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elizabethrobertajones · 6 years

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13x10 3rd Watch Notes

... I was too excited to do notes, that's all on me :P We're doing this late, fuelled with 3 days of fandom yelling, and a large pot of rooibos tea.

I think starting the recap with Jody's line from 9x19 that started this whole thing emotionally is BRILLIANT -

Whatever you want from me, I'll give it. If you want, I'm here.

Because this was the perfectly tuned line to say to Alex to respect her boundaries, respect her journey and where she might go and the choices she had to make about her future and what Jody would do for her... But now it encapsulates the entire heart of this show, because this is Jody laying herself on the line for her girls, for all of them, as the emotional core of the show, the one whose house for "wayward girls" is opening up for business. That she's given the same promise to Patience, and taken in Claire and would probably do the same for Kaia in a flash, even was the one to offer to teach Donna more about hunting at the end of 10x08, though she's adult support.

I think it's 100% the right choice, because Jody is undoubtedly the core of this, and I don't think her adopting Alex was the first time anyone thought she could have a spin off - a hunter sheriff is an ideal idea for refocussing and, honestly, Weekend at Bobby's started to sell the idea in that you could flip around the POV and whether he was in it or not, Jody's perspective on it all was even more fascinating than his. But obviously by 9x19, right in the shadow of the failed spin off attempt, the obvious choice was right there under their noses, and this line sealed the deal, because it gave Jody the chance to prove she was capable of carrying that weight. And boy does she.

"Wayward girls" said over the clip of Alex and Claire being dragged into their respective jail/child prison cells by the authorities, to show their roots before Jody got to 'em

Patience being offered her route in as the decision she has to make about leaving her life to *become* wayward and go off her seemingly easy path through life.

"Losing everyone you've ever known" - Claire losing Amelia (holding her like Jody will hold her at the end of the episode), Jody killing Momma - two very very different scenarios, but in both, how they lost their mother/mother figure, one a tragedy, one saving her from the toxic upbringing.

"Am I brave enough/ Am I strong enough?" the music sings over Claire in the taxi in 10x20 going into her future, when we see her last before she settles with iron certainty on becoming a hunter, and then Alex right after she has made her choice, and stabbed Momma with the dead man's blood so that she can be free

"To push away my fear/ To stand where I'm afraid" Patience choosing to leave when her father tells her she won't come back, and Donna seeing her first vampire, and being pulled into the world of the supernatural

"I am through with this" Jody, I think, right after she kills Momma, having struck the decisive blow which changes her life to bring her and Alex together and start this all

Then loud music/chorus and I lose music comprehension and we're recapping and they're all being badass :P

They've done a lot of beheading.

Claire fighting the werewolf in 12x16 edited to not show her getting beaten >.>

To be fair, that's the learning experience where she doesn't make the mistake again this very episode :D

(And she has a lot of mistakes still to make to be formed into a great hunter... She's still 5 years younger than Dean in 1x01!)

The best bit is how the badass music was for the girls, and it drops away when Jack is on screen and becomes very muted because this is The Man Pain(TM) and therefore not right to play this song for :P All the other dialogue had it at least pumping away in the background.

And, yep, her first appearance in the recap, she's part of the main plot, not the established sisters (I wondered about this on the first watch but bleh :P) you hear "I've been sacrificed" for Kaia: https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/169929858758/and-all-three-of-kaias-screams-got-punctuated

She's a huuuuge part of the show but I guess that's in a main plot way - the mythology will be built around her and Claire's emotional story is built around that. In a way it elevates her, but it also, for now, excludes her from the core family group, as she's not there in the end for the family meal around the table, and she's not here in the opening credits being layered in with them. I suspect if the show is picked up, we'll have Kaia back by the end of the first season, and she'll be officially welcomed to the family group, but in the meantime as she's *so* new she hasn't got the same connection to the story and history of Jody's family, even that Patience is rooted deep in SPN's story despite being new, and met Jody early on in the season... Staggering their arrivals means that Kaia being able to join the family would be a huge goal to achieve, to round out their numbers and have their first big victory.

This song is the only way to make that last action of 13x09 any more amped up than it already was.

And the song ends and we recap Patience on Jody's doorstep and her vision as the lead in to the episode, which, oh no. :(

I love this opening sequence a ridiculous amount. Quirky one-off werewolves, tiny lil blonde girl representing who Claire used to be right down to the braid in her hair (and she lost her shoe!) and the whole slow approach of the delivery van Claire stole while implementing this extremely extra plan... There's good tension in this whole thing, and the werewolf's knock knock joke made me laugh out loud because I'm awful... Also "don't play with your damn food" ... god.

Claire's knock knock joke is, of course, much better.

I love the way she pulls up and brings light to this place, and sets the monsters on edge before she ever knocks on the door. And the yellow eyes callback! It looks so much like one of the early shots of yellow eyes, maybe the revealing one... If this is the proper opening of the pilot, to compare it to 1x01, we have Claire saving a girl from the yellow-eyed monster... Down on their magnitude of monsters they deal with though. There's no destiny and epic plan that can possibly compete with what the Winchesters get up to, and really, no one wants or needs there to be.

We've seen a lot of tilted picture frames this season and I don't know if it's because before this season started I photoshopped one straight for silly reasons or if it's because it's an actual theme. It's still symbolic, of the picture being shifted, which might mean you're viewing it wrong, or that the picture itself has changed and moved - which this show is doing both in the main show and this itself being a new and different perspective on the show.

I love how Mr Werewolf completely unironically says "who's there" after all that stuff scaring the kid without even thinking about how this can bounce back in his face and he's going to get the fright.

I love Claire's innocent little "Huh?" when he says that, and the gentle music like maybe this was all a misunderstanding.

"Your name's right on the box." He's reduced down to just being a monster, and she's the thing that kills monsters. :D

I also love that she blows him away before he can say "Bitch"

And that Claire uses Amanda's full name to greet her and put her at ease, but also that she's taken away Mr Werewolf's name, and given Amanda hers.

She's so gentle with the little girl :D

And she has so many weapons shoved in her boots!

I like how this show she can now use her fighting skills to overpower a werewolf despite being smaller, and also that she knows not to let them get the drop on her, and reads Amanda's face well when honestly it's a trope not to realise why the person you think you're freeing looks like that and get surprised again.

I also like it was a lady werewolf who attacks at the end - it's not JUST a girlpower, men are dumb brutes message, just that these girls are very strong in their own ways and that is a good thing to celebrate. You can still get lil girls who get kidnapped, innocent civilian moms, and werewolf ladies. Before you even hit the range of girls and women in the main characters.

The sad moment where she reunites a family and wishes for a moment it would be that simple for her... And at the end she is given a whole large family to emotionally reunite with - or join for the first time :D

And then the rehash of the "hunting trip and haven't been home for a few days" line, and title card. I think a lot has already been written about what's different, like that it's Jody calling Claire home, and taking her off the road. And she's the parental figure - which may just reflect back on what Dean was to Sam I guess :P Except that she's also just friends with Sam n Dean, and this is also a front to get Claire home, because she's more concerned about Patience's vision and Claire dying than she is about Sam and Dean, concerning as that is. She doesn't know any of the ways in which they could even remotely currently be fucked, as she last checked in with them at the start of 13x09 and they last checked in with her after getting the lead on Kaia. Obviously Dean had some motives that he didn't want to be alone and didn't REALLY need Sam, he just wanted to have him around, but, yeah, this is entirely for Claire's sake. There isn't so much mytharc as there is intensely personal, heart-based reasons for things :')

How many episodes start with showing Jody's truck... I love the shot of Claire in the mirror as she pulls into the driveway, just kind of... staring at Jody's truck and wondering if she's doing the right thing coming home, like she's already facing down Jody after leaving. Like it only becomes real in that moment at the end of the drive.

It kills me that Alex and Jody are around a 6-person table. I already pointed out in the rewatch notes for the earlier stuff that Jody's living room has room for 6, but you know me and table meta. There's 6 seats around this table, and one of them is for Kaia, though she never makes it to sit with them. At the moment, it's just Alex and Jody, and all the rest are going to join in around them :D

Thinking of: Claire comes in, smiles nervously at them all, breaks the tension asking Alex if she missed her and getting some snark in, and Jody hugs Claire waaay more than normal, her face over her shoulder betraying absolute relief, before she gets back to business and introduces Patience. Claire's face falls, recognising all the hallmarks of being replaced - and Patience brought like 2 shirts with her or something, so has been borrowing Claire's old clothes because Jody probably said it was okay (Patience seems like she would have asked :P) and here's Claire, and... Yeah, I don't think all of Claire's initial reaction is just because she doesn't believe in visions or whatever, but because she feels like Patience is an impostor. And a rival.

I love Patience's last look after Claire abruptly changes the subject on the awkward silence and charges off - "well, that went... about as terribly as it could have" :P

Patience sitting next to Jody on the sofa probably can't help either >.> Jody's like a protective barrier between her and Claire - and Alex to an extent, just because they're not on the same side.

I LOVE Claire slapping away Alex's hand and Alex's teasing look when she says "baby". She's soooo much more confident than we've ever seen her before, and she's happy to tease, and to get deep without falling into her own trauma and not being able to get back out. In 11x12 she was still very hurt, and had only just made it to the surface of coping every day. In this episode she's clearly much more settled and happy and feels a sense of belonging and purpose. She'd not even consider staying to hunt just because Claire needles her it's the right thing to do, and I love that Alex has a job helping and healing people, after being indirectly responsible for so much death. Of course when there's serious work to do and Jody needs her that beats everything, but she is so confident about what she's doing.

Also just the detail that she's the one who does antiseptic cream because anyone can theoretically do that but it's showing Alex's place as the qualified healer in the group. Based on how she gets deep with Claire AND Patience, I think that she may be a secondary emotional healer too, for stuff that's not really a "Mom" problem for Jody.

Claire says, "What about the girl?" *pause* "Kaia" trying the name out of size in her mouth for the first time, saying it weirdly soft and carefully... :')

And then we cut to Kaia being discovered just as Claire says her name. And that shot introducing her by her hand - that she will die with her hand outstretched to Claire... Oh no....

Alex checking Jody will be okay without her before she leaves - it makes Claire suspicious because the tone is suggesting emotionally, not manpower. Jody's holding off having the conversation with Claire and Alex knows it, and says she knew how Claire would react in the next scene with them... She's got all their numbers

And Claire immediately challenges Jody to tell her, all bravado, and when she says she's safe, Jody cracks and you can hear it in her voice - distress that Jody does not often show as she says "No you're not!" and finally explains what Patience saw.

Having to tell someone you saw them die is a great intro >.> I mean, definitely worse than it turning out you stole their sweater :P

Claire laughs it off but then her face falls as no one turns it into a joke, and she's clearly starting to wonder by the time Jody leans in and insists Patience is the real deal

Claire immediately goes to the bargaining stage, and then denial, followed by anger and turning it into the ongoing argument about being allowed to hunt and how Jody has been stifling her and not allowing her to hunt. It's the same argument as 11x12, and though we saw in 13x03 Jody stoically trying to accept Claire's decision in her comments on her leaving, now we see that the argument has never really gone away, but they haven't been tested by anything huge enough until now to work through it

Oh Claire... Talking about not having enough time to plan and how it's good to go charging in if people need saving. And saying she won't end up dead... Alllll the irony for later :(

Jody accuses her of running away, and off Claire goes.

Patience watching all this from the sofa like... I'm... sorry...? Oh god this is awkward.

Alex being competent :D (Also a good thing to establish if she's going to have to keep ditching her job for monster autopsies and letting Claire hang around checking the system :P)

Snark snark snark, A+ dynamic between Claire and Alex - I'm glad we see all the different levels of how well they know each other, like Alex and Patience being comfortable but not close, Claire barely knowing Patience, Claire REALLY getting on with Kaia, and of course Claire and Alex having a several years old relationship where they've warmed up to each other but still need to maintain a snarky exterior.

And like with Claire coming in the door, there's a moment where it seems like Claire's anxiously waiting on Alex's approval, and is relieved when the snark comes which reassures her that they're good and she hasn't overstepped (especially as she had been needling her, and Claire's been away from home for months).

"And I knew how you'd react"

*pause*

*deflection to snarking at her some more*

And then they get really deep about what Jody means to them and what she needs from them and who has been there for her... I don't think Alex meant it that way and she immediately knows she implied Claire left them, but Claire does take it that way, and starts explaining how she felt, about why she couldn't stay yet... And Alex points out that Jody *always* worries about her, whether she's there or not. Which stops Claire short because it comes across as such a weighty declaration - the betrayal of Jody's feelings of not being able to stop worrying about Claire no matter where she is, being so much deeper than just fussing about Claire not getting killed on her watch, which can be taken as regular over-protectiveness, especially when Jody is a hunter and sheriff so protecting people is her day-to-day... Even though Claire has started to think of Jody as her mom, she's so used to being abandoned I guess it might be hard for her to accept people still care about her when she's not around, and that she's not better off elsewhere not getting in the way, and preempting abandonment.

And Alex changes the subject, and Claire looks at her fondly for doing that, and humouring her to help with the hunt.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Claire looking at Kaia!!!

The MOMENT they did that eye thing with the close up staring I had to pause and squeal the first time because while I'd been looking forward to them interacting, I had NOT expected it to be blatantly signposted that they were about to form the most intense relationship of the episode after Claire and Jody's arc. Like, I'd added up that Claire was the main character, Kaia was plot relevant, and we see them in the promo shots in 3 separate scenes talking alone that we knew of plus they appeared to be in the Bad Place alone together so I figured they were going to spend some time building up this relationship but hoooly crap they went for it.

Claire and Kaia both play it cool for the nurse, then leap into action.

From Kaia's POV Claire might be an unusually young detective, or some sort of monster or angel... Perhaps it works best if we assume Kaia's still worried about being kidnapped by angels, for most dramatic irony, that Claire, a former angel vessel herself, wanders in like hey there and Kaia is assuming yet another angel is coming for her.

Claire wanders in like "where are you going" and though she grins at her, taken in that light it's very threatening... But then she starts talking about Kaia having the cops on her ass, which is the last thing Kaia would be worrying about.

"Who are you?" she asks, realising that Claire may not be an angel after all.

"I'm a friend of Sam and Dean Winchester" - that should be the all access card but she has no idea that Dean abducted Kaia at gunpoint and this is the worst way to make her trust Claire. But seeing that she's human, Kaia makes her escape.

Kaia's reaction to being confronted by one of these monsters in the real world, not in her dreams where "at least" they can stay if she doesn't sleep, is brilliant. Of course she'd freeze in horror... As much as she's used to running away from them, they're not supposed to BE here.

I love Claire's BAMF confidence to just pull a knife and charge the thing - though of course a light stabbing doesn't do much and she gets thrown. It takes teamwork with Jody to bring it down for her to get a good stab at it, so though she gets the kill it has to be a team effort, aka you need back up, you can't rush in and do things on your own, Claire. And who knows how things would have gone if Jody hadn't come to the hospital - I guess because Alex called her and said Claire had been by and found Kaia?

"So let's talk" It's much more confrontational than how Claire then goes and talks to Kaia. I suppose because at that point she's still running away, but somewhere between all this getting the monster in a body bag, cleaning up, getting it home, letting Kaia get dressed in something other than a hospital gown, Claire's seen she's just terrified and running, but not trouble herself... I mean, Kaia agreed to come with them, and is sitting quietly on the porch.

Idk why they are sitting out in front of the house when monsters are possibly after them :P

Patience like yeeep I'm not ready for this when they unwrap their monster. Alex so casual, like, okay, we're doing this...

Being raised by vampires probably does a number on your squeamishness. And since this is all technically for good rather than harming people, Alex has no issues with it at all.

Eeeeeeee Dreamhunter conversation!!

We've already picked over it so much >.>

Claire comes walking in all confident and opening up about the monsters - because she swaggers into every conversation, fight etc when she thinks she has the upper hand. Kaia is ready to open up, since Claire saved her, and explains what she can about the monsters and her dreams.

And then Claire assumes that Kaia is a hunter of sorts, who deals with these monsters like a BAMF - "so you fight them?" "No, I run" *Claire stares at her in horror, as it sinks in just how much Kaia must be scared and how she's been running from monsters every time she dreams* "Sometimes they catch me," Kaia admits because when we compare this to the scene in last episode with the awful group leader at the rehab place, she can't tell the truth to anyone, but now Claire knows all about monsters and so the truth is not going to make Kaia look crazy...

"Is that how you got that?" Claire asks, spotting the scar, still sizing up exactly what is happening to Kaia, and Kaia admits she has other scars all over. At this point she's clearly moved to trusting Claire and being relieved to unload a bit, even if she won't look at her, yet.

Claire sees how upset this makes Kaia, the first notes of a gentle song start in the background to show we're now bonding, and she immediately leaps to trying to make it all okay - to show her that scars are trophies and to be celebrated surviving these things. "Me too," she says, unknowingly echoing the catchphrase of the last few months, since this episode pre-dates it. Taken in this context though, and the whole author is dead thing, it's a powerful statement because in 13x09 Kaia's interactions with men and monsters were all entitlement and even Jack was grabby hands and not knowing boundaries, and Dean in his fit of panic about Mary, threatened her with a gun and lost sight of her as a person - just wanted to use her for her powers, which is a blatant metaphor. Claire got bitten by a werewolf in 12x16 in an assault-coded attack, and in her earliest episodes back on the show had a lot of blatant near-misses, terror of nighttime attacks and the sketchy caravan people thing, and now when we meet her again she's blasting away werewolves who terrorise little girls, and overcoming the old adversary. And wearing her scars with pride and no shame. And encourages Kaia to feel the same way, after being harassed by the monsters of her dark consciousness who've left their marks all over her.

Claire approaches this all with her reckless enthusiasm that makes her such a great lil Dean mirror (but also all her own self for all her other traits) - "Ghoul bite" she says like it's the coolest thing ever, and immediately Kaia is smiling to see Claire open up and show her that she's not alone or damaged in a way that will make people think less of her - because Claire at least will think it's awesome. "Bar fight with a vampire... he threw me through a window." She smiles completely pleased with herself for having lived such a badass life already. That she's got these stories to tell. Kaia is captivated by now, wanting to know more about Claire, what other stories she's got written on her body.

Claire smiles and meets her eyes and looks away, bashful.

"And this one?" Kaia reaches right into Claire's space and brushes a finger over her forehead.

(Personal space? Never heard of it :P)

It's set up as an accident (though of course it's all a writing decision) in order to make Claire get off her guard and admit she's not as cool as she makes herself sound sometimes, and not all her scars are real heroic battles. And it makes Kaia laugh, getting to see beyond Claire's facade. Which, of course, is the big old Dean Winchester parallel and she's been doing it all along, pretending one thing even when it's blatantly obvious it's not. She's got better at it as she gets older, but Kaia still gets past that layer :D

They share a few glances and giggles, and then having got through enough of Kaia's layers to establish trust and a sense of being comfortable together, Claire tries again, asking, "Kaia, what happened?" in the most gentle voice ever - because she's learned to reach out to other people now, and how to judge when's the time to ask without demanding.

And though Kaia looks scared, now we know she'll talk.

There's a green AND red cooler behind Patience :D

This monster has such a cool and disgusting design. I'm completely with Patience about not being able to look at it :P Alex is still wearing her scrubs from the hospital, completely professional.

I pointed out in a post while doing the rewatch that Alex and Claire were both wearing black and white vertical stripes and then that Patience showed up wearing them too (Claire's sweater) - I think this is the only scene you can tell, but Kaia has a sweater too and it's got black and RED stripes, the only one of them to break the pattern, and, sadly, because she's marked for death :(

I love how Kaia says "it's where that came from" and gestures the monster with an eyebrow alone. Good acting.

Patience's "ugh" face too. She is so the audience stand in here, the normal kid who has to stand in the room with a monster autopsy all of a sudden and it's not even a big deal to anyone else here in a "what the fuck this can happen!?!?" kind of way :P

Kaia lurks on the other side of the door as she explains, while Claire has moved into the room to watch the autopsy - Kaia's even talking about doors to other worlds while she explains. She looks so small and separated from them. Probably more foreshadowing she'll end up separated from them... "Something went wrong"

God that monster is disgusting. A+ design.

Claire's little smile as she realises she has a chance to save Sam and Dean. "The door's still open!"

20 minutes in and we see Sam n Dean enjoying roast lizard.

"It's a lizard. It tastes like a lizard" is quite possibly the best line Dean's ever had on the show.

I've seen a spectacular lack of irony about how Sam and Dean don't need saving because they've survived this long and lol they're just camping in the woods, like the very same writers who then let Bad Place Kaia overwhelm them in a fight didn't let them sit down and roast an iguana. Like Sam and Dean are their own living entities who managed to survive this long in the woods without supervision, and like the eye of Sauron turning on them, once the writers are dealing with their lives again, everything goes to shit and the girlpower takes over.

So to be brief: Sam and Dean are used for the dramatic irony in Kaia's comment which has been a theme all season that they say Mom is dead, Cas is dead, what's burned stays dead, and we hop over to see Mary alive, or Cas waking up in the Empty. In this case, Kaia's been persecuted by the Bad Place with an intent, because Bad!Kaia is after her for some reason, and won't let her go (which is probably why she overloaded when she tried to leave the Bad Place via non-waking up means with Jack's help - Bad!Kaia looms up in her vision and stops her from going), and Sam and Dean were just chucked here. Bad!Kaia is probably stalking them the whole time waiting for an opening but she absolutely is not bothering them like she's had it in for her alternate self, I suppose seeing them as a curiosity and probable dinner for her big friend.

They've survived this long because they're not important.

They've survived this long because they're competent at being flung into the woods with nothing to their name, because we've seen them do it before - literally last midseason opener had the same concept :P

But they're not surviving as a fuck you to Kaia's presumption they're dead, and they're not living entities with any ability to shape the story to their favour to prove a point :P Sheesh...

Anyway Sam refuses to eat his lizard because it's gross and he has hope that they can escape - it parallels the start of the season, that Sam has hope, that he's holding on to change their circumstances. Dean is wallowing in the idea that they're going to be stuck, that hope has probably petered out and the portal closed, and he he has to adapt and resign himself to their fate. That no one knows how to get here, that MAYBE Jack might find a way back to them but who knows what happened there - they don't so all they can do is walk and survive and at least get used enough to this situation to eat a lizard and not go hungry and lose strength over nothing.

And Sam's denial, of food, and that hope is over, is not healthy for him, though it bears out, if anything it enforces his beliefs - and there is NOTHING wrong with hope but spreading yourself thin, not eating, not living for yourself in the meantime... They need to combine their approaches, to mix hope with self-care.

Ugh, what a nasty looking spear :(

Patience, 100% grossed out by the monster autopsy, has decided that she has done her part and she really doesn't need to be here to oversee nonsense like this :P

Alex immediately finds her, and sees what's up.

"Is that what you want?" she asks, sounding surprised. Given Patience told her that "maybe my dad will take me back" it's clear Alex knows pretty much everything we know about Patience, that she walked out on her dad in order to deliver the message. She'd also know, then, how determined Patience was to do it, and how important it was to her to get to Jody and pass on the warning. Patience hasn't seen any action but at the very least she's bonded to seeing through the story connected to her vision. Alex understands that Patience has made a personal sacrifice for this, and that asking her dad to take her back is going to have more connotations than just going home because it all got a bit too ikky - it's putting visions behind her, putting this whole thing behind her, and wanting to be normal again. And Alex, as I said, seems to have everyone's number :P

(She used to be very good at picking out marks >.>)

She snarks that Patience will pretend she's "Little miss perfect and not a powerful psychic" like Patience can't do both. I mean come on, give her a chance, she's got an in built perfectionist streak that's going to end up applied to hunting just as hard as it was applied to school, just watch if we get a show :P But yeah, no, the connotation is to go home and just do exams and try to be normal. The message coming from Alex is blatantly obvious, as we've been seeing from the start - the Alex of 9x19 and then the Alex of 11x12 are both gone, and instead we have an Alex who found her balance, and a true motivation.

"Well, you gotta bury 'em somewhere." Honestly at this point this is when I realised Alex is the secret weapon to this whole project because she's extremely funny and because she's got dark dark humour, and that dark dark history, and that doesn't go away, she just channels it into being this domestic, loving healer type who's got a dark streak miles deep.

In any case, Patience needs to do the whole "refusing the call" thing a few times because she has a main character arc of her own which we frustratingly don't get to see the end results of because the vision that took her here and ended the episode with coming true wrong, is a huge development for her, but we're gonna need the show to find out how it affected her. I mean it's great to leave it all hanging but graaaarrrr I neeeed it nooowww

The story, of course, has different ideas. Patience, it says, you're one of us, you're a main character here! So rather than let her go, it gives her a vision to make her immediately have a dramatic concern to protect them, and so she comes running back and of course she has the perfect getaway vehicle in her massive car...

I would LOVE to know what Claire and Kaia were talking about downstairs together, but I think it's also just nice to know they chose to sit close together and talk when we weren't looking at them, that they bonded closer... Because of course this is something that Berens has helped write before - the mixtape scene is the prime example of showing that there's a whole iceberg under the surface of DeanCas interaction and that they know each other better than we will ever know them, because they get all that time when they're not on screen having adventures to get to know each other, if the story will let them. And clearly it does, because Dean made Cas a mixtape.

Anyways, Claire and Kaia, who have a gentle, flirty dynamic, spent at least 10-20 minutes talking in private :')

Claire is prone to looking at Patience's lips too. Oops. I guess she's just surrounded by cute girls so what to do??

She and Patience have the vision as the core conflict, that Patience feels Claire blew off her vision and she accuses her that she came here to save her and Claire just wants to fight monsters... And Kaia is the one who intervenes in the fight and convinces Claire to be rational and go. I LOVE the angry stare-off between Claire and Patience though - that Patience thinks that Claire thinks she's a fake, when Claire's a lil freaked out and putting on a lot of bravado about it.

And the camera going between them, to Kaia who reaches in and pulls Claire out of defying Patience for more bravado.

But also that in the wider narrative this episode is set up around Patience's vision and her misinterpreting it as being about Claire dying - but it's Kaia, and that teaches Claire to have less bravado, to rely on the others and to have her "army" as she thinks of them, of support to plan and help and work as a team.

For now, Kaia's intervention is enough to soften her, just as her overall meaning to Claire will soften her :(

Kaia's face as she watches the monsters smash up the house. Claire's as she has to accept this is really happening and Patience was right - which means her vision about Claire will happen...

Patience just annoyed no one will listen to her

TIME FOR D-TRAIN

I love how Patience even thinks for a moment the National Guard might help in a monster situation.

Donna gets the best entrance this episode. Sorry Claire :P

Now she's here they really get to work. Donna gets out her weapons to badass music, drops the hilarious Minnesota line, and Jody calls Kaia aside to work out where they're supposed to go to find that door.

With the help of Alex beating Sam Winchester in a game of wifi tag

Getting in another reaction shot of Patience on "who knows howta use a flamethrower?" was genius.

Jody's resigned look as she revs up for another stay back and wait speech - wheedling Claire. She looks over and sees they're all watching her, wondering what Jody is asking her perhaps, or knowing it. Kaia is in the foreground, and Jody says "Kaia and the girls" and I watched and giffed waaaay too recently for my Dean n Cas are in love gif series, 5x04 where Dean says to 2009!Dean that he's going to feed all his friends into the meat grinder - Cas too??

I think Jody thinks of Alex and Patience more as the girls under her protection because they have a pre-existing relationship, even if Patience's is newer, while Kaia is still basically unknown to her. But that just implies further that Kaia is under Claire's protection instead, already. Before Claire says anything.

I cry a lot about them already :P

And Jody's surprise when Claire gives in with only a glance over at Kaia because she was expecting the fight. She's smart enough not to throw that back at Claire and turn it into a victory or demand to know what changed.

Sam belatedly seeming to think they're in a different universe, not a different world - and the fact they HAVE that distinction in the first place... I think it may just be settling in how far from home they are, and how difficult it will be to get back.

Again, Dean concerned with the practicalities, cleaning his boots, grumbling, accepting that this is pretty much their life now while Sam is still philosophising and coming to terms with it.

Bad!Kaia has some serious moves :D Just thinking of the spear connection, when they fought Ramiel they got the better of him. But she's small and fast and has clearly learned to fight from the very start and the spear is a natural extension of herself. It's not some big showy fight, she's small and strong and wants them knocked out and on the floor.

Donna knowing they found the right place because the Impala is parked outside of it. Perfect :D

This is all she does this episode except for driving the Winchesters home - just telling Jody and Donna where to go.

And they march on in like the competent badasses they are :D

The weirdness of what they're walking into slowly sinks in as they pass the melted angel blade - Jody knows what one is from 12x06, where she would be more like the average hunters who, like Asa, think of it as so special to keep back and put in a felt-lined box. She's never seen wingprints before either. And then there's the glow of the portal from upstairs...

Claire sits in silent contemplation, and Kaia takes it as her chance to come reassure Claire, since Claire sat with her and made her feel better last night. Claire smiles to herself before she moves over, happy to see her. And Kaia watches her closely, leaning around to catch Claire's expression, so she can diagnose that Claire is scared...

Here we get to the most important lines for Claire as a Dean mirror - the thing Dean's been grappling with for years and Berens had a whole section about in 12x22 where Dean talked about how they might die, when they thought they were facing their end in the suffocating Bunker. Claire sees her end, and expresses it the same way Dean does - she wanted to go down swinging, doing something heroic and good that would mean she lived a good life. Something to prove to herself, in death, that she had saved herself :( I mean, Dean's faced this a lot, in season 3, in season 10 especially. But Claire is young and has only ever really known the swagger of being a hunter, tempered by mistakes and losses, but nothing that could set her back more than her drive to do it.

I think Kaia sees her as a real hero because of the way she saved her, because of the way she talks about her life, and seeing her as confronting that she wanted to die heroically, knowing that this is how Claire feels, that she's all in for being a swaggering hero if she could be...

Stuff like "get myself killed" and "sit back and let Jody handle it" remind us how young Claire is, and how Jody still fills a motherly role in protecting her. Though Claire is now presumably legally an adult with no more coming of age milestones or will be very soon (she must be coming up on 21 if her birthday is towards the end of a season) this is like the last hurdle to adulthood - learning to be responsible and for Jody to trust her with her own life, a struggle that goes both ways between them and sadly eats up Kaia in the learning of it >.>

"But Sam and Dean saved my life and I *can't* sit this one out" - Claire carries on talking and starts to talk herself into it. Kaia listening, sees where Claire's heart is, and though she has no love lost for Sam and Dean, sees what they mean to Claire - that at the very least she has them to thank for ever meeting Claire, who saved her life, so that passes on... And so she appeals to Claire's hero side, knowing it will be what Claire needs. And that for Claire she would do just about anything. She'd go with her into the Bad Place, if that is where Claire needed to go.

God I wish they had kissed at that moment :P The camera cuts away and we go to Jody and Donna's badass scene with the monsters.

"Ooofta."

Donna seeing something cosmically huge for the first time, and finding proof that hunting is not just the ghosts and vampires that come through the towns you look after, but sometimes on a scale unimaginable to the daily life of a sheriff...

Jody knows too but she also knows this is where she has to go so off she charges - And when Donna pulls her back she's still staring at the portal with a finality, and certaintly. And fear. Gosh she's good at this whole thing :'D

"I'm going in," she says, firmly, the next shot showing her less scared and more resolute. "If I don't, she will. Donna, I cannot lose another child." And then she turns and gives the spooked Donna that sad, almost farewell smile, because she doesn't know she can come back from this and I suppose she trusts Donna to be her back up here, to stop Claire going in after her, or to come with her and help...

Who knows because the monsters shake them out of it, and they have to check it out. Perhaps she was going to leave Jody behind but she just can't while while there are monsters there. Her instinct is not to rush in, and it's to protect everyone around her, and that ultimately saves her from rushing in and doing a Claire, and getting Donna killed.

But it still gets them to a dead end hiding in the car, without back up of all the girls.

(Wow all the Jody scenes are so powerful... Kim Rhodes just fills the screen all the time and I love her. An incredible amount.)

Mislabelling - Dean calls "Darth Dickwad" "he" when talking about the dinner bell which I think also some of the less well-inclined towards this episode peeps have taken as gospel truth, that the thing in the hood was some other creature, male the whole time until it revealed itself with Kaia's face like a shapeshifter, instead of just being her the whole time. (She's had boobs the whole time, it's not a good theory but if you want a man to be the only one strong enough to take out other men in a fight, sure :P)

But in meta terms, the label being wrong is a long long theme, and Dean misunderstanding the hooded figure's gender because he's making this assumption too or just isn't objectifying her figure where it's visible through the robes and just assuming that slim and strong means a small but very dangerous guy... Who knows :P He's not really had a good look at her.

It would be SO easy to write "she" and not think about this concept or have Jensen mis-say "she" knowing it's Yadi or a female double on set so the "He" has to be very deliberately said and written. That there is a meta point to Dean being wrong, and again with the labelling.

I like how Claire's like, "Patience, gimme your keys" - not can you drive us to this spot, but I wanna do some illegally fast stunt driving to get us there on time and this isn't a debate :P I guess just her being a leader in attitude as well.

I just love this badass set up of Jody and Donna in the car together, mirroring 11x04, but in a badass fight scene, while Sam and Dean took the pose to be a time to talk about feelings. Perfect.

Donna just says "alrighty then," not sentiments, and then the monsters start clambering on the car and they're shooting.

Jody's FACE when she sees the girls with the flamethrower.

Honestly the fact Claire took the flamethrower off... And no one picked it up??? Pfft.

Claire and Jody go through a silent exchange of their argument as Claire realises it's the portal, and bolts towards it, Jody chasing after her.

Patience and Alex standing there like... should we be doing something about this?? And the monsters???

"Oh hell," Jody says, seeing Claire has found the portal and is already sizing it up, getting ready to walk into it. And it's getting smaller, meaning that it's now or never. And there's no time for any more arguments about it. Claire saved her life and it's not like a weird barter system or anything but maybe she can trust Claire... it's almost like in the new star wars where Leia tells Poe off for always jumping in an x-wing and blowing things up without thinking but then when an emergency comes, the response is, yes jump in an x-wing and blow something up :P

That arc was more strongly focussed on his leadership but tbh Claire and Poe maybe share a personality type. She'd be one hell of a pilot.

ANYWAY Just avoiding talking about Jody having to let Claire go into the portal and saying "I know" and giving her that little wink, like, I love you but it's your life and I can't stop you, and maybe we need someone to swagger in like the big hero and just get it done, and I'm so incredibly proud that you have this instinct to do the big hero stuff...

... Ohhh this is all hurting soooo much because of how it ends :(

There's just so much power in Jody's looks, you can SEE how much she loves Claire and how much she doesn't want her to go but she knows she has to.

Broken up with Donna's "oh there he is! Hiya buddy!" because in the opening we see Donna's reaction to seeing a vampire for the first time of total horror, but now she's adapted, it's no different to growing up in a hunting culture in Minnesota... Sure the things are weirder, but it's cross-applicable skills :')

She may talk down to the monsters to make them seem less scary for the girls, but when there's tons, and she knows the odds, she doesn't make a grand stand, she tells the girls to run and covers their escape.

"Little help!?" she calls as casually as she can up the stairs, while probably Patience shrieks "HELP"

This distracts Jody from her moment with Claire is already looking to the portal again, resolved to go.

She looks to Jody for final approval and Jody does that amazing little nod and "Go" because to her they already resolved it and they're wasting time - or at least that's what she wants to convey to Claire while her eyes shine with tears and she watches with utterly restrained sadness and fear.

Claire nods, and looks over at Kaia, who just looks freaked out

Because she's agreed to go to The Bad Place, and oh boy that's all hitting home right now

"I'll protect you," Claire says, full of confidence that she can do this, and holding out her hand, and they Legend of Korra their way into the rift... But this is the beginning of a painful story, not the end of one, and so Claire leads and Kaia follows. The music kicks up a bit of intensity with a guitar riff as they take hands, and through they go.

On the other side, Claire immediately scopes out the portal to check they have a way back, while asking if Kaia is okay, in full hunter mode. Kaia grabs at Claire's arms to find her hand again, and pulls her towards the sound of the monsters, towards her nightmares, resolved to do this.

Meanwhile: some fun throwing around of furniture, Alex shooting like she's at a shooting range, Patience shrieking some more

Claire saves the boys. "My hero" Dean says, recognising the give and take of saving lives that they do in this industry. Owing one to Claure is something to process later but they're going to have to think of her as an adult and fellow hunter now.

She's a year off how old Sam was in season 1.

They sort of don't even question how Claire is here - she came with Kaia and they were vaguely local to Jody when it all went down and that's enough to bridge the gap at least for getting the hell out of here and assuming they're not hallucinating :P

Sam still has to ask about Jack, though. Of course. Kaia shrugs and says he must be at the other place because, well, he was trying to get there. And whether she can see it or not - if she has some impression from when she was screaming and melting all the angels or what...

Good enough for now, monster is coming :P

I LOVE DONNA REASSURING PATIENCE THAT SHE GOT THIS

"let's get to work"

Not "we've got work to do" but recognising they're already hard at it, recontextualising an iconic show line less to be about expectations of work later and more to just getting down and doing things :P

WHY DID THEY STOP FOR A LINE UP AT THE PORTAL JUST RUN THROUGH IT IT'S OKAY IT'S DEFINITELY THE RIGHT PORTAL

JUST GO FULL TILT INTO IT AND BE DONE WITH THE BAD PLACE

Kaia hearing Bad!Kaia coming - or sensing her. She has great reflexes to shove Claire out the way - or some connection to her Bad Place Self... And I wonder at what Bad!Kaia was trying to do - if she wanted to kill Claire, or if she knew Kaia would jump in front of the spear.

Anyway OW OH NO KAIA OH NO OH NO OH NO

This sucks but I'm taking it all on the chin on the absolute understanding that we're getting Kaia back if we get this show and the story hasn't even begun yet and that Kaia is going to be so utterly central to it this is only the beginning for her character and she's going to emerge like a beautiful butterfly from this lil set back, and no one stays permanently dead, especially not when they're introduced with a romance and then their evil double seemingly pops up before the end credits :P

Anyway in her last moments Kaia struggles to look at Claire, and grasps for her hand, squeezing it so tight she compresses Claire's fingers, and Claire is just stunned, whispering "Kaia" to round off how she first said her name at the beginning of the episode when she had no idea what it would mean to her in the next 24 hours.

Claire can hardly look away as Kaia dies, despite the sound of the approaching monster.

That's a big boy.

I wonder what Donna would say to him :P

Claire goes in a full snarling rage to attack the hooded figure, and is restrained and pulled back

Patience gets in a great shot which knocks back a single monster that was running straight at her, after a few hilariously bad shots

Her look of stunned horror is such a hilarious part of this episode. We need more newbie hunters who aren't just like, victim of the week or whatever, they're press-ganged into the life and it's like what the heeeell why am I dooooing this?? :P

Well I mean we could have a whole first season of her figuring it out XD everyone seems so gung-ho to be a hunter or get protected and stay back. She's not just a random civilian defending herself, she's literally grappling with if this is her life or not and all signs point to yes despite how horrifying she finds it :P

Aaaand they come back through the portal and it closes and Claire wails the most anguished "Noooooooooo!!"

And that's when Patience comes in with the others and realises Claire isn't even hurt - but a part of her just died

Jody silently asking Sam what happened - is Kaia okay? And he just shakes his head.

SILENT COMMUNICATION. Love it. Love that I still get an itty bitty fix of Jam in the middle of all this :P

Sam is still up for communicating with Jody - Dean's just looking on in sympathetic sadness to what Claire is going through.

The back and forth between Claire in agony and Kaia lying dead on the ground just drives home what Patience is realising - that she misread everything and it was Claire in mourning and Kaia's death that she saw, but the details not giving her enough context to realise it wasn't what it seemed.

And, yeah, Jody holding Claire like Claire held Amelia when she died - ouchies :(

But Jody soothing Claire... oh my heart. Jody has gone through about 1000 different emotions this episode and it's been AMAZING. If anyone thinks the girls can't act then Jody would still carry it for them.

Sam and Dean respectfully wearing black as the girls get on with cleaning up the house. Blah blah people covered Dean saying "i" and Sam pointing out how shut down Claire was as a parallel to how Dean was at the start of this season - so much about grief and loss this year, again.

Jody's got a lot of mixed blessings - Claire is back but broken, her house is smashed up but she has a lot of new hands to help her fix it. And they saved Sam n Dean but there may still be a whole bunch of monsters around town for them to deal with.

What a great sentiment to define this show's place in the mythos: "We will handle it. C'mon, you guys take care of the world! We got Sioux Falls covered." Showing they have a place, respecting Sam n Dean's importance to the greater narrative, but also defining the show as having no huge mytharc because you can't compete with Sam n Dean on the cosmic level, but you can have a personal level mytharc - something like Bad Place Kaia and the emotional drama that would bring - to still have high stakes and high personal meaning for it all... And we're invested in all these characters, the ones we've known forever because we've known them forever and seen them grow into this, the new ones because of their potential and what they will bring to the dynamics of the show...

And Sam and Dean love Jody so much and she waves goodbye to them and sends them back to the main story, and sighs and goes to see how Claire is doing.

Still crying in her/Patience's room (they need to settle that :P)

"You were right," she says because this whole episode was stacked against her over-confidence, to bring her down to have a more careful approach to hunting, to sadly learn a lesson that was building all the time we knew her as an aspiring hunter. Carelessness is an interesting flaw, and over-confidence, and I don't want to see them disappear from Claire - and judging by the end monologue they haven't, she's just reapplying them and learning to be a little less hasty, a little more reliant on teamwork... But yeah, I think Claire is an interesting mess, and she's so young and started so young on the show we've seen every single one of her traumas collect together to make who she is.

(And Kaia is owed like a billion times the character development off of Claire's pain if they get the show so that she can have it paid back for dying like this for Claire's >.>)

"I said I'd protect her," she says, her voice breaking and a tear coming out of her eye - c'mon, people really think Kathryn can't act? She's breaking my heart :P Bringing it back to Kaia and that's when it makes Claire cry, to think of her promise to Kaia, that Kaia took the stray bullet for her (... and the spin off had better subvert the heck out of that trope >.>) and Claire failed to protect her like she'd thought she could.

Having had someone to protect - and losing someone - makes her finally understand Jody, and she mentions the feeling of losing someone you can't protect, that you felt that much love for whether it's a kid or your first crush that really seemed like it might be something real and good for you...

And I mentioned riiight at the top, that Claire never got the speech from Jody that she gave Alex and Patience, because we saw Claire being sent off to Jody without hearing Jody make her any promises. So it's like, Jody finally has an in to reach out to Claire and for Claire to listen, the equivalent of the end of 9x19 or 13x03 for Alex and Patience. "You don't have to do this alone" - which is also the message of the show, that they're a family, that they're not alone when all the family work together.

"When you're ready, if you want, we're all here for you." And that's Jody's final invitation for Claire to stay for real.

One last humour beat with Donna, Alex and Patience, who are definitely going to be the most fun characters in any combination or all of those 3 :D

Alex giving her a "Welcome to the family" is a lighter version of the heartfelt stuff Jody just said to Claire - extending an invitation to the newbie to the dynamic that she's passed their bonding ritual of fighting side by side and she's no longer just an awkward house guest, but one of them.

Jody comes in and stops to survey them, perhaps giving an uncertain verdict on if they're keeping Claire.

Maybe just to ask them what takeout they want. She probably told them she was gonna go talk to Claire, though, so they're all wondering about her.

Claire continues her hunter journal, now writing from the heart, starting a new page of her life.

Coming downstairs to join the family.

there's 4 chairs that survived the attack on the house - which the established family (Alex, Jody, Patience and Donna) are sitting in, and a folding chair set out for Claire if she wants it, and a different coloured plate (actually, Patience, the other newbie to the settled family dynamic in Sioux Falls since Claire left, has a green plate too, but a real chair). And the 6th chair is just gone. Kaia is not currently a part of this family set up, but the space remains for her.

Claire monologues basically stuff to that effect - she's staying because they're going to get strong, and fight her chosen battle. She thinks. She mentions "family" "army" and "need" which in the SPN language has a lot of mixed connotations - family is good, army is a bit uncertain about if you're using them for the right reasons, and "need" has a lot of back and forth about if it's good or bad, to use people or to be incomplete without them, for good or bad. In this context it all for now comes across as a very positive message of unity and strength between them all, but idk if it's healthy long-term for Claire based on the critique to these words in the main show, or if she's escaping to a world governed by Jody's heart, where these things might be less dramatic and painful :P

"They think I'm staying because I'm broken" I guess it's pretty open among them all how wrecked Claire is about Kaia - they all know there was something special or that something about it hit Claire very hard and maybe they can think it was losing someone she swore to protect in battle, especially sacrificing herself for Claire, or maybe one or the other of them has gleaned how Claire's heart was broken too.

I love the last glad look Jody gives Claire, happy to see she's come down to join them. The others are chatting without particularly directed eye contact as they pass around the food as a symbolic thing of unity.

"The thing that killed Kaia is still out there" she says as we see the now familiar opening of a portal.

"I don't care if I have to tear another hole in the universe" - I think this phrasing is particularly ominous given season 13 as a whole with the AU hopping and Billie's warning about AU hopping as knocking over the whole cosmic house of cards. Even without what happens in this show, in the main show we still have Jack in the AU with Mary, and some drama with Michael sure to still unfold. And I'm really starting to worry that this is all still a red herring for the real problems, caused by universe hopping. The phrase "tear another hole" is so violent, and she's got Winchester determination to do it at any cost which is reflecting back on them, not just in general but even just last episode they were at an any costs struggle to get to Mary including tearing holes in the universe when they were told not to.

And finally the dramatic irony - Claire looks into the camera and says "we're going to find it and I'm going to kill it" and "it" pulls back the hood to reveal she's been Bad Place Kaia all along, and now she's here with an agenda...

Which goes with, as I was saying earlier, all the dramatic irony through all of season 13 about alternate universes and not knowing the state of things, misinterpretations, mislabelling and generally getting things very very wrong, when we know better. We are allowed to see there's still hope for Kaia in the long run and that Claire's mission is so VERY much more complicated than she thinks it is. One thing is certain - she is NOT going to accomplish this goal and we know it as soon as Bad!Kaia pulls back her hood :P

NOW GIVE US THIS SHOW SO WE CAN SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEEEEXT

#13x10 #season 13 spoilers #my stuff #whoops :p #at least this way we have hindsight commentary on everything #no wild guessing fun though :P

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schrodingersauthorii · 3 years

Text

In honor of Salvage Ch. 18, I have prepared the first chapter of my Phoenix Salvage AU. @muffinlance , there’s one scene that’s 100% an improvement in my overall writing structure I pulled from you, and I bet NOBODY can tell which one it is.

—————————

The young soldier must have somehow heard the blade coming. He didn’t have time to cry out, but the panic stains his face. Not quite the easy death Hakoda wanted, but unavoidable, and still far kinder than leaving him to the sea.

Two years of fighting had left many too-young Fire Nation soldiers dead on this deck, but this was different than a battle. Different even than a mercy kill, back when they thought maybe Fire Nation prisoners would simply accept a fate other than death.

The soldier wouldn’t have left them any choice in the end. But he hadn’t forced their hands. Not yet.

One of the men murmured a prayer, a simple benediction for the journey to the next life. This wasn’t the clean up after a battle, and there might not Fire elders speaking rites for the kid somewhere across the sea. The soldier might only have what they give him, and they're pragmatic people- not cruel.

The Fire Nation burns their dead. That would be kindest, but if they could safely build a pyre, then they could have safely kept a firebending prisoner. The young soldier have a sea burial.

The corpse vetoed this. Violently.

Akake and Tuluk yelped, dropping the suddenly burning body onto the wooden deck.

Fire shouldn’t be green and purple, Hakoda barely had to think, and the fire disappeared. He blinked the sparks out of his eyes, and the deck was as clear. No fire, purple-green or otherwise. Just a vaguely soldier shaped mound of ash.

Hakoda reached down to touch it: barely warm, and not so much as a soot mark beneath it.

Something stirred. Something tiny. Hakoda grabbed it without giving himself time to think about it. Whatever it was squirmed frantically in his hand.

Hakoda looked down, expecting- something. A still beating heart, perhaps. A reptile or worm, at the very least. Something repulsive and macabre. But a tiny, down-feathered bird trembled in his hand. He brushed ash off of soft, orange wings. Even filthy, the fledgling glowed like sunrise.

“It’s a bird,” Hakoda said, dumbfounded.

“A bird,” Tuluk repeated.

The bird cheeped in distress. Hakoda started to pet it, but it nearly fell to the deck in its effort to escape his hand. He quickly cupped it with both hands instead. The bird pecked at his fingers.

The entire deck stared in stunned silence. What were they supposed to do with a bird?

————————

Tolko presented a box hastily stuffed with hay from the albatross-pidgeon coop. Hakoda carefully dropped the chick inside. It burrowed down into the loose “nest,” still cheeping incessantly.

“He’s so cute,” Tolko gasped. “What are we going to do with him?”

Tolko stared at the bird with love already in his eyes. The bird stared back with… suspicion. At the very least.

Hakoda’s temples begun a warning throb.

“Ask Kustaa if he can… find anything,” he finally said.

Tolko cooed at the bird as he walked away.

Hakoda felt a dreadful portent hum in his bones: this would not end well, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

------

“What is that?” Kustaa asked.

“A bird,” Tolko said. And held the chick up to Kustaa’s face, as if not seeing the puffball was the problem.

“Which might also be a Fire Nation soldier. The Chief wants to know if you can find anything.”

“A soldier.”

“Yeah. He was drifting past, we fished him out, but he was. You know. A Fire Nation soldier. And he said he was a firebender. So.”

“So what?”

“He kind of...died. And spontaneously combusted. The bird was in the ashes. See?”

Tolko brushed the bird’s head and held up a sooty finger. The chick couldn’t really floof in anger- it was already at maximum floof- but it gave its best impression of outrage anyway. Tolko hastily placed it on the table before it could tumble out of his hand.

“This is a bird,” Kustaa said. “I’m a healer, not an ornithologist. Or a shaman. All I’m qualified to say whether or not YOU have brain rot.”

“Umm…” Tolko mumbled.

“Any headaches? Blurred vision? Acute pain in your arms or legs? Motor difficulties?” Kustaa asked as he prodded Tolko’s arms.

“No?”

“Then we’ll work with the assumption that Spirits were involved, not Swamp Fever. Hopefully, a minor Spirit.”

Kustaa leaned down in front of the bird.

“Can you understand us: peck two times, then three.”

Low and behold, the bird did… then stared at them and pecked a deliberate pattern of some sort.

“I don’t understand that,” Kustaa said.

A storm of outraged peeping.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Are you a Spirit, one peck for yes, two pecks for no.”

Two pecks, and more outraged peeping.

“...Are you a bird?”

In hindsight, it was incredibly bold of them to assume Zuko knew more than they did about anything.

--------

Tuluk entered Hakoda’s office after a single knock, and Hakoda’s temples immediately resumed pounding.

“Apparently, the bird insists he is the soldier, and NOT a Spirit,” Tuluk said.

Hakoda pinched the bridge of his nose. And resolved to make an offering soon. There were stories about shapeshifting Spirits who forgot they weren’t human.

“Keep an eye on him,” Hakoda said. “We’ll head to the nearest port and find an Earth Sage. This is exactly the kind of trouble we don’t need.”

Tuluk nodded grimly.

A thought struck Hakoda. “How did…?”

Tuluk sighed. “Lots of questions. Lots of patience. Kustaa is positively charmed with the little menace.”

“He’s a bird.”

“A mean one,” Tuluk agreed. “But he’s warmed to Kustaa and Tolko, for stars knows why.”

Hakoda didn’t like the idea of a Spirit getting… attached to his crew, but he liked the idea of an upset Spirit on his ship even less.

“Keep an eye on them, please,” Hakoda said.

Tuluk nodded, understanding in his eyes.

“I’ll do my best, but that’s a conversation you need to have with Kustaa and Tolko. Probably the rest of the crew, too.”

Hakoda’s headache sharpened with knife-like intensity. Tuluk eyed him with concern.

“Chief. Nobody will blame you if you need a drink before that. Kustaa’s almost ordered a shipwide medicinal order.”

Hakoda sighed.

“After,” he promised. And didn’t clarify after what.

—————————-

Their youngest crewman tucked the surly creature into his parka, from where it eyed everyone and everything with deep suspicion. Tolko kept up a mostly one-sided commentary, which the soldier-bird seemed surprisingly engaged with.

“Do you know his name?” Punuk asked as Tolko showed the bird their snack break offerings.

“No,” Tolko said through a mouthful of salted fish. “It’s the character for ‘righteous rule,’ but we couldn’t figure out the pronunciation. So Birdie it is.”

“Birdie” cheeped aggressively enough to attract the other crewmen’s attention for the first time in hours. There was still work to be done, and his constant noise quickly faded into the background.

“That’s terrible. How about… Sparky? Ember?”

“Blaze.”

“Inferno.”

“Red.”

“You can’t call him red, he’s pink.”

“He’s definitely more orange than pink.”

“Orange still isn’t red.”

Ragnalok tossed an empty water skin at the pair.

“Stop torturing the poor guy. He already died once today.”

The trio went quiet.

“Way too soon, man,” Panuk said.

Birdie was… worryingly quiet for several hours after that.

-------

Tolko roused in the middle of the night, awakened by a faint stirring of downy feathers and soft cooing. Birdy was awake. Tolko couldn’t see it, but dawn must be on the horizon.

Birds liked dawn. So did firebenders, presumably. It was early, but Tolko wasn’t tired-tired, so…

Tolko scooped Birdy up in one hand and slid out of his hammock. “We’ll go top deck,” he whispered as he tucked Birdy into his collar.

Birdy cheeped in a maybe grumpy, maybe affirmative way. But it was soft, so Tolko didn’t think he was upset. Birdy was very, very good at communicating when he was upset, bird or not.

It still seemed uncharacteristic. And Birdy was slumping on Tolko’s shoulder in a way he hadn’t yesterday.

Tolko scooped Birdy back into his hand, and Birdy just… cheeped quietly. Cheeped once and fell silent.

Okay. It was early: Birdy might just be tired. It was a Thing, that birds got sleepy when it was dark- even if it wasn’t actually night. They’d go topdeck and watch the sunrise, and if Birdie still seemed off he’d come back and wake Kustaa.

Tolko climbed the last stair just as the sun broke free of the horizon. Birdie chirped softly again, and Tolko held him out into the light.

“It’s beautiful,” Tolko said.

And Birdie once again caught fire on the Spirits damned deck.

#avatar the last airbender #fanfic #phoenix salvage

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felassan · 3 years

Text

Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source]

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok. What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important. They're like sets in a play. (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source] Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source] There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

#dragon age #bioware #video games #fenris #the Fenaissance #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #mass effect

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generallypo · 4 years

Photo

[ Constellation ’Director of the False Last Act’ is looking at you. ]

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dark academia!hsy, yeeee! the white coat is fantastic, but unlike kdj and yjh, she doesn’t really switch up the color scheme. no, her bum-aesthetic purple hoodie does not count. i think she’s super hot. i yell about how much i love her under the cut.

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yo han sooyoung is actually amazing, incredible, powerful, witty, drop-dead sexy... what makes her so irresistible? let me explain

1) yeah, kdj takes the kdj company to end of the scenarios, but please. how many times does he have to kill himself to get there? not to mention his intentional (and unintentional) kill count?

sure, he does the job, but damn is he kind of inefficient about it. say what you like about hsy’s methods or personality, but the 1863rd round far surpasses the 1864th in terms of the lives preserved while still managing to take the team to the end.

without the benefit of cheat-like knowledge, skills, and resurrections, hsy almost single-handedly orchestrates the events of the 1863rd round to a satisfying finale. kmw, problematic as he is, survives and becomes an admittedly better person, yjh finds a timeline where he can rest in peace, and the rest of the cast have their eyes set on the hopeful end of all scenarios. all this, while only being HALF of a person (hsy originally split off into two after misusing her avatar ability). do her actions lead to the happiest ending? no. but it’s the one that sacrifices the least and saves the most. for the greater good, in other words.

hsy may be an intrinsically selfish person, but unlike kdj, she has the ability to grasp the entire picture and avoid tunnel-visioning into a crappier, more convoluted and self-sacrificial solution. ironically, it ends up saving more lives. perks of being a talented writer, i guess.

and the 1864th hsy emerges as a leader in her own right as well. the epilogue arc shows her assuming roughly the same role as her 1863rd self in kdj’s absence: yjh breaks off from the main group (AND BECOMES A TERRORIST AKFDJDSLKSL HAHAHA) to assume a similarly antagonistic role to the remaining members of kdj company. as a result, she’s the most powerful lawful incarnation remaining, and once more the incarnations circle around her for direction.

2) independent, confident, competent (hot and kinda shameless about it). this woman has the most delightfully unrepentant attitude towards life -- how to defeat the man with the strongest defensive ability without dealing a single blow? summon a horde of your naked dancing clones to terrify his innocent sensibilities, and then cackle at his helplessness. the fact that her sponsor is literally the chuuni-est cringefest in the entire galaxy and she gives no fucks about him is just additional comedic gold. her undisguised disgust for what should otherwise be a highly respected/feared entity is a clear indicator of her supremely dominant position over everyone else, and i admire her consistent irreverence of everyone and everything.

hsy is the only character who can consistently bully kdj, brush off his deflections, and bully him again. 1863rd round hsy gives kdj about 50 migraines in the span of 5 minutes of conversation before confirming her superior wit. jhw comes close, but unfortunately, she actually respects the rat bastard. i wish i could mention yjh, but let’s be real: he -- and just about every existing version of him -- has been whipped for the guy for at least 250+ chapters now.

hsy, on the other hand, has no regard for anything except herself... man, i respect that so much. what a queen.

and i won’t lie! i didn’t like her in the first fifty or so chapters. plagiarism? homicide? kind-of-in-general-just-being-an-obstacle-to-kdj’s-plans? yeah, i almost fell into the trap of disliking her purely because she didn’t cave immediately in the grand scheme of kdj’s plotting -- thereby denying me the power rush that came with seeing kdj bulldoze his way through the puny attempts of small fry characters. she’s neither a friend nor a despicable foe, but rather someone who acts independently and in her own self-interest, WITH the ability to thwart major players if need be. aka, the one who frustrated kdj’s plans -- and me -- the most.

going by my previous isekai/power-fantasy trope experience, i figured she’d get pegged into the sexy-but-sassy harem candidate, or get killed off if that didn’t work out. in hindsight, i’m just pretty fucking dumb, but honestly, i can accept that with gratitude --

-- because in fact. the whole ‘she-gets-in-my-way-so-she-either-goes-into-the-harem-or-dies’ trope in light novels/webnovels and the like, is, frankly, misogynistic and boring as hell. i had some admittedly low expectations for ORV, which consequently blasted my ass to the moon and left me there sobbing for 42 years as i mourned my stupidity and paid my respects to its incredible ending and character development. hsy is a particular delight, especially in her meta awareness of these tropes -- blatantly stating she isn’t obligated to kdj for saving her life and declaring the damsel-in-distress cliche as ridiculous, for example.

and it really is, because suspension bridge effect aside, you’re not gonna want to bang a total shady stranger in the middle of the apocalypse. it’s the little statements of self-awareness, self-worth, and frankness that build up hsy’s charm. as ORV progresses, these little windows of her personality bloom as her presence takes stage center -- and then BAM! you really get to know how strong she is, how hugely capable of love she is, how subtly but wonderfully she expresses it, how she leads and protects those close to her, and how damn good she is at it. hsy is amazing. we stan an iconic queen -- no, black flameS EMPRESS. *kneeling*.

3) writes an entire EPIC, just to keep one lonely, broken fifteen-year-old alive. like. at that point in ORV, i knew. i knew. hsy is the fucking GOAT. seeing her spend the rest of her life on WOS, making sure it reaches completion because it’s the only thing that will sustain kdj until the advent of the scenarios... that hits too hard. inadvertently, it also damns the rest of the world to the terror and tragedy that the star stream brings.. but that’s the call she makes in order to save kdj’s life.

obviously, there’s no precise beginning to the timelines -- ORV is so neatly crafted in its cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader -- but i’d have to argue that hsy holds the greatest power in the trinity. creating the existence known as ‘yoo joonghyuk’ and granting life-changing hope to an otherwise forgotten boy.. is pretty powerful. yjh, for the most part, is a slave to the scenarios (until he breaks free in the 1863rd and 1864th rounds, in particular), while kdj (unwittingly) admits it himself: he’s truly the most powerless god in existence. i forget exactly where he mentions it, but it’s in response to lgy’s reverent commentary that, with all his knowledge and presumed confidence, kdj seems like the protagonist of story or a god to him. kdj’s inner monologue, of course, is appropriately self-deprecating and scarily accurate.

in a lot of ways, WOS -- and ORV itself, really -- is a love letter to readers. it’s a two-way connection, writer and reader, between someone who creates with all their passions and someone who consumes and responds with equally sincere feelings. Ways Of Survival -- the story of a man who defied death and grief and great powers far beyond his being -- is a fictional guide to surviving in a ruined world. but to a battered, bullied, and ostracized boy, it’s not just escapism, or wish fulfilment anymore. WOS is the map to navigating the hell of his reality. there’s a certain power in the right words being spoken -- or in this case, written -- at the right time, even if it’s only for the temporary burst of endorphins upon reading an especially delightful chapter. even if it’s forgotten the next day, you’ve managed to connect. you’ve touched another person’s heart. you made them think about questions they’ve never considered before; maybe, you made them smile.

what can i say but the honest truth? ORV, without a shadow of doubt, has most certainly reached me. i’m a goner for this story and its excellent characters -- long, long gone. something has changed, something that wasn’t there the previous day.

the mark has been made on the reader -- small as it is, it’s irrevocable. behold, in all of its little magnificence: the power of a writer, and their story.

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscient reader #orv #han sooyoung #dark acadamia aesthetic #fanart #long ass emotional screeching #wow these are the nights i wish i had someone to yell about orv with #otherwise i stay up at ass-o-clock uncontrollably writing and groaning and writing #anyways hsy is best girl and sexy as fuck

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thetriggeredhappy · 3 years

Note

If you’re still doing requests, what about if Scout never came back to life after Spy tells him he’s his dad? I’m interested to see bc 1) Spy seemed like he was about to go Apeshit on the enemy team and 2) Miss Pauling, Soldier and Zhanna were literally JUST with him a while ago. That’s got to be disorienting. and 3) I like angst

i really do write one fic abt That Scene From The Comics and everyone goes bananas huh

(warnings for severe injury, major character death, canon-typical violence, the works)

“Spy, you’re back!” Miss Pauling called, hurrying over and continuing to shield her eyes from the views both Soldier and Sniper had decided to present to the team. “Good, we’ve just about wrapped up everything around here. Did you—“

“Scout’s dead,” Spy said, continuing to limp past her, expression stony.

“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, blinking and moving to follow after him.

“Scout’s dead,” Spy repeated.

“What?” she demanded. “What do you mean, Scout’s dead?”

“Scout is dead, Miss Pauling,” Spy suddenly snapped, spinning around to hiss it at her, expression contorted with a series of emotions. “And if you don’t terribly mind it I would rather not stand here all day with a shattered kneecap just repeating myself over and over again until you can understand me. Scout is dead.”

She raised a hand to cover her mouth, eyes widening. “Spy, oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said quietly, enough that nobody else would hear.

Spy’s expression settled into anger for a few moments, then he managed to simmer it down into mere frustration, although she could still see the emotion locked there behind his eyes. “You aren’t the one who killed him, what are you apologizing for?” he asked, voice a mumble, looking off to one side.

She sighed softly. “You know why,” she murmured, and earned the barest glance before he was looking away again.

“What a shame,” Spy said, changing the subject abruptly as he glanced around them. “I’m afraid there may not be any robots remaining for me to work my frustration out on. I would rather not go anywhere near the Soldier or Saxton Hale when either of them are on a killing spree. Unfortunate, I was looking forward to it.”

She was sure ‘frustration’ wasn’t the correct word, but she let it go. “Like you can even walk,” she pointed out, looking down over the wound in his knee. “Take a seat on... that rubble, I guess. Let me see if I can patch that up at all.”

“If you think you’re going to bait me into sitting still long enough to psychoanalyze me, you’ll need to think again, Miss Pauling,” Spy scoffed.

“If you think you can make it another ten minutes without treating that, you’ll need to think again,” she scoffed right back. “C’mon.”

He sighed, glanced at the pile of rubble, and ultimately caved, only somewhat because his body couldn’t really hold up its own weight anymore.

And she kept her commentary and questions to herself. For a while, at least. “It’s almost over, we’re in the final stretch. Now we just hunt down the other Heavy and we’re home free, we can rebuild.” She smiled at him, although it was a tight one. “What will you do in the meantime?”

“Well, I believe I have a woman in Boston who I need to call regarding her youngest son, and then I expect I’ll be living on the run for the few months it takes her to find and kill me,” Spy said dryly. “So unfortunately, I may not be available if this is meant to be a smooth segue into another job offer.”

“That’s a shame. I was really looking forward to continuing to work with you,” she said, tone almost joking. “Dying really puts a damper on the workflow, on the, uh...”

“Synergy,” Spy supplied.

“Synergy, exactly. Terrible work environment, being dead and all,” she continued, trying to give him an out, a distraction.

Instead, she watched as he drew a hand down his face, taking a deep breath that had little to do with the pressure she was trying to apply to the wound.

“You’re sure?” she asked after a bit of that silence.

“He had a hole in his stomach the size of a cannonball and started going cold almost immediately,” Spy said with a huff of laughter, expression hidden behind his hand. “I’ve been less sure about the deaths of people I’ve stabbed through the heart.”

“He wasn’t dead when you got there?” she asked, surprised.

“Not quite. Barely lucid, though. The Sniper was kind enough to give me a moment to talk to him.”

“What did you say?”

“Exactly what he wanted to hear. A lie.” Spy’s eyes turned out towards the horizon line. “He was already nearly gone, there was no time for the truth. He died mid-sentence, I’m not even entirely sure he understood all of what I said. I’m pathetic.”

“I think it’s brave of you, actually. Or kind, at least. Make him happy there, give him some closure.”

“At least one of us could get it,” Spy agreed, and sighed hard, squeezing his eyes shut. “Then why do I feel so horrible?”

“Well, first of all, your son is dead,” she pointed out. “That’s not a great way for your Thursday to go.”

Spy snorted a laugh, but it petered off a bit too quickly to stick. “It’s not as though I even really knew him,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but there was always the chance. Always this idea in the back of your head, like... you’d figure it out. Like one day you’d get there with him.”

He shot her a look. “How do you know that?”

“How many years do we have to work together before I can figure out some things about how your brain works?” she asked, ripping the fabric she was using as gauze with her teeth. “Also, quit losing blood.”

“I suppose I’ll try,” he deadpanned. A beat of silence before he inhaled, exhaled. “And that’s not entirely wrong, but not entirely correct either.”

She gestured for him to go on with the hand not applying pressure.

“We spent several months in the same jail cell. Almost every single day, I was faced with the opportunity to come clean to him. To say something, anything. And every day I failed.” He tugged restlessly at his mask. “And then we were no longer in jail, and I told myself I would tell him, and I didn’t. How many nails do I drive into the coffin before the final one is meaningless? When I continue to place straws on the camel’s back, does it really matter which one was the last?”

“Yeah. It does,” she said, finally starting to wrap the wound, glancing over their surroundings for a piece of shrapnel to use as a brace. “I think you still get to be sad. You still get to regret it. It’s just... harder to look at it once it’s all over. Harsher in hindsight.”

“Harsher in hindsight,” he repeated, voice quiet. He paused for a long moment. “Maybe it’s better this way. Simple, happy emotions there at the end instead of deep, complicated ones. Let him feel like the hero of his own story, at least for a little while.”

“It’s Scout, didn’t he always?” she scoffed.

“If he was anything at all like his father? No,” Spy murmured, and that was the last the two of them ever said on the matter. At least, out loud.

#dad!spy #tf2 #team fortress 2 #shut up me #my fanfiction #everybody talks #the pauling and spy friendship is severely underrated

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takerfoxx · 3 years

Text

The Owl House, Season 2, Episode 10, "Yesterday's Lie," First Impressions!

In which I get to crow that...

In which I theorize about what might happen after the hiatus...

And in which I drop my first real bit of criticism for this show.

And here we are, the mid-season finale before the break.

The long, unbearable break that will surely drive most of us to despair as we're deprived of one of our major coping mechanisms while in the middle of a drastic and stressful life change in our...

Sorry. Started projecting there. Moving sucks.

But yeah! It's time. Luz finally has all the ingredients to make her own portal back to the human realm. NOT to go home, mind you, because she is still absolutely THRIVING in the Boiling Isles. But to check on her mom, whom she has never stopped worrying about, and whom we will get to.

Well, the portal works, but not quite in the way any of us was expecting, least of all Luz herself. Instead of sending her home, it instead sends her into a weird in-between dimension, one that lets to look into and communicate with anyone in the human realm or the demon realm through reflections without actually going there.

And okay, as a narrative device, that is seriously cool, both visually and how it was executed. Taker likes.

Though I do note that she was seriously tempted to look in on Amity, only to discard that idea. And I was like, okay, that was cute, but c'mon. I know the Lumity thing is so big that you feel like you gotta bench Amity every few episodes so it doesn't overshadow everything else, but would it have killed you guys to at least have her be there when Luz makes the portal. Like, it's a big moment for Luz! Amity would have a lot of complicated feelings about it! Wouldn't she want to be there? Couldn't she have been there exchanging commentary with Eda and King?

But whatever. Luz figures out how to manipulate the dimension so she can see her home, and in doing so, she finally comes literally face-to-face with the ominous being that has previously only being known as Creepy Luz, that mysterious doppelganger that seems to have taken her place in her absence.

And, heh...

Called it.

I knew Luz's doppelganger would end up being sympathetic instead of malicious! I knew they would bond! Called it, just like I called Lumity becoming canon mid-series instead of at the end! I got what I wanted again!

Granted, I was a little off on what Creepy Luz actually was. See, like most people, I figured she was an agent of Belos, sent to keep suspicions off while Belos did his evil bidding. And sure, that theory doesn't make sense in hindsight, because if Belos could just send one of his agents into the human realm whenever, why was he so intent on making a working portal? But even so, with the very strong implication that Hunter is an artificial being, a lot of people thought that maybe Creepy Luz was...

Oh wait, I haven't talked about that yet. Oops.

Okay, so let's fast forward through this! Y'all remember that Grimwalker thing from the last episode?

Yeah, that.

Well, theory goes that given that since those look like Hunter's eyes, and that since Hunter and Belos look very similar, and since there artificial magic seems to be flesh-based, maybe Hunter was created by Belos. A sort of magical clone, which would explain their lack of natural magic.

Why? Well, maybe as a sacrifice. Maybe as a homunculus, someone Belos can transfer his consciousness into given that his own body is rapidly decaying. Hell, since when Belos loses control of his malady his body starts warping in a manner similar to an Abomination, maybe he already the body Belos is wearing now also is a Grimwalker, and he just keeps changing bodies when the old one has worn out, with each new one being presented as his "heir." Or, maybe now that we know that Philip Wittebane had a brother, one that's shown to have a stinking cardinal on his shoulder, maybe Hunter is a clone of that brother, and Belos is Philip and just wants his brother back in some form, or vice-versa. There's a lot of ways this could go.

So anyway, a popular theory is that Creepy Luz might also be a Grimwalker, an artificial replacement created for whatever reason.

Well, as it turns out, that isn't the case. Rather, she's not working for Belos at all! I mean, she was still created by him, but she still was acting on her own.

See, Creepy Luz is actually a Basilisk called Vee. Remember those guys from the detention episode? Yeah, well, turns out Basilisks are extinct, but Belos brought them back Jurassic Park-style to harvest their organs or whatever, and she managed to escape, and through a series of accidents, saw Luz, ended up fleeing to the Human Realm, where she ran into Camila and took on Luz's form to disguise herself. And Camila came across her and just assumed that she was Luz, because why wouldn't she? And Vee went along with it because she desperately wanted some place safe to belong.

Wow.

First Hunter, then Raine, and now Vee. Man, this season hasn't introduce a whole bunch of new characters, but the ones they did bring in have really hit it out of the park.

Yeah, I love Vee. She's adorable. And I also love how despite being angry that someone took her place, the second that Luz saw that Vee wasn't malicious, she immediately started to care about her, which just goes to show how empathetic she is. She wasn't even mad about the whole taking her place sort of thing, since it kept her mom from worrying about her!

However, that does bring us to my biggest problem here, something that low-key has been bothering me since the very first episode, so let's just go ahead and address the Selkiedomus in the room.

=sigh=

Look, I know this might rub a few people the wrong way, seeing how everyone is now on board with Camila being Mom of the Year now. And I get it! She was great in this episode! I love how despite being confused and scared, she was still able to recognize Vee as a lost and scared child and fought to save her! I love that she still took Vee in despite the deception! And I love how it showed that Camila was still hanging on by a thread and had a major breakdown from everything once Vee wasn't looking! All wonderfully done!

I also know that it's really, really hard to be a single mother trying to raise a neurodivergent child with behavioral issues. Like, Luz didn't have tantrums or anger outbursts or meltdowns or anything, but she clearly had problems, and regularly doing things like releasing wild animals in school or setting things on fire are definitely problems! And I know you can be the most well-meaning, loving parent in the world and still make mistakes in raising a child that just isn't "normal." I'm autistic, and I grew up in a time when not much was known about it, so my parents went for a lot of weird "fad" treatments that were not what I needed at the time, but I still love them and don't hold it against them, because I understand that they were trying their best. So no, I'm not saying Camila is at all abusive or a bad person or anything like that! It's clear that she cares deeply for Luz and only wanted what was best for her! And in the real world, that whole summer camp thing would probably just be a camp for special needs kids to help them develop social skills and learn appropriate behavior and stuff, and that would be a good thing!

But this is still fiction, and in fiction framing matters, and coding matters. And while The Owl House has made a lot of stuff that previously would only have been subtext into actual text, it still uses coded language.

And man, that whole summer camp thing struck a really weird chord with me.

Yeah...

Look, Luz clearly does have behavioral problems, so I get it. But she's written as both neurodivergent and bisexual, and both have a lot of...baggage when it comes to how kids like that are treated by their parents. Now, I know that in cartoons some things are exaggerated for comedic effect, but there are some really uncomfortable implications here. I mean, at the start of the show, Luz was given the choice to either go to this...camp or to stay in the Boiling Isles, and she clearly chose the Boiling Isles, where she was allowed to live out her fantasies and was given a major creative outlet! And in doing so, she grew and matured as a person! She made friends, learned to accept herself, and experienced many major life lessons! She even fell in love! And this was done in a way that celebrated her differences and passions instead of repressing them!

And on the other hand, you have the camp. And I cannot be the only person who's first thought when seeing that flier was, well, G-Rated conversion therapy. Or ableism.

And this probably wasn't the intention of the writers at all, it's just something that I noticed right off the bat and was really troubled by.

Now there's still a lot of show to go, so maybe they'll address this, but even if they don't it won't be any kind of deal-breaker. But it's still something that kind of bugs me, so I needed to get it off my chest here and now.

Okay, I'm done. Back to the review.

So anyway, my favorite part of this episode was watching Vee and Luz interact. See, while Vee was able to pose as her for several months, they're still very different. Luz had what Vee wanted: a safe and caring environment, and she kind of resents Luz for taking that for granted. And by the same token, Vee is able to "fit in" into Luz's world better than Luz ever could. When that scene with the kids and the cards popped up, I was right there with Luz bracing myself for a really awkward situation, but as it turns out Vee is able to easily make friends in Luz's world, and had already bonded with them, which didn't do Luz's insecurities any good. One of Luz's biggest fears is being rejected, so watching someone be a more accepted version of herself must have been really hard to watch. Ouch.

Also, can I just say how incredibly satisfying it was to watch one of those insufferable YouTube (sorry, "MewTube," which just makes me think of a Mewtwo-themed channel) conspiracy theorists getting the ever-looking piss beaten out of him? Especially given the current climate. Like, I'm a white guy with white parents, but even I respect the power of the chancala!

In other notes, I also love the subtle nods to "Beta Luz" in this episode, like the shirt, the red bat, and so on. Vee's hat even was kind of like a beanie! The animators know what we like.

But for now, Luz and Camila don't really part on the best terms. Camila takes the news that Luz chose to stay in the Boiling Isles really hard, which doesn't do great things for how bad Luz is already feeling. And with the portal now gone, she finds herself torn between her mother and her new, better life once a new way back is made. Luz has come a long way, but it's clear that she still has a mess of issues to work through.

Now granted, my personal wish when I read this episode's synopsis was that it would end with Luz and Amity getting stuck in the Human Realm together, but this is fine too.

Well, that's it for the first half. Now we set ourselves to wait.

And wait.

This is going to suck.

#the owl house #toh #the owl house spoilers #toh spoilers #luz noceda #camila noceda #vee #emperor belos #hunter #golden guard #eda clawthorne #king clawthorne #amity blight #lumity #yesterday's lie #reaction #ableism tw #conversion therapy tw

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tossawary · 3 years

Text

Some random favorite lines (with commentary) of Chapter 23: “Swallowing Your Heart” of “pride is not the word I’m looking for” because I’m doing a re-read. Not a full list or full commentary.

Liu Qingge shoves him off his sword.

Plot twist! Betrayal! Shang Qinghua doesn’t have time to get over his shock at such an attack before Liu Qingge has caught the riderless sword in one hand and caught the swordless rider over his shoulder.

The Bai Zhan Peak War God flies on to Qian Cao Peak with his new cargo.

Shang Qinghua slaps the man on the back and wheezes.

“Have you done that move before?!” he demands, because that was so fucking smooth it’s offensive. It really does offend him! He’s super offended right now!

“Mingyan,” Liu Qingge says, like this explains everything. “And Fanli.”

It kind of does explain everything.

AN: That LQG effortlessly manhandled SQH in the same way that he manhandles his sister. This is how LQG shows affection. LMY is not a fan of it either.

“Ming Fan is a good sparring partner,” Binghe says as part of his tirade, like he’s confessing something. “But he needs sooooo many compliments to soothe his pride. ‘Oh, I knocked Shixiong over because he’s such a good teacher! Thank you, Shixiong, for helping me practice this move. Shixiong, I really admire how you don’t let the little things bother you because you’re so confident and skilled.’ I think he’s getting better now, but it’s still tiring sometimes. Uncle, some people really can’t take even a well-meaning criticism without falling apart.”

AN: This conversation was definitely a jab at Shang Qinghua relationship with Mobei-Jun, but it also extends to Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu.

Binghe says that he also heard some Qiong Ding Peak people are here now, but he doesn’t know what they’re doing. Beyond that, not that much has apparently happened while Shang Qinghua was sleeping the day away! Liu Qingge came by, probably to report to his scheming wife, who was yet again totally and embarrassingly correct about Shang Qinghua’s state of being. Chen Xuan, whom Binghe embarrassingly correctly identified as Disciple Dumpling Thief’s Friend, dropped by, but only to say not to worry about the day-in-day-out of An Ding Peak.

AN: Binghe knows Shang Qinghua’s nicknames for his favorite disciples.

Binghe curls up with his arms around and his head resting on Shang Qinghua’s stomach, while Shang Qinghua rubs his protagonist son’s back.

AN: Either of these characters getting unconditional platonic affection is SO UNUSUAL that it hurts. People need hugs at all ages!

The kindest option here might be the demon lord coming back sometime in the next few days and pretending the entire interaction never happened. Shang Qinghua will tell the man that it was a human thing, some kind of nervous fit, and beg forgiveness for his lapse in presentation! Well, he probably should, except… he doesn’t really want to do that. He doesn’t really want to go, “My king, my apologies for the mess! Let me, ah, let me just swallow all of those words I threw out there, just chew them back up, gulp them down into some vital organ to rot there forever, so we can never talk about them ever again.”

Mobei-Jun seems to still be his Mobei-Jun, looking at that confrontation in hindsight, and not… not any other Mobei-Jun. People in general seem to have stayed the same, besides Peerless Cucumber being fitted into the picture as some mysterious intruder. All those years of service and loyalty and companionship Shang Qinghua remembers with Mobei-Jun haven’t vanished on him. “All current achievements have been preserved” and all that!

So, part of him wants to go, “So! Those things I said! What about them, huh? Do you have anything to say to any of that, my king? Anything at all?”

AN: Shang Qinghua wants to OPEN UP and he can’t make himself take that step when his nephew’s life is on the line. MBJ has not made himself explicitly safe yet. Unspoken understandings can only go so far here.

“Was it something really bad?” Luo Fanli presses, leaning back along his desk until she’s practically lying down on it.

Not in a sexy pose or anything, just in a put-upon flop, kind of like a tired child finding the oasis of a department store furniture display during a too-long shopping trip or a toddler denied candy pouting on the floor of the grocery store. His little sister-in-law is not greatly concerned with dignity, much to her sister’s dismay and the eternal frustration of Qi Qingqi. She says life is too short for it.

“No one died.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, it means that everyone lived through it,” Shang Qinghua explains.

AN: Shang Qinghua’s relationship with Luo Fanli is fun. I’m looking forward to putting Luo Fanli in a room with Shen Yuan. SY needs friends. Luo Fanli @ Shen Yuan: “Idk, he’s a weirdo, but he’s uncle-shaped, right?”

Except when Shang Qinghua opens the soup container, it’s still completely full. None of his disciples - who are very, very good at acting like they’ve never been fed ever in their life - have helped themselves to even a taste. It’s a big pot! There’s plenty to go around! More than Shang Qinghua could reasonably eat by himself! And yet…

His disciples have been way too nice to him lately. He feels like he should be checking his pockets for whatever they stole from him when he wasn’t looking. Did the System replace his bratty disciples with good alternate universe ones?! He hates it, thanks!

AN: This is SUCH a low standard... and yet...! It’s very funny to me how much his disciples not stealing food from a sick man says here.

SQH: “Why are all my disciples such sticky-fingered brats?!”

LJH: “Because you think it’s funny.”

SQH: “Oh, yeah.”

Wow, Peerless Cucumber doesn’t seem pleased to see him! Shang Qinghua hasn’t suffered a glare that venomous since… well, Shen Qingqiu, maybe? Okay, so maybe the switch would have worked a little bit! But Shang Qinghua is still glad it didn’t happen, even if the System fucked up the rest of reality (somehow, Shang Qinghua still hasn’t figured out how exactly) out of revenge for its own shitty choices falling through.

“Where have you been?” Peerless Cucumber demands.

“Busy?” Shang Qinghua answers, coming closer but not sitting down. “Look, the System just rewrote bits of reality on me because of your fumbled arrival tipping some invisible scales and it has not been forthcoming about the changes. I had things to check on and things have been a bit political. I sent you a message.”

“That message said a lot of nothing,” Peerless Cucumber says, but with less venom.

“Aha, yeah. Well, I’m here now.”

Peerless Cucumber looks frustrated, but finally scoots over so that Shang Qinghua can sit beside him on the bench. Shang Qinghua gingerly sits, giving the kid space.

Shang Qinghua is being super calm for the other transmigrator right now! He’s very calm here! The calmest!

AN: SY really is a scared kid putting up a front. Which works out, because SQH is a dad here (and thinks SY’s insults are mostly just funny).

Out of the corner of his eye, Shang Qinghua can see a Qian Cao Peak cultivator standing impatiently by the Qiong Ding Peak guard. And… someone bouncing on their toes in a Qing Jing Peak uniform? Speak of the half-demon future tyrant of this world!

“Looks like we’ll have to continue this later,” Shang Qinghua says.

“My assisted meditation appointment,” Peerless Cucumber confirms glumly, looking as though he’s never experienced inner peace in his life and has no intention of willingly doing so.

AN: I took SY as genuinely having a knack for cultivating and that’s the interpretation I’m using for this fic, especially since I gave the Original Shen Qingqiu health problems that nearly killed him. In an earlier chapter, Mu Qingfang mentions needing to “replace Shen Qingqiu’s entire cultivation system”, which I planted for Shen Yuan getting a free, extremely stable highly developed cultivation system as part of his transmigration later.

I mean, Shen Yuan manages to weather Liu Qingge’s qi deviation, a great deal of stress, Without-A-Cure, and etc., and he’s remarkably stable through most of it. So I’m leaning towards “a little bit of System assistance” here. The System was going to replace both Shen Qingqiu and SQQ’s unstable cultivation system out for Shen Yuan and a more stable cultivation system.

SQQ still has a cultivation system. If he didn’t, it would have been mentioned by now. SQQ is repeatedly stated to be improving well in this chapter. I think Mu Qingfang would have noticed if SQQ didn’t have cultivation anymore.

“Then wouldn’t you be Luo-Shixiong to me?” Peerless Cucumber suggests wryly to the protagonist, who is both about five years younger than him and still shorter. (Mu Qingfang said that their guest seems to believe that he’s newly twenty. Whether or not the kid is editing his age up or down, Shang Qinghua has decided that he’s just not going to fucking think about this fact.)

“Uh,” Luo Binghe says, looking stunned and then to Shang Qinghua for help. Ha, he’s flustered, which doesn’t happen often. That’s adorable.. “...Maybe?”

Shang Qinghua snorts and remains unhelpful. Ning Yingying is actually about a year younger than Luo Binghe is, Shang Qinghua knows, but she’s been a member of the sect for significantly longer. Binghe might have some shidi and shimei soon with the next entrance test and he’s been very excited about that, but he clearly doesn’t know what to do with a “shidi” closer to his young auntie’s age than his own. Kind of weird seniors and juniors are just part of the sect experience, nephew! Get used to it!

“Thank you, regardless,” Peerless Cucumber says.

“Of course,” Binghe agrees quickly.

AN: SQH is probably going to look back on this moment and go, “Hmm.”

‘You’re very resourceful,” his sister-in-law says slyly.

“I am very resourceful,” Shang Qinghua allows, and in a fit of affection reaches up to pinch Luo Jiahui’s cheek like she’s Binghe. “And I have the world’s wisest and least bossy sister-in-law, too! How fortunate I am!”

Luo Jiahui slaps his hand away with a giggle, turning slightly pink.

“At least you know it!” she says.

AN: I’ve been wanting to make SQH pinch someone’s cheek for ages now.

“...You looked very scared that night,” Luo Jiahui says finally. “It might have seemed worse to you than it was. If your demon can’t be understanding of one bad night, then it’s… I don’t know if there’s a way forward with him at all.” She fixes a determined expression and says, “If any offers are retracted then we’ll manage just fine without him. We’ll tell Qingge and he’ll help. And so will Fanli. Our family won’t fall apart so easily. Hua-Ge doesn’t have to take care of everything and be everything at once to everyone.”

AN: LJH channeling some “dump him! dump him! dump him!” energy.

Shang Qinghua has never been able to picture cutting ties after all this time. What would he even say? “My king, I think our arrangement has come to an end. I promised to serve you for the rest of my life, but that was when I didn’t think my life was worth very much.” He can’t see that going over well! It’s never really been an option, anyway, since Luo Binghe can’t not unlock his demonic powers and go to the Demon Realm. The System won’t have it.

AN: If SQH said that to MBJ, that would be a one-hit KO, probably.

Break the man’s heart, why don’t you?

#tossawary svsss #pride is not the word #tossawary commentary

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neuxue · 4 years

Text

The Untamed Liveblog, Episode 25 (Part 2) - Relationship Status: 20 seconds and counting of unbroken eye contact

Part 1, featuring archery, arguments, and anguish is here. But that left out most of the long, lingering, loving looks (okay I’ll stop with the alliteration) and some Rather Important Conversations, so here goes Part 2.

Or, how to establish a relationship when you’re censored (Lan Wangji), too self-sacrificing to realise people might care about you (Wei Wuxian), willing to stand up for your family but not yourself (Jiang Yanli) or competing with Jiang Cheng for the award of Worst At Expressing Your Feelings (Jin Zixuan). With special guest Lan Xichen to provide insightful commentary through background expressions.

First, we get Jin Zixuan’s visit to Lotus Pier, where he makes a great start by issuing an invitation to Jiang Yanli but making it clear it’s only because his mother told him to, and it’s pretty much downhill from there. With no help from Wei Wuxian, who seems to feel like the least he deserves after everything he’s been through is to test to the best of his ability whether it really is possible to annoy someone to death. I mean, as coping mechanisms go, it’s better than hiding in the windowsill of a tavern and drinking to forget? Maybe? Uncertain.

(I mean yes you are quite beautiful, but Jin Zixuan is having a hard enough time articulating his feelings for one (1) woman without a crisis of sexuality thrown into the mix)

Poor Jiang Yanli. She just wants this one nice thing for herself, but Wei Wuxian is not the only one in that family to put the happiness of everyone else before his own, to facilitate and mediate and give and give and give until they forget how to ask, or take, or want.

But at least it gets everyone to Baifeng Mountain, and also establishes from the outset the way this episode uses the relationship it can openly acknowledge to sort of… underscore or frame or hint at the one it has to be a little more coy about.

I mean, if this can be considered coy.

Like, if you really wanted to, you could just about construe that as a proposal. Wei Wuxian you are incorrigible.

Meanwhile Lan Wangji, expecting an actual serious request when Wei Wuxian asked for a favour (because he is trying, so desperately, to do anything he can to pull Wei Wuxian back from the cliff he sees him running towards, because “let me help you,” he promised, and he’s looking for any way to keep it, and now Wei Ying is looking at him, asking…) and then it’s that and his reaction is just.

An entire study in ‘…..I have dignity, I have respect, I have self-control—’

And then after Wei Wuxian pulls his ‘I will end this contest through sheer competence and overkill if that’s what it takes to ensure humane treatment of prisoners of war’ stunt he comes back and just fucking preens for Lan Wangji, who does a very admirable job of pretending he wasn’t staring at Wei Wuxian the entire time.

I mean, mostly it’s just amusing (and it’s nice, to have a moment of something like the playfulness of before, in the midst of everything else). But it also plays well against the opening context of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan looking at each other Like That but not quite managing to say what they want to say and instead talking across it. It’s not a direct parallel, and not something I’d have noticed if not for the way it then plays out in the scenes that follow, but with the hindsight from those scenes it does serve as something of a… priming effect.

So let’s do the forest scene, or: ‘How many words can local liveblogger write about six lines of dialogue? The answer may surprise you!’

You can see the exact moment the levity from before dies when Wei Wuxian catches sight of Lan Wangji.

It’s better this way, you can see him telling himself, his heart breaking a little but what else is new? Better if he stays away from Lan Wangji, better if Hanguang-jun has nothing to do with a demonic cultivator, better if Wei Wuxian cuts himself out of his life completely, because then he can’t hurt him, right? (And maybe he can convince himself that it hurts less this way for him, too).

It’s not unlike what he does with Jiang Cheng at the end of this episode: withdraws, walks away, gently steps back and removes himself because I think he honestly believes that’s the best thing he can do for the people he cares about. Either draw a target on himself to protect them, or else stay out of their way so he can’t cause them more problems.

(Which… he’s been doing all his life. Since he was first brought to Lotus Pier as a child and ran away without hesitating when he thought his presence had hurt Jiang Cheng. Now, all these years later, he still thinks in terms of what he owes this family that took him in. And beyond just his family, he was so bright and bold and loud, mischievous, and I think there’s an element of… if you feel like your very existence is too much, playing that up into exaggerated obnoxiousness acts as a sort of… armour. People will look in exasperation and think ‘too much’ but you’re the one controlling it, directing it. Now it’s not you they’re annoyed by, it’s the performance. I think Wei Wuxian has spent most of his life thinking, on some level, that he’s a burden to the people he cares about, that he is too much, and that’s okay when he can stand in front of them and protect them. But if he can’t, then… well, then they’re better off without him).

Again, it all makes perfect sense from a mindset of… thinking only of what he owes or can do for the people he loves, and not quite realising that maybe they just care about him. That to watch him draw away isn’t a relief.

But Lan Wangji does care, and Wei Wuxian’s efforts to turn aside, to walk away, to isolate, are matched by Lan Wangji’s determination to stand by him, to reach out, to help, to be there.

The double-take! The almost astonishment that Lan Wangji has seen him (and that’s it, isn’t it? That has always been it between them, they see each other), and is not turning away. The hesitant half-smile, the slight nod as Lan Wangji approaches. Almost tentative, but there’s a strange kind of openness in that. It’s… an offering, almost, and a kind of careful hope. He walked away, pulled away, pushed Lan Wangji away, and yet here he is. And so, okay, that little nod seems to say, we can try again.

So he stands to meet him, putting them on level ground (as opposed to the last time Lan Wangji came to him, outside the banquet, when he remained seated, twirling Chenqing, as if to emphasise the light mocking cruelty of his words and tone with a posture of dismissal, disdain).

“Lan Zhan, I heard you have recentlyl been exhausting yourself restoring your family’s rules in Cloud Recesses.”

It’s teasing, but in a kind of… familiar, almost gentle way. He doesn’t shatter the moment with obnoxiousness that would preclude any kind of real communication, nor does he draw cruel mockery like a blade to wall himself off. Instead he leads with this like a… peace offering, or a neutral opening. As if signalling you decide where to take this, with perhaps the hint of a question: why are you here, why didn’t you walk away, why haven’t you given up on me, have you given up on me?

Wei Wuxian is so good at taking a conversation by force and turning it to exactly what he wants, but this time he just… lets this sit there, an offering and an opening. Lets Lan Wangji decide where to go from there.

And Lan Wangji—oh, Lan Wangji.

“I made some progress in a musical composition, and I wanted to share it with you to see its effect.”

I WROTE A SONG FOR YOU. (You know, just guys being bros…)

But there is so much he doesn’t say, here. He does not speak of the hours spent making that progress. Does not say I broke the rules for this, or I questioned the tenets of Gusu Lan, questioned the bedrock of my own foundations. He does not say how Lan Qiren looked at him when he assigned him to repair the books (to remember the disciplines).

Because… it’s not important, as he sees it: the important thing is to make this offering, to plead without begging, let me help you, let me do what I can, let me try, take my hand, don’t fall.

But also, I think, because as he sees it, that is his own conflict, his own struggle. Something he must deal with alone, not something to burden Wei Wuxian with. It is, in a way, not unlike Wei Wuxian keeping his sacrifices secret, or downplaying their cost. The cost to Lan Wangji of making this offering, he keeps to himself. Because he is used to being alone (he has his brother, but beyond that? How many people have ever seen him as anything but Hanguang-jun, perfection incarnate, untouchable, untouched? How many, besides the one standing before him now?). Because he is used to letting nothing show; to presenting, outwardly, the perfection all expect to see, and none of its price.

The sort of irony is that it’s these things they hide, because they don’t want to burden or hurt the other, that would mean everything, if they knew.

It’s a retreat, the beginning of a withdrawal back behind those walls… but not quite as harshly as before. As if trying to leave this one last opening: can’t we just leave this be? (Even the part rendered as ‘can’t you leave me alone’ is more in the sense of like… ‘can’t you let me deal with my own business’ rather than ‘go away and don’t talk to me’).

It’s almost a gentler echo of that first conversation after the Burial Mounds. There, he took everything they were to one another and denied it in every way he could (“no, I should call you Hanguang-jun“ and “who do you think you are?”). Now… there’s this tone to it of something like a sigh, and instead of flinging in his face who do you think you are, he flips it around into something more like who am I to you?

(Netflix renders 我是你什么人？as ‘who do you take me for’ but I feel like it’s closer to ‘who am I to you’)

Now, he lets it be a question, rather than an accusation or a true denial. One last chance to navigate this back to lighter ground.

And then.

Lan Wangji, at last, finds the right thing to say. Perhaps the only thing he could possibly say that would keep Wei Wuxian from retreating completely.

(“Who am I, to you”)

It is, interestingly, something Wei Wuxian himself often does so deftly: turning a question back on its asker. But when Wei Wuxian does it, it’s an evasion. Here… it’s almost the opposite. Wei Wuxian asks it first as an evasion, and Lan Wangji turns it into a true question, an offering. One that, this time, cannot be misread as a demand (“come back to Gusu with me”) or a judgement (“do you want to learn ‘Cleansing’?”).

He asks it in absolute seriousness and sincerity, makes it a true question rather than the more rhetorical one it was in Wei Wuxian’s mouth, but there’s also a sense of… making it absolutely clear that this is Wei Wuxian’s choice. That he’s asking for a genuine answer, whatever that answer may be.

It turns this single question into something like… what do you want from me sounds more aggressive and demanding than what I’m looking for, but a kind of I am here, in any way you will accept me; what is it that you want? What am I, to you? What will you allow me to be?

He asks it in such a way that demands an answer, but not any specific answer, and there is this sense of almost frightening vulnerability as he asks it; this is the one time, in this entire scene, that Lan Wangji does not look directly at or into Wei Wuxian’s eyes. The one time. Throughout the rest of the scene, it’s as if he’s saying I am right here, I am not looking away. But here he looks down in something like deference, to give Wei Wuxian the space to answer truly.

To say I will accept your choice, whatever it may be. And to brace himself for that answer, that choice (that judgement).

It feels, in its way, like Wei Wuxian dropping his guard and baring his throat to Lan Wangji’s blade in the Nie courtyard. As if it’s Lan Wangji’s turn to ask-without-asking, have I lost you? His turn to drop his guard and ask the question and face the reply, knowing it has the power to destroy him and accepting that nonetheless, because this is the person whose answer matters.

He looks down the way Wei Wuxian closed his eyes in that courtyard. Taking a deep breath and ceding all power to the other.

And you can see in Wei Wuxian’s face that he expected… perhaps anything but this. A lecture on how this could damage his body and temperament, or even Lan Wangji to simply walk away; something he could respond to with anger or evasiveness or mockery, or a return to brash obnoxiousness. Something he could parry, deflect, or turn away from.

But not that question, asked so honestly, eyes downcast as if awaiting a blow. Not that feeling that suddenly their positions are reversed and he is the one holding the blade, a breath away from Lan Wangji’s throat.

And so you get this, as the first tentative notes of their song start to play, quietly, hesitantly:

Wei Wuxian, for once at a loss for words. Because in that instant, as Lan Wangji asks his own question back at him in utter sincerity, as Lan Wangji, Lan Zhan, Hanguang-jun looks down in something like vulnerability, he knows he can’t give the flippant answer, can’t laugh this off, nor can he wall himself off in cruelty because here, now, it would be a truth, a finality.

In that courtyard, Wei Wuxian would have let Lan Wangji kill him, and Lan Wangji saw. And of course he stayed his hand, but it was almost more about the realisation that Wei Wuxian would have let him. This… is the reverse. This is Wei Wuxian, who read Lan Wangji’s efforts to help him after Sunshot as judgement of his path (rather than, say, concern for his life and wellbeing), realising that Lan Wangji would let Wei Wuxian… not literally kill him here, but wound him, reject him, end this.

And to see that in Lan Wangji, who wears pure white on a battlefield, in whom perhaps no one but Lan Xichen has seen anything close to vulnerability…

Of course it is Wei Wuxian’s turn to pull his blow, to stay his hand, to realise. As Lan Wangji sheathed his blade with a kind of implicit no, you are not lost, Wei Wuxian offers truth without deflection, without evasion, without any kind of performance to give it plausible deniability. He disarms himself.

HELP, I’M DOWN, I’M HURT, I’M NOT OKAY.

The way he says it, like something he has lost, something he must give up. He offers it as truth because he cannot bring himself to do anything else, cannot bring himself to strike that final blow, but oh, the look on his face, as he thinks this is a farewell nonetheless.

But instead, Lan Wangji looks at him in something almost like amazement, like a goddamn revelation. He was braced for… anything, for something that would hurt, and instead it’s this. Just as Wei Wuxian, in saying it, was resigning himself to it remaining forever in the past, and instead Lan Wangji looks at him with something almost like the beginning of a smile and says “I still am.”

Such a small statement but it means everything. It’s I’m not leaving you and I’m not judging you and something almost like I see you, because—

Okay, indulge me for a moment while I play with translation again, because I feel like ‘lifelong confidant’ kind of conveys what it needs to, but also like the… angle is slightly off.

Usual caveats around Mandarin very much not being my first language, but: 知己, is 知 (to know) + 己 (self, oneself), the one who truly knows you, knows your self, so it feels like ‘confidant’, one-you-confide-in, is almost a... subject-object reversal? As if the weight should be more on ‘you understand me’ (知己), rather than ‘I trust you’ (confidant), if that makes sense. Which fits the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji: they see each other, beneath the persona or reputation or walls that most others do not look beyond.

Also fun fact: this is not the first time he has called Lan Wangji 知己 – he says it much more lightheartedly (and without ‘lifelong’) when they’re talking to Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren about the Yin Iron, way back in episode…7 or 8. (I am not sure why I remember this, but I do).

Anyway, I just sort of want this to be a kind of… do you still see me? I thought you did, once, but now I fear that I am lost to you. And Lan Wangji’s response as I see you, not the path you have taken, not something evil; I see you, I know you, and I am still here.

Really my point is just that this exchange came for my entire soul.

And Wei Wuxian looks up in something again like startlement but also, perhaps, the beginnings of another realisation. That Lan Wangji is, perhaps, not lost to him. That he is not lost, that he doesn’t have to lose this yet.

Then he slowly raises Chenqing as if to almost say ‘Are you sure? Even with this, and everything it means?’ or maybe just to ask that of himself, to look at these two things that feel like they belong, respectively, to who he was and who he is, and wonder…if he can have both. Or, perhaps, for how long he can have both. There’s still a sense of something like borrowed time, as if he knows or believes that eventually it will come to that. But not now, not yet; now, Lan Wangji is still here and Lan Wangji still sees him, and is not turning away.

Look. I’m asexual, aromantic, and often indifferent to romance plots/subplots (though I’m far more invested in this one than I expected to be which is a topic for another time but these two, I swear), and this had to get through censorship and despite all of that, I immediately assumed this would be a kiss.

I mean, look at that gif, and tell me that’s not what comes next. A confirmation of what they mean to each other, and this moment of… realisation and understanding as they stare into each other’s eyes and then we zoom out to see them standing there, the moment drawing out as if waiting for one of them to move—

And then oh no! An interruption! How…convenient. But also literally the only remotely convincing way I can think of to have broken this scene without turning it into a kiss.

Also, I want to just look at the moment of the interruption, when Wei Wuxian instinctively grabs Lan Wangji’s hand.

Let me say that again. He grabs Lan Wangji’s hand.

This in contrast to the multiple times in ep23 where he kept pulling himself away, either sharply or gently, from Lan Wangji’s grip.

This, in contrast to how he flinches from almost all contact after the Burial Mounds, especially if it’s unexpected. How many times has he actually initiated physical contact since then? (Not Very Many. And even then, it’s usually… careful). But here? Without even thinking. He reaches out, rather than drawing back.

It may not be a kiss, but it’s a lovely gesture to finish off a scene that’s so much about… seeing each other, knowing each other, reaching out, saying I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. And so Wei Wuxian does reach out, almost like he used to, knowing Lan Wangji will be there when he does (I still am).

And the next scene is one of my favourite examples so far of this show playing coy with censorship. Because there is no way it’s an accident that a scene of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian pretty much discussing their relationships status but not quite saying it in those words is followed by Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan also getting very very close to that kind of conversation but not quite managing it.

Like, it’s not even particularly subtle. It’s just ‘here, have back-to-back scenes of characters who love each other but can’t quite figure out how to express it’.

And boy oh boy can Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli not figure out how to express it. It’s like ‘unstoppable force meets immovable object’ but opposite: ‘emotionally repressed’ meets ‘compulsive need to make sure no one is uncomfortable’.

Jin Zixuan is trying to vaguely hint in that direction, maybe thinking that if he talks around it enough she’ll take over without him having to go through the mortifying ordeal of saying it. And Jiang Yanli… won’t say anything until he does, because what if she’s wrong. Because she’ll take on the world for her brothers, but when it comes to herself she actually has a great deal of insecurity around, I suppose, the idea that someone would love her. She works so hard to make the people around her happy, to mediate, to provide for, to care for. But she doesn’t know how to… take up space for herself, and it’s. Really fucking sad, actually.

And so neither of them says anything, and Wei Wuxian… makes it worse. Because he sees his sister hurting and Jin Zixuan is a… blind spot for him, in a lot of ways (I honestly think there’s an element of… jealousy there? Not like that, nor in the sense of being envious of Jin Zixuan’s abilities or wealth or anything, but… perhaps a kind of ‘he is going to take her away from me’. And he could make his peace with that, maybe, if it were someone else, but Jin Zixuan has made her cry and he can’t look past that).

It kind of hurts to watch this play out because Jiang Yanli is the absolute last person in the world Wei Wuxian would ever want to hurt, but he… does. Without realising it, and with the intention of keeping her from being hurt. It is, perhaps, a perfect example of how self-sacrifice, and his tendency to throw himself in front of those he cares about (or, dare I say, make their decisions for them without exactly seeing it that way), can… backfire.

So then of course we get the whole argument, which I’ve already spent a frankly ridiculous number of words on.

But then! Then we get this.

First, he was dragged to this point by his mother basically saying ‘you promised me you’d tell her’ which for whatever reason cracks me the fuck up.

Second, he looks like he is in actual physical pain; come on buddy, you can do it.

Third, Lan Xichen’s expression! Watching this with amused incredulity like wow, and here I thought Wangji was bad at this. The little eyebrow raise of ‘go on, you got this’!

But Jin Zixuan absolutely does not got this.

He literally. runs. away. THIS BOY. THESE TWO.

And once again Lan Xichen’s reaction absolutely kills me. I mean, I love him in general, and his quiet commentary-via-slight-expressions here is really just. On another level. I want the whole series with just his executive commentary on it.

Bonus:

That look over at his brother! Like ‘Hey, Wangji, it’s your turn; go on, tell him how you feel. Jin Zixuan’s set the bar as low as it could possibly be; there’s literally no pressure!’ and Lan Wangji is like ‘I need this day to end.’

And then everything was fine and nothing sad ever happened again.

Except nope that’s a lie.

Because the thing with Lan Xichen is that while he can certainly appreciate the humour in a moment like that… he also knows his brother perhaps better than anyone, and is one of the very, very few (read: maybe two) people in the world who know Lan Wangji is not, in fact, carved of jade or ice. That Lan Wangji can be hurt, that he can feel, that he can doubt.

(And sometimes I think about how Lan Xichen knows that. How the other one of the Twin Jades, the young clan leader with the impeccable reputation and impossibly gentle smile, knows what it’s like to stand always on a pedestal. To be lonely and uncertain and unable to let it show, because who will look? Who will see past the perfection?).

Anyway. My point is, Lan Xichen knows there is something wrong, knows and asks and is the one person Lan Wangji can say this to, and so.

Lan Wangji’s expression here is just heartbreaking. The determination, but it’s a determination bordering on despair.

Because he just… doesn’t know what else to do. He’s watching someone he loves destroy himself, and he is trying in any way he can to help him, to reach out, to look for a way, any way at all to keep him safe. He’s questioning all his rules for this, questioning everything he thought he knew. Are there set rules for everything in this world? And his brother said no, said we can only judge by people and intent and heart, and so Lan Wangji looked at his own, and at this person who made him begin to question in the first place, and decided.

But it’s still not enough, because he can offer and he can reach out and he can say let me help you and I still am and he can research all the music in the world, but… what do you do when all you want is to save someone, and all they want is to throw themselves on the sword?

Even here, even as he says it, I think he knows it’s impossible. You can see it in the anguish on his face when Lan Xichen says (gently, oh so gently) “he may be unwilling to go, right?” Because it’s true, and Lan Wangji knows it, knows it’s impossible, and that’s why this hurts so much.

Because for all his power and ability and reputation, all these things that are so important in this damn world, there’s… nothing he can do but watch, and hope, and reach out, and hold on as long as he can (as long as Wei Wuxian will let him).

And we know where that ends.

Next (ep26) Previous (ep25 Part 1)

#'i still am' I! STILL! AM!#NOT OVER IT NOT OKAY ABOUT IT #the untamed #neuxue liveblogs the untamed #cql

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hopelikethemoon · 4 years

Text

Bridges (Javier x Reader) {MTMF} [smut]

Title: Bridges Rating: Explicit Length: 1600 Warnings: Smut (masturbation) and Angst Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. September 1992. Summary: Reader handles her feelings.

@grapemama @seawhisperer @huliabitch @beccaplaying @rogrsnbarnes@thewallpapergoesorido @twomoonstwosuns @gooddaykate @livasaurasrex @ham4arrow@plexflexico @readsalot73 @hdlynn @lokiaddicted @randomness501 @fioccodineveautunnale @roxypeanut @snivellusim @lukesrighthand @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts@synystersilenceinblacknwhite @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @exrebelshocktrooper@awesomefandomsunited @ah-callie @swhiskeys @lady-tano @u-wakatoshii @space-floozy @cable-kenobi @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes @findhimfives @pedrosdoll @frietiemeloen@arrowswithwifi @random066 @uncomicalhumour @heather-lynn @domino-oh-damn @cyarikaaa @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl @yabby-girl @xqueenofthecraziesx @punkass-potato @coredrive @pascalesque@theduchessofkirkcaldy @queenquazar @sabinemorans @buckstaposition @holkaskrosnou@yespolkadotkitty @fleetwoodmactshirt @seeking-a-great–perhaps @kochamcie @jaime1110

You were eternally thankful that it had happened at his apartment. Well — the bathroom at your favorite bar and Javier’s apartment. You had almost considered bringing him back to yours, but that little voice in the back of your head had told you not to.

Now you knew why.

It had been two weeks since you had learned what it felt like fuck Javier Peña. After years of watching him pick up nameless women at that same bar, you’d let yourself be drawn into his magnetic field and now you had to deal with the fallout.

Work was the worst. Sitting six feet away from him, hyper aware of his every movement because you had to avoid him. You wanted to avoid the inevitable conversation.

You could already imagine the gentle barbing — Javier letting you down with a kind smile and pat on the shoulder. It didn’t matter how that night had felt, in hindsight you knew it was a one time thing. He didn’t want you like that.

The coffee on your desk the morning after had solidified that in your mind. It was too obvious. A proverbial olive branch — sorry we fucked, but you’re still just my co-worker.

You had to push aside whatever lingering feelings you’d had for him. Because you had stupidly let yourself feel something for him. And Javier Peña was the most unattainable man on the planet.

He’d fucked his way through Bogotá and now you were another notch in his head board.

Maybe Murphy had been the glue that kept everything together. Without him, the office felt like a minefield. His desk had already been given to some new government lackey who had it out for you.

This bullshit with Javier was going to throw you off your game.

You poured yourself a glass of whiskey and used it to wash down two pain pills, hoping to kick the headache that had been splitting your head in two since your lunch break.

It had to be the stress.

After the first week of you ignoring him, Javier had given up trying to initiate conversations with you and now you felt even more on edge.

You missed it. You missed him — and he was right there.

Shit, you couldn’t even turn the TV on without catching a telenovella playing and wishing you could just pick up the phone and call Javi.

You hated that you were questioning everything. Maybe he’d never even cared about the stupid telenovellas. Maybe he’d just humored you with it.

But you knew, deep down, that he did care about you. He had proven that, time and time again, and you never suspected that he had a motive beyond being your friend.

You’d been the stupid one who let your emotions get the better of you. And that wasn’t something new. You’d caught yourself falling for him when you were with Lance. Comparing the two men, as if Javier was even a contender to date you.

Why would he want to date you, when he could continue enjoying life as a bachelor? As it was, he was probably at the bar looking for someone to take home.

If you hadn’t had a killer migraine, you probably would’ve been doing the same. Somewhere new. Somewhere they didn’t know you — where he wouldn’t be.

You wanted to erase the memories that were ever present. You wanted to forget that you knew what Javier’s mouth felt like against yours, what his hands felt like skimming over your hips, what his cock—

You groaned, downing your shot of whiskey before you retreated into your bedroom.

Another part of you wished that it had happened here. That you could walk into your bedroom and picture him draped across your bed. It would’ve been harder to leave him then.

That morning still weighed heavily in your mind. He had looked so peaceful. Like the weight of everything had been lifted off of him as he slept. The temptation to stay had been strong, but the fear of rejection had ultimately been stronger.

But that didn’t mean you didn’t think about that night — that morning.

You sank down onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling above you as you prayed for the medicine to kick in.

“Goddammit.” You muttered, wrestling with your pillow as you attempted to find a more comfortable position. You felt like shit. If you were getting sick, you were going to lose your mind.

The last thing you needed was to be out for a couple days — long enough for Chris to horn in on your job. Men like him could smell blood in the water.

But Javier wouldn’t let that happen. Would he?

You closed your eyes briefly, remembering the way he touched your cheek as he leaned over you and kissed you on his sofa. You ran your fingertips along your collarbone as your lips parted, drawing in a shaky breath.

That’s what you needed. If you couldn’t go out, at least you could get off. Even if it was to the memory of Javier.

Maybe it would cure your headache.

And you wouldn’t have to be in the same room as him for another two days, so why the hell not?

You sat up slowly and peeled off your shirt, before stripping down until you were laying bare on your bed. Your nipples pebbled in the cool air, and you were shocked at just how sensitive they were as you cupped them in your palms.

Your hands were plenty rough, but they didn’t feel quite like Javier’s had. And you couldn’t replicate the sensation of his tongue swirling around your stiff nipple. But the thought of him as enough to make you clench your thighs together, desire pooling low in your belly.

If things had been different — if both of you had been different — you could’ve had the real deal. Javier could’ve been there, taking up all the oxygen in your room. It could’ve been his hand skimming down your stomach, sliding between your thighs.

You swore his name under your breath as you ghosted your fingers over your clit, another sound escaping you as it throbbed in anticipation.

He’d been so good at making you feel good. Special. You were almost jealous of the informants that spent more time with him.

That just wasn’t in the cards for you.

A strangled sound rose up in the back of your throat as you circled that little bundle of nerves, spreading your thighs apart wider.

You pinched your nipple with your other hand, your body twitching at the shock of pleasure that went hot through your veins.

“Javier,” You bit down on your bottom lip as you slid your fingers lower, working two of them into your slick cunt. It wasn’t the same, but it would sure as hell do.

It made your skin burn to think that he could be with someone else right now. Someone who wasn’t you. Someone who could walk away and never even know his name.

But you did. You knew everything that you wanted to forget.

He knew too much about you. You’d gotten comfortable with him, let down your defenses and let him become part of your life. And now you had to rebuild with him on the outside.

You clenched your eyes closed as you thought back to the way he’d looked at you — that fire and… you’d wished that it was adoration. Didn’t he feel the same way?

Frustrated, you rolled over onto your stomach. You pressed your forehead against your pillow, tilting your head so you could breath as you drew yourself up onto your knees.

“Please.” You begged to the memory of Javier, trying to cling to the vivid memory of his cock driving into you, his hands touching everywhere they shouldn’t have been.

You rapidly worked your finger over your clit, desperately chasing the first waves of your relief. You curled your fingers into yourself, your thumb rubbing over your clit until it set off your release.

It wasn’t fair that Javier had been as good as he’d been. Even when you were with Lance — when there had been a relationship and feelings… you hadn’t felt half of what you felt with Javier.

You let yourself sink into the mattress, turning your head as you glanced at the clock on your bedside. You laid there, just watching one red number switch to a new number.

Maybe Javier was miserable too. Maybe you’d ruined it for him, like he’d ruined it for you.

Maybe he was laying in his bed, wishing he’d gone back to yours so he didn’t have to sleep where you’d been. A girl could wish, couldn’t she?

All those years, you’d thought that maybe you were just skirting around each other. But you hadn’t let yourself touch that live wire — those feelings weren’t meant to be felt, yet…

If the Murphys hadn’t left, none of this would’ve happened.

The office wouldn’t feel like hostile territory and you could be laying on your sofa giving commentary on your favorite novella with your favorite person.

It was easier to blame Murphy than it was to blame yourself. But the truth was, you’d folded like a house of cards and now you had to clean up the mess you made… by avoiding it.

It hurt like hell, but you’d suffered worse pain before. Hadn’t you?

You just wished you could go back in time and stop yourself from leaning in — from bridging that distance between the two of you. Because now that space between you and Javier was too wide to be bridged.

#javier pena #javier pena x reader #pedro pascal x reader

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thewebcomicsreview · 4 years

Photo

Normally I open up the Homestuck 2 liveblog with a tongue-in-cheek comment about how reading HS2 is pain, but I just watched the debate and HS2 looks incredible by comparison, so let’s see if this good mood carries over. Looks like we’re on Candyland, too, Candy updates tend to be better (or at least bad in a funny way) than the oft-boring Meat updates, and personally, I think “The Omega Kids fuck around” is the best part of HS2 by yards.

Man, that lamp is almost perfectly positioned to draw a line through the image separating the two scenes (the dialogue for which is on two separate columns), but it’s just the tiniest bit off-center. I wonder if that was intentional and mobile-responsiveness is just a cruel mistress. It’s a cute touch, if so. I suppose the door (and the photos, which are the same height as the door) also serves the same purpose of having the two scenes be sectioned off. I don’t really know a lot about “scene composition” so maybe I should stay in my wheelhouse, but I think it’s divided very nicely

HARRY: and some of us aren't gods and shit. JOHN: i'm detecting a hint of judgement in your voice, there, harry anderson JOHN: don't you enjoy being a part of all this? finally getting to be in the thick of it all?

John, always dense, has not picked up on Harry Anderson’s demotion to Harry. He’s also inserting a lot of his own desires onto Harry, here, too. Vrissy is the one who wanted to be in the thick of it all (thematic idea to stick a pin into to see if it plays out: John should be mentoring Vrissy and Vriska should be mentoring Harry. Some evidence that HS2 is building this idea, but not a lot yet)

HARRY: now YOU look like you're hiding some extra commentary. JOHN: oh, i don't need to burden you with all the bureaucratic stuff, it's boring.

You gotta subscribe to John’s $20/mo Patreon tier for that, Harry.

JOHN: because here i am, sitting in the dugout, same as you. HARRY: in the dugout? JOHN: oh, or, uh... JOHN: what's a metaphor you might like better... HARRY: no, JOHN: i'm like the uhh...understudy. HARRY: dad. no, jesus, you don't have to do this. JOHN: or i got cast in as babysitter number 2 when i had auditioned for, i dunno, HARRY: yeah, please, i got the baseball metaphor. HARRY: i'm not a complete fucking nerd.

John doesn’t really “get” theater kids, I get. It makes me think a little of how John’s dad thought John was massively into clowns. Also, this is a cute.

JOHN: it's been really nice to get to spend so much time with you. HARRY: um. yeah, it's not so bad. HARRY: anyway, before you ruffle my hair or anything, it looks like things are getting a bit heated between the vriskas over there. HARRY: maybe we should offer them a snack to bring the mood back down? JOHN: me, mess up your hair when you’ve worked so hard on that look? i do know you at least that well, harry anderson HARRY: thank god.

This is also cute. Harry maybe the only person in the entire cast of Homestuck or Homestuck 2 to have a semi-normal relationship with his parents.

Speaking of semi-symmetry, the line where Harry says how happy he is to stay home almost lines up perfectly with Vriska being furious that she has to stay home. I wonder again if that’s a coincidence of if someone had a really clever idea that didn’t make it fully intact through editing (or was considered not worth the effort).

VRISKA: How are you so calm right now? Your lusii were training you, right? And you’re a troll, you’re definitely five times stronger than a human! And if you’re my clone, you are way more 8adass than little miss Fussy Fangs.

Vriska is making several false assumptions here, but the most interesting one is that Vrissy is Vriska’s clone. She’s not. She’s descended from Vriska, and takes after Vriska very strongly, but it’s not a one-to-one thing.

VRISSY: 8ut I guess this Situation is Kind of Serious? VRISSY: There’s a whole Plan and Stuff Like that. VRISKA: Clearly not a good plan, 8ecause then I would 8e part of it!

Vriska.jpg

VRISKA: That’s just even more indication that they don’t know what they’re doing! Lalonde and Maryam have had however many sweeps to get older and stupider, 8ut from where I’m standing, it was literally only a few days ago that I was their commander! I am primed for the 8attlefield!

Okay, this line is across from John saying he’s in the dugout. There is absolutely an intentional, if not one-to-one strict, mirroring of these two conversations that’s actually really neat. I should go back to the other times HS2 has had conversations formatted like this to see if this mirroring has been happening all along. It’s a really good use of the format! I like this a lot!

JOHN: so anyway, as you can see, this would have worked just fine! HARRY: no i think karkat’s right. this looks like shit, dad. JOHN: you know, me letting your earlier use of the word "fuck" slide wasn't a blanket approval for all cursing in front of me. HARRY: sorry. HARRY: try not to make such a shit plan, and i won't call it that. JOHN: haha wow.

The other thing I like is the John/Harry dynamic.

HARRY: it's not like i think i'm any better! HARRY: i mean, i still can't believe i told vrissy and them to bring a dead celebrity to school. HARRY: what was i THINKING. JOHN: you were thinking it sounded hilarious! JOHN: but yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best call. JOHN: maybe it’s genetic? HARRY: yeah. HARRY: i kinda can’t believe we’re all still alive, actually. HARRY: and how did YOU make it this far, being so bad at this? JOHN: i had my friends with me, i guess.

John your friends repeatedly tried to kill you and succeeded at least twice.

He’d spent so long seeing mostly the best parts of Roxy in Harry Anderson. He forgot, he guesses, to look for himself in there, too. And if what they have in common right now is a lack of strategic foresight, hey, he’ll take it.

I’m slowly developing a theory that John is subconsciously the narrator of Candy, given how everything suddenly started going John’s way after Calliope left (and how the narrator seemed to really hate Gamzee last chapter). Remember, John has spoken in narration before in HS1, but never seemed to realize he was doing it. I probably need to essay this theory out at some point, but not now.

Oh, hey! Jane does have goons! And they’ve slightly change the way they draw Rose’s hair, so her head isn’t a perfect circle with lines on it. This looks much better.

JANE: I haven't given a political speech in years, Ms. Lalonde. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm just a simple business woman. JADE: right with her own talk show JADE: and multi billion dollar merchant company and lobbying groups! JANE: That's what a business woman is, Jade, dear.

I know that this is supposed to be Capitalism Bad, but “You claim to be a businesswoman when you own a merchant company!”. Jade. Come on. This reads less as Jane going “Of course I’m evil, I’m a CEO” and more that Jade literally doesn’t know what a business woman is.

JANE: You are on my territory, in the presence of my secret police, laying your hand on my investment.

Jane you don’t own “territory” do you not know what a businesswoman is either?

JANE: Your ship is in contested airspace. You will land, whereby it will be confiscated by the Royal Human Guard. After that you will be taken into custody.

CONTESTED BY WHOM, JANE? WHO THE FUCK IS THE WAR BETWEEN?!

JADE: shut the fuck up for a minute and look up!

There’s a BIG-ASS spaceship like ten feet in front of you! Did you not notice until Jade pointed it out?

Also why does the Rebellion ship have the Crockercorp prongs on it?

JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society? JADE: i never asked you to do that! JADE: you offered! JADE: so stop calling me ungrateful for not sucking your dick over things i never asked for!

Sorry again, Jade, are you implying that you wouldn’t have given your daughter an education had Jane not offered? “Rose and Jade entrusted their daughter to Jane, who they were at war with” is an enigma of a plot point.

The world is watching her be dressed down by a couple blood traitor rebels, one of which has very prominent dog ears. Jane wonders if either of them are even recognizable to the assembled as two of the old gods. One of her PR managers had recommended that she keep her look as static as possible, so that people can always recognize her as Jane Crocker, Captain of Industry, Creator of Earth C, Maintainer of Peace and Plenty.

Jade has always had dog ears what the fuck? I guess this is supposed to be Jane’s warped thinking.

So, anyway, Kanaya fake-holds Tavvy hostage, Jane buys the threat as real and they build up like Jane is going to sacrifice her own son for PR points but she ultimately stands down and lets everyone go. It’s left intentionally vague whether or not she was always going to do this, or if she didn’t want to do it in front of Jake, or if the presence of Jake stirred something in her that made her change her mind. I like the ambiguity.

This was a very “Homestuck 2″ update. The plot of kind of nonsense, but it’s carried by the character interactions and a bit of cleverness.

#Homestuck 2 #Homestuck 2 liveblog #Homestuck

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autumnblogs · 3 years

Text

Day 32: Through the Looking Glass

https://homestuck.com/story/4116

So right out of the gate, we learn a few things about the Scratched version of the universe, aside from the obvious fact that the new heroes are the previous guardians. Everyone is a little more mature, and identities are a little more fully-formed.

Jane’s name is already set in stone. Notably, the definition between the audience and Jane is also a little clearer here than usual - the Narration implies a distinction between us and Jane. Could be because we’re not controlling her yet - but as we get into Act 6, we will find a lot of cases where audience participation happens as part of the mechanic of narration, and this distinction will be called to a lot more.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/4117

So let’s unpack Jane’s interests and relation to pre-established parts of the Homestuck Universe, and see if we can’t start making guesses about Jane.

First thing’s first is that while we could read Jane’s affinity for these mustachio’d funnymen as being purely an attraction, she roleplays like John does - as a bit of a prankstress herself, and one who dons a fake mustache for one of her disguises, Jane roleplays as these men immediately suggesting to us that she looks up to them, and wants to be like them, rather than that she’s attracted to them.

(Though she certainly could be.)

Second thing is that Jane’s position as the Heirress parallels her not to John, but to Feferi. Like Feferi, Jane is a sweet girl who is the heir to a position of abominable power, and because she is beholden to the shape of that power, as long as she remains wedded to that shape, she will not only struggle to do anything productive with it, but in the course of the story, be subverted into a villain, at least for a little while, and it’s clear from the way that Crockertier Jane’s situation is communicated to us that she is an accomplice to her own brainwashing, and that the actions she takes in that form are meaningfully hers.

On another note, I think it’s interesting that on this side of the scratch, the Condesce has reimagined her empire as a megacorporation.

https://homestuck.com/story/4120

What do we learn about Jake right out of the gate? He likes movies - adventure movies. Jake, like Tavros, the other page, loves to bluster about subjects that he actually has relatively little affinity for - and in both cases, their lack of affinity can largely be described as performing their culture’s ideal of public personhood - warrior virtue. While Jake has all of the outward signifiers of masculinity, and is actually a pretty brave and technically skillful fighter by the standards of the real world, up until the Hopesplosion, he is outclassed by a lot of his friends, and ultimately, the cases where he most embodies warrior-manhood, Jake is being forced into it by someone who wants to take advantage of him.

We benefit from most of this knowledge with hindsight. It’s not actually there in this opening section, but the main thrust of Jake’s interests is his love of adventure and his love of wrestling, and I’m principally interested in Jake’s physicality in addressing his interests - he’s a very physical kid.

https://homestuck.com/story/4121

We’re hot off the heels of Terezi’s fake choice, and a lot of conversation about free will and fake choices in Act 5 - and here we’re presented with one almost immediately. We can pick either option, but the outcome will be the same whatever we do.

https://homestuck.com/story/4124

I’ve always thought the Condescension’s relationship with Jane is deeply fascinating. There is something about the prospect of cultivating an heiress, someone to take over her legacy, that brings out something tender and maternal in her, I think, even if it only manifests in a twisted way. She’s a bit of an enigma to me.

https://homestuck.com/story/4126

Well, Jane is certainly interested in Foxworthy, so I rescind my earlier comment.

We’ve barely been introduced to her and she pretty much immediately starts showing off her paternalistic disdain for rural and vulgar people through the narrative’s language, and her nostalgia for Problem Sleuth characterizes her enjoyment of its sequel.

Jane has an aristocratic mentality, and conservative leanings in the media she appreciates, and the way that she appreciates it. If Andrew’s commentary that he continued to examine the themes he started with Feferi in Jane, I think what we should take away is that Feferi’s concern for the lowly comes with a heaping helping of...

Wait for it.

Wait for it...

Condescension.

https://homestuck.com/story/4127

Jane’s disdain for the vulgar - low culture, low classes - also shows itself pretty quickly. In stark contrast to the other two leaders - John and Karkat - Jane isn’t much of a movie watcher at all (Jake gets that attribute in his session) and her attitude toward’s Jake’s movies is one of snobbery. Both of the other two movie watchers have a playfully self-deprecating attitude toward their own bad tastes in movies, but they still enjoy those movies sincerely.

Her relationship of passive-aggressive one-upsmanship also distinctly recalls Rose’s relationship with her mother, suggesting that Jane shares some of the underlying pessimism and mild hostility that Rose struggles with.

Also, as a symbol Swanson is a representative of the sort of anti-government animus that characterizes the politics of Trans-Mississippi America outside of the heavily populated West Coast, where the wedding of big business and state planning have created a lot of disaffection toward the distant and disinterested corporate landlords and bureaucratic apparatuses that govern huge tracts of federal land and private property in the west. Pawnee Indiana may not actually be on the other side of the Mississippi from Washington, but having grown up in Montana for at least a part of my childhood, Swanson’s politics are immediately recognizable.

Unfortunately, this anti-state animus has manifested not in the form of a renewed commitment to emancipation, but to the uniquely American, get-off-my-lawn form of Right-Wing populism practiced by the short-lived Tea Party, and smug “It’s just basic economics” Reagan-worshipping conservatives.

What I’m trying to say is, Jane would probably be a Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder fan in the modern day.

https://homestuck.com/story/4136

Jane’s skepticism prevents her from listening to her friends when they tell her about the extraordinary things that they do, but it’s also not exactly a kind of scientific skepticism, and more of a dogmatic realism - she has a narrow vision of what the world is like, and is dismissive of ideas that are outside of her bubble.

Quick Note that while Jake makes only an off-handed remark about it here, he is sensitive to the hostile, toxic relationship between the AR and Dirk in a way that neither of the girls really is, and while that may seem uncharacteristically emotionally intelligent of Jake, I think he’s a lot more aware of his surroundings than he lets on.

https://homestuck.com/story/4142

Now as long as we’re talking about Right Wing Populism and comparing Jane to John there is an extremely potent assertion.

The USPS, and the idea of privatizing it, is as much a symbol of the war of corporatists and authoritarians against social democracy as anything is, and because of the way John is associated with Mail in general as a Hero of Breath, Jane is almost immediately setting herself up as a foil to John.

https://homestuck.com/story/4144

Calliope is so cheery that it’s easy to take everything she says in stride, and yet, with all the horrors Sburb has to offer, in terms of the way it destroys planets, and traumatizes its players, her optimism toward the game is at least disquieting.

Sure, the Null Session isn’t going to destroy the kids’ session, but her language is contrasted against both Kanaya’s and Karkat’s when they berated Aradia and Jade respectively. Both Karkat and Kanaya rue the effects of the narrative on their lives, but Calliope is a superfan.

https://homestuck.com/story/4156

I know I’m spending a lot of time ragging on her here, but like, as long as I am; Jane is sure openly hostile to her best friend, in a way that comes as kind of surprising even given the precedent that we have to work with.

https://homestuck.com/story/4160

Poirot is from Belgium.

I wonder if Andrew or Jane is the one committing that error?

https://homestuck.com/story/4168

Jake is full of little contradictions like this. Likes Adventure, terrified of monsters. Not even ambivalent about them, certainly not excited by them. It’s like the opposite of how little kids are usually super into Dinosaurs.

https://homestuck.com/story/4171

So what is the deal with Jake and his fascination with Blue Women? Aside from the metaphysical connection with Vriska and Aranea (and to a lesser extent, Jake), like... what’s the meaning of it?

I think a possible answer to the question lies in the process of the initial portraits becoming blue - leaving them out in the sun to fade - and the relationship between that, and the way in which he likes mummies and suits of armor, and so on and so forth - and even his stuffed trophies.

Maybe this suggests that Jake is, on principle, far more comfortable with the idea of a thing, than with the thing itself. Jake’s Blue Women are comfortably static. They have ceased to change a long time ago, and now exist, preserved in perpetuity, without the need to worry about adapting to suit them.

https://homestuck.com/story/4175

While a lot of Jake’s guesses are incorrect, he’s still clearly spending a lot of time pondering over the mysterious time shenanigans - he just hasn’t quite put it all together.

https://homestuck.com/story/4177

The same way that Dirk’s fastidious organization is equated to his complicated and demanding modus, and the way that John being a big impulsive himbo is equated with his inability to manage his fetch modus, constantly getting distracted from his goal by the card on the surface, Jake’s Modus has an enormous capacity, but most of it is preoccupied inefficiently.

https://homestuck.com/story/4184

The Autoresponder continues the conversation that Andrew has with the audience about the distribution of the self - Dirk does this more generally, but the particular thread the AR tugs on is the question of where a person’s self really stops - just as the question lingers in the air because of John’s disposition toward Davesprite, the question of whether the AR is really a separate person from Dirk, or a part of him, is posed continuously just by the fact that it exists.

https://homestuck.com/story/4192

To be fair to Dirk, who I will have a lot of kind-of-sympathetic-antipathy for, I had forgotten that it is, in fact, the Autoresponder who sets up this particular challenge for Dirk.

The parallels between Dirk and English are nevertheless being set up through this conversation nevertheless - by sending him the parts and getting him to assemble the robot, Dirk makes Jake complicit in his own humiliation, even as he attempts to build Jake up into an ideal partner.

https://homestuck.com/story/4196

Already we’re seeing indications that this segment of Homestuck will deal with different themes of growing up than the first half. Which is already kind of obvious, but we’ve moved decisively out of Part 1: Problems, and into Part 2: Feelings. The second half has moved out of the territory of other humans and their emotional situations as somewhat idealized problems (somewhat) and into this situation where everyone is a moving body, complicated and the characters are each others’ biggest obstacles, and their own biggest obstacles. That’s a bit of a reductive way of describing it, but I think it rings true.

https://homestuck.com/story/4256

While I am willing to concede that Dirk is not literally responsible for siccing the Brobot on Jake today, he more or less assents to AR’s sexual harassment and physical abuse of Jake.

In addition to his vicarious physical abuse, Dirk’s persona as the Prince of Heart calls him to suppress the uniqueness of the people who are around him, moulding them like clay into shapes that better resemble him. Jake and Jane need to be more like each other in his eyes - which is to say, they both need to be more like Dirk.

We also get some insight into Dirk’s sense of humor here - it’s not just about the irony. I think there is an extent to which at the base of the thing, Dirk’s sense of humor is about simultaneously denying and affirming a thing’s meaning - making fun of it while cherishing it. Having a thing be incredibly silly - while also being incredibly serious business. He cherishes the absurd.

I wonder if he’d like Kojima’s stuff.

https://homestuck.com/story/4257

The way that Dirk identifies with logic and reason recalls the sort of “enlightened by my own intelligence” New Atheist jerks who were known to prowl the internet in the early half of the decade, and to some extent, still do. Like Libertarians, these folks have often in the present day gotten caught up in Right Wing Populism. Maybe it’s something about the way that Right Wing movements increasingly identify as a part of counter-culture even though they advocate reactionary policies.

https://homestuck.com/story/4273

This is extremely silly, but Jake is in mortal peril all the time, and I expect even at the best of times he might be uncomfortable being touched.

https://homestuck.com/story/4284

Here we shall pause.

Sorry for the late post. Early work was quite busy, and once the rush was over, it was already quite late.

So the first Act of Act 6 has been very informative! Compared to the first Act of Homestuck, we’ve been introduced already to all our Dramatis Personae!

Tune back in tomorrow to here Cam Say,

Some variation on Alive and Not Alone.

#commentary #liveblogging

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