes; you stumble forward against his chest with a low keen.

His grip is just shy of too tight. You feel the press of his face against your hair, so familiar that it hurts. He whispers your name, curls his fingers in your hair to keep you close. Your hands fist in the black of his shirt. He lets you cry until there is nothing left.

When your breathing evens and the tears have ebbed, you let him tilt your face up to his, but his expression is no easier to read. It stings at you – salt in the open wound – and the space around your heart aches. His gloved thumb drags gently over the apple of your cheek and you’re tired, of a sudden. Too tired to keep fighting this.

“Damn you, Witcher,” you breathe. “I love you.”

Geralt goes utterly still. Frozen like a cornered cat. You see a flash behind his pretty golden eyes before his hand drops away from your cheek. The look on his face makes your stomach turn over. “I never meant to hurt you, sweetheart,” he mumbles.

Humiliation has a particular taste to it.

The bitter, copper bite coats your tongue and, this time, you can’t swallow it down. It has thorns now, burrs that stick in your throat. You’re not sure why you laugh – it’s a hollow, bitter sound.

“Of course you didn’t,” you say as your voice shakes. “No, you just… you just ran. I said I was yours, and you made a promise, and then you ran.”

The leather cord on your necklace is old enough that it gives with little resistance when you pull. Geralt’s brow creases when you take his hand, but you watch his face go ice cold as you press the wolf’s tooth into his palm. You retreat, move away and behind your desk to pick mindlessly at a few papers before you stop and simply brace there. The smooth, polished oak is cool under your hands.

Geralt’s voice is rough over your name – you grit your teeth and snap, “No. No more. I have done with you, Witcher. Leave me be.”

He doesn’t move, at first. You can just make out his still form in your periphery, and you feel the weight of his eyes on you before he turns, making his silent way to the door. There’s a creak of old wood on ancient hinges. The tavern noise rushes back in for a moment and is cut off with a slam. You screw your eyes shut against a fresh wash of tears to no avail.

You manage to bite your cheek hard enough to keep your sobs muffled.

#geralt x you #geralt x reader #geralt x poc reader #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt of rivia #the witcher netflix #the witcher #fanfic #fanfiction #reader insert #the wench and the witcher #tutu scribbles

127 notes · View notes

avintagekiss24 · 4 years

Note

1/? I always get so disheartened when everything in media and fanfics cater towards white women. God, I remember being a toddler, and wishing I was white. I hated my brown eyes, black hair, tan skin and asian features, hell, I was ashamed. Jesus christ, even now, there are times where I do still feel like "wow... I hate being asian, i want to be a pretty white girl so who blushes a pretty pink color and can give birth to other white babies"

2/? im sorry, I just have a lot of pent up frustration with xReader stories where you're being described as a white girl, and maybe its cause im on my period, but now i wanna cry and smack some racist ass hoes... I always want to point it out though, but I'm scared of being attacked by a bunch of karens, ya know?

3/? Racially ambiguous readers are what we should strive for, but I feel like so many people just assume that being white is a 'default' or the 'norm' in fanfics, so when someone is finally like "you know what? Imma make a fic for specifically poc" so many people who are blissfully ignorant about what we woc struggle with, will cry and complain

4/ Like... Come on, I think people can handle a few fanfics directed towards black women, especially when woc as a whole has been forgotten and tossed aside with these "reader" inserts and mainstream media...

5/ ok wow, im sorry, im annoying, i just have a lot of things i want to get off my chest.. And i do want to ask some authors about their choice of wording, or the pictures they use, but I feel like I can't, and that I don't have a voice.. i dont know where im going with this, but i just needed to air out my feelings before i go tumbling down the same hole i went down as a kid.. m sorry, ily and ill stop clogging up ur inbox with my dumbass rambling

Don’t ever apologize for stating how you feel, babe. It’s good to let it out and I’m always here to listen.

I think every person of color has struggled with these feelings - namely, wanting to be white. My brothers and I went to predominately white elementary and high schools and my parents have said that all three of us at some point came home one day, down in the dumps, and said that we wished we were white. Being “white” has become the norm. It’s been shoved in our faces since we were babies that being light/white skinned and having blonde hair and blue eyes is what beauty is and anything outside of that is undesirable.

I understand what the original intent of reader inserts was - but it’s not what it’s supposed to be. WOC are different than white women. We have different struggles. We have different coping mechanisms. For instance, for black women, having short hair is not revolutionary like it is for white women. I remember when the chick from Harry Potter got that pixie cut and all the hoopla that surrounded it. How brave she was for cutting, how freeing it was for her... it’s not that for us. Also, having natural long hair as a black woman is not as easy as it is for white women. We can’t just wash that shit and go, lol, it’s a three hour process from getting in the shower to wash it to finally being ready to go out for the day/night. A lot of us can’t just throw it up in a messy bun.

By reading those things, it instantly excludes me, so, I can no longer view myself as reader. I wanted to change that. I try to not add specifics into my stories - hair length or texture, wig, weave, skin tone, eye color - because we all vary, but I just wanted my fellow black girls to know instantly that this piece is for you. Feel free to finally be able to read something that is geared towards you. Feel free to finally be able to immerse yourself in this world without wondering when the “whiteness” is going to creep up on you.

I just find it odd that people can suspend their beliefs for the MCU as a whole - I mean, there are two 100+ year old men, one with a metal arm, who were both frozen for a good period of their lives and then sudden de-thawed like pieces of chicken, a guy who turns green when he’s angry, another guy who eats a purple flower to make himself stronger - but they can’t relate to a black!reader insert. It’s insane. It’s small minded. It’s racist.

I’m not going anywhere. I’m not changing how I write or what I write. They can send me all the anon messages they want about it. I’m. not. budging.

You’re not annoying! You can always come here and get this stuff off of your chest. I’m actually really glad that this has happened, it’s opened up so many meaningful conversations for readers and writers of all shades. Don’t be afraid to speak up, either. There is a polite way to message a writer and let them know how you feel without being rude. Maybe they don’t realize that they’re words are exclusionary. Maybe you could be the one that helps them improve/be more aware of how they come across and how they sculpt their words. Most writers will understand and will do their best to try and be as inclusive as possible. The MCU fandom is incredibly lucky to have as many passionate, loving, talented, compassionate writers and artists as it does, and most of them want to know how they can be and do better.

I love you, darling. Thank you for trusting me enough to vent your frustrations to me. You are always welcome here.

#asks #answered

31 notes · View notes

nandalorian · 5 years

Text

So. I wasn’t going to post about Roswell, but now I am, so buckle up because this is going to be a long one.

A lot of people on Tumblr, Twitter, and the wider internet have, over the last few days, very intelligently posed criticisms of Roswell’s representation of POCs and queer characters in the context of Malex. While I have to be upfront about the fact that the problematic writing has made me apprehensive of seeing the show through to its next season, I’ve been pretty quiet on that front as I gather my thoughts and figure out what I need to say. As a white woman, I am upset and dismayed by the token and tone-deaf representation, but I feel like that’s not mine to speak to when there are a lot of people of colour in this fandom who can and should take this opportunity to explain, criticize, and educate the rest of us on how the show has failed and how it must do better. In that regard the most worthwhile contribution I can make is to listen and amplify those voices and their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and insights about the negative and at best lazy representation of people of colour on the show.

But as a bisexual woman and a professional writer and editor, I am in a position to criticize the queer representation from a political and social standpoint, but also a creative one. I am going to break this post up into two parts because there’s a lot I want to address about two separate issues, and I think the waters will get muddied if I try to combine it into one post. So let’s talk about Malex first, which is the subject about which, oddly enough, I feel the most calm. Depressed af, but mostly calm.

More under the cut.

A lot of people have already written about Malex or Tweeted Carina and the production team far more eloquently than I can manage, but the thing is, while I do have issues I’ll get into in a sec, I... actually think they have done a good job of writing Michael as a bisexual man and Alex as a gay one. That isn’t a popular opinion at the moment, but hear me out, because I have a lot more to say on the subject of bisexuality that doesn’t concern Michael Guerin. The show’s struggle isn’t entirely that their politics are bad. I do think the intentions are mostly good--mostly--but what I want to speak to is the breakdown between intentions and how those intentions translate to the screen through the medium of writing, direction, and the actors’ performances.

I don’t want to dismiss or disregard anyone who feels differently since that view is also totally valid and a lot of people have raised very fine points to that end. This is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt and feel free to disregard or not. But my take is we can’t boil down the show’s issues to saying oh it’s biphobic or homophobic where Michael and Alex are concerned. I don’t think it is, not inherently.

The show’s struggle is that the writing is often so sloppy, rushed, and disjointed that it’s impossible to tell whether they don’t fully understand what positive queer representation is and what it isn’t, or if they just don’t know how to do it justice on TV. Perhaps it’s a combination of both, and right now I’m not writing off either possibility.

But I’m inclined to think it’s the latter. To be clear: the Malex/Maria triangle is shitty writing because love triangles frequently are, and they’re really, really difficult, if not impossible, to get right. The reason I think so many of us are up in arms about it is because the show rushed and stumbled its way through a 30-second supercut of Alex and Michael’s relationship from the word go, just enough to get us hooked before abandoning it for something else.

We’re pissed because it’s like they got us addicted to black tar heroin and then took away our fix just as the night sweats and shaky hands started to kick in, and at this point my life since episode 1x11 has been like a bad Trainspotting withdrawal montage. I don’t think they have intentionally baited us, although that is what it feels like. It’s taken a lot of angst and going back and forth on my part to arrive at this conclusion, and I will say I still waffle about it some days. But bad writing is bad because it pulls unintentionally negative reactions from people due to being misunderstood, or from creating all these wild implications the writers didn’t necessarily intend or realize were present in the final product.

The fact that Carina has to take to Twitter to explain each episode to viewers shows the quality of the writing or lack thereof. If it were stronger, she wouldn’t have to do that, but the show suffers from chronic exposition, incredibly bad pacing, and an overreliance on plot devices to advance the story rather than gradual and necessary character development. Sorry if that’s harsh, but the editor part of my brain sometimes wants to weep during episodes of Roswell. Oftentimes a bunch of shit will happen in an episode that doesn’t even progress the story, leaving us or the characters at exactly the same place they started off.

In short, everything happens too much. The characters feel like they have no agency because they are always reacting to one thing after another every episode, not even a second for them to breathe and be and let us see who they really are when the world isn’t on fire. And that’s all the characters, not just Alex and Michael, although arguably we have a bit more insight into the primary characters like the Pod Squad and Liz. But really, everything suffers as a result. The characters seem thin or underdeveloped and the sense of urgency, tension, and risk disappears even from theoretically high-stakes scenes like a live shooter at a hospital because we don’t get to see who the characters are in their normal lives. We don’t fully know what’s important to them before the next explosion happens.

Adversity is a helpful writing tool because it can show us who characters are under a certain set of high-pressure circumstances, but boredom and normalcy is just as important for character development. You can’t tear down what we don’t know exists. Star Wars: A New Hope wouldn’t have been half as effective if we hadn’t seen Luke Skywalker in his day-to-day life before that simple life was upended and he got the call to adventure. The first stage of the hero’s journey is necessarily the boring part because we can’t cross from the known to the unknown world without seeing what the known world is.

We never really… get that with Roswell. Not even for a second. So of course we feel cheated of bisexual or gay representation in the show because we never actually get to see Michael and Alex in any kind of sustained relationship, healthy or not. It’s just conflict conflict conflict with a bit of sex and longing gazes thrown in, followed by more conflict and then the relationship ending in favour for a new one. All hat, no cattle. (Literally.)

With Michael we get to see some of his routine and him being himself with his family, etc., and a lot of that has to do with the incredible performances Michael Vlamis delivers week after week, although even then, that suffers. Rather than start us off slow and building relationships from the ground up, the season begins in conflict, so that it has the effect of it seeming like the town of Roswell has been vacant for 10 years and everyone moved back in the same day and started catching up on each other’s lives after a decade apart. You don’t get the sense that anyone really talks to each other, even though most of them have been living in the same place their whole lives. Every single relationship, from Isobel and Michael, Max and Michael, Max and Isobel, even Maria and Michael, could have been strengthened if they’d taken more time to lay that groundwork ahead of the conflict. Especially Maria and Michael! Imagine how much better this season would have worked if they’d had an existing relationship, friendship, or flirtation before Alex got back. By this point we’d be nodding and probably going, “Okay, I get it. I might not like it, but I get it.”

Alex by comparison is a total cypher where his background and his day-to-day life is concerned. We know almost nothing about him outside of his history of abuse, his tragic backstory with Michael, and his role in helping to uncover the mystery about the fourth alien. Yes, we’ve gotten to see that he is blunt and fiercely loyal to his friends, and he has serious issues with needing to be in control, which are all valid from a character development standpoint. I have come to desperately crave any and all scenes with him and Kyle because that seems to be when we get the most significant moments of character insight like that wonderful “I’m talking about a conversation, not a war” moment. But how much else do we know or understand about him that is canon, not fans’ headcanon?

Furthermore, the lack of context and representation around Alex’s disability as a veteran, amputee, and potentially as a PTSD-sufferer is really dangerous and feels like tokenism. The way they’ve written the existence of his injury feels inconsistent, and while showing his residual limb during a love scene was significant, they ruined any goodwill we might have developed toward them for that by simply never engaging with his disability again. Same with the fact that he is of Indigenous heritage, which we know FROM A TWEET but which the show has never actually engaged with explicitly, in a move taken straight from the J.K. Rowling Book of Bogus Representation. We don’t quite have enough information to know yet whether this is tokenism or bad writing, in Alex’s case, although I sincerely hope it isn’t the former. Based on everything I’ve seen so far, though, my hopes aren’t high, because it kind of feels like the writers want credit for representation when they haven’t actually done the legwork (yet?).

Maria suffers a similar lack of character development, and what started off promising when we got great scenes with her, Liz, and Alex and then met Mimi has quickly deteriorated to her being nothing more than Michael’s new love interest. As a woman of colour, that is lazy and shitty on multiple levels, and I just about hit the ceiling in 1x11 when they not only showed a black woman being drugged and her body used against her will--could you be more tone-deaf to those implications?!--but had two white women (Jenna and Isobel) accusing Maria of being a murderer to another WOC (Liz). Maria’s very thin character development in the latter half of the season has had the dual effect of making us feel like we’ve been cheated out of a relationship we have gotten attached to but haven’t been given time to fully appreciate or understand (Malex) and thrust into a new one that feels weak, arbitrary, and rote by comparison.

I actually don’t object to the idea of Michael and Maria as a couple. They have great chemistry. But I do object to the lack of development they’ve given us on either front, either Michael/Maria or doing serious justice to Malex as a ship. To think all of that could’ve been solved if the writers had slowed down the show’s pacing and actually given themselves and the characters time to breathe and get to know each other, and us them.

What I feel a lot of straight/white/cis/able-bodied writers don’t seem to understand is that representation takes care. It’s great to say you’re going to write a diverse show and have lots of representation, but it’s for naught if you don’t also understand that you can’t write diversity in the same way you’d write a character coming from a place of privilege, be it racial, socioeconomic, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. Part of that privilege is having a lot of generally positive understanding and assumptions about those characters already built in, especially from your viewers who share that privilege. Writing diversity takes WORK, a lot of attention to detail, sensitivity, and most of all the ability to listen. It takes a lot of consultation with people who have those experiences and know what they’re talking about, because the experiences, assumptions, and biases of nondiverse writers just can’t fully capture what minorities know and live every day of their lives. To do otherwise is how we arrive at whitesplaining, mansplaining, straightsplaining, etc. If you’re a white/straight/cis/able-bodied person and think you’ve done enough to positively represent your diverse characters, that probably means you need to do more. It’s not for you to judge how much is “enough.” That’s for your consultants and, most importantly, your viewers. And if those people are telling you you’ve missed the mark, the next best thing you can do is stfu and listen to them and try to learn how to do better, not get defensive or start patting yourself on the back for everything else you’ve done.

I think those principles can be applied to all the representation on the show, including that of POCs, the differently abled, and the queer characters. I think the writers have done enough with Michael and Alex as queer characters on their own, but they’ve missed the mark on doing enough with them together. Because--and I know this will come as a shock--part of writing queer characters is also giving us well fleshed-out queer relationships. They started off down that road, but at some point the road abruptly ended and left us as viewers feeling stranded in the middle of a desert. That’s uneven writing that results in a feeling of uneven representation, and as far as viewers are concerned, it amounts to the same thing.

Carina’s attempts to explain why they’ve done nothing wrong to viewers via Twitter and social media is sheer intentional fallacy. And while we’re at it, I’ve spent a lot of this season wanting to take Twitter away from her and throw a copy of “The Death of the Author” at her head instead. It’s not enough, Carina. What you intended isn’t enough if it’s not there on the page or visible to us on the show. As a writer she should understand that, but instead she is getting defensive of her abilities as a screenwriter and showrunner when fans pipe up to say whatever she intended isn’t translating properly. We aren’t seeing that representation, which means the writers need to do more than what they think is “enough.”

Add into that a rushed, arbitrary love triangle with an underdeveloped black female character and an underdeveloped gay POC with a disability, especially when those two characters are also best friends whose relationship is severely threatened as a result, and there’s no wonder why viewers are up in arms about this. I don’t think the love triangle makes Michael seem like an indecisive or promiscuous bisexual--and anyway, since when is being promiscuous a bad thing. It just makes him and Maria seem careless of Alex’s feelings and like Alex is the victim, which they could have avoided by taking their time with the characters/relationships, especially the vulnerable ones, or by avoiding such a lazy and unnecessarily dramatic trope in the first place, or at the very least establishing the characters and their relationships enough that our current situation felt more organic.

So really this kind of leaves us at an impasse, I think, as fans. I think people ought to keep speaking up to Carina if they think that will help, but I think it’s also important for us to be able to separate bad politics from bad writing, or at least be able to engage with them as separate things that occasionally (or frequently) overlap with disastrous consequences. I’m sure there are a lot of people who will disagree with this utterly, and that’s fine. Could be I’m totally wrong, and I am aware that I’m probably giving the writers too much credit about what they may or may not have intended.

But with regards to Alex and Michael, maybe it will help to understand what’s happening from this standpoint and tailor our approach accordingly. We really can’t take it upon ourselves to make demands upon the show in terms of what story they want to tell, but we can certainly complain when they aren’t telling that story effectively or when it alienates viewers, especially on points of diversity and representation.

But I don’t know. It could be the only way to make ourselves heard, to tell the writers when they are and aren’t doing “enough,” is to vote with our time, attention, and viewership, whether that means continuing to watch the show or stopping altogether. And that’s kind of a bummer, because there was a lot of potential. But if the quality of the storytelling is unable to make heard the voices and experiences it ought to, especially with such a receptive, enthusiastic audience, then maybe it’s time we start looking for other shows that do a better job, or better yet, continue to keep telling and creating our own.

Those are just my thoughts. Please feel free to discuss with me in the comments or via DM, because I’m still talking through this stuff and welcome the conversation and any alternate or opposing viewpoints.

I’ll be back in a bit to share a second post with my far less forgiving thoughts about Roswell’s representation of queer female sexuality, because that one’s a doozy and the gloves come off. Sorry not sorry in advance.

#roswell new mexico #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #meta #biphobia #representation

116 notes · View notes

moony-clo · 5 years

Text

ohhkay. I try really hard to be calm and understanding because every fandom has its issues but I’m heartbroken right now with the 100 fandoms. I think it’s time that I let myself voice some of my personal frustrations...

* I came into this fandom with Bellarke fans welcoming me in with open arms. Every one of them that I’ve met these past couple of years whether it is on tumblr or twitter has been NOTHING but kind, loving, and friendly to me. I’m truly grateful for those that I’ve met.

* Please stop treating Bellarke fans like we're freaking pariahs...it’s not fair. Before you say it I know life’s not fair but damn. It’s honestly so heartbreaking somedays. We’re a group of people who ship two characters for god's sake. I don't know if those of you throwing around hate are aware, but it is possible to love different things in this fandom without tearing each other apart. Everyone constantly hating on fans of Bellarke and then complaining about the fact that we literally have to stand up for our favorite part of the fandom is unfair and it really sucks.

* Sometimes being in this fandom feels like being in a toxic relationship. We have someone (aka every scene that Bellamy and Clarke are in that someone wrote, and someone directed) building and building our hopes with Bellarke up. Then those same people bulldozing over us...

* It’s okay to like both the Bellarke and Clexa ships. In the end, we should just want these characters that we’ve grown to love very much to be happy. we love them for a reason. what do you want for those that you love? to be happy? okay then.

* Clarke is still bisexual even if she gets with a man. She is still not attracted to just one sex. If she’s with a boy she’s still bisexual. If she’s with a girl she’s still bisexual. etc etc. Also, I hate to say it... but a lot of us in the fandom tend to forget that. if you’re that confused with bisexuality then educate yourself before blindly tearing into one another just because you don’t understand the definition. She’s not lesbian representation. She’s bisexual and that is just as important.

* Lexa’s gone. She was an intriguing different character and I get people still ship her and Clarke, they had an interesting, kind of messy, beautiful relationship but she’s gone and viciously hating on and degrading people who still ship Clarke with someone else who is alive is unfair and it really sucks. Shipping Clarke with someone else doesn’t demean her relationship with Lexa. They were a representation of a lesbian and a bisexual couple and it was awesome and everything, but Lexa is gone, and Clarke still deserves to be happy.

* Bellamy/Bob is a poc. No argument. End of story. For god's sake stop fucking whitewashing the guy. Even in the show, they state that he and O have different fathers, so don’t even try to use that as an excuse to make him white. He’s not fucking white.

* I’ve seen so many people flip-flopping on this subject. In my opinion, Tasya is a good actress. She plays/played an excellent villainess type character, in my opinion. That being said, I personally cannot care for Echo because of things she’s done in the show but I can still appreciate that Tasya plays Echo well and somehow manage to not be a fucking monster behind my keyboard to her. At the end of the day she’s playing a character that someone else wrote a script for and she’s trying to defend herself to those upset by what someone else has written. *cough jroth cough*

* I personally don’t get how/why we’re going to get Echo’s backstory when we still don’t know why a good bit of the 100 (you know the whole premise of the show) were in jail in the first place. Don’t get it. I would 10/10 love “Echo’s” backstory if it was technically a flashback of the grounders backstory as a whole. That’d make more sense to me. I haven’t seen enough of Echo to care enough about her backstory alone before the other people that I have loved and cared about since day one.

* I don’t see any chemistry between Bellamy and Echo. I get some of you do see this and want the rest of us to too, I just don’t. And you want to know what?? That’s fine you ship your heart out. You make edits and appreciate these two badass characters together. You do you. But let me love the ship that I love too.

* Harper/Chelsey deserved better. She’s been a part of the fandom since the beginning and the way she got told that she’d die was insanely hateful, heartbreaking, and shitty. I will never be okay with that.

* Ricky Whittle deserved better. He literally left because of how awful a showrunner was treating him. He chose to leave!. Does no one see how messed up that is?

* We don’t have to all agree on everything. We’re individuals, it’s what keeps everything different and interesting and it keeps the conversations and fandom going. Something we should try to remember at the end of the day though, we are in the same fandom!!! This is OUR show. Don’t let your differences in opinion cloud over that fact. We are together. We are the 100(kagillion) fans.

*Lastly, there are real people behind these screens. You’d do well to remember that the next time you disagree with someone... try having a conversation instead of tearing each other apart.

I want to say that I’m sorry if this upsets anyone but I’m really not... My heart hurts from the hate just because I love a fucking ship. I hope anyone reading this can at least tries to appreciate my point of view.

try to spread a little love in our fandom. it needs it right about now.

#clo-heda rants #the 100 #the 100 rants #bellarke #clarke griffin #bellamy blake #bellamy x clarke #the 100 clarke #the 100 bellamy

249 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 5 years

Note

14, 17, 27 for Voltron 8)

14.) Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

Honestly, this is me with the Voltron fandom*:

And I think that’s all that needs to be said about that.

(*Except for those that genuinely love Keitor as a legitimate ship and not just as a crackship, who ship them in earnest and sincerity. Genuine Keitor shippers are the real MVPs.)

17.) Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen …

I mean, would it be possible to just throw the entire thing out and make Paradigm Shift an animated series instead? No? Okay … then if I absolutely had to keep the same characters as in the actual Legendary Defender show (ugh at most of them), then off the top of my head:

Shiro would still have a huge presence in the show, but he would not come back to Earth at the start and would instead have died before the show even started. Before anyone gets up in arms, in my version of the show all of our representation eggs would not rest solely in Shiro’s basket (meaning that there would be plenty of queer, PoC, and disabled characters front and center), so no, we wouldn’t lose any representation points this way.

Shiro would be presumed dead in the Kerberos mission, just like in canon, and Keith’s reasoning for wanting to get to space By Any Means Necessary would be to go find him, because Shiro was the only family Keith had after losing his parents (having taken him in as a surrogate younger brother through the Garrison mentor-mentee program), and if there’s one thing Keith Kogane does not do, it’s Give Up. Ever. However, his grief spiral at the Garrison after losing Shiro led to him getting booted out, which left him to roam the desert chasing energy signals. Keith would steadfastly believe that Shiro was alive and Out There Somewhere until probably around season three, when he’d receive irrefutable evidence (perhaps even a spiritual, astral projection of Shiro himself, because how else would Keith believe it?) that Shiro had died. At that point cue griefstricken breakdown #2, only this time when Keith yells at Shiro was the only one who ever believed in him and the only family he ever had, the rest of the team—having actually been able to bond with Keith on-screen this time around—gets to have a “then what the hell are we?” moment, and actually be there for him as Keith comes to realize that he’d been bonding with a new family all this time. (Which in no way diminishes his relationship with Shiro, of course, but still gives him others to rely on and love and bond with.)Also, he’s confirmed half-Japanese (half-galra) on-screen, and he’s in the Black Lion from the start. (And Allura is in Red while doubling as commander of the castle, Pidge in Green, Hunk in Yellow, Lance in Blue.) No Lion swap nonsense to cause discourse and drama this time around.

As mentioned, Allura doubles as the paladin of the Red Lion and commander of the Castle. Having the fastest Lion enables her to jet back to the Castle to open wormholes when necessary. Her character arc is focused on learning that she can create her own legacy rather than just walking in her father’s footsteps, because Alfor wasn’t always perfect like she believed he was, and it’s not a disrespect to his memory to want and actually be better. This ties in with her learning to be comfortable taking the crown and title of queen, because as crown princess she is technically queen at the start of the show, but her insecurities make her feel as if she’s not yet earned that title. Btw, she survives all the way through the end of the show.

Since Keith has the “finding family” subplot on lock, Pidge’s would be different. Instead of being a family of genius scientists, in this version the Holts (or at least her father and brother; not sure Pidge would have a mother in this one) would be a family of pilots. They know enough to fly their ships, but they’re not much into science otherwise, and at least not the theoretical kind that Pidge is. Pidge’s father always favored her older brother, Matt, pretty blatantly, and while Matt himself loved Pidge, he was also a bit patronizing whenever he tried to comfort her over not taking to flying like him or their father. As such, Pidge figured the way to prove herself was to be As Much Like Them As Possible, hence doing everything in her power to look and act like her older brother. But once she gets to space, she slowly comes to realize that her area of expertise is actually needed on the team, she’s valued more as herself rather than her brother’s shadow, and she comes to realize she never needed to prove anything to anyone.

Lance is the spoiled only child he always acted like on the show who, at first, thinks everything should be about him and if it’s not, then others are wrong. He’s innocently insensitive in that he doesn’t always realize when his behavior bothers someone (namely, Hunk), and decides that Keith is his rival without Keith’s consent or genuine acknowledgement. Lance’s arc in the show would be about noticing and paying attention to others more, rather than always making everything about Lance, Lance, Lance. He becomes a much better friend to everyone in the process.

Hunk has something of the opposite problem to Lance: He’s always putting others before himself and rarely, if ever, speaks up when something they do bothers him, preferring instead to mutter passive-aggressively about it under his breath if he says anything at all. This allows some (like Lance) to walk all over him, and also means that he enlisted in the Garrison even though he didn’t really want to because his family badgered him into it. His arc would be about learning more self-confidence and self-assertion, realizing that it is okay to do things for himself, to assert boundaries, to say no and have that no be heard, and that while it’s good that he cares so much for others, he can’t care for them if he doesn’t care for himself first. Hunk deserves to aim some of the love he gives everyone else at himself, too.

Squad ends up in space because Spoiled Only Child Lance decides he want to take one of the land fighter jets out on a late night joyride and drags Pidge and Hunk with him. (Pidge goes because she has a crush on Lance and also doesn’t want to see him die or get expelled and knows at least one of those things will happen if she’s not along to prevent it, and Hunk goes because this is the first episode and he can’t say “no” to Lance and have it be respected yet.) The three of them follow Keith in to where the Blue Lion is, and a fight almost occurs before Lance awakens the Blue Lion and they all end up in space by accident.

Season one is spent mostly on building the bonds between the core team. Every single team member has at least one bonding episode (in the A Plot or B Plot or even C Plot) with every other member. So Keith gets one with Allura, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk; Allura gets one with Keith, Lance, Pidge, and Hunk; Lance gets one with Allura, Keith, Pidge, and Hunk, and so on and so forth, you get the idea. That said, we’d start hearing names of important organizations and people later on. Lotor would get name-dropped multiple times and we’d see evidence of him and his team even if we didn’t know it was them at the time, the Blade of Marmora’s sigil would be sighted and would get name dropped, et cetera.

We still get team up episodes in season two, but also name drops start paying off. Blade of Marmora is introduced (as is Keith’s heritage), Keith still rescues Acxa in the Weblum, and we see Lotor on-screen for the first time at the end of the season when Keith’s infiltration mission goes awry and Lotor is the one to save him, in person, having heard from Acxa that Team Voltron had a half-galra on their crew and wanting to investigate that little fact for himself. Their first face-to-face meeting would probably go something like:Keith: “Who are you?”Lotor: “Haven’t you heard it’s rude to demand another’s name before introducing yourself?”Keith: “Yep.”[beat]Lotor: [chuckles] “Very well. My name is Lotor.”Keith: [recognizes the name, but tries not to give that away; nods] “I’m Keith.”Lotor then goes off and also saves Thace because the more agents the Blade of Marmora has alive, the better the chances of toppling Zarkon’s regime.

After all is said and done Keith asks Kolivan if he’s heard of a group of half-galra rebels (because presumably that came up during his little meeting with Lotor), and Kolivan just heaves a long suffering sigh because he knows exactly who Keith is talking about and had hoped to keep Keith far, far away from Lotor.

Team Lotor is never broken apart, and Narti—who is still blind and mute—never dies. Instead, at some point (probably starting in season three, maybe in season four) they meet with and join forces with Team Voltron—not out of desperation, but because to battle an empire one needs an army to match, and an army united is much better than one divided. Additionally, Team Voltron has zero (0) plans of what to do with the planets they’ve freed, whereas Team Lotor has been working on training part-galra rebels to help defend freed planets and eventually establish a galactic federation, so they bring these plans with them with the agreement that once the federation is formed, Voltron won’t be needed anymore. (They’re also secretly making the Sincline ships to make sure Voltron has a check if needed, but shhhh.)

With Team Lotor now joined with Team Voltron, each Lion now has two pilots who can swap around at will, but also learn to work together.Black: Keith and LotorRed: Allura and AcxaGreen: Pidge and NartiYellow: Hunk and ZethridBlue: Lance and EzorObviously each of these pairs get episodes and development together (especially since Keith/Lotor and Allura/Acxa are endgame, and the fact that Zethrid oozes self-confidence helps inspire Hunk), but they mix and match around, too. Zethrid absolutely sweeps Allura into her arms to take her off to a spa day in one episode, while also laughing about how she could snap Lance in half without breaking a sweat in another, and Keith and Acxa quickly find that they’re kindred spirits and bond a lot, too.

Endgame ships (that would be inarguable, half on-screen kiss confirmation, and would not have either member of the pair die) would be:Keith/Lotor, Acxa/Allura, Ezor/Narti, Kolivan/Antok (I just want Kolivan to be happy), Zethrid/Romelle (maybe; Zethrid has a lot of options), Hunk/Shay or Hunk/Regris, and I guess Lance/Pidge.

And that’s enough for now.

27.) Least shippable character?

Probably Slav, but also Throk, because as my bff @severalbakuras knows I will never, ever take Throk seriously, and that includes ever giving him a serious romantic partner lmao.

#salty ask meme #yume-x-hanabi #///#////#/////#voltron

17 notes · View notes

paladin-pile · 6 years

Text

Shiro’s role in VLD and what that means for us.

I see a massive variety of opinions on Shiro these days, most of them negative, and I’m getting tired of it. I’m not posting this to be salty or argumentative. I’m here to explain why we should be grateful for this brilliant rep, this character with the most beautiful and inspiring story that should got down in history. Shiro is not the show’s “punching bag” or anything else, and in this meta I’d like to begin explaining my position on why Shiro’s story is exactly what the world, (that includes us) needs. No matter what your position, please take just a few minutes and read.

In my perspective, being a punching bag means that a character is being repeatedly hurt, beaten down, and being ground into lower and more painful places in life, for no reason, or for reasons that are for action purposes only, not contributing to a meaningful arc for the character. It might even be detrimental to their arc. The characters in the MCU are a perfect example if this. I like Marvel movies, and I love the characters, but as I watched through the movies I started to like them less and less because of how the characters were treated. It was hard to watch the people I cared about accumulate trauma on top of trauma that was never addressed. They were never allowed to rest, heal, reach a better place in their physical/mental/emotional states.

Sometimes in little things, yes, but not much. I just watched people get beaten to a pulp physically and emotionally. I cared about them, I want them to be okay, I want them to have hope and opportunity of meaningful connections, peace, and recovery. If Tony Stark or Steve Rodgers die in Avengers 4, I see that as a horrible end to horrible arcs for both of them. Steve has been fighting his whole life, never got to have a home and family, or deal with some of his issues. Tony has barely gotten a glimpse of a happy life with Pepper and a baby, and has grown so close to Peter. Peter has lost his parents, his uncle, and now he might lose Tony too.

Do you see what I mean here? If you’re familiar with the MCU you might see my point. This is because the movies exist to serve the comic book action, not the people. The action, the aliens, the robots, the fight scenes; that’s the whole purpose of these movies and they’re not going to take time to show us how Natasha is slowly recovering from her childhood trauma with help from Clint and his family. When we watch endless action-based stories like this, we tend to get depressed because we long for hope. Everyday in real life we see hopeless situations where the people we love get hurt and hurt again without any hint of things getting better, we don’t want to see that in our media.

But Voltron...Voltron is different.

The problem is that people come to Voltron looking for a utopia (“If war was perfect this is what is should look like. If everything happened perfectly for so-and-so this is what I think it should be and its not so it’s evil,”etc). That’s not going to work. Voltron does a great job of showing realistic experiences that we can relate too, and still give us hope and inspiration. The character development and story arcs for each character are nothing short of brilliant. Please also keep in mind, some characters are more central than the others and will receive more focus, but everyone gets at least some meaningful things. What makes Voltron do this while other shows/movies don’t, is that Voltron is not about Voltron, it’s about the characters. The first season or two you might think it’s about the robots and the big fights, but I recall it was around season 5 that the realization hit me. “Holy shit this isn’t about Voltron, it never was.” What made me realize? Well, Shiro and Keith’s related arcs specifically. The entire plot revolves around how they revolve around each other. Pay some close attention to each plot point and ask how it relates to Keith trying to save Shiro or vice versa. But that’s beside the point of this post. I came here to talk about Shiro.

Shiro is the main character of Voltron. No contest. Everything revolves around him, is influenced by him, or is tied back to him somehow. It’s incredible to watch. The show starts with him and I’ll damn well bet it’ll end with him. He’s the fated, Chosen One that the whole show is on the shoulders of. So why don’t most people realize this?

Shiro isn’t a loud person, he shoulders a lot of his work in the background. We don’t see things from his pov very often. It’s easy for our attention to drift to the more outgoing, loud and chaotic characters, but that does not determine how important they are to the story.

Doing rep right is not, “This person is LGBT/poc/mentally ill character, therefore nothing bad can every happen to them.” That would be of no help to anyone at all. People need to see rep that goes through things that they do or even worse, and is still ok, who can still be happy and adapt and be strong and find meaning in life, be in healthy, wonderful relationships. People who can climb higher and shine brighter because of what they’ve been through, not in spite of it.

Remember the beginning where I described what it means for a character to be a punching bag? Shiro is none of those things. This sweet, earnest, and lovely boy has been through so much suffering. You’ve all seen it, or inferred it from what we did see. But never have I ever seen someone with such a mighty heart, or such resilience. He kept fighting, never lost hope, never gave up on the people and causes he cared about. He never got any less kind and selfless. He stayed loyal to what was right and never sought his own glory. And he has been abundantly rewarded for it. The MCU characters I talked about have gotten worse of the course of their arcs. Shiro has gotten better.

His life isnt perfect. It’s not a utopia. He has sustained a lot of losses, his path has changed direction in confusing and sometimes painful ways. But he takes it in stride. No suffering Shiro has been put through has been for nothing, and in this is the basis for my argument. It has all changed and influsned his character arc in positive ways. Even if it took a while for that to become apparent. He has been leveling up this whole time. Even things that seemed the worst turned out to be a blessing to both him and the universe.

Is he sad about no longer being a paladin? We will never know. Even if he was he is not one to dwell on it. He now has a bond with another mecha just like he had with black, one that’s his and only his. (One that's 100 times bigger than his old ship and way cooler, Voltron whomst?) He has his own path and his own crew, he’s working side by side with the people he considers family. He is showing signs of healing, of being happy. He’s just as much a part of the team as he was before. It’s the fandom who excludes him from their art and fics of the othes, the fandom who is casting him aside, not the show.

For someone to say “Oh Shiro’s arc is terrible and he’s being treated badly because look at these things that happened to him. Things he loved got taken away and now he’s lost and sad and feels useless and is getting knocked down a few pegs in life.” Where are you seeing this? What happens in our own lives when things change or painful things happen. Do we roll over and die? Say “oh my life will be miserable from now on because this or that happened?” No, and neither would Shiro.

We see Shiro growing. He is leveling up. He knows how to live and adapt and find meaning. I don’t think Shiro regrets or mourns anything for very long. His coping skills are very good since he came back form the “dead.” He may have feelings of sadness and loss. Of his arm, of people close to him like Adam or others, of the people lost on Earth. But roles? Jobs? Circumstances that he knows could have happened to anyone and he can’t change? He knows better than that. Have more faith in Shiro people. I have been more inspired and encouraged and blessed by his character and story than I have in any other media ever. I love him and I am grateful.

I understand that a lot of good folks who love Shiro have been genuinely concerned and confused. If you are one of those, please message me. I would love to talk to you. I know some folks have made posts mentioning specific events in the show that have influenced their perception and I was not able to address all the specifics in this post, only generally. Anyone is more than welcome do drop by my ask box and start a conversation!

#Shiro #voltron #vld #takashi shirogane #voltron s7 #pal meta #lets talk #Shiro is so underrated and misunderstood

131 notes · View notes

jellyfish-aquarium · 5 years

Text

And, following my previous post, I’ll talk a bit about my major source of anxiety since October 7th. The elections.

We had other options, but, in the end, the fanaticism of both sides left us with two far different options. The far-right candidate Bolsonaro, and the far-left candidate Haddad. Haddad is from the political party that has been in power for the last 16 years (PT), and since Brazil isn’t in a very good situation atm, the majority of the population was angry with them. They wanted change. They found it in Bolsonaro’s promises.

What is the problem, then, if the country wasn’t having a good time with the other party? Well. Lots. Lot’s of fucking problems.

Bolsonaro’s is every fucking “ist” and “phobic” you can think of. Fascist, Racist, Machist, Homophobic, Transphobic, etc. He is a radical that believes in the power of the church and the traditional family, defends arming the population, thinks woman should obey man and earn less, that homosexual blood is worse than his - he literally said that in a interview - and that it’s better to have a dead son than a gay son - another thing he said in interviews. There’s actually lots and lots of interviews were he shared his disturbing views. So many that I could stay all night here listing them, so I won’t. Quick google searches will show them, if you are interested.

Anyway.

He sounds familiar to someone, right? Yeah, we’ve been seeing far-rights with the same mind-set appearing everywhere in the world now. But what makes him worse than most?

He idolizes the military dictatorship we had in our country in 1964. Where so many were killed and tortured, gone missing to never be found again, where no one could say what they wanted freely. His idol? A famous torturer that was know by putting living rats inside woman’s vaginas.

... Sounds like a nice guy, right?

The unbelievable in this story is: He got elected. The man that says that “it doesn’t matter if innocent lifes are lost”, that calls POC and natives “Quilombolas” - and affirm they aren’t good enough even to reproduce -, that said that having a female child was “a moment of weakness’, got elected by 55% of the votes. My Brazil, my colorful Brazil, put this guy in charge for the next 4 years. Both my parents voted for him, too, to top it all off.

It’s been a little more than a day since the results from the second turn - held at day 28 - came out. What has happened since then?

A child died, accidentally shot in the head by some fucker that was celebrating the victory of Bolsonaro.

A woman was beaten until she fainted by the police.

A group of his electors surrounded a gay club (I can’t find the link for this one).

A congresswoman from his party asked for students to record professors that say anything against Bolsonaro in class and to report them.

And a lot of other incidents.

And even before the results, people were already being threatened, beaten up, killed. In social medias, you can see so many of his electors posting “So, now I’m finally allowed to kill these fags?” and the like. A University was threatened with prison for their directors if they didn’t take out a a big poster that was put up in front of the main building against fascism and dictatorship. In it’s place, there’s now a sash with “censured” written on it.

His electors are brushing everything off. Saying it’s fake news. Saying nothing bad will happen. If you try to argue with them, they won’t listen and will only threaten or insult you in return. My father treats me as if I have no idea of what I’m talking about, as if I’m making everything up. As if there’s no interviews and recordings everywhere of Bolsonaro saying those things. Bolsonaro’s voters are like antis. Fandom antis. They have no point, no reason. Close-minded, blinded by hate. But, differently from most online antis, these are really dangerous. They will carry out what they threaten to do. And they feel in the right to do so now. Since their president shares their views.

It’s frightening. I’m scared. I’m scared for my friends and people in my family. i’m scared for the minorities. He isn’t even in power yet. His mandate only starts at January 1st, but things are already a mess. It’s impossible to be calm. It’s impossible to feel save. I hated going out alone before. Now? Knowing more than half of my state voted for that guy? I wish I could lock myself at home for ever.

It’s a tragic thing that even inside my own house, I’m not free of them.

#PrayForBrazil

#Brazil #Elections #Politics #Pray for Brazil #Jells Talks #with this #I'm out the computer for the night.#Only god knows if I'll be able to sleep #Stay save everyone #torture mention #violence mention #death mention #homophobia #racism #fascism #I'm sorry #I'm bad at tagging warnings #If you want me to tag anything please just say so and I'll edit these again.

12 notes · View notes

gingertodgers · 6 years

Note

THANK YOU FOR WRITING TRANSGENDER AND GENDERFLUID CHARACTERS! Crescent Moon was the 1st Harry Potter story I've read and it was ery0ijjdsfl;ghserwerpj Padma helping her sister make the trans right banner! stjhrtqowhtqwr TWO GENDERFLUID CHARACTERS! I read in the batgirl and MCU fandoms and there's only one GF character per story. When I saw Fig and Millicent I yelled! THANK YOU!! I could key smash forever! What other trans Harry Potter stories do you like? THANK YOU!

Hello and welcome to the HP fandom, I’m really glad you liked Crescent Moon!

Pretty much everything angryspace-ravenclaw/LadyElena writes is wonderful, especially in terms of genderfluid characters and here is a list of most of their fics. Also @mxlfoydraco did a rec list for trans Draco

Here are some of my other favourite fics:

All Hail the Outlaws by angryspace-ravenclaw(E - 29,330 words - Remus/Sirius)One of Remus Lupin’s three jobs happens to be working maintenance for their flat building. He gets to meet all sorts, most of whom he would rather have nothing to do with. Until James Potter and Sirius Black move in across the hall. Engineering students and self-proclaimed geniuses, the pair set out to make their neighbours new best friends, and everyone’s life is turned upside down, but in the best way possible.

The Only True Goal of the Universe by punk-rock-yuppie(E - 22,753 - Harry/Draco)It comes up, as most juvenile things do, in a game of Truth or Dare.

Succession of Halos by angryspace-ravenclaw(G - 7,340 - Remus/Sirius)When Remus gets talked into seeing his favourite author–Astronomy Professor S. Black–hold a stargazing lecture, he anticipates a stodgy old man in tweed. He does not expect the ripped jeans and rolling-stones t-shirt wearing, motor-bike riding Sirius Black with his wicked smile and passion for the stars. Remus is sure there’s no chance between them, but little does he know, Sirius has a passion for many things in life, one of which being Remus Lupin.

The Dragon’s Arms by @ani-mage(E - 22,650 - Harry/Draco)Since the war, Harry’s been living on the fringes of the Muggle world and alienated from the Wizarding world. Draco’s struggled his whole life to satisfy his father’s idea of what it means to be a “Malfoy Man” in the Wizarding world, never comfortable in the role. Can they help each other find a place where they feel at home?

Forever Is A State Of Mind by angryspace-ravenclaw(G - 36,408 - Remus/Sirius)Remus Lupin has an easy life. He manages his University studies and his chronic illness, and lives comfortably with his flatmate Regulus Black. Then one day he meets Regulus’ older brother and his entire life gets turned upside down when he’s offered an opportunity to make his life just a little bit easier. It was supposed to be just a business transaction between friends. Feelings were never supposed to get involved.

Colour Me Inside Out by angryspace-ravenclaw(E - 11,148 - James/Remus/Sirius)In spite of their fundamental differences, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin have a happy marriage. It’s open, and they have strict rules. Only one night, a stranger at a pub turns everything upside down, and now both are afraid with these new feelings, it means everything’s falling apart. Neither of them expect this outcome when James Potter enters their lives.

We’re Just a Box of Souvenirs by quiddative(T - 9,737 - Harry/Draco)Harry returns to England. Draco won’t make the same mistakes again.

Living Like We’re Renegades by angryspace-ravenclaw(E - 24,378 - Remus/Sirius)Exuberant, proud, genderfluid, cheerleader, self-described narcissist. All things to describe Sirius Black. It’s a stark contrast from the self-imposed loner, Journalist, and Gender Studies major Remus Lupin who is thrown into Sirius’ world after accepting a project for a class. When the two worlds collide, both lives are changed for the better.

Pretty in Pink by @writcraft(E - 3,757 - Harry/Draco)What happens when the only person who accepts your secrets is the one person you can’t stand?

Name Like Poetry by angryspace-ravenclaw(G - 1,222 - James/Regulus)James Potter has always loved Regulus Black. It’s not more complicated than that. And no matter what Regulus has done, he has always forgiven him.

Fics that I haven’t read but have been recommended:

The Queer Retellings series by SpaceHead(T - 33,776 - Harry/Draco)Harry Potter is trans, Draco Malfoy just desperately wants to be friends with him, and Lord Voldemort isn’t a thing. Going through all 8 years and retelling how Harry and Draco would interact if, well, everyone was queer. Also, Harry and Hermione are POC.

In Your Binder by SpaceHead(T - 3,912 - Harry/Draco)Harry and Draco end up in each others shoes in eighth year, or rather, Draco ends up in Harry’s binder. TW: Mentions of self harm.

Fresh Starts, Old Hearts by @centrumlumina(T - 6,901 - Harry/Ginny)“I think we’ve got a lot to figure out. But together we’ll get it sorted.”Harry kissed her forehead.“Together. Sure.”It didn’t sound any less impossible when Harry said it. But then, impossible was their speciality, wasn’t it?Or, the one where Harry is a trans woman, and she and Ginny are still in love.

Out And Open by henrymercury(M - 74,526 - Harry/Draco)The war is over, and Draco finally has the courage to decide who she is.The war is over, and Harry finally has the freedom to decide what she likes.

the girl who lived (again) by @ink-splotch(G - 10,330 - Harry/Draco)Peeves, though he was nasty about everything else–ickle firsties and orphan girls–got it immediately. For all six years of Harry’s Hogwarts tenure, he dropped water balloons on the heads of anyone who misgendered her.Professor Binns never quite figured it out, but he didn’t know any student’s name. Nearly Headless Nick gallantly and somewhat awkwardly called her lady and tried to hold open doors for her, despite the fact that he couldn’t open them.Snape called Harry “Mr. Potter” for all seven years that he was in Harry’s life. Around year three, Ron stopped counting the detentions he got for his increasingly sarcastic responses to this.

‘Twas Brillig by Queenie_Mab(E - 73,998 - Harry/Draco)Harry reads a chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to his children before bed every night and through the story, he and his middle child find an ally in each other as they, along with Alice, discover a world that just doesn’t seem to make sense when taken at face value. The more aware Harry becomes - embracing his child’s reality - the more motivated he is to build a wizarding world that is fully inclusive, and by processing these life lessons finds he’s able to connect with another person in ways that have always eluded him.

#asks #crescent moon #rec list #my rec lists #transgender character #Harry Potter #hp #my asks #trans draco #trans harry potter #trans sirius #trans remus

378 notes · View notes

1-800-roflmao · 3 years

Text

Wash Day Delight Pt. 2

Fandom: Undertale (Video Game)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Warnings Apply

Relationships: Papyrus (Undertale)/Reader, Papyrus (Undertale) & Reader

Characters: Papyrus (Undertale), Reader, Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Mentions of other AU Papyri and Sans

Additional Tags: Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), reader is poc, reader is mixed, Reader has curly hair, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, Friendship, Wholesome, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, I’m Bad At Summaries, Not Beta Read

*Anyone else have that one curl that is your favorite? Like you just can’t stop messing with it? Also, promise the other skeletons will be joining in soon. For now, enjoy some fluff.

PREVIOUS || NEXT

As soon as she heard the bell above her door ring and the door settle closed with a click, she was rushing around her office tidying up and filing paperwork. She knew Papyrus would not waste any time if he could help it. She only hoped he took it easy on the little old woman. She had a feeling Mrs. Ida was tougher than she looked, but considering this was only their first meeting, she couldn’t help thinking she looked as fragile as a porcelain doll. “Please don’t break my client, Papi,” she pleaded, shutting and locking the last drawer on her desk for the day.

Her business was still small so she didn’t have any need for filing cabinets just yet, but it had been picking up. Most of her clients were elderly, which was to be expected when one dealt with wills, funerals, and burials. She wished more young people thought of wills. A properly notarised and established will could ease the mind, not only because it dictated what happens to your earthly possessions after death. No, a will could make sure your body and memory is honored how you wished despite you no longer being there. She had witnessed one too many funerals that were practically an insult; honestly, some it would have been less offensive to simply spit on the dead’s grave.

Just as she felt her brows pinching, she huffed and closed her eyes as she took in a few calming breaths. It does no one any good getting mad on her own. A little snort escaped her at that thought. Her getting “mad on her own” was the catalyst for her to start her own business. “ANGER IS NOT INHERENTLY BAD. IT IS JUST HOW YOU DIRECT IT!” She made a mental note to thank a certain tall, pointy skeleton in her life for those words. She sent a mental thank you to his therapist as well.

As her mind jumped from one subject to the next, her hands and feet had stayed moving. By the time she zoned back in, she had finished tidying up and sanitizing the office. “Bad habit there,” she muttered, tossing the soiled paper towel into the bin tucked underneath her desk. A quick peek inside determined it wasn’t nearly full enough to toss and nothing in the bin would smell or pose a hazard. It could go another day.

Peeking at the clock as she locked the windows and pulled the curtains closed, she noted it had been only a couple minutes. Papyrus wasn’t back yet, surprisingly. She should be thankful as that means he didn’t rush and possibly her client wouldn’t be recovering from whiplash. She swears that skeleton could give a cheetah a run for its money. What’s terrifying is he is not even the fastest of the monsters she has met. Monsters were something else.

A couple minutes later and she had finished all her closing tasks: office locked up, hall and waiting area swept and wiped down, the last of the windows curtained, and furniture and often touched places sanitized. She’d even given the guest bathroom a quick clean up and gathered the dirty mugs and empty plate from the little refreshment corner she provided for clients waiting. Slipping her phone from her pocket, she checked the time with a quick double tap. Goodness, had Mrs. Ida parked that far down? Maybe she didn’t like parallel parking on these streets and instead parked in one of the hidden lots just off teh main road? Or had the two gotten lost?

A bubble of anxious energy caught in her throat as her mind jumped to the possibility that they were in trouble. She forced herself to take a breath and simply breathe. No, this was a safer area. She’d moved and chosen to place her business here for that reason. It did little to comfort. She was not ignorant to the fact that no matter how “safe” a place is, it is not completely immune to danger and the unfairness of life. Plus, Papyrus was a monster. And sadly, the portion of humanity that didn’t like change, didn’t like different, turned their prejudices to them or just broadened their spectrum of hate. What was even sadder was that some people of color, people who should know better and know how it feels to be treated as subhuman, hopped on the bandwagon; they were just happy it wasn’t directed at them anymore.

The pinch and strain in her forehead told her she needed to calm down. She breathed in slowly, deeply, and held it, counting down from ten as she rolled her shoulders back and let them drop. Once she hit zero, she let the air held in her lungs out in one long, even breath. She could feel the tension melting off, the bubble gone, and overall she felt lighter. Mal would be proud. She almost missed the munchkin flicking her forehead any time he saw her frowning. It reminded her of her mother telling her to “fix her face.”

Moving on, she saw she had a few notifications, but none were messages from her friend. She wished he sent something if it was going to take time for him to get back. She peeked out the front door and squinted down the street, both ways, trying to locate the two. She couldn’t see either, but she did see Papyrus’s red sports car parked just in front.

The area she lived in was considered the downtown area. It was mostly small businesses, shops, restaurants, a couple bars further over, and if you traveled just a few minutes further, you would hit the residential area. Well, the official residential area, anyway. And in the opposite direction was the main center of Ebott. Most business owners in downtown lived above their work space and some even rented out rooms. Her little office was on the quieter of the two main streets that had mostly offices, a little cafe, and a couple shops. This was Eighth Street. If you wanted to party, go to Sixth Street. That was where all the bars, clubs, taverns, and odd little gems were. She enjoyed going to hunt down her favorite food vendor.

Stepping outside, she sighed as the cool night air kissed at her cheeks and the exposed skin of her arms, causing goosebumps to rise. She was tempted to wait outside for him, but he expected her ready to go once he got back. One more glance at the clock on her phone and she decided to wait for him inside. He was an adult. She needed to have faith he could take care of himself. Plus, she had no clue which way they had gone and it would do no good to possibly wander in the wrong direction searching for them. She muttered a quick little wish for their safety before turning around and going back inside.

Like others on this street, she lived above her office space on the second floor. It felt nice to know her mortgage payments went to owning both her home and place of business one day. It also just felt good to have a space all to herself. She loved her mother and siblings, but she had been ready to go. Scooping up the dirty dishes on her way back to the little hallway, she balanced the tray in one hand and fished out her keys with the other. She could thank those years of waitressing and retail for two things: multitasking skills and patience. Keys secured, she found the right one, and unlocked the doorway to her haven. She left the door unlocked and just slightly ajar to let Papyrus know where she was and to let himself in.

It was clever how the building was set up. The ground floor had an office space, waiting area, guest bathroom, and small hallway connecting all three. The extra door in the hallway just looked like it would lead to a broom closet. It tickled her inner child each time she had to slide the false wall away and reveal the stairs that led up into her second story home. Stepping up the first few steps, she slid the wall back into place, then flicked a switch to turn on the lights in the stairwell before she quickly ascended the rest of the stairs.

On the landing, she tapped a foot on a nearby standing lamp and it filled the living room with gentle, warm light. She prefered using lamps over built in lighting. Most lighting in apartments were bright white and blue toned, while she had grown up with warmer, off white bulbs. She also was simply used to a dimmer environment back in her mother’s house. They didn’t keep lights running all day long. Only time the lights were on was at night for a bit and if you needed to look for something. She liked to consider her home cozy and welcoming despite the low lighting.

This space was enough. It felt bigger than it was since it was just her living here. It was hers, and it felt amazing every time she walked around her home how she wished, cooked what she wanted to eat, placed things where she wanted, and one day, she’d maybe get a pet. Removing her shoes at the landing, she slipped on a pair of slippers and padded across the vinyl flooring. While it was nice not having an inch of permanent carpet in her home, she had learned these sorts of floors could be chilly and it was a habit not worth breaking to wear house slippers or slides inside.

She beelined for her bedroom after dropping off the dishes in the sink to take care of later and tossing her mask into the trashcan. Now, she needed to get changed and do something about this hair. The “previous arrangements” Papyrus had spoken of was their weekly workout session. Usually, he would pop in after she had closed up and the two of them would take a jog or walk around the block, then hit the local gym. Her hair being down during a workout was just asking for frizz, tangles, and possibly it getting in the equipment at the gym. Plus, it was just hot as hell to keep it down while moving that much.

While she just wanted to toss off her clothes and bra without a care and face plant on her bed, maybe veg out on the couch, she knew she couldn’t cancel on Papyrus. Her drip for today was a four piece pantsuit gifted to her by Black and Edge for her birthday not long ago. Something about her needing to look powerful as a business woman and “none of her current attire was up to their standards.” The two had amazing taste though, so she couldn’t get too mad at them dissing her wardrobe. The blouse was made from a soft fabric in her favorite color. A black corset style vest with an honestly beautiful work of art of the back comprised of hand stitched embroidery and silk fabric, with matching silk lacing. The pants were custom fit--how they knew her measurements was still a mystery, but she suspected Wine had something to with it-- and also black. The long trenchcoat that matched with it that she hadn’t worn today was made of a heavy fabric in her favorite color with that same patterned silk lining the inside. It was hanging in her closet. She carefully removed the peices she wore before laying them on her bed neatly to avoid unnecessary wrinkles. She was pretty sure this suit was the most expensive thing in her home.

Digging through drawers, she picked out a pair of athletic tights, a sports bra, and a t-shirt the pun lovers of the skeleton family had given her. While it didn’t have a pun on it, it made for a lot of fun interaction when she wore it. Across the chest was written “Bet you Can’t Read the Back of This Shirt” and on the back “Bet You Can’t Read the Front of This Shirt.” The amount of people who try to slyly look at the other side after reading one then slinking away after realized they had been tricked was always amusing.

It took less than a second for her to unclasp her current bra and throw it into her hamper. It took a bit more time to slip on and clasp her sports bra. She took a moment to debate using the the j-hook before deciding it couldn’t hurt to have a little more stability. She froze as she heard movement in her house, something sliding, and then footsteps. She only began moving again after hearing Papyrus annouce his presence. She practically ripped her tights up her legs as she was very aware of the sound of his now bare feet clicking across her living room and getting closer. Her shirt was tugged over her head and arms slid through her shirt sleeves just as he poked his skull through her bedroom door, which she had apparently left open in her haste. Whoops.

Once Papyrus was sure he wouldn’t look like a nightlight bobbing along on his way back to his friend’s home, he finally left the cover of the bus stop and back onto the sidewalk. His mind was running over everything that had happened that evening. He wondered what possibly led the elderly human to assume he and his friend would be… canoodling, canoodling was a word he could handle to describe what she was hinting at. He preferred his magic to stay put right now. An exasperated sigh fell from his parted teeth as he considered the possibility that he was just overthinking and overanalyzing. The elderly human was probably just pulling a dirty jape on him. The next time they met, he would have to return the favor. Of course with a more classy, sophisticated jape, but a jape none the less.

“Papi!” she greeted with a little wave, blowing at her now mussed up hair from rushing to get dressed. She eventually had to push it out her face as it simply kept falling back. She was sure she looked a right mess at the moment.

∆∆∆

His sockets took in just how dark it was getting. How long had he been out? Did it really take that long to pretty much jog to the bus stop? Or had he taken that long to recover? A glance at the sky revealed the stars were in full view now, but the moon was still low. He focused on his hearing, but didn’t hear the usual ruckus from Sixth Street; so, it couldn’t have taken too long.

“NO SENSE IN WASTING ANYMORE TIME STANDING HERE!” he declared with a little stomp of his foot. “AND NOW I HAVE NOTHING HOLDING ME BACK!!” he practically cackled as he launched into a sprint, tearing down the sidewalk. She had better be prepared, especially considering all the extra time she had been given unintentionally. He refused to fail in his duties as her best and greatest friend. One such duty was pushing and supporting her goals. He had been ecstatic when she had told him she wanted his help with improving her health and getting in shape that first time. Not only had she come to HIM out of everyone, but now he could hang out with her even more.

Papyrus didn’t stop running until he had to hit the brakes infront of her front door. He noted that the lights had been turned off downstairs, but he could see warm light filtering through the second story window. Making his way inside, he closed and locked the front door, sliding the bolt at the top of door to secure it. There was two ways in and out of her home, this front door and the “back door.” The back door actually led to a side patio that wrapped around back to connect to a second staircase outside. He locked the doorway in the hall as well before practically bounding up the stairwell.

He made sure to call out your name once he reached the landing, “READY OR NOT, I HAVE RETURNED!!!” he added with his best impression of Edge’s cackle for humor. As he removed his shoes and set them on the rack against the wall, he could hear shuffling and little thumps from across the small, cozy home. His toes lightly clicked against the floor as he made his way to her room. As he got closer, he could hear the shuffling get more urgent and a little curse here and there.

“HUMAN, ARE YOU ALRIGHT IN HERE?” he didn’t know what he had expected when he peeked into her room, but his teeth clicked shut audibly as he tried to stifle a snort and keep himself from grinning. The human had apparrently been hurrying to finish dressing and had just pulled her shirt down. He had peeked in just as her head finally popped through her collar, or rather all he could see was an adorable fluffball. Her curls which had been relatively neat and orderly before was now... well, everywhere. He could see her lips which were now pouting after a failed attampt at blowing her hair out of her face. Her nose crinkling cutely in aggravation as she brings a hand up to shove the errant curls back.

His sockets focused on her fingers which had been all but swallowed up by her hair. The digits sinking in and he couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to tangle his own digits into her tresses. Was it as soft as it looked? Or would it be coarse? It wasn’t his first time wondering such things. She had a habit of playing with this one particular curl at her nape. He would often catch her twisting, pulling, and twirling that one lock of hair endlessly. That one curl now sticks out cutely anytime she wears her hair down and his phalanges itch to play with it like she does anytime he sees it.

“Papi?”

The skeleton jolted as he refocused on the present as her voice, so much closer than before, and a fleshy palm passing his vision. He blinked as her face came into view, looking up at him with a warm flush to her face. Well, what of her face he could see as she had released her hair and some had fallen back in her face again.

“I know my hair’s a mess right now, but I didn’t think it was so bad to leave you speechless,” she muttered, looking away as her hand came up to play with THAT curl again. He tore his sockets from her fingers deftly twisting the curl and brought a hand to catch hers, moving it away. She released the curl with little resistance, but still refused to look at him. That little curl snapped back and while he wished he could appreciate and marvel at how it did that, he had a friend to comfort.

“WHILE YOUR HAIR, YES, IS A MESS RIGHT NOW,” he held back a wince as her shoulders hunched a bit, “I DON’T THINK THAT’S A BAD THING!” he added with a bright smile. He could see her chancing a peek up at him from the corner of her eye. If she didn’t like people touching her face suddenly, he would have simply turned her head himself. Good- NO, GREAT friends respect boundaries. “IN FACT, I THINK IT’S VERY… OH, WHAT IS IT YOU HUMAN’S SAY?” he paused, pretending to think for a moment before snapping his phalanges, “CHIC!!! NO, FIERCE!! YES, I LIKE THAT ONE MUCH BETTER!” Was his volume control out the window at this point? Yes. Did he care? No. Because now she was looking at him fully, head tilted back and forcing curls to fall away. Her flush seemed to have worsened though.

Papyrus watched her as she took a minute to suck in a deep breath and exhale, closing her eyes briefly. The shock had apparently worn off as she now looked up at him bashfully from under her lashes. “Papi, has anyone told you you’re too much sometimes?” she asked with a little shake of her head as she seemed to be fighting back a smile.

Leave it to Papyrus to bring her mood back up in mere moments and hype her up to a point she might consider leaving the house like this. If only her hair didn’t pose a safety hazard at the gym and didn’t trap heat like a lion’s mane in the savanna. “Thanks, Papi,” she wiped a tear that had gathered in her eyes and took another moment to calm down and catch her breath.

He knew it was probably one of those questions that humans didn’t expect answers to, but he just grinned wider and answered anyway. “NOPE! AFTERALL, THE KEY TO POPULARITY IS LEAVING THEM WANTING MORE! NYEH HEHEH!!” And now his evening was even better as her laughter rang in his skull and she was smiling again, genuine and joyful.

∆∆∆

“ANYTIME FOR MY FAVORITE FLUFFY HUMAN!” her skeleton friend boasted. She just quirked a brow at the affectionate descriptor. She couldn’t say anything about it though, since half the skeleton household had nicknamed her as such. She couldn’t even argue that it didn’t fit. It was better than “Curly” atleast, or the various food and drink related nicknames Sugar and Oak had tried on her.

Sighing, she loosed her hand from her friend’s grip and stepped back. “Come on, let’s get out of the door. Can’t be good for your back and neck,” she ushered him in with a gentle tug to his hand. He stepped inside with little urging and almost immediately he was rolling his shoulders and stretching. He must not have realized how long they had been in the doorway. Thankfully, her home had higher ceilings than normal, but sadly the doorways were still made for average sized humans so anytime the Papyri or Oak visited, they had to duck through the doorways. She was saving up for renovations for atleast the first floor to be more monster accommodating one day.

Letting go of his hand, she padded across her room and into her private bath. While her bathroom wasn’t extravagant, it atleast was nicer and bigger than any bathroom she had used before now. Correction, it was the nicest before she visited the skeletons’ house. She could have lived in that tub. The water pressure in the shower had been amazing as well. Stepping up to the sink and vanity, her eyes scanned the counter top for a particular item. “There you are,” she mumbled as she picked up the spray bottle. It was filled with water and detangler, just the miracle she needed to help her tame this mane and hopefully get it pulled back into atleast a ponytail. Maybe she should go with a pineapple puff? No, too many loose ends to get caught on equipment. A bun then? Or a braid? After checking how easy her hair would cooperate, she settled on two thick french plaits.

She hadn’t even gotten to pull the trigger once before she heard Papyrus in the doorway as he ducked through and stared at her with curious empty sockets. Even without eyelights, she could feel where his focus was. It was on her hand poised with a spray bottle aimed at her hair. Rather than saying anything or asking what he wanted, she pulled the trigger and started the process of dampening her hair. It wasn’t until her curls started to get weighed down with moisture that Papyrus finally spoke up.

“HUMAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Her gaze locked with his visage in the mirror as he had moved closer. His gaze wasn’t on the spray bottle anymore and rather on the top of her head. What was so interesting that he had to move closer? While this bathroom was on the bigger side, it wasn’t quite big enough to not feel cramped with a towering skeleton monster sharing the space as well.

“Taming this hair down,” she stated simply and she could see his teeth part to ask another question, most likely “why” she was doing this after his encouragement. “Papi, you do remember where we’re going tonight right?” She didn’t continue speaking until he nodded, “Sorry to tell you, but this FIERCE hair is a little too much for the gym. It gets caught on a shit around here, rather not think of what it could get caught on at a place with heavy weights, equipment, and the occasional fool who can’t keep his or her or their hands to themselves.” She’d started off wanting to play it off lightly with a joke, but some frustration had leaked into her voice as she remembered there were still people who didn’t understand you couldn’t treat others like a petting zoo.

It’s not like touching her hair is completely off limits. Just ask first, most times she’s fine with it so long as they don’t over do it. Plus, she worked to hard to ensure the health and texture of her hair for it go unappeciated by not only herself, but those close to her. Strangely, none of her skeleton friends, except one, had recently tried or asked to touch it. Only one had tried and she had gotten on him about consent. That had been Cash, back when they had first met, but now he was pest about it and she had taken to telling him no just to spite him.

Papyrus had originally ducked into the bathroom to ask if he could get himself a glass of water while he waited, but had been struck with curiosity as he saw his human friend aiming a spray bottle at her head, more specifically her hair. It was similar to the spray bottle they had used to discipline the cats back home at one point. He was aware that humans had various products--thousands he had discovered--for their hair. Especially the women of the species, but the men weren’t exempt either. It had been overwhelming the first time he had stepped into a store on the surface. They just had an overwhelming amount of choices for pretty much everything.

Zoning back in, she noticed Papyrus’s teeth had just closed, “Sorry, did you say something? Fraid I missed it,” she piped up apologetically as she started wetting her hair again. Maybe it would have been easier to just duck her head under the shower at this point. “Papi?” she called as he didn’t answer, peeking up at him again in mirror, but he ssemed to be lost in his thoughts again. Sighing, she left him to it and picked up a wide tooth comb and began working out knots gently as she could.

∆∆∆

He wandered closer for a better look as she began spritzing her hair. He could smell that the bottle didn’t just contain water. It didn’t smell bad though. No, it smelled warm and comforting, just like her. His sockets locked onto how the water seemed to bead and run down her hair, reminding him of how water would just roll off a duck’s back. Some of the beads got caught on the kinks and turns her hair would make, but her fingers helped to gently coax the water to absorb until her hair started to lay down with the excess moisture. He’d asked what she was doing, but much to his shame, he was hardly focusing on her answer.

He nodded to her question. Of course he knew where they were going, but wasn’t quite understanding why the place mattered? Then again, now that he thinks about it, he had never seen her wear her hair down when they went to the gym or on runs. He’d simply assumed it was her preferred look for those moments and he enjoyed seeing all the different updos she could manipulate her hair into. He wasn’t afraid to admit he didn’t want her to “tame” her hair as she had put it right now.

He more heard her explanation, rather than actively listening, but understood what she saying. It made sense. It was practical reasoning. He kept quiet as the last bit registered with him and held in a dejected sigh. He had hoped Cash was pulling everyone’s legs about her not liking others touching her hair. His alternate was almost also pulling pranks and getting lectured for it. “Of All Things For Cash to Be Serious About…” he muttered, not caring if he was pouting.

He let himself get lost in the practiced movements of her hands. She hadn’t shooed him away so he guessed he was permitted to stay and watch. He took note of how she worked a comb through her hair, the teeth were wider than the gag comb Sans carried in his hoodie pocket and she gently worked out knots starting at the ends and moving up. Once she deemed her hair knot free, she had grabbed an even funnier looking comb. This one had thinly spaced teeth, but had a long piece extending from the relatively small comb part. She used the long tapered part to part her hair down the middle then in what seemed effortless, she twisted one side of her hair and stuck the long bit through it like a hair pin. To his surprise, it stayed in place and didn’t unravel. Was she going to do this to the other side as well? Combs were an odd accessory, but he wasn't judging.

His head tilted as it almost looked like she getting her fingers tangled, but he finally figured out what she doing once she started moving. He watched in muted amazement as she braided with practiced ease, fingers gathering new hair to work in as she moved from her temple to her nape. The braid was chunky and laid neatly against her scalp, while the rest rested against her shoulder and neck as she finished it. She plucked the comb from her hair and ran the teeth through the end of the braid before twisting. The end result was a neat curl at the end that worked like magic to him keep the entire thing from unraveling. His jaw had dropped open without him noticing, only clacking closed as heard her giggle. Her fingers were already braiding the other side as she smiled teasingly up at him in the mirror.

Cheekbones flushing pink with magic for the second time that evening, Papyrus was thankful there were no windows in this room as he was sure his friend would not appreciate him throwing himself through it to get away from his embarrassment. “IT’S RUDE TO STARE,” he griped, only flushing more as she smiled more. “NO, STOP THAT. CEASE!” he commanded, straightening up with a flustered glare as she was practically grinning up at him now.

“Stop what, hmm?” Oh no. “And what do you mean it’s rude to stare? Weren’t you staring at me this for the past… ooooh, couple minutes?” Damn it.

Papyrus had nothing to say in defense, but a mess of words poured from his jaws and stars, maybe he should try throwing himself through that wall there. It couldn’t be that thick. He was sure he was practically glowing by now and he should just respond with his normal snark, but his usually brilliant mind was failing him at the moment. Once again he found himself muffling an embarrassed screech in his palms as a human woman laughed. Atleast this time, said woman was trying to comfort him and bring him back down to earth with familiar warmth and comfort that was all her.

#papyrus x reader #papyrus x self insert #papyrus x y/n #papyrus x you #papyrus #poc reader #curly haired reader #thick hair struggles #undertale #undertale au #fanfic #fic #undertale fic #fluff #oh so fluffy

16 notes · View notes

sometimesrosy · 6 years

Note

Do you think octavia is a "white savior"? Or that Pike and Bellamy were "demonized males of color"? Not trying to offend anyone, I've just seen those types of posts, and while I can see their validity, I also see how those situations could be circumstantial. I never thought this show really had race as an issue, so I was wondering your thoughts.

No I don’t think that Octavia is a white savior. I think the closest we get to white savior is Clarke in seasons 3 and 4, but I also think that’s the princess in the tower trope. I think it’s related to the white savior.

Octavia wasn’t actually the savior of anyone but her own people until she won their dumb leadership game and said they were allowed to live. And she never tried to erase their heritage or say they were dumb (shame, because, yo, the grounders are a DUMB society and maybe if she didn’t worship them so much she could have managed something more sensible in the bunker.) Octavia has assimilated into Grounder culture. Assimilation is not racism. Assimilation is not appropriation. Assimilation is what happens when you are an immigrant, and join the dominant culture. Octavia rejects her own culture and joins the grounders, as much as she can.

I see what they’re saying, but they’re picking the wrong leader, and also ignoring the other issues involved in it, like that Clarke stared doing the princess in the tower, I make the rules for you thing because she accepted L’s way of leadership as correct. Combining Jaha’s sacrificing the expendables for the greater good, Dante’s I bear it so they don’t have to and L’s I am in charge I make the decisions. She doesn’t really go all the way with any of those leadership philosophies, but she really teetered on the edge with that stealing the bunker thing. So I think the white savior thing is something to look at with Clarke but not the only issue.

As for the “Demonizing the MOC” thing, I got to say, that theory not only pisses me off, it offends me. It came up in season 3. When we followed the Arkadia story. There were two main stories in Arkadia, the political one and the COL/pain one. The COL story line consisted of Jaha, Abby, Raven, Jasper, and Jackson.

The political story line consisted of Bellamy, Kane, Pike, Monty, Miller, Hannah, Harper, Bryan, Lincoln, and Octavia.

Find me the straight white man in that story.

Trick question. There are none.

First off, if the narrative is demonizing the MOC, then where’s the white dude who is the angel in the story? Kane?

Ah. Why are you whitewashing a half Peruvian man, born in Peru? That, my friends, is a LATINO.

Some POC do indeed have lighter skin, and that does not make them white, even if they do have european heritage. A lot of us POC have european heritage. This is the result of COLONIZATION and SLAVERY, especially with latinos, who are already a mestizo ethnicity and come in all colors.

One of the things we need to do to combat racism is to recognize that being a POC is not a narrow definition. And we look and act a lot different than the racist stereotypes say we do. There is a huge amount of diversity within the POC community and we cannot be represented by only one type of people.

The political narrative in arkadia was a story which was MOC taking the dominant role in the WHOLE story. IF you want to say that this storyline was about demonizing one side of that story, then the MOC played the angel (Kane) they played the devil (Pike) and the played the soul that the angel and devil were fighting for. (Bellamy.) I like that storyline. It puts a focus on Bellamy’s moral dilemma and his character development and his character development and points out how EXTREMELY important he is to the narrative. Nothing is fixed until Bellamy steps up and takes positive, decisive action and it is the moment that takes him from being a follower to an actual leader and hero.

He was tested. He could have become Pike as a leader. He passed the test. This is a story line run entirely without straight white men and the center of the story was a MOC. It’s ABOUT him.

And then there’s another way you could read the storyline. You could read the Arkadia/Pike/Bellamy story about perspective. About who’s getting to tell he story. About how you decide what truth is. About how people lead you to think what they want you to think. About how people deceive themselves so that their beliefs won’t be challenged.

The Arkadia storyline was presented as if “peace” with the grounders was dependent upon doing what they wanted, bending the knee. Both Clarke and Kane bent the knee to L, they gave her dominion over Arkadia. Gave her their resources and their obedience and control over them. They agreed to stay within their boundaries and not use the resources of the mountain and not farm or travel or trade. But the truth was that this was not a REAL peace, and Kane said so in 3.01. They were afraid that ANYTHING they did would jeopardize their peace and lead to attack by the grounders. People going out of bounds. The scouting party shooting grounders. Taking too many supplies from MW. Moving into MW. Showing medical supplies from MW in polis. SIMPLY SHOWING that they had medical supplies was a risk to their peace. THIS WAS PART OF THE STORY. Y’all. OMG. I keep getting people telling me that they didn’t show how the grounders were oppressing Arkadia. OMG they did. Why did you miss it?

Maybe the question is about if Peace is really worth it if you have to submit and give up your freedom and independence to get it. Bellamy thought not. Pike’s platform was NOT. He SAID it. He said that Kane had been branded. Like Cattle. The Arkadians were like Cattle to Polis. The Arkadians voted for Pike. By a landslide because they didn’t like where Kane had taken them. They hadn’t been killed for 3 months, but bending the knee didn’t stop them from being blown up again. This wasn’t about Bellamy at all although people keep trying to blame him for it. He was a follower, and he agreed with Pike.

Why? Because the grounders have been killing them since the dropship. Because they betrayed and abandoned him and the delinquents in the mountain. Because they have kept them penned in Arkadia for 3 months. Because they blew up MW. Because they kidnapped and are holding Clarke prisoner. Because a grounder army outside their gates puts them at risk for being slaughtered whenever Lxa changes her mind about them (which is about every 3 days in s 3 tbh.) BECAUSE HE DOESN’T TRUST THEM. For good reasons that we’ve been watching and have been shown for three seasons. You honestly shouldn’t even NEED to have seen Farm Station getting massacred to believe it. Or feel it. We’ve seen ENOUGH of grounders ready to massacre sky people. Or doing it.

Demonizing? The grounders killed something like 350 out of 400 of Pike’s people. THEY HUNTED THEM. And even after he came under this peace treaty of the Arkadians, the grounders, part of this coalition, killed another 30. He was JUSTIFIED to think of the grounders as his enemy and to think of this as a war. BECAUSE IT WAS.

The narrative, the story, did not demonize Pike or Bellamy. That was THE FANDOM.

I am really going to have to throw this back to the fandom’s own racism. You treated the white girls as having the noble goals. OH, you thought Lxa was going to take care of the Arkadians now because she got the cute girl to bow to her? Based on what evidence? The way she’s been trying to wipe out sky people since the beginning? The way she already betrayed Clarke once and left them all to die? Oh but they’re her people now? Right. And she didn’t let a bomb drop on TonDC to reach her aims, or send her warriors to die for her on a regular basis? Or torture Gustus to death. Or hamstring the dude in the woods who didn’t obey her. Or kick her ambassador out the damn window.

But she’s a pretty white girl, so she must mean it when she says she’ll take care of Clarke and Clarke’s people as if they were her own. Arkadia is safe now. (LOL even Clarke didn’t believe that.) The NARRATIVE proved that not to be true. She still went back and put them all under a kill order.

BUT

A BLACK man and an ASIAN woman tell the story of how their people died horribly at the hands of the Azgeda (who we’ve already seen are violent and fierce) and the FANDOM thinks they are lying. Even though we witnessed for TWO seasons the way TRIKRU attacked and tried to massacre the dropship and Camp Jaha. There must be some other reason for why that happened. Pike must have done something evil to deserve it. (This reminds me of a twitter story I heard yesterday about black men being arrested in starbucks for waiting for their friend, without doing anything and white people in the comments were like ‘but no they must have done something there’s more to the story they couldn’t possibly have been treated unfairly just for existing.)

I mean. We have plenty of narrative evidence of Pike and Bellamy being right in treating this like a war and the grounders as their dishonorable enemies. Because the grounders have been killing them and betraying them and terrorizing them AS WE HAVE SEEN FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SHOW.

And the FANDOM treats Bellamy and Pike like criminals, like scary MOC, who are the villains of the story.

Pretty white girls: No don’t hurt the vicious armies who have been killing you since you landed. They are innocent. They’re good now. They have the word “Peace” in their title.

MOC: They just did it again and if they stay there, armed, they’re going to attack Arkadia we can’t take that risk.

Pretty white girls: OH NO HOW COULD YOU KILL THEM THEY WERE INNOCENT SLEEPING BABIES WHO WOULD NEVER HURT A FLY

MOC: they were LITERALLY the trikru army who killed us at the drop ship. That was them. The ACTUAL people who killed the kids.

Pretty white girls: BUT LXA WANTS PEACE.

MOC: LXA JUST CALLED FOR THE DEATH OF EVERY SKYCREW MAN WOMAN AND CHILD

The fandom: OMG BELLAMY AND PIKE ARE SUCH VILLAINS. DEMONS DEMONS!

BITCH?

You think because someone TELLS you “they think this is real peace,” THAT ITS ACTUALLY REAL PEACE?

DID you not SEE them killing people left and right? Did you not NOTICE how afraid the sky people were? Did you not SEE how much the grounder coalition members (almost all of them) hated sky crew?

No. Lxa said “Bow to me and I will protect your people.” AND YOU BELIEVE HER?

SHE LEFT THEM AT THE MOUNTAIN!!!

what the HELL is with you guys

Oh right.

We live in a racist society that says black men are dangerous and pretty white girls are innocent. So when we see a black man afraid and terrorized, we imagine he is the monster, and when we see a pretty white girl being a monster, we look for all the damn excuses we can find to make her innocent.

GTFO.

The show didn’t do it. The fandom did.

#the 100 meta #arkadia #polis #racism in fandom #white savior trope #the 100 is problematic #but not in the way you think #racism #i feel like i'm going to get in trouble for this one but i'm pissed off about how little fandom examines their own beliefs and actions #stop blaming the SHOW for what's going on in YOUR head

23 notes · View notes