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flightless-rising · 3 years

Text

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!

#flight rising #fr #flight rising meme #iceberg meme

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kissandmxkeup · 3 years

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Royal Guard!Johnny

here for the obligatory annual “yes i’m still around and yes i know where my computer keyboard is” post, may do more but probably not tbh. if you’re still here and reading, i love you and also highly question why you’re so dedicated. not that i mind, i truly appreciate it, but still.

also, this is female!reader because i had so much trouble writing this in a gender-neutral manner. if you want a gender-neutral/male!reader version, let me know and i’ll do my best!

Always cordial and polite, not just with you but anyone he comes across

So many of the guards tend to have this air of superiority, talking down to those that aren’t within their ranks or of a higher status, but Johnny has the same level of manners for the elderly shopkeeper in town as he does for you, the crown princess of the country

Not only that, he’s also extremely attentive to your needs, even the ones that he isn’t necessarily responsible for

He always has a bag with first-aid supplies, snacks, water, and even portable chargers and a Game-Boy somewhere within reach

And he’s always willing to have a conversation with you, listen to your concerns and worries and sorrows

You actually came to know Johnny when he was guarding your brother, a seven year old who was incredibly funny and also insanely gross

After your brother turned ten he was sent off to a private school with their own security teams, so Johnny was moved over to you

You loved being around him; his positivity and kindness could melt even the toughest of moods, something your mother had noticed when she was looking for his new assignment

You remember when she called Johnny to the throne room; he’d still been just barely an adult then, looking young and boyish in armor slightly too big for him He had bowed deeply to her, so much that the weight of the heavy metal chainmail nearly tipped him over, and she smiled back as she informed him that he was being removed from his position with your brother, that he would now be tasked with being in your guard. He had given her a nod and an “as you wish” that was almost too wavering with forced professionalism before turning to you with a nervous little grin, asking what you needed of him in a way that had melted your heart.

Over time, the two of you had grown into a rhythm; you would walk the gardens in the morning, him following like a shadow as you chatted with the gardeners and groundskeepers. After that you would tend to your schoolwork, and then the minor royal duties you were given after you’d finished your education, occasionally letting him distract you with stories of the younger guards’ antics as you tried to pass time until dinner, and then at the end of the day you would always sit and talk together about the country.

Even when you were young, you were always looking to improve the life of the commoners of the land, and given his background, Johnny was much more connected to them than you could ever be. He had influenced policies you’d drafted on education, social welfare programs, and even some of your first quality-of-life recommendations like repairing historical sites and landmarks in the smaller villages of the country, such as the town he had visited often as a child. You were beloved in your country, and had become lauded as the “princess of the people,” always pushing for your constituents to be represented and thought of at every turn, but you always made sure that Johnny knew that you couldn’t do any of it without him by your side.

However, those outside of your borders tended to see you as much less kind and gentle, but rather stubborn and almost bitchy. You wouldn’t let your country’s people be used or walked over, refusing to give in to the demands of others that saw you as small and weak and risk your citizens’ wellbeing in the process. You sat in meeting with lawmakers, voice steady as you refused to even consider letting your constituents have their taxes raised in the name of increasing their own salaries, clashed with conglomerates that wanted you to turn a blind eye to pollution and mistreatment of their workers, even going as far as pressuring officials into dissolving royal contracts with major companies that relied on unfair practices, and you had even notably walked out of a meeting with a royal from another family after they had insinuated that perhaps you had let your public persona blind you to what was truly good for your country (in this case, letting their country use your resources without regard to the needs of the the common folk of yours).

Some other players in larger, wealthier countries had even decided that you were too much of an inconvenience, made too much noise, and wanted to eliminate you from your country’s line of succession by any means necessary. Because of this you had come to be assigned more guards over time, generally keeping a rotating team that you had jokingly nicknamed the 127 Squad because they seemed to have an endless supply of members. Some members like Ten, or Lucas rotated in during special occasions like state visits, and you occasionally had a knight-in-training such as the quiet Renjun or the child-like Jeno in addition to the usual two or three full-time guards.

There were eight other consistent members that you had come to be familiar with, though; Haechan was loud and boisterous in a manner quite similar to your brother, while his best friend Mark was quiet, shy, and a little nervous with a sword despite all of his experience. Taeyong, Taeil, and Doyoung treated you like their child in different ways, and Jungwoo was dreamy and often in his own head (although you weren’t sure if maybe that was just a facade, since he was one of the first to act if you felt in danger). Your favorite story was how poor Jaehyun and Yuta had been banned from attending public events after they went unintentionally viral for their handsome looks during a press conference about a new retirement plan you had orchestrated.

Johnny was always the constant, though; he was at every event, every meeting, always directly to your right in a manner that had started more than one rumor about your professional relationship and how it was more than just professional after all. And as much as you would never admit it, you hated the rumors because of their semi-truth; sure, you weren’t in a relationship, but it’s not like you would be opposed to that at all.

He was just as kind and funny as ever, but more mature and elegant now; he would help you out of your car even if there was a chauffer that was supposed to fill that role, lift children on his shoulders during your usual visits to local schools and smile with pride as they giggled and screamed. He would even sit next to you and run his hand between your shoulder blades when you had panic attacks about whether you were really fit to lead the country, reassuring you that your people loved you for a reason; not to mention that he had become very attractive over time; the boyish smiles were now replaced with kind grins, his armor now fit him like a glove, and every time he sowed the protective nature that he had developed toward you, you would swoon a little on the inside.

But there were strict rules about romance between royals and staff, if anyone found out that you even had a crush on him he would be moved out of your team and possibly out of your family entirely, which you couldn’t stand the idea of. So you kept your mouth shut, never letting your inhibitions take over you when he called your name with a kindness that made your knees weak, or when he would step in front of you in a protective manner at a rare threat made directly to your face. You had done well with it too, up until you had gone on your first state visit to another country without your parents or any other major officials.

You had been sent out to visit a country run by a set of princes almost double your age, with nobody but five members of your guard (Taeyong, Doyoung, Mark, Jaehyun, Ten, and of course Johnny) alongside you. The men were all openly uncomfortable with your presence at times; sometimes this was shown by you being excluded from conversations about “grown-up matters that didn’t concern you,” as you had once overheard the crown prince Leeteuk commenting, to even pressuring you with questions and comments that were bizarre at best and outright offensive at worst. You had tried to brush it off, since the visit was less than a week and very important, but it was hard to do so when you felt like you were having the life sucked out of you.

It wasn’t until the last day when you had finally had enough; Leeteuk had sat across from you, flanked by all of his fellow princes, and pushed a document that looked way too official to be presented in such a way to your side of the table with an expectant glare.

“What is this?”

“It’s the resolution that we’ve all been working on this week, I expect you to sign it for us now.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t sign something unless I know its contents. If you give me some time to look over it, I’d be happy to come back with my concerns and a signature if I feel it’s mutually beneficial.”

“I’m sorry?”

One of the other princes, Shindong, looked down at you with a glance of something resembling anger, and you could almost hear Johnny and Taeyong tensing at your sides, preparing to step in should the princes show signs of being a threat to your well-being.

“I mean, you say that it’s the resolution we’ve been working on, but I’ve been constantly shuttered out of any meaningful conversation about this legislature since I arrived. I don’t know what’s been done in front of me, let alone without me present, and by signing it I could be agreeing to any number of measures I don’t agree with or understand. I will not sign this unless I am given an adequate chance to look over it and bring my own concerns forward as a representative of my country.”

“See, I don’t think you understand how this works. You are in our country, under our roof, and we fully expect you to comply with our expectations while here. So you will sign this document.”

“Or what?”

You straightened yourself out, glaring daggers at the youngest prince (Kyuhyun, you believe) that had been so demanding to you. You could feel Johnny resting a hand on your shoulder, reassuring but warning, as Taeyong stepped out to certainly inform the other guards of the situation and have them start collecting your things to go home.

“If you force me to sign it, I and my guards will both bring the manner forward publicly that it was signed under duress. Any measure that you believe you could take to force me, such as physical punishment or holding me hostage, is an act of war by your government against a foreign diplomat on your soil and will be treated as such. I will not be threatened, forced, or coerced into giving my consent in a matter I do not understand, and the idea that I would do such a thing is actively preposterous at best and offensive at worst. So if you don’t mind, I will be leaving your country at the earliest opportunity, since it’s clear that you have no intent of cooperating with me and I will not stay in a place where I feel unwelcome and endangered. If this is an issue, please feel free to take it up with my guards or any citizen of my country, who will happily inform you of my stance on public policy that would affect them.”

You stood to leave, and Siwon matched your movement, grabbing your wrist with such force that you audibly hissed.

“Little girl, this is no business for you to be fighting against. Sign the papers and then you can go whenever you please.”

“My princess has stated that she intends to leave,” you were surprised by Johnny, stepping forward, forcing Siwon’s hand off of you before carefully pushing you behind him with one arm to shelter you from the men in front of you, “and as far as I am concerned, she gets what she wants when it’s her well-being at risk. Please stand down and allow her to leave, since we mean no harm. I’m sure that if this legislature is as important as you state it to be that she would need to blindly sign onto it, the king and queen would happily do instead, so I implore you to speak to them about the matter.”

Johnny walked you out, a hand around your waist with a stern expression as he kept looking back to the room of bewildered and infuriated princes. It wasn’t until he had accompanied you back to your room, firmly shutting and locking the door behind him, that he let the cold demeanor slip away. He asked how you were, a nervous expression on his face at the situation you had found yourselves in.

“I just...I want to go home. I want to go home and rest, and be with my family and friends again. I don’t feel safe here.”

He nodded solemnly, fingers dancing across your wrist as he lifted it to the level of your chest, scowling at the already-deepening purples and yellows where you’d been held.

“I’m sorry, I should have stepped in sooner.”

“You did everything right. You tried to let me handle it, and protected me when I couldn’t do it anymore.”

You leaned into his touch, and he seemed almost surprised as you let yourself fall completely into his arms, barely catching you. He held you upright for a moment, only pulling back when he noticed that you had started to cry.

“Princess...”

“Please, call me by my name. We’re friends, you deserve that much.”

He did so, gently taking you back into his grasp and reassuring you with a gentle swaying as you awaited the word of Taeyong that you could leave.

“I’m sorry, I can’t keep doing this anymore.”

He pulled back, concern and worry apparent in his expression at your bizarre change in tone.

“Can’t do what?”

“I..look, I love you. Not as my guard, not as my friend, but in a way that’s so much more than that. And I’ve been so scared to tell you because I knew it could get you taken from me, but you deserve to know. You’ve been nothing but kind and wonderful and hell, you’re perfect, but I can’t keep standing here, falling in love a little more every time you so much as look at me without telling you about it.”

He looked confused for a moment, but surprised you with a large, almost goofy smile that reminded you of your younger days with him.

“Don’t act like that, like it’s the end of it. I know it’s not allowed, just as much as you do, but I love you too and I’ve wanted to tell you forever.”

You laughed, almost bitter with the threat of separation between you two.

“How is it not the end of it?”

“I...I’ve been talking with your mother about...us. About how I feel. She’s going to remove me from the guard altogether, and I was going to move into an advising role for you where I’d be able to ask you out. I was planning on telling you after we returned form the visit, since it was only finalized after we arrived, but then...”

It took a moment to register what he had said, but as soon as it had clicked you threw your arms around him with an almost childlike excitement.

“I’ll be here for you until you don’t want me anymore, okay? I promise. Me and you, just like it’s been since you were sixteen.”

The words were gentle, kind, and you couldn’t help but relax at the truthfulness he carried in his tone. You wanted to stay like this forever, but it was all too soon that there was a knock on the door as Taeyong informed you that your car was waiting out front and the princes had finally agreed to stand down and let you leave in peace. You took a moment to collect yourself before heading to the door, and Johnny gave your hand a reassuring squeeze before opening it.

“Would you like me to ride with you today, your highness?”

“Actually, if it’s okay, I’d rather have Johnny with me. I’ve been under a lot of stress during this trip, and I find him rather comforting to have around.”

He stifled a laugh behind his hand, and you couldn’t help but grin at the almost knowing glance Taeyong spared you. You walked past the princes in uncomfortable silence, only sparing a small bow before you stepped into your car, Johnny following and moving to sit next to you as the door closed.

“So, we’ve got six hours until we’re back in our kingdom, do you want to play Super Mario Land or something?”

You burst out laughing, head falling back against his shoulder as you gave him a small nod through the rhythm of your breathing. He smiled as he gave you the old lime Game Boy, shifting to move an arm around you so he could watch you play, and you couldn’t help but notice how this felt just like home.

#johnny seo imagine #johnny seo fluff #nct johnny fluff #nct johnny imagine #not to lowkey villainize suju but i needed a villain for this and google picked them so

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border-spam · 4 years

Text

Leech Lord AU - Char Breakdown

Seifa A’rosk / Seifa Ur-Machina / Saint of the God King’s Mechanica

Bless u @nikyri-art and @lazulizard for the art! List of character traits and world-building facets for this character within my story. The Leech Lord Au is the one all other twins content I’ve written is set in.

Troy’s is HERE Tyreen’s is HERE

Note, ye asked and ye received. Literally my first OC ever, no clue what I’m doing, constructive feedback is 100% welcome.

Physical Details:

Right handed.

Very short, 4′11″, and rarely seen out of heeled boots.

5 years older than the twins, in her mid twenties when she came across the scabby looking rat who introduced herself as Tyreen.

Long auburn hair she usually wears in waves.

Right side shave, warm blue eyes, septum/eyebrow/labret facial piercings

Average bodyweight, hourglass shape.

Saint sigil tattoo between her shoulderblades.

Couple of small scars across torso, stab wound near navel, nicks across left ribs.

Visible facial scar is paper thin and streaks across her right brow into her hairline. Tells everyone this was from a knife fight, but was actually from an echodevice she was trying to scavenge components from blowing in her face a decade ago. Figures she might as well try and get some intimidation points out of it.

Relaxed punk aesthetic she carries into her engineering uniform.

Usually covered in homemade jewelry.

Backstory:

Sei is a migrant junker/mechanic, and has been running a solo career as one since her late teens.

She has no memory of family, and doesn't care in the slightest. Figures she was probably sold into child labor before she was old enough to remember who they were. Loses no sleep over this and rarely gives it any thought.

Grew up traveling with her "Boss" (head of the scavenging ring who managed herself and the other skinny little kids she was raised with) between different rim planets including Pandora, scrapping and repairing tech while scavenging the thousands of ship husks dumped during the corporate wars.

Spent her formative years constantly surrounded by other children and teens who helped each other get each other through what should have been a relatively lonely existence, and developed a close family bond with many.

Retained contact with a lot of them in adulthood. They operate a network of mechanics and engineers across the system, a few of which come to work within the COV Mechanica when they realise she can offer safety.

Spent her childhood and teens learning the art of the deal from her boss, accompanying him on trade runs, market dealings, debt collections, anything and everything he figured would help her in the long term. Learned everything she could while accompanying him as a kid, like a filthy little sponge in too-big overalls and a runny nose.

Engineering and mech skills have been honed from years of pulling apart and crawling into junked ships, repairing and reselling on components for profit.

At 19, she had saved enough to purchase a shitty little rehashed transport ship from her Boss, and set out to start her own trade. They've kept in touch and are on friendly grounds. Still calls him Boss. Never actually learned his name, it didn’t matter.

Seifa spends years migrating between outer planets, building a reputation with her bartering and trade skills. Playing idiot traders like instruments, flirting her way into high profit deals, and starting bar fights. She doesn’t take part in them mind you, she’s a lady. She just starts them.

It’s an easy way to get a group of “eager investors” to weed out the lesser competition, and leave you able to playfully manipulate yourself into the good graces of someone who’s too horny and pumped up on the hormonal rush of the fight to realise that they are the mark.

Moves to the next planet once she's outstayed her welcome, but always makes more friends than enemies.

At 25, finds a terrified and not remotely intimidating girl in a Pandoran junkyard, who pulls a gun on her. Tyreen tries to mug her with a shitty SMG that's clearly out of ammo, has a jammed trigger, and gets laughed at in response. Gets called a weird, stupid kid. Gets interrogated about how she is too old to be on Pandora and still alive if this is how clueless she is, so what’s going on?

Ty breaks down into tears and begs to please, please get her some medicine. Her "Brother is so sick” and he's “all she has now”, and they've “no money, no supplies. It wasn’t meant to go like this, it shouldn’t have gone like this but they didn’t know what it would be like.." and in a rare moment of empathy likely routed in years of being around kids this stupid, and clueless, and dumb ... Seifa helps.

Traits: ✓ Positive x Negative:

✓ Confident, both in her appearance and knowledge.

Sei is a jack of all trades, master of none. Her range of knowledge is broad and useful, and her confidence stems both from her well maintained physical appearance, and general competency in most situations where she needs to be.

✓ Socially skilled, fast learner, adaptable.

She’s been learning on her feet as long as she can remember, and is highly socially skilled, though a lot of her “nice” interactions can be a veneer. She holds people at arms length without them realising she’s not being as open and friendly as she appears.

✓ Self sufficient, reliable, trustworthy.

An adult lifetime of needing to rely solely on herself has left her highly sufficient, and very dependable. Seifa is the kind of person you call when you need something done, and don’t need to ask questions about how she gets you your results. You’ll get what you need.. just don’t hassle her about how she achieved it. You’ll be told to piss off, very clearly.

✓ Excellent negotiator, skilled in controlling conversations and manipulating others from years of trading for a living.

Seifa has been learning how to argue, shift conversations towards her own goals, and turn competitors on each other since she was barely able to carry a wrench. She’s an excellent dealer, and can drop into one of her many characters instantly when they’d help shift a contract towards her gain. Floozy giggling newcomer? Got it. Clueless naive big spender? No problem. Trade baroness about to crush your knuckles? Game on.

It’s something the twin strays she rescues are very interested in learning from her.

✓ Naturally friendly, and deeply caring for those she bonds with.

Sei is generally easy to get on with, between her decent set of social skills and ability to quickly read people, she comes across as quite friendly and overall pleasant to most people. She’s very slow to become genuine around others or show her caring side, an understandable side effect of the kind of life she’s lived, but her close friends are very close, and see her as one for life.

✓ Lawful Neutral.

Morals are decent ( for a Pandoran) , and is always willing to help someone if it's not too much hassle or won’t put her out. Like the majority of people living on this rock however, she won’t put strangers before her own safety or wellbeing.

x Very vain.

Sei will sacrifice functionality for style in the Mechanicum without a second thought, and will become frustrated and snappy if unhappy with her appearance and forced into social situations. She’s had a lifetime of curating her looks and using them as a tool, and hates being seen “out of character”.

x Self focused.

She won’t risk harm physically or to her reputation for someone she has no stake in. Fact of life on Pandora is that people who do that don't tend to live very long, and she’s highly aware of that. Close friends and children are about it when it comes to who she’d take a risk for, and bandits slaughtering each other or ransacking towns is unlikely to be something she’d be very phased by. It’s not that she doesn’t care, she just doesn’t allow herself to.

x Irritable, easily brought to frustration or insulted. Holds grudges badly.

Seifa manages her collected and cool outer demeanor by pushing it over her emotional state. It’s a defense mechanism she’s learned from a lifetime of being in situations where emotion = weakness. Her high personal opinion of herself and pride in her skill means she takes to being insulted very easily. A subordinate who doesn’t show her respect won’t stay in her department long, and an equal who treats her like an underling? She will Never. Let. It. Go.

x Snappy and unpleasant when stressed or overworked, unable to handle emotion based arguments.

Seifa’s response to stress or frustration is to become overwhelmingly in control of the situation, and fiercely logical. Her social niceness evaporates and she defaults to the simple level of “Get this shit done NOW, and don’t question me” when it comes to dolling out required tasks. This is a bad thing to couple with arrogance. She is also completely incapable of arguing with someone who uses emotion instead of logic as their drive, and so while she is able to communicate with Troy very well even in heated times as they both default to logic, arguments between herself and Tyreen can become vicious, as neither is capable of expressing themselves in the other’s language when frustrated.

x Loyalty to close friends can overpower her better judgement in situations.

She’s completely aware of the hypocrisy of this weakness considering the front she likes to portray, being cold and unaffected by problems, but has never been able to stop herself from making this same mistake. Over and over.

x Noticeably arrogant, no respect for the chain of command.

Relying on her gut for survival through her life left her with an inflated sense of worth for her own opinion, and she finds it very hard to really convince herself that others may be the better option, or have more value than her own. This means she can also easily forget her place if she thinks a superior is in the wrong. Has earned her a stab to the abdomen and a broken wrist in the past. Both healed, both scarred. Her arrogance towards the twins, being that they are younger and far less experienced than her in general life, has caused multiple confrontation. She know’s it’s a problem, and she’s trying to get better. She really is.

Likes:

Money.

Personal freedoms.

Self reliance.

Feeling admired and appreciated.

Close companionships with friends who see her as an equal.

Her advice being heeded.

Growing plants.

Tinkering with smalltime tech and gadgets.

The safety of the COV meaning she can finally settle in one place.

Respect.

Being wanted, physically and emotionally.

Tenderness.

Gaming, watching movies, appreciating art.

Crafting jewelry from scrap

Having her gentle, caring nature be valued.

Men.

Dislikes:

Bullshit. Can't stand people who don't communicate logically.

Being spoken down to.

Her appearance being mocked or intelligence belittled.

Social sycophancy.

Being lied to, having her trust broken when she so rarely gives it.

Unfairness, aimed at her or those she feels protective over ( friends, underlings )

Pointless violence.

Risk taking.

Most things considered *edible* on Pandora.

Men. -

Asks are Open!

#borderlands 3 #bl3 #borderlands #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #my writing #my hcs #seifa #leech lord

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jonnyblackwrites · 4 years

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A Controversial, but Fair Essay on Gabbie Hanna’s Poetry That Doesn’t Completely Shit on Her Writing

So I just finished listening to her youtube video where she addresses this topic. When I first saw her poems, I could see what everyone was talking about: her poems are simple, full of puns that seem to masquerade as a function of “depth”, with simple, easy to understand language juxtaposed with themes of growing up and trauma. She says that her influences include Shel Silverstein, Bo Burnham and William Williams, including his famous poem This is Just to Say.

(prepare thyself reader, this is a quick 2k analysis. I’ve included GOOD poetry recs at the end!)

She goes on to say that what drew her to these poems was there charm- Shel Silverstein’s works were meant for children, and they are easy to interpret- and could be read from the perspective of both an adult and child. As a child reading Where the Sidewalk Ends, I enjoyed the illustrations and the rhyming nature of these poems. I’m sure Gabbie Hanna did as well. Hearing her talk about these inspirations and what she wanted to do with her own poems, it’s clear that she was aiming for each piece to harken back to the whimsy and innocence of childhood, while addressing more adult topics.

I think that Gabbie Hanna missed the mark. She admits that some of the poems in her book were rushed and this makes me question if and where she ever got any peer feedback from her pieces. I also wonder if Gabbie has ever taken any writing classes or poetry workshops, but I am doubtful. The big difference between This is Just to Say and, lets say, her poem Chivalry is clear. Here is This is Just to Say:

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold.

So much has already been said about this poem. But the biggest thing to take away here, is that Williams clearly put thought into syntax, imagery, rhythm and rhyme. You will notice that this piece doesn’t exactly rhyme, but it slant rhymes. Rhyming has become less of a marker for poetry recently, mostly because I think it makes people think of nursery rhymes or songs and traditional, older forms of poetry, and some poets don’t want that connotation. This may surprise some, but poetry is an ever evolving art form; poets are always playing with experimentation in their work. Here, imagery and the five senses make This is Just to Say great. Up until the last stanza, we don’t really get anything that makes us feel a physical sensation until we get to “so sweet/ and so cold”. This is where the impact of the poem lies. This is the climax of this poem. Every word before it is intentionally abstract, while sweet and cold are in comparison, concrete images and sensual images. This is why we can almost taste the plums the author is talking about at the end of the poem.

Let’s look at a poem I picked at random from Gabbie Hanna’s book, CHIVALRY:

I’m not some no-brained bimbo

and i’m not some helpless girl

i am fucking remarkable

and i deserve the world.

i don’t need you to open my door,

but the gesture would be nice.

i don’t need you to buy my meal;

the offer would suffice.

i don’t need to be taken care of,

but it’d be cool to know you care.

i’m a holographic charizard

highly desired and rare.

yo, i even drop pokemon references

‘cause i’m fuckin dope as shit.

i’m good with just me, i don’t need you

not even a tiny bit.

Let me address what I like about this poem first. Gabbie knows what she wants to do- she utilizes rhyming and repetition to make this an easy flowing read. She knows that a lower-case “i” shows that despite what she may be claiming in the poem “i don’t need you/ not even a tiny bit”, the narrator does not think highly of themselves— perhaps the narrator desperately needs the “you” addressed, but is not confidant enough to ask for their friendship/ relationship. The narrator is contradicting themselves, showing a low self-esteem, and maybe crying for help. This juxtaposed with the fun rhyming tone of the piece and the mention of pokémon succesfully gets this point across.

However, this poem seems to focus on utilizing these elements of craft only. Gabbie could enhance the reader experience by adding more concrete imagery: why type of meal? How helpless of a girl? These are instances where Gabbie could help the reader connect to the speaker, and she doesn’t do so. We could also argue that she’s emulating This is Just to Say by only including one concrete and colorful image, but I will address this further down.

Additionally, this narrator could be anyone. I could imagine anybody saying this, of any gender. Perhaps Gabbie did this intentionally- the more vague a narrator is, the more it could apply to anyone— the average teen/adult could connect to this poem. However, this gives the poem a generic quality. Perhaps others would like to connect to this narrator more, and get a better sense of who the narrator is. Also let me address why I keep using “narrator” instead of “Gabbie”. It’s a force of habit for me (that I got from poetry courses in college) to assume that the narrator of the poem and the author of the poem may not always be the same person. I think in this situation, these poems are undoubtedly from Gabbi’s perspective, but to remain neutral just in case, I will continue to use “narrator”.

Something I’d also like to address is the matter of rhyming in the current poetry world. Many journals have gone so far as to say “we do not accept rhyming poems” in their submission guidelines. Not all, but some. People who just start out writing poetry believe that poems must rhyme to be considered poetry at all, but when you take your first poetry class in high school or college, you quickly realize that this is not the case. Here, Gabbie uses a simple end rhyme scheme to evoke poetry like Silverstein and childhood memories of reading poetry, nursery rhymes, etc. But I think to those who have been reading poetry for a long time, teaching it, or reading submissions for their journal, the mark of a novice poet is that everything rhymes, sometimes at the sake of using a better word in its place that doesn’t rhyme. I think rhyme has its place in poetry, but it can be overused. Since most of Gabbie Hanna’s poems do rhyme, it’s easy to see someone getting “rhyme fatigue” while reading. Another negative effect of rhyming is that the reader will begin to anticipate the rhyme- this can cause the reader to skip lines entirely, and focus solely on the rhyme scheme, rather than focusing on the meaning of the poem. A piece that harkens back to childhood and uses rhyme well, in my opinion, is This Be the Verse by Phillip Larkin:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

I think the big difference between this and Gabbie Hanna’s poem is that it starts off strong right away with “They fuck you up, your mum and dad”. The condescending tone is always there right from the start, and the rhyming is more of a surprise than an expectation throughout- the line “it deepens like a coastal shelf” brings new imagery and meaning to the poem by veering off into another subject. This enhances the surprise.

I’d also like to address cliche’s. The cliche’s present in CHIVALRY are “I deserve the world” and “I don’t need you to open my door”. These are easy to understand from a readers point of view, but often, cliche’s offer nothing new and exciting to the reader. They are easy to skip over and ignore. These add to the poems generic atmosphere.

Let’s talk about the pieces title itself: CHIVALRY. When we read this poem with the title in context, we get a strange disconnect. The poem is clearly about a girl who says she doesn’t need chivalrous acts from a friend or partner, and doesn’t need someone because they are “good with just me”. But the subtext of the piece is less about chivalry and more about self-esteem or a willingness to be loved. The piece has changed meaning two thirds of the way down. I think the title is too obvious and misleading, and gives the reader the wrong idea about what the poem is trying to say. In essence, the piece is named after a facet of the relationship between the narrator and other person, rather than the root of what the poem is trying to convey.

The pokémon references add color to this piece, and it is the only place this piece has any kind of concrete imagery. In the This is Just to Say the sweet and cold plum imagery is the very last line, heightening them. In CHIVALRY, they’re near the middle of the piece. Thus, the longer ending reduces the color and lasting effect of “holographic charizard”.

Overall, I think Gabbie Hanna could benefit from workshopping her poems and getting peer feedback from other poets, in addition to reading poetry that isn’t thirty plus years old. I don’t know if she already does this, but judging from her poems, I can only assume that she hasn’t. At the very least, she should avoid rushing to get poems out before they are due.

Gabbie Hanna is a novice poet who put her poems out into the world and got a greater amount of backlash than any novice poet usually does in a workshop or classroom setting. When in the classroom, there is such a thing as Critique Etiquette. Critique for poems are give honestly and gently, never in a harsh or mean way. Fellow poets point out possible interpretations of work, or possible unwanted connotations of sometimes, even a simple word at the end of the line. In addition, poets in the classroom are exposed to modern poets that are creating new and exciting work that is often published in highly esteemed magazines- reading the best of todays poetry. Gabbi Hanna’s work seemingly got published without peer review, and the quality of it was clear to those who read it. That being said, I do think that people who read and love Gabbie Hanna’s work do connect with it— no doubt because these poems are designed to be as generic as possible, so that others may see themselves in the words.This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I believe her work appeals best to newcomers to poetry, people who maybe have only ever read works from Shel Silverstein or Edgar Allen Poe. This can be a blessing and a shame. There are many good poets out there, that aren’t getting published because they don’t have youtube channels or brand collaborations, and they are just plain hard to find. However, Gabbie Hanna has opened the door for many would-be poetry readers, and has sparked a love for the art of poetry in them. Hopefully, this love leads them to become wider read, and to seek out more poetry from a multiple of authors to read.

I decided that I’d also like to include some published poetry from poets that are from a range of different backgrounds. Go forth and read!

POETRY THAT DOESN'T SUCK: Sonya Vatomsky's Salt is for Curing- poems by a non-binary poet that focus on themes of femininity, Russian food, Russian folklore and identity. Review Purchase

Danez Smith- A black, queer, non-binary and HIV positive writer. A poem I really like of theirs is "Dinosaurs in the Hood" is a great poem that I personally love.

Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric. This book contains poems that focus on the Black experience in America. Excerpt from the book here

Khadijah Queen's I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men and What I Had On. This collection features conversational poems that focus on the narrators encounters with famous men in relation to what the narrator was wearing at the time. A piece that centers around the question "Well, what were you wearing?". Read two poems from the book Here.

Fatimah Ashgar's IF THEY COME FOR US. Poems by a Pakistani-Kashmiri-American. These poems focus on race and identity. One of my favorites takes the form of a bingo card, titled Microagression Bingo (read here and two other poems from the book). As a poc myself, I was nodding along to every line, thinking "Yup. I've been through that too."

Tommy Pico is an indiginous poet, and Junk is a book length poem of couplets that uses modern, fast, text style language. From the Tin House website: "The third book in Tommy Pico’s Teebs trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a boyfriend, what can you grab onto for orientation?" Read an excerpt Here.

I can assure you that none of these read like Rupi Kaur, Gabbie Hanna, or Atticus. These are serious poets that have spent years honing their form, submitting to journals-- they did the work. And it shows in the quality of their writing.

While I'm not a fan of Atticus and Rupi Kaur and Gabbie Hanna, I can appreciate that they've appealed to people who may have never read a poem before. Now those people have a newfound love for poetry, and a hunger for more. Hopefully, those people will seek out other poets and expand their knowledge and repertoire of current poets, maybe lesser known poets that do amazing work.

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rejectclone · 4 years

Text

I’ve been meaning to update the mini bios for my OCs, it took me some time to try to condense their core aspects and backstory stuff into smaller paragraphs but I’m finally done!

NAME: Jared Clements

AGE: 28

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Bisexual

RACE: White (is of Hispanic descent)

OCCUPATION: Detective/Deputy

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good

SHORT BIO: Who was once one of the greatest detectives in Neo York City’s police branches, now a shattered former shell of himself after the Incident. Physically and emotionally mauled from the explosion that killed his partners and his reputation, he now ruminates at the station, plotting for his revenge against the criminal organization that led to his fall. Formerly known to be the most kind and upbeat member of the station, he has become cold and callous to everyone, but the new recruit might pull him from his self-imposed darkness.....

NAME: Devon Cox

AGE: 25

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Straight

RACE: ‘White’/Ambiguous (HEAVILY mixed, but he identifies mostly with being Italian)

OCCUPATION: Trainee Officer, former illegal bloodsport boxer

ALIGNMENT: Neutral Good

SHORT BIO: The bastard son of a seedy bookie and a mother who clearly did not take good care of herself, along with being the only mute member of his family, he was deemed a unwanted child. Eventually, his parent’s actions caught up to them one night out, and as they were slaughtered, their son was left alone at home. Soon adopted by his uncle on his father’s side, he was essentially forced to ‘repay the debt’ by becoming a bloodsport fighter, regardless if he wanted to do it or not. As a adult, the illegal ring has fallen due to on-going corruption, he is now again left alone as his corrupt uncle got hauled off to prison. Left to his own devices and lamenting his actions, he now wants to pave his own path by repaying his own debts by joining the NYPD. Unknown to his new coworkers, he has spilled blood numerous times and won’t hesitate to do what must be done in some situations.....

NAME: B055 M4N

AGE: 24 in 4027 (BEFORE DEATH) 80 in 4083 (POST RESURRECTION)

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Straight

RACE: White

OCCUPATION: Lieutenant

ALIGNMENT: Lawful Neutral

SHORT BIO: He was supposed to be the next gleaming star in the NYPD’s legacy of lieutenants, all from the same bloodline spanning across decades...... until he was assassinated at his induction ceremony in front of the general public. Ironically, his fate was not sealed there, as a week before his induction, he was coaxed into signing up for a ‘organ donation program’, to a incredibly specific experimental medicine company. He never expected his corpse to be used in a unethical program to create a supercomputer, devised of a human consciousness instead of a AI, to ensure that it will have a good stance on logical proceedings of organization and the law, and will not suffer from conflicts of interest. Unfortunately for him, the total conversion to a machine was semi-successful, as they could only resurrect his head...... Now doomed to be a severed head in a jar filled with PFC and the inability to speak (well, at least without using text-to-speech), he has been forcibly instated to be the permanent boss of the station. His true appearance is a facade to essentially everyone, as the ‘higher-ups’ creates false non-existent lieutenants to be instated every few years to keep the act going, except a very select few know of his current situation.

NAME: Lydia Hall

AGE: 25

GENDER: Female

SEXUALITY: Lesbian

RACE: White

OCCUPATION: Psychiatrist, uses ‘personal nurse’ as a cover

ALIGNMENT: True Neutral

BIO: She is considered to be one of the ‘greatest’ newer psychiatrists to ever grace the continental US, but nobody expected her to suddenly disappear off the face of the earth, upon getting a ‘promotion’ one day. Unknown to almost everyone, she was coerced into the psychological monitoring of one of the company’s most experimental projects, the undead severed head turned database at the local NYPD station. His previous care taker had to be laid off due to ‘concerns’, and thus she now must monitor him on a near daily basis, cleaning out his tank, making sure he is still sane, and to just stay there to entertain him basically. She never expected her career to be basically reduced to a personal nurse, and yet here she is. Unfortunately for her, the true nightmare unfolds when a certain hazmat wearing being stumbles into the picture.

NAME: Lawrence Grey

AGE: 47

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Straight

RACE: White

OCCUPATION: Geneticist

ALIGNMENT: Neutral Evil

BIO: A famed scientist who has been working for ages for a experimental medicine company. He was renown for his research in advancing certain projects, some more well received than others however. A overall stoic man, his coworkers reluctantly follow his command, never fully knowing what he thinks of them. Dedicated to his work, the higher-ups gave him access to a incredibly hidden cloning program, regardless if he wanted to work there or not. Not wanting to bond to his ‘projects’, he continued his intimidating aura, until one of them in particular piqued his interest. It would have been better if the clone never showed any promise however, as the impeding transport to another lab will lead to his escape, and his ‘father’s’ coma.....

NAME: [REDACTED]

AGE: [REDACTED]

GENDER: [REDACTED]

SEXUALITY: [REDACTED]

RACE: [REDACTED]

OCCUPATION: [REDACTED]

ALIGNMENT: [REDACTED]

BIO: ……………… he wasn’t meant for this world. The forced byproduct of a illegal cloning procedure, made to be a rejected failure on purpose. As for why? The higher-ups of the organization believed that the more malformed and sickly the clones are, the higher the chance they might carry new genes that can cure said sicknesses. The #439th clone to be made, he seemed to be another waste of flesh and blood. If it wasn’t for his ‘caretaker’, he would’ve been euthanized after a month. Desperate to ‘spare’ this subject, the caretaker demanded him to be transferred to another laboratory base, as rumors began to spread that the project has been leaked to shareholders. That fateful night, he was given a technologically advanced hazmat suit to conceal his inhuman appearance, and was shipped off to his new ‘home’. Alas, as fate would have it, the hovervan he was in along with his ‘father’, crashed, leaving him to wonder aimlessly in the pouring rain, hiding in a alleyway until he was spotted by two odd looking officers, trying to close-off the crash site. He was taken in to the station, where somebody claimed it was his ‘son’. Taken up to the lieutenant’s office, much to the confusion of many, this clone will blend into daily happenings of the station.

NAME: Ren Nakamura

AGE: 22

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Robosexual

RACE: Japanese

OCCUPATION: Future heir to the head of a crime syndicate, doubles as a criminal lawyer as a cover

ALIGNMENT: Lawful Neutral/Evil

BIO: The next in line to his family’s criminal syndicate legacy, he is reluctant at first, but must come to terms to what he must do. Raised up to be cold and unrelenting towards his underlings and other syndicate bosses, he will never back down from a fight, always striving to be on top. However, nobody really expected him to come up with a plan to undermine other syndicates, by actually studying criminal law and becoming a legitimate defense attorney in order to coax his clients into exposing future plans (in which he will immediately inform his father of...). Recently he was assigned a personal body guard, who has a ‘unique’ physical composition and will surely make a great hitman. The two of them go along quite well, considering their popular opposites in personality.

NAME: Deangelo Moore

AGE: 25

GENDER: MALE

SEXUALITY: Gay

RACE: German-American

OCCUPATION: Cybernetic hitman, uses ‘criminal lawyer’ as a cover

ALIGNMENT: Lawful Evil

SHORT BIO: Neither fully man nor machine, this once respected art dealer has gone fully into the seedy underbelly of Neo York. As a escapee convict test subject from a experimental ‘liquid metal’ cyborg program, he is a con man on the run, until as fate would have it, he was accepted as a personal ‘body guard’ for one of his former clients’s son. With no real home to go to anymore as his public reputation has been disgraced, he now gleefully takes in stride that he is a ‘ghost’ among the populous, a potentially unstoppable killing machine who is only curbed by his greed and urge to be respected by other powerful beings. His former life now gone, he now works for his employer as if they were blood relatives, and even agreed to do a surreal operation, to directly siphon information from other rival ‘organizations’ by acting.........as public criminal lawyers who defend them..........

NAME: ‘John’ (he was never properly named by any of the scientists, so he named himself. His ACTUAL name is Specimen - 1257)

AGE: 21

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Straight, but questioning

RACE: Literally nothing

OCCUPATION: Chemist, radiobiologist

ALIGNMENT: True Neutral

BIO: After two nuclear wars ravaged the Earth, odd things will happen to all sorts of life. This is one of them, a human who has the unfortunate pleasure of having their physical composition be mainly nuclear radiation. Much about his early past is kept under wraps by the US government, who sent him away as a infant to a remote chemical research base in Alaska, in fear of him being the next nuclear detonation. Left without proper social interaction and is just seen as a genetic anomaly, it left him with a warped view of life. With incredibly poor socialization skills but a surprisingly large scientific intellect, he has been reduced to hidden-away lab worker, who’s aware of essentially being a captive but is shocking content with it. After all, if he were to be released, the genral public wouldn’t take too kindly to a mannequin-like being with stark white skin and exposed green goo leaking out of his facial orifices, with a near constant glowing aura.

NAME: ‘Mark’ (he was never properly named, and this is just a name given to him by ‘John’. His ACTUAL name is Specimen 1258)

AGE: 21

GENDER: Male

SEXUALITY: Literally doesn’t care at all

RACE: Literally Nothing

OCCUPATION: Convict, former hitman

ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil

BIO: What’s more strange than one severely irradiated human being with physical nuclear radiation as flesh and blood? His red colored doppelgänger. With a past even more shrouded in mystery, this ‘man’ seems to originate from the wastes, the former parts of the US that were scarred from the previous two wars. Claiming to be the next step in human evolution, he is incredibly cruel and harsh, and when introducing himself to the criminal underworld as the ‘best’ hitman, he was severely feared by many. Even other rival hitmen who genetically or cybernetically augmented themselves saw him as a legitimate threat to themselves, as after all, he’s a actual living biohazard. They all chipped in together to pin him against who they believe is true my IMMUNE to him, another ungodly hitman with a liquid metal composition. The plan worked, as letting him just step foot into NYC triggered radiation alarms, thus exposing him to the government for the very first time. After a short stint at a supermax prison, he was given a deal: stop irradiating the guards and convicts, and we’ll move you to a more private place where you can do basically almost anything you want. The place in question? A remote research base in Alaska.....

#also I’m now making sideblog for all of this stuff now!!#my ocs #jared clements #devon cox #B055 M4N #lydia hall #lawrence grey #[REDACTED]#ren nakamura #deangelo moore #‘john’#‘mark’#vinyl scratching

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sleepingfancies · 5 years

Note

please go off abt detective loki,,, im curious to hear what u have to say abt him!!! 💖

*SLAMS CHAIR DOWN*

SO. YOU WANT ME TO GO OFF ABOUT LOKI.

Praying for you that this read more link works bc otherwise this is gonna be a Cursed Post to all my poor followers. Shit gets long. I have A Lot to say akdjfshfk

Thanks to the investigative skills of the amazing and wonderful @deputyrook (ily), I recently learned that Detective Loki’s backstory included such things as: serving time in juvie, he was formerly religious, and he also possibly suffered from some kind of drug addiction he’s now clean from. It was briefly mentioned in the movie that he spent 6 years in a boys’ home (a rather rough one, by the way Loki talked about it). Boys’ homes are, by definition, “residential sectors where boys are provided food and care when they cannot be adequately cared for by their families, either due to a family crises or the child’s own behavioral issues.”

What this tells me is that:

A) Loki most likely had some heavy childhood trauma that drove him into being a “bad kid” (not that such a thing actually exists, imo, but that’s another essay for another day). It probably took well over a decade to get himself stabilized.

B ) Loki of present day has no family, no personal connections, no friends, absolutely nothing to call his own except the clothes on his back, his car, and... maybe a place to live? I assume he has one somewhere, but we never see him there - he’s constantly either prowling around town or at the station.

C) Loki’s occult tattoos, and his general distaste for anything religious, probably come from an internal place of feeling like some higher power abandoned him along the way. I have no doubt he carefully selected each one to have some personal meaning, but ultimately they all tie back to distancing himself from Christianity (double that if he was religious as a child, or came from a religious family). This also makes me wonder if his last name was something else, and that he changed it to “Loki” upon getting himself back on his feet.

D) Heading off of the boys’ home note; boys’ homes, like most other institutions in the US, legally can’t force residents to stay once they turn 18. Assuming his time there ended at 6 years because he aged out and went off on his own, well, for one that means he was admitted when he was 12 years old. Which is... wow. For two, that means his behavior was never necessarily resolved. Which, given how Jake plays Loki, I’m inclined to believe (I’ll touch on that later).

All of this leads me to some interesting observations during the movie.

For one, Loki is amazing at staying the “adult in the room” in the face of belligerence (e.g. Keller Dover losing his shit in Loki’s car). I know personally, it is almost physically impossible for me not to get my back up when someone else decides they want to take some aggressive tone with me - and I am about as far as one can get from a “troubled kid.” So I have to wonder how many years and how much abuse Loki endured to be able to choose not to respond to people antagonizing him? I have a hard time believing it was just police training that got him to this place of neutrality. And it seems to me like he’s making a genuine effort to stay calm, and to calm the people around him (”please just let me do my job”).

Which leads me into something Mrs. Dover said. “They say you’ve solved every case you’ve ever had, is that true?” And to be fair, I assume Loki’s silence there is supposed to imply that that isn’t true, but it implies so much beyond that. It implies he puts 100% effort into his cases, that he barely sleeps when he knows there’s a chance he can put dangerous people behind bars and save innocent lives. It also implies he feels deeply about the cases he hasn’t solved, or the ones where he got the perpetrator put away but the victims didn’t make it out alive. He carries that with him, constantly.

We see more of this when Keller recognizes his daughter’s bloody sock. His immediate response is to blame Loki. “This is your fault. You didn’t try hard enough. You did this to my daughter.” And Loki says nothing, he doesn’t make any different expression - but his eyes twitch. Jake Gyllenhaal remarked that this was a physical tic he improvised for Loki, one that served as Loki’s channel for intense emotions and/or becoming overstimulated with thoughts and information. Rather than actually emote, his eyes twitch. There is nothing newly informative or particularly overstimulating about the bloody sock scene, which leaves only intense emotion to be the cause of that twitch. And given Loki’s panic when he was searching Bob’s house and boxes for Anna and Joy, I doubt it’s anger. I’m willing to bet it’s that Loki already feels that way. He’s blaming himself. Keller just spoke Loki’s own feelings into existence.

I’ll circle back to that in a minute, because I think Loki making his cases so personal is very telling of his character.

Now, to go back and touch on why I think it’s most likely Loki aged out of the boys’ home rather than graduated - Loki has adapted with his behavior, he hasn’t resolved it at all. It does not seem to me at all like Loki has therapeutic strategies, especially considering I’m 99% sure any therapist or behavior counselor would not encourage bottling up your emotions and disconnecting yourself from human contact. Loki made these steps on his own. He learned to redirect his anger to people who deserved it by becoming part of law enforcement. He decided that he was safer closed off and unavailable to intense emotions. He might’ve even decided other people were safer stuck on the other side of his walls.

There are a whole of two times Loki clearly loses his temper - when Bob keeps drawing mazes rather than giving him a straight answer, and when Bob kills himself and Loki realizes he just lost his best lead. While these are both reasonable things to get worked up about, he reacts so intensely and so personally to them that (circling back to my earlier point) it tells me, deep down, there is an incredibly soft and vulnerable heart in there that’s been locked up for decades.

Loki didn’t want Bob to kill himself. He didn’t mean for things to escalate that far. You can hear it in his voice, he’s genuinely shaken and upset by what just happened. In the following scene when he basically destroys his desk, that is directed at no one and nothing but himself. He’s so angry at himself - for not understanding Bob’s maze, for getting Bob killed, for having to tell the Dovers their one suspect is gone, for feeling helpless when it comes to finding the girls. Loki doesn’t deal well with other people’s failure, but he doesn’t even accept his own.

And I mean - do I even need to mention when he finds Anna? The man is bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in his head, he’s half unconscious, he’s a long way from the hospital, but he doesn’t even think about any of that. He makes it his one singular goal to get her to the emergency room even if he dies trying. And the way he talked to her? “Stay with me Anna, don’t die, just hold on.” I know on the surface it’s obviously just a tactic to keep her (and himself, let’s be honest) awake. But it was so deeply feeling, so honest, so raw, so panicked?

I don’t know, man. I’ve said things to other people before that I wished someone had said to me, and that’s what those lines sounded like to me. Which, if he had been a drug addict at one point, and if he overdosed but no one was there for him? The puzzle pieces fit.

And then to have people visit him in the hospital? To have someone call him a hero? He has no idea how to react to that, because I’m guessing neither of those things have ever happened to him before. And he isn’t really sure what to say to someone being so overwhelmingly grateful for and to him. So he doesn’t really say anything. His eyes just twitch. We can fill in the blanks.

The man has a soft heart, a vulnerability that he refuses to let anyone see, but it’s there. He’s just as scared and angry and confused as Keller 90% of the time. He just hides it better.

Which, ultimately all of this leads me to the conclusion that - for as far as Loki’s distanced himself from religion, as clean as he is now, as stable as he is, as well as he’s channeled his anger, as guarded as he keeps himself - this entire job, to him, is a chance at redemption.

Loki doesn’t think he’s deserving of love. He doesn’t believe he’s capable of having the kind of stability the Dovers are so familiar with. He doesn’t think he can just slide into a friend group after all these years. He doesn’t regard his own life highly. But the ability to save other people’s lives and keep dangerous people locked away - that’s his apology to the world. Of course he cares about these cases because he’s a good man, but it’s more than that. It’s that he believes this is the only way he cant repent for not always being a good man.

Which leads me to his first name. I’ve rambled about the symbolism of his name to @deputyrook before, but David. David. Given all of the Biblical symbolism in this movie, personally my mind immediately leaps to David and Goliath.

David - detective Loki and his desire to be a good man - is in a constant war against Goliath - Loki’s own trauma and troubled past. And there really isn’t a way to have one without the other, which makes Loki’s character so tragic. He isn’t ever going to heal, not completely, not when his entire career is him trying to apologize over and over again. He solves almost all the cases he’s given because he won’t, can’t, accept more failure.

Loki’s last line in the movie is “pray for the best, prepare for the worst.” For being a character so deeply centered in anti-religion, that’s an odd line to make his last. Combine that with how strange it is that he wouldn’t also change his first name, if he changed his last name to distance himself from religion. His name, and that last line, might just be symbolic of the few shreds of hope he has for himself. Hope that maybe he can have what the Dovers have, the hope that maybe one day when he’s gone he’ll be remembered by somebody and for something good.

Because that’s really all he wants, all he can hope, for himself. Since he doesn’t think he’ll ever have human connection, or love, or a family - as much as he would like to have those - he’ll settle for being just a little more than somebody’s bad memory, or being a little more than some name on a headstone.

#anon you are the kindest person i've ever known for indulging me about this #sksksksk #detective loki #it's my fucking boyfriend!!#anonymous #answered #i am VERY soft about this man #because he feels *so much* but he'll never let anyone know that #deep down he's just some 12 year old angry kid who never got what he needed #so he's settled for never getting it #UGH i'm soft #tw drug mention #tw suicide #tw suicide mention #long post #longpost #Anonymous

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mariemariemaria · 4 years

Note

I hope this doesn't come off as rude but what news sources do you trust for news? Here in the US the BBC is considered a good source but it's become clear to me that it's heavily biased.

This is such an interesting question. I get my news from a lot of different places. Channel 4 news is a popular one hour long news show in the UK which is fairly unbiased as far as I can make out, and it often covers stories that other news sources wouldn't. BBC news is very big here in the UK as well, but I do not trust it to be impartial. There have just been too many incidents when they've edited footage in a particular way to show Boris Johnson in a favourable light. I tried to make excuses for the BBC, because I didn't want to be one of those people who criticies supposedly 'neutral' news sources, but it's gone on long enough and needs to be called out.

As for newspapers, of course they are going to have bias and a particular agenda. The Sun/The Telegraph/The Daily Mail are all right wing nationalistic newspapers in the UK, and I will never trust them to give me news (even today, their headlines have all been about how Corbyn doesn't watch the Queen's speech, which is not the most important issue in this election). The Belfast Telegraph is the Northern Irish edition, and it is very biased in favour of unionism and almost always has a section written by some right wing bigot whose biggest concern in life is the growing popularity of the Irish Language. But then again there are papers like the Irish Times/Irish News which would be favourable towards Irish nationalism.

The Guardian is another popular paper in the UK, which a liberal/centre-left bias. It's online articles aren't stuck behind a paywall, but the paper itself is v expensive and so it has a mainly middle/upper middle class readership. Idk whether I'd trust it or not. Probably, but not all that much. Just today I bought an edition of 'The I' because it was cheap af. Haven't read a great deal of it yet, but it seems alright.

Sorry if this comes across as really rambling and long. I'm on mobile rn and answering your q was a form of procrastination from writing essays. And I'm also sorry that this is such a Brit-centric response, but I hope you understand why. We don't get American news media over here, but I have heard the horror stories about Fox News. Overall it's a tricky question to answer, especially at the moment. I suppose people believe what they want to believe, and I am no different. It should be fairly obvious to most adults that newspapers will have a particular bias, and that some political commentator's opinion may not necessarily be the whole truth. What is really insidious is when TV news is unashamedly biased in favour of one side over the other. I think it's different in the US, but in the UK we have rules governing how the news should be reported on TV and radio here.

(Speaking of radio, I do actually trust BBC Ulster when it comes to news. But that has quite a small audience I'd imagine.)

Edit: ok I've only just seen your whole question. Before I'd only seen "what news sources do you trust" (thanks tumblr!). All the crap about newspapers is probs v irrelevant to your question but I'm gonna keep it in anyway. But yeah overall as someone who has lived in the UK all her life, I do not trust the BBC to give me impartial news. Even Sky News, which is generally considered to have a right wing bias, is more trustworthy than the BBC imo. The only news source I really fully trust is Channel 4 news.

#also im sorry if this doesn't make sense ill probably read it back an hour from now and cringe #and idk what your intensions were w this question or what post of mine caused you to ask it but it was interesting to think about #also ANOTHER thing about the bbc is that they just seem really off when talking about the troubles #idk what it is it might just be british ppl being british but i do not trust them ti report the whome truth regarding what happened #during the troubles #ask #don't rb #british politics #politics

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john-cardoza · 5 years

Text

okay I have uh feelings that need to be expressed right now. no facts we die like idiot who don’t do any actual research. Have a super long post of mostly positivity except when I went off about the tony awards and that one show

So the prom is closing on broadway.

I really probably should have seen this coming, but whatever I’m a dumbass and I didn’t. When the show first opened I was like shit it’s probably going to close after like a month and will get no publicity and I’ll be sad and alone in this permanently tiny fandom, but then thanksgiving happened! and numerous performances! and a book was announced! and a movie! (both of which i have mixed feeling about) and I was like hey this show is gaining publicity, and it might actually stay open and I might even get to see it someday. Sadly enough those dreams have kinda been crushed, I really don’t think I can make it to new york with only 2 months warning and the only way I’ll ever see this show is through shitty bootlegs. But we have so many things to be proud about!! and I want to talk about them!!

The tony awards- the prom was nominated for 7 tonys! which in comparison to some shows isn’t a lot, but to others its a bunch. Also the prom stayed open through the worst part of the broadway season! (like between christmas and summer) and the show survived through and past the tony awards! some shows that open in april can’t even do that. They performed at the tonys!! Do I wish the prom had actually won some of those awards? absolutely. But like I am personally very glad that hadestown did so well and I am not going to say that hadestown didn’t deserve any of their awards because they did, it’s an amazing show and I want it to do well. On the other hand I’ve tried to not spread negativity towards any show because that isn’t what this blog is about, but emotions are feeling a but high now and it doesn’t seem worth it to stay neutral towards an awful show. So like fuck t*otsie. t*osie does not deserve to be respected by a community that has a high number of trans individuals. the show should not have won best book and it definitely should not have won best leading actor. The award should have gone to either beetlejuice or it would’ve been cool if brooks won. The idea that that show is going to stay open while the prom closes is so horrible and I can’t really believe it. I also do believe that caitlin kinnunen should have won best leading actress. She is doing justice to such a hard part, she is portraying heartbreak and the hopelessness wonderfully while not bringing down a lighthearted show. She’s also young and is doing an amazing job with less experience than a lot of other actors who have gotten recognition.

But here’s the thing, let's say that of the 7 awards the prom was nominated for the won half. I'll be generous and say that was four tony awards. That still isnt a lot. And let’s say none of those awards were best musical. true any tony awards are better than zero! but that wouldn’t have made any difference. I think that even if the prom won a couple of awards the show would still be closing. Sure maybe if they won all seven they would be staying open longer, but how long would that really be? I don’t think we can place all the blame of the prom closing on the tony awards. The show is inclusive! it is a show that is primarily geared towards teens and young adults! (I’m not saying adults can’t like the show just from a marketing perspective) the main thing they have been advertising is a cute lesbian love story! These are all great things to see in media and it’s why I love the show, but it’s also something that doesn’t do well with the primary broadway audience (old white people who have money). the thing to blame isn’t the tony awards! its the bias people have unconscious and conscious! (I know thats so much better)

representation in media!- The prom was the first show to show a lesbian (and maybe same-sex? I don’t remember) kiss at the macys thanksgiving parade which is a huge thing to be proud of!! so many kids saw that and it might help them understand themselves better in the future which is so so important! Also the prom performed the same song with the kiss in other places! They threw in a kiss at the end of you happened when they performed it! All of that is such positive representation of a cute lesbian high school couple being in love!! The prom performed tonight belongs to you and the end of its time to dance at the tonys! which again is national television!!

caitlin kinnunen- Caitlin kinnunen likes girls! she was dating a girl! and she’s playing a lesbian on broadway! what an icon! Shecame out at an interview and said that she was dating a woman a couple of months after the show opened! If I remember correctly she also said that one thing that gave her the courage to do so was playing emma nolan every night! which is cool! She is also super open about her mental health issues (anyone follow her on instagram) and about her disabilities(she wore her medical bracelet at the tony performance) which is so cool! as a confused teenager struggling with anxiety, to see that you can have mental health issues and still be on broadway is so inspiring! I don’t even want to be an actress and it’s still super inspiring!

original cast recording- We got a soundtrack!! I can now listen to lesbian duets on my phone randomly! thats important! that means that the show can still reach people when its closed! they might see the cd on a shelf and be like hey that sounds interesting. More people can discover this show even by total accident!!

izzy mccalla- of the two main lesbian in the show one is not white! thats also super awesome! also izzy seems like a super sweet person and I’m so glad that she got to make her leading(ish) broadway debut with this show(I think??). also shes a great dancer and actor and singer! I love her!

uh honestly all of the older actor/characters are fantastic. I mean I’m mostly here for the lesbian love story but like beth leavel! brooks ashmanskas! michael potts! christopher sieber! angie shworer! they’re all great! I think a couple of them are also gay! which once again: is cool!

love thy neighbor- sorry I need to mention this it’s a song about the discrimination pushed by super religious people because of their religion! and it talks about how they really shouldn’t do that! also the whole back and forth of: don’t you feel even slightly bad for emma? you guys used to hang out / that was before she turned gay! / well maybe she was always gay. Yeah I love that its great!

Okay my final note is- when I first discovered this show it was like over a year (or maybe even two?) ago, there were like ten people in the fandom, I wasn’t even on tumblr, and this was way before anything had been announced for the broadway run. I followed the prom on instagram and I got so! happy! when the account started becoming active again because they were preparing to open on broadway. This show has helped me along the complicated road of discovering my sexuality and discovering who I am. I know that when this show leaves broadway there will still be a fandom, there will still be people who love the show, and I am so so thankful for that.

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aglaecan · 5 years

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𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑺𝑯𝑬𝑬𝑻

repost, don’t reblog !

𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

FULL NAME. Margaux Amaranthe Amell-Hawke PRONUNCIATION. Mar-GO NICKNAME. Mar to those very close to her or family; Hawke to everyone else; That Pain in the Ass to some. GENDER. Cis woman. HEIGHT. 5′3″ AGE. 25-35, verse dependent. ZODIAC. Aquarius. SPOKEN LANGUAGES. DA Verses: Common, Orlesian, a few Rivaini cursewords picked up from Isabela, a few Tevene cursewords picked up from Fenris, a few Dalish greetings from Merrill. Modern Verses: English, French, some Spanish and Italian cursewords, a wee bit of Irish Gaelic

𝐩𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 !

HAIR COLOR. Black. EYE COLOR. Hazel – rings of green and golden-brown. SKIN TONE. Tanned, olive undertone. BODY TYPE. Very lean and small-bodied, but wiry with muscle. ACCENT. Situationally dependent; can alternate between “high” and “low” accents easily (which accents depend on verse) but the default, when she’s not affecting an accent not her natural one, is more of a “low” or rural-sounding accent. VOICE. The VA’s voice is just how I hear her, shrugs? DOMINANT HAND. Right, but dual-wielding knives has given her a bit of ambidexterity. POSTURE. Confident, four-square, perhaps a bit stereotypically “masculine.” She doesn’t stand with a cocked hip or any sway to her arse; she’s quite upright, a bit broad in her stance, and always gives an overall impression of energetic readiness. SCARS. A few small ones on her cheek, temple, jaw; she doesn’t wear a helm even when she should, so things get through. Lots of small ones on her hands too, the legacy of learning to wield knives like she does, and from knives slipping when she’s carving little knick-knacks and toys and things. Larger ones on her lower torso, back, and arms – these will be verse dependent, as some of them might be gunshots in modern but arrows in DA, etc. TATTOOS. None in canon. In modern she might get the Amell family crest between her shoulder-blades after learning about that side of her heritage; and probably also a stooping hawk on one arm. BIRTHMARKS. None. MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S). Her big, expressive, almost doe-like eyes.

𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 !

PLACE OF BIRTH. In Canon: outside Amaranthine, Ferelden. In modern: outside Dublin, Ireland HOMETOWN. Canon: Lothering, and later Kirkwall. Modern: the hypothetical Irish village of Lothering, and later London BIRTH WEIGHT. Around 6 pounds. (?? Idk what’s normal I literally googled averages for this…) BIRTH HEIGHT. Around 19 inches. (See above…..) MANNER OF BIRTH. Natural. FIRST WORDS. “Da’,” probably. She was a real daddy’s girl. SIBLINGS. The twins, Bethany and Carver. In some AUs, she has a twin herself, Kaleb Hawke. PARENTS. Malcolm Hawke and Leandra Amell. PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. Both were very involved, but Malcolm did a little bit more of the active side of the parenting up until his death when she was still a young adult. He was a pragmatic man with a personality very similar to Hawke’s, and did a lot of teaching her the skills he himself had – wood-carving, working with his hands, etc. She can repair almost anything but she can barely sew a stitch straight because she was more interested in her father’s teachings than her mother’s. He also told stories and helped bandage all their little hurts, told jokes and made the children smile. Leandra, meanwhile, had gone from a privileged and wealthy upbringing to hand-to-mouth subsistence and the change made her tired and quite shrewish at times, quick to judge and lay blame instead of providing support or understanding. She insisted on a degree of book-learning beyond what young Hawke herself thought helpful to her life; but as an adult Hawke understands and is grateful to it.

𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 !

OCCUPATION. Canon: a mercenary-for-hire, basically, and jack-of-all-work. In modern: a private detective, but her techniques are not entirely legal and she’s not so different from canon, really. CURRENT RESIDENCE. Kirkwall or London. CLOSE FRIENDS. The absolute bestie is always Varric Tethras. Other friends include, of course: Fenris, Isabela, Sebastian Vael, Merrill, Anders, Thrask, Serendipity, Jethann. RELATIONSHIP STATUS. By game default, romanced Anders – but I’ve done playthroughs with Fenris and Sebastian as well, so far. In the course of RPing her, she’s pursued relationships with Nathaniel Howe, Blackwall, Jack Sparrow, John Watson, Deadpool, among others………. In verses in which she’s unattached the ‘default’ assumption is that she was with Anders but the thing fell apart, very messily, in the equivalent to “Act 3.” FINANCIAL STATUS. Poor as dirt and then literally finds buried treasure and shoots up into the upper upper class. DRIVER’S LICENSE. Yes. CRIMINAL RECORD. Mostly she’s never been caught, and when she was she was always able to get out of it somehow, so miraculously enough there’s nothing on the record, no. VICES. Drinking too much, and bad puns.

𝐬𝐞𝐱 & 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Bisexual disaster with a slight preference for men, but only slight. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION. Biromantic. PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE. submissive | dominant | switch (with dom preference) LIBIDO. Very high. TURN ONS. Competence, confidence, humor, kindness, that sort of charismatic person who has a mission or just a strong sense of self and of their goals. TURN OFFS. Stupidity, ignorance, being too possessive or controlling, cruelty. (Leaving Lottie’s because it fits Mar too.) LOVE LANGUAGE. Touch and small gestures, and the sort of joke she makes. Hawke isn’t good at putting her love into words; it feels like daring the universe to take it away from her. So she shows her love, demonstrates it… with gifts, with favors, with literally shouldering the entire weight of her loved one’s burdens when she can, and with jokes instead of endearments and soft words. RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES. Hawke is almost generous to a fault. She takes on way more than anyone ever should, and she considers it her responsibility to do so. It isn’t to say she can’t have some spectacular arguments with a partner at times; she definitely can. But see above about shouldering emotional burdens; even to her own emotional detriment, she’ll do that. She’s so loyal she’ll stay much longer than she really should in a relationship which is crumbling, constantly trying to shore it up. And that’s only when she’s actually in a committed relationship; she’s far more likely to engage in short-term flings, just for fun and pleasure, because part of her knows how damaging it can be to her otherwise.

𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬 !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG. Either like, the tavern music; or Bad Reputation by Joan Jett. HOBBIES TO PASS TIME. She reads a lot, and she crafts her own health potions and poisons. She practices knife-throwing and acrobatic type feats… tumbling and the like. Rock climbing, hiking. Also she carves in wood, little statues and things, or makes small wooden toys for sick children in the free clinics. MENTAL ILLNESSES. PTSD and depression, probably; undiagnosed. PHYSICAL ILLNESSES. None. LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED. Right-brained. PHOBIAS. Not a huge fan of spiders. Oh, and also, the death and/or loss of literally everyone she’s ever dared to love, in increasingly horrible ways? SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL. When it comes to her physical appearance – I’ll say neutral-ish? She doesn’t think of herself as being beautiful but she also doesn’t really care so much about being beautiful. Sometimes she might think it would be nice to be that sort of girl, but she’s pretty well accepted that she isn’t, and that particular insecurity only rears its head briefly at great intervals. When it comes to her abilities, sky-high. She knows what she can do and she does it. She takes on immense risks because she’s confident that she can pull it off. VULNERABILITIES. She does take on great risks and doesn’t always actually calculate those risks. She’s that bird meme like ‘the risk I took was calculated but man am I bad at math.’ She’s made a lot of mistakes and her feelings of guilt over that are among the greatest vulnerabilities in her whole makeup. She thinks if she was just better or stronger, these things wouldn’t have happened… which drives her to try to become better and stronger, which leads to emotional burnout and more mistakes. You see the cycle.

TAGGED BY: @trickstercaptain ty!! TAGGING: @mindsmade @mercysought @cllgood @resovled @archontem @cyrefinn @meisanimam and anyone else who sees it and wants it!

#this took. so long??#long post cw #sorry mobile users #meme || hawke #headcanons || hawke

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soulcrossed · 5 years

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HEADCANON / VALKYRIE CAIN : POST TDOTL RELATIONSHIPS

with a great thanks to MAY ( @foulefairs / @aasmahni ) for letting me ramble for a couple of hours. kind of a pt. 2 to this ; i’m going more into detail about her reaction to other people after her return from meek ridge, AND i’m explaining my interpretation of val & skul’s dynamic, their relationship in general, and how they ended up where they are. again, this is long af --- feel free to ask me for a tl;dr, but please note: i differ heavily from phase 2.

REACTION TO OTHERS

listen, here’s the thing. everybody HATES val. at least everybody she comes into casual contact with --- and she knows this. she expects this. that’s fair. but sorcerer politics is mainly an image thing, so ----- she’d not only avoid people who simply don’t like her, but also those who she IS on friendly / neutral terms with, if just to avoid damaging their reputation / career. it doesn’t really matter if people see her with skulduggery because a) skug doesn't give a shit about any of this and b) his reputation is fucked already anyway, so nothing to lose there. but say, like, fletcher? tanith? the remaining dead men? even militsa?* they’re all doing fairly well after ... everything and she wouldn’t want to make it any worse for them; wouldn’t want people to bother them about her and she’d. avoid them at all costs, in the beginning. anything beyond texting / skyping that isn’t case-related will be. cancelled. with the most ridiculous excuses. untill someone literally drags her out of the house. and the thing is, it doesn't really occur to her that these people ( fletcher / tanith / dead men, other people from before ) also have major trauma she might possibly help them work through with providing the opportunity to talk, to get closure, since, you know, she played a major part in causing that trauma. ( val is still self-centred at heart. she tries to take others into consideration, especially after tdotl and her exile but like. she's trained this into her since she was twelve and she didn’t really have any chances to work on that when completely isolated; it's a habit that is going to take her A LOT longer to unlearn. essentially, it’s good intention with bad results ------ it’s partly fear for her friends’ reputations, and partly because she is simply not ready to confront everything, at least not all at once. listen. my girl needs therapy. badly. ) valkyrie feels so GUILTY looking at everyone and still has it so ingrained in her that she's bad for people. and she comes back to work on that because she feels ready to work on that again but? she's still super convinced that Any Association With Her is Bad. essentially, she’s still very in her head about it, and isolates herself again for a good while, just. on the same continent, this time.

( * i don’t personally like militsa’s attitude of almost-stanning val and i find the “hey so i was attacked by a lady with parasites coming out of her hands” - “haha was she hot” interaction ... questionable. especially with blandy’s track record of fetishizing lesbians / the train wreck that was dem.on ro.ad so. i’m not,, comfortable with blandy’s canon stuff. i’m willing to work something out with militsa muses but that’s something that needs to be carefully plotted out, especially if it goes into ship territory. note: at this point in time, i have not read bed.lam. )

gordon’s mansion / grimwood becomes her safe space and she does NOT do well with having that invaded. xena is a part of that, skulduggery is tolerated ( in sight! she’s very uncomfortable with people in her space. especially when they’re off somewhere making noises --- she forgets they’re there and she’s jumpy ) and very, very occasionally her parents ( and only in the living room / in sight as well ) it’s just. hard for her to coexist with living beings again, it’s something she has to RELEARN. this also ties into meetings ------ ALWAYS on neutral ground / preferably in the mortal world somewhere. and even then, she’s going to be twitchy. she has emergency plans memorized. she’ll want to call it off and she’ll want to take the opportunity to Run. she’s not going to, but--- things are hard and uncomfortable and when has val cain ever dealt with things like this properly?

the thing is, dealing with other people, especially people she used to know, brings on a whole different type of guilt, and not one she can actively think about, at least not at first. there's a disparity between the "i almost destroyed the world and killed a shitton of people including my sister" kinda guilt ( which is about an objectively bad thing ) and the "i left literally everyone to deal with the fallout of this, and i'm pretty sure i would've just made it worse in the state of mind i was in then, but what if i've been making it worse on other people after all and oh my god there's no way to know what would've been right and no matter what i would've done my existence is just not right" type of guilt that goes. a little deeper. ( because also that was her active choice, just like alice. ) and it takes her a little longer to confront that than it does for the other things.

it’s going to take a lot of time and work for her to reintegrate herself and learn how to be around people again ------ especially since said people have moved on with their lives. she's not a part of that anymore after five years in exile literally not speaking to anybody. and a big part of her coming back is a) accpeting her decisions and b) integrating herself in a sort of community again, if just so they can peacefully coexist without her having a panic attack every time she randomly meets someone on the streets or at the sanctuary. in summary, my interpretation has a long road ahead of her to work through things with most other canon characters.

RELATIONSHIP TO SKULDUGGERY

this also goes for skuldug ----- and as an IMPORTANT NOTE: skul forcing her back into working cases is not part of my canon. it’s just bull, imho, and it goes against both how i interpret val and their dynamic as a whole. she comes back from america because she (thinks she)'s ready. she decides to go on cases again, but few and far between, and besides that mostly (really) keeps to herself and won't set foot into roarhaven if she can help it. and THAT's were skuldug pressures her ------ the getting back to roarhaven / old friends / acquaintances / the magical community itself; he knows she needs to find this connection again, and as i said, she knows it too, she just. avoids it at all costs, otherwise. when she’s not ready for case work, though, skulduggery couldn’t pull her back into that if he tried. if she learned anything in america it's independence and how to make her own decisions, and she's starting to stand firmer on that. before, she always had it somewhere in the back of her mind that she needed to impress skul to some degree, at least subconsciously. this is gone, now. don’t get me wrong, they’re still codependent af for reasons i will get into below, but val did become a lot more independent in her decision making in those five years. she's a lot less succeptible to skuldug's suggestions and she does, sometimes, put his ego in check ( he's not getting away with ignoring issues anymore. he needs to actively apologize and confront them. death bringer level sneaking back into her good graces doesn't work anymore. )

the thing is. in those five years, val spent A LOT of time dissecting their relationship. and she knows it's very codependent and unhealthy and not good, but no matter how she turns and twists it, none of this could've gone any other way. she spends so much time on constructing alternate realities in her mind, changing details upon details, but they always would've ended up just the same. she always would've ended up on that first case with him, because it was her uncle, and because it was magic. what kid would decide to not go after that? and YES skuldug probably should've been a responsible adult, but then. she was literally the first one who believed him and didn't try to gaslight him about serpine. ( she also spent a lot of time dissecting skug's personality and history. she never brings it up to him, though. ) so, yeah. he kept her around. the serpine issue is resolved and i think he actually would have made her walk away then, except by then, val has pretty much seen it all. she knows china, tanith and the sanctuary and where to find / how to contact them. and people know HER now. serpine's old goons know her name. she's a dot on the magical radar now and she knows this, and she thinks skuldug knew this and tanith, too, and that's why they agreed to train her. by the time faceless ones rolls around she's in too deep. skuldug was her connection to the magic world and to being a detective, a job she loves. skuldug comes back and he feels like he owes her, he'll always owe her. and when they discover the other's respective Murder Alter Ego, they're screwed, because no one else knows and there's no way anymore they can deal with this alone. they need this one person who loves and who they know will support them anyway. and is this fair to put on a teen? absolutely not. and val RECOGNIZES that. but she also knows that darquesse would've found a way, anyway, after the point she was introduced to magic. so from the point her uncle left her the scepter, essentially, she was doomed.

and to sum up this way too long meta: val is VERY aware of all the ways her relationship to skul is just a little fucked up and she doesn't actively defend HIS choices, but she'll defend her OWN choices. because of her own issue about agency, her own choices are what she can really rely on ( and lay blame upon ) so any conversation about her relationship to skulduggery is always going to be kinda uncomfortable and frustrating with everyone who tries to talk to her about it because. she see their point? but it doesn't change anything. they ended up where they ended up, and besides the fact that it, in her opinion, couldn’t have gone any other way, she also wouldn’t have wanted it to. she loves him. not necessarily in a familial or a romantic way, but simply because after everything they’ve been through and everything they are and are to each other, there’s just. no way not to. in the context of all of this ( context most people lack! as they don’t know about the vile issue and barely know anything about the whole darquesse situatione except evil worldbreaker ) that’s just. the way it is. plain and simple. she'll always stand by him and she knows he’ll always stand by her, no matter what. and that might not be good ( for them or the world at large ) and it might not be right but that's what her character is like, as i see it.

#╰ ( hc ) valkyrie cain.#╰ ( rel ) valkyrie cain & skulduggery pleasant.#( i probably will write a part 3 about the whole darquesse issue bc i see so many ppl giving her shit for it #and completely forgetting. she was a teenager. literally. like. idk i feel the need to contextualize the whole thing #because my views on that also heavily influence my interpretation of val #and i know i write;;; a lot abt val cain but listen. she'll always be my first muse and i'll always love her to bits #and if you think i can let this go think again )#q.

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

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What does Eggman /WANT/, exactly? Like, in general? He definitely seems egotistical, since everything has to be "Egg[something]", and he's often building armies of robots. But what's his endgame? World domination (like in a Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil sense)? How come so many of his plans involve awakening planet-shattering forces of darkness? I've seen him help defeat the very creatures /he/ summoned, so he seems to have a conscience. What are your thoughts, Clockie?

So a big fat disclaimer here that Sonic’s worldbuilding is like... a terrifying kudzu of largely self-contained branches that don’t add up so this and any exercise in Sonic worldbuilding involves taking a pastiche of what you like, and nowhere is this more obvious than with Eggman.

The chronologically oldest concept of Eggman basically set up the conflict of the series as nature vs. technology, with Eggman representing the latter extreme. You can see this in a lot of early continuities, especially Sonic SatAM, which depicted “Robotnik” as cybernetic himself and someone who consistently hated all animal life, and thus wanted to capture it all and force it, at gunpoint if need be, into his “Roboticizer” to turn it into mindless mechanical slaves.

Suffice to say, though, the Roboticizer’s never been gameverse canon, and my personal favorite version of Eggman is rooted in his backstory as mentioned in Sonic Adventure 2.

In Adventure 2, we discover that Eggman is merely the presumably latest scion of a long line of geniuses, and was personally deeply inspired by his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik. Professor Gerald was hailed as possibly the greatest mind of an age, and considering the similarity in his and Eggman’s signature mustaches, it’s entirely possible even as an adult Eggman styled himself in his grandfather’s image.

Gerald was the lead researcher on the ARK, and the mastermind behind Project Shadow. He was searching for a cure for his granddaughter, Maria’s, illness, but largely optimistic about the way that his research would benefit everyone living on Earth. (It is never made clear Eggman’s relationship to Maria, if they were cousins or siblings, but considering Maria lived with Gerald on the ARK, and Eggman implies he admired Gerald from afar, whatever their relation, they were likely not very close, especially as Maria was personally close to Shadow and Eggman didn’t recognize him by name or looks.)

However, ARK was shut down due to suspicion regarding the project and Gerald’s covert dealings with the tyrannical, conquering alien Black Doom. As a result, there was a raid made on the ARK to seize the results of Project Shadow and take Gerald prisoner. This raid was horrifically botched and turned into a massacre, during which Maria and Shadow fled, trying to get to an escape pod, but Maria chose to seal and launch Shadow’s pod first, defying the orders of a pursuing soldier to do so, and was fatally shot. This utterly destroyed Gerald’s faith in humanity and sent him down a very dark path, eventually putting a “ghost protocol” into the ARK that would cause it to crash into the Earth and kill everyone, manipulating both Shadow and Shadow’s prototype, the Biolizard, to do so. This protocol, and Shadow, remained dormant for fifty years until the latter was awakened by Eggman.

During Last Story’s final cutscenes, Eggman reveals that he was inspired to become a scientist by his admiration for Gerald, and was seemingly equally embittered by the botched massacre, though he’s shocked and outraged by Gerald’s ghost protocol. This is not remotely the first or only time Eggman has been shown to be deeply offended by the notion of destroying the entire world and he’s been shown to be either snide towards or make significant countermeasures to entities such as Perfect Chaos, Solaris, Eggman Nega, or Black Doom, who are purely interested in destruction for destruction’s sake.

Eggman has also made many allusions that he seeks to build a city that he sees as a utopia, and, when he’s actually able to achieve his dream in Sonic Unleashed, it’s worth noting that Eggmanland looks overwhelmingly like an amusement park rather than a sinister police state like his SatAM self does. Eggman’s amusement park in Colors also is very bright, colorful, lively, and seemingly genuinely designed to entertain, to the point of recording and making a bunch of PA announcements that don’t make sense while the park isn’t even open yet and he, Sonic, Tails, the wisps, and his cadre of robots are the only people there.

So here’s my take on Eggman’s objectives:

He’s deeply embittered with the government and assumes they can’t be trusted for anything because of the ARK massacre and GUN’s following capture and execution of Gerald. Given this was fifty years ago, Eggman could have been a child at the time, which would make this even more traumatic.

Eggman’s also just plain bossy. He’s a genius, he’s charismatic when he wants to be, and he’s also a pretty good strategist, as he’s the one who primarily coordinates everyone’s joint efforts during Last Story (he instructs everyone during their respective missions with the exception of his own, when he takes input from Tails), the problem is, he is keenly aware of this and it has gone straight to his head with like no stops.

So naturally Eggman’s response to any kind of beef with authority is that everything could do so much better with him in charge and the nature of his projects betrays both his glaring ego and, buried in the supervillainous ham, a genuine desire to make something that will make people happy.

It’s also worth noting on many occasions Eggman is shown to have a surprising amount of respect for Sonic considering how much he gripes and calls him a pest or a rat- the extent depends on continuity. In Adventure 2, he’s comfortable potentially dispatching Sonic, but, gives a moment of solemn introspection in Sonic’s honor, and in Sonic X, when Sonic appears to be gone and never coming back Eggman unsubtly launches full petty theatrics in mourning.

In general, though, the impression that comes across is that Eggman can respect a lot of the things Sonic stands for- which, combined with how many times they’ve worked together or Eggman has appeared to set Sonic up as a countermeasure if his habit for wantonly harnessing ancient gods gets out of hand, would suggest they’re on at least as honorable terms as old school superhero nemeses.

And likewise, we see our heroes throw Eggman a bone now and then- such as when Chip (who’s not familiar with Eggman) suggests they need to quickly save someone Eggman has held hostage because he’s hungry, and Tails immediately reassures Chip that Eggman must be feeding him... and sure enough once they find the guy, he’s unharmed and unfazed enough to be basically complaining about the room service because the specific kind of sandwich he requested doesn’t live up to his standards.

In short, I’ve personally read Eggman and Sonic’s rivalry as an Order vs. Chaos divide, with Sonic representing chaos, and Eggman representing order. So that’s Eggman’s ultimate goal- not harm, not destruction, not even his ego, as much as he thinks there’s a better order the world could conform to, and who better to know what the world needs than a certified Robotnik genius? He had a keen personal lesson in the problems of the existing systems, after all.

I think Sonic and Eggman both want a better world. Their disagreement is how to get there- Eggman thinks everyone should shut up and listen to him because he knows what’s going to help and also, well, you can’t make a utopia without cracking a few eggs, or kidnapping a bunch of small animals and using those adorable little buggers as robot batteries.

This read is... well, it’s frustrating to commit to any read of Eggman as an ethical person because again Sonic worldbuidling is all over the board so there’s the constant ghost of smug pundits past, present, and future looming over my shoulder going “remember when he tried to nuke a populated city though” and my only rebuttal is “any attempt at building a consistent character for Eggman is going to involve firmly telling some piece of canon to fuck off so this is my hill to die on.”

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Dr. Eggman #readmore #like I hear what people are saying #but also shut up I was weaned on the game where he was a playable character #and was honorable #AND blew up part of the moon #which IMO averages out to #'supervillain but with ethics'.#catcomixzstudios

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deafblindshorty · 5 years

Text

“Home”- A Star Wars Resistance Fanfiction: Chapter 2

(This also takes place before The Doza Dilemma.)

"Wow, where is everyone?"

Kaz and Torra entered the private Aces Lounge, which was empty.

"Griff and Freya are out on patrol, Bo and Hype are on a supply run, and Yucklin is sick." Torra replied and led Kaz to the counter.

Kaz snickered at "Yucklin". "I'm guessing you don't like the guy."

"Nope. Neither does my dad, but he does need money for a new ship." Torra shrugged.

"Good point. Sorry about that." Kaz replied.

"It's not your fault. You're naive and lonely, and he took advantage of that." Torra assured him. She ordered their food and they headed to a table.

"Come on, I'm not that naive." Kaz rolled his eyes.

"Really? Is that why you bet money you didn't have on literally your first hour here?" Torra raised an eyebrow.

"That was a fluke." Kaz stated simply. He dug into his food. "Mm. This is tasty."

Torra cringed slightly. "You know, for someone who grew up wealthy, you sure don't have a lot of table manners."

Kaz gulped and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Oh, you mean eating slow, small bites until your food gets cold?"

"You don't have to eat slowly, just more politely." Torra replied. "If you ever get a girlfriend, she is going to be turned off by your eating habits."

Kaz scoffed. "Okay, okay, geez." He started eating more carefully.

"Much better." Torra nodded approvingly. "So...have you ever had a girlfriend?"

Kaz shook his head. "Not officially. I've gone on dates, but, none of them were meant to be. Have you?"

"No, uh...actually, you're the first guy my age I've ever met." Torra admitted.

"Were you born on this platform?" Kaz asked.

"Yep. Born and raised." Torra replied. "I've only been off-world a few times mostly to Bespin and Takodana, and that's it. What about you? Is Castillon your first off-world planet?"

Kaz chuckled. "No. I've been to several planets before. I travelled a lot when I was in the navy."

"Oh. Wow, is that honesty I'm hearing from you?" Torra teased.

Kaz laughed softly. "Yeah, I figured since you know the truth about who I am and where I'm from, I might as well be honest."

"Good. But why the secrecy?" Torra asked.

"I don't want people to see me as this rich kid of a senator who joined the navy." Kaz replied. "I didn't exactly leave on good terms with my father. I told him I wanted to quit the navy to become a racer, and he was not happy."

"He didn't want you to become a racer?" Torra asked.

"Nope, because that would mess with the plan he has for me." Kaz replied almost bitterly.

"Which is what?"

"Naval Academy by 14, Navy by 18, Senator by 21, married by 25, kids by 30." Kaz replied. "I've only done the first two. I turn 21 in a few months, but I am not going into politics."

Torra's heart sank. Kaz is much older than she thought he was. There wasn't an age of consent on Castillon, but she had a feeling her father would not be happy with her dating an adult five years older than her. "Oh. I'll be 18 in a few years."

Kaz was surprised. Torra is much younger than he thought she was. "And your dad is okay with us being friends?"

"Yeah, just as long as nothing happens if you know what I mean." Torra replied.

"Oh...well, that's good." Kaz smiled.

"So, Kaz...your homeworld...what's it like?" Torra asked, changing the subject.

"Hosnian Prime is mostly city with some lakes, mountains and forests." Kaz explained, sitting up tall. "It's nothing like Castillon, that's for sure."

"Castillon must be a huge culture shock for you." Torra commented.

"Very huge." Kaz replied. "Back home, I fell asleep to speeders rushing by and lights shining through my window. It's so quiet here and a little claustrophobic."

"Yeah, it is a little claustrophobic and isolated, isn't it?" Torra sighed. "Once I'm eighteen, I'm gonna move somewhere else."

"You could come to Hosnian Prime." Kaz suggested. "You know at least one person from there, after all."

Torra chuckled. "I'd like that. It sounds like a fun place."

"It is. I can't wait for you to see it." Kaz's eyes lit up and he beamed. "We live in the Senatorial Housing Complex which is actually just one long, one-level building made mostly of glass, with a moving sidewalk and reddish-brown footpaths. And there's this restaurant that makes the best Bantha steak in the whole galaxy, and there's a stone bridge over the river, and blueblossom willow trees around the hanging gardens..."

Torra raised an eyebrow. "Garden? Why, Kaz..."

Kaz scoffed and shook his head. "My mom loves that place. We go there to eat at the cafe there at least once a month. And there's this big park my friends and I used to play in every weekend and we'd have picnics and we'd lay on our blankets watching the clouds go by and flocks of migrating snowbirds flying overhead."

Torra smiled and nodded. "You must really miss that place."

"I do." Kaz replied. "And once I win a race here, I'll go back and visit."

"Can I come with?" Torra asked.

"Well, you'd have to ask your dad if it's okay." Kaz reasoned.

Torra slumped in her chair. "Oh. Forget it, then. My dad's so overprotective, I'm surprised he even lets me leave my room."

"He's overprotective because he loves you and doesn't want to lose you, Torra." Kaz reasoned again. "You're lucky to have a dad who cares so much. I told my dad my squadron was attacked by the First Order on a mission, and he wasn't even concerned."

"Oh." Torra said softly. "I'm sorry. Was that what made you so against the First Order?"

Kaz shook his head. "Actually, no. My first year at the Naval Academy, there was a bombing at one of the senate buildings. It was a distraction from something much bigger. A few days after that, a First Order sympathizer ousted then Senator Leia Organa as Darth Vader's daughter and she was immediately shunned despite her being kidnapped and tortured by Vader and Vader destroying the only home and family she'd ever known, and despite her accomplishments; which is why I am not going into politics. Shunning someone for crimes their parents committed despite all their heroics and accomplishments? Does that sound like a group you want to be part of?"

"No." Torra replied. "But, it sounds like it was the senate who shunned Organa, not the First Order."

"Yeah, but the First Order started it." Kaz said. "After that, I became more aware of what the First Order was like."

"What did your parents think?" Torra asked.

"My dad doesn't think the First Order is a threat, and my mom is staying neutral." Kaz shrugged. "My mentor at the academy, my flight instructor, Wedge Antilles taught me everything I know about flying, and he also told me stories of the Rebellion and the Empire...it made me love General Organa and hate the First Order even more."

"Ah, well...I'm sure the Republic will realize the First Order is a threat soon enough." Torra replied. "Maybe it'll even repair General Organa's reputation."

Kaz chuckled. "We can only hope. I'm just glad I don't have an evil dad like General Organa did."

"Me, too." Torra said. She lifted her glass. "To not having evil parents."

"Hear, hear." Kaz raised his glass, and they clinked glasses and drank.

#star wars resistance #kazuda xiono #torra doza #fanfiction #star wars

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shookethbrooketh · 5 years

Text

stars

chapter 5

the next half hour could best be summed up by a compilation of moments with upbeat pop music playing in the background. they were completely comfortable around each other despite having met only a couple hours earlier, changing clothes completely openly in the room. phil even joined in on the fun, both of them modeling phil’s clothes and laughing as they discovered new outfits that phil appeared to be shocked he’d never realized the beauty of before. the entire event was shocking; it was uncommon for men of the time to do anything that could even be considered effeminate, which a fashion show would definitely qualify as, but the two of them were completely willing to entertain such an idea. neither of them even thought a bit of it, although they had a complete understanding of the world around them by that stage in their lives. they both had such a philosophy that fun had no definition, and they had a hell of a time in those clothes.

summary: dan grew up in a normal 1930s london family with his parents and little brother. everything was completely and utterly normal… until the bombs started dropping. When dan was fifteen his father went off to war, and when he was sixteen he and his brother hayden were sent off to a foster family in rural england. he looked up at the stars and couldn’t help but wonder how something that beautiful could exist in such a broken world. just when he thought things would never get better, dan met phil, and he became the shining star of his life. but when phil turned eighteen and went off to war, dan couldn’t help but wonder when, if ever, the stars would twinkle the same way again.

rating: t

genre: angst, fluff, history au, strangers to lovers, teenagers

whole fic warnings: warfare (not descriptive), fire, homophobia, death chapter warnings: n/a

chapter word count: 1.8k total word count: 8.0k

read it on ao3 read it on wattpad fic masterlist

Dan woke up to a shout from downstairs. “Dan! Hayden! Dinner!”

Dan rubbed his eyes and forced his lanky body off the bed. He made his way out of the room and met Hayden at the top of the stairs. “This house is super cool!” he said, a bit loud for Dan’s sleepy brain.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Dan paused. “Where’s the dining room?”

“Over here,” Hayden said, practically bursting out of his skin from excitement.. Dan followed his brother through a modest living room with a couch, a couple armchairs, a fireplace, and a table with a lamp and a radio. The radio excited Dan; one of his favorite pastimes back in London was sitting in the family room and listening to the radio. Especially in the last few years, it had become an escape from all the issues threatening to attack his happiness. He’d probably get a few different stations in the new location, but that would be half the fun.

He followed Hayden through the kitchen and into a modest dining room, containing a table with six seats. There were a few family photos and old paintings around the room, which Dan gave a glance before he sat down beside his brother.

In strutted a tall boy with red hair, who Dan assumed was Phil. He jumped when he saw Dan and Hayden; apparently he wasn’t expecting them.

“Phil, this is Dan and Hayden,” Margo said, her tone making it increasingly obvious that he had no clue they were coming. “They’re from London.”

“Remember when we discussed taking in evacuees a while ago?” Harold added.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Phil said, his tone neutral. “I’m Phil,” he said, extending a hand to the each of them.

“Dan,” he said, and shook his hand. Phil flashed him a bit of a smile, and Dan returned it. He had eyes that seemed to be a mix of color, full of happiness and life. His eyes told Dan the world was his oyster.

“Hayden!” his brother said, excitedly, viciously grabbing his hand and giving it a shake.

Phil laughed, pulling his hand away. “Nice to meet you both,” he said, taking a seat on the other side of Dan.

Margo got up and walked towards the kitchen, and Dan took a moment to examine the table; there were bread rolls and green beans sitting out, as well as cups and a pitcher of water. Margo returned from the kitchen with a covered platter and set it on the table, opening it to reveal a whole, cooked chicken.

“Oh, Margo, you shouldn’t have!” Dan exclaimed. “That must have cost you so many rations, especially with Christmas just passing, and all.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Margo said, waving her hand. “It’s the least we could do for such a special day. Besides, rations here aren’t nearly as strict as you’re used to in the city.”

“Are you sure?” Dan asked, feeling purely awkward.

“Absolutely.”

And so they ate. Dan still couldn’t help but feel guilty; their Christmas dinner back in London had cost a few days’ worth of rations, and they’d been eating leftovers ever since. Dan hoped rations truly went further in the countryside.

“Are you receiving our rations now?” Dan asked, the issue still plaguing his mind.

“Not yet, but once the government gets your location, we should start receiving them,” Harold said.

“That should be very soon,” Margo chimed in, maternal intuition obviously showing her Dan’s concern.

“Good,” Dan said, satisfied with that answer.

There was silence for a moment before Harold turned to look at Phil. “There’s still an hour of daylight left; you should take Dan out to the pasture and show him around the driver’s seat of the truck.” He then made eye contact with Dan. “If you’re up for it, of course.”

Dan looked back and forth between the two of them, both of whom seemed to be eager for the task. “Absolutely!” Dan exclaimed. He wasn’t quite as excited as his tone made him out to be, but he was a bit excited to get behind the wheel. Dan had never even imagined himself getting his license, but driving did seem like loads of fun, and he couldn’t hit anything in an open field. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to get to know the boy he’d be living with for a while.

As soon as dinner was finished, the boys took off. Dan threw on the jacket he realized was all he had, and he still found it a bit chilly, but he would survive.

“Hop in the passenger seat and I’ll drive us to an open area,” Phil said. Dan did as he said, and they were on their way. Dan watched Phil’s hands as he drove, trying to determine the intricacies of the activity before being thrown into it himself. “Here we are,” Phil said, reaching a plateau in the land. “This is where my father first taught me to drive. You want to switch?”

Dan nodded, and they each jumped out of the truck to switch sides. “So, the accelerator is on the right, and the brake is in the middle. Hit it slowly, or else it’ll jerk like mad.” Phil said. He looked at Dan’s shoes and pajama pants for a moment, then up to his pajama shirt and mismatching jacket. “Are those the only clothes you have?” Dan nodded. “I’ll take you to my room when we get back and see if we can find you any of my clothes to wear. We seem about the same size. I don’t know what we can do for... Hayden?” Phil hesitated before coming up with his name, and Dan nodded to confirm he was right.

“That’s very generous; thank you, Phil.”

“Of course; I couldn’t imagine being in your situation.”

“It’s been a little rough, but I don’t think the reality of it all has hit me yet. I’m just trying to be here for Hayden.”

“I’ve never had a sibling, but I can understand that. If you need anything-any help at all-just let me know.”

Dan smiled, genuinely touched by Phil’s generosity. “Thank you, Phil, truly.” They smiled at each other for a moment. Phil’s multicolored eyes glimmered in the sunset, his red hair fiery and freckles gleaming. Dan couldn’t help but wonder where he’d gotten them; both his parents were typical brunettes. Dan probably looked more like their son than Phil.

“Back to the driving?” Phil asked, breaking the silence.

“Oh, yes of course!” Dan exclaimed, being brought out of a trance he couldn’t explain.

Within minutes, Dan was cruising through the field. He was sure he wouldn’t be so comfortable trying to park, reverse, or even drive on a road, but he sure could put his foot to the accelerator. Time passed quickly, and before they knew it, the sun had gone down over the hill, and the world around them was beginning to darken.

“We should head back,” Phil said. “Park over by that tree, and I’ll drive us back down.” It wasn’t difficult for Dan to discern what tree Phil was referencing; there was only one as far as the eye could see, up on top of a hill. Dan gassed it up to the top, then slammed on the brakes. The truck jerked to a stop, throwing them both nearly out of their seats and then right back in. They both came down laughing.

“You’ll get better at that,” Phil said, opening his door.

After they got back to the house and greeted Margo and Harold, Dan followed Phil to his room, where he immediately took to his closet. Dan took a moment to look around the room; on the dresser were a few family photos, and there were some old soldier toys discarded in the corner. Other than that, the room was excessively bland for someone with such a vibrant personality as Phil.

“We’ve got two options here,” Phil said. “Either we can do this like civilized adults, and you can pick out what you want and either we can share it or you can have it depending on what it is, or we can take advantage of this and have some fun for once.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “I’m intrigued.”

“We could spend our evening modelling my clothes like we’re going to sell them or 1,000 pounds.”

“Now that’s an idea. Where’s my first outfit?”

The next half hour could best be summed up by a compilation of moments with upbeat pop music playing in the background. They were completely comfortable around each other despite having met only a couple hours earlier, changing clothes completely openly in the room. Phil even joined in on the fun, both of them modeling Phil’s clothes and laughing as they discovered new outfits that Phil appeared to be shocked he’d never realized the beauty of before. The entire event was shocking; it was uncommon for men of the time to do anything that could even be considered effeminate, which a fashion show would definitely qualify as, but the two of them were completely willing to entertain such an idea. Neither of them even thought a bit of it, although they had a complete understanding of the world around them by that stage in their lives. They both had such a philosophy that fun had no definition, and they had a hell of a time in those clothes.

“So you’ll take that pile and we’ll share this one?” Phil asked, looking to Dan for confirmation.

Dan stuck his hand out, and Phil took it. “Sounds like a deal.”

Dan took his pile back to his room and flung himself on his bed. The situation he had found himself in was far better than any he had imagined a mere few hours ago. He had originally been terrified that he’d find himself in a situation with someone else his age, but now that he’d met Phil, he thought he may even be able to find a new friend in the boy. It was comforting, extremely so, to know that he wouldn’t be completely alone in this new place; he could only hope Hayden would find the same.

Although Dan still missed his mother and his home city of London dearly, he felt as if life was finally beginning to look up for him, and that was more encouragement than he could ever have asked for. He looked at the picture of him with his parents and gave a weak smile. Things would get better, gradually, and one day he would come home.

#phan #phanfic #phanfiction #phic stuff #dong and ping #stars #chapter 5

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icarianfate-blog · 6 years

Text

Something that’s very important to me and I don’t budge on is Regulus’s continued attachment to his family and connections in the elitist pureblood society. There’s a few reasons for this, which I’ll go into here.

1. Life is Messy

Did Regulus grow thanks to his exposure to the darkest parts of his community, the reality behind their beliefs and his views become less bigoted over time? Yes. But the fact he no longer views muggleborns as filth doesn’t eradicate a lifetime of indoctrination, a need for human connection, a justified fear of rejection, still loving your family even when they’re awful, or utterly pragmatic needs like business partnerships. He’s not Sirius or Andromeda, for Regulus utterly removing himself from the society they were raised in is not an option. Life is messy and sometimes you’re the liberal-ish gay cousin at christmas dinner trying to fend off war flashbacks because your baby cousin just said the word “lake”.

Regulus -- like Draco -- became a Death Eater at 16 and in canon died at 18. By the end of the second war Regulus is 36. He saw and did terrible things at an incredibly young age, then had to totally restructure his whole world view alone with no one to really talk to about it and rebuild his entire life-- all while dealing with the physical, psychological and social consequences of his actions. While it doesn’t take him long at all to mellow out, it does take him longer to defrag his ideology and figure out what the hell he does believe now and how to express those new beliefs accurately. Basically the man’s a mess and that’s really to be expected.

2. Portraying the Spectrum

I also feel it’s very important to have people who fall more on the “Bad Side” who are well, not so bad. While on paper these topics are very black and white in reality they’re not always so clean cut. Something I’ve always hated about Harry Potter is that until about the last 2 books there’s basically not a single “Good” Slytherin even mentioned let alone seen. Yes there are people like Severus who are there from the start, but he’s not revealed to be a “Good Slytherin” until the very end, the rest of the time he’s portrayed as one of the worst ones. This always just pissed me off so much, it’s just such an unnecessary and trite demonization of a whole group-- worse, a group of children. Yes it’s the most likely place for the Dracos of the world to end up, but that doesn’t mean every single child who was ever sorted into it is a Death Eater in the making. But we never see those Slytherins and it really, really pisses me off.

Regulus is not a “Good Person” in the sense he was always secretly good and eventually ~~broke free of the evil mind control and is now Pure again~~. I hesitate to even call him a good person honestly, even though his last and only canon acts speak to someone who is unwavering good and self-sacrificing. In his youth he genuinely believed in some truly terrible things but he had his own inherit limits and morals he could not sacrifice even for his family and their beliefs. That’s important, not everyone on that side is a Bellatrix, and while being less awful than Bellatrix doesn’t exactly earn you a medal it does speak to the spectrum. He’s not the best, but he’s definitely not the worst.

By the time the first war is over Regulus is on a knife’s edge at the near perfect center of the spectrum between acceptance and bigotry. He’s proof that a Slytherin coming from the most stereotypical, toxic pureblood upbringing with all the classic Slytherin traits can still buck a lot of the script and actually manage to not be a complete bastard.

3. Never Burn Bridges You Could Still Use

In true Slytherin fashion, we come to a manipulative, Game of Thrones-y reason. This is one of the key reasons for him IC and also one of the things I think can be difficult for people to get or swallow. Where most people likely feel that the only correct option would be to pull a Sirius and disown the family-- that they themselves could never stomach putting up with all the heinous things these pureblood types say and cannot imagine someone who doesn’t believe it doing just that for any reason-- the fact is that’s not always the right move, and that there are people who can do it just fine.

Regulus isn’t a fool. He’s the well-educated, intelligent son of a rich, prominent pureblood family with lots of connections all over the place in the wizarding community who got sorted into the “win or die trying” house. Publicly renouncing half or more of those connections is frankly a terrible idea for him to do on so many levels. He loses a LOT of power, access and leverage he could actually use to do things that could actually be a boon in the long run. While unlike Severus he wasn’t --and likely doesn’t become a spy ( though that is up for debate )-- those connections could be vital for his continued survival and provide a means of keeping tabs on enemies.

Why on earth would he run around making enemies of everyone he could still use? How does that help anyone? Especially when he’s already mastered the art of placating and maneuvering these types of people.

4. Love, Sentimentality and Loyalty are just as Powerful Weaknesses as Strengths

Something we actually get from canon is that Regulus is an unquestionably loving, loyal and compassionate person. When he has Kreacher take him to the cave he drinks the potion, he sacrifices himself. This is not something someone who is not at their core compassionate, empathetic and loving does. He saw the effects the potion had on Kreacher, he heard what he had gone through, and when the time came he refused to make the elf go through that again.

"And he order-- Kreacher to leave-- without him. And he told Kreacher -- to go home-- and never to tell my Mistress-- what he had done-- but to destroy-- the first locket. And he drank-- all the potion-- and Kreacher swapped the lockets-- and watched ... as Master Regulus ... was dragged beneath the water ... and ..."

"[...] that Regulus changed his mind ... but he doesn't seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he? And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus's family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all." "[...] I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did ... and so did Sirius." [...] I do not think Sirius ever saw Kreacher as a being with feelings as acute as a human's ...

This core of kindness and empathy is both what ended up causing him to defect and also what keeps him tied to what family and friends he has left. It’s hard, especially when you are so loyal and loving to cut out people who you’ve known your whole life, who you love and love you back. Bellatrix is a monster she’s easy to cut out but Narcissa? How could he really cut ties with one of his only living relatives, who’s likely his favorite cousin? Who is herself a fiercely loving and loyal woman? It would take a lot for him to finally cut ties with his loved ones still in the purist community and it’s frankly one of his greatest failings.

5. No One likes a Former Death Eater

The cruel fact of the matter is that regardless of your reformation most people will not accept or acknowledge it and treat you like you are still a monster. Regulus could try -- and does try-- to integrate more with the mainstream, but it’ll always be met with mixed success at best because he was a Death Eater. Unless he moved to a different country, it’d be difficult to really start over again completely with any real solid success. The majority of the wizarding world socially ostracizes him while still engaging with him on a business and political level because of his status. The only people who still want to have a cuppa with him are all in the same boat as him, bigots or purist sympathizers.

He’s human, and however much he’d like to gripe about people and wanting to be left alone forever to become a hermit he craves interaction, especially since he himself is an intensely social extroverted person. If he cuts these people out of his life he basically has no one to talk to anymore and he’s left totally isolated, which would frankly lead to much worse and dangerous places for him.

6. Someone here has to be the Voice of Reason

Having literally no one in that community who isn’t a total nightmare is asking for trouble. Not only because it allows the toxicity to stew and intensify unchecked but it also means no one is there to try and help the younger generations break free of the cycle. If he just left like Andromeda and Sirius he’s just making it worse by removing a more moderate voice from the communal discussion. It’s not even about trying to show them the error of their ways, that’s in fact a terrible way to go about things with people like this. It’s about diluting the toxic ideology, providing the less dangerous paths and laying out the framework that can act as the basis for someone else’s journey out of the quagmire.

For example, when looking at cults and hate groups, the worst way to reach those people is by trying to point out everything wrong and arguing with them, it only entrenches them more. You make more progress by staying close and quietly slipping in the information and tools they need to work things out themselves. Telling someone they’re in a destructive cult will get you nothing, but telling them about this book you read about some terrible cult and all the signs of one you learned from it and isn’t that just wild? These people are bad news huh? Here give it a read yourself-- Is far more effective in the long run.

By being there he acts as a moderate, neutral adult figure who the children can both model and look to for support. He’s much safer than most of their families and willing to be the sounding board for their own debates and give advice from a place of having literally been right where they are now. He can act as a mid-point between the extremely insular and toxic pureblood community, the mainstream wizarding world, and thanks to his time in hiding, the muggle world for purebloods looking to escape or just broaden themselves.

#meta tbt.#reference tbt.#i'm not formatting this more than it is bc i don't hate myself #and i'm not bothering with a cut bc fuck the police #hc tbt #ooc tbt

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inkerii · 6 years

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So I actually liked vld season 7

Some of it anyway. I still have some beef with it. Normally I don’t really post my thoughts but I wanna get it out of my chest c: gonna stick just to the Good Things on this post since it got out of hand!

Warning: LONG POST and since I’m on mobile idk how to put it under a read more!

*** [Good Things]

So many good things honestly.

• FIRST OF ALL: THE MUSIC! THE ANIMATION! THE BACKGROUNDS! THE CHOREOGRAPHY!! More than any plot these workers deserve so much credit <333

• Everything about episode 1. From learning of the beginning of Keith’s and Shiro’s friendship to the shenanigans with the yelmore. As a med student though, I wish they would explain a bit more about this mysterious disease he had and why is it apparently “gone” now.

• Cosmo. Everything about this space pupper. I love that he’s being included far more than the other pets because it was always pretty clear to me he’s very protective of keith and doesn’t appear to like leaving his owner’s side. ALSO I LOVE HOW BIG HE IS. HE’S BIGGER THAN PIDGE IN SOME SHOTS.

• I’m digging the Generals’ new outfits. Noice.

• LANCE DEFENDING PIDGE. Yes yes yes. I love how much he cares for her. I really wish she had become his love interest instead of Allura. Still! They had quite a few sweet moments c:

• Space mice are back to helping the team too heck yes

• “The Feud” is both kinda endearing but also my least favorite episode of the series. Since this part is about the good things: Everything about Lotor. Zarkon calling Lotor names. It was so DOTU I loved it so much

• THE DRUID IS BACK!! I loved that the druid was back. I really really wish they had expanded on WHY the druids are like that and HOW do they get their powers. They appear Galra. Are they a breed Haggar experimented on? They seem to almost idolize her. Gimme more info on the quiznaking Druids season 8 plEASE

• KEITHS WEIRD QUINTESSENCE POWERS VOLTRON PLEASE -PLEASE- EXPLAIN - as a side note I 110% believe the purple quintessence coming from Keith’s hands in when he unlocks Black’s wings in season 6 is that very power of his, not Shiro’s spirit or whatever

• Keith’s and Krolia’s goodbye. It was so emotional. I love that Keith has the maturity to understand that she has to leave- not because of a “mission” but because so many Blades she was shown to CARE FOR were gone. For all the “greater good” the Blades were about, they did seem to care. I love how gentle Krolia was with Kolivan too. I wonder if Kolivan is the Shiro to Krolia’s Keith.

• I originally had mixed feelings about the Floating In Space episode because both Keith and Allura felt OOC at first. But y'know what? I’ve come to like it. Keith had been acting like the Perfect Leader™ since he came back, as if his issues had all faded away when he and Black really became a team. But truth is, they weren’t. Keith was responsible for his team now, and they were floating in space, nearly dying, and the paladins were talking about QUITTING. Keith didn’t do his job well enough. Keith failed, failed them and FAILED as a leader, or so he felt: he let them down JUST LIKE IN SEASON 4 and now they’d all die. He was tired and not thinking properly so OF COURSE his basic instinct flared up: “leave them so they wont kick me out first”. As someone who likes the idea of keith and allura together, I really didn’t get Keith’s sudden outburst against Alfor, but… He might have done it to push Allura’s buttons. He KNOWS her, he KNOWS she’s the one who would argue the most (like in s4), so he instinctively tries to get her off him already- and because he knows her so well he goes for something that he knows is a low blow. Thing is, that made Allura’s own hurt feelings flare up (and the rest of the team’s). Allura might have understood where he was coming from in s4, but she was clearly sad that he still chose the Marmora over them. Even if she GETS it, it still HURTS. The whole team HURT. And now Keith was trying to push them away AGAIN. They were PISSED. They had trusted him 100% even though he abandoned them and now he was leaving again?!

BUT THEN!! DEVELOPMENT!! This time team Voltron WILL NOT let Keith go. Will NOT kick him out no matter how hard Keith tries to make them do it (thanks Hunk!!). And that helps Keith to FINALLY admit how much he cares and allows him to put them right up there with Shiro and Krolia when it comes to people HE wont give up on, people he now KNOWS wont give up on him. He may have called them “friends” but.. Keith isn’t that good with expressing how much he cares. He’s always a little hesitant when it comes to sharing his feelings (you’re LIKE a brother to me vs you’re MY BROTHER). He does mean family. He’s just being Keith :)

• I actually genuinely liked the Earth two-parter. I never thought Sam could carry an episode like that but damn. U go babe. I loved Colleen too. AND VERONICA YEA GIRL

• Kincaid and Griffin OWN MY HEART I SWEAR-

• Bless non-evil-Galra-Prince AJ LoCascio. Even though I got whiplash in some scenes like “wait he sounds like Lotor wtq” most of the times I didn’t even notice. So glad they decided to keep him around! He has a superb voice.

• Katie reuniting with her family!! LANCE reuniting with his family!! “uncle lance” yes pls ;w;

• Hunk’s flashbacks ;-; I feel so bad for the baby I’m so glad his family is safe now. I loved seeing how cooking isn’t really just for food when it comes to Hunk, I love that his mom and aunt (i’m assuming??) actually let us viewers understand that every time hunk cooks he’s more interested in sharing company and spending time together. Just. Yes <3

• Iverson apologizing to Keith + petting Cosmo heck yea. Griffin and Keith ignoring their differences, nice.

• KEITH COMFORTING HUNK. He might not be as comfortable saying emotional words like “love” or “family” to the team as he is around Shiro and Krolia (understandably), but you can see he cares just as much. Also YES let him be hugged more. He clearly loves it.

• All those conformations of paladins!! Keith/Pidge/Allura -> Pidge and Keith. Yes!! Keith and Hunk! Lance and Hunk!! A+ hell yea

• All the shoutouts to previous seasons!! The reflective shields from S6ep1. Keith understanding sign language this time!! Pidge distracting the guards by being silly (but in a very Pidge way) while Keith goes around like in season 1!!!

• Really nice touch of having Allura give up the crystal in her tiara to save Shiro. Their friendship is so precious <3 Also bonus points since this was likely what allowed Shiro to sense Atlas’ quintessence- the new arm still DOES have a connection to his brain so, like, so does the crystal :’D

• Speaking of Atlas, I’m neutral on it? So long as it doesn’t keep showing up as a robot I’m good. I just don’t get why it gets defense upgrade when it turns into a robot? Regardless though, it seems wayyy too big and clumsy. So hopefully it’ll remain just a ship in most eps.

• I did love the smaller earth fighters tho! Blonde + Freckles Whose Name I Can’t Spell Sorry grew on me. Also, ships’ designs are awesome. Honestly so long as Earth Team doesn’t end up in the LIONS I’d be happy. I feel like they might though. Oh well.

• LANCE. JUST HOW MUCH LANCE MATURED. THIS WAS ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT THIS SEASON. He barely joked around this time!! He really showed how he supports the team. I LOVE to see Keith depending on and trusting Lance to be his second in command. THAT’S what I always wanted for the two of them. - Bonus: I loved how Keith fell back for a second on his old habits by going all “don’t miss the shot” or whatever cause really that’s exactly what their rivalry was about. Early Series Lance would get back at him without batting an eye. But he remained focused and alert! Lance’s development is more subtle but this is EXACTLY the same point Keith was when Kuron started calling him worthless. Keith had GROWN, and those things didn’t bother him anymore. Likewise, Lance has GROWN. He’s an adult who takes things seriously now and doesn’t waste time with silly bickering. Just. Yes. While lowkey, this is just as satisfying to me because unlike Keith we actually SAW all the stages of Lance’s growth. (We didn’t see all the conversations Keith and Krolia had on the space whale). Just. Lance. Bless him.

• I still prefer Sendak’s season 1 design. That said, he was a marvelous villain- more than any other he really represented all that was evil in the Galra Empire so I enjoyed him. Zarkon was into the lions for personal reasons, Haggar is more about the Altean thing, Lotor didn’t really care for Voltron since he built Sincline. So yea. I didn’t expect him to be the main villain but I don’t mind.

• Speaking of which, loved the Sendak/Shiro fight! It really felt like all that encompassed the Paladins vs all that encompassed the Galra. And even though I actually didn’t like that Keith was the one to deal the final blow, Keith IS a mix of Galra/Paladin who has good intentions. So… like Lance said early in the season. He’s the future.

• not so sure what to think of the final EP and that weird robot but eh. Assuming it’s from Honerva, I DID like how it showed that Honerva IS different than Haggar… And more dangerous. This was literally a Haggar Robeast but upgraded, because YEA Honerva is much better than her quintessence-cursed counterpart.

• THE FAMILIES!! Shay!! Y'know I’m not usually a multishipper - actually I’ve never done it before - but I love both hunay and hunelle. I’m totally ok with hunelle in an AU and hunay in voltron canon (Hunk clearly cares for her so much that even though I prefer Romelle I can’t go against that precious bean teary smile when Shay showed up.). Besides!! Platonic hunelle is really precious too. ALSO ALSO KOLIVAN AND KROLIA and Krolia is wearing a Leader's version of the BoM suit?? NICE

• Matt is back and looks more handsome than ever! I love the ponytail. I love his design. And his colors. And his new girlfriend?? If I remember correctly from the Naxzela episode the helmeted alien sounded like a girl. ALSO ARE THOSE PUPS BESIDES OLIA HER KIDS?? PRECIOUS PUPPERS

• ROMELLE. we need more of her gdi-

• IS THE ALTEAN MERLA OH GOD LET IT BE MERLA I’M BEGGING YOU-

• Lastly, another of my favorite bits: Piloting the Lions through their bond. It just goes so well with my headcanon that the quintessence of the pilot actually MERGES with the quintessence of the pilot, so much that when they’re connected like that even if the body dies the mind still goes on. The difference for me between this season and what Shiro went through is that the paladins still have their bodies to ground them and help them keep control, while Shiro was just… Lost in the astral plane, barely able to separate his consciousness from the Lion’s (so much that this only happened twice when the paladins were purposely trying to connect with his quintessence/spirit in the astral plane). It’s not as “romantic” as the whole ‘black SAVED SHIRO’ but I really think his time in the Black Lion was really unsettling: not being Shiro and not being Black, but some weird mix of the two (his sarcastic confusion towards lance early in the season also supports this: he wasn’t HIMSELF anymore. Thinking like a normal person and not like a robot is WEIRD for him). It’s a headcanon though but it’s mine and I will fight you on this (actually no pls don’t fight me).

*** Overall!! While not my favorite season (that’s 2 and 6), season 7 wasn’t BAD. Maybe I just had lower expectations since I spoiled myself out of anxiety. It wont be like s2 and s6 where I’ll binge watch the eps over and over again, but it’s pretty comfortable with s1 and s3 in “eh it was fine, ok, I like it”.

[That said, there WERE quite a few things that pissed me off about this season, but everyone is so negative rn and quite a few people already covered part of those reasons, so I wanted to post about good things!! I’ll probably do another post on the Bad Things of this season.]

#vld #vld spoilers #vld s7 #voltron spoilers #voltron s7 spoilers #inke speaks

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