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msindrad · 4 years

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an insanely long crazy-ass post about the dollars trilogy, I’m so sorry y’all

I FOUND THIS POST. I DID IT. I FOUND IT. JESUS. I spent the entirety of my yesterday searching for it.

I’m going to tag everybody who participated in this discussion and whose posts I‘ve found while searching for this discussion on the off-chance that they still might be interested in, yeah, discussing these films.

@clinteastwood-blog @geekboots-blog @istadris @sybilius @bleak-nomads @thenotsobad-thebad-andtheugly @bloncos @mcicioni-blog @unrealthings @stephantom @colonelmortimer

Also, please feel free to ignore me and my analytical outburst if you don’t feel like talking about the films or talking about them with my crazy hyperfixated ass specifically, lol. I didn’t mean to be rude by calling you out of nowhere, it’s just that sometimes people get excited when there is an enthusiastic newbie in the fandom and gladly return to their beloved canons.

Anyway. The dollars trilogy.

I’ll start with The Good, the Band and the Ugly (and will probably make myself instantly unlikable by nitpicking things, (sigh)).

As stupid as it might sound – the film being an absolute masterpiece, a cultural milestone that is timeless, epic, work of genius, love it, will write and draw about it with pleasure etc. – I’m kind of inclined to find the GBU the weakest film in the trilogy storywise. Don’t get me wrong: the plot is interesting and strong, every scene is entertaining, smart, and instantly quotable… But.

There are a few things that make the story, taken holistically, weak to a degree, especially in contrast to the other two films. Now, let me explain my bold-ass claim.

The first reason I couldn’t even pinpoint for myself until my best friend asked me: yeah, it’s all cool and fun, but what has really changed at the end of the film? They stopped the battle/blew up the bridge (kudos for the pacifist message), they killed a few folks on the way including Angel Eyes, but what did the story amount to in the end? Was their relationship changed? Have they themselves learned something about life, universe and everything? Tuco is still on the rope, Blondie still shoots the rope. They both got their money, split it 50/50. Sure, now it’s an insane amount of money but will it make them reconsider their ways of life? I don’t know, and I don’t necessarily think so. They’re really back to square one. If you consider the graphic novel The Man With No Name canon, then (spoiler) Blondie gives his money away to help rebuild the monastery of Tuco’s brother, and Tuco himself doesn’t really invest his share in anything other than booze, and sex, and troubles, so. Then, Angel Eyes got killed off, but he had even less backstory/character arc than, for instance, Captain Clinton, not to mention that his image, as memorable as it was, kind of lacked certain complexity, so, does it really matter storywise (although he is a great, stylish character, but I hope that you get what I mean)? (Note: Angel Eyes should have been the film’s ultimate personification of the war (inhumanely ruthless, only interested in money, extremely goal-oriented etc.), which, the war, kind of is the main antagonist of the film if you think about it; but the way he was used in the plot, the way he acted, and was generally presented, communicated it only in a limited way, imo).

Everything about the adventure was fun, smart, entertaining, one of the best films ever made, I agree 100%, and I rewatched it with pleasure many times. But I believe that stories have to bring about some palpable change in their world in order for them to be successful and finished. The GBU, in my opinion, doesn’t do it because it doesn’t want to be a story-story, and it’s fine with just letting its characters exist in a magic Western/a cowboy fantasy/a fairy tale. And I guess it’s also one of the reasons why the story didn’t go anywhere from the GBU – there is nothing to add to a basis like that. And I can’t help noting that it’s super ironic that the only film in the trilogy that truly seems to be all about money-money-money has no “dollars” in its title.

Another thing that I think is super important: there is almost no female energy or presence in the film. And it’s not even a matter of representation that bugs me, although I think it’s very important. It just feels like there is a deficit of something vital that renders everything even sort of unrealistic. In AFOD we have Marisol and we have Consuelo Baxter, and they’re relevant for the plot, and they have goals, motivations… lines. In FAFDM we have Mary, who has only a few brief moments, but she’s memorable, endearing, and she has a small story/motivation of her own, and we also have Mortimer’s sister, who is EXTREMELY important, and who also isn’t just symbolic, she herself makes a plot-relevant decision on screen, although a really horrible one from my personal moral standpoint. In the GBU we have what? A prostitute that’s beaten up by Angel Eyes (I never watch this scene), another woman at the hotel where Blondie stays in that is shut up and called an old hag or something like it, and another woman that makes a comment about Tuco’s hanging. None of them are memorable or have motivations on their own, and to me it makes the film lacking some really important counterpoint in terms of dynamics etc.

And nobody needs me to describe all the things that the film is awesome at because everybody knows that the film is one of the best films ever made, so painfully gorgeous that it’s difficult to praise it. So, I’ll move on to the other two films but will briefly talk about Tuco and Eli Wallach.

Eli Wallach is considered one of the best actors ever to appear on film for reason, so, I’ll just say about my personal impressions from his performance: he really made me emphasize with Tuco. His acting is incredibly rich, nuanced, concentrated, and, imo, just leaves you no choice but to think of Tuco as a real complex human being, not a film character. And Tuco is a superb character. Over the course of the story he gets to be loathsome, humane, funny, silly, terrifying, and cunning, - often all those at the same time. That’s one hell of a captivating character who’s just very, very interesting to watch and to analyze, regardless whether you like him or not.

Then, we have A Fistful of Dollars. I’m a huge fan of classic adventure stories that are gen, plot-driven, and have smart main characters figuring out a way to get what they want without being destroyed by other characters for wanting or trying to get it in the first place. I think it’s very difficult and very rewarding to write a good story in this genre. AFOD is exactly this kind of story, and this kind of stories is only as good as their protagonists’ maneuvers are. And Joe is, like, a tactical genius (the barrel! the fire!). And it’s much better to rewatch the film to remind yourself of how smart he is than have me talking about it, so.

But apart from that he is also humanized by his deeply personal motivations that appear completely irrational especially in contrast to his clever manipulations of the Baxters and the Rojos. And he doesn’t do it egotistically, to “get the girl,” which wouldn’t make him particularly sympathetic one way or another. Sure, he makes a good buck at the end, but his primary motivation still is justice for Marisol and her family (and then protection of his friend). Additionally, Joe gets his fair share of punishment for providing said justice, which further humanizes him and kind of makes you worry about him. And Silvanito with his scolding, humor, and skepticism helps with it a lot, too.

And then, there is the fact that the film wants the audience to either want to be Joe or want to be with him, sometimes both at the same time. Everybody on screen is a single Joe’s wink away from swooning because how he practically oozes charisma (only Silvanito is immune to his charms). I can’t blame them, though.

And I also want to point out the last lines of the film: Joe says that he doesn’t want to get involved into politics because that would be too much for him, and I think that it’s very fitting. The film just showed how cool he is, but he knows his limits, and he knows that he operates on a different plane.

So, all in all, it’s a masterfully done story.

Finally, we have For a Few Dollars more. I love all three films, but FAFDM is my favorite, there’s no doubt about that. I’ll start with the fact that it’s perfectly structured and perfectly balanced. We have three big players, Mortimer, Manco, and Indio, and the film shows how dangerous and how smart each of them is, so that the conflict between them ends up being very, very suspenseful. Not to mention the fact that it takes Manco and Mortimer almost 40 minutes, I think, to finally properly meet – by that time we are already speculating who will be the winner in the end, how will they react to each other, how will they interact, how will they work together etc. We get to know them quite well first, and then their relationship allows us to explore their characters even deeper through their interactions, their differences, and their similarities. For some time, storywise they become a single unit. While the story of Indio’s assault on Mortimer’s sister is revealed parallel to the plot.

Indio himself is terrifying as hell without being cartoonish. He is a really dangerous, broken man that is also methodical, smart, and ruthless. He is so bad that he kills the opponent’s family just to make him bitter enough to draw on him. And he is so bad that he is okay with killing off his own gang.

Speaking of which, Indio’s gang is colorful. He has interesting interactions with them at the beginning, in that church. And Klaus Kinski made his Wild stand out to me. I swear, the moment he almost cries in that saloon when Mortimer takes away his cigar, I feel bad for him every single time. And when he recognized Mortimer, it was tense. He even had a cool witty one-liner after Mortimer said that he should come to him in ten minutes to help him light that match and smoke: “In ten minutes, you’ll be smoking in hell!”

By the way, Indio’s tendency to get unnecessarily physical with his gang looks even more unnerving when he touches Manco to check his wound/shares a smoke him with some clearly visible eroticized subtext, which gets even creepier when you realize that he is a rapist. I swear, I was worried about Mortimer when I saw the film for the second time – that is even though I knew the plot – because Manco brought up that family resemblance between Mortimer and his sister, and we all know what Indio did to her.

What else? I could bring up all sorts of things, the action, the final duel, the small smart details that allow the plot to happen the way it happens (e.g. how Manco manages to hide the bag with all the money on that tree before Indio’s gang capture him and Mortimer – only to re-collect that bag at the end of the film), the humor, the street kids and all the other cool-cool secondary characters (Joseph Egger’s informer probably is my favorite), the opening sequence and the title card (oops, already rambled about this one) really, anything and everything including the perfect chemistry between Manco and Mortimer.

But I’ll just say that the music in this film is special to me. Every single composition by Ennio Morricone is special, unique, memorable, and intriguing, it’s true, and so it feels redundant and banal to say something like this. The Ecstasy of Gold is almost extraterrestrial, the main theme of Two Mules For Sister Sara imitates actual mule sounds, how genius is that, etc., and you must be dead to not be enticed and mesmerized beyond words by the main theme of the GBU, which is a hymn of all spaghetti Westerns now, a universal call for adventure (I feel like a bad person saying this, but I’ve always wanted to joke that Ennio put sexy back into the “waah-waah”… no, I regret nothing).

BUT. To me personally, the music in FAFDM is as personal as the film itself, and dare I say even more important to the story than in the GBU, despite the theme of the GBU being a kind of Greek choir throughout the film. The personalized sounds for Manco and Mortimer accentuate their personalities to the point where they almost create a reflex in you. The pocket watch chime is literally part of the story and plays a huge, crucial role in the plot! And it’s decidedly one of the saddest musical scores I’ve ever heard. It’s minimalist, mournful, and yet also nostalgically bittersweet. It feels like a reminder that there’s no going back whatever that might mean in the actuality. And the famous moment where Manco asks Mortimer whether his question was indiscreet and Mortimer says that the answer could be… I feel personally touched whenever I watch the scene. For me, it doesn’t feel like just an amazing scene, it triggers some deep emotion that is hard to express and almost gives me the urge to cry. Something along the lines of respectful and compassionate “I’m sorry that it happened to you,” “I’m sorry that I can’t help you.” The feeling of personal tragedy is conveyed infinitely better than a three-volume backstory ever could.

And then, there is this huge potential for all the stories about Manco, and Mortimer, and Blondie, and Tuco, and Angel Eyes, and even Joe to explore... Well, I better stop here.

So, yeah. It turned out to be a crazy long post, and I‘m grateful to anybody who reads it till the end. And if you haven’t watched these movies please do. Cheers.

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reynesofcastamere · 4 years

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Pressure Points[β]

(A/N: The prompt I got for this was ‘Maul giving Ahsoka some NSFW stress relief.’ And. Uh...Well, I’m not sure if this is what you wanted, anon. But it’s what you’re getting. ORZ. So yeah, this gets fairly dark. Readmore is going under my notes again. Warnings for: blindfolding, non-negotiated bondage, dubious consent/morals, possessiveness, mentions of past self-abuse(reckless sexual behaviour/masochism) and sensory deprivation. I’m...not certain whether some of Maul’s lines fall under gaslighting or any other form of verbal/emotional abuse, but keep an eye out for those too. Potentially triggering sections have been marked off with ‘****’. This takes place about 2-3 years after ROTS and events are closer to canon (ie Maul is a crime boss but Death Watch and the Nightbrothers aren’t allied with him). Unbeta’d.)

There is tension in her frame as she waits, the strip of black cloth about her eyes her only adornment. Marks cover her, old and new, dappling the sunset colour of her skin with sharp points of red and pools of purple, blue, and yellow. They are not his work, nor do they belong to a single individual. Such a curious creature. Ahsoka Tano is knelt on a large cushion in front of a chair, the very image of powerlessness and debauchery. And yet... “Are these meant to provoke me?” Maul questions, fingertips trailing from the centre of her back and over one shoulder as he circles around her to take his seat. “Or have you come to request my aid in killing those responsible?” The latter seems unlikely, given her limiting morals and considerable skill, though the prospect does intrigue him. “Neither.” She murmurs, voice slightly roughened from strain as he cups her jaw in one hand, slowly tilting it upwards. The blindfold only prevents him from reading her eyes, but there is a wealth of information waiting in the tempo of her breath and heartbeat, the subconscious tells of movement and expression. “Don’t pretend you’re concerned for anything other than your own ego.” The bitter tone to her voice is hardly subtle, though. “If you wished to avoid interrogation, you should have been more patient.” He coaxes her upwards with guided touches until she sits bestride his thighs. “Instead you summon me here, covered in these tokens-” A single fringertip traces a line from her lower abdomen all the way up to the edge of the blindfold. “-and this insulting barrier.” She jerks her head away when he toys with the edge of it, clearly not willing to relinquish whatever ‘safety’ it afforded her. “What am I to do with you, my Lady?” “Don’t. I’m not yours. Not-” Ahsoka trembles as he discards his gloves to touch her properly. His hands stroke her outer thighs, over her backside and up her spine to curve around and palm her breasts. He indulges himself for a few moments, tasting the vulnerable skin that rests above the pulse beating in her neck as the callused pads of his thumbs rub and circle her stiffening peaks. “Reluctance does not become you.” Maul whispers as her hips twitch, hands blindly seeking out the armrests and gripping them tightly, as if to anchor herself. Or perhaps, to have something else to touch besides him. “Evil.” Her reply comes, followed by a sharp cry when he roughly tugs and worries at her nipples with his fingers. He is familiar with this kind of deprivation: How taking away one or all of the senses can increase the body’s reaction to pain. Such knowledge had never been meant for the purposes of pleasure; of making another being pant and writhe, seeking more. The first -and only- time he’d had the satisfaction of seeing her in this state was a far more...rushed affair. Punctuated with savage cacophony, nails and teeth tearing at each other as they were swept into a frenzy of unrestrained lust. There simply hadn’t been the time or inclination to truly explore her. But now... He laughs, soft and brief and cruel. “And you know for a certainty that none of your paramours were thieves, murderers, or worse?” One hand trails downwards, stopping just above her sex. The edge of his thumb just barely teases her engorged nub, drawing out a shaken exhale. “Or am I to believe that you screened every one of their backgrounds personally.” A statement of dry scorn as he observes her internal struggle, seemingly repulsed by and drawn towards him all at once. “It’s not the same. They weren’t-I don’t even have a word for what you are.” Ahsoka retorts, low and tinged with sanctimonious fury. She hisses when he slips a single digit inside her, a frission of genuine discomfort travelling up her spine and into her shoulders. Hm. She is certainly wet enough, so the soreness in her channel cannot be his doing. He will need to prepare her gradually if he wants to achieve much more than this. “Oh, but you do. Say it.” “...Monster.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not even going to try and deny it?” “A waste of my time and an affront to your intelligence.” He hasn’t stopped touching her this whole time, lips ghosting along her throat as his fingers carress her, inside and out. Her hips are rolling in minute increments, her grip on the chair practically white-knuckled at this point. Maul pauses for a few moments to remove his upper garments, pry her hands loose, and place them on his back. Specifically, on the furrows she’d left in his skin over the course of their heated entanglement. ****

“I can’t do this.” She breathes, fingers clenching as the heel of his right palm drags over the bundle of nerves at the apex of her slit. “Mmmn...-haaahh- It’s...it’s wrong.” Her back arches as he re-inserts one digit, then another, still providing the friction that’s causing her to start losing coherency. “An interesting choice of words.” They imply a certain degree of...latitude in her thinking. That it is some form of obstacle preventing her from giving in, rather than a total resistance to what is happening. “What’s that supposed t-ahhhhn-to mean?” Ahsoka demands, before their lips meet. It does not take long for her to melt, moaning as his tongue teases her lower lip, then lightly draws it between his teeth. When he pulls back, it is purely to admire the image of desirous ruin she inspires, flushed and breathing raggedly as she trembles. “Do you not realize how close you are to oblivion?” He curls the digits inside her for emphasis, feeling her jolt at the sensation. She has been attempting to shield herself from him in the Force, but Maul is both relentless and patient, and the conflict in her is simmering so very near to the surface. “If you are so diminished by wanting this from me, leave.” His free hand digs into a set of bruises on her right hip, her hands clenching against his back as her core quivers. “Run back to your masters, secure in your nobility and virtue, but know that the monster you marked will never touch you again. Not unless you beg, Ahsoka Tano.” It is a clear choice. She cannot accuse him of being obscure or unreasonable in his logic or wording. Yet she does not move away or speak. In fact, her jaw is clenched so tightly that one might worry for the state of her teeth. With how...outspoken she usually is, this development is quite odd. He lightly scrapes his teeth over her pulse point as he puzzles it out, circling the fingers still buried inside her. She is visibly struggling now, caught between body and mind as she clings to the last vestiges of self-control. “Ah...” Maul breathes in sudden epiphany. “There it is. You cannot bring yourself to ask for these...perversions.” The stiffening of her posture and the turn of her head is all the answer he needs. “So be it.” He tears a strip of cloth from his shirt, using one hand and some assistance from the Dark Side to tie her wrists behind her back. “I will ignore your sorrow, your guilt, your shame, and you will have the comforting illusion that this is not your choice.” He bites down on her throat as she comes apart, voice and Force signature finally released from their self-imposed restraints. The chaos in her is so exquisite that he cannot resist being overtaken, keening and snarling into his own climax.

****

There are long moments spent between regaining breath and sense of self, but she does not object when he changes their positions and spends a full hour pleasuring her with a clever mouth and dextrous hands; her releases bestowed as gentle gifts. Nor does she protest once he bears her down onto the floor and claims her again and again, their mutual cries filling the enclosed space with each brutal thrust. Maul is merciless as Ahsoka pleads for him to slow down, that he’s splitting her apart, and she can’t possibly come again. He simply folds her in half, legs placed over his shoulders as he proves her wrong. The final climax is wrought in shrieking agony for them both. It is almost...cleansing, in a way. He pulls out cautiously, readjusting her legs to a more comfortable position before untying her wrists. Ahsoka is limp and pliant, chest heaving with gulps of air. When he removes the blindfold, it is easy to see why. Her eyes are reddened and watery with unshed tears, haunted exhaustion making the blue of her irises lifeless and hollow. His lips press tenderly against her forehead as she closes them. “Shh. Sleep now, ja’ti mirtis {my death}.” He rumbles, just enough of the Dark Side layered into his voice to compel her obedience. A feat that would not be possible without her...current state. Perhaps it would be best to keep her with him for at least a few days, if not longer. His current base of operation is not far, and in this way he can be assured that she is only scratched, not shattered. The Rebellion will whine at him for absconding with their precious former Jedi, no doubt. Let them. He has had larger headaches than their petty grievances and slights. The only outrage that will matter is Ahsoka’s, once she regains herself and takes her freedom. Until then, she is his, and he will tend to her as he sees fit. (A/N: MAUL, ABDUCTING PEOPLE IS NOT HOW YOU SHOW PROPER AFFECTION OR AFTERCARE, FFS. -_-*** So yeah. I might do a single follow-up to this later from Ahsoka’s POV, depending on a number of things. This...might be the first smut drabble I’ve written purely from Maul’s perspective, come to think of it. The line in Sith language is repurposed from captainmazzic, and a couple of others from TLJ. The important thing to remember is that Maul is both Very Persuasive and convinced that he is Always Right. And he is, kind of, but only from a very selective point of view. Ahsoka has every reason to question the morality of what it means for her to not only want sex from him, but also that she likes having some degree of physical pain involved with sex in general. (Some people aren’t fully comfortable with masochism/painplay in their BDSM, especially when first starting out.) I wanted to explore a version of her that wasn’t as put-together or as sure of herself, because everyone has a point where they either get run down or break entirely; and it doesn’t make her any less for doing so. Anyway, I’ve rambled on a fair bit again. Cheers, everyone!)

#maulsoka #omg i forgot to tag this when i posted it. FAIL #NS.FW #lots of ramblings/warnings in this one but I swear it's for a Good Reason

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cocoascriptures · 4 years

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| LIFE AFTER LIBERTY | 1. JUSTIN F. “Staring at the sky ain't gon' fix my problem...”

a/n; because they did my boy (he wasn’t always my boy tho let’s get that clear lol) dirty and we’re all wondering where life takes us after high school. So here’s a blurb? Headcanon. I’ll try and do all of them even tho no one will probably see this lmao. Inspired by Kevin abstract’s, “echo” since it reminds me of Justin.

When Justin found out he was HIV-positive on the night of prom, he automatically thought he was going to die. And of course that scared the shit out of the 17 year old.

However his doctor, Dr. Ellis Grey assures Justin and The Jensens that HIV-positive did not mean he had aids. In fact if the virus did not reach stage 3 (aids) Justin could live a normal life, with meds to control it.

Even tho his life changed drastically the night of prom, Justin would do what he needed to stay alive. He spent many of his high school years putting his life at risk and now felt like this was his punishment— or rather wake up call.

Of course he did he research with the help of clay and Mrs. Jensen but at times it felt too overbearing and he found himself snapping at the two, later apologizing, even though his family understood

Justin didn’t like to feel sorry for himself but sometimes he just needed to sit in his funk. He’d eventually snap out of it and continue fighting like he knew he could.

He made it to graduation with the support of the football team, basketball team, Clay, Jess, the rest of his friends by his side, and with old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Jensen in the stands supporting him. Sure there was a small part of him that wished his mom was here to see him walk across that stage, I mean what kid wouldn’t want their parent(s)/ guardian watching them accomplish the bullshit of high school?

His mother was another reason Justin had to beat his addiction. He had that on the back of his mind, and now this new piece of him that was part of his journey.

Justin decided to go to Sanderson university, believing that if he left Crestmont now, he would spiral. Community college was the smart route for him for right now, even though he felt like he wrote that essay for nothing, Mr. Jensen told him if he wanted to transfer he could still use that essay if he decided to go off to a four-year institution.

With school starting in the fall, Justin spent most of his time with Jess and his friends who wouldn’t be staying in Crestmont. With clay off in Nevada with Tony for two weeks, Justin enjoyed the limited time of summer he had left with his friends

Which meant hard decisions... Jessica Davis still stayed with Justin even finding out that he tested positive. Their relationship was a lot of push and pull but Jessica seemed to want to see this through. They found love in each other. They taught each other what love is.

However with Jessica out of state, socializing between the two became scarce. Ultimately Justin and Jessica came to terms with calling it quits but still friends from a distance?

Justin needed to focus on himself and his studies. It was hard not being with the one girl he was truly in love with but he knew it was for the best and as corny as Mr. Jensen says, “if it’s truly meant to be, then you’ll two will find a way back to each other,” Justin couldn’t help but to believe that—but he didn’t hold his breath

Justin Foley Jensen, fucking hate school and had a bitter attitude towards college at the start of freshman year in high school only because he didn’t see his future there. He didn’t know where he saw himself, probably living off Bryce if he didn’t end up like his mother. Who knows? Now? Justin was glad to say he made it to college.

He had no idea what to study and didn’t like that pressure what’s so ever but was told he could start off with general studies until he figured it out. “There’s no rush,” his counselor told him. It was nice knowing that you didn’t have to have it all figured out because to Justin, he had no fucking clue. Especially after everything he went through and continues to go through.

He starts off with the basics, taking three classes. Two on campus, one online.

He goes to meetings for his addiction, therapy sessions twice a week, and even visits the counseling & psych services that are provided on campus when he feels like he needs extra help

He talks to clay almost every other day, “dude it’s like you never left, first you were a pain in my ass, now it feels like you’ve been buried up there and I can’t shit you out.” “Oh, fuck you, Justin.” “I love you man.” “Yeah, I unfortunately love you too.”

He lets his hair grow a little longer and some facial hair, to make him look a little older

He doesn’t join any clubs yet since he already has some extracurricular activities he’s handling on his own

He does however, get a job in the next town over, Alcombey, which is a total snooze fest but something he needs in order to not be tempted.

It’s A part time job at a noodle bar 15 mins from Crestmont since two of the previous jobs did not want to hire him due to his background check. “Fuck them anyway,” Zach texted, “both of those places look like five nights at Friday’s but worse. Hey, I’ll even leave them a bad review on yelp.”

Justin was glad Zach was still around, because if he wasn’t he’d probably lose his mind from being lonely. Zach decided to take a year or two off from school but their old coach was still putting his ass to work, coaching.

The two were friends before, usually gravitating towards each other when Bryce and Monty were off being the usual piece of shits that they were. In a sense they were each other’s back ups when they didn’t want to deal with the other’s foolishness but Justin and Zach could be on their bullshit too

Anyway, during this time they became a lot closer and would consider each other, “besties” zach’s words, not Justin’s.

They’d usually chat on sundays since the pair kept themselves busy during the week, Zach with coaching, and Justin juggling school, meetings, his health, and work—but they’d find time to hang out during the months

“Dude, come see fast twelve with me.” “I mean sure, I’m down for the action but how many more fucking movies are they going to make?” “Don’t question a masterpiece. It’s the best film series of all time.” “Actually it’s twilight.” “What the fuck did you just say?!” “Say I’m wrong.” “You’re wrong. Got damn wrong!” “I’m getting Tyler in on this!” “Whatever man, do what you gotta do!”

Two years seem to go by pretty quickly, Justin living his form of normal. He graduates with an associates in physical therapy and transfers to Arizona to complete a bachelors to masters degree in the same program—physical therapy

From there he meets a new group of friends but still has his weekly calls with clay and Zach, either separate or three-way, still texts/zooms/Skype/FaceTime the friend group chat every couple of months to catch up

Ryan is now on a reality tv show and has 30.9k followers on Instagram, Courtney works for a e-commerce fashion company and is in a polygamous relationship—one is non-binary, the other is a bisexual trans woman, Alex and Charlie are engaged!!! “Alex?! Why would you want to marry him?” Justin asks Charlie, everyone knowing that Justin and Alex have a love-hate relationship, mostly hate but still sociable? Light friends? “I’m in love with him, why wouldn’t I? There’s no one else for me.” Charlie deadpans. “Good luck.” “Fuck off, Justin you’re just mad that no one but Jess wanted your dumbass.” “Actually I’m sorta seeing someone so kiss my ass.” Zach and clay are all smiles at this point.

Jessica is taken back by all of this new information since she sort of fell off the face of earth along with Ani. She wanted to be the first to say what’s going on in her life but when Courtney and Ryan are in the chat things usually go one direction and it’s hard to get a word in.

Justin didn’t mean for this to slip out but Alex liked to piss him off.

Zach and clay already knew this information so it wasn’t news to them.

“Well spill the tea love, we’re waiting!” Ryan snaps his fingers to break the silence.

Justin fills the group in that he moved in with his new friends in a house off campus that he met the night of his twenty-first birthday. It all happened sporadically but it was one of the best decisions he’s made

It’s six of them including Justin in one house in a hot ass desert, he was planning to rent an apartment off campus by himself with the money he managed to save up, even tho the jensens offered to pay his first month’s rent, he learned to take responsibility on his own

Until he met the five at a festival downtown. It was weird for Justin to spend a birthday on his own, even tho he didn’t have the best upbringing at a young age, he still managed to be around someone even if that meant his mother high on the couch, spending it with Bryce/ the team, or celebrating it with the jensens, this was his first time all on his own, truly

But life was all about new experiences. So he was out on his own looking at the artwork, even if it wasn’t his thing, it was still cool to look at. Modern art never made any fucking sense. He did try majority of the food there, with his hungry ass. Indigenous food? That was too good.

He was at yet another food truck when he heard arguing from not too far behind him. He didn’t care to hear this conversation but it was loud enough not to hear it.

He spotted her 5’4 frame self arguing with some dude that was taller than zach’s big foot ass and she was going in

Another guy, a Irish red head who was behind him waiting at the food truck snorted as he watched Justin eat and watch his two friends debate

“That ones a fucking mess, I’ll tell ya. She’s the one that’ll tear off ya neck and shit down it.”

Justin’s eyes were wide at this point. He’s heard some things in his life before but that one was surely knew.

“Benji, man. You are?”

He introduced himself just as the small brown girl managed to bring the 6 ft+ dude into a headlock. She sure had a grip. The two scuffled until they knocked over a table near by filled with figurines.

That’s when they booked it, pulling Justin with them like he asked to be involved.

This was the mischief he needed back in his life, all in good fun but nothing like the extremes of Crestmont

They became acquainted, friends pretty quickly before moving in together and Justin did something he shouldn’t

He fell for his roommate, a 5’4 Indian Gemini girl (he still didn’t understand astrology) who loved to argue/ “communicate” do yoga, majoring in astrophysics—much to the disappointment of her parents, loved Joan Jett & the black hearts, Fiona apple, Fleetwood Mac, and absolutely loved screaming her vocals out to r&b songs, preferably Whitney Houston—mostly when she was drunk

Her name? Jiya and she loved calling Justin her, “boo”

Justin didn’t think he’d find love again. Especially three-four years after Jess. Was it still too soon? He felt like he should feel guilty, Zach assured him that he shouldn’t and deserved to be happy with someone else, and clay was the voice of reason pulling out pros and cons...typical clay shit.

Jess didn’t say much in that moment and Alex and Courtney picked up on that immediately.

It felt like Justin needed permission.

So two days went by after that call and justin was just getting home from a late night class to Jess calling him

They had small talk which wasn’t the norm between them. Usually when they fought or had a disagreement they made up by having sex.

This wasn’t an argument though?

At first Jessica’s tone didn’t feel right to Justin, like she was still in disbelief that he moved on? Yet she ended up telling him that she had hooked up and dated around a couple months into her freshman year

Now she was with diego

And Justin couldn’t help but to laugh, which put Jessica on defense mode

The conversation went from tense, to silence, to awkwardness, to communicating, to closure

“I want you to be happy, Jess. I’ve always wanted you to be happy, even if it’s not with me. It doesn’t have to be. I love you enough to know I can’t be selfish. I can’t keep holding onto the past, we both can’t. Our time apart proved that.”

“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you at all during us not speaking like we used to.”

“I know. And that’s okay, I’m not mad. At first I was, thinking it was too easy for us to call it quits. It used to not be like that, us going hours without speaking but we got used to it. And I think that says a lot.”

“...does she make you happy?”

“She definitely knows how to make me laugh and I’ve needed to laugh for a long time now. Everything about her feels right, we’ve been on a few dates. Well she was the one to initiate it, I was too in my head about it.”

“A woman that knows what she wants, she’s alright with me then.”

“It’s still fuck diego, from where I stand.”

“Justin!” “I’m kidding! You deserve all the happiness in the world too, Jessica Davis. Thank you for being a part of my life. Thank you for loving me when I didn’t think I deserved it.” “Oh you asshole, you’re gonna make me cry. You’re worthy of love, every ounce of it and don’t you forget that. I’ll always love you, Justin. Take care of yourself.”

And life kept on moving. By 25, Justin was a official physical therapist—working his hardest to provide comfort in those that needed it due to their injuries physically and hopefully mentally.

He and Jiya decided to move out into an apartment together, renting of course since Justin did not want to stay in Arizona forever. He hated hot weather. Not a fan at all. He wanted to move to Colorado or somewhere in the mountains or some shit. Jiya didn’t care where they lived as long as they were together.

It was hard for her to find a permanent job with her degree but she did well at hotel management.

They adopted a dog, an Italian greyhound. Justin didn’t want that breed exactly, not trying to be a dog shamer like Jiya liked to call him but his legit words were, “what if I get up in the middle of the night, to see that rat with big eyes staring at me?” “Would you like for us to get a pet rat?” “What? No! That’s not what I’m saying at all.” After three months adopting Raimondo the Italian greyhound, jiya shows up with a bearded dragon. “The hell is that?!” Justin screamed perched on the couch leaving Jiya laughing, “Our new child, you pussy.”

By thirty Jiya received a job opportunity in Vancouver, Washington and off they went.

They bought a mobile styled home, however Jiya truly wanted a bungalow, but this was what they could afford right now. It was painted indigo blue with a red door and they had a shed that looked like a barn.

It was honestly spacious for the two of them, with four bedrooms. Why did they need four bedrooms? By now Jiya knew she couldn’t have children and didn’t know if she wanted any. Plus they weren’t married so but it’s not like they didn’t talk about it.

One room was for her yoga sessions if she didn’t go out to any. Plus the other rooms could be used for whenever their families wanted to come and visit or friends.

Jiya got a long well with Justin’s side. Especially clay, which Justin saw coming from the moment he met her. That made Justin happy that clay and the jensens approved of Justin’s choices of women. Sure he had a few but when he loved, he loved pretty hard and for a long time.

“That’s just the cancer in you, boo.”

“Enough of this zodiac shit, I’m trying to sleep.”

“Yeaaah, on this Gemini bo-dy boy!” Jiya argued with Justin laying on her chest.

“I’m sleeping on the couch with raimondo.” Justin moved to get up.

“Fine by me, more space in the bed.”

Justin held mock-offense, “I can’t believe you’d just let me leave! You know our couch feels like rocks.”

Jiya gasped, “you said you liked that couch!”

“Well, I lied.” Justin smirked with a shrug of his shoulders.

And that’s when a pillow fight started which ended with them on the floor along with a make-out session and love making.

Justin was always careful before but living hiv-positive and being involved with Jiya he made sure he did all he needed to on his part and to make her comfortable

When he first told Jiya and the group, it was quiet. Two of the roommates believed the stigma and ignorant comments and questions were made/asked. Jiya, Benji, and Heidi were the main ones that came to his defense and he would always remember that.

By thirty-two, Justin asked Jiya to marry him on a picnic by the lake. And she RAN from him. Which had Justin yelling, “wtf?!”

“Sorry, there were huge ass bumblebees or dragonflies coming right for us! And you know I’m allergic.” “So you were just going to let me get stung?” “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, if you see me run, you run too.” Justin huffed finding the moment ruined until Jiya plucked the ring box from his hand and got down on her knees holding the box out to him, “yeah I’ll marry you, boo. You’re my favorite person on the earth, next to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. But you get my point.”

Justin snorted. He was in love with a major dork. He took the ring and placed it on her finger grabbing onto her hands after she nodded in approval at the ring, pulling her to her feet. He wrapped her hands around his waist and cupped her face bringing their lips together.

Justin Foley Jensen found his happily ever after.

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healthtech102 · 3 years

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After Hours Medical Advice

As you know, and certain have in mind every day, nursing is a career that carries a huge amount of duty. Be sure to guard your self, especially when asked for advice in an informal setting.

No, Uncle Bob has cornered you within the hallway after Christmas dinner. In trying back, I realize that not as soon as during this experience did anyone INVITE me into a discussion of what could be best for my mother.

She spent two nights in the hospital beneath remark, with IV hydration. Now, admittedly, she has varying levels of dementia even on a good day, but she reached the point of getting severe hallucinations and paranoia.

Having a whole remedy group looking out for you and preparing a discharge plan that is going to set you up for achievement. 90 days of therapy allows for the affected person to work via many of the above mentioned considerations and we treat it using an American Society of Addiction Medicine dimensional assessment.

The general size of keep in remedy that is really helpful is often ninety days. Health safety and prevention is the key to staying healthy for the long haul. From easy blood checks and vaccines now to mammograms and colonoscopies later, your doctor might help you turn into the healthiest model of you.

Although it might appear to be a problem now, one hour in a physician’s workplace now can add years of health to your life. When we have well being questions and considerations, it’s easy to show to good ol’ WebMD for answers. And even though the Internet can be a great well being useful resource, reading about your health points online can usually lead to pointless fear and fear. Remember, you might be unique and deserve a customized evaluation.

So instead of browsing the web for a generic, or even worse, incorrect answer, talk to a doctor in particular person to get the total image—and to cease dropping sleep over your questions (see reason number 5!). While I’ll be the primary to confess that a trip to the gynecologist’s workplace isn’t my favourite way to spend a day, annual pelvic exams are a important a part of any girl’s preventative health care.

Will we have to battle the battle of keyword voids at a grassroots degree, wrangling with the asymmetry of passion by tapping folks to search out these voids and create counter-content material? Do we need to arrange counter-GoFundMe campaigns to pay for ad campaigns that promote real science?

Do not rely on a form’s basic remark that “risks of leaving were discussed with the patient,” he says. That doesn't negate the value of those documents, however they should not be the sum complete of the hospital’s evidence displaying efforts to provide care.

First, the hospital must reconcile any excellent diagnostics, as a result of if any checks had been ordered, the hospital is still liable for checking the results to make certain nothing critical was identified, he says.

Despite our protests, she saved making an attempt to pull out the IV fluid line from her arm and the gizmo , and tugged at her gown. The paper-thin pores and skin on her arms was black and blue from a number of blood attracts. Successful treatment begins with an correct diagnosis, and our experts take the time to get it right.

A team of specialists will listen to your needs and evaluate your condition from each angle to make the very best plan for you. Every year, more than one million individuals come to Mayo Clinic for care.

If witnessed by RN, have them doc the time the patient left in addition to the standing of their IV. If an IV is still in place, first try to contact the affected person after which their emergency contact.

From all the information you've gathered from the Internet and your research, it's time for you to go to your physician with this data and get to know the details. It is important to decide on doctors with whom you're feeling snug.

The level of questioning I got in response to my advice was almost insulting at times. In my head, I advised these callers, “If you trusted me sufficient to name me together with your ailment, why aren’t you trusting my opinion?

Our highly specialized experts are deeply skilled in treating rare and complex circumstances. I actually have been put in this identical position so many times, that I lastly, like you, needed to tell them to contact their supplier or go to the ER/Urgent Care.

I owned a small household follow clinic and some would actually present up there quite than going to their PCP or ER. I do perceive how onerous it is to tell them to go to their PCP’s, but I believe that is the proper motion. We love our family and pals and do not need to see them ill or in ache, however we additionally want them to obtain goal care.

I actually have been practicing as a Nurse and APP for over 15 years now and have found, for me, robust boundaries come with time. You don’t have a look at them as patients, but as whomever they are to you.

YOUR ability to want them to be OK and not be as goal as you'd be with a affected person. Another disagreeable facet effect of trying to assist was the pushback I received.

doctor certification, from the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and checked performance towards historic outcomes from an independent 2015 examine that evaluated several symptom checkers. symptom checker seems as a chatbot that users can work together with by way of an app or web site. When the consumer varieties out their primary symptoms as a quick sentence or phrase, the symptom checker asks questions about possible related signs.

According to the NIH, 30-40% of Americans report having occasional symptoms of insomnia and 10-15% report persistent issue sleeping—with ladies representing nearly all of those affected.

While you could assume that a poor night’s sleep simply means you’ll need an extra cup of espresso in the morning, chronic sleep problems can actually improve the lengthy-time period threat of hypertension, melancholy, and diabetes. treatment medical disclaimer A physician’s visit can help identify attainable underlying causes for your restless nights—and get you the help you should truly get some zzzs.

Does your family have a history of diabetes, excessive cholesterol, heart disease, cancer, or another significant illness? If so, you could be at risk for these conditions, too—and there are likely issues you can do to decrease that danger. A doctor may help you find out and work with you to determine which screening exams you want.

"Casual" could exit the window, if the individual you advise feels you have triggered them harm; together with your recommendation or deeds. State legal guidelines differ greatly and litigation can truly change the legal guidelines as time passes. So as a nursing skilled, even if your action or advice was justifiable, there isn't a safety from being sued . You might prevail and be discovered "not liable" if sued, but by then you'll have gone by way of plenty of wasted time and pointless stress.

They might help detect vaginal infections, together with sexually transmitted ailments , and should often embody a PAP smear for cervical cancer screening. Although you might have heard about some current adjustments to screening recommendations, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force nonetheless wants women between the ages of 21 to 65 to get a Papanicolaou test (a.k.a. PAP smear) a minimum of each three years (or more incessantly when you’ve ever had abnormal results).

The lawsuit claimed that Dr M had failed to recognize the patient’s skull fracture and improperly released him when he was intoxicated, and that the delay in treating the fracture was attributable for approximately half of the affected person’s neurological deficits. Later that day, a hospital radiologist learn the affected person’s x-ray and famous a markedly depressed left parietal cranium fracture.

Or will the tech platforms where that is occuring start to grasp that giving legitimacy to health misinformation by way of high search and social rankings is profoundly dangerous? Getting excessive-quality, fact-based well being information shouldn’t be dependent on the result of SEO video games, or on who has extra assets for pay-to-play content promotion. few hours of a newborn’s life, medical doctors administer a vitamin K shot.

This is as a result of infants are born with out sufficient of the vitamin, and the child wants a boost to prevent any potential bleeding. The documentation also should detail the discussion with the affected person regarding potential risks from leaving AMA, Merkrebs says.

The reasons for refusing additionally may be wide-ranging, every little thing from worries about the price to concern about ache or dying, or dislike of being touched, photographs, surgical procedure, or drugs. Once a affected person is examined beyond triage and exams are ordered, a departure at that time could be classified as left without completing remedy , Klauer notes.

Patients leaving the emergency room too soon “are intentionally putting themselves at extra danger for morbidity and even mortality,” Polevoi stated — a degree echoed by other physicians. Ko stated the column will proceed as long as individuals want to study totally different health subjects. Connect with a medical skilled everytime you need one, 24/7, for customized recommendation and prescription, if deemed necessary.

At the end, the symptom checker identifies possible causes and recommends a course of action, similar to reserving a video consultation with a human physician or going to a hospital. The patient and his family consulted with a plaintiff’s attorney who agreed to take the case. Dr M was shocked to find out that he was being sued for medical malpractice.

Within each of these kinds of AMA, there may be further breakdowns when it comes to why the person is leaving, he notes. The affected person might not want any care of any type, or the refusal could also be extra limited — refusing the particular kind of care being provided, as an example, but still willing to be handled.

That's to not say all of the internet is unhealthy, it is okay to make use of Google for health questions when you use a credible supply and if it prompts you to go to your doctor should you could have considerations. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Author makes no representations or warranties with respect to any Information offered or offered within or via the Site relating to treatment of medical circumstances, motion, or software of treatment.

“When sufferers convey themselves into the ED, they are seen in about 5 minutes by a qualified registered nurse and, on common, are seen by a supplier within 30 minutes of arrival,” Thomas mentioned in a press release.

From 2012 to 2017, the variety of emergency room encounters in Fresno County elevated by nearly ninety five,000, or 37%. At Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center, about 9% of ER encounters ended with a patient leaving too quickly, greater than 3 times the statewide fee.

If no success, contact the police non-emergently to aid in finding the affected person. In this situation, the patient has not but interacted with a doctor. There isn't much to do here as long as the provider by no means met the patient, if so, they might be in a different category.

There are no known instances the place the ED, or ED Providers, have been sued and located to be at fault or responsible for an end result. We recognized people ages with International Classification of Diseases, 9thRevision prognosis codes for infective endocarditis within the National Inpatient Sample, a representative pattern of United States hospitalizations from January 2010 to September 2015.

We plotted unadjusted quarter-year developments for AMA discharges and used multivariable logistic regression to establish elements associated with AMA discharge among IE hospitalizations, evaluating IDU-IE to non-IDU-IE.

The police were notified, and the patient was taken from jail back to the hospital. At the hospital, he was monitored for a number of hours and then taken to surgical procedure where the depressed fracture fragments have been elevated. However, Mr G ended up suffering a brain injury from the fracture which affected his cognitive talents, and which prevented him from with the ability to hold down a job. The police knowledgeable Dr M that the patient, a 24-yr old named Mr G, had been the perpetrator of an assault and in the process was hit within the head with a blunt object by a bystander.

The police had been called, and found him mendacity on the street, clearly intoxicated and with a bloodied head. They took him to the ED, however Mr G was uncooperative and initially refused any treatment. When most individuals hear these words, they're whispered by an overcoated stranger on the bus or a counterfeit Prada peddler gesturing towards the trunk of a car.

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jesatria · 4 years

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Fic: Simple Pleasures, Chap 5

Title: Simple Pleasures Fandom: Kushiel’s Legacy Characters: Isidore d’Aiglemort, Anne Livet Pairings: Isidore/Anne Word Count: 4,611 Rating: NC-17 Summary: The story of Isidore d’Aiglemort & the gardener’s daughter of Lombelon. WIP. Disclaimer: I do not own Kushiel’s Legacy. This is only for fun & no profit is being made from it.

Previous Chapters:

1. The Visit

2. Desire

3. The Harvest Festival

4. Triumph

Chapter 5: Gifts

I’d been Isidore’s lover for nearly three years when my father’s health failed for the final time. It had never fully recovered from his previous bout of fever and it was a hard winter that year. It wasn’t a shock, since his health had been delicate and he was not young, but the loss was a hard one. The grief seemed overwhelming, made worse by the lack of work to do. Had it been spring or summer, I’d have thrown myself into my work in the gardens, though it would’ve reminded me of my father. Instead all I could do was go about my ordinary chores, which weren’t enough to keep me from dwelling on my loss. Our room—my room now—felt too cold and empty.

I found myself trying to avoid spending time there. I joined Marcel in bed frequently and he would hold me afterward and comfort me when I cried. But even when I lay in his arms, head resting on his chest, I couldn’t help but think of Isidore. I wondered where he was and what he was doing, hoping his winter had been better than mine. Was he in the City or Camlach? If he was in the City, he could easily sneak away when the weather allowed for it.

A month had passed since my father was laid to rest when Isidore returned to Lombelon. My spirit soared at the sight of him. He was hardly inside before he pulled me into a tight embrace and kissed me gently. Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I breathed.

He drew back and regarded me with concern. “You are not yourself. Has somewhat happened?”

“My father…” it was difficult to force the words out, “my father… passed away a month ago,” I managed to say.

“Oh Anne, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, embracing me. “I know how close you were to him.”

Somewhat broke in me at those words and the tears I’d tried to suppress flowed. I buried my face in the velvet of his doublet, my tears soaking into the rich fabric. Isidore said nothing, only stroked my hair. I’d not bothered to put it in my usual braid. He was wonderfully solid in my arms and I soaked up the comfort he offered like a tree drew water from the earth. We remained as we were until my sobs subsided. Slowly, I raised my head to meet his dark eyes. “Could we go somewhere more private?” We were standing in the entry hall and it was hardly an ideal location for a conversation such as this. Isidore led me to the master suite. Instead of making straight for the bedroom, we settled on the sofa in the sitting room. I couldn’t help but shiver—no one had come in to light a fire yet.

“Cold?” Isidore asked. I nodded. He rose from the sofa and began adding wood to the fireplace.

“You don’t need to do that, I can take care of it,” I said, rising to my feet.

Isidore pointed to the sofa. “Sit.” His tone wasn’t stern, but it was clear there would be no further argument. I wondered if this was how he was with his soldiers. I sat back down on the sofa and smoothed my apron. It wasn’t long before a fire was burning in the fireplace. Isidore sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. “Was it sudden?” he asked, voice soft.

“No.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “He had been ill for a long time. Since before I met you, in fact. He’d had a bad bout of fever that winter and never fully recovered from it.”

“I’m sorry,” Isidore repeated, stroking my hair. “He was a good man. I wish I could’ve known him better.”

“Thank you.” I leaned against his shoulder. “It was just the two of us for a long time, ever since my mother died. I was a small child then, so my father raised me on his own.”

Isidore continued to stroke my hair, the motion serving to calm me. My eyes closed in contentment. He startled me when he spoke again. “That is another thing we have in common.”

I lifted my head from his shoulder and met his dark eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we both lost our mothers at a young age,” he replied. “I was very young when mine died.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” He gave a small nod. “My mother died when I was six years old. She worked beside my father in the gardens. I remember she liked to sing as she worked and sometimes Father would join in.” I smiled a little at the memory. “I wish I could remember her better.”

“You’re fortunate that you have those memories,” Isidore said. “I can scarcely remember my mother. My father rarely spoke of her after she died. Thinking on it now, I suppose he took her death hard. He never remarried, despite being a Duc and therefore a top marriage prospect.”

It was surprising how alike our family situations were. I never would’ve guessed it. “My father was the same—he never remarried.” A sudden, fresh wave of sadness struck me after sharing that with Isidore. I’d never thought much about it, my father’s choice not to marry again. I’d never even asked him about it. Was it that he simply never met anyone else, or was it that he chose to devote himself to his work and caring for me? I tended to think it was the latter.

“Sometimes I wish my father had remarried.” Isidore’s voice stirred me from my thoughts. “I never had anyone like a mother in my life. Father was frequently called away whenever the Skaldi managed to breach the border defenses and then he sent me away to foster with the Shahrizai.”

“He sent you to foster with the Shahrizai?” That explained how he knew Lady Shahrizai well enough for her to gift him Lombelon.

“Yes, for three years.”

“What was that like? It must’ve been… different for you.” My interactions with the Shahrizai were very limited, but I could tell they were rather different from Camaelines.

He looked away, contemplating his answer. “Quite different. Kushiel and Camael are not alike, for all that they are the harshest of the Companions.” His face took on a distant expression. “I heard one of the Shahrizai say once that the scions of Kushiel are a dark mirror in which our own dark desires are reflected. It makes others wary of them.”

That I understood. “Were you wary of them?”

“In the beginning, yes, I was wary of them,” he admitted. “I’d spent most of my time in Camlach before then and the entire world of the court was foreign to me.”

I could easily picture him looking completely out of place among the Shahrizai. “Why did your father send you to foster with them?”

Another pause. “I can’t say for sure. He never told me his reasons. I suppose he wanted to foster ties with another province aside from those bordering Camlach. That, and give me the sort of court education only the Shahrizai could provide.” There was a note of amusement in his voice. “The lot of them are born courtiers.”

“And did they succeed in making you a courtier?” I asked, grinning.

“Well, I’d hardly describe myself as a courtier but yes, they did manage to instill some degree of courtly elegance in me.”

I gave him a small smile. “I can certainly see the elegance.” Elegance, yes, and efficiency as well. He was not one for wasted movement. “It’s the courtier part I’m having trouble seeing. Not that I have my experience of such things—I just can’t see you as some idle lordling spending his days in the palace and his nights at the Night Court.”

He laughed lightly. “It’s not my world, but I can navigate it well enough when the need arises. I owe some credit to the Shahrizai for that.” Another pause; I felt him tense slightly. “They, and Prince Baudoin. He’s quite the courtier himself.”

“So you’ve told me. I do have to wonder how you’ve remained friends with him for so long when you seem to be such opposites.”

“A question I’ve been asking myself more and more frequently as of late,” he replied. “We were introduced as children by our families. Such things are common among the nobility. I suppose my father saw it as an opportunity to foster closer ties with House Trevalion. To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed his company more when I was younger than I do now.”

I leaned more into his shoulder, the fine fabric of his doublet pressing into my cheek. “That’s only natural. You grow older and you realize that perhaps you had less in common with an old friend than you thought,” I offered. It had happened to me on a couple of occasions. Some of those former friends now regarded me with bitter jealousy.

“Yes, I would say that is true, among other things. His antics were considerably more amusing when we were younger. Believe me, being called Izzy repeatedly after telling him not to multiple times wore thin very quickly.”

I failed to stifle a laugh as I sat up with a start. “Prince Baudoin calls you Izzy?”

“Unfortunately yes. When he’s drunk, mostly. He either doesn’t remember after I tell him not to use it or simply doesn’t care. No one would call Baudoin considerate.” There was annoyance in his voice, but his dark eyes held a hint of amusement. “I eventually gave up and resigned myself to it.”

“Where did that nickname even come from?” I pondered. “You are not in any way an Izzy.”

“Somewhere from Baudoin’s wine-addled mind. No one else has ever called me that.”

“And I assure you I won’t call you Izzy when we’re in bed, or any other time.”

He laughed, then turned to face me. “I’m glad to see you smiling, Anne. I imagine there’s been precious little of that lately.”

“Yes,” I said softly, laying my head on his shoulder once more. “You being here, it helps.”

“I’m sorry I was unable to be here sooner. Matters kept me in the City, with the Longest Night and my own natality not long after…”

“Your natality?” He’d never mentioned it, not once in the years we’d been lovers. Was he the sort who preferred not to have a fuss made of it? I’d never thought to ask him.

“Yes. It was last week.”

“Oh. You should’ve said something; we could’ve had a celebration.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “There’s no need for that, Anne. I’ve had my fill of revelry recently, with spending the Longest Night in the City.”

“That may be, but I’d still like to give you a gift.”

“There is no need for you to do that.” The beginning of a smile formed at the corners of his mouth. “Given the difference in our stations, it is fitting that I be the one to give you the gifts.”

He’d done exactly that during his last visit. It had been late autumn, when winter’s chill had just begun to creep into the air and he saw fit to give me a fine new cloak of rich velvet lined with soft fur. Along with it came a pair of warm gloves, which I sorely needed. “That brown cloak of yours is looking a bit worse-for-wear. I thought you could do with a new one,” he’d said when he presented it to me. I’d accepted the gifts gladly—he’d chosen well to give me practical items. Most men would give their lovers jewels. Not that I’d turn down jewelry if he ever gave me any, but a cloak was far more useful. “That may be true, but I’d like to give you somewhat anyway,” I insisted.

He raised an eyebrow. “Any other woman who was the lover of a Duc would be happy to accept the gifts and not insist on giving in return.” His hand tightened on my arm. “In truth, your presence is enough of a gift.”

“So is yours,” I whispered.

That night, I clung to him more than I was known to do, as if to reassure myself that he was truly there and wouldn’t disappear to leave me alone once more. He responded by holding me tight against him. When morning came, I was reluctant to leave the protective circle of his arms.

Throughout the day, I gaze more thought to a gift for Isidore. He was right that most women in my position would’ve been content to accept their lovers’ gifts and not think to give anything in return. But somewhat within me was uncomfortable with him being so generous to me and my not returning the favor. I suppose it had to do with wanting to feel like I was useful and our relationship wasn’t one-sided in that way. I brought it up again while we dined together that evening.

“I thought some more on our conversation last night, about gifts,” I began once we’d finished eating.

He raised a silver eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I was thinking I might cook somewhat for you.”

He eyed me, incredulous. “You would cook our meals?”

“No, not exactly—I hardly have the time for that. But I thought I might cook some dish for you. I’m a decent cook, if I do say so.”

I expected him to protest further, but instead the corners of his mouth moved upward into the beginning of a smile. “Then I shall have to think on what I’d like you to make for me.”

Isidore took his time, for it was nearly a week before he told me what he’d chosen.

“Quiche? I confess I’m not familiar with it. What kind of dish is it?”

He glanced away, studying the curtains as if they’d suddenly become interesting. “I forgot you’d not be familiar with it here—it’s a Camaeline dish. I can choose somewhat…”

“What’s in it?”

“Eggs and cream, usually with bacon, sometimes mushrooms or other vegetables, baked in a pastry crust.”

I had to own it sounded tasty, somewhat like an omelette save for the pastry crust. “Is it a common Camaeline dish?”

“Very much so. It’s rather versatile, so it might be served at different meals.”

“I’ll have to ask Thèrese if she’s familiar with it.”

Thèrese, it turned out, had heard of it. As befitting a cook, she owned a cookbook containing recipes from all over Terre d’Ange. She recalled seeing a recipe for quiche in the book but had never attempted it herself. The recipe itself was fairly straightforward and I felt confident I could handle it. I’d made both omelettes and filled pastries before—fruit tarts are a common dessert when we have fresh fruit at hand.

I found myself eagerly looking forward to making the quiche. Not just for Isidore’s sake, but for my own. I am fond of cooking and trying a new recipe was an exciting challenge. I didn’t often get the chance to do so—generally I was limited to what we grew ourselves or could buy in the village, which didn’t allow for much variation. My meals with Isidore were rather richer than what I usually ate, quite a welcome change.

Our kitchen is not terribly large and it is not uncommon for us to bump into each other when there are too many people in the room. I was sure to gather all the quiche ingredients and secure a section of the counter for myself before the dinner preparations were fully underway. The pastry dough was not difficult to make—I’d made it before, for pies and tarts. Neither was whisking together the eggs and crème fraîche. The recipe was not overly complex or hard to follow. When I was done, I was reasonably confident I’d produced something like to the recipe’s intention. I hoped Isidore wouldn’t judge it too harshly, since he knew what a quiche was supposed to taste like.

When it was time for dinner, I tried my best to hide my nervousness as our meal was brought to the dining room. I’d not told Isidore I was making the quiche today, so it’d be a surprise. Indeed, his eyebrows rose once he spotted it. “I see you made my quiche.”

“I hope it lives up to expectations.”

He wasted no time and cut himself a piece before I could see to it. I watched, nervousness growing as he took a bite. A tense moment passed. “Very good,” he said after what felt like an eternity. “It tastes much like the quiche I’ve had in Camlach.”

I let out a small breath and smiled. “Well, that’s quite a relief. You’ve no idea how nervous I’ve been about it.”

An eyebrow quirked upward. “Nervous? I never would’ve guessed.” He cut another piece and offered it to me. “Try it, Anne. You went through enough extra work to make it for me; it’s only fair that you should enjoy it too.”

I was about to protest, to insist it was a gift for him, but my protests died away when he set a piece in front of me. With no further hesitation, I took a bite. It was as if someone had added the egg mixture of an omelette to a pastry crust instead of cooking it in a pan, but the quiche was richer than any omelette I’d eaten. “This is good!” I exclaimed. The bacon was a very tasty addition.

“I’m glad you like it. I often find myself missing it when I’m away from home. Now I can enjoy it while I’m here.”

“It’d be my pleasure to make it for you whenever you like.” Between the two of us, we ate the entire thing.

“Shall we go upstairs?” I suggested once the meal was over.

“I have somewhere else in mind,” he replied.

“And where might that be?” I couldn’t think of where else he’d want to go. The master suite was the best place for what we meant to do.

“I’ve a mind to see where you live when I’m not here. If you don’t mind showing me, that is.”

I blinked several times, taking in his words. “No, I don’t mind—it’s just I can’t fathom why you’d want to see our… my room.”

“Call it simple curiosity.”

“The master suite is much more comfortable,” I said, still skeptical.

“We can always retire there afterward.”

“All right, I can see you’re quite set on the idea.” It wasn’t that I was against Isidore seeing my room in principle, it was only that I knew it was plain and shabby compared to what he was used to. The thought of him seeing it embarrassed me a bit. I tried not to let it show as I led him to my room and unlocked the door. It was dark inside, as no one had come to light a fire for the evening. I hastily lit a candle, then saw to the fire. Once there was enough light to see by, Isidore stepped inside. “I’ve not had time to tidy in here today,” I said, watching him take in the fireplace, the table and chairs, the window looking out onto the gardens, the bed. His gaze lingered a moment on the cloak he’d given me, hanging on a peg by the door. Then he noticed the three books on the nightstand.

“You have books?”

“Yes. You could say two are heirlooms of a sort. Our family copy of the Eluine Cycle and a classic L’Agnacite treatise on gardening.”

“A treatise on gardening. Why am I not surprised?” he remarked, grinning.

“It’s quite useful. Not as useful as practical experience, but still worth having,” I told him. “The last one is a botanical text listing flowers, herbs, and vegetables and what kind of care they need.”

“I can see how that would be helpful for you.”

I picked up the book. “My father and I had the most common ones memorized, but there are times when the book is necessary.” I opened it and flipped to a random page. A drawing of lavender was accompanied by a detailed information about the plant, such as how much sunlight and water it preferred. I showed it to Isidore. He looked over the page, his gaze lingering longest on the illustration.

“I confess I was unaware such books existed.”

“How do you think we learn how to care for so many different plants?” I asked with a smile.

“I figured you learn by experience.”

“Well, that’s part of it too. I learned a great deal of what I know about gardening from watching my father and working beside him.” I placed the book back on the nightstand and picked up the Eluine Cycle. “This has been in our family for many generations.” I flipped open the book and pointed to a list of names written inside the cover. My name was the last on the list. “When a new child is born into our family, we write the name here.”

His dark eyes migrated to my name. “I can see this one means a great deal to you.”

“Yes. My parents used to read to me from it before I went to bed each night.” I’d always looked forward to it, and not only the parts about Elua and Anael. The notion of Elua and his Companions wandering the world and then eventually coming to Terre d’Ange captured my imagination as a child. I always enjoyed accompanying my parents to the temples or our small shrine to make offerings.

“That sounds rather more pleasant than being educated in religion by our household’s priest of Camael.”

There was a priest of Camael in the village who tended to his shrine. I’d seen him a few times, but we’d never had cause to interact. “I take it he was a stern fellow?”

“You could say that. I’ve rarely met a priest of Camael who wasn’t at least a bit stern, and I’m the sovereign Duc of Camlach.”

I laughed at that. “Do you see many of them?”

“More than I’d care to, were I given a choice in the matter,” he replied. At my puzzled look, he continued, “They accompany armies on the battlefield.”

“They must bless the army before you fight, just as the priests of Anael bless the fields before the spring planting,” I reasoned.

He nodded. “Soldiers are a superstitious lot. Not quite as superstitious as sailors, to be sure, but enough that many regard it as unlucky to go to battle without receiving Camael’s blessing.”

“I think I’d feel the same if I were a soldier.” I sat at the table, which was considerably more cluttered than it would normally be. In my grief I’d neglected it. “Please, feel free to sit.”

He took a seat in the chair opposite mine, taking a moment to study this part of the room more closely. I watched as he took in the cabinets, the chair beside the fire, my sleeping pallet in the corner near the fireplace. “Is that where you sleep?”

“Yes.”

His gaze flicked briefly to the bed on the other side of the room. “I take it the bed belonged to your father, then?”

I nodded. “I… haven’t been able to bring myself to sleep in it, though it’s mine now.” All I’d managed to do was change the sheets after my father had passed and I’d tried my best to ignore it since.

Somewhat smouldered in Isidore’s dark eyes. He laid a hand over mine and comfort washed over me at the feeling of his now-familiar sword-calloused hand atop mine. “Mayhap a more pleasant association would help.”

“You mean to… pass the night here?

“Since we’re already here I thought we might, unless you have any strong objections,” he offered.

“No, it’s all right.” I honestly couldn’t fathom why he’d want to spend the night here rather than in his own large featherbed.

He gave my hand a brief squeeze, then moved to kiss me. I felt myself relax the moment his lips touched mine. This was a kindness he was offering me, a chance to begin moving past my grief. When we parted I glanced back at the bed, noticing with a start that there was nothing on it but the fresh sheets. I always folded my blankets and tucked them away in my trunk after rising in the morning. That way they’d not get dirty over the course of the day. I’d not laid them out, as I hadn’t been expecting to sleep here tonight. I removed them from the truck and placed them on the bed. “We’ll be needing these.”

“Indeed.” A moment later we were together on the bed, kissing deeply and undoing each other’s clothing. I’ve had several other lovers, some like Marcel who I am quite fond of, but I’d never, ever such intense desire as I felt when I was with Isidore, and it wasn’t only due to his beauty and skill as a lover. There was an overwhelming sense of… rightness, a sense that we belonged together. I liked to think that Naamah and Blessed Elua smiled upon us. We had honored Elua’s precept and Naamah’s gift of desire. That desire could only be sated for a while, not quenched entirely. The sight of his perfect body unclothed never failed to ignite my lust.

The bed was considerably smaller than the bed in the master suite, but it was large enough to fit both of us more or less comfortably. He lay on his back with me straddling him. I rode him hard that night, savoring the feeling of him fully sheathed inside me. His grip on my hips was tight. I stroked his chest as I rode him, pausing to trace each of his scars with a finger. They were quite familiar now—I’d come to know his body as well as I knew my own.

Later I lay atop him, head resting on his shoulder, as I waited for sleep to claim me. Idly I traced a scar along his collarbone. “Where did you get this one?”

“The scar?” he asked, sounding a little drowsy.

“Yes.”

“My first skirmish against the Skaldi. An axe found its way into a gap in my armor. Fortunately, it wasn’t very deep.” His hand came to rest atop mine. “I was rather proud to have gotten it, a souvenir of my first real encounter with the Skaldi.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen. It was the summer after I’d first been sent to the Shahrizai. My father called me back home for the season, thinking it high time I had some practical experience on the border.”

“I daresay you got some.”

“Yes. Suffice it to say that a summer spent dispatching Skaldi raiding parties was considerably more bracing than life in Kusheth or the City of Elua.” His hand rose from its position atop mine to pull the blankets up to cover us more fully. The fire had burned down to embers and the room had begun to grow chill. I’d hardly noticed it before, with my body still flushed from lovemaking. His arm tightened around me, pressing me closer to him. My previous reservations about sleeping here, in this bed, dissipated. I had a different memory associated with it now, a far more pleasant one. Father, if he was watching from the Terre-d’Ange-that-lies-beyond, surely would’ve approved.

Notes

Quiche- It originated in Alsace-Lorraine, the region of France which is equivalent to Camlach, so quiche would be a Camaeline dish in Terre d’Ange. The type of quiche made by Anne in this chapter is quiche Lorraine.

#Kushiel's Legacy #simple pleasures #Isidore d'Aiglemort #anne livet #Jesatriafic

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hardforbenhardy · 4 years

Text

journey | rogerxfem!reader

summary: your life with roger from beginning to end

warnings: really really fluffy stuff, a mention of a miscarriage and death but only in a sentence or two

word count: 3.4k

this one is a bit different to the others; it’s more like a reminiscence from the reader kind of thing but it’s super fluffy and i liked it so i thought i’d post it! :)

Roger and I had been close ever since we were children; I remember so vividly the day I moved into the house next door to his in Truro. Everything was different from that point; I had to go to a new school, make new friends, and lose my old friends. I was deadly afraid, social situations not being my strong point in any way. Being only 5 years old, my parents encouraged me to get along with the other children as they bonded with the adults. Thankfully, this meant Roger and I were practically forced to become friends from the moment we met which was at a welcoming barbeque Winifred and Michael kindly threw for my family. Roger was a few months older than me, so I was obviously very intimidated by him; but surprisingly, he was kind and tried his hardest to make friends with me. From that moment on, we were best friends and we spent every minute we possibly could together. There were moments of joy, laughter, love; but also sadness, despair, embarrassment.

Like when I was 11, we were having a sleepover at his house but I started my period that night. Just my luck. And of course, I had absolutely no idea what was happening when I bled through my pyjamas and onto Roger's bedding. My natural instinct was to cry and scream - I mean, you would too if you thought you were dying. Being an 11 year old boy, Roger barely knew what was going on with me, his only idea being that I had started my period; he only guessed because they had a sex ed lesson a few days before. Unfortunately, all they were told was that was that girls bled from their vagina because of their menstrual cycle. That was the limit to the knowledge schools really believed the men should know; not how to help a woman, or how a woman should use a pad or tampon, or even what those things were. Though he found it extremely awkward, he tried his best to comfort me, hugging me tightly and telling me it was going to be okay. Thankfully, Winifred heard the commotion and helped clear up; informing me of everything I needed to know and providing me with some pads and well needed chocolate. Roger and I were able to laugh it off, him ensuring me that he wouldn't judge me and that it was all natural, and everything was going to be okay.

Or like the time I got my first boyfriend at age 14, and Roger of course acted like he was my big brother. The guy, Adam, was your classic wanker; he knew he was good-looking, he knew he was funny, and he knew he could get any girl in the school. Roger of course noticed this, and warned me against it, yet I ignored him. Throughout the whole relationship, Adam and Roger had an ongoing feud of who could get the most attention off me; which was actually what ended our relationship. Adam thought I was cheating on him with Roger since we were so close, and therefore thought it was suitable to cheat on me. Yet again another occasion which resulted in Roger comforting me whilst I cried and despaired. What surprised me with this was that not once did Roger say "I told you so" or take the piss because he was right and I was wrong, he just made sure I was okay.

Or maybe our first argument. I wasn't even sure why I took chemistry in the first place, I couldn't do it and I didn't particularly see myself going into a scientific career pathway. Maybe it was because Roger took it, and I wanted to prove to him that I could be smart too. But as soon as the end of year trial exam came along, I was shitting it. I knew nothing, and I had no chance of learning it all in one night; though that wasn't going to stop me from staying up the whole night with the power of 5 coffees and lots of energy bars to read the textbook over and over again. Not that it worked at all, I learnt nothing and ended up passing out in the middle of the exam; whether that was due to the stress, the overload of coffee, or the lack of sleep I didn't know. What I did know, however, was that I was failing my exam and also in for a bollocking off Roger. After the exam was over, Roger was non-stop interrogating me with questions asking "What happened?", "Why did you just waste your whole exam?", "Why the fuck did you do that to yourself?", "Do you know how unsafe that is?" and constantly nagging that I knew I shouldn't have done that to my body. And of course I knew, but I had no choice – I was failing Chemistry anyway and if I didn't take any chance to pass, my parents would murder me. I think that was the first time Roger and I had actually had an argument where we were both shouting at each other. But undoubtedly, it still ended in Roger's arms wrapped around my waist tightly as I sobbed into his school shirt, staining it with mascara marks, blabbing about how I was failing chemistry anyway and how it isn't fair that Roger is so smart and how my parents would kill me when they found out. And undoubtedly, Roger took me back to his house to get some proper food in me (Winifred's special meal which she knew I loved so much), and consoled me that everything was going to be fine because I still had my business and media degree to work towards.

The time when Roger had to move away. He had decided to go study dentistry at London Polytechnic; he had achieved so much so far, having a-levels in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. He was a really smart guy. He deserved the recognition he was receiving, so as hard as it was to let him go, I knew it was the right thing to do. I mean, who was I to keep him away from such an opportunity? I myself had to find a university to study at, deciding to carry on my business and management to study it at Bath University. The last day Roger and I spent together before I had to leave for an early start was an extremely emotional one. He had this whole thing planned; there was a small riverbank a few miles down from our houses, at which he had set up a picnic fit for a princess. He had prepared all my favourite snacks, some of Winifred's special meal, and an array of drinks. It was perfect, I almost cried at the sight. We chatted for hours, like we always did in each other's company and by the end of the day we were lay next to each other watching the stars in the night sky. He had pointed out that the alignment of the stars that night perfectly matched the alignment of the day we first met, and how it was basically fate that this was happening. We would soon be reunited, and that everything would be okay.

The day I learnt Roger was basically a rock star. Rog and I kept in contact after splitting from each other, sending the occasional letter to and fro, filling the other in on what was going on in their life. What Roger had failed to mention was that he had joined a band with 3 other lads; John, Brian and Freddie. A band named Queen. I discovered the band after seeing an image of them in the newspaper about their new hit single "Keep Yourself Alive". That was the moment I decided to travel down to see them because I had achieved my business degree and was looking for something to do with my life; reuniting with Roger was my first concern. When I met the other boys, we got along immediately; John was extremely sweet, and so caring. Brian was immensely smart, and such a gentleman. And the only way I could possibly describe Freddie was as a character; he was animated, larger than life, hilarious, and overall an enjoyable person to be in the company of. Rogers's relationship with the band was a strange one; they claimed to absolutely hate each other but I could just tell that Roger cared for each of them just as much as he cared for me. And I knew he cared for me because he was always letting me know.

The day I got a job. After moving into London to be around Roger a lot more, I was in desperate need to find some source of income. Roger had let me move in to his apartment after deciding to relocate permanently, so I had weeks of rent building up that I needed to pay Roger as soon as possible. What I didn't plan was to actually get employed by Roger, well Queen. With the band needing some management, and me having just finished a business course, it was a perfect opportunity for me to do what I truly loved. Freddie was the one to suggest the opportunity, claiming how he needed a woman around the studio to save himself the pain of the other 3 men, and that I was the perfect woman for the job. I gladly took it, and it was a dream to work with the boys, but also an absolute pain. The main benefit was that I was able to boss Roger around, and tell him what to do, which of course he wasn't happy about but it was too humourous to pass up the opportunity. But Roger didn't really care, because he too found it a little funny, and he knew it made me happy.

The day I realised I loved Roger. That day was a big one. On two levels, considering it also happened to be my 23rd birthday. The band had been recording for a while their first album for the past year or so, and Roger hadn't seemed to remember that that day was my birthday, so I figured it would be better to just keep it on the down low and let the boys finish recording. Admittedly, I would've loved to spend the whole day with the boys having fun, but any chance they could get to record was a golden opportunity so I wasn't going to spoil it. It was late in the evening at that point, I was sorting through piles of paperwork and accident forms after Roger had let his anger get the best of him and took it out on his drum kit. Though he burst through the door while I was halfway through signing it off, holding a small box, panting deeply after running. He explained that he had already left to go home, but suddenly remembered that he was yet to give me his gift. He remembered - and not even my parents had called to say happy birthday. He had got me a small teddy, which at first glance meant nothing at all, until I realised what it was. When I had first moved to Cornwall, I had a small teddy that I took everywhere with me; a form of comfort blanket. However, I ended up losing it when Roger and I went to the town fair one day - I presumed someone took it or it was left in the field and still there to this day; however, it apparently wasn't. When I asked where Roger had found it, he explained that he found it in a charity shop the other day and that he knew it was mine because it still had my initials written on the tag in permanent marker. He had remembered how much that bear meant to me, and though I got over it, he had gone out of his way to find it. That was the moment I realised that my friendship with Roger was much more than a friendship; he had remembered my birthday and had remembered the bear. And now I had to find a way to keep it hidden from him.

The day Roger loved me. Another big day - one I certainly didn't see coming. It's simple knowledge that Fred cannot keep secrets, but I don't think Roger quite expected Freddie to spill this big of a secret. We were sitting around the recording studio, lounging on the couch with my head resting lightly on Roger shoulders, almost drifting off after a long day of tour preparations and planning for the band. The boys on the other hand had spent the whole day practicing, so of course the odour of whiskey and sweat filled the place; though I couldn't deny the scent of it combined with Rogers natural fragrance turned me on. I had almost fallen into my slumber until John shouted over for my help, having dropped all his music sheets on the floor around him. I approached John to help him pick the pages by bending over, completely forgetting I was wearing a rather short skirt, when Freddie perked up from the other side of the room saying "Sight for sore eyes, eh Rog? You've picked a commendable one to fall for". Roger immediately told him to fuck off, cheeks reddening and eyes darting anywhere but my puzzled face. I questioned what Fred actually meant, but before he could reply, Roger asked if he could have a word outside. I followed him out but as I went to open my mouth, Roger but in - "Look, before you say anything, I just want to bring to attention that Fred's a wanker. But what he said about falling for you was true - I didn't realise but I've loved you for years now, in fact I've loved you since your cunt of a boyfriend Sam; didn't you ever wonder why I was so protective? It was because I wanted you to myself, and I see now that I was selfish, because I knew that you'd never like me back. How could you? You are literal perfection and I'm the exact opposite. I-I'm sorry you had to find out this way, if I could have my way Fred would be pushin' up daisies right now. But it's the truth and you deserved to know that I really do love you". I was not expecting it to say the least, but I had never heard a more meaningful collection of words come out of Rogers mouth. I never predicted that Roger would have the same feelings for me, considering he was widely known to sleep around. But if he had loved me since we were 14, why would he sleep around and get in other relationships; maybe to distract himself, I don't know. I planted my lips firmly against his, the sensation feeling completely unreal and new to anything other kiss I had ever felt. It was perfect.

The day I got pregnant. Well it wasn't the day I actually got pregnant, that's a whole different story, but in fact the day I found out. I had spent the previous week suffering through early mornings over the toilet emptying my guts. Thankfully, Roger was a very deep sleeper so he wasn't able to hear me, meaning I'd be able to crawl back into bed and act like nothing happened. I had an inkling what could be going on, but I rang Veronica considering she had already had children by this point. She suggested I visit the local doctor and get a test; which I did reluctantly. It all came back positive. I was shitting it; Roger and I had been together for a year and a half, but I did not feel ready to be a mother at all. And with Roger touring all the time, or recording, we were not a couple who could confidently raise a child. Though I wanted nothing more than to have a family with Roger, he would still be an amazing father and he was the man I wanted to spend my life with. Not to mention, this may have been my only chance to have a child; the one thing Roger did not know about me is that when I was 18, I was told by doctors that I had limited eggs, meaning that I had very small changes of actually getting pregnant. This was my one chance, and I was going to go through with it; it was the telling Roger that I was scared to do. Veronica had helped me, telling me everything was going to be fine and that I should take him out for dinner to tell him the big news; therefore, I decided to take him down to his favourite restaurant and then tell him on a walk later on. While strolling down the beach, arms locked with Rogers, I was busy staring off into the sunset that I did not take notice of the rock in front of me, causing me to trip forward on the floor. As I laughed it off, I noticed Roger's face drop which was when I realised; the pregnancy test had fallen out of my pocket and on the floor in front of us. I quickly stuttered "shit shit, y-you weren't meant to see that yet. I-I was going to tell you in like 5 minutes, it was going to be special and you were going to be happy and we were going to have a happy family. But that's not going to happen because you don't want this baby, a-and we might never get another chance but you probably are angry at me because I didn't tell you and I'm so sorry." until I observed a small smile growing on Roger face which was still focused on the '+'. He was happy.

The day we got married. He had proposed a few months after finding out we were expecting, which I of course said yes to, but explained that I was not going to get married while looking like a balloon so we'd wait until I had given birth. Thankfully, I was 7 months in so it was a matter of time until our gorgeous Ophelia was to be born, and we were to get married. The day was like no other; seeing Roger at the end of the aisle, dressed in a rather enticing suit, set off a feeling in me that I didn't know existed. Throughout the whole wedding I couldn't stop thinking about how I truly didn't deserve this much happiness in my life. A dashing husband who did nothing but care for me and love me. A month old child that we had brought into this world. Our friends and family gathered around us, supporting us in everything we do. It seemed too perfect.

Which, in hindsight, it was. I was stupid to think for a moment that I deserved this happiness. A few weeks into our honeymoon, I received a call from back home which explained that my mother had passed away; at the time no one knew how, or why. Then, I found out I was pregnant again, making me think that maybe everything was going to be fine. Until I was woken up in the middle of the night to find a puddle of blood pooling around me. Then, we found that Fred had got an awful disease which would have meant his death was to come in the near future. Which it did; as Rog and I were driving over to visit him, he got a call to say it had happened, to which our reaction was to just pull over and cry. It began to seem like nothing was going right for me, that the world was just saying that my happiness was all just a prank. It seemed like it was.

But there was one person who I had been with my entire life, who never gave up on me, who never thought my moments of despair were stupid or senseless, who comforted me and stuck with me through everything, who showed me love every single day of my life. Roger

#fiction #roger taylor fanfic #reader insert #writing #fanfic #roger #taylor #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor fluff #roger taylor

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meditationsfromthethirdrail · 4 years

Text

Polarization

There is a widespread perception that the U.S. has become as polarized, politically, as it has ever been. A careful consideration of America history suggests that’s not actually true, but I understand the sentiment and I often feel it myself. Being retired provides me with an inordinate amount of time to ponder this problem and to try to make sense of it. It’s become something of an obsession.

I like to mix it up a bit in social media - primarily Facebook - with persons opining on various social ills and political agendas and especially those blindly sharing fact-challenged propaganda, both from the left and right. I’ve stayed away from Twitter, which by design strictly prohibits posts from being long enough to contain meaningful reasoning. I like to save Instagram for pretty photos of flowers and birds and vacations. But Facebook seems a reasonable forum with enough content flexibility to present ideas with some depth to them. Social problems are inherently complex and nuanced, as evidenced by the fact that most of those problems have persisted, in one form or another, throughout human history. Individually and collectively we often find ourselves in situations where there is no perfect, right answer or solution - certainly not one that can be summarized in a tweet.

Our response to dealing with COVID-19 is a good example. There are enormous difficulties, economic and otherwise, with isolating ourselves from one another, and another set of bad outcomes resulting from not doing that. The tendency, it seems, judging by most of the dialogue we see in social media (and most other media) posts and comments, is for people to take ideological positions, cherry-pick supporting facts (or worse, supporting falsehoods), and promote extreme positions. By “extreme” I mean positions that ignore the truths that are quite often inherent in opposing positions. Again using the debate over proper responses to the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, most people who originate or share political posts on Facebook seem either to be solidly of the opinion that isolation, shut-downs, masks, etc. are good policy, or they’re of the view that all those measures are counterproductive or even unAmerican.

Most people instinctively understand that neither of those views is exclusively correct, but people who are in the middle tend not to weigh in as often, perhaps because their confusion about the solution makes them feel that they don’t have anything meaningful to say. I think those voices should be heard much more often than they are. I feel like I have one of those voices, and that’s why I feel a responsibility to try to make myself heard.

Following is my approach to analyzing sociopolitical issues - that is, issues that can be addressed, at least in part, through government action or some other form of collective action by citizens working towards a common goal. First, I try to understand whether and how the issue can or should be addressed by the government. That question is itself a polarizing one. Conservative ideology contains mistrust of government, especially Federal government, whereas liberal ideology contains high expectations that the government should intervene to address most social ills. Neither of those views is inherently correct. One of the the biggest challenges politicians face, when they’re focused on “doing the right thing” and not just getting elected, is deciding what the best role of government ought to be in tackling specific issues. It should be obvious that the government is not the right institution to deal with some issues (the establishment of religion, for example) but it is the right institution to deal with some other issues (the defense of the nation against an outside military force, for example).

When I attempt to discern the proper role of the government, I avoid starting with the ideological answer. Instead I try to look at it pragmatically. Why is (or is not) the government equipped to deal with the particular issue in question? Can government be effective? Can government be efficient? How will government fund its involvement? What other institutions can or should be involved? What’s the ultimate cost to society, economically and otherwise, to having the government more or less involved? The calculus involved to answer these questions is exceedingly complex; nevertheless that’s what politicians ought to spend their time debating, and their debate should always begin with a careful gathering and consideration of relevant facts, dismissing ideology in favor of rationality and consultation with experts to the fullest extent possible.

One time when I still had an active professional career, I was in Utah to give a presentation to the board of directors of a financial institution. One of the directors was a former U.S. senator from the state, and I happened to be seated next to him when the board convened for lunch. When he learned I resided in Pennsylvania, he asked me what I thought about the reelection chances for a well-known senator from my state who had recently switched his party affiliation. That led to a discussion about certain economic policies, during which the senator delivered the low-tax mantra familiar to anyone who has ever listened to a Republican politician for more than a few minutes. My response to him was that I had never understood why the White House, Congress and the Senate didn’t decide about the appropriate level of income taxes by first deciding a) how much does it cost the government to do the things that everyone agrees it needs to do, and b) what else is the government better equipped to do than is any other institution or group of individuals or companies, and how much does that cost? The answers to those questions, I opined, would inform the government about how much revenue it needs to raise. Cart before horse, as it were. I thought the senator would have a ready answer but he seemed not to have ever thought about it that way. Probably, I surmised, because he was more of an ideologue than a pragmatist. Reducing taxes is Republican dogma if anything is.

Let’s return to the issue of the proper size and scope of government, which is a major bone of contention between conservatives and liberals. I can think of numerous Republican friends whose belief that big government is wasteful, inefficient and disrespectful of individual liberty is perhaps the main driving force (among the forces that involve reason and not just culture, tradition and emotion) behind their party affiliation. A strong preference for low taxes is a closely correlated issue. I think it’s safe to say that almost everyone distrusts the government about some things if not many things. Liberals also believe that big government is a problem, just in different ways - for example, too much spending on the military. That’s a whole other issue in its own right and I don’t want to veer into a tangent here, but the point is that everyone wants limited government, and our Constitution is clearly designed to handcuff government overreach. Where should the lines be drawn, to the extent they aren’t clearly spelled out in the Constitution, as potentially amended?

First I want to say to my liberal friends, it is true that the government is often wasteful and inefficient, and not just in the area of military spending. Who hasn’t complained about long lines or call waiting times at government agencies? Who hasn’t been affected by some kind of government error or bureaucratic hassle? Who hasn’t heard tales of certain government employees and contractors being underworked and (seemingly) overpaid? When my father died and my mother required constant care because she was disabled by Alzheimer’s disease, I spent many, many hours dealing with the Veterans Administration to obtain certain benefits for her, so I know first-hand what a nightmare that can be. Because we experience these things, it’s easy for us to conclude that government is bad, or at best a necessary evil.

But I ask my conservative friends who are particularly inclined to seize on the flaws of government as a reason to dislike government generally, are the alternatives to government necessarily better? Many conservatives and libertarians contend that government ought to be run like a business. Indeed, I used to be a big proponent of that theory. Certainly if government were run like a business, it would be more likely to cut dead weight and strive for cost-effective delivery of services, because that’s how it would survive, fiscally. At some point in mid-life, I heard someone whom I respected say flatly that the role of government is not that of a business. I thought about that and realized my friend was correct.

A business operates not just to provide goods and services to its customers, but foremost to earn money for its owners and managers. That’s the basis of capitalist ideology (more about that in a later blog). The government operates (or should operate) in the interests of its citizens - all of them, or as many as possible. There is no profit motive. If social security, for example, were run as a business, the inevitable result would be that a relatively small group of people would take a sizeable chunk of our FICA taxes for themselves, and everyone else would either receive lower payments or they would pay higher taxes for the same benefits. That’s basically what insurance companies that sell annuities do - they take their cut first. I’m not being critical of insurance companies - annuities have a proper role in the personal finances of many people. But annuities are not affordable for many. The fact that our health care system is operated for profit to a much greater degree than are the health care systems of substantially all other developed nations is a primary reason why U.S. per capita health care costs are so much higher than those of substantially all other developed nations - about double the average, in fact. Again, health care is another polarizing issue, and properly the subject of a separate discussion.

Briefly, another example: let’s say a private enterprise, such as a mining company, turns an area of land into a toxic waste dump affecting water and air quality in the area. One necessary role of government, I would argue, is to prevent that from happening, but it does happen, primarily because of corruption, even if the corruption isn’t always obvious. There is usually no profit motive for anyone to clean up the toxic land and quite often the offending enterprise has conveniently gone out of business. So either the government steps in to repair the damage or we live with the negative consequences.

My point here is that although government has certain flaws, it’s the only prominent, powerful institution that’s designed to provide for the welfare of the people as a whole rather than just those who will profit from running it. Corruption (again, a separate subject for another discussion) is the rot inside government that facilitates the generation of profit for a few at the expense of everyone else, and that’s why it’s extremely important that corruption be rooted out at every possible turn. In a democracy, the act of voting for candidates who demonstrate disdain rather than tolerance for corruption is a critical function of voters. Beyond that, as I said before, we should task our politicians to debate the circumstances and conditions under which government is the best source to provide services to citizens that private enterprise will not or can not. Based on the consensus our elected officials reach, we should be prepared to pay taxes to fund what has been deemed necessary or healthy for the citizenry as a whole.

I believe in having as small and unobtrusive of a government as we can, so I guess that makes me a conservative. I also believe in having a government that provides necessary and appropriate services for the benefit of all citizens, to the extent possible, which I suppose makes me a liberal. The fact is that these labels just muddy the water and cause us to gravitate to extremes. We need to focus on uncovering the best ways to get things done for the benefit of all the people while providing ample incentive and reward to those who make the greatest sacrifices and contributions to getting them done. Those goals are not mutually exclusive - not at all. Indeed, balancing those goals, and the roles of government, private enterprise and charitable organizations in achieving those goals, is the ultimate challenge for those who make the laws of the land.

#polarizationpoliticsconservatismliberalismroleofgovernment

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leiascully · 5 years

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Fic: Baseball Metaphors (13/15?)

Not exactly nsfw, but mostly just talking while nude.

He wakes up to an empty bed and the sound of running water.

"Scully?" he says, lifting his head.

Her voice drifts in. "In here."

He gets up, dragging his boxers back on, and wanders into the bathroom. The tub is half-full of frothy water. Scully is bent over adjusting the taps, wrapped in a fluffy robe. She tests the water with her hand and smiles at him. "Take a bath with me," she says.

"Sure," he says. "Uh, I would like to, uh, pee first." It's embarrassing to admit for some reason, despite the fact that she knows he evacuates waste, and he's definitely had to do weirder things in her presence. She gets up and motions to the bathroom.

"All yours," she says.

He pees. It's not the first time he's used her bathroom, but it's the first time after they've had sex, genuine intercourse that not even an adventurous Catholic school student could rationalize away. He's careful with his aim and he even lowers and wipes the seat after, just in case, and then washes his hands. When he opens the door, she's coming back from the kitchen with two glasses of ice water. She hands one to him.

"Thanks," he says. He is thirsty. He takes a long swig while she fiddles with the taps and finally turns the water off. She sips at her water and sets the glass on the sink before dropping her robe in one smooth movement. She stands in front of him, unselfconscious, and there's nothing he can do but shed his boxers. She's so reserved that sometimes he forgets that she's relatively practical about her body. He assumes that has something to do with the years she's spent studying anatomy. He takes another swallow of water and sets his glass on the other side of the sink.

"Shall we?" he says.

She smiles and climbs carefully into the tub, tucking herself forward against the front. He clambers in behind her and brackets her with his legs. She leans back and the bubbles pop between his chest and her shoulders. He lets his arms slip around her. He doesn't know where the limits are anymore. He'd rather be tentative than run up against some invisible boundary. But they're naked together and in the bath with the smell of lavender rising up around them, so the rules have obviously changed.

"Mulder," she says, as if it isn't just the two of them, always.

"Hmm." He lets his arm rub gently against her breasts and she sighs happily.

"Do you really want to marry me?"

He blows out a breath. He can feel it deflecting off her shoulder. "You don't mince words, do you, Scully?"

"It's expedient to get to the heart of things," she says, shaping the bubbles idly between her palms.

"Begin with a Y-incision," he says.

"And yet you're still evading my question," she says.

"The man I was pretending to be definitely wants to marry the woman you were pretending to be," he says thoughtfully.

"Fair enough," she says. "I hope the man I was in bed with wasn't pretending anything, because he stuck to the same story."

"It would be convenient in some ways," he hedges. "I'm tired of arguing with hospital staff who won't let me see you."

"Mulder," she says firmly.

He takes a deep breath and presses his lips to her hair. "Yes," he says finally. "I want to marry you."

"Why?" she asks. "Aside from the convenience."

"Because I fucking love you," he says. He's frustrated and embarrassed and overwhelmed and lovelorn. He never imagined confessing to the back of her head while they were both naked. He feels soft around the edges, and it isn't pruning from the bathwater. "I don't even know how long it's been. I realized, when you were taken, but I don't know when it started. This whole pretending-to-date thing was imaginary and then it wasn't. Maybe it never was, for me."

"And so you proposed?" she asks.

"I know how much this has worn on you," he says. "I just wanted you to have a moment where you might feel like your life was falling into place, even if you thought it was pretend."

"That was kind of you," she says after a pause. "Or at least intended well."

"You know what they say about good intentions," he says. "But I know it's been tough on you, trying to be friends with them. I recognize that."

"It isn't tough on you?" she asks.

"I haven't had a dream like that in a while," he says. "The house, the family. It didn't seem to be something I could aspire to. So no, it wasn't hard for me. I didn't have to pretend that I wanted to be your boyfriend. Every week was like a glimpse of something I never imagined I could have, but I never wanted what they had."

"I see," she says. He doesn't need to see her face to know she's wearing that serious expression, the one that refines the concept of gravitas, or maybe gravity.

"Sorry," he says.

The water sloshes as she moves. "Sorry for what, Mulder?"

"I don't know," he says. "It seems unfair, that I was living out this scenario that I was invested in to a different degree than you were. It seems like false pretenses. You didn't really have a chance to agree to play along."

"Have you ever known me to play along when I didn't want to?" Scully asks.

He considers it. "No."

She snorts. "Aren't you a profiler?"

"I play one on tv," he jokes.

She turns, the water washing back and forth between them, and braces her hands on his thighs as she kneels on the floor of the tub. "So," she says. "Profile me."

"You saw your ex and panicked," he says, unable to keep himself from gazing at her. Her skin is slick and flushed and daubed with bubbles. "I provided a plausible cover story to alleviate your distress."

"Plausible why?" she asks.

"I'm a handsome guy," he teases. "Not quite in your league, but it's a convincing enough match."

"And why is that, Agent Mulder?" she asks, her voice low and even.

"Our intimacy is apparent even to strangers," he theorizes. "Society doesn't have many models of platonic heterosexual friendship, and here I could but won't quote When Harry Met Sally. Hence the tendency to mistake us for a couple, even a married couple."

"And from where does that intimacy derive?" she asks.

"Whence does the principle of life proceed?" he quotes, striving for whimsy. "We have a history. We've shared a number of remarkable experiences, even traumatic ones. It's made us close. I'd hazard even closer than most partners in law enforcement. I certainly didn't make out with Jerry or Reggie. Or even Krycek."

"And?" she says, leaning closer.

"And what?" he asks, extremely distracted by her approaching cleavage.

"You said yourself most partners aren't this close," she says. "Despite their own remarkable experiences. Why are you and I believable as a couple when other partners weren't?"

He shunts away any thought of Diana. "I guess I'm not the profiler I thought I was. What am I missing, Doctor Scully?"

She laughs, but it catches in her throat. "What are you missing?"

He shrugs. The bubbles rock on the surface of the water. "Maybe our inside jokes give it that hint of verisimilitude. I don't know. I've nev...I'm not married. "

"I'm in love with you, you idiot," she says quietly.

"What?" he says.

"I'm in love with you," she repeats.

"Uh," he says.

"That's not exactly the response I expected," she says, leaning away from him. He reaches out for her.

"This is not the turn I expected my day to take," he says quickly. "We're naked in the tub together and you're saying things I only imagined when I was drugged out of my mind, Scully. I just need a second to process. And maybe you should pinch me."

"I'm not going to pinch you," she says. "Why did you hesitate when you said you weren't married?"

He sighs. "I was engaged once. To one of my other former partners. Diana. She didn't leave me at the altar, exactly, but she did take an international assignment between the engagement and the wedding. In the year between losing her and meeting you, I threw myself into my work. Spooky Mulder, all alone down in the basement."

He can see the pain in her eyes, the urge to retreat into herself, to swathe herself in terrycloth and detachment. "No wonder you tried to keep me at arm's length."

"Didn't work," he says. He catches at her fingers. "Hey. Scully."

"Sometimes I forget I don't know everything about you," she murmurs, not meeting his eyes.

He kisses her damp palm. "Now you know everything about me," he promises.

"I didn't know you were in love with me," she says.

"I didn't know you were in love with me," he says, "so that's fair. You talked such a good game about how much our friendship meant to you."

"It did," she says. "It does." She sighs. "There was a moment in the restaurant where I was completely thrilled. Even when I remembered that it was pretend, I loved you for doing that for me. But it's hard to know that it wasn't the first time you'd asked someone."

"If it helps, I didn't get down on one knee in public," he says. "I barely proposed at all. It was more of an agreement."

"But you gave her this ring," she says, looking at it.

He nods. "It didn't fit her. Must have been a metaphor. I got it sized for you."

She flexes her fingers. "You knew my ring size."

"I like to think I know most things about you," he offers, "but I also believe your enigmatic nature is part of your charm."

She looks squarely at him. "What are we going to do?"

"I thought we were going to finish our bath," he says. "Maybe get all sweaty again almost immediately. Decide where we wanted to have our haunted honeymoon."

"Planning the honeymoon before the wedding?" she says. "Sounds like something there should be a superstition about."

"We don't have to," he says. "We don't have to do any of it. If you want me to leave, we can start again from square one or square whatever, whenever you're ready. If you're ready. We don't have to deal with this today."

She purses her lips. "'This' being the fact that I'm in love with you and you're in love with me and it's possible that we're engaged despite never having actually been in an relationship?"

"'This' was shorter," he says.

She sighs and turns back around, settling against his chest. He loops his arms around her and rests his cheek against her head. It's always strange to be at odds with Scully, when all he wants when he's upset is to seek comfort in her company.

"We could still get married," he murmurs.

"It might not be the easiest thing to explain to my mother," she says.

"I don't know about that," he says, remembering Maggie's gentleness during Scully's abduction. "But we could elope."

"If we did, we wouldn't have to invite Ethan and Jenny," Scully muses. "My mother might forgive me. Bill's wedding was enough for all of us."

"Or we could pretend none of this ever happened," he offers.

"Are you going to walk up to me in a bar?" she teases. "Introduce yourself, try to get a date."

"I told you, I'm not in your league." He kisses the side of her head. "We could stay in this bath forever."

"The water would get cold," she counters.

"Then I guess we can mark that off the list of options," he says. "What's left?"

"I think that covers it," she says. "Either move forward or pretend we can go back to the beginning."

"Be kind, rewind," he quips. "We've had a lot of practice playing pretend at this point."

"I'm not sure acting is my forte," she murmurs.

"Once more into the breach," he offers.

"That's a hell of a way to proposition a lady," she jokes. She turns in his arms again, tipping her face up to his. Her body is warm and slippery against his. He shifts his arms to steady her.

"I'm not the world's foremost authority on seduction," he says.

"No," she agrees, "but you've got a certain appeal." She stretches up to kiss him. "As an empiricist, it seems to me that the only way to see if this will work is to try it."

"I've always admired your scientific rigor," he says.

"And my breasts?" she teases.

"Those too," he agrees.

"Make me believe," she says, and kisses him.

#the x-files fic #the xfiles fic #xfiles au fic #msr #mulder x scully #my fic #fic: baseball metaphors #i tried to get them to bone but they're chatty mofos

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mymelancholiesblues · 5 years

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My extensive analysis in why RE4 is the top-tier Aeon game

This will be a long ride (seriously though, this have around 9.453 words), so grab a cup of tea (or coffee, depending on your personal preference, of course), sit comfortably and read through this peacefully because Resident Evil 4 is my favourite game and I plan to finally thoroughly explain why. And, for that, first, I intend to contextualize every single prior point with the proper attention they need.

As we’re already sick to death of knowing, Leon and Ada are introduced on this franchise in Resident Evil 2. This is a game originally from 1998, the very end of the 90s, and despite clearly possessing superior quality if compared to the script of the previous game and first instalment in the franchise, it’s still unquestionably a game of its time, and, particularly, of its genre.

We’re talking about the B science fiction and horror hybrid genre: zombies. This is the sort of horror that is frequently campier than the rest since – and let’s all agree over this – zombies per se are not that terrifying. It’s actually their effect on mankind, on human reaction and on how human beings will deal with the gore and all the fairly specific situations this type of horror puts them in that really terrifies us – it’s different from ghosts or demons, for instance. That’s why, inevitably, every exercise of fiction on this genre will ultimately focus on conflicts between non-infected human beings, their greed, how they’re capable of displaying their most monstrous side in these circumstances, and so forth. You can have a read on the “zombie culture” subject and its origins here.

Moreover, Resident Evil is a Japanese game, which is significant, since we should know that cultural repertoire can greatly modify the way storytelling explicits itself, the way it unfolds and develops towards its conclusion, and especially which messages it chooses to prioritize and how those messages are decided to be delivered to the audience. Therefore, even though Resident Evil has fallen upon the clichès its genre generally falls onto (the main plot conflict focus now is much more on how bioterrorism is one of the worst products of the capitalist regime and the endless greed of imperialist countries), the narrative dramatic throughline of the franchise continues to be that of ending in a hopeful, optimistic note.

Back to RE2 OG being a product of its time, however, and characters like Leon, Claire, Ada and Sherry being introduced there: on characterization terms, while these early franchise games weren’t necessarily weak and incompetent in presenting those characters, they were definitely quite limited on how they could do so.

Furthermore, on the account of a not yet established videogames voice-acting trade, and primarily on the rough Japanese-to-English translation efforts that weren’t as easy and accessible as they are today, nor was the “entry” of Japanese entertainment production into the North-American market a normalized matter as globalization wasn’t such a stable and clear concept then as it is today, many typical Japanese storytelling devices, such as certain scenes originally carrying a heavy significance to them and meanings that we couldn’t even presume if we weren’t already part of their culture or had some degree of introduction to it, – eg, a man promising to protect a woman plot-situation: in Japanese storytelling, this is a trope that has more clear romantic undertones than it would have in the West (check here and here), just like childhood friendships carry different implications for their cultural baggage (it’s a typical romantic trope for them; take a look here and here) – were lost in translation and could easily come off as “corny” to the western public if the translator (and the voice actor) wasn’t careful in conveying the originally intended text and subtext messages. And they rarely were.

Leon wasn’t a complex or even a “complete” character back then as he is today. At the time of his introduction, in RE2 OG, he was a more straight play of The Paragon trope. Are you familiar with those more simplified and basic characterizations of, say, Captain America and Superman? Leon was like that! In fact, Leon was the first attempt of an entirely Japanese crew in making a North-American blond police officer, an idealist and overall nice guy that didn’t have behavioural issues like Chris did. So, Leon was an “upright” and “altruistic” guy. That’s what his character comes down to in his introduction. Those two words.

On the other end, we had Claire, who was an “independent” and “brave” young woman (let’s keep those describing terms in mind because they are important!). In her scenario, we would have a journey companion, Sherry, and in Leon’s, it would be Ada.

It’s really important to point out here that when they were developing these characters, coming up with their design and everything, the staff tried to make Ada’s colour palette contrast and complement Leon’s one, and Sherry’s was also thought out to do the same to Claire’s. So much so that we can see that in contrast to Claire’s fuchsia/magenta and black, we have Sherry’s cobalt blue and white. And to Ada’s deep red we have Leon’s navy blue (check this).

Now, about those “describing terms” I mentioned earlier. Similarly to the colour palettes case, staff’s primary purpose while characterizing the two extra journey characters was so that they would offer some sort of “disfigurement” of the basic traits that directed the main characters. Claire is brave and independent even though she is barely nineteen years old and grew up as an orphan, thanks mainly to her older brother’s affection and dedication, whom she actually happens to be looking for in this game. Sherry, however, has to survive independently in Raccoon because she has been neglected by her remarkably still alive scientist parents and has to be brave because she always had to fend off for herself. It’s just like Claire, but upside down.

Leon, on the other hand, upright and altruistic, meets Ada, who seems to have shady means to achieve her goals, and shows a skeptical, cynical demeanor on how she regards others. She’s Leon’s upside down as well.

In the original script, there’s a lot of “mamoru” being used – from Claire to Sherry, who later becomes a maternal figure to the girl (and forms a solid bond with her), and from Leon to Ada (and here is where we should remember that the “promise to protect” trope can oftentimes have romantic connotations in Japanese culture if it’s used in a given context and combination of circumstances).

As I’ve already said, the original game, a product of its time, relied more on “soap drama” writing than on a more organic text development, since it needed to be concise, delivering the message without losing its dramatic appeal to the plot. Thus, everything escalates too fast – the in-game time is short and the script needs to be on par with its pace.

We get to know the characters we have to know, the text then assumes we’re sufficiently familiar with the basic paradigms associated with fiction and storytelling so we should unconsciously recognize what certain parts will mean without needing anyone to babysit us through it. It’s clear, then, that the independent and brave young woman will be accompanied by the neglected and frightened little girl and they’ll form an adoptive mother-and-daughter bond, just like it’s obvious that the upright and altruistic guy will be glued by the shady and cynical woman’s side and they’ll team up and eventually fall in love.

However, the translation process was unpolished, as I said, so the dialogue lines, especially, came off a bit silly and occasionally somewhat unnatural to the audience – quite cheesy indeed. Nonetheless, as I also stated previously, all of those dialogue lines made sense within their own context since the game’s pacing isn’t bad and the events that transpire within it accompany said rhythm, are dictated by it. Within the plot, Leon and Ada, in addition to being attracted to each other, just spent the last almost 4 to 7 hours together, surviving together, helping each other, so of course they’ll fall in love. Just as it’s expected that Claire will feel responsible for Sherry’s life and Sherry will start seeing her as an adoptive mother figure. This little girl was neglected by her parents! And Claire saved her!

We can see those two dynamics as mirrored reflections (in which those two pairs of mirrors – Leon and Ada, Claire and Sherry – function extremely well as they contrast and complement each other), but also as a journey in which the sidekick is the “shadow” (I’d like to thank @madamoftime for her incredible analysis on this subject and for providing me with the sources to quote on this topic: here and here) of the protagonist. Ada is Leon’s shadow because he needs to “kill the boy and let the man be born” (as Maester Aemon advised Jon in ASoIaF — A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 7, Jon II) for this new world he’ll be entering after surviving Raccoon. He needs to be a little more like Ada.

But Ada also needs to be a bit more like Leon, so he’s her mirrored reflection / shadow as well. She needs to start believing in mankind a little more again if she wants to continue in this franchise narrative and make individual progress within it.

Oh, and mirrors are quite important imagery in Japanese folklore (check here), its mythology, etc. RE2 OG does a stupendous job in making use of that.

“The mirror hides nothing. It shines without a selfish mind. Everything good and bad, right and wrong is reflected without fail.”

We have a game story with two sets of characters that manage to tick all the boxes of what should be a complete and comprehensive narrative for them. Complete and that provides closure in itself. We didn’t need a sequel to presume that Leon and Ada would probably meet again, since following Ada’s apparent “death”, the audience knows that she’s helping him against the final boss and in a fashion that he’s also led to suspect it. Claire and Sherry too: we know they’ll take care of each other.

Even so, RE: CV serves to settle Claire’s saga and tie up her journey’s loose ends. In it, she finds her disappeared brother. (And this is precisely why I have my criticisms on the fandom’s constant vehemence in always demanding that she should come back for another cameo: Claire is one of the few characters that had the privilege of having her story thoroughly resolved.)

But then, Leon remained a pending mystery: what happened to him? Had he ever got the chance to confirm his (and ours) suspicions on Ada’s status? Plus: how did it happen? Have they ever met again?

you’ve haunted me all my life through endless days and countless nights there was a storm when I was just a kid stripped the last coat of innocence you’ve haunted me all my life you’re always out of reach when I’m in pursuit long-winded then suddenly mute and there’s a flaw in my heart’s design for I keep trying to make you mine

(You’ve Haunted Me All My Life – Death Cab For Cutie)

RE4 comes out under this excellent reason: answering those questions. In addition to providing a new chapter to this famous and profitable franchise, it would also serve to solve Leon’s pending matters, something that Claire, his companion protagonist in the game that he was introduced on, got, but he didn’t. And look: this unresolved conflict is precisely what drives RE4’s dramatic throughline – so much so that if we think about the main saga plot to which these two games should be supposedly subordinate to, both RE:CV and RE4 seem a little… isolated? Because they are journey conclusions for these two specific characters.

Anyway, Leon is now a government agent (a career unkindly imposed onto him by the actual government, by the way, who wouldn’t just accept that the man simply moved on with his life while possessing the knowledge to what really happened in Raccoon) on a rescue mission six years after surviving Raccoon City’s incident. He’s now more cynical and is taking advantage of somewhat questionable means: being a secret agent for a corrupt government so he can achieve his own goals: put an end to bioterrorism and companies like Umbrella. He’s a little more like Ada.

And from the beginning of RE4 all plot aspects are set in a way that build our expectations over Leon and Ada’s reunion: the church bell that mysteriously rings in a suitable timing and saves Leon’s life at the very beginning of the game. The silhouette in red that appears outside the window and fires twice against the guy who is stomping his chest and prompts Leon’s to comment on how familiar the stranger figure felt (“Woman in red… Somehow so familiar.”). Everything, EVERYTHING that happens in RE4 is a carefully thought slow-burn set-up for us to wait and expect for their encounter.

Let’s not forget that the Anonymous Letter that he finds after passing out in that hut after the fight against Del Lago it’s hers (in the Japanese script, the personal pronouns are feminine, which prevents it to be a note written by Luis; source). In Project Umbrella’s translation of said file, we notice that she laments the fact that Leon is infected beyond her current capability to help him. Oh, and there’s also Salazar stating that he needs to deal with two rats before properly worrying about Leon, and Leon then wondering who’s the other intruder besides himself and Luis – which serves to further increase the audience’s expectations.

see her come down through the clouds I feel like a fool I ain’t got nothing left to give nothing to lose so come on love draw your swords shoot me to the ground you are mine I am yours let’s not fuck around

(Draw Your Swords – Angus & Julia Stone)

When they do finally meet again (after we, the audience, already suspect that for at least three different situations Ada’s been watching and helping him) is this tension-charged scene. The scene backdrop, thoughtfully designed, is a monarchy style couple’s bedroom; as part of its decoration, there’s a painting, a gigantic and impossible-not-to-see one, that turns out to be Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera (check here); and even the mysterious woman’s dress, evoking a Chinese red qipao, has butterflies prints (check here). This is essentially the perfect setting fans have unconsciously hoped for: we’re internally screaming “finally! they’re going to solve their U.S.T. and consummate their feelings!” After all, it’s a couple’s bedroom decorated with a purposefully noticeable painting (the only one large enough to be undoubtedly identifiable in a cutscene) which its symbolism and analogies are famously related to love and sex, and even the woman’s dress carries references to a Chinese romantic allegory that, curiously enough, strongly fits with them.

Ada enters the scene laying her gun barrel against Leon’s back – close, too close, in a staggeringly explicit intimacy imagery, one that we’d normally expect from a 007 movie, for instance –, and the subsequent dialogue follows the same tone: with her ordering him to surrender in a voice of velvet (“Put your hands where I can see them.”) and him throwing back a provoking bluff – also full of sexual innuendo – that serves only to advance their competition for dominance (“Sorry, but following a lady’s lead just isn’t my style.”). Oh Leon, you’re so full of shit and you’re well aware of it, as well as Ada is (“Put them up now.”). For them, this is all foreplay. (And that’s why Leon’s first response in this scene doesn’t bother me. I find it to be consistent with his characterization, he understands what’s going on in this situation and decides to join in the game.)

After their own little – and slightly anticipated – dance, and Leon’s little tip (“Bit of advice – try using knives next time. Works better for close encounters.”) – that uncoincidentally will come in hand later on in this game in another scene charged with this same unresolved sexual tension, and in which our expectations get likewise subverted –, Ada raises the curtains, folds her cards (“Leon. Long time, no see.”).

We all hold our breaths.

But Leon… Well, Leon is resentful, bitter, angry.

Naturally, since, for 1) although he, like us, certainly had a hunch for the identity of whoever put a gun on his back, he couldn’t be quite sure yet, and 2) this is the woman he has spent the past 6 years obsessing about to which end she came off to (later, a spin-off in the franchise will confirm his obsession for us, but nevertheless, one of Leon’s next lines in-game is already enough for us to deduce it), only to find out that the latest news pointing at her happened to be related “just” to the most infamous figure in the recent history of bioterrorism.

Ah, and also he spent the past 6 years dealing with the guilt and trauma of she possibly being dead, which he certainly considered to be his personal failure in preventing. So, there’s that.

Therefore, Leon ruins the atmosphere – and all of our previous expectations together with it – and confronts her (“Ada… So it is true.”) Feeling hurt, betrayed, pissed off. But resigned too. Even when she pretends she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, clearly dismissive of how long it has been since their last exchange (“True? About what?”), his tone is huffy, sullen, when he states to her (doesn’t question, rather, chooses to assert) that it’s true, she’s affiliated with Wesker (“You, working with Wesker.”) And how does he know that? Did something in his investigations also lead him to presume that she’d probably appear in Spain to get something for Wesker? Then we weren’t the only ones hoping for this reunion, holding our breaths for it? See, we don’t even need a spin-off game to assume that yes, he’s been indeed obsessing about her for the past 6 years.

When Leon throws this accusation, it comes from a sore spot, a particular personal ache, almost as if this Wesker issue was a betrayal aimed specifically against him. If we didn’t know any better, this scene would almost feel like it’s a couple washing their dirty laundry over the fact that of them is having an extra-marital affair.

Ada drops her sly, disingenuous facade (“I see you’ve been doing your homework.”) – it looks like he learned the hard way that he should be a little more like her instead of simply diving in blind after all.

Then, shrinking a bit, in a lower tone, he demands a reason (“Why, Ada?”), and she tosses it back since this is a question that can have a myriad of answers (“What’s it to you?”) to which he finally asks what he wants to know with indisputable clarity (“Why are you here? Why’d you show up like this?”), and something in his tone, the non-verbal stress in his words, gives us the impression of emphasis on “here” and “like this”, almost as if what he really wants to say is “Why not before (way earlier)? Under different circumstances (as a friend, as he wanted her to be)?” After a wry chuckle, it’s her turn to break with our expectations, – since Leon’s question steers the mood of the scene back to one of impending emotional and physical resolution – evading the emotional escalation with a dramatic stunt, but not without promising him that they’ll meet again.

By the way, resorting to a ruse to get out of there, having thrown her timer flash bomb glasses so she could have a good pretext to withdraw without major impediments – it’s also a writing device to subvert the audience’s expectations here, since they’re naturally placed upon betting that if Ada tries to leave in a conventional, non-theatrical and unconvincing style, Leon is definitely going to make her stay, even if he has to beg her for it.

the angel came to Jacob the room began to glow Jacob asked the angel are you friend or are you foe? the angel never answered but smote him on the thigh they wrestled through the darkness ‘til morning filled the sky this thing between us has wings, it has teeth it has got horns and feathers and sinews beneath angel or demon to the truth I am bound and so this thing between us must be wrestled down

(Jacob and the Angel – Suzanne Vega)

We play RE4’s main campaign entirely in Leon’s shoes. It’s only after finishing it and unlocking the extra content that we’ll have access to how Ada reacted after their re-encounter: in a mix of anxiety and concern as Wesker now suspects that she went to meet with Leon and, because of it, is ordering her to kill him so there won’t be any disruptions in her mission (“And that US government lapdog… Leon… if you do happen to encounter him, put him out of commission. We can’t let him interfere with our plans.”). She tries from the get-go to bargain with Wesker that Leon doesn’t have a clue to what’s really happening, claiming that he’s there solely to save Ashley so he shouldn’t disturb, etc. (“He has no idea what’s going on. He’s nothing we need to worry about.”), but well, Wesker isn’t exactly inclined to be convinced (“He’s a survivor of Raccoon City. We can do without the extra distraction. Take him out.”).

So we see her apprehensively sighing his name after Wesker finalizes contact. We even have a brief scene where she observes Leon from afar using a machine-gun to contain another horde of Ganados, whispering to herself an apology to him and explaining why she can’t be helping him (“Leon… I’m sorry, but I can’t be seen with you..”) and if you, the player, try to disregard this by nevertheless attempting to run to where Leon is, the game will stop you with the phrase “If Leon sees me now, I would have to finish him off.”. The game enforces you to respect her decision: she won’t follow Wesker’s orders.

Actually, even before she re-encountered Leon, from the very BEGINNING of her campaign when she discovers that he’s in this place as well (and murmurs his name when she sees and recognises him), she already realises that she can’t be seen with him or there’ll be trouble. So, when she nevertheless reveals herself to him, what she’s really doing is going against her best judgment and putting them both in danger because she genuinely wants to see him and let him know that she’s there too.

Additionally, this is the most probable reason for her not going after him in the past 6 years. Besides obviously wishing him to have emotional distance to move forward while she herself tried to do it, there was the possibility that she could put him in danger if she went after him.

Mere seconds after Saddler kills Luis, Wesker comes in contact with her and spares no time in querying if she already had the opportunity to execute Leon (“Have you had a chance to eliminate Leon?”). We know that she did despite her dismissive reply (“Not yet”). She saw him quite a few times after their reunion at the castle. Plus, she knows that he’s right there in the exact same place that she’s now – the castle’s concourse level –, with dead Luis in his arms. She’s well aware of the fact that she could exploit Leon’s shock and vulnerable moment over Luis death to easily kill him undisturbed.

Wesker realizes this is going to be an arm wrestle with her, so, instead, he proposes that she starts “taking advantage of Leon’s fortuitousness” (“If that’s the case, then maybe we can capitalize on his little lucky streak and take advantage of the distraction he’s causing for Saddler and his followers to retrieve the sample.”). But even this recommended scheme visibly disturbs Ada, as we can notice from her reaction just afterwards.

Ada, of course, doesn’t cease to aid Leon and advice him in order to make his odyssey easier (even if she can’t accompany him as she did in Raccoon), nor does she stop worrying about the advancing of the Las Plagas infection stage on his body, leaving him a letter (again) over that topic, one signed with an affectionate lipstick mark (source).

The next time they see each other in-game is when, once again, Ada chooses to disregard her own best judgment and assessment of the situation by offering him a boat-ride to the island. A scene also packed with sexual tension, in which even a pun brimming with innuendo is allowed (“Need a ride, handsome?”), but still a much lighter in tone than their first shared one. In this one, Leon is finally close to her physically and, as a result of that, spends the whole trip fidgeting where he’s sitting, blatantly staring at her – to which she furtively glances back and sneakily smiles at him.

All of it only for our expectations to be shattered a second time: she abruptly halts their short little cruise, given that they already arrived at their set destiny – and the fact that she really needs to go, otherwise Wesker will kill them both –, but not without first flashing her entire thigh to him (a privileged view he doesn’t refuse to savour) and nearly shoving her butt all over his face, as to show us and him that “look, I’m definitely interested, but this isn’t the right place nor the right time”.

After Leon manages to briefly get Ashley back for the first time on the island, we see a small paper plane flying in through the window. Another note sent by Ada, lovingly identified again, offering tips for Leon’s itinerary to escape (source).

Krauser’s first question when we see him talking to Ada for the first time is on Leon’s status (“What’s the news on our friend Leon?”), to which Ada’s answer (“He’s not making it easy.”) it’s a blatant and near hilarious lie to the audience. Yeah, it mustn’t be easy being forced to deal with that sort of demand: to kill the guy you love more than your own sense of self-preservation and safety.

Everything that follows the lift she gave Leon and her exchange with Krauser is to showcase her desperation and the lengths she’s willing to go to keep Leon alive, since Wesker, whom just now seemed possibly satisfied with Leon’s participation in the most recent set of events (“Quite a jolly mess he’s made, that Leon. But all for the better. Saddler’s people have fallen into a panic. Their destruction is only a matter of time now!”) and in spite of her reiterated effort to try to convince him that after Leon rescues Ashley he wouldn’t pose any more threats to the ex-S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team captain’s plans (“Once he gets Ashley back, his job will be finished. He’ll no longer be a factor.”), sent in another agent to assassinate him (“No, I’m leaving Leon to Krauser.”).

The pronouncement is enough to unsettle Ada and suspend her walk. The urgency to save Leon from Krauser is so high that we see her running after Wesker’s briefing – his order was for her to rush to retrieve the sample (“Hurry up and retrieve the sample.”), but Ada’ hurry is for Leon’s life (“Maybe you’ve forgotten, Wesker… I don’t always play by your rules.”).

She succeeds in saving him from Krauser, and Leon’s reaction, naturally, is to shout her name, while Krauser is unsurprised by the betrayal (“Well, if it isn’t the bitch in the red dress!”). Ada unceremoniously gives away which side she on in this contest (“Looks like we have the upper hand here.”), and I really enjoy how the scene in which she lowers her gun after Leon dares her to shoot him in RE2R also seems like a visual echo to this one scene in RE4, since Ada chooses him again here – even if that will irreversibly mean trouble for her much sooner than she was prepared for.

And then, Leon, expressing the enthusiasm of someone who’s already prepared for a hard pass, appeals in a frustrated tone for a resume on their earlier and systematically unfinished conversation – so that they can, at last, have the pending resolution they’re in need (“Maybe it’s about time you told me the reason why you’re here?”), and she rebuffs exactly as he expected her to (“Maybe some other time…”) before leaving him for his own solitary path once again; oh, and this nice detail of having Ada always promising to Leon something for “the next time”, though, is definitely something worth pointing out every time it occurs. By the second time Leon is confronted by Krauser, we have the latter vocalizing what anyone could and would reasonably deduce regarding Leon’s relationship with Ada (“So, you two are all hooked up now, is that it?”).

Btw, it’s about time that I point out that I prefer the original Japanese version of Ada’s Report #4 (you can access Project Umbrella’s translation here), since its discourse feels more in character for Ada: for example, it’s relevant to emphasize how in this version she pretty much chooses to describe Leon repeating what Wesker suggested about his role in all that’s been happening, almost as if she were taking advantage of the things Wesker said so she can justify in her own assignment reports the help she continuously gives Leon throughout her mission in Spain and why it’s so important for her that he stays alive. What better way of combining business with personal contentment, huh?

But when we see her interacting with Wesker as he reckons precisely those things she allegedly “thinks” of Leon (his resilience, his luck, the opportunity to take advantage of his protagonism in the ongoing events on the Island and so forth), her following reactions are always of explicitly and adamant indisposition. Which makes me firmly believe that no, Ada never intended to use Leon for anything there in Spain.

Moreover, if we, as the audience, have paid attention to the story so far, we should know that actually, she’s been only delaying her goals thanks to Leon’s direct and indirect interferences. After all, it’s because of him that Luis takes a detour: in order to deliver the pills that would slow down the effects of Las Plagas on his body; something that ultimately leads Luis to die by Saddler’s hands, once again preventing Ada from putting her hands on the sample and concluding her mission.

It is Ada who kills Krauser, but that was yet to happen when she reports it as a fact to Wesker (“Krauser is dead.”). There’s a hint of satisfaction and triumph in her voice, even though the guy isn’t dead yet. Wesker goes on to suggest that he’s hoping for Leon to die in the dispute against Saddler, then (“Really… Hmmmmm… Leon doesn’t die easily. That’s fine, we can use him to clean up Saddler for us. We’ll let them fight it out. Neither one of them will manage to come out unharmed.”), and everything in Ada’s body-language and facial expressions indicates her discomfort and impatience with this insistence on this particular subject – Leon’s demise (“Easier said than done.”).

If she really was using Leon all the time, there wouldn’t be a reason for her to be so clearly annoyed at Wesker’s line of thinking (“Either way, it’s your job to clean up what’s left of them when the fight is over. Don’t forget who is running the show. Whatever happens, we can’t let either of them live to see tomorrow. Our goal is to retrieve the sample. Take out anything that might interfere with our plans.”), to the point that Wesker doesn’t even wait for her response before terminating their conversation. Ada is not complying in this specific topic and this infuriates him; she’ll, actually, – as we know – even go out of her way to intervene in Wesker’s last ideal scenario on this matter: Saddler killing Leon.

The next scene where we see them together is the one where Leon is stumbling and squirming for some reason that Ada surely has a pretty good guess on which is it, but is hoping to be mistaken (“Leon, you okay?”), while he, on his end, also insists on ignoring what’s truly going on, guaranteeing that of course, everything’s just fine.

Here we have another subtextual echo to RE2 OG that RE2R also uses to some extent in honour of those who’ve been accompanying the franchise for so long: the calm before the storm – the oddly unagitated moment before we see them saying goodbye and parting ways again –, even if this calm is, in fact, nothing but an illusion they’re briefly sharing. The audience gets anxious without knowing how to pinpoint what’s causing it.

When Leon comes closer, although everything seems so strange, so out of place, we can see Ada reacting as if anticipating (and welcoming) a kiss. She lowers her guard almost completely, raises her hand gently towards his face and tilts her head slightly to the opposite direction so she can lean onto the upcoming contact. But he’s being controlled by the parasite in his body. For a quick millisecond, she thought she could touch him, kiss him, have that closeness once again – a resolution for emotional and sexual tension in sight. Perhaps they’d even help each other on their path through the island from that point on?

When she kisses him in RE2R more so he’ll stop arguing and pointing out holes in her just newly-improvised plan than anything else, we have Leon reacting in a kind of dazed and stuporous state – going stiff and not entirely knowing what exactly he should do, looking not only surprised and confused but also hesitant, uneasy. Still, we can notice him adjusting his own weight so he can angle his head better and enjoy the kiss. It’s subtle, but it’s there (take a look). If we think about this in comparison, seeing Ada’s reaction to his approximation while being controlled in RE4 leaves a more bittersweet taste – realizing how much these two truly long for each other’s touch, but how the circumstances only seem to work against them when providing the opportunity to it in a distorted fashion (and observe how much care the producers placed into RE2R so it would be a consistent experience juxtaposed with RE4, RE6 and the rest of the franchise).

But, well… Mind-controlled Leon almost strangles her and she has to follow that advice he gave her the first time we, the audience, expected them to address the elephant in the room in this game (their much-needed resolution): his tip to preferring knives in such close encounters. Despite the attack not being intentionally his fault and the fact that he just got kicked in the balls for it, Leon immediately asks her to forgive him (“Sorry, Ada…”), and Ada – with her throat still hurting and her voice hoarse – while seeing him swallowing all those pills, immediately urges him so they get rid of the virus in his body. Although she alerted him about the low chances of surviving the surgical intervention that’s needed to remove Las Plagas in a letter she sent prior to this unfortunately awkward meeting, she presses that they both take action (“We have to get that parasite out of your body!”), emphasizing the “we��. Oh, Ada. It’s not like she’ll just accept that his fate is dying a victim of this without trying to fight against it, right?

Leon’s response, of course, is to prioritize someone else’s well-being and his own mission in helping them (“Yeah… But before that I gotta save Ashley!”) – he’ll do it again for Helena in RE6 under analogous circumstances: following Ada (his recurring element of personal need) vs his sense of duty (everything he believes and stands for) –, and this serves as a reminder to Ada about her own (“Fine… let’s split up…”). For a moment, perhaps, she thought it would be like that night in Raccoon, the two together against anything that threatens their way. As she goes ahead of him and walks out the door, we have a slightly longer focus on Leon’s face looking at the door she just gone through with a wistful expression. Leon’s own expectations weren’t that disparate from Ada’s, but both watched it slipping through their fingers again.

Her last confrontation with Krauser has a great dialogue as well. She mocks him from the start (“Oh, Krauser. I’m sorry, I jumped the gun when I reported you dead to Wesker.”) since she couldn’t wait to put an end to him with her own hands so Wesker wouldn’t dare using this against her anymore (“Hum…. Think of all the paperwork I’ll have to fill out if you were to show up alive.”) We know that this isn’t just about convenience, but also a matter of self-preservation. Oh, and safeguarding Leon’s life.

After killing Krauser, her comment is also loaded with double meaning, (“That’s a large thing you have there… But I don’t like it when men play rough…”) a remark that references directly her last run-in with Leon. The man she’s in love with just tried to strangle her (albeit under mind-control) and destroyed the mood that could’ve led them to have some physical closeness after years.

Afterwards, Ada’s new goal, once again, involves providing help to Leon’s journey – helping him get rid of the parasite in his body and aiding him in completing his mission. That way she can complete her own in peace.

She assists him in rescuing Ashley from Saddler’s hands – firing against the cult leader a hail of bullets and urging Leon to take Ashley outta the chair she’s imprisoned in and to immediately move out of there with the girl, leaving Saddler to her. All of this not without a cost: Saddler has the upper hand in the confrontation that ensues, and captures Ada. Again, helping Leon proves to be a disadvantageous choice to her agenda: helping him literally turns her into the cult leader’s new hostage. And Ada nearly thought her mission was over when she saw Saddler fall – almost put her hands on the sample. She’d finally be able to help Leon and still complete her own mission without major headaches… but, things are never simple for both of them, are they?

On Leon’s side, having already removed the parasite off his body and with Ashley safe and sound under his guarding, the conclusion seems obvious: it’s time to go home, right? But he suspects there’s something missing (“Something’s not right.”), and orders Ashley to wait for him exactly where she is – where he knows it’s clear of threats. I particularly enjoy how he doesn’t still know for sure that Ada is being held hostage, but it’s like he catches this sense of foreboding hanging in the air that alerts his instincts about the oddity in the absence of a detail which he cares deeply about, one relevant enough to dissuade him in feeling confident to straightaway leave that place. “The ties that bind” (as per their theme song in RE6), hnm? Their connection is so strong that it’s like a sixth sense warning them whenever one or the other is under risk. As I thought, Capcom’s zeal in writing and developing their recurring plot themes and overall romantic subplot airtightly is infallible.

And that’s how the cult’s leader baits Leon’s interest: hanging Ada well-tied on a clear view. Of course Leon will go up there to save her, even if he’s already vaccinated against the virus these crazy people injected on him and finally has the girl he should save and bring back home under his care, right? Obviously. He screams Ada’s name in what must be the fifth time in this game, and when Saddler approaches him still trying to exploit the control Las Plagas had over his body, he doesn’t waste any time in playing the cocky hero and provoking his adversary (“Better try a new trick, ‘cause that one’s getting old!”).

Leon suspends time again, just like he did that dawn in Raccoon on RE2R when he confronted her about her lies and challenged her to shoot him while everything was falling apart around them – now, he does it with the enemy dangerously near them: he stops to check if she’s alright (“You okay?”) and she responds in a teasing but gentle tone (“I’ve been better…”)¹ – it’s really like they’ve stopped time and forgot space again. And that’s why Saddler laughs.

Leon looks annoyed to be remembered of the presence of the antagonist (“What’s so funny?!”), to which Saddler sees then the opportunity to deliver the obligatory villain’s speech as an elucidation on what’s amusing him (“Oh, I think you know… The American prevailing is a cliché that only happens in your Hollywood movies! Oh, Mr. Kennedy! You entertain me! To show my appreciation, I’ll help you awaken from your world of clichés!!!”). I like how Saddler explicitly mocks Leon and Ada’s little moment since Leon seems to be so overconfident regarding his victory at the end of this long journey precisely because he just saved the woman he’s in love with (something that even makes him forget about time and space for a minute). It really is similar to the Hollywood clichés: the hero achieves ultimate victory when he gets to save his romantic interest – the end.

Everything that follows from here is just as good: Leon making sure to warn Ada to step aside when Saddler starts mutating (“Ada, stand back!”) and Ada rushing to help him in her own manner, then throwing a Rocket Launcher for him and prompting him to put an end to the confrontation (“Use this!”) – an unmistakable echo to RE2 OG. I’ll harp on the same string again here: I don’t like for one bit that the writers chose to change the circumstances in which she helps Leon with this exact same matter in RE2R so that Leon wouldn’t have had any suspicion on whom might have thrown him that Rocket Launcher to finish Mr. X off; it bothers me a lot since this was a consolidated tradition on the franchise – this specific dynamic between them and Leon being conscious about it. Welp.

He saves Ada, finally defeats Saddler, and… picks up the Las Plagas sample from the cult’s leader body. Ada’s mission goal. The sole reason for her to be there in the first place.

we fight every night for something when the sun sets we’re both the same half in the shadows half burned in flames we can’t look back for nothing take what you need say your goodbyes I gave you everything and it’s a beautiful crime

(Beautiful Crime – Tamer)

If she doesn’t get her hands on this damn thing right now they’re both going to die, that much she’s certain about. So she points her gun to the back of his head, asks him to forgive her and presses him to hand her the sample (“Sorry, Leon. Hand it over.”) and look, he knows she won’t shoot.

He’s not a fool to infer that she’ll because she just spent at least the last 48 or 72 hours helping him and saving his ass again, and again and again. Come on, think with me: Leon blacks out and spends six hours in that abandoned shack after fighting Del Lago, only regaining consciousness when it’s already dark; it’s dawn when he teams up with Luis in that hut just before he and Ashley follow their way to the castle; he gets stuck inside the castle practically the entire day because when he goes through the mines and the ruins at the back of the castle area it’s almost night again, which means that the amount of time he takes to finally leave the castle after facing Salazar and take Ada’s lift to the island fits the period of dusk to dawn; in the island his journey takes long enough for us to see the sunset again when the Ganados horde destroy the reinforcement helicopter U. S. sent him and he confronts Krauser without Ada’s help; it’s morning when Ada runs off after pointing her gun at his head and taking the sample, leaping into the air so the helicopter picks her up. Therefore, the game implies that we spend a day in each map: the village, the castle and the island – that’s 72 hours. In any case, it’s at least 48 hours.

So, he surrenders the sample to her because deep down he knows she’s bluffing and he also suspects that she must have her reasons.

In addition, let us not forget that their first reunion scene in this game has a slow-motion sequence to show us – amongst other things – that Leon is able to quickly disarm her even when she’s pointing her gun to his back at a distance of maybe less than two inches. As he was forced to become a secret agent to the government, he most certainly went through intensive training over the last six years, so, apart from knowing that Ada would never pull the trigger against him, we also know that Leon, if he genuinely wanted to, could easily disarm her. But he doesn’t. He chooses to give up the sample to her, he chooses her.

RE4 bluntly suggests that Leon is willing to brush aside his principles, ignore his sense of duty and ethics and even possibly betray his country – for her, to choose her. It’s fairly likely that hadn’t they been forced to follow different paths in RE2 OG and RE2R, he would’ve done the same. At the end of the day, that threat of “taking her in”, arresting her, was just bravado. This is clearer for him now, of course – six years after Raccoon, Leon had the distance of time and space to hone his wisdom and balance regarding this inner moral struggle he faces between what he feels for Ada and his consciousness, his integrity; although we all are well aware that at the decision-making time, romanticism would topple rationalism, that he’d let idealism speak louder than his sense of pragmatism. That he’d let her win.

This is how much he trusts her – it could be nothing more than a passionate impulse motivated by a gut feeling, an unexplainable instinct, it may not even be something he consciously desires, but it’s what he always comes down to – and that’s why he took that leap of faith six years ago in defying her to shoot, that’s why now, again, he takes a leap of faith passing her the sample without putting up a fight, because he KNOWS that she won’t shoot, he doesn’t need to challenge her once again so he can prove it to her and to himself. Thus, this is another mirror scene: that’s what he was going to do in RE2 OG and RE2R hadn’t she “died” – they don’t need her pointing a gun at him, that’s just a pretext for both of them. But, back to the story climax in Spain, his only reaction then, is to ensure, as much to himself as to her, that she knows what she’s going for (“Ada, you do know what this is.”). Yes, of course she knows. And he knows she does.

She goes on her way, reassuring him about the fate of the sample (“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of it.”), perhaps to reinforce that he didn’t make the wrong call. Leon’s sixth loud cry for her name is answered with a curt goodbye and a bit of quippy advice (“Gotta go. If I were you, I’d get off this island too.”). And I love how baffled he is to see her pressing the detonator button (“She really pushed it!”). Oh, Leon. He really only gave her the sample because he wanted to, didn’t he? So his bewilderment in seeing her activating the detonator isn’t only adequate but natural. This disappointment doesn’t last long, however, since Ada obviously won’t leave without granting him the key to his escape (“Here, catch.”), rush him to take his path outta that damned place and promise, in her own way, that they will eventually see each other again (“Better get a move on. See you around.”).

Leon’s reaction to the gift she throws him, a sneery remark, expresses his frustration and reveals a bit of his wounded ego (“Very cute.”). Yeah, Leon… this isn’t the moment for you two to have a resolution to all the emotional and physical hangings you still have. “Maybe some other time.”

shadows follow me but she is always out of reach but she’s my favourite thing to see her hook is my escape a reflection of my fate and she is everything I need, yeah

(Fangs – Night Riots)

Ashley embodies all of us, the audience, when she inquiries about Ada’s identity and her connection with Leon (“So, who was that woman anyway?”), and although he sounds intrigued by her curiosity, he looks as he might have been expecting it (“Why do you ask?”), to which Ashley proceeds reflecting the audience’s expectations and insists (“Come on. Tell me.”). Leon’s answer, strikingly brilliant and unforgettable (“She’s like a part of me I can’t let go. Let’s leave it at that.”), is one that RE2R without any kind of reservation or shame makes visual and textual echo in that scene where Leon complains missing her (“I can’t believe I actually miss her…”) and smiles wistfully – that’s why you miss her, Leon. It’s only at the end of RE4, then, that this 27-year-old Leon finally finds the answer to something that has been haunting him since he was 21.

In Ada’s scenario ending, we can see her exhaling, understandably relieved as the helicopter flies off that hell island: Leon’s alive! And she didn’t have to “die” this time to accomplish both: keep him alive and complete her mission. Everything worked! Everything’s alright.

Another detail that pleases me a lot – and that RE2R ALSO echoed – is that, after seeing him driving the jet-ski with Ashley towards the sunset, knowing that they’re going home, we have one last broadcast with Hunnigan, in which Leon reports to her about succeeding in rescuing Ashley and how he’s currently taking the young woman back home.

Hunnigan congratulates him, cheerfully, (“You did it, Leon!”), and Leon doesn’t dismiss it as a good excuse to flirt with her (“Thanks. You know, you’re kinda cute without those glasses. Gimme your number when I get back.”). Hunnigan’s answer, firm and composed, is point-blank and carries more than one meaning to the audience (“May I remind you that you’re still on duty?”). Remember Claire flirting with him after Sherry’s question offers an opening for that (“That would’ve been one helluva first date, though.”)? And how Leon, visibly embarrassed, trails off in a bland and ambiguous comment that it’s more to himself than to Claire or Sherry (“Yeah, you have no idea…”) at the end of RE2R? His body-language betraying what – actually, who – we know that surely just crossed his thoughts? RE4 had already done that much earlier! When Hunnigan reminds him how he’s still at work detail – thus he shouldn’t be thinking nor saying these kinds of things –, his reaction is to lament how this seems to be his karma (“Story of my life…”), because really, it’s primarily his job and his sense of duty that keeps him from having what he wants most, isn’t it?

We got a pay-off with this game. RE4 delivers everything the audience wanted with each and every scene and concludes Leon’s plot. Just like Claire reunited with her brother in RE: CV, Leon reunites with Ada in RE4 and, at last, finds an answer as to why he couldn’t, why he wasn’t able to move on in the past six years. Also, RE4’s ending promises us that they will meet again, so we didn’t really need RE6 to play its part as a “pay-off” entry. But, since we did get RE6… We carry on with one more satisfying addition concerning them and their relationship, the only difference being that now, according to their body-language throughout the game, they’re more physically intimate (without even weighing in RE: Damn, which implies it more directly).

I think RE2 OG (and now RE2R) and RE4 both do a great job in showing us Leon and Ada going through all the steps in the chemical process of falling in love with each other, while RE6 shows them at a more comfortable stage of “compassionate love” – the everlasting kind of love that no longer is as euphoric, restless and anxious as it was at the beginning (it’s worth taking a look at this biological process I am talking about and its scientific basis here, here, here, here, here and here). Furthermore, this makes me feel confident that Capcom’s writers working on the franchise’s big instalment numbers know really well what they are doing with these two (at least so far) when they have to present further development for them (amen):

“[…] Levels of the stress hormone cortisol increase during the initial phase of romantic love, marshaling our bodies to cope with the “crisis” at hand. As cortisol levels rise, levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin become depleted. Low levels of serotonin precipitate what’s described as the “intrusive, maddeningly preoccupying thoughts, hopes, terrors of early love”—the obsessive-compulsive behaviors associated with infatuation. If love lasts, this rollercoaster of emotions, and, sometimes, angst, calms within [the years]. […] The passion is still there, but the stress of it is gone […]. Cortisol and serotonin levels return to normal. Love, which began as a stressor (to our brains and bodies, at least), becomes a buffer against stress. Brain areas associated with reward and pleasure are still activated as loving relationships proceed, but the constant craving and desire that are inherent in romantic love often lessen. […] there is an inevitable change over time from passionate love to what is typically called compassionate love—love that is deep but not as euphoric as that experienced during the early stages of romance. That does not, however, mean that the spark of romance is quenched […] […] the excitement of romance can remain while the apprehension is lost. For those whose long-term [relationship] has transitioned from passionate, romantic love to a more compassionate, routine type of love, […] it is possible to rekindle the flame that characterized the relationship’s early days. “We call it the rustiness phenomenon.” […] That alone […] may be enough to bring some couples back to those earlier, exhilarating days, when all they could think about was their newfound love.”

Anyway, that’s why I think that all this “aloof RE4 Leon” talk is nonsense. This is the game that was originally thought as a resolution for Leon’s plot in the franchise – that’s why it ends with the “She’s like a part of me I can’t let go.” line (and that’s why this is my forever favourite OTP quote for them). So much so that RE6 really does seems “extra”: we know that by that point they already are more physically intimate, that they see each other occasionally, etc. But Capcom does a good job in exploiting RE6’s potential, since Leon and Ada’s issue was never only attaining physical intimacy nor sorting out their complex emotional connection and feelings for each other, but the seemingly impossibility of them staying together or, at least, finding peace in their own status-quo – a transition to the final, most mature, peaceful and fructiferous phase of romantic love.

Leon can resign himself and, technically speaking, betray his country… But can Ada simply turn her back on everything she’s involved with without this implicating putting Leon’s entire life at risk? Like it happened throughout RE4? This remains their main dilemma, and one that Capcom continues to exploit spectacularly since it’s a structure that doesn’t bore the audience – and no, I’m not contemplating the haters when I say this, I’m referring to the general audience.

My wish for RE8 – or whatever it is the next entry that features them? A resolution to this last major hanging between the two.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, I can only hope this was an interesting, worthwhile and satisfying read. 💓

¹ Also, have you guys seen that DMC5 blatantly makes a reference to this Aeon dialogue with Trish and Dante? (here)

#Aeon #Leon x Ada #Ada x Leon #Ada Wong #Leon Kennedy #Leon S Kennedy #Leon Scott Kennedy #OTP: like a part of me I can't let go #[meta]#[mine]#//#(very) long post #Aeon fandom #Aeon metas

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zdbztumble · 5 years

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“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited: Final Thoughts

There’s an obvious logic to having the Drive Form named Final appear so late in the game, but I think it’s introduced too late. By the time I got it to trigger, the Door had already appeared, and I’d decided that there really wasn’t much left in the other worlds of the game that I wanted to do. That meant there wasn’t much opportunity to play around with the Final Form, or level it up, outside of base grinding, something I always hate doing in any game. I do like Final Form, but it should have come earlier in the game to give the player the most value.

And speaking of final - that final boss is really...lame. As in, not fun to play and not satisfying on a story level. You can say a lot about every KH game that’s come after this - and I have, and will, at considerable length - but at least each of them presents a final boss who is a primary character of that game, in a recognizable form, with (somewhat) motivated stages of transformation. Here in KH II, we have to fight buildings, blasters, reactor cores, those bomb things from the Gummi levels (which, I admit, I appreciated - bringing those into the main gameplay), the armored figure in a chair twice, and a dragon-like mecha before we finally get a shot at Xemnas as we know him (in fabulous zebra robes), in a battle full of reaction commands and triggers that seem intentionally designed to make Riku look like a badass at Sora’s expense.

None of these stages are all that hard IMO, nor are any of them that engaging. The brief section where you play as Riku is a low point for me, due to his limited moveset and trouble navigating the space. I’m not opposed to alternating which character you play as during a final boss, but the execution of the idea here is terrible. Denying any role in the final battle to Kairi and King Mickey is a bigger problem, and I actually refused to have Riku in my party until required to because of that. I’m convinced the staff behind this game want players to use him, but I say - if you’re going to ignore every possible opportunity you give yourselves to have the Destiny Islands trio together in a party, then I’m not going to play with your Creators’ Pet. (And he is exactly that. I may have softened on Riku over the years, but he - and Axel, and half the Organization - are textbook examples of a creative team letting their fondness for characters supersede what’s actually best for them in a narrative.)

Of course, the battle itself isn’t all there is to the finale, and there’s more right than wrong to the story here. For one thing, Roxas and Namine get a nice denouement, one that makes it quite clear how they feel - and what they choose - about rejoining with their original selves. As someone who was bothered by the Riku/Namine business at the end of KH III, due to memories of this game, I can concede that there isn’t a whole lot to Roxas and Namine’s relationship here. Their scenes at the beginning are emotional, and their scene at the end is sweet, but their interaction is very limited. The mere fact that they are the Nobodies of Sora and Kairi does a lot of the heavy lifting for their relationship, and that bond is strong enough - and, at this point in the series, still written well enough - to sell the idea, but only just. I daresay this is something that Days could and should have addressed, but we’ll get to that another time.

The lead-up to the final boss provides nice moments between Kairi and Riku, Sora and Kairi, Sora and Riku, and one wonderful moment between the three of them. Setting aside the fact that the whole final boss should have been a second moment for the trio, and the game’s pandering to Riku’s prowess during the fight - the scenes between Sora and Riku after defeating Xemnas are quite well-done, and very effectively illustrate how their friendship has healed and reached a new equilibrium. Even better than that, however, is the game’s final scene. From Kairi’s letter reappearing as the key to the light and the enthusiastic greetings from the Disney cast, to the last flashes of Roxas and Namine and the final exchange between Sora and Kairi (which has some of the best voice acting those two VAs have done in the entire series), it’s an absolutely beautiful finale. The bittersweet, open, and uncertain finale of KH I is still the emotional high point of the series in my eyes, and I continue to applaud the game’s staff for daring such an ending; the way KH II ends is much closer to what one probably would have expected of KH I. But the happy ending of KH II is very much an earned one, and it’s an effective cap, not just on this game, but on everything done in the series up to that point. Kairi’s past remains mysterious and Maleficent is still unaccounted for, but the chain of tragedies set off by Ansem’s research is ended, the last traces of Xehanort are defeated, the worlds are at peace, and the three friends whose lives were torn apart are finally healed, whole, and together again, ready for a new adventure.

...Or, at least that’s what should have happened.

Back when I first played Kingdom Hearts II - fresh off of KH I, unaware that CoM even existed - it was, without question, my preferred game of the two. I would’ve even called it my favorite video game of all time (which wouldn’t have meant much - even now, it’s a very short list of video games that I’ve played from beginning to end.) I would’ve said the same after the second time I played through it, even as certain nagging doubts crept into my mind. Several years and the rest of the series later, I can’t give KH II that level of praise.

Kingdom Hearts is a series where the first truly is the best, at least so far. Like CoM before it, KH II either introduces or continues trends and ideas that would bring later games down, and they all start to grate here. Elements like the secret reports and Summons lose their motivation in-story, and in the former case become a lazy way to toss out exposition that should have been part of the gameplay and cutscenes. For the first time, certain Disney worlds are saddled with stiff and uninspired re-tellings of their movie plots, devoid of room for Sora to make a difference. The pacing is uneven and it’s easy to lose sight of the main story during certain Disney worlds. Dialogue is often clunky, and fan service and pandering to Creators’ Pets hurts significant moments of the story. A lot of potential in the backstory of Roxas and the fate of Namine is left untapped. The trend of offering Kairi the will and ability to be more involved only to ignore the opportunity continues, Riku’s reintroduction to the group has issues, and Sora is caught in an awkward transition between the hero of the first came and the idiotic and ineffectual would-be messiah of later games.

With all of that said, though...I still love this game.

On paper, entries like Dream Drop Distance or KH III might’ve had greater ambition in the amount or kind of story they tried to tell, but in the actual presentation of the story, KH II is far more daring. From the prolonged opening sequence spent with a new character to the slow burn on the revelation of the Organization’s plans, KH II is quite unconventional in its story structure, and it often works to the game’s favor. Leaving so much of the year between KH I and II untold, even with CoM, is mystery done right, in a way that feels open to speculation and possibilities rather than heavy-handed teasing and baiting for spin-offs. This is the only time in the series where Maleficent and Pete make for an equal and compelling third party, and having that third force at play makes for another off-beat structural element that’s ultimately satisfying, even with the not-insignificant lag during the back half of the first Disney pass. The Organization being a collective villain rather than a single figure (even if Xemnas was its instigator) is a nice differentiation from KH I and CoM, and how pathetic the villains ultimately turn out to be gives them a nice degree of pathos - though that pathos isn’t carried too far.

While KH II is a few steps down the dark road, it hasn’t hit the abyss yet, and things that start to look problematic here are still strong overall. Some of the Disney worlds may have stiff movie recaps, but most are loose and accommodating to the larger KH story. Some may be filler, but most of them - on both passes - are at least technically connected to the main plot, and most of them - even the filler - in a meaningful and engaging way. The reports aren’t strongly motivated, but they’re not a complete crutch either. Roxas and Namine, if unfulfilled in their full potential, are still a force throughout the game (well, Roxas more than Namine) instead of being abruptly dropped.

Kairi’s denied obvious chances to get more involved, but she does get to strike out on her own and play a more active role in the story than she did in KH I. Riku’s pandered too a little too much once he reappears, but his role behind the scenes before then makes for a strong continuation of his redemption arc from R/R and is well-woven into the overall plot. Sora’s on the road to Flanderization, but he still has many of his better traits from the first game, including his greater competence at his missions and his believable, human reactions to the events around him. While he doesn’t have the arc of growth he had in KH I, or go through the deconstruction of CoM, he does have definite goals as an individual, and a pronounced sense of world-weariness as his chances of meeting those goals - finding Riku, going home, and seeing Kairi again - get further and further away.

Most of all, Kingdom Hearts II is still manageable in its story. The two sets of villains have relatively simple (but not simplistic) goals, and they’re revealed in a comprehensible fashion. More importantly, the logistics and pseudo-philosophical notions behind the villain plots don’t override the entire game, or pull focus from the protagonists. The heroes all have stories here, and if there’s an overarching theme to this game (not as clearly presented as the themes of KH I, mind you), it’s completion and resolution. If we may break them down:

Organization XIII, having made the foolish choice to discard their hearts, desperately try to escape the consequences of that choice through evil acts, only to fail and meet their ultimate end.

Roxas, who opens the game with mystery and confusion, comes to learn who he is and completes himself and Sora with his choice to surrender to his fate, something he grows to be at peace with.

Namine, having achieved a measure of peace with who and what she is, completes her tasks from the end of CoM and rejoins with her true self, after first saving Kairi and granting (most of) the heroes an escape from The World That Never Was.

Ansem the Wise, whose curiosity opened the door to everything that went wrong later, turns his back on base revenge and works to set the worlds to right, giving his own life in the process.

King Mickey, the hero who kept a deliberate watch on the state of the worlds and sounded the alert on the danger they were in, uncovers the truth about Organization XIII and plays his part to bring them to peace and finally makes it back home.

Donald and Goofy finally find their king.

Kairi, left alone with fading memories for a year, resolves to set out to find her friends, and not only achieves that goal, but facilitates their reconciliation and provides the means for them to finally return home.

Riku, after finding some measure of peace with himself in R/R, gives his all to see Sora restored and works to help him from the shadows, but fears to face his friends after his actions in KH I. When finally forced to, he learns that he hasn’t lost them, and the last of his self-doubt is discarded as he joins forces with Sora to finish off the last trace of Xehanort and make it back home.

And as for Sora, our chief hero: he is fully restored from his trials in CoM. Though eager - even desperate - to resume his search for Riku and return home, he doesn’t hesitate to start protecting the worlds again and finish off the remainder of the threat he first faced. While an authority figure presents that threat to him, Sora chooses to take it up, and carries it out without being directed or puppeted by Yen Sid at every step. The weight of the ordeals and his constant travels wear him down, the events of the year he lost (and Roxas’s role in those events) challenge him, and he does at one point refuse the call of the Keyblade (”Not yet! I have to find Kairi!”) Yet he persists in defending the worlds, even when it benefits the villains, and he fights his way to their castle to rescue and reunite with his friends. Having set out early in KH I to rescue those friends, he achieves this, finishes off the villain who turned his world upside down, and finally makes his way home to the island, the friends, and the girl he loves.

Kingdom Hearts II’s resolutions to all of these things is so final, and so satisfying, that the series since has had to ignore its finale, and a good chunk of its story, just to keep dragging things out. That’s to their detriment, but not KH II’s. While imperfect and uneven, it is a worthy sequel to the first game - the last such entry in the series - a lot of fun to play, and an ambitious and satisfying story.

And it has, to date, Kaoru Wada’s finest orchestration for the series. I absolutely adore his arrangement of Sanctuary from this game, and it makes me wish I’d kept up with the French horn every time I hear it.

#z's crits #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 2 #critique #commentary

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alchemisland · 5 years

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The Moors Mutt - I

Part II coming on Tuesday!

I. Old Stone

The beast I knew only in folkloric snippets. Hedge whispers perverting history to arcana through time immemorial. Perhaps too I had known it in nightmares, shapeless until named, becoming then familiar as a bedchamber.

It was grim autumn when that fateful letter arrived, setting in motion a chain of events both strange and unlikely. In retrospect, that a series of vignettes so bizarre could start with the simple act of a posted letter seemed comical.

The letter landed with a thud, dubbing me sole executor of the late Lady Renton Sizemore's last will, a grim charge requiring a trip to her wicked home, listed in the Briarscombe country house register as the third most bloodstained holding in England.

Dislike isn't the word. Lady Sizemore and I got on famously when last we spoke, thirty years ago. I wasn't the doting schoolboy turned dribbling manchild spending Saturday nights at bingo. Neither was she the elderly relation procuring coins from behind ears to the delight of the youngers.

We were not eachother's keeper. Why I was suddenly favoured for this sensitive task that required more mental finesse than anyone in the family gave me credit for out loud, puzzled me greatly. Somebody must have annoyed her at one of her events. Sandwich gala on the Pringle Estate destroyed by careless nephew's untucked shirt. In true family style, whatever infuriated her she took to the grave.

Once the money was apportioned, I was to ensure no stone went unturned, apt phrasing given its namesake. Cairn Cottage stood oppressively atop the mound some two hundred winters, a plundered megalith shielding against the bracing gales.

Up there the flowers bloomed blighted, grass grew sideways and only the sturdiest roots survived. Without the megalith's girth, perhaps those winds might have toppled the twisted demesne, but she held firm now as old.

Mystics, druids and spiritualists alike extolled the house's phantasmic virtues. Fringe groups scrambled to reserve exclusive use of the land for Candlemas ceremonies. Lady Sizemore didn't care, provided she was soundly remunerated.

Rumours abounded of hauntings, anomalies occurring on the land by midnight's trickery.

Upon receipt of instruction, I spurred my carriage toward Cairn Cottage, the house in whose shadow no local walked without rosaries.

Although my visit was primarily administrative, there was another matter pertinent to my interests. One muttering which above all others inspired fear. A cautionary tale warning children from the grounds by night. And sometimes, on cold and lonely nights, a brave man wandering alone might see fit to take the longer road home.

Worse than druids, they said a beast lived on the Moor. A hulking creature, whose snarling teeth bared in fullness of dark glowed like spears of starlight, whose stark brightness was dulled only by the gleaming viscera of previous engagements clinging in ragged flaps.

However the rumour started, it long sprouted legs of its own, more exciting with each recounting.

No smoke without fire. I intended to find the single primal ember, the lone truthful element, stripped of frill and frock, fancy and folly, bereft of myth, or loyalty to tradition. Was there something in the fields by night? Was it dangerous?

First came Sperrin, a grizzly hamlet outside the estate's confines. For a penny, a local lad promised to find a suitable nook for the trap. I visited the sole watering hole, a squalid cellar named Lar's. The tavern itself was not charmless, offering average vintage for below average prices, warmth, music, rustic flattery and inimitably, whispers of the beast.

The tavern's proprietor Lar was a man out of time. With his arms folded across his simian chest and those big lugs like trophy handles either side of his substantial forehead, he could have easily passed for a saxon chieftain. He stood astride the bar against a backdrop of coloured bottles. Immediately upon entering his eyes set upon me with great intensity. Unlike the merry keep of fireside tales, he offered no warmth in greeting. That you were found fit to sit his barstool was kindness enough.

Inebriates remained nursing drams, glowering at their respective lecterns. Occasionally I'd catch one staring at me, then turn away as I waved. After a while sitting and sipping, making a game of catching their nosy glances, I signalled Lar's attention. 'This is probably going to sound strange. Probably because it is. Hear me out though. Have you ever heard or seen anything strange out on the moor?'

Widened like an owl, Lar's right eye scanned me once, twice, three times before he moved a muscle. 'Have in fact. Not now though. Too many around. Later.' His lips barely moved. I tipped my nose.

Nearer closing, he poured a cup and sat, remaining on the business side of the bar.

'The beast, you say?' He leaned in close, one eyebrow raised, its shape the arching rod of a hooked line. 'I could tell you a thing or two about the beast alright.'

'Prithee speak, my curiosity is burning. I won't rest a wink until it's satiated. Tourist talk aside, do you believe, as men do God, a beast prowls these forests?' I inched forward, as if by closer proximity, the truths would be truer.

'Regular Theseus, eh? Monster hunters, we have had plenty. Lovers of darkness too. Students of forbidden arts. All are served here. Kings and paupers alike. Did you come all this way to hear me say that?' Lar spoke with great confidence. The manner of his prattling meant the tales he told were true, or this was practiced.

'No.' I replied, 'I have business in the cottage. My heart though, she belongs to this creature. I am not a quack, nor a holder of séances. I am not a man of low learning on the hunt for falsehoods. I am a lover of stories. Pray, continue your captivating narrative.'

He continued, 'Let it be said I was coaxed. You wanted this.'

In this ominous portent he let slip a mask of deft craft. There was artifice in his smile, a cheshire grin that touched either cheekbone. A whispered suggestion of hidden intent.

Everything made sense. Was I seeing clearly? More than ever. I saw his ruse; city boy down for the day, take him for a ride, tell him the usual stories. A pal of his will burst in at just the right time, scare me half to death, then they'll take me to the supposed hot-spot for the low price of everything I've got. Lar took me for a lettuce. Something in his warning tipped me. A little over-arch. If his performance was not theatre, then Shakespeare never wrote.

Doubtless once finished, Lar would proffer some overpriced talisman no fellwalker could risk refusing.

'Enough pussyfooting. Spill it. I'll need all the advice I can get.' Like a drill tip, I pressed my index finger into the bar.

'No matter what image I conjure in your mind's eye, the beast is yet more ferocious and terrible in the flesh. It's the great unreality of it.' He tapped his forehead. 'Your mind doubts what it's seeing, unable to comprehend its stimulus. Brave men are made mice in its shadow.'

'What evidence have you of such a creature?' I asked, draining my tankard. He did the same, then wiped the amber residue on the back of his hand. He looked me over once, as if to ask who I was to question. I returned a withering gaze, maneuvering my features to convey a similar message. For a moment the air felt charged with kinetic possibility. As when two pugilists circle to begin a contest, lead hands pawing. Neither of us wished to be responsible for qualms.

He broke the armistice. 'Evidence? If you didn't think it weren't here, you wouldn't have come. If you believed in your heart this week you'd be contending with a monster, you'd have stayed at home in your jams.'

'Nonsense, man! You forget I am summoned, not here of my own volition.'

'We, each of us, tell ourselves sweet little lies to justify how our limited time is spent. I have a right mind to think if the lady yet lived, you and I might still have met. On a yawning stretch such as this, arriving as you have: alone and curious. If there's one thing I can't respect, it's a self hating believer. Swanning around with all the cynicism of a non-believer, clad in the robes of an adherent, so that when the hobby is proved spurious you can point to your skepticism. You'd be first to the papers tomorrow if scientists verified the beast's existence, how you had journeyed and studied on your own dime to further the science.' Lar pursed his lips, knowing he'd cut me to the quick, vanished was his earlier reticence.

I hated how right he was. I was exactly this sort. Insulting people who believed the same things as me. First to refuse to enter a haunted house for fear a demon might take my soul.

I'd never concede his point though. I riposted, 'Few are more loathed than the opinionated barman. You speak much too readily. Do so again, I'll see your manners are checked for the next weary traveler willing to pay good coin.'

Lar's eyes lit, bulging with imagined riches. 'Let me fill your drink, sir. I meant no offence. We speak freely here. Manners soften. Soon one finds truths cannot be digested unperfumed. Here in the wilds, it's a duty to voice quarrel. Far from crown and court, unaired anger festers.' Lar gladly dispensed his pearls of rural wisdom as if they were sweets from a bulging striped bag.

'Really, man. Every idea can be made ridiculous if extrapolated to that degree. Manners take the edge off. I'm not offended by your candor. I intend to find the creature, if such exists. Have you no doubt about that.' I watched him pull another drink.

The returned tankard was too full to raise without spilling. I slurped loudly, head bowed. Like a pulled plug, half the liquid gone in a single gulp.

'What evidence is sufficient? Look around you.' Lar held aloft his hands, urging me toward his empty business, still cast in a sickly light from the last flickering sentinels.

He pointed toward the empty seats. A single patron remained hidden in the shadows. A local by his boots.

'We did a roaring trade before that bloody woman inherited the place. Once she came, the trade died. When I was a lad, that land was free to roam. No walls. She had them built to spite us. Worse rumours too and all, that she built those walls to house it.'

'It?' I asked

'It. The beast.' Lar's voice lowered to a whisper. 'A cage for a pet beyond control. That's your sort all over. Dabbling where you shouldn't.'

'Her sort.' I corrected, 'I'm not aristocratic. You're a presumptuous sort, you know.'

'Believe you're not the first to say. Her sort, whatever pleases. I don't subscribe to this theory. Me personally, I think it came from hell. One thing's for certain, it got worse when they shifted the cairn.'

'You say you have seen it?' Part of me thought I was the one stringing him along, but another more gullible me firmly believed, or wanted to believe, that he had seen something. Hoping not to seem needy, I drew myself close to him, the bar still between us, 'With your own eyes if you saw it, you must swear it now. Did you see it as I see you now, or as one sees the distant stars and erroneously assumes knowledge.'

'As I stand before you.' Lar gestured to his stained apron, which he then removed and hung on a hook overhead. He nodded to the barfly, who stumbled from his seat and shot the bolt across the lock, an angry black mechanism like a bas-relief, which clanked against the timber as he let it fall. 'That's Fergus.'

Fergus lurched over. One leg trailed behind him. I couldn't help imagining him as a gothic manservant, dragging corpses to the laboratory in pursuit of higher knowledge. He came to stand beside me. There were giants on the earth is those days. Though our eyes observed the same setpieces, his countenance betrayed little comprehension. He had the chiseled jaw of a marble bust in profile, but his mouth hung open permanently, moist lips pursed like a fish.

He placed an enormous hand on my shoulder. Such space was permitted between his splayed fingers that ten legions abreast might find passage unmolested. His knuckles protruded unnaturally, evidence of labour, something harder than masonry or smithcraft. Mayhaps soldiering overseas.

I stared at his hand. He never looked at me. I coughed, first mannerly, then more harshly, thinking to approach cautiously lest my assumption prove provident, that he had lost his sound during foreign campaigns, of whose spoils we all were beneficiaries.

'Don't mind him.' Lar said. He spoke softly in the presence of his friend, observing his movements closely, ready to interject with a steadying hand or a warning to the cruelly curious. I wondered were they brothers. They bore little resemblance, though stranger things I had heard. Lar took Fergus' wrist and pressed gently, disturbing the folds of his motheaten jacket. They shared a moment I could but observe, radiating warmth and glad tidings in a wordless wave.

'I mean not to speak boldly, and lash me with spite if I transgress overmuch, but I must know or I should forever wonder, are you kin?'

Fergus shared Lar's laugh with the same look of bemused ignorance.

'You hear that? Fancy man reckons we're brothers. Probly thinks we're all related down this end, and not in a godly way.' Lar laughed, a viking bellow.

Lar released his grip and the folds of Fergus' sleeve righted themselves. He spoke several octaves lower, miming offence at my observation. I started to explain I intended no hidden subtext, but Lar waved to indicate all was taken as delivered.

'We are not brothers. Close friends. Known Fergus here forever.' He gently tapped the giant's hand, slapped on the bar like some enormous muddy bird print. 'Used to be a keen cookie too, once upon a forever ago. Loved languages, Welsh mostly. Pugilism he loved more. One passion consumed the other. Anything burning so intensely inevitably cannibalises itself. Took one knock too many, stole his wits in an instant. A left hook across the bar sent him erstwhile. Twenty five minutes he was on the shores of night, learning the landscape of the dreamworlds, while we fanned his rigid form, wet his brow and whispered familiar names in his ear. When at last he woke a part of him was left forever in that place. I like to think, boyishly perhaps, it awaits him upon leaving this plain of lousy strife, like the belongings awaiting a homeward jailbird. The cloak of a lost lifetime. Not for him. He'll slide right into it, fit like a tailored piece, and all of eternity to speak. Not here though.'

Tears welled in his eyes. I took the reins, 'Think nothing of your emotions, man. We each have them. Doubtless I will shed a tear up in the old witch's place. Another life awaits, that much is sure. Grander than this. I'm sure he made, and makes, a fine man. Built like a gladiator. I am sorry to have dredged unpleasantness. I meant only to satisfy my own selfish curiosity. Forgive me. Please, continue.'

'I will at that.'

'It were one night, three years ago. Ferg was there. We'd been called out on account of strange noises near the workers' cottage. They wouldn't work until the evil was killed or driven away. We came down from the high road proper and saw it between the trees ahead. Like a horse it stood, with clumsy stilts supporting an ursine bulk that swayed as it shambled. It drank shadows to conceal its dread presence. Blackness it took for robe. In walking its front paws propelled its cumbersome form, while the rear set, less lengthy, dredged channels in the dirt. In motion it arched to reveal a belly spun of lighter felt, ashen in the scant moonlight. Bundled, it became an orb of shadow, nothingness.'

'Unbeknownst we watched it watching, green eyes like blazing protostars probing for movement. Well it knew to choose this site, one of only two wells being located nearby. In a flash then it was gone, satin-shoed away into the night.'

The tale Lar knew was a scorcher paused. He beamed, an actor awaiting applause. I gathered my jaw from the floor, brushed it and set it back properly.

Each word drew me closer, which Fergus mirrored, until we three sat as witches about the bubbling lip of their cauldron, a coven of pallid specters.

Lar paused to sip and nodded we join.

I wondered had my hobby, in a blink, become too dangerous to justify. It was well telling my employers of ghost hunts, but a wild beast - my insurance wouldn't have it! If it turns out some menagerie escapee, what then was it? Quest for wonder or recklesss folly? Weiss, Wellie and Wardun insurance, even in their most obscure policies, don't pay out for fools. That's why I chose them!

Lar went on, a fresh cigarette painting the air blue in his articulation, 'Each new, shifting moon we came to that spot and watched. We took it upon ourselves to rid the land of danger.'

'Fergus knows a bit about a bit, that's what's left to him, God bless. What he knows is knots. Army training dictates every officer have at least passing knowledge of ten or more useful fastenings.'

'Me? I know about animals. We make a fierce duo. We inquired in advance about a reward, to which the estate responded agreeably, so we set off with lengths of rope overshoulder and the angriest looking traps the furmen could spare, determined to snare it. We planted snares all about its presumed domain.'

'Nothing came. Not a rat. Not a wisp. Not never again. It's the mystery disturbs me most. I'd die happy knowing.'

In his voice a single note of longing rang, dispelling the subterfuge of his intentions and, in the length of a breath, his beings and inner machinations were laid bare. Far from the sinister goldlust and murderous intention I had silently attributed to him, he seemed eager in an earnest fashion, willing in the name of a job done.

I observed Lar, powerful and straight. 'Do I sense an unfinished quest?'

'Aye. Not too subtle, mind.' Lar flashed a toothy smile, the sort a condemned man spits at his executioner. 'You seem a serious man. I didn't know when you first came in parading your manners like fancy knickers. You can't be too sure about a man who gives too many pleases. You're not that sort and have proved such twice over.' Lar imagined that was a compliment from the look he gave me. Expectant almost, between child submitting scribbles for display and cat batting dead mouse onto pillow.

Well, of course I had something to say about that. Cats were hissing. A donnybrook of claws and torn fur not even a hearty stock of iodine could salve. 'And I might say also that I too had cast aspersions on your character, maintaining you were of sinister country stock. As you claim to have been rapturously convinced otherwise, as have I.'

'Once the lady's estate is divided and bequeathed I'll receive my own. I mean to inherit a substantial bursar. I will pay to you a fair sum. In exchange, you will guide me to the hotpots, generally ensuring nothing eats me. When we find it, you're in charge until it's bound.' If he came, it would be on my terms.

'Find it? Slow down. We've seen it once in a hundred times. I'll take you gladly all the same.'

Wordless, we shook hands and drained our horns.

'Tomorrow?' Lar asked. He drew my gaze to an unopened whiskey bottle, which I declined.

'Not so, good man. Tomorrow I will tend my affairs. In the evening, if all is ordered, I will return to discuss further a plan of action. Have you a room I might rent?'

'Not for everyone mind, so don't go saying. There's one in the back. I'll light the fire.'

'Please do.'

I left a generous tip. Before following the publican to the warm hollow, I shook Fergus' hand, assuming he too would be part of our fortean friendship.

While I slumbered, the nightmare broke free her paddock, thundering across the veil of my somnambulant phantasmagoria, its clanging hooves ringing shrill terror.

I saw spined creatures oozing pus, many-eyed. Edgeless orbs hissing like flying snakes from one black abyss to another.

Cats with human faces screamed. A hairless man with a tail curled upwards like a scorpions noxious pike disemboweled himself with a broken mirror.

Last came the bestial form, not unlike that which Lar had described, striding evilly. Two venom coated fangs, uncontained by its snarling mouth, curved inward toward its breast. Catlike claws glinted menacingly. Turning my third eye downwards as if to look upon my feet, I found I was formless, yet the beast circled knowingly around the space my corporeal form should occupy.

I knew instinctively this reverie was more tangible than the others. That if the beast should strike I would die or wake screaming with a crimson pool spreading below me. It sniffed the air, pawing closer.

I woke to my beastless chamber. Sodden, I sought a candle and in its gloam chronicled my nightmare. That night sleep ne'er returned, making groggy my morning plod toward Cairn Cottage.

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