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kobitoshiningneedle · 7 months

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I think the tumblr Ace Attorney fandom has a weird stance on Dahlia Hawthorne. Even more so, on her culpability, to the point that some people claim that she was justified in killing Terry Fawles and even Valerie

First of all, we need to consider the main message of the games first and our personal sense of justice second, because Dahlia, as much as any other AA character, operates within the games' own narrative, and has consequences according to it. And Ace Attorney makes it quite clear that any human life is valuable and no one has a right to take it (illegally). This message was accentuated in TGAA mostly, but even in the trilogy we have Edgeworth who says "everyone deserves a fair trial"

And (I think I need to say before someone throws tomatoes at me) I'm not here to defend Terry Fawles and say that he didn't do anything wrong. He pretty much did, and the fact that he started to date his young pupil is pretty horrible and brow-raising, even if it's unclear who initiated it. It's also possible that Valerie was a neglectful sister, and that Dahlia's whole family was abusive and insufferable to her. The most important thing to understand here is that even if Terry and Valerie were all-round terrible people, killing Valerie and manipulating Fawles made Dahlia a criminal. Objectively.

The second point I see people miss is how disastrous was the collateral damage Dahlia caused in her attempts to cover herself. Poisoning Diego. Killing Doug. Attempting to kill Phoenix. Attempting to kill Maya. And the question is: in what way did any of these people do Dahlia injustice? What is their fault?

They didn't have any. By the time of T&T timeline she was pretty much a person poisoned by her hatred and fear. The main tragedy of her character is that she spiraled down from a mistreated schoolgirl who wanted to run away to a malicious woman who would stoop to crime whenever she needs to. I think this is a solid example of an anti-arc, in which Dahlia's fate was indeed shaped by her unfortunate circumstances in many ways, but! She still had agency in her actions, and having agency means having responsibility

To clarify: I don't hate hate Dahlia, even though my disagreement with the fandom lies in the amount of her hateability. I think she's fascinating and is a good foil to Mia. She pretty much IS a tragic character, and we actually have a good insight into her via Iris' recollections before the final trial segment - the person who probably understood Dahlia the most. Realizing that Dahlia was yet another victim of Fey family drama, much like our Maya (even if in other ways) adds some sympathy points to her. But I have a firm opinion that she wasn't exactly redeemable at the end of her criminal path

So, do I think Dahlia's character goes beyond the crazy-psycho femme fatale? Yes, even if the game wasn't really forthcoming about her childhood misfortunes as much as we would want to. Do I think Dahlia deserved condemnation in the end of BTTT? Yes, and I personally didn't expect Phoenix or Mia to pat her head after being responsible for the deaths of 4 people and (the other important part that adds to her hateability) feeling absolutely no remorse towards people that had nothing to do with her tragedy. Having complexity doesn't necessarily mean Dahlia is secretly better as a person, and understanding why a character became the way they are doesn't mean we should sympathize with or forgive them

#ace attorney #aa3 #dahlia hawthorne #meta #ace attorney critical #sorry if it came out preachy #i didn't wanna #and probably i just overreacted #but i think there is much nuance to dahlia even without justifying her actions #i do feel bad for her #but i feel more bad for Maya and Iris sorry

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theparacosmologist · 1 year

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in the aftermath of the daisy Jones finale I've seen a lot of posts where people are complaining that billy has changed from a character you root for in the book to a character you don't in the show, and I have to say I don't agree at all.

when I read the book I didn't empathise with Billy all too much, and felt that he was the most unreliable narrator when it came to his depiction of himself. supposedly, in the book, he stays completely clean after his initial time in rehab, and never cheats on Camilla with daisy at all because their relationships is that of 'twin flames' and not at all physical. the show has him relapse instead and kiss daisy multiple times. I actually found that this made him more easy to empathise with because it made him seem more like a real, deeply flawed human being. the idea that relapsing or morally wrong actions makes you 'shallow' or unsympathetic is harmful.people who struggle with addiction are not less than complex human beings because of that struggle, and should be empathized with more, not less. additionally, he and daisy having a more overt physical relationship in the show doesn't at all take away from the twin flames nature of their relationship. I think it enhances their individual weaknesses and failing points. they are at their most self destructive when they're working against one another, and at their best when they're caring for each other. they make each other better, as Karen said. I think the physicality of their relationship just worked to further demonstrate their destructive tendencies. daisy telling billy to go to Camilla was a natural progression in her arc to being a better person, because by caring for billy she is, in turn, beginning to heal herself.

I've also seen an abundance of complaints about the depiction of Camilla in the show, particularly people either stating that she's less sympathetic because we can see her flaws and mistakes now, or that the changes to billy and Daisy's storyline are unfair to her. on the contrary, I found the show was more fair to her because she was allowed to be a person with flaws, and we were able to see ehow hurt she was by what happened. in the book she's an angel, and is completely robbed of agency and a certain degree of complexity because she never gets to speak for herself. her side of the story is told by the people who love her most, the people who, given that she is dead before the interviews in the book begin, look back on her as perfect. choosing to have her tell her own story was one of the best decisions the show made, because it made her a fully formed human being, as opposed to a saint amongst 'sinners'.

all in all I think the show was a masterful adaption of an already great book, and I believe that a lot of the complaints going around are both unwarranted and coming from a place of expectation that an adaption must be a one to one copy of it's source. daisy Jones and the six, the tv show, is a different story to daisy Jones and the six, the book, and that's one of it's greatest strengths.

#long post but I have a lot of thoughts #daisy jones and the six #djats #mine

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joons · 9 months

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barbie is a fun, clever, visual feast with some lovely moments that i am happy to see resonate with people. the movie is definitely worth seeing. but i would only give the film a 3.5/5.

i am now going to talk at length about my thoughts on the film, most of which will be an attempt to understand what is being said here.

i think barbie's acceptance of the gender wars as inevitable and perpetual ends up being more regressive than a lot of what it's trying to critique. it mostly ends in a healthier place, but along the way, it has little ability to make meaning outside of that frame. i loved the interactions barbie had with older women, particularly ruth, and i think there's a wonderful message there about girls needing both aspirational role models and grounded older mentors who can help them manage any obstacles they find. what a wonderful theme, and one that is given subtle, genuine weight, which i prefer over the more overt, "telling" moments the film does throughout. but a lot of the story gets sidetracked in assuming women's role is tricking men (a role foisted on them as a reaction to the patriarchy, so don't blame them) and that any true reconciliation or mutual support between men and women is only based on pity. i think the film could have landed better as a reflection on womanhood if it actually dared to be about ... women. if it could imagine women as more. if it truly tried to show the complex roller-coaster of emotions instead of staying stuck in one gear.

i have seen people say how ironic it is that ken is the best part of a barbie film, but it's true, on even deeper levels than people realize. why is ken the only one with true agency, whose feelings are true to himself and not a reflection of someone playing with him? where is the boy playing with his sister's dolls and desperately trying to understand why he feels so inadequate? why are those questions never asked in a film that generates endless questions and observations about human frailty? none of the barbies are capable of doing anything for themselves; they are easily brainwashed by the kens, and all it takes to shake them out of it is a speech about how "complex" women are. kens just have to accept themselves as they are to be happy; barbies have to believe they are doing something productive and worthwhile. except main barbie, who feels like she can't do anything meaningful, because this movie thinks the different barbies are genuinely incapable of doing something if they don't have an outfit to go with it. if the point is that she feels less than because she has seen the real world and feels unprepared for it, well, none of the other barbies would have fared better. astronaut barbie couldn't get a job at nasa, just like beach ken can't get a job at beach. the one time we see barbie make a choice for herself, unprompted by others, unburdened from her anxieties, is to ... go to the gynecologist. um. empowering. i guess.

(i think the ken/barbie plot would have worked better if they were "packaged" together. there's no real reason this ken has the crisis, why barbie feels any special responsibility for him.)

the fact that barbie begins to feel angst and anxiety as a result of real women's insecurities is fascinating; in being the avatar of girls' hopes, she also becomes their "competition," a symbol of all their grief and all their inadequacies. maybe you can see how kens get off easy here; they are not evolved enough; they will never be chosen by the gods as friends or idols or objects of hatred. that could have been explored more, especially through the mother-daughter relationship. why do teenagers begin pulling away from their mothers? perhaps for the same reason they grow out of barbie, because they want to be something beyond the touchstones of femininity they have. they want to be their own person and have to separate themselves, but the girls their age are obsessed with tearing each other down and taking their insecurities out on each other because they feel broken. barbie was experiencing that rejection for the first time. the film could have had something to say about how women can be cruel to one another as they struggle to find their own paths, but it's understandable and part of learning to identify what feels real and true to you. but none of the human characters have enough screentime to address any of this.

i liked the point that women dolls are saddled with the same impossible standards that many women feel. they're blamed in society for women's insecurities and also become totemic, like, "we gave you barbie, what more do you want?" i get that, i get the frustration that animates some of the plot, but i couldn't relate to it all that much. but it does ring true for me that b a r b i e as a concept, a company, a doll, is not the problem or the solution. she's just cool.

("why not make barbies that are relatable and normal?" the movie suggests. oh my god....... 💀 💀 💀 what year is this?)

i think allan (almost inadvertently, or at least subtly) makes the movie's best point: the lack of expectations can be an incredible gift. without them, you are free to become your own person on your own time instead of feeling less than because you're comparing yourself to others. we must all be allan. allan is our friend.

there are honestly so many smart concepts and sly commentary here that feel buried in Telling Not Showing; like the ken war was SO funny, and it would have hit hard if we saw the barbies struggling to find a way to understand and interact with the kens ... and they decide to play nice before realizing jealousy and competition seem to motivate the kens ... and then the kens do the most ken thing and do a normandy reenactment to gain women's attention. that's so archetypal, such a funny nod to the cyclical weirdness of human history, to the idea that women (and men) work within the system that is created for or against them, using the tools they have, living up to the gender roles/models they've been taught! but because the characters are like "i know what we will do. we will manipulate them and then they will go to war because they are men!" it's like ... ugh. it messes up the pacing of that whole sequence. it kills the surprise and delight of watching it unfold, so all we can react to are the sight gags (giving mouth to mouth to the horse lmaoooo) and the juxtoposition of war film and gene kelly musical. but the actual gender role commentary is stated so explicitly, afraid to question itself, afraid to say anything surprising or insightful, that it amounts to putting everyone right back in their box. the film tries to balance this at the end, pitying patriarchy as a cope against death, trying to empower the kens to be themselves, but it refuses to imagine any true healing or change, anything beyond "well, kids need to imagine barbieland as a matriarchal utopia, even though we have established that doing so leaves them unprepared for a world of unfair standards they can't control." all women can expect to do is fight for a land of dreams, but always know that the most that land can achieve is creating an image that will be sold back to them as empowerment. genuinely, what the FUCK is the point of this film. oh, it's too hard to say that imagination is what makes us human and that ultimately means more than the object. again, the film will outright state some version of this idea ("I want to do the imagining, I don't want to be the idea"), but every other part of the plot undercuts it with its own failure to imagine women as more than reactive.

and it had the chance to let women be real characters! (hell, does this movie even remember that barbie has Lore, a Family, a Last Name, that she hasn't been "just a doll" in a long, long time?) but the film seems to set up plots that would have given us organic interactions and fully realized characters. i got so excited when america's character, gloria, showed up, because okay, we're going to be able to explore womanhood through the eyes of a real person, we're going to see the push and pull between idealized utopias and dreams and real-world survival and hope and despair by learning more about her. but no. gloria is there to give a speech that doesn't sum up her life and her passions but all women in very generic terms. it's not experiential, it's definitional (and it's a definition built on what a woman is not -- not this, not this, can't be that). it is relying on the audience to point and say, "i recognize that," instead of building gloria as a person we love and know and laugh and cry with. you are building a wall between the story and your audience; if they never had "complicated feelings" about barbie, if they aren't sure why gloria cares so much about the doll while her daughter has such a negative reaction, then it is not going to let them in and explain that. it is going to say, "if you don't get it, you are brainwashed, probably, or a man, and you don't want to see it, and i am not going to open it up to you because it is an exclusive club, intentionally, because it is the only club we have, and i am not going to open it up to further ridicule or commentary, even though that is what this entire movie is doing." gah! tell a story! tell a STORY! surprise me! why are we just pointing at things?

i'm telling you, when barbie sits on that bench and has an interaction with an older lady, who is totally at ease in her own skin, who is un-selfconscious and not angry and peaceful, it brought immediate tears to my eyes. it was such a breath of fresh air. a real person, reacting in a way that surprises and moves you. what was her story. who is she. what is her secret to confidence and balance, and how can women share that with one another. no no no, go go go, take on capitalism and patriarchy until you're too tired to remember how to laugh, this is healthy and good. @~@

ultimately i am talking about the themes i wish were there or wish were more emphasized because the messages that are there feel contradictory. for instance, the kens' patriarchy is shallow and cartoonish, both in barbieland and the real world (that mattel executives were just as stupid and pointless as TOY PEOPLE was so INTERESTING to me; like what does it mean that men can still "play," and get paid enormously for it? but it's kind of just "isn't this dumb"), and the barbies are more than happy to manipulate their kens' emotions to get what they want. america ferrera tells barbie she is justified to feel mad at ken for what he did to her and her friends. but in the next scene, barbie comforts ken and connects to his feelings of vulnerability. it feels like the movie is rolling its eyes through the scene, when it could have been a really beautiful, sweet moment where humanity is recognized as universal, a true "man was not meant to be alone" moment of meaning, turned inside out and shaken and reconfigured as complementary and supportive, where barbie and ken realize community is crucial to weathering their own insecurities and flawed emotional responses, and maybe you can need someone without making it your whole personality. maybe the fear of connection is something all girls start to struggle with as they become teenagers, and they need that world where men don't want anything from them, and they want to cling to it a little longer than necessary. but because it's been bookended with "of course he's going to cry about it, don't give in, it's not your job to support him," the emotional core of the scene is undercut by shallower stuff. the scene genuinely reads like "placating men is important and you should do it," which is INSANE to me, but that's what is coming across with the wild whiplash between rage and sweetness, denying kens any humanity the whole film and trying to patch it up right at the end. barbie's ennui stems from the fact that a weary mother is playing with her, but the rest of the barbies - and the film as a whole - feel puppeted by the surly teenager who has not moved beyond rage-filled one-liners. i don't like that this is the case because those moments of human connection (barbie with the older woman on the bench, the mother-daughter relationship, even ken trying to understand why he cares so much what other people think of him) are so great. we're just supposed to ... not apply compassion to characters the film doesn't like. and we are supposed to like the characters we do like not because we are experiencing their lives with them but because they are saying The Right Things Loudly.

(and don't you love how the film even has a prepackaged response to being criticized? wanting men to be real people is brainwashed behavior. wanting women to have thoughts that go beyond regurgitated feminism 101 catchphrases is asking too much of a plastic toy. it's just a reflection or reality, see, but it's also exaggerated satire. i think the glib tone just crept into everything and made for some wild subtext that i don't even think the film recognizes.)

greta gerwig is more successful at dealing with the tension between made "things" and real life in little women. jo, as a stand-in for louisa may alcott, is resistant to getting jo "married off" and only caves in to get the book published. but the life and joy still sing in the scene where she reunites with bhaer, even when the audience is already primed to see it as artificial and cynical. the play between what jo says she wants and what jo indulges in is obvious; we can find joy and light even in the things that feel like a compromise of our principles. sometimes they are better than life, better than what we could imagine, they take on lives of their own, they become little women who exist off the page and no longer have to carry the burden of being "The One Narrative For Women" because they spark thousands of other stories and hopes and longings that the author doesn't have to be responsible for. as much as i waffle on whether i like the ending of gerwig's little women, it's clear that part of greta is throwing up her hands, in a "but what do i know?" gesture ... indulgent romance might just be the little antidote we need to stave off the lonely feelings we get sometimes. it's not weak, it's not a compromise, it's just cool.

for whatever reason, she doesn't bring that same verve or ambiguity to this film; she can't infuse barbie with meaning beyond what her critics say about her. barbies, like women, have to be perfect, but they can't be. they can't be totems, but they are. we must get away from them, but we can't. they are creations of men, but women can't think their way out of the box. barbie is an immortal ideal, but none of what she symbolizes has any impact.

"that's the point. it's complicated," greta says to me. "my job here is done."

"but declaring things complicated is not a point of view!" i yell back. "you didn't do anything!"

maybe i am too invested in barbie to even recognize that people have such negative feelings about her. maybe i have seen this premise done better in the lego movie, teen beach movie, barbie: life in the dreamhouse! (all of which genuinely love toys and kids/teen media and are not using them to sort out their own disgruntled feelings — and have a genuine belief that even flawed media bankrolled into existence can be real art, something gerwig seems so skeptical about that she lets her ambivalence about taking on this particular directorial gig become the driving tension in the story. how ... relatable?) maybe i have unresolved issues with greta's themes from little women and am now realizing how little she seems to get the things that matter to me, and we just need to part ways.

as anthony lane writes in the new yorker, "maybe the movie is for greta gerwig. and, by extension, for anyone as super-smart as her—former barbiephiles, preferably, who have wised up and put away childish things."

to that, i'd put a quote from c.s. lewis, whose work greta will soon try to get her hands around: "when i became a man i put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." the soul shudders at a narnia, a barbieland, a march family home, that are only notable for how "complicated" our feelings about them are supposed to be, and i think that puts my thoughts on greta's work into words.

now ... proust barbie, i would buy.

#barbie spoilers #did not appreciate the zack snyder dig either obvs obvs #barbie #barbie (2023)

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gold-rhine · 2 months

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Out of curiosity, how would you go about writing a neuvi/furina fic? I agree that there is a lot of potential for really good fics but for some reason the fandom waters it down (pun not intended but cyno would be proud). However, I've noticed that with other ships in the fandom too. They have interesting potential but then I'll look for good food and get morsels 😭 of what I'm looking for. Like I have had to comb through some alhaitham/kaveh fics that were uh very different from canon characterization. And it's like I JUST WANT GOOD FOOD PLS.

hmm. i personally would be really interested not in shipping them, but in like. snippets of interactions throughout the ages, from establishing roles to settling in a routine to then how these respective roles are getting in a way of genuine contact. bc like there are points where they try to reach out, but it fails in a mundanely tragic way. like. in furina's note, she says she told him thousand times to go out and interact with "our" ppl. like she clearly was well intentioned and tried to be nice. but like. it didnt work! he never did go out and interact with humans until post AQ, when in lantern rite he says he was just indifferent before. bc like, from his perspective its not "his" people, and also its his boss, whose also his colonizer, being like "haha you should get out more lol!" ofc he was like "idk what she's even thinking about", which is what he says about her note. but furina both didn't know the vishap context and was kept in constraints of self-absorbed goddess role, so the way she tried to be nice would never work like that.

i think ppl focus too much on how furina suffered more than jesus and forget why, which is bc she had to play the role of an entitled asshole and she had to interact with others thru that role, despite being mortified at how horrible she sounds. this is why she now thinks he hates her and all her coworkers too. she never had luxury of being kind or nice to ppl before, and if you take that away, her character loses a lot of complexity.

i think itd be interesting to explore her trying to be good to ppl while trapped in an asshole attitude, and sadly fail.

if i was paid like 100 bucks to write them romantically, i think id write the retrospective i was talking before for early chapters, but then take one of two options:

either keep canon story and explore them interacting thru excrutiating awkwardness post AQ

or as more interesting option, id re-write AQ a bit to add their interactions and let some of these interactions actually connect. i'd also let furina find out the truth about sovereign and what it means in relation to archons stealing his power. also, i'd restructure canon confrontation so that neuvi takes focal point instead of traveler. and then i'd go ham with drama on that archon trial, but also re-do meeting with focalors bc gurl. talk to your humansona pls.

btw i strongly dislike fandom being like oh, furina\rizzley was the reason neuvi saved humanity, like nooo its missing entire point. he saved humans without any selfish reason to do so, in fact, against his motivation for revenge, making that decision about a single human ruins neuvi's character. so in this furina\neuvi case i'd make conflict like. they don't know if she's gonna survive is focalors dies, bc then choosing to save fontain becomes the-nonselfish choice for him again and she gets to be the one with agency to decide to risk it

#rhine talks

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slavicafire · 8 months

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Dear Żmija, I have just finished Inquisition that my dear friend that got me into DA is very fond of, and I just couldn’t explain to her why… it just doesn’t right with me. I loved Trespasser and ESPECIALLY the Solas romance but making Inquisitor a Mary Sue and overall focusing on her role in Thedas too much (as well as Corypheus being the villain… bleh) just felt like such a waste. What are your thoughts on the game? Because I remember you calling it „catholic”. (i’ll welcome a rant. Also hope you are well!)

ah. I have cast them away but alas, here come all my dragon age brain worms, happily returning to the fold like dozens upon dozens of prodigal sons.

quick foreword: i always play as humans, and i always play as warriors - I have played dai as a mage just once. so, in theory, I should be the one type of player the game caters to the most, lore-wise. alas.

inquisition is absolutely the weakest link in the da games - and it takes, for the lack of a more polite word, a giant shit on the lore and atmosphere set up by origins and expanded/played with by II.

and don't get me wrong, the first two games blundered and made a lot of mistakes, contained a lot of inconsistencies, contradicted their own set up plenty of times - but the expectation was (very much so) that inquisition would not only avoid fucking up in the same way but also! would fix some of those mistakes. add both proper gravitas to the story of the world - and allow for the return of the fascinating, genre-appropriate - again, for the lack of a more polite word - whimsy. it was supposed to be more comprehensive, more complex, more creative. heavy, again, yet funny. meaningful.

instead, inquisition made sure to make everyone bland, rather catholic and centrist in their convictions and beliefs - which, in a setting so fueled by the absolute injustice enacted on entire subgroups of people, simply means it made most characters bland conservatives, on the in-universe axis regarding chantry, mages, circles, elves, slavery, dwarves, the qun, and basically anything else you can think of. even characters who are supposed to be Hardcore Believers in whatever it is their convictions are end up being kind of undecided or confused about it all - see sera (love her as i might) or cassandra (no comment), or even bull when talking about the qun (which we are supposed to approach from a more liberal perspective now, diminishing its actual depth). don't even get me started on cullen, wannabe war criminal creep, who had a chance to become something interesting at the end of da II and then instead got wattpadded into the game as your trusty sidekick to prank instead of, you know, asking about how fucked up places starting with k get when he's there.

and then the game doesn't allow you to actually take a stance yourself - it just lets you choose the tone of expressing the one or two stances picked for you. you can't actually play as a meaningful character with proper agency - you must play as someone whose goal is to uphold the andrastian approach (not even faith, but approach), enjoy being the head of a giant religious militia, subdue mages at least partially, yield to accepting the apparent non-issue the grey warden order becomes, and then also give even less of a shit about elves and slavery than the previous games did.

I believe the only way to actually play the inquisitor without megatons of meta roleplaying in your head is to be kind of an evil cunt - and I don't mean choosing the asshole options in dialogue and missions, I simply mean accepting the fact that no matter what you do or what you say, you can't do or say anything all that meaningful. or good. nothing revolutionary, for sure.

the companions and advisors won't mind too much either way, after all.

#well that IS a rant. sorry #thank you for asking I could write for days about this #I won't... but I could #all this bile within me oft demands to be witnessed #dai

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the-badger-mole · 1 year

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A is for Ambition

I was having a conversation with a friend on the discord server I'm on about Azula, and this point came up about the sexism surrounding the way she was treated both by the canon reducing her actions to mental illness and by fandom tropes reducing her actions to her traumas. While I strongly believe that both her mental health and her past traumas had a hand in Azula's development, I think a lot of her character and actions (most of them, in fact) can also be attributed to her genuine ambition.

Ambition isn't bad in and of itself, and I think there is a version of Azula that could have used that ambition productively. But she didn't, and narratively speaking, that should be okay. What bothers me most about the idea of a redemption for Azula- and I know I've talked about this before- is that it doesn't take all of her motives for the choices she made into consideration. I don't like the way that dismissing her actions as the result of mental illness and abuse robs her of agency and reduces her to being a puppet. If there was one thing Azula was not, it was a puppet. Frankly, the dismissal of Azula's actions as a result of her mental state and upbringing smacks really strongly of misogyny. As if Azula in her natural state would be devoid of the ambition that made her so deadly. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I think all or even most of the people who want to redeem Azula and use her mental health and relationship with Ozai as an easy way to do it are misogynist, but I think the fact that those were presented as reasons to factory reset her and make her a loving supportive sister for Zuko did come from a misogynistic place. And it didn't start withing the fandom.

As a society, we have a problem letting women be villains without explaining it away somehow. There are scores and scores of stories of women who turned evil (or more accurately turned anti-hero) because she was scorned by a man, or abused, or otherwise hurt, usually by a man. Or she turned evil as a result of something happening to her child (obviously not the case here). Then there are the genre of women who turn evil because they feel threatened by another woman. There isn't a whole lot of space for a woman who wants to do evil things simply because they benefit her or because she enjoys them. The best example of a female villain who was in it for the love of the game that I can think of is the original Maleficent, and then they decided that making her more complex meant giving her a tragic backstory a la a very thinly veiled date rape allegory. There isn't a lot of space for a female villain who cursed a baby because she needed to remind these uppity humans who they were dealing with.

Azula was almost definitely abused by Ozai- and possibly even physically abused- but that wasn't all of her motivation. I would go as far as to say that wasn't even most of her motivation. Azula was a ruthless, cunning, ambitious girl, who enjoyed what she did. If there is going to be any redemption of her, that needs to be acknowledged first. But really, does she need to be redeemed?

#atla #azula #let her be ambitious!#we stan a dark queen #azula was highkey scarier than ozai #love that for her #THE YEAR OF CONTENT!!!!

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ghostwanderer · 5 months

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cast for my fanfiction

Riko - main character, jr soviet pionneer, she takes many aspirations from the kremlin agency due to the adoration of her mother and her friends. She and Reg sneak into P-3s car until they were attacked in the air and crashed into a nearby office building. After P-3 left them alone without knowing, Riko and Reg braved the hostile machines and out into a changed world. From there, they journey to find what is going on.

Reg - loyal protector, “robot”, He was built by Dr. Sechenov to protect and care for Riko when she is by her lonesome. After their initial meeting, the two became best friends and swore to stick by each other no matter what. When their inciting incident occurs, Reg protects Riko through combat techniques, extendable arms and in a last ditch effort, incineration cannon. However, the more Reg goes on the journey, the more he starts to learn more about himself in the process.

Nanachi - Fluffy bunny, tragic experiment, They were once a human, living by life homeless and starving thanks to the carelessness of the soviet government. One day, they found a poster promising a safe haven and happiness beyond imagination. Hesitant at first, Nanachi decides to join the program. There, they meet Mitty, a girl who is the brightest ball of joy anyone has ever seen. Throughout the days, Nanachi and Mitty have grown closer, seemingly to showing a deeper sort of affection. Till all was taken away. Nanachi and Mitty were admitted to an experiment, by testing with polymer, their genetics were going be spliced with those of animals. The procedure was agonizing, Nanachi suffered but ended up changing form to that of a rabbit. Mitty wasn’t lucky, the procedure was botched and Mitty was turned to an ever-suffering mound of flesh. She was later put down. Not a day goes by when Nanachi wishes to exact revenge on the very government that tormented her and those they loved. Maybe that day will come.

Faputa - blessed daughter, cursed princess, Faputa was born from an egg that was formed from her mother, a young girl named Irumyuui who was taken in after being found stowing away in a shipping container. Faputa made life hell for the employees of the pavlov complex, until someone new showed up. She first observed this new individual cautiously, before getting more and more closer to them, finally they have started being well acquainted with each others company. One day, something festered inside her, she doesn’t know what it is, but it happens every time she was around her friend. Whatever it was, she was glad it meant to be around her friend. One day, a man took her friend away without warning. She waits days for her friend to comeback, but they never did. She became heartbroken, sad, violent. Suddenly one day. The doors locking her in her cell have opened wide, all the scientist are dead, machines and monsters roam the complex. She doesn’t know what happened, but she concurs that something big just happened.

Ozen - the immovable, commander, second in command in the KGB police, Ozen exacts order through great strength and terror. Outside of her job, she is good friends with Lyza and P-3. Especially with Lyza, she mentored her when she ways a teen and cared for her when like she were her mother (because Lyza’s actual parents died during the brown plague). Her role during the machine uprising was to seek Riko and take her to safety, but to also keep close tabs on agent P-3.

extra info: Ozen and Lyza were immigrants from Japan who moved and worked in the Soviet Union after the brown plague had decimated Japan, along with other eastern countries.

more coming tomorrow

#made in abyss #atomic heart #tw russia #info dump #riko made in abyss #reg made in abyss #nanachi made in abyss #Faputa Made in abyss #Ozen made in abyss #Lyza made in abyss #Riko #Reg #nanachi #faputa #ozen the immovable #lyza the annihilator #crossover #fanfic

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makima-s-most-smile · 10 months

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Trigun Ultimate 2 (Part 1) The extras

Again, late. But better than never! My thoughts while enjoying my read of Trigun Ultimate 2!

Trigun Ultimate 2

Extra: Day in, day out

Fucking mood, my dude!

Wait? He’s hanging from the wall?!

Jokes aside, again this stresses how much of Vash’s strength comes from him training and working hard. Damn, guy, you depressed and able to do that?

Vash often parties or drinks with Wolfwood in the later volumes… Does that mean he doesn’t need much sleep? Or does his workout regiment falter?

Two things: I love how easily Vash slips into the townlife as if he has been there the whole time. He easily connects with people, he just has his walls up, so people cannot connect with him!

Vash is always attentive. Even when he is playfighting! Look, how quickly his mask dropped when the danger came around!

Well deserved. But Vash, honey, you really think you never killed anyone? That could have easily killed him. :/ I am pretty sure there were a few corpses on your path by your own doing…

I also love how assertive the waitress?/owner? of the bar was! It is respectable and so is she! We stan a strong woman!

Extra: Pilot

Vash against all the graves is haunting. Did he cause them? Or did he just bury them?

Edit: Nope, just seeing them when walking into the city. But when contrasting it with the news talking about Vash on the same page, you get the feeling that Vash has some skeletons in his closet. Foreshadowing, my friend!

I really like this shot. I love those glasses. Why didn’t he keep them? D; We know by now that Vash is very attentive. No way he accidently walked into the hostage situation!

‘98 Vash! Go away with your creepo behaviour!

And here is Vash again, being more in control of the situation than you think!

That… is not the Vash we see in the main manga! Manga Vash would interfere. Pilot Vash is more passive and gives the humans around him all the agency for their actions, for the better or for the worse! His beliefs are not above their agency. I like it! I am also sure that this Vash would be much less scarred!

He is right about telling the woman about the pain that was caused by her father and that she shouldn't look away. Her father is much more complex than she thought, being doting and kind to her, but a gruesome killer to others.

Pilot Vash is angy! But doesn’t kill. His own believes at work! Surely, Vash despises bullies who take advantage of others plight to gain power.

#trigun bookclub #trigunbookclub #Trigun Ultimate 2.1

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spectralscathath · 1 year

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number 22 for the salt thing

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

idk if the whole fandom sleeps on this but like, the bits of the fandom I'VE seen have, and no fandom was specified for this so I’m gonna come out and say it: I like Endeavor’s arc in MHA. I like that he is a toxic, abusive father, a terrible husband, and just kinda the worst, and, key point here, I like that he figures out that he’s a bastard and realises ‘oh shit I need to do better’ and then has No Fucking Clue how to do it. Do I think it’s handled perfectly? God no, there’s problems in the writing, always will be. But I think it’s interesting, it’s intriguing, and that while I do understand people hating Enji for his actions and stuff, I think that flattening him down to just a one-note abuser actively robs the storyline of a complex and fascinating character.

I think my favourite thing about it as well is that Enji fucks it up constantly. He has no idea how to be a father, he has no idea how to be a civil human being, he knows how to be a hero in terms of doing the work side of the job (such as having the most solved cases on record or his agency focusing on all areas of heroism instead of specialising), but he can’t for the life of him be an inspiration or a leader. He’s self-centred, he’s hard-headed, he’s mean, he’s hot-tempered, he’s proud and ambitious, he can’t handle a single conversation without resorting to gruffness and intimidation, and these are flaws that he has baked into himself for decades, of course they’re not gonna just go away. I want to study him under a microscope, honestly. Here is a character who has so completely defined themselves by two things: being perfect at their job on paper, and being second best. And then, all of a sudden, for the first time in his life. He comes first. But not by any of his own merits, his hard work. Nope. He comes first by default. And he hates it.

But, then that lil finicky bit of his perfectionism comes into play, and now that he’s been handed the title that he’s spent so long trying to take, even if it isn’t how he wanted it, he’s still that stubborn fuck who’s gonna do his goddamn job, so he starts actually trying to figure out how to be what All Might was, and isn’t that so interesting, the duality of flaws? How his need to be the best made him a monster, and then, when circumstances changed, it set him on the road to try and atone. And I do mean ‘atone’. I’m definitely in the ‘this is an atonement, not a redemption’ camp. It's mostly semantics, and I’m definitely not up to date on the manga so god knows if it’s gonna get pulled off, but man, if this landing is stuck, I’d love it.

Following on from that: I’m absolutely on team ‘none of the Todorokis die at the end’. I think the best ending for the Todoroki family is that they all live, and they all keep getting to have interesting and different interactions with each other. Because the reactions to Enji from his family are the other best part of his arc. Stories thrive on drama and conflict, and this man is a walking fusion generator of the two. Rei wants nothing to do with him for good reason until she needs to work with him to help their son, she has her own demons to deal with as well. Fuyumi is forgiving to her father, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still angry at him, she has her own reasoning for doing so. Natsuo would be happy if he got to live the rest of his life never having to talk to his dad again but doesn’t want him dead. Dabi is just swinging wildly between every emotion known to man with the dial turned all the way up, his issues are all standing on top of each other in one emo trench coat that’s currently setting everything on fire before anyone can realise there’s a person behind the nightmare. And Shouto is also in this complicated space of sorta wanting stop being angry, not for Enji’s sake but for his own.

If Enji was just a one-note character, the abuser using his hero status to get away with his crimes, then that would lose all the interesting interplay between the family. It takes all the teeth out of the Todoroki plotline. And Enji or Dabi dying at the end? Well, where’s the story supposed to go from there, it doesn’t fit, it’s a cop out for Enji’s plotline, which is all about ‘you are not allowed to escape the consequences of your actions, you must live to see the damage you have done and work to fix it’. Enji is a man defined by his need to work, and so work he must.

What a fun way to take a character. (Again reiterating that I’m not saying you have to like him but like. I think he’s very polarising for good reason and that often leads to people flattening him down into Pure Evil Abuser, and I feel like from what I’ve seen of the fandom, the interesting stuff about him gets lost in that.)

#mha #bnha #enji todoroki #asks #also he is Very Beefcake and I'm not afraid to say it #I also have a personal headcanon also about him being aromantic and how that ties into his massive self-blame that dogs his every step #it sits next to his guilt for Touya's death and the fact that instead of An Epiphany he actually Kept Digging and Got Worse #i saw someone once describe him as 'no one ever meets his high standards not even himself' and that was hitting the nail on the head #Enji really just saw the 'character development' cake rack and ran off with it. forty cakes. that's as many as four tens.#love that for him

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lurking-latinist · 15 days

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For the meta for writers questions, 1, 3, 8, and 20!

Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Ah, the Ace Longfic! Which still doesn't have a title to itself. It is supposed to be like ten chapters but will probably be more than that, and I'm in chapter four! I'm trying not to talk about it too much online because then I won't want to write the actual thing, but without spoilers, it's a series of solo adventures for Ace that explore her parallels with/similarity to the Doctor. I'm trying to actually write full adventures and I'm having fun coming up with interesting characters for her to meet. Plot less so, but we'll get there.

Since she is on her own and filling the Doctor's shoes, I've found she works less and less well as a POV character. So I'm writing from the perspectives of people she meets along the way, which also allows me to show how she's growing and changing and getting weirder (as she should). My current POV character is a wet-behind-the-ears military officer posted to an isolated space station where secret scientific experiments are being done. I'm sure you can guess whether the scientific experiments go wrong or not. My young officer has to step up and make complex moral judgment calls (which she does not want to do but discovers she will if she has to) when both her superiors get their brains taken over.

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Hahaha I always do just write it anyway! That's why I have so many ficlets. The things I dream about and don't write are the big sprawling daydream AUs that won't distil into one scene.

Oh fine OK I do have one key scene but the reason I haven't written it is because no one will have any idea what it's all about. Remember you asked for this! This is from the viewpoint of an agent of the Gallifreyan CIA who's been spying on the Seventh Doctor during the events of the novel Set Piece.

It's a shame to see a good agent--never reliable, but brilliant at his best--end up in such a state. A shame, but not surprising. He's not the first agent to end his career like this and he won't be the last, especially being a renegade as he is. They know from his file that nine centuries' hard living has put him in his seventh body already. Most of his career he's believed he was defying the Agency. Some of it he actually was. They've retrofitted quite a bit of their timeline planning around his entirely unauthorized interventions--and it's always turned out better than you'd hope. Now he's stranded, sponging off an old friend, health broken, nerves shot all to pieces. He's lost that TARDIS of his--gossip says they'd grown hopelessly into each other--if she's dead he'll have a horrendous psychic wound. Perhaps that's even the root of what ails him; perhaps that's the reason he's drinking French wine laced with opium at ten o'clock in the morning local time. Not much else he can hope to do for it, not without a Gallifreyan medic. And he won't come home, they know that too. He'll wither away there, jumping at shadows, country servant-girls pitying him, before he'll come home and be properly looked after. Some of the agents think he can't anymore; after so long away, they say, he can't take his place in Gallifrey's telepathic web. The closest he can get, now, is the buzz and chatter of human voices around him. They note how he haunts the kitchens. He's made a wreck of his lives and fortunes, probably his ship as well. He's reduced to drifting about in the local skirmish called the Franco-Prussian War--a purely human conflict, not even a branch of the War, which would be something--and he isn't even doing anything there. He's serving as a dreadful warning to young agents: the renegade life may seem exciting but this is how it ends. There's some suggestion they should inform Cardinal Braxiatel. If you want to speak to him, you should do it soon. Before nineteenth-century drugs and living on his nerves and the loss of his ship and the unknown wound in his shoulder he keeps rubbing take their toll. Even the humans say he isn't quite all there. And wherever else it is he's going, it's somewhere the CIA can't reach.

It's a weird book, Set Piece. Don't worry, Seven has a very complicated plan going behind all this. But he does have something of a breakdown. It ends up being quite cathartic for him actually. (He's drinking the drugged wine because someone else is drugging it and he doesn't want them to know that he knows. He claims.)

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

I like to read the sort of thing I write, certainly! (Although there's some things I've written that I'm pretty sure if someone else had written them I'd find hopelessly saccharine.) But there's also things I like to read that I could never write. Novel-length fics, for sure, I really appreciate but don't write; I also love a good pastiche of a book series with a strong authorial voice, but avoid doing them myself, after a really harrowing experience doing cod-Pratchett. (Although I had a really fun time doing that Stevenson-in-space bit. Maybe I just need the amount of distance provided by an AU to enjoy doing author pastiches? I should try space!Aubrey-Maturin sometime and see if that'll do it.)

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

These questions assume I don't shove all that in the notes already! :P

Oh yeah, I did do a bit of research for that Hornblower fic that I forgot to put in the notes! I wondered whether the superstition that it's bad luck to toast in water was old enough for the characters to think of it. The few minutes of research I did were pretty inconclusive, actually--one source did say it originated in the Royal Navy but didn't say when, which was not very useful to me, but I decided it at least sounds old enough that I could project it back to the 1800s. Apparently the superstition is specifically that someone who drinks a toast in water will die by drowning, which... well, both of them avoid that at least....

#doctor who #seventh doctor #ace mcshane #fic #writing

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sixofravens-reads · 3 months

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Finished Chlorine!

I am extremely conflicted about it, mainly because I don't know if the author intended for the MC to be such a raging asshole edgelord or if this is a case where they think the MC behaves totally fine in all circumstances and truly all their problems are everyone else's fault.

Ah well, we embrace death of the author.

IF this book is written so the MC, Ren, is intentionally a huge asshole who takes very little agency in her life, rarely communicates her thoughts with others, treats her best (and only) friend horribly, and constantly blames others for her own actions (ie. telling the doctor she was no longer feeling pain from her concussion and then getting angry later because he didn't realize she was lying to get a doctor's note), it's an interesting and complex tale about a conceited, selfish star athlete who develops the delusion that she's a mermaid and [insert body horror here]. Obviously not everything that happens is her fault either--her swim coach is a certified pervert, she faces racism throughout the story, etc--but that what makes it interesting, untangling her complicated and often blatantly incorrect inner narrative.

Throughout the story there are also letters from her friend Cathy to her, explaining Cathy's perspective on things and apologizing for perceived wrongdoings. The thing is--comparing the two narratives it becomes clear that this is an extremely toxic friendship. Cathy is in love with Ren, and also trying to be the best friend she can be. Ren seems to completely ignore her, disdain her friendliness, is openly rude to her, and complains about how shy and anxious she is. It's clear this is one of those classic Jennifer's Body-esque Girl Friendships where Ren is the leader and Cathy is more like her devoted follower than an equal.

Idk--the way it's written though, I can't really tell if the author recognizes this fucked-up-ness or if she truly thinks her MC is okay to act this way because she's ~different~.

Another thing is that the story is being narrated by future!Ren who has apparently become a real mermaid (though tbh I think you can also read it as her just being delusional, she did sew her own legs together to make a mermaid tale after all, we're given no proof that magic is real in this world and she could very well be narrating this as she swims herself to death) and I think that takes away from the story a bit--every scene is coloured with her teenage views and opinions and angst.

It makes it hard to see what Ren is feeling in the moment, for example when the doctor she sees after getting a concussion asks her how much her head is hurting, she replies with "what if I hurt everywhere all the time?" and then clarifies to the reader that this is "the pain of living in the human world." As in, some existential pain and not real, physical pain. Which comes across as eye-rollingly #edgy emo kid nonsense, but also makes no sense because for the first 2/3rds of the book she doesn't really address the "I transformed myself into a mermaid because I didn't want to be human" thing. She constantly wants to be swimming, but it's specifically about her swim team and scores and such and not about any existential longing.

Anyway my final complaint is that the word chlorine is badly overused. The author basically uses it as a replacement for the word 'water' for most of the book. And I understand and Ren's thing is that she wants to become a "mermaid" via swim team success and therefore obsessed with chlorinated water, but it's absolutely overkill lol. You can still say water or pool water and people will know what you mean.

So, I'd say 3.5/5 for this one, interesting book but I think with this being the author's debut novel she still has some work to do on writing style, purple prose, and making her characters believable.

#kinda wish i didn't buy it. the cover is pretty but im never gonna read it again

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kedreeva · 2 years

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hi, me again. thank you so much for your reply and taking the time to explain☺️ I've seen some discourse about Eddie being a bad influence on Chrissie for selling her Special K and that he would get her off the straight and narrow or in general for selling drugs and I wanted to hear your take on it since I feel you have such deep understanding of his character. I don't consider him "problematic" or the likes, and I feel it doesn't take away from his character being the protector of the group. Most blogs talking about the two scenes with him and Chrissie are Edissie or anti Edissie and it's difficult to find blogs who would look at it in a realistic way that focuses on the characters with their complexities and not on their dynamic as romantic or not romantic☺️

Not my typical fare but okay!

The first thing I have to say up front is that I'm p o s i t i v e that both sides of this are discussing the issue as if the characters are real people who have real agency and could have done anything differently. They can't. They never could have, because they aren't real people and they have no agency. Regardless of ANYthing else, Chrissy went to Eddie because the plot needed Eddie to witness Chrissy die in order to drag him into the shenanigans, and she went home with him because the plot needed Eddie to be on the run because he's suspected of Chrissy's murder. That's it. EVERYTHING else is flavor text. There's no "he could make her worse" or "she could make him better" because they're both dead tools of a bad plot.

The second thing I want to make clear is that SALS is a backbone of fandom and should remain so. I don't care who ships what. I don't care. Also I don't care if someone considers a character "problematic." If you see shitheads calling characters problematic, just block them! It's very easy. One button click will VASTLY improve your experience of fandom. The people who call characters problematic are people I don't want to interact with like.... ever. Because they haven't learned critical thinking skills and we will not get along. "Problematic" is a purity wank word used by people who haven't figured out that things are not black and white and that media doesn't need to be morally pure to be good or to be liked. "Problematic" is a fucking meaningless word used by people who haven't grown up enough to just say "I don't like this character and that's a me problem."

BUT. If we want to talk about the flavor of the text, we shall do so on the condition that we all agree you can't argue taste. In this context, I use this to mean that I'm not going to argue anyone's headcanons, because that's literally all the above arguments you've listed are. He cannot lead her down any paths- they are both dead. We can extrapolate where things might have gone, we can have favored headcanons for how they might have interacted later on, we can have reasonable ideas of canon-divergence paths. But it's all headcanon. It's all supposition. It's taste, and I won't argue it, I'll just tell you what flavors I taste.

To answer your question(s) (finally), we have to look at what we know about Chrissy. Which is.... not a lot. She's a cheerleader with insecurities, particularly about her body (given the hallucinations of her mother's nagging her about her size). She is dating Jason (poor life choices imo, but also the choice that makes the most sense for her social status and societal pressures of the times). She's seeing a counselor who isn't able to help her (through no fault of the counselor's or Chrissy's). She's suffering physical and mental pains due to being hunted by Vecna, because Vecna is going after her for the same reasons he'll go after the others- socially/emotionally/communally, she's somehow isolated herself from other human connection that should have been able to support her and help her (the same way we see Max cutting herself off from her friends and family over her issues).

None of that has anything to do with Eddie. At all.

Eddie comes into the picture because Chrissy chooses ("chooses" but remember as a character she has no agency and cannot choose this, the writers chose this for her because they needed things to happen for the plot) to handle her problems not by talking to her friends or trying to connect with human beings, but by seeking drugs to escape. Where and how she acquires them actually has no bearing on Eddie's character. If Eddie hadn't been selling drugs, Chrissy still would have sought someone to buy them from. That's NOT Eddie's choice, that's Chrissy's choice. It is ALSO Chrissy's choice to ask him if he has anything stronger than what he initially offers.

This is not Eddie "leading" her anywhere. He seems genuinely surprised, a little suspicious, and kind of annoyed about doing the deal at all until he sees that she's clearly having some problems, at which point he switches to concerned. Before that, he offers her an out with "We don't have to do this" and saying all she has to do is say the word and he'll walk away. At this point, it's not his business why she wants the drugs or why she'd back out of the deal. To be clear, I've never sold drugs in my life, but I feel like it's the sort of business where you just don't ask questions about why someone wants them or what they're gonna do with them or anything. It's not your concern, and frankly I feel like the less you know probably the better.

And... well, to be perfectly honest? Outside of shipping goggles (which I will don at will), the two don't seem to really know each other at all. The last common ground they are cited to have was a middle school talent show, which was, what, like 6 years prior? 6 years when you're 18-20ish is like. a third of your life ago. They've been going to the same small high school where people clearly, like, Know Everyone, and the last instance either of them can recall an interaction was when Eddie was in middle school? I'm sorry but to me, that just doesn't speak to him having a lot of influential power over her. EVEN in a vulnerable state.

She's there because she asked to be there, she follows him home because she asked for more. She went to him, not the other way around.

And we absolutely CANNOT forget the extra factor that she was literally being hunted by a supernatural monster capable of warping her thoughts and feelings, who was using her shame and guilt against her to an extreme degree, causing her to hallucinate, giving her headaches and nightmares- the whole shebang. She's NOT in her right state of mind AND Eddie has NO WAY to know that. imo, neither one of them is at fault here, they are both victims of their own and each others' circumstances. It's unfortunate for them both, but it is what it is.

But it DOES leave a few questions that you may find relevant.

First: If she HAD been in her right state of mind (ie, no vecna), would she have gone to Eddie for drugs in the first place? No, probably not; according to Jason, who arguably does know her best USUALLY in TYPICAL times, she would not have touched the stuff. As much as I think Jason is a total douche, given the surprise from Eddie that Chrissy came to him in the first place, I actually believe Jason's belief that Chrissy wouldn't do that.

Second: If she HAD NOT come to Eddie first, would he have gone to her? Given that they have not interacted in the 6 years he'd been in HS, with several of them being the same years as her, and not interacted since he was in middle school... I'm gonna have to go with no, he wouldn't have. Why would he? They obviously run in completely separate social circles and he's left her alone the entire rest of the time.

Third: If Eddie had KNOWN about the reasons she was not in her right mind (ie, vecna), would he have tried to sell her drugs still? It's hard to say for sure, but given that he doesn't try to sell or give Max any drugs, or suggest that as a solution to anyone else in the group, I'm gonna go with No, he wouldn't have. Why would he? That's not gonna solve the problem and may, in fact, make the problems much worse. In normal times it wouldn't have solved the problems either but I feel like he probably has some sympathy for wanting to escape real life for a little while- considering he also plays DND, he seems familiar with the desire to escape real life for a little bit, any way he can.

And in fact, the most we see him interact with any substances outside of his stuff with Chrissy is a) to request beer from Nancy and b) to have his cigarette swatted away by Robin (which he reacts to with mild disbelief/annoyance and nothing else). He doesn't push anything on anyone else, he doesn't talk about it to anyone else. The drug dealing seems to be, at best, a side hustle for some cash under normal circumstances. Which, given his life circumstances, and the way he talks about his dad, it's probably not even something he is terribly invested in doing a lot of, but also may not see much of a choice if it's something easy that he's good at that helps him and his uncle get by. And, at least in my own mind, may be something he does to be less of a burden on Wayne (not that I think Wayne would ever think that, not that I think children are a burden on their caretakers, just that I can see where Eddie might see that for himself, or even that he just has things he wants, like his guitar or his DND supplies etc, that he may not want to ask Wayne for the money to buy).

In conclusion, I don't remember the question, but I hope this answers it.

#asks #anon asks #dash stretcher #stranger things #stranger things meta #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #also nonny the start sounds aggressive but i promise it's not #and it's not directed at you specifically #i just didn't want anyone misunderstanding where i was coming from

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wishforged · 4 months

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one who walks in shadow: mahoyaku's zara

the heroine doesn't always want the prince on a white horse to take her away for the sake of eternal love -- sometimes she wants him for the opportunity he presents. "save me from my circumstances. put me somewhere I can live freely, not languish," she insists. I think ariadne pinned her hopes on theseus for a reason like this; living on crete at the time doesn't seem to have been very fulfilling. of course, waiting for someone else to save you tends to not work out too well.

pic related

transposing this to a more modern context, there's the lure of marriage for some women as a way to leave the family home. by breaking free from the control of their parents, they will gain some measure of independence, or so the theory goes.

modern problems

then we have the setting of mahoyaku, a fantasy world separate from our own in which people have magical powers that burden them and grant them agency in complex ways. how does misogyny (obviously interconnected to marriage, female agency, etc) operate systemically in this universe? we don't have much information. we know a few hundred years ago, an associate of murr's (Known Feminist) faced discrimination while trying to open her own observatory. but this is spoken of as a thing of the past.

I'm not sure if anything like this is mentioned elsewhere -- feel free to enlighten me if there's something I'm missing.

with all this in mind, we come to zara, one of mahoyaku's only female characters to have a visual appearance. in part 2, she's given a lot of prominence. zara, a witch, develops an obsession with rustica after her sister becomes engaged to him.

I am tempted to read zara's fixation on rustica in the context of a woman seeking marriage to escape her circumstances. zara is, after all, a woman trapped in a literal tower by an abusive family. there is a repeated emphasis on marriage as an institution. rustica is not looking for not just his lover but his "bride." and zara seethes with jealousy over aria's pending marriage, specifically: "He should have been my husband, not hers."

but this is a bit reductive, because again, we don't really know the deal with misogyny in the world of mahoyaku. and I guess TECHNICALLY there is nothing wrong with a female character being in love with a man and that being her main motivation for why she does the things she does, if executed well... but I think bunta has other motivations here, and I'm interested in looking a little deeper into things.

all this to say, if we're putting aside a reading that looks at zara primarily as a woman living in a misogynistic society, what's the deal with zara?!

first of all, as a result of being locked up in a tower and getting no affection and love from basically anyone ever except her sister, zara hates herself.

zara is a witch -- twins are considered unlucky as a set, but we're led to understand that this is why her parents keep her imprisoned instead of aria. however, she's convinced herself there is something innate in her that's wrong. it's a classic case of a victim internalizing abuse. she's telling herself she deserves what she gets because she is someone who is simply meant to "slink through the shadows." otherwise she'd be allowed to live as freely as rustica does. that's how I interpret these lines, at least.

to zara, rustica is a Thing -- one that aria gets to have because aria is a human and not a wizard. it's not fair! after all, rustica is so great. he's perfect and kind and blessed by the sun and the moon... zara idealizes rustica to an extreme. she wants to have him, and she wants to be him, too.

yeah, rustica's beautiful eyes can only see a beautiful world, much like the naive aria, who probably needs to think a little harder about how things suck for other people.

zara's feelings towards aria and rustica are pretty similar, actually. she thinks of them both as pure beings who have never experienced real misfortune. the difference is that because zara sees aria as a reflection of herself, aria Must have something wrong with her. on the other hand, because rustica is unattainable for zara, his value increases in her eyes. she's placed him on so high up of a pedestal.

zara broods and broods alone in her tower, developing resentment towards her sister, who has never been anything but kind to her. to justify her resentment, and because she sees aria as a reflection of herself, she ascribes malice to her.

it turns out zara is actually right about aria not being "pure," because that's not really something any actual person can be. mahoyaku, with its plethora of deeply human, flawed, morally gray characters, won't let us forget this. thus the curse zara places on aria comes true. rustica kills aria because of the curse and basically loses it as a result.

according to kelvin, he then chooses to lose his memories after "a philosopher" (probably murr) suggests it to him, to save himself the pain. rustica then becomes the charming, forgetful western wizard looking for his bride that we all know and love.

zara decides this is fine. hell, she'll even help him out... by keeping him in a beautiful gilded cage of blissful ignorance.

zara is free of her parents, but she's again confined to the shadows through her own actions. this time she's keeping herself in a cage. this is a really tragic aspect of her character.

why does she do this? so she can atone for her actions.

her fixation on rustica is even greater now. she's desperate to keep him in the dark so he can keep living as the pure, bright person she was so fascinated by when they met. in a way, this is love.

a normal person's room decor

what will happen next? well, rustica is a sage's wizard now, but zara is sure as hell not leaving his fate up to chance after spending 400 years as his evil little guardian angel. so she's planning to kill the strongest wizards and use their mana stones to create some kind of contraption that will defeat the Great Calamity once and for all. don't worry guys zara's handling it

zara says she wants to atone, which would mean she feels guilt over causing aria's death. in some ways this is probably true. but it's also true that aria desperately wants to prevent rustica from seeing the world for what it is -- a place that's often messy and cruel -- and there must be other reasons for that. why is it so important for zara that rustica be kept "pure"? despite everything, she wants him to be happy... the part of zara that loves rustica, and wants to atone for causing aria's death, is probably the best part of her.

as someone who has always lived in the shadows, she must desperately want to be seen for who she is. but after all that she's done, zara is aware that person isn't pretty.

the lyrics to skin-deep comedy, the part 2 theme song, are from zara's point of view. she's lived for a long time; she's colder now, and in some ways more malignant. she's become convinced that the ends justify the means. she wants to change, and she thinks she can, through her plans. she wants to be defined by more than just her mistakes. again, she wants to be seen.

I started this post with a bit of an indictment of mahoyaku's worldbuilding, and while I would still like to know more about the role of women in the world of this game, there's still plenty of room and time for the story to explore this. joseimuke franchises are somewhat limited in scope because they are, of course, first and foremost marketed towards women who like anime dudes, but female audiences are accommodating of and interested in a lot of different things. mahoyaku has already proved itself to be rather progressive-- eg. the ability to choose genders for your player character -- and bunta writes their characters with a lot of love and care. I'm looking forward to more of what the game has to tell us about zara.

----

I cannot read Japanese, so all my thoughts and summaries here are derived from fan translations. translations for the observatory story are by healingbonds. translations for chapters 18-22 of the main story's part 2 are by cainluver69.

#textforged

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sunnydice · 1 year

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cquackbur<3

okay. listen to me. to an extent, i support and agree, and i can be understanding on the base appeal and i can go so far to meet halfway and say maybe i kind of like it sometimes maybe. but to act like the fandom's treatment of everyone involved hasn't deeply soured me on it would be 👍a lie.

first off, i feel like it's the klance of the dsmp lmao. ppl more obsessed w a sharply to the left idealized version of something rather than what's actually on screen, and it's kind of almost insulting to me, because there IS so much there to be enjoyed and explored and unpacked, and yet its squandered bcs people just can't stop being fucking insane and weird abt it and that leads well into my point abt ppl being insane and weird abt cee wilbur ill get to that right now actually.

ive mentioned before that i really really despise the woobification of wilbur in the fan base and that deffo doesn't change in tntduo spaces, if anything it's worse. i feel like people are very eager to scrub away his flaws and agency to make him very palatable, more easy to defend and consume instead of accepting the complexity that their guy kinda sucks bad and that's OKAY 👍 he's deeply hurt and complicated and painfully human, and he's understandable i fucking feel for the guy i really do, but he's also. he can also be very very selfish, and very cruel, and very quick to hurt others in a pursuit to feel good about himself and only himself and it isn't. okay. and he does this a lot w quackity.

wilbur isn't nice to q. he doesn't seem to particularly respect him, not really see him as an "equal" and ESPECIALLY not originally, and while he does come around a bit more, he still puts q on a weird pedestal that q bristles at more than people like to think. and in that tntduo haze, along w that specific brand of wilbur soot apologism, people brush right past those kinda flaws and just. ugh.

one good example of this is the fanbase general consensus of "omggg look at nikis birthday party 😻 look at their romance!!" like wilbur didn't spend the latter half of that calling q worthless and only good to be looked at (something quackity explicitly goes over and over hey fellas can you please not do that to me if i don't ask for it. please.) and the schlatt's bitch isms and then pulling a long ass PURPOSEFUL powerplay where q had to practically beg him to calm down and listen and not blow up manburg, if he could please just give him a chance to talk to schlatt, and niki in the bg of her own party clamoring for wilbur to look at Her abt it please talk to Her abt it and him flatly ignoring her to fuck around w q. but yeah true love♡♡ yeah im sure q walked away from that one incredibly smitten.

or another great example, the way all of hitting on 16 tends to be treated. this interesting conflicting story that shows quackity DOES like parts of wilburs back and forths, he clearly does care abt him, he is clearly having a degree of fun, and just like before wilbur can't stop taking it too far, and people ignoring all of it for ship fodder like thats not a good chunk of the story 😭 the scene where q went "sit down wilbur." and wilbur listening being treated as some fucking weird sexual thing, like it's not quackity coldly shutting down wilbur after he spent 10 minutes calling him stupid and ugly and worthless and then making fun of his scar, q making it a POINT to shut it down and that he's Done w this conversation and then calling wilbur pathetic for it, and wilbur explicitly scrambling over himself because he knew he crossed another line. but lmao yeah true love 👍i too love when my suitors purposely go out of their way to say the most vile shit to me imaginable and then get upset when i go cut that shit out.

even the later scene w tubbo is a great example, their physical fight, it being treated as some ohh it's it SEXY when q pushes wil into a wall like the man isn't genuinely fucking furious at tubbo being put in such danger again be SERIOUS and for WHY. so wilbur can kill his horse for no fucking reason because he "messed w him" BY DOING WHATTTT 😭😭😭 imagine his plan went through and he kills ossium and q is left standing there behind the glass oh real romantic id swoon. girl i would KILL HIM ‼️

and also uhh the fact a lot of tntduors are like plain racist to q can i say that. 👍 can i say that. sorry for being upset abt it.

i have more points too, the way karlnapity or pumpkinduo will be treated in regards to it n again those two have heavy flaws 😬!! im aware!!! i am aware and acknowledge, but to flanderize and criticize both those relationships, to the point of Making Shit Up to make tntduo look better in comparison and then replicating those v critiques within that space because you think it's hot. well be serious is the thing :heart_hands:

anyways, despite my critiques i do find it enjoyable on occasion, i do think it can be so interesting and snappy and (sorry) kismises like in the sense of a rivalry w GENUINE respect and acknowledgement, that push to be better that rush to improve and also gay sex and then maybe...gay love? 😳 but for that to be possible the respect has to become more undeniable it HAS to be both ways and consistent and i feel like more often that not it just isn't the case. and the fandom stuff i have mentioned. pissed me the fuck off forever.

7.5/10 ssorry sorry sso srry don't look at me

#YAAA i hope this made sense i finally got some of my tnt thoughts down thank god!!! feel so much better thank you thes my beloved thes #ask games #zombur #AND ANOTHER THING ppl reducing them to only eachother every single want and need or goal siphoned into this TAR PIT #and even other characters being scrubbed of who they are or what they think so they can just become eyebrow raisers for gay jokes frever #v annoying to me -___-#askatraz

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lost-girl-2021 · 1 year

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VIT

If you guys like my writing style, please check out the first chapter of my upcoming book, VIT. It's a sci-fi story I've been working on and off for the past few years and I'm hoping to have it published at the end of summer. My cousin published her first book at 21, so my goal is to do mine at 20. Anyways, I'll post the summary in italics and then the first chapter below. Thanks for reading!

Vit has a purpose, a mission. She’s devoted her life to The Collective, an intergalactic agency working to bring criminals to justice. She’s given up her old life, no longer able to remember anything from her past or even her original name. She had made peace with the gap in her mind, but when a mission goes south, she’s confronted with the reality that the agency she gave everything to might not be what she thought it was. With Fin, a fellow bounty hunter, chasing after her, she has to figure out who she is and who she wants to be before it’s too late.

Chapter One

Vit knows she should be asleep. She's been up for over twenty hours straight and her eyes are so dry that they sting with each blink. Yet, she can't manage to stop working. She knows what the alternative is; a dark haze, stretching on for what feels like forever. A cold that sticks with you for weeks after. She’d rather deal with the shakiness of not eating and the blurry vision that came with it.

Her robotic handler had given her the case the night before, when they entered the Lower Ring again. The three solar systems, High, Middle, and Low took between one and two weeks to travel between. Vit wished it took longer. It had been a long month in the Middle Ring, chasing down a band of pirates. The days of traveling were the only times Vit had any sort of break. Her feet ached and her back was all bruised from the week before, when she got knocked into a metal table during a fight. It made it hard to sleep at night, unable to focus on anything but how much everything hurt.

She had only gotten a few hours of sleep when the living machine woke her, a grin on her face as she let her know they were an hour away from their next planet. It never looked right when Ciro smiled. Vit knew it was supposed to be disarming, but all it ever did was put her further on edge. Androids were creepy like that, always finding some way to remind you they weren’t human. Stronger, smarter, with less emotion. If they weren’t so easy to hack, they’d be the ones in charge of bounty-hunting, instead of just the authority in every operation. And Ciro was definitely Vit’s keeper, the one who would take her back if she messed up, who reported every failure and flaw to the higher-ups. The non-living woman made it clear she had no trouble taking her back to the Collective base on the planet Cil, where she’d be grounded for an unknowable amount of time.

So, what was a little bit of lost sleep? When it meant she could be warm in a bed instead of frozen in a cryogenic chamber? It’s all worth it. At least, that’s what she told herself on nights like this.

The girl looked at the clock, groaning under her breath. Ciro would fully recharge within a few hours; it would be easier to just stay up, and keep working on the case. Once she brought the bounty to the planet Cil, she could catch up on her sleep. Maybe she’d even get a chance to rest before her next case. When they had a prisoner on board the ship, Vit was supposed watch them while Ciro recharged or worked on navigation. She wasn’t sure if it was a programming error or if she somehow was acting of her own volition, but the being of Artificial Intelligence seemed to order her into guard duty when she was on the verge of falling asleep.

Rubbing her forehead, Vit returned her gaze to the file before her; the map of Toi was complex and without any real patterns. Tents and rickety old homes were all crammed next to each other in makeshift towns, the gaps between them barren except for the dirt roads that blended together with the rest of the wasteland. She had covered an entire town on foot earlier that day, hoping her target was stupid enough to return to one of her old haunts during her time on the planet. Unfortunately, it seemed like the crook had a heads-up about her arrival. She hadn't gotten anything all day besides blisters and sunburn. There was a chance she had gone to Cri instead, but she seemed to have more connections on Toi. Her ship, the Ghost, had been seen a few days prior, flagging one of the Collective’s systems. The whole crew was wanted for various crimes and the ship itself was stolen, but Regan Witz was the biggest threat and needed to be taken first.

Sometimes, it was easy. She could stroll down the street and spot her mark within minutes. Drag them back to the ship and start heading towards the nearest Collective Outpost before lunch. Other times, it went like this. Days with no leads, pressure on all sides from the higher-ups and her handler.

Glancing at the messy and possibly out-of-date digital map, Vit forced herself to focus. Scrolling, she read over the notes she’d scribbled next to each of the locations she’d checked. Everyone had insisted she was in various spots around the galaxy. Some said she was in the High Ring, of all places, engaged to some Lord who was cousin to the Monarch. Or that she’d joined the Wildlings on the edge of the galaxy, living in chaotic bliss. Something was there; Vit was close, she could feel it. She wasn’t going to disappoint the Collective and she sure as stars wasn’t about to give up.

Changing tabs, she searched her security feed for the dozenth time to see if any of her bugs had picked up anything. She could put Ciro back on monitor duty as soon as she recharged, but until then it was all Vit. And the monitoring software she had picked up on planet Lio was far from high-tech. It wasn’t anywhere near as fast as the system she was used to, but there weren't many options. Her last bounty had put up quite a fight, destroying the Nav and her surveillance hard drive before Vit could stop him. She was lucky to get anything semi-compatible with the rest of her ship, given how old it was. And the mechanics on Cil said they’d have to special order new pieces, so she was stuck with tech that was probably came out during the Old Wars, twenty years prior.

Annoyed that the system hadn’t caught anything, she cracked her neck and pulled open one of her desk drawers. Popping out the fake bottom, she found the boost she needed. She tossed the small metal case onto her desktop, fingers fumbling with the small adhesive. Peeling off the clear covering, she pressed an Artificial Energy patch right above her heart, hiding the thin stimulant under her shirt. It was a mostly-translucent sticky rectangle, with AE stamped in all black.

The Collective (and therefore Ciro) disapproved of any enhancing tech or drugs on their people, so she tried to keep them hidden for the most part. It wasn’t like she was snorting crystals; she just needed a little help sometimes. And the best way for her to job her job fast and efficiently was for her to help herself. A rush of adrenaline hit her within a couple of seconds, making her hands twitch and eyes go wide. It had been a while since she’d had any sort of booster, let alone what were essentially shots of adrenaline to the heart. Her last mission left her without any privacy, so she'd suffered without any A.E. patches. It was part of the reason why she preferred to work alone. Everyone had to have their own backs; the Collective was a force of good and everyone was held to the highest standards. Failure, weakness— none of that would be tolerated. It was part of the reason why they were cycled out so frequently. Sometimes, a person just wasn’t necessary; maybe just unneeded for a specific uptic in crime, maybe just not useful in anything short of an all-out war.

Pushing back from the desk, she stared at the ceiling, slouching in the uncomfortable chair as she waited for it to kick in. Knicks and scratches formed a pattern along the metal roof, a reminder that someone had this ship before her. Probably another bounty hunter for the Collective. Someone who had been promoted, demoted, or put back in Cryo. Every mission was life or death for someone working for the Collective, but it was what she had signed up for. Everyone in the agency had sacrificed their lives and memories for a chance to bring justice to the galaxy— they were heroes to the universe.

The thought brought a small smile to Vit’s face, some of the tension draining from her shoulders. She had been conscious for nearly a year— one of the longest times for someone to be out of Cryo. She was good, and if the worst thing that happened to her was getting caught with some caffeine patches, she’d stay conscious for a long time. As long as she didn’t mess up, she’d stay Awake.

Going back to the map, she tried to look for something new. Ciro and her had spent the whole day and part of the night searching for the bounty, but it looked like he wasn't even on-planet. It had happened before; bad intel and a lack of communication had left her in similar situations more times than she cared to remember. It just meant that Vit wouldn't be resting any time soon.

Still, she couldn’t give up just yet. There was something about this planet that was messing with her head. She didn’t know where she had come from or anything about her life before, but part of her wondered if she had been to the shanty town before. The growing migraine suggested it. Or maybe it was just a side effect of the caffeine patch. Either way, she—

Suddenly, the security feed sounded, a small beep alerting her to something new. Whipping forward, she tapped on the screen, her mouth split into a grin. Her bounty— though a bit blurry —was caught barely ten minutes from her, on one of the bugs she’d planted. The audio was too shaky to make anything out besides “dangerous” and a few curses, but the message seemed clear. Her bounty was about to leave and she had to act quickly.

She grabbed her jacket off the floor, tucking her badge into her pocket and pulling her hood over her head as she hurried towards the bay doors. Hitting her palm against the release, she charged down the ramp and jumped off before it even hit the ground, pulling her duff over her mouth and nose. She didn’t know what was from the patch and what was the thrill of the chase, but Vit really didn't care. The mission was all that mattered.

The city was unfamiliar as she raced through it, despite her earlier search. Everything was a bit off-kilter, nothing quite right as she sped through the streets. For as long as she could remember, she’d always had backup. Either Ciro or another device of Collective Intelligence— someone to tell her what to do, where to go. A pang of unease crept up her spine, nearly overwhelming with the artificial adrenaline pumping through her system. She was running out of time. She needed to focus, needed to be better.

The sun was starting to rise over her side of the planet, covering all the grime in a deceiving copper glow. It almost looked nice. Vit thought it was misleading. Like most things that looked good, it was just a front. Vit had arrested enough innocent-looking people in her time that any notion of trust in her own perception was eradicated. At the end of the day, all she could do was follow orders and hope for the best. Just like the Magnate always told them; Trust in the Collective. (The only was implied.)

Nearly crashing into one of the drunks wandering through the streets after a night of waste, Vit snapped to attention. She was starting to drift now and then, exhaustion mixing badly with the fast-beating of her heart. Shaking her head, she adjusted her hood before entering the tavern before her. It was covered in the filth that all Ports held, the metal walls barely recognizable under all the filth and the half-ripped posters covering Stars know what.

Vit pulled at the buff attached to the lower part of her undercoat, covering her mouth and nose. Her face was sweaty now and it was starting to itch. While there wasn’t any set uniform for Collective members, anonymity was best when out in public, especially since she was in a bar full of Monarch loyalists. The blue patches of the jackets gave it away, along with the weapons strapped to everyone. On the planet Cil, only Collective agents are allowed weapons. It makes it easier when they need to maintain order. The entrylevel agents usually stayed planetside since it was so easy to get the upper hand. Vit was uncomfortable around the bar of criminals, knowing she didn’t have enough manpower or gunpower to take them all on if it came to it. Despite the heavy beating of her heart and the voice in her head telling her to make a move, she stayed calm. Ignored the eyes on her.

Moving towards the back of the room, she spotted her target downing the last of her drink. The man next to her seemed to nod towards the grimy-looking bathroom, moving away from the woman. The area was far too public for Vit to move in on her, but she walked calmly towards the bathrooms, reaching for the heavy knife in her vest. She wasn’t a killer, that was . . . the Collective was a force for good, so she was a force for good. While death was necessary at times, it would not bode well if she killed a man on a Monarchy-favored planet. All executions were to be held on the home planet.

Regardless, it was remarkably easy to sneak behind the man and use the blunt end of her blade to knock out the unreasonably tall man. Even if she did have to stand on her toes to reach his head. Locking the bathroom door afterward, she returned to the main room just in time to see her target leaving out the back door. Vit quickly followed, finding herself in a filthy alley between two taverns. The woman was standing across from her, seemingly casual.

“You’ve been looking for me.” She observed, leaning against the grime-covered wall. “Thought I’d make it a bit easier.”

A trap.

Vit tensed slightly upon realization, scolding herself for being so stupid. Ciro would’ve noticed, would’ve already called in back-up by now, or had some genius plan ready for Vit to use. She was the one who made the plans, Vit was just the muscle.

Still, Vit was a good bounty hunter. She had incapacitated the friend and surely she could take some criminal freak twice her age. Still, she went without any of her usual speech (surrender now and no harm will come to you, blah, blah, blah . . . ) and she charged.

The target jumped up, dodging her first punch and throwing one of her own. Vit grabbed her fist and twisted, smirking as the woman cried out. She kneed her in the gut, but the woman didn’t fall. Instead, she brought her free hand down on Vit’s forearm hard, forcing her to let go as a painful tingling spread through her arm. Both charged, tackling each other to the ground in a battle of fists. Kicking the bounty hard in the gut, Vit took the chance to stand and reach for her cuffs. Just as the tool was freed from her belt, the woman landed a punch to the side of her face, the metal restraints flying out of her hands across the alley.

With a start, Vit realized that the mask fell from around her face, causing hesitation on her target’s end. The woman seemed stunned, something not uncommon; the few people who had seen Vit’s face were all shocked by how young she looked. This time, it worked to her advantage; Vit moved quickly, sweeping the woman’s legs and knocking her to the hard ground. She reached for the fallen cuffs a few feet away, suddenly dizzy from the rush of movement. Blinking harshly, she stretched her fingers to grab the cool metal, only to be yanked backward just as she grasped them.

The bounty’s companion, who she had apparently mistaken for unconscious, yanked her up from the ground, knocking her into the side of the tavern. Vit choked on her breath, the air knocked out of her with the force of the shove. She coughed painfully, hands grasping at her chest. Standing up, her bounty pushed her into the wall once more as her friend stepped back.

“Who are you?” The woman demanded, pinning her against the rough stone with her forearm against Vit’s throat.

Still breathless and dizzy, Vit thrashed harshly, glaring up at the older girl. “Re— Reagan Witz, you are wanted by the Collective for— “

“I don’t care about that.” She snapped, pressing harder against Vit’s throat. “Who are you?”

Vit blanched, confused. Surely, it was obvious by now that she belonged to the Collective. Vit didn’t know how to answer or why the bounty hadn’t tried to do anything more than restrain her yet. She couldn’t tell if she was stupid or trying to stall as she and her friend waited for backup. Although, at this point, Vit didn’t think she could control her dizzy double-vision long enough to throw a solid punch. Still, despite her precarious position, Vit ignored her and continued on.

“Surrender now and no harm will come to your companion.” She offered, eyeing the so-far silent man staring at her. He looked to be in shock— silent and wide-eyed as he watched the exchange. His, nearly white, blond hair was spiked up with a ridiculous amount of product, except for the smooshed half from where he must’ve hit the ground. He looked unreasonably spooked for someone so tall.

The dark eyes she locked with went blurry, everything spinning slightly as she refocused on her target. Vit tensed slightly, ready to break free of the woman and arrest her. Or pass out when she tried. Either way, she wasn’t about to just give up.

“— there’s gotta be some explanation.”

Blinking, Vit realized her bounty had been speaking, though her hearing seemed to be suddenly unreliable. The world was spinning, nothing steady. Her heart was beating so loud, she felt the vibrations in her throat. She wheezed as the woman let go of her throat, hands moving to her shoulders. Her mouth was moving, but Vit couldn’t tell what she was saying.

She reared her head back and slammed forward, headbutting her with a loud crack. The world tipped off its axis and suddenly the ground was rushing toward her. She twisted, pulling the woman down with her. From her belt, she pulled out a needle, plunging it into her neck. As the sedative disappeared into her skin, Vit lunged at the man, tackling him into the ground. They both hit hard, his head bouncing off the stone. She punched him, once, twice, three times, before she was sure he was out cold. Behind them, the target was limp on the cold ground.

Vit raised her hand to her ear, breathing heavily. “Ciro? I really hope you’re charged.”

#creative writing #current wip #writers on tumblr #books #scfi #young author #VIT

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