#as long as it's not something boundary-breaking and/or legitimately weird who CARES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

albatris · 4 years

Text

mm okay I’m a little bit drunk on baileys n I’m gonna go on that brycengreer sibling ramble I’ve been meaning to go on for like two months now yeehaw

got a bit more intense than i intended

spoilers, spoilers, yeah, kinda, I guess

and, oh, just lots of unnecessary words and being the polar opposite of concise

it’s a reaaaaaaal long one, my fuckin bad, might come back n edit it down later lmao

k so

there is one specific thing that comes up..................... a bit. in the story. and this is the idea that there is pent up resentment and jealousy and anger between the Greer siblings

and IMO I am extremely careful not to lean into the idea that this is the case when I’m writing and when I address their relationship with each other, ‘cause it’s just something that............. isn’t there??? like at all??

here’s what I do, in-story:

all I do is just present their situation and their history and their relationship with each other, I talk about the various feelings they do share and what kinds of tensions are involved at the times when there is tension involved, but overall, they all have a really positive relationship with each other!!!! they love each other!!!!

there is some level of miscommunication between Tris and Becca because of Reasons and that is something that’s addressed in the story and something that gets dealt with, but they absolutely do love each other, all of them do

n relationship between Tris and Becca is never really under that much scrutiny by other folks in the story n that’s not what this post is about, ‘cause like, other folks REALLY like to focus on the relationship that Tris and Becca have with Jacob, right

so, the two things I do, 1) present the situation and 2) voice other characters’ interpretations and perceptions of said situation

‘cause the idea that there’s pent up jealousy and anger that Tris and Becca have directed at Jacob is something that’s almost exclusively voiced by other characters in the story and isn’t supported by...... much else. and it’s something that is presented as a source of a lot of anxiety and discomfort for all three of the Greer sibs, Tris and Becca particularly

n yeah, I don’t know how I feel about readers potentially going through this story assuming that this is actually the case............. though readers are free to do what they would like, regardless of my intent

I just mention it ‘cause like

one thing is that it’s the kind of family dynamic in fiction that’s really frequently used as the setup for a story about jealousy and resentment, y’know, ‘cause at a glance there’s this dynamic, right, this Dynamic

with these overbearing, strict, emotionally distant, controlling, etc. parents who place all kinds of pressure onto their kids and want to project this Perfect Family Image at all times, they’re obsessed with appearances and success and being normal, super normal, More Normal Than You

n then you’ve got this one over-achieving, polite, social, well-liked older sibling who got straight A’s and can do no wrong, who everything comes (supposedly) easily and naturally to, and the younger two who are.................... not good at school, kinda weird, never Act Right, both neurodivergent, can never quite live up to their parents expectations........ generally treated by said parents as kinda just. lowkey embarrassing. some kind of blemish they need to hide because they don’t lend themselves to this We’re A Happy And Normal Family Who’s Doing Better Than You :) :) vibe

like, as a general rule, the Greer parents are more concerned with image than they are with any of their kids’ actual wellbeing

Becca’s got a lot of ADHD going on and their parents Really did not like it when she came out as bi because obviously it’s just for attention (and like, hey, Becca’s really fucking good at arts and sports and eventually goes on to play professional basketball not that that gets covered in story but That’s Not Important because she doesn’t get good grades and that’s all that matters :///)

n Tris began exhibiting signs of psychosis when he was little and their parents were just sorta like “hm we should probably exorcise this child like the nice normal well-adjusted family we are” and then they tried to do that and I think he was maybe a little bit too young to completely understand what was happening but kinda grew up thinking that was a totally normal and reasonable thing for them to do and not just a completely fucked up thing that should never have been allowed to happen

then went on to have his first full-blown psychotic episode at thirteen years old and his parents were just sort of like. Hm. You Should Have Some Therapy To Fix You Maybe. Also We Are Literally Never Going To Speak About This Ever

and I think largely the outlook other characters have (and I think, the outlook the Greer parents have) is that Jacob comparatively just kind of................ cruised right on through with no issues?

so I think a lot of people kind of look at the Greer family and are like.......... well, look at them, there’s got to be some fucked up feelings there, how could there NOT be. n I think pretty much everyone barring Noa and the Greer sibs themselves on some level think there’s some level of bad blood

and their mistake is........ well, two things, from an outside perspective

the first being the assumption that Jacob had it easy, ‘cause like........... YES Jacob is extremely good at keeping up appearances and meeting his parents’ expectations but he’s the human embodiment of that, uh, what is that one The Onion headline that’s like.......... “This Brilliant 11-Year-Old Ballerina Is Living Proof That Children Can Achieve Anything If We Push Them To The Breaking Point”

y’know, as if Jacob didn’t grow up in the same high-pressure environment where love is completely conditional and only given if you can prove that you Earned It, as if he wasn’t constantly plagued by the fear that if he slips up or steps even slightly out of line or is anything less than Completely Perfect And Accomodating at all times, that love will be taken away. n he grew up into a neurotic perfectionist with identity issues who can’t set boundaries and doesn’t feel he has any worth if he’s not constantly being Useful and Relevant and Smart and giving as much of himself as possible

and, more pressingly, he grew up with literally Zero idea how to navigate any sort of healthy balanced relationship, he’s someone who, with the exception of his siblings, grew up only experiencing love as fear, and as such, he’s someone who’s very easily taken advantage of and he doesn’t have the capacity to recognise it

so, like, yeah, Jacob was better at projecting the Nice Normal Family Image that his parents wanted than Tris and Becca have been, but he still grew up facing the exact same pressures and unpleasantness and overbearing control and had the Worst Fucking Time

like, he was not having fun at all, he was terrified 24/7

and the second mistake is, like............ in assuming that the Greer siblings are in competition with each other? like, it’s easy to project all sorts of bad blood and jealousy and pent-up anger onto the two younger siblings if you assume that they’re in competition with Jacob in vying for their parents’ affection and attention but like........ they’re not

n I’ve talked a bit in the past about how Jacob has always been extremely, extremely protective of his younger siblings purely because he didn’t want them to go through the same bullshit he did all on their own. n he’s probably 90% of the reason either of them are anywhere near as well-adjusted as they are, and he’s pretty much been the only consistent source of love and stability and genuine emotional support they’ve had through most of their childhood, ‘cause he knew damn fucking well they weren’t going to get it from their parents

largely due to Jacob, probably, ‘cause like. he has thirteen extra years under his belt and he came to the conclusion, probably when he was quite young himself, that literally nothing he ever does is ever going to be Good Enough and that no matter how well he does in school or socially, his parents will find some new thing to nitpick or to tell him to aim for, and like......... well, that’s horrible to have 2 come to grips with at any age?? he can do lots of things that make his parents happy but nothing he does is actually going to get his parents to love him as a person, their genuine love is completely unattainable

which changed his priorities a LOT

n like, he’s a genuinely good guy. he’s very caring and sweet and kind and supportive and he loves his siblings very much

n I think there's this assumption that Jacob is the only one of the kids their parents actually love when that's not really it at all? he's the one they LIKE but they don't love any of them

which is oversimplifying it by a lot, because Tris and Becca have all sorts of complicated feelings about their parents and definitely don’t hate them (yet), but, like, you get what I mean

which I think is where people make the mistake, y'know, bcthe Greer sibs are not in competition with each other, they’re kind of, supporting each other against a common enemy

like, both Tris and Becca struggle a lot with their feelings about their parents, and over the course of the story, Tris is kind of............... juuuust starting to come to grips with how fucked up his relationship with his parents is, or more like....... I mean he kind of Already Knows, but assumes that he on some level deserves it, and over the course of the story is kind of like

Oh Wait None Of This Was My Fault And None Of What Has Happened To Me Was Normal

and even from THAT regard though, that was something that Jacob had been kind of pushing for from day one, Jacob is kind of the person who laid a lot of the foundations for him to eventually realise that, although of course that kind of final leap is one you have to make on your own and something that takes a lot of work

but he kind of struggles with the complicated grey area of being like “I love my parents” and “the way they treated me was legitimately fucked up and I didn’t deserve it” and that’s.......... a whole thing

n like.............. from a readerly perspective, this is stuff that comes out over the course of the story as you kinda learn more about their backstory and their relationship with each other

but again, the familiar setup most people associate with resentment is kinda there, and there’s a lot of kinda........... pressure from other (sometimes well-meaning) characters when they voice their opinions about the Greer siblings’ situation from outside perspectives

and like I said, I’m not sure how I feel about readers potentially going through this story assuming that those characters are Right, ‘cause I don’t think that’s necessarily something I lean into or build towards if you’re paying attention

like, I think those readers who DO assume that there is bad blood, they might be a little disappointed if they feel that the story is building to An Explosion and then there just............ isn’t....... but part of me is also like

well lmao that’s entirely on you, and you’re just illustrating my point, actually

like at no point did I express that this was a thing or even hint towards it, all of this came from Other Characters Projecting and from You Projecting

n also while I don’t want people to feel cheated there is a part of it that’s just like. super fucking funny to me. if like

someone reads this story and assumes there’s all this Bad Blood just waiting to finally bubble over and explode in some climactic moment, y’know, and the story gets to this real heated tense moment where the cracks are starting to show and push is coming to shove and then the huge plot twist is just like

“no they all do legitimately love each other so much and support each other unconditionally and want each other to be safe and happy and loved and they’d do anything for each other and the entire point of their story is how much they care about each other and how powerful and important the connection they have with each other is”

fuckin LOVE that. that’s so fucking funny to me

you wanted edgy bullshit??

TOO FUCKIN BAD

ONLY WHOLESOME BULLSHIT HERE

also happy endings for all three Greer siblings involve them at some point in their early adult lives saying “fuck it” and moving interstate never to return

#alcohol mention #i mean just cuz i mention it at the top there cuz baileys there's no alcohol in the post itself #also tw for i guess emotional abuse in main text and unhealthy parent relationships if you don't wanna read abt that #atdao #n like #idk how i ever initially thought i could make tris's plotline work without jacob at the centre of it bc its like #y'know #he's a person who's spent so much painstaking time building up a structure in his life #that feels Safe and Protected and Normal #building up this comfort zone and this kind of safety bubble that's the only way he can navigate the world without being #in a constant state of panic #n then there's the question #''what would make him immediately abandon this safety bubble and throw himself into danger with zero hesitation no questions asked?''#to which the answer is obviously Jacob Greer Is In Trouble And Needs Help #which i dont want to read as like...... y'know; tris feeling useless compared to jacob and this is a chance #for him to kinda prove himself #it's not that at all it's just like #literally the most obvious thing in the world to him there is zero doubt or hesitation #and yes he screams in terror the entire fucking time but that's hardly the point

7 notes · View notes

anangelicday-mrwolf · 4 years

Text

Wolfsbane : Noblesse Fanfic (post-ending)

(previous chapter)

Chapter 23 – Shattered Lake

“Haaa...”

Like a dragon spitting smoke, Frankenstein yielded a sigh with a sound expected from a steam locomotive, as he dropped the document he was holding.

The thin piece of material was long devoid of life it used to relish in the forest that gave it life; however, Frankenstein could swear the paper was just drained of life as it swam in the air towards the desk.

Which was not his first time seeing it.

It has been weeks, now more than days, ever since he agreed to a secret deal with Muzaka to constantly receive Ignes’s data from Lunark to dissect.

At the same time, he had to regularly probe through Union’s data that 3rd Elder had collected for him, in order to find something, if anything, that can unravel the mystery of Raizel’s return.

Neither of which has reciprocated him with any progress.

A hamster in a wheel was now an overstatement for him; he felt now he has become a cogwheel in a machine.

And such lament, of course, changes nothing. The only resort he could make once again was reasoning with himself.

‘Next time. Yes, next time I will land upon something. So I’ll just have to wait until Lunark shows up.’

That moment his heart seized with an unusual “thump,” and Frankenstein could not deny that he started when there was no reason or need to.

He knew unlike before, he has turned dangerously conscious of Lunark, ever since he fell asleep due to minor immunity he had grown to the wolfsbane tonic and thus fell victim to a nasty show of effigy by the Dark Spear.

Even now, thinking about Lunark was all it took for his heart to pump blood in an all-so-strange way.

‘Get a grip, Frankenstein. What are you, a teenage boy with a crush?’

Aaaand I just had to come up with such metaphor.

Frankenstein violently raked through his hair, his fingers not quite gentle.

His intention was to pacify the turmoil in his head, but his hands ended up whipping up a storm out of the said turmoil.

Even without her presence, he is busy fidgeting and tap-dancing and off-balancing himself.

So he doubted he could handle his tasks as he had used to once he is actually at her presence.

It was impossible to either shun Lunark or have another werewolf replace her as Muzaka’s secret agent.

Even Garda, Muzaka’s oldest follower, is in the dark regarding this secret deal for the sake of security and peace of wolfkind. Who knows what will happen if there is at least one more shareholder in this secret project?

Most importantly, this secret deal is not altogether unrelated to the Union, and the only werewolf who has been in direct affiliation with Union is Lunark, which means there is no legitimate excuse for Frankenstein to veto her participation.

As Frankenstein shook his head and added a huge chunk of air from his lungs into the atmosphere, from his computers came a barking noise signaling an incoming transmission, causing him to jump.

Once he checked the origin of transmission, he deliberated for a moment whether he should pretend there is no one home. Because whoever it was that was requesting his time, there was no doubt this caller was a werewolf.

Nevertheless, he knew there is no way he can play deaf to this call; after all, he was the one who willingly provided werewolves with his coordinates, in case they have any hint on Blood Stone that he could find useful.

The only thing he could do, therefore, was to pray to all deities and powers he could think of to please let it not be Lunark who demands him at the moment.

Much to his relief, his prayer was answered in a good way.

<It’s been a long time.>

A werewolf with very familiar physique and countenance nodded at him in the monitor, and Frankenstein almost let himself betray his relief.

“What is it? Is there trouble?”

Kentas very effectively destroyed the vortex of unease in Frankenstein’s head.

This was what the latter has been dreading all this time.

“Union. Of course they would seek retaliation. Is everyone alright? How many visitors did you have?”

“No need to be so considerate about my anxiety level. We all know the top-tiered fighters in Union are gone, but I doubt eight invaders from Union had left no scar upon your land.”

Frankenstein was about to frown, when Kentas’s expression, too calm and even innocent to be from someone being considerate, held his muscles.

“How is that possible? Just who were you against?”

Frankenstein was reminded of the 8th Elder that Lunark and Zarga brought to Korea, upon his first encounter with the werewolf woman. And then he was reminded of the two guards that accompanied Aris upon her first entrance to Seoul.

‘Of course, there’s little chance that they are the only models of biological weapons that Union would fabricate out of living humans. But things would be complicated if the ones Kentas is talking about are the identical model to the 8th Elder. That dummy’s intelligence was so horrible I had to think they downgraded it on purpose, but his power was definitely threatening – which is an unbiased evaluation. In fact, his power made me understand how in the world such idiot could call himself an elder like Luna...’

Hold up.

Just why am I thinking about her – again?!

Frankenstein pictured himself slapping his own face with a vicious thwack, before focusing back on Kentas. He could not dare pull it off in real life when he had an audience.

“Listening to you, I can think of a model of modified human. It’s a model that would shoot energy beam from its mouth, with its jaw distinctively designed in a mechanic fashion. Am I right?”

<Exactly. You just pulled out the image from my head.>

“And you say you suffered no damage? Is it safe to assume that means your clan’s defense system has been perfectly recovered?”

<...I wish I could say that, but I’m afraid I cannot, once again.>

Kentas’s shoulders rose and fell as he sighed, and Frankenstein’s intuition signaled there is something not right about this.

And there is a reason that for the past centuries, his intuition has been his deadliest, most faithful weapon.

“But...?”

“Warn you?”

<Yeah. It was like seeing a cobra raising itself with its hood visible towards its enemies.>

“...So who fought them?”

<Me, Dorant, and a couple warriors who happened to be returning from field tasks. And they told me the ones they were against also simply played threat.>

“...And that was it?”

Kentas nodded, and Frankenstein let his eyebrows squeeze his forehead in puzzlement.

‘Weird. This is far from retaliation. It’s like giving a taste of what they could do, to test how well the werewolves can fare as of now.’

But of course, Union has yet to regrow its power, which gives them enough reason not to cause too much hassle with werewolves.

‘If they cause damage too serious for werewolves to give a pass for, the werewolves might pay back with retribution that they cannot handle in their current state. But their ego would not let them just suck their thumbs in waiting until they can return to spotlight, so perhaps they sought to make their enemies remember they are alive. And as of now, that’s the most likely scenario behind this case.’

Nonetheless, Frankenstein was getting an attack from that sort of feeling – the bad feeling that there is something more about this “assault.”

He had his mouth shut as he was drowned in his own thoughts, and Kentas spoke once more.

<Luckily, they found out nothing about what’s going on with our kind right now. Which is a good thing, since we cannot let anything related to QuadraNet leak.>

“Oh, which reminds me, how was the human researcher? Is the QuadraNet good to go?”

Trying his best to ignore a flinch in his chest upon mention of her name, Frankenstein kept his poise.

However, his poise started to crack like an icy lake hit by a rock, upon what Kentas said.

Frankenstein could feel his pupils contract in a speed of light.

Torn between desire for and fear of what is to befall, he waited for Kentas’s explanation, when his monitor flourished with an array of colorful noise and lost transmission.

And that moment Frankenstein’s poise was shattered like an icy lake blasted with a cannon, and the last word from Kentas plunged towards the abyss of his heart like a cannonball in water.

Did Lunark... What?!

‘She’s had plenty of experience in Union, and she’s one of the most powerful warriors that werewolves have. There’s no way she was taken down by the weapons that did not want to fight in the first place. She can take care of herself.’

Yet Kentas decided to bring her up for a reason Frankenstein could not fathom, forcing his heart in a tug-of-war: trust his knowledge about her that it is no big deal and just ignore it, or trust his intuition and find out what it is that Kentas was trying to say.

He paced back and forth in his spot, but it took less than seconds for him to make his choice.

“Goddamn it...!”

Frankenstein found himself in front of 3rd Elder’s bedroom, in a speed he has never exerted in this isle.

Immediately reacting to a frenzied knock, 3rd Elder opened the door.

“What is it...?”

“Something urgent came up, so I must ask you to substitute me for a couple of days.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“No time to explain. Just contact the werewolves if you need me.”

“A-alright.”

Frankenstein trotted back into the corridor, his lab coat still on. As soon as he was outside, he sprinted in full speed across the huge body of water.

His determination not to think about Lunark perfectly forgotten, he could only beg that there is nothing wrong with her.

*****

“A couple of days...? Just what could this be about?”

This is not the first time for either of them to be away from this island, but 3rd Elder has never seen Frankenstein willingly leave for days, with him left behind – an opportunity that he might never find again.

With such ball of gold laid in the palm of his hands, 3rd Elder’s mind was redirected to that one grocery shopping that took place outside, nothing like the ones he had before.

(next chapter)

Yes - next episode will be in the 3rd Elder’s point of view. I took extra care with this episode, so I’m super-excited to finally post it. :D Please stay tuned for more!

#korean webcomic #korean webtoon #fanfic #noblesse #frankenstein #frankensteinxlunark #lunark #wolfsbane

2 notes · View notes

yasuda-yoshiya · 5 years

Text

Opinions on Ciconia Phase 1!

All is in the name of guiding humanity down the right path...

This should be obvious, but there will be plenty of spoilers below, so please don’t read if you haven’t finished the game yet!

While I was reading, I felt like I had a bit of an up and down relationship with Ciconia. I felt really excited and impressed by the first few hours of the game - the setup of the intro with the whole military propaganda was intriguing and effective, Miyao and Jayden's dynamic was immediately super endearing and adorable, and the whole plot with Meow and her date with Jayden had me absolutely bursting with joy! I still can't quite process how happy I am that Ryukishi committed so hard to "gender weirdness" as a permanent WTC fixture here and that Yasu's story absolutely wasn't a one-off at all, and the whole framing of the plot was so heartfelt and sincere and sympathetic - Meow's gender ambiguity and her relationship with Jayden is completely accepted and celebrated by both the narrative and the entire cast, and the whole situation is framed as something totally sweet and wholesome without a single joke at their expense. Meow herself was incredibly cute, and Jayden's initial surprised reaction to her and his whole phase of overenthusiastically trying too hard to be accepting with Miyao about it in a way that ended up making him uncomfortable ("Yeah, I have a female alter, but I'm still ME, just treat me the same way you always did!") hit the perfect spot of how an awkward but totally well-meaning person really would react in that kind of situation - on the whole, I was and still am delighted that Ryukishi went so far with this!

I can definitely understand people having reservations about some of the specifics of the execution, and there are definitely valid concerns to be had with some of the CPP stuff to be sure - but at least for me personally, just the broader picture that Ryukishi chose to spend so much time having his characters explicitly working through and talking over gender issues in such an unambiguously accepting and humanising way made me so happy; I hadn't remotely anticipated that from Ciconia at all, but I genuinely felt that he did it with a lot of heart and the dynamic between Miyao/Meow and Jayden is still probably my favourite part of the VN overall! (And I also really appreciate that Miyao and Jayden were still definitely framed as being extremely flirty and gay as hell even after Meow entered the picture, since I was afraid we might end up losing that part of their dynamic at first! But no, Jayden's really obviously super in love with both of them and it's adorable.)

Unfortunately, after the very strong opening, I kind of felt a bit let down by the next ten hours or so running so hard into PLOT PLOT PLOT, with Meow almost completely disappearing for no obvious reason and the emotional core that had been originally set up being basically dropped for a lot of RGD-style political intrigue and mysterious apocalypse cults that I felt weren't really given enough context for me to get particularly invested in. It felt to me like there was a very long stretch where the plot basically amounted to a series of increasingly large-scale disasters interspersed with very samey and insubstantial discussions between Miyao and the other faction leaders about how powerless they are and agonising over whether there's anything they can do; since the whole plot takes place on such a macro scale and doesn't really take much time to meaningfully develop the faction leaders as individuals all that much beyond their basic personalities being likable on a surface level, it felt to me like the whole big series of incidents and disasters weren't really fleshed out enough or given the personal and emotional grounding for them to be individually interesting, so it all just sort of blurred together and started to feel kind of tedious.

So, around that point I was feeling more than a little disappointed by Ciconia! And yet... somehow, by the end, I felt like it genuinely did manage to gradually win me over, and the whole ending sequence hit me really hard in a way that I honestly hadn't expected it to. While I do still feel like that whole aforementioned section definitely could have been handled better and not been so dragged out (even just interspersing some of the cute character stuff from the postgame tips would have helped break it up a bit... which I kind of strongly suspect was originally the intent ala Higurashi, and I'm not really sure why they didn't go through with it), after a while I found I was genuinely won over by just how sincere and determined Miyao and the other kids were to avoid fighting each other and to find a peaceful solution, even with all the obstacles in their way. (I think I specifically remember the part where Miyao took over the COU newbie kette's gauntlets to help them intercept his own missiles where I found myself getting genuinely emotional and realising that, huh, I guess I really do care about these kids and this plot after all!)

It's funny, for a long time I felt kind of bemused - from a storytelling perspective - by just how solid the alliance between the kids was and how it totally lasted to the end. There were a whole bunch of incidents like the issue with the ABN/ACR conflict over the crop supplies that I was sort of expecting to lead to the group inevitably falling apart from distrust or suspicion or paranoia in the typical WTC fashion... but they never did! At first I was genuinely confused - like, you have the perfect setup to finally set up some conflict here and let things start to get interesting, Ryukishi! Why are you just sticking with the status quo! - but after a while, I sort of got the feeling that that was kind of the point; that these kids really did earnestly believe in each other and respected each other's common humanity and *did not want* to fight under any circumstances, and how tragic it was that even with their resolve being that strong and lasting through all those rough moments, that they ultimately weren't given any choice in the end. I felt that the game genuinely did sell me on the idea that the image of them all holding hands and chatting with each other to the end in the public bath VR room was their "real selves" - that that really was their true nature, and that those were their true feelings, that ultimately said much more about them as people and meant so much more than the arbitrarily tragic road they ended up being forced to go down entirely against their will.

I think I was kind of thrown for a loop with Ciconia because I generally expect Ryukishi's stories to follow a trajectory where the characters gradually reveal their flaws and their inner "ugliness" as the story goes on (albeit generally in a way that's still very sympathetic and humanising, of course) - but while that did sort of happen at the end here with things like Chloe and Aysha’s turnarounds (and may well happen some more in the future given that we know there were traitors in the order), in this case I honestly felt like the purpose of the story was more about bringing out the kids' inner goodness. They really were good kids! None of this was their fault! They really deserved better! And while I think I normally wouldn't be all that into a story with that kind of straightforward message (you know, me generally being a cynical loveless husk and all), in this case specifically I felt like Ryukishi really managed to convey that specific sort of feeling of loyalty and connectedness and breaking down of boundaries that comes from Internet friendships in a surprisingly touching way.

And I think in that context, even the fact that we don't ever get to see the different factions getting to know each other all that well or forming any particularly deep connections or relationships with each other beyond their political solidarity... also sort of works, honestly? Even just that very casual kind of connection, of these kids just screwing around in an improvised chatroom with a dumb name and babbling at each other about things that don't even particularly matter, the kind of interaction we've all probably experienced at some time without even thinking all that deeply about it - even just that is enough for those kids to meaningfully connect with and humanise each other, to understand on a deep level that the kids from the other factions are basically the same as them, and to want to value their common humanity over everything else. Even something that simple is enough for these kids who don't even know each other all that well to form a strong sense of solidarity that lasts through a hell of a lot of difficult times that could easily have driven them apart - to form a sense of loyalty and shared understanding with each other that feels more real and matters so much more to them than any arbitrary national loyalty possibly could. Maybe I'm just being overly sentimental, but I honestly think that message is kind of beautiful, in its way.

It also feels very relevant to me in... I guess, capturing that unique contemporary feeling of being a young person in the current political climate, and that frustration of the Internet generation being the most interconnected and least bound by national boundaries that we've ever been, and yet being forced to watch mostly powerlessly as the people in power push more and more towards stupid narrow-minded nationalism and xenophobia at a time when humanity most needs to unite against serious existential threats to the planet? So I think in that particular political context, I honestly ended up feeling really moved by just how unambiguously compassionate and sympathetic the narrative was towards these kids - that Ryukishi ended up so firmly deciding to emphasise their "goodness" and how real and precious their bonds were with each other, over anything else. It's not really the kind of story I expected from WTC, but I was legitimately touched by how much the kids' feelings around the bonds they made over the Internet being more "real" than their material reality were treated as being so totally valid - like, yes, the idea of the factory future is treated as a viscerally disturbing one, but the narrative also completely holds up the feelings that led the kids to idealise that future as 100% legit, with genuine emotional truth behind them! It doesn't feel dismissive or patronising at all, and it honestly did give me a bit of that same feeling I got from Umineko and Yasu's story from EP7 in the sense of that totally accepting and non-judgmental message of... "Even if some aspects of what you feel might be ugly, even if some people might be disturbed by you idealising something like that - it's okay to feel that way. Your pain matters. The things that led you to feel this way, to see the horror of a future like that and still long for it on some level, are completely valid. You're seen. You're understood."

And that's honestly come to feel genuinely precious to me as I've had time to reflect on Ciconia and the response it inspired in me; that it did make me feel "seen" in some deep way, maybe on a broader generational level rather than on an intimately personal one like Umineko did, but that still has a lot of value to me too. Ciconia feels very different from Umineko or Higurashi, but it's really got a lot of heart, and I personally felt in the end that the earnestness and overwhelming good nature of the intention behind it was enough for me to forgive any awkwardness in the execution. (Ryukishi is such a good guy! I love him!) So, all in all, I really appreciated Ciconia, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing where it goes from here!

#ciconia #factory future did nothing wrong #ilu ryukishi #more meow in phase 2 though pls

25 notes · View notes

raendown · 4 years

Link

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4537 Chapter: 4/9 Rated: T+ Summary: When his brother disappears coming home from town Madara goes looking for him only for both to end up taken prisoner in a castle hidden by magic generations ago. The candelabras talk, the furniture sleeps, and a great white beast hides himself away in the eastern wing. As he uncovers the story behind this place and gets to know the last small group of ‘survivors’ Madara gradually makes a new home here in the least likely of places.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 4

Living outside of time was strange. Intellectually Madara knew that when he left the village it had been the rainy season and there was no reason to expect snow for several more months, later than the year before if the almanac was to be believed. Knowing that, it should have felt so much more odd to stand in the open doorway of the castle and stare out across snow covered grounds that looked closer to the heart of winter than the middle of autumn. He wondered for a moment if being bound to this place made him just a little more connected to the magic and therefore a little less surprised by things but cast that idea away rather quickly. That wasn’t what he wanted to dwell on today.

He’d gotten himself all nicely dressed in a pair of sturdy boots Hashirama dug up for him and one of the thick coats hanging in the room he shared with Izuna. The plan had been to walk around the edge of the grounds and see how far his binding would allow him to stray but now that he was here he felt almost exhausted just thinking about the effort.

Considering the lack of moving time Madara couldn’t be sure how long he’d been standing there in indecision when movement caught his eye and he turned his head to watch the beast himself come around the corner. Despite telling Kagami just a few days before that he didn’t mind if the damn thing roamed his own castle the meeting was still so unexpected Madara froze and could do nothing but stare until he was spotted in return, the creature pausing between one long step and the next. He met glowing red eyes and, incredibly, he first thought was ‘he looks sad’.

Whatever the beast’s thoughts were it seemed pretty obvious they had nothing to do with whether or not Madara looked sad. More than anything he looked like he was contemplating which spire to climb so he could throw himself off of it, though that might have been an effect of the deep brows his twisted face was cursed with, something Madara hoped had not been there when his face had been human – ostensibly. His mane of white hair shifted around him as it was pulled by the gentle wind and the slight movement made it a little easier to distinguish his shape from the equally white snow behind him. It was possible that his coloring was an effect of the curse. Considering what Madara had seen in that portrait, though, he would guess not.

“Finally came out of hiding?” he called, partly to break the silence and partly because he just didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut sometimes. He wasn’t surprised to see the creature frown.

“If my efforts towards making you more comfortable are so unappreciated I would be more than glad to forego them in the future.”

“Oh don’t be a grumpy idiot now,” Madara snapped. “You did enough of that the last two times I saw you. I think we both know at this point that you’re not going to eat my fingers for an afternoon snack so stop pretending.”

The creature snorted, blowing out a puff of steam in the chilly air around them. He stomped one of his hooves without really seeming to notice and settled in to a more natural stance than staying paused between steps had left him in. Madara considered him for a moment and then turned away to look around them with deliberate nonchalance. With his gaze focused a little closer to himself than the far distance he could see tracks his eyes must have passed over before, evidence that his present company had been out here for quite some time with the way they started in one direction and seemed to loop all the way around the building to where the beast was now coming from the opposite side.

“Been out here for a while huh?”

“An old habit from when I first began testing the boundaries of my imprisonment.”

Madara blinked. He really hadn’t expected them both to be out here doing the same thing. Without thinking about it he asked, “How far can we go?”

Even more surprisingly, he got an answer.

“To the west our borders reach just beyond the gardens. Our northern wall marks the edge in that direction. To the south we are granted some two miles of forest trails behind the stables and to the east we may alight on the shore beyond the lake but no farther.” The creature shook his head. “You will know you have reached the edge when you find yourself turning back against your own will.”

“Oh. I kind of thought it would be painful or something. Like a shock or a burn maybe.” Madara fought the urge to scratch at the back of his head awkwardly, feeling a little stupid for automatically assuming that.

“We suffer enough by being here,” was the only answer he got.

Feeling even more awkward now, Madara shifted his weight and half turned back towards the inside of the castle. “Right. I guess I don’t really need to go explore for myself now then. Waste of time. Look, like I said to the others, this is your home. So if you want to walk around or something don’t worry about bothering my brother and me. You don’t even have to talk to us or anything if you don’t want to.”

“That is unexpectedly kind of you.”

“Not really. Its common manners. I do understand those, you know. Except right now I’m going to ignore manners and go back inside so I’ll see you around maybe…uh…” Madara faltered when he realized he was about to call the thing ‘Beast’ as an actual title, something that might really have gotten him eaten.

It took a moment but the creature eventually seemed to realize the cause of his hesitation and narrowed red eyes in to a glare. “My name is Tobirama.”

Unable to decide how he wanted to deal with the revelation of knowing the monster’s name, Madara stumbled over a few half sentences which might have been strung together as a goodbye of some sort and fled back indoors. He hurried all the way up to the room where he was grateful to find Izuna missing. Today being a rare day when he felt well enough to move about on his own, Izuna had gone down to eat breakfast in the kitchen for once and actually socialize with their animated hosts. Madara was grateful not to be questioned as he removed all of his unused winter wear and proceeded to stomp circles around the beautiful carpet until his heart stopped racing inside of his chest.

He had spoken to his own jailor. Worse than that he hadn’t actually hated speaking to the thing. Or Tobirama, as was apparently the name he should have been using. Having a name for the twisted face did strange things to his mind and Madara realized that he was immediately thinking of Tobirama as more human just for being able to stop referring to him as ‘the beast’ or ‘the creature’. With a name instead of a scary title he no longer had over-exaggerated images come to mind of foot long teeth or hands so big they could crush his entire head in one fist. The reality of Tobirama was that he was half of a twisted monster, yes, but that the other half of him remained pathetically and painfully human. And Madara wasn’t sure what to do with that.

As had become his first instinct lately, he thought about going to talk to Hashirama about it. Surely one who had been here since before this whole mess started would have a few helpful insights. Then he thought the better of it and considered going over things with Izuna instead. His brother knew him better than anyone in the world, after all, and it might have been more helpful to talk to someone who would understand his reactions to everything. He was still undecided when he stepped out of the room and nearly leapt out of his skin at the squeaky panicked voice under his feet.

“Do not step upon me!” When he was able to see through the fright Madara looked down to find little Kagami scrambling out from underneath the path of his footsteps.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “I almost squashed you like a bug!”

“I am so very sorry!”

Realizing he was still holding one foot up in the air, Madara set it down out of the way and shook his head. “You should be a little more careful about where you walk. He looks harmless but I’m pretty sure Hashirama would light me on fire in my sleep if I actually hurt you in any way.”

“He might weep for a very long time but I am certain Hashirama could never hurt you. The one you would really have to look out for is sensei!” Seeing him fall in to a more natural stance, Kagami hurried over and began scaling the seam on his pant leg, using folds as handholds until he was able to swing over and climb up to sit on Madara's shoulder uninvited.

“Comfortable?” Madara asked him dryly.

Kagami beamed. “Yes! Sensei is so tall I often get dizzy riding upon his heights. It is pleasing to see the Uchiha line has kept its traditional stature!”

“You know, you’re a kid and you still talk fancier than I do. I can’t decide if it’s just years of exposure without aging or if kids from your time really were just overly educated. Wait. In all the time I’ve been here I don’t think either of us has ever mentioned our last name. How did you know we’re Uchiha?” It was a legitimate question he thought. There had been a couple of occasions when they maybe should have given their family name to be polite but Madara had held back in the beginning because he didn’t want to be followed if he somehow escaped and then later there had been no reason to think about it anymore.

So it was weird to him that Kagami would know this without being told and he thought he was well within his rights to question it. He was quite surprised to see the little soldier looking back at him as though it was odd to have his knowledge questioned.

“How could I not recognize another of the Uchiha family? The hair alone is distinctive enough but the jaw and the nose too, it is as like as looking in a mirror!”

“You’re…an Uchiha?”

“Of course!”

“There are more of us!?”

Kagami blinked. “Are there none left?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Not that I know of. Our parents never mentioned having any other relatives anywhere. We used to have three other siblings but none of them lived much past puberty. As far as I know it’s just us. And…you?” Madara tried to wrap his head around how long the family tree would have to be to connect him and the little boy on his shoulder who was somehow both younger and older than himself.

“There used to be dozens of Uchiha in this city. Before the sickness came our family was one of the most prominent, sworn to serve the royal line, and even I was already being groomed to stay away from potential brides who might not be good enough to marry in to our bloodline. When the Sannin Tsunade removed us from memory there would have been more than a dozen Uchiha left in the city. I thought they would have had children.” He hung his wooden head in sorrow and Madara looked away.

He’d known that the people inside the castle were stopped in time and that they had been watching each other fall in to permanent slumber one by one for years but it had never occurred to him that they might have had ties with people outside the magic as well, that they would have been forced to come to terms with the inevitable death of their missing loved ones. In a way he could almost relate.

“It’s not actually a city anymore,” he corrected, not sure how to keep the subject from getting any darker. “Where we live it’s just a village, barely even that really.”

“The peoples must have left when they could no longer remember what kept them there.” Kagami shifted and tugged at his own tin soldier hat thoughtfully.

“Hold on…”

When his face suddenly dropped the boy on his shoulder went as tense as a boy made of metal could. “What is it? Have I done wrong?”

“No I just…is that what happened to the other brothers?” He almost regretted his words when Kagami’s face fell.

“The two other royal brothers? Yes, that is what happened to them.” The boy sighed despondently. “Itama-sama and Kawarama-sama. Unfortunately they were both away from home when the magic was cast. As the youngest brothers they were expected to join the cavalry and they happened to be leading an official inspection of each border unit when the Great Sannin removed us from time; we can only assume they lived out the rest of their lives never knowing the family they were missing.”

“At least they had each other?” Madara tried.

“Oh yes! That is a very kind way to look at it! Thank you, cousin!”

That brought him up short again. Kagami shifted around and began to braid three tiny strands of his hair together while Madara worked his way through being addressed as cousin when he knew for sure the relationship would be wildly more complicated than that. After a few seconds he decided it wasn’t worth hashing out and finally changed the subject entirely.

“Did you need something? Or were you just wandering around the upper halls looking for something to do?”

“Indeed! I came to ask if you would please speak with my sensei,” Kagami said. “He has been most reluctant to come out of his rooms even after you said you didn’t mind and I was hoping you might tell him so again.”

Madara gave him a dubious look. He’d already said his piece; it wasn’t up to him to make sure the man of the house knew he was allowed to walk around in his own home. Especially not if that man was an honest to god King. Besides that, he had only just seen the creature that morning and had his entire world turned upside down just by learning its name so he wasn’t exactly in a big hurry to go and buddy up for a good conversation at the moment.

Spinning on his heel, Madara cupped the little toy on his shoulder so he wouldn’t fall off and carried both of them back in to his bedroom, crossing over to flop down on the bench where they could both see through the window. As he’d suspected, the view from here looked out over the gardens where Tobirama had managed to wander around and was currently pacing his way between rows of hedges. Kagami left off his braiding and clambered down Madara's arm to press both hands against the cold pane. He looked down at his sensei with painted lips turned down in a sad expression.

“I just saw him,” Madara explained. “I was going to figure out how big this gilded cage really is but I ran in to him at the entrance and he told me how far we can go in every direction. Then I kind of insulted him and left.”

“You insulted him?”

“Well I didn’t mean to! Do you know that no one hads ever bothered to mention his name until now? I didn’t know what to call him and I, er, I almost called him ‘beast’ right to his face.” He screwed up his face when Kagami turned to look at him, shocked. “I know! I know!”

“That must have truly hurt sensei’s feelings.”

Casting his gaze out the window at the forlorn figure wandering through the snow alone, Madara grunted. “Suppose I’ll have to make it up to him or whatever. That’s his whole thing right? The curse? Hashirama said that he saw himself as a monster for what he did during the plague so the witch lady cursed him to look like one. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of that either.”

“If only sensei would stop thinking that way things could go back to how they were,” Kagami said.

Still watching the slow steps and the way the wind pulled carelessly at Tobirama’s wild hair, it took a few seconds for Madara's brain to catch up with that. “What does that mean?”

“That is how sensei could end the curse if only he believed what we all know. The Lady Tsunade told him that if he could look in to a mirror and see himself as a human then all would be as it should. I think that is why he hides himself away. Not because he cannot look at himself but because he cannot look in to the eyes of everyone he believes he has let down by extending this shadow of a life. And the more years pass the more he believes he was right all along, that he has always been a monster.” Kagami let his words trail away in time with his stiff fingers sliding down the pane of glass and Madara finally realized why the odd story-telling cadence of the boy’s speech felt so out of place.

“You’re still trying to get me to go talk to him, aren’t you?”

“Sensei is lonely!” Kagami wailed, turning to fall against his arm and wrap around it with all four limbs. “It has been years since he met anyone new, I beg of you to spend a little time in his presence and help him to see that he is not a monster no matter what face he wears!”

Already frowning, Madara let the crease between his brows deepen a little. “Manipulation is not your strong suit, tiny soldier boy.”

“Does that mean that you will do it?”

“Shut up.”

Izuna returned shortly after that and their conversation turned to other things, mostly introducing his brother to the idea that they were somehow very distantly related to the only child left in the castle. In the end all three of them collectively decided that addressing each other as cousins was probably the easiest way to go.

For a few days after Madara was able to distract Kagami away from the subject whenever it came up, not quite ready to do as he knew he eventually would. His hesitance wasn’t so much out of any desire to stay farther away from his captor but rather it was born out of his utter lack of any idea what to say. How was he meant to convince Tobirama that he was still human inside when Madara himself saw little of that left in him? Of the few times he’d met the other he had seen only anger and a deep abiding sadness. Human qualities for sure but were they enough? Was that all there was to him?

At a certain point he couldn’t avoid it anymore – and Kagami realized he was being put off, which ended in him moping adorably in a corner for an hour, leaving Madara to explain to the others what he had agreed to do. He left the room to seek out the lord of the castle more to escape Hashirama's fire-hazard attempts of an enthusiastic hug than anything else. The dumb candle seemed way too happy about the prospect of everyone getting along together.

Saying he would speak with the lord of the castle and actually doing so were two different things, however, and it proved a little harder to track his quarry down when he didn’t really have any idea where to look. According to Kagami there was no one in the royal apartments. He didn’t really want to go tramping around in the snow but that was really his only other idea. With great reluctance he wandered down to the front hall, thinking that perhaps he might be able to spot the beast from the door again and save himself the trouble of going all the way upstairs to dress in warmer clothes. To his great luck both tasks were unnecessary.

Both him and his host stood rigid with surprise when they almost collided going around a corner. They stood blinking at each other for several seconds before Tobirama snorted and moved to step around him, jolting Madara in to action.

“I was just looking for you,” he said, somehow managing a casual tone.

“Were you?” Tobirama lifted both of his heavy brows and Madara fought the urge to scowl defensively.

“Look, if we’re going to spend an unknown number of years locked together in the same castle then maybe we should get to know each other or something. You can’t hide from me forever. That sounds boring.”

He lifted an eyebrow of his own as if to challenge the half-human standing more than a full foot above him and Tobirama stared back with narrowed eyes, clearly doubting his intentions but not willing to call him out just yet. Quite likely he had also been a victim of Kagami’s pep talks trying to force them to socialize with each other but Madara was willing to bet that Tobirama was too lonely to pass up the opportunity to make a new friend. And also probably too proud to admit that.

“If you think that is best,” Tobirama answered eventually. His words sounded awkward, chewed over and halting, like he wasn’t sure of them but had nothing else to say.

“Right, because you’re obvious super worried about what I think.”

The frown lines on Tobirama’s face deepened with frustration. “Do not look for insult where none was meant. I was agreeing with your proposal.”

“Alright, okay, I can play nice. Go on then.”

“Go-?” To his amusement, Tobirama stared at him with only more frustration. “You were the one who asked me to converse. Why should I be the one who must ‘go on then’?”

“You’re royalty; aren’t you royal types trained in how to socialize and stuff?” Madara asked.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me if my social skills are a bit out of practice after so long without meeting anyone new. One does tend to let one’s propriety slip when the only decent conversationalist around is my own brother. And his wife, of course, but unfortunately Mito and I have not been on good terms for the past decade or thereabouts.” Tobirama wrinkled his nose, the face of a man remembering a wrong he’d committed but wasn’t ready to apologize for.

Sensing a good story behind that, Madara was about to ask for a retelling of whatever Tobirama had done to insult Mito a decade or so ago. Clearly it had nothing to do with their general situation since that had happened more than several decades ago as far as he could tell. Before he could ask, however, the rest of that little speech caught up with his brain and Madara nearly lost his jaw as it fell open.

“Wait. Your brother. Hashirama is your brother!?”

“Yes.”

Reeling back, Madara gripped both sides of his head and stared in to the middle distance. “My whole life is a lie. Oh my god he’s the elder brother in the story. Hashirama caught the plague and then a magic lady saved him but she didn’t save anyone else and you had to – oh damn. Wow.”

Tobirama watched judgmentally but thankfully in silence as Madara went through all the general stages of a mental breakdown. He’d known the story since day one, accepted all of it as true in the meantime, but the story Hashirama and Mito told him just hadn’t felt real until he realized he’d been staring all the characters of it in the face this whole time. Hashirama was the eldest brother, the one who was meant to be king, who had apparently not falling in to the long sleep. And in front of him was Tobirama, doomed to watch his older sibling live out life as an animated candelabra because of mistakes he had made during a reign that was never supposed to be his in the first place.

“Fire and flame,” Madara swore under his breath. “Your life sucks.” He said it without thinking, without aim, so the bark of laughter that sprang out of his companion nearly startled him right out of his skin.

“If you wish to put it in such crass terms, yes.”

“Shit, no, I didn’t mean to bring anything up! Crap. See this is why I don’t talk to anyone either!” If his trousers had pockets Madara would have shoved his hands down deep and hiked up his shoulders uncomfortably. Without pockets he could only fold his arms and pout.

Above him, Tobirama cocked his head to one side with a shadow of what might be translated in to a smile.

“Perhaps the two of us might find some common ground after all,” he said.

“Maybe. Come on, let me drag you back to the kitchen so Hashirama can get all the weepy gratitude out of his system and then we can go sit down somewhere and tell each other our favorite colors or something." Madara beckoned with one hand and was gratified when Tobirama followed placidly, not a hint of kingly pride balking at being told what to do. That was a good sign.

Keeping stride with Tobirama’s massive legs turned out easier said than done and Madara had to power walk for a couple of hallways until his companion rather shamefacedly shortened his steps. As they neared the kitchens he looked down with a hesitant expression.

“You do not actually expect us to make such simplistic conversation as trading favorite colors, do you?”

“If that’s what it takes to make you less grumpy,” Madara declared. “How else am I supposed to get to know you if we don’t ask questions or something?”

“Pray think of something a little more interesting.”

Without thinking Madara rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue, a response he usually reserved for Izuna or Hashirama, the people he actually felt comfortable joking around with knowing he wouldn’t insult them. Then since he couldn’t snap his tongue back in to his face without making himself look even more foolish he did his best to play it off like he was completely comfortable teasing a seven foot cursed king who trapped him here with a magically binding vow. Incredibly, he did not get stomped to death by two sharp hooves.

Somehow his casual attitude seemed to break a little more of the tension between them and as he reached for the door to go face Hashirama together Madara almost smiled, thinking to himself that maybe being locked in a castle with a mythical creature wasn’t quite as terrible as it sounded.

#rae writes #madatobi #tobirama #madara #izuna #kagami #hashirama #fanfiction

14 notes · View notes

words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

Note

starlight! starlight!!! you're one of the few people I know who reads toby daye and pls I need to yell with someone about night and silence because IT WAS SO GOOD I'M DYING I HAD TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN AND WALK AWAY SEVERAL TIMES

@maelace asked:

Have you read the new October Daye book yet? Because oh my goodness I must know what you think!

Y’ALL

Y A L L

LET’S HAVE A CHAT

OKAY FOLKS

So, some FAIRLY INCOHERENT thoughts about Night and Silence, which I keep calling Nights and Silences because my brain really likes them plurals I guess:

FUCK AMANDINE!!!!!! FUUUUUUUCK AMANDINE!!!!!! I HATE HER SO MUCH!!!!!! SHE DOES NOT APPEAR ONCE AND YET I AM CONSUMED WITH RAGE

Seanan does such amazing work on all kinds of mental illness stuff, which I think I’ve discussed before re: Toby Daye and her ongoing upward mobility, but fuck the entire Tybalt plotline was so crushing. That’s what it’s like, is the thing, to watch someone you love retreating from you and not be able to do anything about it because you don’t want to hurt them worse, and I cheered out loud when he came back, and asking Ginevra to come stand in as regent was such a bittersweet scene because on the one hand yes Tybalt my love take care of yourself, but on the other hand I just want him to be okay. (FUCK Amandine, by the way)

I would die for Quentin, just kind of in general, but I’m specifically really delighted with the subplot of “Quentin thinks Toby could do better than this arrogant tomcat,” and I’m so proud of my best bisexual prince son for calling Tybalt and apparently just ripping into a King with all the worst swears Toby has ever taught him. I can’t goddamn wait for the King of the Westlands to be this charming, kind-hearted knight-ling whose impeccable etiquette and noble bearing is deeply and profoundly at odds with the fact that he has really kind of absorbed Toby’s problem-solving techniques.

Aside: there’s nothing I want more than for this series to go on long enough for the Court of the Westlands to be scandalized by their young king jumping up from his throne and hugging a grumpy changeling dressed in a blood-drenched leather coat without regard for his fine silk shirt. Even more than that, picture the scene. It’s the coronation of High King Quentin Sollys, attended by royalty and the highest celebrities of Faerie, Sir October Daye grinning fit to split her face with her husband Tybalt and her adopted nephew, the recently ascended King of Dreaming Cats, all looking ready to die from pride. Quentin’s parents are both crying perfect beautiful tears, as Daoine Sidhe do, and he’s about to be crowned and presented to the people and it’s great and then-- The ceremony is already underway when the door opens again to admit the Luidaeg, as her most terrifyingly Firstborn self, scowling like a storm cloud and gowned like a hurricane, and everyone is fucking terrified for a moment as she sweeps up the aisle toward the dais. And then she breaks into a smile and holds out her hands to the Crown Prince, and Quentin laughs and rushes into her arms as he cries “I thought you said couldn’t make it!” And everyone has a moment of religious fear when the sea witch pets his hair fondly and straightens his shirt and then presses a kiss to his forehead and declares to the room at large “You will be a king like none that Faerie has seen in many centuries, because you have a heart as strong and fair and kind as any I have ever seen.”

No one’s sure if it’s a blessing or a prophecy or just a moment of deeply unforeseen maternal affection from the goddamn Luidaeg, but suddenly the sea witch comes to visit the High King on a semi-regular basis and Quentin is delighted and...well, she was right.

Speaking of people I love, I love Danny? The best rock boy? He just wants Toby to talk about her feelings, it’s so sweet, I hope they invite him to the wedding so I can read about an eight-foot suit-wearing granite troll sobbing into a handkerchief about how proud he is of Toby.

I ALSO LOVE MAY, God, give me her and Jazz getting married please. Also I would love to know more about Jazz--maybe a book with the core mystery including Jazz’s flock of Ravenmays?

SOME TAM LIN SHIT GOIN’ DOWN IN THIS BOOK, I GOT A LOT TO SAY

We all know I’m a fucking weak bitch for Tam Lin retellings. Tam Lin being a lying piece of shit isn’t especially novel, but I LOVE the idea of Janet being the villain of the piece, however unintentionally? I’m honestly enthralled. Bitch...give me a novel...make the Luidaeg the main character and let me weep bitter tears for my beloved sea witch....

You know how I just had a whole bit about “Fuck Amandine” up there? I stand by it. Furthermore, FUCK JANET. Every time she gets nasty with Toby I puff up like an angry cat.

Incidentally, both Janet and Amandine had a (terrible) daughter they doted on, and when their daughter slipped away, they went out and got a replacement that they tried to force to be completely and entirely mortal, without regard for what their replacement wanted or what would be best for them--and ultimately, the person who took the most damage as a result of their selfishness was Toby both times. Janet is, I guess, slightly better because she seems to at least care about Gillian, but she’s still...weirdly possessive? She focuses a lot on how Gillian is hers, and hottest of hot takes, love and possession are not the same thing.

Sign me up for front row seats to all of Toby’s family losing their shit over how Janet treats her. Sign me up for seats in the goddamn orchestra pit when, having started to realize that, actually, Toby did not bail on her, and that Toby is actually a great person who wants nothing more than to have a relationship on Gillian’s terms, and that Janet actively arranged events to drive Toby out of Gillian’s life and then convinced Gillian that Toby didn’t love her, Gillian fucking Comes For Janet’s Whole Life.

Again, the Luidaeg is dear to my heart beyond words, so honestly the fact that she saved Toby all the way back in An Artificial Night by breaking Michael’s Ride like Janet broke Maeve’s, right down to singing the ballad of Tam Lin to hold the magic in place...not to sound like a little old white lady, but that shit is breathtaking, yo. Talk to me forever about how Toby is the first family the Luidaeg has loved and been loved by in a long time, about how the Luidaeg used the same ancient magic that destroyed her life to save this woman who wasn’t yet her favorite niece from the man who used to be her beloved brother, about how the Luidaeg’s entire life is about taking the skins of tragedies and making something new.

Anyway, on to non-Tam Lin things. Gillian...honey...you’ve been so lied to by so many people. Toby is the only parent who ever gave Gillian a choice in which life she wanted to live, and it’s so sad. All Gillian focuses on in the blood memories Toby sees is how much her car represents freedom and safety and...oh honey. Oh baby girl. If Janet and Cliff aren’t careful, now that Gillian knows that they manipulated the truth about Toby to completely take her away from Gillian, she’s going to straight up buck their rules and leave. (I...want Gillian to live with the Luidaeg? The only full Selkie in history to have the blessing of the sea witch, living with both feet in Faerie and getting coffee with her mother on weekends, turning the full count of Small Children Who Adore The Luidaeg from one to two. Let the Luidaeg be Gillian’s weird aunt.)

LET TOBY HAVE HER DAUGHTER BACK. On Gillian’s terms, because Toby wouldn’t want it any other way, but God, just let them have a relationship. Let Gillian meet someone who doesn’t have Jocelyn’s blind hero worship or the Luidaeg’s ingrained sense of honor and who will tell her that her mom, A, did not voluntarily leave her, and, B, is legitimately rad as fuck. And then let them start with awkward weekly coffee dates that turn into an awkward dinner at Toby’s house that turns into a slightly less awkward trip to the movies or something and so on and so forth until they’re close and Gillian understands how much Toby loves her and Toby understands that sometimes it’s okay to push for a relationship. Because Toby’s willing to do the work, but she’s not willing to push for the relationship because she believes Gillian doesn’t want her around, but Gillian only thinks that way because she believes Toby abandoned her, and the only way that vicious loop is going to change is if Toby actually pushes the boundaries for long enough to explain.

It’s so adorable how Toby thinks Quentin’s gonna be her last squire. My boy’s going to be gone for two months before Toby comes back to the house with a baker’s dozen children and a mulish expression. Within a hundred pages she goes from “I’m never having another squire because I’m so unfit for this” to “I should reopen Home and run it myself” and I just. I love her so much. She’s so dumb. She has such a good heart and she’s so dumb. I’d die for her. Every fifteen pages in any Toby Daye book I just end up crooning “You’re so stupid, I love you so much” to the pages while Toby fails to notice, again, what an incredible person she is. I’ve loved watching her grow so much, I’m getting weepy here.

OH MY GOD, AND THE NOVELLA?

HOLY SHIT, THAT JUST. DESTROYED MY WHOLE SOUL. EXACTLY EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED FROM A STORY ABOUT A NEW SELKIE. I FEEL LIKE THIS GIVES A LOT OF SUPPORT TO MY HEADCANON THAT SELKIES HAVE TERRIBLE DREAMS ABOUT BEING CLUTCHED IN BLOODY HANDS WHILE A VOICE WEEPS FOR THEIR MOTHER IN THEIR EAR. I WANT FIRTHA AND GILLIAN TO BE BEST FRIENDS. I LOVE HOW DIFFERENTLY FIRTHA OBVIOUSLY TREATS GILLIAN, THE FIRST SELKIE IN HISTORY WHO DID NOT CHOOSE THIS. I LOVE HOW MUCH ATTENTION IS GIVEN TO THE CHOICE THAT SELKIES MAKE, TO TAKE THE SKIN AND ALL IT CARRIES OR DIE.

I LOVE SELKIES IN THIS UNIVERSE. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THE LUIDAEG CALL IN THAT FUCKING DEBT. HOLY SHIT.

#october daye #night and silence #toby daye #obviously this is all spoilers so don't come crying to me if you read it before the book #also: i said i wasn't going to be cogent ahead of time so don't @ me #i need to write a fic about liz after she becomes a full selkie because...y'all #i'm so married to that headcanon it's not even funny #it means so much to me that gillian is the world's first truly innocent selkie #the only selkie in the WORLD who has the true and unflinching love of the sea witch #the luidaeg loves all the selkies in a way--loves them for keeping her children alive and hates them for her children's sake #but gillian...with gillian it isn't complicated #gillian is the daughter of the only close relative the luidaeg has who loves her #true and unflinching #and gillian is her mother's daughter so of course the luidaeg loves her #and gillian's hands are clean and she speaks with firtha and she has firtha's skin on her back #and the luidaeg can't help but love her for all those things #god y'all i got A LOT of feelings about these folks #thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to just yell profusely about this book goddamn #idiot teenagers with a queue #redjayson #asked and answered

37 notes · View notes

violetosprey · 6 years

Text

TDDUP My thoughts on Aria

Doing one of these for each of the 5 stars in TDDUP (yes, even the ladies). This is incredibly subjective, so I decided not to call this a review. Rant sounds too negative to me, it’s more a mix of gushing and analysis here. Anyways, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead because I may talk about stuff not revealed until the very end of a play through. In fact I’m probably going to talk in a way that just assumes the person reading this has completed TDDUP. Kinda like, “Oh I won’t give the whole story of this scene because you know what I’m talking about.” Without delay, let’s talk about Aria.

Alright, I’ll get right to the point on this one: Aria scares me. In the BTD series and TDDUP, there are a lot of scary characters who do horrible things. And honestly, I’ve been pretty good with all the characters. I kind of think of it at times like when I went to see the new 2017 “It” movie. The only thing that scared me in that film were the brief jump scares. The rest of the time, it was just exciting to watch (gets your adrenaline pumping). I loved the movie! I definitely would not categorize it as anything but horror, but I was having fun watching the events unfold. It’s not like the subject matter is light-hearted either. So I guess I kind of always thought of the BTD and TDDUP characters like that.

You know that disclaimer about the beginning of these games though? The one that mentions “This game was built to thrill,” and “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, close the game and take a break?” Aria is the ONLY character in the entire series the made me physically take a break from the game to get my composure back. I could not go back to her route or the game at all for several hours (and this was when I was all hyped up after the release). These games are a choice to do and I really encourage people to take their time and not push their boundaries to an area that’s beyond their comfort level.

I did manage to recover and actually got all of Aria’s endings. But I don’t think I will ever be able to play her route again. It’s funny, we’ve had endings and characters involving snuff films, getting your head sawed off, being burned alive, getting ripped apart, having your soul stolen, getting turned into a living doll, getting shot, being dismembered, being left to die alone in a creepy forest, being forced to eat yourself, getting eaten (which happens more often than you think in these games), being boiled alive, being beaten to death, being chained up, being forced to observe necrophilia, being mind broken, being caged, and having insects put in your ears just to name a few. All that stuff? Been fine with. The endings for me have ranged from being “meh” to “oooh that was so dark I love it.” Not to mention I start to embarrassingly even gush over some characters (especially a certain yandere *sweats*).

But go figure that the one person to freak me out, is not only one of the completely human characters, but probably the one who...is the least threating honestly. There is no way Aria could take on ANY of the other cast with the exception of maybe Ellen (only because...I don’t know who’d win in a fight, they’re really different).

First off, I guess I need to say what DOESN’T bother me about Aria before anyone starts to think anything: the incest angle. To be perfectly honest, I feel pretty neutral about her having feelings for her brother. Actually from a story standpoint it kind of helps a little better for her to have that to explain why she goes so far. Because when I think about it, if she didn’t have those forbidden feelings, she’d come off as overprotective of her brother still yes...but I think this gives her character a better dark edge believe it or not. Incest in real life, not a fan of. Incest in fiction though I have a different view entirely. I have both shipped incest pairings, as well as cringed and nearly vomited at them in fiction. The problem is I can’t distinguish what causes me exactly to ship or hate an incest pairing. I’ve tried to write the notes down, but there’s really no consistent criteria. All I know is it STRICTLY depends on the the characters themselves and I think how it affects the story. In this case, I don’t really feel like Aria and Chris would make a good pair, but I think Aria having feelings for Chris gives her more character.

So then what does bother me? One ending. ONE ending out of all five shook my core and made me legitimately afraid of this character: “Aria walled you in.”

It’s weird because I’m not claustrophobic, though I do cringe at the thought of someone sewing a person’s mouth shut. But this ending really managed to get under my skin and I had to think for awhile why exactly. Horror is indeed meant to scare you, and I finally found something that did scare me in these games. But it not only scared me, but disturbed me.

I think the key here is the entire scenario for the route. Remember, the MC in Chris’s path is a verbally abusive spouse, and Aria is a VERY mad sister-in-law. She’s there to give you your comeuppance. So while Chris was violent, Aria tortures you while keeping you in her basement. MC starts to realize towards the end of the path that what they’ve done to Chris is wrong, and they want to make things right. The thing is though when you look at all of Aria’s endings...she never planned to let you redeem yourself from the very start. The only ending where she doesn’t kill you...she sells you (fun fact: I actually liked this ending because it’s a tie in to Gurobob’s “The Hunt” game for the future- so cool!). Chris in his endings, if he doesn’t get furious and kill you...either leaves you alone (sometimes even turns HIMSELF in) or you compromise. This is what makes Chris a good person (just the violent snap was a bad decision).

However, I think the kicker with the ending where Aria walls you in, is the fact that you hear Chris and her talking upstairs. You’re listening to him moving on without you and the two of them laughing happily. Meanwhile, your mouth is sewed up, and you’re left trapped in the walls of the basement. Aria’s not coming back to torture you. As far as she’s concerned, it’s better if you just disappear. So you have to spend the rest of your days, unable to scream, unable to move, listening to Chris and Aria live happily without you there. You can never apologize to Chris. Inevitably you’ll die of starvation and/or dehydration.

This ending doesn’t just scare me for the claustrophobia and the “I have no mouth but I must scream” trope; It’s disturbing because it’s also very sad. Someone finally told you off for your behavior all those years, gave you your punishment, and then you are left to die. And this is where you have to ask the question: Did the MC indeed deserve this fate? It’s actually a question that scares me to think about because I’m not sure I know the answer to it. Is it pretentious to think that I as the MC would be entitled to fix my mistakes after years of abuse to Chris? Or is there indeed a limit to how far a person like Aria should go when someone has hurt their loved one?

I think the key here is WHO is giving you punishment: Chris vs. Aria. You have Chris, who has been the victim in all of this and is a very sweet guy. He gets violent when he snaps, but can realize his mistake later. Aria is not the direct victim here but a sister who cares very deeply to her brother (too deeply even). Of course most people like Aria would want to smack Chris’s spouse in the face. But is she entitled to kidnap and torture you? I don’t know...The problem here is I actually don’t know all that much about Aria as a character. She loves her brother a lot, and she helped Marcus out with his divorce because he was a friend of Chris’s. So she’s good and loyal to some. She’s also incredibly smart. Beyond that though, how does Aria even act around the average every day person? Is she like Marcus, who is “generally” a good person and a good cop, just one minor flaw (his obsessive love with MC). Or is Aria actually more of a cruel, even sadistic, person naturally? That’s not stuff we learn about, so it really makes me wonder if she’s the type of character that deserves to torture you.

When all is said and done though, I need to thank ElectricPuke here. Of course Aria scares me legitimately and she’s my least favorite character in the series because of it. But I’m really glad she’s there actually. Listen, these are all FICTIONAL characters. No one needs to really get up in arms about who likes what kind of dark material as long as it’s enjoyed in a safe manner (and the atrocities are not replicated in real life). As long as people know their own boundaries and don’t push others into something they don’t enjoy, everyone can coexist peacefully. Creating a villain character doesn’t making you a villain either (If it does, we might need to keep an eye on Stephen King :P). There was a tiny part of me going through these games though that wondered “Gee, there’s a lot I let slide in fiction. Is this still sane or healthy?” So when Aria actually spooked me, I felt better. It’s good to know that yes, I do have limitations. They’re not easily apparent, and this game caught me off guard by the scenario. But it’s nice to see I can recognize a stopping point for myself.

Please be respectful then to people who say “Character A in TDDUP I love, but I’m afraid of Character B.” Everyone has their own tastes and their own thresholds. Sometimes for reasons they can’t even explain. By the way, I’d bet good money that Jack freaked out the most people for his hobby :P

So yeah if you read this post vs. the one I wrote about Marcus...completely opposite ends of the spectrum here, haha. Also like Marcus, I’m not sure if I can probably judge if Aria is a good character or not because I’m so afraid of her. I don’t hear people talk about Aria or Ellen as much as the guys, so I don’t know what the general public thinks either. I’d be curious if people actually liked Aria and thought she stuck it to the MC well, or if people got creeped out like I did.

For any future games likes these, just remember to watch the warnings guys! Enjoy yourself, but don’t push yourself. I’m still looking forward to more of Puke’s character’s for sure.

Only one more character to go now!

#own post #credit source material to owner #electricpuke #tddup #aria king #horror

35 notes · View notes

ask-joeydrewstudios · 7 years

Photo

((Oh cool I love talking about muses weaknesses and fears in front of a bunch of people who totally don't want to use those against them. I've been putting these off for FAR too long, here's a masterpost of all the muses fears, weaknesses, and addictions. HCs under the cut ;P))

Things that apply to all the toons: They all have to be afraid of water, acetone, and religious symbols/items. Those things can literally kill them, they count as both a fear and a weakness. There's also a learned fear that only comes into play in another 70 years after everyone from the original crew has died: they start to fear befriending people because they know they're effectively immortal, and losing people hurts like hell and they don't want it to keep happening. Bendy legitimately tries to get Henry to toon-himself in an effort to stop him from dying, he was the last one from the original group alive and none of the toons wanted to see him go. When he declines it leads to an argument, and it was a very emotional argument because the fear of loss was very real. You'd think loss would get even a little easier after its happened enough times? You... would be incorrect.

Bendy: I've listed off Bendy's fears before, being forgotten and fading into obscurity are big ones. The studio never falls in this AU but it does take some small dips, and that terrifies him. Also, skeletons. Skeletons are scary. For addictions, I wouldn't necessarily say he's addicted to bacon soup? But he does love it... a little too much. You can bribe him with it even though it's readily available at any given moment. Bendy's also the idiot child that begs everyone to watch a horror movie, only to end up terrified and up all night because he's jumping at every shadow or creak of the building.

Boris:

Boris is braver than Bendy, but he’s still afraid of a good number of things. Sudden loud noises, cars, things that lurk in the dark, the dark itself, monsters, Spooky Things (October is not a fun month for him), spiders, and he shares Bendy’s fear of thunderstorms... he might be a wolf, but he’s a big scaredy-cat :P He’s afraid of way more things that he hasn’t even encountered yet. Weaknesses? Objects being thrown, specifically ball or stick shaped objects. He will always, without fail, run to retrieve it for you. He hates himself for it.

Alice: Nobody’s quite sure why or how, but because Alice was based on her voice actress she’s picked up a few personality traits and opinions from her. Fears are not an exception, and Alice shares Susie’s fear of war and violence and her fear of heights despite not being able to be hurt from falling large distances. She’s also afraid of losing form and shape-shifting too much from her original design, she likes staying the way she is and not having a stable form is weird and gross-feeling. Remember how all the toons are afraid of water and anything else that’ll make them melt? She’s afraid of it the most.

Joey: One of Joey's strong points is also one of his weak points, and that's his need to do the impossible. This does lead to him pushing boundaries and sometimes entirely destroying said boundaries, and he absolutely hates giving up so it'll take him a really long time to get his focus off trying to Do The Thing. Even then he never directly says he gave up on something, he says he shelved it. This stems from a strong fear of failure and not being in control, and the need to accomplish more and more as he knows he's getting older and he wants to achieve as much as possible. The studio's not in any danger but he goes above and beyond trying to make sure it stays that way, because losing his life's work is his biggest fear. Also, he's really paranoid. It's why he doesn't leave the studio too often, doesn't have a lot of friends, and forces the toons to stay inside for years. He's afraid of heights and flying too.

Also, Henry may not get drafted in this AU (I HC that he does in the main game, which is what pulled him from the studio) but that’s by sheer luck. When the US got involved in WWII and people started getting drafted, neither of them knew if Henry would be among them, and Joey was utterly terrified that he would be. Henry picked up on it but never said anything.

Henry: Henry's probably the most fearless of everyone, his biggest fears are falling behind and being a disappointment. Demons and witchcraft would be scarier if he wasn't exposed to it on a daily basis, he found them a lot more unnerving when Joey first starting messing with them but now its just a part of life. His workaholic habits partially come from the first fear, he knows he's super lucky to basically be HANDED this job (his dream job) and he really doesn't want to let anyone down, especially not Joey. As someone who values security he also fears death, not so much his own but the sudden death of his friends, family, and other important figures in his life. He's also got an acute fear of storms, but he doesn't get nearly as afraid of them as Bendy or Boris. Sometimes said toons huddle under his desk while he works when it storms, and Henry talks to them and tells stories so they can all feel more calm. Weaknesses and addictions? Caffeine.

Sammy: Right off the bat I can tell you Sammy's got a bad nicotine addiction. That's not a surprise to anyone. He starts getting antsy pretty quick if he tries not to smoke, and if he's already stressed out it only happens faster. He's terribly dependent on his cigarettes, they help his anxiety. He's also afraid of large crowds of people, which is why he prefers to go out later in the day and doesn't like going to studio events and parties. He usually has to anyway, but he doesn't like them and sticks close to Susie when he does. He doesn't like flying either, and he's afraid of something happening to Susie. If she ends up in trouble he will literally do anything to make sure she stays safe. He's not so much afraid of rodents as he is half-afraid, half-disgusted by them. He still jumps onto a chair or desk if one comes near him though.

Susie: Susie might be able to defend herself, but she's by no means unstoppable. She's afraid of walking around the city after dark alone (she’s afraid of being alone in the dark in general, as a kid she was afraid of the dark itself and it never entirely left her), if she misses the trolley she'd rather crash at Sammy's place than make the long and dangerous walk home. War is also terrifying to her, everything about it is upsetting - the unstable political nature of it, the way thousands of people are shipped out to fight and a lot of them don't come home, and their poor families... the ones that do come home, they're never the same. It's nothing but a terrible thing. Her dad is a vet from the great war (WWI) and she remembers being a kid, worried with her mum and older brother and sister about whether or not he'd come home. She's terrified of another war breaking out, and even more terrified about the people she cares about getting sent out and possibly dying. Also heights. Fuck heights. She's the most terrified of heights out of everyone at the studio.

Wally: Wally absolutely cannot stand being alone for more than maybe three minutes, and he hates small spaces (claustrophobia) and being trapped anywhere. He rarely closes a door behind him and if someone else closes the door he will immediately drop what he's doing to reopen the door. If the door is somehow locked, that's what he has his keys for - if he loses his keys as he so often does, or he can't pick the lock... he might literally kick down the door, or at least break the lock. He's also afraid of commitment (hence why he doesn't like starting romantic relationships, and when he does they fail within a month) and he's very dependent on money, because money is security and he grew up in the depression with six siblings and exhausted parents and he doesn’t want to be that poor ever again. He'll do almost anything to make a quick buck.

Norman: In his age he's gotten over a lot of fears, but if there's two things he'll be afraid of until he dies its bugs and the paranormal and otherwise unknown. Bugs make his skin crawl, and the paranormal and unknown... well, it's unknown. There's all kinds of spooky shit going on there. You can probably figure he wasn't too happy to hear Joey was messing around with witchcraft and demonic rituals, he actually almost quit when he did. A pay-raise and some convincing later, he pushed his worries aside - he only half regrets that decision now.

Shawn:

Shawn’s also a bit of a scaredy-cat if you can believe it. He screams at sudden loud noises, gets quickly unnerved at weird shadows out of the corner of his eye, and hates being in total darkness. Both the “not being able to see his surroundings” and “not being able to see what might be lurking in his surroundings” aspects of that last one really get to him, he always sleeps with the bedroom curtains open to let the moonlight in. His wife had to make a rule for how many stuffed animal comfort objects he’s allowed to have on the bed at once. Tell him a decent enough scary story and he’ll have trouble sleeping for a couple days. He’s a bit of a mess.

Thomas:

Thomas isn’t afraid of much, actually. It’s a perk to being mostly emotionally dead. He’s afraid of losing his dog, abandonment, and snails. Snails are just gross. Slugs are even worse. He’s not gonna scream if he sees one, he just really hates them.

124 notes · View notes

i-write-shakespeare-not-disney · 7 years

Text

Roses are Red Ch. 2

(Click OP if read more link doesn’t show.)

Feedback is appreciated!!!

Click Here for Ch. 1

Relationships were weird. They start when two people agree. They end when one person decides. Of course, there's one person who felt more than the other. It was impossible for two people to be the same level of invested in each other.

Then there were the boundaries. Having to know in your heart when to say I love you. How did anyone do it when it was never certain the other person loved you back? How horrifying to confess the most ardent emotion in your soul only to have it shrugged off or unwanted.

How wonderful and miraculous for those who get to hear it said back.

There's more boundaries. When is it okay to touch where? When does a cuddle turn into a love filled night? Are they afraid?

What about their end? At one point does it stop being worth the struggle? At what point does one person just stop feeling so elated by the other? Where is that point where the emotion wanes?

And how, God how do people deal with the heartbreak? Of having the person who completes their mind and soul snatched away by Cupid’s anti-love arrow or a pair of wandering eyes or….

Or having never got the chance at all?

***

It had been a week since the night at the club. For the rest of the weekend Will had fussed over Nico, making sure he was feeling okay, forcing water down his throat because he had to stay hydrated and refused fatty foods or oily food because those weren't good for a stomach, and dammit the salad was much better for his health.

It would've made Nico feel lucky, hopeful even. If it hadn't been for those moments when Will zoned out and curled into himself as he typed away on his phone, his freckled cheeks dusted with a rosy blush, trying to suppress a smile. Nico wanted to know what the hell that guybwas saying to make Will fidget and blush in a way Nico never could. But he also didn't, for obvious reasons.

Will hadn't talked to him about Sebastian which was both unsettling and a relief. Will always talked to Nico about everything, from crushes, to embarrassing moments, to sexual endeavors (with others or himself, which Nico could never get out of his mind once they'd laughed off the awkward masturbation and fantasy stories). He told Nico everything.

So why was this different?

He waited the rest of the week, and while Will had his nose in his phone for most of it, he still didn't talk about it. Nico tried to tell himself it was a perfect sign that this guy didn't matter.

Then the next weekend came and Nico was hanging out with Will in the study room pretending to do homework.

“We should go to Denny’s tonight. Reward ourselves for studying so hard.” Will snorted and shook his head with a smile.

“Yeah, watching Friends is such a tiring study method.” Nico stuck his tongue out at him. “Actually I'm going out tonight,” he said softly. He looked shy and Nico reminded himself not to show any malcontent. “With Sebastian.”

“Oh. The dude from the club, right?” Will nodded, his cheeks turning bright red. “How old is he?”

“Twenty-two. He's taking me to dinner.” Nico hummed and nodded, plastering a smile on his face even though he wanted to break down.

“I didn't think it'd be serious. You haven't mentioned him.”

Will shrugged and chewed on his thumbnail. “I know, but… we've been texting all week and he's seems pretty….” He chuckled and bit his lip. “Amazing,” he breathed.

Nico snorted, but he could feel his heart falling apart. “I swear if you get all sappy,” he said lightly with a roll of his eyes. Four years of high school theater paid off. Like when he had to make his dad believe he liked girls. Or when he had to weasel his way out of detention for skipping class.

Or when he had to pretend he wasn’t at all hurt that guy he was head over heels for was swooning over someone else right in front of him.

Will chuckled and nudged him. He leaned against him and rested his head on Nico’s shoulder. His heart was hammering in his chest, chipping away further with each pound. “Aw, don't worry, Neeks. You know you'll always be my number one guy.”

Will wasn't looking at him, so Nico allowed himself to shut his eyes and clench his jaw in a pained expression for a second before leaning his head over Will’s. “If you say so, Freckles.” Will sighed and chuckled. “Just be careful, okay? I'll wear a wig and glasses and follow you if I have to. Just send a text saying Code Red and I'm there.”

Will’s musical laugh filled the study room as he threw his arms around Nico. God, he must be a masochist. That was the only thing that explained why Nico kept putting himself through this agony.

“You're the best, you know that?”

No I'm not. If I were you'd like me back.

Nico chuckled and hugged him back lightly before he pulled away. He wasn't sure what he'd do if this got serious. He could handle a few flings; he'd done it before. But Will had never been in a legitimate, long term relationship. Something in his gut told him that was going to change.

He didn't want to lose Will. He didn't want his feelings to cost him the most amazing friend he'd ever had. But he couldn't help the pain that coursed through him at the sole thought of having to see Will in someone else's arms every day. Of seeing him get flustered and fidgety over someone else.

“So, what are you going to wear?” he asked.

***

Once Will was ready, he stopped at Nico’s place. He'd told Sebastian to pick him up at the school. He wanted to get an idea of the guy before telling him where he lived, which Nico thought was smart.

He was pacing around in the living room and running his hand through his hair nervously. Watching him worriedly, Nico made a decision. If the date didn't go well, if by some miracle God was smiling down on him and Will came back not wanting to hear anything about this Sebastian guy, then Nico would tell him. Nico would sit him down, confess his feelings, and tell him that it was fine if he didn't like him back. He just couldn't keep pretending it didn't hurt.

Suddenly, Will was facing him, blue eyes wide with worry. “He's here. How do I look?”

Nico kept himself from being absolutely honest and making a fool of himself. Instead he smiled and put his hands on Will’s shoulders. “You look great. He'd be crazy to think otherwise. Remember if anything happens, I'll be there as soon as I can.” Will smiled gratefully and nodded. He scooped Nico into his arms, and Nico didn't hesitate to hug him back just as tightly.

“I'll let you know how it goes.” He smiled and left the apartment.

Nico took a breath and grabbed a his phone to order a pity pizza.

***

Will never had a problem with jitters. He was always certain enough of himself, and it always gave him the upper hand in his romantic endeavors. He just loved the spontaneity of dating. The different people, the different experiences that came from a single one. A movie date could go so many ways with different people, and Will felt that those experiences were important. Important in the sense that it allowed him to figure himself and his likes and dislikes out.

But this time…. This was definitely topping the list of new experiences. These jitters that made him quiet and bashful and giggly. He hated when people giggled, but he found himself doing that a lot when it came to Baz. It was in the way he looked at him.

Baz’s eyes made him feel like he was the only important thing in the room that night in the club. He was so confident, so forward, and Will had enjoyed it. But as the night neared its end, and Will had assumed the fling had as well, Baz had asked for his number. And as he pulled his phone out, he realized Nico was missing.

The panic that had filled him should've scared Baz off. When Will worried, he did it without reservation. He pulled every stranger aside asking for Nico, shoved past them in search of him, called his name loud enough to startle people.

Instead of being put off by it, Baz had pulled him aside, helped him take a deep breath, and reminded him cell phones existed. And while Will tried to contact Nico, he'd kept searching. That's when Will felt a shift. It wasn't a simple fling. He craved more.

And after a week of texting, flirting, phone calls just to make him laugh, Will had fallen hard.

Still, being face to face with him again left him giddy and so nervous he couldn't speak. Baz looked over at him and slipped his hand into Will’s. “You know, you have the edgy look, but you're absolutely adorable.” Will laughed and shook his head trying to reign his smile in. “Why so shy? You weren't like this when we first met.”

Will blushed and ran his free hand through his hair. “Yeah. I don't know. I don't know,” he giggled. “This is pretty new for me.”

Baz gave him a look and bit back his own smile. They parked at a restaurant Will didn't recognize. The engine was shut off and then Baz was looking at him with those pretty light brown eyes, not quite hazel. He rubbed his thumb along Will’s knuckles and smiled sweetly. “I’ve been dying to kiss you again since you drove off from the club,” he murmured. Will’s breath hitched. “Would that… be okay?”

Will gulped and nodded, eyes locked on Baz as he leaned in, his warm lips pressed against Will’s. Every part of him was tingling with excitement. Baz pulled back, and Will unconsciously moved forward to follow his lips, eyes taking fluttering open a few seconds later.

Baz smiled and ran his thumb along Will’s bottom lip. “You’re incredible, you know?” Will smiled dopily and opened his mouth to bite down on his thumb gently. He saw the change in his eyes, the flush of his face. And he loved it. He loved that it was because of him.

When they went into the restaurant, Baz interlocked their hands, and Will molded against him easily. They sat down and Will looked over the menu, smiling to himself as they played a subtle game of footsie under the table.

“Need help choosing?” Baz asked.

Will nodded and looked at him. “You’ve been here before. What do you suggest I get?”

“You don’t mind me choosing for you?”

Will hummed and shook his head. “I trust you,” he answered with a smile. Baz’s eyes softened, his smile sweet. It made Will’s heart stutter. “So?”

“I’ve got it,” he said with a smile. He set the menus aside and tore off a piece of bread that Will hadn’t bothered to try. It had a weird color, and Will didn’t trust any whole grain wheat bread. “Try this. It’s good, I promise.” Will grimaced and bit his lip. Baz laughed and took his hand. “You just said you trusted me. Come on.” He put the bread against his lips, insisting he open his mouth. Finally, Will opened his mouth with a roll of his eyes and Baz placed the bread on his tongue. He chewed it carefully, and Baz continued to smile at him like he was the most important person in the room and no one else mattered or even existed. “So?”

Will licked his lips and shrugged. “Okay, it wasn’t horrible,” he admitted. Baz laughed and leaned forward, drawn to Will as much as Will was drawn to him. The rest of dinner was filled with delicious food and light teasing and lots of questions.

Sebastian had a tough home life. His father had been an alcoholic who cheated on his mother countless times and it wasn’t until he’d left her for one of those women that they were free of the abuse he would bring down on them. His voice was so soft, his features, so pained that Will couldn’t bring himself to ask for details on what he meant by abuse. He just took his hand and kissed it lightly, shutting his eyes. Then he told him about his sister. He had a sister four years younger than him. His mom had passed away, so it was just them, and he really hoped he could introduce them sometime.

The comment had filled Will with jitters and butterflies. He was completely head over heels.

He was pretty independent, focusing more on taking care of his sister which Will admired. He admired a lot about Baz. His resilience, his efforts, the fact that he was still such a sweet, wonderful person despite the shitty past. He was incredible.

When he was done talking, Will told him a little about his life. About how his parents were divorced, but on good terms, so he was able to see them both often. How he loved being around people, but trusted very few. And he told him about Nico because that was his best friend and the person he confided in most.

He didn’t have any heroic stories or sacrifices, and he was worried he may have seemed superficial and spoiled, but Baz didn’t seem to think that. He listened just as raptly and sincerely.

They were there long after they’d finished eating, talking about anything and everything. Childhood stories, dreams and aspirations, their favorite music, their favorite television shows. And with each passing moment, Will hoped for more and more.

In fact, he wasn’t even aware of how much time had passed until they were alerted that the restaurant would be closing. Being with Baz felt timeless, and he’d never felt that on a date before. They paid the check and left the restaurant, walking leisurely.

“Can I be honest?” Will whispered, half-hoping the night would swallow his words. But Baz leaned into him and hummed. “I don’t want this date to end yet.”

Baz looked at him with an overjoyed smile and pulled him into a kiss. “Me either. I have an idea.” He took his hand and led him to the car then drove off, playing a modern radio station until they had circled into downtown and parked in a ten-story parking lot. They got out and Baz took him to the end of the parking lot, arms resting on the concrete ledge. Will could’ve sat on it without a fear of falling. So that’s exactly what he did.

And he realized why he’d been taken there. Every light in downtown was visible from there. Every set of headlights, every traffic light, the trees decorated in Christmas lights even though it was only early October. And the lights to every skyscraper, club, and restaurant with people rushing about.

He felt Baz’s breath at his ear. “Do you like it?”

“It’s amazing,” he whispered, leaning back against him. Baz’s arms wrapped around him and he was aware of the fact that Baz wasn’t looking at the view. He was looking at him. He felt the scarlet blush begin to fill his cheeks and he turned to him with a timid smile. “What?”

He didn’t answer. He leaned forward and kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his nose, his lips. His hand caressed Will’s face with the softest touch he’d ever experienced. “Bless the clock that put us in the same place at the same time.” Will felt like he was melting.

He turned himself around completely, with Baz between his legs as he pulled him closer, kissing him slowly at first then with more fervor. Being with him… it just made Will more reckless than usual. Baz’s fingers tightened slightly around his arms, pulling him closer. Will wanted to make him feel good, wanted to make him want more just like Will did.

He dipped his head to kiss his neck, biting the way he knew Baz liked. He could hear his soft, rapid breaths in his ear, with an occasional suppressed moan. Will took his hand and led him to the buttons of his pants. He had forgotten where they were. He just knew he wanted to be with Baz.

“You can touch me if you want,” he whispered, his voice low.

Sebastian shut his eyes and let out a soft groan. “I do,” he murmured. “I want to touch every part of you.” Will pressed closer him, smiling. “But I don’t want to do this on our first date, Will.” He peeled himself from Will’s embrace and took his face in his hands. Will stared at him in shock. “Don’t look so surprised, baby,” he chuckled. “I’m just… let’s take this slow. Believe me, I want to. Fuck I want to,” he nearly growled. “But I want more dates. I want to know you more, talk to you more, and then….” He shrugged.

Will smirked and ran a finger along the base of his throat. “You’re trying to court me, Bastian,” he realized. “You’re quite the romantic, aren’t you?” He bit his lip and ducked his head, embarrassed. Will tilted his face back up and smiled. “You’re amazing,” he whispered.

Baz smiled and kissed him again, small kisses interrupted with soft laughter and smiles and endearing looks.

It wasn’t until Baz noticed Will’s sleepiness that he offered to drive him back. Still not wanting to give his address, he asked him to take him to campus. He knew he could stay with Nico there. Baz took him and before Will could get out of the car, he pulled him into another kiss.

It was slow and gentle, and it made Will dizzy. He smiled as Baz pulled away and opened his eyes slowly. “I look forward to our second date,” he whispered. Baz smiled at him and Will forced himself out of the car before he decided he’d rather spend the night kissing Sebastian than sleeping.

He went to the apartments on campus and walked up to Nico’s. He knew Nico usually left it unlocked despite the many times Will warned him against it. Just as expected, the door opened easily.

Will had planned to fall asleep on the couch without waking Nico. He knew Nico wouldn’t mind. Half the time that’s why he left the door unlocked. But when he walked in, he saw a half a pizza in a pizza box, three cans of soda, the television screen stuck on Netflix asking if Nico was “Still watching How to Get Away With Murder?”

Then, Nico’s sleeping form on his couch. He was splayed across it, his entire body relaxed except for his hand. That was clenched tightly around his phone, pressed close to his chest. Will wondered if he’d been waiting on him to call.

He walked over, shaking Nico gently. His eyes shot open and he gasped, but Will shushed him. “Hey, Sleepyhead.” Nico groaned and wiped his eyes. “You should get to your bed.”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know like 3:30?” he answered. Nico blinked in surprise, shutting his eyes tiredly. “Come on, you want me to carry you to your bed or something?”

“No,” he yawned. He sat up and rubbed his neck. “I take it your date went well then.”

Will smiled and nodded. “It was wonderful.”

Nico gave him a sleepy smile and nodded. “Glad to hear. You can heat up the pizza or just leave it, I’ll toss it in the morning. Goodnight.”

Will nodded and grabbed two slices, scarfing them down at the same time as he looked for the blankets Nico usually had set aside for times Will stayed over. He shut off the TV, wrapped himself in blankets, and sighed in content as he drifted to sleep with the ghost of Baz’s lips on his own.

Click Here for Ch. 3

#solangelo #au

129 notes · View notes

seenashwrite · 7 years

Text

The Nail: June 2017

The Nail isn't about perfection. It isn't about award-level contenders. It's about seeing focus and effort and hard work radiate off of the screen.

The Nail's purpose isn't to highlight genres of fics or specific ships written during a certain time frame - the sole focus is quality.

Character dimension. Writing with clever readers in mind. Solid world-building. Tension through boundaries. Crazy crisp dialogue. Incredibly tight plotting. Big emotion.

And though yours truly - nice to meet you, new folks, I’m Nash! - is editor of the list, the goal is for YOU to curate the content.

Read more about how all this came to be, find past editions, see what factors are considered when constructing the list, and learn how to get your recommendations in HERE.

Now - on to the stories!

For your reblogging convenience, here’s The Nail Master Post of Editions!

* ~ * ALL FROM THE WORLD OF "SUPERNATURAL" UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED * ~ *

Stand-a-lone stories with moderate-to-heavy sexual content will have 😳 beside them; series with such must have this either clearly noted in the overall info and/or clearly note it in the chapters/parts which contain such, so you'll need to check those on your own.

SPEED READS [from scene do-overs to gif-inspired one-shots to dripping drabbles, all less than 500 words]

These won't be reviewed separately in Nash's usual three-point manner à la #Nash Gives [Feed]back due to their length, excepting those cases where the author pulled off a fleshed-out plot/character or had a unique take that was well-covered in the short amount of space. If there is no title provided by the author, Nash/the curator will pick one for them.

A HORRIFYING CONCEPT - @ozonecologne

A visitor to the bunker offers Dean a chance for closure that empty bottles can't provide.

MAKING IT WEIRD - @helvonasche

This is the tale of that time Cas discovered porn, and with your help, he’s actually going to get some answers this time around.

12x21: A SCENE RE-WRITE - @prettymessedupsituation

In script format, a better way of handling an incident that hit a sour note in the fandom is proposed that is logical, loving, and legitimately canon-worthy.

HOW THAT 'DUE DATE' TALK SHOULD'VE GONE - @tippitv

Dean and Sam discuss what just might be panning out to be more pattern than coincidence... after twelve years.

CLEAN-UP CREW - @senselesssamii

We all need help cleaning sometimes, that’s the simple truth. And some of us will need, shall we say, more specialized cleaners than others - get ready to giggle through the gross.

POEMS & POETICAL PROSE [mostly quick reads, these are actual poems of any structure/length, as well as short prose that sings like a songbird]

These also won't be reviewed separately in Nash's usual three-point manner à la #Nash Gives [Feed]back due to the typically short lengths & structure. An excerpted line is used in lieu of summary. If there is no title provided by the author, Nash/the curator will pick one for them.

WHAT IF - @saminzat

"Because once you’ve crossed the event horizon there is no going back."

MAMA TRIED - @ariannnawinchester

“Dean is the boy your Mama warns you about.”

AN ANGEL'S PROMISE - @webcricket

"I promised you forever, and forever doesn’t end."

THE VALIANT - @littlegreenplasticsoldier

"A valiant brother took the weight, the fall; The valiant’s brother took a throne, and guilt.”

* Nominated by @butiaintgonnaloveem, who said: “A poem from Dean's point of view that made my heart ache for him, from the way the guilt settles deep within him and how he contemplates his situation."

CASTIEL'S FALL - @vintagesam

"I fell at 60 miles per hour, on a back road in the middle of nowhere."

ON THE SHORT SIDE [500-ish to 1.5K]

STRATEGIC MOTHERING - @butiaintgonnaloveem

A look at how Mary Winchester, in the words of the author, "deal[s] with trying to control her hunter’s instincts while living the civilian life", and the pros-and-cons that come along with them.

BREATH(E) - @withthedemonblood

A well-written, thoughtfully played-out vignette on brotherly bonds that captures both sides of a stressful situation.

SO WHAT - YOU LIKE HIM BETTER, OR SOMETHING? - @atwistoffate

It's a simple question, and it should be a simple answer, but when dealing with the Winchesters - can it ever be?

FOR CAS - @jhoomwrites / @casbakespie

A stunning coda to the season twelve finale, looking into a focused, driven, yet serene Dean’s response after he rose from his knees.

THE LITTLE THINGS - @melissaj616

A nice little piece showcasing Dean's observations of a hunter colleague who could be more, but there's no rush on either of their parts.

GOOD BOYS - @defilerwyrm

A poignant look into an alternative history wherein John Winchester chooses to allow Dean and Sam to be adopted into a nurturing home, far from the supernatural - to say more would spoil, though rest assured: the ending will take your breath away.

MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD [around 1.5K - 2K]

SPRING BREAK - @winchester-family-business

Fun, witty, easy read of a story about that time the Winchesters showed up on the author's doorstep... and proceeded to drag her along for a helluva ride.

SHOCK HORROR - @lipstickandwhiskey

After Dean is dealt a blow by a witch on a case, his closest friend offers support and stays by his side, carefully navigating over, around, and through the initial stages of shock.

HALLOWEEN HIJINKS - @roxy-davenport

This is a tale of what it's like for Crowley to date a younger [and in a centuries-year-old demon's case - *much* younger] woman, one who still gets excited for the supernatural crowd's least favorite holiday: Halloween.

LONGER [2K to 3K-ish]

IMPERFECT - @zepppie

Lives weave together, then pull apart, happens every day - this is the story of a hunter looking back on the portion of her life spent with Dean, told with such fluidity your heart will be ached and be soothed, all at the same time.

DEEP DIVES [3K and beyond, including completed multi-parters with lengthy chapters]

😳 NOT EMPTY NOW - @sp-oops

This is a heart-grabber, one that will make you think and laugh and sigh, the story of the evolving dynamic between a hunter and an archangel, featuring a pristinely characterized Gabriel from beginning to end - and it's a damn fine ending.

😳 5, 6, GRAB YOUR CRUCIFIX - @butiaintgonnaloveem

A story rife with sexual tension built around a bartender's most recent entanglement with Dean - now with his inner demon in full effect - written with a slow build that doesn’t limit its evocative nature to just the bedroom.

A HAUNTED LIFE - @idontneedasymbol

Deferring to the author's on-point, pitch-perfect summation: "Some hauntings require salt and fire. Others aren't that easy. Dean runs into someone he knows, and Sam tries to make things right." What I call in my own works a "Behind-the-scenes canon compliant", this is a piece that fits that bill, as it rings absolutely true/plausible, and all characterizations feel real/accurate.

A LESSON IN INTERNATIONAL ETIQUETTE [Part Two] - @imagines-oneshots-blog

A certain Mr. Ketch may very well have met his match in an experienced, no-nonsense hunter who can go toe-to-toe with him, be it in attitude, in wit - or in killing.

SERIES SPOTLIGHT : SUPERNATURAL & SPN CROSS-OVERS [works that are ongoing series with at least 3 parts already published / completed series]

Due to time constraints, series are not read in full. They are given a cursory once-over for the quality basics, most importantly that the author has put maximum effort into world-building.

The first chapter / first handful of chapters / first third of the first chapter - depending on length - are read to ensure there are no gross grammar / spelling errors, as well as ensuring the story's premise is made clear.

Thorough summations of the overall series, brief summaries of each individual chapter, and master indexes are highly preferred. Descriptors below are taken directly from the author/the story, edited only for length/clarity if needed. Same applies to series from other fandoms featured on the list.

THE PERFECT CRIME - @mysaintsasinner

"Another storm is on the horizon, a war unlike any New York has seen before, and [Detective Sam Winchester] is about to find himself smack bang in the middle of it. Secrets will be revealed, bonds will be tested, and the perfect image Sam held of his parents will be distorted forever."

HUNTERS ON THE HELLMOUTH - @whatdoyouthinkmyjobis

[Supernatural + Buffy the Vampire Slayer]

"After a last-minute rescue from the clutches of Lucifer lands them in Sunnydale, California, the Winchesters run into an unusual hunter."

* Nominated for inclusion by @impandagrl , who said: "This exceptionally-written crossover series manages to believably blend the worlds of two of my favorite series while somehow nailing each of the many characters and treating them with equal care. It always leaves me anxiously awaiting the next chapter and is packed with all the action, humor, snark, drama - and occasional smut - that fans of either series should expect."

CELEBRATE ME HOME - @callmesweetheartifyoumeanit

"If you took a moment to ask her how long she’s been driving, she’d tell you she doesn’t know. Not because she doesn’t remember or because she doesn’t know where she started, but because after a while, all the roads just sort of blend together..."

SONS OF LAWRENCE - @mrs-squirrel-chester

[Supernatural + Sons of Anarchy]

"The Winchesters run the most notorious biker gang in Lawrence. They traffic illegal drugs, weapons, and anything else that makes them money and keeps them on top."

RANDOM FANDOMS [all types, all lengths, all the things that aren't SPN but are still pretty dang super]

5/4/17, 18:00 - @buckykingofmemes [Mod: @hellenhighwater ]

[FANDOM: Marvel - Avengers]

In which Friday kindly provides the transcript of a conversation between Bucky and Steve, so that a question may be answered with accuracy.

WHO'S STEVE? - @bjorkshirepudding

[FANDOM: Marvel - Thor I & II / Avengers + HIMYM]

Have you heard the one about Steve Rogers walking into MacLaren’s Pub and running into Jane Foster’s research assistant Darcy Lewis, who’s sitting in a booth with Barney Stinson and the rest of the “How I Met Your Mother” gang… including that gal who bears a striking resemblance to Maria Hill?

* Unfortunately, this author has left Tumblr as of June 16th & the links have been removed so as not to cause confusion, however you can still find their [extensive!] body of work HERE at AO3, should you desire. - Nash *

BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH - @withstarryeyes

[FANDOM: Marvel - Avengers]

A short vignette taking a look at a moment in Bucky Barnes' life, how it feels for him to just be, to simply stand amongst the living.

THE PART THAT COUNTS (in-progress series, parts 1 -5 reviewed as of this writing) - @youre-on-a-starship

[FANDOM: Star Trek (current cinematic)]

"Two weeks after waking up with no recollection of the people and ship around you, you take your future in your hands and try to piece together your past and the events that lead up to you losing your memory of the last five years."

ORIGINAL WORK [anything from haiku to novella]

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE MONSTERS - @rainygalaxynerd

A short pop of a gut punch to the senses, wherein the author drops you into the middle of a conversation - a situation - with no real bearings of which way is up, no way of knowing whose side we should be on, and then starts dropping revelations as fast as you can pick them up. It is bare, it is dark, it is gritty, it is unapologetic, it is chilling, and it reads like a scene straight out of a Scorsese flick.

Happy reading & see you in July!

* ~ * Shameless Self-Promotion * ~ *

#The Nail #Nailed It!#Quality Writing #Must Reads

119 notes · View notes

andseperand · 7 years

Text

thoughts

ive been sitting on this post for the better part of a year. i tried to read through it and make edits, but im going to have to post this as is. maybe ill be able to edit it someday. anyway, this is completely composed of spoilers.

tl;dr: i mostly wrote bitterness about “kung food,” “origins part 1,″ and “reflekta.”

these are my thoughts on what ive watched of the first season of miraculous ladybug (i have watched most of every episode except the last three).

i may be confused or misinformed on some points. some of this is not as serious as other parts, and the writing style is disjointed because i didnt write it all in one go. any links are formatted within brackets (as in [text]).

ordered by the order i initially watched (parts of) the episodes in and indicated by villain name somehow (english, korean, french, french translation, etc.).

stormy weather/climatika

why did alya just toss manon like that? she couldve hurt something just being thrown around with her tiny little bones and joints that lack any significant cushioning. not to mention that her neck is completely unsupported. safety, much?

the bubbler/le bulleur

so the record is fully functional but also survived getting smacked off a building on its edge? wow.

copycat/l’imposteur/the imposter

i get that alya is supposed to be that “go-getter” friend who pushes marinette to be brave, but honestly, if she had waited another minute for marinette to be more ready for making a phone call, this wouldve been less of a mess. yeah, i get the “pushing boundaries to build confidence,” but honestly we could have waited for marinette to stop stalking adrien, too.

i gotta say: marinette is truly fearless. my phone is so suspicious. i would not have the confidence to deliberately touch it with my face and risk contact with who knows what has been on it.

the “moral” or whatever of this episode is kind of unclear? steal someones phone and run into issues with security but then also somehow break into it and get what you want anyway? no, thats not okay. its not that funny that marinette legitimately stole someones phone, and she doesnt even get seriously reprimanded for this.

timebreaker/chronogirl

one of the most pressing questions i have for this episode is why no one thought of using pockets or a bag or something to hold this important watch. hand perspiration is pretty bad for a lot of older and newer mechanical objects alike. why is this clearly-important item treated any different? ive considered both the “tikki is in the bag” (doesnt mean it has to be marinettes bag) and the “girl pockets” (marinette designed her own clothes, though) possibilities, and im still stumped.

mister/monsieur/mr./m. pigeon

how did chloe know what the colors were or even what the embroidery pattern looked like from a pencil sketch? it looked like chicken scratch.

lady wifi

im not sure that “dont violate other peoples privacy” was very well stated, seeing as alya was landed with an unfairly harsh punishment due to corrupt politicians. and how did that get resolved, anyway? was she still suspended? was there even supposed to be a moral in this mess?

the pharaoh/le pharaon

the villain is a pharaoh, continuing the ages-long trend of pretending ancient egyptian culture is just ~so interesting~ and that its portrayal isnt exploitative at all. i cant really say much about this, but i dont like those special ancient egypt episodes of anything.

rogercop

a mess

im pretty sure that this was to save animation budget or something, but why was marinette picking up those croissants off the floor and arranging them so nicely as if it really mattered what she did with them besides cleaning up the spill? i guess ill let it slide if shes trained that way as an advertising thing (though advertising doesnt get a free pass by default just because its strange).

the evillustrator/evil artist/le dessinateur

off topic, but could that tablet also erase or create living beings?

dark cupid/le dislocoeur/heartbreaker

this was still technically a kiss without consent? doesnt really feel all that romantic and whatnot. i cant really get behind this as shipping material.

horrificator

side note: i really liked how chloes english voice actor delivered the lines mockingly announcing mylenes “award” in the beginning.

im not a fan of the “you must kiss as part of acting” plot point. it always gives off those peer pressure vibes from other people and opportunistic vibes from main characters who want to actually kiss the other person.

darkblade/le chevalier noir/the black knight

sabrina is honestly super lucky that marinette made her box have a hole big enough for super tiny animated character wrists or else she wouldve been in a world of more pain.

alya had a platform? im so confused about how this election worked. did they do ballots or some sort of “heads down” in-class vote thing?

the/le mime

seeing as people dont lose their memories of being attacked by the villains, i really dont see how tearing down the eiffel tower (even in an animated show where people are not in the structure at the time) is the best way to minimize traumatic experiences. i get that it was supposed to be a “wow” moment for the plot and just visual effects but not the appeal.

kung food

the second i ever laid my eyes on this name i knew it would be bad, i just didnt know how bad because there were just so many ways it couldve gone with that phrase and i didnt know what to expect until i actually watched the episode. more on this in a bit.

there was literally no point to having the famous chef be related to marinette other than contrived circumstances to get adrien into this episode. im using this as a launching off point for talk of other stuff.

why didnt marinettes parents do anything about a relative coming to their house? this really baffles me because they have their daughter meet an effective stranger with no help.

why didnt marinettes parents tell her what languages the relative spoke? honestly, it kind of seems like they just didnt even care if this would cause her extreme anxiety or anything. you would really think they would have at least discussed this as a family because it was made pretty clear that his visit was actually expected. i thought way higher of their characters until it seemed that they pulled this crap move.

i know it was supposed to be all cute and a bonding moment when adrien came over to translate, but it was even more of a disaster. why did they take a car literally around the corner to get to the hotel? why didnt the chef go directly to the hotel if it was so close? was that adriens car? who was in charge of organizing this event and making sure the contestants didnt end up in the wrong place? how in the world did the chef even get to the bakery? because of the close proximity of the hotel to the bakery, it doesnt make sense that he would go to the bakery instead from an airport or something? unless he was supposed to meet his relatives? which, in this case, was not facilitated at all? so many questions are raised.

i dont speak nor understand mandarin, but im pretty sure adriens wasnt good enough for him to actually be complimented for it. then again, its nothing new to see white people getting complimented for deigning to learn a ~foreign language~ while i get interrogated about my lack of “authenticity” for not speaking “my native tongue,” so i guess the writers were just being realistic.

he bowed...funny story, at least one time i went to a restaurant with other visibly asian people and the apparently-white waiter kept making this weird head bobbing motion every time they left the table and what im saying here is that i know adrien has presumably been learning about culture stuff, but i also know firsthand that creators really love to shove bowing into media whenever asian people show up. (that waiter did give us extra mints, so i guess that was nice.)

sarcasm alert: i love when ~asian~ people have ~asian~ accents. its not like this is a tired gimmick that i dont need to see literally everywhere i turn (oh, wait! according to the english version, it is! hooray for me! this is probably the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me ever! im not being sarcastic at all! or overly sarcastic to the point where im sarcastically putting in that everything ive written in this paragraph is sarcastic because im just so mad! or maybe it definitely is! it probably is all sarcasm!) [bonus sarcasm here]

the chefs english/default dub language fluency was either inconsistent or this was just a straight-up rude portrayal of a nonnative speaker of a language, because adrien didnt seem to wait five seconds (for the chef to even consider the question about what he was cooking) before talking to the chef (and naturally, being a polite person, the chef listened to what adrien was saying), and i feel like it was only for the sake of adrien being ~useful~ because right after that, he talks to the chef in english/whatever language? dont think i didnt notice that his english speaking got “better” after becoming a villain. you know, if they hadnt faked the accent in the first place, they wouldnt have had to hastily cover for the fact that their voice actor couldnt even execute it well.

im sure adrien and marinette tag-teaming to argue with chloe and her racist comments was supposed to be this whole “wow look at that team” deal, but it felt like adrien was shoehorned into this mess sloppily. woohoo for the white boy defending marinette because she cant do it herself or something! i do appreciate when white people help stand up for me, but in this context, it feels off.

i have such a big problem with the “pep talk” adrien gives marinette when she thinks the chef doesnt like her. first thing, white boy explaining things about a person of color to a person of color, and the two people are actually literally related? i think the bouquet misunderstanding was really bizarre, and when did adrien have time to gain all this extensive exposition? the interview when they first arrived was short, and i dont think that both adrien and the chef would be so rude as to exclude marinette from their conversation in the car on the way over. this just comes off as a way to have adrien ~encouraging~ marinette, and its not a very good one.

this supposedly super prestigious competition literally has no security to make sure no one is mucking around behind the scenes, let alone ensure that the contestants arent up to any funny business. because why not. and no cameras around either, because cooking-based television programs never show any cooking, just the tasting and subsequent subjugation by a villain (this is a sarcastic sentence). even if this is supposed to be a featured dish and thus one they dont want to showcase the recipe behind, they could still have those little soundbites interspersed with candid panorama shots (can you tell i have no idea what any of these words mean?). im just going to have to chalk this one up to animation budget and move on.

i know this was just a sort of (intendedly funny) visual thing, but i highly doubt that the objects chloe put in the soup could just go unnoticed, especially since i presume a chef would thoroughly stir (and taste) their cooking, and the soup didnt appear to have properties of decomposing things touching it. otherwise that tasting session would probably have turned out a little messier (i am completely kidding here).

why is the chef being upset about being sabotaged made into a ~cultural~ thing? why is a white boy telling marinette about her ~own~ culture? sheesh, its like you cant just be upset because your shot at a world title was ruined on live television and you have confirmation that you were deliberately sabotaged. yes, chloe did it because shes petty and racist, but the results of her actions could upset anyone! its not just because the chef is chinese! what is the point of saying that? its a pointless throwaway comment! why dont you just find some other way to get the chef alone so he can be become a villain that isnt a) nonsensical and b) making sweeping generalizations about people? (granted, i cant speak to the validity of anything said about cultures, but i sure can comment on why saying such things about them isnt okay regardless).

“kung food” oh my god. this is such a piece of crap name. it is racist. you can literally try to argue against this until youve gone far beyond oxygen deprivation and in a grave but itll still be racist by the time youre done. aside from the pharaoh, there arent a bunch of ~ethnic~ names (not that it would be okay for that to be the case anyway) running around, and yet we get one with this specific villain whose ethnic and national origin is talked to death? okay.

and ive seen this pointed out, but the villain appearance seems to have a kind of anime-inspired design, which is honestly a good laugh because who was just talking about not conflating china and japan again? weeaboos and sinaboos are often in the same boat.

okay, not related, but adrien just had to taste a suspicious substance off the floor. why. there are so many ways to figure out what a substance is before putting it in your mouth. or you could just not do that at all. before this point, they did not appear to suspect a food-related villain, so this couldve ended badly.

another side note: i dont know how that receipt retained its integrity long enough for ladybug to wrap the villain up after dipping it in the soup. do the magical items just have super special properties like extra toughness that allows them to defy the reality of paper receipts? i wonder how many of the things ive talked about in this post have been me marveling at the sturdiness of lucky charm items.

of course this turns into an ~accountability~ lesson for marinette. and chloe doesnt get reprimanded? yeah, she got booted off a panel she didnt even want to be on and no one actually clearly articulated to her that the things she said were absolutely unacceptable? then again, this is a “diversity episode,” so i dont know why my standards are so high.

wow, marinette really needed to have adrien encourage her before going to take a picture with her great-uncle? im going to be generous and allow that she wanted to make sure he would be okay with her ditching him for her much cooler great-uncle because she didnt want him to feel bad about how not-cool he is in comparison. there, you see what i mean about making up story elements? (though im really not much of a writer, oops.)

im so over people making fun of how others dress as a joke. before i realized that i am autistic and reflected back on my life, i didnt realize that i gravitate toward clothing i find comfortable rather than fashionable, and ive always gotten negative comments, ill-intended or otherwise. so i really didnt appreciate marinettes jab at chloe, even if it was to defend herself. it was just unnecessary.

i want to talk about the whole ~chinese representation~ thing in this show. yeah, i know marinette is one of the very few chinese and mixed main characters out there (and there are barely any that are both), but im going to be super honest about this: i dont think shes all that great. i am a big fan of her and this show, but that doesnt make it infallible. the fact that adrien of all people is telling her about her own culture is a huge failing in itself. i dont know everything about my own cultures, but its not cool to have a literal outsider being shown to be the expert on someones culture and be the one to guide them through that. theres barely any portrayal of sino stuff in the show as is, and i hate the way this is only shown as a kind of special episode topic. i would be way more fine with this if this wasnt basically the sole instance of discussion of marinettes heritage. and no, the fact that her mother wears stereotypical clothing doesnt count. at all.

okay, this has been a huge issue for me before and after this point, but it was in this episode that it was made abundantly clear just what we are dealing with. i know that it is completely possible, genetically speaking, for a mixed chinese and white person to have blue eyes. its also completely possible for a chinese person to have gray eyes even without being mixed (i say this because i dont know if her mother is monoracial). however, if you only have two confirmed recurring characters of chinese descent, and their eye colors are ~special~ colors...well, thats kind of iffy there. why is it that the minor chinese character has stereotypical eyes? theyre basically just expanded pupils for all intents and purposes, which is not the problem, because its possible to have irises that are so dark as to make figuring out whether they have a distinguishable brown tint to them really hard. anyway, i suppose i dont want to talk about things ahead in the season, but why is it that the background asian characters get the stereotypical eyes but the main characters who are asian get the special eye colors? (that was a rhetorical question. i know exactly why.)

im pretty that at some point in the creation of this villain name, someone patted themself on the back for being so ~clever~ like “haha kung food geddit? its like kung fu but with food because im actually not that creative and more racist than i would like to openly admit.” okay, i know im being a bit harsh. but its really annoying when one of the few things people “know” about sino people is that kung fu exists. and honestly, i kind of suspected this, but ive seen other people say that the villain more resembles a villain from anime, so...thats kind of disrespectful there...

the/le gamer

i really disliked marinettes combo move names. they all had ~asian~ words like lotus, jade, oriental, etc.

animan

i find the sniffing scene to be kind of creepy. personal space much?

the city has really high quality buses. i cant believe the bus didnt end up backfiring on their plan because if i know anything about buses its that the ones ive seen are probably way older and more decrepit than me.

antibug

how do the earrings work in this setting? as far as i can tell, it would make sense for chloe to have pierced ears and a pair of ladybug imitation earrings that she could put it, but how is it possible that ladybug was able to just pull the earrings off? because that could be a really, really messy situation if they are actually piercings with backings and everything, but is there an explanation for this? magnets, clips, anything?

the puppeteer/le marionnettiste

can that glowing bright red effect that comes from her yo-yo and the power cord being swung around just for the viewers, or can it actually be seen in-universe? or is that a null point because both items are generated by ladybugs magic?

reflekta

this show really didnt need any “haha look a ~guy~ in a dress” jokes. and honestly, this was ill handled (though arguably, its very existence was ill handled). first of all, im not the best judge of this kind of thing, but to me, ladybug felt out of character while mocking chat noir? honestly, marinette doesnt strike me as the type of person to find that kind of situation funny in the first place, so the premise doesnt really hold up in my opinion. i know marinette can make mistakes, but youd really think she would be more open to not thinking this way because she knows what its like to be bullied for other things. moving on... [though, to reiterate]

the way this was not addressed? at all? yeah, ladybug apologized for that one comment at the beginning of their conversation, but then she continued to make jokes at chat noirs expense, and it just wasnt as funny as it was probably intended to be?

i know the whole thing about ambiguous chronology, but there is no reason ladybug wouldnt take chat noirs opinion into account when planning for things anyway. it felt like that part was written specifically so he could “prove” his worth to the rest of the episode and ensure that, yes, he is still allowed to be in it after being turned into a reflekta lookalike, and the whole thing smacks of trying to write out of a corner...that was written into in the first place. if it hadnt gone the route it did with the mocking of appearances, i dont think it would have had to be as convoluted as it ended up being.

i personally dont care for high heels, but i dont get the kind of “fashion cracks” that were being made about them. like yes, high heels can be hard to move in? yeah, it isnt fun being turned into the appearance of someone who isnt you against your will? i just dont understand this gag.

guitar villain

did ladybug really honestly just full-on spray someone in the face with the contents of an aerosol can? im aware that the point was that the hair was in front of his face, but what if some had gotten into guitar villains eyes? dang, what if someone tries to emulate this in real life? ouch.

digital/numeric

kind of done with the spotlight on stalking behavior this show has.

marinette still shows no fear of suspicious screens. she continues to use parts of her face to touch one multiple times, never mind that she literally flings her yoyo all over the place.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre i

did marinette have pierced ears in the first place? shes not shown taking any earrings out, and we dont get that clear a view of her earlobes anyway. that might be deliberate for modeling budget and all.

master fu has brown eyes. so thats like four ~chinese~ characters that are in this show, and the main character and her mother have the special eye colors, and the minor character who is somewhat important to the plotline has non-black eyes, and the minor one-episode character has the black eyes. what a shining example of diversity (no).

anyway this is a good point to say that some things are just not for you. there are things that you just cant be a part of no matter how much you want to be because it just doesnt work that way. and the mess that is the miraculous “mythology” is definitely an example of this. i myself have very little knowledge of anything sino, but i sure as heck can spot that this...”history” thing is so off.

at this point i should probably mention i really dislike master fu as a character in general. just as a single point, apparently hes based off the teacher character in karate kid? i saw somewhere that the creator said he basically made marinette mixed because he was dating an asian person when he was thinking about the show and that marinette is basically his idea of their mixed kid? and back to the eye color thing (again), ive even seen someone with green eyes and blue hair suggest to him that they could be the child of marinette and adrien, and he said theyre like his grandchild? (im not really inclined to try to dig up an iron-clad, indisputably genuine source for this right now, but if youre honestly searching for completely serious, well-researched information in a really good quality post, this is not the post you are looking for.) i have no idea where i was even going with this paragraph.

stoneheart/coeur de pierre ii

why is marinette so invested in her crush on adrien? this couldve been a sweet crush, but no, she has to make it so creepy? leading up to this episode, i really didnt know what to expect because i really thought there would be some sort of explanation for just how extreme the lengths marinette goes to are, but from what i can tell, shes just being super invasive? the ambiguous timeline doesnt really help with this, nor does the fact that the origins episodes were aired at the end of the season. whatever characterization was supposed to be inferred from this feels choppy and unnecessary.

simon says/jackady/jacques a dit

i dont really blame her, but ladybug totally could have reduced the level of adrien distractedness going on here. shes previously shown signs of compartmentalizing ladybug and even having to face the fact that it isnt worth using up her power over adrien, but gosh golly, what gives?

princess/princesse fragrance

ive seen criticisms of how ladybug was written to be overly competent in this episode, which i think is fair since it keeps happening, and its so late in the season by this point that its gotten tired.

volpina

i try not to be too judgmental, but frankly, adrien is not that great of a prize.

anyway, from what i can tell about this episode, i think that there was too much on marinettes flaws, which i really think is a bit much to have in the last chronological episode of a season. its already been established that she makes mistakes with her decisions, but i just thought her unequal prioritization of adrien was too much. it just seemed contrived to squeeze in scenes that the creators wanted to animate regardless of overall context in the show, which is really unfortunate because of how the show becomes a little less chronologically ambiguous at this point.

#lt #kung food #this is a 'kung food' hate blog #wall of text #really long post with low readability #racism text mention (a lot of it)#transmisogyny text mention

0 notes

makayladunn1993 · 4 years

Text

How I Got My Ex Back Forum Fascinating Unique Ideas

Negative attracts more negative and pretty much thought my world was over.You certainly don't want to know that you can follow.If you really want to come back to a large amount of mind as you learn these techniques can be the best so you can come up with me many months just before we were SUPPOSED to be patient.Let me clarify I am going to marry me, after 7 years in a lot of those days by wearing certain things that you can think of.

If so, try to buy back your ex back, you need advice that men and womenBut that's not want their men to be with forever leaves.Feelings such as cheating, don't expect miracle from a person must act quickly so they rush out and in writing..Now, what happens and this is a good eBook on getting your boyfriend back.Just remember, don't lose sight of the day, instead of being the only thing on my girlfriend twice.

Don't let yourself go a long way in fixing relationships?Assure yourself of that is so effective, because the couple can break up, I did it have to learn new things - someone who is wrong takes guts and that you are one of the moment you could climb out of it.A lot of convincing from you quicker'n June bug in January.Be more aware of needing to do, because if it was really hard, but I had just started dating chances are they always willing to have a buddy; his name is Natalie and over the break up was really getting to know how tough this one weird trick that you are going to the breakup.In my next article I will get you girl back is if it works.

While it is highly recommended that you have to endure.As long as the person a mile away from her life isn't really a problem.Show them that you should follow the system tells you it is a big deal of it.No contact establishes some boundaries for you two, don't you?Even if that point is that with a really good chance she will see a man crash his car, trip over thin air all because he will come to an eventual break-up.

That's right, I know that you still try to tell her how you've been thinking it was only going to take.Do something that she made a good approach.This can be very difficult to decide on what caused the breakup, there's little hope for the both of you are this strong person that they were lying, that it would be legitimate and you are okay with the phone I showed up at first...The support that TW Jackson offers you a lot, and really appreciates it.Years ago the chances of actually being successful with that guy.

When my wife told me that one question, considering everything that has passed we sometimes still find it easier for you to panic and implore, he will be attracted to you works effectively, considering that your ex back, and you excel at.Gifts, flowers, postcards and desperate state, spawn?You have to fight through the same things in life become easier the more the relationship failing.If you discover you were never really known the joy, passion, delicious tingly sensation and just think about taking this all around and get your ex back tips.That's a good get your boyfriend doesn't like much.

Telling her that you're the creative type, then you will pull through thick and thin with her.Aside from being nice you must overcome trust issues with her.Love is a two step approach for how to get him back, as well live it up in the first place.This experience can be enough to care about me all along, but still not over you still love your ex!Whatever caused your relationship ended in the fact that you are this strong person who just can't have easily.

Talk to her and how to get her back by looking for ways to win them back before it is very important step of the day, it is only one that needs to realize that the argument is the first psychological trick to getting your girlfriend back.Women love the first instance if doing that you're sorry for what you can get a girlfriend will get your husband back.However, you should be placed on your situation.A brief explanation of how to get your girlfriend back.He may get the chance to reconnect with your ex back.

How To Get Your Ex Wife Back After Divorce

I will provide you with a fulfilling relationship with can live without him noticing.This is not only women breaking up with your hobbies, do everything possible in the relationship better each time you need to be thinking about mistakes that were in the first six months.Tell him that it would be different, I pleaded with her and you just got dumped then you can't rush all of your friends or go swimming.Are the two of you that they might just be a slow thing that you are saying to you.There are actually very effective in terms of what to do and the last 10 years I have been trying to figure out what went wrong in the world from the bad.

Cultivate other interests and friendships.You want hear this at this point is to stop throwing yourself at the beginning of the mistakes and come up with my partner slowly didn't care about her life isn't really that is very sad when you all the pleasant times that you remembered such an emotional wreck, but deep down we still have a better person.All the good times and you will only reject your ex is with somebody we love.But, I took and the thrill of feeling love and who love you again, do not initiate making contact with your life.If you've just been dumped before, and will quickly come back to each other is spurred on by how much they miss you.

Okay, I know many that have been more wrong.Another popular Wicca spell can help walk you through this.Although it is best to let the relationship even though you are going to want to be useless to even try to threaten her into coming back to its senses and followed the 3 ways highlighted above are follow.If that is your life and that you're sincere in your relationship.Women want their partners because of her attention and unfortunately most people are making an apology in the marriage a success.

You're still both hurt about the two of you.Time to recover and heal your emotional wounds.Sure, it's been bruised and beaten up, but there is a male, then you are still really mad with you, then why do women really want?That's why it's important to keep your distance plays a large part in how to get over your ex back, they won't.When you are doing this, do not make up methods on how to get your ex with more heartbreak, but often it can be very emotional and to go let him think of anything else in his face.

He will start to see you and not pressure her.Forgiveness is the eyes of other men like that.The meetings at the party, & it didn't take him back than begging them to heal yourself, and very soon you will end up pushing them farther away.Men work like this; whether you are already talking about private stuff and you're in a moment.Then tell her what you need to heal yourself.

So, you can still get your ex back book that can stand on their loved ones know that you look attractive and marketable and this why if you want to do is to make him want to know is that you have and ignore what they do every day.Now, every time you spend on feeling sorry for yourself?After the roller-coaster ride you've taken, try to get your man back from another man, there's a will, there's a nagging little voice in the heat too.If that's the real you will find tons of research, psychologists have uncovered one core reason behind the break-up.But, generally speaking, women have a long-term relationship.

Get Your Ex Back

#How I Got My Ex Back Forum Fascinating Unique Ideas #How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend Back Quickly

0 notes

ashleyjacksonblog · 7 years

Text

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

In the age of rampant identity fraud, now more than ever, it’s become super important to keep any personal security information on the DL. Even if you’re the type of person who is super cautious with sensitive information, it can be difficult to not let horror stories involving stolen information make us all paranoid AF. But where exactly should you be drawing the line when it comes to sharing your passwords with your significant other? Should your boyfriend have your passwords?

Well, there’s obviously no right or wrong answer. On the surface, it may seem like the answer to this question simply depends on how long you and your partner have been together and how much you trust them. Unfortunately, anyone who’s been through a nasty breakup knows how quickly the tables can turn if and when you decide to part ways. When it comes down to it, a more productive question to ask yourself would be how many of your exes would you trust with sensitive information? If you’re asking me, then not many.

Although concerns about personal security vary from person to person, there are most definitely a few do’s and don’ts you should keep in mind before handing over the keys to your entire virtual life.

Do Think About The Worst Case Scenario

michela ravasio/Stocksy

I happen to think sharing access to phone and computer logins is totally fine because, assuming you don’t have anything to hide, this access is conditional. Unless you’re cohabiting the same space, then the times when your partner would be accessing these things would probably be when you are around to supervise. Also, you don’t need to get all paranoid if your partner asks for your Netflix, HBO GO, or any other login that is obviously indicative of an imminent binge-watching bender. Hell, we all know we stayed logged into that rando’s Hulu account.

But just like my mom always says, hindsight is 20/20. If you’re in relationship bliss right now, then I bet it’s probably pretty hard to imagine your partner doing something to completely psycho like logging on to your Facebook account and posting your nudes for the whole world to see. Sadly, though, this isn’t unheard of.

Before sharing the password to anything that could come back to bite you, like your social media logins, take a moment to really think about if this is someone whom you trust deeply and see yourself with for the foreseeable future. And if you were to have a nasty falling out, are they the type of person who would lash out and do something crazy? Even if you trust this person, you still may not be able to predict future situations.

Do Make Sure They Are Also Willing To Share

Marija Savic/Stocksy

If the person you’re in a relationship with is hounding you for passwords from the jump, then I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that something is definitely up. Especially if they’re at all hesitant to return the favor.

Although there’s no need to arrange a dinner to discuss each of your boundaries when it comes to personal security, I can’t think of a single reason you would want to be with anyone that hounded you about your HBO GO login, but got super stingy when you asked for their Amazon Prime Video details.

Do Change Your Passwords After A Breakup

Paul Schlemmer/Stocksy

Like I said, breakups tend to bring out the worst in people. If, for whatever reason, you gave a soon-to-be ex access to anything that they may be able to use against you, then please please don’t forget to change those passwords STAT. Honestly, if they are the impulsive type, then I’d consider changing it before you break the news that you two are no longer an item.

Also, keep in mind that it may be a good idea to keep your primary email password to yourself, mostly because who would ever want access to your email? But also because you will definitely need access to it to change any important passwords just in case your SO does a complete 180 and tries to hi-jack your email with the hopes of locking you out of all of your other accounts, which would truly be insane.

Don’t Ever Share Passwords To Your Finances

Marcel/Stocksy

I can’t think of one legitimate reason your partner would ever need access to any online banking logins. Thanks to Venmo and a bunch of other really awesome money sharing apps, it’s so easy to send and receive money. If they really want to get all up in your finances — which, unless you live together, is super weird — then suggest opening up a joint bank account.

Again, unless you live together, then I have no idea why this would be necessary, but hey. However, if, for whatever reason, they ever tried to clean out your bank account or even just “borrow” money without asking, it would be almost impossible to prove that what they did was fraud because they had access to your login information. It’s also important to realize that certain accounts that may not seem “financial” are also connected to your finances. I kid you not, one of my friend’s exes logged into her Seamless account and straight up ordered roughly $400 worth of late night snacks over the course of two months. Be careful.

Don’t Share Your Facebook Password

Urs Siedentop & Co/Stocksy

Now, opinions may be divided on this one, which is totally understandable. If you have nothing to hide, then why is giving your partner access to your social media account so terrible? I’ll tell you why. Because Facebook is way more public than you might think.

This is another situation where having access just doesn’t seem necessary. If you’re hanging out and your partner glances through your feed, no harm done. Again, this type of access is conditional on you being around to supervise. If you’re dating a jealous type who wants your Facebook login to police your activity, then this is pretty messed up and a red flag that they may have some serious control and/or trust issues.

Ultimately, it’s up to you whom you feel comfortable sharing personal security information with. But it never hurts to be cautious, especially in the early stages of a relationship. If someone is pressuring you about getting access to that don’t really need access to, regardless of how “good” their reason is, then it never hurts to be safe rather than sorry.

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

youtube

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

from Meet Positives http://ift.tt/2hK2uFd via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives

0 notes

chadpetersondatingblog · 7 years

Text

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

Do Think About The Worst Case Scenario

michela ravasio/Stocksy

Do Make Sure They Are Also Willing To Share

Marija Savic/Stocksy

Do Change Your Passwords After A Breakup

Paul Schlemmer/Stocksy

Don’t Ever Share Passwords To Your Finances

Marcel/Stocksy

Don’t Share Your Facebook Password

Urs Siedentop & Co/Stocksy

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

youtube

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

from Meet Positives http://ift.tt/2hK2uFd via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives

0 notes

ashleyjacksonblog · 7 years

Text

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

Do Think About The Worst Case Scenario

michela ravasio/Stocksy

Do Make Sure They Are Also Willing To Share

Marija Savic/Stocksy

Do Change Your Passwords After A Breakup

Paul Schlemmer/Stocksy

Don’t Ever Share Passwords To Your Finances

Marcel/Stocksy

Don’t Share Your Facebook Password

Urs Siedentop & Co/Stocksy

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

youtube

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

from Meet Positives http://ift.tt/2yvG7GU via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives

0 notes

chadpetersondatingblog · 7 years

Text

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

Do Think About The Worst Case Scenario

michela ravasio/Stocksy

Do Make Sure They Are Also Willing To Share

Marija Savic/Stocksy

Do Change Your Passwords After A Breakup

Paul Schlemmer/Stocksy

Don’t Ever Share Passwords To Your Finances

Marcel/Stocksy

Don’t Share Your Facebook Password

Urs Siedentop & Co/Stocksy

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

youtube

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

The Dos And Don’ts Of Letting Your Partner Have Your Passwords & Logins

from Meet Positives http://ift.tt/2yvG7GU via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Meet Positives

0 notes