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#(he would not be lol. he's not allowed; fundamentally! it's not Merit in there or out here. nobody has a Deserved greater Air of Dignity)

blueskittlesart · 2 years

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what do you think of malon! do you think it’s like it’s implied? that she ended up with link? idk i know little of her. i wanted to play oot

i LOVE malon as a character because i have residual horse girl tendencies and i love epona SO MUCH and i think malon adds a lot to the game thematically as she’s generally portrayed as one of the first humans his own age that link meets other than zelda (who is tied up in the same magical destiny bullshit and therefore not quite on the same level of ‘humanity’ as malon) and that’s a really important moment for him developmentally. if you read The Doc you know that i consider oot to be fundamentally about adults failing children (which is echoed in where malon and her family end up after the 7 year skip) but malon being NOT an adult when we meet her allows her to be a grounding force for link—he’s not the crazy one, the adults are. she is a brief rest from this quest he has undertaken because no adult will listen to him or zelda. She listens to him and she understands him and she HELPS him because she is a child too and she understands what it feels like to be helpless and pushed around by adults who don’t see you as anything but a means to an end. and that’s really important for link!! as for romance i do think they definitely work narratively, and being with malon would offer link some much-needed rest which he definitely has earned by the end of oot. however i am a zelink truther and i believe in my heart that they end up together. i have no problem with malon & link tho i can obviously see the merits i just think zelda and link are soulmates so i can’t see them with anyone but each other in most circumstances lol

#LONG. i just realized i didn’t add malon to the oot section of the doc. which might’ve been a good decision bc it’s already so long #but she’s a very important character narratively speaking. so #asks #zelda analysis

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agent-cupcake · 3 years

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So happy you but up the headcanons! All of them are gems and I love them so much. Rereading the Dimitri and Felix rivalry hc made me want to ask for claude and yuri rivalry, but dark of course because both of these boys are sane and logical and would move on if they both caught feelings for you and weren't attached to you by a dark obession lol.

Sorry, I know you asked for love rivalry but I simply could not help myself and got a little carried away with seeing the so-called rivalry to his inevitable conclusion :3c

~Not that it’s probably necessary, but I had to consider the timeline for this. A rivalry between them wouldn’t fit in the events of the game because of Claude’s ambition, but he leaves the country in most endings. My solutions would be to have Claude split his time between Fódlan and Almyra as a politically active prince such as in his solo ending or to propose that Yuri would spend a lot of time in Almyra. Reasons for this could be that he went in aid of his good friend and military commander Balthus (Yuri would make for an awfully good royally sanctioned spy) or that he’s abusing the newfound system of open-market international trade for his criminal enterprise. Either way, Claude is powerful Almyran royalty and Yuri is a shady figure of the underworld. Not too unlike a story I’ve written, but this is separate from that. None of this really matters, ultimately, but whatever I like to think of how this would work out.

~Both men are powerful and ambitious. Both of them are emotionally isolated despite (or because of) their positions. They’re friends, or at least on friendly terms so there’d be a lot of overlap in social circles. And, really, they are quite similar so it’s plausible that they’d go for the same type.

~I’ve since changed my stance on reasons why Claude might develop a fixation on someone. He is concerned with the intrinsic value of a person. He values the thoughts, feelings, and especially the perception of people he is close with. Claude is also a loner, a fundamentally lonesome person who wishes to be seen and loved on his own merits despite the guard he puts up and the social games he plays. Not to say I entirely retcon my previous opinion, but I focused too hard on the idea that he would need to dehumanize you by zeroing in on utilitarian usefulness rather than be driven to darker feelings by his fear of being alone and need to find a connection.

~This all goes for Yuri too, although it’s easier for me to imagine Yuri getting his authentic feelings twisted up and dark. Yuri’s circumstances were somewhat similar to Claude’s, except that he was shown genuine affection by his mother and the old man. Therefore, he knows what it is to lose that. He learned early on what it is to have people die because of him, to shoulder the burden of guilt that comes with such profound loss. Yuri’s scarred by a brutal, painful upbringing where “love” was a commodity to be traded in for favors (even by his mother) and genuine, honest relationships became nearly impossible to comprehend. If he met you and developed those true, affectionate feelings, if he found a so-called light in the darkness, maybe it’d make sense that he’d do everything he could to keep it from losing it.

~Their similarities in this instance would work out for this scenario. Somebody useful to them, somebody authentic enough to appeal to their deeply ingrained sense of loneliness, somebody clever or interesting or fun… There’s a lot of reasons they could develop unhealthy feelings for you born out of an innocently platonic friendship.

~And it would have to be platonic on both counts. Yuri and Claude are too self-aware for them to make a move if you made a choice early on. Or, I don’t think it’d become as big of a production because they wouldn’t have emotionally invested so much in you. Leading them both on unintentionally just by having a normal human friendship is kinda sad but also kinda funny.

~They’d know that you were close with the other. Of course they would. Maybe it would hurt, but neither would express that feeling to you. Claude would ask pointed (but not direct) questions about your feelings and dazzle you with grand overtures. Yuri would work the seductive and sweet angle, trying to win your heart the old fashioned way. But, you know, with more uncomfortable subtext and innuendo.

~Something that has not changed is my opinion that Claude would be obsessive about his darker feelings. Not on a consistent, all the time basis, but more like a hobby. A puzzle he couldn’t solve, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He’d search for all of the pieces of you in the hopes that the final picture would allow him to understand his increasingly dangerous feelings. Claude’s not stupid, he’s really self aware. Enough to feel guilt, enough to recognize that what he’s doing isn’t right, and enough to justify himself out of the responsibility of doing amoral things for the right reasons.

~Yuri, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so… aggressive about it. He’d want you to come to him, to return to him again and again to prove to himself that what he feels isn’t wrong, to ingratiate himself into your life in a way that validated everything he felt for you and put you on more equal footing. He’d internalize everything a lot more, feel a lot of guilt about the intensity of his feelings, but he’d find ways to keep you close. Or, for you to keep him close.

~Don’t get me wrong, though, you wouldn’t get so much of a glimpse of this weaker, more vulnerable Yuri. He’d go the opposite direction of his guilt or doubt, wearing an impenetrable smiling, sarcastic, playful mask. My main point is that I see him as being more emotionally wrecked by having these dark feelings due to his self hatred. I also think Yuri would be more generally sensitive to unhealthy romance dynamics, especially if it became physical at all.

~In an interestingly twisted way, Yuri hypocritically recognizing Claude’s behavior as being dangerous would encourage him to be more proactive about his own feelings and feel less guilty about doing so. Being the protective type rather than the obsessive really just fits Yuri so much better, although I see it as one ultimately leading to the other.

~It’s not about winning. They’d be competing, clearly battling against each other for you in a way that would not only be creepily objectifying, but also emotionally strenuous, but they’d keep on insisting that it wouldn’t be about winning. They’d just want you to be happy, to be safe. They both would just want what’s best for you. And what is best for you? Just ask them.

~Claude’s argument: Yuri’s lifestyle is dangerous. He’s a good guy, Claude really does trust him, buuuuut he’s not exactly the type of man you’d be safe with, you know?

~Yuri’s argument: Claude’s not treating you right. He’s obviously manipulating you, how could you possibly miss that? You deserve better, don’t you agree?

~But in the same breath they’d both insist that if you didn’t want to be with them romantically, that would be fine. They both, truly and unselfishly, would just want you to be happy. Just want to stay close with you. Veeeeeery unselfishly.

~Their interactions with each other would be amazingly fake and aloof. Making small talk and smiling all the while vying for your attention in a nearly juvenile tug-of-war. Still, I don’t think, even through all of this, that they’d dislike each other. It’s not about winning, right? It’s not a game, right?

~Okay, so, I know the whole thing with scenarios like this is an inability to face rejection, but if you were to chose Yuri over Claude or vice versa, that’s where it would end. Committing yourself to one of them still wouldn’t work out super well because that’s the nature of giving into such dark and unhealthy feelings, but it would no longer be a rivalry.

~Let me propose, then, that you would eventually reject both of them. At first, the whole thing would have been so fun and so nice. Getting all of this attention from two powerful and attractive guys would be exciting. You’d feel so lucky, they’re both charming and friendly and kind. But then things would have gotten more intense and there’s this weird love triangle that is incredibly trite and uncomfortable and you wouldn’t have wanted to hurt either of them so it’s better to just leave it, right?

~Yuri would be more likely to use his personal feelings as a tactic of manipulation, I think. Worse, he probably wouldn’t see it that way. He knows, he truly knows, how dangerous and terrible the world could be and he’d do anything to shield you from it and his feelings would reflect that. Granted, if he felt you weren’t getting it, I don’t think Yuri would exactly be above veiled threats or bludgeoning you with fear tactics and even a dash of shame for how you’d played with both their hearts.

~Claude would do his best to convince you that you didn’t actually want to go. You didn’t have to chose either of them, but you couldn’t leave, either. That was way too dramatic. Besides… wasn’t it a little selfish? This was where you were needed, he relied on you. He trusted you. Sure, Claude’s a visionary, but what does that vision matter if the one who he shares his dreams with is gone?

~Maybe that wouldn’t work, though. Long term, it probably wouldn’t. I mentioned before that they wouldn’t hate each other, so if it came down to actually losing you, why not work together?

~Love triangles are for chumps, invest in a horribly unhealthy three person dynamic with possible kidnap and very overt tones of mental and emotional manipulation.

~That would solve all the the problems, wouldn’t it? Why would you try and leave them after they made so many compromises for you? Really, would you be that ungrateful and callous? They would both care about you so much, love you, even. Yuri and Claude would be trying to make it work despite the fact that it came down to essentially a tie in this bizarre game, why couldn’t you do your part? Landing such attractive and powerful guys, having them lay their hearts at your feet, you’d have to be a really terrible and selfish person to reject that. Not that you’d be given a lot of choice, but the devils in the details and if you fought them on this, it probably wouldn’t end up very pretty for you.

~Not saying either of them would hurt you. Physically, I mean. Probably.

~In some ways, the compromise would make the guilt easier for them to bear. The fact that they were also being forced to deal with something they wouldn’t necessarily want to would be a leveling ground for them to justify any of your unhappiness with the situation. Like, it was all an equal amount of compromise to make things work for all three of you.

~Claude would know how much Yuri meant to you and feel like the fact that he hadn’t taken that away from you absolved him of a lot of the responsibility of the other things he’d taken from you. Plus, Claude’s a distracted guy who’d lose track of things sometimes, always getting caught up in whatever project he was working on at the time, so he’d know that you wouldn’t be lonely during those times.

~Yuri would see Claude as being, in many ways, a better person than him. More out of a horrible sense of self perception than fact. So Yuri could have his piece of you with the recognition that Claude was there to balance the worst parts of himself and make you happy in ways this dark, twisty version of Yuri might not think he could.

~I don’t think that either Yuri or Claude would ever truly get along because of how similar they are and the fact that they both kinda lost to the other but I also don’t think that would be a huge issue. Their verbal sparring would be entertaining, honestly.

#claude von riegan #fe claude #yuri leclerc #fe yuri #yandere #yandere headcanons #claude von riegan headcanons #yuri leclerc headcanons #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #headcanons #i am trash garbage :)#yuri is so emo i hope it makes sense why

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extraordinarilyextreme · 4 years

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finally watched Guardian (2018) and i need to talk

Warning: contains MASSIVE SPOILERS, probably too much music/song analysis, my poor translations from Chinese to English, and some references to the original novel (disclaimer: my novel-reading was mostly jumping around because i have a problem where I’m not fluent enough to read the original Chinese novel and I don’t usually like English translations)

1. the freakin opening theme: We Won’t Be Falling by Chen Xueran... (also I see you Tina Guo on the cello thank you queen)

the amount of chills i get every time an episode starts,,, fantastic! marvelous! the lyrics are very VERY apt to the story of Guardian, esp this drama adaptation

(“We are the one/We will be holding on/For the promise we held for life/For the people we love are leaving” ... “And the story will keep on going”)

1.1. the promise? may i direct you to novel chapter 75?

Shen Wei: “Sometimes I think if one day you can remember everything, then I will be able to say to you: look, I did it, I did all that I had promised you; not one bit did I miss, not one word did I go back on.”

they promise to keep the peace, to protect both Haixing and Dixing; and in the show, it’s a promise they keep with their lives

2. Zhu Yilong plays THREE characters and is able to differentiate them perfectly with particular microexpressions

-Ye Zun (literally, “Respect the Night”; “Lord/Master of the Night” would be a better title) sets off my fight-or-flight instincts even though i think his name tries a little too hard to be edgy; the way he sneers, the smiles that don’t reach his eyes, also that infamous tongue flick when Zhao Yunlan sees through the act... i think it’s both great and sad that Yunlan could differentiate the twins because, why, Shen Wei would never be so openly flirtatious (and wear a deep-cut shirt like that lol)... the delivery of “Xiao Yunlan” disturbed me so much—wonderful, stellar acting

-Black Cloaked Envoy: does his best to bend the rules where he can for the Dixingren because he’s just so fundamentally GOOD; he’s empathetic despite how stern and strict he seems to be, and how much he claims to enforce the clearly-cut laws... he’s an absolute babie ten thousand years ago (Yunlan, doesn’t it hurt your conscience to flirt with such a babie?)

-Shen Wei: in the novel, his name (both surname and first name) are given to him by Kun Lun’s incarnations—there’s a lot of power in naming something, in naming someone; he’s good-natured and gentle, always polite... he pushes up the glasses [that he doesn’t need] a lot, perhaps because he’s used to pushing up his mask as the Envoy

2.1. i find it very striking that Shen Wei dies without his glasses; he doesn’t die as the Envoy, he doesn’t die as the Professor; he dies as a person, as the person who loves Yunlan the most and has loved Yunlan for ten thousand years

2.2. the other notable moments we see Shen Wei without his glasses are where he apologizes to Yunlan [and Yunlan apologizes at the same time because they’re pining idiots] for not noticing the camera in his office, where he sets aside all his pride as Envoy and Professor and kneels in the rain for the man he loves (lwj kneeling after visiting the Burial Mounds, yea?), and of course after he slices up an orange [cuz food = love] only to find Yunlan asleep and drapes his jacket over the silly silly man... anyway, Yunlan is indeed the only person Shen Wei is comfortable enough to reveal everything to, all defenses and masks (literal and figurative) lowered

2.3. that last instance (ep 26) is when Shen Wei pulls out his necklace and reminisces as he gazes fondly at Yunlan; the song that plays during this is 《乱心曲》or “Chaotic Heart Song”... may I direct you to novel chapter 65 where Yunlan finds all the paintings and pictures his Xiao Wei has kept from the centuries?

“邓林之阴初见昆仑君，惊鸿一瞥，乱我心曲。” which translates to “In the shade of the woods I first saw Kunlun-jun; a glimpse of his grace wrought chaos in my heart’s song”

2.4. but also let’s not forget the [in]famous cut wrist scene of ep 23, where our dear Shen Wei, without glasses, as a person who loves Yunlan—not the aloof Envoy or the well-spoken Professor—is reduced to two words: “Worth it.” Yunlan is worth everything to him; this goes without question, without a second thought. Kun Lun (Yunlan) told him not to regret whatever decisions he’ll make, and Ye Zun scolds and laughs at his brother for giving up his life for a human/Haixingren, but of course Shen Wei doesn’t regret dying to protect Yunlan, dying to protect Haixing. (also, peep the behind-the-scenes where Shen Wei grabs Yunlan’s hand for a moment as he blocks the attack from Ye Zun)

2.5. on this same train of thought, Da Qing brings up a line from ten thousand years ago where Shen Wei claimed he would never kill unless it was for the world... and, well, he kills for Yunlan doesn’t he?

3. Bai Yu plays our charismatic Chief Zhao Yunlan/Kun Lun and hoo boy does he do an excellent job; the found family vibes of the SIU are spectacular and the way he flirts with tries to recruit Professor Shen is endearing and touching

3.1. there’s another piece from the OST called 《一点真心》, translated to “A Little Sincerity” though I would use “A Bit of a Sincere Heart” because it too references the novel

Kun Lun’s confession to Xiao Wei: “我富有天下名山大川，想起来也没什么稀奇的，不过就是一堆烂石头野河水，浑身上下，大概也就只有这几分真心��上秤卖上两斤，你要？拿去。” [I’m rich with famed mountains and endless rivers under heaven, but none of it feels rare when I think about it. It’s all just a pile of broken stones and uncultivated streams. From head to toe, there is probably only this bit of my sincere heart that is worth anything weighed on a scale. You want it? Take it.]

Zhao Yunlan’s confession to Shen Wei: “我别的东西也有，只是你可能大多都看不上，只有这一点真心……你要是不接着，那就算了吧。” [I have other things, only you probably would not think much of them. There’s only this bit of my sincere heart... If you don’t want to catch it, then forget it.)

And Shen Wei’s reply to Yunlan’s confession is of course “我接住了。” [I’ve caught it.]

3.2. the novel is a happy ending because Xiao Guo’s important role actually plays a part (i literally don’t understand why the show couldn’t do that after they built up so many expectations about his good character/merit/inability to be corrupted but ANYWAY)... Shen Wei, Xiao Wei, the little Ghost King has a soul and wow isn’t that just beautiful after everything he did to become worthy/deserving of Kun Lun’s attention and love

4. the Zhang Ruonnan and Wang Yike (death-touch Dixingren) case in ep 3 is an obvious parallel to the “brotherly” relationship of WeiLan... Shen Wei’s line of “Many tragedies were destined from the start” references the show of course but also the paradoxical precognition that marks the drama version of WeiLan; in both of their “first meetings”, one of them was always already in love with the other—Yunlan, as Kun Lun, knew he would have to return to his own time at some point and thus doom this impressionable young Envoy to ten thousand years of waiting and Shen Wei (honestly in a Code Geass Lelouch kinda style) knew he would have to die to defeat his brother

4.1. the importance of “touch” in this case alludes to novel WeiLan, where of course Shen Wei watched over all of Kun Lun’s incarnations but wasn’t allowed to get close to him because hungry ghosts would inevitably devour the essence of the people around them; similarly Yike was terrified of touching Ruonnan all this time... but Ruonnan accepted her (just like how novel Kun Lun lets this intriguing little Ghost King trail after him)

4.2. speaking of Shen Wei’s grand plans and the idea of “knowing”, Yunlan reminds him that “You are not a weapon/blade, you are a person.” and wow once again, only Yunlan can pull the humanity from Shen Wei, who has carefully crafted his disguise and personality to fit what people expect of the Envoy and the Professor... but alas, Shen Wei fulfills his promise by in fact making himself a weapon; he poisons himself to become a bomb that will take down his brother

4.3. as many qualms and complaints as I have with Chinese censorship, much in the case of WangXian, i think i prefer the drama version of WeiLan to the novel version; the plot of the Guardian novel is a lot better in my opinion (with references to mythology and legends, as opposed to, what, aliens?? mutants from X-Men? quirks in My Hero Academia??) and yea the relationship of Kun Lun with Xiao Wei is built up a lot better and makes more sense than the time-travel of Yunlan masquerading as Kun Lun with Shen Wei... but there’s an unadulterated, unconditional kind of love that runs through the drama, whereas the novel had some darker (though probably more realistic) vibes of near-possessiveness and ulterior motives... Kun Lun/Yunlan in the novel can be, well, cruel, which is not necessarily out of character; it’s just seems a little wrong to me that you could threaten your partner in a relationship (if you keep things from me again, i really will turn against you + had i known xyz would happen, i really should have killed you)... plus i’m always a sucker for love without an “i love you”, a love that’s conveyed entirely through actions and gazes

5. Yunlan asks Zhou Weiwei (the mirror case) where her jacket was bought because he “wants to get one for [his] girlfriend” and lo and behold, what similarly-styled and colored coat does our Shen Wei show up in a few episodes later? (also the fact that Shen Wei dies wearing this jade-ish-blue-ish coat)

6. boyfriend jacket during the Moutain-River Awl case... boyfriend jacket!!!! Shen Wei claims he doesn’t need it and well he still wears it anyway because Yunlan’s love is unstoppable

6.1. the way Shen Wei grabs Yunlan’s elbow before running down the hill

6.2. Shen Wei being so freaking fine-tuned to Yunlan’s discomfort/pain as always that he drinks wine for him (and passes out immediately—heroics/bde of yllz! wwx and the alcohol tolerance of our dear lwj)

6.2.1. when Minister Gao brings up Yunlan’s dad and the Chief’s hands tighten... and of course nothing can go by Shen Wei, so he changes the topic of the conversation; also the way he leans forward as if to shield Yunlan

6.2.2. Yunlan is similarly Aware of his boyfriend’s boundaries; cue him politely excusing themselves from the dinner with Vice-Minister Guo when Shen Wei (of all people!) fumbles with his chopsticks

6.2.3. Yunlan also blocks Shen Wei from Minister Gao’s sight (subconsciously?) after that wedding showdown... even though he’s unhappy that Shen Wei has kept the identity of the Envoy from him, he trusts the other man enough to recognize there must be a reason; thus he doesn’t want other people to pry into the possibility that Shen Wei is a Dixingren

6.3. also, also that Shen Wei lets Yunlan have his way and use him as a pillow in the car once again (he also adjusts the actual pillow beneath Yunlan’s head to make it more comfortable)

6.3.1 the other Shen-Wei-is-Yunlan’s-pillow scene is when the professor picks up the poor hurting Chief off the road and in the taxi ride home... apparently this was an improvised scene from Bai Yu who just wanted to mess with Long-ge and our great Zhu Yilong just stayed in character and ran with it

6.3.2. the other notable improvised scene is the cute “Black Cloaked gege~ please be careful~ there’s someone is waiting for you at home~” [sorry that i don’t remember the exact line] but once again our great leading actors just stay perfectly in character

6.4. after Shen Wei wakes up from a night of being drunk (lol) Yunlan has left a note for him “I’ve gone back first, stay in touch. -Zhao” and what’s that on the corner of the note? why it’s a winky face

7. when Yunlan grabs the fake Zhang Danni’s wrist to confirm his suspicions, Shen Wei narrows his eyes... (lol is our Black Cloaked gege jealous)

8. when Yunlan claims he can swallow the painkillers dry, Shen Wei clenches his jaw in his anger at this idiot of a man for not taking better care of himself... you’ll find that a lot of Shen Wei’s anger is directed toward his husband being a self-sacrificial fool

8.1. after Yunlan uses the Hallows again and his nose begins to bleed, Zhu Yilong in all his acting glory has Shen Wei furious to the point that his lips tremble (cue Shen Wei angrily shoving a handkerchief into his husband’s face) [i really want to know if they ever broke character during this scene due to their proximity lol]

8.1.1. Shen Wei all but invades Yunlan’s personal space (he really does stand there between Yunlan’s legs guys) and he’s so careful even though he’s angry as he tries to stop the nosebleed; he’s aware the force might tip Yunlan backwards, so he immediately rests his hands on Yunlan’s thighs/knees to steady him

9. Yunlan has claimed that he doesn’t do things for the sake of gaining anything in return and yet every time he’s wanted things from dear Shen Wei... “take off your mask and smile for me”, “join the SID”... the sexual tension is Unreal during these scenes lol, you can see Shen Wei swallow visibly in anticipation + babie Shen Wei of ten thousand years prior all but chokes on his words when he promises to do ANYTHING Kun Lun wants him to do (honey where is your mind GOING???)

9.1. Bai Yu does have a bruise on his knee after the scene where Yunlan asks Shen Wei for something... dunno if it’s the actor’s bruise or the character’s bruise, but if it’s the character’s bruise—how did he get it? what exactly did WeiLan do that evening lol

9.2. also peep the fact that Yunlan almost always has a lollipop in his mouth when talking to Shen Wei... oral fixation much? (also the whole sequence where he tries to explain how to eat a lollipop to babie Shen Wei, wow the amount of homoerotic tension)

9.3. babie Shen Wei’s ears and cheeks are SO RED when Yunlan snatches the mask off his face

10. Yunlan’s hairstyle changes after Shen Wei joins the SIU (joins his family), much like how a bride would change her hairstyle after marriage in China ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (random note but CQL WangXian does this too when lwj puts his hair down/styled over the front of his shoulders when wwx wakes up 16 years later)

11. the first time we see Shen Wei spit up blood, there’s an echo of “Xiao Wei” faintly and Shen Wei mutters to himself “Xiao Lan” before looking up and saying louder “Zhao Yunlan” (nicknames/pet names/names only your family or lover can call you... this trope is good)

11.1. i also think a lot about how in the novel Kun Lun muses before he dies that it’s a shame he won’t see this Little Beauty [Xiao Wei] grow up to be a Great Beauty

12. Shen Wei’s funny little eyebrow raise when Yunlan accidentally reveals he broke into the professor’s apartment once ( “riiiiiiiiight i definitely believe you”)

12.1. though the ep 23 scene is angsty, the fact Yunlan says “It’s the middle of the night, were you hungry?” seems to imply their relationship is a lot closer than just neighbors... they’re probably used to sharing an apartment/room at this point :)

13. when Yunlan is hurt, Zhu Hong looks to him but he only has eyes for Shen Wei

13.1. after Yunlan is blinded, Zhu Hong is the one cradling him but he calls for Shen Wei first and reaches for his hand; Shen Wei of course responds immediately “it’s me”

13.1.1. both times after Yunlan gets his eyesight back, the first thing he sees is the person who loves him the most

14. Shen Wei warms up the congee in the morning with his magic after he watches over Yunlan when his stomach pain acts up (domestic use of magic? yes please)

15. the bomb defusing scene in the hospital (video game -> reality case) really is framed like a wedding proposal... also the way that Shen Wei smirks lol he’s so proud of his husband

16. after his Envoy identity is revealed, Shen Wei all but abuses his Black Cloaked Envoy voice to stop his stupid husband from doing stupid things that will hurt himself and every time Yunlan is properly sh00k by it

16.1. we really go from Chief Zhao remarking in the Mountain-River Awl case that he’s used to ordering people around, not receiving orders to married bickering with Shen Wei to then agreeing to everything Shen Wei tells him to do

17. the fact that “Shen Wei, ah, Shen Wei... You are such a good person, how could I bear to let you go?” is an actual line from the censored DRAMA astounds me, nevermind that Shen Wei just made breakfast for his man and Yunlan is basically pouting up at him from the bed

17.1. the way Yunlan’s dad warns him to stay away from Shen Wei and Yunlan responds with something like “he’s sincerely good to me, I want to be with him”... “be with him”???? [inhales deeply] yea this is definitely a “brotherly relationship”

18. Yunlan’s “WOW” after the Envoy kills the monsters in the cave of the Mountain-River Awl case is hilarious and i dont understand how such a noise is physically possible,,, it sounds like a growl?????

18.1. Zhu Yilong was asked to mimic it during an interview (which he did not do and only half-heartedly gave a “wow”) and then Bai Yu did it again

19. also i inevitably got attached to the side ship of Lao Chu and Xiao Guo... they have so much skinship for a censored “brotherly relationship” lmao

the amount of face-touching and hand-holding that they do is unreal... they’re more canon than WeiLan in the drama adaptation methinks

20. 《时间飞行》or “Flying Across Time” sounds like Yunlan’s reply to Shen Wei’s《只是太在意》or “Just Cared Too Much”

20.1. the lyrics of both these songs really cements this idea that both of WeiLan believe the other to be too good... Kun Lun was a god in the novel, and Xiao Wei was just a soulless little Ghost King... and then we have the incorrigible Chief Zhao pining after the beautiful and kind Professor Shen... i just have a lot of feelings about them becoming better people for each other, that their love really does make each other stronger

21. my favorite two pieces from the OST are Shen Wei’s theme (arranged by Kun Luo) and Kun Lun’s theme (arranged by Chen Xueran)

head’s up: it’s been like four years since i last even glanced at music theory so a lot of this might just make no sense to an actual professional

-Shen Wei: written in 4/4 time, Ab Major, melody is primarily carried by piano + strings; the piano almost sticks exclusively to triplets whereas the strings are in steady whole, quarter, and eighth notes—which creates in interesting impressionistic effect, kind of like hazy smoke or the ripples across the surface of a lake; every single measure uses decrescendo, so the first triplet is always the loudest and the three that follow get progressively softer (mimicking an echo)... the piece ends on the seventh note of the scale, which is usually a pretty awkward place to end and yet it doesn’t feel wrong it all; the piece uses a ritardando in the last three measures, and we simply drift off with that last G... i think it’s a beautifully written piece that perfectly portrays such a complex character as Shen Wei, someone who loved with everything he had, and was just so overwhelmingly good... and then he simply disappears as if the dream has ended. it makes me think of how he guarded over Kun Lun/Zhao Yunlan for thousands of years in the novel, never ever ever daring to meet him... and yet the other man always felt like he was waiting for someone

-Kun Lun: written in 3/4 time, a minor, there’s no real complex shift in the melody although there’s brief modulation into E major (dominant/fifth note); it’s a fairly somber piece, especially when the strings join in... it’s a steady waltz, and it finishes with the scale (second to last major is g, last major is a), like a circle coming back around [like their love story perhaps?]... there’s a finality to it, a completeness, a wholeness, which makes sense in the drama-verse because the moment Yunlan takes up the name of Kun Lun is when his love story with Shen Wei all fits together. the piece feels a little lonely in its minor key and all, a little sad, indeed as if you were standing at the top of a mountain surrounded by clouds and mist... the constant meter also reminds me of like the steady drip of water, the perpetual and inevitable passage of the days and time

-i don’t really understand how because the keys of the two pieces don’t fit together easily, but somehow it doesn’t feel wrong to play the pieces back to back; the melodies of both seem to call upon each other despite the differences in key and time signature, so it actually feels right. a circle without a beginning or an ending, wouldn’t you want your love to be so infinite?

-when yunlan finds shen wei in their bubble outside of time, when shen wei is about to leave him, shen wei is wearing the outfit of their first meeting. and the lyrics go “Across time, I am in the same place”... surely, they will find each other again.

#guardian #cdrama ramblings #zhenhun #镇魂 guardian

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

Text

Okay so I freely admit this is way long even by my standards, lol, but like, obviously I didn’t have a ton of time to like...think about superhero stuff, lmao, but that didn’t mean I didn’t still have Very Important Thoughts, so I kept adding them throughout the week and then I woke up and was like oh hey, actually this is done. And also, oh hey, that shit added up fast. Whoops. C’est la vie. Such is me.

ANYWAY. Here. I give you a Mega Meta. A Master Meta. A...shut up, me.

Okay. So.

Thing is, to be perfectly clear....the problem many of us have is not with people writing Dick getting angry. Nobody’s saying he never gets angry, nobody’s saying you should never write him losing his temper.

The problem lies in so rarely writing Dick’s anger as sympathetic.

Meanwhile, you have Jason punching him left and right in fics without ever apologizing or with readers even expecting him to or saying he should...because he has issues. Hell, almost every fic I can think of off the top of my head where Jason punches Dick for some reason, even when Dick didn’t actually do anything wrong or Jason jumped to conclusions...Dick ends up apologizing to him, more often than the other way around. He sheepishly volunteers that he probably deserved it. That’s. That’s not good, guys. And then we have Tim holding a grudge for years and finally erupting at Dick, with people cheering in the comments, validating it, validating Tim.

Or we have Bruce being cold and dismissive in order to protect himself and his own feelings, but that’s just Bruce, people say, sighing as if exasperated with the character for doing the things that he only does because he’s written doing them. Because people have long since accepted seeing Bruce engaging in this kind of behavior with his kids, and more often that not...again, with Bruce they validate this behavior instead of calling it a flaw that needs fixing or needs spotlights shone on it. They don’t condone it, necessarily, but they accept that its just who he is, that its integral to him, that to change that would be to fundamentally change him, and thus, its not even so much a flaw at this point as just a fundamental touchstone of his character. That’s just how he is.

So again...its not that we think its out of character to write Dick being angry or losing his temper or yelling at someone. Its that his anger is almost universally treated as a flaw, specifically, instead of ever being framed as a merited reaction to something fucked up.

Whereas everybody else consistently has extenuating circumstances or explanations or justifications or bigger issues or whatever, any time they lose their temper in fics. When Jason, Tim, Bruce, Babs, Steph laying into Dick because he did this or that or didn’t do this or that, all of this is fine with everyone in the comments, its deserved, oh sure it sucks that the other characters had to be so blunt but the truth bombs needed to be dropped about Dick’s bad behavior or whatever, etc, etc....

But turn back to the vast majority of fics that make a point to write Dick getting angry or losing his cool at someone...and Dick’s anger at a friend of member of his family, by comparison, is practically never upheld as justifiable, understandable, sympathetic. Instead its more commonly framed within the narrative and agreed with in the comments, that it was simply him being selfish or self-centered, inconsiderate or spoiled or short-sighted or hypocritical.

Disregarding stories where Dick has no real storyline of his own, the ones where he’s there to support and further the plots and emotional arcs of his family....that aside from those, in stories or even just in scenes where Dick takes center stage, where he and his conflicts are front and center.....

Is it wildly inaccurate to say that except for fics that are clearly written by authors who are Dick stans first and foremost, that in a sizable majority of other fics, just about the only time you will see Dick portrayed as truly sympathetic....is when he’s inarguably a victim, specifically spelled out and acknowledged as such by the other characters themselves? In Tarantula or Mirage fics, injury or illness fics or ones where he’s been tortured, Court of Owl fics or ones where he’s been targeted by Deathstroke or adapts the Apprentice arc from TT...

That the only time a large part of fandom actually sympathizes with Dick, is when the narrative clearly and undeniably centers him as a victim in need of comfort and support, almost always from some external threat outside the family (with the exception of Bad Dad Bruce Wayne fics as well, to be fair).

Whump fics or when he’s being tortured or is sick or injured....often specifically scenarios in which he has very little agency of his own and his siblings and/or Bruce are stepping up to protect him. Which in theory is great. But in reality, it highlights the fact that the only time Dick securely has readers’ sympathy, is when everyone or most everyone in the fic has already offered it to him first.

Any other time though? Dick’s reactions to things are hardly ever framed as sympathetic, understandable. Not when the conflict is with other main characters. He’s always too extreme, too over the top, too heedless of how his words and actions affect others. He’s always described in comments in ways like “I understand Dick being upset here, but he went way too far” and even when he did absolutely nothing to incite a conflict and merely reacted to what other people did first, somehow it ends up being “well both of them are in the wrong, if Dick would just stop fighting”....again...even when he was the one in the conflict who undeniably had less agency, less power, less initiative, and thus him ‘stopping the fight’ is actually more accurately described as letting whatever was done go, so they can all make nice, even though he’s the only one who actually has to compromise.

In comparison, would Jason fans be comfortable with the argument that if Jason would simply stop fighting with Bruce, he could come home and they’d all get along fine? Would Tim fans be comfortable with the stance that if Tim would simply come back to Gotham during the events of Red Robin and make peace with Dick, they could be a united front and be all the stronger for it?

Or would the response to those takes be hell no, because Jason is RIGHT to stand by his convictions, to stand up for himself against Bruce? That Tim is RIGHT to stay absent from Gotham and keep ignoring Dick’s attempts to reach out to him, because anything else would just be letting Dick off the hook and he doesn’t deserve to have it that easy after what he did?

Meanwhile.....even in narratives where the take being used is that Bruce unequivocally fired Dick, forbid him from being Robin...its Dick who’s being stubborn and selfish for not forgiving Bruce, even though Bruce hasn’t actually put forth any actual effort to apologize or acknowledge what he did to hurt Dick or ask how he could make it better.

Because also, the other factor in all this...Dick’s never just allowed to exist for himself. Because there’s always someone else who needs him, who by extension is being hurt and neglected by Dick’s focus on his own conflict and holding out for the conclusion to it that he secretly hopes for, the one where the other person apologizes and puts effort into fixing things. With it thus being deemed that the longer Dick’s conflict with someone else lasts, and keeps him from helping whomever else needs his attention, the more Dick is actually the one hurting that other person, by refusing to simply cave and settle and let go of his hurt.

And when his conflict is with Bruce, notorious for never budging on things, the implicit understanding is Bruce is never going to be the one to cave, so Dick is never going to get the resolution he really wants, and thus trying to insist on it anyway, at the expense of not focusing his attention on that third party and prioritizing their needs....well, this, ultimately, becomes viewed as Dick being selfish. Because he’s insisting on holding out for something nobody believes will actually happen, and thus he’s just being stubborn and heedless of how his stubbornness is impacting others.

So even when Bruce was the instigator of a conflict, when Dick was staying away with reason, because he was hurt, because he shouldn’t have to be the one to make things right......

Suddenly, the frame shifts, in ways it never does with other characters. Well, forget about Bruce for a second, readers argue. Because Dick’s still being selfish, see, because what about Jason? Maybe the fight was Bruce’s fault, maybe he did do something wrong, but Dick was still wrong for not putting Jason first, centering him, even though at the time Dick was a nineteen, twenty year old with his own life to live and no actual obligation to the boy his father figure took in all while making no effort to repair the damage he’d caused in his relationship with Dick. Instead just dedicating himself to being ideal for Jason, who got the adoption Dick had long wanted, the name and mantle that he created and Bruce treated like it was his to give and take...

No, none of that was ever Jason’s fault, and he definitely shouldn’t have been targeted or penalized by Dick for any of that. But the thing is, he wasn’t. All that is wholly a fanon creation. While meanwhile, by the same token, it was never Dick’s responsibility to buck up and get over his own hurt for the sake of someone who was at the time a complete stranger to him and who had no real connection to him yet, because it was Bruce’s responsibility to make a case for that connection existing. Because Bruce was the only connection between them at that point. Bruce was the reason there was any possible tie between Dick and Jason at all....but at the same time, Bruce was also the reason for Dick’s unwillingness to simply return to Gotham and play one big happy family. Because Bruce had fucked up, Bruce had overstepped and hurt him, but showed no willingness to actually take responsibility for that, and take any actual steps to fix what had been broken by his own actions and stubbornness.

I mean, when Bruce took Jason in...Dick literally had NO ties left to Bruce at that point. His wardship dissolved at eighteen, Bruce held no legal responsibilities towards him, nor legally established bonds...Dick wasn’t living at the Manor anymore, hadn’t in a long time. He lived with the Titans, his teammates that Bruce had never truly approved of...as far as he could tell, he had no real presence in Bruce’s life anymore....and then Bruce takes in this new kid, adopts him, full legal ties for life, no aging out at eighteen...makes him Robin, gives away Dick’s mantle that he took from Dick in the first place when it was never his right to do so...fire him as his partner sure, but take away the mantle, specifically? No.

So here’s Dick, having gotten reluctantly used to Bruce, his father figure, being pretty much a non-entity in his life by this point...and then Bruce goes and gives every possible sign of recognition and family and WANT to this new kid...thereby establishing that he wasn’t just emotionally incapable of making those declarations, he wasn’t just utterly unwilling to ink permanent, undeniable bonds of family because of his own issues surrounding his parents’ death....

He just, for reasons born of thought processes Dick wasn’t privy to due to Bruce making no effort to contact him since their fight either...as far as Dick could tell, he just showed no interest in putting forth any kind of similar effort in Dick’s direction. In reconnecting with Dick, or establishing in the kinds of ways he’d quickly volunteered to establish with this shiny new kid, that he did in fact still want Dick in his life, in his family. That no matter the current lack of legal ties between them, he wanted to say or indicate otherwise now, change that, the way he had with Jason. To make clear that even though he was no longer obligated to Dick in any way, bound to him, he still wanted to be.

And I mean, its not like its impossible to see or consider Bruce’s headspace at the time. I believe in all likelihood, Bruce’s unwillingness or hesitation to reach out to Dick and try and rebuild their relationship was essentially just a fear of rejection. That he was afraid he could give it his all, dedicate everything to trying to fix what he’d fucked up...but Dick would reject it, reject him, and say it wasn’t good enough, or it was too late...because that was Bruce’s own assessment of things. That deep down, he didn’t believe Dick would be willing to work things out, to try, that he would ever truly forgive him, because Bruce didn’t believe he SHOULD be forgiven.

I think Bruce absolutely came to regret everything he’d said and done, and realized too late just how badly he’d hurt Dick....and while I’m never shy about expressing I believe Bruce has major entitlement issues...his guilt complex is equally vast. I do think that often times Bruce’s refusal to apologize or express remorse is a stubborn insistence that he made the right choice or that at the time, his choice was valid...but I also think that just as often, Bruce’s unwillingness to apologize for hurt he caused a loved one comes from the sheer depth of his guilt, and the self-loathing that accompanies his awareness of the hurt he himself caused. He doesn’t apologize not because he isn’t sorry, but because he believes no apology could ever be good enough to make it right, that he could never truly be forgiven because what he did didn’t deserve forgiveness. And in the process, he so often makes that lack of forgiveness a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Because understanding that headspace of course does not actually absolve Bruce of anything. His feelings of remorse mean jack shit if he kept them bottled up inside instead of ever expressing them to Dick, the person who needed to see them, who needed a reason to believe Bruce knew how he’d hurt him and was sorry and wanted a chance to rebuild a relationship and vow to never repeat the same mistake. All the guilt, self-loathing and remorse in the world, if not turned into actual words or actions...does nothing to move the needle on the responsibility that was still Bruce and Bruce’s alone, to account for his own actions, his own choices, that affected both Dick and Jason in ways they had no equivalent power to re-order everyone’s lives with their own choices, as Bruce’s heavy handed edicts resulted in.

And yet...people constantly insist that Dick was selfish back then for not stepping up and doing MORE than he already did with Jason, because he was mad at Bruce....as though it was some silly little spat he should have long since gotten over, rather than because the heart of the entire issue lay in Bruce’s ability to demonstrate he could still be for Jason the kind of father he once was for Dick....but had seemingly decided to just abandon all effort to reach out and try and rebuild the connection with Dick that he was at the very same time quite happy to build with Jason.

So even when its all but impossible to frame a specific conflict between Dick and someone else as being Dick’s fault....people simply shift the ENTIRE CONFLICT to a new angle wherein Dick is still managing to be selfish, for not adequately performing the role and tasks their father should be taking it upon himself to do....since ALL OF THIS, his fight with Dick, his willingness to let their estrangement last as long as it did with no effort to even ask Dick to come home, to express that he wanted Dick to...and then his taking in Jason, adopting him, making him Robin...

EVERY SINGLE CHOICE IN ALL OF THAT WAS BRUCE’S. THE POWER, THE AGENCY, THE DECISION MAKING, THE CAUSES THAT RESULTED IN EFFECTS...THEY WERE ALL BRUCE’S AND NO ONE ELSE’S.

And yet somehow, Dick gets stuck with half the blame, half the responsibility. All while skipping straight over his own hurt and the repercussions of him being the one most directly and negatively impacted by Bruce’s choices and their inevitable ripple effect on his life. Disregarding the fact that he was FAR more wounded by his conflict with Bruce than Jason was by proximity to said conflict...and instead refocusing all that sympathy straight on Jason, for being the target of Dick’s resentment at being replaced. An angle that had to be wholly created by fanon in the first place, since that wasn’t how Dick actually treated him in canon.

Dick gets cut entirely out of the middle in order to allow most reader sympathy to miss him completely...and somehow at the same time he gets pasted back into the frame parallel to Bruce, where he’s thus regarded as equally at fault, equally stubborn. Yet the reality remains that at no point did Dick ever have equal the power Bruce had when unilaterally making the choices that affected both Dick and Jason. Dick’s only real power lay in whether or not he settled for burying his grievances without any actual apology from Bruce, or an attempt by Bruce to take the initiative in repairing their relationship.

People levy undeserved responsibility onto Dick’s shoulders in all of that, most likely to make up for the parts of all that mess that Bruce wouldn’t take responsibility for, not out loud. Because people just take it for granted that well, its Bruce, that’s who he is, that’s not going to change...so since we don’t expect him to do everything that needs to be done, we put that on Dick instead, because he’s more likely to take on more responsibility than should be his in the first place. He’s that kind of character.

Its just easier to keep heaping narrative and emotional responsibilities on the character who’s established as being willing to keep taking on that responsibility, no matter how much you add and how much it isn’t his...than it is to do the legwork of trying to measurably change the character who’s established as being most stubborn about resisting change.

And so Dick keeps over and over getting backed into a corner where the only choices are take responsibility for the very actions someone else did to hurt him, or be the scapegoat for everything that continues to go wrong anyway. Because he makes for an easier target to blame than Bruce, who its deemed pointless to try and get to do anything he’s not already willing to do.

And that pattern repeats, across the board, with pretty much everyone. Its always a one-way street when its Dick’s actions or words that have hurt one of his siblings or Bruce. The responsibility for their conflict is ultimately his and his alone, and there’s never any excuse for what he did or how it hurt someone, never any mitigating circumstances. But each and every time the narrative presents a situation where someone in the family did something that hurt Dick, upset him, made him angry, made him leave....suddenly, it somehow always in those cases manages to be a two way street. Well technically both were at fault, or there’s two sides to every story, etc.

In fics, whenever the family is mostly in harmony or being brought together by some tragedy...Dick’s often cited as the emotional glue that holds the family together, the heart of it....but the second conflict erupts between him and one of his siblings, its equally cited that for some reason, the family’s emotional glue just can’t seem to stop himself from fucking up with one of his siblings, mistreating them, misjudging them, misunderstanding them....in ways that nobody else is guilty of. Its just him, the lone holdout that’s causing friction. From emotional glue of the family to the only one who can’t seem to get on board with what everyone else is perfectly fine with....in two scenes or less.

Which brings me to my ultimate point:

The only times Dick’s anger is considered justified, when its validated and approved of by writers and readers, is when that anger is on behalf of someone else. Then he’s allowed to be as cruel and cutting and as vicious as possible, and readers celebrate it.

Meanwhile, like I said earlier, Dick is only deemed truly sympathetic when he’s hurt and traumatized and shaking…then he can receive soft words of comfort, expressions of sympathy and support, and ‘aww, poor Dick’ in the comments. But anything else, lashing out because of his trauma, and he’s being selfish and not considering the effects he’s having on others (again, I point you back to how many times Jason hits Dick in fics with it not even getting a shout out in the comments).

Should he get angry on his own behalf and express resentment and bitterness towards his own family’s treatment of him at times, then he’s being cruel and inconsiderate of their own circumstances, his response is disproportionate or somehow just happens to cross the line up til which readers were willing to see his side of things, and shifts them firmly ‘back’ in the other person’s camp (again, I point you back to how many times Tim is celebrated for lashing out with years of pent up resentment at Dick, or even cutting him out of his life entirely. With readers cheering Tim on and saying Dick deserved it to degrees I have never seen readers validate or vindicate any amount of hurt or resentment Dick has towards Bruce’s firing of him as Robin).

It all adds up to creating this trap where he can be angry for others, but never himself. He can be sympathetic, but only to a point, and only if it costs no other main characters anything. He can be a victim, but not one with agency, not one with a full spectrum of emotions and reactions that might potentially be upsetting to others. And he can be an antagonistic foil or aggressor, but never one with understandable cause or justification behind his actions, unlike Bruce, Jason or Tim for whom there’s always a reason underlying why they do or say the things they do or say to Dick in canon or fics. Its complicated and they’re only human after all. Dick however, is pretty much always cast as just being unreasonable, hypocritical, spoiled and stubborn or all of the above.

Fandom has gradually over time eroded Dick down to only his opposite extremes, allowing no room for nuance or shades of gray in anything he says or does in canon OR in fiction. Its either or. He’s the most perfect or he’s the most flawed. He’s the solution to the story’s problem, his family’s problem, or else he is the story’s problem, he is the one causing the family conflict. He’s the best brother anyone could want or he’s the worst brother for anyone to be stuck with. He’s a supportive, everpresent son or he’s a resentful, absentee son. He’s eternally pining for Kory, Babs, Roy or Wally, or he’s flighty and promiscuous and with a sexual history longer than Deathstroke’s body count. He’s a helpless victim with too much trauma to act on his own agency or he has no trauma period, and thus no understanding of anyone else’s. He misses his parents too much to ever truly want or think of Bruce as his dad, or he never thinks of them or references them at all. He’s so perfect he exists as an unreachable benchmark that everyone resents him for being, or he’s not really that smart or talented beyond his acrobatics and only significant because he came first, with the others all having long surpassed him in skills and intellect. He has platonic, romantic or sexual relationships with practically every mercenary and antihero in the DC universe, or he has no flexibility whatsoever on his moral stances and is completely incapable of seeing the POV of even his own siblings when they disagree on these matters.

And any and all attempts to paint within these polarizing opposite extremes, to fill in the in betweens with shades and nuances…results in these things almost universally being deemed ‘Flaws’.

Any time he gets angry on his own behalf, so much as raises his voice at a member of his family or someone he’s in a relationship with, even if its only as a response to something they did to hurt him, a fight they initiated and pulled no punches in…this isn’t him being angry, experiencing a normal human emotion characteristic of every character at one point or another…this is his temper on display, we’re told, and this is a Flaw.

The fights always end with him having the last word, the parting shot, because he’s just that stubborn. And by total coincidence, this means the takeaway from all fights he’s in is always that he’s the one who refuses to finish...what he usually never wanted to begin in the first place.

And the thing is...Bruce is infamously angry as well of course, as is Jason, as are many, many others within and outside of the Batclan. But you see, its different with them, because they use their anger, they make a tool of it, it fuels their fights for others, it drives them forward even when they’re frustrated with how much is stacked against them or how unreasoning their opponent is being. They’re angry, yes, but their anger has purpose, their anger accomplishes things. Their anger is another tool in their utility belts. Their anger helps.

Dick’s anger, however, being a Flaw (with the exception of when its ignited in protection of his family), is pretty much at all other times a hindrance. His anger is unreasoning. It’s blind passion. It clouds his judgment and makes him behave irrationally. It can’t be harnessed, its too primal for even him to ever consciously control or put a leash on, and thus it is in all instances dangerous. It is destructive to both himself and those around him; once ignited, it will consume anything in its path, regardless of who or what it comes across. It puts up obstacles between him and the people who love him and just want to help him and be with him but he won’t let them, he and his anger and his stubborn refusal to see past it just keeps wedges between them for years, until someone smacks some sense into him.

(Curiously, every extended canon conflict I can think of between him and Bruce or him and someone else…almost always seems to end with him being the one to come back, reach out, extend the olive branch, etc.)

Similarly, any time he prioritizes himself or his own circumstances over what a member of his family wants him or needs him to do or be…this isn’t an understandable conflict born of the fact that even in co-dependent families, siblings still have a right and a need to live their own lives, and its unrealistic to expect one to eternally put their own life on pause to settle everyone else’s emotional conflicts or needs….this is him being selfish and inconsiderate, we’re told, and this is a Flaw.

I mean, you get what I’m saying, right? Its not that Dick is a flat, two dimensional character who needs flaws to make him more interesting. Its that Dick is a fully three dimensional character the same as everyone else, but people keep calling anything except his most two dimensional characterizations a Flaw, and then they just point to his two dimensional characterizations as proof that he’s boring without these things….

Even though nobody’s disagreeing with that, we’re just disagreeing that all these other things that keep being called flaws are actually flaws! As opposed to just human, three dimensional characteristics that are repeatedly hammered down to their most flat and singular presentation before having a spotlight shone on them and captioned as an eleventh hour addition intended to give depth to his character...

When ironically, these flaws that are supposedly highlighted in order to flesh him out, make him more realistic, human, relatable...are almost always presented in a very shallow way themselves, with very little depth or context to them or Dick’s expression of them, usually intended to only be interpreted in very specific ways.

You want him to be fully fleshed out and three dimensional, not static or unchanging or too unrealistically perfect? You want him to be like every other character?

Well…he already is. All those nuances that are so detectable in everyone else are already there in his core characterization, his canon. Nobody needs to add anything to make him compelling, to make him a partner in a narrative rather than an obstacle to be overcome…because the problem is not with Dick or his characterizations or his emotions, not really.

Its how everyone around him is written reacting to those things, or not reacting, as the case may be. Its this bizarre form of fictional gaslighting where people look at a chapter where Bruce instigated a conflict by bulldozing over everything Dick expressed he wanted or felt, and just issued an edict that Dick objected to…and people somehow come to the conclusion that well, if Dick didn’t want to fight with Bruce, he should simply have not objected to Bruce overriding his wants or needs, or at least gotten over it after a week or two. Hence, really, the fault is Dick’s.

Its Dick having trouble interacting with Jason when he first finally starts trying to reconcile with the family, with Dick written being cautious and wary and watching Jason like a hawk when the readers all know that Jason is trying here, he’s doing his best, he’s changed, why can’t Dick see that, why is he still hung up on….those times Jason almost killed their other brothers. Its like, why is he keeping distance between him and his brother…because of his narratively stated concerns for his other brothers, that are born of that first brother’s canon actions (and referenced within the fic itself) that hurt them. He’s vilified for not caring about his brother…when his caution and distance is literally born of caring about his brothers. Instead of garnering reader sympathy for being thrust in between a rock and a hard place while he works his way towards trusting that maybe nobody is going to hurt each other again and this could actually end well for all of them....he’s condemned for not reaching that point fast enough.

For having to work his way there at all instead of instantly intuiting that Jason has changed and Dick can trust their brothers’ safety around him now...even though had he encountered Jason right before Jason started enacting his big plan in UTRH and welcomed Jason home with open arms and brought him straight to the manor and vouched for him because he wanted to believe this was a happy ending for all of them...at that point in time Tim very well might not have been safe at the manor with Jason, and that could have ended horribly, and how could Dick possibly be expected to just know that Jason had truly changed and something like that was not a possibility at all...without the benefit of reader POVs or without being allowed the time to get to know Jason as he was now, rebuild trust that even if it primarily had been broken by external factors like the traumas that so drastically changed Jason or the effects of the Pit on him...that didn’t mean that even without assigning blame, there was still trust that need to be rebuilt, or built again. On all sides.

But meanwhile, Jason’s inciting actions contributed nothing to this conflict, because he had context for his actions...context that is rendered sympathetically by most narratives, and he’s past all that now and changed. So really, as far as most readers are concerned, the problem that needs to be fixed in this story is getting Dick to pull his head out of his ass and figure out what everyone else already knows, that he should somehow be able to just….sense Jason’s new trustworthiness. That Dick’s flawed for not accepting it at face value because of previous interactions, and being stubborn and judgmental in insisting on proceeding with caution at first instead.

You really want Dick to be three dimensional? He doesn’t need you to add anything to his character to put him on an even playing field with everyone else, or emphasize specific flaws in order to bring him down to anyone’s level.

It literally just requires…treating his character the same way you treat every other main character within a narrative.

Like…just let him be angry for himself at times, without painting him as the worst ever for daring to do so. Like everyone else gets to be, such as when they’re mad at him instead.

Let him put himself first at times without calling him neglectful for not constantly being at his brothers’ beck and call, like everyone else gets to be when they go off and have their own stories and adventures and no one calls them while they’re in Europe and says hey you need to come home and play mediator between Bruce and Damian, or Damian and Tim, or Jason and Bruce.

Let him need time alone not because he’s flighty or flaky or has commitment issues but because he has things he needs to sort out in his own head and that’s impossible to do when he keeps getting pulled in to everyone else’s fights to play peacemaker or expected to take sides.

Let him have inconsistent views on things like killing not because he’s a hypocrite, but because peoples’ views on charged matters can and do change over time, or they take into context specific situations they hadn’t previously considered, or they’re applied differently to other people who have other motivations than this previous instance he expressed a different stance on.

Let him have issues with how Bruce raised him, not because he’s ungrateful or inconsiderate, but because Bruce has trouble expressing how he truly feels about things a lot of times and Dick is someone who happens to really need actual open affection or else doubts start to creep in when he’s forced to rely on reading between the lines. Let this actually be acknowledged as part of the conflict between them, instead of offhandedly mentioned in passing before all focus is honed in specifically on Dick and his ‘part’ of the conflict.

Let him retain his own identity outside of Bruce taking him in, instead of acting like the second he moved into the manor, he became more of a spoiled rich kid than even Bruce is ever accused of having been. As if his identity in his eyes, the whole time he grew up with Bruce, wasn’t far more that of Robin, Batman’s partner, than it ever was of Bruce Wayne’s Ward, the newest Prince of Gotham. Y’know, like how Bruce taking Jason in didn’t magically turn him into an upper class snob, or Damian coming to live with Bruce didn’t magically make him the same as all his peers instead of constantly at odds with them because of his different childhood and how it shaped him in very different ways than theirs did.

Let him constantly hug and touch people and initiate bodily contact with people not because he’s inconsiderate or unaware of boundaries, but instead keeping in sight his own history of being touched without inviting it, and of having things assumed and insinuated about him by virtue of his heritage or simply from being taken in by a bachelor. And thus exploring how perhaps him so often taking the initiative in making or at least offering bodily contact first, lets him set the tone and degree of that contact rather than ever leave him caught unawares. A defense mechanism against people initiating unexpected or unwanted bodily contact with him - if he does it first, and on his terms, then he can never be surprised or disturbed by it, the way he’s so often been subjected to in canon and fics.

Let his family come to HIM sometimes, rather than just waiting for him to always come to them and saying well that’s just how he is. Instead of ever considering maybe that’s just how they’ve always made it be and he never was actually given a whole lot of choice in the matter…it was either accept the status quo or be deemed stubborn and neglectful for refusing to always come when called. Or labeled petty for pointing out that they could just as easily come to him when seeking his help. Or, y’know. Just to drop in and say hi or check up on him or behave like an actual family that acts like they WANT to be around him rather than having to tolerate his presence.

(’Everybody loves Dick Grayson’, most of the Batfamily cite as a source of resentment in some fics, accompanied by an eyeroll. Because despite that supposedly being a truism, almost every actual character in those fics seems irritated or annoyed by him merely walking in the door).

Let his family put in a little effort to seeing behind the mask they all know he wears at times. Let them take the initiative to try figuring out what’s bothering him rather than point to that mask as proof he just doesn’t want anyone to know. When there’s no acknowledgment that their own reactions to his attempts to air grievances in the past quite feasibly gives him a lot of reason to doubt they even want him to take off that mask around them. Given how, as mentioned previously…the vast majority of his canon conflicts with them end with him being the one to cave and get over it, even if he had nothing to do with initiating the conflict. Constantly being told that your reasons for being at odds with a family member aren’t Valid doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that opening up about your current hurts will end any better this time.

Let his family WAIT to hear his reaction to things rather than just presuming they all know exactly how he’ll react based on their own specific views of him, and then jump straight to reacting off of that while he has to play catch up and ends up boxed into the position they assumed he was going to take, rather than ending up there because it was where he WANTED to end up.

Let his family apologize to him for shit they do or say, as often as they expect and demand apologies for every little slight he makes - not to mention a number of ones that weren’t actually his.

Let his family hear and validate and understand and sympathize with his anger, rather than deeming it a flaw and disproportionate and over the top. While at the same time expecting him to always validate and understand and sympathize and get over them killing people because of their own anger, nursing grudges for several years because of their own anger, saying cold and cutting and cruel things to him and telling him to get lost because of their anger, etc, etc.

Let his family be understanding and protective of his childhood mementos of his first family - as in his literal name and his mantle of Robin and the costumes inspired by his family - I’ve said it before and likely will a hundred times again, but I will never understand why this is such a sticking point for people. Why is it not abundantly obvious that if you actually want to delve into the emotions and thoughts and opinions of a character who was orphaned at a young age, your narrative priority should probably not be to first and foremost make sure you find a place to sneak in your latest penis joke about his name. We get it. His name is another word for cock and that’s weird and silly to you. But so much so that you just have to find a way to sneak it into literally every fic about him, even at the expense of your narrative tone or your other characters’ characterization?

Because hate to break it to people, but when you have Jason ready to pound someone into the ground for disparaging Catherine in his earshot, but then write him turning around and two scenes later making a sport out of coming up with new and clever ways to weaponize his brother’s refusal to give up the name he associates with his dead parents, like…you just made Jason a hypocrite and an asshole there, for the sake of a penis joke at Dick’s expense. That’s what that actually was. The dick jokes don’t actually say or do or change anything about Dick whatsoever, in any story I’ve ever read. They only ever actually make everyone making those jokes seem a little less likable to any reader whose first reaction isn’t to giggle. Like, is reusing the same basic handful of jokes over and over really worth that? Are we all five?

Honestly, I think the reason I keep coming back to this specific trope so often is like…I constantly hear fans of other Bat characters say they have trouble connecting with Dick or empathizing with him because he feels less real, they have trouble understanding or relating to what makes him tick, there’s too much shiny and not enough actual depth to his character.

But to be perfectly blunt…when someone’s priority in a scene is coming up with jokes about Dick’s name rather than putting themselves in that character’s headspace and trying to come up with angles for why he would keep that name, despite all the jokes and ridicule he gets for it…like. The problem there is not with Dick’s character or lack of depth or being too hard to relate to or understand. The problem there is they simply don’t care to examine that character’s depth and emotions and motivations and what makes him tick, because they’re having too much fun using him as the butt of every other character’s jokes. And I mean, hey, you do you, but people being unable to move past the penis jokes about a character whose name has been that for eighty years, like…that’s about reader/writer priorities, not an absence of character material.

But anyway, moving on. Again like, try having his siblings actually respect his ways of honoring of his parents and childhood, rather than expecting him to placidly accept being the eternal butt of everyone’s jokes but also to never ever be inconsiderate or absent-minded about their own origins or childhoods.

Let his family respect and appreciate his contributions to their family, the superhero community at large, and their own lives, rather than only ever pointing to his time as Robin or his central place in the superhero community or in their family as a reason to resent him or somehow deem him completely unworthy of any kind of respect. But again, nobody better catch him ever disrespecting one of the later Robin’s skills or contributions to the mantle and community, because how dare he, only they’re allowed to resent or disrespect his time as Robin.

Let his family express actual gratitude for all the times he shows up for them and puts them first, rather than only ever pointing out the times he fails to do so, or doesn’t do so precisely in the ways they expected or wanted him to.

Let his family actually acknowledge his sacrifices on their own behalves, rather than simply expect them to exist, and thus deem them not worthy of notice or recognition.

Let his family be mindful of his traumas and as careful and considerate about them as they expect him to be about their own, rather than forgetting he has any at all, or handwaving them away as not that big a deal and deciding he’s incapable of understanding or relating to anything they’ve been through because he’s had such a better life in comparison.

Let his family remember that he spent his entire childhood with Bruce out on the streets fighting crime and trying his best to save people, often at the expense of normal childhood milestones and accumulating all sorts of injuries and traumas and witnessing just about every horror man can heap upon each other in the process, rather than scoffing at him as spoiled and sheltered because out of all of them, he spent the most time living in an actual mansion.

They wear HIS mantle after all, follow in HIS footsteps, not Bruce’s. Why do people concentrate so much on writing Jason and Tim and Damian’s conflicts over Robin and fights born of its importance to each of them....when judging by every scene they share with Dick in the same fanfics, the three of them often dismiss him as spoiled, shallow, indulged, out of touch with the ‘real world’ or just generally have no respect for...their predecessor....whose mantle still nevertheless means so much to them, they come to blows over it?

Just…let Dick be what he already is, rather than acting like he only exists as one of two opposite extremes and needs everything else rewritten or reframed as a character flaw or else he can’t possibly be deemed compelling or interesting.

You really want a three-dimensional, interesting and compelling Dick Grayson, rather than just a golden retriever on two legs, a source of comedic relief, a humorous punching bag, a handy dandy family therapist, or the Designated Asshole?

You don’t actually need to do anything to his character…other than give it the same courtesy you give to every other character around him.

Just let him be freaking human.

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loveintheageofalgorithms · 4 years

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Ever since the emergence of dating apps, there has been quite an uproar regarding its supposedly unprecedented influence on modern notions of romance. Love, alas has been tainted! Or so, they say. As much as there is validity in that argument, it is worth questioning - are merely the apps to blame? Or are they an anatomised component of a larger ‘marketised’ and ‘technologised’ society that has fundamentally altered the way we perceive and perform human relationships? As posed by a ‘match’ on Tinder, are we really naive to conceive love outside of our neoliberal regimes?

***

(an excerpt from my conversation with Aashim)

A: Come to the Courtyard [market nearby], if you can skip ‘class’

S: I don’t think my mum would allow. I don’t know why you’re wasting your time on me.

A: Sunk cost fallacy I guess. Lol [‘laughing out loud’] just kidding.

S: Hahaha, how are your other Bumble girls?

A: Boring. It’s tiring to build up a conversation from ground up.

S: Is that not Tinder and Bumble in their entirety? It’s all hit and miss.

A: Dudes take it more seriously than girls do. This mismatch of emotional investment causes a whole range of problems. You can write an entire thesis on what a shit show online dating is...Is that you were reluctant to give out your number?

S: I am just really scared of the internet.

A: As one should be.

S: Plus, all my relationships are based more on everyday interactions. So I get sceptical when it purely stems from the digital.

A: Fair enough. I’m prejudiced towards e-relationships too. But it looks like it's going nowhere anytime soon so I give out my number like free candy. Yolo [‘you only live once’].

S: Why do you think so?

A: Everything is online now. Would be delusional to think relationships are too sacred for this. Still, I am not convinced that the online is not trashier.

S: Okay, let’s think of its pros.

A: I see none. [Except] it would be easier to end [it] than the real-life ones.

***

Why then is ‘online’ love still “trashier”? Is there any merit in furthering the infamous market analogy of dating apps?

Later Aashim confesses, he would love to have more genuine relationships - platonic as well as non-platonic - but of course, without the “melodrama that comes with it.” Perhaps, the problem does not lie in the ‘online’ but in ‘love’ itself. We are convinced it is a sanitised, tailor-made, Tinder packaged, commodity. Rather, we want it that way.

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liaroflesbos · 7 years

Text

reading the Dark Era light novel for Bungou Stray Dogs, somethings really struck me (all about Mori and Dazai’s conversation lol):

First, Dazai didn’t just leave because of Odasaku’s words requesting he leave and he didn’t just leave because of the way that Mori seemingly betrayed and manipulated him by killing Odasaku. The conversation with Mori makes it clear that there is a newly-discovered fundamental difference in their philosophies that can never be reconciled. Mori directly states his viewpoint for Dazai’s edification:

“Dazai, as the boss, I am at the top of the organisation, but I am also a slave to the entire organisation. For the survival of the Port Mafia, I must automatically submerge my entire body in all the filth. Consuming the enemy’s strength, allowing our own people to unleash their greatest potential, for the organisation’s continued survival and prosperity, logically, no matter how cruel the action, I must carry it out happily. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Mori is loyal to the organization. He’s willing to sacrifice any small part of the organization, any life that makes it up, in order to protect it--which he does here by obtaining the Abilities Business Permit to forever keep the government off the mafia’s back for their ability users through sacrificing Oda’s life. Dazai recognizes this but finds that his friendship, the individual value he places on Odasaku’s life is more important than the overall welfare of the organization. As he tells Mori,

“Indeed, there is no merit [to going to Odasaku’s side or saving him]. I am going for one reason, because he’s my friend.”

Second, I think that this conversation, this situation, was also set-up by Mori to test Dazai’s eligibility to take over the Mafia.

In his conversation with Oda, Mori says,

For all you know, in four or five years, he may be able to kill me and sit on this chair.

Mori is clearly thinking of Dazai potential succession to the throne. We know Dazai witnessed Mori’s ascension, and here Mori is clearly thinking of Dazai doing the same thing to him one day not too far off.

In remembering the incident where Mori became the mob boss by killing the old one, we also remember why Mori took the throne. The old boss was threatening the lives of all the members of his organization and the organization itself, so Mori disposed of him. Mori’s succession is all about protecting the mafia, and in conversation with Dazai, he seems to be probing Dazai to return the same answer that Mori has reached: individual people are with sacrificing for the greater cause.

He begins the conversation by reminding Dazai that Dazai has always acted in the best interest of the organization before:

“If it is what the prodigy Dazai thinks, then there shouldn’t be anything wrong. No matter the time, you’ve always made a great contribution to me and the Port Mafia, and I hope today will be no different.”

Next, Mori treats Dazai’s request as an oratorical argument and, just like a teacher, points to whether or not Dazai’s words will help build his case. Mori ignores the direct content of the words to remind Dazai that this conversation should be functioning to convince Mori to listen to Dazai.

“That’s a good start.” Ougai nods. “Sometimes, speaking the truth will earn you the greatest negotiating power. You may, I agree. But can you tell me the reason?”

Next, Mori asks a number of questions which attack Dazai’s logic, poking holes in it. Dazai is unable to resolve the holes. Mori then reveals the envelope, which tells Dazai the line of logic that Mori has used to act up to this point. Dazai’s intellect is certainly quick enough that he had some idea before this, and now has the whole picture: that test Dazai could always pass with flying colors. And yet, the conversation Dazai still cannot accept Mori’s reasoning. Mori has questioned and probed Dazai, leading him to the conclusion that Mori wants, but Dazai cannot make that final step.

What really cements this as a test to me is this paragraph from the epilogue that did not make it in any way into the anime:

Even if one added up the financial losses and talented subordinates lost, the organisation had still obtained enough benefits to offset these losses. Dazai’s disappearance had long been predicted as well. Looking at it logically, it was the best outcome, all according to plan.

Mori knew that he would lose Dazai! Mori went into this plan two year long plan knowing that it could cost him Dazai, and he did it anyway. Thus, the conversation he holds with Dazai must be made in full knowledge that Dazai could leave the organization when it’s done. All of Mori’s words here are made with the awareness that Dazai might leave, and the fact that Mori knew that and chose to bring up Dazai’s future earlier in the novel makes me think that the gentle leading of this conversation is the final test that Dazai has failed to pass to be the head of the Mafia. How could Mori approve of a leader who may prioritize the individual over the organization, who has a fatal weakness like that?

Thirdly, this is all fascinating in its own right, but it’s even more fascinating because it convinces me that Dazai really deserves his role at the ADA. Odasaku’s final words to Dazai seemed to support the idea that Dazai is unable to achieve the emotions that make all the other members of the ADA loyal to their organization:

No matter whether you’re on the side of killing people or saving people, there will never be anything that can surpass your mind. There is no place in this world that can fill your loneliness. You will linger in the darkness forever...Go to the side that saves people!

If Dazai goes to the side that saves people just because of these words, these words that tell him he can never truly connect or care about other people, that don’t even really appeal to his need for companionship as much as his intellectual boredom, if Dazai joined the ADA because of these words, then he does so without fully being able to take part in the close emotional bond and hope that the ADA provides for it’s gangly crew of troubled orphans. Dazai’s scheming throughout the course of the manga seems to supports this--if Dazai was thinking about the larger picture of protecting the city even when he and Atsushi met, then has Dazai actually bonded with Atsushi in any way?

However! If Dazai’s joining the ADA can be seen as a rejection of Mori’s pure logic, utilitarian philosophy in favour of a value on individual lives, then he has approached the moral standards and bonds of the ADA. There is hope that we’ll see some truly authentic care, bigger picture thrown to the wind, from Dazai.

Honestly, I think that will be the climax of the manga for me, when I have the satisfaction of knowing that Dazai has the kind of hope and love for others that is one of Atsushi’s strong points, that he can overcome his loneliness and sense of meaninglessness through unbridled connection.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #osamu dazai #mori ougai #dazai #my meta #my fanstuff

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nocturne-noctiluca · 7 years

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O.C Submission for @siren-legion and Sai-Shou’s EMR The story looks absolutely amazing so far and I’m ready to eye emojis every update hueheuehuehehuehue The concept of Sirens is interesting as all hell, so I thought I’d give an o.c a try for the Siren Legion. Please let me know if I’ve done something wrong!! Name: Everly (Eve) Gupta Age: 19

Pronouns: She/Her

Siren Bird: Great Tit

Voice Claim: Lasah

Siren songs: Noctiluca, Ghost of Loreley, Monster, 2 Hal 9000

The full application is in this google doc!! Everything below is summarized as best as possible since I write too much ;v;

Personality:

(summarized)

Eve was raised on two separate moral sets, and therefore feels she has a split within herself. Her mother, free spirited, wrote letters to her on being a woman of her word, out spoken, and a go-getter who would chase and grasp in hand her desires. Eve liked to follow these idealistic words, they were the foundation for her being, and the reason she often sought to rebel. Her more free-spirited self was pushed beneath the surface before her father, the one who raised her. He was a well mannered man that cursed the immoralities of humanity. Because of him, Eve was raised precisely the opposite of what her mother preached; to be reserved, and to focus on tangible study over the dreams of mind. Eve hated this part of herself, that sought to satisfy her father in order to gain the little freedom she had. To this day, she feels as if a great deal of her personality was built on a farce.

That being said, beneath the staleness of reservation before her father, alone, and once she had finally left home- Eve began exhibiting much more lighthearted behavior and unrestrained curiosity for the world around. She could finally take to heart her mother’s word, and will stop at nothing to grasp at the world before her. Background: (Very....very summarized portion lol)

Eve is an upper-middle class girl who was raised under the iron fist of her father after her mother was admitted for mental illness. She was only three at the time. For the entirety of her life, she was raised like a well bred pet; trained in academics (which she hardly paid much mind to) and fundamental arts such as painting, ballet dance, and piano. When it came to the arts, she felt a need to use them as some sort of expressive outlet, and deviated from her strict lessons quite often. These punishments landed her in a timeout corner, to face the wall on her knees for hours on end and reflect on her disobedience. During these times in the corner, she could do nothing but hum and sing quietly. In spite, singing became her beloved hobby. It was an activity she’d taken up by choice, and no one could truly strip her of her voice. Being caged, she only wanted the same freedom her mother once told her stories of; roaming out in creeks and exploring forests. She wanted a mind and will of her own. The opportunity eventually presented herself in the form of a beautiful young man when she was just sixteen. In exchange for her voice and cooperation, he could take her somewhere far from home. The music company- or as it was on the outside- was one devious in it’s intentions, but that did not deter Eve. It’s workers were bribed with the prospect of less work and more money as long as they recruited young talented voices to pick up their slack. Eve’s piano instructor at the time, the young man named Jihan, went around tutoring young adults in music so that he could pick and choose recruits at his discretion. Eve was his first and only successful pick. It did not take much convincing on her father’s end; the girl he raised so skillfully would go out into the music world as it seemed and blow people away with the talent she’d grown. His ego and supposed trust for her was the deciding factor to let her go at the age of 18, where he otherwise would have kept her home to be showcased to friends and family. Jihan got his promotion; under the pretense that he’d take Eve in as an apprentice and train her as a Siren. And Eve got her freedom, at a cost she fully understood, but cared not for. Trivia beneath the cut!!

Thank you a bundle for taking time to read this!!!

*To cope with the idea of having to take a life to gain her wings, Everly scandalously went to a bar and lured out a an unsavory man. That first kill was her only, and she refrains from taking lives. She simply settles doing twice as much work to account for it. Allows her some extra footwork during the day, anyhow. *Everly’s current lifestyle is extremely freeform. She’s getting used to having a life with no dictating presence. She enjoys junk food and often wears clothing of a casual nature. She’s most comfortable in clothing that’s easy to move around in.

*Born to a British woman and an Indian man. She lived in the U.K with her mother and father before her her mother was admitted when she was 3 and her father moved the two of them to the United States.

*She has a bit of a fading british accent from being around her father constantly, but then also was exposed to American born instructors since youth.

*Everly currently lives with Jihan Sato, a young Japanese man who had been studying abroad at Juilliard. Jihan is currently 22 and pays the bills alone. He can afford to now, for sure. Jihan is not a Siren. Rather, he works with a very small sector of people in that particular music company who are paid to recruit potential Sirens.

*Her training involves shadowing Jihan and polishing her voice. She has a monthly quota to fill as a newbie in order to keep her position.

*Due to her upbringing, Everly only knows to go and get what she wants, often without thinking of consequence. At the very least, she tends to avoid being caught when being more on the dark grey side of the moral scale

*Of her studies, she’s most interested in botany and studies it in her free time. She loves taking in nature and “being one” with it. She secretly enjoys the aesthetic merits of being a Siren.

*Of the hobbies she was forced to take up, she enjoyed dancing the most, and still practices it during her free time. She has slipped from appreciating ballet to enjoying contemporary. Everly also treasures singing as a hobby she took up fully by her own choice. She regards it as the thing most relevant to her freedom from her father.

*Everly composes her own songs. She figured she’d put those damned music lessons to use. Her favourite part happens not to be working with melody, but actually lyric writing. Her desires are what most often go into her music.

*The song Everly would sing in her timeout corner was Pearls by Sade. It was used for a number of her dance routines when she was being tutored for ballet.

#egads #too much writing sobs #o.c #everly #EMR #emo rock tale

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celticnoise · 7 years

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Today, “a bank part owned by Dermott Desmond” is being linked to a tax scandal. The writer of this piece in The Herald has every single fact right on. It is a solid news story, a very good piece of journalism. And even the headline – “Bank linked to Celtic backer risks £80m tax evasion fine – and jail for its president” – is around 75% factually correct.

I’ll get to the 25% wrong part in a minute. It is important.

Sevco fans are, of course, over the moon about this. One of them sent me the piece in a gloating, sneering email, asking if I was going to do a story on it. “I will check the facts and get back to you,” I replied. I got back a single word, or phrase. Call it what you will. “LOL.”

I don’t think he believed me.

On the comments section of the piece, there was delight over the story. A quick check of the Sevco fan forums reveals even more happiness. There’s some suggestion that this is the “smoking gun” which will allow investigators to go after us, will open up SFA inquiries �� you get the drift. It is the latest pitiful variation on this State Aid nonsense that comes up every now and again.

The need to believe in this stuff is strong amongst their support.

Fundamentally, our club is rock solid.

That’s bad news for them, so they seek out information that would cast doubt on it and send it hither, tither and yon. None of it progresses beyond the point where authorities are legally obligated to “examine” the claims, but it gets them all excited for a wee while. They can do this for all eternity as far as I’m concerned.

Here’s where today’s article doesn’t matter. It’s in that headline, calling Dermott Desmond a “Celtic backer.”

In a certain context that could be taken to mean that he is our financier, our sugar daddy, which of course he isn’t. At all. We are not dependent on the largesse of that man. He does not fund our club. His personal wealth is not used to prop us up.

Hey, some people wish it was. He’s loaded. He could turn us into a Manchester City style operation overnight, but that’s not his game. He knows all this talk of “investment” in Scottish football clubs is a pile of nonsense. He would never see a penny of that back, so it ceases to be investment and instead becomes charity. Using Celtic as his personal plaything.

None of us really wants that.

And it’s because of that fact Sevco fans shouldn’t get terribly worked up over this report today.

The journalist doesn’t sensationalise it; Dermott does, indeed, own 30% of a bank which is about to be fined £80 million for its role in a tax scam. The chairman of the bank is facing criminal charges. Dermott, in fact, sits on their board.

But that’s like saying George Osbourne plays a role in running one of the many organisations who have him as a director; Desmond has no involvement at all in the day to day business of this bank, or multiple other companies in which he’s a shareholder.

The guy must have a portfolio the size of a phone book and in between securing cheap land for Celtic, bribing public officials, working to get the next Pope elected and all the other nefarious activities a febrile section of the Sevco fans appears to link him to, where would he find the time?

The writer doesn’t even attempt to link him to this scandal.

The prosecutors, who you’d imagine to be very good, aren’t investigating any role he’s said to have played in it. He’s a board member and shareholder, and that’s enough for the headline and the article itself – which, as I said, is a solid piece of work – and that’s as far a claim as it makes.

I am grateful for stories like this. I like to know what our directors might be getting up to. That’s important stuff, and if one of them was responsible for doing something dodgy I’d want that fact in the public domain and that person removed from the board, whether through the SFA fit and proper person test or some other mechanism which got them as far away from Celtic Park as possible. You don’t need people like that at your club.

Most fans wouldn’t want them.

I don’t need some Sevconite to tell me the things that are wrong with tax evasion. If our esteemed majority shareholder wants to go toe to toe with the authorities on stuff like that I know who my money would be on over the long haul. He’d be in restraints and leg irons eventually and he would richly deserve that fate, as Murray deserves it, as Whyte and Green deserve it. As King most definitely deserves it.

Nobody has to educate me on the relative merits of our board either.

We ain’t perfect.

We have a guy on the board right now who voted, in the Lords, to take money away from some of the poorest people in our society. Nobody has to sell me on the idea that he’s not exactly the sort of guy a club founded for charity should have serving it.

We had a previous chairman who sat around the cabinet table when the UK decided to invade a country that hadn’t attacked us, posed no threat to us, and on the basis of manufactured evidence. Nobody has to sell me on the idea that he should never have been near the big seat at Celtic Park.

But none of that matters to the matter at hand, which is the wild fantasy that one day the trail from the Panama Papers will lead to the door of Celtic Park. It won’t. Because even if Dermott Desmond was caught, quite literally, with his pants down and his hand in the till … so what? Remove him and another largest shareholder will come along. We’re not paying our players out of brown paper bags here … Celtic is clean.

Rangers’ tax fraud actually benefited Rangers … I can’t believe I still have to explain the difference to these goons, or why that was a football matter and this isn’t.

http://ift.tt/2nh9esS

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #TheCelticBlog #News

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