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chibivesicle · 3 years

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Golden Kamuy - Kikuta really deserved better [part 2] 277-279.

Can you tell by my title that I’m a fan of Kikuta and I have some choice words for Noda? Chapter 277 starts out with an introduction to the regional politics of Meiji era Japan. The entire political shift occurred with the marriage of convenience between Choushuu and Satsuma (the Sat-Chou alliance) and how that is playing out in government and the military. With Hanazawa on the Satsuma side a commanding officer is having Tsurumi deal with the damage control. That being Lt. General Okuda (and Kikuta’s boss)

He discloses how he’s the person who helped to cover up the scandal for Hanazawa and more of the regional politics comes into play as he pulls Tsurumi into this.

Recall that Tsurumi is from Niigata and we know he is from a family that lost power and wealth due to political changes. He assumes that of course Tsurumi would hold a grudge towards those from the Sat-Chou alliance. Usami is also from a fallen samurai family in Niigata and we know that Ogata is from Ibaraki and also from a samurai family on the losing side. Tsukishima is from the island of Sado where unwanted people were dumped in Niigata so he is also an outsider. We learn of his ‘true’ feelings as the tells his core group his opinion on things.

I love how we get unhinged Tsurumi calling it all a farce and he’s over Central. But most importantly Okuda confirmed his own intel about the gold he learned while in Russia at some point in time. His gold plan can slowly move along. So Tsurumi becomes in the Hanazawa scandal cover up looking for the young 2nd Lt. and Kikuta, working under Okuda’s direct orders.

Despite his best efforts, Kikuta’s plan is revealed by a secretary at the Military Academy, while we know that Sugimoto and Kikuta are en route to the engagement dinner.

Hanazawa panics and sprints out to determine what is happening. Right on his tail is Tsurumi and his key team of Ogata, Tsukishima and Usami. Clearly this is going to become a huge mess. The next few pages are amusing, but really don’t add value to the plot. I am impressed that Kaeko has an excellent plot to get Sugimoto naked and I commend her efforts! GK is never short of strong female characters. Who enjoy sex.

This sets up a hilarious moment where he’s naked and trapped in a bedroom while she leverages the potential scandal to her advantage. By that point Tsurumi has caught up to them. What is most interesting is when Usami addresses Ogata as Hyakunnosuke and asks him what he thinks about meeting his brother. It is clear this isn’t out of concern from Usami’s part, we know he hates Ogata to his very core.

But as usual, Ogata doesn’t respond and we just see only a part of his eyes, not even a glance of his lips to give us an idea of what he’s thinking.

Kaeko and Sugimoto continue to talk as she reveals what she knows from Hanazawa Hiro. She had been a nurse during the first Sino-Japanese war so it has allowed her to reflect on the impact of war on individual soliders.

This tells us a few things; Hiro’s patriotism is more nuanced. If she were being selfish and just saying she doesn’t want her son to go off to war without experience it, that would be one thing. Instead, she knows being a military spouse first hand what happens - no one could say she didn’t do her own duty and go likely above and beyond. Ultimately, she wants to protect her son from her own experiences and observations and be a mother.

Sugimoto then realizes he needs to bail and leaves poor Kikuta confused. And then bam! The 27th is there.

Of course this leads to the most Sugimoto situation of all time! Tsurumi threatens Kaeko with his handgun and Ogata asks where Yuusaku is. Of course Sugimoto flies out of the bathroom naked sans Kikuta’s hat and Ogata is just amused beyond belief.

This would be complete if he were relaxed eating a box of popcorn or something like that. 278 continues this absolute chaos and lots of fan service for Miss Kaeko! I really don’t think the fight scene needs much meta. Ogata just finds it amusing (and btw sucks at hand to hand combat) while Usami rumbles with Sugimoto. Tsurumi realizes he’s not Yuusaku and Kikuta rushes in and gets shot in the shoulder by Tsukishima.

Somehow, Kikuta is able to get the rest of them to flee but not without running into the actual Hanazawa Yuusaku. Awkward. Tsurumi only then realizes that Kikuta was doing his job and they run out into the street.

Kaeko tries her best to convince Sugimoto to marry her. Granted he is a very heroic figure and he fought to protect her. However, reality wouldn’t allow that to happen and Sugimoto decides to join the army - thinking he won’t starve that way.

Kikuta looks so sad and disappointed when he hears this.

He’s definitely thinking of his younger brother who died b/c he told him to join the army with him. I loved the fact that we learn that Kaeko got to be a successful woman who was also compassionate to others.

There is a quick exchange that shows the first encounter between Ogata and Yuusaku. Yuusaku notices Ogata and salutes him as a cadet.

Ogata doesn’t even return the salute and he look he gives him out of the corner of his eyes. What is he thinking? I’d say Yuusaku doesn’t know who Ogata even is. But something has him very suspicious to be this leery of him. This also makes me think of this previous encounter between Koito and Ogata in chapter 200.

This time Ogata is bolder when he walks by Koito who is also currently still in the Army Academy. Except unlike Yuusaku who doesn’t seem to pick up on Ogata’s vibes, Koito does! And the two of them stare each other down. I think that this in part shows that Koito has more innate awareness of things and could be considered more of a ‘natural’ in the military. Which Yuusaku isn’t. We have no evidence Yuusaku has any sort of military talent or skills.

The chapter ends with Kikuta asking Sugimoto if he’s serious about joining the military and how he’s already fated to go to hell based on what he’s done in his life. 279 continues the conversation between Kikuta and Sugimoto and he flat out tells Sugimoto about how his brother died of illness in the army during the Sino-Japanese war.

Sugimoto then becomes Kikuta’s younger brother telling him that it is time to move on. This continues the trend in GK where a character that is speaking becomes someone else to the listener.

This is most evident with Asirpa when she becomes Yuusaku on more than one occasion to Ogata.

But this facial expression from Kikuta [sobs].

No wonder Kikuta worked so hard to save Ariko’s life! He can’t just always be responsible for the deaths of others.

Sugimoto convinces Kikuta that he’ll be alright in the army and he relents and lets him keep the cap. This shows that Kikuta has moved on from the death of his brother - a big deal! In an unusual way, Sugimoto has helped Kikuta move on and take the next step in the healing process. Kikuta reports to his commander in the 1st. Okuda wants him to keep an eye on Tsurumi. Obviously, he knows now that Tsurumi interfered with Kikuta’s plans for Hanazawa rather heavy-handedly so he would need someone else to balance it out.

It then reveals that Ogata is also working for Okuda in the 1st. This explains why when the two of them crossed paths in the brewery they did not engage but nor did they appear to exchange any information.

I can’t help but feel like something is still off with this. Ogata does have skills from working in intelligence with Tsurumi. He’s observant, makes himself invisible and can get others to talk easily. But Ogata being a 100% willing spy - it seems like he wants something else out of this. Kikuta’s character screams secret agent - but Ogata, he’s something else. I’m not sure if Ogata’s choice to be a spy on Tsurumi was a real choice.

When Ogata and Tsukishima had their shoot out in Yubari at Edogai’s, Tsukishima told him he was a pet cat for Central. Ogata replied that they were part of a rebel element. We know that Ogata was working with Tamai at the beginning of the manga. I struggle to see how Ogata has loyalty to anyone honestly. He seems to be moving throughout this game with again his own mysterious objective. Ogata is cynical and has no belief in the nation state nor does he harbor any sort of deep patriotism towards Imperial Japan.

Since Okuda is friends with Hanazawa and is based in Tokyo, he may have known Ogata since his birth and has kept tabs on him after the Ogata grandparents took him back to Ibaraki with his mom. Ogata’s existence might be a sort of trump card that Okuda is keeping . . . but others found out as well like Tsurumi. Did Okuda have Ogata tell or leak information that Ogata is Hanazawa’s first son? The chapter jumps to the 203 meter hill in the war and we see Yuusaku fallen on the battlefield. Ogata watches from distance, his face cut off while other members of the 27th run out to help Yuusaku.

This finally reveals Yuusaku’s eyes! Not the anticipated reveal - I kept thinking this was something that Ogata was going to see but it shows us clear eyes. Which look sort of similar to Asirpa’s eyes.

So many thoughts are jumping around in my brain about this reveal.

1.) These eyes are not the ‘trademark’ Hanazawa eyes. Dark black orbs with those eyebrows! This indicates his eyes aren’t from his father.

Seeing this, I can’t help but think that Yuusaku is not Hanazawa’s son. Instead, Hiro had an affair with someone else. A major theme in GK is that the children inherit the skills of their parents. Asirpa is able to do many things as she inherited the intelligence of Wilk. And that Ogata is the true inheritor of Hanazawa’s military skills.

Recall this from chapter 58. Ogata leads the crappy local gang against Hijikata and acts like a commander.

We know that Tsurumi’s lie about Ogata wanting to avenge Hanazawa is to keep Nikaido in the dark.

This would also explain why everything we learn about Yuusaku is terrible at military things. If he also isn’t Hanazawa’s son it would make it even more reason for Hiro to try to prevent him from entering the military since he’s not even genetically related to this great line of Hanazawas. I wish we knew more about the Ogata side of things - I think we’ll also learn that the Ogata side had competent military men on it as well. 2.) Yuusaku’s eyes are the same as Asirpa’s and indicate their sort of innocence. In this case, it would perfectly explain why Ogata sees Yuusaku instead of Asirpa when he has the fever and then the melt down on the ice floe. Yuusaku kept himself naive and innocent to meet his father’s expectations. A man who I don’t think is even his father at this moment. Therefore, Ogata’s guilt on killing Yuusaku is tied to his sort of innocence in these situations and why he can’t seem to shake his mental confusion when it comes to Asirpa. However, unlike Yuusaku, Asirpa has never forced herself on him to do things or guilt tripped him so it leaves things open for him to not link her to Yuusaku.

3.) Yuusaku was going to blow Ogata’s cover working for Okuda. Now that we know that Ogata was working for Okuda while in the 27th it means he’d have to keep his role quiet. If Yuusaku found out that Ogata was working for Okuda, I could see him going to Tsurumi and telling him this information. Therefore, to protect his status, Ogata used this as his rationale to kill Yuusaku on the battle field. I have never figured out if Ogata was nudged to kill Tsurumi by his ‘don’t kill him right now.’ comment as one of Tsurumi’s backwards motivations that lead Ogata to directly killing him. So many possibilities! I want more Ogata backstory dammit!

Anyhoo, to not make this meta super long let’s get back to the action. Asirpa begins working out how to try to break the code. Hijikata notes that Wilk could have used something other than kanji, since he’d know the Latin alphabet for Polish and Cyrillic for Russian. Shiraishi makes a clear point that this could be a message from Wilk towards her, though it feels like he’s channeling Kiro. Out of many of the Japanese characters Shiraishi time and time again comes out much more sympathetic to the minorities than others.

Asirpa begins to wonder how the coin is linked to the skins. She’s thinking things through and is on her way to solving the puzzle.

After saving Ariko, Kikuta is returning to Tsurumi’s group in the church. Oh Roger, this is why I love you so much.

Look at that smirk with a slightly watery eye. At the same time Tsurumi is also looking at the coin and realizes he’s figured it out.

Kikuta approaches the rest of the group and comments on if he’s found the location. Tsurumi states that things are just getting started. He casually pulls out his gun and fires two shots into Kikuta at point blank range.

And with this I am deeply saddened and shocked. How dare you do that to Kikuta!!! He was my Kiro replacement and now he’s also going to die.

First Boutarou died and now Kikuta. [cries]. We know that Tsurumi is a shinigami but this is just brutal. The bear death trio died early on in the manga. Ogata escaped. Kikuta now is the next link to Central that goes down.

#golden kamuy #Golden Kamuy manga #golden kamuy meta #warrant officer kikuta #sugimoto saichi #asirpa #tsurumi tokushirou #Usami Tokishige #Hanazawa Yuusaku #Hanazawa Hiro #hanazawakoujiro #koito otonoshin #okuda #ogata hyakunosuke #tsukishima hajime #wilk #hijikata toshizo #Kaneko Kaeko #okuda hidenobu

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i-really-should-change-my-url · 3 years

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Light the World Day 2

Day 2 is to write about someone who you think encapsulates christlike love. My choice is easy.

Ferret and I met 6/7 months ago. I was bored and lonely in quarantine, so I suggested a Merlin rewatch in one of my Merlin group chats. Two people accepted my offer, and Ferret and I clicked right away. Our type of humour and comedic delivery were very similar, and I knew this person was cool. The next night, I suggested another watch, but only Ferret could make it, so we ended up watching a movie instead, switching over to DMs. You know those people that you can skip over all the small talk (my least favourite part of meeting new people) and hang out as if you were lifelong friends? Ferret was the epitome of that trope. The movie ended, it was after midnight, but neither of us wanted to end the conversation. We talked until 8 in the morning, said goodbye to sleep, and then continued talking later that day. That was 6/7 months ago. In that time, she has become my flower field swaying in the breeze, my hot tea mug on a cold morning, my Irish cottage by the shimmering sea.

I suck at essay writing so the rest of this is going to be in bullets.

- She picks up on what I am trying to say. Even if my mind uses some weird analogy, she gets it. Even better, she turns it back on me. The rosetta stone would have trouble deciphering some of our conversations.

- Speaking of that, she takes the time to tell me if I say something in an interesting way. “The way your mind thinks is beautiful” is a common phrase from her. Growing up in the house that I did, I never heard/hear that. On the contrary, my biological family and some of my school ex-friends made me quite self conscious about my intelligence. To hear that from someone who hears the dumbest things I let out of my mouth, it’s a magical thing.

- Any compliment from her is thought out with so much care. She doesn’t waste time on superficial “you’re funny”s and “I liked your writing”s. It’s “your jokes make me laugh so hard I scare the cat”s and “WOW THE LINE YOU ADDED THERE MAKES THE PREVIOUS SCENE SO MUCH MORE EMOTIONAL YOU HAVE A WAY WITH WORDS”s.

- She listens to me. Really listens. When I need to talk about something serious, I know I have her full attention. I know I am her first choice.

- She has the compassion of Aslan, the emotional intuition of Luna Lovegood, the loyalty of Gwaine.

- She lets me in. I have had so many toxic relationships in my life, and many that were flower/gardener one sided. I am scared to my bones that I am going to become that toxic person to someone else, and she makes sure I know I am needed in her life just the same as I need her in my life. I am allowed to hear about and help her with her problems.

- She validates. Validates my emotions, my thoughts, my opinions. Likewise as above, validation is something I didn’t get growing up (still don’t get it from my bio family but thank the gods I got better friends). When I have a problem, no matter how insignificant it actually is, she takes a moment to validate me, before moving on to helping me with said problem.

- She is understanding of what I need. Sometimes I need to disappear in the middle of a conversation for an hour or so when I get home/back to my room after human interaction, to have some introverted battery charge time or solo processing time after a particularly hard day. When I do have one of these problems you have been hearing so much about, she does not push me to talk about it. She knows that is not always the best course of action. The custom response for us (and all of us in Methlin) is “Do you want to talk about it or talk about something else or get funny stuff sent to you.”

- She would avenge my death in the most creative ways possible.

- Has actually saved me from drastic self destruction.

- I talked about our code word “yellow lighting” in an earlier post, but it’s worth repeating. “She and I have this code word “yellow lighting” when we talk late at night, which means “I’m getting tired and I might fall asleep on you but I want to keep talking” and I think it shows just how beautiful our friendship is. We want to talk to one another as long as we both have the time and the energy, but we know that our sleep needs come first. This way, nobody is staying up way past what they should to keep the other one happy, and it gives a warning for why we may stop replying for many hours in the middle of a conversation. Which anyone with anxiety/abandonment issues can tell you, is stressful for your less rational brain. Someone can yellow light, and we might keep talking for hours after that, or someone might fall asleep in two minutes.”

- I want to 100% go buy a castle or build some cottages in Ireland with her someday. Yes we have specific plans.

- These are not isolated attributes to only our friendship. I see her being this soft and kind and chaotically loving to everyone. Also this is just part 1. I could go on for miles about how she has blessed my life.

To anyone who knows @ferretsarefurryappendagedsnakes feel free to add on to this post.

#i-really-should-change-my-url-original #Light the World #LDS #self harm warning #suicide warning #My Ferret #Not me trying to not to cry right now

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travllingbunny · 4 years

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The 100: 7x01 From the Ashes

Disclaimer: This post is about the episode of the show The 100, From the Ashes, the season 7 premiere, and only about it. In this post, I will NOT be discussing any original scripts, unused takes, bloopers, behind the scene photos or videos, scribbled notes exchanged between the writers, or any tweets, Instagram posts, SMS or e-mails by any of the cast or crew members, considering the fact that none of those things constitute the show’s canon, which consists of the actual episodes.

I will also not be discussing anything about the future episodes posted by any ‘spoiler accounts’, and, in fact, I am unaware of most of these things, since I’m trying not to read any spoilers. Please do not tell me any spoilers for future episodes or ask me about them.

I really enjoyed this episode, in spite of the unfortunate lack of Bellamy (which I was already expecting since what happens to him here was already spoiled by the trailer. Of course, I’m looking forward to see Bellamy again, and, before that, to everyone finding out about disappearance and it becoming the focus of the season. But until then, the show has quite a few other storylines to deal with, from setting up and delving more into the Anomaly mystery, to dealing with the fall-out of season 6 in Sanctum, and both of these were handled well, for the most part.

This episode in particular had really good characterizations all around - for Murphy, Echo, Indra, Madi, Raven, Emori, Gaia, even Jackson - and, of course, Clarke, who had an arc that took her tendency to try to repress her feelings to an extreme, until they exploded in a most memorable way. It will cause her trouble, no doubt, but it was great to watch, and something I had been wishing for for quite some time.

There is just one character whose storyline I’m still not sure how I feel about, because I’m not sure what the show is doing with him.

After the last season’s cliffhanger, there was some concern in the fandom that Bellamy would regress to being all about protecting his sister, after their relationship had been redefined with “You’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility”. Some of that was really exaggerated: there’s absolutely nothing odd or surprising about Bellamy crying over his sister disappearing in his arms. Of course he loves her and wants her safe. But I was concerned they may regress his development if they make him forget about everyone and everything else in his life in order to impulsively jump after her into the Anomaly. However, that did not happen - Bellamy didn’t decide to go on his own, rather than tell others and make a plan. He was taken.

The mysterious people from the Anomaly seem to be able to control the Anomaly, and have some sort of a cloaking device, presumably connected to their suits and helmets, that makes them invisible to others. They also have some sort of a screen inside their helmets, with facial recognition of targets and commands. It’s all a bit creepy - these seem to be humans, but they are receiving orders the way a robot would. (It’s all very Terminator-like!) Maybe because they also have lost their memories while going through the Anomaly? Where did they get the info about who Bellamy, Gabriel and Echo are - was it from Octavia’s memories?

Memories and memory loss are obviously going to play a huge role this season. People who come from the Anomaly to Sanctum seem to lose their memories, except when the Anomaly is still there. Does this happen only on Sanctum, or at the other side(s) as well? How does the fact that the Anomaly sucks in radio signals fit into that? Hope had to use a message she put into her own arm to remind herself to “TRUST BELLAMY”. (Interstellar is mentioned a lot as an inspiration for this season, but this reminds me of another Nolan film, Memento.)

We also see Clarke spout knowledge about how the big mansion was built (by Russell for Simone, to remind her of her house on Earth), which she would know due to still having some of Josephine’s memories. And I’m sure that the fact Madi still has the memories of past Commanders will play a big role - specifically, the fact she has Becca’s memories, which could be the way to tie the present day story to the prequel/story about what happened during and right after the apocalypse. (She also probably knows about Sheidheda more than anyone else alive, which may play into the Sanctum story.)

It’s too early to judge Hope as a character, but the mystery surrounding her is certainly super interesting. Why do the mysterious people from the Anomaly have orders to kill her on sight (as opposed to capturing, which they were supposed to do with Bellamy, Echo and Gabriel)? Is it because of who she is, or what she is - is it about her actions, does she know too much, or is her existence itself that’s the problem?

I loved the Octavia cameo in Hope’s hallucination, with the confirmation that she was an “aunt” figure to her, a part of a found family with Diyoza and Hope. The Anomaly makes you see your biggest desire or biggest fear - and Hope’s biggest desire seems to be to be reunited with her family

Echo’s hallucination, on the other hand, is obviously about her biggest fear - so it makes perfect sense that it’s Roan who appears to her, as he exiled her from Azgeda. Of course biggest fear would be losing her kru and her king/queen and being left alone and adrift. I’m as surprised as anyone that I found Echo's scene to be maybe the best in the episode. But she did have some really good character moments in seasons 6, and this is IMO her best character moment so far, picking up from her red sun hallucination in 6x02, and flashback from 6x11. which revealed that even her identity as “Echo” is fake. It seems the show is finally doing the character development it neglected to give her in season 5, and addressing all the obvious issues with Echo’s development and her relationship with Bellamy. I think this confirms that it was indeed Echo talking to herself while hallucinating Emori in 6x02, since her hallucination of Roan tells her the same thing, that she is still just a killer following another master’s orders. We finally see Echo feeling guilt over the things she did in the past, including her betrayal of Bellamy in season 3. When she imagines him calling her out on betraying “the man she now claims to love”, is it just about her thinking the others would doubt her love, or is she herself questioning whether her feelings for Bellamy are really romantic love, or just loyalty to her current leader? Their relationship, especially in S6, often came off more as the latter.

(It was also really cool to see Zach McGowan again)

The timeline of 7x01 seems to have confused some fans, but I think it’s pretty obvious that, at the beginning of the Sanctum story, no more than a day (probably less than that) has passed since 6x13 - going by the facts that 1) the Anomaly storyline picked up minutes after the end of 6x13, and the Sanctum story was presumably happening at the same time, and 2) Indra had to explain the situation in Sanctum to everyone. The only thing that seems to go against that is that Russell is said to “not have slept” since what happened on the ship, which makes it seem like it’s been longer. Or maybe Russell was just being extra dramatic. “Oh, I have no slept for a whole day!” He certainly spent a lot of this (his last) episode feeling sorry for himself. At least he seemed to have finally realized he wasn’t the superior good guy in all of it (”Tell them I’m treated better than I deserve” - yes, indeed.)

Indra was great, even though poor Adina was forced to be an exposition machine for a part of the episode.

A common complaint I’ve seen among fans is that it’s weird that Clarke and others in Sanctum aren’t worried about Bellamy and co. I don’t understand this complaint, as it’s clear that very little time has passed and that Bellamy, Octavia, Echo and Gabriel must have told everyone they were leaving and why (though I don’t know how many details they told them about the Anomaly Stone). People have been gone for a whole day in season 6 when they just went to the Offering Grove (Echo in 6x06) or the radioactive shield (Raven, Emori and Echo in 6x05), which are within the confines of Sanctum and much nearer than the camp by the Anomaly. What are they supposed to do but wait for a couple of days for them to come back? It’s not like they can call them, when radios and other means of communication usually don’t work on Alpha because of the Anomaly sucking the signals.

In fact, their absence was mentioned in the picnic scene, when Raven toasted to “absent friends” and we got a reaction shot of Clarke (I know, Clarke, I'd be annoyed too if I was you, but Bellamy had to be all "I'm gonna go now and explore the Anomaly Stone while Sanctum is in chaos and you're in mourning for your mom" because the plot needed him to..., before Niylah toasted to the “departed ones” (which would include Kane and Abby) and we got a close-up reaction shot of Clarke trying to keep it all inside, as she did every time in this episode someone mentioned Abby.

The idyllic picnic by the mansion - everyone’s attempt to get some rest and nice time after everything they had been through - was such a contrast to the “powder keg” of Sanctum and the end of this episode. But it also felt fake - just as fake as the deception and lies that Murphy and Emori are Daniel and Kaylee Prime, or that Madi still has the Flame in her head - to keep the devout and Wonkru under control, respectively - and just as fake as Clarke’s attempts to convince everyone she’s “fine”. As usual, the song playing in the background (”Darkness” by Pinegrove) was very fitting:

Suddenly I find I've got darkness on my mind It's a question mark that keeps me looking And it's never satisfied And it's never what I thought Saying I'm happy when I'm not No, I got darkness on my mind Leaning out the frame When it's particulate and gray I'm perpendicular to my whole being When I lean a certain way Saying I'm happy when I'm not Finding roaches in the pot Oh, I got darkness on my mind Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek [musical breakdown] Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand And while meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land And I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak So I'm trying not to be so bitter I'm just looking at it honestly Well, I know it's been a long time coming I'm angry and I know that's weak And I'm longing out that open window For whatever it is I seek Some people spend their whole lives looking For someone who could understand While meanwhile a lilac blooming Sometimes on the driest land, yeah

I like that there was anger, blame and conflict between our kru and that everyone didn’t just forget what happened last season (and for once, Clarke is not the one getting the blame!) It would've made no sense if no one was blaming Murphy, and it makes sense it would be Jackson, who was so close to Abby and who’s not particularly close to Murphy. It also makes sense there was disagreement about the method of keeping peace in Sanctum, and that not everyone would be happy with Memori cosplaying the Primes.

Murphy himself had a really good characterization in this episode - we saw his grief and his feelings of guilt. While he tried to defend himself when blamed that he didn’t know what Russell would do, when left alone, he blamed himself for various actions that led to it, which is something Murphy from a couple of seasons ago wouldn’t do.

It’s great to see Raven looking more like her old, pre-season 6 self, and even better to see that her self-righteousness has gone. She’s more like the old Raven but without the snarky b1tchiness. I’m glad that she got called out by Murphy on her “Miss Morality” role from last season (which never really made sense, pre-time jump Raven was never a moral compass of the group, she was smart, pragmatic and could be as ruthless as anyone).

Another major theme of the Sanctum plot were the new beginnings. Clarke pointing out season 3 feels like another world seems almost like the show going meta and pointing out to the audience how much Clarke and all these people have lived through and been since.What is Sanctum now after the Primes have been defeated, with Children of Gabriel coming back home and clashing with the Devout - brainwashed and loyal followers of the Primes, with the rest of the Sanctumites in between? How are Wonkru and the 36 Eligius prisoners going to start again on a new planet moon? (36?! Wow, so they really suffered heavy losses in that gorge, too, when there are so few left?) Can Grounders be without a Commander? Gaia without her religion? Can Madi be a normal kid, without the Flame - or is that even possible while she has to pretend to still be Heda? The title From the ashes seems to refer to that - and maybe the end of the episode means that you have to burn down the old beliefs and old idols to build something new?

Mothers and daughters were another theme. I liked that Madi mentioned her biological parents (well, mother) on-screen for the first time, since the fandom tends to forget about them and ignore them too often. Madi was unsuccessful in her attempt to make Clarke share her feelings with her - maybe because this conversation showed a big difference in how they see each other? Clarke thinks of Madi as her child, but Clarke has never had a child before, while Madi had parents and suffered their loss; Clarke assumed Madi was talking about her and what happened in S6, but Madi always calls Clarke “Clarke” rather than “Mom”, and tried to connect to her on the equal level, as another daughter who’s lost a mother. Maybe it’s exactly because Clarke sees Madi only as her child that she feels she must be “strong” for her all the time and not show grief.

There was an unexpected parallel between Indra and Clarke in how Indra also tried to suppress outward expressions of grief when her partner - Gaia’s father died, which clearly wasn’t healthy and caused a rift between mother and daughter. (I’m not sure about when that happened, i.e. when Gaia first decided to become a Flamekeeper. I guess it must have been before the timeline of seasons 1-3. So Gaia’s dad is probably not the man that Indra recognized in 2x15 as one of the Reapers? I’m still angry that we never got any resolution to that storyline and that the Reapers were forgotten after season 2.)

The one thing I’m not sure about is Jordan’s characterization and arc. I’m not sure what the show is doing with his exactly, and I’m afraid that they’ll try to leave it ambiguous just how much he is or isn’t brainwashed. 6x13 made it very clear that he has been “adjusted”, which Russell confirmed here, and Jordan’s “adjustor”, who was creeping behind him in the season 6 finale, was very present and active in this episode, and clearly still had a big influence on him. At the same time, we learn that Jordan does not believe in the divinity of the Primes - instead of that, his hallucinations made him see something connected to the mystery of the Anomaly, which Russell describes as something “greater” (almost like he has finally found God, of sorts, after all, which he talked about 236 years before when he first landed on Alpha)? The good news is that it means Jordan will have a role in the Anomaly story, rather than being the advocate for the Devout. What I’m afraid of is that the show will gloss over the fact that Jordan was brainwashed - whether or not he came to believe that Primes were gods, he certainly did a 180 from despising Primes as murderers, being outraged by their actions and knowing very well that Priya was not Delilah but someone who took over her body; to (just a few days later, after “adjustment”) spouting Prime propaganda about the “peaceful” society they had before the Bad People from Earth came (that’s the peace they had when they regularly murdered their people to steal their bodies, left babies to die, and made them go crazy and kill each other from time to time) and having some kind of attachment to Priya herself and her mind drive.

At least, I hope that Russell unceremoniously smashing the mind drive means we’re done with that storyline. I loved it, it was my favorite storyline of the show, but it’s time for it to be over. It makes no sense that anyone is still letting Russell keep his mind drive, for starters. When will they realize they need to destroy these things?

- Clarke’s way of dealing with grief over her mom’s death was certainly unhealthy - repressing her feelings even more than usual, trying to be calm, composed, logical, to do the things needed to keep peace. In her last scene in 6x13, Clarke was open about her grief with Bellamy, looking to him for comfort, finding comfort in his arms and his words. But now he’s absent, there’s no one else she can be that open and vulnerable with. (The only other person Clarke looked for comfort to was Abby.) It’s nice to see that she and Raven have mended their friendship with Raven, she is starting to develop a new one with Gaia over their mutual care for Madi, she has mutual respect with Indra, she’s known others - like Murphy or Miller = for years, since the Delinquent days... and they all want to help her, but she’s not opening up to anyone, not even Madi. She thinks she must be “strong” for all of them, and her Head and Heart are unbalanced - she’s repressing the latter, until she finally explodes.

I love the scene of Clarke finally losing it and beating up Russell (I had already seen it in the trailer, and it was my favorite moment) and then crying while holding Abby's clothes. I don’t know about anyone else, but I love seeing an angry, emotional Clarke, letting it all out, especially when it's anger at people she has every right to be furious at. We haven’t seen that from her since early season 3 (when she yelled and spat in Lexa’s face over her betrayal). It had bothered me for a few seasons that Clarke - who used to be vibrant and could be impulsive, angry, hold grudges, yell at people in seasons 1-2, had become so repressed and muted due to her constant self-blame. I’ve had enough watching Clarke look sad while other people keep yelling at her and blaming her. (The only other instance of Clarke being furious was her hurt and rage at Bellamy and the slap in 5x09, but that was more of a silent, “internally screaming” rage/hurt, which turned into Clarke being emotionally frozen for the next couple of episodes, until learning he was alive. When Clarke is keeping everything inside and not yelling, that’s when she’s in the worst emotional state.)

It is, however, so sad that she still blames herself, too, for her mother’s death, whispering “I’m sorry”, the same way she whispered after seeing her father floated.

My only problem with the scene of that stupid palace burning down is that "mistakes" is a serious real understatement for what Russell has done. I know, I know, this will cause a lot of trouble in Sanctum and Clarke will probably have to go back on some of these decisions to keep peace. But there’s really nothing morally wrong with deciding to execute Russell - not only does he deserve it, but he’s arguably even an exception from the general objection to death penalty, since he’s lived several times the normal human lifespan, by stealing other people’s bodies. And the palace burning down is a symbolic way to send the message that the old power structures are gone - which Clarke pointed out when she said there will be no kings or queens anymore.

Sheiheda taking over Russell’s, or rather his latest host’s body, wasn’t surprising, as that was the most popular theory. But it was cool to see Sheidheda’s creepy mindspace again and Sean Maguire as the original Russell. The bodysnatcher got bodysnatched. That’s something like poetic justice.

I just have to post this because it’s such a beautiful shot!

Rating: 8/10

#the 100 #the 100 season 7 #the 100 7x01 #from the ashes #clarke griffin #john murphy #jordan green #bellamy blake #echo kom azgeda #madi griffin #the anomaly

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tonystarkbingo · 4 years

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TSB September Flash, Week 4 Roundup!

AND THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE, FOLKS! At least, until our next round starts in a couple weeks...

For our participants, remember to go claim your badges!

If you wanna be a participant in Round Four and you’re not yet, go sign up!

And for all of you... make sure you leave the creators below some love!

Title: Her Epilogue Collaborator: Fighting_for_Creativity Link: AO3 Square Filled: 023 - Epilogue Ship: Peggy/Daniel Rating: Teen Major Tags: Tony remembers, Daniel needs a Hug, Peggy needs a hug, everyone gets a hug, Angst with Happy Ending, AI Peggy, Canonical Character Death Summary: On the day of Peggy Carter's funeral, Tony remembers snippets of his childhood with her and Daniel Sousa. Word Count: 2196

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Title: Harley Keener (and a very not-to-scale Potato Gun Mark I) Collaborator: newnewyorker93 Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 022 - Harley Keener Ship: None Rating: Gen Major Tags: crafts, Iron Man 3 Summary: Felt figure of Harley Keener and his potato gun from Iron Man 3.

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Title: Are we There Yet? Collaborator: tisfan Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 024 - Bleeding Edge Ship: Tony/Logan Rating: Teen Major Tags: Kidnapping, Roughed Up Summary: Tony gets kidnapped. Again. You’d really think bad guys would learn better. Word Count: 598

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Title: Fated to Telling Only Lies Collaborator: Politzania Link: AO3 Square Filled: 023 - Epilogue Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Canonical Character Deaths, canon divergence, Winter Soldier POV Summary: After his mission to eliminate the elder Stark, the Soldier is assigned to befriend the Stark heir and win him over to the cause. But there’s something about Tony Stark that just might loosen the Fist of Hydra’s grip on his goal. Word Count: 1413

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Title: Smells Like Teenage Drama Collaborator: MagicaDraconia16 Link: AO3 Square Filled: 027 - Peter Parker Ship: Tony/Rhodey/Loki/Rhodey/Strange & Peter Rating: Teen Major Tags: Teenage drama, Peter Parker is scarred for life, implied/referenced 5-way poly (as above), way too many father figures Summary: When you're a teenage superhero, it's bad enough to have one father figure, never mind two or three. Let alone five. Peter Parker would like to reiterate: he is not a child! Word Count: 2638

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Title: F.R.I.D.A.Y. I’m in Love Collaborator: eachpeachpearplum Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - FRIDAY Ship: Tony & FRIDAY Rating: Gen Major Tags: music, art Summary: Tony sing as he works, and FRIDAY is just as sassy as her brother was.

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Title: An Arctic Adventure Collaborator: lemon_juices Link: AO3 Square Filled: 027 - Sight Ship: pre-Stony Rating: Gen Major Tags: merpeople AU, ocean sex Summary: Featuring Steve Rogers, a marine biologist in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. Also featuring Tony Stark, a merman who lives in the Arctic Ocean. When Steve first sets his eyes on Tony he can't stop thinking about him, and Tony can't forget about Steve. Another trip to the frigid cold ocean and let's see what happens... Word Count: 2572

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Title: Centrifugal Force Collaborator: tisfan Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 024 - Taste Ship: Teen Rating: WinterIron Major Tags: temporary amnesia, not single crying meme, alcoholism, bad coping mechanisms, playground Summary: “That sounds like one of my very bad, no good ideas,” Tony confessed. “Usually,” the man said. Word Count: 588

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Title: It’s Only a Paper Moon - Chapter 3 Collaborator: sierranovembr Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 025 - Sound Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Depiction of a mental asylum, established relationship, Edwin Jarvis Summary: Fighting aliens alongside Captain America? A loving, supportive fiancé who overlooks the many flaws of Tony Stark? Tony often thought his life was too amazing to be real. He might be right about that. Word Count: 1370

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Title: New Family Members Collaborator: fightingforcreativity Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - FRIDAY Ship: Tony with whoever you choose Rating: Teen Major Tags: Cute, Bots, Bot Family, Tony’s army of bots Summary: Tony really shouldn’t tinker after watching a movie and running on little to no sleep. Albeit… Maybe he should do it more often. Word Count: 735

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Title: What’s in a Name? Collaborator: Politzania Link: AO3 Square Filled: 023 - FRIDAY Ship: Tony & FRIDAY Rating: Gen Major Tags: Drabble, slice of life Summary: Tony explains to his latest creation where her name came from. Word Count: 100

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Title: True Colours Collaborator: lbibliophile-mcu Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 022 - Thoughts Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: motivational poster Summary: Hold your head high, wear your colours, proud. Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd.

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Title: all those shadows (almost killed your light) Collaborator: dixiehellcat Link: AO3 Squares Filled: 026 - Chapter 1, Infinity Gauntlet; chapter 2, Morgan Stark; chapter 3, smell; chapter 4, alternative POV; chapter 5, PTSD Ship: Pepperony Rating: Gen Major Tags: Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie). Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Lives, the Russos whomst, idk them, back on my brand, Carol Danvers is a Good Bro, Prosthetics, Body Modification, Nightmares. Tony Stark Needs a Hug. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD Summary: Post-Endgame, Tony’s life is a healing process. Word Count: 3759

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Title: Before They Outlaw the Kiss Collaborator: ralsbecket Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 026 - Alternate POV Ship: Stony Rating: Teen Major Tags: N/A Summary: Steve must have had an awfully pained expression on his face without realizing because before he knew it, Tony was getting up from his seat beside him and extending a hand. “Dance with me,” he requested, smiling at him softly.

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Title: Touch Collaborator: SaganaRojanaOlt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - Touch Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: Art Summary: N/A Word Count: N/A

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Title: Family Reunion Collaborator: Politzania Link: AO3 Square Filled: 023 - Touch Ship: Pepperony Rating: Gen Major Tags: Post Avengers: Infinity War, domestic fluff, ‘bot fic Summary: Tony and Pepper introduce Morgan to her older siblings. Word Count: 1071

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Title: ARC-reactor Collaborator: Menatiera Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 027 - ARC-reactor Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: arc reactor, polymer clay Summary: they’re tiny! :)

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Title: War Machine Collaborator: Fighting_for_Creativity Link: AO3 Square Filled: 023 - War Machine Ship: Tony/Rhodey Rating: Teen Major Tags: Soft, Hurt/Comfort, Rhodey POV, Tony needs a hug and gets one Summary: The whole 'acquiring a suit by any means' situation sucked big time. Good thing Rhodey knew where his loyalties ultimately lay. Also, pretending to steal something from Tony at least meant that Rhodey could spend some time with him beforehand. Word Count: 1131

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Title: War Machine Collaborator: SaganaRojanaOlt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - War Machine Ship: None Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: War Machine Art

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Title: On the watch Collaborator: Menatiera Link: AO3 Square Filled: 027 - Peter Parker Ship: Stuckony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Winter on a mission, Bucky and Winter are separate personalities, happy ending Summary: The Winter Soldier takes his missions seriously. This Mark shouldn't cause any troubles. And then he does. Word Count: 3427

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Title: Insomnia Collaborator: SaganaRojanaOlt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - Insomnia Ship: None Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: Tony Stark art

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Title: Drifting, Falling, Floating Weightless Collaborator: MagicaDraconia16 Link: AO3 Squares Filled: 027 - Image: Drift (adopted - ch1) | Nightmares (ch2) Ship: Pepperony Rating: Teen Major Tags: Angst, nightmares, post Infinity War, during Endgame, mentions of panic attacks Summary: After the Battle of New York, Tony was plagued by nightmares of space. The events of the immediate aftermath of the Infinity War have not made things better. Word Count: 1476

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Title: Birth of an AI Collaborator: SaganaRojanaOlt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - FRIDAY Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: Tony and FRIDAY art

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Title: Battery Now Included Collaborator: MagicaDraconia16 Link: AO3 Square Filled: 027 - Arc Reactor Ship: Tony & The Bots Rating: Gen Major Tags: An overabundance of bot feels? Summary: When Tony returns home from Afghanistan, the bots notice that something has changed... Word Count: 386

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Title: Sight Collaborator: Menatiera Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 027 - Sight Ship: Stuckony Rating: Gen Major Tags: retired!steve, blind!steve, happy!steve Summary: Moodboard and summary. Steve goes blind and retires - much to his boyfriends Tony’s and Bucky’s bafflement.

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Title: Happily ever after Collaborator: SaganaRojanaOlt Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 023 - Epilogue Ship: Steve/Sam Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: art of Sam and Steve

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Title: Wanna Be Somebody to Someone Collaborator: ralsbecket Link: AO3 Square Filled: 026 - MIT Years (adopted square) Ship: Stony Rating: Mature Major Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, MIT Era, Football Player Steve Rogers, Twink Tony Stark, Engineer Tony Stark, Howard Stark’s Good Parenting, TwinkTonyEvent, Crush at First Sight, One-Sided Attraction, (or so he thinks), (Steve’s an oblivious awkward doof), Dirty Thoughts, Masturbation, Hopeful Ending, unedited because we die as men Summary: Steve Rogers thought that he was fairly observant. He had to be when he was on the field; it was the sole reason he was offered a full-ride scholarship to be a tight-end for Boston University’s football team. But he learned embarrassingly quickly that his one blind spot involved a lanky-limbed, spectacle-wearing, tousle-haired brunet. Word Count: 2573

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Title: Heart of Iron - the movie night Collaborator: Menatiera Link: AO3 Square Filled: 027 - Director commentary Ship: Pepperony Rating: Gen Major Tags: heart of iron - the documentary, the stark family watches the documentary about tony together, peter parker pov, endgame fix-it, retired tony stark Summary: “You must be kidding me,” Peter said. It’s not like he wasn’t willing to sacrifice himself in many ways for the greater good (which in this case meant the happiness of his chosen people), but he figured there should be a line to draw in the sand even in that regard. Tony apparently wasn’t on the same page, because he raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Either this or you can watch Trolls with Morgan again; it’s your choice.” Word Count: 4250

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Title: Reveal on skin Collaborator: Menatiera Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 027 - Nightmares Ship: Stuckony Rating: Gen Major Tags: moodboard, cursed!tony Summary: Moodboard and summary. Villain of the Week casts a curse on Tony to “reveal his true nature on his skin”. Instead of horrors, though, Tony’s hands start to resemble the night sky with thousands of stars.

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Title: Rock-a-bye Tony Collaborator: lbibliophile-mcu Link: Tumblr Square Filled: 022 - Rescue Ship: IronHusbands Rating: Gen Major Tags: edit Summary: Tony crash-lands, and Rhodey is no help at all. “Rock-a-bye Tony in the tree tops…”

#tonystarkbingo #tsbflash #tsbfmiv #tsb weekly roundup #tsb flash week 4

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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162. Sonic the Hedgehog #94

Okay, okay. I know. I know how many of you just put your heads down on the table in complete exasperation. I get it. But just stick with it. Bear with me here. I had the same reaction when I first read through the comics - the reaction of why the hell does a Sonic the Hedgehog comic have a back to school episode?! - but in the end, it does tie further into previous points I've made about Sonic's character as well as the state of the war. That said, Spaz, what the hell happened to Mina up there? Why does she look… like that? Sonic and Tails look totally normal but Mina looks like she was dragged straight out of some badly drawn early 90s anime that only aired once in Japan and was never even officially subbed because it was so low quality. I know you're a better artist than that, Spaz, we've seen your work before! Come on!

New Order

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: FRY Colors: Frank Gagliardo

So right away, we've jumped forward a month and a half from last issue. That's one hell of a time skip, especially for a comic that doesn't usually do big time skips.

Of course, Sonic is not at all happy about being confined to Knothole. We’re talking about a character whose entire personality has always revolved around being able to run free and fight back against anything threatening his friends, who's now stuck hanging out in his room all day. Worse still, the entire time he's been in Knothole, he hasn't seen Sally once, having been prevented from seeing her by a combination of his house arrest and her royal duties. He still finds himself thinking about her, however, and she in turn has been thinking about him.

I honestly really like the use of Art Mawhinney's art to indicate that she's looking at a photo from when they were younger, given that his cartoony style contrasts with the more anime-like style that the comic has been going for lately. Also, while it's great that Sally has her family back at last, it's still concerning that they've been monopolizing 100% of her time lately so she hasn't had any time to see her old friends, even though they live in the same village. Sonic has also found his mind preoccupied with thoughts of the Overlanders he failed to save, who are still stuck inside Robotropolis for the time being, with shadow-bots enforcing nighttime curfews on them and keeping a close eye on their activities. Colin, exploring the palace, finds his brother working on something in the lab, and in the interest of keeping his dealings secret Eggman overenthusiastically invites him, along with Agnes and Hope, to spend some time together as a family. Hope, to her credit, seems very suspicious of Eggman, officially making her the smartest Overlander here despite being only fourteen or so (at least, the wiki has extrapolated that age from the dates of other significant events like the Great War and the length of the first war against Robotnik, though I'd personally put her at more like twelve). Eggman, to deflect from questions concerning how much he's changed over the years, asks Colin to describe why he and the other Overlanders were apparently just hangin' out in space for the past ten years.

Really, this entire interaction seems like something that should have happened right after the Overlanders' first entrance into the city, not six whole weeks afterwards, but eh, whatever. Anyway, Sonic finds himself unable to sleep properly the night before starting school, and gets irritated when Tails teases him about Sally being in looooove with him and wanting to get married in the future. The next morning, they find themselves roughly awakened by an earthquake, and immediately spring into action, falling right back into their routine as heroes.

At least Sonic is still able to keep his heroic actions up even when confined to the village, eh? In Robotropolis, Eggman visits Snively in his prison cell, and Snively begs not to be roboticized for being caught out after dark. Eggman agrees, in return for his loyalty of course, as well as zipping his lips about Eggman's true intentions for the Overlanders. He even decides to give Snively a little more incentive, in the form of a promise of revenge against his father Colin for not recognizing his brilliance all those years ago…

After breakfast, Sonic and Tails meet up with Bunnie and Rotor. Amy, if you'll recall, is still back in Mercia with her cousin Rob, and interestingly, Antoine isn't part of the crowd heading to school at all, suggesting that by now he's past high school age, making him the oldest Freedom Fighter. Sonic is concerned and disappointed that Sally is nowhere in sight, and reluctantly parts from Tails to go to his own class, since Tails is with the younger kids. However, back in Robotropolis, Hope has found herself becoming too suspicious of Eggman to ignore her concerns any longer…

Uh oh, Hope, you may have seen something you weren't supposed to see… better get back to safety before Eggman finds out about that and silences you. Tails is heading toward his class with the other kids when he realizes he's lost his bookbag somewhere, and in retracing his steps to find it, he suddenly finds himself confronted by the ghostly image of Athair, who tells him that he's needed as the Chosen One immediately and teleports him away, to the bafflement of a watching turtle in the hallway. Sonic gets to his class, and Mina is happy to see him there, thrilled that they're sitting near each other. Bunnie arrives as well, but when Sonic tries to introduce her to Mina she only gives her a cold "howdy," her mood suddenly turning quite chilly. And then, their teacher arrived, and class begins…

So this is what I was talking about before. We've already been over in previous issues how when it comes down to it, Sonic and the other Freedom Fighters are child soldiers who have never known a day of peace in their life. At least back when Robotnik was thought to be defeated permanently and the king was trying to get the kingdom back to a state of relative normality, Sonic was able to partially come to terms with the idea and find happiness in being able to settle down with his family. But now, the kingdom is back in a state of active war, and here he is, the spearhead of the resistance, forced to stay out of the conflict and learn physics and algebra in a standard high school setting. It's obvious that it's getting to him in a big way. We sort of end up stuck in this strange position where on the one hand, yeah, children and teenagers shouldn't have to be the ones on the front lines of a war, and should get a chance to just act their age and have a childhood, but on the other hand, Sonic the legitimate war hero is now stuck in Knothole with his hands tied, twiddling his thumbs while everyone else, even the others his age and younger (remember, he's the only Freedom Fighter on house arrest), are free to go and do whatever they like. It doesn't even seem like anyone has had the idea to try and get the Sword of Acorns back from Eggman, even though that's what started this whole mess. Honestly, I just feel bad for him. Once class has finally ended - after one hour of agonizing boredom for Sonic - he and Bunnie approach Nate, asking why they haven't seen Sally at the school yet. They're shocked to hear that she is instead receiving private lessons at the castle, only further isolating her from everyone else…

The Best Laid Plans…

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Rom Lim Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Unlike the previous story, there's no time skip at all between last issue and this one - I'm just going to presume, honestly, that the disappearance of the Floating Island is an event that happened during that time skip, and the main story has only just caught up to it, because otherwise the timeline makes no sense. Nic is surprised to find Nack returning to her without Knuckles in tow, but is quite pleased when he tells her they got their money and a bonus to boot, and can wash their hands of the whole affair. As they leave, they remember that they left Charmy and Saffron further into the woods, but decide not to worry about it, as in the end, what can a couple of little bees do? Charmy and Saffron, meanwhile, begin to realize that they've been left alone, and immediately spring into action, hoping they can reach Knuckles before anything bad happens. Unfortunately, that's not really in the cards, as Knuckles has already been hooked up to the Chaos Syphon, with another echidna linked in on the opposite side, presumably to act as a conduit for the energy being sucked from Knuckles so it doesn't just explode into the air. At least, that's what I'm assuming, because it doesn't really specify, but this echidna does become important later on, so I figured I should mention him. Gala-Na again offers a weak non-apology for what she's about to do, before ordering the syphon switched on.

So, this is torture. This is just straight up an actual torture scene. Gala-Na is knowingly, willingly, torturing a sixteen year old because she's afraid of the power he wields despite him not even asking to be born with it in the first place. If anything, Locke should be the one facing punishment for what he's put Knuckles through, but of course, we know Penders would never let that happen. Knuckles starts screaming uncontrollably, and to the shock of the echidna onlookers, begins trying to resist the power of the syphon, making Gala-Na worry he might actually break free. The other echidna on the receiving end of the energy also begins to feel the pain, yelling that he thinks he can't handle any more, and while the others try to encourage him to hang in there, Charmy and Saffron happen upon the awful scene. As Knuckles finds himself actually reduced to begging for it to stop through gritted teeth and Gala-Na gives another "apology" to her "young friend" (can you guys tell how much I hate her? Is it too obvious?), Charmy and Saffron dive in towards the operators, hoping they can stop the syphon before Knuckles gets hurt too much more. Of course, this is Penders writing, so he can't resist throwing in another weird, stilted 90s feminist comment somewhere.

Earth to Penders: women don't actually talk like that. Also, oh yeah, remember that whole "flight mode" thing where apparently bees can turn small or big as they please? I almost forgot about that, but I guess that's what's supposed to be happening here. With the device shut off, Knuckles breaks free of the syphon, but only seems more powerful than ever, with his irises replaced by pure white eyes, and as everyone watches he disappears in a flash of energy. Gala-Na, aghast that her plans seem to have only made things worse (GEE, YOU THINK, GALA-NA?), tries to contact the weasels once again before they get out of range, but they witnessed the entire thing from the air and refuse to get involved any more than they already have, leaving a horrified Gala-Na to stand over the now-unconscious echidna on the receiving end of the energy, wondering what to do next…

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 94 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: james fry #pencils: ron lim #colors: frank gagliardo

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lookbluesoup · 5 years

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Nate and Piper’s Fallout

@ronqueesha @viewfromthevault OKAY SINCE YOU LOVELIES AND AN ANON ASKED about the big meltdown between Nate and Piper I will now proceed to overshare thanks! If I didn’t have a gazillion billion other WIPs I’d probably have turned this into a novel by now! Lol I’m not sure if it will ever get polished enough to post online. REGARDLESS it’s important to me and I hope at least a little interesting for you all to hear about xD

THAT BEING SAID I know I have some followers who don’t like spoilers, and if I ever do finish that fic, this wordvomit is gonna be basically the entire outline. SO everything is under the cut! In contrast to most of his story, Nate’s also a bit of an ass here! Keep reading at your own peril! 😱

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Nate realizes he’s in love with Piper the day he breaks into the Institute. Up until that point, finding Shaun took precedence over everything else. Nate had helped the Commonwealth a lot, but he couldn’t really start building a new life for himself while still chasing the old one.

Getting into the Institute was… disorienting, to say the least. Too clean, too organized, too friendly towards him after all the carnage he’s seen on the surface. When Father encourages Nate to stay and help make a better world, and Nate is presented with the idea of possibly having to choose between the Institute or the Commonwealth, it really tips him sideways. He starts to realize that he’s already been laying the foundation for a new beginning. On the surface. With Piper. And Preston. And Curie and Deacon and Nick and the Minutemen and the Railroad.

Father gives Nate the run of the Institute so of course Nate noses into every single nook and cranny. When a particularly friendly scientist greets Nate and conveys their hope that “the Institute can feel like home,” Nate remembers what the Institute has done to the homes of others. They talk to him about how there’s “nothing out there” on the surface. Nate thinks of Piper. Those living under Father dismiss the Commonwealth as just a dying remnant and Nate is surprised by the anger that sentiment inspires in him. The people on the surface are fighting hard to survive. He’s bled and sacrificed beside them. He sees it as arrogance for the Institute to claim having “humanity’s best interest at heart” and yet be so out of touch with humanity.

It’s Piper’s door Nate comes crashing through when he returns to the surface. It’s her advice he seeks out to come to terms with the revelation that Shaun is the Director of the Institute, and that once again, Nate’s sense of reality has been turned on its head.

He goes back and forth for a while. Father tolerates it with the expectation that once Nate gets a feel for the Institute he will make the right choice and join them. Nate has to be very careful to avoid the Watchers, who now have a vested interest in following him around. Desdemona urges Nate to maintain the charade for as long as it takes to liberate the synths. He agrees, and it’s at some point during this back and forth he and Piper come to terms with their feelings for one another.

That’s where it starts. And he and the Railroad are on the same page, 100% - except for Shaun.

Because Shaun is still Nate’s baby. And there is nothing more important to Nate than family. Even when that family is misguided.

He desperately wants to avoid escalating the conflict. After the shock wears off, he gets the idea that it might be possible to work not as a double-agent, but an ambassador between the surface and underground. If given enough time with the Institute, by earning their trust, Nate hopes to bridge the gap and bring about a cease-fire between the factions.

Piper’s initially supportive of the effort. If he can find one, a solution that doesn’t end in bloodshed and dead friends is preferable. They have a brief honeymoon of stolen moments that are carefully concealed from the Institute, for the sake of his cover. They still travel together openly as ‘friends’ and she even accompanies him to the Libertalia (where X6 manages to reclaim Gabriel) and Bunker Hill (where Nate helps the runaway synths escape and claims he was ambushed to protect his cover). So for a while, they’re still working together. And then Nate starts disappearing for longer and longer stretches of time.

Father is increasingly demanding. The ability to relay makes travelling across the Commonwealth with X6 much faster and safer than trekking across no-man’s land from Diamond City or the Castle or anywhere else. Suddenly Piper doesn’t know where he is every day, or what he’s doing, or why. She has faith in him, but the distance hurts.

And the thing is, it’s almost impossible to work and fight and live alongside a group of people without becoming sympathetic towards them in some way, especially for someone as naturally empathetic and cooperative as Nate, and especially in a situation like his where he feels compelled to be loyal at least to his son.

So Nate’s a little too optimistic. Starts making excuses, forgets that just because he might have managed to solve a conflict without violence doesn’t mean the Institute wouldn’t have preferred to choose violence themselves. (i.e. they were going to kidnap Wallace and kill the Minutemen who’d come to defend him, but that’s not an issue because Nate managed to convince Wallace to join the Institute peacefully, first.)

Nate sees a chance for real peace when Father offers him the role of Director. Piper doesn’t. It can’t be that easy when Nate’s still insisting they keep their relationship a secret for fear it might compromise his station and put them in danger. She reserves judgement at Nate’s request. But a whitewashed box underground could never be home to her; there could never be a future for them as a pair. And what else will Nate have to compromise to secure the loyalty of a group of people with such vastly different morals? Will they still take him as Director when the know how he really feels about the synths and the world above ground? If they know he intends to shut down the Retention Bureau and share technology with the Commonwealth? She just can’t see it happening.

He and Piper start arguing. Nate stops telling her about his missions. Stops telling her much of anything.

Rumours start finding their way back to her about the Institute’s meddling. Sometimes they’re violent. Sometimes informants talk about a man who sounds a bit like Nate, but Piper can’t bring herself to believe it. The stories must be exaggerated, or misinformed, because her Blue would never do those things. Not even to protect his cover. When she finally does get the chance to confront him, Nate’s evasive, leading her to believe at least some part of the stories must be true.

This straight up SUCKS for Piper because he’s doing what the others in Diamond City did. Suddenly he doesn’t want to talk, he treats her like she’s nosy. She isn’t his confidant anymore, and even worse she doesn’t know if she can trust him. All of this right after she opened her heart to him. It scares her, and when he only gives her more reasons to suspect he’s siding with the Institute - it makes her angry.

The night he breaks into Travis’s trailer to hack Diamond City radio and pick up reports from McDonough, Nate doesn’t even stop by Publick to tell Piper he’s in town. She crosses paths with him by sheer luck. He tries to wave it away with the excuse of “not wanting to upset her" and when the conversation gets heated, relays away. She’s pissed and pretty damn hurt. She takes all her collected intel and writes up an entire article condemning the “General” for his dereliction of duty, but doesn’t publish it.

After the Institute’s broadcast airs, Nate comes back to apologize. But he continues to insist the secrecy was necessary. And Piper pulls out all the stops. It’s gone too far. She doesn’t know what side he’s on. People are getting hurt, and he hardly seems to care anymore. Nate fails to realize what thin ice he’s on at first. (there IS an old draft of that fight here on my ao3!)

It gets heated, Nate tries to use protecting Piper as an excuse, which she will have absolutely none of, and then Nate takes a shot at her paper and tries to end the fight by insisting she just isn’t able to understand. Which he realizes, immediately, is a step too far. But the damage is already done. Piper compares Nate to Kellogg, and honestly stabbing him probably would have hurt less, kicks him out of her house, and it looks like it’s over between them.

Nate returns to the Institute wounded and angry. Father takes note of how distracted Nate seems, which prompts Nate to expose his frustration at Piper and her lack of understanding. Father remembers meeting her after the botched Battle of Bunker Hill and dismisses her small mind. Her troublemaking attitude has no place in the new future.

Nate spends the next few days going through the motions. It would be easier to just agree with Shaun and dismiss Piper’s challenge as nothing but ignorance. But that doesn’t sit quite right. Losing her is a harsh blow and her accusations weigh on Nate.

Karma’s pretty swift. Father comes to Nate with an ultimatum. The Railroad has to be put down. Shaun reveals he’s known all along about Nate’s history of involvement with them, and that it’s the last thing standing in the way of proving his loyalty. Nate tries to negotiate, and then outright refuses to kill his friends. Father stops playing nice. He orders Nate to destroy the Railroad. Realizing it’s the end of the line, Nate reverts to the old military, “Yes, sir.” but there’s a chasm in his heart. He has to choose. He can’t wait it out any longer. And Piper was right.

On the way back to his room, his synth informant warns him that the Brotherhood has also tracked the Railroad down, and are on their way to destroy the church. Choosing Shaun would be as easy as doing nothing at all. But Nate relays to Hanover Street and hits the ground running, knowing full well he’ll never set foot inside the Institute as an ally again.

Piper, meanwhile, had come to the conclusion that she couldn’t keep Nate’s waffling loyalty a secret from the Railroad any longer. She had traveled to HQ to inform Des her Agent might be compromised. And it’s about that time Nate comes crashing through the door wild-eyed with his desperate warning.

They’ve definitely had better reunions.

#sorry this took so long to answer!!#text #long post #nate trivia #nate ronan #pipan #piper wright #institute #shaun #father #railroad #fallout #fallout 4 #ask

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namjuicyy · 5 years

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A Father’s Love - Chapter Six

Masterlist | Requests are open.

Genre: Angst, fluff, smut.

Genre of this part: Angst.

Word Count: 3.1k.

Summary: Single father, Namjoon, struggles to keep his idol life and his private life separate. When he meets you, everything changes.

Warnings: None.

One minute you were walking on the clouds, dodging the minor holes that you might have fallen through had you not been vigilant. The next you were falling from the skies, trying to clutch onto everything you'd built within the last year, yet there was nothing.

You didn't see Jungkook for the rest of the day. You'd switched your phone off during the photoshoot so that you wouldn't be disturbed, so at nine o'clock when you turned your phone back on, you were bombarded with notifications, missed calls and text messages from all seven members of Bangtan, not just Namjoon. Everything felt so strange, and you couldn't quite figure out what was wrong.

You jumped at your phone ringing, not expecting the sudden loud noise and pop up. It was Namjoon. "___?" He asked immediately. His voice was deep and cracking.

"Joonie, what's wrong?"

"Oh thank God. Have you seen the news?"

"No, why?"

"I'll tell you when you come to mine. Please don't check anywhere online. This is something that needs to come from me."

"Namjoon, you're scaring me. Tell me what's wrong."

"I'm sending Yongsik with the car to come and pick you up. He's almost there. You know I love you, right?"

"Of course. I love you too."

Namjoon didn't say goodbye. You had suspicions that he was crying so he couldn't say it. You were terrified to say the least. You had no idea what was going on but all you knew was that something bad had happened and he wasn't telling you what it was. You could have screamed in frustration.

50 missed calls from Namjoon, 100 texts. Situated in the middle of the notification centre was the dreaded article that Namjoon had asked you not to look at. But you did. You saw the headline. And there was no going back now. You pressed the notification leading to the article, your heart pounding in your chest and tears threatening to spill over. This can't be true. There must be some kind of mistake. Haneul's mum died when he was 15-months, you were sure of it. Namjoon told you so.

The article told you everything you didn't want to know. Haneul's name was right there in digitally printed letters, along with a photograph of him being held by Namjoon when he was a baby. Namjoon and his partner at the time... wait... Minji? This can't be right. Why was Minji there at Haneul's birth? Unless... no... it couldn't be. Tears streamed from your eyes as you continued to read the article. Someone you considered to be a friend spouting the biggest bullshit you've seen in a while all about the two men in your life whom you absolutely adored. She told everyone that she and Haneul and her were incredibly close and that she was about to give love a second try with Namjoon. They were due to split with their current partners to be together. That was when your heart broke. Namjoon had called you to break up with you. He'd called you out of courtesy. You weren't supposed to read the article because he wanted to tell you in person. At least he was decent, you couldn't deny that.

When Yongsik pulled up, everything inside you was screaming to not get into the car. Your brain was telling you to run towards the nearest train station and stay on it until the last stop, which you very nearly did. But your loyalty to the man who hadn't shown the same to you was too strong, and you needed answers that running away wouldn't give you. So you got into Yongsik's car, and watched as Seoul drove by, the nightscape drenched in the rain providing the perfect backdrop for your mood. Everything hurt. Your eyes, your heart. And what didn't hurt felt empty, and numb. Your teeth were tingling with the amount you'd cried with an open mouth.

Yongsik kept looking at you in his rear-view mirror. You could tell he wanted to say something, but it wasn't his job to. He knew exactly why you were crying, and you could see the pity in his eyes. This angered you. You didn't want to be pitied. You didn't want anyone to feel sorry for you because your boyfriend had broken up with you via media so he could get back with his dead ex-partner and play happy families.

When you pulled up to Namjoon's building, you took your time getting out the car and walking up to the front door. You punched the number into the door, kicked your shoes off and made your way to the living area, your coat remaining on your body to allow you a quicker getaway.

You could see Namjoon sat there, eyes red raw from crying and his leg bouncing nervously as he waited for you. When he looked up, he saw you, your face mimicking his making him wonder if he was looking into a mirror. He knew as soon as he'd seen the makeup running down your face that you'd done what he'd asked you not to do and read the article.

"You lied to me." Your voice was quieter than you wanted it to be, but loud enough for Namjoon to hear it, and even flinch at the pain present in your voice. "You told me she was dead."

Namjoon shook his head. "I didn't. I just told you she left. You came to the conclusion she died."

Your anger burst out of you suddenly. "So this is my fault? If you knew I thought she'd died, Namjoon, then why didn't you correct me?"

"Because as far as I was concerned, she was dead. She hadn't bothered with me or Haneul in years! Why would I say to you, 'oh, by the way, Minji might come back after abandoning her son any day now, so expect that', when as far as I was aware, she was in Busan screwing some fucking English teacher who she later married?"

"You still should have corrected me, Namjoon! You should have told me that she was still alive and that I was wrong! At least this wouldn't have hurt as much as it does!"

"And I'm sorry for that. I just thought I was doing the right thing."

"Well clearly you thought wrong."

Silence. Namjoon agreed with you. He couldn't say another word. He just watched you take a seat on the couch opposite him. You cleared your throat and broke the silence again.

"I can't do this. If you kept her hidden from me, what else have you kept hidden from me?"

"Nothing, I swear."

You began to sob. "How can I believe that, Joon? How do I know that our entire relationship hasn't been built on secrets and mistakes? How can I trust you again? Us? How?"

He was crying too, watching your heart break was ripping him to shreds. "Don't say that. We... we can get through this. Please don't say that."

"Can we? I don't know who you are. I could cope with the fans and the news articles about me. I could cope with the long days in the studio and you coming home exhausted from dance practise. I could cope with taking care of Haneul like he was my own, in fact, that was one of the things I loved most. Him. And you. I can't cope with this, Joon. You should have told me."

"I know I should have and I'm so sorry. There aren't any words to tell you just how sorry I am. I will to anything, anything to make it up to you. You tell me what it is and I'll do it."

"Do you want to get back with her?"

"No. I have you." He got on his knees and crawled over to you, grabbing hold of your hand and holding it tightly. "Why would I want her when I have you? A beautiful," he kissed your hand, "kind," his lips travelled upwards, "funny," each word he punctuated with a kiss further up your body, "sweet, amazing, smart, talented woman? You make me so happy every single day, ___. I wake up each morning with my son one side of me and my stunning girlfriend the other side and I can't believe just how fucking lucky I am. I love you so fucking much I feel like my heart could burst."

You didn't want to ask this question. You shouldn't have. You knew you wouldn't like the answer so you should have just kept it to yourself, joined him on the floor and kissed him. You should have told him that everything would be okay and that you'd stay with him no matter what. But you didn't. You opened your mouth and regretted it immediately. "Do you still love her?" Namjoon sat back and looked away from you. He didn't say anything. You could tell he was sat there trying to think of a way to answer your question. His non-immediate answer was the final straw. "Goodbye, Namjoon."

You stood and walked towards the door. You heard him stand and run towards you. He ran in front of you and put his hands on either side of the wall to block your path to the front door. "No, please don't do this. I'm begging you, ___. Don't leave us."

"Get out of my way, Namjoon."

"No."

"Namjoon, move!"

"No!"

You tried to push passed him but it was useless. He was too strong for you. His large hands grabbed hold of your shoulders and pushed you against the wall. You didn't have time to fight back as his lips were on yours, pinning you there in a passionate kiss. All teeth and tongues but it was somehow everything you needed at that time. Your brain was telling you to push him away and leave him in the hallway. But your body and your heart was letting him unzip your coat and throw it to the floor. Your body was allowing him to press open mouthed kisses to your neck as he removed your jeans. Allowed him to drop to his knees and put his tongue on you while you were still pressed to the wall, hands in his hair and wet eyes closing in pure pleasure as his plump lips wrapped around your clit and sucked in the way you loved. He'd spent so many nights with you, he knew exactly how to push your buttons and make you feel absolutely amazing. And tonight was no exception.

He slipped two fingers passed your entrance, diving deep into your wetness and making you sing. He started to stroke you in that way that hit your spot, your hips bucking at the sensation and soon enough you were cumming around his mouth, gasping for oxygen and tugging at his hair.

He didn't give you time to come down, he rarely did when he was this worked up. Instead, he kissed you, and dragged you into his bedroom, throwing your clothes and his all over the apartment for a worry at a later time. As soon as you were in, he closed the door and his lips locked onto yours, pushing you towards the bed and falling on top of you.

Whenever Namjoon was inside you, regardless of the mood or the kind of sex you were having, it always felt right. Tonight, despite saying goodbye, was no exception. As he entered you, he looked into your eyes as he always did, thrusted in and watched your face as you stretched around him, the burn feeling exquisite to both of you. One thrust in, hard, deep, nearly hitting your cervix, earning one loud moan from you and a grunt from him. He could never keep quiet during sex, something you loved about him. Another thrust, then another, until he'd got bored of that and started to move faster, his thrusts slower and softer but feeling no less pleasurable.

No words were exchanged between the two of you like there was usually. It was just the sound of your cunt swallowing him greedily, and his kisses pressing against your skin. He played with your clit to get you to cum a second time, making sure that you got everything you needed before he even started to chase his own orgasm. And, when you came the second time, everything seemed to freeze. Your body, time, the world. All you could feel was him inside you and how good he'd made you feel.

Namjoon came inside you, something you'd only ever let him do a handful of times. He didn't pull out immediately either, instead, he collapsed onto you leaving his cock in your cunt and his head in your neck. He breathed in your scent, fingertips traced your skin. It was almost as if he was memorising your body a second time, getting to know you once more.

Haneul, you'd come to learn, had been staying in his uncle Tae's room. You found this out after Namjoon had fallen asleep next to you on the bed and you'd rushed around the apartment putting your clothes back on before any of his roommates caught you scampering around in the nude. Taehyung was entering the kitchen just as you were putting your top back on, and gave you a look mixed with pity and sadness.

"You talked it out then?" He asked. You simply nodded in reply. "What did you decide to do? I know Namjoon was worried you might leave him. Is that...?" Tae didn't finish his question because you'd crumbled and started crying in front of him, something you didn't want to do. Tae charged towards you, and wrapped you up in his arms, rocking you gently to try and soothe you. He knew that you'd just said goodbye to Namjoon, and he knew how much that would have broken both you and his hyung.

"He still loves her, Tae." You wept.

"He's always gonna love her. She gave birth to his son. He's not ever going to forget that is he?" He pushed you away and held onto your shoulders to look at your face. "But he's hopelessly in love with you, ___. Fuck, he wouldn't stop talking about you when you'd first met. And he still doesn't."

"He lied to me."

"And he feels like shit."

"So do I!"

"I'm not justifying his actions. He should have been clear with you from the start. But don't give up on what you have."

You looked around the kitchen and found that Haneul's things were still everywhere, meaning he was still here and not with his grandparents. "Where's Haneul?"

"In my room, asleep. Or he was. I don't know if he still is."

"Can I go see him?"

Tae nodded and gestured to his bedroom door, one of the partitioned rooms built into the living room. You crept inside, and saw the toddler asleep in a bed far too big for him. The sight alone was enough to make you cry again. He was such a gorgeous, innocent little boy, with a cheeky smile and a sense of humour that was far more intelligent than what a four-year-old boy should have. He was cute and cuddly, and completely obsessed with cars. And he loved the bones off you, even you could see it. Which made this tougher.

Selfishly, you knelt down beside him so your faces were level and gently shook him so he woke up. He was like his father and could fall asleep easily, so you knew he'd go back to sleep. His sleepy, big, brown eyes focussed on you and he smiled. "Hey, big guy." You said, rubbing his back.

"___, you're back!" He said. His voice was quiet and filled with sleep but he was still so excited to see you.

"Not for much longer, sweetie. I have to leave soon."

"You leave, or daddy leave? Because when Daddy leaves he's away for a long time and I get to see grammy and grandpa."

"I'll be away for a long, long time. So I've," you could feel the lump forming in your throat. You tried to keep it at bay. You couldn't let him see you cry. "I've just come to say goodbye. And tell you that I love you a whole bunch and that I'll miss you so much."

"Where are you going?"

"I'll still be in Korea. But I just might not visit."

"Is it because Daddy shouted at you? Because I heard it and he shouldn't have raised his voice. He always told me I shouldn't shout at anyone. But you shouted at Daddy too."

"I'm sorry, big guy. We didn't mean to upset you. I promise you, it won't happen again." Haneul nodded. "Right, you've got playgroup in the morning, haven't you? So, you'd better get back to sleep." You tucked him back in and watched him get settled in bed. "I love you, big guy."

"I love you too."

You placed one final kiss on the top of his head and then left the room, collapsing onto the sofa and crying as quietly as you could. Taehyung was sat on the sofa opposite you, he'd heard everything that you'd said and was crying himself.

"So this really is goodbye?" He asked.

"I'm sorry, Tae. I can't do this anymore. Look after each other, yeah?"

Taehyung nodded and gave you another hug, rubbing your back as he held you tightly. He couldn't understand why you were leaving, but he knew it was something you felt you needed to do, so he couldn't force you to stay. Instead, he helped you into your coat, gave you one last hug and said goodbye to you. Hoping it wasn't for the last time.

Namjoon's alarm buzzed at 6:30 the next morning. He switched it off, turned over to wrap his arm around you to find you'd gone. Your clothes were missing from his apartment which meant you took off some time during the night. His heart shattered for the final time that day.

Your alarm went off at 8. The bed was cold next to you and your eyes were still stinging from the amount you'd cried last night. The tears started up once more when your alarm had switched off from your phone and you saw your lock screen.

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bluh-bluh-liveblogging · 5 years

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Elite - First Episode!

So! Thoughts about the first episode of Elite that I just watched! I kind of… did not expect to enjoy this as much as I just did? The actors are great, I love picking up a bit of Spanish on the side (not a language I speak… like… at all xD) AND the filming is awesome!

Gorgeous imagery aside – and there sure is a lot of it – I also loved the way the narrative was structured around the murder that is about to have happened. This is an impression absolutely unique to the first episode of this series because this is where we see the story begin and end before the unravelling of story threads from the middle to the eventual conclusion takes place.

This episode was meant to suck you in and get you interested and HOO BOY HOWDY it accomplished its purpose! (For me, at least.)

Regarding the murder mystery, I really liked how the various forward-flashbacks were tied in with the overall story to manipulate the viewer‘s interpretation of singular scenes (adding emphasis on likely future developments like the enmity between Nadia and Lu comes to mind) and it did not feel overdone at all!

Regarding spoilers, mind, I‘m still at the first episode and everything here is pure speculation. Mostly. I should maybe tag spoilers for the victim reveal?

Because, let‘s face it. It was obvious who would die in the end the very second this character made an appearance. At least to me.

Now, because this is what I invariably focus on, no matter what media I consume, let‘s give the various characters in the show a not-really-in-depth-because-i-am-just-talking-into-the-void-and-not-submitting-a-report review!

First of all, Samu. He is the obvious main character, sweet, cautious and just interesting enough to distract from his nice-boy image that… burdens him tragically? His decision to completely opt out of demonstrating his abilities in English during class is interesting and… so far, the only interesting thing he has ever done, except for a few nice, witty one-liners. Don‘t get me wrong, I actually like characters that are capable of… not starting drama every few seconds and the fact that he‘s seemed to be the sole supporter of his family makes him likeable? But I just know that he‘s going to have SOME bullshit going on and make decisions that will downgrade my tentatively positive opinion of him severely. I KNOW IT. Also, I… really don‘t like Marina for some reason?

Marina, then! She also follows the stereotype of the main characters love interest – the Girl That Is Not Like The Others. Which is not necessarily a bad thing! I just dislike characters that, in turn, are more attracted by the attractiveness of rebellion than the actual people who represent it for them.

(But I really liked her chemistry with Mano (?) in the two seconds they interacted.) (But that is the problem! UGH, love triangles…) I really liked that she‘s HIV-positive though! I loved how that was represented! That was apparently the big drama with the previous scholarship student though? I also like how she doesn‘t give a damn. But all in all, hm. Meh. Not my type.

Mano (?) - Samu‘s older brother who just got out of prison! And we still don‘t know exactly how! He‘s demonstrated so far: an astounding inability to sympathize with all and any struggles his younger brother has faced AND come on. That was one obviously placed camera AND YOU DIDN‘T EVEN HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO COVER EITHER OF YOUR FACES COME TF ON WOULD IT HAVE BEEN SO HARD??? Also, flirting with the girl his lil bro is obviously dancing around already and hogging her instead of calling Samu? Seriously? That‘s just an asshole thing to do, no matter how much better you two seemed to get along, dammit!

Anyway. Then there‘s Guzman. I don‘t like him (yet). He‘s protective of his younger sister which, nice, would he not also completely ignore her wishes at the same time. His relationship with Lu seems built on the desire of the two powerhouses of the school to present a united front and also have some sex in bathrooms, but… are they actually happy together? Wait, wait. Are they even together openly? Nooooo, wait it was such a big thing that they were seen having sex! Hm. In that case, I don‘t get the nonchalance with which Lu suggests her boyfriend seduce another girl just to blackmail her. Are you that sure of his loyalty? Probably! Is that a really awful and manipulative thing to not only force a stranger but also your own boyfriend into? Yes!

But. I also know his type. He‘s the asshole with hidden depths that appear in fleeting glances only at first and then, when gradually revealed, make him your favourite character. I know that at one point I will be supposed to love him and I, a weak victim of viewer manipulation, probably will. I know how that one goes. (I still love Bellamy from The 100 with all my heart and I have suffered for it. Also only watched to the third season!)

Aside from the fact that she is gorgeous and the archetypical bitch, except also super smart, I can‘t say too much about Lu yet. Except that I ship her with Nadia, not that THAT is ever going to happen, I guess. Idk I kind of like her. In her capacity of being a huge asshole, that is.

Nadia! HOLY SHIT I LOVE HER!!! SHE IS THE BEST! And holy shit, the hijab thing was a biiig gun to pull out in the first episode, but when else, also, good demonstration of institutionalized prejudice and discrimination! (I was so mad, good job! Well, fucking awful that this is a thing that needs to be represented, but good job! And her statement about them restricting her based on their own dumb opinions and NOTHING else and how this is her belief and nobody is forcing her to wear it? YES YES YES GOOD GIRL! Screenshots from that scene were what convinced me to give this series a shot and holy shit, it was delivered so well!) I can‘t even say anything meaningful here, I just??? love her??? She is sassy and smart and NOT interested in the drama (which will change VERY soon and hoo boy is she going to seduce the SHIT out of Guzman while also falling in love, but I don‘t even mind. That much.)

Then there‘s Christian. I… really don‘t care for the second-hand embarrassment he keeps subjecting me to? And his attitude towards drugs and alcohol? And… uh… almost everything else? BUT! He handles all of the abuse directed at him with the same charm and grace that at first seems absolutely moronic but is soon (him walking through the school naked) revealed as an iron-hard sunny attitude? And I respect that. A lot. I will probably come to respect this dude even more as the story evolves, but I still don‘t like his character-archetype. But that‘s fine!

Also, Carla and this dude! Waaaaait did she only hook up with Christian because her boyfriend who‘s name I forgot was into it? She did not seem all that comfortable afterwards, which hints at QUITE the different power dynamic in that couple than is expected of them! I am very curious!

And! Ander! OMG he is SUCH a sweetheart! Sorry, I still think that getting high and making a dating app profile is dumb, but HE IS GAY and hooking up with Omar and he! Is the cutest! And only deserves good things! Please let him be happy!

Omar, for that matter… hm. He looks very tired. Also, why is he selling drugs? He‘s… Nadia‘s brother? I‘d like to see more of their sibling relationship tbh but… hm. Don‘t know what to think about him yet, but the drug thing kind of is a turn-off for me? I really hope to get to know more about him though, especially if he IS going to have a thing with Ander!

And I have many more thoughts about this and I really look forward to watching the second episode at some point in my life (which… uh… might happen sooner or later, but since my method of choosing stuff to watch includes maths and does not include personal opinion… probably later?) but now I‘m getting hungry and am going to eat something instead of screaming some more into the void.

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sweetpea-cc · 6 years

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Lovers of Mine / Chapter 5

Synopsis: Natala Halvorsen was Queen of Sicily and Norway when a group of traveling nobles made their way into her kingdom and into her life. Changed into an immortal being in 1113 A.D, she suddenly awakens another part of her that she believed to be dead. Soon, she becomes a sole interest of wicked games for the Mikaelson family. What happens after Natala resurfaces after being thought dead for over 100 years? 800 years by their side and she abandons them without a second thought.

Previously: “You’ll have to excuse my nephew. He’s always had a bit of a temper,” she spoke sardonically as she continued past Stefan, stopping next to Kol’s unconscious body where she kneeled down and gently caressed his face. Letting out a long sigh, she stood up facing Stefan and Elena. “Stefan. Elena. Perhaps it would be best to leave.” she said as if she were their mother. The two of them simply nodded and walked towards her as Natala’s eyes landed on each other the Mikaelson’s burning gaze.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

After what felt like an eternity of silence, Natala turned to leave but quickly, she was stopped by a grip on her arm. "I don't think so, sweetheart." His voice was low, not to mention just a little sickening and Natala once again cursed to herself. Coming face to face with Klaus for the first time in ninety-eight years, Nat surprisingly found herself still in love with his flaming blue eyes. She shrugged Klaus' grip from her arm and took a small step back, creating a generous space between them. The only thing more surprising was how quickly Stefan placed himself between Klaus and Natala, forming a border. "Stay away from her." He stated his face void of emotion as gave Klaus a small shove.

It didn't take long for Klaus to become extraordinarily hostile but it would appear he thought better than to make a scene at his mother's grand ball. "If you value your worthless life, I'd suggest you run along." He waved his hand in a dismissive motion but Stefan refused to budge, even with Elena gently tugging on his sleeve but she didn't dare speak a word because she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from Klaus as possible.

Letting out an exasperated groan, Natala rested her hand on Stefan's shoulder, grateful to know that even if he hated her right now, he wasn't willing to let Klaus hurt her. "It's alright, Stefan. Why don't you walk Elena home and I'll see you soon?" Natala asked in her best reassuring tone, and she watched as a muscle in his jaw clicked.

He wasn't okay with this, but he knew that Nat could take care of herself, so he merely offered her a small nod. "Yes, Stefan, why don't you take Elena home?" Klaus mocked, a taunting smile on his face and Natala scowled at him. "Don't be a pompous ass." She retorted, refraining from slapping him on the spot. Was it her or had he gotten more snarky since breaking his curse?

She watched as Stefan moved to Elena's side and walked away in silence. The sound of someone letting out a low groan and cracking their neck made her smirk to herself. "Well, I'm going to kill him." The voice said, and Natala's grin faltered almost immediately.

"You're not going to touch him if I have anything to say about it." Looking past Niklaus' dark eyes, she came face to face with Kol for the first time in 96 years- the last being on her birthday in 1914. A day to remember, for sure.

New Orleans, Louisiana ❁ 1914 {Christmas}

"Save me a dance, won't you darling?" Kol whispered into Natala's ear before he walked back inside his family home to join his sibling for the grand speech that they always found necessary to give whenever there was a grand party. She was standing in a secluded spot across the street from the compound, staring up at the sky, there were so many stars, and Natala liked how small they managed to make her feel.

Natala walked back into the compound just in time to watch from below as Kol struggled against Elijah's grip as he held him back for Klaus to send a dagger into his heart. She watched as Rebekah just stood there with an aggravating smirk on her face. Yes, she knew why Kol was being daggered but what annoyed her was for one, it was her birthday and two, the little demonstration was highly unnecessary.

She growled low in her throat and sent death glares towards the each of them, and the next thing she knew, Elijah, Klaus, and Rebekah had small beads of sweat breaking through as Natala made their blood boil. Elijah seemed to immediately recognize this was her doing as he searched for her face in the crowd, spotting it quickly and suddenly, he nearly felt guilty for his actions. Natala scoffed to herself and turned away, disappearing from the large group and far away from the Mikaelson's.

Elijah had found her a few minutes later standing next to a horse-drawn carriage. He thought she looked magnificent this evening, wearing a form-fitting dress made of luxurious fabric which sported a revealing, yet modest neckline. The way she had her black hair pinned up so elegantly was also noteworthy; even after all these years, her appearance demanded that you stop and observe. He appeared next to her, his arms secured behind his back as he watched people of New Orleans live their finite lives. Natala did not speak nor look at Elijah as she focused her attention on the horse standing in front of her, gently caressing its face. "It was not my intention for this to happen, especially today but it was necessary." he started, and Natala could feel his gaze on her, but she didn't care much for whatever he had to say. "Spare me your reasonings, Elijah. You and I have different definitions of 'necessary.'" Natala retorted, her tone sour while keeping her attention on the horse gently caressing its mane.

She did, however, take notice of Elijah digging through his coat pocket and pull out a small velvet case, holding it out for her to take. "Happy Birthday, Natala." He whispered, waiting for her to take his gift. Rolling her eyes, she turned to face him, grabbing the box from his hand and opening it up. Inside was a simple but elegant star-shaped locket.

She let out a light gasp, "It's beautiful Elijah, thank you." She responded, looking him in the eyes while smiling softly at him. "This doesn't make up for that little scene you and Nik put on, by the way."

It was Elijah's turn to smile now as he looked at the ground, then to the sky and finally back at Natala. "It's what's right, Natala. Kol was becoming a danger to this family, and after learning what he was planning to do with the diamond..." he left the sentence hanging as if he expected Natala to agree with him, but she didn't. She thought both he and Nik were completely out of line. "That's funny, I could have sworn just five minutes ago, you were all boasting about loyalty." sarcasm dripped from her lips as she rolled her eyes and stepped into the carriage.

"Tell me something, did you know about his plans?" Elijah asked, tucking his hands into his pockets, briefly squinting his eyes at her. Natala looked down at him with a small smile on her face. "Yes, I did, and before you ask, I didn't say anything because honestly, 'Lijah if I told any of you the dirty little secrets I know, there would be anarchy. Besides, just because you know something, doesn't mean it's your place to tell." Natala winked at Elijah before tapping on the driver's shoulder, urging him to send the carriage forward.

Present ❁

Kol's face broke out into a huge grin, letting out a small laugh as he watched Natala walk towards him and she indeed was a sight for sore eyes. When she was arms-length away from him, Kol spun her around and placed a sweet kiss on her forehead. It was so strange to his siblings to see the wiliest of them show affection for another person but to be fair, Natala was different in the sense that the two of them got along so well. Kol let go of Natala and stepped back, looking her up and down as if to appreciate the sight before him.

"You look marvelous for a dead woman." he joked cheekily, his signature smirk display on her handsome face. Despite the fact that her family was currently looking for a way to kill the Mikaelson's, Natala found herself feeling nostalgic for that brief time when she and all of them lived in, compared to now, was harmony. Of course, that must have been over seven hundred years ago.

"Thank you; I found this amazing night cream that does wonders for the skin." Natala returned Kol's smirk, and deep down in her cold, dead heart, she swore she felt it flutter just a smidge. Such a strange sensation. Out of the corner of her eye, Natala made a note of Elijah, Finn, Rebekah, and Klaus staring gravely at her, apparently her presence wasn't as welcomed as Kol made it seem.

"I think I'm in trouble." Natala leaned forward, whispering in Kol's ear, her lips just barely touching it. When she pulled back, Kol once again had his signature smirk on his face, and if Natala knew any better, she'd swear it was the one thing she had once loved about him.

"I'm afraid they'll have to wait. I believe you still owe me a dance." Kol took a small bow and held out his hand which Natala was hesitant to take, but she quickly hid any uncertainty behind her dazzling smile. Kol was quick to lead Natala back into the mansion where other guests had continued like nothing had just happened. It had appeared that another round of the waltz was going on and Kol had easily inserted them into the group.

"The only good thing about being awake sees your face again," Kol spoke earnestly as the two of them followed along with the music. For some strange reason, Natala suddenly felt like she was sucked into a warped hole that sent her three hundred years into the past. She remembered the good times that they shared and it was unlike her to feel nostalgic for the past, after all, there was more bad than good and often.

How dramatic.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but God, I’ve missed your aggravating self.” Kol let out another sweet laugh that ringed in Natala’s ear as they swayed and twirled in sync with the music. Perhaps it wasn't all that surprising when came time for switching partners, Natala ended up in Klaus' arms. She involuntarily let out a gasp as his familiar scent assaulted her senses, caught off guard by the sudden change of her atmosphere, Natala felt her breathing hitch.

"Nice to know I still leave you breathless." his voice cooed in her ear, and that was all it took for Natala to compose herself. Even after being Klaus-free for almost a hundred years, Natala couldn't deny that the bastard got to her now and then.

"Nice to know you're still full of yourself." Natala retorted allowing her eyes to wander the room around her and above she spotted a beautiful fair-skinned woman with short blonde hair. Astonishingly, the woman was watching Natala and every move she made, it was as if she knew all of the secrets that she harbored in her heart. The one thing that piqued Natala's interest was that she couldn't hear the woman's thoughts, everything was utterly blank, and truthfully, Natala had only come across this a few times in her long immortal life.

"Is that your mother? She's stunning, which makes me wonder what happened to you." a small scoff fell from Klaus' mouth, and with anyone else, he probably would have become offended or resort to an attack, but with Natala, the two of them relished in teasing and baiting each other. It was a nasty habit in Natala's opinion, but that was the thing about habits; they were hard to break.

"Same with you, back from the dead apparently." his voice was surprisingly ambivalent as the calming music flowed throughout the ballroom. Standing on the balcony that overlooked the ballroom, Natala noticed Esther, along with Elijah and Finn walk away from the crowds and the music to somewhere that would offer security.

"Oh, come on. You're honestly telling me that you never had a lingering feeling that I was alive? Nikaus Mikaelson, King of the paranoids." Natala had to admit that for some reason, she was feeling brave which probably wasn't smart seeing that she was quite literally in the arms of the man who could kill her without blinking.

"You betrayed me, Natala. You betrayed all of us. Created an elaborate escape plan which only lasted you less than a century. Tell me something, was it worth it? Worth the possibility of running into me again, knowing very well how I would react?"

"Well, I can't really answer that, I mean, believe it or not, Nik, I wasn't thinking of you or Elijah or even Rebekah for that matter. I was a little busy wandering around in some supernatural purgatory. Apparently, the amount of times you die is a key factor to how long it takes to find yourself."

"Eight hundred years and you walk away without so much blinking."

"Oh, shut up. You always had a knack for blowing things out of proportion. If it makes your little hybrid heart feel better, by the time I found my way back to my body, Mikael had already chased all of you from New Orleans. I ran into him actually, wasn't really much of a pleasant meeting mostly because he remembered me from the first time we met." By this point, the music had ended, and a quiet round of applause filled the room, and the guest had begun to disperse. Natala pulled back from Klaus' grip and looked above her once again where she spotted Esther walking out of her private room with Finn following close behind. She noticed that Elijah was no longer with them and wondered where the man could possibly be.

"Allow me to say this, Natala. I hope you choose the right side of this war, things could get bloody." He tucked his hands into his pockets as he stood tall and sure of himself and it was in that moment, Natala knew every single word that spilled from his mouth was the truth.

"Oh Nik, I am on the right side, with my family. And don't you know I'm not afraid to shed a little blood?" Natala's perfect lipstick stained lips curled into a devious smirk as she batted her seemingly endless eyelashes at him. "Besides," she paused, taking a step closer to him to the point that their noses were nearly touching, she dragged her cat-like nail along his cheek and over his plump lips. "I think you should worry more about your mother and Finn instead of my nephews."

His eyes immediately darted over to where his mother and older brother were standing just in time to see Esther nod her head towards Finn as if she were signaling him to do something. It was no secret that Finn hated his existence, not to mention his entire family's and Klaus wouldn't put it passed the elder Mikaelson to be stirring up some scheming plot. When he turned back, he found only an empty space where Natala had been standing, but if there was anything he was sure about, it was that she would protect her family with her last breath and that wasn't going to come quickly.

"No amount of talk is going to change the past, Niklaus. There are some memories you can't escape, and no matter how much you may want to, there are some things that you cannot alter." her voice sang in his head as he recalled the last conversation they had together. Later that night as he laid himself to sleep, his mind was nearly assaulted by the memories he and Natala, along with the rest of his family, shared together.

The following morning was exciting, to say the least. Natala had come home around two in the morning and was surprised to find out quite the house was, especially after the little show that Damon had pulled off. For some reason, she was expecting Stefan to be screaming at Damon and Damon nonchalantly disregarding anything that came out of his mouth.

She was standing in the kitchen enjoying a hot cup of coffee when the sounds of someone coming down the stair caught her attention. Lo and behold, standing before Natala was Damon kissing Rebekah goodbye after what Natala assumed was a one-night stand.

"Morning, kiddos. Breakfast is on the table if you're hungry." Natala let out a warm laugh which granted her a growl of annoyance from the blonde. Rebekah began to make an attack on Natala, but Damon held back with the sound of disapproval.

"Ah, ah, ah. Let's not do that, she's not worth it." He cooed and amazingly, Rebekah calmed down when Damon kissed her again. He opened the door, wiggling his fingers at the girl as she walked away. When Damon turned back around, he found his Aunt Nat leaning against the wall with a knowing smirk on her face.

"What?" Damon demanded in a snarky tone, shutting the door behind him.

"I didn't say anything." Natala snickered as she began to whistle a tune before walking off to her room. As much as she'd like to stay and make fun of Damon, she had other things to worry about, say, The Holy Forsaken. Just the thought of the name made Natala roll her eyes, they had a reputation of being radical elitist bastards.

How Niklaus never heard of them, Natala had no clue, or maybe he did know about them but wanted nothing to do with them. However, Natala highly doubted that given the immense amount of power that they could offer him. The Forsaken were nothing if not highly set on doing whatever they could to live their lives in a way that they believe Klaus would approve.

Before Natala could even begin to make good on her end of the deal she made with Everett, she needed to find the faction that he had gotten involved with. To the best of her knowledge, Natala knew that there were four factions- North, South, West, and East. Each sector had its own set of rules, but the one thing they all had in common was that their "Leader" was Klaus, whether he knew it or not.

Natala was just about to make a call when Damon yelled from downstairs, informing her that she had a visitor which she found odd given that barely anyone knew she was here. When she reached the front door, she was perplexed to find Everett standing before her, tears looking at if they were threatening to spill over. Natala slowly approached the man, entirely on guard, ready for any possible sudden attacks. After all, one can never be too careful.

"First of all, how did you find me? And secondly, why are you crying like a baby?" Natala didn't mean to intentionally sound cruel, but sometimes, you spoke without thinking and often times, that landed her in hot water.

"I don't know how but someone found out I came to you for help so they..." Everett began to speak, but his sentence was soon muffled by the sounds of his choked cries. Natala was never really one who knew how to comfort others because emotions really were not her forte but the distressed stay of Everett standing in front of her with his blonde hair tossed aside. He looked the same as he did yesterday, if not worse which Natala found interesting since she removed whatever hex had been placed upon him.

"They killed him." His voice was just above a whisper now, and Natala for once was unable to hide her surprise. It wasn't that Everett's boyfriend getting executed that caught her attention, but instead it was how Everett had mentioned he was killed because the man had come to her directly. The circumstances of the entire situation stuck Natala as odd, if not downright wrong because she had never come across anyone that would kill their own hostage, their leverage, due to her coming into the picture. Had the Forsaken been watching her all of these centuries? Natala wasn't sure but one thing she did know, was that she was going to get answers.

Natala turned to Damon who was aimlessly wandering through the living room while enjoying his first serving of blood. "Well it seems everyone needs my help nowadays, so I'll be back... when I get back." She pursed her lips and rested a hand on her hip, she made a clicking noise with her tongue as she turned back to Everett who was know just solemnly staring into space. "You are such a pitiful creature." She whispered to herself, and that was enough to pull Everett from his mind as his face suddenly twisted into something almost unrecognizable.

"This your fault!" Everett screamed just before Natala felt his suffocating grip wrapped tightly around her neck as she struggled to bring air back into her lungs. Damon had been quick to act, throwing Everett across the room and Natala was no fool- Damon was hardly a match for the man, but that didn't matter because Everett was no match for her. A split second later, Everett was crouching on the ground, his hands full of his hair as he screamed in agony from an aneurysm that Natala was currently giving him.

Her heels clicked on the wooden tile as she edged forward to him and crouched down, curling her fingers under his chin and jerking his face towards her own.

"You and I made a deal, Everett and I always honor the deals I make. You asked for my help rescuing your beloved from the Forsaken, but now he's dead; so what do you want now? Vengeance? Retribution? I can make sure you get it." Everett’s dark eyes bore into Natala’s icy blue ones, his gaze held nothing but anger and fire. Give a man the proper tools for revenge, and there will be be hell to pay.

Tag List; @fafulous @captainam-erika-trash @wish-i-was-a-mermaid

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dramaclover · 3 years

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TVB King & Queen Speculations 2020

This year has got to be the saddest year yet. There is NO NOISE. Like usually we get like a couple of dramas where we can guess the winner from. This year not really. They can barely hype up any actresses on the female side cause it’s so weak. I feel like it was a dumb mistake on TVB for choosing to not air Shadows of Justice & Chinatown or even Armed Reaction 5. Everyone got nominated this year and the females side is even more saturated. For males there’s a total of 24 nominations while for females there’s only 18. And to make it even more sad 3 of the female nominees is from a sitcom! Mandy Lam is supporting at most in that drama, she’s not even part of the main core family. The fact TVB added in Mandy, & Koni Lui shows how desperate they were. (That doesn’t mean they suck at acting but cause TVB has no plans on promoting them & only added them in to fill the ballots). I don’t even really know where to begin? There isn’t a real popular candidate. I’m only naming the ones that I think might have the chance on winning & ones I like in general.

If we’re gonna talk about popular characters Angel Chiang as Shui Jie is a standout. Willie Wai as Ah Fan was loudly applauded. Samantha Ko was praised as Chong Ming Lai. Brian Tse scared the audience as Parker. Yoyo Chen was really likeable as Sabrina. And I think that’s about it. I really like how it’s mostly supporting actors & actresses that are largely praised. It shows that they outperformed the leading actors & actresses. But out of this batch who will actually walk away with an award?

TVB KING

Raymond Lam. It would be overdue for him to finally win. I’ve always liked his role of Bao Seed fun to get along with & loyal. But his reduced screentime to promote Owen Cheung was a setback for his character. His character also didn’t get real development and his backstory was quite meaningless with a secret son. His character matured for sure but the storyline went nowhere. His son never finds out he is the real father & he basically hates him. His first love passes away & honestly he never got closure for it. He didn’t get to see her last moments before she died. I guess him winning would depend on if he comes to the award show or not. He has the biggest chance winning this year with good acting & a big fan base to vote for him. But also if he wins it would be because he was snubbed before like Mandy Wong. Him winning would be making up for past years where he should’ve won. The media strangely isn’t hyping him up to win this year.

Lau Dan. For his sitcom role in Come Home Love: Lo and Behold. If he were to win it wouldn’t be controversial, so he would be TVBs safe bet in winning. I know I poked fun out of Mandy & Koni for being nominated but it’s different with him. He’s been acting for a way longer time, has a great relationship with TVB & at this point audiences favourite grandpa. Awarding him would be out of gratitude for his loyalty. But performance and character wise he is pretty generic. Will TVB actually award him? I would consider him a dark horse in winning.

Vincent Wong has left TVB and the role he is nominated for is Legal Mavericks 2, which didn’t do well in Hong Kong. Vincent already won for this role back in 2017, so chances of him winning again is low. He should’ve been nominated for his role Al Cappucino. His acting there was more memorable especially the way he portrayed his method acting. I still remember the nervousness I got when he seemingly turned evil. Judging by how he didn’t appear at all in the TVB Anniversary, sort of shows his standing in TVB. At least Nancy Wu was featured in a pre- recorded game but Vincent none. He has the acting chops and honestly doesn’t need another award to prove how good of an actor he is.

Shaun Tam. Brutally Young was an amazing watch and I’m sad that the ratings were average, despite it being such a thrilling show. He was also in Forensic Heroes 4 but he was literally a block of wood there. So I’m glad he wasn’t nominated for that drama. Obviously TVB has huge plans for him to win Best Actor. But it’s not gonna be for this year. He still needs improvement in emoting more and I’m looking forward to his dramas in 2021.

Willie Wai. I already know he isn’t gonna win. But I felt like writing him in this because honestly he was highly praised when The Witness was airing. His acting there was amazing and it was a great portrayal that a lot of people including me are rooting for him to win. But his chances are super low. He was only in this drama cause they couldn’t find someone else to partner with Him Law. I feel like it would be such a huge win if TVB decides to award it to him. But I’d be honestly happy if Raymond or Lau Dan won instead as well. I hope TVB will give him more big roles.

Owen Cheung, I loved his role as Ko Ban in Al Cappucino, so good for TVB for nominating him in that role instead. But he’s still not well liked by audiences (sorta me included). I like Ko Ban but all the other roles he was in like, in Airport Strikers & Line Walker 3, he was either annoying or just not likeable in general. I am more critical on him but mostly cause the way TVB is promoting him bothers me. And I don’t like how he keeps getting “hot guy” roles when he’s not suited for them. Comedy is where he should stay. TVB is heavily promoting him, so are they gonna bite the bullet and award him with Favourite Character award similar to how Sisley Choi won in 2017? But there was a huge backlash so do they really wanna go through that again? Well either way we will be seeing more of him in general.

TVB QUEEN

Katy Kung was hyped up before and during the airing of Death by Zero. But that failed as despite her amazing transformation, the character itself wasn’t that great. And even though she’s considered one of the main leads she didn’t have that much screentime compared to the others. Her character in Hong Kong Love Story is more likeable but unfortunately, though her acting was great. The character itself was nothing special. She might win Best Actress in Malaysia. As she is very popular there and it could be a way of TVB paving the way for her to win in the future. Like with Ali Lee when she won Best Actress as Never Wong at the Starhub Awards in 2017. Some people say she can’t win cause she was nominated in Death By Zero where’s she not the leading lady... I guess these people forgot that Natalie Tong won in 2017 with My Unfair Lady where she played Cherry the designated second lead LOL!

Samantha Ko, is also talked about. She had 4 dramas that aired this year. Her leading dramas were Operation C9 and On-lie Game. I personally don’t think she’s leading in OLG since Hera Chan clearly had more screentime. And obviously that drama was used to promote Hera and she’s just the camouflage. But anyways. Out of the dramas she’s in her most popular role would be Chong Ming Lai from Al Cappucino which she was great in. She was super well liked but unfortunately cause TVB decided to air her dramas back to back people got tired of her. I believe if the last drama that aired was her role in AC there would’ve been a higher chance of her winning. Now people have just forgotten her performance there and only focused on OC9 which was filmed 2 years ago. I think she’s gonna make it into the top 5, but I don’t think she’s gonna win. Her chances also seem slim next year, as she has less dramas and no leading roles. I can only hope TVB continues to promote her as she has potential.

Mandy Wong has the highest chance of winning this year. And she always gives out great performances but I find that recently she’s been losing steam. As in she doesn’t have as much passion as she once did. I don’t know if it’s cause TVB is overworking her but it’s a pity. But honestly all the characters she played this year were so bland. Like she doesn’t have much to work with. And that’s not her fault. She doesn’t pick the roles, they were given to her. I bet 100% if she had played a likeable role people would vote for her to be TVB Queen. But that’s not the case. She’s one of the better actress out of the batches here. Too bad her roles are repetitive and if she wins this year it wouldn’t be considered a hard earned win. It would be more of a makeup award for not winning with Threesome in 2018.

Priscilla Wong. She has made some good improvements in acting since we last saw her. Her crying scenes are better now. And even though her performance in Life and Death was a wonderful surprise. I feel like it’s still not really enough for her to win this year. She still hasn’t portrayed a memorable character yet. Ratman did not do well ratings wise and her screentime was pretty small in Line Walker 3. I wouldn’t mind her winning though as the selection this year is pretty small. And so far no huge competition. And despite what people say TVB has always treated her well. And if she doesn’t win this year it will purely be because she doesn’t have a stand-out character. But if she were to win it would be out of gratitude for the years she stayed at TVB.

Sisley Choi. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Miss Hong Kong make such a vast improvement. I kid you not she was literally one of the most hated actresses at TVB at one point. Her acting was so raw and terrible. She had no voice control and all around bad. I didn’t have high hopes for her. But she proved me wrong. She worked hard, learned to control the tone of her voice. Attended TVB acting class and now she’s building a good fan base. She made a 180 degree turn and I’m proud of her. Ah Dou wasn’t that great of a character in Line Walker 3. So she would have to rely on Legal Mavericks 2 which is unfortunately not doing well ratings wise. I feel like she would be a dark horse in winning. Just like how she won in Favourite Character 2017. But if she does win it will definitely be controversial. Din Jeh for LM2 is likeable but at the same time not popular enough for her to win. There’s a reason why she got such a huge backlash when she won in 2017. Maybe this year will be different?

Selena Lee. At first I didn��t want to put her in the running since she won an award last year & she has left TVB. Her last drama was Forensic Heroes 4 but that aired in February and a lot of people have forgotten about it. Her acting there were largely praised and her character was well liked. She was able to fluently speak medical jargon in both Chinese & English very well. But it wasn’t until she was nominated for the Asian TV Awards that her name got thrown in the mix. So now she has a real chance of winning again. There’s a renewed interest in her and TVB might want to award her so they can stake the claim of her being the first Asian Tv Winner as a TVB actress. (She might not even win there but TVB likes the idea of it) Shes also back at TVB filming Barrack O’Karma 2. Her acting has always been great and I can’t find any negatives about her. I think if she wins she wouldn’t draw as much criticisms compared to the other ones nominated for sure though.

Other Thoughts

I have seen some comments made online about how Mandy and Selena are “passed” their prime and that they don’t deserve to win anymore. That they should “focus” on the new generations cause it’s not “fair” to award the older ones when the younger ones are better. Okay. First of all the younger ones you’re talking about DOES NOT have a representative role yet. At most I guess Sisley Choi for Din Jeh from Legal Mavericks 2 but I don’t count that. She may have won Favourite Actress but it was only due to TVB politics & nothing to do with leaving a memorable impression with the audience. In fact she was heavily criticized for her performance when it was airing. It was controversial for a reason in 2017. Mandy is known for Kwan Yee So from L’escargot & Evie Fong from Threesome. Selena Lee is known for Michelle Chang from Blood and Water & Alex/Coco from Barrack O’Karma. They all have well known works. Kwan Yee So is still talked about today. And Selena literally garnered awards and huge nominations from her works. You’re really gonna compare them to these new actresses that have yet to portray a well known role? Not to mention Sisley and Priscilla has an upper hand in being pushed up by executives. They were given more chances in the sense of being involved in more grand productions and landing leading roles faster. So I think it’s more unfair that you want to shove them aside cause “if they didn’t win then, they shouldn’t win now”. Them not winning TVB Queen yet doesn’t mean they’re not good enough. It just means they had tough competition. Also do they not realize they weren’t given huge opportunities compared to the other batch. Mandy didn’t get a leading role until 2017. She wasn’t promoted right away and actually had to work from supporting up. Selena was always put into low budget dramas. No one imagined that Barrack O’Karma would turn into such a big hit. If TVB had known, heck no would they have given it to Selena. She only got the lead in FH4 cause TVB wanted her to sign a new contract with them after her popularity rose. I also want to point out the hate is towards the females and not the males. Cause for some reason male actors get a free pass in this?

Have they not noticed that TVB has not always given an award based on “performance” of the year? Cause they do it randomly. Do you really think Kenneth Ma deserved to win last year? Natalie Tong in 2017? Joe Ma in 2018? Nancy Wu in 2015? Ali Lee in 2018? Dayo Wong in 2013? These are all examples of them winning not cause of them having the best role but because of gratitude and cause they deserved it for other performances but they’re winning now instead. If Mandy were to win this year it would be because of her previous good performance. And frankly from the actresses list above Mandy and Selena would be the only ones that are actually deserving. They might not have a huge fan base compared to the others but they have given solid performances before. I would also put Priscilla third as she does have higher potential.

I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t write people off just cause you think the newer one deserves it more. Honestly the awards aren’t even as prestigious as it used to be. Everyone is literally taking turns on winning. No one said anything when Kenneth or Joe won despite the fact their role wasn’t anything special. People were literally saying “finally he won” & “it was a long overdue win” & “about time he won”. Yet just the idea of Mandy maybe winning this year has caused people to get pissed cause she didn’t have the best performance? It’s unfair and wrong to be so critical for the female side but not the males. If you’re gonna shit on Mandy for her potential win, you should also be shitting on Raymond or Lau Dan for it too. I don’t mind them winning cause they’re both good actors that just wasn’t given a role that had enough material to garner a huge win this year. But their past performances show they have what it takes. Thankfully these criticisms towards Mandy are mainly from the international audience and not Hong Kong locals. It’s actually outrageous to me how much hate Mandy gets just cause they think Sisley or Priscilla should get it instead. For Mandy if she wins it’s cause it’s rigged, for the male side if Raymond wins it’s long overdue? Why is that same energy not put towards the male side? So haters, if Mandy does win remember to also write about how much you hate [insert male actor name here] for winning too as there wasn’t a huge standout performance from that side either this year. End of rant.

#tvb #tvb drama

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defiancerpg-blog · 6 years

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Congratulations VAL, you have been accepted as VULPECULA with the faceclaim of NAOMI SCOTT and the DOPPELGANGER MORPHING ability!

Notes from the Admins: Ellie and Tasha:

We had some really hard decisions for multiple skeletons during this acceptance, but this one was certainly the hardest. Both were very much in line with how we envisioned Riaan. But ultimately it was yours that we felt fit the most. I (Ellie) just fell in love with the little details of who Riaan was to you. Your headcanons really stuck with me, the emphasis on her pronouns and the little line of freckles and then I really love their answer to the power question (the shapeshifting one especially), but it their answer to the final question that sold me on your app. I (Tasha) have to agree with Ellie, the little details are what really pulled me in. As much as I wanted to hear your version of how the family was, I really loved that i didn’t get to. To me, I felt like that pulled me in and I am a fan of your writing.

You have 48 hours to send in your blog. If you haven’t already joined the group discord then you may do so now (if that’s your wish) [x]. Once you have turned in your blog, you will be given a role that will allow you access to the private channels regarding plots/characters. Please remember to do everything on the checklist, and also we just want to thank you for joining this roleplay. We hope your time with us will be a fun and memorable one!

OOC INFORMATION

ALIAS & PRONOUNS: Val, She/her

AGE: 25

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL, & RP EXPERIENCE: TZ: EST Activity: I have a full time job on first shift, but since i’m not involved in other rps atm I have plenty of time to be active, and should easily be able to meet and excede activity requirements. I typically do my writing early in the morning before work, or after dinner. My one concern is the opening date, because I’m going on a pre-planned vacation from April 5th to April 9th (WALKERSTALKER CON CHICAGO!). I’ll have limited access to a computer, but I will have my phone so I’ll at least be available for plotting and getting to know people via the discord server during that period. If you’d rather wait to review my application until the 9th or 10th I understand that as well. RP experience: I’ve been roleplaying since 2012 in several fandoms: HP, the 100, TW, TWD, etc. I delved into indie for awhile, but definitely prefer rpgs. A couple of my past blogs are: http://nickbeckett.tumblr.com/, https://seakept.tumblr.com/, http://auroragood.tumblr.com/, https://kylexbennett.tumblr.com/

BASIC IC INFORMATION

SKELETON: Riann Foster (Vulpecula- The Little Fox)

FACECLAIM: Naomi Scott, Liza Koshy (Though she’s known for youtube, she does have an acting career including series regular for two seasons of the hulu series Freakish), Alia Bhatt

AGE: 24

ORIENTATION: Demisexual.

ORIGIN: New York, New York (Queens)

NOVA TYPE: Corpus

ABILITY: Intangibility- The ability to pass through physical matter, though difficulty increases as the density of an object increases. If the whole body or part of a body becomes tangible within another object, the object would have to expand outwards at a detriment to its own form (explode, etc) but could potentially cause extreme physical harm to the user, depending on the property of the material. Shapeshifting (Doppleganger Morphing)- The ability to change one’s personal appearance to identically mimic that of another human being that they have seen before. This user cannot create a completely new form, nor mimic any superpowers should they morph into a nova. The longer they stay in the altered form, the harder it is to return to one’s true self. (I don’t actually have a preference for either, I love both abilities as possible for them)

THE INTERVIEW:

So, tell me a little bit about growing up. What was your childhood like?

“I moved around a lot, I guess…” Riann’s arms crossed lightly over their chest, anchoring their hands in place rather than allowing them to fidget nervously. Memories, both fond and disheartening, flashed through their mind, but they couldn’t help but wonder how much their verbal answers even mattered. Could this AI detect a lie? Could it determine the truth by analyzing their brains waves, their temperature, or other physiological responses? Did it matter? “I don’t know, I, uh… I was never bored, that’s for sure. Had plenty of extracurricular activities. Learned a lot. Didn’t starve or anything. That’s all you can ask for, right?” It’d be remiss to say they weren’t hesitant to give this AI personal information, particularly to ensure the safety of their makeshift family. A career criminal couldn’t afford to admit all faults. Despite them living in a world of uncertainty- where they’d sleep the next night, what they’d eat, when they’d eat, if they’d all make it home safely- Riann had grown numb to the anxiety stemming from the unknown. What they remembered most about their childhood was the laughter, the hugs, and the beautiful night skylines. Their teen years were a bit more rambunctious, especially as the NPA loomed closer and closer, but the way they saw it, their life was their life and they’d learned not to live with regrets and what-ifs. “I mean, like anyone, I had a bit of a rebellious streak but… It all worked out.”

What about your relationship with your family?

A small smile spread across their lips as Riann let out a warm chuckle, leaning back more casually against the wall as they relaxed. “I have three older siblings and they, uh, well they made sure I knew I was the youngest. Didn’t get much alone time, but I didn’t want it either.” How many times had they been delegated ‘look out’ or done surveillance checks on a mark for their siblings before anything actually went down? They were a cute child, slight in stature and innocent looking, and lying had become second nature to them, ingrained in them from their earliest memories. Fictional stories became so real to them that it occasionally took an extra moment for them to slip out of a character, but that’s what made them good at it, and kept them from having to actively participate in thefts they found morally wrong. Plus, it allowed them a bit of alone time to explore their own Robin Hood type interests. “But I mean, we got along fine, I guess.” They loved them. Their siblings and “adoptive” mother were their home, at least, they had been. The seeds of resentment and abandonment from being left by their biological mother so young were mostly trodden underfoot by the loyalty and love they learned from their family, but sometimes they couldn’t help but wonder, couldn’t help but indulge in anger when they thought about the sperm and egg donors that actually created them. Maybe their family wasn’t perfect, maybe they didn’t function the way others thought was healthy or stable, but for a long time it was consistent, and without that, who knew where Riann would be. “They… still think I ran away with some boyfriend, headed for Miami. And that’s for the best.”

Are you the only Nova in your family? Or were your parents Novas too? What about any siblings?

“They’re human.” And as far as Riann was concerned, that was the end of the question. As far as they knew, they were all as human possible, and they’d continue to believe that so long as it kept them safer. But were their biological parents novas? Did they have any biological siblings? They couldn’t know. Didn’t want to. They shrugded their shoulders, mounting nonchalance on their features. “”It’s just me.”

What’s your ability like? Is it easy to control or harder? Do you even like it?

A heavy silence fell, weighing down Riann’s pause as they tried to sort out what exactly they wanted to say. “It’s, uhm… It’s sort of… instinctual? Like once I make the decision, it just happens and I can’t- I can’t stop it halfway or control it. But… it’s not hard.” Every morph was like a milestone as they wore others’ bodies. In a way, it solidified their comfort in their own skin, as this body felt like home. Like them. Their appearance could change on a whim to that of an existing person, and they were the wolf in sheep’s clothing. They didn’t belong there. The freckles on their arm were the only thing that stayed in tact in their new form, and they often used them as a focal point for changing back to who they were. What was worse- the longer they stayed in a different form, the harder it was to get back. The freckles disappeared one by one as time went on, and Riann had only ever stayed in one body for up for 16 hours before getting so scared of losing themself they had to change back for a few hours for fear of being lost totally to this stranger forever. It was a dark time, a long con at the beginning of their journey to the Sanctuary, and they could distinctly remember the loss of foreignness in the new skin, the comfort and familiarity settling in, hoping to cement them there forever. Riann shook their head to clear the intruding thoughts before finishing their sentence. “It’s, uhm… it’s a cool party trick, that’s for sure. Always win charades.” And that was true; amongst the novas it was easy to get sucked into the game and posture about their ability, flirting with the danger just ever so slightly, but Riann preferred to err on the side of caution. The ability was extremely useful for concealing their identity, or protecting themself, and it made them quite good at the former job, but they’d never admit how each passing hour felt as though they were inching closer and closer to their own identity’s death.

How would you describe your personality?

"I look out for myself,” they concluded. “I have to. I think I’m….” A light chuckle escaped their lips, grin growing across their face, “Wow, I almost said nice. I’m not nice. It’s such a stupid word. But… I care, and I think that kinda comes through. Maybe I’m… I don’t know, a bit too blunt, but I think you have to figure out what’s going to push people away, and what they’re willing to deal with, you know? Does that make sense? I don’t like wasting time or energy, and you gotta go with your gut about what or who is worth it.”

What do you think your greatest strengths and weaknesses are?

“Wow, I guess both my greatest strength AND my greatest weakness is my selfishness. I look out for me, and the people I care about, and I dunno… my own moral compass? But I’m not trying to be a hero.” They paused for a moment, realizing the error they’d made: admitting to caring about others, like they could be used against them, and pointing out their usually self-servitude. This new “home” was still unexplored, and they couldn’t be certain how long they’d be staying. “Also I can’t take a joke.” It was a half-truth. People within their circle had miles of slack, but anyone they didn’t trust couldn’t expect the same wiggle room. There was a certain amount of satisfaction associated with pointing out flaws in logic, even when it meant not accepting a “joke” as something funny.

Where and what were you doing the day the Nova Protection Act was enacted?

“God, I don’t know…” They shifted nervously then, rearranging their arms in front of them. Honestly, they couldn’t quite remember- bigotry and disdain from others had always been a part of their life, whether it be because they were poor and on the streets, or a person of color, or just plain female-passing, they were more than used to the ugliness of society to take note of the “important” day the world gained yet another reason to turn against them. “I was… probably eating ice cream in Staten Island or something. Wasn’t a big deal.”

Did you immediately run? Or did you try to obey the law and report to the Anti-Nova Force?

At the question, the couldn’t help but actually laugh. It was a dry, cynical laugh, one that rang hollowly in their chest, but a laugh all the same. “Yeah, like I’d turn myself in to the same people who’d “randomly” search me at an airport. I didn’t have to do anything. Nothing changed.” Other than the fact their existence officially put their family at risk for more than just being black market thieves. It was one thing to face prison time, and quite another to put their family in danger of detainment just or being associated with them. Looking back, that was exactly the day the left, but they made sure not to leave any indication it was because of the NPA. Instead, that fateful day, they’d announced to their family they and their boyfriend were headed for the warm weather of Miami.

How have you survived this last year and a half or so? Did you have any help or were you all alone? How did you find Yalena’s Sanctuary?

"When you have the skills I have, it’s not too hard.” They pushed off from the wall then, choosing instead to pace a bit. This interview was getting tedious, and they were beginning to feel closed in. Uncomfortable. The nervous energy was coursing through their veins and they needed some way to work it out. “I knew people who knew people, and when I wanted in, I found a way. That’s how transactions work.” They weren’t about to disclose the favors they exchanged for information, or the people involved. The truth was that though their family had a reputation amongst the black market, they had one with its own standing as well. A few skeptical questions, and a bit of calculated risk in admitting to some stranger what they were had gotten them the key to sanctuary, and that’s what mattered.

It’d taken a long time getting from New York to the Sanctuary. Hitchhiking, mostly, plus a few long bus rides, and a train or two, but the passing days just brought them closer and closer to “safety.” Eventually they found a scout (or was found, it was hard to tell), and the rest, was, as they say, history.

What were you doing when the raid happened? How did you respond to the flood of Wardens? How quickly did you go through Yalena’s portal?

"I was… uhm…” Riann paused a moment, concentrating. What had the been doing? Something inconsequential. Something benign. Something completely disrupted by the ruin of the safety they’d imagined they had. Was it playing cards? Riann enjoyed counting cards, and loved to use the skill when given the chance. That was probably it. Something lazy. They couldn’t remember exactly, because the trauma of it all being ripped out from under them was something they didn’t want to acknowledge. “I know I was with other people- I don’t do that a lot, just hanging out, so I remember that. And then this guy, he… slumped over. I saw the dart. Or maybe… it wasn’t a dart. Maybe it was a bullet wound.” They couldn’t remember clearly; perhaps in the nights spent afterwards they’d justified a bullet wound as being a dart to ease their conscience. They couldn’t be certain whether the figure had slumped over in sleep or in something far more permanent. Despite being focused on themself, a great deal of guilt followed them for not doing more that day. “And then there were wardens everywhere. I ran. I heard… screaming.” Panic. Pure panic. “I saw Marisol go through the portal, and I heard someone yell for help. I… watched them fall to the ground. And then, I ran. I…” They knew they could’ve brought more people through. Could’ve at least tried. “I did what I had to do.”

What has living in The Imperium been like for you? Do you feel safer than before? Is it better or worse than on the run, or Yalena’s Sanctuary?

There was an audible pause, silence reverberating with the thoughts collecting in Riann’s mind. Their weight echoed with such strength it was a wonder the AI hadn’t already read each passing thought as it grew. Finally, they let out a defeated sigh and rolled their eyes, settling on indifference and sarcasm for their response. It was too poignant, to real, to say what they really felt. “There’s no wardens yet, so obviously it’s a 10 out of 10…” False flattery was a go-to of theirs when they didn’t want to be honest. In the back of their mind, they wondered whether or not their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with their new home could get them booted and back on the streets. Alone. Truthfully? They felt caged. Locked in. Imprisoned with a group of people they mostly didn’t trust, and half they didn’t like. Perhaps it’d be easier to be back on the streets, but at least here their wrist wasn’t going to get scanned at any given moment. They couldn’t tell which they missed more- the safety of being surrounded by similar individuals in the sanctuary, where at least they could be themselves, or the rose-tinted memories of being at home with people that, whether they truly knew Riann or not, they knew they were loved.

“So long as you don’t turn into the terminator, I guess I’m good here.”

The last question. If war broke out between Novas and the humans, which side will you be on?

"I’d be on the side that keeps me safe.” Their answer was pointed and clear, but it didn’t quite explain. Riann’s ties to the human world were something they wouldn’t want to ever speak of, but they’d also made at least one friend within the group of novas, and maybe that was enough. Maybe the idea of coexistence was so long gone that they’d have to side with the novas, knowing that they could never truly belong in the human world. When push came to shove, Riann would choose their kind, but they didn’t want to admit that, even to themself. The idea of belonging to something bigger than them was both incredibly enticing and terrifying.

CONNECTIONS:

Tell us your feelings on their provided connections/relationships and also any other connections you’d be interested in exploring outside of those already provided.

The Hare- I LOVE their friendship. The idea that someone somehow, pushed past the walls Riann has built up and has become important to them is so special. I don’t think Riann would be capable of functioning if they were truly alone for a long time, so this connection is in a way vital to their survival. It’s important enough that I don’t think even Riann understands the gravity of what their feelings for the Hare means, or what they’d do to protect that connection. Since I interpret Riann as demisexual, this is the type of relationship I’d see a possible romantic future in (be it unrequited or not), so I’m definitely excited to see where it leads, but it could also definitely be entirely platonic, familial even, depending on the chemistry and what going on with Marisol, so I’ll just say I’m excited either way.

The Raven- With the personality traits prescribed to Riann, and their history, I can see this being a super interesting connection. Depending on the plot development, I could see the raven bringing out Riann’s more cut-throat nature, but the way I see it, the Raven is one of Riann’s enemies. They trust their gut too much, and will never really be able to trust the Raven. That being said I wanna throw them together as much as possible because who doesn’t love bringing out the worst in their character?

Other connections- I would like to see someone become almost mentor-like to Riann, or vice-versa. They really do havea great capacity to love, it just takes a lot of time to get there, and I want Riann to CARE about others. Preferably several others. In a variety of capacities. I also want someone to just dislike them- with Riann’s personality, it’s completely plausible. They’d definitely question and distrust anyone with authority over them (they even did with Yalena, to an extent, but there was a level of respect with her not afforded to many).

HEADCANONS:

Riann has a series of 6 freckles down their inner forearm that form a nearly perfect line, and traces them subconsciously if they’re really overwhelmed as a sort of grounding mechanism.

Most of the time, they use they pronouns, but occasionally will identify as especially female. As such, I’d write them mostly as they/them, with the occasional she/her thread, but maintain whichever pronouns I start with through the duration of that thread.

They LOVE spice. Curry especially, but they’ve been known to chow down on hot asian and latin foods as well. Not only do they have a taste for it and enjoy the adrenaline rush that comes with the scovilles, but growing up, the spicier their food was, the smaller the chance anyone else would try to eat it. Their affinity was born of necessity, but they’ve grown to truly enjoy a good hot sauce.

CHANGES:

n/a

DETAILED IC INFORMATION

(OPTIONAL STUFF; THIS IS ALL MERELY SUGGESTIONS, NONE OF IT IS REQUIRED)

Character tropes and archetypes related to this character: Bunker Woman, Affectionate Pick Pocket, The Artful Dodger, Friend in the Black Market, Karmic Thief, Little Miss Con Artist Other: Defrosting the Ice Queen/The Power of Friendship, Hidden Heart of Gold, Anti-Villain,

Goals: I’d love to see Riann swing towards an extreme- their self-interest keeps them rather neutral politically and such, but the right plotting could make them go Good™ or Bad™ and I’m so ready for EITHER. I want them to make someone mad and get their ass kicked, to show them they’re not quite as independent and strong as they think they are. I want their morality to be put to the test, and have to choose between saving a life and killing, or the consequences of doing nothing in a situation where they can do something. I want them to deal with authority figures and get to a point where they accept that authority figure. I don’t see Riann as a leader, per say, but they’d make a great sidekick eventually, and then, depending on the long run, it’d be interesting to make them step up as leader as well, but that’s not what I see in the immediate future.

I made a mockblog for them (sideblog to this one to reblog inspo and such): https://vulpeculamockblog.tumblr.com/

ANYTHING ELSE?

I also answered the ability question for the doppleganger morphing because I also think it’s really cool, and would love to play with either!

#defianceacceptance

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fgiggl3sx2 · 4 years

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Cali Love

Words can’t explain how happy I am. I just came back from a mini vacation to California. I finally met my beautiful daughter and my future husbands family. The love that Brandon gives me is indescribable, it’s like no other it’s pure. The way he treats me and looks at me I can feel how deep it is. There was this one night during sex where I felt a whole different connection with him. The way he kissed me was passionate, it’s like we made true love I felt EVERYTHING in a whole different way. It’s not just about the sex either, it sucks that he thinks that’s what I only want and see from him when it’s not. I just enjoy having sex with him I feel it’s a connection that brings us together in a different way. I’m a very affectionate person, so I always want to touch or be touched by him both sexually and non sexually. Sadly there has been a few ups and downs but as always we talked them out. He feels I haven’t moved on from Ryan when in all honesty I have. I haven’t thought/talked about him in awhile. I don’t think Brandon realizes that I’ve been changing so much for the better because I want him to believe that it is only him I want and need in my life. I don’t need anyone else but him. I know I’m his one & only he’s told me numerous of times and I trust him to the fullest because he’s never gave me a reason not too. When I don’t like someone he gets rid of them and I respect that 100% about him. He’s perfect in every way possible when it comes to loyalty & honesty which is VERY important in a relationship. I may have fucked up once, but I’ve proved myself to him that it would NEVER happen again. He deserves everything, the world and I plan on giving that to him. The only thing that upset me a few times on this trip is for one he looked sad a lot and unhappy. Which I don’t understand why he would be? Am I boring? Is he not really happy like he says he is? Like I have so many questions. And another thing was he doesn’t care sometimes when it comes to us arguing but we already had that conversation and talked about it so we’re good. But him looking unhappy really does bother me cause I’m trying my hardest to make sure he’s always happy. His mom noticed a difference with him when it came to me. He does things for and with me he’s never done with his ex’s. And I truly appreciate him for that. I’m beyond fucking greatful to get a new side of him the loving, caring and affectionate side of him. It means EVERYTHING to me that he is that way with me. He’s very cuddly and touchy even in front of people and family and that makes me beyond happy. It also makes me happy that Maliha likes me and wants me around <3 she even called me mom, it was in a joking way but still made me tear up a bit. Like that little girl means a lot to me and I’m going to love her like she is my own daughter!! I want to marry her daddy so badly and I want to be part of the Hussing family. Brandon means so fucking much to me it’s scary. Like I’ve never been MORE fucking sure of someone before. Yes I’ve been in love before I’d be lying if I said I haven’t. But I can HONESTLY say this one is different in SO many ways. And I never been more sure to just give up everything to be with him. I’m curious as to when he will actually ask my hand in marriage, I can’t wait because I want it so badly! I haven’t been this happy in a very long time. I love you so much Brandon James Hussing, you’re the best hubby any girl can ask for and I can’t wait to start our life and family together. Can’t wait to see you again in January 💕

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ramblesofadreamerofthestars · 4 years

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Therapy? In The Final Season of The 100??

It’s more likely then any of us ever thought??????

Spoilers of course for the 100 7.07

Dr. Eric Jackson said “is anyone going to treat Literally Everyone for the trauma we go through” and had to wait seven seasons before giving up and doing it himself. I fucking love him and I Adore that Madi is getting therapy and that they are CONFRONTING WHAT HAPPENED TO A LITERAL CHILD. Jax read one (1) psychology book and decided he was now a licensed therapist and you know what? good for him.

Someone....let me at Madi’s wardrobe. Babe looks like she rolled up fresh out of Amity from the Divergent movies and like...killing it but What was the inspiration. I am So Happy she gets to play soccer and have therapy sessions and just be a regular kid for what is apparently, the first time in her entire life. I Miss her and Clarke and i wish Clarke was here to see Madi starting to flourish because that dynamic has been pushed So Far to the side this season and I just miss them. I Love that they finally addressed how fucked up it was putting the flame in Madi’s head i seriously love love love it. yes it was necessary but it was also extremely traumatic and not something a child should have to go through and I’m so happy they talked about it (for at least a moment anyway)

Lindsey Morgan and her team said You get to deal with trauma, and you get to deal with trauma, and you - . No but for real, I was pleasantly surprised with the things that got addressed this episode- The flame, Octavia beating up Bellamy, the beginning of Becho. Not as good as Bardo lore but we take what we can get.

(Also shout out to Ms. Morgan for an incredible directorial debut, what a talented queen)

I Loved Octavia saying outright how fucked up it was that she beat up her brother It’s been 84 years too many seasons of waiting for it, her growth this season? Incredible. That being said, literally What The Fuck was that comforting scene between her and Echo I’m. “You’re my family too” bitch Where. I understand Octavia trying to comfort someone she knows her brother cares for, and I know that Octavia saw how lost and angry Echo was, and this is just my own thoughts but probably recognized something in Echo that was reminiscent of her when she lost Lincoln, at least in her eyes, but it came out of no where?? These two have Never had a good relationship and while part of it is obviously Octavia’s growth the scene felt a little stilted.

So. Echo. First thing right off the bat (as always, this should literally be the expectation but for the people in the back) THE ACTORS ARE NOT THEIR CHARACTERS, THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE, AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GODS LEARN TO SEPARATE THE TWO. I have so much respect for all the actors and crew who are trying their absolute best and making this show something I look forward to watching.

I had Such high hopes for Echo. And honestly the tiny little rat part of my brain that never lets things go still wants to hope for a satisfying end to the spy’s story. I Want her to reach a point where she can look at herself with clear eyes, and come through to the other side. I Want her to have happy ending where she understands that though loyalty is admirable, there has to be more in your life, that you cannot dedicate yourself to one person entirely. The realistic part of my brain that has watched this fucking show for years knows better. Tasya Teles is doing an excellent job of Echo’s continuing downward spiral, 10/10 choices. But all the lighting and framing and crazy intense gaze do Not bode well for Echo’s sanity and her carving the Azgeda marks into her face was I think the point of “no return”. Which makes me sad, to see this end for the character, but it is a path I can see Echo going down, as much as it sucks.

“We got shaved Bellamy but at what cost” makes me cackle but honestly, I liked the Ring flashback. Setting aside how late it is to be Doing ring flashbacks, I think it was a Very interesting look at Becho. Echo on the ring is so cute sorry not sorry, like I Love seeing that girl happy. Her and Bellamy’s little banter reminded me of their earliest dynamic which I enjoyed seeing because I do think those characters have an interesting relationship. Also, Bellamy using his own experiences of the dangers of blind loyalty to try and help Echo, love to see it but her “it’s not real” right before he kissed her...the implications. They knew what they were doing and I think it was a needed perspective into their relationship because we have barely anything except for people saying things about it which is Not The Same Thing.

Moving On! HOLY SHIT Y’ALL HOPE AND DIYOZA I FUCKING LOVE THEM THE ACTRESSES WERE INCREDIBLE, THE DYNAMIC WAS AMAZING, BEST STORYLINE OF THE EPISODE BY FAR. I seriously just Loved watching their scenes, their relationship is So Good and I loved them trying to figure out the new dynamics they have to work through and the way they don’t really know how to act around each other in the beginning but at their core they’re still mother and daughter and Hope’s broken “they took my mommy” almost had me in tears seriously These Two Y’all.

Hope thinks of Dev as her father...I’m soft :’)

I’m tired of Nikki. That’s literally all I want to say about her this episode like I’m so tired of the Sanctum storylines and I just do Not care about her little revenge plot. Nelson joining her side is stupid but he was in a very emotional place at the moment so I Guess.

Emori tried So Hard to make things better on Sanctum and I want to give her all the things it’s what she deserves what a queen. (Luisa d’Oliveira an actual goddess I’m so happy she got a chance to shine this episode). Memori consistently being cute and domestic af love that for them, seriously these two fit so well together “ besides, you’ve been worshiping me for years” when I tell y’all I screamed. Also I’m not like, super convinced about the Emori is pregnant theory and don’t really know how I feel about it but “maybe it’s the palace life giving you that glow” was a...weird choice of words.

Sheihedea shut up forever challenge. Seriously why does anyone let him speak?? The bitch is so dramatic when he starts going on his “I can give you want you want” speech just walk away from him?? Like what’s the bitch going to do start yelling after you?? And let everyone know how desperate he is to get people on his side and also that he only has one real strategy of getting people on his side?? I think the fuck not. Honestly though, he has one (1) method of getting people on his side and it’s psychoanalyzing them while they play chess which goes on ForEVER btw (like this post w h o o p s) i’m so tired of him. Murphy calling him on his misogyny was certainly a highlight of the episode though, good for him.

And Finally, that ending though. Wow I’m super shocked that the shepard is Bill Cadogan. What a surprise. Never saw it coming. I thin the ‘plot twist’ still worked ish mostly because everyone fucking forgot about his existence but idk it was what I expected and I just Don’t Care? You have crystal giants outside and you want me to care about some musty ass white man who’s been in the freezer for thousands of years?

I genuinely thought (because I’m a dumbass) for half a second that the old dude in the freezer coffin was Bellamy because I though Anders was going to do some dramatic reveal of where he was stashing our king and the rage I felt in that split second when I thought they really had the audacity to do that. But no it was just Another Plot we get to explore :)))))

ALRIGHT CLOWNS YOU MADE IT TO THE END SO. HOW ABOUT THAT BELLARKE CRUMB WE GOT. Can’t believe I Still can’t retire my clown makeup, please just Give Them A Break. Ms. Morgan really did that though, the framing close up of Clarke, the Bellarke theme in the background, all the other characters looking right at Clarke as she breaks on the inside ( and holy shit kudos to Ms. Eliza Jane for that scene, the sheer heartbreak and almost feral desperation in one expression was Everything). I know I said I love parallel’s and who does parallels better then them but I feel like the “they do this every year” audio, just let them be together for more then Five minutes without some new crisis blease.

Next episode will be a prequel (?) set up (?) which will be...interesting. Going to be real honest I don’t really care about the premise but Becca scenes are always a plus. More of the Diyoza women please, Clarke and Octavia deserve to have a (better) moment grieving over Bellamy together thanks, let Miller say more lines, and p l e a s e let Bellamy and Clarke be on screen together soon I miss them.

Friendship ended with Gabriel now Levitt is my only friend

#The 100 #the 100 spoilers #the 100 s7 #bellarke #I will continue to clown even after the series ends like just fucking watch me #Me still holding out hope that the ending will just be the remaining delinquents moving back to Earth and living the life they should have #had in s1?#it's more likely then you'd think #send the people we like back to earth #cut off the portal/anomaly/whateverthefuck #and let the others tear each other into pieces idc #Loved the Lexa mention thank you Murphy I miss her

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linkspooky · 7 years

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Once More Without Feeling

So about 100 years ago when we were still in the middle of Rueshima, I published this meta. This was of course before our lives got flipped turned upside down, and Furuta told us all how he became the king of the Washuu

The point is of course now that 1,000 years have passed, a lot has changed since then in the narrative. Just recently in the last three chapters alone we have had references to characters overcoming impossible circumstances, and power gaps through the strength of feelings alone.

The obvious difference this time is that in my last post I said quite clearly that existing outside of the rigid structure of the CCG’s world is what allowed ghouls to feel things more freely, and therefore access the strength of their feelings whereas the CCG were fighting without feelings, and therefore unable to tap into their true power. Matsumae was fighting to protect her family, whereas Hairu was just fighting to slaughter, that sort of thing.

However this time, all three of the characters who are shown gaining access to their feelings for a source of strength are CCG members rather than ghouls (Urie, Furuta as a Joke, Mutsuki).

That can’t be right though, because Yomo has already made it clear and had his emotional flashbacks about how his purpose in life was to fight and protect the remaining family he had left.

Yomo already has it clearly figured out what he has been fighting for and the emotions he holds towards both of the Kirishia siblings, whereas what Mutsuki is fighting for is pure delusion over a romanticized past.

However, there is a clear difference between Yomo at that time, and the current situation. Just as there has been a significant change in Mutsuki in response to the CCG. Simply put, the changing cultures of both the CCG under Furuta’s reign, and Goat under Kaneki’s reigns, have also changed the way their individual members deal with their emotions.

It’s become flipped to the point where members of Furuta’s CCG are encouraged to overindulge in their emotions, whereas Kaneki’s Goat are shown repressing themselves greatly in order to work together. Which, seems to be the exact opposite of what you think it should be, especially with the way Furuta seems to treat emotion in general as nothing more than a joke. Whereas Goat most of their focus chapters are about characters going into long dialogues about what they are feeling with other characters.

It’s as the narration says, because Goat is an alliance of more emotionally involved people they have their entire organization shaken by the awakening of one person, whereas the CCG which is used to repressing their emotions and carrying on business as normal is therefore not shaken up. Yet, of course we see the opposite happening actually. The CCG gets totally shook... shaked... shooked....

The investigators scream out to show their approval of what Furuta did. That’s hardly being emotionally reserved. The next scene even says so, Furuta is different than other chairman, he’s much more open to the public about the gory details of what he does.

This is Furuta’s CCG, this is what it encourages. Screaming, applauding, giving yourself away to your more baser emotions and let yourself being slaves to them. There’s no repression involved, rather it’s almost an over expression. You can see this in the people Furuta specifically taps himself to be around too.

Mutsuki flips like a switch during the clown raid and gives into his one long time repressed desire. It’s also important to mention that Mutsuki was one of the most repressed characters in the series to begin with, there is of course his habit of lying but before that he also regarded his own expression of emotions such as anxiety and fear as weakness during the auction raid.

Mutsuki’s emotions, his anxiety towards blood, his fear towards hurting others and the untapped power of a ghoul all of those were considered weaknesses that Mutsuki had to overcome.

Ui literally gets tempted to abandon all of his ethics to pursue his desire instead in the form of Hairu ala a faustian bargain, and he seems very much aware of what he’s choosing.

Aura goes from a quiet and unseeming kid, to one constantly holding back anger and obsessed with vengeance.

Juuzou even too, who was specifically chosen to be Arima’s replacement is also finally hung up on his own feelings about Shinohara. Juuzou admitting this directly as the reason for his fighting is still a pretty big change because at the beginning of Re: it was mentioned Juuzou was too hurt by the idea of Shinohara in a coma he could not even visit Shinohara in the hospital.

Whereas when Juuzou is discussing what to do next with Iwao, it’s in Shinohara’s hospital room, the place he had not been able to visit beforehand.

Even though Urie also directly rebels against Furuta, the revelations that he comes to only happen because of the pressure created by Furuta’s regime and his own disgust in reaction to it.

It’s the environment that Furuta creates that leads in reaction to Urie realizing both his own emotional numbness, and also his ability to act on his feelings. If Bujin had not been targeted it’s likely that Urie would never have moved an inch in his grudge against Bujin and realized that he actually does not want to see the man suffer.

In making the CCG more brutal, effectively more ghoul like Furuta creates an unrestrained environment where emotions flow much more freely. At the same time he also creates an environment where people are enabled to entirely be controlled by those emotions, Mutsuki by his sense of abandonment, Ui by his grief, Juuzou by his pining for Shinohara.

On the flip side then, what has Kaneki’s environment which features long pondering of character’s own emotions encouraged.

It’s kind of amazing, how many of the long emotional debates just end with “You’re empty inside” as if that’s a fitting end point all on it’s own. Remember Kaneki made Goat on the legacy of both the one eyed king and Aogiri, but Kaneki himself is a former CCG investigator for three years.

Kaneki’s own mission essentially requires everyone to forget about their own emotions of the past to cooperate in what is otherwise an unsteady alliance. Such as the way Tsukiyama forgives Kaneki in .01 seconds with no apology on Kaneki’s part.

Ayato and Take both make a good observation as to why this kind of thing is happening though. Rather than mutual understanding, it’s more like every single person in Goat has come to depend on Kaneki Ken in one way or another. It’s not any actual conversation about emotions that’s going on here, it’s all one sided.

So we have all of these intense emotional discussions coming up relatively empty. Amon says that his ideas in the past have not changed even after talking with Kaneki.

Akira and Amon leave both to “contemplate their own emptiness”, having left goat bereft of any meaning only having been drained of their hatred after the whole experience.

Hinami speaks about how even seeing Akira reminds her of the tragedy of her parents, but none of those feelings get addressed. Hinami just suppresses them again, even though she specifically says that she does not want to become used to the feeling of being hurt about her mother and father’s deaths because that would be doing them wrong.

As I said a two way dialogue doesn’t actually happen. Hinami sucks it all up for Akira’s sake, and Akira walks away after that point now that she has the closure she needed.

That is probably the key problem with Goat, the environment of repression is created because everybody is afraid to step on the toes of the other. Perhaps because the leader who they all depend on is also an unstable person who, if is pushed too much or given too much to worry about, might himself wander off and die on them.

Something of which the members of Goat close to Kaneki at least seem painfully aware of. Hinami even says that her tending of Akira to her bedside was done for the sake of her big brother’s happiness, even though she admits later just the sight of Akira unnerves her that much.

So yes, Goat is constantly talking about feelings but it’s an almost always a one sided thing. We’re shown again and again people repressing their own feelings in an attempt to make the others around them happy. Amon gives up his search for meaning to help Akira find meaning, Touka seems terrified to tell Kaneki anything that might stress him out the smallest bit, Hinami quiets down and plays along with Touka and Kaneki’s attempts to rehabilitate Akira even though she’s the more hurt party.

Perhaps then it’s most embodied by this chapter, where even in deadly danger and helping refugees escape for their lives, Touka’s immediate thought goes to whether or not Kaneki will be saddened by this whole affair.

Because Touka’s first instinct is not to worry about her own feelings, but rather Kaneki’s. She drops her guard down and gets hit by a surprise attack. The manga goes at great length to establish that Kaneki is not going to show up this arc, and what’s discussed above is exactly the reason why.

It’s as Hajime said, Goat is useless without Kaneki. Not because most of the members cannot defend themselves, but thematically because almost the entire purpose and creation of Goat is just to give Kaneki a reason to live, and the organization’s cultivated dependency on Kaneki means that the organizations motivations have shifted not from their own feelings of self liberation but rather Kaneki’s.

Kaneki won goat’s loyalty with the promise that they could put all of their trust in him.

From the start though Kaneki’s priorities have been skewed, as he sees more humanity in the ccg officers he’s fighting, rather than the ghouls he’s meant to be protecting.

So with these missteps, the culture of repression that Kaneki has created the ghouls of Goat are not people of overwhelming emotion threatening to break the cage of the world through self realization, but rather they are referred to as beleaguered, air headed pacifists.

It’s quite obvious, the reason Amon, Akira, Hinami, these characters feel empty is because they are constantly repressing their own emotions. Akira immediately goes back to repressing whatever it was she felt about Seidou the moment she woke up, not even bothering to ask if he was around. Amon represses his guilt for what he’s done in the past. The two are constantly trying not to feel their own emotions, yet we’re meant to believe that they are rendered empty for other existentialist reasons?

So we finally get to the question of why Yomo’s emotions do not trump Mutsuki’s. Remember, Yomo’s last words.

The entire rebellion, in its refusal to directly confront the world and choice to hide away in the 24th ward and run from every major conflict, has come to embody the fatalism, the negative side of these words.

The obvious counterpoint is that ghouls do not have to live this way. Kaneki seems to grasp it a little bit, as he begins to imagine a future with Touka. One that is dependent on creating a world where ghouls can walk in the open and therefore their relationship will be allowed.

However it’s one that Yomo and Touka never have, both of them have simply gotten too used to the idea of losing things. Rather than react to it and try to protect things, as mad as Mutsuki, Kaneki, and Ui might seem when they get wrapped up with their emotions like this and try to do the impossible, Yomo and Touka go the opposite direction and lose all interest in fighting the world whatsoever only focusing on accepting each loss and being able to move on from it.

So that’s why Yomo’s emotions lose out to Mutsuki’s, because Yomo was never fighting to win to begin with. For him, everything is already squared as long as both of the living remnants of his sister live on with him.

He’s fine with it, he’s already made his peace. While it makes him more mature, it also makes him unwilling to grasp the obvious. That there does not have to be a future where either he or Touka dies.

It’s as Hide said, rather than dying so somebody else can live, isn’t the better ending where they both live on together. That’s clearly the ending Kaneki wants to fight for, so it’s odd we see such emotional repression for the sake of others,a and self sacrifice in the ranks of Goat.

Just this once, can’t everybody live?

#tg meta #kaneki ken #touka kirishima #suzuya juuzou #ui koori #mutsuki tooru #yomo renji #meta

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redorblue · 7 years

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Book 22/2017 - Ride the Storm by Karen Chance

I’m like a month late to the party, but anyway, here goes. I read it twice because I didn’t have time to write about it after the first time (that’s a shame because God have I waited for this book) and I’m glad that I did because I missed so much on the first time through! Like how Artemis is still kinda around and might be back (and Roger, too, I guess, since his soul is still there and that’s enough for a clairvoyant/necromancer like Cassie), and how it was Arthur who really killed Apollo and Ares? I should have known, I always get distracted by the action scenes with these books (although thinking about it, not noticing Arthur’s deicide was probably due to another kind of action^^), so I normally need a reread to catch the finer details. RtS doesn’t feel enough like a standalone book to talk about it in my usual fashion, so I’ll comment on some things I found noticeable instead.

1. Chapter 3, Rosier giving Cassie a pep talk I think the point Rosier is making, basically fake it ‘til you make it, is something Cassie really needed to hear, and something she should remember more often. It’s in every book of the series so far, but in this one it really struck me how negatively Cassie thinks of herself, always telling herself and others how much of a screwup she is, how she never gets anything done and is never able to save anyone. I get where it’s coming from, unfinished business just keeps on piling up in front of her and every time she jumps back to save Pritkin, she’s quite sure it’s her last try - talk about pressure. What she doesn’t notice, and what’s so great about Rosier’s little speech, is that everyone is making do with what they’ve got. We don’t know much about how the bad guys operate, but even the most respected and powerful leaders of the (supposedly) good side like the Consul and Jonas improvise more often than not. They lose people, they are taken by surprise, and they’ve made their fair share of mistakes. Compared to them, Cassie’s track record looks pretty good, and even more so considering her lack of experience, knowledge about the supernatural world, and also authority (although that is finally getting better). So I think it would be good for Cassie if someone else continued in the same vein as Rosier, because in all likelihood she won’t see how well she’s doing herself.

2. Chapter 7, Rhea being heroic This is one of those instances where Rhea acts more like a classical hero, but what I think is really important about her character is that these moments when Rhea turns into a fighter are not (only) what make her admirable for her bravery in Cassie’s eyes, and a great female character from a reader’s perspective. She does have scenes that show her martial side, and those are great, but she’s more of a caretaker than a warrior and thereby fulfills a traditionally female role. She represents a type of womanhood that doesn’t require its role models to know 100 different ways of killing a person but none of making an omelette, be loud and outspoken all the time, only have male friends etc. = features that are generally associated with maleness and inherently superior and more admirable than “girly” ones like knowing how to prepare healthy meals or comfort crying children. This type of womanhood doesn’t force women to become practically male in order to deserve respect, thereby abandoning all her other instincts that make her appear weak because they’re associated with femaleness. It doesn’t assign a gender to certain characteristics, and it doesn’t rank them. Rhea (and also Tami) is a good example for that because while displaying some martial qualities, she is mainly celebrated because of her personal strength and her ability to hold the Pythian Court together. In a universe that has many male characters, and even more from both genders who are respected mainly because they are good fighters, it’s nice to see a diffferent type of a strong female character.

3. Chapter 13, Cassie calling her vamp bodyguards family I knew Cassie cared about her bodyguards, but I think this is the first time she openly calls them family (and does it again later, then including her court and Tami and the Misfits). I don’t think this principle of hers that she can’t care about anyone never truly worked out for her, but in the first few books she kept insisting that it did at some point, and wondering why it didn’t anymore. It’s great to see that she finally abandoned this mantra, and for so many people at that, and it shows how good a leader she is: she feels responsible (even too much sometimes), she gives and inspires unconditional loyalty, and she doesn’t care about people’s backgrounds or species as long as they stay with her. She even offers a war mage a place, although she really didn’t have good experiences with them, because she thinks it’s worth a shot for the protection of her family and because she judges people by their actions instead of their previous allegiances, and only after they joined her group. So it warms my heart to see her calling her bodyguards family, and I hope she gets to spend more time with them and her court now that she doesn’t have to spend all her time in medieval Wales anymore.

4. Chapter 14, Cassie and Caleb arguing This is where she talks about a gulf between her and everybody around her, so the exact opposite of the family thing... yay. I can see Cassie’s point here - she really doesn’t have much help to deal with all the crap that’s flung at her, so I get that she feels like she has to do everything on her own because no one’s going to want to help her anyway, at least not without terms and conditions. But it has me worried for her that she barely seems to notice how she is running herself ragged, and that her death would be about the worst thing that could happen regarding the war. She doesn’t see how important she is, and naturally she doesn’t act accordingly. Of course she couldn’t have just quit the mission to save Pritkin, and finding out about the gods’ weapons was important, but her dying because she is too exhausted doesn’t help anyone either. The bad thing is, I don’t see a solution to this problem, so I’ll just fantasize for a moment and imagine that the next Cassie book starts with her spending two weeks in a remote mountain spa without reception, supernatural or otherwise, so that she can recharge again. She’s definitely earned it, so... pretty please?

5. Chapter 22, Cassie and Pritkin trying to define what they are to each other I miss their banter so much, especially since this book in my opinion was the darkest one so far and mainly consisted of running, fighting and suffering. And I like it that deep down they both think their relationship is of the “It’s complicated” kind (even though baby!Pritkin doesn’t know the half of how complicated it is), but that it’s Cassie who says it first. This book shows Cassie coming to terms with her feelings for Pritkin, and light as this conversation may be, it’s definitely progress from her being deliberately obtuse when it comes to her and Pritkin.

6. Chapter 31, Cassie and Mircea “talking”, part 1 Because that’s the thing: They don’t talk. And it’s not just that he never tells her anything, it’s the same the other way around. It doesn’t show as much because normally, when Mircea asks Cassie a question, there’s a few pages of interior monologue on why she can’t answer his question so that you forget that there was a question in the first place. At least I do. So they both have no idea what the other has been up to for the last few books (no idea how much that was in real time, I’m confused) and the only time they get in touch with each other is when one of them wants something, ideally right now and no questions asked, thank you very much. I certainly don’t think Mircea is without sin, his behaviour especially concerning Cassie is not great (which is why I really want them to break up because this relationship seems to bring out the worst in him) - but I don’t think he’s the only one to blame that it didn’t work out. Communication goes both ways, and with each other, they both suck at it. I had high hopes for this book, I thought they were finally going to break up for good and say out loud that it just didn’t work out, but well... next one, hopefully.

7. Chapter 32, Cassie and Jules talking I liked this chapter because 1. I like Jules, especially this new confident version of him, and 2. because this conversation between Jules and Cassie offers a rare perspective (in the Cassie books) on Mircea by someone who isn’t Cassie, and therefore not tangled up in their mess of a relationship.Not that Jules is entirely objective either, but since he’s human now and not bound to Mircea and the family any more, I think he’s a trustworthy source on how people who are not Cassie view Mircea. According to him, others think of Mircea as quite trustworthy (for a vampire) and also very capable when it comes to strategies for the war. And Jules himself says that Mircea would be sorry and apologize to the baby vamp he accidentally shut up permanently if he realized what had happened. These snippets show other sides of him - reliability, a sense of honour, experience, a conscience, a disregard for hierarchy etc. - that for me as a self-declared Mircea fan are very refreshing to read.

8. Chapter 49, Cassie and Pritkin talking about “the rival” This is exactly what I want, right here. They are talking. No obvious change of topic, no one disappearing, but a real conversation about real feelings with a real result, uncomfortable as it might be. Thinking about it, (with Cassie) Pritkin is actually much less cagey about personal stuff than Cassie is, although for him she’s finally trying hard to explain herself and be honest. The younger version of him is pretty straightforward anyway, which makes sense because that seems to be one of his basic characteristics and at that stage he didn’t have that much to hide yet. But once the modern him starts trusting Cassie, he’s very honest with her, too - she can ask him pretty much anything and he’ll answer, no matter how painful it might be for him to talk about his past. He even got very close to telling her he loved her, which is huge considering the whole Ruth story. Cassie, in comparison, still has strong flight instincts until pretty much the end of the book - not because of shame, I think, but rather because of habit and a lack of self-worth? I’ll have to think about this. But anyway, that’s why I liked this mini-scene, and that’s why I was so so happy to read that Cassie was the first one to say the three words in the end. First, because it’s a huge step forward for her, and second because I think Pritkin needed that to deal with his own lack of self-worth. And to relax enough to have sex that was hot enough to kill gods. Destroying the god of war with love... How very poetic.

#books #2017 #Cassie Palmer Series #ride the storm #Karen Chance #book review

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