#i appreciate that you could interpret it from multiple angles as well. it could be an interrogation of hypervigilance. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

boundinparchment · 2 years

Text

Dream a Little Dream of Me - III

Celestia has a cruel sense of humor. He's always known this, ever since his days as a student. But a soulmate? Really?

Dottore/Female Reader Soulmate AU. Expect lore speculation, interpretations, etc. Available on AO3 as well.

Set-up and rehearsal that morning was, thankfully, brief. As much as you tried, your mind was preoccupied, both with the remnants of your dream and with all of the details of Sumeru City. Lush colors and tantalizing food and beautiful flora were everywhere you looked and you wanted nothing more than to savor as much of it as you could.

You spent the afternoon with a small group of friends, all of whom were just as excited as you to have a chance to relax before the performance and happy to finally be out of Fontaine. You split meals between all of you, sampling coconut charcoal cakes and shawarma and Tandoori roast chicken, all the while discussing that night’s lineup, gifts for family or friends, and where others wished to visit within the city limits.

Tours made it so hard to get to know the places you went. You were there just long enough to get a lay of the land but gone before you could appreciate everything that caught your eye. Given how much equipment was needed for such events, it made more sense to stay and do multiple performances; even if the tours were more political and diplomatic than they were anything else, time amongst other nations wouldn’t go amiss. At least tonight’s event was open to the public and not limited to just the Sages or students of the Akademiya.

Your wallet was lighter on mora after lunch (money well spent but it needed to last you until the next round of paychecks) and you decided on window-shopping rather than drain your coffers further. As you wandered Treasures Street and passed through crowds to look at beautiful abaya, gallabya, salwar kameez, and other garments, you swore you caught a glimpse of…

No, that couldn’t be right.

You were seeing things. Had to be. The line between reality and your dreams didn’t feel as hard as it usually did; your mind was too preoccupied as it was and you certainly hadn’t slept as well as you thought you had.

But what if…

It was always a possibility, wasn’t it? That one day, you might just…

You tried to quell the flutter in your stomach. It was just your lack of sleep getting the better of you. After all, you were in a new city, taking in new sights, spending what little free time you had among company that made your job all the better. Times like this made the tours worth the homesickness and tight budgeting worth it.

And if you ended up actually coming face-to-face with the person you shared your dreams with along the way, well, that was just a bonus.

___________________

“A full house,” one of your friends hissed as you settled into your chair, sitting forward slightly to adjust the cello between your knees. “You can see the Sages up in the balcony, all of them in the first row. Swore I heard a guard mention something about a Fatui Harbinger being around too. Didn’t think they went this far south…”

“Well, you’ll just have to play your best, then,” you teased, throwing a smile. “And make their trip worth it.”

You tested the strings softly and fixed the tuning a final time before you angled the instrument slightly to the right, so your bow would reach every string. Your Vision was tucked away, as required by the dress code; its power a reminder of the dedication it took to come this far. The familiar presence of the wooden body against your chest and the position of your left hand comforted you as the conductor took their position and a hush fell on both sides of the curtain.

The first note pulled from the strings at your fingertips was low and rich, elongated to stretch into what felt like eternity, before flowing into the next. The vibrations emanated through the body and neck and passed through your fingertips and knees, its heartbeat and breath solely dependent on the motions you made and the way you held it. Playing was always an extension of yourself, the bassy swells filling you as much as they filled the air around you, and yet keeping you in the tightest grip. Perhaps it was just the resonance with your element but your nerves were never as frayed as your fellow musicians’ when it came to performances. This was what you practiced for, what you played for; the emotional release and expression that only made sense when paired with the black and white notes on the pages before you, poured out to those who deigned to listen.

When it was all over, the final note hanging as you flourished your bow, the grip holding your lungs finally released itself. You felt light and floaty, like the kites you saw at the coastal towns fluttering with every bump of wind.

The crowd was nothing but a sea of applause, the lights from the stage too bright to make out anything other than the general shapes and colors of faces and clothes. Your eyes scanned the balcony, finding six sages, identifiable only by their finery and bearing of the Akademiya emblem. All of them were seemingly moved by the performance. Beyond that, it was difficult to see anything else, let alone verify the claims of another nation’s presence. Although…was that…there was certainly a figure with turquoise hair, just near the back…

You were certain this time. You couldn’t see their face but it didn’t matter. You would know that color anywhere.

Once the curtains closed, word of a late dinner plans and celebrations began to circulate almost immediately. The idea of more food and a night out was appealing, especially to your growling stomach.

The floating feeling was lingering longer than usual, your inspiration already sparking as clusters and patterns of notes took shape in your mind. You wouldn’t sleep if you didn’t get them down and they would be gone in the morning…

And then there was the matter of the stranger-not-stranger, probably already long gone. The crushing feeling in your chest returned, driven not by musician euphoria but desperation, a need for closure. You needed to see their face, hear their voice, confirm for yourself if it was the man you knew only in your sleep. But the likelihood of being able to find them was already out of the realm of possibility with every second ticking by.

It was settled for you, ultimately: composing would clear your mind and get rid of the distracting ideas bubbling in your head.

You wished everyone a good time and excused yourself, mentioning that you would probably just grab dinner and go to bed. You tried not to take the looks of disappointment too personally but at least those you spent time with understood.

Dedicated, even married to your craft, some would say. Music came first. It always came first. That was the difference between you and the other musicians you worked with, some of whom were only here due to connections and mora and abilities just above average.

Arrogant, perhaps. Others certainly saw you as such.

What they failed to understand was that you worked for it, tirelessly and without complaint. You already had several compositions published and performed, small though they were. Composing was, for you, a need and one akin to putting a chisel and hammer to stone or a pencil to paper, carving away the stone or paper until the image revealed itself; you coaxed melodies and harmonies out of the ether and committed them to bars.

These moments were fleeting and you would steal them while you had the chance.

#il dottore #il dottore x reader #il dottore/reader #dottore #dottore/reader #dottore x reader #genshin impact dottore #genshin impact fanfiction #genshin impact reader insert

268 notes · View notes

chattegeorgiana · 3 months

Note

Hello Chatte, it’s me again! Just read chapter 13 and it was great! The chapter really sets up what you wanted to do story wise. Each characters pov drives the plot and their motivations makes sense from the OG canon. I love Sakura and Naruto drives and motivation. Naruto acknowledges the challenges of his philosophy such as his feelings on Pein and the Raikage, his personal feelings and how he’ll have to adjust if he wants to be Hokage. Sakura driving the plot forward with her plans to deal with the aftermath with war and her own personal project and the potential consequences of that is great. I’m assuming that’s why Sakura is wearing black? To symbolize her maturity and death of innocence due to the war and the potential consequences of what she wants with bringing back the dead. Also Tsunade taking care of business is great, shows how her character coming full circle from her walking away from Konoha to coming back and to making sure the next generation doesn’t have to deal with it. I read it on AOE, and I think you dealt with dark subject matter well. People often justify horrific actions behind “good” intentions. Both in literature and in real life

Anyway I’m glad that you’re taking a break to plot out the rest story I’m sure that will be easier going forward!

Hiii dear!

First of all welcome to my inbox again. My heart skips a beat whenever I see a message from you because you're one of the few people that truly does go such in depth with the way I create this story from so various angles. You and another great person I talk to about Kaika have a way to see right through my writing like no other!

Not to take from the others who enjoy Kaika, far from me, I appreciate each and every person who does it, but it's something about you two that tickles my writing senses, so to speak, haha.

It like y'all see right through me, and not in a bad way, but a great one. To be honest, I have to admit that ever since I started writing Kaika, it gave me perhaps another angle to look at Kishimoto and understand his predicament - especially in terms of Sakura's character.

It's so nice when one (or multiple) of your readers understand these layers of your writing and what you're trying to do with a character, because it creates a bond between the two of you, an understanding in an off itself, a knowing, a belonging; like a (not so) secret/coded language where you as the writer leave the coded messages, and the reader interprets and deciphers the message.

And when someone deciphers and understands the message it's absolutely incredible. It's like a feedback loop where both parts are in absolute sync feeding each other information and keeping the "motor running", if I may say like that.

Such an incredible feeling! Which is why, like I said, offered me another opportunity to understand Kishi's predicament with Sakura - for example. He did say he was trying to do things with her, but sadly the message wasn't getting across to so many.

But for me, back then, it did. It's just that I didn't have any means to reach out to him and tell him all those things. Sometimes I wish I could have been able to, to make him understand that hey, look, there's someone out there who sees it, keep pushing it, keep doing it, I SEE YOU!

But alas, it didn't happen.

Which is why I'm writing Kaika today to be honest. Well, not the sole reason but one of them.

It's my way of saying back after all these years to Kishi (methaphorically speaking of course, cuz it's not like I could reach him or anything lol) - I see you. I always did. And for as much as I didn't agree with many parts of his story, especially the ending, and how mad I was with him back in the day, I still appreciate him for giving me Naruto and especially Sakura Haruno, a character that I'll greatly cherish.

Anyway, I went so much on a tangeeeent! Let me get back to the actual subject of your message here, haha.

So, for the story and the plot... I'm finally so happy I'm slowly getting to these parts of it and I am slowly but surely starting to move the plot forward, you have no idea. I've been meaning to do this for such a long time, and while I planted the seeds in the initial chapters, with all the things that were going in my personal life that prevented me from attending to the story as I wished, it's such a big relief to be able to finally get here.

And not only that, but do it in a natural and organic way, that stays true to its canon counterpart. Because one of my worries was, I have to admit, that after being gone for so long, I would loose that touch, if I may say so, when it came to my writing. That flavor I try to bring it.

I have to admit, it's still kind of on and off, because I've been away from it for a long time. Took me almost an year from chapter 11 to 12, for example. I felt terrible and I worried that it was going to affect my writing, as well as that natural and organic feeling I tried to give to the story when mirrored to OG material. Partially my writing was affected as I do see things I would've written differently every time I reread the chapters after publishing myself.

But at the same time if I would edit over and over and over again, I would've never publish them, so for now it's like move forward, and you'll get back to your groove as you get to writing it.

That's why I've written this chapter only and then I want to take a break to plan story arcs. Because I want to be done with that side so that then, I can go full steam ahead and only focus on improving my writing.

As for Naruto and Sakura, what I'm trying to do with them is actually have them move the plot forward, not just be pawns that witness how everything moves around them, but have them be the agents of change. And to do that, I wanted to delve deep into their psychological and emotional attributes - like you said, for Naruto being the Pein and Raikage storylines, which are one of the biggest antithesis to Naruto's idealistic self, and with Sakura I went from two angles - from a relationship with self POV and with others. With self it's the greatly missed opportunity with inner Sakura, and with others is through how she connects with the others and brings about real change, rather than staying back and feeling sorry for herself that she cannot do more than that.

I love exploring these aspects to be honest, because that's one of Kishi's trademark signature when it comes to his writing style - the way he delves into the deep pits of the human psyche and manages to engage both the heart and the minds of his readers.

Like I said in one many of my other posts and talks with people - the reason Naruto is successful as a story and so popular is because of emotional manipulation, actually. I know it may sound like a negative thing I'm saying, but it doesn't have to be.

I mean, it is and it isn't at the same time. Depends from what angle you decide to look at it. From one angle can be good, from another can be bad.

But as a standalone fact, that's the truth. Kishimoto was remarkably crafty at manipulating his reader's emotions and getting them attached to the story to this degree. For that, I applaud him, even if I don't agree with him on everything he did, I can still recognize this remarkable skill of his.

And for better or for worse, I learned a lot from him, storytelling-wise. So for that, I'll always be grateful. And so I found my way to do that - through Kaika.

As for Sakura wearing black - YAS! That's exactly why it is, haha. That's exactly why both of them are having more black than other colors in their designs. Because it's meant to represent the depths of their psyche, going into the deep end face whatever they find there on that path.

I know Kishi already did it with Naruto in OG, but that was more on a personal level. It was from a standalone POV. So I thought, ok, how can I put a spin to this, add my own touch while still being faithful to OG? So then, that's when the opportunity presented itself - in his vastly unexplored Hokage dream that neither the franchise didn't go too much in depth.

Or at least, not in the way I've seen it, because from what I saw, they did something, but too surface level if you ask me.

Personally, I like to go deep and drill in the darkest depths of the being, if I may say so, haha.

Which is precisely what I'm doing with Sakura on the other hand. Sakura is a goldmine! An unexplored, uncharted territory with whom you can do so much with. It's incredible, really. Like I said on my Twitter on a post, it baffles me that Kishi didn't do so much with her because the potential. Dear God, the potential!

But oh well, I guess that leaves me more room to play with, haha.

As for my dear Tsunade, when I started Kaika I have to admit I didn’t exactly knew what to do with her other than tying her with some plots regarding the whole medical advancements. But those are built to bring forth Sakura's development, so I can't have Tsunade outshine Sakura. In this case Tsunade's function as a character in the story is very limited. This would prevent properly portraying the exposition with the new generation surpassing the old one.

And as we know, due to the way Kishi developed Sakura, it's rarely truly noticeable who's the better medic and he often put Tsunade in even scenes that impact-wise imo, would've fit Sakura better from a writing pov.

But then I ADORE Tsunade, so then the issue rose - what do I do with her character, in such a way that while yes, in Sakura's story she doesn't outshine her and provides support, but still leaves a great impact and mark on the plot as a standalone character, outside of Sakura's influence? Because as I said, this story will be mainly Sakura Haruno centric. Buuuut, I want it to be a balanced story, still.

And upon analyzing the character better - that's when the opportunity presented itself that fit all that criteria - is a supporting character in terms of Sakura's medical ninja development, however, she's also standing her her own as a standalone character by being a cog in one of the wheels of the old system that I work on reforming to bring the new one, and all done nicely wrapped in the the theme of the old generation vs the new one.

And given that this story is going to be mostly a story that focuses on the female counterparts - Sakura, Tsunade, Hinata, Karin, Ino (it's like I literally did a flip of the OG story that focused on the male cast lol, now I realized it), and females being the nurturers and live givers, I found it perfectly to have Tsunade the one that takes matter into her own hands in the problem of the Uchiha genocide. Because at her core she's a nurturer, a life giver. Despite being so incredibly strong, she represents perfectly the very principle of the traditional woman.

Because you see, I believe there's nothing wrong in portraying women in their traditional views of nurturers, life givers and all those other attributes that are associated with the female gender.

It's a matter of how you do it. You can have a character that's both a girl boss and a tender nurturing lover, for example. Like Tsunade is.

After all, the symbol that is associated with the divine feminine principle is the circle (which also happens to be the Haruno symbol *winkwink*). A circle has 360 degrees which encompasses 360 angles from which you can view a particular subject.

A woman encompasses all those 360 ways you can look at her in ONE. One circle.

It's just a matter of male authors rarely being able to portray that.

But since I'm a woman, I guess it's easier for me to do it.

And I will. Through Kaika.

Thank you once again for your incredibly insightful message.

Like you see, I love talking about these things, since this message turned out to be incredibly long.

It's been quite a while since I've written such a long response to an ask I receive, haha. But you surely know how to pull out those things in me haha.

Thank you, once again, as I said.

Wish you nothing but the best.

Chatte

#kaika saisei #kaika au #naruto #naruto fanfiction #narusaku #naruto au #tsunade #sakura haruno #naruto uzumaki #uchiha massacre

7 notes · View notes

t4tdykes · 1 year

Text

thoughts on the midnight club

it was pretty enjoyable, though i didn't care for the random old people ghosts as a recurring jumpscare thing like it felt very fringe and unrelated and i know they were definitely planning to expand on that in future seasons but here's the thing. that type of story where the whole Point is that they're on borrowed time, is best depicted in a miniseries format imo! like it was Good to end at one season. i was personally very drawn to the "character based anthology about grief and acceptance" angle there and that is like Made For Me but the like. ongoing plot was not quite my bag.

i like ilonka's trait of Hopeful Determination but even if i could deal with the cult rituals and whatever, the recurring visions of the the old couple didn't even feel all that compelling besides the fact that it was effecting kevin just as much as ilonka without anybody knowing because he hid it just as much as she did. THAT is fun! but the ghosts themselves feel so unrelated it wasn't very engaging as an "omg i need to see where this goes!" thing.

flanagan has his strengths and he has his weaknesses and it's very clear when one overtakes another, and in some ways he's a bit like moffat Solely In The Sense That they're great when they have an open and shut task to complete in a smaller time window because when they do it right they do it Right, but if they're trying to bite off more than they can chew, it can end up messy and diluted.

i was WAY more focused on all the characters' personal journeys and the love they felt for each other and that can genuinely be enough if the ongoing plot isn't, so i still really liked it. beautiful cast, beautiful stories, very natural and not at all "trying too hard" in a performative diversity sort of way like it felt very real and very sweet and very sensitive and kind. i enjoy flanagan's work centering on grief, addiction, acceptance, forgiveness, all of that stuff usually turns out really nice in his work when he isn't like. focusing too hard on trying to hit the scare quota and then failing.

i loved natsuki's story it got me a lil teary, spence was an EXCELLENT character and a rly refreshing take on the complexities of living with AIDS, kevin's story was absolutely nuts what a messed up little man you are, and ohhhhh anya. anya anya anya. gd damn. also cheri was so sweet so so sweet i loved her so much and amesh was adorable and sandra was honestly also very likeable and her apology to spence was one of the best segments in the whole show and ngl! i REALLY liked stanton!

it's very easy to think she's secretly evil or something but she feels a lot more like someone who genuinely defected from that cult and is actually trying to make things right and i appreciate that angle on redemption too bc it's not about absolving it's not about "well suddenly you're perfect now and it erases any bad shit you mightve done" it's about just trying every day to make the world better than when you were contributing to hurting it in some way and that's all you can do. ALL you can do. and she seemed incredibly genuine and simply very easy to project onto when you're trying to defy the odds and some adult in charge of you is telling you no. ilonka learning to accept what's going on feels a lot more rewarding than whoop ive cured cancer with blood magic and so the fact that it ends in s1 is actually a solid ending and the way the cliffhanger is there w stanton's tattoo leaving it so open ended and up to interpretation feels like a stronger ending than actually answering that question bc after bly manor and the way hill house (though EXTREMELY enjoyable in its own right!!!!) destroyed the point of the original novel, i don't necessarily trust flanagan to have done very well w multiple seasons of a show that is inherently about Dying Too Soon. midnight mass is his opus and its very concise, contained nature is why it worked. he has like five topics he likes to tell stories about and they are best handled in those small, gut punching bits where the brevity is part of WHY it lands so hard. when he misses it's disappointing because it's very clear he's got talent, but when he gets it it's really good. overall i rly liked midnight club, but it was because of the characters and the stories, not the big spooky bullshit going on in the background. nobody is focusing on that bro

#a.txt

3 notes · View notes

saturnrevolution · 3 years

Text

☆Stellium through the houses☆

please credit my instagram page with the same name if you repost outside of tumblr!!

I got a lot of stellium related messages, so here it is. I have a 6 planets 1st house stellium, so I have a lot to say.

☆ Stelliums are a very controversial topic, as each astrologer has their own way of interpreting it. However, essentially a stellium is a focus on a certain sign or house in a chart. Some astrologers believe that 3 or more planets makes a stellium, whilst some believe 4 or more planets. I tend to go with the 3 or more planets stellium interpretation. However, I personally do not interpret asteroids or angles (asc,dc,mc,ic) as being part of a stellium and mostly focus on planets, but it really does depend on the dynamic of each chart.

☆ A stellium is much stronger if it happens between personal planets (sun-mars) or if it's a combination of personal planets and generational planets (saturn-pluto) and if the planets are in strong conjunctions. The closer to each other and the more planets, the more focused and rare the chart is.

☆ Any planet or sign that is part of this stellium will be a significant one in this person's journey. So if someone has a 2nd house stellium involving the sun, moon and mercury - then houses in which they have leo, cancer and gemini/virgo will have a focus for them as well.

☆ If not cared for enough, a stellium can turn into an obsession of a person on that particular sign's energy or house energy. That is why, it's important to find ways in which you balance the energy of your stellium and this usually works through implementing more of the opposite house's and sign's energy into your life.

Each house ⬇⬇⬇⬇⬇

☆ 1st house stellium

A first house stellium means that there is a focus on self expression and developing this person's identity, as well as outwardly expressing their personality. These people might have strong personalities and really take pride in it, especially if the sun is involved. I find that 1st house stellium people have multiple layers to their personality. This is not to say that they are two faced, but when it comes to their identity, there is never a moment when you get bored of getting to know them as there are endless new things you can find out about them. First house stelliums embody the energy of all the planets that are found in there. The more planets, the more blend out the energy is and it might be harder to pinpoint exactly the ways in which a certain planet is coming off as. These people might have the ability to adapt to the environment they are in and portray a certain personality depending on the situation, while still appearing as their ascendant. The ascendant is the one that dictates the flavors of those energies in the house. The downside of having a first house stellium is that they can be rather individualistic to the point where they do focus way too much on themselves and live in a bubble. Also, there might be a lack of cooperation and they might find it difficult to work in a team or ask for help (not really if you have 7th house planets as well). It's always a great idea to balance with the opposite house, so spending time with your loved ones or investing in your romantic relationships or engaging in teamwork activities will help. In terms of appearance, these people are rather going to turn heads with their aura and have a sort of intriguing vibe to them. These people are straightforward and really shine whenever they are in their confidence and have so much of themselves to share with the world, they are meant to put it all out there and be appreciated for it.

☆ 2nd house stellium

Having a second house stellium means that there is a focus on the material world and possessions and depending on the sign the planets are in, you can tell a lot about what possessions actually mean for this person - this can mean that they either value money or they value spirituality and life experiences over the material. However it may be, these people have a lot of inner strength. Whenever they feel down, they do get back up and they always fight to make it on their own. There might be an issue here with wanting to keep things for themselves too much or with putting too much pressure on themselves to the point where it affects their self worth and they get insecure. They need to be careful to not rely too much on the idea that there is just one clear path for them to go on and that if they do not reach a certain status, things won't work out for them. Career is also quite important for these people, but more as a way to reach security, they are always prioritizing comfort and are quite consistent with their decisions. They might have strong values and really continuously work on their self worth. For these people, it's important to balance the energy with the 8th house, so engaging in things that have to do with shared experiences, shared finances, opening up, being vulnerable and building deep connections where they can let their guard down and relax. Also, there might be a tendency to be a bit stuck in their comfort zone and fear change, so leaning towards the 8th house and finding ways in which they can embrace change and dive deeper into the darker side of things will be really beneficial. They might own a lot of things that represent their personality - even if this means a car or a collection of stickers with spiritual meaning, they have few things that they own that have sentimental value. They are very practical and calculated people and their consistency is usually what gets them to be successful eventually and be appreciated for their integrity.

☆ 3rd house stellium

A third house stellium shows that there is an emphasis on communication or things of the mind for this person. As the 3rd house also rules the years when we are in school or our hometown, it's likely that these people either got a lot of attention in school or had some traumatic experience when they were younger, depending on the planets or signs involved. However, the purpose of a 3rd house stellium is to use their voice in order to express the things that maybe were once repressed or that they feel a deep need to talk about. These people have a lot to say and they have powerful opinions, without necessarily judging others. They can, however, get in heated arguments and sometimes get stuck into their ideas or their thoughts. 3rd house stellium people have a great eye for details and a way with words - they might be good at writing or singing or anything that involves communication, even small talk. They need to be careful not to be too keen on the details that they forget the bigger picture and should balance their 3rd house energy with the 9th house - so engage in more spiritual activities or find metaphor in their daily life and not always seek to analyze and understand the things around them, including emotions. These people can be prone to mental health issues and need to snap out of this by simply taking action. Their country of origin or their immediate and familiar surroundings will likely be an area where they will thrive and they might become well known in a very specific field or niche that they are so good at cause they are great at assimilating information and research. One of their purposes is to use their unique voice and point of view in order to speak up for those that are not able to do it themselves and so make them feel seen and understood, while they also share their potential with the world and often do that through their amazing storytelling gifts - they could even write a book or have a start-up!

☆ 4th house stellium

A fourth house stellium means that there is an emphasis on feeling secure in this life. These people might have went through an impactful childhood - either in a good way or a negative way and they usually base their decisions on the things they learned in the past. They might have a numerous family or some trouble in this area, however there is a focus on family for them. Their motivation comes from feeling safe and knowing that those around them are well. Also, they are likely to learn a lot from building a family on their own, weather this means getting married or simply owning a pet. These people are warm and caring and have this innate mother instinct that shines through. They are also quite intuitive and empathetic, however this is mostly a private area for them which they keep to themselves. The place they live in can influence their mood so much. The trouble here comes when they focus too much on being in a safe and comfortable environment or being surrounded by people they care about that they do not prioritize their growth or they tend to be a bit codependent. They need to balance the energy with the 10th house, so focus on their career and their future goals and use these really beautiful qualities they inherited from their family as an asset into putting themselves out there. Depending on the planets or sign they have here, they might not have moved a lot and when they do, it likely feels like they are out of their comfort zone, they need to build a space that encourages their growth and that's rather luxurious even. They might own a beautiful home later on in life and build their own kind of world there. These people are likely here to break family patterns that were felt for lots of generations before them and share their stories with the world or use the wisdom they gain to inspire and heal others in very profound ways.

☆ 5th house stellium

A fifth house stellium shows a person that is naturally talented or gifted. This can mean that they were basically born with a talent for drawing, singing, being really good at multiple things that enhances their personality and puts them in the spotlight. They came here to showcase these talents and they need to be careful to not to take them for granted and instead use them as a way to find meaning and pleasure in life. They can sometimes lean too much onto the idea of finding pleasure and adopt this careless attitude that focuses on prioritizing themselves before their friends - which can be both good or bad depending on the situation. These people are likely naturally good with children or they are meant to have children of their own and so keep their talents alive, they are also likely to have artists in their family or people that have, again, some really natural skill. Creativity might shine through for these people, depending on the sign and they can also be quite lucky romance wise or be natural flirts. They should be careful not to get too emerged or too obsessed with their pursuits that they forget about the world, so balancing this energy with the 11th house - with being with friends, finding a community that has the same interests as them or involving themselves in fighting for a bigger cause through their skills would help, even building an online persona. If more difficult planets are involved in this stellium, they might have difficulty with their self worth or went through some experience which made them lack the confidence they need to show their talents. Once they find that fire inside, these people are the bright stars that have a lot of admirers of their work and can be amazing leaders if they follow their passion and do not let fear lead the way, as well as really good teachers that people talk about for generations to come.

☆ 6th house stellium

A six house stellium shows someone whose focus in this lifetime is in perfecting their daily tasks in such a way that they match their future goals and get them closer to their aim. These people are action oriented perfectionists, this is why sometimes their wish to do everything in a perfect manner can stand in their way of their action-taking. It's great for these people to find balance in their life by investing in their opposing house, so engaging in spirituality, journaling, going to therapy in order to understand their subconscious mind, invest in their art, write or focus on healing their mind before their body from time to time. A six house stellium is going to be concerned with their body - the way they show up into the world, but also the way they care for their body, the things they eat, how much exercise they make, their skincare routine and how present they are with these tasks. They can sometimes get so stuck into daily things that they forget the bigger picture and they are prone to being workaholics or to burnout. It's important to take things as they come and reduce the expectations they have on themselves. Another trait of a 6th house stellium is their ability to be of service to others - depending on the sign they have in this house, they know how to be of help and really hate feeling useless, they are great at giving advice and observing the details. They are most likely to see something you are not seeing and they have a sharp mind and critical thinking. Also, having coworkers that match their values is a very important trait to them and if they cannot find that, they'd rather work alone or open their own business. As long as they do not overly engage with their daily routine and know that their discipline does not define them, that's when they can achieve the most perfectly imperfect things in life by showcasing their daily tasks that got them to the success they achieved.

☆ 7th house stellium

Having a seventh house stellium shows a lot of emphasis on relationships, socializing and discovering oneself through interactions to the other. These people are likely social, they love discovering and getting to know others and they feed on conversation. They are rational, but also extremely sensitive and can feel very deeply for those that they love, sometimes even in a psychic way. As there is a focus on the other, the problem here arrives when these people overidentify with their partner, their best friend, their family - they rely their whole being on them and they forget about their own needs and wants, they ask everyone about what they should do and they do not make decisions that are in tune with their own authenticity, they might be people pleasers during their darkest times and completely get lost in making people like them. This is why, they need to get themselves out of their comfort zone once in a while and focus on first house themes - take decisions on impulse and trust their intuition, speak up on what is bothering them and even spend time alone to self reflect or invest in some personal activity. This will help them find balance and the harmony that they are always looking for in relationships. These people could even become known for their successful love story. Their potential won't be the same without someone being there to watch them as well, so they are the perfect example of harmonized work, relationships and personal life in time, great multitaskers and storytellers too! Just need to tap into their shadow side, not be afraid to ask around and explore what they are capable of. They came into this life in order to search for people that match their values and to learn to set boundaries and say no to those that don't, they came here to inspire others and lead them with their soft skills, they came here to make others feel loved and in turn, get to know their own potential, which is huge.

☆ 8th house stellium

Having an eight house stellium shows that this person's emphasis is on things that are rather taboo, dark or private. This person is likely to be someone that does not enjoy being in the spotlight (especially if they have personal planets here), but they are amazing when it comes to behind the scenes. What this means is that these people have the ability to read and understand others in a really deep way, so much so that they do not need things explained in words, as they just feel the vibe. This is why, they would be really great in jobs that require them to use their intuition or jobs that require them to do the secret, insider type of behind-the-scenes work, no matter the industry they work in. However, they would do perfect psychologists, psychics or even undercover workers of some sort. These people are passionate and can dive really deep into the subject they are interested in an completely get immersed into that. The problem here is that stellium energy is very obsessive and 8th house energy is the same, so putting these together can get a person to become obsessed with a subject, a situation, another person even to the point where they might stalk this area or to the point where they do not care for their basic needs, such as food, just to spend time observing and investigating this subject. Another challenge for an 8th house stellium is the fact that they are able to feel so much what others are feeling makes them really sensitive and can get easily hurt if they do not separate the bad things that happen into the world from them. It's important for them to balance this energy with the 2nd house energy, so to spend time focusing on the material, on making sure they spend time showcasing their skills through work, but also searching for stability and going away from change and chaos from time to time. These people can also have a sexual energy to them and are likely always in an ongoing personal transformation, even due to the things they had to go through in the past. These people are meant to help others heal, as they are open to the dark like no one else and they have the potential to discover hidden truths, while also discovering themselves.

☆ 9th house stellium

Having a 9th house stellium means that there is a focus on wisdom, beliefs and constantly looking for meaning. These people hold a lot of inner wisdom that just seems to come out of nowhere, as if they were born with it. They are the ones that are not afraid to make mistakes and that take every experience as one to be learned from. You see these people chasing their impulses and the fire within. It's likely that they will move a lot in this lifetime or travel - these are things that help them see the world differently and fuels their wisdom. They might have a culturally diverse background or they might be interested in foreign cultures or foreign languages. If this is not them, then they are the readers, the mind travelers, the spiritualists or religious people that search for eternal questions of the mind. They usually find themselves asking how the world was created and what's wrong or what is right, what's moral and what's not and they have really well thought beliefs. The problem with a 9th house stellium comes when they need to go a bit deeper than life philosophies, when they need to not base all their decision on experience, but rather on facts or on emotions. These people might feel as if darker things in life make them want to run away, in their endless search for spirit, they might shy away from anything that involves emotion or face to face communication, as they do not like getting caught by and being stuck in details. This is why, an advice for them is to invest more time in the 3rd house - to try to listen to what people actually have to say and not what they believe in, to try to see a person besides their spiritual beliefs and music taste - but instead to look at their life struggles and their emotions. What's challenging for a 9th house stellium is to have confrontational conversations that make them feel uncomfortable. As a paradox, the 9th house is all about getting out of their comfort zone, but for them getting out of their comfort zone is staying in their immediate comfort and not trying to escape, they might be surprised how good it feels. The purpose of these people is to go forward with ideas and belief systems that have been studied and felt for generations and to ask the right questions at the right time, so much so that they change people's lives with their positive way of living.

☆ 10th house stellium

A 10th house stellium person is likely going to have an amazing work ethic and find pleasure through investing time in their career. These people are likely to achieve great success in their career and even be recognized as a public persona. The place where they most shine is the moment when they spend their time being productive, organized and working on their goals. The sign can influence the energy a lot, so you don't have to be a super organized person if you have this placement, but you likely have your own personalized way of organization that works for you. They are motivated and sometimes overly critical of themselves, as they always want to reach and do more than they can even take on honestly. This is why they push themselves beyond their limit every time and it's important to stop and asses their process and praise themselves before they move on, they often don't know how much they have done. A good way to do this is for them to focus on the opposite house energy, which is their 4th house - take time to rest, spend time with family, be lazy and allow people around them to slow them down. It's all right to be behind with schedule and it's all right to be human and not feel like a robot 24/7. The problem can come when they have some personal issue that interferes with their daily work. Usually, if they find themselves being more productive than usual, it's a sign that there is something in their personal life that they are trying to avoid by diving deep into their most safe space - work. These people could sometimes get sick because of overworking, so please listen to your body and slow down if you do not feel very good. Overall, they are the ones that help everyone else organize, but the ones that can also do the small tasks - so they would be amazing managers or most likely find success in any area they are going for, as they actually do the work, put in the effort and get so much pay off in time.

☆ 11th house stellium

An eleventh house stellium person will have their focus on matters of the future, groups of people and environments. These people are the ones that are great when it comes to coming up with innovative ideas in order to revolutionize a generation. In today's world, an 11th house stellium can be seen either vouching for a good cause at a protest or creating their own non-governmental organization or being an internet star. People that have more planets in this house are likely naturally good at technology or at least the internet or they are very skilled when it comes to some unique niche interest of their and they often lead people onto the right direction with their minds. These people are selfless and unfortunately can sometimes care too much about their environment and not enough about their own needs, so it's important for them to balance this energy with the 5th house energy and try engage into creative, artistic outlets or simply just do any activity such as going out or even watching movies just for their own pleasure - without needing to share it with anyone and without needing to make a purpose or a cause out of it. However, they do not necessarily have to be internet stars to be seen, they could even go the other route of being against social media and engaging in a very hippie, healthy way of living or simply choose a traditional route when everyone goes for the modern - anything that makes them stand out. They can also feel misunderstood sometimes because of this and alone, but finding the right community that shares the same interests as them or just the right small group of friends with the same values will do wonders. These people can also be rather controversial, as they are most likely the first ones to start a trend, a movement or be bold enough to take a chance to think and express themselves differently compared to the environment they grew up in.

☆ 12th house stellium

A 12th house stellium has their focus on the outer reality, but not necessarily a material one. These people are extremely selfless and would give a lot just to simply help someone. As the 12th house can also represent karma, these people might have had some lessons in their early life and even later on that felt karmic - it made them feel as if they did not do anything to deserve such experience and since they have been there, they have such a deep ability to be compassionate and understand where everyone is coming from. However, their past experiences made them feel small and helpless and this is the reason why they believe that making themselves small in the first place and being there for others more than their own is going to bring them good karma in return (this belief is at a subconscious level). When in reality, their ultimate purpose in this lifetime is to find themselves. Unless they stop giving their all to everyone in hopes to get something in return and actually take the matter in their own hands and fight for themselves, they will likely feel lost. These people have such artistic and intuitive souls, they absorb the energy around them and are very strong as they can endure things for long, but the real challenge is to go onto the journey of discovering themselves and find out how amazingly it feels to put yourself first and feel happy through balancing with the opposite 6th house and focus on the present moment, learn to prioritize their needs and focus on moving their body and taking the days step by step. These people came here to show us a lesson of how much you can heal the world by healing yourself - just do that and let the magic unfold.

#astrology #stellium #longpost #zodiac #signs #aries #taurus #gemini #scorpio #libra #sagittarius #capricorn #virgo #aquarius #pisces #leo #cancer #posted #houses

818 notes · View notes

silhouetteofacedar · 3 years

Text

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 25: Prima Materia

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

Five Months Later

Friday, November 13th, 1998

“I can’t believe you,” Scully hisses as they exit Skinner’s office. “We’ve discussed this, Mulder. Multiple, no, countless times. You can’t just accuse someone of being a supernatural entity based off a… a wild hunch!”

“A hunch? Scully, we have concrete evidence. It’s literally documented in the folder you’re holding right now.”

“That ‘evidence’ is obviously subject to interpretation,” Scully retorts, stomping down the hall in an attempt to keep pace with Mulder’s long strides. “An interpretation I thought we’d agreed upon before going into that meeting. And I don’t appreciate you abandoning a solid hypothesis, that we discussed at length, in favor of whatever the hell that just was.”

Mulder stops outside the elevator, turning to her. “That was the truth, Scully. It’s out there, if you would just open your mind a little and accept that there are things science still can’t explain.”

“But science can-” She reaches out and punches the button for the elevator, “-explain it. You just like the sound of your own theories and ideas better than fact. Fox Mulder, the champion of truth, the only man willing to consider the extreme.”

“You know you like it,” he says in a low tone.

Scully’s eyes go wide, and she grabs his elbow. “Do not-”

The elevator doors open, and they scurry into the lift. Mulder presses the button for the basement.

“Do not use my weaknesses against me at work, Mulder, that’s not fair,” she says as the doors slide closed.

“Weaknesses?” Mulder asks casually. “Am I your weakness, Dr. Scully?”

“I’m serious. We’ve have a few close calls in the past few months; if we’re not careful, we’re going to be found out.”

“How, by arguing? We did that before we started fu-”

She gives him an imploring look.

“-working after hours,” he corrects. “Besides,” he continues, angling his chin downwards to reach her ear, “I happen to know arguing turns you on.”

Scully licks her upper lip. “I’m just saying we have to be more careful,” she insists, staring straight ahead.

“Then I guess this isn’t the best time to invite you out for a drink,” Mulder says.

Scully glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “It’s Friday the thirteenth,” she notes with a twinge of a smile. “Don’t you think it’s a little risky?”

Mulder shrugs as the elevator doors open into the basement. “Historically, the thirteenth is my lucky day.”

“You know, it’s been nine months since our first date,” Mulder says conversationally. They’d walked to Casey’s Bar from the Bureau and are now perched on stools at the far end of the counter, nursing a beer each.

Scully furrows her brow, obviously doing some quick mental math. “February… that was a date?” she says, somewhat amused. “You should have told me at the time. I wouldn’t have waited so long to put out.”

Mulder raises his eyebrows. “Dana,” he says in mock surprise. “I thought you were a good church girl.”

“What gave you that idea, my penchant for kneeling?” she mutters into her glass.

Fuck, she’s good.

They’ve been together for six months now, and it’s surprising how little has actually changed between them, in the practical sense. They’ve been pretty good at keeping their relationship a secret, Mulder thinks. It helps that everyone in the Bureau already thought they were crazy, codependent, and tanking their respective careers. Apparently, bad reputations make the best cover.

He and Scully arrive at the Hoover building in separate vehicles, squabble over conflicting viewpoints, have lunch together almost every day. He rests a hand on her back, guiding her through the halls, and she gives him withering glances and dramatic eye rolls when appropriate. From the outside, they’re still the same Mulder and Scully.

And then they go home to one of their respective apartments and tear each other’s clothes off.

Well, they usually make it home. That quickie in the office annex was an outlier.

Nine months seems significant somehow. The length of human gestation, Mulder thinks absently. It seems like a length of time worth celebrating.

“Would it be terribly corny of me to propose a toast?” he asks.

“A toast to what?”

He’s suddenly shy. “Us,” he says softly. “How far we’ve come. And how much,” he adds, giving her a nudge with his elbow. She rolls her eyes at him, and it feels overtly fond.

Scully lifts her glass. “To us,” she says warmly. “And to spooky shit.”

“You remember,” Mulder says as they clink glasses, recalling that first toast in Casey’s all those months ago.

“Mm,” she replies, sipping her beer. “I do. It was a… notable evening.”

“What made it notable for you?” he asks.

“We had an actual conversation, for one,” Scully muses. “About our personal lives, attraction, about how we relate to the outside world; and by extension, how we relate to each other. I remember very clearly feeling like we were close to something.”

“So did I,” Mulder admits. “So what happened, on your end?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “The spell wore off, maybe? When I got home that night I remembered all the reasons it would be a mistake to let myself feel. And then Mark happened, and you know the rest of that story.” She turns on her stool to face him more fully. “What happened for you?”

“I took you on a very cold, very dark picnic,” Mulder reminds her.

“Which was wonderful,” she offers.

Mulder nods. “But then when I asked you out again, you had a date. I don’t know, maybe I was going too slow, being too subtle. But when you started going out with that jackass it felt like… in a way, you were saying that what I had to give wasn’t enough.”

Scully doesn’t say anything, just stares down at her glass.

“And I realize that it’s selfish of me to project that onto you,” he amends. “Your choices aren’t about me. But fuck, I wished they were.”

“You’d be surprised how many of my choices actually were about you,” she says softly. “I surprise even myself. You told me before that you didn’t think I’d last a full year working with you, remember? There was validity in that. This job… it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. So much is at stake for us, so much has been taken. But I chose to continue because I believed in you, and in our work. We have different methods and come to different conclusions, but we’re working towards the same thing. That’s what I believe.”

He reaches over beneath the cover of the countertop and takes her hand, clasping it atop his knee. They sit in silence for awhile, taking sips of their drinks, palms pressed together.

The truth hides in many places, Mulder is learning. Places more secret and sacred than dusty file folders or abandoned warehouses, more mundane than the locked rooms of the Pentagon or trapped beneath thousands of years of ice. The greatest truths are scattered pieces he stumbles upon every day; reflected in his bathroom mirror, scribbled on post-it notes in their office, hidden under Scully’s warm tongue. He knows he’s an obsessed man, prone to irrationality and impulse; but in quiet moments with his partner, he finds small fragments of peace he never thought he could reach.

“Where are you?” Scully says softly, drawing him back into the present. A dim barroom, a sweating glass, her soft hand in his. He wonders if the day will come when his mind wanders too far for her to follow.

“I-I know how crazy this is going to sound, Scully but bear with me… do you ever think that we’re… that we’re bonded somehow? Like we were always supposed to end up here. Together.”

“Like here, here? In this bar?”

“Maybe. Maybe less specifically this bar and more generally this time and place on earth. This universe, this dimension. With each other.”

She shakes her head gently, smiling. “Mulder, it’s been a long week. If we’re going to talk about the metaphysical I need to either have more to drink or be under the influence of a postcoital surge of oxytocin.”

He leans closer to her. “Do you have a preference as to which, because I’d gladly provide either.”

Scully pushes her half-empty glass away from her, eyes dark and soft. “Take me home, Mulder,” she whispers.

His heart squeezes. “Will you stay?” The night, the rest of our lives, until our boat drifts over the edge of the earth?

She nods, and another piece of the truth slides into place.

#fmcr #my fic #fox mulder closet romantic #txf fic #xfiles #It Is Finished #oof #i need to lie down

93 notes · View notes

hei-ch0u · 3 years

Text

Oh boy. Here goes... Shingeki no Kyojin Final chapter (139) thoughts and analysis ✰

Well, where do I even begin to accumulate my thoughts on the final chapter of Shingeki no Kyojin? Even after some time to reflect and read the chapter many times, over and over - I’m still going to struggle to form this analysis. But, alas I shall try my best despite this.

I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this and understand my own views of the final chapter. Proceed with caution - ⚠️ spoilers ahead ⚠️

This chapter and ending overall has left me with a love/hate relationship with the overall tale in full. I’d even go as far as saying it has tainted my view slightly of the entire series in one way or another and I will never look at it the same way I did - as much as I wish I could. My reasoning for the love/hate relationship I have will come, but, I want to start off by saying that despite it’s ending I will always appreciate this story and Isayama for his work, even if I myself don’t approve of his steering towards the ending.

It is just like I said in my theory, the thing we all need to recognise with this story is that the characters we love and have cherished, were never going to get exactly what they desired and if anything this chapter is a clear indication of that fact. It has been a story that was paved for a bitter, somewhat ‘bittersweet’ ending (yes, I hoped it wouldn’t be in the form of ‘that’, but it was). It is just as Mikasa said - “The world is cruel and merciless, but it is also beautiful”. This tale became the typical embodiment of humanity and how ruthless it can be.

Again, like I said in my theory, it was heavily foreshadowed that Eren was playing devil’s advocate and might have to sacrifice his freedom in this life to save the ones who meant the most to him. We heard hints in OST’s such as My War, Red Swan, Vogel Im Kafig, among others…

“Angel playing disguise with Devil’s face”

“I’ll cry for you in a dream”

“All of my kingdom, for your return, I’d let it burn!”

“Spread your wings, which are dreaded in blood”

“And eternity as you, fly to heaven”

“Like a fallen angel”

“Looking down from above I feel awful”

“Every living being dies someday, whether we are ready to die or not”

“Is that the angel who flew down from the twilight sky?”

“Is that the devil who crawled out from the crevice?”

“Tears, anger, compassion, cruelty, peace, chaos, faith, betrayal.”

It was foreshadowed, all of those things in the last example is humanity in a nutshell. The use of birds to symbolise the dead was shown on multiple occasions. Hell, even in the Levi ova, his friends are shown as 2 birds above him as he continues forward. It didn’t shock me that Eren’s soul was represented or “reincarnated” in the form of a bird - simply because birds are the most free creatures on our planet, they can fly over land, sea and maintain the air around them. Realistically, we should’ve analysed the birds presence more (it was even implied in the opening trailer for season 4. Falco awoke to a bird flying above him, we saw the bird present many times in even past seasons and don’t get me started on how many times it was present in the manga). Our Angel was Eren. He was a fallen angel - a slave to the story and what it means to be human, to feel deeply and make sacrifices. He was never a monster, just a pawn in a wicked game.

For a split moment of initial shock, I let the “judging a book by its cover” ideal kick in. After calming down and having access to proper translations, again I can’t say I love this ending or hate it - it has the bittersweet notion that was intended, but it was also lukewarm. It is not perfect by any means, there are some plot holes and loose ends that could have been tied up by extension. However, Isayama maybe intended for it to remain open for interpretation. Something of which, I’ll reveal what I personally took from the ending.

One thing I am surely certain of, is that I can hold my hands above my head and say this chapter 100% embodied my love for my favourite character - Eren Jaeger. He had such a tragic outcome, he did it all for his friends and loved ones. He was never free, not in life and partially not in death. He was a broken child, in a broken world with a broken fate of shouldering mass amounts of responsibility with no idea of how to change or control the past, present and future. To witness your best friend talking of all the things he was going to see, yet knowing you wouldn’t be there to see it yourself. To know the girl who was there for him forever and always, could never be his to cherish. He had no freedom to do so. To live the life he wanted to, he would have died anyway. If he had ran off with Mikasa, he would have damned his friends. The life he wanted was not feasible, therefore he chose to sacrifice his desires so his friends could live long lives, unlike the one he was damned to. He was a character who was torn along all sides of the coin. Torn between his desires, his duty and his self - all while experiencing memories from all angles. He was not a monster or a psychopath and I won’t let others spit on his name due to their lack of analysis and empathy. He is human. He is allowed to feel. He isn’t pathetic for wanting to live, for wanting to be with his friends or the girl he loves. He is 19. Can you really say you wouldn’t feel the same? It is natural to be frustrated at your life being ripped from under your feet at such a young age. He was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Look at his face in paths when he talks with Armin, he is devastated and he had no solution.

However, I do believe he will be reunited with his friends once more. After all, the scouts were reunited in death, so why shouldn’t he? His friends will not live in vain, his sacrifice will mean something. They will live their life to the fullest and find peace in life and then in death - they have Eren to thank for that. Another misconception I want to pick out of the fandom is that they did not condone genocide, they did not thank Eren for ridding the population of 80%. Armin states it as an “error”. What they did do, was acknowledge Eren’s sacrifice for them to live and that they understood it’s not what he wanted himself, but that due to unseen forces. - did he really have a choice? It is not by any means perfect, but it gives them freedom to live out with the walls - was this not Eren’s dream? To be free, not confined within the walls by Titans. He did exterminate all titans, that is one goal Eren Jaeger accomplished. We don’t know the full extent of the power of the attack titan or the founding titan, this is one of the open plot holes. Eren himself explains this, he himself has no clue and his head is a mess - is it any shock that his head is a mess? People would go crazy over less. He was a pawn in a story with no happy ending. At least not for him.

Even in the bird reincarnation theory, I hope he is happy and free. Free to roam the skies, perch upon the tallest mountains, titter along the grass banks of the world and watch over his comrades, his friends, the ones he loves deeply… The tragic protagonist I will always remember. (Especially as one who was done so dirty by his author)

There was so many routes this manga could have taken, fan theories proved this and I do think the ending could have been executed better. We were not getting a happy ending, it is not happy by all means. Those characters left have to live in the aftermath, aware of their friends sacrifice and all he had to put himself through for them to live the lives they themselves desired. My favourite quote will always be:

“Don’t pity the dead. Pity the living”

Mikasa lost her family in more ways than one, she has to live a life where she didn’t get the one person she desired more than anything, but I believe she will move on and Eren will be by her side the entire time until they are reunited in death. Levi is the same, he lost everyone and whoever his love may have been - Erwin, Hanji, Petra (who knows). Either way, he didn’t have those loved ones around in the end. But, he no longer has to fight for survival and can spend the remainder of his time resting until the day in the future he can be reunited with his comrades, friends and even kick Eren a big one, ruffle his hair, tell him its okay and tell him all the things he wanted to tell him like he said. Armin lost his best friend, he held the burden above his head that he himself killed Eren and not Mikasa. However, he has an abundance of friends, he has Annie and he can travel the world like he desired - like Mikasa, he will have Eren by his side for the remainder of his time.

Jean can meet the woman of his dreams and have the children like he desired, knowing that even in their silly quarrels - Eren was loyal to him always. Connie can have his mother back, his family and move on. Reiner can live, not die like he once desired and live on knowing of Eren’s sacrifice, that he wasn’t a monster himself. He is free from the curse, as is Annie, Pieck and Falco. The warriors have their families back. Gabi and Falco can be together unlike their comparisons, sad, but fitting. They are in Paradis, a place we never expected them to be in the end, advocating for change alongside Onyakapon looking after their elder, Levi, alongside them. On Eren’s death anniversary, it is implied they all return to his grave to be together, none of them are alone like we initially thought. Mikasa is not alone in Paradis since it is implied that Levi, Onyankapon, Gabi, Falco, Historia even… still live amidst the walls - I think it would be wasteful to assume such a strong character secludes herself after the love of her life’s death. She does not have to love another man, she can choose to live her life for herself, a long one alongside her friends. This manga has never necessarily needed to have love stories, they are implied, but not needed. For life itself is the embodiment of their freedom.

This above is the rosy way of looking at it and it’s what I personally will take from it. I overall think it is terrible writing and use of dialogue - there’s no denying it. I myself as a writer and artist would have done it differently. Isayama has created a manga with a tragic story that reveals the raw, tainted feeling of what it’s like to be human. We all want things, we all have desires…but we don’t always get them, no matter how hard we try, some will slip from our grasps. That is life, no matter the universe. Yes. But, I do think in ways Isayama did taint and obliterate Eren as a character. This I am disappointed in. It is a typical author ideal of damning his protagonist and the sad thing about being a stories protagonist - you risk being ruined due to being written so complex initially that the author loses sight of how to conclude your arc respectfully. I believe from what we have been shown, he would not have accepted his death that easily and would fight for another way. Although, I cannot blame him as I myself would have felt defeated, suicidal and depressed at learning everything he did after his contact with Historia at such a young age. Remember, how you are brought up in an already cruel world is key - he didn’t stand a chance. But alas, I still feel he would’ve fought. This Eren is not the Eren we saw the majority of the manga, but then again he did change and I feel so sorry that the Titan power had that effect on him.

This is the character development true Eren stans are enraged with. TATAKAE! Fight the attack titan, fight the founding titan, fight against your cruel fate - don’t succumb to defeat. There is always another way. I don’t accept this version of Eren, due to the development we saw built by Isayama of his character, I can’t. It leaves so many gaps among other plot reveals. I don’t see what was accomplished. Eren’s being, his life, was a ploy to keep the other characters we care about alive, but at what cost ? If I was Eren’s friend, I would go forward like he wanted me to, but I could never forget the burden he bared and what he had to go through and what he did to achieve that outcome for me. I would forever be sad. I would be living in a world much like this one, lacking in peace and serenity and above all is that not what we all desire in one way or another? He did not necessarily know the Dina titan would go for his mother, but he had to direct it away from Bertholdt since in the timeline it was not his time to die. Always remember the theory of time, one thing changed, drastically changes the outcome. He did not want civilians or people within Paradis to die, it became collateral damage and no one would be able to fight for some time because of the 80% notion. He gave them time to live, time to change things to the best of their abilities and experience all they possibly could. They became the ‘heroes’, but again, at what cost?

Now, to the plot holes and answers I feel needed to be present for the story to knit together in a better way. This will be less “paragraph” based and more pointed, since…well these things were not explained. Majority of potential foreshadowing was swept under the rug like it meant nothing to bring about the lukewarm feeling I was talking about.

The alien like hallucigenia, what exactly was its purpose? It’s reason for being? It disappeared and ceased to exist. No mention of how it came to be. Even Ymir just vanished. Everything ceased to exist and Eren himself couldn’t understand Ymir’s reasoning other than being able to witness love. This seemed to be cop out on Isayama’s part.

Historia’s pregnancy was heavily implied and emphasised on within the manga, making readers think it meant something (when a creator zones in on these things, its usually for further plot reveal) Her character development was destroyed and she deserved better. She sidelined herself and stayed away till the final moment where it is implied she and Armin will become the negotiators of a new world, all while housing tyrants (Jaegerists). Again a further implication of Shonen manga and its poor interpretation of women.

The conclusion to Ymir and Eren’s particular character arcs was shocking and this can’t be dismissed. We needed both their sides of things to explain more. It lacked real conclusion and didn’t match up to past events or character development. This chapter should have purely been an Eren POV with the ending moments of how the scouts moved on. Of course this couldn’t have been done in 1 chapter, hence the recognition that this manga needed ‘more’ and it wasn’t enough to tie it all together. Another flaw in Isayama’s writing and continuity.

The Ackermans? Don’t get me started. My theory again will entail my rage about this one. Did the Ackerman power cease to exist like the titan curse? What is their origin story? To imply the Ackerman blood concept in all its parallels and foreshadowing to not even have the 2 remaining characters from said bloodline talk about their shared experience in thorough detail is such an abysmal hole in plot. Especially with it being heavily emphasised throughout the entire manga.

I barely saw any signs of Eren being in love with Mikasa? If this was the case, then it should have been shown in the manga and emphasised like isayama did with many other things that eventually had no meaning. I always viewed their relationship as very toxic to both sides and needed amending. So for Eren to suddenly turn round and say he doesn’t want her to be with another man....I find this a very bad continuation and completely disregards how Eren has been the past 138 chapters. Why was it so hard for him to say these things even before he made contact with historia and unravelled it all? Was it the power of the attack titan preventing him?.... (below)

The attack titan and founding titan, explain how it works. Why does Eren himself not fully understand yet he embodies them? Why could he not have flipped the switch? Why could he not ask for help? Explanation is needed.

All the time loop links diminished to nothing other than Eren’s past, present and future…yet its implied in many characters even in their childhoods mentions of things they could not be aware of. How can it merely be coincidence?

I wholeheartedly believe that this was not the initial ending of Shingeki no Kyojin, specifically because I and a few others I’ve seen noticed the shift in the story around 10 or so chapters ago. It seemed to be going in the route of a few particular fan theories and then suddenly (quite drastically I’ll add) shifted into this ending. I can only theorise that Isayama changed his original ending along the way to please editors and readers in different ways. In interviews past, he has completely contradicted things he has said about the manga and its ending with what he has produced in the final chapter. When you look at it from a marketing point of view as a selling point, if Isayama had killed certain characters like “Levi” for example or left the ending dark as it possibly could have been (something I wouldn’t have put past yams to do) it would be bad from a marketing point given the likes of Levi is the targeted favourite of the series (even with being a side character) and editors would heavily warn him of this.

People are saying that it’s Isayama’s story and editors won’t have influence - you’d be heavily surprised how much the editing team can have influence, especially when a story of this magnitude becomes so popular. I do think in ways, Isayama gave up. As an artist even myself, its very abundantly clear when a fellow creative loses drive and how the concept of something becoming popular can influence you to become bored and look for a way out. Hence, the clear signs of the story coming out as rushed, its all there, the loss of continuity, the holes in plot and even though Isayama’s art can be inconsistently coherent - some parts of the past few chapters weren’t at the full potential we saw previously. We watched him get better to suddenly somehow revert? That to me seems like a creator who had just had enough and maybe in the end chose to veer off his original plan.

Alas! As I said, I will always love Shingeki no Kyojin despite its ending and loose ties, it holds a place in my heart and has been a favourite of mine since my school days. Being an adult now In her 20’s and experiencing the many troubles of what its like to be human and a creative can sympathise with the struggles and stress Isayama would have been under all these years as his manga gradually became the phenomenon it is now. As it is our favourite characters time to rest and move on, it is his also. Although the story is not where I and many others hoped it would go, I still thank him massively for giving me characters like Eren Jaeger, Levi Ackerman, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Arlert… the list goes on. Thank you for embodying why Eren was my first and last favourite character. Goodbye Shingeki no Kyojin.

#snk 139 #aot 139 #I've put a read more so proceed with caution #eren jaeger #eren yeager #mikasa ackerman #levi ackerman #armin arlert #if i tag all of them itll go on and on #snk final chapter #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #aot #snk manga #snk analysis #snk theory

47 notes · View notes

tiikerikani · 2 years

Text

I packed A LOT into these two sentences from my message to Senpai:

You said to me that my dance was something different… I have been deeply emotionally affected by music for almost as long as I can remember, but I have never been around people who saw value in it.

And I kind of want to, well, unpack a little bit here what I meant by the last bit with a couple of vignettes—one about music, and one about dance:

Almost all significant (and some not so significant) events in my personal life since... I guess sixth grade? have been emotionally associated with one or more pieces of music. (Over time they have lost their emotional impact but the associations remain.) Especially with The Thing That Happened there were multiple pieces, some of which I was learning on the piano at the time, and of those, one was a piece I was formally learning at lessons (vs playing just for fun). I was in a rather selective classical music program at the local conservatory, and at the end of the academic year you had to perform to a jury who determines whether you stay, get promoted, or go. Anyway, I teared up a bit while playing the piece and my teacher found out about it and it was like yes you should appear emotionally involved in the performance (which was very easy for me) but NOT LIKE THAT.

At some point in high school I desperately wanted to try being in a theatre production (drama queens gotta drama) but there was no way I would ever get an acting part since I wasn’t in drama class. So I thought I’d try for a dance part in the school musical—dance can’t be that hard, right? At the group audition, while doing various step patterns back and forth across the floor, my dumb ADHD self wondered aloud when we could demonstrate more expressive movement (which for me is closer to modern dance and/or the freestyle interpretive thing I do). The choreographer (it wasn’t a teacher at the school but someone from outside, IIRC) was taken aback, like how is this not expressive, so I left because it clearly was not going to be my sort of thing. Later I heard (from someone who got a part) that I was used as an example. I have no idea how true this was (seems a little unprofessional?) but anyway it hurt.

As long threads in the story of my life, the hunger to be noticed and heard goes hand in hand with the theme of being in the wrong place, around the wrong people, to whom characteristics that I saw as my strengths were seen as weaknesses.

This is why Senpai’s compliment touched me the way it did. He saw that my dancing "came from the heart” (his words) and appreciated this as a positive quality.

I mean I obviously love his music a lot too—and knowing it well is a prerequisite for my dancing to it—but all this is the reason my fangirling has a somewhat personal angle.

#personal #message to senpai

2 notes · View notes

linklethehistorian · 3 years

Text

Randou and the Sins of Season 3's Fifteen Adaption (Interlude)

Episode 27 — The God of Fire: A Post-Section Addendum

Forgive me for backtracking for a brief moment, but in hindsight, there were two small things — particularly relating to the subsection of this section, which is titled “The Confrontation with Sheep at the Arcade” — that it seems I failed to properly address in my initial posts on this subject.

After realizing this mistake during the long struggle to get back on track with rolling out the rest of my article, it became apparent to me that I had three choices: I could go back and try to edit this information into the main article, hoping that it would fit well into what already existed without clashing with the carefully written transitions between sections, I could wait until the very end of my article and then make a post addressing the matter in hindsight, risking my audience becoming and remaining conflicted over certain bits of information until then, and being totally unaware of the one thing I accidentally skipped over, or I could simply make a separate addendum such as this to address it here and now, as soon as possible, and not have to worry about fitting it directly into the previous section for the time being — without having to give up either the chance to talk about it now or even to potentially go back at the end and try to fit it back into the main article at my leisure, as well.

Naturally, as I’m more than sure you can already see for yourself, given that you’re reading this, I decided to go with the last of these options, as I felt that this was the one that would offer the greatest amount of opportunities, with the least amount of potential problems that could come out of it. As for whether or not I will eventually, upon the completion of this very long analysis and review, attempt to backtrack and merge this added data into its rightful place in the main piece, that is something which I will have to decide when the time comes, even if I have a very optimistic outlook on this prospect right now, but in the meantime, I will just be sharing it with you here, and placing the link to this post somewhere in the Masterlist between the discussions on Episode 27 and Episode 28.

On one final note before we jump into this, if this post seems a bit sloppier than usual or just flows less smoothly than the rest of the article in any way, I truly apologize, but if that is indeed the case, it is likely due to the fact that I have had much less time to plan for my discussion of these things than I have had for everything else I’ve talked about up until this point. I promise that if in hindsight I should sense any need for it, I will attempt to re-write it in a better, more comprehensible format at a later date, but at the moment, I’m afraid that this is the absolute best that I can do if I am to get this information out in a timely manner.

Now, with that said, let’s go ahead and get into the actual things I’d like to talk about.

Dazai’s Previous Invitation to Join Sheep, and the Gang’s Initial Misunderstanding About His Affiliation

Okay, so this one is honestly a little embarrassing for me to admit to forgetting in hindsight, purely because of how often the subject is referenced in the novel despite being completely removed from the television series’ adaption, but in earnest, part of the reason I didn’t even think about it at the time was due to just how inconsequential this information was in the grand scheme of things; nevertheless, for those of you who truly want to know everything that was changed or omitted from Fifteen in the anime — or even just want to know more about the events and details of Dazai’s life — these facts probably still will be of some interest, so I will mention them anyway.

Contrary to how the show presents it, in the original version of the tale, Sheep actually do not immediately look upon Dazai as a threat when they first meet him in the arcade, nor does it even cross their minds that he might be a member of the Port Mafia; rather, their first thought upon seeing and conversing with him was simply that he had to be someone whom Chuuya had been looking to recruit into their own ranks.

Interestingly, it was also very briefly mentioned much earlier in the novel by Dazai himself — back during his and Chuuya’s initial meeting in Suribachi City — that the bandaged brunet actually was once handed a formal invitation by Sheep to join their organization but ultimately refused their offer, although this does not appear to be the reason why the gang now mistakes him as a potential new member of their group, given that, at the very least, the members there in the arcade seem not to recognize him whatsoever; in fact, they even question Chuuya’s behavior in seemingly having chosen to induct him without first receiving the council’s pre-approval — an accusation which Chuuya curiously, actively chooses not to correct, likely purely because he does not want to look like a traitor in their eyes, should they realize Dazai was actually with the Mafia. Indeed, it isn’t until Dazai purposefully outs himself as a mafioso in order to stop them from taking the redhead away with them that Sheep realizes the truth of things — at which point Dazai ends up having their captive members released in order to appease them, as we see in the anime, and things then go on to unfold as I have described previously in my article.

However, while of this might be very intriguing and, at the least, a bit insightful into how Dazai knows as much about the organization as he does, to be totally earnest about the matter, I must reiterate all the same that the removal of this information from the show was on the whole a very wise one that I can wholeheartedly support, for its existence truly doesn’t affect the overall storyline in any majorly impactful way, whatsoever — so much so that even I, a very dedicated Fifteen enthusiast, was able to easily forget about its existence during every one of the multiple times I wrote, read, and re-wrote the section dealing with the episode in which it mostly would have been present.

Looking back on it from that angle, I suppose, then, that my failure to bring it up prior to this probably did not change all that much, but still, in the interest of transparency and thoroughness, I wanted to make a small addendum post about it, anyway — and besides, there was already another matter regarding the arcade scene that I needed to speak on to begin with, so why pass up the opportunity to do this at the same time? There was genuinely no reason why I should have resisted.

Sheep Truly Being the First to Leave the Arcade in the Novel & DarkestJay8686’s English Translations

Now, in regards to that other matter I needed to address, for anyone who might have already read and/or started reading only DarkestJay8686′s English translation of the Fifteen light novel upon discovering my article, I am sure that there is probably a lot of confusion resulting from the conflict between my assurance that Sheep were the first to leave the Arcade before Dazai and Chuuya, and DarkestJay’s translation, which depicts the exact opposite of this, and for that I deeply apologize — not because I am wrong about it (as I am not), but rather, because I failed to discuss this apparent contradiction back when I first brought it up, even though, rightfully, I should have.

Be that as it may, I need you to understand that I did actually have a specific reason for why I had previously chosen refrain from talking about it, as although I did sincerely think about and even strongly consider adding mention of this whole ordeal to my disclaimers and notes at the beginning of this article back when I had first prepared to post it, in the end, I was simply too concerned that it would be considered somehow rude or unfair for me to do so.

My train of thought back then was — mistakenly — that to express anything other than complete praise and pure, unconditional endorsement of DarkestJay’s work would be to instantly and irrevocably make myself come off as a disrespectful, ungrateful monster who has no appreciation for the people who dedicate their free time to making these stories available to non-Japanese speaking members of the fandom, no matter how kindly I may have tried to word what I had to say. I was utterly terrified that, even if I spoke highly of the translation as a whole and encouraged people to read it, if I also had explicitly addressed the reason why I personally did not recommend using it as the sole source of knowledge of the book at the same time and mentioned any of the mistakes I found to be made within their interpretation of events, then I would be seen as criticizing the author for things that truthfully were likely to largely not be in any way their fault. Obviously, in hindsight, this line of thinking was not the best to listen to in light of the misunderstandings it could cause, and I realize that, but these were nevertheless my thought processes at the time; having had time to think deeper on the circumstances now, though, I of course have also come to the conclusion that none of these other concerns of mine need be had, so long as I try to approach the matter as delicately and respectfully as I can, however big these fears may have been at the time, and so, I intend to finally speak about it at long last.

Furthermore, while I in no way want to seem like an opportunistic profiting off of someone else’s misfortune — as I assure you that I, too, was quite saddened to hear of their struggles and wish it hadn’t happened — seeing as that their work was nonetheless sadly removed from WattPad, and they had to relocate to another platform where they wouldn’t have to fear censorship again, thus requiring me to have to provide y’all with a new link that actually works and leads you to where you need to go to read it, I think that is really the perfect time for me to preface my sharing of that new link with this little PSA of a sort.

So, if you’re keen on getting that new link I mentioned and want to learn about the reason why my information about Sheep’s departure from the arcade doesn’t line up with their translations, as well as why it’s inadvisable to use their otherwise mostly excellent translations as your sole source of info on Fifteen rather than reading it alongside the other trusted translation I have provided at the beginning of my article, feel free to hop on over to this post to find out.

[View the masterlist]

6 notes · View notes

piccolina-mina · 4 years

Note

That Wentworth show you reblig sometimes. It's Netflix? Could I ask how diverse it is? How gay is it? Is there people of colour?

Yup. Wentworth (or Wentworth Redemption) is an Aussie show on Netflix that takes place at a women's prison. It just aired its 8th season (and they dropped the latest season on Netflix already).

Diversity, it's fairly diverse.

It's predominantly white, but they do have characters of color and they have improved on that as the seasons progressed.

The main character of color for all eight seasons so far is Will Jackson. The actor is Samoan.

In the early seasons, there was also an inmate, Doreen. She's Aboriginal. She was one of the warmest, and sweetest characters out of the brood.

But outside of those two, there weren't any main characters of color. And they had a couple of recurring background characters who were Asian, mostly of Chinese descent, I believe, but my apologies if I'm wrong on that.

In later seasons there are two main characters, both Aboriginal. And they have dominant storylines. Rita and Ruby.

And the last season there is a Black British character who is prominent.

You also see more racial diversity in the background but outside of an Asian gang of inmates who cause trouble on occasion, they have limited or no speaking roles.

Is it gay? Well, nonny. It is a women's prison after all. If you want Sapphic goodness? They got you.

They have lesbians for days. I'm pretty sure within the first five minutes you get your first sexy scene with Queen of the Wentworth Lesbians, Franky Doyle.

And the beautiful thing about her arc is we actually see her go from a casual bang kind of girl to someone who falls in love, and it's one of the most notable relationships in the series.

But man, we have good lesbians, we have bad lesbians. We have complicated and flawed lesbians. We have disaster bi's.

I only emphasize it like that because there IS disturbing things or potentially questionable depictions like promiscuity that may seem stereotypical on one end, and there are sexually abusive, sadistic, flat out rapists on the other end.

I feel like with a diverse group of complex queer characters it balances out more, if that makes sense. There are multiple queer characters. Mostly women. And two male guards. Although, unlike the women, who range from flawed or complicated to just flat out "bad," both men are honestly pretty damn crappy, IMO.

If you haven't noticed, all of Wentworth's characters are hella gray and the show doesn't really subscribe to the good/bad dichotomy in a traditional way. Some of the most loathsome characters ended up being my faves down the road and such. If you watch, you'll understand what I mean.

But yes, many canon queer characters (main and recurring), and it's explored. Actually, to get an idea of how they handle their queer characters, it's only now that I'm typing this that I realize how many queer characters there actually are. Enough where you just don't even think about it. So yeah, nonny. U suppose it is hella gay AF. 🤣.

But yeah, stories including a character sort of realizing that they are queer but minus the clichéd identity crisis angst, which is pretty refreshing, I think anyway.

Actually, the majority of romantic relationships on this series have been queer ones.

There is also a lot of gay subtext. Like soooooo much subtext it almost feels like just text. If you do choose to watch it, you'll figure out what I'm talking about. And it's delicious tbh. If you appreciate the concept of enemies to lovers and twisted love based on electric chemistry that probably shouldn't even be there and is twisted AF, you'll love one of the most popular ships.

But there are homophobic slurs and language used. There is sexual assault. There is mentions of homophobia etc. I imagine many things that could be potentially triggering.

Personally, while canon never confirmed it, there's one character who felt strongly Ace. But that's just my own personal thing. That's another thing about the show. There are so many complex characters and the subtle intricacies of them leaves ample room for interpretation.

Um, there are two confirmed trans characters with significant arcs and narrative importance. One trans female in the middle of the series and one trans male in the latest season.

HOWEVER. Maxine, the female trans character was played by a cis-man. So there's that. But I'm not exaggerating when I say she's easily one of the best characters of the series. She's one of my absolute favorite characters of the series.

But Reb, the trans male character that came later is played by a non-binary actor, so that is certainly progress from before.

And both characters deal with a lot of transphobia. Again, because this show spreads the wealth, if you will, putting all of their characters through the ringer and addressing so many issues, it's not a matter of only piling on disenfranchised characters for kicks, you know?

There are conversion therapy scenes that come up, so if that's triggering, just a heads-up.

There is also body diversity. There are plus-sized characters. But the most prominent one does fall into so many of the usual tropes, the lovable lug, the bully and muscle, etc. I've heard it critiqued.

There is age diversity. There are older characters as well as younger ones. It's not all about a bunch of young, pretty people in there 20s and 30s.

And these older women are still strong and sexual and powerful etc,.

It may sound weird or whatever, but it's also refreshing that most of the characters look just normal, you know? None of that super glammed up stuff. They look like everyday people, and I love that.

Offhand, I can't recall disabled characters. Actually there is one character who has a brain aneurysm and suffers from seizures.

There are also characters who battle PTSD, someone with severe OCD, um, dementia, Depression, and anxiety, a lot of addiction. These are all Canon and confirmed.

It also toys with the potentiality of Aspergers, Sociopathy/Psychopathy, and other little things like that with characters.

Ummm, obviously there are a lot of women. They do have some male characters but whether they're behind the bars or in front of them, it's mostly women.

And there isn't much going for religion or anything like that. I don't recall anything distinctly religious at all, so nothing to say from that angle.

I'm rambling, probably? I just bingewatched the entire series within the past couple of months, so I'm no expert. But I hope that answered your question or gave you an idea of what the diversity looks like or whatever.

#Wentworth #wentworth spoilers #i don't feel like this is spoilery but whatever

17 notes · View notes

incarnateirony · 4 years

Note

I think the issue with death as a happy ending (to a story, I should point out - death can be many things in many places, but I’m specifically talking about it in fiction) is that it’s usually written so badly that it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and it just feels like shit. There’s a very limited number of fictional works that I’ve seen actually manage it well - though in saying that, I have a very limited range, and I don’t really enjoy new things because (reasons). The ones I do recall, it’s because they were just that good and bittersweet is exactly the way I would describe them as a happy ending.

Firebringer was a novel I read when I was 12 or 13, and I still recall it. It was about a deer and it was his entire life - birth to death - and it was a happy ending. I cried through the last few chapters. Then I reread it and cried some more. It was good.

There’s also a fic I want to mention, because it’s on the topic. It’s called The white whale. and it’s by an author named orange_crushed. The entire premise of the fic is that Dean (and Sam, but it’s a destiel fic) is already dead. He died years ago. The title itself should say a lot, and the fic itself is about finding peace. It’s brilliant and beautiful, and I love it.

My perspective on death is a bit. Odd, maybe? I grew up somewhere between Christian (mum and dad and church, a mix of Baptist and Anglican) and animist (local indigenous spirituality), and while bit of both inform my interpretation, I’m very nearly atheist.

I don’t really believe in an afterlife, or rebirth, or anything like that. I believe that this is it. We get one shot at being who we want to be and acting as we choose with what we’re given. (“And isn’t it so wonderful, that we were alive at the same time?”)

I first heard the Freedom From vs Freedom To argument when reading the handmaid’s tale in my English class at school. It wasn’t even presented as an argument, everyone just seemed to agree that freedom to is better. I believe that, too. But freedom from has structure. It’s not “peaceful” and it can’t be when it is enforced, but it is informed by rules, and there it has expectations and is reliable (where reliable means we know what the consequences are, even if they’re awful). Freedom to is anarchy (which I have come to appreciate more). But neither freedom is peace.

There’s a quote I really love, and I can never recall it properly and it goes something like this: “War is an ugly thing, but it is not the ugliest. The decayed and degraded state of moral feeling which thinks nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing more important than his own personal fucking safety, is [the worst thing]” clearly I don’t recall it very well. It’s from an old bit of hp fanfic, of all things, a very violent and disgusting version of civil war - as war is. It was the beginning of why I’m not a pacifist.

I dunno. I guess I really feel like peace - true, genuine peace - can’t be done. It’s certainly worth striving for, worth trying, but peace is either isolation and loneliness or death. Peace is knowing you’ve done everything you can, that it was enough, and being able to let it go.

Any way I think I had a point somewhere in this, maybe something about being unable to put down a fight while you’re living, maybe something about how death can be kind, maybe something about how good writing can make sad things happy, maybe that bittersweet is still sweet. Idk.

Feel free to reply to this mess of ideas or not - or pick and choose what you want to reply to, if you’d like to reply to specific parts. I mostly just wanted to share (I can do discussion, but idk if I’m still gunna have any focus later to do so, or if I’ll even see a response) some thoughts and you’re usually the only person I see on my dash with this sort of ~vague philosophy things~.

Woah when did anons get to let someone submit something so long.

Either way, a few points on this.

1. a thoughtful piece, this is a philosophy piece I will gladly entertain. However, if we are entertaining philosophy we must

2. acknowledge this is a nihilistic piece contingent on your personal world views, that while valid, and I will not take any effort to undermine on a personal belief system level

3. do not have much to do with (dependent on fringe atheism or, perhaps, agnosticism) a piece that is far from secular and atheistic while also

4. relying on the idea that “I really feel like peace - true, genuine peace - can’t be done. It’s certainly worth striving for, worth trying, but peace is either isolation and loneliness or death.”, which is itself the very nihilistic idea imparted by Chuck’s matrix but, whether you believe it in the real world, is the active target of subversion within this fantasy world, (eg, a heaven revolution where the doors are opened just like they were in hell.)

5. Finally, presumptuous that it would not be ‘well written’ and predesignating a potential discontent with the delivery that would sour it, especially with the previous points.

That said, while I’m not going to argue directly with your real life belief system -- even if they clearly disagree with my own -- I do remind you--falling back to your point that you do not believe in an afterlife: we know this fictional story does not hold this belief, ergo using that as a judgment for how it would deliver the concept of eternity is itself already wounding oneself to receiving the moral of the canon. One can not suddenly expect SPN to become a secular show just because a viewer has secular and atheistic beliefs. It is inherently asecular, theistic, and gnostic in its bones and the story will thus tell itself within that structure, which then begs if one is willing to suspend a personal belief system for a fictional canon setting they are digesting the story of.

Similarly-and-so, this is contingent on believing that the heroes’ journey will end with them maintaining the current status quo, rather than making a world where--in this fictional world in which an afterlife exists--death does not itself mean loneliness, but rather reunion.

If we can suspend our beliefs in some shows with fighting dragons or farting lightning bolts (after all, nonnie references HP fanfic), I would hope people could suspend them in regards to a moral telling of found family and the sovereignty of man in a divine and moral play.

If one were to demand SPN have entirely atheistic storytelling, the only real way to handle an ending would be to have one of the characters wake up from a 15 year coma where none of it was real and it was all a dream or something to that affect which--lol, we’re not doing, I promise. I’m sorry, but we’re not. We’re not taking the “none of it mattered because none of it happened” angle. We’re not going to a world where angels and the afterlife don’t exist, we’re not going to collapse it where suddenly death IS the true end and life sucks and then you die, it’s just not going to happen.

So the point then is an active choice on the part of the viewer: is this suddenly the line you draw after watching a theistic show for 15 years, doubling down that this specific theistic point is the one thing we can’t accept (despite it existing in the past already), or do we continue to watch a theistic show and interpret its theistic points as the story is trying to depict? And if it’s the “drawing the sudden line,” that is, quite frankly, a personal choice to have spontaneous discontent with a critical part of a canon story’s telling at a very sudden drawn line in the sand.

The point to exit would have been pilot 1.01 if we were going to have fundamental problems with spirits and an afterlife as crucial elements of a story. And if not then, 4.01 with angels. And if not then-- you see where this goes on. There were multiple exit ramps if the idea of an afterlife, which became more and more directly explored, was going to be an issue in reception of or enjoyment of a text. So now we’re 15 years later, and we can’t expect the highway to reroute just because we didn’t take the other 100 ramps.

SPN will tell the full spread of its moral and divine play within the full spread of its moral and divine sandbox, which someone has--to reach the ending--accepted for fifteen years at this point. If one has a fundamental problem with the entire premise of the show, it is not an obligation to any writer to cater to someone who intrinsically disagrees with the entire structure of the body of work to fulfill something within a completely different paradigm. It’s not.

Am I lucky in that it matches my beliefs? Maybe. Also cursed. Very very cursed. Because it’s led to being Through The Looking Glass for two years to the point there’s a segment of fandom that treats me as a magic 8 ball--and sometimes rightfully so, not to sound like I’m tooting my own horn or whatever. It just knows I get the structure in play to a fault. But cursed knowledge aside -- and trust me, it’s cursed as FUCK most of the time -- in the end, even when I watch shows that don’t match my personal theology, I don’t sit here and suddenly expect them to do so. There’s plenty of shows I completely suspend my beliefs in to enjoy within the sandbox they were designed in the constraints of so I find it very weird to project a discontent with a body of fictional canon presenting ideas within its own rule set based on personal beliefs in a real life lens. I mean, I don’t believe dragons exist, but if I watch the Dragon Prince for many seasons, I can’t suddenly expect the ending to have nothing to do with Dragons?

I mean, the show is literally called Supernatural. It's right there in the name. There are going to be supernatural elements about the show. My banner image is literally a reborn soul floating down the aisle. This isn't gonna suddenly be irrelevant at the end.

#supernatural #fandom #meta #pagan life #my meta #philosophy

16 notes · View notes

thecoleopterawithana · 4 years

Note

Your quote: "So perhaps, when in 1989 Paul asks “Did I ever take you in my arms, look you in the eye, tell you that I do” the part that he “never did” was the latter"( with John according to your perspective??)--I saw a video where Paul says he's talking about how the workaday life meant he sometimes took marriage and Linda for granted--like we all do our spouses at times--and that was why he wrote that song. Your take please? Respectfully inquiring--thanks!

Hello, anon dear. Thanks so much for your respectful request! Especially considering that every opportunity I get to talk about “This One” is a personal pleasure.

I believe the video you were referring to is this one (eheh), where correspondent Bernard Goldberg interviews Paul for the TV series 48 Hours. The episode follows part of The Paul McCartney World Tour, which marked not only his first major tour outing in ten years, but also the first time in his solo career that a substantial number of Beatles songs were included in the setlist.

Paul is asked about “This One” near the 8:30 mark of the first video and his answer continues in the second part.

youtube

Here is a transcription of the segment in question:

Q: Let me ask you about one of the new songs, “This One”. Is it about a marriage?

Paul: A relationship, yeah.

Q: And about, not expressing emotions and feelings?

[Paul performing “This One”]

Paul: You get those moments, sort of late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think, “Oh, you know, it’d be great to kind of— I hope I tell her I love her enough, and all that.” And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [yawns] “Okay, goodbye, love you!”, and so on. And, you know, life’s like that. And there’s never kind of enough time to— If you like your parents for instance, to tell them, “God, just what you meant to me.”

[Paul performing “This One”]

Paul: You always think, “Well, I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day.” And what happens with a lot of people is— Something like John, for instance, getting back to that subject. He died.

I was lucky. The last few wee— months that he was alive, we’d managed to get our relationship back on track. And we were talking and having real good conversations. Real nice and friendly. But George, actually, didn’t, I don’t think, get his relationship right. They were arguing right up to the end. Which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, you know, now. Take this moment to say, [hesitates] “I love you.” [Laughs] It’s not quite the same.

Now, about your question. I take you were wondering why in the post you quoted me on I used an excerpt of this song to hypothesize about a facet of Paul and John’s relationship.

Allow me to begin by saying that, as the wonderful @amoralto pointed out in the aforementioned post, one should be cautious about what kind of information we’re extracting from an art form like songs. The sources of inspiration can be multiple, and the exact meaning of the piece elusive even to its author. So it’s probably best to be prudent about taking the lyrics too literally or extrapolating the entire song as to be about a single situation/person.

Nevertheless, there are still certain patterns and themes that keep emerging, and I am curious about examining those. And being songs one of the places where they more openly communicated and truly laid bare their feelings, I believe the tumble down the rabbit hole of speculation might be worth it, just to see what we may find there.

As Paul put it:

The idea is that what I’ll leave behind me will be music, and I may not be able to tell you everything I feel, but you’ll be able to feel it when you listen to my music. I won’t have the time or the articulation to be able to say it all, but if you enjoy composing you say it through the notes.

Of course, John also said:

When Paul and I write a song, we try and take hold of something we believe in – a truth. We can never communicate 100 per cent of what we feel, but if we can convey just a fraction, we have achieved something. We try to give people a feeling – they don’t have to understand the music if they can just feel the emotion. This is half the reason the fans don’t understand, but they experience what we are trying to tell them.

So maybe we can experience the emotion they infused the song with, but not always be able to understand the circumstances that gave rise to it in their own lives.

To find that last crucial piece of the puzzle, one has to truly contextualise the song. And that’s where all the other more tangible sources of information come in, such as quotes and timelines.

Of course, drawing conclusions from any kind of data is, in itself, an interpretation. And an inescapably personal one at that.

The only way to approximate objectivity is through critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Continuously question your own assumptions and those of others, and don’t be attached to any one answer. Be willing to change your views based on new information and be open to considering new perspectives. I find that input from others is invaluable in drawing my attention to an angle I’d previously missed. For if our personal experiences sometimes blind us to certain facets of the subject we’re examining, they also give us a more intimate understanding of other sides of it, as we’ve walked in those same shoes before and know precisely what it feels like.

What I essentially mean with this disclaimer is that this is my current interpretation of the information. And my answers are usually so slow and long (my apologies) because I try to provide the data so that you can draw your own conclusions.

That settled, here is how I interpret Paul’s explication of “This One”.

The interviewer begins by asking if the song is about a marriage and Paul sightly corrects him that it’s about a relationship.

Then Goldberg posits his theory regarding the theme: “not expressing emotions and feelings.” And Paul goes on to explain, in his usual inclusive and generalising fashion:

You get those moments, sort of late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think, “Oh, you know, it’d be great to kind of— I hope I tell her I love her enough, and all that.” And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [yawns] “Okay, goodbye, love you!”, and so on.

He uses the second person to emphasize how the reporter must share his feelings — ‘you know what I mean, right?’ — thus making his experiences not only more relatable and perceivable, but it also slightly removes the focus from himself. You put it best when you said, “like we all do […] at times.”

He does start by giving the example of an apparently marital routine. And though it could have been chosen as something the interviewer would more quickly relate to, it may also be that he had difficulty “expressing emotions and feelings” in his marriage with Linda. He has spoken of such hurdles in his relationship with Nancy, which he expressed in his 2013 hidden track “Scared”.

Well, I’m just like anybody else, man! You know? You get those moments. I don’t normally write about them; but it’s a good thing to use. I was feeling it, as well. I was newly in love with Nancy, and I was finding it a little difficult to say, ‘I love you.’ Number one, I’m a guy, and that’s a big excuse, I know, but it is a bit true to form…

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

So I slightly disagree with your assessment that the song is about “how the workaday life meant he sometimes took marriage and Linda for granted”. I don’t think he took his relationship with Linda for granted as much as he was unable to openly express how much it meant to him. He got inundated by “those moments” of love and appreciation, but then kind of used the hustle and bustle of everyday life as an excuse not to dwell on the discomfort of having to confess them.

I think it’s perhaps more accurate to say that the matter of “expressing emotions and feelings”, particularly actually saying “I love you”, is something that Paul has struggled with all his life and pervaded most of his relationships.

He even goes on to give the example of his parents, and how he wished he’d tell them, “God, just what you meant to me.” Which is a similar phrasing to the one he uses in “Scared”, more than two decades later:

I’m scared to say I love you / Afraid to let you know / That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth / Though I’m dying to let them go / Trying to let you know […]I’m still too scared to tell you / Afraid to let you see / That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth / Though I’m dying to set them free / Trying to let you see, how much it means to me / How much you mean to me / How much you mean to me now

But the relationship in which this theme of not expressing emotions and feelings seems most stark, at least as Paul expressed it publicly and in his music, is in his relationship with John.

He puts it quite plainly in another quote about “Scared”:

Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song. It would be a bit like Keith Richards saying to Mick, “I love you.” I mean he does, but I’m not sure he’s going to say it. I’m sure the Gallaghers love each other on some level, probably quite deeply, but that certainly isn’t going to get said soon. I think it’s quite an interesting subject and I felt it most recently with [wife] Nancy, I knew I loved her but to actually say, “I love you,” you know, it’s just not that easy.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).

Note that even here, in a quote about a song he wrote for Nancy, he harkens back to his experiences with having difficulty saying “I love you” to John.

Paul even mentions that it’s easier to do it “when you’re a bit drunk” — I want to tell her that I love her a lot / But I gotta get a bellyful of wine — which seems to be a reference to “the night we cried”. That night in Key West in 1964 was an “important emotional landmark”, not only because they exposed themselves emotionally by crying, but they also may have actually said the big ‘I Love You’.

One night, we got pretty drunk and argued and laughed, and it ended up us both crying, because it was, you know at the height of your drunkenness, when you’re all, “Hey man, I love you, man. No, I love you, man.” That was probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other. It’s a male machismo embarrassment thing. I mean, you might say to a girl, “I love you”, but in my case, within the group, The Beatles, it would have been difficult, even though we all did love each other. You just all had to be guys to the full. We were all rough, tough cream puffs.

— Paul McCartney, interview with the Daily Mail (4 June 2016).

He attributes his difficulty to a “male machismo embarrassment thing”, and that he could say “I love you” to a girl but not to his mates. But in his 2013 interview for The Guardian, he also points to the fact that he is a guy to explain his difficulties verbally expressing his love Nancy.

But adding to the “stiff upper lip” imposed on northern lads, Paul himself is especially guarded about his feelings:

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, they’re innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

More than the pleasure associated with creating something out of nothing — “songwriting is like sex” — music also offers the utter relief of unburdening Paul of his feelings, which he finds great difficulty in exorcising in a more direct way:

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

There was an inescapable need to come out, be real, and say to John, “I love you”; even if he has to “write it to the great record player in the sky”.

Because more than speaking of a fear of expressing emotions and feelings in Paul’s day to day life — like in “Scared” — “This One” is clearly about the regret of doing it too late:

[L]ife’s like that. And there’s never kind of enough time to— […] You always think, “Well, I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day.” And what happens with a lot of people is— Something like John, for instance, getting back to that subject. He died. […] And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, that George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, you know, now. Take this moment to say, [hesitates] “I love you.” [Laughs] It’s not quite the same.

Even with his usual emotional distancing by projecting onto George and using “we” instead of “I”, Paul plainly explains the song is about cautioning people to take this moment to say “I love you”, at the risk of having time ran out on them as it happened with him and John.

And one can see how determined Paul is to get this message spread, as he often reiterates it when introducing “Here Today” in concerts — a song written in part out of his need to clearly say “I love you” to John — a frequent presence in his live performances for the last 20 year.

youtube

Paul McCartney’s One on One World Tour in Detroit, Michigan, at Little Caesars Arena on October 2, 2017.

Paul: One of the other things I say on our shows is that sometimes you want to say something really nice to someone, or pay them a compliment, or you feel a bit shy and a bit embarrassed, so you think, “Ah, I’ll say it tomorrow.” You put it off to another day. You know, you can put it off. And sometimes that’s too late; you’re too late. I wrote this next song after my dear friend John who passed away. Let’s hear it for John! And you know, when you’re kids, particularly — I mean, when we first started the Beatles we were in our early twenties, kind of thing — and you’re a bunch of guys, up in Liverpool at that time… There’s no way you’re gonna say to each other, “Hey, I love you, man.” It just didn’t happen, you know. You just didn’t say things. But you know, when [unintelligeable] we didn’t say it, so when John died, you know, I wanted to kind of say it somehow. So this next song is in the form of a conversation we didn’t get to have.

The fact that Paul has often connected the theme of not verbally expressing his feelings, and in particular of being too late to do it, to his relationship with John, is what led me use “This One”, in that post and in others, as an expression of that dynamic between them.

In the post you quoted me on in specific, I say that perhaps the part that they “never did” was outright “tell” each other “that I do [love you]”, given that they have embraced — “take you in my arms” — and made intense eye contact — “look you in the eye.”

The song is basically a love song – did I ever say I love you? And if I didn’t it’s because I was waiting for a better moment… ‘There could never be a better moment than this one…

— Paul McCartney, in “Club Sandwich 52, Summer 1989″.

Paul goes on to repeat this sentiment of emotional frankness in the rest of the verse: “Did I ever open up my heart / Let you look inside?” A phrase that, in my opinion, so aptly encapsulates the issues Paul brought to the relationship, that I use it as a title for Paul-centered posts in the Don’t Let Me Down | Trust Issues series.

But to be honest, the thing that really convinced me that song was about him and John, was a moment in this session:

youtube

After singing the lines “Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile”, Paul mimics one of John’s characteristic smiles, as the wonderful @vairemelde illustrated in this post.

With all that said, it appears that all there is to do is to appreciate this wonderful piece of music.

Did I ever take you in my arms, / Look you in the eye, tell you that I do, / Did I ever open up my heart / Let you look inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile, / Did I ever knock upon your door / And try to get inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

What opportunities did we allow to flow by / Feeling like the time it wasn’t quite right? / What kind of magic might have worked if we had stayed calm, / Couldn’t I have given you a better life?

Did you ever take me in your arms / Look me in the eye tell me that you do? / Did I ever open up my heart, / Let you look inside?

If I never did it, I was only waiting / For a better moment that didn’t come. / There never could be a better moment / Than this one, this one.

The swan is gliding above the ocean, / A god is riding upon his back, / How calm the water and bright the rainbow / Fade this one to black.

Tangents

I’m Scared To Say I Love You

What About The Night We Cried

Did I Ever Take You In My Arms

The Surrealist

#asks me why #This One #For you were in my song #Did I Ever open up my heart and let you look inside?#look you in the eye #Scared #Here Today #her majesty #Songwriting is like psychiatry #'i love you'#what about the night we cried?#the person i actually picked as my partner #macca #johnny #Linda #Nancy #solo #meta #my stuff

82 notes · View notes

thisselflovecamebacktome · 4 years

Text

Every thought I’ve had about Cardigan

The other day I wrote this post about why I love The 1 so much which really just encapsulated every thought I’ve had about the song and decided I want to do it for every Folklore song and what better order to do it in than the track list? So with that in mind, here is every thought I’ve had about Cardigan up until this point.

Continuation of ‘Classic Taylor’ trends:

I’m not going to go too deep into this because I explained it in depth in the post I did on The 1, but in short, Taylor has had a habit since RED to have the story of her albums start with the third song while the first two are linked and explain the themes of the story in the album while not directly being part of them and certainly not the beginning of the story.

In Folklore’s case, The 1 and Cardigan explore the themes of how the choices we make matter. Both songs also explores escapism by their reliance on nostalgia in an album filled with songs that have unquestioned plots. It’s not until the end of each song that we’re hit with the harsh truth that things didn’t work out for the narrator of The 1/their love interest or Betty/James.

Interpretations of the song:

One thing I’ve found very interesting about this song in particular is how the fandom has found multiple different interpretations for the lyrics, some I don’t think I would have even thought of had it not been put forth to me.

It’s clear that when putting together this album, the “main” interpretation that Taylor wanted us to get from it was that it was the events of the love triangle from Betty’s point of view. I will say that after listening to the demo for the song, I do get the impression that while Cardigan was among the first to be written for the album, it was the last to be added to the triangle. I have no proof for this, it’s just the feeling I get. I do also find it interesting that Taylor had the “correct” lyric of “Peter leaving Wendy” in the demo but changed it to losing. While either would have worked for me, I truly believe this was an artistic choice to represent that it wasn’t James leaving Betty in the gym or even getting in the car with August that broke Betty/James up, it was the make up of many choices James made, again, going back to the theme that choices matter. I gave an example about this in the post I did on The 1 so I won’t go that into it, but August existing wouldn’t have meant anything to Betty and James’ relationships if James had just spoken to Betty rather than sulking. Alternatively, even if he still went with August, Betty may have forgiven James if he had been the one to tell her and apologised rather than Betty having to hear it from Inez. To quote the song, James continuously ‘ran like water’ and took the path of least resistance rather than do the right thing and all of that added up.

While the love triangle was obviously the angle Taylor wanted the listener to hear this story from, I definitely feel like this song came from a personal place for her. While I still think that Folklore was a recovery album surrounding fame but more specifically her masters as seen in this post, the demo of Cardigan also feels like she sprinkled in elements of her past romantic relationships, specifically with Harry and Jake, into it. This also somewhat lines up with a lot of people saying that The 1 gave Harry vibes.

In saying this, there’s one other theory that I hadn’t thought of at first that has had my attention lately. Unfortunately I do not have the posts on me at the moment, but I’ve seen speculation recently that The 1 is actually about Taylor herself, or at least who Taylor would have become had she not gotten famous. While I didn’t put much thought into it at first because I found it a stretch, while rewatching the Cardigan video last night, I started feeling it was more viable. Though I initially saw the thing Taylor ‘came back to’ in the Cardigan music video as being music, I do find it interesting that music seemed to only be the way she travelled in the video with the ultimate destination being back home putting on a Cardigan, all of which are very ‘normal’ things linked with averageness and not the celebrity lifestyle like the mystical and severe places Taylor travels to in the music video. It also intrigues me when considering how much Taylor looks back fondly at times where are different throughout the album (Seven, August, TLGAD, Invisible String etc) compared to the harshness of now (Epiphany, Hoax, MTR etc). And finally, looking through this lens, I can’t help but think of all of the ways Taylor has spoken about trying to be a friend to everyone in the 1989 era; the era where her ‘celebrity’ image was at its peak. So yeah, while I can’t say that I fully believe in the theory, I could see it being the case where Taylor trying to chase the “two girls” of fame and normalcy at the same time made her lose ‘the one’ being fame only for her to end up going back to it later on.

While I haven’t gravitated to this song as much as others on the album, when looking at a personal interpretation, it definitely reminds me of my estranged father. When singing it, I also like to change the words to “leaving like your father, running like water” because apparently the men in my family are just not family people lmao.

Its connections to other songs:

I appreciate the story telling and cleverness of the triangle. Having Cardigan start by sounding like walking on cobblestone, “I knew everything when I was young” versus “I’m only 17, I don’t know anything”, coinciding lyrics at the same times in Betty and August and more little details like that warm my heart. I will say though that Betty and August feel more connected as a story to me than Cardigan with either of the others and I think part of that is because like I mentioned, I believe Cardigan was added to the triangle last and altered to fit it as opposed to made for it if that makes any sense. I will also say as I’ve seen it spoken about, I don’t think Betty was calling August a ‘thrill’ in Cardigan. The thrill was James feeling powerful/loved by having August be willing to do anything for him and the ‘thrill expiring’ happened once he realised that that wasn’t enough for him and Betty’s realistic love meant more to him than August’s selfless infatuation.

I already mentioned this in my The 1 post, but If you never bleed you’re never going to grow links so well with But now I’m bleeding and Peter losing Wendy.

Likewise I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending and Tried to change the ending also links together very well.

Anyway I think that’s all for now so I’ll just end it by saying while this isn’t a song I gravitate to, it’s one I can appreciate and see the charm of and am glad to see it has been so well received by fans and the general public.

#cardigan #taylor swift #folklore

7 notes · View notes

whitetrashjj · 5 years

Note

i think it’s so fucking funny that even when you have similar setups (as seen in your recent gifset) bellamy/clarke look so much more like an actual couple who love each other than b/cho

That’s the whole ass point though isn’t it? I’m certain that if you showed that gifset to someone who knew nothing about The 100 and asked them which were the couple and which were the friends, they would at the very least hesitate before answering, if not answer Bellarke. It would not be possible to answer bec/ho without doubting it.

And the fact is that it appearing that way is a conscious choice. Those scenes put the couples in very similar situations and show how they interact with each other and the truth is bec/ho do not stand up. Each choice; the timing, the framing, the focus, everything. was designed, written, shot and edited to be like that, it went though multiple channels, starting with Jason, then going though the writers, the directors, the actors, the editors and back to Jason, and that was all approved because that was what they wanted the audience to see.

I know you didn’t ask for it but I’m gonna analyse those scene for a bit because I’ve been wanting to do it so here is the perfect opportunity. (this gif set if no one knows what I’m talking about)

So here we have the first one. Originally, this gifset was going to just be comparisons of how far apart bellarke stood in comparison to bec/ho so this was my starting point. These scenes were from the same episode - happened on the same day I believe. And first up we have bec/ho:

Not obnoxiously close but not far apart either, nothing worth calling out as a problem until you observe bellarke a couple scenes later:

These idiots are standing so close that Bellamy is actually on an angle so his arm/shoulder can go behind Clarke’s. Because simply standing arm to arm isn’t enough they actually have to over lap. Now to be fair - because I believe in trying to be objectively fair when making comparisons and not taking things out of context to prove your point - Bellarke had just hugged and bec/ho are simply standing in a crowd watching a speech. Now, I don’t know about you but after I hug my friends I usually step back at least one step if not a couple, I do not linger in their personal space the way I would if I was interested in someone.

Compare this to bec/ho, who of course aren’t engaged in a one-on-one, but are in unfamiliar surroundings, surrounded by unfamiliar and possibly hostile people and there is nothing, they aren’t lingering close, have a protective hand out to reassure the other, not even a look to check up on each other. Just looking at these two gifs side by side, it seems off... A little odd but not damning evidence? Let’s move on then.

Comparison #2 looks at the comforting shoulder touch. Bellamy has just left behind his sister, the one person he has shouldered the burden of it being his responsibility to keep safe, and it’s more than likely that she will die. Clarke has just written a list on 100 people to save from praimfaya, damning 300 of her people, and thousands of other people, to death. In these scenes Clarke and Bellamy are in very similar emotional states, riddled with guilt, weighed down with an impossible burden, and emotionally distraught and exhausted. So the person witnessing this does what they can to try and comfort them, place a hand on their shoulder to show their support, that they don’t have to do this alone and they are there for them.

We can see here that Bellamy barley responds to the touch, does not lean into is at all. He does look at E/cho briefly acknowledging the support and her attempt to comfort him, but he does not linger on her, quickly looking away and continuing to look dejected. This shows that while he appreciated the gesture it does very little to actually help him feel better.

Compare this to Bellamy and Clarke:

Bellamy place’s his hand on Clarke shoulder to support her. Instantly we see the relief this creates for Clarke, her tense shoulders slump, her eyes flutter closed, not only does she then bring her own hand up to cover his but she leans her head on him. This shows how much his simple touch helped how, how it helped ground her and how he helped shoulder that burden without having to say the words. She not only leans into his touch but leans on it, she needs it, needs him and can’t get close enough to it. Not buying it yet? More comfort to come...

Once again we have comfort for similar situations. Bellamy found out that Clarke, one of his closest friends is dead. Clarke finds out that she can not say goodbye to her mother who she won’t see for 5 years, with a possibility of never seeing her again. So when Bellamy tell’s E/cho this he is searching for someone, something to make him feel better:

There are so many things to unpack here - for fairness some frames have been removed to remain under the size limit - but let’s start with Bellamy initiates the hug. Bellamy has continuously shown that physical contact, particularly hugs, is a big thing for him in terms of comfort. What he needed in that moment was a hug but E/cho makes no move for it - this is not shock related because she already knew that Clarke was dead - this proves that she doesn’t know what Bellamy wants or needs. And then the hug last for a grand total 5 seconds (with very generous start and finish times) before Bellamy pulls away again showing that it didn’t help ease his pain or make him feel better otherwise he would cling onto her as long as possible.

Let’s compare shall we:

There is a reason this is my favourite bellarke hug (we don’t have time to unpack it all right now). Compared to the hug above, however, it get so much better. First we have Bellamy instantly going to Clarke his arms open wide welcoming her in, knowing exactly what she needed in that moment without Clarke needing to say anything. Then we have the camera zoom in on Clarkes arms circling around Bellamy, clinging to him, signifying how much she needed him in the moment and how comforting it was for her. Clarke sobs into his shoulder being completely venerable with him and Bellamy closes his eyes grabs onto her and gently rocks them back a forth, showing how comfortable and how immersed in the embrace he is. This hug last’s for 15 seconds, and they only break apart because they were interrupted, otherwise there was no end in sight, even after that they linger clinging to one another for a further 4-5 seconds (times vary as it’s hard to say when hugging starts, and then finishes and lingering begins). Ultimately there is no comparison in these scenes, and the fact that they were shot this way with the much time taken for them is so telling, remember nothing you see on scene is an accident, everything has been designed that way.

Lastly let’s ring in the post with little reunion run and hug. In fairness Clarke thought Bellamy was dead, and Bellamy only thought Echo had been in enemy territory with no contact for a day or so - interpret that how you will.

But here we have bec/ho:

They run to each other, they get to each other as part of a wide shot incorporating many other elements, they stop short of each other and say a quick hi, and finally they hug and kiss as out of focus shapes in the corner of the scene. A truly heartfelt, iconic and important reunion.

The we have Bellarke:

We have Clarke sprinting at Bellamy, jumping on him, wrapping her arms around him, the only thing stopping her from getting to him was his body, we have Bellamy wrapping his arms tight around Clarke, and then multiple back and forth shorts of their smiles, them tucking their heads into each others necks, and closing their eyes in relief.

I don’t know what else I can say for this one other than, the emphasis put on the impactful reunion of two characters and what this means for their relationship, vs the emphasis put on the reactions of other characters (other character who simply hate having sun in their eyes) - speaks volumes.

I mean - if I wanted to I could find countless other similar comparisons, if I needed to but I don’t think I need to. The 100 is a show with a high casual viewer ratings, this means you should be able to know the relationships by watching one episode and well, there is proof right there, Jason said himself someone would be able to start this show at s6 and know who loves who. Do you think anyone with has only watched Season 6 could reasonably put Bellamy’s feelings for E/cho above Clarke from only what they have seen on screen? I doubt it.

#the 100 #bellarke #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #*meta #ew is this meta - idk #anti becho #anon #lara answers

630 notes · View notes