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the-chick-of-the-air · 3 years

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Hello my lovelies!!

Ok let me just start by saying- 600 followers?! Are you kidding?? Thank you all SO much! I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have every single one of you interested enough in my blog to be following me! Thank you thank you thank you!!!🥰🥰

Now I’m gonna repay you by breaking your hearts!

This is my first try at anything super angsty, so if your gonna yell at me afterwards please feel free to do so in the comments or in my ask box or even just reblogging and cursing me in the tags🤣 please let me know what you think!

TW: Major character death, mentions of vomiting and allusions to body mutilation- nothing graphic just vaguely indicated but whatever you are comfortable with is up to you! If any of what I warned makes you uncomfortable please don’t read! Your mental health is more important than a work of fiction!

Update: I’m sorry- I posted this and for some reason the tag list wasn’t working but it should be now! If your username has changed please let me know so I can tag you properly down below!❤️

Summary: Someone important dies. Cardan deals with it. Grab your tissues❤️

Final Resting Place

“I’m…I’m so sorry.” The folk are not in the habit of apologizing, much less for something that is so common. It matters not, Cardan has ceased listening, has heard nothing after The Bomb uttered those damning words.

Jude is dead.

He recalls, distantly, a time when Nicasia drug him halfway to her underwater kingdom, wishing to show him its beauty and splendor. He recalls how helpless he felt, how he could breathe but it wasn’t right. How he was silenced and the pressure from the water was crushing his chest so painfully it didn’t matter if he could breathe or not.

This feels near exactly like that.

“Your Highness?” Someone is asking a question he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t even ask them to repeat themselves. All he can do is state,

“She is to be brought back here. Burned on the pyres.” A Queen’s funeral. The only funerals the folk bothered to observe.

Someone, The Roach, likely, grunts in disapproval, “She… we…are not able to bring the body back. It was…”

Cardan isn’t sure what part of that statement makes his stomach churn the worst, the fact that they just referred to his wife, their queen as a body, or the fact that there apparently isn’t too much of her body to bring back.

He tries not to think, not to guess at what death was so brutal that she doesn’t even have a body left.

And that really is it, isn’t it? She, his fierce, vibrant, deadly queen, who always looked over her shoulder, is- was always so cautious, secretly ruling over a land that was designed to kill her, the mighty Jude Duarte, slayer of the folk-

Killed by something mortal.

In the mortal lands.

Where he sent her.

It was almost laughable, Cardan did laugh. Hysteria bubbling up in his chest like bile, which it might have been because suddenly the churning in his stomach was no longer violent but imminent and he’s throwing himself into the bathing chamber.

He doesn’t hear the court of shadows, her court of shadows, retreating as he retches into the chamber pot.

~.~

Time has lost all meaning.

It’s been days, weeks, months. The days pass in a blur, marked only by those who knew what she meant to him coming to give their condolences. Like it could lessen the pain of her being gone. Lessen the pain that came with the knowledge that this was his fault.

It was so ironic it hurt. Had he not exiled her to the mortal lands for her protection, she would have still been alive, ruling where she belonged, right by his side.

And now, she would never get to rule her kingdom openly. She would never share his throne, his crown, his name, his bed again.

She was gone before he got to have her.

And it was his own damn fault.

He refused to hold any audience with Taryn. It wasn’t fair, her twin was dead and she was parading around wearing her face. He knew that should he take one look at her, he would break beyond recognition.

The only thing keeping him alive on the throne being Jude’s memory, how she would have wanted, commanded him to keep ruling, even if she wasn’t there to do it with him.

He did allow an audience with Viviane, once. She had all but demanded it and would hardly take no for an answer. She arrived, eyes puffy and bloodshot, looking as terrible as he felt which didn’t seem fair either.

He wanted to be alone in his pain, for it to be all his own, because no one could understand, could relate to how he felt for her. Why should they share in his grief? The newest plate of armor he has cast over his heart?

She wasted no time on condolences, which in itself was strangely comforting. She got straight to the point, “You missed the funeral.”

“A mortal tradition.” His voice was hoarse with disuse. Had he gone so long without speaking to anyone? That didn’t seem possible.

“Dammit Cardan! She would have wanted you there.” Her anger was refreshing, a nice change of pace compared to the complete emptiness that was left behind in the shape of a mortal footprint upon his heart.

He almost wants to disagree, but that would make no sense. The folk can’t lie, not even half-fae.

When he doesn’t respond, Vivi crosses her arms, “Will you at least come visit her? Say your goodbyes? You have to say yes, we both know you need it.”

And painful as it was, she was right. The one thing that hurt worse than Jude being dead, knowing that it was because of him, was that he didn’t get to say goodbye. That all his letters to her went unanswered. That she died without knowing how much he needed her. How much he missed her and all she was to him. How much he…

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he silently rises and follows Vivi to his queen’s final resting place.

~.~

The mortal world is bright and loud and reeks of iron and is so alive it feels audacious. How dare anyone else continue living when someone from this place, someone so important, so above them was forced to forfeit that right?

The plot of land where she- what’s left of her- is laid to rest is small. The headstone sits, new and clean, next to two more that are dulled with age.

Justin and Eva Duarte.

Madoc had somehow procured graves for the two mortals he slaughtered, and now their youngest daughter lay beside them.

They are standing there for ten minutes before Vivi speaks, “You know, when someone visits the grave of someone they love, they usually look at it.” Her voice is monotone as she stares at the slab of stone sitting at the head of a patch of newly sprouted grass.

He’s not sure he can. If he looks, if he sees there is in fact a final stop, a final holding place for this restless mortal, then he will know it is real. That this wasn’t all some elaborate trick or punishment of her own making to get back at him for her banishment.

Foolish as it is, that was a dark hope buried deep inside him. That she was really still there, biding her time, waiting until he was just ruined enough to waltz back into his life to teach him a well deserved lesson. Perhaps on gratitude, on not taking things for granted.

It would be such a Jude thing to do.

A hand rests on his shoulder and he nearly flinches away, “I’ll give you a minute.”

Her footsteps recede, utterly fae and silent. So unlike the ones he desperately wishes to hear a final time.

It takes him maybe two minutes more for his eyes to finally find the headstone. He is shocked to find he can barely read what is inscribed upon it through tears that have filled his eyes.

Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

Beloved sister and wife

2001-2019

His tears come in earnest, then. How had he never known she took his name as well? Had cared enough to do so? Or was this something her sisters did to spite him? He pressed his lips together in an attempt to stifle any sobs trying to break free.

Cautiously, so cautious she would be proud, he runs his fingers over the inscription of her name- their name. When he knows his voice will be steady, he speaks.

“Well, wife.” He presses his eyes closed as a fresh wave of tears pushes at his senses, “I doubt either of us saw it coming to this.” Gently, he tugs something out of the satchel he brought with him.

“It was yours. For you to wear upon your return. For when you came home.” He couldn’t stop his voice from breaking as he carefully laid the crown down at the foot of the headstone, glamoured so mortals would see it as a pile of painted rocks.

“I guess in a way, I got what you thought I wanted. For you to…” He can’t even bring himself to say it. He had never wanted this. When in palace lessons, he thought that dreams plagued with her scent, her voice, her touch had been the most horrid nightmares. He was wrong, this was far worse than any dream he had of her angry face, her soft hair. This was a nightmare terrifying enough to cripple the strongest of men.

“Well. I guess it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter that I wish I could take back what I said about you in our childhood. That you would return to the earth, worm food.” He shudders, recalling that he had said those things while imagining that they would have followed a long life. One filled with her aging slowly due to living in Elfhame. Secret imaginings he only allowed himself in the darkest hours of the night- ones where he was by her side and they wreaked havoc together for the rest of their long, full lives. His next words are whispered, “I never imagined it would happen so soon.”

His hand returns to the headstone, gripping the cool rock tightly.

There is nothing left to say aside from one final message. Nothing left to do other than leave this place and continue on in his immortality, letting her fade into the backs of everyone’s memory as the Last Mortal Queen.

Taking a final shaky breath, Cardan utters the truth he had spent nearly his whole life repressing, trying to lie his way around. The words he now so desperately wishes he had said to her before he cast her out of their home in hopes of preventing this very thing from happening.

With one final look upon the place his wife, his queen is forever to rest upon, he whispers,

“I love you.”

~.~

Years and years and years later, young children of the gentry sit in their history lessons amongst their mortal classmates, and learn of the beautiful, treacherous life that was led by the Last Mortal Queen, Jude Duarte-Greenbriar

And that is that! Did I make you cry? Do you want to throw crumpled tissues at my head? Let me know!❤️ (I left out details of Jude’s death on purpose, it’s up to your imagination to come up with what happened to her, sorry for pain😬)

Tag list:

As always, please let me know through the comments or my inbox or any other way you are comfortable with and let me know if you wish to be added to my list so you can be alerted to my future works!

@maleckanejnessienjurdansolangelo @woodsbeyond1 @cardan-greenbriar-tcp @thewickedkings @aneurwin @snusbandxknifewife @jurdanhell @andromeddea @dressedindustandshadows @thesirenwashere @b00kworm @hizqueen4life @unidentifiedblackthorn @iminsanenotobsessed @df3ndyr @brittneyal @aelin-queen-of-terrasen @thefolkofthefic @yafandomsdotnet @fuzzypineapples-blog @nahthanks @charrise @thefolkofthefic @theviolettulip @embersfromink @kittkatandbooboo

Till next time, loves!🥰

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crybabysunflower · 3 years

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Anime nostalgia

Introduction

For a 90s or an early 2000s kid from India like me anime has been a part of our lives, despite not even being aware of the word 'anime' and it's real origins. The iconic animated shows we had watched back in our childhood were not always American, some of them were from Japan too. Although I don't watch many of these shows now, I still remember some moments of it, I still remember a little about it's central plot, it's theme and the feelings I had while watching them.

Some of my childhood favourite anime series

Crayon Shin-chan

Who can forget this annoying but wise little boy named Shinnosuke Nohara, (who is mainly known as Shin-chan in India), his shopaholic mom who is always hyped for discounts, his laid back dad and finally his (not so) innocent little sister who has an obsession for shiny objects and uhh... handsome young men.

This anime did not have a specific storyline, it was just centred around the lives of the Nohara family. I also remember many other supporting characters such as Shin-chan's eccentric (paternal) grandpa, his friends (Kazama, Nene, Masao, Bo and Ai), his aunt who is a passionate photographer and many others.

I also remembered many parents disliked this anime and that's understandable because Crayon Shin-chan has a mature plot (it belongs to the Seinen category which means it is for mature audiences).

Doraemon

Doraemon is another iconic anime series which still airs on the same channel as Crayon Shin-chan. Just like Crayon Shin-chan, this anime series didn't have a specific storyline as well and was centred around the main protagonists- Nobita and Doraemon.

Doraemon is a cat-like robot from the future who has come to help Nobita because he has a dark future. Nobita has a crush on Shizuka (who also has a crush on him too), Nobita is often bullied by Takeshi (who is well known as Gian) and his sidekick Suneo.

Suneo is a wealthy guy who has a habit of flexing about his expensive belongings and his lavish lifestyle to the rest of the main cast. Nobita is pretty much relatable for me except I don't consider myself to be some sort of underdog (because despite being poor in studies and sports, Nobita is actually an intelligent boy and he can run really fast as well). I was first introduced to the concept of time traveling through Doraemon.

I had (and still have) some strong opinions on this show, I find Dekisugi as an unnecessary character, not because he is a Mary sue but because his only purpose in the show is to be Nobita's rival in recruiting Shizuka's love, also he doesn't always appears in the show. I think the people behind this show could've made Suneo as Nobita's rival, in this case and if they wanted someone who is good at academics, sports and many other activities they could've made Suneo possess such attributes.

Zatchbell

I first watched Zatchbell back in 2013, when it used to be aired in Hindi. While I didn't always get to watch it (because the channel where it aired wasn't available in my TV that time) I still have some memories of it. The lead protagonist of Zatchbell Kiyo was the first no nonsense type character I had ever watched in some action anime (because usually in such anime series the lead protagonist are the loud, hyper, happy go lucky type).

Unlike the anime series mentioned above, Zatchbell had a definite storyline. After every thousand years in the mamodo world a contest is held where the participant mamodos are sent to earth with a book which contains spells, the spells are to be chanted by their human partners when they need to fight another mamodo. During the duel if a mamodo burns the book of another mamodo, then the defeated mamodo (the one whose book is burnt) is ousted from the competition and is forced to return to the mamodo world.

I remember an episode of Zatchbell, it was called Sherry's Rhapsody of life, that episode showed Sherry as a hopeless little girl who was rescued by another little girl named Koko, Koko told Sherry something like "there is always light at the end of a dark tunnel" I still can't forget that episode.

Inazuma eleven

Inazuma eleven was the first sports anime I had watched, and back in 2011 when I was in the 4th grade, I had been a great fan of it (although I only got to watch the first season). It used to be aired on Cartoon network. Here the main characters were mainly known by their English names, such as Endou Mamoru's name was Mark Evans (and he was a goalkeeper). As a sports anime, it was centred around football.

Despite not really being a sports enthusiast, I still used to get hyped up watching the game, I remember I used to be excited about what type of team they are going to compete with (since those teams are kind of eccentric).

I do remember a few characters, but I sadly have forgotten their names, I remember there was a spiky blonde haired character, who despite being good at football had decided to quit, because his sister had met with an accident when she was on the way to watch her brother's match. There was also a member in the Raimon football team (to which Mark belongs) who either had DID or used to get possessed by his dead brother's spirit.

Pokemon

The first anime I had watched was the Pokemon original series back when I was in kindergarten, I never watch it for its storyline, I first, only watched it because I used to find Pokemons cute.

As a child I wasn't a tomboy yet I was still interested in an animated series which were mainly popular among young boys. I later got more interested in knowing the types of Pokemons when I grew a little older, and the Diamond and Pearl series is still my favourite. I remember as a kid I used to make cutouts of my favourite Pokemons out of cardboard all because I wanted a Pokemon bag tag.

Later, in 2013 when I first learnt to use the internet, I had an obsession for searching about fictional characters, especially Pokemons, I used to randomly choose a Pokemon and then go straight to Bulbapedia to know about it and then started surfing from one Pokemon to another.

One of the only thing I can flex about myself is that although it has been years since I watched Pokemon, I can still name several Pokemons and their types other than Pikachu.

Conclusion

I wanted to participate in the First Anime Challenge but unfortunately it was too late. I don't know how this blog will turn out, I had really fun writing this and I feel a little satisfied after writing this.

The anime series I have mentioned above are not the only ones I had watched during my childhood, I have only mentioned my favourite ones.

#nostalgia #2000s kids #90s anime #2000s anime #crayon shin chan #doraemon #zatch bell #inazuma eleven #pokemon

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infinites-chaser · 4 years

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dark night fireworks | mlqc | lucien/mc | dreams and memory

spoilers for ch.13 and somewhat inspired by ch.16

warning for drinking and vague + non-explicit sexual content

“Lucien,” you whisper, as if speaking his name aloud will somehow make it real.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. The only thing that matters is this moment. This moment a million times over. And what’s a moment in a dream if you make yourself believe it’s true?

‘oh, love, even if I wake up and it all disappears and becomes a mess

oh, love, I’ll wait for this night again’

xii.

Once, when you were young, you caught a butterfly, trapping its delicate wings between your hands. Most of your childhood memories have faded to sepia and tones of grey, but this you remember in vivid color. It comes to you now in fragments, like a painting ripped to shreds: The butterfly's wings, bright yellow blurs that tickle your palms. Your father's horror. The warm wind, his panicked scolding, and the wide blue sky.

You remember him telling you that trapped things, once let go, are never the same after. He told you catching the butterfly crushed its wings, and it would never fly straight again. You cried, you think, as you often did, and opened your hands.

You can't remember the rest. Did the butterfly emerge from your finger prison, its cocoon? Did it fly away? Did it fly straight and true?

Memory is reconstructive. If you reach for the pieces enough times, your mind will build its own answer.

But, now, the truth: the butterfly was already dead. It had been dead since you first snatched it from where it danced in the golden spring sky.

When you laid your palms flat, the butterfly's bright wings had stirred once and then fell still. You cried. To this day, you're still not sure why you don't remember this, your Schrodinger's butterfly. In your hands, it had become a lesson from your father, something with the possibility of being not quite dead. In your memory, it becomes immortal, that butterfly you remember entrapping but can never vividly picture flying free.

The bar is not pink, as its name, The Peony Pavilion, might suggest. Its walls are a deep purple that fades upward to dark blue, then a black which stretches across the ceiling, uninterrupted save by tiny pinpricks of light. The floor, by contrast, is a softly glowing grey, carpeted and plush, muffling even the heaviest of footfalls of more intoxicated customers or louder, untrained personnel.

It is crowded normally, seats filled with patrons, troubled dreamers, and drunks. On busy nights, a spiraling chandelier will descend from the endless ceiling, shimmering with the colors of sunset: yellow, pink, and white. The air will still-- the frequent visitors know what’s coming, they tell their newer compatriots to be quiet, to wait.

A woman will unfold herself from a crouched position in the half-light, hair like unbound midnight, her dress a pure sparkling white. On cue, the patrons will clap and cheer, but she will gaze past them all, her eyes worlds away, caught up in a vision only she can see. She'll sweep a bow. They'll all fall silent.

The clock will strike twelve, and the lights of the chandelier will dim to a shade of purple, a twilight hue a few hours softer than the color of the walls.

The woman will open her mouth and begin to sing.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the bar’s doors are closed. Only the bartender stands behind the counter. All seats sit empty, save two.

xi.

He catches your attention from across the bar. (It’s easy. You’re the only two inside.)

One stolen glance and you're lost in his eyes again, like a moth to a dark flame. You're reminded, briefly, of the sleepless nights you once spent following him through the city, a lonely journey down moonlit alleys, into the cinema, into bars. They're nights from a time you know you can't return to, a time you, even after everything, still hold dear.

You read about the primacy effect one time in a psychology textbook, following along for a few pages over his shoulder before you stifled a yawn. He’d marked the page and closed the book, and turned to caress the top of your head with a gentle smile.

The study those pages had described surfaces in your mind now, as he raises his glass and drinks, dark eyes never leaving yours. The scientists had split their participants into two groups, and given them the same list of traits in different orders, one presenting a fictional man with his flaws first and strengths last, the other, the reverse. They'd then asked each group for their impression of the man.

Despite being given the exact same listed traits, they had opposite responses. The first, remembering most clearly his flaws, thought him a terrible person. The second saw him simply as human, and sympathized with those natural flaws.

At the time, you hadn't understood it. You couldn't think of how it related, out of the study and academia, back to everyday life. Of course now, you do. You're in his experiment. (You're in the second group, presented strengths first, flaws last.)

You can't help but continue to stare, your traitorous heart twisting with endlessly conflicting feelings at the sight of slim fingers you still remember holding, and the elegant panes of his face that you’ll never forget.

ii.

He'd explained primacy again, after you'd watched Memento, a movie he'd called one of his favorites. You don't know anymore if that was true. You don't think you know a single true thing about him. But still, you remember it. His words. The movie. The Polaroid. Don’t believe his lies.

The movie starts centered around the main character, and it’s intensely subjective, he’d said. We see him and his world through his eyes. We learn the details of the plot along with him, even as he forgets, and by the time the movie tells us he’s not as good of a person as we’d like to remember and we finally step out of his head and question his character, it’s too late. We're back at the start. A beginning at the end, an ending at the beginning.

The movie’s a bit like those classic math puzzles, he had said, and had chuckled at your groan. We begin with two trains going in opposite directions towards each other: one from the past, in black-and-white, going forward, one, in color, from the present going back, and they meet somewhere in the grey in between, at the start of the movie. Only, we’re introduced to his positive perception of his present self first.

So we call the movie’s arguable villain hero, up until the movie’s end. Just as you would like to think of him not as Ares, as a villain, up until this dream ends.

xi.

You know you’re dreaming when you blink, and he’s gone from the shadowy corner only to reappear right next to you, your name on his lips with a smile.

“Lucien,” you whisper, as if speaking his name aloud will somehow make the moment real. As if a dream could ever become reality.

It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. The only thing that matters is this moment. This moment a million times over. And what’s a moment in a dream if you make yourself believe it’s true?

He raises his glass to your lips, a silent invitation.

You meet those dark eyes. You drink.

(A different movie, but. You fall. He's your totem, your ever-spinning top. You wait for the kick.)

iii.

The world shifts and swirls around you. Only he stays steady, awash in a sea of sunset colors and midnight starry lights. You take his hand, your anchor, and he lets you.

Your dress is a soft purple now. Now, you say, since you think it used to be pink, and before that, white. (If the bartender would speak, she'd tell you it looks like the chandelier: dripping in crystals, iridescent, reminiscent of the fading day, the coming night.)

There's an invisible glass wall between you and him. (You don't remember Ares. You don't remember why.)

You press up against it, and it shatters.

iv.

He calls your name, and you surface, dizzy, from your daze.

"Why did you come here?" He asks. His hand's hovering, almost reaching, on the verge of taking your glass away or perhaps tucking an escaped strand of hair behind your ear.

"Why do I do things? Why does anyone do anything?"

You're definitely a little drunk.

"What I do isn't meaningless just because there are things I don't remember," you say, and what you mean is things you've made me forget.

"The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?"

"Memento," he notes with that same gentle, enigmatic smile. "Touché."

Then, musing, quieter:

"So, you remember that night."

"I remember everything."

(You both know that's a lie.)

ix.

(a tangent.)

Once, you asked, waking from the middle of a nightmare to a starless night:

"Daddy, why do I forget so many things?"

Your father held you close without a word. (You weren't expecting an answer.)

Now, you think it suits you, being a girl cut loose in time.

Your head hurts.

You'd ask the bartender for a glass of ice water, but the silent, white-clad woman's gone. In her places stands a gleaming door. Behind the door lies silver stairs.

Your temples throb again, and you think, fresh air. He takes your hand, and you let him. You pass through the doorway together.

viii.

(another tangent.)

A question without a proper answer: what does it mean to forget?

You searched it on the internet for Miracle Finder, found Wikipedia pages on the different types of memory and how your brain wires them all. Each article was long, convoluted, and a little pretentious.

(You gave up.)

Spoiler alert: neuroscientists still don't know.

You asked Lucien. He doesn't, either.

(The beginning of the hypothesis of an answer, buried in words about synapse strengthening and weakening: forgetting is just another word for loss.)

A better question, but one you'll never get a proper answer for: when your memory of someone is erased with Evol, which part of the brain is it affecting? What neural connections are lost, overwritten by the unnatural?

After all, Evol goes beyond the explainable, but it'd be wrong to say it doesn't affect those circuits at all.

A quick lesson that Lucien will never teach you: memory loss isn't like what you see in the movies.

There's many types of memory. You already know the first two: short-term and long-term. The temporary. The eroding. (outside these two-- the already lost)

(Memento's different. In it, he's lost the ability to make new long-term memories. Not quite memory loss. More like he can't feel time.)

Within the eroding are two subtypes: explicit, and implicit, or conscious and unconscious.

First, within explicit:

Semantic memory, our memory of general facts. It's how we familiarize ourselves with the world. (The sky is blue. Grass is green. The city the company headquarters are in is Loveland City.) A knock on the head to important bits involved here, and you won't remember the name of the president or how many cents add up to a dollar, but you'll still remember your childhood.

Episodic memory, the memory of our personal experiences. Many people argue this is the memory that makes you you. Say the amnesia-inducing Evol removes this. You forget an important event (a dream, a nightmare where he was Ares and you still called on him for protection, and he came, he saved you).

There, you say. Question answered. Problem solved.

But wait. The lesson's not over yet. There's still implicit. The unconscious part of your memory. (Freud's favorite.)

Implicit memory contains multitudes. (We'll just focus on a few.)

The important bits: implicit memory stores the memories necessary to learn. Procedural memory covers skills.

Then there's association, and key to association are your emotions. (You'll remember things that make you happy, make you angry, make you sad. You just won't remember why.)

Lastly, priming, also known as pattern completion. (If a puzzle was put in front of you, you'd be able to solve it, if you had before.)

Long story short, memory loss by Evol, if scientific, doesn't wipe them all out. Let's say it just wipes episodic. No more memory of the event. No more memory of the event itself. Let's say the emotions remain. Let's say you're still primed. But we digress.

(Lesson over.)

vi.

You race up the stairs, past pipes, through smoke, and burst onto the roof, giddy, flushed, his hand in yours the whole way. In the night air, your dress shimmers and darkens to a midnight blue, just a touch shy of the black of the silk of his suit.

The roof is wide open and empty, save for a delicate floating canopy of fairy lights. Beyond the rosy glow, vivid colors of fireworks shatter bright against the velvet curtain of night.

He pauses at the sight of the fireworks, the city far below, and you stagger back against him, one hand raised to the sky, laughing, drunk. Neither of you notice when the silver stairway disappears.

You loop your arms around his neck and stare up into his eyes. At first, the light doesn’t reflect off of them and you almost freeze, but he clasps a hand to the small of your back and draws you closer. When you blink up at him again, the dark of his gaze is warmed by the shine of the veil of lights.

“Where are the stars?”

“Shall I go and fetch them for you?”

Before you can respond, he leans in and catches the swell of your lips between his, dark eyes closed.

The first kiss is gentle and teasing, like his words. The second kiss is yours when he pulls back for air and you follow him. The third devours you.

His hands move in opposite directions; one floating up to cup your cheek and draw you in further with a caress, the other creeping down your back, leaving a trail of fire, aroused nerves, in its wake. It settles on the back of one of your thighs, and grips rough, possessive, hard and--

you gasp a single word between stolen breaths,

Lucien.

His name burns stronger than any alcohol on your lips, on his, it consumes you both, and you're glad of it, you're content to go up in flames. Your hands move to match his, to mark him as your own. You think this is perhaps what fireworks feel like, the moment before the end.

(You explode. It's not as pretty as a fireworks display.)

You arch your back against him and you suddenly remember the butterfly, those vivid splinters from your childhood so small they could hardly be called memories. You are not certain of much anymore but you are certain of this: You are his Schrodinger's butterfly, dancing futilely, dead in the palms of his hands.

He pulls away, panting, and you want to, but this time you do not follow. You don't move at all. Trapped things, you hear your father say, voice shaking, the butterfly long gone, once let go, are never the same after.

Your mind doesn't remember, but something in your heart does: this has happened before. He's altered your memory so many times, but you still can't remember to forget him.

(Emotional memory, and now. Priming. Some part of you sees the same pattern fall into place.)

His hand, cold against your flushed cheek moves to cover your eyes, and you know: you won't remember the ending of this, either. You don't try to stop him.

"Go back to sleep. Forget this nightmare."

His voice comes, silky smooth and soft. Sad, you want to think, though you know it can't be.

"What if I wake up, and this isn’t a dream? What if that's the nightmare?"

"Then find your way back here. I'll be waiting."

You close your eyes under his cool fingers, and wake to warm sheets.

In your dream, he's still smiling. You're sure of it.

xx.

You're waiting for someone. Someone's waiting for you. (You aren't sure which it is. You aren't sure who.)

The butterfly's wings flutter in your small child hands, light yellow heartbeats tickling your fingers. The sky is grey. A chill wind blows. Your father is silent, frozen and smiling. Gone.

You remember (or at least you tell yourself you do):

When you opened your palms, the butterfly flew straight. It flew true.

#mlqc #mlqc lucien #mlqc fanfic #mr love queen's choice #mlqc xu mo #val writes #this one is. super trippy and pretentious and i love it but it also makes -1 sense #also completely based on the aesthetic of sunmi's pporappimpam ieofklsjsl #minirant but i h8 tumblr for not having proper paragraph breaks i wanted to do smth cool with the numbering instead but uh. i cant count so #the reason the vii is missing is bc i can't count not bc it's deep or anything

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vgilantee · 4 years

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Childhood Crushes and Graduation Confessions || Stiles Stilinksi x McCall!Reader

Request: “from prompt list 1, #1 🥺👉👈 with stiles x reader and the reader is Scott’s sister”

Word Count: 1.3k

Prompt list 1, prompt 1 - “Do you like them?”

A/N: Oooooh okay, so I didn’t have an idea for this one for quite a while before it hit me - childhood crush and graduation confession (also the title bc i suck at titling). Also, the graduation is based off what little I know about American graduations and my own high school graduation (we didn’t have caps and gowns, but I don’t think any high schools in Australia do so that bit is a complete guess). But let’s pretend that this is how Beacon Hills High did graduations because we were robbed and didn’t see the pack graduate.

As per almost every weekend, Stiles was over at your house visiting Scott. They were playing some superhero game in the backyard and you were pretending not to watch through the window from the living room sofa. You were at that age when you pretended to be more mature than your brother. There was only a two- year difference between you, but at eleven years old you wanted everyone to think you were so much more mature than your older brother, who was currently chasing his best friend around with a stick. Rolling in your eyes, you looked back down to your book.

You had begged your mom to buy it for months before finally getting it for your birthday that year. Your first young adult fiction novel. The true mark of maturity, in your eyes.

A battle cry streamed past you as Scott ran after Stiles. They had apparently decided to bring their game inside. Your arm was yanked, and Stiles pulled your back into his chest and held a stick to your neck like a knife, something he had seen in a movie somewhere.

“You have two choices here, Captain M.” Stiles had tried to make his voice drop but it seemed more comical than threatening. “You can either try and stop me, but the pretty girl will get it. Or, you can save her and let me go.” You felt your cheeks get warm at his off-handed compliment. “It’s up to you, Captain.”

“Ow!” You tried to push him away as he accidentally poked the stick into the side of your neck. “Stiles! Let go.” He quickly apologised, looking at you with concern, before returning to character and looking at your brother.

“Let her go, Doctor.” You almost laughed at Scott’s lower voice. “She’s innocent.” You were pushed into your brother and tripped half-way over, falling into Scott. As you both fell over, Stiles ran away with a faux-villainous cackle.

After helping you up, Scott quickly looks out the open back door before looking back to you.

“I saw you blush. Do you like him?” The way Scott asked it seemed like the most casual sentence ever. You tried to fight the warmth again, but the way he smirked at you let you know that it definitely didn’t work. “I knew it!”

“A-” Your reply was interrupted as Stiles yelled for Scott to hurry up.

---

You sit among your classmates, caps and gowns on and listening to Ms Martin making her speech. Somehow you made it to graduation. Ever since Scott got bitten, you stopped thinking about getting through school, and more about not being killed by the supernatural and those that hunt it. Perfectly normal thoughts for a high school student - which really, since Monroe and the Anuk-Ite, they unfortunately were.

You notice Liam turn around out the corner of your eye, giving you a thumbs up. You smile and give him a quick wave back. From the day that he had accepted that he was a werewolf, you and Liam had been close. You both enjoyed having someone around who was the same age, and who had a strong bond with Scott. While you enjoyed the company of the rest of the pack, sometimes you wanted to just hang out with someone who was the same age.

Finally, after speeches and slideshows, names were being called and students were crossing the stage.

“Liam Dunbar.” You laugh as his face went red when his parents and the pack loudly cheered. He shakes Ms Martin’s hand and accepts his graduation certificate, then walks off stage. As he does, though, you realise that you will get the same treatment, only with the addition of your mom’s very vocal enthusiasm.

“Mason Hewitt.” Another loud cheer, but instead of being embarrassed, Mason pushes back his shoulder and soaks in the attention.

Even as you walk up to the stage, you glance nervously at your family and their smiles. They were going to embarrass the hell out of you, you could tell by the look in your mom was giving you. You catch Stiles’s eyes as you turn back and he gives you a soft and reassuring smile. He mouths something along the lines of “you did it” and your cheeks warm.

“Y/N McCall.” As expected, your mom’s voice is heard clear as day, the rest of the pack calling out and cheering along with her. It was completely expected, but the volume catches you off guard and your already warm cheeks burn.

“Congratulations, Y/N.” Ms Martin shakes your hand and passes you your certificate with the other. Down the stairs and back to your seat you look over at your family, before looking towards the back of Liam’s head and whispering,

“We fucking did it. We actually survived to graduation.” You see his shoulders jump as he breathes out a laugh, before he turns and mouths back “hell yeah we did”.

“Alright, everyone!” Of all people to organise the cap throw and the photo of it, the school decided Coach Finstock was the best person for the job. “Three!” Stood next to Liam, Mason and Corey, you all pulled of your caps. “Two!” The entire crowd of graduates leaned down slightly as they prepared to throw. “One!” Cheers, shouts, and caps flying into the air. You turn to the guys and Mason pulls you all into a group hug.

The first person to hug you once you find your cap and make your way over to your family is your mom.

“Two for two graduates! I did so well.” You laugh in response as she gives you a squeeze, her voice watering as she tries not to cry. “I’m so proud of you.” You pull away but are immediately grabbed by Scott, who lifts you up off the ground slightly.

“I’m proud of you, Y/N/N.” Your feet hit the ground again and you look at your brother.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get sappy.” You hit his arm and try to fight the tears that are starting to well up. “Go congratulate your beta.” He rolls his eyes but immediately begins to search the crowd for Liam. You turn and talk to Malia and Lydia, catching up on some of the things that you missed from each other’s lives.

“I’m sure Beacon Hills High will be glad to finally be rid of the McCall’s huh?” You try to hide your jump as Stiles suddenly appears beside you. You turn and give him a light punch in the arm.

“Not as glad as they were when your dumb ass graduated.” He just rolls his eyes before pulling you into a hug.

“Congratulations.” When he moves back, you take a deep breath before darting forward and placing a kiss on his cheek. When you pull back, Stiles’s face is red and your own face has warmed back up. “I… uh…” You take advantage of Stiles’s shock and almost literally run away.

You find Liam talking to Mason and drag him away slightly by the arm.

“Liam I just did something really stupid.” You say quickly as you put your hands on your knees to catch your breath, glancing up to see him looking at you, amused.

“What did you do this time?” You stand back up and go to punch him before lowering your hand back down to your side.

“This is serious, Liam.” You place your hands on his shoulders and look him dead in the eye. “I kissed him on the cheek and then ran away and it was really stupid of me and I don’t know what to do.” Liam laughs. He laughs while you just look at him, embarrassed.

“You could try again and kiss him properly.” You let out a shriek and jump to hide behind a still-laughing Liam from Stiles (who seemed to be sneaking up on you a lot today). Instead, Liam pushes you into Stiles.

He catches you before you fall and you both just stand there looking at each other. His hands slide down to your own.

“Can I?” Your brain can’t quite seem to comprehend what is going on, and you find yourself nodding. Stiles smiles, and leans in, kissing you.

---

End of chapter A/N: let me know if you want a sort of part 2 where it’s from Stiles’s perspective instead. Might be fun idk. Oh also, requests are still open! And I’m finally back in the groove a bit with over 1k words... feels good

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski x reader #stiles x reader #teen wolf stiles x reader #teen wolf stiles stilinski x reader #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski imagine #trash can writes #char writes #requested #trash can posts

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gummy-sharks666 · 8 months

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My sweet baby angel who I offer my life

MY FUCKIGN BOYFRRIEND HWO SPITS IN YM MOTUH

#bakugan #bakugan battle brawlers #gundalian invaders #jesse glenn #fictional crushes #hear me out #i need that alien man in a way that’s concerning #childhood fictional character crush returns from the dead #his gundalian form is so hot to me I’m sorry #he’s a babe

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onebadwinter · 3 years

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The Joker Tropes

Taken from Here

0% Approval Rating: Apart from Harley (and even then, only when their on-off relationship is "on"), Gaggy and Punchline, no one likes or supports the Joker. In any way, whatsoever. Damn near every other member of Batman's Rogues Gallery hates his guts, mostly because not only is he completely sociopathic and unpredictable, but also they are all scared shitless by him. The only reason why he's even allowed in teams such as the Legion of Doom is because of that fear: if they exclude him from the lineup, then chances are that dead bodies will be lining the streets in their name. Trickster spells it out in "Underworld Unleashed." Trickster: Great going, Neron, bring in the one guy no one wants to be in the same room with. When super-villains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories.

Abusive Parents: One common tactic for the Joker to garner sympathy is claiming he was ill-treated by his parents. Given his propensity to spew out different and sometimes contradictory backstories, nobody knows if they're true.Harley Quinn: Joker told me things, secret things he never told anyone... Batman: What did he tell you, Harley? Was it the line about the abusive father, or the one about the alcoholic mom? Of course, the runaway orphan story is particularly moving, too. He's gained a lot of sympathy with that one. What was it he told that one parole officer? Oh, yes... 'There was only one time I ever saw dad really happy. He took me to the ice show when I was seven...' Harley: (crying) Circus... He told me it was the circus. Batman: He's got a million of them, Harley.

Acquired Poison Immunity: In many continuities, he's immune to his trademark Joker Venom/Smilex. In a crossover comic with Captain America, he also proves to be immune to Red Skull's "Dust of Death", as their trademark poisons are too similar to each other.

Ambiguous Disorder: He's undeniably insane and Ax-Crazy, but has no official diagnosis. If anything, he can just be diagnosed with "Being the Joker". However, it’s possible he’s perfectly sane and just The Sociopath, and is using his manipulation abilities to continue his reign of terror.

Ambiguous Start of Darkness: Related to his Multiple-Choice Past; the only thing consistent is that he was a low-level crook who got dunked in chemicals to become the Joker. C While some origins (most notably The Killing Joke) have him being forced into crime, others have him as already a sinister criminal beforehand. Batman (1989) and Batman: The Animated Series choose the Evil All Along interpretation.

Appropriated Appellation:

Arch-Enemy: A classic example to the Batman, and not just in the comics - they are pretty much the iconic gold standard when it comes to this trope. The two of them are the page image for a reason.

Attention Whore: A big part of his motivation in various continuities. He even admits as such at one point, while denying he's not behind one particular crime.Joker: Do you really think I would stir up so much trouble and not make sure you knew it was me?

Ax-Crazy: One of his main characteristics is his willingness to psycho on anyone, including his own henchmen.

Bad Boss: Willing to casually kill his own henchmen for any reason, be it part of a plan, for amusement, or simply on a whim.

Bad People Abuse Animals: Defied by The Joker in at least one story (Emperor Joker). Evil Jimmy Olson kills Superman, who has been turned into a dog, by crushing him underneath a fire hydrant. The Joker is simply annoyed, because he doesn't know how to make something as pointless as beating a dumb animal funny. Jimmy Olson is then beaten to death by two giant robots who appear out of nowhere.

Believing Their Own Lies: He sometimes believes his Multiple-Choice Past, Depending on the Writer of course. One issue of the Robin Series had the Joker actually in tears as he told the psychiatrist of his abusive childhood, only for the psychiatrist to coldly point out that it's the seventh story he's told now.

Berserk Button:

Black Comedy: This is one of Joker’s specialties. To normal people, killing would be a terrible thing, but to Joker, it’s hilarious, especially if he does it in a way that amuses him.

Bond Villain Stupidity: In a "Detective Comics" story written by Paul Dini, the Joker (while impersonating a stage magician he had previously murdered) shot Zatanna in the throat so she couldn't recite a spell to save herself, then locked her in a tank of water while strapping Batman in an electric chair. He didn't shoot her in the head because he wanted Batman to watch helplessly as she died. This didn't go so well because first, he's BATMAN! and second, Zatanna was able to write a healing incantation on the lid of the tank using her own blood, which made the spell even more powerful.

Boring Insult: While the Joker has used it a few times on others, he mostly does it to hear the sound of his own voice as the people he usually slings this insult at don't really care whether or not they're boring. On the other hand, this is Joker's Berserk Button when others use it against him. Most notably, he reacts poorly when Terry deliberately exploits this flaw with glee and even rubs it in his face in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. After all, the natural enemy of a comedian is The Heckler.

Breakout Villain: The Trope Codifier for comics. DC's initial intention was to kill him off in his second appearance. Fortunately, editor Whitney Ellsworth convinced DC to spare him, a panel was hastily added to show that he'd survived, and the Joker rapidly became not only Batman's Arch-Enemy, but arguably the most iconic example of an Arch-Enemy in all of fiction.

Break the Comedian: A sure way to determined if things have gotten real, even for the Joker, is if he isn't laughing or joking. A famous example involved the Joker being frightened during the events of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run, when he was horrified by Arcane's actions.

Clear My Name: The Brave and the Bold has him framed for several murders and he must use Batman's help.

Collective Identity: As revealed in Darkseid War and DC Rebirth, the Joker has been used by three people, though Batman: Three Jokers clarified it as this: The Criminal (the original "Golden Age" Joker from the character's debut in Batman #1), The Clown (the "Silver Age" Joker, strongly implied to be the one who killed Jason Todd), and The Comedian (the current "Modern Age" Joker, who kidnapped and tormented Jim Gordon).

Combat Pragmatist : While his fighting prowess varies from remarkably proficient to extremely weak Depending on the Writer, the Joker is a consistently dirty fighter, striking enemies when and where they are most vulnerable. Besides his myriad of gag gadgets, he often carries concealed weapons, gases and acids on his person, and won't hesitate to brandish a wrench or smash a chair over your head in a pinch. He is usually adept with knives and, unlike Batman, rarely has any reservations about firearms. He has no qualms kicking an opponent when they're down, and will employ deception, feigning surrender or defeat to get Batman to lower his guard.

Comic-Book Fantasy Casting:

Confusion Fu: This is often his last line of defense when Batman corners him, especially in the animated television shows. Effectiveness varies.

Cop Killer: Sometimes police officers are among the Joker's victims:

Create Your Own Villain: Most stories posit he was chased by Batman through a factory with No OSHA Compliance, which caused him to be exposed to acid, discoloring his skin and hair and driving him insane when he sees his reflection. Often he claims Batman is responsible for turning him into The Joker.

Creepy High-Pitched Voice: In voiced roles, he usually has a high-pitched voice to contrast Batman's Badass Baritone.

Crossover Villain-in-Chief: In DC's Crisis Crossover events that involve a lot of villains, like Salvation Run and Forever Evil, The Joker usually fills this role along with Lex Luthor.

Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Insanity aside, sometimes the Joker's plans and methods are so out there they just seem stupid. Despite appearances, he's usually very cunning, and always very dangerous. In fact, part and parcel of what makes the Joker's plans devastating is that he knows how to hide the punchline for lack of a better word. The plans are so innocuous, so disheveled and so utterly random that they usually have no sane MO, which makes it hard to see the bigger picture of the plan unless Batman pieces it together quickly.

Critical Psychoanalysis Failure: Happens frequently, though this may be an indication of the competence of the staff at Arkham. One such time was with Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who bought his story hook, line and sinker and declared him sane, then broke him out of Arkham and started dating him (of course, her exact analysis was that he was utilizing Obfuscating Insanity and it's implied that she was actually right, so perhaps she was the only good doctor at Arkham after all...)

Deadly Prank: He generally considers murdering someone for a joke to be morally no different than putting a whoopie cushion on their chair.

Depending on the Artist: His depiction varies a lot between eras and between different artists in the same period. Major differences are whether he can form facial expressions other than a grin, and whether he is average-sized or freakishly tall and thin.

Depending on the Writer: There are many huge variations, the most common and glaring being:

Depraved Homosexual: Not above invoking this deliberately to get under Batman's skin. Whether he means all his flirting and feel-copping varies slightly Depending on the Writer and heavily depending on one's own interpretation.

Diplomatic Impunity: In A Death in the Family, Ayatollah Khomeini appoints him the UN ambassador to Iran, giving him diplomatic immunity. This was later retconned to the fictional Syraq due to reasons of taste.

Dirty Coward: There is a common misconception that Joker has no regard for his own life and doesn't care if he dies or not. In actuality he does care, and the reason he keeps taunting morally good characters into killing him is because he's confident that they don't have the guts to off him. When he comes across someone who is willing to kill him, he shows his true colors as a sniveling little coward where he starts pleading for his life.The Punisher: I got all the therapy you need right here, comedian.The Joker: You're really going to do it.

Disproportionate Retribution: Has been known to try to kill people for minor slights, such as welshing on a bet on a sporting event for trivial stakes.

Domestic Abuse: This characterizes his relationship with his "henchwench" Harley Quinn to a T. Joker frequently yells at her, puts her down, humiliates her, and exposes her to all manner of violence ranging from "merely" slapping or punching her to outright trying to murder her. Such is her Mad Love that she ignored his abuse for most of her existence in comic history, with the two only separating in the late 2010s.

The Dreaded: Easily one of the most feared villains in the entire DC universe. Other villains are afraid of him; it's been said that when criminals want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories.

Driven to Madness: Doing this to others has become part of his MO. What triggered his own insanity and belief in nihilism remains unknown.

Early Installment Weirdness: Just take a gander at his earliest appearances:

Electric Joybuzzer: One of his signature weapons, a lethal variation, most memorably used in Batman (1989). He ended up Hoist by His Own Petard when trying to use it on Static.Static: That was fun. Let me try! (BZZZZT!) (Batman approves.)

Enemy Mine:

Even Evil Has Standards: Oddly enough, this trope does occasionally apply to him.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Completely averted with Harley. He physically and emotionally abuses her and tried to kill her on numerous occasions. They eventually break up in the New 52 continuity.

Evil All Along: Some versions, such as the DC Animated Universe and Batman (1989), go with the interpretation that the Joker was evil, if not outright Ax-Crazy, even before his fateful transformation, with the chemicals just making him worse.

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Joker is Nihilism Incarnate: he believes that life is pointless and insane, and the only thing anyone can do is give into the madness. Life is a joke, and once he got the joke he never stopped laughing at it. One of the reasons he's obsessed with Batman is because Batman is The Anti-Nihilist: Batman also thinks, to some degree at least, that life is meaningless. But rather than embrace the madness, Batman fights against it, trying to bring order to chaos through his heroic actions. So Batman got the joke too, but he's not laughing, and the Joker doesn't understand why.

Evil Genius: Though rarely the focus of his character, Joker is usually an extremely gifted chemist, constantly creating new and better versions of his signature laughing gas. He's also (unsurprisingly) a skilled planner on par with Batman himself, in addition to being extremely charismatic and manipulative when he wants to be.

Evil Is Petty: Joker truly sees no difference between throwing cream pies, robbing a museum, and brutal, torturous mass-murder. To him, it's all just part of the joke.

Evil Sounds Deep: Jack Nicholson in Batman (1989) and Kevin Michael Richardson in The Batman both give the Joker a deep, sinister voice, contrasting his usual higher-pitched depictions in other works.

Facial Horror: His iconic "perma-clown" appearance (the green hair, chalk-white skin, and most of the time, red lips) is the result of being submerged in a tank of chemicals. However, there was times this has gotten worse.

Fame Through Infamy: He's practically built a career on crimes designed more to spread his infamy than anything else. Perhaps his true illness is that he is an Attention Whore through and through...

Faux Affably Evil: Often addresses others in a polite and friendly way before he unleashes merry hell on them.

Flanderization: Over the years, his actions have become almost exclusively focused on causing as much carnage and chaos as possible or harassing Batman and his allies rather than performing any non-lethal mischief or practical crime.

Foe Romance Subtext: Sometimes will mess with Batman's mind by calling him by pet names or using innuendo. Or outright groping him. According to later writers, Joker regards their hero/villain dynamic as a very special relationship, and resents anyone or thing that gets in the way of it (like all those family members Bruce enjoys hanging out with), which is disturbingly like a jealous lover.

Foil: To Batman in several ways. If the origin offered in Killing Joke is to be believed, both Batman and Joker had one bad day that put them on very different paths.

For the Evulz: The usual motives of the Joker. Many of his crimes always involve sowing chaos and the schadenfreude of other people's misery.

Freudian Excuse: Even he isn't sure of his own history and will crop up multiple reasons for his insanity. The most accepted version is that he was a thug named the Red Hood who gets disfigured falling into a vat while trying to escape Batman. His backstory still remains a mystery.

Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Best displayed in The Killing Joke: Joker's "one bad day" is just an excuse, as he neither knows nor cares if it actually happened that way, and Batman confronts him on how his attempt to similarly break Commissioner Gordon failed.Batman: Despite all your sick, vicious little games, he's as sane as he ever was! So maybe ordinary people don't always crack. Maybe there isn't any need to crawl under a rock with all the other slimey things when trouble hits. Maybe it was just you, all the time!

The Friend Nobody Likes: Often plays this role among villain team-ups. It's implied that the only reason the other DC villains ever invite him to things is because they're terrified of what he'll do to them if he's not. Alexander Luthor Jr.'s death at the end of Infinite Crisis is brought about because, as Lex Luthor puts it:Luthor: You made one big mistake. You didn't let the Joker play.

From Nobody to Nightmare: The key thing about his Multiple-Choice Past is that nobody really knows who he was before he put on the Red Hood and fell into a vat of acid. As such, Joker was literally a nobody... who turned into the DC Universe's scariest villain, and who at times has upstaged even Brainiac or Darkseid.

Frozen Face: Most depictions have his face as such, with his massive rictus grin being something he can't really stop doing.

Gadgeteer Genius: While he seems to be a chemist first and foremost, the Joker has no trouble coming up with a range of tools and weapons of his own design and is easily as smart as Batman in this area. Other stories show that he has a solid enough understanding of such varied fields as engineering, computers and even robotics that he can at least hijack the sophisticated inventions of others and use them for his own ends with no difficulty whatsoever, and he is generally implied (though rarely outright stated) to have had a scientific background prior to becoming the Clown Prince of Crime.

Glasgow Grin: Heath Ledger's portrayal features very noticeable scarring from such wounds and tells two conflicting stories of how he got them. Sometimes, Depending on the Artist, the Joker has one in the comics, usually in out-of-continuity stories.

Gonk: Depending on the Artist, he varies from "disfigured, but still fairly handsome" to "barely passes for human", the latter cases usually feature him with a really long and narrow nose and a huge, exaggerated mouth with a permanent Slasher Smile.

Guest Fighter: After making appearances in the previous crossover and being a major player in NetherRealm's other big series, Joker shows up in Mortal Kombat 11 all on his own, freed from the restrictions of a Teen rating and able to showcase the true depths of his depraved bloodlust.

Handshake of Doom: Often kills unsuspecting victims by offering a handshake. When the other person grabs his hand, their palm is pricked by a device that resembles a joy buzzer, which injects deadly venom into their blood stream.

Hate Sink: Posthumously, his Injustice-verse incarnation is the primary target for audience scorn and gets saddled with this role by everyone in the game, its sequel, and the tie-in comics — the version from the Injustice-verse itself, at least. This is because he tricked Superman into killing his own wife Lois Lane and nuking Metropolis, then pulling a Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred on the poor guy who that set him on the path to becoming a tyrant, all for the sake of doing it, and because he was tired of losing to Batman, so he decided to go after an easier target. His role as The Corrupter to Harley is explained to make her redemption feel more plausible, as even she has come to despise him for his actions. In particular, while Superman does terrible things, he is portrayed as a Tragic Villain due to the losses he suffered before becoming a bad guy, and as such, his killing of the Joker is always played for maximum pathos. Even villains as despicable as Brainiac, Darkseid and Gorilla Grodd openly despise him. This even continues into his Guest Fighter appearance in Mortal Kombat 11note , where even the likes of Kano, Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn can't stand him.

Human Head on the Wall: There's a rather famous piece of comic book artwork◊ drawn by Brian Bolland featuring The Joker lounging in a chair in front of a trophy wall mounted with the decapitated heads of various DC heroes and villains, all of them painted white and their faces distorted into a smile like the Joker himself. It's even been parodied a bunch of times with other comic supervillains sitting in Joker's place.

Iconic Outfit:

I'm a Humanitarian: There have been a few times when the Joker engaged in cannibalism, such as an issue of Grant Morrison's JLAnote after Day Of Judgment, where upon the reveal that the Martian Manhunter took the League and the now Hal Jordan hosted-Spectre into the Joker's head, the Joker lamented eating a man's tongue raw. Additionally, an infamous bit in Emperor Joker has the Joker eat all of China while he had Mr. Mxyzptlk's powers.

Insane No More: Is cured by Batman forcing unknown pills down his throat in the non-canon Batman: White Knight, causing him go back to his real name, Jack Napier, make a Heel–Face Turn and accuse Batman of being part of the problem (he's also considerably better than the usual Joker, being closer to the earlier trickster personality).

I've Come Too Far: At the end of The Killing Joke, Batman tries to reason with the Joker, insisting that they've got to stop before one of them kills the other and offering to help rehabilitate him. Joker briefly considers the offer before solemnly turning it down.Joker: No. I'm sorry, but... no. It's too late for that. Far too late.

It Amused Me: His raison d'etre. Why kill people in horrific ways, ruin their lives, and generally make the entire universe a worse place than he left it? Because it's funny.

Jekyll & Hyde: Inverted in the case of Batman: White Knight, where taking pills cures Joker of his insanity and brings back his original Jack Napier persona. However, if he fails to take the pills, the Joker resurfaces, which is exactly what happens in Batman: Curse of the White Knight, and he's much worse than before.

Jerkass: Though that is a total understatement, Joker still more or less counts as one. When he isn't killing or torturing people for his own amusement, he's taunting them and trying get under other people's skin.

Joker Immunity: The trope namer. He was originally conceived as a one-off villain but proved too interesting a character to be killed off so quickly, and a last-minute edit had him survive instead. He's so famous for this that most works that kill him off, the audience doesn't buy it, and it serves as an effective twist the rare times when he is Killed Off for Real. But even those rare occasions may continue to feature him in flashbacks or hallucinations as a Posthumous Character.

Knife Nut: In many appearances, knives are his Weapon of Choice, either to disfigure his victims or kill his foes. Often both.The Joker: Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too... quick. You can't savor all the little emotions. You see, in their last moments, people show you who you really are.

Large Ham: Holy shit, yes. He has an enormous sense of showmanship and is seen cracking Black Comedy jokes every minute, and it's a nigh-guarantee that whoever is portraying him will be munching the scenery to the very structure. Most especially the case if it happens to be Mark Hamill.

Laser-Guided Broadcast: In comic books as well in most of the media, when The Joker takes the control of TV and makes one of his menaces to threat and/or destroy Gotham City, good part of his message goes directly to Batman by tempting him to stop his plans, where usually destroy the city is just a secondary plan, getting/trapping/killing Batman as his real main plan.

Legacy Character: The idea of multiple Jokers is used in Gotham. There are two Jokers - Jerome Valeska, and his twin brother Jeremiah Valeska. The former is a deranged mass murderer who spread madness through Gotham. The latter is the actual Joker who becomes Batman's Arch-Enemy, and is even more dangerous than his predecessor.

Lethal Joke Character: In-Universe. Those unfamiliar with him tend to write him off as just some fool dressed as a clown, only to realize very quickly why they should keep their guard up around him. He's still one of the most dangerous characters in the DC Universe, despite existing in a world filled with super-humans and gods.

Master of Disguise: A talent he possesses even in his earliest stories. Joker is an expert with make-up, costumes and impersonations and has posed as everything from police officers to doctors to even Batman himself. He can go to extremely elaborate lengths to pull off his deceptions too, fabricating entire backstories and staying in-character for months at a time to see his plans through.

Mirthless Laughter: The Joker's constantly laughing, either at the pain and misery of others, the pain and misery he inflicts on others, or even his own pain. However, as describe by many and offered by the reader based on his scenes and what he does, there is NEVER any joy in his laughter. Never any real happiness. Just cruelty and mockery of pain and sorrow. If he does indeed have a tragic backstory that caused his madness, then this makes sense as he has chosen to laugh instead of cry. His statement about how the universe should end "so there won't be anymore people like me" during the Emperor Joker storyline lends weight to him being a Sad Clown.

Misanthrope Supreme: While it's not evident given Joker's Laughing Mad demeanor and his penchant for macabre jokes usually at the life and limb expense of someone else, Joker is actually absolutely full of hatred and spite towards basically everyone and the entire world. Several stories have gone into this and it's implied that the Joker finds it so easy to kill everyone around him, not because he feels nothing for them, but in fact because he loathes everyone aside from his twisted relationship with Batman.

Moment of Lucidity: There've been a few times when outside forces have sent him into a fit of temporary sanity over the years.

Monster Clown: One of the classic examples.

Multiple-Choice Past: Practically the poster child and possible trope namer. Even he isn't sure of his own history. The most accepted version introduced in Detective Comic #168 (1951) has him as a thug named the Red Hood who jumps into a vat of chemicals to escape Batman, disfiguring him and inspiring him to adopt the name Joker. Why he went by the name the Red Hood has changed over the years: The Killing Joke claims he was a failed comedian pressured into becoming a criminal to support his pregnant wife. The trauma of his disfigurement from jumping in the acid and his wife's earlier accidental death drove him insane. However, even this backstory is questionable, as the Joker himself calls it "multiple choice".

My God, What Have I Done?: Whenever he is made temporarily sane, most notably by a Lazarus pit after Ra's Al Ghul killed him after a Villain Team-Up and in JLA #15 during the Rock of Ages storyline, Joker usually expresses deep remorse for his crimes. Unfortunately it never lasts.

The Nicknamer: He's prone to giving nicknames to allies and enemies alike. Sometimes affectionate, sometimes snarky, but always undesired. Calling Batman "Batsy" or "Bats" and Robin "boy blunder" are probably his most iconic.

No Celebrities Were Harmed: Some of the Joker's victims fall into this.

No Name Given: The Joker is the only Batman villain who doesn't have an official real identity. However, there are three occasions where names have been used. The Jack Nicholson version used the name "Jack Napier", which was briefly mentioned in the Animated Series episode "Dreams In Darkness" since the series was partially based on the movie, albeit the doctors list it as one of his aliases. The Gotham version played by Cameron Monaghan gives him the name Jeremiah Valeska. The Joaquin Phoenix version used the name "Arthur Fleck", though the movie raises the question that he doesn't know who his father is, so 'Fleck' might not even be his surname. The Telltale series plays with this by 'naming' him 'John Doe' - which is just a stand-in name police/hospitals use when they don't know someone's identity. While he still has no official name to this day, it's general fan consensus that it's either Jack Napier or just Jack.

Not a Mask: Sometimes he pretends to wear makeup, but it ain't makeup. Jack Nicholson's version wore flesh-tone makeup over his pale skin several times after his transformation. Though, this is Depending on the Writer, as Heath Ledger's depiction does wear makeup. It's unclear if this is the case for Caesar Romero's depiction, as Romero's mustache is visible at times (he refused to shave for the part).

Not Me This Time: Though he certainly wouldn't mind committing them, he's been framed for murders he didn't commit several times, such as by James Gordon Jr.

Obfuscating Insanity: Zig Zagged Trope / Depending on the Writer. Some stories claims The Joker is actually sane, but pretends to be otherwise to avoid the death penalty. Others says he is genuinely crazy. It must be noted that Joker, like other Batman villains, was only identified as insane from the 70s onwards by various writers.note

Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Despite the Joker's infamous reputation and violent instability he never has any issues finding new henchmen for his schemes nor does he ever has any issues finding the resources needed to pull off his often convoluted plans and he's often able to do it all without attracting the attention of Batman or the authorities until he's ready for them.

OOC Is Serious Business: A general rule of thumb: If the Joker isn't smiling, something very bad is about to happen.

The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Pretty much sums up his feelings towards Batman. He often flies into a rage whenever someone else attempts to kill Batman when in his company, and whenever Batman (seemingly) dies he has a tendency to completely snap and turn sane. This actually goes the other direction as well: the Joker feels that Batman is the only one allowed to defeat him, and it's shown he's terrified of someone else doing him in in some continuities.

Outside-Context Problem: A recurring theme of Joker's "first appearance" stories in various adaptations is that nobody in Gotham is prepared for a guy who's only in it For the Evulz. Also, the Joker himself likes to find these, and exploit them.

Phrase Catcher: Back in his prankster phase during the Silver Age, whenever one of Joker's capers got foiled, someone would inevitably trot out the line "The joke's on you, Joker!" For obvious reasons, his current Monster Clown incarnation doesn't get this nearly as often.

Pimp Duds: He sometimes accessorizes his purple suit with a very wide-brimmed hat, which makes the ensemble look like a stereotypical pimp costume. Jared Leto's turn in Suicide Squad (2016) runs with this in his dynamic with Harley Quinn.

Pre-Insanity Reveal: The Joker, depending on the version, may have been an ordinary comedian before he went crazy and became a super-villain.

Purple Is Powerful: Purple is one of Joker's three colors (along with white and green) and he is powerful.

Psychopathic Manchild: For starters, when Batman is telling Joker to stay away from the Gordons after he apparently hurt Gordon's wife (it was actually his son, Gordon Jr. who did the deed), Joker commented that he didn't do anything to "the old bitch", and starts commenting to Batman that he misses the old Batman, and commented that he "doesn't want to go to bed yet" and that he "wants to play."

Redemption Rejection: In The Killing Joke, Batman defeats the Joker once again and then desparately pleads with him to accept help recovering from his madness before they eventually kill each other. In one of his rare, completely serious moments, the Joker sincerely apologizes and tells Batman that it's far too late for that.

The Resenter: Joker has often shown resentment towards people in many ways in different stories. The best example is him being resentful of anyone who garners more attention from Batman than him and anyone he sees as "stealing his act", i.e. being a laughing mad, jokey maniac cramping his style (The Creeper in Batman TAS). Regardless, many of his crimes and attitudes often carry an undercurrent or resentment be it towards to Bat-family because he resents sharing Batman with anyone or normal people for living their mundane lives free of care. Given how much spite seems to fuel his rampages, Joker's probably got a mountain of resentment inside of him.

Restoration of Sanity: On occasion, Joker's sanity will suddenly return to him, usually in stories where Batman retires or is believed to have died. His reactions tend to vary - sometimes we don't see how he reacts to what he did, but other times he actually shows genuine regret for his actions. Of course, these never tend to stick.

The Reveal: When Batman sat in Metron's chair in Darkseid War, one of the questions he asked was who the Joker was and the answer freaked him out. In DC Rebirth, it's revealed why: The Joker is a Legacy Character: the Joker responsible for Death of the Family and Batman: Endgame is not the same man who crippled Barbara Gordon—and neither of them are the original Joker.

Riddle for the Ages: Being the Trope Namer for Multiple-Choice Past, it's unknown who he was before falling into an acid tank and whether he was nuts even before being dunked. He even believes his origins, Depending on the Writer of course.Joker: They throw me out, and I had a wife and an unborn child… or it was two cows and a goat? Sometimes it's so confusing…

Rule of Funny: One of his primary themes (alongside insanity), as explained in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?: "Kid. I'm the Joker. I don't just randomly kill people. I kill people when it's funny. What would conceivably be funny about killing you?"

Secret Identity Apathy: In most continuities, he simply doesn't care about Batman's Secret Identity, understanding that Batman is the true face and not the man behind the mask. It's shown sometimes that the Joker will actually be upset if someone outs Batman's identity to him, usually because it spoils their dynamic in some way. When Scarecrow pulls off Bruce's mask in Harley Quinn, it practically triggers a Villainous Breakdown.Joker: Half the fun of our relationship was the mystery! Now I know Batman is just some boring, rich asshole with parental issues!

Self-Made Orphan: In The Brave and the Bold #31, Atom reads his mind and sees The Joker burning his parents alive after they catch him killing animals.

Slasher Smile: He wears one almost by default. Reportedly, it was inspired by this photo◊ of Conrad Veidt in character as Gwynplaine (a man with a disfigured face, causing him to have a perpetual grin) in The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo.

The Sociopath: A skilled and gleeful manipulator, a vicious butcher who brutally tortures and murders others simply because he thinks it’s funny, extraordinarily impulsive given that he’s prone to turning his murderous urges on his own men on a whim or because one upset him in some way, shape or form, and has not even the vaguest notion of empathy, neither for his men or his victims.

The Spook: His backstory is an eternal Riddle for the Ages. DC Comics refuses to take an official stance on this.

Start of Darkness: Detective Comics #168 posits he was a laboratory worker who becomes the Red Hood in order to steal a million dollars from his employers and retire. In The Killing Joke he quits his job to become a comedian, but fails and is coerced by mobsters to commit a robbery, becoming the Red Hood. His disfigurement and (in The Killing Joke) his wife's death earlier in the story destroy what little was left of his sanity and he becomes The Joker. Maybe.

Stealing the Handicapped Spot: He doesn't do this. Rather, he hates it when other people do it and finds it hilarious to horrifically cripple them so they can legitimately park in handicapped spots.

Straw Nihilist: Provides the trope image and is the poster child for this. He claims that everything in life is just "one big joke" and death is the ultimate punchline. Joker also believes that "a bad day" is more than enough for anyone to turn out like him. This is shown notably in Injustice: Gods Among Us, The Killing Joke, and The Dark Knight. The Red Lantern Atrocitus even wonders what drove Joker to nihilism during an intro banter with the clown in Injustice 2.

Strong as They Need to Be: His fighting skills fluctuate wildly. Sometimes, Joker is an excellent fighter who can actually defeat Batman in a straight-up fight, whereas most writers prefer to present him as so weak that he can be knocked out cold with one punch.

Stupid Evil: Depending on the writer, The Joker can sometimes fall under this, where his cruelty and sadism tend to lead to his own death at the hands of all the people he's wronged.

To Create a Playground for Evil: His motivation in stories like Emperor Joker.

Too Kinky to Torture: The Joker has shown a proclivity for this over the years. At one point, the Joker berated a man who'd captured him for only hitting him in the face and The Dark Knight similarly sees the Joker berate Batman during the the latter's beating of him. He also enjoyed his and Bruce's final fight in The Dark Knight Returns. Salvation Run had established the Joker's been in constant pain since he took his fateful dive into the vat of chemicals that altered his appearance and not only had gotten used to it, but grew to enjoy it. This quote from The Dark Knight sums it up perfectly: Stephens: I can tell the difference between punks who need a little lesson in manners, and the freaks like you who would just enjoy it.

Tombstone Teeth: He is often drawn with too many too-long teeth as part of his trademark rictus grin, highlighting his nature as a psychotic and sadistic killer.

Troll: Most incarnations of the Joker dress themselves as being a lethal one of these. The best example is his DC Animated Universe version, who tailored each of his schemes as a joke or a prank, and sometimes even lectured his underlings on the importance of proper buildup and delivery when telling a joke. Batman in particular is the Joker's preferred victim, and many a Joker has refused to kill or unmask a Batman dead to rights, simply because it would spoil the fun of trolling him. But when others upstage or taunt him, he really goes nuts, as it's one of his Berserk Buttons.

Unreliable Narrator: Even he isn't sure of his own history, so anything he claims is suspect at best.

Villain Has a Point: Given his devotion to Rule of Funny, he's quite knowledgeable on what makes successful comedy, as seen with the featured image on Don't Explain the Joke.

Villain Song: There's no other villain who has belted out as many memorable music moments, not even the Music Meister. Three of them incidentally were sung by Mark Hamill behind the mic:

Villainous Aromantic Asexual: He is shown to be more interested in his schemes and mayhem rather than sex. He has had sex with Harley, but it is implied that it's more for her rather than his own enjoyment. He has actively ignored her when he simply wants to work on his schemes, even when she's in the translucent red night dress.

Villainous Friendship: No matter how bad things turned out last time, Lex Luthor and Joker will always work together again. Played With, as it isn’t just because of friendship. As Luthor himself notes in the ending of Infinite Crisis, you always "let the Joker play," lest he come after you for revenge later on for leaving him out.

Villainous Harlequin: He was this during the Silver Age. He is also this in Batman (1966) and Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Villainous Rescue: In Dark Nights: Metal, The Joker pulls this off by teaming up with Batman to defeat the Batman Who Laughs, Batman knowing that a jokerized Batman would have the upper hand teams up with the Joker. It is so unexpected that the Batman Who Laughs, who is still prepared for anything Batman would conceivably think of, is unable to counter it let alone even consider it a possibility.

Villain Protagonist: He was the star of his own nine issue self-titled series from 1975 to 1976. In order to adhere to the Comics Code Authority, The Bad Guy Wins was never in effect - while he usually managed to get one over on other villains, each issue would end the Joker being apprehended for his crimes. He also got his own movie in which Batman didn't even exist yet, delving deep into what someone would have to go through to become the Joker.

Weapon of Choice: The acid-spitting flower, Smilex/Joker Venom... and simple crowbars, established by how he killed Jason Todd.

You Gotta Have Blue Hair: He has neon green hair caused by the chemicals he fell into.

#TheJokerInformation

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septiembrre · 4 years

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Top 5 Rachel Weisz movies (if I am not mistaken and you like her too)

I do like love Rachel Weisz, but I actually haven’t seen very many of her films.

I wasn’t excited about her work in the years after the Mummy. My vague understanding of her career in the aughts was that RW seemed to get typecast as a brilliant, dead wife. Upon doing more research I’m realizing this might have just been The Fountain and The Constant Gardener, but it was enough to turn off younger me. I was a teen and I remember being mad that she was only allowed to play a strong, vivacious woman if the character was ultimately punished with death/violence.

Now, looking at her list of work, I’m realizing that I really want to see My Cousin Rachel, and I might actually skim Black Widow later this year. I do want to watch the Lobster... but, I really don’t like that dude that’s in it with her.

From the films I have seen, I’ve chosen four!

1. The Mummy

I feel like putting this at #1 is kind of passé but this movie was so formative to me as a kid. I loved seeing a woman going on an adventure, as having a sense of humor, as being an all-out, unabashed nerd. The Mummy overall is a problematic fav because of the heavy white-washing of Egyptian history/centering of colonizers/overall orientalism.

But, I still can’t help but adore so much of the film. The swashbuckling ridiculousness, baby bae Oded Fehr, hottie Patricia Velazquez, the perfect melodramatic villain delivery of Arnold Vosloo, the amazing comedic chemistry between John Hannah and Rachel, the overall fun and funny adventure with horror elements.

And of course, the incredible chemistry between Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraiser. Just wow. *chefs kisses* I’ve always known I was bi and I’m not sure why my parents let me watch this R rated movie as an eight-year-old (srsly those damn bugs gave me nightmares for weeks) but wow did I have such a crush on both of them in this movie. I never knew I could ship straight people that hard, and I will expand on how I want to be a third person in their fictional marriage in our next section~

2. The Mummy Returns

My girlfriend just yelled at me across the room that shouldn’t count Evy twice on my list, but it’s literally another movie, okay? And in this second installment, our girl is still an all-out nerd, library master who is now also an adventuring, treasure-seeking gun-fighting explorer who lives in a bomb mansion in London with her gorg himbo husband? And she’s got that old boys club the Bembridge scholars calling and asking for her help? I’m just like yes, queen. Get it.

Again, ditto on the further white-washing of Egyptian history and harmful Hollywood tropes.

But, also, the love she has with Rick and for their kid makes my heart swell. I’m so glad we’re a second movie in and Evy and Rick are still so sexy and so goofily in love. Definitely a top five otp of my life. We can ignore the rest of the franchise.

Also, can you believe The Mummy Returns was Dwayne Johnson’s cinematic debut? I’m cackling.

3. Disobedience

When I first heard about this movie, I was like “Rachel Adams?” and I scrunched my nose a little bit and thought, “This movie is going to be bad.” Bad because I think up until then I had id-ed Rachel Weisz as straight and was mad at this whole straight people playing queer characters phenomenon for some sort of acting clout~

After this movie and The Favourite, I very much claim Rachel in queer girl cannon.

This movie is very specifically about a Jewish Orthodox community and while those are not my cultural identities, this movie felt very relatable to me. The themes of cultural shame and the feeling of having to choose between your identity, your self and the ways you find joy, and how that intersects with expectations from your community, and shaming, really hits home. There’s been such a narrative wave of “poor gay people”, unempowered storylines where being queer is simply a tragedy. And while losing childhood community is oftentimes tragic and traumatic, this film really did a great job at teasing this all out while still giving the two Rachel’s incredible nuance and power in their stories.

This movie was also incredibly sexy. I was enraptured watching it and 10/10 recommend it to others.

Also superficially, Rachel Weisz as this power queer girl photographer in NYC? Ugh, yes yes yes!

4. The Favourite

SUCH. A. GREAT. CAST! I watched this for Rachel and was completely enamored by Emma Stone and Olivia Colman by the end.

There have been many wonderful dissections of The Favourite posted on Tumblr around the strategic use of gender in the costuming and just wonderful thoughts about all the pieces of the movie. I encourage folks who haven’t watched the film to watch it!! And then to go read you some tumblr film analysis.

I loved the power plays and all the stereotypical period-piece court intrigue in a women-driven cast and just done so fucking well.

I can’t wait to see what Rachel does next (outside of the Black Widow film). Does anyone have any recs for Rachel’s work?

#Rachel Weisz

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girlmeetsliv3 · 5 years

Text

Boundaries

Warning: The following story contains mentions of suicide, depression, anxiety, manipulation, abuse, and vivid descriptions of abusive acts. The behavior and mindset of the characters in this series will be incredibly yandere and toxic. This is a work of fiction and doesn’t represent the character of bangtan sonyeondan. Enjoy ~~~

He had always been a little strange. From the first moment, you met Kim Taehyung that is what was the word you would use to describe him - but strange was good. You were strange as well: the foreigner who looked weird, talked too much, and far too loud. So you decided to approach the little boy who was just sitting in the corner during break time simply staring off into nothing in particular. Six years old you were more brazen and confident, so she strutted towards the shy boy who seemed a little intimidated once he noticed you. “Hi, I’m [y/n]. Wanna be friends?” Is what you mustered out in your broken Korean, but you held your hand out hoping he would take it. Taehyung didn’t really understand what you had said all too well, so he simply stared at you for the longest time until your stretched out arm began to tremble. Immediately his eyes widened with recognition and he grasped your hand tightly interlocking your fingers. For such tiny hands, it was a grip of steel, something you would have commented on if not for the boxy smile adorning his face, it was so wide it made his eyes nearly disappear and clearly displayed all his crooked teeth. From that moment on the two of you were inseparable.

Wherever you went he was there too, he never liked being away from you for too long. All the teacher’s found it cute, up until he tried to walk into the girl’s bathroom with you, then he was taken aside and told one must have boundaries. It was something the little boy pretended to understand but disregarded the moment you stepped out of the bathroom. He didn’t see the point in having boundaries, for they stemmed from distrust and Taehyung trusted you entirely. It created a mutual bond between the two of you; a bond which only weakened when you were forced to deal with the consequences of his peculiar tastes.

You had once gone out during recess to play with Taehyung, after searching around the entire playground area you spotted him crouched in a small clearing in between a large tree, bushes, and the school fence. You had failed to notice him before due to the untamed greenery that surrounded him and the fact that he could only be seen from a very specific angle. You crept towards him silently with the desire to scare him, simply to entertain yourself - it was you that ended up scared. Taehyung was crouched with a squirrel in between his feet, the squirrel was trembling fighting for its life as Taehyung continued to pull at its limbs tearing them cruelly free from the sockets and plucking hair from its fur until his spine finally gave out and it died. He was so entranced in his activity he didn’t notice the presence behind him until he heard a sniffle.

Tears were strolling down your face and you asked why he was doing such a mean thing to the squirrel. Taehyung looked like a deer caught in headlights and began to openly sob, begging for your forgiveness and to not tell anyone. Taehyung never cried and it shocked you, to say the least; he rambled on and on about how the mean squirrel had tried to bite him and it was payback. He sobbed and clung to you like a life jacket, tripping over his words in an attempt to make sure you didn’t abandon him. You promised you never wold. When the teacher had found the two of you, she simply assumed that it was the first experience the two young children had with death, to justify your reactions. It wouldn’t be your last.

The second time was a lot more gruesome though this time you had been witness to what caused the sudden switch in his personality. Taehyung always had difficulty making friends, you had been his only one for about six years until he finally made another one, Park Jimin. Taehyung and you had finished school and wanted ice cream, hands interlocked you walked the shady streets of your small town until harsh sounds caught your attention. There were several thugs standing over a small boy who was in a fetal position trying to lessen the damage being caused by the punches, kicks, and derogatory words being thrown his way. He hadn’t done anything to solicit this reaction from the men, but he knew he didn’t need too, they were simply looking for a target and he, unfortunately, was an easy one. Jimin sobbed and openly begged for someone to save him, despite him knowing it only made him look more pathetic. Perhaps, it was the familiarity of disparity or simply an opportunity to perform some of his darker desires, Taehyung let go of your hand and dashed towards the thugs - leaving you to run after him screaming.

It had been a surreal experience watching someone's nose go up into their brain, hearing the sound of bones smashing against concrete, seeing blood come from someone’s eyes after they had been violently scratched out in blind anger. You hadn’t been able to do anything but stare in horror trapped in your position. The boy who had been beaten senselessly now stood and staggered towards Taehyung, hugging him and thanking him, all Taehyung was doing was gazing at your face, attempting to calm himself down from his high. Once he felt his feet touch the Earth again he embraced Jimin but held a hand out to you beckoning you closer, you took it and the three of you stayed like that for a while. Until you had run away from the police.

It was these events that caused an epiphany in you that in order for the friendship to last it needed boundaries. Taehyung hadn’t understood at first and had accused you of wanting to simply abandon him. Go back on your promise. It had taken several weeks to convince him that was not the case that you simply needed space and him as well. So that word became your safe word, one that kept him on a leash and allowed you to keep your sanity. When you wanted to hang out with your girlfriends and talk about silly crushes and the pains of womanhood - boundary. When your body began to develop and the weekly sleepovers had to stop because they would no longer be seen as an innocent event - boundary. It was a word that often divided you, one that had come up more and more in your delicate friendship.

Taehyung also had created boundaries which were like bold yellow tape which said: keep out. His hangouts with his much older friends where they discussed hookups and were able to let go of the male bravado they had to carry on their shoulders constantly - boundary. Calling him in the middle of the night when you were bored because last time you did, you had heard his panting voice and female moans on the other side of the line - boundary. Though you would eventually realize that there weren’t enough boundaries in between Taehyung and you, the event that triggered the downfall of your friendship was one that made all the others things you had witnessed due to his urges seem like child’s play.

Just having turned eighteen and about to abandon your traumatic childhood life in favor of the opportunities that lie in the city, you wanted to end on a high note. There was a graduation party at some rich kids house and though you hadn’t spoken to Taehyung in over a week, you knew he would be there. It was about as entertaining as you had imagined, but it was still a pleasant switch from your usual routine of Netflix and junk food. Now on your third beer, you had the desire to pee so you walked upstairs in search for a bathroom that wasn’t being used for quickies or other illicit acts. The only one you could find was the one inside the master bedroom, all you needed was to empty out your bladder and you would return with the partygoers until the cops came and crashed the party. You were about to exit the bathroom when you heard a whiny moan and a familiar name uttered from a feminine voice, “Taehyung~”. Had it been anyone else you would have honestly walked out with your head down and simply pretended nothing was happening - but now that you knew it was Taehyung having sex in the adjacent room you simply made sure the bathroom door was locked and planned to wait it out.

Easier said than done for when you began to hear what sounded like choking noises trespassing through the wooden door you freaked. You rationalized it was a kink, some people liked getting choked during sex and there was no point in bursting through the door only to embarrass yourself when both parties were safe and sound. Until the sound got significantly louder and then stopped. A nauseating feeling crept into your entire being and you couldn’t breathe properly even if you wanted too. It wasn’t until you heard the bedroom door slam, an assurance that the perpetrator was gone that you dared step out. You recognized the girl on the tousled bed immediately the two of you shared a class - and the same first name. The two of you had bonded over the annoyance of being constantly confused by the withering professor and now she might be dead. You approached the bed cautiously with tear-brimmed eyes but were relieved when you found her breathing and in what looked to be a state of temporary unconsciousness - not a permanent one.

You refused to believe this was an accident and took it as it was a warning. You dashed out of the bedroom and the party sprinting home. You were planning to leave tomorrow morning in an effort to avoid the inevitable and get as far away from your best friend as possible. You had mentioned to him moving away, but you hadn’t said where or when and you thanked the heavens for your foresight. Everything went smoothly that night and the following morning, up until the moment you opened the door to leave and were greeted with an overpowering figure and a boxy smile. You knew the only way to save yourself was to attempt to convince Taehyung one more boundary was needed, he didn’t react too well.

“You have way too many boundaries!”

“I don’t have to spend every waking moment with you!”

“I don’t have to wait around until you suddenly remember my existence!”

“I’m so tired of you!”

“The feeling is mutual!”

They were all lies. Fueled by fear, paranoia, and desperation in your case and teenage angst, longing, and other pent up emotions in his. It was the final nail in the coffin and allowed the weight to lift off your shoulders and a dark feeling to consume his heart. So you parted ways with you marching towards your car and to a new life, whilst a quiet Taehyung stood frozen staring off into space trying to comprehend where everything went wrong. For days on end, he racked his brain trying to decipher everything until he landed on one word: boundaries. If boundaries had torn you apart from each other getting rid of them all would bring you back together.

It had been years since you had seen Taehyung. You had moved far into the city and we're having a relatively successful life: a proper education, a good job, a nice apartment you had busted your ass off for. However, you were lonely, the ambitious and workaholic lifestyle of the city had everyone living inside their own bubble and the societal boundaries you were forced to maneuver through had you feeling like a gymnast. You longed for an escape in whatever form it came, you longed to get away from the cynical cold eyes that followed your every move and behavior - that seemed to pierce through you and see all your imperfections. It was tiring. In those long nights, where you barely slept you found yourself longing for the boxy smile and strange boy despite every fiber of your body warning you it was wrong.

Tonight was one of those nights. You had an entire week off, you never took an off day however your boss had threatened you to utilize your sick days or he assured that you would never again have an off day as long as you worked for the company. It was a dream job and many would die for it, but the environment and the people in it made you want to slit your throat or theirs. It reminded you of the toxic friendship you had escaped and how on its shallow surface it appeared so beautiful, innocent, and sweet when underneath it was rotten, corrupt, and twisted. All these thoughts kept you up until three forty-seven am and in an attempt to calm yourself down you made your way to the kitchen to drink some tea and take your sleeping pills.

You weren’t a fan of them due to how effectively they functioned, knocking you out in mere minutes after taking them. The doctor had prescribed after your insomnia ,stemming from your paranoia, had you go three days without any sleep. You promised yourself you would only take them when absolutely necessary so the bottle was practically new. After the tea cooled a bit, you chugged it down and swallowed the thick narcotic shuffling through the kitchen to your bedroom door until the bell rang. The medication had already kicked in and you were unable to rationalize, so you made your way to the front door and opened it. Staring up at the tall man with hazy eyes, you tried to place him but weren’t able to - until he smiled.

You slammed the door as fast as you could, but he gripped it in the last second and pushed all of his body weight against it easily overpowering your drugged body. Another desperate attempt was made to reach the bedroom door, but your body was succumbing to the side effects causing you to trip over your feet and stumble allowing him to trap you in his arms. As you fought to maintain consciousness his hold over you tightened and he brought his lips to your ears allowing them to caress you when he spoke.

“Hi, I’m Kim Taehyung. Wanna be friends?”

He smirked wickedly as you finally fell deep into the darkness.

Part Two

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morebedsidebooks · 5 years

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15 Years Later Batman: War Games

I’ve considered myself a comics fan from the time as a little girl I received hand-me-down superhero comics from one of my older brothers. I spent a good deal of my childhood wrapped up in various tales published by DC comics mainly but, also other American creations as well as those from Asia and Europe. Lately I’ve been diving back into some of those DC comics. One character from Batman, Poison Ivy has remained one of my all-time favourites. But I’m not going to be writing about Pam today despite her being a recent topic of conversation. The reason being, during my trip down memory lane I was reminded of another contentious event in DC comics history. The October 2004 issue of Detective Comics #797 included the first part of “Low” a three-part story about Poison Ivy and the Riddler. However, that issue also started the first Act of War Games, an event which with prelude War Drums added in engulfed Batman comics for 10 months beginning earlier in March that year.

War Games, where a hypothetical stratagem Batman devised against Gotham’s underworld is put into action with disastrous consequences, can be memorable for several reasons. I remember it because of another beloved Batman character to me who played a major role Stephanie Brown, aka the Spoiler and for a short time also the fourth Robin among other designations. (She was however not the first young lady Robin if one includes The Dark Knight Returns which is outside main continuity.) The treatment of Stephanie, in War Games is the reason that I took a break from reading DC comics for a long time. 2019 marks 15 years since those events. So, with DC once again facing criticisms about how it wrangles philosophy and portrays violence, trauma and death I think it is time to revisit some of Stephanie’s history too.

Stephanie Brown was created in 1992 by Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle debuting in Detective Comics #647. A teenager from some difficult circumstances with a criminal dad and mother with a prescription addiction.

She becomes a vigilante named Spoiler to thwart her father, eventually gaining allies and older mentors, also dating Tim Drake the third Robin.

Stephanie like those around her is not a perfect character having her share of mistakes and tribulations but, she also strives to improve and works towards making some difference in the world that isn’t as it should be. The Robin comic was particularly noteworthy for chapters featuring her teen pregnancy by an ex-boyfriend and the decision to put the child up for adoption. (Robin #65, 1999)

As well as in another powerful issue her confiding about an attempted rape at age 11 by her father’s friend who was left to watch her during an effort at rehab for her mother. (Robin #111, 2003)

Through it all she had a perseverance and resilience that became inspiring and her efforts and convictions led to her becoming a part of the Bat-family. So, it was quite a development when unable to stop the sudden murder of a key ally Orpheus (whose bloody body would be featured across pages to come as well) she was extensively tortured by the villain Black Mask, leading to a likewise incredibly difficult death scene with Batman by her bedside at the end of the third act of War Games in December 2004. Orpheus became a martyr figure (currently his last appearance which feels like a waste, along with the causticity of killing off a character that talked about representation) and characters mourned Stephanie too, with a whole host of emotions as fans tried to come to terms also.

Not to be outdone though some months later when questions arose in War Crimes, the situation around Stephanie’s fate would get even worse with another principal character Dr. Leslie Thompkins given some of the worst (and out of character) motivations for not properly treating Stephanie, betraying her profession and the people close to her.

After Thompkins’ clinic becomes ground zero for the casualties in the massive gang war it’s an absurd decision to send a message to Bruce and young protégés about their actions. Not the first time the heartbreak would be used in such a manner either. It’s not all happy endings. It would be almost four years before DC returned to Stephanie’s fate retconning, revealing the truth of her death as a deliberate falsehood. (Robin #174, July 2008)

However, pouring more salt on the wound those years were a period during which she was also disrespected in death, an executive editor saying Stephanie was never a true Robin despite that going against Batman’s own words written in the comic on more than one occasion. Unsurprisingly behind the scenes editorial decisions about torturing and killing a 16-year-old teenage character apparently did not sit well with all the writers either. Stephanie taking on the Robin role was some small bright point of achievement to be wrestled before the horrible events to come, but also working as a ploy readers would fall into. When Tim’s father has it out with Bruce to put it mildly after discovering their vigilante personas, the developments of a new Robin (a position Stephanie held story-wise only 71 days before Batman fired her) did reportedly boost sales.

But she further had to die as Spoiler because another dead Robin is too much, for Batman. Young as I was in 1988, I too remember the spectacle death of Jason Todd the second Robin whose memory looms from the start in the prologue War Drums.

DC wasn’t done with him either. Reading stories of Jason, some that felt like the material I’d been craving for a long time, nevertheless always make me wonder where we’d be if the vote on his survival all those years ago had been different. A Death in the Family would seem to be a culmination after other titles usually on one’s lips around the experimentation of the late 80s less of interrogation and maturity perceiving a world growing darker inside and out but, the one question of what is too far to come back from.

And 16 years after it, well a dead Spoiler tortured and gone was too much for me. After nearly just as much time again today in 2019 marking the 15th anniversary of War Games I’m surprised in fact at how much the story even now hits me right in the chest. It’s been a long time with many, many people creating countless more titles at DC Comics. Including stories featuring Stephanie Brown who has gone on to take the mantle of Batgirl at one point (that same executive editor finally acknowledging how she connected to a portion of the fanbase and Bat-family in 2009) and likewise been reimagined through the reboots of the comics. (Stephanie in Rebirth’s Victim Syndicate in 2016 was particularly striking to me.)

Yet, I remember most clearly the earlier Stephanie perhaps by virtue being a teenager back then too. Or maybe in a similar fashion as impressionable of a moment as the comics I first received from one of my older brothers, as a young adult War Games seared into me a visual of a brand which gives its characters direction from bad places, hope, lets them rise and then to paraphrase it as a writer once did crush them like a bug. As a young child I could say wow Robins can die. Older, I could ask so what does it mean.

There are all kinds of stories, and what they offer to people as diverse as humanity itself. The ugly, tragedies and heartbreaks are important too for many reasons. I could write instead about such examples I’m fond of or, respect. Pieces of fiction that dance that line of examining and representing truth, little windows maybe the glass becoming a mirror that’s more painful because it is so familiar or, cuts when it breaks. Superheroes don’t live in the real world. But there is a very real world we live in where there are people that have and are growing up with no trust in authorities, screwed up parents, losing parents, becoming parents, facing sexual assault, abuse, gang violence and schools becoming yet another killing ground among other challenges. These sort of wars that are fought can leave a host of scars and casualties. Whether those 18 years or so are good or bad we’re lucky if they are only a small part of a larger life. Too often that’s not the case. But still, I have to ask when I pick up a comic and seem to find the same over and over, as time marches on what about this common story of harm and death has changed and what is its legacy?

#superhero comics #batman war games #stephanie brown #the spoiler #robin #15 years later

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ourmrsreynolds · 5 years

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Jon, Arya and the Childhood BFF to Lovers Trope: Or, why everyone ships J0nsa

I had an argument with my sister which was precipitated by her quipping “nobody likes childhood BFFs” and “hot new guy is always endgame.” I almost flipped a table. I sat there and I seethed for 30 seconds and then I texted her back PIRATES OF THE MOTHERFUCKING CARIBBEAN and I gotta say I was p pleased with myself because yes, Elizabeth and Will end up together even though Jack Sparrow exists and is indisputably hot.

My sister and I are reading Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. This is a story that sets out to deconstruct the trope of “It was always gonna be you and me,” and while my sister can crow all day about how Hot New Guy Gets the Girl, I want to examine why it makes thematic and structural sense for that to be endgame. I think it comes down to the protagonist, who seldom ventures out of her comfort zone and has trouble letting herself want things. The combination of extremely deep feeling and almost pathological constraint is what makes her story so compelling—because in the course of the novel she learns to unabashedly want things, to reach out and take them: and what she wants is the sardonic lacrosse-playing jock, not the Boy Next Door she’s had a crush on since forever. One of the running gags in the background is her nine-year-old little sister inventing increasingly far-fetched reasons she should be allowed to have a puppy, because the kid “knows what she wants and will do anything it takes to get it.” The contrast with hyper-repressed Main Character could not be more pronounced. I ask you, who does Main Character remind you of? Not Arya, for a surety. This is one thousand percent Sansa.

After the finale aired Jenny Han and some other YA authors were dragged on twitter for openly shipping J0nsa, which, I mean (a) it was more “ugh fan fiction” and “ew incest” and “think of the children!!1!” than anything specific to J0nsa (b) of course she ships J0nsa. Of fucking COURSE. J0nsa is not a childhood BFFs ship, because the whole point is that Sansa’s character development leads her to see Jon in a new light. It’s above all about Sansa’s arc and the scales falling from Sansa’s eyes and there isn’t room for someone who has always seen the value in Jon, who has always loved him best. Because that would not be sufficiently Pride & Prejudice-y. Allow me to remind everyone that Pride & Prejudice is (1) the ur-Romance novel and (2) about people changing their minds and revising their initial judgments. Ffs it was originally titled “First Impressions.” This is the dominant narrative wrt romantic love, then—that one must fall in love, that it must be accompanied by major character development and reevaluation of preconceptions. This is the appeal of Enemies-to-Lovers.

Listen, I don’t ship a pairing because I think it’s endgame; I ship it because I think it’s interesting. What I’m trying to do here is formulate a theory as to why so many people find Jon & Sansa’s dynamic interesting, as compared to the small handful of us who find Jon & Arya’s dynamic interesting. I’m not engaging with the people who are anti-incest on principle (if you’re not into incest this is maybe not the fandom for you). I think it has a lot to do with the sort of romantic stories we elevate and validate. Gendrya is a wildly popular ship, and it falls very much in the Childhood BFFs mold, but I think we can all agree that Gendry & Arya are not a finished product—they have a lot of stuff to work on, and what shippers are interested in is the process of them hammering it out. Jon and Arya though? They’re already president of each other’s fan clubs, where’s the tension or drama in that? The obstacles to their relationship are external and plot-driven rather than internal and character-driven. And I say unto you: This is Arya’s creation myth: Before there was anything, there was Jon. That’s it that’s my kink that’s the kind of all-encompassing bond I’m about. The absolute trust they repose in each other gives me LIFE. I’ve seen some J0nsas parry the “she’s not even his favorite sister” argument with “because she’s his wife not his sister” and like ... ok valid ig but the whole reason I’m interested in Jon/Arya is because they set no boundaries on their love?? They are each other’s e v e r y t h i n g. I mean if you want to read about two strangers fumbling their way towards feelings that’s fine but do not pretend to me that J0nsa is some kind of underdog ship. It’s the most basic of ships -- it’s a Pride & Prejudice ship. (Gendrya otoh is Persuasion, which is the best Austen novel don’t @ me.) For in-universe reasons why J0nsa undercuts Jon and Arya’s unconditional love this is a great post, but I’m going to stick to the meta reasons people ship what they ship.

Here is the thing I will die mad about: Everybody takes childhood BFFs for this hegemonic trope and wouldn’t it be so eDgY to subvert it by making her fall for a HANDSOME STRANGER instead. Jfc have you seen the biggest young adult franchises of the past decade? They are: Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments. Spoiler alert none of the heroines end up with their childhood bffs. I know the love triangle is hardly the point of The Hunger Games but facts are facts. It’s been 150 years and the Little Women fandom is still generating twice as much Jo/Laurie fic as Jo/Bhaer fic because Louisa May Alcott did Jo March dirty by not letting her marry the man she clearly belonged with. I just think the idea of there being someone you belong with, always have and always will, is ultimate #goals and this is the hill i will die on.

I look at Sansa and Arya’s starting points, when it comes to Jon, and however their arcs resolve in the end I cannot imagine how you could retcon J0nsa into some kind of lifelong attachment?? Here is Sansa in the wake of Lysa’s death, mulling her options:

there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King’s Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she’d hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably.

She lists Tyrion among her potential refuges, without once mentioning Jon! TYRION. Unreal. Even Brienne weighs the possibility of Sansa going North to Jon, and Brienne has literally never even met Sansa:

though all her siblings had been slain, Brienne knew that Sansa still had an uncle and a bastard half brother on the Wall

In case anyone requires reminding, Arya takes every possible opportunity to suggest “hey we could go to the Wall instead of wherever we’re going!”:

"I know where we could go," Arya said. She still had one brother left. Jon will want me, even if no one else does.

Maybe I should go to the Wall instead of Riverrun. Jon wouldn't care who I killed or whether I brushed my hair

One of these girls has been trying to get back to Jon for going on four books now. The other one thinks about Jon Arryn more times in her POVs than she thinks about Jon Snow (18 Arryns out of 27 total hits for “Jon” in all Sansa chapters). I’m not saying Sansa hasn’t grown and changed, or that her reunion with Jon might not evolve into something interesting; it’s just not a dynamic I personally care about. I’m definitely not saying that authors deserve to be publicly shamed for shipping fictional characters, but I think an author’s shipping preferences are revealing and shed light on their choices as far as which stories they choose to tell. I’m saying I ship Jon/Arya and I accept it’s not the ship dynamic that appeals to most people but here I am.

#jonrya #needleheart #otp: needlework for northerners

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mothmansmilkman · 5 years

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Big ol Information Sheet About My JJBA Part 5 OC That I Love (AKA I know im the only one who cares about this but i gotta put my self-indulgent shit SOMEWHERE)

TW for weapons, child abuse and endangerment, and other canon-typical Jojo stuff

Name: Rio (last name unknown)

Stand: White Room

Age: Unknown, but assumed to be 14 (celebrates the day she was discovered after her attempted murder like a birthday)

Height: 5′2″

Favorite Food: Cherry pastries

Favorite Movie: The Little Mermaid

Favorite Band: Nirvana

BACKSTORY

Rio doesn't remember much about her childhood, but she remembers living in a house with a loving mother and father.

Her life was changed one night when she was 4 years old. As her mother layed her in her bed, she told Rio that no matter what she heard downstairs to not scream or go down there.

A terrified Rio heard the sounds of her parents being murdered hours later. As the perpetrator was searching the house, he discovered Rio huddled in her bed. But, instead of killing her along with the rest of her family, he decided to kidnap her.

For years, Rio was kept a slave in that person's house. Only hearing of the outside world through TV, radio, and overhearing conversations between houseguests, she had begun to have fantasies of what the world outside the house must be like.

She would find out on the day she was murdered. In the middle of the night, her kidnapper took Rio to an alley armed with a Stand Arrow. Since a Stand Arrow leaves no visible wound after the act, he assumed that Rio would die and whoever found her body would assume she was a runaway that died from malnutrition or something.

However, Rio awoke hours after having the arrow stabbed into her abdomen. But strangely, the alley she remembered being in had changed into a pink castle. With the small bits of knowledge she had, she just thought to herself "I must be dead. So this must be what heaven looks like..." and went back to sleep.

Now Here’s Where We Get Self-Insert-y!

I’d like to imagine if Rio would end up in any of the canon Vento Aureo groups, she would be in La Squadra because

1. I want to see these dudes dealing with a literal child

2. There’s a line in the song White Room “She was kindness in the hard crowd” and I like when the musical references tie in to the character’s personality.

At the time of Rio being discovered, I personally headcanon that La Squadra wasn’t fully formed, and the only members being there were Risotto, Sorbet, Gelato, Formaggio, Proscuitto, and Melone. (Illuso, Pesci, and Ghiacchio would be the more recent members) (Sorry if all this is wrong, i havent actually read the manga ;_;)

Anyway, one of the members would be concerned about a pink castle being where a pink castle would not usually be. And they would be more concerned when no one else on the street even payed attention to it, as if it wasn’t there. But, as if the Stand knew someone was there, a door appeared on the castle’s wall. Hesitantly, they opened the door, ready for a battle.

...instead, they saw a disheveled, malnourished, young girl curled up on the dirty ground. When she opened her eyes and stared up at him, she finally spoke.

“God? ...how long have I been dead?”

Eventually, the gangster would take Rio to their home and ask for her story. The original plan was to let the child take a bath, have a meal, and then take her to an orphanage. However, certain details made the gangster feel more pity, like how Rio didn’t know enough about her past to remember her own last name or birthday. But, as soon as she described her “death” via a gold arrow, the assassin realized something bigger.

If someone had access to a Stand Arrow, there was a chance they were part of Passione. It would be dangerous to leave Rio alone. This would eventually (after explaining the situation to Risotto), lead to Rio becoming a resident of the La Squadra safehouse.

Life With La Squadra

Rio would be hesitant at first to ask La Squadra for anything. Not just because they’re intimidating criminals, but because she was already grateful for everything they had done for her. They saved her life, but also bought her clothes and things a kid would need. They also figured out that she was probably 10 years old. Her only request upon being given permission to live in the safehouse was that she would be taught how to read.

As time passed, the walls, both mental and physical (White Room’s fault for the physical ones), between Rio and the other members began to fall. She had begun to view every member as a father figure, even referring to them as “Papa [name]”.

Learning to read also showed the members that Rio was intelligent along with being kind. She had developed a habit of checking out books from the city’s library and copying the text by hand into a notebook as she read it, giving her a copy of her own. While she enjoyed children’s books, she enjoyed non-fiction even more, because it gave her more information about the outside world.

The other members would actually be happy to take Rio out in public when they weren’t on missions. (Especially Formaggio because hed act like she was his real daughter to try and look like a dilf) It would always be entertaining to go from having an intelligent conversation with a booksmart 10 year old to watching them get excited over ice cream or a big teddy bear.

Rio’s favorite things to collect would be stuffed animals and warm blankets. Also books, but she copies hers from the library, so she feels no reason to want to buy any.

Despite being happy and calm most of the time, Rio still has trauma from her past. Certain triggers will suddenly end up with White Room suddenly appearing around Rio, with the memory in question being displayed on the walls for all of the members near her to see. When White Room fades, Rio has usually started crying, and needs a few minutes before she can speak again.

When Rio eventually started copying medical textbooks, she asked (because no one hid the fact that La Squadra killed people) if they could bring a corpse back so she could dissect a body herself. Sorbet and Gelato would be the only ones to say yes, and actually follow through.

Rio eventually learns about Christmas. On her first December 25th with the gang, she gives everyone a knife painted in their favorite color.

Since I headcanon Pesci and Ghiacchio as the youngest of the La Squadra boys, Rio would call them her Big Brothers.

White Room

The whole time she’s with La Squadra, Rio has been training White Room. Eventually, she learned her stand has 3 abilities:

1. It can create a room.

2. It can manipulate the room. The size, the color, etc. She can even display her own thoughts onto the walls.

3. If she understands something completely, she can create a copy of it that only exists inside the room.

Rio realizes she can use her stand for killing was when she was 11. A stranger trying to rob her while she was running an errand alone brought up a fight-or-flight reaction, leading to White Room crushing the attacker as if they were inside a trash compactor.

When Rio learns that she can copy items that she understands, the first thing she asks is to learn how a gun works. The rest of La Squadra had known she would end up as part of Passione someday, because honestly they couldn’t see her having anywhere else to go, but they were wary of letting her join THEIR part of Passione since there was a very high likelihood of death. However, Rio quickly learned the ins and outs of weapons. She proved herself to be worthy as a member of La Squadra when she completed a mission, killing a man by slitting his throat with a knife created by White Room. At 11 and a half years old (possibly because no one really knows how old she is), she became the youngest official member of Passione at the time (and possibly youngest ever).

Rio prefers to work with her father figures on missions rather than work alone. Her strategy is to secure the perimeter of the area with White Room, so the target can’t escape and no one else can enter. Then, she waits with a sniper rifle. She wants to have her papas and brothers backs, and act as support in their battles. It makes her feel like she’s returning the support they always gave her.

How Rio Would End Up In The Events of Vento Aureo

Rio would be 12 years old when Sorbet and Gelato die. As the picture frames were being opened, she would recognize a body part as something she saw in a medical book.

The realization that it was her Papa Sorbet’s body would click in her mind, but she’d refuse to believe it. As the members of the team place the frames in order, they all start to regret letting Rio be in the same room.

She later gets the news of Gelato’s death.

Rio openly weeps at the funeral. This was the first time her heart ever truly felt broken, since she wasn’t old enough when her real parents died to really remember them. It takes Rio a while to start acting like her old self again. Like the rest of La Squadra, she never forgives the Boss for this. Despite feeling anger when Risotto told the gang to just “Forget about Sorbet and Gelato”, she understood that any act of revenge that wasn’t thoroughly planned out would make her or worse, more of her papas and brothers to suffer the same fate.

AU Where Bucci Gang and La Squadra Team Up Because That’s What I Wish Would’ve Happened (Also i just dont want to write Rio dying like they do in canon)

Seriously tho if Giorno or maybe buccellati would've gone on the shopping trip this au probably wouldve happened

Rio would be 14 at the time Giorno happened and the events of Vento Aureo took place.

Rio would love having people closer to her age around. I imagine she'd become friends with Narancia and Fugo (because Narancia can have fun and can give her the childhood fun she never had, and Fugo because finally someone with brain cells). I imagine she’d see one of their study sessions one day and just join.

Tbh Trish and Rio need each other. They need other girls in their lives.

Rio is okay with Mista, but likes Sex Pistols more. Buccellati wishes it wasnt too late for him to adopt her

If the boat scene would still happen in this AU, I think Rio would go with Fugo. It's not that she's scared of fighting the Boss, it's because La Squadra doesn't know if they can handle her dying at such a young age. They tell Fugo that if he's leaving, to take Rio with him in order to track down any possible living relatives (or anyone who could possibly know Rio's true identity)

Before they leave, Rio tells the group to find her again when they come back. She had faith that with their numbers and combined abilities, the 2 gangs could take down whatever was in their path. Sadly, when Giorno reaches out after the events of VA, only a few survived.

Rio would, of course, end up joining Passione again like in Purple Haze Feedback. This last image is a design of an older Rio (maybe age 16-18)

#vento aureo #jjba #jjba oc #oc

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