DANCING AFTER DEATH - Epilogue: This Charming Life

Fresh off a prison sentence, Ian Gallagher is lost, wandering aimlessly through a life that doesn’t feel like his anymore. So when Lip offers him a fresh start halfway across the country, he takes it. He’s not sure what he expected from the small, Northern California town of Charming, but it certainly didn’t involve a closeted, dark-haired, blue-eyed member of the local motorcycle gang turning his life upside down. His head tells him to get the hell out of dodge, but there’s just something about him Ian can’t let go.

Chapter: 13 / 13 ✅ Rating: Explicit Chapter Word Count: 12.7k Total Word Count: 204k

mountains and mountains of love and praise to sara @shameless-notashamed for all the hard beta worked she's poured into this babe! 💖

💀 read chapter 13 or start at the beginning 💀

vignettes from luminvies’ and moonsteps’ one lifetime too short

an extra.. didn’t want to make the post too lengthy

hopefully i’ve improved since the ones i did for “and yet,” haha

I think the thing that shocks me the most about the discourse, if you can even call it that, around book Alicent vs show Alicent, is the idea that people think book Alicent had full autonomy over all her choices and she wasn’t a “victim” like show Alicent.

Now first, I put victim in quotations bc the way people who do not like her have almost bastardized that word. Alicent is a victim, and those things (rape, abuse, neglect) were done to her. That says everything about the men who did that do her and nothing about her. But people are hellbent on throwing Alicent, a woman in a violently patriarchal environment, being victimized back at people as if it is moral flaw of hers. Which is just terribly ironic bc the same folks who say Alicent “did it to herself” or “deserves what she is getting” also seem to think the crux of the story isn’t about generational trauma catching up with itself, how far people will go for power, or even how all girls and women are harmed - albeit to different degrees. But more the fact that Rhaenyra is the only woman to be harmed - and the only harm done is not getting the throne easily. Those same people wouldn’t be caught dead admitting that Rhaenyra is also a victim in the way they shit on Alicent for being. From the father who sets her up fail, to the baby daddy that’s been eyeing her since she was barely 18, to the uncle that grooms her. It takes away from the fantasy projected onto Rhaenyra if she too is surrounded by men that use her and she never escapes that.

Second, it’s funny how F&B gets heralded by some as this exploration of how history is skewed depending on who is telling it. But people can’t read between the lines (you honestly don’t even have to do that much work) with book Alicent. Showing 14 year old Alicent being preyed on, 16 year old Alicent being pregnant with her second child, and 18 year old Alicent being raped is somehow the show needlessly making Alicent a victim. But reading about a 13 year old bathing, dressing, and taking care of a king who mistakes her for the daughter he abused and neglected, and then that same girl, at 18, marrying another king that killed his previous child bride is just girl bossism on book Alicent’s part?

People hate conceptualizing the idea that (even book) Alicent is caught in patriarchal trappings bc to some that takes away from Rhaenyra’s plight…. Bc they can’t wrap their heads around several women *gasp* all going through hardships, and that ultimately people will respond to trauma differently depending on tools/knowledge they have at their disposal. Alicent neither being gleefully evil nor picking herself up by her bootstraps to somehow end years of patriarchal violence is not the neat box they want for her.

911blr waiting for 7x05

SR! Luxe Couture! Cloche

Summon:

“Celebrities, promotions, behind the scenes content… This really isn’t all that different from a standard con.”

[Voicelines Below]

Groovy: [Locked]

Summon Line: For an otherworldly foreigner to go on this trip, it’s wasted on me.

Home: Do I look a little more mature now?

Home Idle 1: “A chance to explore children’s couture”… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take offense to that.

Home Idle 2: Master Grim seems to be enjoying his two days of fame. Every minute of walking, someone stops us to pet him.

Home Idle 3: It’s too bad Master Deuce can’t see how out-of-character Master Ace has been.

Home Idle Login: Be it Earth or Twisted Wonderland, consumerism really is inescapable.

Home Idle Groovy: [Locked]

Home Tap 1: Thankfully it’s just Master Jamil and Master Azul. I can’t imagine what’d become of our group if we had Master Ruggie in the mix.

Home Tap 2: Phew, that’s close… I’d probably get a second curse if Master Vil caught me browsing Neige merchandise.

Home Tap 3: The make up is so subtle, completely different from the cosplay and SFX make up I used to do.

Home Tap 4: According the stylists, my hair is supposed to be curlier than this. They recommended some products that would get my “natural curls” back, but I don’t think I can afford it…

Home Tap 5: Don’t bother, my tail is underneath the coat.

Home Tap Groovy: [LOCKED]

beyond bruisable

amidst the ruin

worst part of legend of korra is the focus on the mid af love triangle. second worst part of legend of korra is that it forces you to watch sports

took a break from writing to doodle hahaha don’t mind me…

Was watching Game of Death the other day. Bruce Lee’s character is so funny and sassy(at least in the unreleased scenes), I just had to put my guy in this iconic pose to show my gratitude

He’s so right to do this for me specifically actually

Thinking about how Tanthamore looked at each other in that first scene, literally like in the first five minutes, Kit’s devil may care grin and Jade’s gay pining, and getting real emotional over how exciting and amazing and beautiful and just how good it felt to see that on screen

it’s kinda funny to me how that dumb scene in kiwami 1 of majima getting shot and left for dead in the harbor was basically just added as a half-assed way to explain majima not being around for a bit of the plot, but they accidentally(?) just made it seem like start of a chain reaction where majima ended up feeling slighted and heartbroken after being abandoned like that and then lashed out about it via smashing a big truck into the building kiryu was in. and yeah that isn’t inherently a romantic thing as-is but then they go and add the part where majima grabs a hostess and performatively hits on her as in-kiryu’s-face as possible, she says she’s already in love with someone, and majima lets her go immediately, no questions asked, making a big fucking point of it just to say see THAT kiryu? I appreciate when people are HONEST about their FEELINGS. people who won’t just BACKSTAB someone who CARES about them to save themselves. is that so crazy kiryu?? huh??? anyway make it up to me get down here and fight me right fucking now

day 4: together for naramis week :]

I’ll say something else while I’m here-one of my biggest issues with Bridgerton s2 was the lack of cohesiveness. Jesus Christ no one is upset with characters making unlikable decisions and if you want a wedding for the sake of drama, Shondaland, have a fucking wedding, but make it earned! And on top of that, the wedding episode had the fucking audacity to be boring as shit! Just all trodding on and operating off of the assumption the viewer would be aghast and would sit through nearly an hour of boring yawn snooze because there were “stakes” and it seemed like the main pair might not get together. Like for fuck’s sake have as much drama as you like but at least make it well written! Instead the wedding episode is a dirge and not because it’s a reflection of some character’s mental state or any seemingly deep reason, no; it’s like they decided there would be a wedding and shrugged when it came to getting the character’s there. It doesn’t count as good writing if you’ve spent the past months/years trying to wrap your head around or write fic around the reasons why x decision by y characters make sense to fill in gaps that shouldn’t be there in the first place and that’s all this fandom has done.

People’s issue with side plots taking up too much time isn’t really that they take up too much time-it’s that none of them follow a set of overarching themes of the season and feed into them or a main storyline in a significant way, giving the illusion to the viewer that they’re completely separate from the romance at the core and therefore taking away from it, as opposed to everything being harmonious.

On top of that, the characterizations are so fucking varied and there’s a large tonal shift between s1 and s2 in terms of the way the Bridgersibs interact with one another. Siblings can fight and be rude and whatever to one another but for them to turn into completely different people out of nowhere is so ??

And on the topic of characterizations-WHERE WAS KATE’S??? Anthony gets 28363938 motivations for why he is the way he is and then is honestly left floundering with all of them, until you’re honestly a bit ?? as to why he can’t marry for love, and then you get Kate who is just… There. Why can’t she marry for love? Why is she hellbent against marrying? Why is she prioritizing her family’s finances and Mary/Edwina above herself? What conversations did she have with her father before he died to make her this way or was she always like this? What were their lives like in India? I could keep going! At least in the book you get some half hearted “I’m too ugly and old to get a match” reason but in the show no one is going to fucking believe Simone Ashley is too ugly or old to get whatever lord she wants 😭✋ and THEN???? To top it all off-Kate and Anthony don’t have a single meaningful discussion around an entire eight episodes!!!!! Not one!!!!!!!!! What fucking growth happens between them fucking and the coma and then their fucking dance to have them propose? If the actors themselves had to invent all these so called secret conversations their characters had in between everything to make things make sense, I really don’t think that’s a hallmark of good writing. They rush that happy ending in there at the end and it feels like they forgot they had to end the fucking show with these two characters together and they just said “fuck it let them kiss” and that’s what we got. WHAT CONVERSATION OF SUBSTANCE DID THEY HAVE. And what fucking argument can you make that it’s okay that it didn’t happen on screen??) NONE!!! It’s TV! It’s a VISUAL FORMAT??? Oh my god.

I told myself I wouldn’t rant about this, just redirect people to walle’s thoughts on this, which is (in her own words) how she sat shiva for the fucking wreck of what Bridgerton s2 is. Walle if you don’t know wrote a thousand cuts and s2 was the nail in the coffin for her. It was so so so bad. It went against such basic principles of storytelling. The writing was so abhorrent. It was insane. And to defend it feels more insane it feels like you’ve been taken hostage by this damn show and you’re writing thinkpieces on tumblr and twitter to make it make sense!

What grates me is that it really could’ve been good. The juice was there. The actors are amazing. The production team is clearly so so dedicated and hard working. IT WAS ALL THERE. Honestly the way the show was marketed in the trailer feels completely different from how it came out and I have to think there was some fuckshit going on behind the scenes given the large tonal shift during/after ep 4 and CVD’s hasty and odd departure.

Remembered this image and I knew I had to draw them.. hi mkulia nation👋👋

food 4 thought: big, strong, yagi who pins ur knees to ur chest with one hand.