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drarrily-we-row-along · 3 years

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Day 129: Pangea

cw: mentions homophobic slurs

It was their day off.

Their one day when they didn't have to work and their five year old was at the muggle nursery school. They often cleaned and did laundry on days like these, but they always made a point of spending some quality time together. Harry had realized shortly after they'd adopted Cassie that it really hurt their relationship not to have time they set aside for just the two of them.

Today they were headed to get some ice cream and talking about the slumber party they were going to be hosting in a few days and all of the arrangements that had to be made when Harry's mobile started to ring.

Draco watched curiously as Harry pulled it out of his pocket, "Hello?"

"Yes, hi, is this Mr. Potter Malfoy?" a woman asked.

He glanced at Draco and put the phone on speaker, "Yes, this is Harry."

"Hi," the woman said again, "This is Linda in the school office. We're going to need you to come pick Cassie up."

"What? Why?" Draco asked before Harry could reply. "Is everything alright?"

"Sorry, I have you on speaker so my husband could hear you."

The woman chuckled and Draco looked ready to reach through the screen and strangle her. "Everything's fine. She just had a little disagreement with one of the other students and is pretty upset. The head mistress will have a chat with you when you get here."

"The head mistress!" Draco hissed.

Harry laid a hand on Draco's shoulder. "Thanks for calling us. We'll be right in." He hung up and braced himself for the inevitable.

(Read more below the cut)

"What happened?" Draco asked immediately.

He rolled his eyes and turned around to walk back to their house so they could drive to school, "You heard what I heard," he said. "I don't know any more than you."

"Yes but you went to Muggle primary school!" he protested, walking quicker. "You should have some idea-"

"I don't."

"Do you think it was accidental magic?" Draco asked.

He shook his head. "That was not the sound of a call about accidental magic."

"Then what do you think she was fight about?"

"Draco, there are a thousand things to fight about. Muggle children are just as unpredictable as wizarding children." He reached over and took Draco's hand, "She's only five, how much trouble could she be in?"

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When they arrived Cassie was over talking to a different adult and the headmistress waved them in.

She seemed happy enough so Harry let her be and followed the headmistress in, Draco all but vibrating with nervous energy behind him.

"Mr. and Mr. Potter-Malfoy, thank you for coming."

"Harry and Draco are fine," he said.

"What happened?" Draco asked quickly.

Harry glanced at him, "Sorry. We've just never been called in before. Is Cassie in trouble?"

"This afternoon, Cassie told a story to her classmates about how the continents got separated."

"Gaia," Draco nodded. "It's one of her favorites, she likes to hear about how life thrives no matter what."

Harry took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Right," Headmistress Blake replied, "and that's great. Storytelling improves communication skills and it's great for students to share like that."

"So why are we here?" Draco asked.

"Jacob told her that Gaia wasn't real, that the whole story was made up, and tried to tell her about Pangea."

"Pangea?" Harry asked incredulously. "How old is this kid?"

She chuckled, "His parents are geologists."

"Still!" Harry said, "That's pretty advanced for a five year old." Draco looked completely befuddled as though he had no idea what they were talking about. "But I still don't understand why we're here."

"I'm getting to it," she said. "She tried to tell him that it was just a story that her father told her."

Draco nodded, "Should we not tell her stories like that?" he asked, sounding panicked.

"Not at all," she said, giving him a warm smile in an obvious attempt to diffuse his anxiety. "But Jacob called you a liar and used a bit of derogatory language."

Harry's entire body froze, "Excuse me?" He'd been hoping that she'd be in Hogwarts by the time other kids were old enough to understand the implications of having two dads. It wasn't a big deal in the wizarding world, but it mattered in the muggle world still.

Headmistress Blake nodded, "She told him it wasn't nice to talk about people that way and insisted that Draco wasn't a liar. When Jacob doubled down on the slurs, she punched him."

"Good." Harry covered his mouth, "Sorry," he said quickly. "Sorry, it's just-"

"We have taught our daughter not to hit," Draco insisted, glaring at Harry. And while this was true, they had, it was only because Draco was already teaching her the words for jinxes that would be more effective. She was going to be a terror once she got her wand. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I don't understand what sorts of slurs you're referring to."

The headmistress rubbed her eyebrow uncomfortably, "He called you poofs and said that fags can't be trusted," she said and Draco's jaw dropped, his hand clenching Harry's so hard that Harry was afraid he'd need a healing spell cast when this was over. "Other students overheard and told Miss Murray after the fact."

"We taught her not to hit," he said, "But we've also taught her that it's important to stand up for what is right," Harry said. "It sounds like she tried to use her words first and then when that didn't work she used a different means available to her."

"But the next step should have been talking to her teacher, not punching another child."

Harry nodded, "I can understand why you'd-"

"Excuse me, Harry," his husband interrupted, "But I can't," Draco said bluntly. "And here's why; we are raising our daughter to be strong and independent because Salazar knows that women are not taken seriously in this world. Teaching her now that there is someone to help her when she is being verbally assaulted will not help her when she is grown."

"Mr. Potter-Malfoy, I understand what you're saying but-"

Draco shook his head, "With all due respect, there is no but. If her teacher didn't notice that another child was shouting bigoted slurs at her because she has two fathers then no one was coming to her rescue."

The headmistress squared her shoulders, "Cassie's being suspended for two weeks."

"What?" Draco spat.

"We cannot set a precedent that allows for violence to be the answer."

"And what is Jacob's punishment?" Draco demanded.

She blinked at him, "He's got a broken nose."

"Setting aside that his actions still deserve a punishment from a source of authority so he doesn't continue to grow into a bigoted prick, let's just say for the sake of argument," Draco said, voice sharp as nails, "that she'd gone over and told Miss Murray about what he'd said what would his punishment have been?"

"He would to apologize," she replied.

"What? Just said he was 'sorry'?" he asked incredulously. "That's it?"

She nodded, "Yes. He's only five."

He turned to look at Harry completely outraged, "This whole school can fuck off," Draco said, standing from his chair and pointing at Harry, "I told you this was a bad idea."

Harry winced, he had in fact said this was not a great plan, just not for this reason.

"We'll be taking our daughter home today and she will not be coming back," he said. "And we will be telling this story to anyone who will listen."

"Mr-" she started, looking taken aback, since Draco had always been the polite one of the two of them.

"Oh, don't even start with me," he growled. "I run a very successful design business and while I do not understand how most of the social media works, I have someone who I pay to do it and she and I have been friends for a long time. Get ready to lose any family that you have that has a conscience, you can become the place for all backwards bigots." He started toward the door and Harry stood up.

"We'll sue you for slander," she said.

He looked over at her, completely unimpressed, "It's only slander if it's not true."

"It'll be your word against ours," she replied.

A pale eyebrow rose, "Yes it will. Lucky for me that I've recorded this entire lovely exchange," he said, twirling a pen that the Weasleys sold at the joke shop that did just that. "Feel free to contact our solicitor about anything else."

And with that he swanned out of the office.

Harry stared at her for a long moment, "Maybe you should consider educating your parents and students." Then he followed Draco out.

Draco was already squatting next to Cassie, murmuring softly to her, "yes, well done, my darling," he said pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"He was really mean, papa," she murmured.

His husband nodded, "I know, love."

"Hey, bean," Harry said, ruffling Cassie's curls and bending over to kiss her temple. "Let's get out of here, yeah? Do you have all of your things?"

She held up her unicorn backpack and nodded.

Harry helped her get her backpack on and then they set off, each of them holding one of her hands.

Cassie chattered away about the rest of her day, not even mentioning her run in with Jacob again.

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After they put Cassie to bed they came back downstairs and Harry collapsed onto Draco on the sofa, resting his head in his lap.

"Pansy says that story is spreading like wildfire."

"Really?" Harry asked.

Draco nodded.

"S'kinda sexy," he said.

Draco laughed, "Sorry?"

He shrugged a shoulder, "You getting all livid and protective. It was sexy."

His husband's fingers combed through his fringe, "I'll always fight for you, for her, and for us," he promised.

"I know," he replied. "You're a good man Draco Potter Malfoy."

"It's only going to get harder," Draco said.

"Maybe, but we'll look for a more inclusive nursery school-"

Draco shook his head, "I mean when she heads to Hogwarts."

"I don't think so. People don't care about a man marrying another man," he said.

"But they care about the savior marrying a death eater and then disappearing for almost a decade and a half." He sighed, "I just wanted her to start somewhere where my sins wouldn't burden her and here we ar-"

"Hey," Harry said, sitting up and stopping the words coming out of his mouth. "You are not a burden to her and our marriage isn't a sin that could ever burden her-"

"I didn't mean to imply that you-"

"Listen to me," Harry interrupted. "Draco, you are a good dad," he said as he cupped his cheeks in his palms. "You are a good husband and you are a good person. We are both lucky to have you."

"Harry," he murmured, eyes downcast.

"You are," he promised. "I love you and Cassie loves you. and we are so blessed to have you."

"I love you too," he said, "But this isn't the last bully-"

"I know," Harry assured. "And we'll always be here for her, yeah?

Draco took a deep breath before nodding. "Yes. You're right."

"Ooh," Harry replied, crawling over him and straddling his hips. "I love it when I get to be right."

His husband rolled his eyes, "Just kiss me already."

And of course Harry obliged him.

Life wasn't always easy or perfect but they always had each other and Cassie always had two dads who would go to the end of the earth for her.

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Day 128: Snake | Day 130: Forfeit

#100 drarry drabbles in 100 days #one year of drarry drabbles #drarry ficlet #drarry drabbles #established relationship #married #parents #cw:mentions homophobic bigots

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no-reply95 · 3 years

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The Power Of Framing: John and Paul

Over the last few days I've been posting some quotes of interest that I'd bookmarked from Mark Lewisohn's Tune In book.

Tune In's reputation preceded it, every Beatles podcast I listened to mentioned it, Lewisohn's name either came up in conversation or the man himself would turn up for an interview so it got to the point that Tune In was so ubiquitous that I had to read the book and form an opinion for myself.

There are a lot of opinions I have on Tune In, both good and bad, but I'm not going touch on all of that here, at least not in this post.

The aspect of Lewisohn's narrative style that I want to get into is the way he frames the "bad" behaviour displayed by John and Paul.

There are two quotes from the book that I want to analyse, I'll start with John first:

John

“George was second only to John in the swallowing of Prellies and knew better than most the sum effect of taking too many for too long, how the combination of pills plus booze plus several sleepless days caused hallucinations and extreme conduct. He’d describe one occasion when he, Paul and Pete were lying in their bunk beds, trying to sleep, only for John to barge into the room in a wild state. ‘One night John came in and some chick was in bed with Paul and he cut all her clothes up with a pair of scissors, and was stabbing the wardrobe. Everybody was lying in bed thinking, “Oh fuck, I hope he doesn’t kill me.” [He was] a frothing mad person - he knew how to have “fun”.

Handling John was something his friends were well used to doing. If he didn’t murder them in their beds there was no greater buddy. They might fear for their lives but they loved him still. No way would they walk out and join another group. John was just John, and Paul and George’s hero-worship stayed fully intact.”

The above passage comes from the stint in Hamburg directly after Stu's death. John had always been the one to take the most prellies, as Lewisohn highlights, but he relays the fact that John was even more messed up than before subsequent to Stu's sudden death. I've highlighted a couple of lines from the extract to highlight how John's behaviour is framed by Lewisohn:

"the combination of pills plus booze plus several sleepless days caused hallucinations and extreme conduct"

From the outset Lewisohn is careful to outline the fact that John is under the influence of both bills and booze as well as being exhausted as a result of "several sleepless days" which has the sum impact of causing hallucinations and "extreme conduct" so in short, Lewisohn suggests that this behaviour from John is atypical and directly related to the substances and conditions he is under, the subsequent behaviour he displays, therefore, isn't a function of his innate personality, just a reaction to the chemicals and circumstances he currently finds himself beholden to.

"he, Paul and Pete were lying in their bunk beds, trying to sleep"

In terms of those impacted by John's actions, it isn't one individual that Lewisohn highlights, it's George, Paul and Pete, which to me suggests that anyone could have been on the receiving end of John's outburst. When describing the bedroom scene prior to John's entrance, Lewisohn describes the three guys as "trying to sleep", so a picture is painted of a quiet room where there's a lack of activity as everyone is tired and, either on their way to or currently, asleep.

"some chick was in bed with Paul and he cut all her clothes up with a pair of scissors, and was stabbing the wardrobe"

Firstly, the story that George relates (source Anthology, 2000), unlike the scene Lewisohn sets, makes it clear that there was only one target for John's outburst, not George, Pete or even Paul but an unnamed woman whose only crime was to be "in bed with Paul" so, far from trying to get to sleep, Paul was in fact having sex with this woman when John barged into the room. John, in the altered state that he's in, zeroes in on this woman by cutting up her clothes and stabbing at the wardrobe - it's a scary scene that George describes, so what is the lasting impression Lewisohn leaves us with?

"John was just John, and Paul and George’s hero-worship stayed fully intact.”

Despite the shock of the scene that George describes, ultimately John's behaviour has no lasting impact on his relationships with the others or on the future of the band. Lewisohn confirms that "Paul and George's hero-worship stayed fully intact" so not only was their view of John unharmed but they continued to hold him in the highest possible esteem, but how did they rationalise the unpredictability of John's behaviour? Well, "John was just John" the others knew that this was how John got from time to time, this was nothing new for them and their hero worship continued on, the core relationships were unaffected and the operation of the band was unscathed because there was no way that George and Paul would ever leave and join another band so, all in all, no harm done.

Paul

“Brian, John and George went to the Beehive and John used a public box to call Paul, returning with the message ‘He says he’s not coming.’ Brian must have been apoplectic: they’d be unable to play the booking, letting down the university and their paying audience, embarrassing him, ruining their chance of a rebooking, and undoing his repair work to the Beatles’ old bad reputation. He went back to his office to phone Paul, but Paul refused to speak. Jim informed Brian that Paul said he wouldn’t be turning up, and that was that.

Recalling the night five years later, Paul told of how, having discovered Brian and the others hadn’t waited outside his house for him, he decided ‘Fuck them - if they can’t be arsed waiting for me, I can’t be arsed going after them. So I sat down and watched telly.’ Jim was unable to persuade Paul to change his mind. Paul said he’d felt he’d always been ‘the keen one’, so now he’d go sharp the other way and make no effort at all.

John saw a bigger picture, and it would be surprising if it wasn’t equally obvious, or made obvious to Brian and George. He likened Paul’s enduring snag with Brian to his other long-standing difficulty: ‘[Brian] and Paul didn’t get along - it was a bit like [Stuart and Paul] between the two of them’.”

The above passage comes from a time in the Beatles' career, not long after they've agreed to take Brian on as their manager. Brian's hard work on their behalf is starting to pay off and they're getting the opportunity to do loads of gigs for good money. Lewisohn discusses an instance where Brian goes to 20 Forthlin Road to pick up Paul for the night's gig only to be told that he's running late and won't be able to get going for a while. As with the first passage, I've highlighted a couple of lines to highlight how Paul's behaviour is framed:

"Brian must have been apoplectic"

In this passage Lewisohn provides his interpretation of how Brian must have felt to turn up at Paul's house only to find that he'd defied his instructions to be on time. Right from the beginning of this story we are able to empathise with Brian, as the principle victim of Paul's actions.

"letting down the university and their paying audience, embarrassing him, ruining their chance of a rebooking, and undoing his repair work to the Beatles’ old bad reputation."

For the avoidance of doubt, Lewisohn details the wide reaching impact of Paul's behaviour and the list of the aggrieved is long: the university, the paying audience and ultimately the band, all the hard work that they and Brian have put in has been undone by Paul's actions and the tarnished reputation of old is back with a vengeance.

"John saw a bigger picture, and it would be surprising if it wasn’t equally obvious, or made obvious to Brian and George. He likened Paul’s enduring snag with Brian to his other long-standing difficulty: ‘[Brian] and Paul didn’t get along - it was a bit like [Stuart and Paul] between the two of them’.”

If the reader was left wondering if this was a one-off incident or if Paul was just having a bad day that he'd taken out on Brian, Lewisohn suggests that this was, in fact, part of a pattern of behaviour as "John saw a bigger picture" and Lewisohn remarks that "it would be surprising" if both Brian and George weren't equally aware of the bigger forces at play here. To reinforce the lasting implications of Paul's actions, Lewisohn talks about "Paul's enduring snag with Brian" and then likens it to Paul's other "long-standing difficulty" with Stu, which triggers the readers' knowledge of Paul's jealousy of Stu's closeness to John and invites the reader to also view Paul's relationship with Brian through that lens. The extract is then capped up by a quote from John (source, McCabe and Schonfled interview, 1971), seemingly, supporting Lewisohn's premise by linking the clash between Paul and Brian to the clash, that Lewisohn has already expertly laid out in his book, between Paul and Stu.

How the framing differs

In both excerpts I've pulled Lewisohn uses direct quotes from the principles as well as his own interpretation, both to varying impacts.

In the first excerpt, Lewisohn provides a context for John's behaviour, it's not long after Stu has died, John is under the influence of a cocktail of drugs and substances, so we're led to feel sympathy for the state that he's in and to excuse the frightening behaviour that subsequently follows. Lewisohn doesn't offer any context for Paul's behaviour, we assume that Paul is sober and of sound mind so there's no confusion as to the fact that Paul is in full control of his actions so we're less likely to excuse or able to rationalise his actions.

The preamble that Lewisohn writes prior to George's recounting of John barging into the room, mentions George, Pete and Paul being present, so Lewisohn gives us the impression that John's later actions are almost random, maybe it could have been Pete, or George, it just happened to be the woman in bed with Paul who triggered John's anger. We never hear about how the woman reacted to having her clothes torn to shreds just because she slept with Paul, Lewisohn doesn't offer any thoughts to Paul's reaction to having John barging into the room and raising hell while he was sharing an intimate moment with this woman. In stark contract, we're told precisely by Lewisohn about how he presumes Brian felt in the face of Paul's obstinance and the seriousness isn't lost on the reader because every possible group of people negatively impacted is called out with evocative language (i.e. embarrassing, ruining).

Lewisohn frames the Hamburg scissors incident in such a way that it's clear that this was just a blip on the band's radar, the "hero-worship" of George and Paul is undimmed and we're given the framework, either by accident or design, by which to view any similar outburst in the future, it's just John, he may overdo it from time to time but his negative actions will never be consequential because the love and worship the others have for him will never be overcome "no way would they walk out and join another group" because no matter what John did, Paul and George would condone it, stick by him and love him regardless, so why shouldn't we?

However, Lewisohn couldn't be clearer that Paul's disobedience of Brian was part of a larger pattern of behaviour that was detrimental to the band, John could see the bigger picture, the same bigger picture that was "obvious" to Brian and George. Rather than startling an unnamed German woman (Lewisohn leaves this to our imagination) Lewisohn carefully plots out how Paul's actions directly hurt the band and the good work they'd been doing with Brian's help. Far from a moment of chemically induced madness, Paul's behaviour is familiar, we've seen it before with Stu, now we're seeing it with Brian - Lewisohn is clear that the seeds of the break up are sewn in Tune In so is he suggesting that the behaviour Paul displays here can also be traced to 1969?

Was this difference in framing called for?

These two stories outlining John and Paul's behaviour aren't identical, one takes place in Hamburg in the privacy of a bedroom and directly impacts two people while the other takes place in Liverpool and directly impacts several people as well as the band, it could be argued that on this basis these situations Lewisohn was justified in framing these two incidents differently.

However, there are several similarities that I can spot between the behaviour John and Paul displayed:

Pattern of behaviour - Lewisohn appears to be making the case that John's outburst was purely circumstantial while Paul's clash with Brian was part of a longstanding jealousy issue Paul had of anyone close to John. I do think that jealousy may have been a factor in the clashes Paul had initially with Brian (as referenced briefly in my Jealous Guys post) but in my opinion there are complexities that exist with Paul's relationship with Brian (namely around Paul's dislike of authority figures and need for control) that don't exist in Paul's relationship with Stu or, further down the road, Yoko as neither Stu nor Yoko were ever in a position of authority over Paul, John didn't bring them into the band as a manager or producer so I think the more natural comparison is Stu and Yoko not Stu and Brian. Further, despite Lewisohn's descriptions to the contrary and lack of relation to a bigger picture, John's behaviour here was in fact part of a pattern of behaviour, this woman wasn't the first and would not be the last of Paul's love interests that John reacted negatively to; Jane Asher, Peggy Lipton and ultimately Linda would feel the brunt of John's negative attention throughout the Beatles and post-Beatles years, this was an opportunity for Lewisohn to lay the groundwork of that but unfortunately he didn't want to connect these particular dots.

Impact on the band - Lewisohn is at pains to outline how George and Paul weren't going anywhere and there's no suggestion that John's actions would have any impact on the band or its future but, with the hindsight we have, is that correct? Even before Hamburg, John is abusing alcohol, largely to numb the effects of the sudden death of his mother, then in Hamburg, he's now abusing drugs too which negatively impacts his behaviour. For the rest of the Beatle years John's substance abuse issues appear again and again (Bob Wooler incident at Paul's 21st birthday, destruction of ego and fall in productivity due to prolonged LSD use, increase in the communication issues in the band in the wake of John and Yoko's heroin addiction). If Lewisohn was really interested in giving us the bigger picture, why didn't he outline the detrimental impact that John's substance abuse issues were having on the band, all it would have taken was for him to help the reader to understand how the woman and Paul felt as a result of John's actions but instead he uses this story as another opportunity to reinforce the idea that Paul and George hero-worshipped John.

Links to the break up: In many of his podcast interviews (Nothing Is Real and Fabcast spring to mind) Lewisohn is clear that, although the events of the break-up are years away from being committed to paper, the roots are laid out in Tune In. Paul's clash with Brian is framed in such a way to underscore how it fostered long difficulties between Paul and the band's manager in a way that was obvious to the others, does that sound familiar? If we sub Klein in for Brian, we've suddenly been transported to the summer of '69, I believe this is intentional and given the pretty uncharitable way Paul's actions are described (Paul should have been on time but leaving without him so that he had to take several buses instead only made everyone later and poured gasoline on an already open flame, neither Paul, Brian or the band won in this situation which I think all parties came to realise at a later stage) we're already being conditioned to believe that by the time it's 1969 this reckoning for Paul has been a long time coming and we should be glad that John, George, Ringo and Klein are finally stand up to Paul's immature power plays. However, can the break up also be traced to John's actions. As already discussed, the first excerpt outlines one of the first instances of John's substance abuse negatively impacting the band, in 1961 he's destroying a woman's clothing, cock-blocking Paul and terrorising everyone, in 1969 he's in a heroin haze with Yoko which hinders the already frayed communication links with the rest of the band and fosters an environment where, to John, only "JohnandYoko" matter ("I mean, I’m not going to lie, you know. I would sacrifice you all for her [Ono]", Get Back Sessions, 1969) to the extent that they're able to be wooed by Allen Klein who knows exactly what John and Yoko want so they allow him to give it to them, irrespective of what the rest of band need or want.

In the end, I have no problem with either story being included in Tune In, neither John or Paul were saints and in these instances we can see aspects of their personality that will feature, for better and for worse, over the course of the rest of the Beatles' career and, in John's case, his life. However, it is a shame that time and time again, when given the opportunity to frame John and Paul's actions Lewisohn opts to minimise John's misdeeds via his emphasis on Paul and George's love and patience for him, while for Paul almost no context is provided for his negative actions and Lewisohn subtlety begins to plot the lines that will eventually lead to the 3 to 1 split and the lawsuit that, not only breaks up the band but ensures they never reform again. The part Paul plays in the break-up does have roots in his personality, which we see glimpses of in his interactions with Brian in 1961 (he won't be pushed around and his reaction to being pushed is to fight back not fall in line) but we also see John's role start to take shape too (the unpredictability of his actions under the influence of substances and the chain of events that would occur as a result i.e. LSD - loss of ego - jealousy of Paul's output and his loss of dominance - openness to Klein who identifies John as the leader and reinforces his belief in his supremacy in the Lennon-McCartney partnership as well as filling John with misinformation like reminding him he wrote most of Eleanor Rigby). It's a problem that only Paul's negative reactions and missteps are framed in the wider context of the band because this skews the story and fails to accurately plot the role John also played in the band's demise. If Lewisohn's aim is to provide us with a balanced, definitive take on the band's story then, based on this evidence, he's falling short.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #brian epstein #john and paul #mark lewisohn #tune in #framing behaviour #interested to hear any alternative takes on my thoughts #i do think lewisohn's preference for john and disregard for paul's feelings may undermine his books #both john and paul's action can be seen in a bigger picture #i think we can provide context without whitewashing john's behaviour #long post #thoughts #apologies for rambling

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baoshan-sanren · 4 years

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Chapter 48 & Chapter 49

Emperor Wei WuXian And His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Birthday

The Imperial guard who approaches him is very careful, almost reverent in his posture.

Lan XiChen is resting. He has been ordered to do so by uncle, who has done precious little resting himself, only stepping away from the guqin when his fingers are on the verge of bleeding.

Since Wei WuXian had been moved from the grand hall, not a moment has gone by without the sounds of Cleansing weaving throughout the Emperor’s chambers, a continuous exertion of spiritual energy that no single Lan cultivator could have maintained. But there are three of them, and although their skills and abilities differ, the Emperor is no longer in danger, his chest rising and falling smoothly with unlabored breaths of deep sleep.

WangJi has only abandoned the guqin when ordered to do so, and only so he may move closer to bed, settling down on the floor by Wei WuXian’s shoulder. The position does not look restful; WangJi’s tense figure is stiff with coiled worry, his eyes locked on the Emperor’s face, as if by sight alone he can infuse more color into his cheeks. XiChen can hear the soft murmur of Lady Jiang’s voice, and WangJi’s equally as soft response. Some steps away, the Rogue Prince stands motionless, his vigil silent.

“Young Master Lan,” the Imperial guard whispers, “forgive me for interrupting. General Nie is outside, requesting to speak with you. What would you like me to tell him?”

XiChen needs a few moments to formulate an appropriate response.

The Imperial guard waits patiently, deferentially even, comically folded in half so he can hear XiChen’s response. XiChen finds this entire situation beyond absurd.

The Young Master of the Lan Sect should not be asked if he wishes to speak to the General of the Emperor’s army. The Young Master of the Lan Sect can be issued an order by the lowest court official, and would have no choice but to obey. Yet, he thinks, if he were to tell this Imperial guard that the General must wait, or come back at a later time, the guard would jump to follow instruction.

The rest are no better. For hours now, they have tiptoed carefully around all three of the Lan Sect members, as if charged with protecting royalty. Most of them even hesitate to look at uncle directly, their eyes never quite managing to rise past uncle’s knees. Uncle’s performance during the Gifting Ceremony had been impressive to be sure, but the current level of veneration for a man who had been dismissed and spurned only a day ago, seems far beyond excessive.

XiChen had not spoken to Nie MingJue since issuing the misguided invitation. This is neither the time nor the occasion for the conversation they must have, not to mention that XiChen feels ill-prepared to have it even under the best of circumstances. But now, in the midst of their attempts to keep the Emperor breathing, in the midst of his brother’s obvious anguish, his uncle’s exhaustion, his own fatigue, XiChen cannot face the prospect of further heartache.

Still, he cannot have the guards turn the General of the Emperor’s army away, regardless of their willingness to do just that. He rises slowly, and the guard steps back, as if XiChen would scold him for standing too close.

Nie MingJue waits just outside the entrance, facing two dozen Imperial guards. He is wearing full armor, his hand resting on the pommel of his saber.

The General of the Emperor’s army looks as if he may need to fight his way past the Imperial guards in order to enter the Emperor’s chambers. This implies a great deal about the powers currently in charge, and most of these implications are alarming in nature.

Is the Emperor still the Emperor?

XiChen does not know. No one else has come or gone. No inquiries have reached them, no orders, no edicts. There could be a bloody war outside the Jade Sword Palace, and none of those in the Imperial chambers would ever notice it being waged.

All these are legitimate concerns and worries, but XiChen cannot find the words to voice them. In the Nie battle armor, both chest and shoulder plate depicting the sneering Beast’s Head sigil, Nie MingJue is terrifying to behold. But the moment his eyes land on XiChen, his posture shifts, his face softens, the change clearly visible and devastating to see.

The hand on his forearm is careful as it draws him some distance away from the guards.

“XiChen,” MingJue says, “Are you well?”

It is a struggle to find his voice, but XiChen manages, “The Emperor is recovering well. It may be some hours yet until he wakes, and it will take many days for his strength to return. Uncle says he had fought back, attempting to expel the resentful energy on his own. This had saved his life, but it has also significantly depleted his--“

The hand tightens on his forearm, cutting his words in half.

“XiChen,” MingJue says again, “I asked if you are well.”

It is a basic rule of politeness, that the question once blatantly ignored, should not be repeated. But such rules have no effect on Nie MingJue.

XiChen is tired of suppressing the constant and unrelenting waves of anxiety. The calluses he had built up over the years cannot hold up to the punishing pace they had set to keep the Emperor breathing. His fingers hurt. His shoulders hurt. He has suffered greater discomforts in the past, and borne them with dignity. But now, he feels very small, and very tired, and he wishes that he could say these things to Nie MingJue, perhaps the only person who would not think less of him for hearing them.

He exhales, a shuddering breath that feels much too revealing, “I am well. I am only tired. Why are you here? Is the Emperor still in danger?”

Nie MingJue glances back at the Imperial guards and pulls XiChen a little further away, out of their hearing range.

“The Jiang Sect has taken charge of the Imperial guards,” he says, “Which was to be expected. The Jiang and the Nie have always stood together as brothers-in-arms in the defense of the Emperor. But there are... tensions. Multiple sects are calling for a war with the Wen. The High Councilor appears to be in agreement. Perhaps he sees such an action as a logical response to the attack on the Emperor. Or perhaps, he is resentful of the fact that HuaiSang is in possession of an edict naming him the guardian of the successor.”

The carefully concealed anxiety blooms in XiChen’s chest, leaving him breathless.

“Can the Council declare war? Without the Emperor’s approval?”

“No,” MingJue says, “but they may try and do so regardless. If I refuse to follow their orders, this will result in different war, right here in the palace halls. I do not want to lead the army against the Imperial guards. This must be prevented.”

“How-- what do you need? What can I do?”

“I need the Emperor,” Nie MingJue says bluntly, “The sects need to hear that the Emperor is well, and recovering quickly. They need to hear this from the Lan Sect Leader.”

They are far enough away where XiChen can no longer hear the sounds of the guqin, but he knows that the Cleansing has gone on uninterrupted.

He shakes his head, “My uncle-- the Emperor is not yet well enough to be left to the care of WangJi and myself. I will come in his place.”

Chapter 49

Nie HuaiSang has never sat on the dais alone.

He has wielded almost as much power as the Emperor himself. He has frequently sprawled on the Emperor’s seat, worn the Emperor’s clothes, used the Emperor’s seal. But he has never before felt so utterly alone.

His personal guard, the members of the Nie Sect charged with his protection, are lined up behind him. The High Councilor is to his left; to the right, the empty space where A-Jue should be is a constant source of anxiety and irritation. In front of him, the receiving hall is crowded with every Sect and clan leader in the Immortal Mountain City, only some of them trustworthy, and nearly all of them unpredictable. The seat underneath him feels akin to a death trap, waiting for an opportune moment to snap closed on his tender backside.

His hand tightens around the fan, then relaxes. Tightens, then relaxes.

With Wei Ying by his side, he could hide behind the fan. He could do anything, say anything, act in any way he pleases. With Wei Ying by his side, the obvious clusters of hostility in the hall would be an insignificant source of amusement.

His eyes meet Jiang Cheng’s, only for a moment, neither acknowledging the contact. In the back of the hall, three members of the Wen Sect stand under guard. Wen Qing is cool and collected, her head held high, her robes bright and striking next to the muted Nie greens. HuaiSang can see A-Lin making a conscious effort to emulate his sister, but being a nervous creature by nature, he is only managing to appear more rigid. Granny Wen is in possession of composure that HuaiSang very much envies at this moment. Their lives are on the line as much as his own, but one would never know it by looking at Granny Wen’s face.

The rest of the Wen Sect is in the Jade Sword Palace courtyard, under guard, and awaiting their fate. HuaiSang has managed to stall the calls for an immediate attack on QiShan, but only by insisting that the Emperor’s condition must take precedence. Still, with each moment that passes with A-Jue conspicuously absent, the tension in the hall seems to rise, the hostility and the resentment thickening.

HuaiSang would very much like to keep all of the secrets that must be kept, and not start a war today. He has an unpleasant feeling that he may not get to have both.

It is difficult to conceal a sigh of relief when A-Jue finally enters the hall. The Lan Sect Leader is absent, but Lan XiChen’s placid countenance is almost an improvement. It is no secret that Lan QiRen is generally disliked for his personality alone, the man’s icy facade only serving to agitate the existing resentment. Lan XiChen, infinitely serene in the face of animosity, patient and humble to a fault, may be precisely the type of calm presence that can soothe the waves of unrest in the hall.

There may be some question as to whose authority is higher in this instance. The Royal Companion, often perceived as the Imperial Consort, technically does not outrank the High Councilor. His status as the guardian of the successor only gives him power once the Emperor is no longer among the living. Still, Lan XiChen does not hesitate. His first bow and greeting is given to Nie HuaiSang. He turns to the High Councilor next, a perfect mirror image, the bow no less deep, the greeting no less courteous. But the hierarchy the Lan Sect recognizes has been made clear. This acknowledgment is significant, considering the current position of the Lan Sect, both as the saviors of the Emperor, and their future connection to the throne through marriage.

Nie HuaiSang greets Lan XiChen politely in turn, feeling as if his seat is now a little less likely to collapse under his anxious bottom.

“Young Master Lan,” the High Councilor says, “the Council requires an update on the Emperor’s condition.”

“The Emperor is recovering well. His life is no longer in danger.”

The hall had hushed to hear the response, but now a low murmur rises, the word traveling among those placed furthest away from the dais.

“Are you quite certain?”

“I am certain,” Lan XiChen says, his voice unwavering, “The Emperor should wake soon, although he may still require days of rest to regain the spiritual energy he had lost.”

All of HuaiSang’s bones seem to turn liquid at once. It is by force of will alone that he manages to stay upright, instead of slumping against the throne in relief.

“The Royal Companion had summoned the Lan Sect Leader,” Jin GuangShan says carefully, only two steps below the High Councilor, “Is there a reason that the Young Master is here in his place?”

Lan XiChen smiles, but the smile does not reach his eyes, “The Jin Sect Leader is very observant. The Lan Sect is honored to be an object of the Jin Sect Leader’s concern. My uncle believes that the Emperor’s recovery must take precedence over other matters. Please forgive my humble presence in his place.”

Nie HuaiSang feels that he has been quite unjust to the Young Master of the Lan Sect in the past. He also believes that he could become quite fond of the man in the future. It has been somewhat... difficult to reconcile himself to A-Jue’s single-minded focus on Lan XiChen, a person who is still essentially a stranger. It is a common failing of siblings, to find their future in-laws unworthy despite all evidence to the contrary. But Nie HuaiSang is willing to admit his error.

“The Emperor’s health, of course, takes precedence,” the High Councilor says, “We are grateful to the Lan Sect for their assistance and dedication. As the Emperor is recovering swiftly, I believe all decisions may wait for his judgment.”

A louder murmur rises at his words, and Nie HuaiSang braces for the inevitable.

Which comes, to no one’s surprise, in the form of Sect Leader Yao.

“Are we to simply allow the Wen Sect to go free? After such a betrayal? The Emperor himself had stated that their lives are to be forfeit if Wen RuoHan ever dared orchestrate another attack. Do you mean to act against the Emperor’s orders?”

This, of course, is all Wei Ying’s fault. Nie HuaiSang had offered to have Sect Leader Yao killed years ago. The man would have been infinitely more useful as dust and bones, than he is now, with his flapping mouth always sowing discord.

“The Wen Sect will be placed in the dungeons to await the Emperor’s judgment,” Nie HuaiSang says coldly, “Only the Emperor may decide the means of executing traitors. These decisions have never been within the purview of the powers given to the Council.”

“The Royal Companion is correct,” Jin GuangShan’s voice raises the hair on the back of HuaiSang’s neck, “and yet, my own disciple was jailed by no other than the former First Prince’s servant. The Jin Sect has yet to receive an explanation for this action.”

“Your disciple was jailed by my orders,” A-Jue says dismissively, “and will wait for the Emperor’s judgment along with the Wen Sect.”

HuaiSang winces. He loves his brother, but diplomacy is not Nie MingJue’s strong suit.

“Sect Leader Jin,” HuaiSang says meekly, “Your disciple had displayed suspicious behavior in the wake of the attack on the Emperor. Perhaps he is innocent, but surely, you do not begrudge us an overabundance of caution. I can guarantee that your disciple will come to no harm until the Emperor himself has had a chance to address the matter.”

He knows that there is nothing that influences the High Councilor quite as much as a reasonable argument delivered in a reasonable tone. HuaiSang has always wondered why such a man would choose a life companion that is rarely ever capable of calm and reasonable argument. As he expected, Jiang FengMian is nodding even before HuaiSang has finished speaking, making it clear that between the two of them, Jin GuangShan will find his complaint neatly swept to the side. Familiar with the High Councilor’s tendencies to fold in the face of mildest possible pressure, Jin GuangShan appears unhappy, but offers no further complaints.

“Young Master Lan,” the High Councilor says, “the Council requests to be informed of any changes in the Emperor’s condition. Until then, I believe we have no further need of you.”

Lan XiChen bows, and is escorted out of the hall. HuaiSang fights a small stab of resentment that A-Jue escorts the man personally, when a dozen Nie Sect members would have done just as well. Maybe he no longer needs A-Jue’s support, now that the Emperor’s seat is no longer in peril, but he would have liked to have that support nonetheless.

“I believe that we may rest easily tonight, and meet again on the morrow,” Jiang FengMian says, “Is the Royal Companion in agreement?”

The Royal Companion is very much in agreement. He may have promised Jin GuangShan that his disciple will come to no harm, but HuaiSang has no qualms about breaking his word.

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #ficlet #m #wwx emperor au #two in one #both are short chapters so i figured what the hell #probably wangji's pov in the next chapter #then creepy story time by xue yang in the one after #i would like to go back to being three chapters ahead of the published #but it's looking like two will do for now #ily chickens

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bitter-sweet-farmgirl · 3 years

Text

Nunrâê Irak

**This one is pretty appropriate for today due to the fact that I’m currently on Day 3 of my period, and woke up to the horror that I bled through my pad, underwear, and pants to stain my sheet and subsequently my mattress and got a little bit of blood on my mom’s super nice WHITE fluffy blanket. Oh Mahal, I was terrified when I saw the pink tinge to it... So now she’s joking that I need Depends at night, lol**

Part 14 of ‘A Deep Misunderstanding’. Link to Series Masterlist.

Thorin falls for a Dwarrowdame raised by Elves, and tries to make know his feelings, but accidentally offends her, which leads to another and another misunderstanding between the two.

Based off of @immawriteyouthings ‘Falling Stars’

Note: If you wish to be tagged for certain stories, just let me know and I can add you to a tag list!

Tags:

@kumqu4t @pixierox101

MASTERLIST

OC(s) Used: Estel

Word Count: 2,645

Warning(s): Blood, time of the month, curse word(s)

Translation(s): Nunrâê Irak: My Other Side

Kasamhili: Please

Adkhât 'âmad: Rest well

~~~~

A great weariness settled over me that night as we set up camp, and I struggled to keep my eyes open as I sat down before the fire. I couldn't understand why I was so tired after doing something we did every single day.

"Tired?" A gentle voice murmured in my ear as Thorin settled himself beside me; an arm coming around to pull me flush against his side.

I yawned, nodding. "Very tired... But I don't know why, it's not like we've been doing anything other than walking for the past few months..." I mumbled, laying my head down on his shoulder and breathing in the tangy smell of sweat that hung around Thorin. Eru, would it kill him to shed a few layers during the day?

"You should probably go to sleep." Thorin suggested, running his hand up and down my arm in a soothing gesture. "We're going to be walking again tomorrow too."

I let out a groan, nuzzling my head into the crook of his neck. I didn't want to leave the safety of his arms just yet. Not after I had fantasized all bloody day about getting to snuggle with him. I was fully entitled to live my fantasy for a while after I had waited so long.

"Are you hungry? Bombur has food ready..." Thorin said, just as I had begun to drift down into the chasm of peaceful sleep.

"No, I'm not hungry." I grumbled, wrinkling my nose at the thought. Thorin looked at me with thinly veiled concern.

"Do you feel ill, Estel? Should I go fetch Oin?" He asked worriedly, but I just shook my head.

"No, I'm just not hungry." I mumbled, clinging to him as he attempted to stand up. "Don't go...." I pleaded, raising my head to look up at him. "Kasamhili?"

Thorin watched me for a moment before sighing gently and nodding. "Of course I won't." He soothed, then turned towards the fire to call towards Bombur who was standing over a large iron pot. "Bombur! Bring me a bowl of that stew..." He called as I closed my eyes once more, reacquainting myself with the weary tug that drew me to sleep.

~~~

Gentle movement roused me from my slumber, and I let out a sleepy groan. Was it morning already?

"Shh, Karkith... Go back to sleep." Thorin's voice sounded as though it was far away, but I obeyed, vaguely noticing that I was cradled in someone's arms and tucked tightly against their chest.

"Is it morning already?" I asked hoarsely, blearily opening one eye to look out at the moonlit forest.

Thorin chuckled; the sound vibrating through his chest. "No, Amrâlimê. It is still night. Now go back to sleep." He murmured, and I was gently set down on my bedroll.

Letting out a deep sigh, I curled myself into a ball, pulling my blanket tight around me. Far away, I could hear the rustlings of something, then a warm, fluffy object was laid gently over me.

"Adkhât 'âmad, Karkith." I heard Thorin say before I was off again on the mists of sleep.

~~~~

The next morning dawned bright and early; too early. I rolled over in my bedroll, squinting my eyes against the bright rays of sunshine that assaulted my bleary vision.

Moving to sit up, I let out a soft hiss of pain at the dull ache that suddenly erupted in my abdomen. Gently massaging my midsection, sleep suddenly fled from me as I noticed the wet, squelchy discomfort between my thighs.

Son of a -- Oh Eru, this was not good. Not good at all.

Eyes opening wide in horror, I quickly glanced around, checking to see if anyone else was up yet. By the Valar, how had I missed the signs? The strange tiredness last night, the lack of appetite and my clinginess towards Thorin... Bloody Orcs on a pike I was in trouble.

My monthly cycles had been very unpredictable--Eru, the only thing predictable about them had been their unpredictability--once I joined the Company due to the extreme stress and strain it tended to put on me and the sometimes poor diet. But usually, usually, they were preceded by mild cramps or something to warn me of the coming waterfall of blood.

Quickly I sat up, grimacing at the cramps that throbbed unceasingly. I reached out to snag my blanket, but my hand clasped around a soft, furry pelt instead. Looking down, I was horrified to see Thorin's coat draped across me.

In the night, I had wrapped myself in its furry glory after he had covered me with it. Any other night I would have been over the moon with happiness, but now all I felt was cold, unadulterated fear.

Hurriedly spreading it out across my legs, I scanned it for any signs of stains. Eru knew I hadn't been expecting my period so there was bound to be some leakage.

Just, hopefully not on Thorin's coat.

But there was. Right smack dab in the middle of it, a rusty red stain marred the soft, dark blue fabric.

"Oh Eru...." I groaned softly, dropping the coat and putting my head in my hands. "He's going to kill me..."

"Who's going to kill you?" A deep voice rumbled from behind me, and I whirled to look around, scrambling to hide the stain on Thorin's coat at the same time.

The last person in all of Arda I wanted to see stood before me, looking down at me with a furrowed brow. "Estel?" Thorin prompted, walking closer to kneel beside me, "who's going to kill you?"

I gulped, frantically trying to think of how I could get myself out of this situation. "Nobody, Thorin. It was just a dream." I covered frantically, internally wilting with relief when my voice retained its regular tone and didn't rise an octave.

Naneth had always said I was a poor liar, but perhaps that was because she was both an Elf--they were very perceptive beings--and my mother. A combination that almost guaranteed complete knowledge over your mannerisms.

Thorin raised an eyebrow, looking skeptically at me for a moment before his eyes fell to his coat that I held tight within my grasp. He reached out a hand to grab it, but I was quick to hold it closer to me.

A smirk began to wind its way across Thorin's face as he watched the action. "Don't want to give my coat back yet, Halwûna?" He teased, and I shook my head.

"No, it's too fuzzy and it smells like you." I murmured half-truthfully, watching with a smile as Thorin laughed and shook his head.

"Oh Estel..." He chuckled, looking at me with a twinkle in his sapphire blue eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I need it back, Amrâlimê."

I bit the inside of my cheek, fidgeting as a particularly painful cramp squeezed my organs. Eru, they were bad this time.

Thorin's arm shot out and grabbed a corner of the coat, easily pulling it out of my grasp and away from me.

I let out a gasp, leaning forwards in an attempt to grab it back. I had to get it back so I could get the stain out!

But Thorin was quick to rise to his feet, shaking out his coat in preparation to put it on. Scrambling to my feet, my blanket unwound itself from around me to fall to the ground, but I could care less.

"Thorin, I just had this thought that I could maybe--” But before I could continue with my ploy to get him to give me the coat, Thorin's eyes locked onto the southern region of my body, growing wide with horror.

"Estel! You're wounded!" He exclaimed, dropping his coat as he moved to sweep me off my feet. "Oin!" He bellowed, lowering me down onto the ground and hovering over me.

"Thorin--” I tried to speak, but Thorin laid a finger on my lips to instantly silence me, looking down with concern.

"Hush, Amrâlimê. Just lie still. Oin will be able to help you." He said, unable to help the worry that invaded his voice. "It'll be okay."

I rolled my eyes, struggling against Thorin as the camp began to come alive around us. Eru, I didn't want everyone to see the stains on my trousers... Surely they would know what that meant...

Within moments, Oin had trotted over to us, traces of sleep still found on his face as he grumbled under his breath. The rest of the company trailed in his wake and I found myself wishing that I could just disappear.

Kneeling beside my forcefully restrained form, Oin looked at Thorin. "What's wrong with the lass?" He asked, and I bit my lip, closing my eyes as pink tinged my cheeks.

Could it get any more embarrassing?

"She's injured and bleeding." I could hear Thorin say, and he most have motioned toward the southern part of my body as I heard Oin let out a sigh.

"Ah, I see... Estel?" Oin questioned, and I opened my eyes reluctantly, looking up at Oin who wore a knowing look.

"I suppose he has no knowledge of this... I'd be fine if he'd just let me go and take care of business, but he has to be a nosy bastard." I grumbled, and Oin nodded, slowly getting to his feet and shooting a glare at the rest of the company.

"Clear off you all, the lass needs some space. Do you have any abdominal cramps or anything?" He asked, and I nodded, grimacing and resting a hand on my abdomen upon feeling the familiar twinge of a cramp.

"What is wrong with her, Oin?" Thorin asked, his voice carrying a stern undertone. I let out an exasperated sigh, brushing away his hands and sitting up; ignoring his protests as I did so.

"Nothing is wrong. This is a normal happening for a lass of her age." Oin brushed his question off easily and turned back to me. "For your cramps I have some dried fennel.... There might also be some pine bark around here somewhere as well. That would work better than the fennel since it is fresher." He said, and I nodded, rubbing small circles across my stomach in an attempt to soothe my aching uterus.

"If you are able to find the pine bark, I would accept some it, Oin. Thank you." I said softly, and Oin just gave me a nod.

"Of course, lass, that's what I'm here for." He said dismissively and headed off towards the rest of the company who had gathered around the weakly glimmering fire.

I let out a deep breath, groaning softly as a cramp tightly squeezed my uterus in an iron grip. I jumped in surprise as arms suddenly wound around me to pull me up against a broad chest.

"Whatever this is, it pains you... Why?" Thorin asked softly, his warm breath caressing my cheek.

I leaned back against him, closing my eyes as I took a steadying breath. I'd never anticipated having this conversation with Thorin before. By the Valar it was going to be embarrassing explaining the complexities of the female body to someone his age and rank.

"Have you ever heard of a period? That time of the month?" I asked, mentally crossing my fingers that he had. I mean, I knew that he had a sister and surely he would have known something about periods.

The sudden, sharp intake of breath behind me was all I needed to know that he understood. "My time of the month came around, and sometimes I get cramps. They'll ease up once I have some of that pine bark though. It's nothing to worry about." I said reassuringly.

"Mahal, I’m sorry about calling Oin over then. I thought you had been hurt or something..." Thorin said, and I turned my head to peer up at him, grinning at the pink blush covering his cheeks.

"It's okay. I didn't think you knew anyways." I said, my attention becoming disrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching. Looking away from Thorin, I raised an eyebrow as I caught sight of Fili and Kili approaching us.

"Oin told us to give this to you." Fili said, holding out a leaf that contained a dark, grainy powder. "He said you'd know what to do with it..."

Accepting the leaf, I gave the pair a smile. "Thank you both." I murmured and they both gave me a quick bow before hurrying away. It could have been just me, but it seemed as though they were hesitant about being around me.

Although, they were the youngest members of the quest; and if I remembered correctly, were raised solely by their mother, which probably would have meant they would know exactly what a period was. Kili definitely would, given that he was married.

I would have found it funny had I not been sitting in a pool of my own blood.

Quickly tipping the powder into my mouth, I made a face at the bitter taste of it. No matter how many times I took it; it still tasted the same.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go change my clothes and wash them." I said, shrugging out of Thorin's grip and standing up; my blanket once more being wound around my waist to hide the dark red stain on the crotch of my trousers.

Thorin rose to his feet beside me, his coat lying forgotten on the ground. "Will you be okay by yourself?" He asked worriedly, and I laughed.

"Eru, I don't want anybody around to watch me, Thorin! 'Course I'll be fine." I chuckled, and Thorin coughed awkwardly.

"I didn't mean..." He cut himself off, shaking his head. "Never mind, Amrâlimê. We'll just take it slower today. If you need to stop and rest, or if your...cramps become painful against, just tell me." He said, and I smiled up at him.

"You're very sweet, Mell nín. Now if you'll excuse me..." I edged away from him, grabbing my knapsack of spare clothes and tucking it under an arm as I eyed Thorin's abandoned coat on the ground.

What the heck, might as well get it out in the open.

Walking over to it, I snatched it up. Thorin caught sight of my actions and frowned, striding towards me. "Estel, I need my coat." He rumbled, but I held it away from him, biting my lip as I stared at the ground.

"I might have stained it a bit last night... I'll go wash it and get it out. Sorry..." I mumbled, my face growing hot with embarrassment.

"Karkith... It's alright. Don't be embarrassed about staining my coat, Amrâlimê. It has seen many bloody battles. Besides, it's not as if you could have prevented it from getting stained." He said softly, laying a gently hand on my arm. "Now, go get yourself cleaned up." He said, giving me a smile as he walked away from me to join the company as they began to cook breakfast.

Hopefully, it was something other than meat... I thought to myself as I wandered in the direction of the stream we had discovered yesterday.

Eru, I wanted nothing more than to just sit and do nothing all day, but I didn't want to seem like the weak one in the company. If it came down to it, I could pull my weight same as the rest of them, but it would just take a little more effort for the next few days.

But for now, all I had to focus on was getting the blood out of my trousers and Thorin's coat. A simple task really; enjoyable almost as I got to bask in Thorin's tantalizing scent. So deeply ingrained in my senses that I could recall every little element of it.

Every little piece that made up the Dwarrow I called my One.

#thorin x oc #thorin #thorin oakenshield x oc #thorin oakenshield #a deep misunderstanding #the hobbit #the company #khuzdul #that time of the month #period #period cramps #fluff #oblivious thorin #I found this oddly appropriate

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pollylynn · 4 years

Text

Billet Doux, Chapter 8—A Season Two Caskett Story, Now Complete

Title: Billet Doux, Chapter 8 WC: 1300

A/N: An insert for Sucker Punch (2 x 13)

She’s not relieved when he arrives. That’s not the right word for the feeling that makes its way along her nerve endings and all through her body.

Her mind is filled with thoughts of good coffee and winter sun blazing through the windows. She rolls her shoulders into the memory of the pleasant warmth of clothes fresh from the dryer and the lemon-tinged scent of furniture polish. Her back is straight and her limbs are strong and steady with the imprint of words on the black behind her eyelids each night, and the exact thing she has needed to see, bright and early each morning.

She is the sum total of such a brief history, and all of that is how she feels when he arrives.

She doesn’t turn as he crosses to the nameplate end of her desk. She’s engrossed by the artistic license the Captain has exercised on behalf of the two of them. Montgomery has produced a great read, and she wants to see how it ends. So he stands at the nameplate end of her desk, patient, for once—or quiet, at least—and she keeps her eyes on the page in her hand.

She finishes the picaresque portion of the report. It ends with a distinct downshift in tone: It is my considered, professional opinion that Mr. Castle’s quick thinking and Detective Beckett’s level-headed action preserved the lives of NYPD personnel and civilian bystanders. Her heart stutters in her chest. She’s touched by the quiet support—the affirmation that there’s almost certainly nothing she could have done differently. The sentiment—the dispassionate assessment of a man she respects deeply—is all the more powerful for its understated contrast with the preceding pages.

Her gaze drops to the line awaiting her signature, right beneath the smooth flow of Montgomery’s. She doesn’t sign yet, though. It’s his story—Castle’s—as much as it’s hers, and he deserves to read it through first.

She begins by answering the question he hasn’t asked, as though they’re already deep into the conversation. And that’s how she feels, too, She feels as though the two of them are—and have been from the beginning—deep in conversation.

“Montgomery’s post-incident evaluation. You come off like Steven Seagal,” says with her chin still propped on her fist.

He asks, with a hint of a smile in his voice, if he should be flattered or insulted. Both, she tells him as he finally sits.

He is nervous. There’s no other word for the force behind his rapid-fire monologue about multicultural culinary bonanza he’s brought with him, the fuel that drives the jerky movements of his body as he sets container after container out on her desk. She watches in awe and thinks with a smile that it’s a good thing that she freed up all that space in her organizational frenzy.

The smile is short-lived, though. It’s no certain thing.

He’s nervous. It’s a role reversal that she wasn’t exactly expecting. All through this terrible, soul-shaking experience, he has been solid ground. He has been funny and serious and annoying in exactly the right ratios at exactly the right moments. His timing has been impeccable every single day during a period in which she has been erratic, unfocused, unpredictable.

And now they’re here, face to face again, and she’d thought she’d be the nervous one. She’s become acquainted with tireless butterflies and twanging nerves. For a full day, she’s been worried that she would be at a loss for how approach him in the flesh, given the strange intimacies they’d fallen into so easily over six days at a distance.

But she is not nervous. She is all the complicated and simple things she she has been since the moment she sensed his presence behind her. She feels all the simple and complicated ways she feels, and it’s just the two of them. The boys and Montgomery have long since gone, and the bullpen is mercifully quiet for once.

She sets the report aside. She turns to face him with her folded hands resting atop the knee she has drawn up knee in a posture of patience. She waits for him to talk himself out for the moment. She lets the air between them fall quiet as he produces a pair of foil-wrapped hot dogs and reaches the end of his litany—the end of his bag of tricks.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

It’s the right thing to say in exactly the right moment. He lifts his eyes to meet hers, and she sees so many complicated things. He doesn’t believe her—not yet—though he wants to, and it’s the right thing to say for just that moment, though it’s no panacea.

“I overstepped. I came down here to say that I was sorry, and that I’m through.”

The miserable words come pouring out of him. The last two steal her breath for a moment. They slam into her ribs, but it’s a thing as short-lived as the rueful smile of a moment ago. She quiets herself by an act of will—as though calm is some free-flowing substance she can simply draw inward, and the world in this moment seems to work that way.

“I can’t shadow you anymore. If it wasn’t for me . . .”

If it wasn’t for him.

There are worlds contained within that subjunctive mood. There are histories and mythic figures. There is the lonely, static, insistently-just-fine woman she has been. There is another story entirely that she sees now she is so weary of reading, or writing, of starring in.

“If it wasn’t for you,” she says, and in saying it, she dwells in half a dozen days for a pleasant moment before she arrives at what she really needs to say here—what truth it is that she must impart. “I would never have found my mom’s killer.”

There’s more. There are worlds contained in what she has to say to him, here—face to face. There are masks shed on both sides and pretenses packed away. There are admissions about what her life is inalterably like, because of her mother’s death and the choices she made in the wake of it. There’s an admission that he is the first spark of joy—the first breath of relief—she has had in a decade, though she swears him to secrecy, and he makes the vow with the cheekiest of grins.

They take up utensils. They take up arms against a sea of take out, and their conversation comes between determined mouthfuls. It comes in short bursts, familiar and comfortable enough that it seems like bubbles of light ought to enclose them.

There is an ease to all of it that feels . . . permanent. It feels as if the time they spend in quiet, companionable conversation as day six draws to a close—the time they have spent together and apart in the days before this—has carried them far beyond their long-standing dance of two-steps-forward-three-steps-back.

She’s not sorry when it’s time to leave. That’s not precisely how she feels.

The day has been demanding in the oddest ways, and when their feast is cleared away, when she does set pen to paper and signs the report, she finds she’s tired, as though she’s been flexing seldom-used muscles all day. It’s not far from the truth.

Their good nights are quiet. They are companionable, in keeping with their evening. They feel . . . proper.

But there’s the beat of butterfly wings when her phone vibrates before she reaches the corner. There’s satisfaction as she thumbs the phone on and finds the bubble, right and proper, too.

Here if you want to talk.

A/N: And that’s a wrap. Brain Poneh promised a whole lotta nothing and Brain Poneh delivered. Thanks for reading.

#Castle #Caskett #Castle: Season 2 #Castle: Sucker Punch #Kate Beckett #Richard Castle #Roy Montgomery #Fic #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Fan Fic #Fan Fiction #Writing #Billet Doux

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letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

The Package.

As the bonkers genre thrill-ride Shadow in the Cloud blasts into the new year, writer and director Roseanne Liang unpacks her love of Terminator 2, watching Chloë Grace Moretz’s face for hours, and the life lesson she learned from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Cheng Pei-Pei.

Roseanne Liang’s TIFF Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud landed with a blast of fresh genre energy on VOD platforms on New Year’s Day. It’s A-class action in a B-grade body, cramming plenty into its taut 83 minutes, including: a top-secret package, a freakish gremlin, a hostile bunch of Air Force dudes, outrageous stunts, dogfights and a fake wartime PSA that feels remarkably real.

Throughout, the camera is focused mostly on one face—Chloë Grace Moretz’s, playing British flight officer Maude Garrett—as she tackles all of the above from a claustrophobic ball turret hanging under a B-17 Flying Fortress, on a classified mission over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

While the film’s tonal swings are confusing to some, schlock enthusiasts and genre lovers on Letterboxd have embraced the film’s intentionally outlandish sensibility, which “makes excellent use of its genre mash to create an unpredictable, guilty pleasure,” says Mirza. Fajar writes that “it felt like the people involved in this project knew how ridiculous it is and gave a hundred and ten percent to make it work. Someday, it will become a cult classic.” Mawbey agrees: “It really goes off the rails in all the best ways during the final third, and the last couple of shots are just perfect.”

Chloë Grace Moretz and her top-secret package in ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

To most of the world, Liang is a so-called “emerging” director, when in fact, the mother-of-two, born in New Zealand to Chinese parents, has been at this game for the past two decades. She has helmed a documentary and a romantic drama, both based on her own marriage; a 2008 short called Take 3, which preceded Hollywood’s current conversation about representation and harassment; and Do No Harm, the splatter-tastic 2017 short in which her technical chops and fluid feel for action were on full display, and, as recorded in multiple Letterboxd reviews, established her as one to watch.

Do No Harm scored Liang valuable Hollywood representation, whereupon producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones brought Shadow in the Cloud to her, thinking she might connect with the material. “It did connect with me on a level that is very personal,” Liang tells me. “As a woman of color, as a mother who juggles a lot.” She says Kavanaugh-Jones then went through the process of removing original writer Max Landis from the project. “He felt that Max was not a good fit for this project, or for how we like to run things. We like to be respectful and courteous and kind to each other…”

In several interviews, Liang has said she’s comfortable with film lovers choosing not to watch Shadow in the Cloud based on Landis’s early involvement. What she’s not comfortable with is her own contribution—and that of her cast and crew—being erased. While WGA rules have his name attached firmly to the project, the credit belies the reality: his thin script, reportedly stretched out to 70 pages by using a larger-than-usual font, was expanded and deepened by Liang and her collaborators.

Writer-director Roseanne Liang. / Photo by Dean O’Gorman

That team includes editor Tom Eagles, Oscar nominated for Jojo Rabbit, actor Nick Robinson (the titular Simon in Love, Simon) and Beulah Koale, a star of the Hawaii Five-Oh series. The opening newsreel was created by award-winning New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy, after a small test audience got weirded out by the sight of a gremlin in a war film, despite well-documented WWI and WWII gremlin mythology. It’s an unnecessary but happy addition. The cartoon style was inspired by Private Snafu, a series of WWII educational cartoons scripted by none other than Dr. Seuss and directed by Looney Tunes legend Chuck Jones.

But the film ultimately hangs on Chloë Grace Moretz, who overcame cabin fever to drive home an adrenaline rush of screen craft, in which the very limits of what’s humanly possible in mid-air are tested (in ways, it must be said, that wouldn’t be questioned if it were Tom Cruise in the role). Liang would often send directions to Moretz’s ball turret via text, while her cast members delivered live dialogue from an off-set shipping container rigged with microphones. “I just never got sick of Chloë’s face and I’ve watched her hundreds, if not thousands of times. You feel her, you are her, she just engages you in a way that a huge fighting scene might not, if it’s not designed well. Giant empty spectacle is less interesting than one person in one spot, sometimes.”

Ambitious and nerdy about film in equal measure, it’s clear there’s much more to come from Liang, and I’m interested in what her most valuable lesson has been so far. Turns out, it’s a great story involving Chinese veteran Cheng Pei-Pei (Come Drink With Me’s Golden Swallow, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Jade Fox), whose film training includes a tradition of remaining on set throughout filming.

Roseanne Liang on the set of ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

That meant that, during filming of Liang’s My Wedding and Other Secrets, Cheng would stay on set when she wasn’t required. “In New Zealand, trailers are a luxury,” Liang explains. “I said ‘Don’t you want to go to the trailer that we arranged for you?’ ‘No, I just want to sit and watch.’ ‘Why do you want to watch it, you’ve seen it hundreds of times!’ And she said ‘I learn something new every time’. To Pei-Pei, the secret of life is constant education and curiosity and learning. Movies are her work and her craft and her life, and she never gets bored. If I can be like her, that’s the life, right?”

Speaking of which, it’s time we put Liang through our Life in Film interrogation.

What’s the film that made you want to become a filmmaker? Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the movie that is at the top of the mountain that I’m climbing. To me it’s the perfect blend of spectacle, action design, smarts and heart. It poses the theory that if a robot can learn the value of humanity then maybe there’s hope for the ships that are us. That’s perennial, and possibly even more pertinent today. It holds a very special place in my heart, along with Aliens, Mad Max: Fury Road, Die Hard, La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional.

What’s your earliest memory of watching a film? I have a cassette tape that my dad made for my grandma in 1981 (he’d send tapes back to his mother in Hong Kong). I was three years old and he had just taken us to see The Empire Strikes Back in the cinema. And he can’t talk to my grandma because I’m just going on and on about R2-D2. I will not shut up about R2-D2 and he’s like, “Yes, yes I’m trying to talk to your grandmother,” and I’m like, “But Dad! Dad! R2-D2!” So it’s actually an archive, but it’s become my memory.

What’s the most romantic film you’ve ever seen? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s not the sexiest, but it’s the most romantic. That last scene, those last words where she goes “But you’re gonna be like this forever and I’m gonna be like this forever…” and he just goes “okay”. That to me is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. It is a perfect movie.

And the scariest? If it’s a horror movie, the most scared I’ve been is The Ring. I was watching it on a VHS and I was lying on a beanbag on the floor and I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move, because I felt that if I moved she’d see me! Also, American Psycho just came to me this year. I caught the twentieth anniversary of that movie, which is a terrifying film, and again, possibly more relevant now than when it was made. The scariest film that’s not a horror is Joker. It scared me how much I liked it. When I came out of the movie, I was like, “I’m scared because I kind of love it, but it’s horrible. It’s so irresponsible. I don’t wanna like this movie but goddamn, I feel it.” Like, I wanted to go on the streets and rage. In a way we’re all the Joker, we’re all the Batman. That duality, that yin and yang, is inside everyone of us. It’s universal.

What is the film that slays you every time, leaving you in a heap of tears? This is a classic one, the opening sequence of Up. The first ten minutes of Up just destroy me every time. I also saw Soul a couple of days ago and I was with the whole family and I, just, if I wasn’t with the whole family I would have been ugly-sobbing. I had a real ache in my throat after the movie because I was trying to stop [myself] from sobbing.

Tell me your favorite coming-of-age film, the film that first gave you ‘teenage feelings’? Pump Up the Volume. Christian Slater! Off the back of Pump Up the Volume, I fancied myself as a prophet and wrote a theater piece called Lemmings. Obviously the main character was a person who could see through the façade, and everyone else was following norms. “No one understands me, I’m a prophet!” So clearly I have this shitty, Joker-style megalomaniac inside of me. It was the worst play, and I don’t know why my teachers agreed for us to do a staging of it!

Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis in ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1990).

Is there a film that you and your family love to rewatch? We’ve tried to impose our taste on our children, but they’re too young. We showed them The Princess Bride—they didn’t get it. We literally showed our babies Star Wars in their cribs. That’s how obsessive Star Wars fans we were.

Name a director and/or writer that you deeply admire for their use of the artform. I have a slightly weird answer for this. Can I just give love to Every Frame a Painting by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos? They are my film school. I was thinking of my love of Edgar Wright, but then I thought of their video essay on Edgar Wright and how to film comedy, and his essay on Jackie Chan and the rhythm of action and then their essay on the Coen Brothers and Shot Reverse Shot. I must have watched that 30 times ahead of the TV show that I’m making now. I started out in editorial and Tony Zhou is an editor and he talks about when to make the cut: it’s an instinct, it’s a feeling, it’s a rhythm. I realized the one thing in common that I could mention about all the films I’ve loved is Every Frame a Painting. It’s their love of movies that comes bubbling out of every single essay that they made that I just wanna shout out at this part of my career.

Were there any crucial films that you turned to in your development for Shadow in the Cloud? Indiana Jones was something that Chloë brought up—she likes the spiffiness and the humor of Indiana Jones. Sarah Connor was our touchstone for the female character. For one-person-in-one-space type stories, I watched Locke quite a lot, to figure out how they shaped tension and story and [kept] us on the edge of our seats when it’s only one person in one space. In terms of superheroes, I came back to Aliens. Not Alien. Aliens. You know, there are two types of people in this world—people who prefer Alien over Aliens, and people who prefer Aliens over Alien. But actually I think I vacillate for different reasons.

Can there be a third type of person, who thinks they’re both great, but Alien³, just, no? Maybe that’s the best group to be in. We don’t need to fight about this, we can love both of them! I was having an argument with James Wan’s company about this, because there’s a rift inside the company of people who prefer Alien over Aliens.

Okay, program a triple feature with your film as one of the three. I don’t know. Ask Ant Timpson!

I’ll ask Ant Timpson. [We did, and he replied: “Well, one has to be the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. And then either Life (2017) or Altitude (2010).”]

Thank you Ant! I used to go to his all-nighters as a university student. He is the king of programming things.

Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Life’ (2017).

It’s strange that we never met at one of his events! Ant would make me dress up in strange outfits and do weird skits between films. (For those who don’t know, Timpson ran the Incredibly Strange Film Festival for many years—now part of the New Zealand International Film Festival—and still runs an annual 24-Hour Movie Marathon.) So what’s a film from those events that sticks in your head as the perfect genre experience with a crowd? It was a movie about a man protecting a woman who was the girlfriend of a mafia boss: A Bittersweet Life. Not only does it have one of the sexiest Korean actors, sorry, not to objectify, but also I actually screenshot a lot of that film for pitch documents. And, do you remember a crazy Japanese movie where someone’s sitting on the floor with a clear umbrella and a woman is lactating milk? Visitor Q by Takashi Miike. I remember just how fucking crazy that was.

Finally, what was the best film you saw in 2020? I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, so keep in mind that I haven’t seen all the films this year. I have three: The Invisible Man, which I thought was just amazing. I thought [writer-director] Leigh Whannell did such a great job. The Half of It by Alice Wu, a quiet movie that I simply just adored. And then the last movie I saw at the cinema was Promising Young Woman. The hype is real.

Related content

Kairit’s list of “She Did THAT!!!” films

Beyond Badass: Female Action Heroes

Up in the Air: The Letterboxd Showdown of Best Airplanes in film

Follow Gemma on Letterboxd

‘Shadow in the Cloud’ is available in select theaters and on video on demand now.

#life in film #letterboxd life in film #female director #directed by women #52 films by women #action film #action genre #chloe grace moretz #wwii film #ww2 film #terminator 2 #chinese new zealander #cheng pei-pei #tom eagles #jojo rabbit #female action hero #letterboxd

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homespork-review · 4 years

Text

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 2

BRIGHT: Nepeta wants to know what’s going on. Aradia finally stops dodging the question and tells Nepeta she’s dead, but doesn’t elaborate on how it happened. She asks Nepeta to keep it a secret, which Nepeta agrees to. Aradia’s also picked up some froglike traits from being merged with the sprite -- namely a tendency to ribbit.

In retrospect, it’s kind of funny that an active player can merge with a sprite. The role of a sprite seems to involve having detailed knowledge of how the Game works and what the player should do next, but only dispensing vague advice to the player. Prototyping a player would give them full access to that knowledge with no sprite vagueness to get in the way. The Game doesn’t seem too concerned about that, though.

CHEL: Now it’s time to get to know AG better. A doodle of her declaring her to be a HUGE BITCH fades into her standing in her room. Rather gothic, and also filthy-looking; it’s dark, with a red sky outside, and cobwebs and broken Magic 8 Balls lie around everywhere. There’s a FLARP poster and numerous pages of notes on the wall.

Your name is VRISKA SERKET.

You are a master of EXTREME ROLE PLAYING. You can't get enough of it, or really any game of high stakes and chance. You have persisted with the habit even in spite of your ACCIDENT. But then again, you don't have much choice.

Your lusus is VERY HUNGRY, ALL THE TIME. She can only be appeased by the FLESH OF YOUNG TROLLS. You cloud campaigns for teams of Flarpers, utilizing your abilities for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE IMPRESSSSSSSSIONA8LE. Your victories supply you with treasure, experience points, and SPIDER FOOD.

You are something of an APOCALYPSE BUFF, which is something you can be on Alternia. You are fascinated by end of the world scenarios, and enjoy constructing DOOMSDAY DEVICES for the hell of it. You are drawn to means of DARK PROGNOSTICATION and the advantages they offer, particularly in gaming scenarios. Your abilities in this department were hobbled with the loss of your VISION EIGHTFOLD, and you have since sought alternatives through various BLACK ORACLES. You consult with these ominous globes, but routinely destroy them in frustration over the PUZZLING GUARANTEED INACCURACY of their predictions. Breaking them has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC, and with each you destroy, you add to an insurmountable stockpile of TERRIBLE LUCK. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

FAILURE ARTIST: FINALLY we get a name for her and we don’t have to keep saying AG. I imagine the non-Homestucks are feeling like I did when I played Danganronpa 2 finally and saw the “fingers-in-his-ass” guy.

CHEL: She examines a drawing on the wall, of her FLARP character MARQUISE SPINNERET MINDFANG, who is just Vriska in a different coat and seaboots, with a hook instead of her robot hand. She is the scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike, and worst nightmare to silly BOY-SKYLARKS everywhere. She has accumulated more treasure and gained more levels than any member of the PETTICOAT SEAGRIFT class ever. She gained all the levels. All of them.

En route to her computer, Vriska steps on a D4, and complains about how she’s had terrible luck since her mysterious accident. I’d just like it noted that this is a small but noticeable occurrence of Vriska’s tendency to blame others for her problems; if she cleaned her room some time, that wouldn’t happen. Still, she doesn’t worry about it too long, as she’s busy.

So many irons in the fire. Such a tangled web. It is a web full of flaming irons and mixed metaphors.

BRIGHT: Vriska equips her weapon of choice, a set of enchanted D8 dice called the FLUORITE OCTET.

...okay, I’m getting used to characters having semi-absurd weapons, but seriously, what? Let’s review everyone else’s chosen weapons: Hammer, knitting needles, sword, gun, sickles, lance, clawed gloves, walking cane. Sollux had some throwing stars but didn’t assign them to his specibus owing to his telekinesis being enough; we haven’t seen Aradia’s strifekind yet, but she also has telekinetic abilities, and hers are apparently enhanced by her being dead. So that’s a lot of genuine weapons, and some things which aren’t weapons but can readily be used that way in a pinch...and then Vriska has a set of enchanted dice.

It’s a good fit both for Homestuck’s absurdity and for Vriska’s obsession with luck. But it does stand out rather.

Anyway, rolling the dice will execute a wide range of highly unpredictable attacks. Very high rolls can be devastating to even the most powerful opponents. Apparently these work everywhere, not just in FLARP games. Also, while we see ghosts, psychic powers, and superpowered coding, I think this is the only reference to plain magic we have on Alternia.

Vriska steps away from the computer to avoid talking to GA, who she refers to as an unwelcome solicitor, but returns to it when someone else starts messaging her. Vriska calls him this guy; he has no icon -- and, oddly, no username -- and types in white, which means the reader (and Vriska) ends up highlighting the conversation a lot.

Hello.

AG: Oh my god, why are you talking to me????????

This is the last time we'll ever talk.

AG: Still sticking with the white text I see. So smooth and stylish!

AG: I forgot how much I loved highlighting it to read all the 8oring things you have to say.

AG: It's like a fun game for super extra handicapped retarded people. Like opening a present! Find out what o8noxious thing the mystery tool typed.

AG: What is it!

A parting courtesy, I suppose.

All the ways I've exploited you were meant to bring about the events that will take place this evening.

Knowing this will provide context for the events in your near future, and will affect how you behave in response.

These events will be just as important as those preceding it.

I've gone to great lengths, you see.

Well, this guy sounds ominous.

Also, using ‘handicapped’ and ‘retarded’ as insults is entirely in character for Vriska, who has no time for people who can’t operate on her level. Currently Vriska’s also being shown as an unlikeable character. We’ll see how that develops.

CHEL: Still, a lot of people really don’t like those words being used casually, and the fact that we need to show you how things develop should imply that they won’t develop in a way you’ll like. So…

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 39

White Text Guy, as the characters refer to him for a while to come yet, continues gloating about how successfully he’s exploited Vriska, who tells him she’ll log off and orders him not to use that nasty trick where you log me 8ack on out of petty douchey spite! WTG says he’ll be brief, though he’s not particularly brief in fact, tells her he no longer hold[s] her accountable for any wrongdoing, and says that if she accepts this, she may get her luck back. Vriska doesn’t believe him and continues to rant, and he points out that her unpleasant, simplistic temperament is what made her so easy to mess with.

If you turn a swarm of wasps on a crowd, the outcome is certain.

He leaves with these even more ominous words:

Though the magnitude of the ensuing destruction resulting directly from your actions will be neither possible or necessary for you to fathom, there nevertheless ought to be a silver lining.

The only question is whether you will live long enough to see it.

Vriska, enraged, lifts a Magic 8 Ball with the intention to smash it, but decides she can’t be bothered, and answers GA, hoping some camaraderie will cheer her up, even if it’s from a meddler. However, GA’s first question is “Is Your Lusus Dead Yet”. Not particularly cheering, is it?

Vriska, for the first time, expresses concern and sympathy for another person when GA says her own lusus is dead, though it may be undermined slightly by her own personal disappointment in never having got to meet said lusus. GA doesn’t seem very concerned, and says “Maybe You Still Can”. According to her, though, all their lusii are dying, as a “Preemptive Consequence” (if that’s a meaningful concept) of the upcoming Game. Karkat blames himself for activating the cursed code, but GA thinks it was inevitable. However, Karkat’s idea of a curse Is Inseparable From His Perception Of Events As Intrinsically Negative And As Tailored To His Personal Dissatisfaction, and so is Vriska’s poor luck. GA points out that if Vriska cleaned her floor she wouldn’t step on so many things. THANK YOU, GA, you made my point for me! Vriska is angry at GA “meddling” so, and demands to know why she does.

GA: Because Youre Dangerous

[...]

GA: Its Ok To Be Dangerous

GA: Lots Of People Are

GA: And Dangerous People Can Be Really Important

GA: Maybe Even The Most Important Sometimes

GA: But It Just Means Theres Got To Be Someone Around To Keep An Eye On Them

As Vriska gets angrier, it’s noted that she puts 8s in her typing in places where they don’t work as Bs or as “eight” sounds, and they become more numerous.

AG: Or you know, if you're so h8gh 8nd might8 an8 th8nk you're so gr8at, m8y88 you c8uld oh I d8n't kn8w........

AG: TRY AND ST8P ME FROM DO8NG B8D THINGS????????

GA: That Wouldnt Work

GA: If I Tried To Stop You You Would Regard Me As An Enemy

GA: Instead Of Merely As A Nuisance

BRIGHT: GA’s strategy appears to be trying to talk Vriska into being a better person, either by persuading her that it’s the right thing to do or by being so annoying that Vriska does the right thing to avoid being meddled with. She’s making an effort, I’ll give her that. And given that she doesn’t live anywhere near Vriska, there isn’t all that much she can do to rein her in.

CHEL: Vriska signs off, ranting about her “Lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive friend!” and heads down the enormous staircase to check on her lusus.

You wonder if any other kid on the planet has such a high maintenance lusus? You DOUBT it.

As a matter of fact, one does and Vriska knows that, but we’ll see them later. Not a continuity error, it’s just Vriska self-pitying.

From a window, we see a doomsday device hanging over a chasm by chains attached to the surrounding cliffs. Vriska built it for an especially powerful and influential member of the nautical aristocracy, with help from an as-yet-unnamed nearby friend. Vriska reaches the bottom of the stairwell, and we meet her lusus, which is…

… a spider about the size of a cathedral. For the sake of our arachnophobic readers, we’ll refrain from posting a picture. Suffice it to say she’s as terrifying as she sounds. Pan out to show the entire valley is filled with cobwebs, and Vriska’s hive is matched by a similar one on the other side of the valley.

Before we move on, I’d just like to chat a little about the astrological symbolisms used here. Vriska’s the Scorpio troll, and it puzzles a lot of people that she’s spider-themed instead of scorpion-themed. Both arachnids, but not the same thing. However, Scorpio does have multiple symbols, depending on the source of the interpretation of the constellation, including the spider and the phoenix. Observe! (I enjoy astrology. Sue me.) Also, a scorpion would be a lot harder to get the story symbolism out of; Vriska is at least attempting to be a master manipulator pulling on strings, i.e. webs. The astrological symbolism and alleged personality traits aren’t used for all of the trolls in general, either. The troll with the sign of Aquarius the Water-Bearer is seadwelling nobility and probably wouldn’t be happy to be represented astrologically by a servant, and Gamzee is basically the opposite of the ambitious and hardworking traits of the allegedly typical Capricorn. Basically the signs are mostly aesthetic and if Huss can work in some connected symbolism that’s a bonus. I don’t consider this a negative thing in particular, though it might annoy some astrology buffs.

Actually, I don’t know how intentional this was, but one fan actually analysed how the social expectations on Alternia are in fact the exact opposite of what would actually suit their astrological sign. It didn’t get finished but there’s some interesting information - read the posts in question here, beware spoilers!

BRIGHT: One amusing consequence of this can be turned into a game: Go to Tumblr, find an astrology post, and see how long it takes to figure out if it’s a Homestuck riff. Some of them even just say ‘Vriska’ for Scorpio.

It’s probably just because I mostly follow fandom-related blogs, but I’ve yet to see a Tumblr astrology post that wasn’t a more-or-less-subtle Homestuck joke.

CHEL: And the ones which aren’t make for great fanfic prompts!

BRIGHT: Vriska’s lusus is fine, as it happens. Vriska pretends to be happy about this, but she’s rather less convincing than Dave is about his own guardianship issues.

FAILURE ARTIST: And we turn from Vriska to look in her neighbor and it’s….that creepy guy! Hurray!

Your name is EQUIUS ZAHHAK.

You love being STRONG.

You are so strong, you would surely be the class of the elite legion of RUFFIANNIHILATORS. And while such a calling would be quite honorable, you would prefer to join the ranks of the ARCHERADICATORS, perhaps the most noble echelon the imperial forces have to offer. Unfortunately, you SUCK AT ARCHERY. You have not successfully fired a SINGLE ARROW. Every time you try, you BREAK THE BOW. You are simply too strong. You have broken so many bows, it has developed into a habit BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

You have a great appreciation for THE FINE ARTS. You use your aristocratic connections to acquire PRICELESS MASTERPIECES, painted in the oldest and most respected Alternian tradition of NUDE MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. These striking depictions of the EXQUISITE FAUNA native to Alternia remind you of the PUREST PHYSICAL IDEAL that must be sought by anyone who professes a LOVE OF STRENGTH. When those of lesser bloodlines turn up their uncultured noses at such stunning material, it MAKES YOU FURIOUS.

Practically everything MAKES YOU FURIOUS. You have so much rage, it can only be expressed through STAGGERING QUANTITIES OF PHYSICAL VIOLENCE. You build strong and sturdy robots, set them to kill mode, and BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM in caged brawls. Sometimes you LOSE TEETH. But they usually grow back.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius Zahhak’s first name is obviously a take on the Latin word for horses, but his last name is from a Persian demon who is also known as “he who has 10,000 horses”.

So yes, that furry porn on his walls is high art to trolls. Though the prequel Hiveswap Friendsim, which has artist characters, doesn’t have MUSCLEBEAST PORTRAITS. Maybe Equius is actually weird.

CHEL: Actually, the Friendsim does have musclebeast art; if you squint at the beginning of Nikhee’s route, you can see depictions of white muscular chests flanking the arena, which don’t look like troll chests. Hiveswap proper is rated PG, so we’ll be spared it there, too.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius is more even-tempered than his introduction suggests. He’s not completely violence-free (as we will see) but he’s not in a constant ‘roid-rage. Heck, from what we’ve seen before of him he just gets peeved and snotty.

Equius calls for his lusus Aurthour, who I guess could be called another self-insert. Aurthour is a centaur-type creature with cow udders and a mustache and looks like something out of Hussie’s early comics. Aurthour carries a glass of lusus milk on a platter, presumably from its own udders. Ummm.

You cannot hope to beat Aurthour in a butler-off. He is simply the best there is.

Sweet, I guess.

CHEL: I wonder how Aurthour contorts around to reach his udder. Centaurs aren’t really known for flexibility.

FAILURE ARTIST: We find out why Aurthour has a shiner. It’s not because of domestic abuse but because when Equius “gently” pats Aurthour, Aurthour bruises. Yet this creature is the only lusus STRONG enough to raise Equius.

Equius tries to drink the glass, but it shatters in his hand. Which begs the question of why Aurthour doesn’t use an alternative to glass. Well, I guess Equius going straight to the source would be too disturbing even for Hussie. A bigger problem is how Equius can do the fine detail work of building robots when he can’t hold a glass.

Equius goes into a rage, which just means he stands around in Hero Mode while the lusus milk quickly evaporates. Wait, quickly evaporates? What is it made of?

CHEL: I assumed the heat of his rage boiled it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius tries to equiup equip a bow but fails due to his strength. Like the glass smashing, this is a normal occurrence. You’d think he’d give up but apparently breaking bows is like popping bubble wrap to him. Expensive bubble wrap. So he has the useless 1/2bowkind, a bowkind for when he’s ever that lucky, and the fistkind which he actually utilizes. Yes, in Homestuck, you can register your fists as lethal weapons.

Equius talks with Nepeta and the narration summarizes like thus:

CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no CT: D --> Yes AC: :33 < no

Equius is still worried about his good friend Nepeta, so he decides to relieve his stress by talking with another friend. And here comes a line fans take as meaning trolls don’t have friendship.

It should be noted that in troll language, the word for friend is exactly the same as the word for enemy.

Though that line contradicts Equius considering Nepeta his friend only a few lines back. This worldbuilding sucks.

CHEL: Well, he doesn’t treat her the way a human should treat a friend at this point.

FAILURE ARTIST: So Equius trolls this frienemy who turns out to be Gamzee.

centaursTesticle [CT] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC]

CT: D --> Have I ever told you what a reprehensible disgrace you are

TC: hAhA, fUcK yEaH, oNlY eVeRy MoThErFuCkIn DaY bRo!

Yeah, Equius, pretty much everyone tells Gamzee that every day.

Equius says he wants get some things off his chest, which giving what we later learn about troll relationships might be adulterous. Gamzee tells him not to let his feelings be bottled up lIkE a FuCkIn AlL sHaKeD uP bOtTlE oF fAyGo and this metaphor makes Gamzee thristy. Equius berates Gamzee for drinking soda, which seems harsh but we later find out soda is booze for trolls. He’s also angry at Gamzee for doing sopor slime. Now, fans think Karkat didn’t like Gamzee doing sopor slime but we never actually see it. It’s just Equius who cares. This leads to an exchange I find interesting.

CT: D --> You will stop

TC: WhOaAaA, i WiLl?

TC: hOw Do YoU kNoW tHaT?

CT: D --> No, you don't understand

CT: D --> It's not a predi%ion, it's an order

CT: D --> I command you to stop

Gamzee is so passive he finds it hard to imagine making decisions that will change his future. Sad. And when Gamzee does get what Equius means:

TC: Oh, AlRiGhT bRoThEr.

TC: yOu MoThErFuCkIn GoT iT.

CT: D --> What

CT: D --> Are you serious

TC: yEaH.

TC: I mEaN, yOu GoT tO sHoW sOmE fAiTh In YoUr FrIeNdS, cAuSe ThEy'Re AlL tHe OnEs WhO'rE bEiNg To LoOk OuT fOr YoU.

TC: sO fUcK iF yOu SaY i'M nOt DoInG tHe ShIt RiGhT, tHeN wHaT tHe MoThErFuCk Do I kNoW!

CT: D --> No

CT: D --> This is una%eptable

CT: D --> Ok, let's start over

CT: D --> I apologize

CT: D --> I was completely out of of line, and I'm sorry

CT: D --> I have no right to talk to you like that, or tell you what you can't do

TC: aWw, No WoRrIeS!

Gamzee was ready to kick sopor slime except Equius backed down. Wondering about the timeline where Equius didn’t back down.

Still, Equius begs Gamzee to behave like a superior. Gamzee asks what that means and Equius gives a very creepy answer.

CT: D --> 100k, it isn't that difficult

CT: D --> Try to be cognizant of your desires and needs

CT: D --> And attempt to regard those around you as simple vehicles meant to bring about your gratification

At least Equius is a hypocrite...most of the time.

Equius asks what Gamzee is doing and Gamzee relates his adventures in Sgrub. He bonked an imp on the head and scared another with a horn and eventually ended up sharing pie with them. Equius likes the tales of valor but is disappointed with the peaceful end.

Equius asks Gamzee to roleplay and Gamzee says yes; there’s an uncomfortable sequence where Equius tries to get Gamzee to virtually dom him. Gamzee is terrible at being assertive, but Equius is still whipped into a state of contrition. Basically, Equius is getting off on this.

CHEL: It should be noted that tricking a child into sexual behaviour is a form of abuse even when it’s done by a child of the same age. Not cool, Eq, and not funny, Hussie.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 11

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 40

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 4

Though, while that is clearly the reading we’re meant to get from that, I have to say Equius never reads to me like he’s actually enjoying being ordered around. With Gamzee he’s just frustrated that he’s not behaving in a correct manner, and in later exchanges he seems knocked off-balance by the normal social order being upended. I know I’m just projecting, but it reads more like he has some issues with anxiety or OCD and is desperate for someone else to take control and tell him what they want him to do so he doesn’t have to worry. He sweats constantly during these exchanges, which is supposed to imply he’s aroused, but people sweat when they’re worried or afraid too.

FAILURE ARTIST: On a lighter front, Equius says he doesn’t live near the ocean, which considering his neighbor regularly goes on a pirate ship is an odd thing to say.

CHEL: How near is “near”? He might just mean not within walking distance so he can’t casually wander out to the sea like Gamzee does.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius ends by wondering about the social order that puts someone like Gamzee above him but someone as graceful and poised as a certain mysterious she is of the lowest caste. Gamzee (and the readers) ask who she is and Equius brusquely says D -->I shouldn’t be talking about this D → You’re the enemy before signing off.

CHEL: If one’s been paying attention, one can guess.

Next, Equius and Vriska are in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Vriska declares her intention to meddle, and they have a brief exchange about sarcasm. It’s horribly inconsistent whether trolls have sarcasm or not, as I’ve pointed out before. Already gave a point for it, though.

Anyway, Vriska asks if Aradia’s present is finished. It is.

CT: D --> But I don't understand why you're intent on gratifying that worthless peasant

AG: 8ecause I promised I would and it's none of your damn 8usiness! Man.

Their plan is to let Aradia usurp Sollux as leader with her cute little ploy (recall her sending him to sleep and letting him swallow mind honey earlier), then both snatch power from her and become joint leaders. Each asks the other if they’re planning something sneaky and each insists they’re not. Equius can sense that Vriska is trying to read his mind, and when she won’t stop, he takes control of her cybernetic arm, which he built, and makes her slap herself in the face.

FAILURE ARTIST: So given that Vriska tried to read Equius’ mind, despite the dangers (both physically and mentally), it is unbelievable she refrained from reading Karkat’s due to delicacy.

I think Hussie has said in his commentary that Vriska had a crush on Equius. The fandom prefers lesbian Vriska at this point and so has ignored that. YMMV on if there is evidence of a crush in the text but I find the idea amusing.

CHEL: Equius goes to fetch the present for Aradia which he was supposed to give to Vriska.

You naturally will doublecross your accomplice, just as you assume she has plans to doublecross you. You assume she is assuming the same of you. Business as usual for blue bloods.

How the hell does this society get anything done?

You will deliver it to Aradia yourself to gain her favor, and then doublecross her and take your rightful position as team leader. How ironic that someone of your blood purity must work to win the favor of the lowest sort of peasant. Humiliating. Strangely titillating, even. But in the end, class order will be restored.

He takes the tarp off the present, and it is…

Why, Aradia. It appears the red glass of your eye has caught the pink and green glint of the moons in their perigees. The sweet poetry almost makes a man forget how the grime that once filled your veins made his stomach turn. It is a good omen for illicit lovers. Could you imagine the scandal if anyone found out?? No one must ever know.

But worry not. Your heart will pump no more of that despicable red sludge. You have been given a new heart. You can be taught the ways of the class you were always meant for. No one is beyond redemption.

Be grateful, dear Aradia. For the first time in your meaningless life you have met a man with true compassion.

Jesus fucking Christ. See what I meant when I said his interactions with girls were worse than his posters? No points because it’s supposed to be creepy, and with the teachings of his society it’s not entirely his fault, but wow.

FAILURE ARTIST: Well, his interaction with a girl is creepy. His relationship with Nepeta is more problematic than fans remember but that’s two-sided and not infatuation. As for Vriska, he’s cold and business-like with her. He collaborates with GA but that’s off-screen and was probably also business-like. Meanwhile, he has lustful interactions with most every male character. We’ve seen how he acts with Gamzee and we’ll see more later. Equius’ interactions with guys are another example of Hussie using male attraction to other males as a punchline.

CHEL: But yes, he’s built her a robot body. Unfortunately for everyone involved, while making out with it, he feels judged by one of his battlebots, gets angry, and punches it. It goes flying out the window and robosplodes above the valley, and its remains hit Vriska’s doomsday device, setting it off. It breaks before it can actually destroy the planet, but the chains holding it up snap, sending it swinging into the cliffside, causing another explosion. The cliff collapses, taking part of Equius’ hive with it, sending Aurthour plummeting into the chasm and crushing Vriska’s spider lusus under tons of rubble.

Cutting back to before that, we see Terezi battling imps on her treehouse’s rooftop, when Vriska messages her, declaring that playing the game together means breaking their truce. Terezi says that’s not what the truce was about; it was about STOPP1NG TH3 3NDL3SS CYCL3 OF R3V3NG3 and Vriska not using her powers maliciously anymore. Terezi’s next couple of comments are just calling Vriska a liar so I’ll just take Vriska’s, to further illustrate her behaviour.

AG: Man, you like to give me such a hard time a8out all that. I can't catch a 8reak! AG: Can't you see I'm trying to put all that 8ehind me and make amends with every8ody? AG: No, of course you can't see that. What am I saying! [...] AG: I'll prove it to you. I'm giving Aradia a present that will make her feel all 8etter finally. AG: Then I'll 8e in the clear. Phew! Totally redeemed. You'll see. I mean smell.

Vriska appears under the impression that large flashy gestures are the important part of an apology, not actual sincerity. Terezi points out Aradia doesn’t care about anything anymore and probably won’t care about this.

AG: Man, why can't you cut me some slack for once???????? AG: It's not like I even did anything that 8ad to you. AG: I lost seven eyes 8ut you only lost two! I would say you came out ahead in the 8argain. GC: 1 KNOW GC: 4ND 4CTU4LLY GC: 1 N3V3R R34LLY GOT TH3 CH4NC3 TO TH4NK YOU >:D

Vriska’s disbelief aside, Terezi really is serious here. Not surprising to the reader, her blindness is basically a superpower.

AG: Remem8er Team Scourge? How convenient all that must 8e to have forgotten! You were so nasty. AG: Oh man, if you crossed Terezi Pyrope you were fucked!!!!!!!! GC: Y34H 1F YOU W3R3 4 B4D GUY GC: W3 W3R3 SUPPOS3D TO B3 L1K3 4 V1G1L4NT3 DUO D1SP3NS1NG JUST1C3 GC: 4ND YOU COULD T4K3 TH3 B4D GUYS HOM3 4ND F33D TH3M TO YOUR STUP1D SP1D3R GC: BUT 1NST34D YOU JUST F3D H3R 3V3RYBODY! GC: 4ND L13D 4ND L13D 4ND L13D

Okay, this little exchange needs some more dissection. Terezi is supposed to be the “good cop” of Team Scourge, the by-the-book one on the side of the law. But we saw what Alternian law is like, and later on we’ll see demonstrations that things such as having a birth defect or, according to Hiveswap, owning fiction which so much as mentions the possibility of rebellion, are punishable by death. Not only is this not making Terezi look any better, if she’s as obsessed with the law as we saw, who would she deem not a “bad guy”, and why would Vriska have such a shortage of “bad guys” that she’d need to take anyone else? Hussie appears to have forgotten that the Alternian concept of justice is different from the Earth one.

FAILURE ARTIST: And what we would consider a “bad guy” wouldn’t be the same on Alternia. There’s tons of trolls murdering other trolls on Hiveswap Friendsim without any hint that’s illegal. It’s probably completely lawful for a highblood to kill a lowblood just because the lowblood annoyed them.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 29

BRIGHT: Maybe. I’d say what this shows us, and is intended to show us, is that Terezi’s sense of justice isn’t just based on Alternian law, but on her own moral code. The law made it perfectly acceptable for Vriska to feed lowbloods to her lusus regardless of whether they’d done anything, but Terezi didn’t think it was right, and for her that superseded the law. She’s the ‘good cop’ not because she always follows the book, but because she’s willing to ignore it.

We also know she thought Vriska was on the same page as her. Note that Terezi makes two accusations here — the first is that Vriska killed people who don’t deserve it, and the second is that Vriska lied to Terezi about doing so.

CHEL: That may be what it’s intended to show us, but what we’ve already seen is that she worships the law; she draws and gleefully licks pictures of the head of the troll court, His Honorable Tyranny, and she shows no concern in her roleplay with hypothetically executing people for relatively trivial crimes. That makes this a bit… shaky, IMO.

BRIGHT: True. Terezi may have stopped killing since her FLARP days (or, at least, we get no indication that she’s still doing so), but it doesn’t seem to have shaken her belief in the Alternian legal system. Just her belief in Vriska, who even brings up a similar point.

AG: Well if you want to know what I think, you should start changing your tune. AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

Vriska’s making this all about her own feelings about Terezi abandoning her, but she’s not wrong.

Vriska hears the doomsday device exploding and the subsequent rockslide, and goes to find out what it is. Terezi tells her not to get crushed.

The next page jumps back in time again -- this time, quite far back. Terezi’s eyes are normal, and she’s talking to Aradia about Tavros’s recovery. Aradia says he’s probably paralysed for life. Terezi brings up the possibility of getting him robo-prosthetics, but after the Vriska debacle Aradia is firmly against having anything to do with bluebloods.

CHEL: Terezi warns Aradia that revenge attempts will end badly and she wants to handle it. Aradia says Vriska isn’t able to control her, but Terezi says Vriska will find a way to harm her anyway. They lament how they were both distracted by the same person.

AA: wh0 was he anyway GC: PR3TTY SUR3 1T WAS VR1SKAS FR13ND AA: what was he d0ing there AA: watching us GC: WHO KNOWS GC: H3S NOT R34LLY H3R FR13ND THOUGH GC: YOU SHOULD S33 HOW H3 T4LKS 4BOUT H3R B3H1ND H3R B4CK GC: SH3 H4S NO 1D34 HOW B4D H3S PL4Y1NG H3R GC: BUT TH3N 1 DONT TH1NK H3 KNOWS HOW B4D SH3S PL4Y1NG H1M 31TH3R

This sounds like they mean Equius, but we’ll see. Aradia feels she’s letting Vriska win by doing nothing, but Terezi has a plan. She confirms that her friendship with Vriska is over.

Cut to Aradia’s house, and here I need to go into a bit more detail. This is her house:

Aradia’s a maroonblood, the lowest of the low on the hemospectrum, peasantry and cannon fodder and supposedly extremely numerous. Yet her house looks to be about the size of the entire block of flats I live in, and she lives in it alone, with no other buildings at all in sight. In the next page, we see inside her house, which looks exactly the same as all the others; she has piles of roleplaying books and posters and a computer, and nothing looks to be in disrepair.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 30

BRIGHT: Her house also looks a lot like Tavros’s, what with the windmill feature on top and the brown hangings rather than maroon, which threw me off at first.

CHEL: We’ll talk about this more later. For now, let’s stick with the most noticeable thing; Aradia is alive! Her skirt is untattered and her eyes have colour and pupils. Her lusus is alive too, napping beside her. It’s not quite clear what it is exactly; it has a sheep-like head, but its body is long and slim with much bigger hind legs than forelegs. Could be supposed to be dragon-like? I’ve also seen it interpreted as kangaroo-like. I don’t think we ever get a better view of it.

Anyway, Aradia knows Terezi’s advice is sound, but she can’t bear not to do something to Make her pay. She puts her hands up to her temples, and the image fades back and forth with one of wrapped troll corpses in Spidermom’s web…

It's a shame it had to come to this. You don't like summoning the spirits of the dead to settle scores.

But if she had to face her victims again, maybe she'd finally learn to feel remorse.

OOOOOOOOOO

This begs the question, how the fuck can the highbloods oppress people who not only hugely outnumber them but can shoot lasers from their eyes, control animals, and summon the dead at will? Well, there’s actually some explanation for that. The player trolls all appear to have unusual levels of power, for whatever their given powers are; most maroonbloods can’t do this. In Hiveswap a main character is a more typical maroonblood, who can just about bend spoons with his telekinesis and not much else (though we haven’t seen him speak with dead yet, and it’s possible he’s better at that). Not all trolls even have their caste’s powers, as far as I can tell, as we do see a yellow in Hiveswap Friendsim who’s not a psionic and some ceruleans who don’t seem to have mind-control powers as well. Head or eye injuries, which aren’t exactly rare in Alternia, can cause the loss of said powers. Also, the highest blood castes have powers of their own and other things to hold over the lowbloods’ heads. It’ll be a while till we get to that, but I’ll say now it is convincing, we do not have an Oppressed Mages scenario.

Anyway, Aradia does her thing…

As Vriska cowers on her floor, White Text Guy messages her again. Vriska replies angrily, ghosts looming over her shoulders.

Aren't you going to kill her?

AG: Who????????

Your friend.

The one who summoned the spirits.

AG: Will that make them go away?

Does it matter?

She brought them here to torment you. This obviously warrants revenge.

Vriska asks why WTG doesn’t kill Aradia instead, since he helped kill Tavros; he replies “All I did was stand somewhere for a few minutes. I just gave you an opportunity to do something you wanted to do anyway.” So, seems it wasn’t Equius they meant earlier. Vriska protests she never intended to kill her gaming companions, and blames him.

Again, I didn't talk you into anything, nor am I doing so now.

You were, and are, going to do this regardless.

I only ever place myself into positions of tangential involvement with events that will bring about my employer's entry into this universe.

I oversee the events as they take place, and ever so slightly nudge them into motion when necessary.

BRIGHT: Looks like Aradia and Terezi haven’t told her Tavros survived, which is eminently sensible. This conversation also highlights another Vriska trait: That she’s a very active person, but will try to shift responsibility as soon as she doesn’t like the consequences. That could be a result of her upbringing -- Vriska had to actively go and kill people for Spidermom, but she wasn’t responsible for the overall situation. (Although -- how much did she do to ameliorate it? By the time SGRUB starts, Spidermom’s far too big to fit into Vriska’s home. Vriska might have been able to get away with not feeding her at that point; there’s not much Spidermom can do if she can’t get to her.)

CHEL: The later addition to the canon, Pesterquest, claims that the lusii can psychically nag their charges and she could bother Vriska that way, but that directly contradicts Act 5, in which the trolls want to prototype their lusii so that they’ll be able to communicate properly with them for the first time, and also couldn’t Vriska just move further away?

BRIGHT: Inertia is very much a thing, and people do often just settle into a rut of ‘this is the way things are’ even when something could be changed, so it’s not improbable that it wouldn’t occur to Vriska to move — come to that, I don’t believe it occurs to anyone else either — but the fact that it doesn’t occur to her does say something about her character.

CHEL: Also, why didn’t Vriska feed the spider on animals? The possibility is never so much as considered by her or anyone else, though it seems the most obvious thing to do. Sure, the spider might be picky, but as we said, it can’t leave the valley due to its size, or it’d be hunting for itself. If it’s left with the choice to eat cows or die, it’d presumably pick the former, especially since the lusii aren’t supposed to be sapient and thus wouldn’t have the capacity for spite. For assuming that Vriska did what she had to when such a screamingly obvious better option is never addressed, here we go with a new count, which will rise whenever Vriska’s horrible actions are excused.

ALL THE LUCK: 1

Back to the scene, Scratch claims omniscience, which Vriska mocks.

AG: Sure you know a lot, 8ut I know for a FACT there's stuff you don't know.

That's true.

But the gaps in my knowledge exist by design.

They are the pillars of shadow on which my comprehensive vision is built.

Necessary pockets of void meant to effectuate outcomes I've foreseen and which will require my influence.

Each dark pocket, in time, will be filled.

[...]

I don't lie.

Deception is only necessary for those like you to achieve their objectives.

I play with my cards face up.

Isn't it funny how during our various matches, I can tell you what my moves will be in advance, and still win?

Vriska, angered by this, does in fact plan to kill Aradia; Not much point in living with all these moaning spooks just to spite some guy you don't give a shit about. She can’t control Aradia because Aradia’s own powers get in the way, but there are other people she can use.

How about this guy? Unfortunately, you can only control him about half the time.

Then again, that should be all the time you need.

Cut back to Aradia’s place, and she receives a message from Vriska, telling her her boyfriend is outside.

BRIGHT: Vriska also lightheartedly tells Aradia she’s sorry, and that she’ll make it up to ‘him’ someday. Presumably ‘he’ is meant to be Tavros, except that Vriska seemed to think Tavros was dead in literally the last conversation she had. This is probably just a slip-up on Hussie’s part, but it’s possible to read this as Vriska referring to a different ‘he’ entirely, considering what’s about to happen.

CHEL: Aradia looks, and sees a figure hovering telekinetically over the fields....

Note what’s in his hand. You do not under any circumstances eat the mind honey… His eyes start flashing and Aradia looks afraid, but we suddenly cut to a view of Alternia, and then to a closeup of its green moon. The prompt instructs us to Be the white text guy, and we meet him in a very familiar-looking green mansion.

You try to be the white text guy, but fail to be the white text guy. No one can be the white text guy except for the white text guy.

The white text guy is known as Doc Scratch.

He is an officer of an indestructible demon known as Lord English. His job is to pave the way for the arrival of his master, who will be summoned upon the termination of the universe. He has worked at this task for many centuries, and will continue to do so until THE GREAT UNDOING.

Scratch is Alternia's FIRST GUARDIAN. Every planet destined for intelligent life has such an entity meant to protect it, and facilitate the planet's ultimate purpose. A first guardian is typically almost as old as the planet itself, and each has a unique, circuitous origin through the knots of paradox space. They can be born into a great diversity of forms, though they all share a common, especially potent genetic sequence.

Remember Rose’s MEOW book, and how DD used it to create Becquerel? Yep.

The code grants them near omnipotence, and when merged with a host of great intelligence, near omniscience as well.

BRIGHT: Only near-omniscence, however. Scratch is surprised to find Terezi contacting him, but he’s able to work out that she got Sollux to help pretty fast:

Occasionally I discover there are things I have not always known.

It gives me the opportunity to make deductions, which are practically always flawless.

It's gratifying.

He also suggests she call him ‘Mr. Vanilla Milkshake’, and then hints that Aradia might not be straightforwardly dead by stating that Sollux and Terezi believe she is dead, and will soon believe she is not, both of which are true statements about their beliefs rather than reality.

Props to Hussie on this: I’m pretty sure every Homestuck fan wants to punch Scratch in the face. He’s just so obnoxious.

Terezi, however, refuses to let Scratch keep derailing her for long. She wants Scratch to get involved in their feud again, and she has a good reason for him: She knows how Vriska’s been able to come so close to beating Scratch in their games lately. Before she can tell him, though, she needs to talk to Vriska again.

She starts by asking how Vriska feels about killing Aradia, after she promised not to. Vriska responds with dramatic insincerity about how she feels awful, and then says Terezi should be happy that Team Charge is out of the picture.

AG: Uuuuuuuugh, what do you want from me????????

GC: 1M NOT SUR3

GC: 1 GU3SS 1M LOOK1NG FOR SOM3 R34SON TO CH4NG3 MY M1ND

GC: 1 DONT KNOW WH4T YOU C4N S4Y TH4TLL DO 1T

GC: 1 SORT4 HOP3 TH3R3S SOM3TH1NG THOUGH

In the end, there isn’t. Terezi tells Vriska she’ll be dead in a couple of minutes, and to ‘CONSULT W1TH YOUR L1TTL3 4DV4NT4G3’ if she doesn’t believe it, then leaves the conversation.

Vriska’s little advantage turns out to be a MAGIC CUE BALL, which is similar to a magic 8 ball except that it’s predictions are specific and accurate, and it lacks a portal through which the user can read said predictions. Fortunately that’s not an obstacle for Vriska: Her VISION EIGHTFOLD allows her to see through the opaque casing.

CHEL: Vision Eightfold is the vision from the one of Vriska’s eyes which has seven pupils, which she covered with an eyepatch with seven rubies on it when she was FLARPing. Also remember that Jade had a Magic Cue Ball but couldn’t read it? Yeah, it’s another one.

BRIGHT: One other thing: According to rumour, it used to belong to the man on the moon.

As Vriska asks the cueball whether she should be worried about Terezi’s threat (answer: YES), Terezi lets Scratch know where his missing property has gone. Vriska asks the cueball how it’s going to happen…

I WILL EXPLODE IN YOUR FACE.

Boom.

This section is one of my favourite Terezi moments. It really shows off Terezi’s ability to outthink and manoeuvre people. She’s never spoken to Scratch before, but she still plays him against Vriska easily.

CHEL: This is why Vriska has a plain eyepatch and a robot arm in her future appearances, but she’s otherwise fine. Bluebloods are tough, apparently.

BRIGHT: Back in the future, Spidermom has survived the rubble falling on her, but just barely. Vriska puts her out of her misery with her magic dice, which summon up a massive guillotine and decapitate the lusus, drenching Vriska in spider blood.

GORE GALORE: 11

The decapitation sets off another landslide, sending Equius’s house straight down on Vriska’s head, but before it can land, a portal opens underneath it and transports it into the Medium.

Vriska promptly jumps on Trollian to freak out about this, because her plan depended on her getting Aradia’s surprise present from Equius to pass along and then Aradia and Vriska entering the Medium together, and never mind that a house was about to fall on her -- in fact, when Aradia points out that Vriska was about to die, Vriska accuses her of planning this. Aradia placidly agrees.

CHEL: This is part of my evidence for thinking Vriska might not be neurotypical. Not the priorities most people would have. Also, meanwhile, note that the lusii have the same blood colour as their charges, while the non-lusus animals Nepeta killed were black and had red blood. I’m not sure whether that’s a species trait, or a side effect of the weird bond between them (doesn’t make a lot of biological sense, but then this is basically fantasy with a sci-fi coat of paint).

Vriska is enraged by things not going the way she planned; her grand gesture of apology, the robot body, will now be handed over by Equius and not her, ruining her chance to be friends again with Aradia. Again, she doesn’t seem to understand how apologies work.

AA: were we ever really friends

AG: Yeah!!!!!!!!

AG: I don't know. I felt like we were even if you didn't think so.

AG: I guess I'm not very good at acting like a friend. Or saying stuff like, hey friend! You're my friend! It doesn't really occur to me.

For some strange reason related to her prototyping with the frog statue, Aradia types out “ribbit” into the chatbox, and informs Vriska she’s not on the Blue team as she expected, enraging Vriska further. Vriska accuses her of taking revenge, which Aradia denies, saying Vriska was always going to be on the Red team, and that she doesn’t care about her death.

AG: You're so infuri8ing! Why c8n't you just h8 me? It would 8e a lot easier th8t way.

AG: Or at least feel 8othered or annoyed or S8METHING! God!!!!!!!!

AG: May8e I sh8uld just rip my he8rt out of my chest and pound it to a 8loody pulp here on my desk with my sup8r strong ro8ot arm.

AG: Pound pound pound pound pound pound pound pound!

AG: Look at that, more nasty 8lue 8lood all over me. Why not! Might as well op8n the floodg8s and p8nt my whole hive with this oh so envia8le cerulean SWILL.

AG: 8ecause clearly it's up to me to feel em8tions for the 8oth of us, you misera8le soulless witch!

AA: 0_0

AG: I h88888888 you!

AG: H8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 h8 haaaaaaaate!

AG: I only regret killing you cause it m8de you so 8ORING!!!!!!!!

AA: s0rry

Aradia assures her that the teams are meaningless, but being on the Red team will put Vriska in the position they need her in. Vriska’s confused and angry, and leaves the chat.

In Equius’ LAND OF CAVES AND SILENCE, he trolls Aradia again, telling her he will be the sole leader, which she doesn’t care about. He’s surprised she isn’t objecting, and says he needs a towel.

CT: D --> Never mind

CT: D --> I'm trying to stay professional about this

AA: ab0ut what

AA: what are y0u talking ab0ut

CT: D --> Forget it

CT: D --> It's just pleasant to consort with one of lesser breeding who clearly understands her place

He’s been established to suffer from hyperhydrosis, but he’s clearly also supposed to be getting off on this, which, since he’s thirteen, is icky to read.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 12

It only gets worse.

CT: D --> I 100k forward to seeing how well you serve me, server player

AA: uh

AA: thats n0t quite the meaning 0f the w0rd server

CT: D --> What do you mean

AA: as y0ur server i manipulate y0ur envir0nment t0 help y0u advance

CT: D --> I don't understand

CT: D --> Are you

CT: D --> Are you saying

CT: D --> That

CT: D --> You are in a position of control over me

AA: i supp0se s0

CT: D --> Oh

AA: what

CT: D --> Oh my God

He babbles about how he needs fresh air or another towel, getting so agitated he actually drops an F-bomb, which he immediately covers up with “Fiddlesticks”. He says he wants to break something, and Aradia offers to break something for him, as she’s developed an interest in breaking things recently. Next page, she flings an “abluti0n trap” through his wall.

FAILURE ARTIST: The running gag of girls fucking up boy’s homes with bathroom appliances continues!

CHEL: He’s very happy, except about her commoner slang.

CT: D --> In fact, this is an order from your leader

CT: D --> Call things by their proper names

AA: what

AA: y0u want me t0 call it a bath tub

AA: that s0unds ridicul0us

As FA noted, this bit of worldbuilding ends up retconned out with all trolls calling things by strange rewordings later on.

Whatever it’s called, Equius asks her to throw it through the wall again. She asks if that’s an order, and he can’t decide.

CT: D --> You could cause quite a bother for me, with the power you wield

CT: D --> I can do nothing to stop you, peasant girl

CT: D --> It's so magnificently depraved

CALL CPA PLEASE: 13

Aradia ribbits again and he takes it for roleplaying, but commands her to continue to do as she pleases. He tells her he’s bringing the robot body, and muses on whether she should actually be co-leader again; in fact, he decides, she should be the actual leader, in secret, through him. She points out that’s what they’re doing anyway.

CT: D --> You take to authority well for one of your b100d

AA: i d0nt have bl00d

CT: D --> Not yet

CT: D --> But soon your heart will beat anew, and through it, fresh b100d and fresh passion

AA: 0_0

CALL CPA PLEASE: 14

Equius proceeds to STRONGJUMP right up to his first Gate, punching off an ogre’s head as he goes, and to STRONGFALL out into LOQAM, where Aradia waits. Equius hands over the robot and Aradia enters it; she seems happy, but Equius cautiously asks if she feels anything else.

EQUIUS: D --> Can you detect anything within you might describe as

EQUIUS: D --> Smoldering passion

[...]

ARADIABOT: 0h g0d

ARADIABOT: 0H MY G0D WHAT DID Y0U D0!

ARADIABOT: did y0u pr0gram this r0b0t t0 have feelings f0r y0u?

ARADIABOT: R0MANTIC FEELINGS???

EQUIUS: D --> Hrrrk

ARADIABOT: ANSWER ME BLUE BL00D SCUM

EQUIUS: D --> I

EQUIUS: D --> Yes

EQUIUS: D --> Uh

EQUIUS: D --> It's a chip in your heart

EQUIUS: D --> Is that not ok

Understandably, it is emphatically not.

GORE GALORE: 12

Now, this is undeniably a really, really, really creepy thing to do. I’m not sure how much blame can be applied to Equius here, though; he’s been raised in a society which would presumably tell him she would have to accept his advances no matter what, considering their caste difference. In a horrifying way, the chip might have been, in his mind, the nicer option. Still, as I said, creepy.

CALL CPA PLEASE: 15

BRIGHT: I think it’s telling that he asks if it’s not okay after Aradia freaks out, as though he honestly hadn’t considered that Aradia might have a problem with it. Specifically, up until that point, Equius seems to be interacting with Aradia more like she’s a prop than a person — it doesn’t seem to occur to him that she might not want what he wants, unless their wants conflict in a way that he finds titillating. Then she freaks out and he’s surprised. And that in turn speaks volumes about how lowbloods are viewed by highbloods in wider society.

Contrast Vriska, who absolutely realises that people down spectrum can have their own agendas and emotional reactions; she just does her own thing anyway. Vriska is actively malicious; Equius is, at least in this case, accidentally malicious. Note that he doesn’t make any effort to prevent her from removing the chip once he realises she’s distressed. (Not that he really gets a chance.)

Equius in particular also seems to have a problem about slotting people into roles in general -- he does it with Gamzee, too, although since Gamzee is higher-blooded than him, he has to at least face the fact that Gamzee doesn’t fit into his role. He comes across as very sheltered.

FAILURE ARTIST: Equius considers it such a good thing to be a highblood that he thinks he’s doing her the greatest favor by turning her into one.

CHEL: This also brings up the question of where he got all that blue blood. I hope it’s synthetic. If not, he’s already said he doesn’t kill animals, so I’m not sure whether it’s creepier if he killed another troll for it or if he slowly drained it off from his own.

Aradia’s not contemplating that, too busy crushing the artificial heart and slapping the shit out of Equius for multiple pages, before, er…

Yes, she’s apparently making out with him as a reward for violating her mind, even after the chip was removed.

BRIGHT: The first time I read Homestuck, I thought that was meant to imply that not all of the programming was gone.

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie did confirm the programming was gone. He compared it to a failed roofying.

CHEL: This is a bit of a shock, but it makes somewhat more sense when we see more of troll culture, not long in the future. Still, right now it’s probably upsetting for a number of readers because that part of troll culture hasn’t been established, so…

CALL CPA PLEASE: 16

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 41

#Homespork #homestuck #review #reread #Let's read #homestuck meta #vriskourse

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

Text

I’m gonna talk Star Wars.

I been told there’s a bunch of drama (mostly shipping related?) going down RN so let me be clear, I don’t have time for that. This is the opinion of a casual fan (EXTREMELY casual fan), who doesn’t engage with Star Wars outside of the movies, and doesn’t think about it in between releases. I don’t know Star Wars lore and I don’t care. And I definitely don’t care who you ship/who you hate/what BNF was a jerk to you/yadda yadda seen it all before hun.

I know a leeeeeeetle bit more about the outer Star Wars universe now thanks to The Mandalorian, which I love to pieces, and which reminded me why I loved the original trilogy more than any of the sequel/prequel movies ever did. Mandalorian has a way of bringing the fun along with the drama and the action.

Anyway so here’s a random fan’s messy, undeveloped thoughts a month after finally seeing TRoS.

Honestly my beef with it is this: Finn. I loved TFA because of Finn. Because of Rey too - and Poe - but mainly I stan Finn. Because I just think Storm Trooper-turned-Rebel is too fucking awesome.

And the way he was depicted - not some cold hard killer, not some unfeeling robot who needs to relearn empathy - but someone with an inner kindness and sense of justice. That was so unexpected. I never dreamed up a Storm Trooper defecting, let alone one who defected because he’s just too damn human to be programmed into the perfect soldier.

And I feel like... the movies ended Finn’s story there. In the first movie. It’s like they had this great, captivating idea - “what if a Storm Trooper joined the rebels?” - and then had no follow up for it, but did it anyway. He’s got some cool moments in the other movies, of course he does. But, idk. I just thought it was all gonna have more of an impact. It really became Rey’s trilogy, and I suppose it was from the start, but I thought there’d be a bit more sharing.

Finn > Kylo Ren. Not a ship thing, just a “which character do you want to know more about?” thing. For me that was definitely Finn. And I feel like this is a theme in my life? I join a fandom and instantly fall for the character who to me seems to have a bunch of potential and an awesome personality, but the writers don’t take them where I’d hoped, and instead shunt them aside to focus on exploring some brooding edgelord.

I get that redemption stories are powerful and I like an anti-hero as much as anyone else. Actually, I loved Rey being someone with the ability to raise Kylo up. I don’t hate Kylo Ren at all and I always expected him to come back to the light side at least to a certain degree (I was almost wrong, judging by the scrapped script, but in the end they did what I figured they would). After all, he’s Han and Leia’s kid, he must have light in him somewhere - and writers bank on audiences getting excited over the question of how he’d rediscover it, and whether it’d be in time (considering the atrocities he’d been involved in already, “in time” has a very vague meaning).

I don’t hate Kylo and Rey facing The Big Bad together in the end, although I did think it was a little "isn’t this the sort of story I liked to read in middle school?” But yeah, it was too predictable to be disappointing.

What was a huge disappointment was that Finn wasn’t there too. I know he was off being awesome with Poe but I really REALLY don’t think that’s where he needed to be. He’s fucking force sensitive. Let him use the force!!

What I wish had happened was, when Rey does her “I must face him alone” thing and winds up cut off from Finn and Poe and has to deal with Kylo - Finn should’ve gone too. There should have been some other way, even an extremely difficult one, where he goes after her. Means Poe goes back alone, but Poe’s also got a subplot of his own that doesn’t have room for two. He’s got to take the lead in a seemingly unwinnable battle and that’s the sort of thing that is even more heart-wrenching when your friends are absent and in trouble themselves somewhere else. Poe seems to like Rey in TRoS, but he’s also frustrated by her. Poe’s heart is with the war. Where’s Finn’s heart? I think it’s with both Rey and the war, but I think Rey should have gotten precedence. After all, we just finished establishing that Finn is NOT the perfect soldier. He does what he wants. There ought to be huge potential for Finn to grapple with light or dark himself, but I guess... no?

Rey could have had her little tete-a-tete with Kylo all by themselves while Finn’s out struggling to get to her and taking a long time. I just needed him to join them before the end. Be the unpredictable element. Finn doesn’t have a spiritual connection with Kylo Ren. Finn has no reason to trust him. What if Finn showed up right when Kylo’s blown back to his death in that crevice and has the chance either to save him or let him fall? Either way, we could still have Kylo’s spirit coming back to breathe life back into Rey. Preferably while Finn’s holding her. I guess then there’d be less kissing, though. :) I’m okay with that.

I don’t hate Kylo/Rey as a ship. It’s a normal ship tbh. Everyone likes the bad guy. Wolverine fucks Mystique every chance he gets and how about that girl who fell head over heels for Khan in the original Star Trek? For Wolvie I’m not sure if it’s a complex thing or just lust anymore, but he always comes back to the X-men. Khan girl left with Khan, but only after saving the Enterprise from him. Good guy/bad guy ships can got all sorts of unexpected ways, no one really expects she’ll be straightening his tie on his way off to his perfectly normal white collar job while she stays home with their adorable, Force sensitive child and promises him he’ll get lucky if he’s home on time. (I’d love to say Rey/Kylo Ren is doing more than just capitalizing on that dynamic but uh, I think it’s too late for that.)

But that doesn’t (shouldn’t!) mean that story comes at the expense of everyone else’s story. It could be more powerful, not less, with a third player. Or even a fourth. Instead they drew a line between Rey & Kylo/ Finn & Poe and sent them in different directions. That might have been fine with me, as much as I wanted Finn to help Rey, if both storylines had been equally powerful. But they weren’t! One was just a war! It had lots of cameos and lots of typical “we’re losing! wait! there’s an entire fleet of ships beyond those clouds!” moments. At the time I turned to my BF and said “Forth Riders of Rohan!”

Like come on.

I enjoyed the movie. It just left such a pile of could-have-beens behind that it really cuts back on that enjoyment.

IMO, they should have done something different in TLJ. If they’d set things up for this movie more in TLJ, I might not feel so cheated. It’s almost like you can just skip TLJ and just watch the first and third to get the story here. And speaking of TLJ, I haven’t mentioned Rose, and it’s only because 1) yeah she deserved so much better! and 2) I can barely even remember her, because she had the misfortune of being introduced in TLJ, which has now been rendered only semi-relevant, and then was for the most part absent in TRoS. Another missed opportunity. It’s like the writers went “Let’s introduce a character who’s just gone through a war-related trauma and continues in fight in that same war, because that sort of strength resonates with people! But like with Finn we’re not gonna bother creating any follow-up to that so her entire story will pretty much be over as soon as you meet her.”

Big fat MEH to all of this.

But for all the disappointments, I still LOVE Finn/Rey/Poe. I love it the same way I loved Luke/Leia/Han. The fun is there, the camaraderie is there - the stuff that makes you give a damn when bad things happen to them is there. The beginning of TRoS that gave us Finn, Rey, and Poe wandering around together was my favorite bit since Rey flew Han’s ship. The dynamic was almost the same as the original trio. It was almost there, it was so close I could taste it.

Mandalorian, you’ve managed to win back my heart to the fandom. I’m counting on you!

#star wars

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apprenticeofcups · 5 years

Note

Hey hey! I'm torn between wanting Julian and Canis' compatibility and Lucio and Canis' compatibility.... He's dating them both so like.... Could you do both....? - canistheapprentice

if you don’t care that it’s long af, i can do anything 🐕🌠(@canistheapprentice)

Canis: ♋ (6/21 - 7/22) - Cardinal, WaterRuled by: Moon

Julian: ♓ (2/19 - 3/20) - Mutable, WaterRuled by: Neptune

Lucio: ♑ (12/22 - 1/19) - Cardinal, EarthRuled by: Saturn

Water and earth is a productive combination; water and water is a profound one. Two cardinal signs just might be enough to wrangle unpredictable Pisces, and two water signs just might be enough to find Capricorn’s soft side.

sex & intimacy - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Capricorn has great sex with water signs. He struggles with emotional intimacy, and Cancer and Pisces both have that in droves. Cancer’s patience is like a breath of fresh air, and mutable Pisces follows rational Capricorn’s lead easily and willingly. Cancer can be a little traditional in the bedroom, but Pisces’ creativity and Capricorn’s stability will make him eager to branch out and spice things up. The strictness of two cardinal signs inspires Pisces’ confidence; with Cancer, he gets the affection and care he needs, and Capricorn sets clear expectations that people-pleasing Pisces can easily exceed. As a trio, all three are able to let go completely (almost unheard of, for Capricorn), and get swept away.

trust - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐Pisces is tough for two cardinal signs to trust. Cancer likes to think long-term, and Capricorn’s demeanor can be cold or rough, both of which Pisces will shy away from, and when he’s nervous, he creates distance. Suspicious Capricorn will be frustrated by such an irrational response, but Cancer is patient - he can wait for both of them to relax and come around. Pisces is flighty, and Capricorn is habitually closed-off, but as long as he feels appreciated, Cancer will actually find their hesitance endearing. His strong moral compass makes him easy for Capricorn to come around to, and Pisces finds comfort in his stability, so Cancer will be the center of trust in the relationship.

communication - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭕This trio has plenty of pitfalls of communication, but their strengths pick up the slack. Whatever Cancer can’t sense in his partners, Pisces will tell him flat-out. Pisces is more talk than action, and Capricorn is the opposite, but he’ll be surprisingly open with his water sign partners, since their interest is a) practical and b) doesn’t get in the way of his ambitions. Pisces’ communication can be erratic, but one of his cardinal partners can easily redirect him to something practical (Cancer just might be a little nicer about it). If Pisces talks too much, or if dreamy Cancer is silent too long, Capricorn won’t be shy about calling them on it. The only thing the water signs won’t make up for is Capricorn’s harsh demeanor - but that’s what they like about him.

emotions - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐The water signs understand each other implicitly; Cancer easily adjusts to the rhythm of Pisces’ Neptune-ruled mood swings, and Pisces is sensitive to Cancer’s emotional depth. Capricorn can (and will) become more in-touch with his emotional life just by association, though almost everything else in his life takes precedence. In fact, he’ll find relief in partners who can tell him what he’s feeling - Cancer has the conviction to go digging for the emotions he’s ignoring, and empathetic Pisces would do all the crying for him if it were possible. Conversely, their earth sign’s grounding influence keeps Cancer and Pisces from spiraling and disappearing in a flood of emotions.

values - ⭐⭐⭐⭕⭕To the other two, Capricorn is a career-obsessed shark, Cancer is an overworked mother hen, and Pisces is living in a damn fairy tale. Their different values are actually a holistic advantage - Capricorn’s ambition is strong enough to bring the other two up with him, nesting Cancer forces his partners to take time for self-care, and dreamy Pisces reminds his hardworking cardinal signs of the inherent beauty of the world. Day-to-day, though, petty conflicts will arise (Capricorn can’t abide Pisces’ incompetence with money; Cancer would like one of them to do the dishes just once without asking) from three different paths occupying the same space.

interests - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭕Cancer isn’t picky, and Pisces loves change, so Capricorn will pick the restaurant a lot. Though he likes to take the lead, he remembers what his partners like, and he’ll make sure to rotate activities so Pisces doesn’t get bored and Cancer feels appreciated. The only problem these three will have is in trying to do everything together. Pisces and Capricorn are both non-stop, while Cancer needs a little downtime; Cancer and Capricorn need possessions and stability, while Pisces could live on a train out of a backpack; Pisces and Cancer make time for frivolity, while Capricorn gets tunnel vision and works overtime. They’re all firm and confident in their lifestyles, though, so they’ll embrace their differences easily and work around them.

Overall ⭐ 4.33This trio won’t have to worry about jealousy if two go off without one, and they can actually make it work to their advantage: taskmaster Capricorn and caretaker Pisces are just what Cancer needs to relax, Cancer and Capricorn can spoil Pisces with everything he won’t buy or do for himself, and Pisces and Cancer can easily nurse a tired Capricorn back to fighting shape. All three will find aspects of character through the other two they didn’t know they had: Cancer’s unwavering conviction, Capricorn’s protective streak, and Pisces’ sense of individuality. It’ll be a noisy, squabbly triangle, but these three are devoted and committed to making it a loving one. ♋♓♑💖

(send me your apprentice’s sign + an LI for a love reading! ☕)

disclaimer: compatibility doesn’t mean “they’ll definitely get together” or “they’ll never get together” - it just gives a little starry insight into what the relationship is like!

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schmergo · 5 years

Text

Okay, here is my full review of Richard III at the Shakespeare Theatre Company! As you proooobably know, Richard III is one of my favorite plays. I’ve seen five professional productions and directed one community production and one staged reading, as well as writing an entire novel-length story based on it. For seven years, I’ve checked my email when the STC season announcement came out, hoping to see Richard III, and when it finally happened this year, I actually began to cry.

So needless to say, my love for this material may make me both unreliably lenient AND overly critical of any production I see. On one hand, I’m always thrilled to see Richard III and my love of the text mitigates many issues I may have with the director’s and actors’ choices. On the other hand, I’m so familiar with the script— of a play so long that it’s almost impossible to perform uncut— that I have really strong ideas about which moments *I* think are crucial and which themes should stand out. They’re never gonna do a version that keeps in ALL of my favorite lines.

Would I recommend STC’s production? Yes, I would, especially to people who are less than familiar with the play. It keeps the story and characters as clear as possible and moves at a quick, crisp pace full of action and intrigue. There’s never a dull moment. But would I say I loved the production? I can’t quite go that far.

If you’re not familiar with this play, Richard III takes place in the aftermath of a massive civil war. A veteran of the wars whose ruthlessness was handy in battle, Richard is the youngest brother of the king and is restless during peacetime. So he hatches a plan to climb to the throne- no matter how many family members he must kill and friends he must betray to get there.

David Muse’s stark aesthetic for the play may seem weird at first, but it definitely kept things interesting. The stained, off-white, instutitional-looking box of a set was inspired by an abandoned morgue- a concept they took very literally with body lockers, gurneys, and creepy machines full of fluids and tubes. The blank expanse at the top of the set was handily used to project text- whether backstory at the beginning of the play or the names of each major character as they enter the scene- accompanied by bursts of hard rock music. I’ve never seen a play as devoted to making sure the audience keeps names and relationships straight.

Costumes are modern and generally in shades of greys (with brilliant white for the royal York family- I particularly loved Queen Elizabeth’s white gown), but with some gorgeously surreal twists. Richard wears armorlike bracing to support his body, with heavy corsetry, neck brace, leg and arm brace, and a matching cane. This exoskeleton operates as an extension of himself- his strength and physicality never seems very limited when fully clad, and he does cut a strong, powerful figure. Once he becomes king, the bracing doubles as a fashion statement as he dons a glittering gold corset to match his crown while other members of court wear stylish corsets and neck bracing that call to mind Elizabethan fashions popular at the time Shakespeare wrote the play.

In a notable scene near the end, though, Richard’s servant removes his bracing so he can sleep before the battle of Bosworth Field, and we see this indefatigable bulldozer of a man helpless and in pain for the first time in the play. It’s powerfully done and makes the audience realize this is how Richard always sees himself.

I was sitting near the very back of the house, which may color my impressions of the show (I plan to see it again in two weeks from the front row to see if I change my mind), but my overall assessment is that this is a show that paid so much directorial attention to staging, aesthetic, theme, and visual excitement that it left a lot of individual performances underdeveloped or emotionally unconvincing. Maybe it’s the sheer size of Sidney Harman Hall, which I almost think is TOO big to effectively communicate the subtleties of Shakespeare’s dramas.

The death scenes, for example, were incredible. Wow. Most of them took place offstage in the original play, but in this production, every single one is depicted with graphic originality, including onstage drowning, lethal injections, decapitations, and more. It’s brutal but thrilling. Richard’s nightmare sequence, in which the ghosts of everyone he’s killed come back to haunt him, is the best and spookiest I’ve EVER seen it done.

For the most part, though, individual performances seemed to lack a certain spark of life. Though most performers had memorable specific moments, none truly stood out to me as really exceptional performances. Across the board, the delivery style seemed slightly stilted, formal, shouty, and “Shakespeare-y,” which I not only felt didn’t fit the raw text but clashed even more weirdly with the modern rock-and-roll visual aesthetic.

Even Matthew Rauch as Richard seemed to be holding back in the first half of the play- he seemed almost cautious, formal. Richard in the first half of the play is written to be so charming and charismatic that he even brings the audience along for the ride until his terrible deeds reach a point of no return. Rauch’s Richard was the most serious I’ve seen in the first half- even his humor felt strained- and paradoxically, I found him less scary and less dangerous than other Richards because of that. When you have such brutal onstage deaths, juxtaposing them against Richard’s devilish glee in ordering said deaths really drives home how little conscience he has. Rauch has the bearing of a soldier and clearly understands Shakespeare well, but he almost faded into the background of many of his early scenes. Maybe some of this was intentional- the directors’ notes in the script emphasized the importance of the supporting roles, which overbearing Richards so often overshadow— but given that Matthew Rauch’s face is splashed all over posters for the show around town, you’d think they’d give him more opportunities for the ol’ Razzle Dazzle.

Rauch hits his stride in the second half, when Richard begins to become slightly unhinged and paranoid. With a manic energy and unpredictable temper, Richard felt fully realized and truly threatening- with moments of keen vulnerability. His confrontation scene with Queen Elizabeth (portrayed rather blandly though elegantly up to that point) felt electrifying even if I didn’t necessarily love the cut of the text. And this production dispensed with the portrayal of Richard as sexually perverted or predatory that you often see these days. Rauch’s Richard is a misogynist who sees women as disposable objects or tools to aid his rise, but he doesn’t lust after them.

Some directorial choices looked cool but were confusing or distracting, like repetitive chanting from an ensemble or the rhythmic sharpening of scalpels and snapping of leather straps every time Richard prepares to kill someone. It sets the tone but obscured the language... and not that it matters, but why DOES Richard have a large army of mad scientists in the first place?

I did appreciate the diversity of the cast, filled with performers of different ethnicities, ages, genders, and sizes. Richmond, the valiant and pious hero who ultimately defeats Richard, was a woman of color and was well cast in the role, commanding yet gentle. But the business about marrying Elizabeth’s daughter to Richmond was both mentioned once and failed to come up again at the end of the play, maybe to keep from drawing attention to the fact that there would be no Tudor dynasty with two queens on the throne? I felt they should have really leaned alll the way in and ended with Princess Elizabeth by Richmond’s side or else avoided the marriage subplot all together.

Richard’s end was also quick and anticlimactic after all of the exciting battle that had preceded it, but maybe they wanted to avoid portraying Richmond as being as brutal or ruthless as Richard. Still, they had blood-covered ghosts of Richard’s slain foes adding to the numbers of Richmond’s army. Maybe they could have taken that a step further by having the ghosts assist in finishing off Richard- after all, the historical King Richard’s body was hacked by a mob.

All in all, I felt it was definitely a play worth seeing but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed by some of the elements. In particular, a lot of the funnier lines and scenes were removed from the script, as if the director wanted to keep things “Dark Knight style grim dark,” while to me, the black humor is one of the best things about the script. But the audience still laughed and reacted to the more humorous- or shocking- moments nonetheless— in fact, hearing gasps of disbelief or excitement or disgust from the audience at crucial moments was one of my favorite things about this production. Clearly, many people were seeing Richard III for the first time. And, like me, they felt it in their bones.

Richard III plays through March 10 at Sidney Harman Hall, the Shakespeare Theatre Company.

#stc #shakespeare theatre company #richard iii #shakespeare #washington dc #dc

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greatestmanblog · 5 years

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THE ANTI-VIRTUES OF POSITIVE MASCULINITY

Exploring the different virtues not conducive to the health of your masculine expression. Bolded are the anti-virtues, what follows in the brackets is different insights and distinctions, or other commentary around the theme of the anti-virtue being highlighted. Some food for thought for the manosphere after a longtime.

X - sloth [sloppy on the outside is sloppy on the inside, clean on the outside is “cream” on the inside; take it how you want, but one thing is a given—you’ll never meet a man who’s got a great, healthy, powerful self-image of himself that dresses crappy and acts sloppy or otherwise carries himself in a dull manner; no, a man of true value treats himself as such—in manner, in deed and in virtue…fresh as f*ck]

X - laziness [“the lazy man walks the same road twice”; why waste your time and energy?; value your time and energy (which if you don’t already, I promise you, having a purpose and path of pursuit for your life will definitely make you value your time and energy); when you do value your life like this, your life begins to take on more power and expression; every single person who values their life has life valuing them back, watch for this next time you meet such a person, chances are they take a lot of action in their life and have a lot of “rewards” to show for it; action is what creates your life and living is a ‘verb’ so get moving because your laziness is your self-destruction]

X - entitlement [does nothing for you and literally robs you of your personal progress; it’s okay to setup a positive expectation for the way you view things and the outlooks you have on life and the people that you interact with, but never make demands of things that are not yours to begin with nor things that you have yet to earn—it sets up a bad precedent for your own psychology and leads you astray; you have right to yourself, your thoughts, your actions, your choices, your body, your energy and the things that are generated by all of that, all the rest let it be & let it flow however it wants to; you have a right to yourself, consume yourself with the knowledge of that and demand the best out of yourself]

X - passivity [masculinity, the male essence, by virtue is the active principle in life so to allow yourself to be too passive in the way you go about your experience of life is unhealthy to say the least; you want to stay active, stay in motion, stay flowing with the very juice that makes more of you; go take the world full-on with the fullness of your desires, dreams, determinations; there is a notion in sex consciousness that says how a man fucks his woman is how he fucks the world, meaning to say that how you relate to your own sexuality is a direct correlation to how you live your life; just think about the potential of that one; chances are that if you are a passive lover as a man then you are probably pretty passive in taking on your dreams and goals and not much is happening to move the needle forward in your life; your passivity could lead to you being extremely stuck in life, think about it…]

X - immaturity [is behaving like a child, not to be confused with being playful or spirited, and blaming others for not having your needs being met; whining, complaining, tantrums, hissy-fits and other self-absorbing behavior is indicative of acting as a child; to do so as a child is one thing, but to continue this sort of behavior well into your adult years is very unhealthy; part of being a mature realized adult is working with and knowing the power you do have to make way for yourself and how you want to live; you only enable your lack of power if you act immaturely; an adult always takes responsibility for him/herself and are at cause for what’s transpiring in their world]

X - irresponsibility [is not acknowledging your ability to respond to things in healthy, constructive, empowering manner; also can be defined as carelessness and a refusal to hold yourself accountable for what you are required to do, whether they are family obligations or personal obligations that you have committed yourself for; if you give someone your word that you will do something or follow through on some course of action then you better make sure that you are following through on that promise, otherwise you are being irresponsible]

X - irrationality [lack of clear thought; easily duped into other people’s ways of thinking; unoriginal thought; being a puppet and pawn to other people’s agendas; hero-worship, to make anyone outside of yourself your hero is to give away your power to an outside source—and giving away your own power by choice is definitely irrational behavior, you are your own hero so step into that; learn to think for yourself and see through bullshit, including your own delusions; critical thinking is a must in this day and age of misinformation; on the opposite end of irrationality is discernment, a discerning man is a wise man indeed, make your eye a discerning one]

X - indecision [people don’t often waver when they know who they are and where they are going; when you have deep inner confidence stemming up from the depths of your integrated character, you can quickly make important decisions without looking back on them in doubt and are slow to make a move to reverse those appropriately considered yet quick decisions; indecision either comes from fear or a lack of trust you have on your ability to make the best decisions for yourself (which begets a weakness of character)—you don’t want that; have character & be decisive, stand by those convictions unless you realize you were severely off-base (if you were, then immediately decide to course-correct and you’ll come out on top)]

X - dependent [un-self-sufficient; your cup is not full so you dip into others cups to fill up your own, which is not only unsustainable but asking for trouble—you’re playing not to lose, which ultimately is playing to lose; depend on yourself and go for the win; also, dependent behavior taken too far is parasitic behavior, you’re just leaching off of others resources ultimately resulting in lose-lose situations across the board; the best longterm strategy is developing your own sense of independence in life, work towards it if you are behind the eight-ball, you cannot go wrong]

X - ego/unaware [closed-minded, narrow-minded, one-sided, unconscious expression of self; you just don’t want to see yourself, and if you are choosing that then you won’t ever see what you’re made of and what you could set out to achieve; be brave, see yourself in all it’s facets—the good, the bad, the ugly, the great—it will allow you to see more of life too; never be afraid of the truth especially of the man in the mirror and what you see reflecting from it; see it and see everything]

X - sociopathic [no empathy; unable to feel self and, by extension, definitely not others; that is not a good thing and it is very severely damaging of your ability to experience lasting happiness and fulfillment; cultivate the richness and depth of feeling otherwise you’re just a robot…or a serial-killer; allowing yourself to feel things including deep pain is invaluable to your growth and your experience of the living world; feeling is life; don’t you want to feel alive?; feel the electricity of the energy pulsing through your veins, the aliveness of your own vitality and strength and purpose…]

X - abusive [not physically, not emotionally, not mentally, not in any way is a real man about that; cowards are abusive, not real men; cowards choose such a demeaning and low route to sustain themselves; don’t do it to anyone, not even yourself; respect yourself, create the highest sense of meaning and esteem about who you think you are or want to be—and by default, you’ll automatically bestow that esteem and respect on everyone else; but first you, create your own deeper, truer sense of self-worth that profound affects how you do everything else]

X - narcissism [thinking too highly of yourself without consideration for anything else—aka “buying your own hype”; as a rule, never buy your own hype, it’ll actually keep you stronger as an individual, more even keel and able to act on your own merit, and if you have (the aforementioned) real self-worth then you’d actually have no need to be narcissistic in the first place because the awareness of your true self would govern you, not some false fabricated front of high-value]

X - violent [be dangerous but never violent—dangerous with your charm, your wits, your ability to observe, your unpredictability, your spontaneity, your sense of humor, your kindness, your character, your physical capacity to exude strength, etc.—and yes, your composure too; it makes you very dangerous because you then are capable of using your entire being for your highest good in any critical moment of decision-making] [composure makes you very dangerous, never forget that]

X - victimhood [don’t ever play that card, victimhood betrays you and your power instantaneously; the second you go there, you lose everything; victimhood is not manhood; men take their life by the horns and steer it in the direction of their own choosing; they accept nothing less than their path and purpose to create their greatest visions in life; they’re self-empowered and driven to take on the responsibilities that come with the territory of their self-chosen mission in life]

X - lying/deception/cheating [nothing sinks you faster than the path of dishonesty, in any of its forms; it is the biggest b*tch move you could ever play and no one does it hurt more than you; historically, time has always proven that the person lying, cheating, deceiving always ends up on the short-end of the stick and any gains to be had from doing so only result in short term, temporary, minute, fleeting gains aka “fool’s gold”; you owe yourself the opportunity to fairly play this game of life to the best of your ability—which is immediately disallowed when you lie; and truth, that is your highest calling card in life, setting out on its path will ultimately be the most rewarding thing that you could do; truth will always set you apart from the rest because majority of the players in existence don’t choose that; truth will protect you and shield you against the deceptions of others; it will illuminate for you a path of your own nobility, whereby it ensures that you almost always win; one of the biggest platitudes that we’ve all heard is also one of the most evergreen pieces of wisdom you’ll ever receive, don’t discount it because “the truth will set you free”]

I would add that not being grounded, not being present as a man is unbecoming of positive masculinity, but they are either directly or indirectly covered in the commentary that preceded. Many men become unhinged in their development processes because of their failure to adequately ground themselves from the intense heat of the lightning strikes of lessons that life throws at them. Firmly rooting yourself in values and core principles that keep you strong & aware are key to staying centered in any and all adversity that comes your way. Furthermore, your awareness is fed and kept alive by the presence of mind you bring to your life moment to moment. If you are not present to the momentary feedback life continuously gives to you, you will miss more than one point about how you can keep yourself agile enough to constantly keep making progress for yourself in moving forward and rising up in your particular path of greatness.

#theawareness #manhood #principles

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rose-gold-romantic · 6 years

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Tesseract: Chapter Three

A Loki x reader that I started over 4 years ago in high school. I’ve done my best to fix it but please, I WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK! Takes place during the first Avengers. Want to be tagged in updates? Let me know!

@malignentmac @fandomsfanman @i-am-supermerwholoked221b

Loki stopped walking, and stood in front of me. He reached up, and slid my glasses off of my face. I took a shaky breath, my shoulders tensing slightly, closing my eyes and awaiting pain. A pregnant pause passed, and I could feel his hands on my shoulders.

“Open your eyes, Y/N.” Loki murmured.

I slowly opened my eyes, prepared for the blurry haze that was my vision.

Was.

As my eyes adjusted to the lighting, I could see everything clearly, like I was wearing my glasses. Only my glasses were still in Loki’s hand. He smiled, and I walked around like a child seeing the world for the first time. I almost forgot that I was in the presence of someone that was considered a dangerous god.

“Oh my gosh..” I kept saying over and over again, “Oh my gosh..”

He laughed quietly behind me, and I was brought back down to earth.

“Thank you so much, sir.” I said, “I really don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to.” he said, handing me back my glasses. “And you may call me Loki.”

“Thank you, Loki.” I said softly, almost ready to cry.

“It was no trouble at all.” he answered just as softly, smiling.

Suddenly, my vision flickered as it had preceding the strange vision I had the day before, this time accompanied by a piercing headache. I gave no external indication that I was feeling weird, but inside I was freaking out again. This time, Loki was not kneeling at all, or looking like he was going to do anything out of the ordinary.

Loki didn’t seem to notice me, but said that it was best we begin walking back to my post. I agreed, as my vision kicked in and out, making me nervous. I stumbled more than a few times as we walked back to the lab area, a combination of my newfound vision and that same vision flickering every so often. When we had arrived at the station, I stood outside the enclosed area. Loki nodded to me, and walked away towards the cleared area. As he walked, the scepter shimmered into existence in his hand. This time, instead of kneeling in the area, he sat cross-legged, the scepter glowing more than normal.

He relaxed his shoulders, and took a deep breath. Again, I was sucked into space with him, perhaps with him unaware yet again. I crouched to conceal myself behind rocks as yet again, the copy of Loki appeared before the real one, cape flowing in a non-existent breeze.

“And so you finally answer our calling.” The strange alien said, pacing behind a rock formation.

“My sincerest apologies, I was distracted.” Loki answered, matching the alien’s pacing.

“Distractions are not a good thing for our guide to have.” the alien said, “When will we be able to send our forces to retrieve the tesseract? Have you yet destroyed the earth’s forces?”

“Let the Chitauri gird themselves.” projection Loki said, “I will lead them into glorious battle.”

“Battle? Against the meager might of Earth?” the other said, seemingly offended at the proposition.

“Glorious, not lengthy. If your force is as-” Loki paused for a moment. “-formidable as you claim.”

“You dare question us? You question HIM? He, who put the scepter in your hand, who gave you ancient knowledge and new purpose when you were cast out, defeated?” the other said in disbelief.

“I was a king, the rightful king of Asgard! Betrayed!” Loki said indignantly, raising his voice.

“Your ambition is little, born of childish need.” The other hissed, “We look beyond the Earth to greater worlds the Tesseract will unveil.”

“You don't have the Tesseract yet. I don't threaten, but until I open the doors, until your force is mine to command, you are but words.” Loki said, his tone threatening despite his words. “You will know when your armies may descend to lay claim to this world.”

“You will have your war, Asgardian. If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can not find you.” the other said, walking closer to Loki’s copy. Standing behind it, the the other slowly put his hand up to Loki’s face, then added threat of his own, “You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain!”

With those words, Loki wrenched his head away from the contact, breaking the vision and returning everything back to normal. My face tingled as if it had been the one in contact with the alien, and my breath came in sporadic gasps. My headache vanished, and I stumbled a little, but recovered myself in time to witness Loki rising quickly, gritting his teeth through his sweat and muttering unintelligible things.

“Y/N,” Loki breathed, “Come with me, please”

He walked away, leaving me to sprint to catch up with his long strides. “I have officially run out of time.” he muttered as we walked back to his room, “I need your help, Y/N. There’s something I need to talk to you about.” “Is it the Chitauri?” I asked quietly, shutting the door behind us as we entered his room.

He stared at me, taken aback by my words. “How did you know of that?”

“When you’ve met with them, I’ve also been privy to what was going on. I thought you were aware of my presence.” I said, “These past two times, when you’ve talked to them about how you are going to retrieve the Tesseract for them, I’ve been able to both see and hear the entire conversation.”

Loki stood silent for a moment, seemingly unsure of how to proceed with the conversation, given that I knew what he was going to tell me. “Then you know that I can no longer stall for time. If I do not move soon, even if it is a fruitless effort, I will be killed. Even you-...” he gulped, then whispered, “Thor… would be killed. They showed me a brief glimpse of what they plan to do to those I care about, and if they survive the initial invasion, it will be horrendous.” he shuddered, beginning to pace about the small room.

“Then, how do we fix it?” I asked, slumping onto the sofa as he continued to pace around. “If they are manipulating you by threatening both yourself, and your brother, how do you begin to back out?”

“Not only are they threatening, they have figured out how to literally control my actions in short bursts.” He muttered, “They want the tesseract. They want to fight earth for it. I don’t know how to fight back when they’ll just take me over if I do the wrong thing.”

“Then don’t fight.” I said, slowly rising from my seat, “Do what they want. But do it in a way that you know they’ll fail. Set them up for their own destruction.” “I like the sound of that.” he said, “I could concentrate their forces where they would face the most opposition. Where would that be?”

“Stark tower!” I exclaimed, “Everyone would see something like that happening in the middle of New York, I have access to the tower, and Fury’s sure to have the Avengers initiative started by now.” “Do you think they could defeat the Chitauri and close the Tesseract Portal in time?” He breathed, “After the energy has been removed from you?”

“If they can’t, there’s no one else that can.” I said, “It’s our only shot.”

“Then let us not discard it.” he said, “I can begin removing the energy as best I can now. Let’s head back to the Tesseract to start the process.”

He opened the door, and we both filed through and began making our way back to the Tesseract. I shook nervously as I walked. This could be the only way to save earth, but it also could end horribly. The energy extraction alone was risky, but if it meant saving millions...

“IRIDIUM!” yelled Dr. Selvig from in the lab, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “That’s what we need! Some Iridium! It’s perfect!”

I ran up to the lab ahead of Loki, confirming on the screens that Erik had indeed found a match. After Dr. Selvig had babbled on for a while, Barton appeared for the first time since we had left SHIELD’s base, with armed strangers in tow.

“Where did you find these people?” Selvig asked Barton.

“SHIELD had no shortage of enemies.” Barton said. “Is this what you need?” he asked, holding up a tablet with a photograph of the substance.

“Yes, Iridium. It’ll create the antiprotons I need to stabilize the portal.” Dr. Selvig said.

Loki strode up, his countenance recovered and passive tone returned.

Dr. Selvig brightened up at Loki’s appearance. “The Tesseract is showing me so much. It's more than just knowledge, it's... truth.” the scientist said, smiling.

“I know, it shows each of us something different.” Loki said, glancing at me, then turning to Barton. “What did it show you, Agent Barton?”

“My next target.” the archer said.

“Tell me what you need.” Loki said, following Barton to another station.

“I'll need a distraction.” Barton said, grabbing his bow out of its case and snapping it into place with a flick of his arm. “And an eyeball.”

“Very well.” Loki said, then turned to myself and Dr. Selvig. “Assemble a team of people and load this into a the trailer. When Barton returns with the item you need, drive to Stark Tower in New York. Do NOT activate the portal until I return and tell you to.” he ordered, directly to Erik.

Dr. Selvig nodded like a madman, smiling and almost giggling. I nodded, turning to help begin pack Dr. Selvig’s things up.

“Miss Y/N.” Loki said, standing away from the bustle of what was going on.

“Yes?” I said walking up to him.

“The tesseract’s influence on Dr. Selvig is unpredictable. Keep a wary eye that he does not activate the portal before the energy has been removed from you.” Loki said.

I nodded, acknowledging and agreeing with his statement. “I’ll make sure that nothing is done until you return. Where are you going?”

Loki continued to stare at me, some unknown feeling crossing his face and saturating his eyes. “Barton needs a distraction, and so a distraction I shall become.” He said, then lowering his voice. “Do be careful, Y/N.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, then he turned to leave, saying under his breath, “I do not wish to lose you.” With that, he suddenly disappeared into thin air.

“Yes, Loki.” I said, confusion settling across my face, as a warm tingle spread across my body from my forehead to the tips of my toes.

I didn't know what to make of Loki's statement, my own emotions and thoughts clouding my thoughts. I continued packing down the station, delicate equipment creating a very long and complicated tear-down process.

Taking apart and moving the equipment gave my hands something to do whilst my brain tried to sort out my thoughts and emotions. Loki wasn’t at all a bad looking man, in fact I found him quite handsome in spite of his moral dilemma. Was that the reason that I sympathized for him? I wanted to deny it, but part of me knew that though it wasn’t the whole reason, it wasn’t irrelevant either. The main reason that I could find was that I had access to information that proved that this wasn’t entirely his idea. Granted, he did want to rule the earth, or at least rule something, but he did not originally intend to make war with earth to gain power.

I found myself hoping that Loki wouldn’t get captured by SHIELD when he was out helping Barton. I had no idea what SHIELD planned on doing to him, but I didn’t want anything to hurt him. The security guard training I had been brought to know kicked in, criticizing me for sympathizing with a threat to national, even global security. I shoved those thoughts down, I might be biased, but I was right. If given the chance, I was sure Loki could prove himself. The threat of the Chitauri killing him and his brother was driving him to this madness.

A side thought entered my brain, wondering if the scepter the Chitauri had given to him was not only able to influence those he wanted to serve him, but him as well. He always seemed to have it available to him, even if it was through his magic. Perhaps the scepter was under the Chitari’s control, enabling them to control it’s wielder partially, though not completely. While restarting the computers inside the semi, I came to my final decision. Loki was far from sinless, but I would do what I could to help him come to a place where he could change. I had moved from simple sympathizer, to something more. I didn’t love him, though my heart told me that wouldn’t take long if he did change. For now, I told myself that I just didn’t want him hurt.

It took hours to completely disassemble the equipment, and hours more to set it up within the confines of a semi trailer. I began to wonder if perhaps Barton would be back with the element before we were ready to implement it.

Confirming my suspicions, Barton strode in with a small case, handing it to Dr. Selvig.

“Here you are, Selvig.” Baron said in a monotone, “The element you wanted.”

I expected Loki to reappear at any moment, perhaps try to startle me. But after thirty minutes, I still hadn’t seen a sign of the Asgardian.

Barton seemed to be gathering the few security guards Loki had taken from SHIELD, speaking to them in hushed tones.

“Where is Loki, Barton?” I asked, wondering if perhaps Loki awaited us in New York.

“The Cap and Iron Man captured him.” Barton said, confirming my fears. My stomach sank. If he was in captivity, there would be no way for him to remove the energy from me so we could open the portal.

“Oh.” I simply said, trying to betray no emotion. “What are we going to do?”

“I am taking a team to go get him.” Barton said, “You are staying with Dr. Selvig and driving to Stark Tower as previously ordered.” Barton finished, stressing that there was no ‘we’ in this equation.

“Yes, sir.” I said. “Right away.”

Barton simply nodded in response, and turned to leave with his team. As I finished putting the last few things into the trailer, Dr. Selvig examined the element with glee. He set about shaping it to fit where he planned, using a strange chemical compound and a heated tube, a process I didn’t want to try to understand. The back of the trailer was closed, Dr. Selvig and I working in the back. The trailer rocked slightly as the semi pulled us away to New York.

So it begins.

#Loki #fanfiction #fanfic #self insert #loki x reader #avengers #marvel #coulson

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Anime On Amazon Prime Video

https://ift.tt/3aAfe9n

Isn’t it just the worst when you’re out with friends at your favorite restaurant (masked up, of course) and everyone’s discussing Inuyashiki but you’re unable to jump in? How about when you’re waiting for the bus to arrive and people are discussing the latest Happy Sugar Life plot twist? Or when your cashier at the supermarket tries to make small talk and naturally namedrops the eternal equalizer, Re: Creators, and you just have to quietly look at your shoes?

Okay, so anime’s presence might not be quite at that level, but the popularity of the once-niche area of the animation industry only continues to blossom and become more mainstream. Not only are there now ample anime series that are available on popular streaming services, but this is even used as a selling point in some cases! There have never been more anime titles readily available to audiences, which is certainly exciting, but it can also be overwhelming.

Not only are more legacy titles being added to streaming services every month, but there is also a steady stream of new series that are being added. To guarantee that the various libraries of content at your disposal don’t swallow you whole, we’ve done the hard work and narrowed it down to just the top and most important titles!

Inuyashiki: The Last Hero

Inuyashiki is easily one of the best anime to come out in the past few years. Its storytelling even rivals that of great American serialized television. It’s just that good. Right from the start it presents the sort of story that immediately gets your attention and lets you know that you’re watching something special. Inuyashiki is an elderly man whose family seems to hate him and are totally unappreciative of his existence. One night he goes for a walk in the park and some sort of alien explosion rocks the area. When Inuyashiki comes to, he appears to be a super powered robot with insane abilities. He uses these new powers to help those in need and even learns that he can heal and bring people back to life. Suddenly Inuyashiki has a purpose in life and watching him reawaken straight up made me cry on multiple occasions.

A bratty teenager is also at the park when the explosion happens and he turns into the same robot that Inuyahsiki becomes. This kid, however, is a psychopath and begins mass murdering individuals at an alarming rate. It’s terrifying how callous he is and what this power brings out in him. Some scenes are genuinely hard to watch and it doesn’t take long for him to become one of the most dangerous murderers that the country has ever seen. Suddenly Inuyashiki has a “rival” and the two are pit against each other in a bizarre, infinitely interesting way. This series is a thrilling examination of what people do with power and it balances humble moments of humanity with disturbing violence and insane action. Everything it does hits hard and its ending is perfect in its precision and poignancy. The animation is also stunning in its depiction of these human/robot hybrids and the “minimalist” (ie. finger guns) approach to the violence.

Inuyashiki is a series that I will be absolutely shocked if some savvy American director doesn’t opt to turn into a movie within the next few years. It’s an absolutely beautiful story that boils down to the universal concepts of good and evil. Catch it now and get ahead of the game. At eleven episodes it’s an extremely easy commitment that you’ll wish was longer.

Watch Inuyashiki: The Last Hero on Amazon

Kokkoku: Moment by Moment

Kokkoku: Moment by Moment is a bleak, surreal mystery that plays with time and space in a way that feels fresh and exciting. Juri Yukawa is your typical underachieving teenager who’s failed to find her calling. Kokkoku quickly pulls the rug out from under the viewer and transforms this slice of life anime into something substantially trippier. Juri’s brother and nephew get kidnapped by a cult and Juri’s uncle reveals that their family has the power to stop time, which is exactly what they’re going to do to save them.

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It’s fascinating to watch Juri learn more of the secrets about her lineage as well as her own unique powers. When Juri and her grandfather freeze time, this frozen world is called Stasis, but there are also terrible monsters that lurk in Stasis that prey on those who stay in there for too long. Kokkoku creates such a rich, fully formed story with a deep history to it, but it also initially keeps the audience in the dark to simulate the same overwhelming experience that Juri is going through. Kokkoku slowly parses out answers as Juri and her grandfather become more entwined in the world of Stasis. It’s such an engrossing story that’s so much bigger than the characters and what they’re caught up in.

Watch Kokkoku: Moment by Moment on Amazon

Happy Sugar Life

Happy Sugar Life is one of the darkest series that you’ll ever come across, anime or otherwise. It may even cause some viewers to tap out due to its extreme subject matter, but those that stick around will see a gripping character study that chronicles cyclical abuse and the worst versions of Stockholm Syndrome.

Happy Sugar Life looks at Sato Matsuzaka, a high school girl who kidnaps a small child named Shio because she’s madly in love with her. Now this isn’t a sexual love, but purely romantic and this child is just so innocent and pure that she tunes out all of the darkness in Sato’s life. Sato goes to any lengths necessary (like murder, for instance) to keep Shio locked in her home and a secret to the public. The series follows the very worst of deviants, but its dark perspective and Sato’s sugary sweet fantasies make for a strangely addictive curiosity.

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Re: Creators

Re: Creators is extremely awesome in the sense that it delivers sprawling, insane battle sequences, but is also all about the struggles of creation and failing expectations. Sota Mizushino is an avid manga and anime fan and hopes to one day create his own series that finds an audience. Suddenly, characters from all across media—manga, anime, video games— get brought to the real world and Sota somehow becomes the middleman between two factions of creations where the fate of the Earth is at stake.