In Defense of Jacks in ACFTL
I do have spoilers, so this is your warning not to venture further if you haven't finished reading.
First off, I love how the story was told and how it ended. Could we have gotten more of the other characters? Yes. Did we really need to? Maybe, but I certainly didn't mind the absence. I didn't think we needed to address every character that we've met. We saw Castor and Lala, and I was happy about it, but I was strictly here for Evajacks story, and that's what I got.
I think Eva and Jacks had character development in this novel.
Eva isn't as trusting and hopeful as she was in the previous two books, and I was happy about it! Girl was getting murder attempted on her, and her husband is a narcissistic, manipulative psychopath. The only people she could trust were 1) being kept away from her or 2) avoiding her because they thought they were doing the best thing for her if they did so *cough* jacks
Jacks watched the girl he loved die! He blamed himself for what happened to Eva, and then continued staying away because he felt guilty and thought he was keeping her safe in doing so. He didn't know Apollo took Eva's memories away. He was too busy making sure Castor didn't go within 10 feet of Eva because Castor did attack Jacks after he went back in time to save her! He was still around Eva, he was just hiding in the shadows or out in the balcony peering through the windows. He genuinely thought Apollo was the better choice for Eva because at least Apollo hadn't done anything to her (as far as he knew).
Jacks apologized to her under the phoenix tree, saying that when he went back in time, he thought the stones would have taken something from him, not Eva, or are we all ignoring that because of that beautiful love confession Eva gave? He wanted our girl to live! When Eva met Castor in the Cursed Forest, Jacks literally put a knife through his best friend's chest in fear of having a repeat of the first timeline! Castor wasn't even doing anything, he was just trying to have a conversation with her.
Jacks was the tortured lover we all knew him to be. He wasn't Jacks, Prince of Hearts, with a trail of deadly kisses in search of true love in this novel. He was Jacks of the Hollow, a man who loved his girl so much he wanted her to live instead of dying at his kiss. We all know how badly Eva wanted to kiss him, and we all know Jacks can hear her thoughts. Can we blame him for staying away? He literally said that if she died again, he could not bring her back. The idea of that was terrifying to him. He already used the stones, and going to Honora would have the possibility of turning her into a vampire, maybe worse.
Jacks felt different in this novel because he finally admitted how much he loves Eva. We've seen him do so many things for her throughout the series. Was he holding back in the other two books? I'd argue not really, but he certainly wasn't going to let her be with him. He didn't want to admit he was in love with her. Dude literally held her like a grudge in the first novel, a secret in the second novel, and then a promise in the third. The hints were there for us. He would literally do anything for her. He just didn't want to admit to himself he loved her because if he allowed himself to there was the possibility that she could die.
Does Eva die in this book? No, thank god. But don't act like you read their kiss scene and didn't fucking break a little when Jacks went "No! Not again".
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BROTHERS
The river Weser ran between the Roman and Cheruscan forces. Arminius came to the bank and halted with his fellow chieftains:— "Had the Caesar come?" he inquired. On receiving the reply that he was in presence, he asked to be allowed to speak with his brother. That brother, Flavus by name, was serving in the army, a conspicuous figure both from his loyalty and from the loss of an eye through a wound received some few years before during Tiberius' term of command. Leave was granted, and Stertinius took him down to the river. Walking forward, he was greeted by Arminius; who, dismissing his own escort, demanded that the archers posted along our side of the stream should be also withdrawn. When these had retired, he asked his brother, whence the disfigurement of his face? On being told the place and battle, he inquired what reward he had received. Flavus mentioned his increased pay, the chain, the crown, and other military decorations; Arminius scoffed at the cheap rewards of servitude.
They now began to argue from their opposite points of view. Flavus insisted on "Roman greatness, the power of the Caesar; the heavy penalties for the vanquished; the mercy always waiting for him who submitted himself. Even Arminius' wife and child were not treated as enemies." His brother urged "the sacred call of their country; their ancestral liberty; the gods of their German hearths; and their mother, who prayed, with himself, that he would not choose the title of renegade and traitor to his kindred, to the kindred of his wife, to the whole of his race in fact, before that of their liberator." From this point they drifted, little by little, into recriminations; and not even the intervening river would have prevented a duel, had not Stertinius run up and laid a restraining hand on Flavus, who in the fullness of his anger was calling for his weapons and his horse. On the other side Arminius was visible, shouting threats and challenging to battle: for he kept interjecting much in Latin, as he had seen service in the Roman camp as a captain of native auxiliaries.
Tacitus Annals 2.10-11
there's a lot going on in there! Arminius switching to Latin is a detail that always makes me feel a deep kind of sadness, especially with how it's preceded by mention of their mother. I wonder what she thought of what became of her sons, on opposite sides of everything but still, inescapably, brothers. even when they want to kill each other. there sure are a lot of fucked up and unhappy brothers around. and Arminius asking about Flavus' injury............I also had a whole thing typed out about the horror of imperialism and colonization and the trauma of assimilation but I think this sets the tone better
Rome's Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest, Adrian Murdoch
and also this, just for fun
(ibid)
this post is already a mile long, so lets add another mile to it: a little scene at the start of their conversation! tfw you go in for a hug and your younger brother who also ended up being taller starts roasting your hair style
bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost ⭐ cara.app⭐ko-fi
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TD World Tour AU, where Noah doesn't tell Owen that Alejandro is an eel in London... In Area 51, Noah is accidentally splashed with an alien truth potion (which wears off after a few days) and he talks to Owen... Owen asks Noah what he truly thinks about Alejandro, and Truth-Potion Affected Noah says this: "I have mixed feelings for Alejandro. He's a brilliant, interesting guy and I like him, but I don't trust him. He's like a slippery eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. Basically, Heather with social skills. Wait a minute, why am I telling you this?!"... What if Alejandro secretly heard Noah call him all those conflicting things + Alejandro also learns that Noah is affected with an alien truth potion? 👽
Alright, you got me. I'm an absolute sucker for truth potion plots, especially when the character(s) effected by them are usually either pathological liars or incredibly secretive- of which Noah absolutely falls into the second category, given he shares so little personal information.
I'll gloss over why Noah declined to shit-talk Alejandro in London (though there's so many ways this change in behaviour could be justified) since the focal point of this hypothetical centred around their time in Nevada, so let's start from the beginning of the Area 51 challenge.
Area 51:
Before we start, it'll have to be established that no one was eliminated in London. Let's say that the majority vote went towards Duncan (team CIRRRRH voted him out immediately because they found his re-admission to the competition unfair, I guess. I imagine he'd also vote himself, if not as a plan to escape the competition he'd been actively skiving from, then just as an act of spite) but Chris instead claimed it was a rewards challenge- much like he does in Greece- because he doesn't want to let Duncan slip away again so soon.
I see no reason to alter the first part of the challenge- the sneaking into Area 51 portion- since team CIRRRRH's course of entry is fairly straightforward. Noah's presence doesn't make much of a difference to how it would play out; the majority of them throw their rocks and run, Owen gets lasered over the fence and Owen-napped, ect ect.
When both teams have managed to make their way into the Black Box Warehouse, Noah immediately suggests they should prioritise rescuing Owen. Tyler's quick to agree, since he's a firm believer in the "no man left behind" mentality (and he probably makes a not-so-subtle jab towards Noah for his chance of tune compared to London, where both he and Owen did leave Tyler behind) leaving Duncan and Alejandro to split from the group- Duncan in search of Gwen, and Alejandro just takes the opportunity to finally be free from his 'incompetent teammates' and prioritises finding an artifact.
Noah and Tyler come across the contraption Owen's trapped in, Tyler punches it in a futile effort to break it open, and the face hugger cube drops into Noah's hands. This is where the point of divergence comes into play; Tyler has his E.T. moment with one of the face huggers, but Noah- who's a tad bit more observant than Alejandro, and used to dodging surprise attacks from his various older siblings (and Izzy)- anticipates his own face hugger attack and promptly starts a game of cat-and-mouse with a taser alien hot on his heels.
The commotion of which attracts the rest of his team. Alejandro and Duncan arrive on the scene to see Tyler being electrocuted by an alien and Noah running in circles evading another.
Duncan attempts to rip the face hugger from Tyler's face, finding success at the cost of sending Tyler trampling into Owen's captive contraption (essentially taking Alejandro's canonical place in this scene) and inadvertently freeing Owen.
Meanwhile, Alejandro swipes up the nearest box he can find and snags the alien chasing Noah, who's still very loudly panicking as he flees, and succeeds! The alien is swiftly captured into the box, netting team CIRRRRH their artifact, and Noah promptly goes careening into the nearest tower of junk in his face hugger-fuelled hysteria. This causes another box to topple from the peak of the tower, landing directly on Noah's head and spilling its contents onto the bookworm- glass vials filled with a mysterious, luminescent cobalt blue liquid shatter into pieces drenching Noah in whatever they contained.
(i.e. truth potion.)
Owen has his false-amnesia moment, characterised by his Joker makeover, and Alejandro enacts his revenge post-hypnotic suggestion after being addressed as "Al" one too many times.
Noah, understandably, swiftly objects to Owen's treatment and demands that Alejandro snap him out of it. Alejandro concedes, and Owen's brought back to himself. At least, for a moment, before the fatigue of having his mind messed with sends Owen into near-catatonia (the same as canon), meaning he has to be ferried through the Warehouse and back to the Jet by Alejandro and Duncan.
Things carry on canonically from there; Noah's just sort of there for the most part, though there'd be a minor hint to his newfound proclivity for honesty. Something along the lines of him giving an uncharacteristically honest answer to Owen as to who he's voting- Tyler, of course, since he was the one who ultimately threw the challenge for them... and also because Tyler still holds some resentment towards Noah for what happened in London, and Noah feels guilty about it every time he looks at the jock. Wait, why did he say that?
Sometime between this and the elimination scene, Noah wipes the truth-goop off of himself, but not before the effects have already started.
Tyler's voted out, yada yada yada.
The Jet:
Thus begins the start of "Picnic at Hanging Dork". Team CIRRRRH, consisting of just Alejandro, Duncan, Owen and Noah, are slumming it up in the Economy Cabin. Alejandro tries to rally his team by asking how to break apart Courtney and Heather's tentative co-operation. Owen suggests having Alejandro seduce Heather, since it worked for both Bridgette and Leshawna. Duncan makes his "Babe Olympics" comment. Noah pipes up that playing with someone's feelings is pretty scummy, even for someone competing for a million dollars.
Alejandro takes Noah's reluctance towards his methodology poorly; he hadn't spoken up before, when Alejandro had utilized the same strategy against other girls- and even Owen noticed that, so surely Noah did too- so why was he to outwardly against him using the same tricks? Duncan agrees, and offers ''his'' idea of having Alejandro flirt with Courtney to throw both her and Heather off their games (since Heather has an obvious crush on Alejandro), and things follow canon.
Then, the scene between Alejandro and Courtney happens. Noah scoffs at the display from the side lines, prompting Owen to ask him why he's so against Alejandro's plan.
"I mean, you never said anything before, when he flirted with Bridgette and Leshawna." Owen comments, light-hearted in nature but with an underlying questioning tone.
Noah's eyes flicker with a cobalt glow, easily mistaken for a trick of the light, and he speaks without even thinking.
"Yeah, because I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Bridgette was happenstance, and Leshawna's whole deal could've been a coincidence, or some massive misunderstanding. But this?" Noah extends an accusing hand out towards a smug looking Alejandro, then pans it over to a flattered Courtney, "He's outright toying with Courtney's feelings after she was cheated on in front of an international audience. It's scummy."
Owen nods in understanding, momentary contemplation evident in the pouted curve of his lips, and he chimes in.
"Does that mean you don't like Al?"
"I never said that."
"Well, how do you feel about him, then?"
Again, a flash of blue light against the hickory backdrop of Noah's eyes, and he responds thoughtlessly.
"I guess I have mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, he's slippery, like an eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. He's like if you took all of the worst aspects of Heather, wrapped them up in a pretty package, and gave them social skills..." He holds his hands out before him in a scale-like manner, with the left tipped downwards and tie right raised by his chin. Then, the two hands swap positions.
"And on the other hand, he's brilliant. I've never met anyone as talented as Alejandro; he's smart, he's athletic, he's funny. It's almost unfair just how perfect everything about him is- even his face is perfect. It's ridiculous! Infuriating, even. It's so hard to dislike him, even when I know he's bad news, but that doesn't mean I trust him."
Owen stands slack jawed beside his best friend, both impressed and stunned at the raw honesty of Noah's tirade. Noah, now a little more aware of himself, realises that he's said more than he intended to- more than he thinks he's ever spoken in one go throughout the entirety of Total Drama. He's not usually one for speeches, after all, let alone honest ones.
He's always been the type to play his cards close to his chest, so why...?
"I, uh, didn't mean to go off like that."
And he also didn't mean to admit it, either. What was going on?
The look Owen gives him is, in a word, vivid. The blonde has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face, a sort of elated smugness practically glowing from his features.
"Sounds like someone has a cruuuush!~"
What? No? No! Not at all, where would Owen even get that idea?!
Noah splutters to correct Owen's assumption (to disastrous results, because he does sort-of has a crush on Alejandro, so the truth potion doesn't allow him to outright deny it), and in his preoccupied state he misses how a calculating pair of sage green eyes never seems to stray from him.
Alejandro has a lot to think about in regards to a certain cynic, it seems.
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‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚. INFO POST .❀ *₊° ❀
Heyo!
☆ I'm Des, pronouns are they/her. My native language is russian + im still in school so my English isn't perfect but im trying! Birthday is on 29 of May btw :3
☆ currently I'm obsessed with discworld, especially Vimes & Vetinari <]
But my other fandoms (that i have made/will make fanart of) are: Hollow knight, Good omens, Pokémon, Professor layton, Ace attorney, Sherlock Holmes (and many others that i can't remember now)
☆ I'm always happy to interact!! Feel free to send asks, leave comments or ask anything. But get ready for lots of happy tags & comments and asks because once i like you it's all over for you. (:3)
☆ my main tags:
#desfan-art - my art tag
#des-shitpost - my shitpost tag
#ask - my answered inbox tag when i remember to use it ofc...
^ about tags..i dont tag reblogs, and i reblog pretty much, so get ready for that ig :_) actually my blog is kinda messy i think but im comfortable with that and hopefully you will be too,,
I think that's all! Ty for reading mrmrm:3
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the "came back wrong" idea but its how kazuma thinks of himself after he gets his memory back post dgs2-4.
even with his memories back, he can't wash away the dirt and the callouses on his hands from 9 months working at sea as a manual laborer, an experience he never would have lived had he never gone through the tragedy on the ss burya
he can't get the look in ryunosuke and judicial assistant mikotoba's eyes when they first learned of the assassination contract that he willingly participated in out of his head, the look that said that maybe the kazuma they knew, the kazuma they LOVED, did in fact die and stay dead on that boat
kazuma was never truly carefree even as a boy with the shadow of his supposedly serial-murderer father over him but now that the sheet is fully off of the gruesome scene, can he really ever go back to who he was before? will the guilt of the deaths he couldn't stop just move into the hole left in his heart left by the resolution of his life's ambition?
or how about how kazuma wanted to be the one to show ryunosuke the ropes of being a defense lawyer, but by the time he found him again, he had already grown into everything that he hoped that he could be (just without him). now that he was on the side of the prosecution, kazuma could never stand by his side in that way ever again, yet another thing that changed over that year that he was 'dead'. ryunosuke took his perception of kazuma's dream and flew to greater heights than kazuma ever could have(this is kazuma's thoughts talking), all the while while with kazuma's defense band around his arm and karuma at his hip. 'kazuma asogi' was already living on through ryunosuke, so why did kazuma still need to be here? he could no longer do what he had come to England to do, because someone else had already taken up that niche perfectly
if kazuma wasn't the son of a mass-murderer, the defense attorney who changes the judiciary, or ryunosuke's partner, than who was he?
I think kazuma deserves to be a little fucked up by the shit he was forced to go through as a result of the professor case being dragged out into the open and also his amnesia / hong kong adventure. kazuma already has his new goal in life figured out by the end of the resolve of ryunosuke naruhodo?? I disagree. I don't think kazuma would fit as perfectly into the role of a prosecutor as quickly as he did. I don't doubt he would be a very good prosecutor but after the adrenaline of the professor case fades away, there has got to be some growing pains,,, and seeing ryunosuke having adjusted so well to his absence (221B fam :) ) could not have felt great, even if he would've been accepted into that family in milliseconds if iris got a peak at that tortured face but that's besides the point here
the way that kazuma acted all cold to ryunosuke and susato during the van zieks trial, I can't help but think that he tried to distance himself out of fear that they'd see he had changed and not want to be around him anymore. that because he wasn't the same kazuma that had left japan's shores aboard the ss burya that he wasn't worth being a part of their family anymore. obviously he couldn't be more wrong. but let the samurai boy have a bit a brooding time, he deserves it
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