#anyways it hits even better now that i have a Nuanced Interpretation of the characters :) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

asleepinawell · 3 years

Text

Been having a lot of Thoughts about the nier series recently and the larger themes of both games and wanted to jot them down and toss them into the void of the internet.

Massive spoilers for nier automata follow, including for ending e. Do not read this if you ever intend to play nier automata. There are spoilers for nier replicant as well, though not for ending e.

One of the biggest themes both nier games tackle is the tragedy of an uncaring universe. Bad things happen to good people, people who think they're good and doing the right thing find out they were actually committing atrocities, the very idea that there's 'good' and 'bad' people is dissected and rejected. At the end of the day, the universe doesn't give a shit about any of us and none of it matters. Enjoy your existential despair!

In nier replicant, the main character starts off as an optimistic young boy who wants to save, not only his sister, but the entire world. After the time skip, nier is a young man whose optimism has (partially) been tarnished and whose goal has narrowed down to just saving his sister. As you move through each route you understand more and more how tragic the world is and how, despite your best intentions, you are only adding to the tragedy of the world. The original 4 endings of nier replicant are all tragic in some way. Ending D has a glimmer of hope in it in the form of nier being able to save kainé at the cost of his own existence, but it's a bittersweet ending and the world is ultimately doomed anyway.

Which brings us to nier automata. Even more so than replicant, automata hammers home the meaningless of everything, the uncaring universe, tragedy both avoidable and unavoidable. The main characters are locked in an endless loop of violence and despair. The worst that could happen, does, again and again. It thrives off the type of tragedy porn I usually hate.

Except....

Except it doesn't. If endings a and b are the opening statement, endings c and d are the facts and body of the essay, but then there's ending e, the concluding paragraph which takes everything we've been told and gives you the chance to draw your own conclusion from it.

Route e starts after you've gotten both ending c and d and is no longer about the characters in the game at all. Route e is about you, the player, and what you believe. It says "we've given you a story of complete despair, we've shown you the universe is unfair and doesn't give a fuck about you, we've shown you things that end in tragedy. despite all of this, do you still believe it's worth fighting for the hope of something better?"

And then it asks you to prove it.

Route e is the ending every fan has asked for when they've said "I'll fight the creators to give my favs a happy ending." Today is your lucky day!

Route e is the ending credits of the game, except that the ending credits have turned into a bullet hell mini game. In fighting the actual credits themselves, you are fighting the game devs. You are saying fuck you I don't believe that everything is pointless. Fighting for better is always worth it. The meaning that we imbue in life is important to us and that matters.

The bullet hell of the end credits starts out fairly simple and gets harder and harder as you go, lasting something like 15 minutes total, which is a brutally long time to be playing something that requires split second timing and 100% of your focus. It's meant to feel insurmountable, just like the challenges the characters in the game faced (the larger plot challenges, not the combat). You will likely die a lot and check points are few and far between.

But there's more to it than that. The first time you die, a prompt comes up:

And then when you die again:

Except now, there’s a message on the screen. A message that appears to be from another player, somewhere in the world.

And again:

(this one really fucked me up, but that’s for a different post).

And then finally:

(thank you user MR-YE-1996)

When you accept the rescue offer, you go back to the bullet hell again, but now you have a wall of other players around your weak little avatar, shielding you from harm. The music, which has been a single vocal track up until now, gains an entire chorus of voices to represent the army of actual players who’ve shown up to save you (and there’s a lot I could say about the use of the (exquisitely good) music in the nier games, and especially about the difference in lyrical themes between ashes of dreams and weight of the world). Every time a bullet hits one of the players surrounding you, there’s a message saying that user’s data has been lost. Users from all over the world are sacrificing themselves to help you. It’s a very nice, heart-warming moment that you still don’t understand the full impact of quite yet.

After you beat the credits, you’re rewarded by a final cutscene. The android protagonists have been reconstructed and will receive a second chance at life. The narration at this point talks about how life exists within the spiral of life and death we are all trapped in. One of the two pods talking points out that even though the androids are being given a second chance at life, there’s a possibility that things will go just as poorly once again. And the other pod agrees, but adds: “However, the possibility of a different future also exists.”

And then the scene ends with this quote: “A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.”

And this is really the final conclusion of the game. There is no inherent meaning in the universe, so the meaning we give our lives is the most meaningful thing. (And the ‘you’ here isn’t necessarily an individual either. It can be, or it can be humanity as a whole, or even one group). And you, the player, thought that it was worth fighting to give these characters a second chance, and other players out there in the world thought it was worth helping you to do so.

It’s such a wonderfully beautiful piece of meta interpretation posing as a game ending, and also a departure from the final conclusion of previous Yoko Taro games. It feels like a much more mature and nuanced interpretation of the world than the ending of replicant was (I won’t comment on the new ending e of replicant just yet since it didn’t come out that long ago). (Also, for the record, I love nier replicant and the characters in it with my entire heart. This post is not bashing it).

But the game has one more surprise in store for you. After the cutscene ends, you’re given one last choice. The game asks if you have any interest in helping other players the way you were helped. And if you say yes, you’re told that the only way you can do this is to sacrifice all your save data.

I think that sacrifice hits differently for different people. Some people genuinely won’t mind that at all. As someone who probably still has save data from games I played 20 years ago, it felt like a gut punch. To me, save data represents all the time and emotion and energy I’ve put into a game. Games are so deeply important to me in so many ways and have been since my childhood when they were one of the few ways I could escape from a lot of terrible shit going on in my life. (There’s a reason my blog title is what it is). I could talk a lot more about that point, but I’ll leave it by saying that when I saw what the game was asking of me it felt like someone had knocked my legs out from under me.

For more practical players, it also is locking you out of chapter select, the best way to go back and get all the things you missed and grab the achievements/trophies you still need.

The game will point out that you’ll get nothing in return for this (not a lie, there’s no secret reward), that you will likely never know if or who you helped, that you won’t be thanked, that the person you help could be someone you intensely dislike, etc. And with all of this comes the realization that all those people who came to help you in the credits had already done this. Those people whose data was sacrificed to help you get to the final cutscene had already sacrificed their save data to help you.

We’ve now gone from a world where everything is meaningless, to a world where other real actual human beings out there have sacrificed something that represented hours of their time and a varying amount of emotional investment without any hope of reward to help a stranger see a message of hope.

When I was younger, I was more drawn to dark, hopeless stories. Stories about how dark and meaningless the world was. The world was a terrible place then too. 9/11 happened when I was in highschool (an incident that influenced yoko taro’s creation of nier replicant and had a huge impact on me at the time), the pointless wars that happened after and the recession and a million other things seemed to infuse everything with hopelessness. In that world, stories about everything being meaningless and hopeless felt correct. They felt validating. Yes, everything really does suck that much!

That sort of story lost its appeal for me later on. Pointless and horrible things continued to happen, and still continue to happen. The world events of the last few years have been an unnerving reliving of those earlier years, except even worse. The cycles of tragedy are still there with no end in sight. I’m exhausted from all of it. It really does feel hopeless a lot.

But stories that stop at that point no longer appeal to me. Stories like nier automata--stories that say yes, things are terrible, but there’s always hope, you can create your own meaning, it is always worth it to fight for better even if you fail, your life is worthwhile simply for existing--those stories are the ones I think we all need more than anything.

#nier automata #nier automata spoilers #nier spoilers #nier #nier replicant #niermp #mp #sitting around having existential thoughts on a sunday afternoon #as one does #nier meta

31 notes · View notes

wordstrings · 3 years

Note

strings did you get to ask misha your question???? and what was the question?? And if you asked it what did he say???

Alas, I did not get to ask Misha a question! I was in line, but was about 4 people too late to get it in there for his Saturday panel. (I didn't even bother trying on Sunday, and allowed myself to get a li'l salty on main about how that went.) Ahead of Momento Con weekend, I'd kept up a bit on the outcomes of KCCC two weeks before, and word on the street was that everybody was still too scared to ask questions of a Destiel nature, due to... you know, everything about past conventions. So I'd crafted a Destiel-adjacent question that would leave him open to talk about it if he wanted, without too much railroading into the topic. Or at least, that's what I attempted. How successful it would have been will remain unseen! Here's what I jotted down in my notes app for it (and was still actively editing while in line for the mic):

Thank you for being here. Participating in the transformative nature of this fandom helped me to figure out who I really was, in my thirties. Thank you for encouraging all of us to be creative and – in your own words – use the show as a canvas onto which we paint the stories that are most meaningful to us. Over the years there’s been a lot of controversy about things people do and don’t read into the show, and even now I think there’s hesitation in the fandom to openly talk about certain on-screen relationships. It still feels taboo. (But thank you for celebrating with us when Dean and Cas hit 100,000 works of fanfiction on Archive of Our Own.) :) Are there things that you’ve gotten out of the show that have been personally meaningful to you?

But anyway, you can watch/listen to the questions he was asked in this YouTube video of Misha's Saturday panel! There are timestamps linked in the description that jump straight to the meaty stuff. Personally, I love how he answered them. He was very conscious of how he phrased things, and deliberate about framing his own interpretation of the character as "in his own mind," leaving a purposeful negative space for people to layer in their own nuanced interpretations.

(Two specific clips are also captured at a different angle [with steadier camera work] and rebloggable here and here.)

Aside from the Misha goodness, I also really enjoyed Mark Sheppard's panel on Sunday. On Saturday, he was dressed in his typical gruff, snarky attitude, but on Sunday he wore his heart on his sleeve and talked about why he does what he does at cons like this, told the story of how it went sideways on him once and how he's careful to not do that again, and had some sweet moments talking about the love of the fandom, and of course a minor civics lecture about how to be better to each other. I can't find a continuous video of the whole thing, but here are several that seem to capture most of it in order: one, two, three, four.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the con – my first non-Creation event (a couple more details here) – and am looking forward to going back next year!

#wordstrings shares things #ask #anonymous #Misha Collins #not a fic

12 notes · View notes

incorrect-bkdk-quotes · 3 years

Note

Hello! I hope it’s okay to ask you questions! I recently re-joined the fandom, bkdk being my main ship had me rewatch and re-read all of their moments! I have some doubts and wanted to ask you about them! We know that bakugou was insecure and punished deku for that. I never understood tho, where exactly is the correlation in this? Also, has he always been worried for deku? Should we see every past moment as him worrying for deku in his own toxic way? ( before actually realising what he felt? ) like when he didn’t want him to join U.A. ? worrying about the quirk? There are these things that I’m not so sure about and I know that are pretty important for them.. so I hope you can explain them to me! I’m sure there’s more I would like to ask, but I don’t even know if I have enough space for my ask eheh

Anon before you decide to hate me, pls understand that I wrote a v nice long meta on this and thought it had been uploaded and I was VERY confused to see that Tumblr just,,,, ate my post,,, :(

I want to rewrite everything I did, but idk if I'll manage to be that eloquent again gdi-

Anyway hello!! I joined the fandom pretty recently myself and I do relate to your experience of combing through the manga + show looking for any nods to your favourite characters and ships!

Before I start rambling, I would like to remind everyone that this is Art, and art is meant to be interpreted.

This is just how / interpreted the story, and it is definitely not the only way to interpret the material, nobody reads into the nuances exactly the same. Also this is bakugou centric bec that's what the anon asked, but dw I have put as much thought into izuku's side of the story too!

Correlation between Bakugou's insecurities and his treatment of Izuku

Ok so I think the correlation comes from the fact that Bakugou has been raised as a typical gifted child, being told he is the best and special and better than everyone else by all the adults or authority figures in his life. However he has also been raised to think that all his "special-ness" comes from his powerful quirk and not him intrinsically. How does he deal with this? By basing his entire identity around his quirk and his sheer power of course and ends up with a self esteem is based in what he can do, not who he is.

This leaves a gaping hole at the core, that's his biggest insecurity. "Who is he without the flashy quirk?" So instead of dealing with that (understandable, he's like what 5? when the quirk kicks in?), he accepts that this is just how the world is. He's just better. More worthy. And everyone will just have to deal with that fact. Not his problem.

Now comes in quirkless izuku, weaker than katsuki in everyway that he saw, but clinging to the same hopes, same ambitions that katsuki did, and it pisses him off while also scaring him. Not exactly in a sentimental i-secretly-worry-about-my-old-friend kind of way.

I just think he's intimidated by Izuku's hero spirit. His insecurity complex manifests as the question- Would he be as driven as Izuku is, to be a hero, if he didn't have the backing of his quirk? That's a hard fucking question that Katsuki is definitely not ready to ask himself. (Oh source? Uh the remedial arc dialogue "if you keep looking down on others, you'll never see your own weakness")

Everything about izuku challenges his perception of the world and he lashes out and tries to squash his own feelings of inadequacy.

And he is convinced Izuku can see through him, and that izuku thinks of himself as a better person and hero than katsuki. Which almost definitely fucks his already fragile self esteem.

Obviously he's wrong to do so. On the other hand he's a child, he's not emotionally mature enough to realise what he's thinking, or contemplate what he's saying before he's said it and that definitely fucks up his relationship with midoriya.

Should we see every past moment through the lens of bakugou being secretly worried for midoriya?

I don't know what we can and should do, I just know that I do not exactly do that. Bakugou wasn't a nice kid and that's just how it is. (What matters is that he worked on himself till he got better and he cares now. He's cared since the early days of watching Deku at UA I'd guess)

I will always view their interactions after UA began with leniency because they're both growing so much.

I do not know how universal this experience is, but a great change, something like going to college, or in this case high school, really Fucks with your world view.

Katsuki has always been the best, far outclassing his peers at everything he did. For the first time he is amongst other strong individuals who can keep up with him, including Deku. Katsuki's still brilliant, but he has to work for that number one spot. (I would go into how his inferiority complex makes it hard for him to accept anything but first spot but we don't have the time)

Just as importantly, Katsuki has also found something at UA, guidance from adults who still expect brilliance, but for more than simply due to his quirk. He also finally makes actual friends (yay bakuquad) who don't turn and flee at the first sign if trouble (.. yes I'm looking saltily at those kids from Aldera who ditched him withinn 2 seconds during that sludge villain attack)

To paraphrase from The Good Place "People change and grow when they receive external love and support, how can we hold it against them if they don't"

With so much changing in his life, is it that hard to believe that Katsuki Bakugou gets better as a hero and as a person?

I am not touching the manga, because idk how much you've read anon, (really the current arc just says it all so clearly!) but even before the end of Season 3, you can see the change in his behaviour.(Yes I'm talking about his acknowledgement of izuku's strength, and yeah Obviously I'm talking about the vulnerability he displays in Deku vs Kacchan 2.0)

And yeah like they say- "the best apology is changed behaviour"

[sorry anon, this veered a little off topic by the end but I hope I hit all your queries??]

122 notes · View notes

crackinglamb · 3 years

Note

Hi! I hope it isn’t too much trouble, but I’d like to ask how or why you decided to write Twist? And then also how and why you decided to write Wicked Games a little bit after. Did you wanna explore different relationships with characters when having a different personality in your ‘Modern Girl’ or different goals, because Carly talked Solas down and guided him into a different path, while Imogen seems to want him to go through with his plans with her help and a large dose of “what the heck is the canon timeline?” I love both of the stories, I might reread them again to help with the Modern Girl in Thedas withdrawals.

I ask because I’ve been reading “Modern Girl/Person in Thedas” stories and really wanna try my hand at them, I just feel like I am only writing it for little one shot type interactions between characters, and don’t really know why I’d actually have a “Modern Girl” be sent to Thedas, how and why, and what they would do, If your willing to give insight I’d love to hear it. I just hope I’m not a bother.

Oh no, you're not a bother at all! Thank you so much for this ask!! I love to talk about how I fell down this rabbit hole! I hope you're ready for a dissertation, because this got really long. 💕💕💕

I came to Dragon Age backwards. I didn't know anything about the series other than a lot of people liked it and had very strong opinions about it. Then a fellow writer began to write a Varric/Hawke story and I read it because I wanted to support her return to posting.

And I fell in love with a world I'd never seen.

I realized that, due to its age, I actually did know more about the games than I thought I did. I knew the ending already, and who this bald dude was that had the fandom so divided. A classic villain, right? Wrong. Some people think he's just terrible and some people defend him to the death. Some people think he's terrible but don't let that stop them from defending him to the death. So what was the real deal?

I did some research (because at that point I was writing my own Varric/Hawke fic and I'll still die on that ship hill. Anyways...moving on). I discovered that everything I thought I knew about Solas was skewed by fandom interpretation. Which is valid. I mean, all our opinions end up that way when it comes to fandom, right? All interpretation is subjective. But the fact remains that Solas interprets the world around him through the eyes of the Inquisitor and how they treat him. And that is player based. Low approval proves his opinion that this is a world not fit to live it. High approval shows him that his decision is going to destroy something beautiful, but he still feels he needs to do it.

I got to thinking about what it would take to stop him. Through the course of watching his romance, reading a lot of meta and lore posts and listening to his companion banter, I had a headcannon emerge: Solas could only be stopped by someone who knew what he was doing from the start.

But that's not gonna happen in canon. He already allegedly killed the only person who knew. (Seriously, #saveFelassan) So who else would make him rethink it?

The answer that came to me was a person he needed, so he couldn't risk eliminating them. The Inquisitor who bears his mark. I then went a step further, and decided that someone who knew all his secrets and plans, and who could possibly help him shift them, would have to be from our world. Enter the Modern Girl in Thedas, because I love a good romance, and I wanted a happy ending to this otherwise tragic love story.

And Carly was born. A modern gamer girl, sucked through to a fictional world because the universe is vast and unknowable (and certain wisps of certain Evanuris like to nudge). I'd read a bunch of fic by the time I started writing Twist, including some self-insert types. None of them told him flat out from the beginning. So I determined that she would. She'd tell him what she knew and try to persuade him that his plans were awful and that if he wanted to claim he wasn't a monster, then he'd have to find another way.

I knew from the start that I wanted her to save the orb, because losing that is what tips the scales for Solas. Losing that means he has to find power from somewhere else and sets him on his path of death. Saving the orb meant his plans, while derailed, weren't ruined. Yes, I know in Trespasser he'll tell the Inquisitor that the world would have burned in raw chaos while he rewrote it, but considering the nature of magic and reality on Thedas, I think that's more due to human reaction than any actual destruction simply based on the lifting of the Veil. Demons are real and represent emotion. Humans look down on elves and do everything they possibly can to oppress them. Like the colonizers they are. Of course they'd react to an elven demigod rewriting the world to give his people back their strength poorly.

And then covid hit. Twist rapidly became a beacon of fluffy stability to my readers. It was an escape from the literal dumpster fire that my country was, so I was highly motivated to keep writing it. To keep it light and happy and epic in a way that felt satisfying to everyone. So that's what I did.

But...

I still hadn't played Inquisition when I started (and I still need to play the other two). I was missing so much of the nuance of the world. In the end, Twist wasn't the story I really wanted to tell. I mean, I'm proud of it, and I love it. I am deeply humbled and gratified to know how many people look at Carly with love and admiration. I love hearing how many times a reader has opened it up and binged it. That kind of feedback is the lifeblood of a writer, as I always say.

Wicked Game is the story I wanted to write. A little grittier, a little more plausible in keeping with the lore. Having Imogen be human gave her the power to call out other humans on their bigotry. And to show Solas that he's not the only one who can see how damaged the world is and want to fix it. Having her be a scientist gives me a chance to explore how magic works, and what the Veil really is after a year of immersing myself in this world. Yeeting canon so thoroughly came from thinking about the major plot points and what could be changed about them from the POV of a character who knows how this is all 'supposed' to happen...and the resultant fallout from her decisions.

Imogen can see the forest for the trees. Her outsider perspective gives her all sorts of insights on her companions and the world at large. The fact that she falls ass over teakettle for the Dread Wolf against her own better judgment is just a good trope. Having him do the same is my clapback against his racially locked romance. (Here's where I'm gonna throw out my own extra kudos to writers who also portray Solas as bisexual, because dammit, he should be. Immortal beings would not bend to any heteronormative conventions.)

Carly and Imogen have rather similar motivations behind them: they want to save the world and not lose him. They often go about it in similar ways too. I guess the biggest difference between them is that now I know what I'm doing and I have more confidence in my storytelling ability. Neither of them is a self-insert. Plenty of people do that and that's totally valid. I'm just not really a fan of it myself. These two characters are no different to me than any other OC starting out at the beginning of the game. They just have slightly more backstory than the average Inquisitor.

Now, in regards to you writing your own and feeling like all you have are oneshot ideas. Go for it. Doesn't matter if they're oneshots. A story doesn't have to be hundreds of thousands of words to be awesome or complete. Write what YOU want to read. The best reason to make a character be a certain way, like being MCIT, is because you want them to be. No other justification is necessary. The only rules in storytelling are grammar ones, and even those are iffy at best. The only courtesy if you decide to go ahead and share it is don't plagiarize and tag it properly. That's it. The sky's the limit and up for grabs. Go forth and be bold.

#ask #Lamb writes #Lamb rambles #Lamb...gives advice?#👀#solas #modern characters in thedas #on writing #long post

9 notes · View notes

esmeraldablazingsky · 3 years

Text

I’ve finally hit my limit on the number of bad takes on the Lan parents I can see before I have to lay out all the reasons I disagree, so hello, I’m Blazie, and in this essay I will justify my visceral dislike of the assumption that Qingheng-jun married/imprisoned/had sex with Lan-furen against her will.

Warning for mentions of rape (in context of Interpretations I Really Hate) and a very, VERY long post below the cut.

Before I start going off about the finer points of all this, I want to make sure people are on the same page regarding what we actually know about what went down with Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen. What I say is based off the EXR translation of MDZS, for the sake of clarity, and although I don’t think the exact wording should be too important, feel free to let me know if you think I’ve missed an important bit of nuance or something (the whole story is in Chapter 64.)

The story we get is told by Lan Xichen, and it goes like this: a young Qingheng-jun falls in love at first sight with Lan-furen, who doesn’t return his feelings, and at some point kills one of Qingheng-jun’s teachers over unspecified “grievances.” Although he’s understandably very upset over the murder, Qingheng-jun sneaks Lan-furen back to Cloud Recesses and officially marries her in order to announce to his clan that anyone who wants to hurt her has to go through him.

After that, he locks Lan-furen in one house and himself in another as a form of repentance. Wei Wuxian speculates that this was because “he could neither forgive the one who killed his teacher nor watch the death of the woman who he loved. He could only marry her to protect her life and force himself not to see her.”

A central detail of this story that I think people don’t give the import it deserves is that aside from marrying and protecting her, Qingheng-jun’s other option was to let Lan-furen be executed by his clan. His purpose in marrying her wasn’t just for kicks/out of a possessive sort of love, it was so she wouldn’t straight up die. How she felt about this arrangement isn’t stated, but I’ll get into that in a bit. In addition to that, Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen live separately, which was apparently purposeful on Qingheng-jun’s part, and runs counter to the interpretation that he intended to take sexual advantage of Lan-furen.

Though there aren’t many concrete details in Lan Xichen’s retelling, he does specifically inform Wei Wuxian that his mother never complained about remaining in her house. What exactly this signifies is unclear— whether she was simply putting on a brave face for her sons, or whether she was in fact at all content with the situation— but it at the very least serves to further muddy the waters on how she and Qingheng-jun felt about all this.

Beyond what Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian are saying out loud, there’s also quite a bit of subtext in this scene, especially in light of later events and revelations, like Lan Xichen’s confession for Lan Wangji at Guanyin Temple.

So what is Lan Xichen trying to convey with all this? There’s a lot of memes about this scene, most of which err too far on the side of Himbo Airhead Lan Xichen for my liking, but one that I do find amusing emphasizes how Lan Xichen draws parallels between Wangxian and the story of his parents (Lan Xichen: [flute solo] please use your one brain cell to connect the dots.) If Wei Wuxian hadn’t completely lost his memory of Lan Wangji defending him against his own clan elders, one would assume that Lan Xichen’s story would have had a much better chance of hitting home.

In hindsight and side by side, the parallels are much clearer— Qingheng-jun, “ignoring the objections from his clan… told everyone in the clan that she would be his wife for the rest of his life, that whoever wanted to harm her would have to pass through him first.” Similarly, according to Lan Xichen in Chapter 99, “for [Wei Wuxian,] not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the GusuLan Sect. He heavily injured all thirty-three of the seniors we asked to come.”

In that context, it makes a lot less sense to interpret Qingheng-jun as an aggressor towards Lan-furen, as in Lan Wangji’s case, the narrative clearly establishes that his actions are to secure Wei Wuxian’s safety. The action of Taking Someone Back To Cloud Recesses is— okay, actually, it’s a little more nuanced than I took into account when I started writing that sentence, so let me go a little deeper into Lan Wangji’s actions and how they relate to his father’s, story-wise.

My intent is not to dive into the terrifying underworld of novel-versus-drama discourse, but simply put, Novel!Lan Wangji as he is written isn’t exactly the poster child for clear consent. (I’m going to entirely leave off the extra chapters for the sake of everyone’s sanity, so I’m just talking about the main body of the novel here.)

He means well, and I’m sure we can agree that he does actually love and want the best for Wei Wuxian, but his lack of communication on this point means that he accidentally gives Wei Wuxian the impression that he wants to imprison and/or punish him in Cloud Recesses at least twice off the top of my head (pre-timeskip, as we know, and post-timeskip immediately after Dafan Mountain when he actually drags Wei Wuxian back to his room.)

That all likely has something to do with MXTX’s narrative kinks and regular kinks and all that, and can absolutely be taken with many grains of salt. However, these events establish how easy it is to misinterpret the action of Taking Someone Back To Gusu as an attempt to imprison rather than protect them (much to Lan Wangji’s chagrin.)

Failing to communicate his purpose to Wei Wuxian doesn’t mean that Lan Wangji actually had any intent of hurting or caging him— that was just a misinterpretation on Wei Wuxian’s part, and we, as the audience, find that out in due time— but as written in the novel, it can be really uncomfortable to read. Because of that, many people choose to accept CQL canon regarding Lan Wangji’s more possessive actions or mix characterization from different adaptations, which, to be clear, I completely understand and respect.

However, Qingheng-jun doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt as often, which I frankly find baffling, because nowhere in the text does it state that Lan-furen objected to being taken back to Cloud Recesses, while even Wei Wuxian clearly objected the first few times. In fact, while we’re on this note, I’ll take it a step farther— I find it baffling that people seem to default to an unsympathetic view of Qingheng-jun, because nowhere in the text does it state that he overruled Lan-furen’s wishes in any way. The text doesn’t clarify a lot of things, actually, and that is part of the point.

The narrators of MDZS are, in many situations, highly unreliable. This is, presumably, very purposeful! MDZS can easily be read as a sharp criticism of reputation and mass judgment and the concept of condemning people without knowing their motives! And I don’t want to sound mean, but guys… did any of us learn anything from that? Here, I’m going to put it in meme format for a second to convey what I mean.

MDZS: It’s easy to condemn someone as a villain if you don’t know their story or the reasons behind their actions

MDZS: Anyway, here’s a character whose story and reasons behind his actions you know nothing about

Some Parts Of This Fandom: Ah, a villain

Memes aside, here’s what I want to point out. It’s entirely possible to assume Qingheng-jun was a bad person who disregarded a woman’s wishes in marrying and confining her when all you have is Lan Xichen’s (actually very neutral, thank you Lan Xichen for being an eminently reasonable and concerned-with-evidence character) account of what happened. It would also be at least that easy to assume Wei Wuxian was just an evil necromancer if he hadn’t un-died and brought his own story to light, or even to believe that Lan Wangji had somehow tamed Wei Wuxian into submission and being a respectable cultivator if you were an average citizen of Fantasy Ancient China with nothing but rumors to operate on.

The thing about Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen’s story, then, is that there is nobody left alive who knows the full tale. Nobody knows what they thought about anything, really. Nobody even knows why Lan-furen killed Qingheng-jun’s teacher. Wei Wuxian asks why, and Lan Xichen can’t tell him, but I think the best answer would be something along the lines of I don’t know, Wei Wuxian, why did you kill people? Your guess on the motivations of your own thinly disguised narrative parallel are as good as anyone’s.

So, while it’s not technically impossible to assign darker motives to Qingheng-jun, the cautionary tale of MDZS seems to warn against that exact assumption.

I’ve refrained from getting too salty on a personal level thus far, but now that I’ve said a lot of the more logical and story-based points of my argument, I will say that at least some of my annoyance with the interpretation of Qingheng-jun as a possessive rapist and Lan-furen as his victim stems from the fact that I just think it’s straight up boring. Where’s the nuance? Aren’t you tired of reducing these characters to the flattest possible versions of themselves? Don’t you just want to add a little flavor?

In a slightly more serious phrasing of that criticism, I find that making Lan-furen a helpless prisoner strips her of whatever agency she might otherwise have. To be fair, she’s more or less a non-character in keeping with the general state of the MDZS universe, but making her a damsel in distress only consigns her more deeply to hapless, milquetoast innocence.

It’s perfectly valid to enjoy ladies who have done nothing wrong, ever, in their lives, but like… Qin Su is right there, if that’s your ball game. There’s also really no need to make Qingheng-jun someone who doesn’t respect women. Isn’t Jin Guangshan enough for at least one universe?

Anyway, ultimately, you do you. I don’t like arguing on the internet, and will just ignore things I don’t agree with (or write an 1800 word vaguepost) like a mature human being. I’m just saying, if it’s a cut and dry tale of imprisonment and assault you’re looking for… you probably don’t want to turn to a woman who committed a murder and a man who loved her enough to forfeit everything to keep her safe.

#mdzs #qingheng jun #madam lan #lan wangji #wei wuxian #(in a narrative parallels context)#blazie .txt #anyway without further ado here is my.... essay?#rape mention

109 notes · View notes

mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

Note

you’ve talked a little bit about this wrt dan, but i’m curious: what are your favorite seasons/arcs for the main gg characters? (serena, blair, dan, nate, jenny, vanessa) cause everyone’s personalities tended to uh, shift a bit from season to season and storyline to storyline, and i’m wondering which eras of those characters were your favorite?

oh, so i sat on this question for a very long time, and spent a ton of time thinking over it. here we go!

i loved the way serena was written in s1 and s2. she was so full of joy despite all the difficult things she’d endured, so bubbly and warm and... lively is ALWAYS the adjective that comes to mind for serena, despite how it’s a terrible pun. but yeah! she had an energy to her that was very childlike & genuine, and i loved that about her - despite the things she’d endured, she was so full of light (?? how do i describe this.) i know that serena’s arc gets notably more tragic s3 onwards, but i feel like the way she was written lost a bit of depth s3 onwards as well. she had a sharp wit, and a good sense of humour, she was playful and... most notably, she had this little giggle? that she literally NEVER does in the later seasons, which makes me sad?? she stopped laughing like a child at the age of, what, 19?? idk. in s1 & s2 serena had so many layers, and i feel like as the seasons went on they tried to, uh. keep only the surface layers? they didn’t really do justice to the character they started out with.

my answer for vanessa is actually the exact same, with slight modifications. vanessa’s energy in s1 and s2 was unparalleled. literally the best. i loved her and the way she was critical of everything and YET so ready to learn. compared to all these rich, privileged, white people... her presence was just SO good and so important to me, because the way she was so critical of the uber rich was something nobody else really was, and i think that perspective WAS valuable and should’ve remained, haha. idk what it was about s3, but i feel like they didn’t keep the crux of who vanessa was? it wasn’t a BAD vanessa season as much as an incomplete one. i felt they could’ve done so much more with a character like vanessa.... she’s so vibrant and full of life! and the way s3 was for her was very surface. and then in s4 they just demolished her character entirely. i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: what jenny, juliet and vanessa did in 4x09 was TOTALLY out of character for vanessa. she would never, ever do that. and by the time s4 came around... someone else said this, i don’t remember who. but they said that vanessa was basically being used as a plot device more than as a character. notice how she’s always in the right place at the right time to overhear the right thing? it’s a travesty, because vanessa was just..... so significant to me. like her being there added so much value & even changed the tone of the show imo.

my blair feelings are very complicated. i think she’s fascinating, and i love leighton & her performance. i love book blair so much more than show blair, and idk why or how to explain it. i mentioned this in that post where i ranked the characters, but while watching blair in high school specifically i can’t EVER forget that she would probably hatecrime me, and even when she’s out of school she is still supremely racist at times. i actually liked blair best in s5 - and i know she was going thru ~tragic~ stuff (i think they dialled the tragedy too high actually, like, blair had TOO MUCH on her plate and from a storytelling point of view it was... ambitious, to say the least, to hope to bring all out of that out on tv) but like, keeping her tragedy aside. her capacity for kindness and care really shone thru while she was with dan, and i liked how the d/b relationship took her out of her comfort zone and her “but im a Waldorf!” bubble and let her, idk, be a person. i liked her in s4, too. i feel like blair is a really good, nuanced, fleshed out character as blair, and the way she clung to being a waldorf combined with her rich-white-girl privilege got kind of boring after a while because like. she’s not like louis? her character has so much depth. her character doesn’t need to be reduced to a title, because she’s SO much more than that.

i feel like i need to do a lot more rewatching when it comes to dan because i CANNOT be objective about him. he reminds me far too much of myself!!! down to his flaws and his mistakes and his issues – i was a precocious little shit in high school at times in very similar ways to dan, i like to think i’ve grown out of that (& am perpetually making an effort TO grow out of falling into those patterns) & that’s what i want for dan, too. dan’s arc feels real to me, because a lot of it is my arc, too. feeling lonely, out of place & unaccepted in high school --> being a popular kid in college… that hits really close to home. s1 & s2 are important seasons to me because i’m extremely protective of awkward, trying-his-best high school dan (he can be awful at times, but he can be earnest and sincere, too!) i feel like s4 is actually the best dan season – took me a while to get here, but halfway thru my s2 rewatch that’s how i’m leaning. but dan’s arc was very interesting to me, and i wish they’d kept his heart. trying to retcon him as evil fell absolutely flat to me, like. who are you convincing! one of my friends and i were joking about how georgie blackmailed dan into pretending to be gossip girl (she obviously has dirt on him that nobody else does.) anyway. dan’s arc felt pretty true until the end of s4. i wasn’t a big fan of how he was written in s5, i felt like something had been taken away from his character, but i don’t know how to say it better. you’re right though, i have gone over this a lot! so i’m not going to break my head over it, ‘cause we’re already a thousand words in and i still have nate and jenny to go.

speaking of jenny, though: i think dan’s storylines REALLY needed more of a big brother arc. the way he was characterised, especially in s1, was very “i would kill a man for my baby sister” and i have NO idea where that went or why they got rid of it. (actually, i do have some idea. fucking chip wiskers apologism & elevation of chair over literally anything else. sigh)

okay, now speaking of jenny in terms of jenny. i liked her s1 arc, like, her trying to make friends with these people & trying to keep her morals and realising she can’t do both was interesting. i think that should’ve been that with her clashes with girls in constance, though. and afterwards, either nothing happens, or she transfers out of constance, etc. jenny’s s2 arc makes me sad – she was exploited and treated like dirt in so many ways :( the jenny/agnes was interesting in s2, though, and there’s no way to interpret it that ISN’T lesbian. i’ve always felt like jenny’s feelings for nate in s2 are very comphet. jenny’s s3 arc made me even sadder than her s2 arc- she was alienating all her friends one by one, making everyone hate her, and just…… spiralling. she really needed a better support system. her s4 arc made no sense. like. why did she come back in the city to fuck with serena like that? it didn’t feel right.

yeah, all that said… i feel like there are many super intriguing elements of jenny’s storylines and arcs, like, even within canon events if things had been executed differently, it could’ve been actually good/empowering. but the writers hated jenny. and this show was never a feminist show.

ah, so… nate. he started out as a flake in s1 & s2. that’s his whole thing. he doesn’t know who he wants to be / how to get what he wants / how to get where he wants. he takes people for granted. he isn’t dependable or reliable, he lets people down (most notably, blair & vanessa.) and he means well, sure! but his life is like amber and he’s trapped in it. he doesn’t follow his heart, he’s too busy trying to please the wrong people, etc etc. in s3 he’s suddenly so ready for commitment, which always breaks my heart because vanessa!!! but anyway. s3 has a shift in his character, possibly him getting dumped at prom and realising that high school is over and one thing that tethered him to his family (being a kid, being a high schooler, being a minor, whatever) – one big thing that held him there is gone. so it makes sense that he starts trying to be his own person. i like s3 nate, and s4 nate. we see nate sort of gradually try and be a moral compass, and it’s interesting to me. when i write d/n fic something i really focus on is dan finding nate dependable, and i think that’s a value that builds in nate over time. nate of season 1 is not dependable, nope, no way. but nate of s4 seems like a decent friend to have. in s5 and s6 they more or less threw his entire arc to the wind and gave him so many shitty storylines (sage spence, wtf? nate would not do this. he’s been on the opposite end of this before, he would not carry the pattern forward, ffs.)

idk. this almost hit 1.7k, LMAO. i hope it made some amount of sense!

#anon #this is long enough to be a fanfic LMAOO #meta

11 notes · View notes

hongism · 3 years

Text

hi caly boo its ur 🌊 anon! i finally finished the most brilliant darkness and oh my lawd i’m in spain without the s. to put it shortly: U DID NOT DISAPPOINT BESTIE, and it seems unreal that u and ur mind and this fic even exists bc every moment is just polished to perfection, while simultaneously every character is polished to a sort of imperfect perfection(?). i have so many questions and things to say idek where to start, and tho im not good with words and even worse at deciphering hidden meanings, here are just some of my thoughts that i remember from the story.

hello my dear!!! eee im gonna answer separately since i think i’ll be very long-winded as usual but first of all thank you so much :(( this fic is actually very full of subliminal messages and hidden nuances that are weaved throughout which i think could be quite confusing so i apologize for that! if i had managed my time better, i would have adjusted when i started the fic to account for managing those aspects of the fic but alas i’m terrible at time management and i suck so. anyways.

first of all, ngl halfway into the story i lowkey forgot this was a wooyoung fic bc SANNN and also bc wooyoung appeared like 3 times lol. even after it finishing all that, i still had my doubts as to why this is a wooyoung fic, or more like why is san this significant in a wooyoung fic. im still a bit slow on these pls forgive me and im just curious why u made it like that.

i think yeah the most interesting thing about this fic is the emphasis on san over wooyoung. and when looking over it yeah i could have switched san and wooyoung’s characters and called it a day, but wooyoung really in my mind acts as the integral turning point for decisions made in the story.

the goal with the fic wasn’t really to be hyperfocused on the pairing itself, but rather the emotions and thought processes of each character (aside from wooyoung). wooyoung was kept intentionally mysterious and a bit set apart from the rest of the fic because his role in story was moreso an abstract of hestia, the goddess of the hearth and home. wooyoung’s character appeared in times where y/n was struggling with the thought of home or adjusting to the new changes in her life! wooyoung’s pairing itself was actually intended to be solely platonic at first, but as the story went on i thought having mc develop feelings for him added another turning point in the fic!

moving on, the second biggest question i had is the whole hestia!wooyoung and cafe aurora situation. i did a bit of reading on hestia and only found out that she was the goddess of hearth, which might explain the fireplace and the kind of homey feeling to the cafe. and ‘cafe aurora not really existing to most’ part, which was already hinted at wooyoung randomly disappearing, mc never seeing the cafe before or wooyoung only bringing people he wants into it. i get that him inviting mc must suggest her significance to him, but why was he so adamant about his friends not mentioning him or the cafe to mc before that? wooyoung is quite a mysterious character i think, and given that this fic is supposed to be about him, it’s a bit odd that there’s still so many things left unknown, but its kinda cool that way nonetheless and im guessing u would also like to explain that further outside of the story too.

i think my biggest regret about this fic is the fucking summary.... i wrote that summary well before i even started writing the fic thinking it would go in that direction but it didn’t. and since this fic was for a collab, i left the summary as is because i genuinely cannot for the life of me figure out a better one. but i’m trying to figure out a better one. but i really fucking hate the current summary because it’s not at all what the fic is truly about and i hate it.

however, i don’t hate the fic itself, and the reason why i don’t is because i got to play with both my writing style and how i displayed the story. for this collab we were asked to pick a greek god and one of the seven deadly sins, and i selected hestia and sloth. and initially i had intended to have sloth be represented by the reader’s depression, and wooyoung be a more ‘real’ depiction of hestia. i shifted gears very early on in the fic but what it became is moreso abstract realizations in the characters.

san’s character is meant to be this idea of sloth, and it’s mentioned several times that he doesn’t want to move forward, he wants to go slow, he wants to stop moving so fast through life, and those things point to him being a depiction of sloth

wooyoung’s was harder to encapsulate in a more abstract way but you hit the nail on the head really with the homey feeling of the cafe. beyond that, mc talks about just naturally feeling at ease and comfortable with how things are with wooyoung and being around him, and he takes up this role of being the likeable, warm, cozy, comforting character. it all comes to a head in the last scene where he brings both y/n and san into the cafe.

and again wooyoung’s character is meant to be most mysterious and abstract, but if i had had more time to fully flesh out the fic, i think i would have liked to touch more on him. at the same time however i left it more open-ended and open to interpretation. the significance in him inviting mc in and not being mentioned by the others sooner is twofold. one; the others never really had any reason whatsoever to mention wooyoung. he was a friend outside the circle who never joined in with them when mc was around. i personally in my own friendships don’t mention friends outside the circle by name or anything, just kinda vaguely talking about them unless im certain the people know who this person is. the concept of wooyoung having to invite mc in was more nuanced and vague as well, intentionally so, but that was moreso meant to represent this idea of ‘you can’t make a home somewhere where you aren’t invited’ so y/n couldn’t fully make a home of the place she was in without being invited in and welcomed in, but again that’s something i wish i had more time to fully flesh out.

the hongjoong speech about love (and also the interaction with seonghwa after that) deserves a standing ovation of its own 👏 unfortunately, or not, im not actually going through the emotional turmoil regarding love the same way as hj or mc to be able to fully relate to his words, but the whole ‘if you dont love what u see in the mirror then u dont love it’ mentality really hit me hard, and i’d like to hang onto that when i make decisions in the future haha thank you wise caly! seonghwa and hongjoong’s story is also beautiful, and just like mc said, the more i look at it the more it hurts :’)

the hongjoong speech about love was meant to be something very jaded and specific to his worldview. it actually isn’t wholly how i view love personally, but it was a perfect description to how both he and y/n perceived the love in their own lives. mostly thanks to their own emotional turmoils. the mentality of the mirror quote is something that i think i also struggle with, which is why i included it. it’s hard to do, but even in friendships, i think it’s necessarily to stop and look at the person you were before this relationship and then the person during this relationship. if you don’t love the one you are now, then maybe it’s a sign to reflect and see the bigger picture, so that was a lil reminder to myself and i’m glad it touched you as well!!!

“do you love him, or do you love the idea of being in love with him?” - haha i see what u did there (or maybe i didnt please dont laugh at me if i didnt). its still so good everytime i see it bc i keep finding myself loving just the idea of things time and time again even when this makes total sense to me oof :/

heh yeah again with the more abstract concepts this one was more direct and ‘cliche’ but i fully wanted that cliche in the fic because i thought it suited the situation where mc was constantly struggling with a version of san that she thought she loved vs the version of san she got every time they were together

despite how enlightened she seems to be, mc still made the same choices, and i wanna smack her for it and pat her back at the same time. and maybe also bc of the fact that she feels so differently for the two men that i feel like no ending could really justify her decision, so ending in the vague is probably the best. your ending might kind of allude to someone more than the other already, and tho i still don’t think he’s the best one for her based on just my pov on love, i kinda agree with you. but again, this raises the question of, why a wooyoung fic and not a san fic?

and yeah the whole knife in the chest at the end of it all is that she was still too scared to face the music so to speak. but really i would say she made the same choices up until the conversation on the balcony with san. and you’re absolutely right, the reason i chose the ending the way i did was because either way, there’s no justification. and actually although it might seems like i was alluding to someone specific, san being in the cafe at the very end was moreso to represent that as much as they fought, he still very much loved her and wanted to be loved by her. it was kinda an open casket ending there were no nails in the coffin, the choice between wooyoung and san still stands and an argument could be made for either of them! i think this is a fic that i could see myself revisiting one day with two endings - one for san, and one for wooyoung.

something i didn’t mention earlier about wooyoung’s character being left intentionally mysterious was that he was representing a new and budding love. the honeymoon phase where you’re falling for someone you don’t even really know. you are the reader aren’t meant to really know who wooyoung is because of that beyond what you read about him, so his past and such was left out intentionally to represent that idea of ‘hey wow im in love with a stranger!’ whereas san was this gritty love that’s bad for you. and there are pros and cons to each just as with anything!!

so,,,, why a wooyoung fic and not a san fic? well i picked wooyoung for my collab so he was one of the main focuses of the fic regardless of which direction i took with it. as for why wooyoung wasn’t more forward, i already answered that but !!! i view it as both a wooyoung fic and a san fic. both are highlighted characters with main pairing roles!

i literally just woke up to write this and am going back to sleep ahaha so i apologize if this makes no sense. i somehow felt like i’ve read so much yet so little at the same time, maybe bc there are still so many things i havent fully made sense of, and that’s where i hope you come in and enlighten me. i still stand by my word that this fic deserves so much more recognition despite the lack of explicit smut bc of how much more you’ve explored through character building. love you caly and thank u for working so hard <3 — 🌊

no worries my beloved i hope you go back to sleep and get lots and lots of rest!! and i hope my response helps enlighten the not so clear things as well dgjdklfg but really thank you so much. it was a long fic and hard to get through at times, but as a whole, i’m proud of it and what i created, so thank you for recognizing my efforts and appreciating them 🥺

#🌊 anon #fic; the most brilliant darkness

4 notes · View notes

twilightknight17 · 3 years

Text

So I almost disqualified these anon asks for using “every single [fanfic]”, but honestly the fact that we’ve moved to actually looking at the game itself feels strangely like progress. Plus, this is technically at least halfway to a new topic. You’re still harping on about Goro, but at least there’s a second target.

I have given you homework, though. Hope you don’t mind. You lot really need to start providing some evidence for the things you’re claiming.

I might jump around a bit while answering this, because three asks worth is a lot to cover, but let’s talk about Okumura along with the usual bullshit, under a cut!

P5 really doesn’t delve as deeply into the nuances of its morality as it could. They definitely gloss over a few things that could have been really interesting explorations of character motivations or potential conflicts in the group. (Conflicts that would have been a lot more interesting than Morgana throwing a temper tantrum.)

Not exploring those things leads to a bad habit in the fandom of black-and-white thinking when it comes to characters, instead of making the slightest effort to read past the surface level. People seem very quick to assign labels of “good” and “evil”, instead of accepting that maybe characters can be morally grey.

That’s what you’re doing now. So:

Homework: Please show specific examples from the game:

- where it’s implied that we are supposed to “want them to hurt Akechi.”

- where it’s implied that Akechi wanted to kill Ren “out of fun”

Because why would the game need to disprove something it didn’t say in the first place? It’s not the story’s fault that you’re making wild assumptions.

Anyway, let’s jump and talk about Okumura!

I think the issue is that, when looking at the situation around Okumura, all the nuance is eclipsed by the fact that he didn’t deserve to die like that. Okumura received disproportionate retribution for his crimes, and between the media immediately turning on the Phantom Thieves (because it was being manipulated), and the kids panicking and worrying about Haru (because they never wanted to kill anyone), the rest gets set aside. Hell, it took them two days to remember that there was a possibility that Black Mask got him, they were so freaked out.

And there’s not really a moment to go back and discuss, “Well, yes, he shouldn’t have died, but he did still do horrible things”, because at that point, that would just be disrespectful to Haru. She’s mourning her father, and the lost chance to get back the man he used to be.

(Which is a different issue, because Haru wasn’t going to get him back. He was going to go to jail. There wasn’t going to be a happy family afterwards. But... I’ll chalk that up to teenagers not thinking ahead. It’s not like they think about what becomes of their other targets, either. I did read a really good fic once where Akira had to admit in front of Haru that he thought she was better off with her dad dead. She didn’t take it well.)

Homework: Please show specific examples from the game:

- where it’s shown that Haru actually, specifically forgives her father. The third semester does not count, because that’s an idealized version of her father.

However, Goro does mention that his targets were doing the same thing as him during the engine room confrontation. While Goro doesn’t name Okumura specifically, the implication is there. And Wakaba isn’t mentioned, but considering how many people support the theory that Wakaba experimented on Goro...

I kind of want to write a oneshot of Akira/Goro and Haru/Futaba arguing about this now. Can’t really hit harder than, “You killed my mother!”/”Your mother tortured me with illegal experiments for a year!” X’D

Anyway, when I wrote Cascade, Okumura not being killed by Goro was meant to be a result of the Thieves getting to Goro earlier. He hesitated, because he was with the team. He’d been with them for an entire Palace, he knew how a change of heart worked, and his sunk-cost-fallacy mindset was starting to change, even just a little. It wasn’t because Okumura was a “tragic figure”, and you can’t really compare that to canon when the situations were different.

Now. Regarding this bit:

“the writing and the tone is that he, not Shido, is to fully toblame for the worst stuff. Why else do people still say he approached Shido intending to kill from the start?”

Shido’s perception of Goro is literally a soulless puppet that does whatever it’s told. Shido is ordering people killed just so he can become Prime Minister, and lets other people request targets in exchange for political favors. Shido has no qualms about having his allies killed when they’re no longer of use. That’s right there, in the game. How do you get “Goro is to blame for everything” out of that unless you’re a brain-dead idiot just looking for reasons to hate him? A powerful man orders a teenager to do horrible things, with the implication that there will be consequences if he refuses, and it’s the teenager’s fault??

During the confrontation with Shadow Shido alone, you get:

Shido mentioning that he “controlled” Goro

Haru saying specifically to Shido, “You even killed my father.”

Shido admitting that “It was thanks to me that Akechi was able to properly use his power to begin with.”

And then there’s the SIU Director before Futaba’s Palace, saying that the plan to trap and frame the Phantom Thieves was “too brutal to be [Akechi’s] own idea.”

Homework: Please show specific examples from the game:

- literally anywhere where it’s implied that Goro’s offer to Shido was specifically about killing people

- literally anywhere where it’s implied that any of this is Goro’s fault alone

Because as far as I can tell, the only reason people claim that Goro showed up at fifteen years old and offered to murder people is because they’re idiots, interpreting the character in the worst way possible because they already hate him. The most likely scenario is that Goro showed up with a pitch of, “I can use these powers to get inside information and make your opponents embarrass themselves.” Shido is the one who started using him as a supernatural hitman, the “”“proper””” way to use his powers.

If the SIU Director thinks the Plan was too brutal to be Goro’s idea, and Goro himself refuses the order to kill the rest of the Phantom Thieves, I find it very hard to believe that he started out as a killer. Technically, he never says he wants to kill Shido, even. In the end, what he wants is basically a change of heart.

Because really, as the Thieves point out, they’re not so different.

#answered #nothing like typing up an essay in 20 minutes #which is more of my attention than anon prolly deserved #but whatever

7 notes · View notes

sinagrace · 5 years

Text

As Pride Month comes to a close, it’s time I spoke candidly about my experience at Marvel Comics.

To date, I’ve always been honest about the joy of writing Iceman’s journey as an out gay superhero, but I’ve skirted around the challenges that came along with it. This is partially because I prefer to give off an upbeat vibe, and there’s also a fear that my truth will affect my career. With more corporations patting themselves on the back for profit-led partnerships wherein celebrities take selfies in rainbow apparel, and with buzz that Marvel Studios is preparing to debut their first gay character in the upcoming Eternals movie, there is an urgency to discuss the realities of creating queer pop culture in a hostile or ambivalent environment. Hopefully, my takeaways will serve as a guide for people in positions of power to consider when advocating for more nuanced and rich representation. In an ideal world, embracing our stories and empowering us to tell them will yield far more profitable (and way less messy) results than what I encountered while writing Iceman.

Stand by your people

It’s no surprise that I got the attention of trolls and irate fans for taking on this job. There was already backlash around the manner in which Bobby Drake aka Iceman came out, and Marvel needed to smooth that landing and put a “so what” to the decision. After a point, I could almost laugh off people making light of my death, saying they have "cancerous AIDS" from my book, or insinuating I’m capable of sexual assault… almost. Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself. I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “We’ll keep you in mind.” I got so tired of that sentence.

Even after a year of the new editor-in-chief saying I was talented and needed to be on a book that wasn’t “the gay character,” the only assignment I got outside of Iceman was six pages along, about a version of Wolverine where he had diamond claws. Fabulous, yes. Heterosexual, yes. Still kind of the gay character, though.

We as creators are strongly encouraged to build a platform on social media and use it to promote work-for-hire projects owned by massive corporations… but when the going gets tough, these dudes get going real quick.

Believe in the work

You may be asking if my Iceman book was any good, or if I’m just being sour grapes over a bad work experience. Believe me, I asked that, too. From the get-go, my first editor asserted that Iceman would be DOA if it were “too gay,” while also telling me to prepare for a cancellation anyway, given that most solo X-Men titles don’t last beyond a year. Never mind that my work on Iceman had gotten positive press in the New York Times (in-print), or that in spite of (since-deleted) critical sandbagging, the series nets glowing reviews on Amazon… Marvel still treated me as someone to be contained, and the book as something to be nervous about. Do you know how hard it is to not argue with a publicist when he’s explaining the value of announcing Iceman’s revival via the Marvel homepage? Sis, that’s a burial. Instead of clapping back, I just went and got myself more press from the New York Times. From there, they tightened my leash. I had to get all opportunities pre-approved, and all interviews pre-reviewed. This would be fine if it was the standard, but I assure you: none of my straight male colleagues seek permission to go on podcasts promoting their books.

What Marvel should have done is assign me a special projects editor. They should have worked with a specialty PR firm, rather than repeat a tiresome cycle of treating the book like a square peg, and getting confused when it’s a hit.

Give us a real seat at the table

There was a moment before Iceman was cancelled where I wrote then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso an email, pleading for a Hail Mary arc. I explained that Iceman was landing with a newer generation of readers who focused more on binge-reading than month-to-month periodicals. The series needed time in the book market before its true strength could be assessed. To Axel’s credit, he was warm to the idea and even gave me an extra month, but when he left Marvel that idea got brushed away. Of course I was right. The first two volumes sold like gangbusters thanks to word-of-mouth, librarian love, and support from retailers big and small.

When the series returned, no one at Marvel asked me: “What do you think landed with readers?” Nor did they ask the question that Axel did: “What matters to your community?” So when I wrote what I thought the fans would be into, a story about a man learning to be a better ally in the war against hate, editorial totally missed its value.

Seat at the table pt II: The Shade of it all

All of the weird drama I put up with crystallized when I created a drag queen mutant, first called Shade, now called Darkveil. I told my editor that Shade would be a big deal for X-Fans, and asked how we should promote her. He said: “leave it up to the reader’s interpretation.” Everyone at Marvel shrugged off two years of goodwill and acted like I’d coordinated behind their backs on an announcement that made headlines. Beyond mentioning on Instagram the queens who inspired the character, I didn’t coordinate shit. Of course, their head publicist can’t admit that my quotes were pre-approved from an unreleased interview. At this point, I stopped believing that there’d be any more work for me. There were so many shady moves on their end that I’m still having trouble putting into language, but it all aligned with an experience I had in retail where a corrupt manager kept lying and moving the goal posts in order to keep me selling in a department I didn’t want to work in. I offered to give Darkveil a proper character bio, and I walked away.

I recognize that some of my complaints can be filed under “this is freelance life.” I am aware that it was not a queer person of color who joked to me that “it’s not a matter of if Marvel fucks you over, it’s a matter of when.” That came from a cis white male. The same-day turn-arounds without warning, the work emails on Christmas week… that’s the freelance bullshit. Truly, I don’t even think of this as discrimination, I call it general ineptness. It is my belief that if we are telling stories about heroes doing the right thing in the face of adversity, wouldn’t the hope be to embody those ideals as individuals? Instead of feeling like I worked with some of the most inspiring and brave people in comics, I was surrounded by cowards.

Truly, I hate writing this. In keeping with Pride Month, I am proud of the work I did on Iceman... I love the book! It sucks that I may be tarnishing its legacy going public about how the cookies were made. That said, the time for self-congratulating is over, and folks should be earnestly listening when they ask: what could we have done better?

3K notes · View notes

waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 4 years

Text

Anxious Millennial Love

I couldn’t let this day pass without posting some fanfic love for the man whose become my favorite wrestler in the world. I’m not saying that he’s the best technically (although he’s pretty amazing and getting better all the time) but the combination of skill and nuanced character is unequalled. So here’s a fic in honor of birthday boy Hangman Adam Page. Happy trails, cowboy.

Pairing: Hangman Page x reader

Word Count: 1,576

Warnings: None really. Other than that it’s pretty angst-y.

The alcohol selection here isn’t great, to say the least. A few mainstream beers that all tasted the same, cheap spirits for mixed drinks and a couple of low-to-mid-range bottles for those who insisted on drinking straight up. And the atmosphere is pretty lousy. There’s always a small crowd and it’s not what you’d call a full-on dive, but an air of depression just permeates the place, rising like a mist from the eyes of the people in it. You’d never come here with your regular friends, that much is certain. You’re the cheery one, the plugged-in one who always knows what’s happening around town, where the hot spots are and where to be seen. You got your job at AEW because you knew all these things. You’re an Event Coordinator, which means that you’re in charge of everything from press conferences to team dinners. With everything in lockdown and all the shows happening in Jacksonville, you feel like you’ve been demoted to a glorified travel agent but given how many of your friends have been laid off, you know you’re one of the lucky ones.

“Just keep an eye on the kids,” was the instruction Tony gave you. Make sure they all had places to stay and make suggestions as to where they could go so that at least tracking their activities wouldn’t be too difficult.

Only one of the “kids” ever comes here, though. The rest cycle through the small number of places you’ve recommended. They’re not thrilled about it but they get it and they’re all happy to spend time with one another. He, however, needs to separate himself and take some time alone. So you’d suggested this place to him and hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. A quiet bar with the basics and little likelihood of getting picked out by fans. He’d been shyly appreciative of the suggestion and the grateful look in his eyes had practically melted you.

So you’re sitting here, doing your job by keeping an eye on the company’s prize asset, the one who’s quietly become the most beloved character on the show: Hangman Adam Page. You know that the others have gone to dinner at the hotel and that a few of them will be hitting the bar there afterward, so you’re just doing your job by hanging around in the shadows of the bar where the Hangman has come once again to drown his sorrows. You’re just doing your job.

Except that never in history has a job coordinated so perfectly with what you’d choose to do anyway. You’d happily spend your time doing nothing but trailing after the Hangman. From the first time you laid eyes on him, you were done for. It was that combination of strength and pride with vulnerability. The anxious millennial cowboy indeed. You’d immediately let yourself get lost in those crystal blue eyes and you still couldn’t find your way out. So, sure, you were doing your job by keeping an eye on him. That’s what you told yourself. That’s what you told him on all the nights when you swept in to gather him up and take him back to the hotel. Just your job.

Seeing the time, you slide from the booth where you’ve been hiding with the same beer you ordered when you came in over an hour ago. It’s nasty and flat and you’ve barely been able to stick your tongue in it to give the impression that you were consuming. But it makes decent bait, so you bring it with you as you approach your target.

“Hey,” he mumbles, looking genuinely pleased to see you. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Well I just got here,” you lie. “But I don’t think I’m going to stay long.”

He pivots on his seat and gives you that sweet drunken smile, the smile that turns your skeleton to dust every time you see it. He’s like an angel with his soft golden curls and cherubic face, so powerful and yet so in need of protection. You don’t know exactly what it is that’s been troubling him all these months, the tension between him and his Elite brethren, the retreat into alcohol, the conflicting ways in which he constantly seems to be reaching out to people and isolating himself. Whatever it is, you just want to gather him up and shelter him from his demons. You want to be his safe space and sometimes, you think you are.

You push your barely-touched glass towards him and he eagerly accepts, draining almost half of it at once, then looking embarrassed when he burps.

“A bit too excited there,” he explains, blushing.

Nevertheless, he downs the rest of the glass in his next gulp, smiling when no bodily reaction shows up to humiliate him. He beams at you, eyes unfocused, and holds his arms wide, inviting you in. You couldn’t think of refusing.

As soon as you step closer, he enfolds you in his arms and pulls you against his chest. You wrap your arms loosely around his neck, admiring the sight of him staring up at you, inebriated and innocent.

“How do you always know where to find me?” he drawls.

“That’s my job,” you joke in response, saddened when you see that he believes you.

He runs his hands up your back and pushes his lips against yours, soft and needy like always, his tongue finding its way into your mouth and your movements growing more passionate until you’re forced to pull away.

You smile, seeing your lipstick smudged on his mouth and move to wipe away the mess with your sleeve. He just stares at you with affection and doesn’t react, like he doesn’t care what you’re doing as long as you’re there with him. He’s always so vulnerable looking when he’s like this, always seems like he just needs to be held and told that things will be alright, that the world is not as angry and brutish as it appears. You desperately want to reassure him, but what could you even say? You’re not any more hopeful than he is. But feeling his arms around you makes things a little better because he is proof that there are beautiful, incorruptible things in this world.

“I think it’s time I get you back to the stables, cowboy,” you tell him.

“Cowboys don’t live in the stables, silly.”

“Well then it’s time that I take you back to wherever the cowboys go.”

He pulls you close and kisses you again, fervently but also softly, needing you while at the same time showing how very much he appreciates you. Perhaps, if you were a better person, you’d just take him back to his hotel room and tuck him in before heading back to your own place. On top of all the other things that are obviously plaguing him, he really doesn’t need you raising questions about the kind of relationship you have.

But you’re not that person. You don’t need alcohol because you’re so drunk in love with him that no number of step-programs could save you. You run your fingers through his hair and feel your heart flutter. Then you take a step back, which he correctly interprets as a request to rise to his feet. As he does so, he pulls you in again and plants the most sensual, wonderful kiss you’ve ever had on your lips. You want it to go on forever. You want music to kick in and see credits roll. You want to believe that this is the moment where you’ve truly discovered each other and that you’re about to step into the world of happily ever after.

It isn’t. Tomorrow morning he’s going to wake up with the same sheepish expression he always has. He’s going to slink guiltily from your apartment and back to the hotel so that he can pretend it’s where he spent the night. You’ll be left reclining in a bed redolent of sex, still hearing his whispers of passion in your ears, still feeling the trail of his touches over your body. You’ll try to shake the heavy weight of your feelings off and you’ll fail but do just enough to allow you to get up and continue with your day.

Maybe it would be easier if you couldn’t tell he had feelings for you. Maybe if you could look in his eyes and see someone who just wanted a place to relieve his sexual tension, you could burn away any emotions he stirred in you. Maybe if he were an asshole like a lot of the men in this business are, you’d be better off. But every time he drunkenly declares that you’re the best thing in his life, the only thing that makes him feel better, and even when he retreats hung over and shame-faced from your bed, you know that his feelings go far beyond the desire for a casual hook-up.

Gathering you close against him, he whispers hoarsely into your ear, “Take me home. I need you to love me right now.”

And so you slide away just slightly, grasping both of his hands in yours and leading him towards the exit. Some day, you promise yourself, you’re going to force him to open up, you’re going to make him explain the specters that haunt him and make him realize that love can overcome them. But it probably won’t be tonight.

#hangman page imagine #adam page imagine #aew imagine #wrestling fanfic #wayward wrestle writing #hangman page x reader #happy birthday hangman

52 notes · View notes

okimargarvez · 4 years

Text

PUSH TO THE LIMITS

Original title: Push to the limits.

Prompt: post 12x7, Luke tries to make amends.

Warning: none.

Genre: romantic, funny.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, Jennifer Jareau.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 63 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 💑😘🎵.

Song mentioned: Perdono, Tiziano Ferro.

GARVEZ STORIES

PUSH TO THE LIMITS

He remains motionless staring at her as she screams at him, before leaving the room, not without having thrown him one last sharp look. The others giggle, arguing over who won the bet, but he just can't concentrate and, with a certain (fatal) delay, comes out in turn, trying to figure out where she may have gone. -Garcia!- he calls her, obviously not getting an answer. -Garcia!- he tries again, not wanting to give up. He straightens his ears, striving to pick up any noise. Nothing. His feet lead him to the IT department. And it is from the corridor that he sees a colored stain running towards the elevators. – Garcia, wait, Garcia!- as soon as the woman hears him, she changes direction, preferring the stairs. Despite her heels she proceeds quickly and safely. He chases her until he reaches the terrace. She is very close to the edge (too much for him), she seems to be looking towards the void. He reaches her walking slowly, step by step, fearing to be able to scare her and cause a far more serious tragedy. -Garcia...- he repeats, when he is a few inches from her. He flanks it and notices tears in the corners of her eyes. It is not really the first time that he sees her in this state; he especially thinks back to the day they discovered that Scratch had threatened Jack, forcing Hotch to resign. This doesn’t make this situation more bearable.

Suddenly, after a good minute of silence, Garcia whirls towards him, with such impetus as to risk unbalancing herself. -What do you want? What else do you want, aren't you satisfied with what you did?- she asks, half screaming and half broken. If at other times she had only pretended to hate him and forced the discomfort she felt when he was around, now she is not simulating at all. -Do you want to make fun of me a little longer?- she slings the last question, naturally rhetorical; then the woman begins to ignore him again, deliberately pretending that he doesn’t exist, that he is not present. But those salty drops are still there, immobile. She has no intention of crying, much less with that infamous being. She will not grant him such honor, to see such an intimate part of her soul.

And the man understands it perfectly. He remains silent, contenting himself with breathing her air, sharing the same space. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye so as not to disturb her too much. He observes all her nuances. The geometries of her dress, for once not particularly low-cut. The fake flower in her hair. Her face red with anger. The slight trembling of the lower lip. After about ten minutes he decides to venture an attempt. -Garcia, I...- he realizes he is babbling, that he looks like a real idiot and doesn’t believe that this can help him win back her graces. He takes a long, deep breath. - I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd take it so badly.- he finally manages to say, not trying at all to disguise his displeasure.

Instead of turning around as suddenly as she did earlier, she prefers to keep looking at the horizon. -And how should I react?- her tone is strangely low, a little lower and he wouldn't be able to hear it. But it is not even a whisper. It doesn't sound like a question and maybe it isn't. -My friends, whom I regard as my family, took advantage of my vulnerability to make fun of me.- if ever there was a way to make him feel even more guilty, even more like shit... she found it. He focuses on every single word, on each of her choices. He has always known that the BAU is different from the other teams, and certainly from his previous one, since Phil is gone, at least. But it is a term above all that hit the mind of the SSA in training. Vulnerability. As if he hadn’t already noticed this characteristic of his! And was it not perhaps an extra element that attracted him towards her, fatally? Wasn't it going to tease his innate sense of protection exactly, his aspiration to play the hero, the knight in shiny armor, with lots of tights?

He realizes that he has been silent for a century, conversing with himself. He is used to doing it, to being his only interlocutor (if he doesn't consider Roxy), but he will have to change his attitude. Now he is part of a team. Of a group. - I don't think...- he says, but Garcia doesn’t even grant him this grace. She turns slowly, raising one of her splendid, very clear hands, with her palm and her fingers extended.

-Shut up.- she says, but her gaze is much sharper than her voice. She is slowly turning off, like a burned-out light bulb. It is an image that Luke doesn’t particularly like, but finds confirmation in her subsequent sentences and in her shaky and deeply desperate tone. -I just want to be able to stay alone for a moment. To reflect.- she voluntarily chooses to seek and find the eyes of the man, before concluding. -Maybe I'm doing something wrong.- she will also be naive, but she is the undisputed genius of her field. How to make the two things fit together? Because she knows, when she wants to, what to say to get a certain effect.

Agent Alvez swallows, failing to try not to be surprised. -You will not want to leave the BAU.- his fear turns into possibility coming out of his mouth. She hadn't really considered it, but she does it now. Luke curses himself for the umpteenth time in less than a quarter of an hour.

Penelope looks away again and shrugs. -I don’t know.- the thing that scares him the most is to understand that she is not lying at all, nor making fun of him. Although he is not that far away, he gets even closer, as far as he can before she rejects him badly. He feels the need to reach out and touch her arm, shoulder, fingers, something. He needs contact with her, not that this is also new. The more she tries to avoid him, the more he is attracted to her. Certainly, it is only one of his self-defeating pastimes, or...

When he is about to reach the goal, i.e. touch her arm (he has decided that it is the least ambiguous part of her body, the friendliest, even if the two of them aren’t friends), the blonde looks at him and he stops. -Hey, no, don't joke about this.- it sounds like a plea, even if it wanted to be a joke, with the aim of getting a smile or at least a pitiful laugh. But she interprets it in a completely different way.

She raises an eyebrow seductively (probably not aiming at this second effect) and scrutinizes him with a stern but also amused air. -Why, are there things you think you shouldn't joke about?- Luke opens his mouth to reply, then realizes that the best choice is to genuflect and beg forgiveness.

He raises both hands like a suspect in arrest. -Touché - she just nods, with a dry gesture of her chin. -I beg your pardon, Garcia, I didn't want to make you feel bad, but...- he uses the puppy look, the big eyes, the tilted head, the tight lips. She couldn’t resist him, the first time he exploited it, to save himself from the accusation of being a liar and that he didn’t like her gifts (this was the real lie! How could he not ever get excited about whatever she had donated to him?).

But today he is decidedly less fortunate. -But you did it anyway, and you ruined everything!- perhaps noticing their closeness, Garcia pushes him away, only to move (with extreme relief from the man, who is trying to recover from that sudden contact) in a safer area of the terrace.

He follows her, of course. -What do you mean?- he asks, while fearing to know the answer.

Penelope pleases him with a smile that has nothing sweet about it. -After discovering that Roxy is a dog and after seeing that you aren’t so bad as a company at O'Keefe, I had decided to treat you better.- she reveals, simply, disregarding the increasingly shocked expression of the colleague. -I thought we were becoming friends, but you stabbed me in the back!- another accusation and another push. Only for a hair he can't hold her hand on his chest.

Luke shakes his head, trying to catch her eye again. -I, no, I...- but her face leaves no room for doubt.

-I'm not interested in your apologies.- she says and he catches both senses of that sentence. -You sided with the others!- he doesn’t reply anything, because he knows she is right. -You chose them instead of me. You don't deserve my friendship.- she deduces, widening her arms, like a judge who issues a sentence of death, implacable. And that's when Agent Alvez realizes he has no choice but to make a move, the one he never would have considered, probably not even in a thousand years, if things had gone differently. But he cannot afford to lose the little he has laboriously earned.

He looks at her in a strange, different, new way. Original. -And if that's not enough, for me?- he asks her, gradually reducing the inches of air that separate him from her. Penelope opens her eyes for a moment, forgetting the subject of their conversation. He always liked to put her in trouble, but this time his intentions are very different.

-What are you talking about?- he watches her pupils dilate while he makes another step. -Stop there where you are.- she intimates him, but fails to sound very authoritarian, so he doesn’t listen to her. -You're too close.- she says the last sentence in a lower voice, because the man is almost completely bent over her.

He turns a few degrees so he can whisper in her ear. -I mean if it's not enough to be your friend.- ok, this time he really said it. Now he can't go back and doesn't intend to do it. He doesn't want to believe that Garcia's attitude towards him is only due to the fact that he took the place of her best friend. Or maybe he needs to think that behind there is more to find enough courage.

However, she chooses to suddenly return naive. -And what the hell would you like to be?- she stutters, overlapping words, but unable to break eye contact and hating herself deeply for this. If he had been less attractive, would it have been so difficult anyway? She doubts it. -Why the hell do you care so much about what I think of you?- she bursts out and finally she has made the right question.

Luke chuckles, impressed by her innocence as much as by her job skills. -Don't you really get it, Garcia?- her big eyes are enough for an answer. -I like you, I have a crush on you, that's why I 'sided' with the rest of the team, as you say.- he feels his heart beating like the one of a teenager in a movie. He almost certainly also has sweaty hands. The blonde remains silent, so he adds some more details. -To provoke you, as you do with me.- even if, thinking back, he understood that he had started this, not she. -I thought it was just an innocent game...- Penelope seems to believe him for about two seconds, then bursts into a resounding laughter, which however doesn't seem at all joyful, but bears traces of bitterness and sadness.

She claps her hands in a theatrical way, even managing to take a few steps away from him. -Congratulations, really credible! You're getting better at telling lies, but if you think I'm stupid enough to fall into the same trap twice...- she shakes her head. Those tears at the corners of her eyes finally hover in the air. -You have a worse opinion of me than I thought.- she concludes, revealing herself once again able to identify precisely the thing that will hurt him most.

Now that he has freed himself of this enormous weight (to think that it is only a few months, but it seems to him much longer, like his whole life), he cannot conceive the idea that she can think that he is a liar, that he could joke about a similar topic, which can be so petty. -I'm not lying, it's the truth!- he almost shouts, grabbing his own head to avoid doing something more reckless. -I like you a lot, I don't see what I could earn to make you believe it.- after this last sentence, however, he looks directly into her eyes. Anyone knows that it is very difficult to simulate a feeling while maintaining eye contact. Penelope seems to think of that, she seems uncertain, she approaches him, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

And in front of the man's shocked look, she begins to search him. -You certainly have something on you, maybe not a bug wire, at least a tape recorder...- her hands run down his chest, covered only by a light gray shirt, and stopping just before the belt. Then she comes to her senses and understands what she risked doing. But now it's late. Taking advantage of her sudden loss, Luke has brought her closer to him and now holds her firmly by the shoulders.

-Garcia, look into my eyes, and you will understand that I am sincere.- the man's hands rise up to her neck, causing her to shiver (not only because of their glacial temperature), finally lingering on her face, barely caressing her cheeks. She obeys him for a few seconds, so she manages to look away with difficulty.

-No, I can’t.- she detaches herself from him, violently. Unable to conceive how she could allow him to touch her in such an intimate way. -You could have thought of a more credible one excuse and I didn't think you would be able to go that far.- she comments, finding her own safety or at least a semblance of it, as soon as she is distant from him. -Even playing with feelings... Maybe I should really ponder a transfer.- Luke is not considered the best hunter of men of the FBI undeservedly. He takes very little to capture her.

-NO!- this time he's really screaming. He tries to calm himself, to think lucidly. -No, not for my fault.- he really is a good actor, no doubt. It would be really too easy to fall into those brown eyes, to get carried away by the current down and down... -Let me prove that it's all true.- he pleads her. His hands are on her again, with his thumb he touches her neck, while with his other fingers her face.

She tries to ignore the feelings that this contact causes. -And how are you going to do?- her eyes are wide open as she watches him bend over her and trying to bring her face closer to his, as if he wanted (and it seems so) to kiss her. She waits that Luke is a few millimeters before stopping him, with some satisfaction. Or maybe, most likely, she had to struggle hard to do it. -Huh, no, even if you weren't a liar, I wouldn't make things so easy for you.- she tells him, but in her tone there is new malice and this is enough to reassure him. -If you really like me, you'll have to work a lot.- not bad, since he had already taken it into account. He is annoyed enough to have been interrupted so close to the goal, but... if she is giving him a chance, this is what matters. -Do you think it's worth it?- she asks, crossing her arms, almost certainly expecting a no.

Luke, however, disappoints or surprises her, depending on your point of view. -Yup.- he answers, decided as he has rarely been in his life, above all about personal relationships. -Absolutely.- he adds, to make matters worse.

She shrugs. -Happy for you. If the road was uphill before, now you can consider it directly a wall.- she makes it clear however. That grimace on her red mouth. He will be able to taste it, to discover what it tastes like. If it was the last thing he will do. -A very slippery wall.- she adds, with a wink. -It's easy to fall and get hurt...- now she seems serious, she seems to want to suggest something to him, but he doesn't know her long-term relationship history: he can't know that she refused two marriage proposals, that she has problems too only to think of living with a man who is also convinced she loves. That from that point of view she is no less solitary than he. Sergio is enough.

Of course, he can't know (JJ wouldn't have talked to him about it), but he seems to sense it, getting closer to the solution. -I'll be careful.- he proclaims, as if he were about to leave on a mission, get on the jet. -I’ll conquer the lost land.- he says, resolutely, trying to convince at least her, if not himself.

He gets a hearty laugh in return. -Well, they say that self-confidence is everything to achieve a goal.- he nods. -But to regain mine, it would take a miracle.- Luke is not discouraged.

-I believe in miracles.- he promptly replies. And it's not a lie. There are many things of his faith that he doesn’t fully share, which cause him internal conflicts. But not this one.

-Good for you.- she says. -Now, go away. And, Newbie, tell the others that I am very disappointed by everyone.- it's so nice to hear that nickname again without nuances of real disappointment.

He nods before leaving. -I will do it. –

And Luke keeps his implicit promise. During the next two weeks both the office and the home of the computer technician Garcia become places frequented by express couriers of all types, florists and pastry shop clerks. The man slightly distorts the classics, the romantic clichés, preferring live plants of the most disparate species to the bouquets of real flowers, desserts from all over the world to the chocolates in a heart-shaped box, puppets with recording personalized messages instead of cinematographic declarations; and hearing his unique voice, deep and fret, making certain statements… it’s different anyway. But it's not enough.

Penelope doesn’t reply to any of the gifts and only when one evening, returning from a case, he stops her to get a response, she deigns to consider him. -It’s all you can do?- she replies with a question, dismissing all his efforts and leaving him partially sad, but also too stubborn to give up on the first attempt.

She doesn't expect that he can do anything right that evening. Nor that he can go that far. When the first notes of classical guitar begin to spread in the air, she doesn’t suspect that this may have anything to do with her. But then he starts singing. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... At first, she is so shocked that she doesn't even have the strength to look out of the window is to verify if it is not by chance, that her brain shows signs of imbalance. Luke cannot be in the courtyard where her apartment is located, to serenade her, like a medieval minstrel. Even if it's a pretty retro thing, something that suits him. With this joy that hugs my heart, four days from Christmas... a mixture of enchantment and pain, I think back to when I hurt someone, and there are so many people, good pretexts, always too few. Between desires, labyrinths and fires, I begin a new year by asking... She should have imagined, however, that he would sing so good. She doesn’t know where this kind of thought comes from, why she is so convinced of it, since she has never thought about it before. She sighs, resigning herself to the need to control. She spies from behind the curtain, but he notices however that he has managed to capture her attention and continues much more determined and with a smile on his lips. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... It is undoubtedly thanks to his vocal talents if none of the Garcia's neighbors throws a bucket of water at him (or worse), drops a vase on his head or simply shouts at him to dislodge. And maybe even the fact that it's not yet eleven o'clock and her neighborhood is a fairly populated until late. To say that I feel good with you is little, to say that I feel bad with you is a game, a mixture of truce and revolution, I think it's a good opportunity, with this magic... of Christmas, to remember... how special you are, amid the contradictions and your faults, I still try to want you… She shakes her head, thinking that there are still months left to think about pulling the tree out of the box in which she put it. She laughs, but her is a sweet laugh and no one misses those nuances. She feels she has become the center of general interest; the way in which Luke is looking at her as he sings and plays has left no room for any doubt about the addressee of his stornello. Forgive me... if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... But he himself claimed not to just want her friendship, but something more. And this is also clear to all those present, who wonder who that young man is and where dear Penelope may have known him. A good part recalls another kind of evening and another kind of companion; the sirens and the lights of the ambulance, the cries of the paramedics. But this one seems a good guy and certainly cannot have bad intentions. Besides the fact that his gesture would have a lot of witnesses. Here winter is not afraid, I got some without you... here anger is without measure, but without you... I don’t know and the night dances alone, but without you I will not dance... captain, knock down the walls with me, that by myself I won't make it... That reference in particular hits her straight to the heart and his wink gives her the suspicion that it was precisely for that sentence if he decided to dedicate this song to her, instead of another, and not for the refrain, which also repeats endlessly what he had already said and pleaded in a completely different way. I ask your forgiveness, if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know I’m like, in fact... I ask your forgiveness... Penelope wonders if this song will ever end, not that she minds, far from it, if she really has to be sincere... but to the pleasure and that boost to her self-esteem, embarrassment and blush on her cheeks should be added. Didn't she always want a man to make such a crazy gesture just for her? Didn't she always say that she wasn't the kind of woman that men write songs for? It seems like a century has passed since that time. If what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... your forgiveness... what is done is done but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact... I… She is concentrated now on his hands, on the way he uses the pick, how he caresses the ropes, and finds herself wondering what else he would be able to do with those fingers. And if maybe they can play something together, one day, she with the clarinet and him with... She shakes her head to get out of her own fantasy. I ask your forgiveness… if what is done is done, but I ask your forgiveness, give me a smile, I offer you a rose, on this friendship new peace comes, because I know what I’m like, in fact I ask... forgiveness... sorry… rose… comes… When the last notes echo in the evening, everyone understands that the performance has ended. Spontaneous applauses start from all the windows except from the only one that really interests him. Luke bows, thanking the improvised audience. When he raises his head, those windows have closed completely. Behind the curtains, the blonde begins to convince herself that he is really interested for her. Better late than never. But it's still not enough.

A few days go by without any new surprise and the woman seriously begins to fear that he's get tired of her, of her coldness and her too high claims. She doesn't suspect in the slightest that in reality Luke is using his knowledge in quality of ex-fugitives team Agent. For now, he has limited himself to doing what all women are supposed to want. But Garcia is not all women. He deduces that this was his mistake and remedies it.

With her mind half occupied by the current case and the other part by mulling over her own stupidity (she could at least find out what kind of kisser the Newbie was, if she had been just a smarter pinch), Penelope crosses the threshold of her office and finds a note in front of the main screen. Her heart recognizes his calligraphy well before her eyes. Look in the refrigerator, second shelf on the right. Although she might well wait, since it's too early to eat, she almost runs to find out what's in store for her this time. And in an instant, she forgot all the fears of having pushed her luck. The dining area is deserted. She opens the door and sees what looks like a pan covered with silver paper. And another piece of paper. I made Lasagna. All vegetarian. And a little face that winks, hand-drawn. Without realizing it, she caresses it with her thumb. At the same time, she chuckles, definitely impressed. Then she realizes, she feels that someone is watching her. She turns and Alvez is there. How did he get so close to her without she can hear the steps? Damn profilers and hunters of men!

For a moment they simply remain stare at each other, saying nothing. It is clear that he is challenging her to find a way to ruine his gesture. And she accepts. -Nice, but still a little bit.- she comments, crossing her arms. Luke can't hide a grimace of frustration. -I told you it would be tough.- she continues, in a much more serious tone, trying perhaps to justify herself, when instead she would simply like to invite him to share those Lasagna (which she hasn't even seen or tasted yet, it could be very disgusting, but sometimes the thought is really enough, isn't it?). -Do you want to give up?- and that's when the man does something really completely unexpected and out of every script. He comes so close to her that he almost touches her breast with his forearm.

And the way he looks at her. It should be judged illegal, at least in some countries, at least in Virginia. He shakes his head, in an authoritarian way, only letting her see what the unsubs and the fugitives feel during an interrogation or a capture. -Never.- but he doesn’t do just that. He caresses her cheek with a decidedly determined act that she, puzzled, finds herself closing her eyes to better enjoy that gesture. But she opens them up to his next statement. -You'll be mine, Penelope, and when that happens, you won't be able to stand on your legs, how much they'll shaking.- she opens her mouth, understanding that any reply would be useless. And indeed, he is right, because her knees are already starting to have problems (and not just her knees). However, she hides her excitement behind a mischievous and at the same time strange smile. Placing a hand on his sculptural chest she pushes him away just enough to get back to the office. With the note tight in the left hand.

By now she has lost control, the situation, with a man so courtly in such a shameless way, is too stimulating for him to be able to put a stop to it. If it had been Kevin or Sam, in his place, surely, she would have already given up. But every time she ends up looking at Luke in the eye, she wonders how far they can go, she denies him the satisfaction and he has understood it. The fact that he is not ashamed at all to show his interest in front of the whole world and above all in front of their colleagues... it's just one more reason to let the game continue for a while longer. From O'Keefe, for example, there is not a single evening that he doesn’t offer to pay her cocktails (only to her) and also covers her with another kind of attention, so as to push more than a guy to give up in order to flirt with that shapely blonde at the right point (she naturally doesn't even realize it, too busy to restrain herself, but nothing escapes him). Above all it is again the way in which he looks at her, exaggeratedly shameless, that exasperate and amuse their friends.

-If you keep act in this way, we'll have to censor you, Luke.- Rossi complains on one of these occasions. But Penelope doesn't just enjoy free cocktails and looks back at him. She plays her part in this kind of performance. She makes him go crazy with every known or not known method. She flirts with strangers, albeit in a decidedly innocent way, compared to when she plays with him, even before all this started. This is why some people got a fantasy, but then they notice how he shakes her hand on her hips and give up, believing that they have dreamed everything. Many times, after having returned to her place, the blonde is in fact instantly captured by her colleague, always sitting next to her, who whispers threats that seem anything but frightening, such as: -You will pay for each of these actions.- but she, lingering in the same way and making him believe every time that she was about to bite his lobe or grab his lips, merely laughs, filling his ear canals with the sound of her giggling.

And moving away, at all intimidate, at the same time removing his hand from her, she replies always the same in a low voice, but not too much. -First you have to catch me.- that answer which, despite so many repetitions by now would have become banal, silences him all the time.

She couldn’t say that it was her friend who wanted to bring up the topic, because she was the first to let it out. Just a hint, the only evening he hasn't arrived yet and the rest of the table is occupied in an animated discussion of the criteria for awarding the Oscars. -Then... you have nothing to say to me?- well before she mentions it explicitly, she has already got the point. -You and Luke...- in another era she would probably deny, she would reject, she would say to her friend she is a visionary. Not in this one.

Watching the chair next to her (empty), she leaves the river of her emotions flow out. - Do you remember when you all sucked, and he too? He followed me to the terrace and at one point... he said he had a crush on me.- a smile of pure affection, satisfaction (I knew it!) and joy paints the lips of the other blonde. -I didn't believe him, but... now...- they nod simultaneously. -I'm afraid that I’m exaggerating. He will soon tire of trying to conquer me.- the fact she said even this last part is what makes her proud of herself.

It's up to JJ to express her thought. -Do you want my opinion?- she doesn’t wait for an answer. -This can’t happen. I did the same with Will, at the beginning... I was a little cold.- she chuckles, thinking back to those moments with nostalgia, but at the same time happy about the here and now. -You know, In love’s war, he who flieth is conqueror.- she winks at her. Then, she suddenly turns serious. -That's not what you should worry about, in my opinion.- she adds, looking over her shoulder.

Penelope knows that Luke has arrived and probably he is standing at the counter to make the first orders. -What, then?- she asks. There is no room for shyness and pride.

-You have to think about all the time you will waste, just to act like teenagers.- she replies promptly, sensing the course of her friend's thoughts. -When, in short...- she shrugs and almost seems to blush. But she wouldn’t be able to swear it -...you could live and find out how it is.- she understood what JJ meant, but she has no way to reply, because he is there, the chair is no longer empty, his hand brushes by chance (yeah, right for this) her knee while he is settling.

And despite all those fine words, spending so many nights repeating that JJ was right, another month passes, during which he alternates the actual courtship with explicit and clear requests for a full-fledged appointment, which she declines every time, cursing herself like the crocodile after eating too much. Her only excuse is that he hasn't done enough yet, but she knows that it ceased to make sense long ago.

Garcia then reaches another, different conclusion: what she really expects is, masochistically, to see him finally losing interest in her, so she can consider herself a fool and be able to do it, later thanks to the passing of time that erases and obscures everything, convincing herself that in reality he never felt anything for her.

A sea of shit that fortunately crashes against the rocks of Luke's stubbornness, which fails to consider sporadic touches at the bar as real progress. But he still has an ace up his sleeve. The winning card. He wonders why he waited so long to do it.

He is forced to talk to Emily. Leaving everything to chance would mean risking compromising the plan. He waits patiently (patience has always been one of his main qualities) that there are no cases. And finally, that day comes. He waits for her to go to the bathroom, for take his gift to the bat-cave. He stays hidden at the end of the corridor, watching her returning to the office. He hears her scream and realizes that maybe this time the job is really done.

Inside, Penelope tries to censure her joy by pressing her hands over her mouth. Roxy, beautiful as always, is covering her with kisses. But it doesn't take long to notice that there is ticket rolled up and stuck in her collar. The more she reads it, the stronger her heart beats. Forgive the fool of my master. He didn't want to hurt you, but you know, human beings (especially males) are so foolish! He always liked to hunt, but without weapons. Because of this pursuit he no longer has a crush on you. Now he is sure he is in love. Please give him a chance so we can see each other more often. I miss you! Rox. And it is not the third-party declaration that causes her to collapse definitively. No, it's that paw print as a signature. She fears to burst into tears. She takes long breaths to calm herself.

Now she has discovered her breaking point and doesn’t care a damn she will never know which of Luke would have been. Hearing only silence, the man dares to enter. -Then?- he asks, even though he knows how to read her expression perfectly.

She wants to show herself a little distant. -All right, Alvez, I'll go out with you. But, mind, this means nothing.- she likes to play as precious thing, and he will let her do it, because she is. She is the most precious jewel that he never would have aspired even to contemplate.

He takes her hand, helping her to get up. -It may turn into one later.- he declares, bending down to kiss her cheek. He would never have wasted their first kiss at such a time, however important it's for him.

The evening of the date comes. Penelope keeps to repeat in front of the mirror that it is nothing; Luke tries to explain to Roxy why all depends from this, but she already knows it. The message arrives on time; she can't make her heart beat regularly. She goes down, risking killing herself, on the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. When she sees him, so beautiful and knowing that it is her merit, because it is for her if he has dressed like this, that he has chosen every single damn detail, she can no longer play the part of the detached and disinterested.

Penelope expects him to take her to dinner somewhere. Even the time is quite compatible with this hypothesis. But she is wrong. When she sees the silhouette of the building and recognizes its profile, when he parks right there, she is incredulous. He will also be a profiler, a hunter, but how the hell did he find that this was her favorite theater and that she dreamed of going there all her life?

He opens the door for her; he touches her hand every so often, caressing her fingers in a sweet and sensual, delicate and possessive way; he looks at her in that way but also in a new one. If they had just played until recently, he is now doing damn seriously. How can he be single for years (did this information been picked up long before all this started)? Then the concert begins, where the clarinet is the absolute protagonist, needless to say.

He speaks only once, whispering something that completely contrasts with the serious and prim atmosphere. -I can't wait to show you my fingering techniques, chica.- she swallows, not answering. Fearing her own reply.

Towards the end her stomach starts gurgling in protest. With red hands for long applause he leads her to the exit, opens the door again, does the same when they arrive at the next stop, helps her to sit at the table. He wants to make her feel the most desired and important woman on the planet with a thousand small attentions and almost never taking his eyes off her. Penelope stops noticing her own red cheeks. It has now become her dominant color. She is still along the way to convince herself that this is really happening. At the time of ordering, she lets him speak only, not feeling at all overwhelmed, but rather enjoying seeing how well he knows her.

All exclusively vegetarian. And, after paying the bill, he opens his mouth again to say something that gives her the final thrust. -I could easily get used to this diet.- she is still thinking about it, wondering if it could be serious or if it was a simple provocation that she had misunderstood, while they are walking with Roxy, in the calm of the evening. He stops, breaking the silence at the same time. -If you just give me the chance, this would be our typical evening even in ten years. I don't want a conquest of a night and I know that passion would never fade, don't ask why I know, it's just like that.- he speaks freely, even if she would never have stopped him because... she wants to see how far he gets. -I would never take you for granted, nor stop courting you, I would conquer you every day.- perhaps he would have added more, but she bursts.

She throws her arms around his neck. -Fuck, Luke.- game over. He won the match.

But he lingers a moment longer. -Penelope, can I kiss you?- it's not a provocation, he's fucking sincere.

She tilts her head. -Yes, you can, Newbie.- but he hesitates too much, just a second too long. Penelope, who certainly doesn’t count the calmness between her main qualities, drags him against her, kissing him as if there were no tomorrow. Surely her patience threshold is less than Luke's, but... now they both care very little about it.

------------------

TAGS: @martinab26 @thinitta @garvezz @mercedes-maldonado @shyladystudentfan @pegasus-scifichick @paperwalk @inlovewithgarvaz @the-ellen-stuff @astressedwriter @symphonyashley @jess-the-introvert @veronicafiore88 @kofforever @myhollyhanna23shadowystudentcroissantpickle

#garvez #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #luke alvez #BAU team #jennifer jareau #penelope x luke #luke x penelope #roxy #garcia x alvez #alvez x garcia #tiziano ferro #perdono #xdono #post 12x7 #12x7 #12x7 mirror image #mirror image

16 notes · View notes

heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 4 years

Text

Name: Moon or Rose, sometimes Luna to people who have known me for a long time

Zodiac Sign: Virgo

Height: I honestly can’t remember what they said last time they measured me an it wasn’t even “accurate” because slouching and hunching and scoliosis but my mother did it again when I was in bed and she had a tape measure and I’m 4′8 I think? :D

Languages: English

Nationality: Irish (American...Long Island)

Favorite Fruit: Rasberries, Strawberries, Pomegranate, Tomatos, Cherries

Favorite Sent: Roses, Fresh dirt, Gardens, plants and Flowers, any type of wood, rain, popcorn, Curry, (never actually tried but WANT TO) any type of hot beverage, any type of bake goods out the oven ..

Favorite colors: Black, purples and blues, ESPECIALLY the dark ones, any type greens ......... Also reds and pinks .......

Favorite Animal: Rat’s and rodents, always, ever since I was little ... Bats, Owls, bigger felines and canines (Lions, Tigers, Wolf’s, Etc.) Smaller Cats and Dogs, (Striped cats, fluffy cats, black cats, pit-bulls and SPINX’S are my favorites cause those are the ones that I have expect for the last one) Frogs and toads too,... opossums, chinchillas, squirrels, eye-eyes, pigs, rabbits, ravens, crows, in a certain way spiders, bees, moths, butterflies, fox’s, minks, lemurs.... skunks. flamingo’s, swans....lady bugs, crickets fireflies , goats....turtles, Gryphons ....(Far underrated and superior to dragons, this a fact not an opinion.)

And I’m about to admit this VERY, EXTREMELY begrudgingly and through my longest sigh ever but ... Deer? I just freaking. Wrote out an whole entire separate thing concerning my.... complicated perspective on deer and I had to copy and paste it into an entirely different document because I talked for way to long, but it’s gotten to the point where I have this desperate need to just ... vent of what this animal has become for me and what they mean to me, because this has currently became something that has made my heartache the more and more I’ve tried to pretend it does not effect me and I will say that it’s been a long time coming and as of recently I can no longer afford to avoid how much...So um. I’ve decided that this may be the year... That ...I am finally going to talk about this. Of course not like, right /now/ this minute ... But I will say in short that like, I live by a lot of deer and they’ve always been a part of my life for better or worse, and I could never really escape them or the part they’ve played in my life, hurting or healing, even if I wanted to. So, I say that, if I ever got the opportunity to observe one up close in my chair or feed a doe from my hand or hold a baby fawn or do anything like that with supervision in a moment, I totally would, in a heartbeat, without question. Even though from far away it hurts to think about the relationship I’ve had with them through who I was connected to. I refuse disrespect this animal just because someone who I loved who loved them hurt me once. Does that make sense? Sometimes.... Certain things that hurt you can also heal you. I’ve realized recently that I’m still not over how much I’ve been hurting. But that doesn’t mean that deer haven’t also, in their own way, been helping me heal. And I’m just thankful they exist for that because I’ve also learned through many narratives throughout the years, at in watching animation, how deer can have so many different sides to them and they don’t always have to be so interpreted as so “good” and “pure” and righteous and ...., ugh. As everyone projects to be, and I’ve always like to think that’s that’s helped keep a nuanced perspective of what’s happened to me throughout the years even as certain events were taking place and for that... I’ll always love and respect deer as an animal themself.

As a character, trope though, I’ve always observed that they’ve always been these fucking, self important, entitled a-holes who always assume that they’re charming enough to deserve your time, and think they can just come and go in and out of your life as they please and are far too proud of themselves to admit when they are wrong and will never apologize to you ever until they are pushed and until then, they just keep popping in and out of your life to vex and annoy you and ......

Mm.

Tastes like perspective.

Anyway, I’m writing something for later.

Maybe.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.

First time sharing any inkling of my emotions about deer.

I’m honestly so afraid about what this and the other post will entail for later, my other deer tail, if you will.

I’ll stop talking about deer before this gets weird.

You have no ideer......

Last pun until next post, promise.

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate: My silly abled assistant worker got me addicted to coffee again before she had me institutionalized and soaking in my own piss for four days because she didn’t understand how hospitals worked, and then they cut her hours when she was about to abandon me in what was basically a nursing home for and after a month I started trying to explain to her and my caseworker that I wasn’t feeling very well and they basically laughed at me and told me I was dirty and so yeah I spent my 25th birthday in a nursing home with an infection that I didn’t know I had and then one of the staff yelled at me for allowing this nice hyper boy who lived there to help push my crappy black manual wheelchair (you know the one) and practically tossed me out of my wheelchair to get me to what she wanted and then accused me of soiling myself when she was removing my clothes for the shower when I was on the toilet and then started screaming at me again and accusing me of lying when I asked her why she thought I had an accident and then she slammed the door and abandoned me in the bathroom when I wouldn’t give her the answer that she wanted and then I had a breakdown ... So I decided to use my mom’s birthday as an excuse to come home and check what was going with me and get some real food and I told my assistant and my caseworker and they basically laughed at me and said was a bad idea and told me I was dirty again and then I was punished and taken home for being “rude” and “too emotional” but not before the assistant worker brought me some crappy bitter ass coffee flavored fudge when the rocky road was right next to it because she was some vegan ass “straight ally” one year younger then me with a 29 year old boyfriend millennial who “missed my birthday” and complained about how miserable I was and how wasn’t enjoying the pumpkin farm which she originally wasn’t even gonna take me through, because my caseworker insisted that she cancel plans and bring me back to the nursing home as punishment for calling my mother. So when she DID bring me back after arguing with me for being ungrateful enough to not enjoy a place that she didn’t even wanna take me, she left me parked on the living room carpet, instead of bringing back into the dining room where my laptop was set up, like she’d normally do, said “good luck with your mom”, and left. Then, it took me about an hour to wheel myself off of the carpet, find someone to help me to the bathroom, and get me the phone to call my mom back and tell her it was okay to pick me up.

I come home, discover I have a lump in my left breast which is benign but still hasn’t gone away, go to the doctor, and it turns out I had two infections.

My mom seemed prepared to let me go back to the group home if I wanted to but after I told the doctor what happened with the staff worker the day after my birthday and the night before I called. The doctor told me that I wasn’t safe at the group home ether and ordered that I go back home with my mom and stay there.

So I’m back home now.

Two months.

And of course my caseworker shit on me for THAT.

And of course she informed me that my assistant worker quit on me.

And I still haven’t spoken to my father since I’ve been back here.

And I still have the scar he gave me.

And I’m still trying to ween myself off of coffee.

But before all of this my go to warm drinks were usual tea or hot chocolate. Sometimes hot chocolate with liquor.

My tongue went numb for a time because that was the first thing that I did non- stop each day for like four days after the day I finally finished my meds and my period hit immediately (which is already a whole other nightmare that I was dreading having to go through in a nursing home when everything already felt fucking inflamed and swollen and infected with already visible particles of dried up soap.... because.... it was ......)

But like, yeah...... Tea and Hot Chocolate!

Dream Trip: To have the opportunity to visit and interact with/get to know some queer cripple friends in person, and to visit my good friend @colorcinabrio in Mexico to travel round the world with them if ever given the chance! ❤

When Blog was created:

Somewhere around two years ago... I wanted to make blog that reflected my disability and really let me identify as a cripple and focused more focused more on cripple things and maybe make some cripple friends! ^ ^’ ❤

Last Movie Seen: That comes to mind that I actually enjoyed? The Favorite.

Favorite Holiday: I really love people’s birthday’s also and I always try and do something for my friends birthdays if I can! ^ ^ ❤

Songs on repeat: As of recently, ‘Fake Happy’, by Paramore.

Tagged by @qjusttheletter

Tagging: @colorcinabrio @thetrainticket @finallyhaunted @thequantumqueer @rosered3 @isnezzed @purplepeoplelickingtruthpeddler @transplorer

Thank you so much for tagging me, Q! ^ ^’ ❤ I know it took a while to answer but as I said before I really did go on a deer tangent for a minute! ^ ^’ ❤ But being tagged by you brightened my day and I know we don’t talk much directly but I really do think of you as a friend!!!! :D ❤ O.X

#qjusttheletter #replies #tumblrs also really been upsetting me lately so that's I've kinda been offline too but seriously thank you for the tag it means so much I'm #just sorry I took so long writing!!!!! ^ ^; <3 O.X

6 notes · View notes

blapisblogs · 4 years

Photo

Oh god... Yeah, right after the in-video ad break, we’re hit with this: Doug Walker dressed like a Nazi with a smudged dotted line around his face and the words “person you hate” written on his forehead in sharpie. Dude, if this moment didn’t make you stop and wonder what the fuck happened with your life to bring you to this moment, then it damn well should’ve been.

Before you ask if this was based on something from the film or album, yes, but as usual there’s context for it. It’s difficult for me to explain, but in short the idea is that Pink’s attempt to build a metaphorical wall between himself and everyone else is making him more and more mentally unsound, right up to the point where after he’s forced to be drugged up for one of his shows he hallucinates himself as a fascist (the very thing his father died fighting against), the fans his zealous followers, and his concerts rallies where he encourages violence against marginalized groups. This goes on for a few songs with the violence and threats escalating in each one, and by the end of the last one he’s ranting and raving incoherently on a megaphone until the hallucination ends as he shouts for it all to stop, finally realizing how dangerous the things he’s been doing to himself are. It’s disturbing, and intentionally so. That’s what I got out of both the album and the film anyway. I have no clue what Doug Walker got out of this part of the film, though, because these next two parody songs have almost nothing to do with it. The first one mentions it so people will know that it’s a parody of something from the film, but that’s about it, and the second one doesn’t mention anything about the film or album at all.

The next two parodies are of “In the Flesh” (the reprise), and “Waiting for the Worms”, neither of which I will post links to based on what I explained earlier, but if you want to look them up yourself I will warn you that there are things said there that are identical to things the Nazis have said and done, and use words like “queers” and others that I dare not say nor want to. (Also, yeah, they didn’t include “Run Like Hell”, presumably because Doug couldn’t think of another full parody’s worth of “fuck you, haters” for it.) In the parody of the former, Doug addresses his crowd of followers, which are the same five people copy-pasted onto the screens of multiple devices (I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be intentional commentary or Doug didn’t have enough people willing to work with him to pull off what he wanted for this), in a place called the “Echo Chamber”.

Yes, really.

It’s supposed to be commentary on how bad callout/outrage/cancel/purity/whatever-we’re-calling-it-this-month culture can be, but considering who this is coming from, what his own fans are like, and the rest of the presentation in this “review” it comes off more like “technology bad” and “social media bad”. Worse than that, the latter parody song is still about callout/outrage/cancel/etc. culture, only now it’s even more apparent that this is his way of commenting on the Change the Channel movement. This isn’t just me saying this either, other people have taken note on it as well, including people who didn’t even completely hate Doug Walker after the Change the Channel thing happened. I’ve seen one person try to (rather weakly) argue that it wasn’t trying to mock the Change the Channel movement, but even if one were to give them the benefit of the doubt and they weren’t making fun of that, then 1: they still should’ve known that doing something like this was going to get people to draw comparisons to said movement whether it was intended or not, and 2: it’s still absurdly over-the-top and out of touch with why “outrage/cancel/callout/whatever culture” has become a thing. It’s about as subtle as, well, a hammer to the face. (Speaking of which, the hammers for this parody are used to make hashtags instead of an ‘x’ and instead of chanting “Pink Floyd” or “Hammers” the fans chant “hashtag”. I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to think of how to comment on this, but all I can do is put a hand up to my face like Captain Picard in those memes, I think that says it all.)

This message of “technology and social media bad” is so ridiculously passé at this point that it’s laughable, and yet it seems like Doug Walker is under the impression that he’s saying something new and brilliant. This is also a truly bizarre message to be hearing from a guy who had so much success with his internet career that he quit his previous job to pursue it full-time. You know, that career that’s dependent on technology. (Also, Doug, social media itself didn’t cause those problems with said internet career: that was all you.)

The sad part is that for this sequence we get some brief scenes with actually good CGI of things like marching smartphones (identical to the original’s marching hammers) and a decently-animated 2-D(-ish?) sequence of a six-fingered hand coming up from the ground and forming into a hammer much like something that happened during part of the film (not this part specifically, but a part). It’s weird in context, but these animated parts look far better than any of the other effects that were used earlier. I’m guessing the guest person who made the effects I’ll talk about later also animated this (at least the CGI bits; as I said earlier, the 2-D-ish parts look so suspiciously close to the original that I have to wonder if they were traced over for this). While it is good, that just makes me wonder that if they were hired to make the animation in this part then why didn’t Doug let them animate the black eagle scene for the “Goodbye Blue Sky” parody section too? He clearly had the time and budget to get a talented animator to do this stuff for him, so why not fully use them?

Also, I swear one of the visuals looks more like a mashup between something from the opening of Phantom of the Paradise and The Wall than anything actually from The Wall alone. Maybe Doug and/or the person animating this got their rock operas momentarily mixed. Maybe they did this on purpose to mess with people. Maybe my brain’s making up this shit because a Phantom of the Paradise/The Wall double feature sounds infinitely better than this “review”. Maybe the headache I’ve gotten while watching this dumpster fire is fucking with me. I don’t know.

[Lyrics (and snark) below the cut]

Oh yeah, I’m the P-Person you all think you know That sucks up all your angst and confusion I’m that nameless foe, huh!

[Oh, so you are trying to do an impression of Bob Geldof. ...It shouldn’t take me over half-way into the “review” to figure out for sure that’s what you’re doing. Or did you choose to only actually do an impression of him for just this one part? I can’t even fathom almost any of Doug’s thought process for this “review” anymore.]

I’ve got some weird news for ya, sunshine, This was dissin’ Thatcher’s administration

[So I have seen Wikipedia mention that at least some people have either interpreted or used this part as commentary on Margaret Thatcher, and I don’t know enough about UK politics to dispute whether it was intentional or not. What bothers me is that if this was intentional, then how did Doug pick up on this? That would mean that he either caught this but somehow didn’t pick up on any of the other, more obvious things in this film that doesn’t have “the slightest bit of subtlety”, or he researched this and only this. Or it was a random guess he made that happens to coincide with what some others have interpreted from this part. Who knows.]

But it’s vague enough to put anyone you fear - Politician, showman - just put their face here!

[Uh... Are you talking about how someone edited this part of The Wall so that it was Drumpf in there because of how much he talks about his stupid wall? ...You are aware that the entire point of the film and album is that those kind of walls aren’t good and should be broken down, right? You know that Roger Waters himself openly despises Drumpf, right? ...Right?]

Are there any authority figures in the crowd tonight? Well put them in The Wall! (Get. Them. All.) That one’s looking stressed, he wants to feel oppressed Put him in The Wall! (Post. His. Balls!)

[Oh yes, The Wall - a film about the cycle of abuse and the effects it has on people and how taking self-isolation to its most extreme is unhealthy for the health of one’s self as well as those around them, among many other things - is something that adults don’t take seriously, not like this web video that has lines talking about people posting some dude’s balls on social media for shits and giggles. (In case you couldn’t tell that was sarcasm.)]

And that one looks sheltered, like she never leaves her room I’ll be that friend that you can blame for all your gloom That one looks like he really wants to be outraged! Now with social media, you have the stage!

[...You know, as awful as the previous songs in this “review” were, at least they were about the film and album. This, however... What even is this?]

(This is the part where the five-person audience starts chanting “hashtag” which goes on until Doug and his two goons run outside, run back inside due to it being too bright out, and then start the next parody. There’s not much to comment on for that, it’s just stupid.)

[End “In the Flesh” parody, begin “Waiting for the Worms” parody]

(One, two, three, post it!) Ooh, you can’t convince me now Ooh, I’m too far on my side Goodbye, nuance I never will abide

[You are not one to talk about nuance, not regarding this film or album, and certainly not about the Change the Channel movement, which this parody is pretty transparently about as we’ll see soon enough.]

It’s us vs. them, I don’t even know who us or them are

[“Us and them, and after all we're only ordinary men.” Come on, man, I know it’s not from The Wall, but the opportunity was right there. Actually, since Rob Walker is there as the Charts Guy (a recurring character in Doug’s reviews), you could’ve even thrown in a “Have a Cigar” reference if you wanted (also not from The Wall, but still). I know at this point I’m nitpicking, but I’m forcing myself to watch a “review” where a guy dressed himself like a Nazi to make a blatant “take that” statement against his “haters” without understanding and/or caring why the Nazi comparisons were there in the original; if Doug Walker doesn’t give a shit about those kind of details, then why should I.]

I just wanna be angry so I can be (Tweeting) About those who hate me (Tweeting) I need their attention (Tweeting) Love me or hate me, just look at me more

[Sadly one can’t say that this train wreck of a “review” didn’t make at least some people look at Doug Walker again even after they didn’t want to.]

(Tweeting) Whatever side you choose, just don’t ever wane (Tweeting) Waiting for the point

[I’d joke about how that’s how most people felt about the video at this point, but everyone has made that joke already. Everyone.]

Don’t fear that you’re wrong Just fight until the end, my friend

[At this point I could just say “Okay, Boomer” at every line in these two parody songs and it’d be about as meaningful as all of Doug’s comments about the actual film. Remember, the film he’s parodying here and supposed to be reviewing (allegedly)? The film he’s not mentioned once in this particular parody?]

All you need to do is fight off something Don’t worry! As long as you don’t see me as human, You can hate me all you want! Because remember, this can never happen to you! I’m bad! You’re good! The more extreme you can get the more happy you’ll become! They’ll put that person whose face you hate here, and tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet!

[...Doug, please tell me you didn’t have these parody songs in mind first as a sort of rebuttal against your detractors and then used it as an excuse to make a “review” for the actual film in this style as well as a whole parody album of it...

Also, this may be another nitpick, but towards the end the guys aren’t even “marching” in time to the music. Because of course they’re not.]

#Blapis tears down NC's The Wall #Nazi mention //#long post #bold text warning #eye strain //

1 note · View note

lastsonlost · 5 years

Text

I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire. “

Sina Grace on Writing Iceman at Marvel: “I Was Surrounded by Cowards”

Posted by Jude Terror June 28, 2019 48 Comments

As has been documented in various Bleeding Cool articles throughout the course of the book’s two series, one of my personal favorite X-Men comics of the past few years was Iceman, written by Sina Grace, and drawn it its first volume by Alessandro Vitti and Robert Gill and in its second and concluding one-shot by Nathan Stockman. The book breathed new life into a character who it could be argued hadn’t really received significant character development since his days in X-Factor in the 1980s. It’s true that it was “The Great One” Brian Bendis who wrote Iceman outed by Jean Grey’s invasive telepathy, but it was Grace who wrote adult Iceman coming to grips with this and learning to be himself and love himself, alongside, of course, lots of mutant action and drama. The book ended too soon, when it was really just getting going, IMHO.

With all of that in mind, it’s sad but not surprising to read Sina Grace’s comments, posted to his Tumblr, about his time at Marvel writing the book and what he says was a lack of support from Marvel while he dealt with online bullying as well as a lack of support and promotion for Iceman itself.

Grace writes:

As Pride Month comes to a close, it’s time I spoke candidly about my experience at Marvel Comics.

Stand by your people

It’s no surprise that I got the attention of trolls and irate fans for taking on this job. There was already backlash around the manner in which Bobby Drake aka Iceman came out, and Marvel needed to smooth that landing and put a “so what” to the decision. After a point, I could almost laugh off people making light of my death, saying they have “cancerous AIDS” from my book, or insinuating I’m capable of sexual assault… almost. Between Iceman’s cancellation and its subsequent revival, Marvel reached out and said they noticed threatening behavior on my Twitter account (only after asking me to send proof of all the nasty shit popping up online). An editor called, these conversations always happen over the phone, offering to provide “tips and tricks” to deal with the cyber bullying. I cut him off. All he was going to do was tell me how to fend for myself.

I needed Marvel to stand by me with more work opportunities to show the trolls that I was more than a diversity hire.

“We’ll keep you in mind.”

I got so tired of that sentence.

Believe in the work

Give us a real seat at the table

There was a moment before Iceman was cancelled where I wrote then-editor-in-chief Axel Alonso an email, pleading for a Hail Mary arc. I explained that Icemanwas landing with a newer generation of readers who focused more on binge-reading than month-to-month periodicals. The series needed time in the book market before its true strength could be assessed. To Axel’s credit, he was warm to the idea and even gave me an extra month, but when he left Marvel that idea got brushed away. Of course I was right. The first two volumes sold like gangbusters thanks to word-of-mouth, librarian love, and support from retailers big and small.

Seat at the table pt II: The Shade of it all

Truly, I hate writing this. In keeping with Pride Month, I am proud of the work I did on Iceman… I love the book! It sucks that I may be tarnishing its legacy going public about how the cookies were made. That said, the time for self-congratulating is over, and folks should be earnestly listening when they ask: what could we have done better?

so what’s my take.....

Personally I think the kid got used, plain and simple. Also this should not have come as a shock to anyone.

Look at how badly they treat their customers that pay them money, OF COURSE THEY’RE GOING TO FUCK THEIR EMPLOYEES EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. A box full of scorpions would have had more loyalty.

@thespectacularspider-girl

______________________________

little history lesson for you kids: tokyopop did practically the same thing with the rising stars of manga. They snatched up young Talent, use them, and drop them.

#Marvel Comics #don't believe the hype #social justice is not your friend

11 notes · View notes

fenrirlives · 5 years

Text

So after getting some feedback here and from some gacha folks on discord, the overall picture I’m seeing here is that people had a much larger problem with the way Minase wrote a lot of the servants and their interactions than the concept of Agartha in general. I also see alot of people base their dislike on the JP version, which I can’t really comment on because I don’t speak the language and I’m not a fan of basing opinions on possibly biased translations for or against the subject matter

tl;dr, I liked it a good deal! Hated the repetitive dialogue, but the blended fictional worlds, Megalos, and a bunch of other things were really to my liking! I view it as a cool singularity with a sloppy ending and sloppier dialogue. Not as good as Shinjuku, but leagues better than Septem, London, or Orleans on my chart.

also as far as villain servants go, Columbus goes in my “What a douche, I love em!” shelf of fame right next to Mebd and Teach. I mean look at this dude!

Truly Rider is best servant class in all respects! (also his artist is great go follow!)

Addressing the elephant in the room first, I was really confused at the whole misogyny complaints. I saw a few people who found the tyrants to be sexist in concept, while others took more issue with Fergus’ interaction with Scheherazade, or how Fergus as a character was treated overall.

I don’t imagine there are THAT many people who see the kingdoms as the problem, as they never came off as a commentary on gender to begin with, and context shows that they wouldn’t even work as commentary since all aspects of them are either A) fabricated in regards to the non servants, or B) altered by Scheherazade’s Noble Phantasm in regards to actual servants. If anyone saw them as the writer’s take on gender roles, I think it’s unintended.

People taking umbrage with Fergus and Sche, I can understand a little more, as alot of that is a symptom of the repetitive dialogue that plagues this whole singularity. Fergus’ message near the end is one that I agree with (living in constant fear of death isn’t living at all, and using your trauma as an excuse to generalize or hurt other people is unacceptable), and I was a big fan of how the end of his quest to become a good king is realizing he’s just not meant to be one.

The thing is, character arcs are carried by their dialogue, and having Fergy either repeat the same crap about training/not hitting women or break the pace of a scene to internally monologue about the philosophy of a kingdom really did no favors. I also wished that his revelation about there being strong women was something someone else told him instead of something he just randomly remembers when the time is convenient, because that makes his whole “younger self” aspect kind of meaningless outside of not letting him be playable. Medea and Medusa lily were far better examples of how one goes about writing these younger servants and their relation to the knowledge of their future selves.

I think it would’ve worked better to use Adult Fergus instead, and have him show new levels of discomfort both with the situation in Argartha, and with his own behavior when first interacting with Sche (thereby betraying her expectations and reason for summoning him by actually being more thoughtful and reserved than she initially expected) . Maybe have him focus more on male camaraderie with Columbus and the resistance than sleeping with women, as I don’t imagine he’d have much interest in cell dividing zombies with fabricated personalities, even if he doesn’t know that’s what they are yet!

Now, Scheherazade is actually my favorite character from this singularity besides Wu. I love stories that have trauma & behavior developed from trauma (rather than principle built upon trauma) as an antagonistic force. Having to perfect your craft of storytelling to survive for over 2 and a half years while also suffering abuse and captivity is nothing short of awful, and the fact that this attracts the Demon Pillar to her and allows them to work together is really interesting.

I did dislike the fact that she seemed more affected by her infatuation with Fergus than his encouragement to find strength and pride in her storytelling, and see her nature as a heroic spirit as a boon to it, rather than something to fear. It feels like a big flaw of her character in FGO, which is that DW can’t decide if they want her to be a shivering leaf that hates fighting, or a sly beauty that subverts authority with her tales. Ideally these two aspects should be combined, but it comes across as inconsistent since there’s no solid in-between to give that transition more nuance.

That being said, I think the folks that label Fergus’ speech as inherently sexist are kinda missing the forest for the trees. No amount of headcanon or fan interpretation changes that he’s a character highly motivated by carnal instinct, and the fact that it’s the lense through which he tries to argue against Scheherazade’s viewpoint is pretty consistent, though the afore mentioned issues with his dialogue makes his sudden shift back to being horny on main jarring and could be fixed by him always being adult Fergus. I can at least appreciate that the story brings up the clumsiness of his words and that even if they get the message across, the flaw in delivery means that Scheherazade will not indulge him on his terms, even if she’s grown just a tiny bit out of her old mindset (plus everyone calls him out so it’s not like his attitude is treated as being “good”, just that it’s not all there is to him). Bottom line I love both those characters, and Agartha left them both in a place where I’d love to see more about them and their relationship explored!

Drake/Dahut was unremarkable (though I was a huge fan of the character design, and I wish DW would make that a skin for Drake). The concept of Ys and her being a creepy rapist/murderer using Drake as her puppet was interesting, but she really didn’t get screen time needed to do anything with that. Wu Zetian on the other hand, I felt was really fun!

I would’ve liked to see her more before the confrontation while we were in the Nightless city, but her speech about working her way up from nothing to becoming a ruler through sheer tenacity, contrasted against the lady that tries SO hard not to let it show that she likes being doted on really clicked with me. All in all, she definitely swiped Gorgon’s spot as the 4 star servant I’m gonna use that ticket on later in the year!

Penthesilea and Megalos had the highlight of the singularity. Nothing was cooler than fighting a bunch of Amazons as those two clashed overhead, and despite almost losing that fight due to a string of Penthesilea’s intrusions hitting my team, I actually wish they did more damage at this point because I wouldn’t even be mad (fyi Colombus actually got killed by Penth during the Megalos fight and I couldn’t stop laughing).

Now if we’re talking about parts of Agartha I absolutely hated, that’s Phenex with a bullet! Besides his bossfight being the most drawn out and irritating thing ever, the fact that both him and the Pillar in Shinjuku don’t fight us in their more humanoid form feels like such a waste. These are supposed to be 4 (5 counting ccc) Pillars that had enough independence gained to run away from Goetia, so the fact that they still look like pillars and never become those human forms when we fight them seems like a real dropped ball here when it comes to visual storytelling and Story/gameplay integration.Also, after how radical Shinjuku’s final fight was, Agartha really didn’t do much to sell Caladbolg finally going off in the middle of the fight (the poison of Wu’s NP was a nice touch at least!)

so yeah, I had quite a few problems here, but I always regard the art and media I consume on a component basis, and for me, the lows here really couldn’t beat out the fact that Agartha was this really cool combination of fabricated settings with tyrannical rulers facing off against a villain masquerading as a revolutionary hero, with a Nightmare monster appearing anywhere at any time, and our heroes seeking to find out which of these figures was the one truly responsible.

This was always the strength of the Remnants imo, taking looser concepts that normally don’t fly in Nasuverse fiction, and using it to twist the rules of servants through singularities in a way the original seven didn’t outside of Camelot and Babylonia. It wasn’t as great as those two by a long shot, but at the end of the day, It’s left me quite excited for Shimosa, which I’ve been told is the hypest Pseudo Singularity out of the bunch.

It sucks that this singularity gets such a bad rap when it has so many cool and interesting things in it, but if people dislike something, then there’s nothing for it. As for me, I’d give it a B- on an F to S scale, with Camelot still sitting at the absolute top for me. Anyway, Happy 4th of July tomorrow if you celebrate it, and here’s to EoR 3 and Shirou eventually getting in the game (lmao nope)

#Big opinion words #no hard feelings here if you disagree!#I wish Scheherazade was higher tier man #I wuv her lots #Also Hydras are annoying and I wish something else dropped that Wine dawg

8 notes · View notes