#literally the first to present murder as a solution in every situation

[onewholivesinloops]

battler's conversation with eva in ep1 after the first twilight is very loaded bc eva and hideyoshi are the ones who get bought off this episode, and eva goes out of her way to tell battler that kinzo must've had shannon or someone else dress up as beatrice to trick maria and hand her the letter about the epitaph, that one of the servants must be the perpetrator bc the garden shed's shutter is always locked and they were able to find its sole key in the servant room among all the others keys even though it has no name tag meaning the culprit must've known the layout of the mansion pretty well, that all of servants must be in on it bc it'd be difficult for one person to assault this many people and move the bodies then paint a magic circle in such a short amount of time alone, and that there must be a mastermind bc the word 'servant' literally means to serve someone, so it's eva literally spelling out the entire solution of umineko to him (which reads heavily as eva rebelling against sayo presumably bc she doesn't trust the deal they made or something btw)

battler is dismissive of this line of thought though bc he thinks it's 'too easy' and he keeps tormenting himself by running in circles by 'spinning the chessboard around' (which is a way of thinking that is always predicated on the assumption that everyone is acting in ways to achieve the greatest strategic advantage in every possible situation except only kyrie does this and sayo is doing the complete opposite lol), wondering why the culprit would make decisions that aren't optimal when sayo's intent was always to create a fair mystery that follows knox and leave clues behind bc she wants battler to solve it and understand her, and battler also refuses to engage with a real crime as a mystery and even quotes higurashi about how without a beginning the mystery would never start, so he assumes that the bodies being found must mean the servants aren't the ones behind it bc it casts the suspicion on them (which is something sayo is aware of, and even though she presents him as the detective and her opponent in this game which is reminiscent of when they discussed mysteries together as kids, she knows he can't treat this like a game which makes this an uphill battle for him)

battler isn't stupid however and he immediately realizes that eva must be involved bc she's the only one who didn't lose anyone, and yet it takes battler so long to realize the truth of everything bc he wants to believe in others and love them even when they're messy bc he refuses to give up on the idea that it's not his family and denies that the people he knows could do this while still refusing the fantasy solution, so he can't allow the murderer to be a person and it needs to be someone else that this inherently witch is disguised as, which is why to learn the truth battler needed to see the humanity behind the witch first

in many ways battler is similar to keiichi and even echoes the same thoughts but he's also the opposite? keiichi is tormented by his conflict over whether should trust his friends or not, but he ultimately succumbs to the belief that they're monsters or possessed by something supernatural until he learns to trust them in the answer arcs, as opposed to battler who's also conflicted over whether he should trust his family or not, but is in denial about the prospect of his family ever being involved in something like this while also refusing to entertain the idea of something supernatural, which is how you arrive at battler making ridiculous arguments about devil's proof and inventing an extra person to suspect that is neither one of the 18 nor a witch, which is rightfully memed, but it's deeply human and heartbreaking bc battler is someone with a desperate need to love and believe in others, and that's also something that puts him in the best position to understand beatrice in episode 5...

#umineko #gamo.txt

[victorianwhitechapel]

The Long Shadow review – a shattering serial killer drama that breaks all the rules

A mighty cast including Katherine Kelly and Toby Jones tells the stories of the women murdered by Peter Sutcliffe. Finally, the focus is on the victims

By the end of the first two of the seven episodes of ITV’s new drama about the Yorkshire Ripper made available for review, Peter Sutcliffe has barely been glimpsed. This alone marks it out from the herd of serial killer dramas, let alone documentaries, of which every streaming platform has a full quota. The general rule is that, however much the makers stress that their creation will centre the victims instead of the perpetrator of the crimes, they somehow all end up in thrall to precisely that person. Even when there really are intentions otherwise, the perpetrator inevitably becomes the dramatic focus and the narrative engine.

The Long Shadow – so far, at least, which is already further than most – shatters the general rule. Written by George Kay (whose last outing was the very different, very fun Hijack starring Idris Elba) and directed by Lewis Arnold (Sherwood, Time, Des – the Dennis Nilsen drama starring David Tennant), it is based on Michael Bilton’s book Wicked Beyond Belief, plus additional research and with the consultation and blessing of the families.

More than any rendering of a notorious case that I can remember, the attention is on the women. Specifically, the living women. And, when they are gone, the people they leave behind. After Wilma McCann’s (Gemma Laurie) murder, and the investigation that will take five years to apprehend Sutcliffe despite the police interviewing him nine times, the focus moves to Emily Jackson (Katherine Kelly). The opening episodes concentrate on presenting her situation to us in the round, as dire financial straits drive the embattled wife and mother to sell sex and put her fatally in Sutcliffe’s sights.

The Long Shadow deals in details. It is not simply poverty that leads the Jacksons to extreme solutions, but the social pressures and the desire not to lose face in front of the neighbours are all carefully and accurately drawn. So too are the subtle prejudices that nudge Irene Richardson (Molly Vevers) out of the chance of a job as a nanny that might have saved her from becoming Sutcliffe’s third murder victim.

After her, there is Marcella Claxton (Jasmine Lee-Jones), who survives a hammer attack by the man who will soon be tagged “the Yorkshire Ripper” by the media, though the moniker – hated by the families – is barely used in The Long Shadow. She miscarries at four months as a result of the attack. Back home from hospital, we see her gently touching her terrible head wound, trying to see it in the mirror and gauge its extent, with the empty cot in the background – a moving evocation of the literal and metaphorical extent of trauma; how much we want to find its boundaries and how impossible it can be to do so.

The police investigation weaves round the women’s stories, and although it hits many familiar beats, the quality of the writing and presence of the likes of Toby Jones, David Morrissey and Lee Ingleby as the various detectives in charge over the years means that this too is better done than usual. We have come to expect virulent misogyny and racism to be on show in dramas set in earlier decades and involving the police – or any other unwieldy, male-dominated institution – but The Long Shadow succeeds in embedding it more quietly but firmly. It is a way of life, a way of thinking rather than a succession of big instances (though it still has its moments, such as when the detectives’ hospital interview with Claxton turns into an interrogation, as their engineered politeness in front of a black woman begins to fail).

This all means that we better understand how the investigation went so wrong so many times, with even “the good guys” believing that the deaths of sex workers (and assuming that any woman near a known streetwalking area was one) were not worth much effort, or that any woman drunk and out after dark got what was coming to her. And it means we can better see its descendant attitudes now and how insidiously they still work against women. Big, sexist/racist set pieces or a clear divide between bad cops and the angelic few who have managed to transcend their eras allow us to believe that things are different now. The Long Shadow’s subtlety and care denies us such mistaken comfort.

The Long Shadow is on ITV and ITVX in the UK, and on Stan in Australia

==

I hope one day they do the same with the Whitechapel Victims... RIP.

#victims #the long shadow #tv series #serial killer #true crime

[sllvertongue]

hi ! i (they/them) am posting live from work......but im excited to present jeong haeran, socialite by day, nightrunner gwisin by night, and god's favoritest bastard 24/7. she's trying desperately to find a mask that's big enough to hide everything she's ashamed about, a problem that she thinks can also be ~magicked away~ if she could just get to astra.

🤍 i haven't gotten around to her proper bg yet, but here is her profile, plots, & inspo board! i'm also available on dc if anyone prefers, so just lmk.

so . her forbidden backstory (tw for mentions of murder):

born and raised in ansan and has never been anywhere else, to her dismay

just turned 27 last month, has been a part time pianist at revel for around 8 months now, starting a little after her fiance's disappearance.

on that note, she was engaged last year. no one rly saw her coming ? like, literally, she was a nobody before. it was rly the engagement that catapulted her into ansan's upper class scene, where she worked her way up and became known as jeong haeran! self taught pianist! aspiring museum curator! future loving wife (shudders)!

what they don't know, and what she intends for them to never find out, is that she's the daughter of jeong minah, a convicted murderer.

on paper, there's nothing wrong with this. if she were a more optimistic person, she would hope that people would be able to look beyond her past n just see her as she presents herself. but she's not lol.

all of it went down during the dawn of her early adulthood and so, as u would expect, fucked severely w her sense of identity. then life decided to throw it into another blender during the first and only time she goes to visit her mother, where her mother tells her, i did it for us.

most details are unknown. when it all happened, she was shielded from the details, and she has Not had any oustanding urges to revisit the whole situation, thank u. the first thing she did w her fiance's money is pay the enforcers to lock away anything that could trace her back to that past.

but the Daughter Syndrome is very very very very very hard to shake off. no matter where she goes, what name she uses, how she dresses, she is still Her Mother's Daughter. and every time her mother writes her from prison, haeran tramples over every boundary she has tried to set in a rush to read it and (despite how much she wants to despise her) hear how her mother is doing.

so anyway her identity is currently ? ? ? ? ! ! ! not doing so hot. and brother , the gender of it all

presents masc and goes by gwisin / sin (he / him) around the nightrunner circle. has a voicebox mod that lets her sound more masc and dresses as formlessly as possible. as far as everyone is concerned, it's she/they when it's "haeran" and he/him when it's "sin." its a fluid thing to her, more concerned abt the expression than identity (since paradoxically her identity is heavily defined by how she thinks ppl perceive her). it's all about trying to be so far away from how she typically appears to others, that no one would recognize her anymore

ooc / she/they is perfectly fine for her in writing, but he/him for threads where she is presenting as gwisin! it is also ok (nd highly encouraged by me!!!) for your muse to perceive/refer to gwisin using masc terms!!

more recently:

her first involvement with the nightrunners was watching races when she was a teen. after her mother was convicted and she officially became "independent," inheriting what little money their family had, the first thing she did was buy a bike and start racing her #problems away

i'd say her most active years were about 4 years ago? around 25 yrs old, she realized she was never going to get out of here if she didn't get herself out -- and where tf could she go where her name couldn't follow her?

astra seemed like the only logical solution. so she put down the nightrunner mask, sold her bike, prettied up, and went into the business of scamming ppl into believing her new bougie identity

she was good about it for a few months. she found a boyfriend, tho completely unattracted to him. grew bored, started sneaking out to watch races again. moved in w the boyfriend. grew more bored and went back to the place she sold her bike. it was long gone by then of course, but the owner took pity on her and pointed her to a mechanic who helped her build one from scratch.

then the happy couple got engaged, which loops us back to the start

her fiance went missing almost a year ago. no one knows what happened; the popular story is that he flew off to astra, but no one's heard from him since. did haeran have smth to do with it ... ? idk ...

tldr: she spends her days conning her place into upper society and then relieving the frustrations of that whole affair w her bike. she IS going to make it to astra someday though, mark her words.

my goals for her: for her to actually, finally move on from her past OR embrace it and reconcile w her mother. for her to find bouts where she feels like "herself." to less nefarious abt it all (possibly unrealistic)

potential plots:

plot page plug

someone w/ connections to astra?? someone she noted as her possible ticket up there and is now trying to get closer to?

fellow nightrunners... she's competitive but loves a good dirty trick even if it means she loses

a person she can shit talk with. rly, it goes a long way. she's been wearing such a clean, pristine mask for years now, and she misses when she used to just not care

other music enjoyers ? she technically conned her way into the "pianist" title too, she knows her way around keys and can read music but....doesn't rly know anything beyond the pieces she has to play for work.

accidental sugar babies lmao. i feel like her fiance was well off and all that money's left with her now, and she has a tendency of seeing someone and being like Damn u are one pathetic meowmeow, so to speak, and then giving them a little something to buy food/clothes with

past flings (fem/nb identifying muses)

other emos w parent issues. lets talk about it

#rmnt:intro #slow for a few hours bc of stinky work but then im cracking my knuckles

[delimeful]

not always what they seem (3)

warnings: remus pov so lots of brief mentions of gore/violence, some NSFW comments/innuendos/saucy jokes, dissection mention, miscommunication, minor injuries

the song remus so graciously performs for everyone is "a gorey demise"! :)

-

Remus kicked his legs absently as his alien carried him through the giant halls of... wherever the hell they were. A spaceship? Some sort of research facility? Maybe probing was still on the table.

He was pretty sure at this point that this was real, if only because if it was one of his night terrors, there would have been at least 35% more death and gore by now. Maybe 40%.

And it wasn’t like there hadn’t already been prime opportunities at basically every moment, with how small and crushable they were in comparison to each of the aliens! If the three of them were the protagonists, by slasher movie standards, two of them would have to be grotesquely killed by the end. He wondered absently which of his fellow abductees would make a better Final Survivor.

His attention immediately switched tracks as they reached a stopping point, and Logan settled their hand down on a giant, metallic table. Remus rolled off onto the surface and sprang up to his feet, rubbing his hands together maniacally. “So, what’s first?”

The alien’s big fluffy ears twitched, but they didn’t do more than glance down at Remus before tapping at a smooth blue surface and pulling up extensive diagrams. Well, if the alien wasn’t going to bring the experiments to him, he’d bring himself to the experiments!

He trotted across the table and skipped onto the blue surface, ignoring the windows and symbols that flickered into existence behind every step. If they didn’t want him walking all over the alien version of a touchscreen, they should have kidnapped him with shoes! Or broken his legs, like very literal theatre fans.

Logan didn’t lift a hand to stop him though, their head tilted curiously like a feral cat seeing something small and breakable to maul. Remus dialed the probability of it being a night terror up a few percentages, and then turned to look at the diagrams anyhow.

Ah, yes, pictures. The universal language.

He had no idea what most of the creatures depicted were or what the labels attached read, but the drawings themselves were clear enough: bodies posed neutrally, no clothes, and some parts of them exposed to show muscle, bone, and organ.

“Hm,” Remus hummed, consideringly. “These are either dissection diagrams or some really gory pornography... Either way, I’m so down.”

He flashed the alien a double thumbs up, and flopped down on top of a diagram. Logan reached over and messed with the touchscreen for a moment, and then reached even further and returned with a long, narrow utensil, black and pointed at one end.

They set the point of it directly next to his torso without even bothering to press the rest of him down, and Remus wondered if the alien expected him not to thrash around while he was being dissected. Maybe aliens had technology that deadened nerves as they cut through them! He’d always wondered how long he’d be able to survive a vivisection.

Logan moved the utensil, and Remus’s body twitched in adrenaline-fueled anticipation despite feeling exactly nothing. He craned his neck to see what was going on, and blinked.

A line stretched across the touchscreen where the utensil had slid across it, shadowing the curve of his ribcage over what looked hilariously similar to graph paper.

The alien was tracing him.

“Oh, come on!”

---

Logan’s tail swayed in curiosity as Remus began to make louder versions of those little noises that made up the aliens’ language, accentuated with a hand gesture. The motion made it harder to get an accurate outline, but the main point was to get basic measurements anyhow, so Logan didn’t try to stifle the little creature’s movements.

He absolutely didn’t want to disrupt the odd casualness with which this one treated him, so different from Virgil’s earlier twitchy terror and even D’s careful consideration of their every movement. While quite rowdy in nature, Remus seemed the most unconcerned with the situation, only showing aggression when one of the others had been grabbed without warning.

The tiny aliens were certainly a puzzle. D had given Remus’s name for them, perhaps indicating a social hierarchy, but Remus was also the largest between the three of them and had been completely unfazed by any teeth baring or tackling from the other two.

He prodded the tiny alien lightly as he finished and saved the measurement, and when that garnered no response, he curled fingers under them and lifted them up securely. Remus ragdolled petulantly, seeming oddly mopey. Perhaps the measurements had bored them?

Hopefully, the maze would provide a little more enrichment. Logan had made the deeper areas quite tricky, after all.

---

Patton was very delicate with how he handled D.

He’d tried to be careful with Remus, too, but they’d seemed pretty intent on trying to bite off little chunks of his suit, and attempt to scale dangerous items, and generally make Patton feel a little wonderment at the fact that the tiny creature had managed to survive long enough to make it to them.

With D, it was much easier, because the alien moved slower than the other two, with a purposeful grace. It seemed Patton didn’t have to worry about D throwing themself off any available high surface just to see if Patton would manage to catch them in time, at least.

He carefully shifted his hand to his research desk, and D adjusted the cuffs of their borrowed overlayer before stepping off of his hand.

Despite D’s languid movements, something about their body language seemed much more mindful than Remus. The pause as they took in the landscape and the ambient writing scrolls scattered across the table before deigning to turn and look at Patton, it felt almost... calculated. As though they were thinking about every move to present a certain image.

Patton reminded himself that there were plenty of aliens that didn’t feel as strongly as Nilhae about the authentic self, and these aliens in particular had more reason than most to hide themselves. They were tiny and vulnerable here, stripped from their homes and families, and  by all appearances, Patton and his teammates were the ones responsible.

He wasn’t sure he’d be eager to share his unfiltered self if he was in their situation, either.

Patton clasped both sets of lower hands together determinedly. The solution was the same regardless of if he wanted to fulfill his responsibility as a researcher or make any progress in befriending these little guys: they needed to communicate!

He pulled out two sets of the common alphabet, one printed and one imprinted. He wasn’t sure which senses were the keenest for these aliens, which ones they used for their own language systems, so it was best to cover all his bases.

D studied the printed one curiously, but seemed less interested by the imprinted one. Perhaps the materials used for touch-reading were different for them? Patton moved his hand closer slowly, allowing them time to protest, and held a digit out.

After a short staredown, D set their tiny hand atop it, and Patton guided them both to the surface of the imprints. The symbols were oversized for their tiny digits, but they seemed to get the idea, running their hands over the carved bumps and glancing back and forth between the printed letters and the imprinted ones.

Patton cheered internally, and then flicked a finger in the air to get D’s attention.

“Wait here please!” he enunciated carefully, and then held a hand out, palm-down, to indicate that they should stay put.

D kept their expression carefully neutral, not twitching in any way Patton could read, which made sense, since this was the first time Patton was using these words. Hopefully, context and a few repetitions would help them puzzle the meaning out.

He dipped his lowest arms in a polite be-right-back, turned, and left the room.

It didn’t take him long to duck in and out of the few rooms that held the items he needed, though he seemed to accidentally give Virgil a bit of a startle, going by the wide-eyed look the alien shot at him as Roman greeted him briefly.

Every hand full, he returned to his space, and found D standing in almost the exact same spot, shoulders loose and relaxed, attention remaining on the printed alphabet even as Patton walked closer.

He set each item down, earning a casual glance from the alien, and discreetly checked the heat register for the desk’s touch surface.

Sure enough, the past few moments showed recordings of small footprints that traced the perimeter of the desk, checking every possible side of it, likely for an easy way down. Then, they swiftly headed back to the center of the desk and settled back in place, close enough that it would appear they hadn’t moved at all.

Patton’s mouth twisted unhappily; he could teach the aliens as many words as they wanted, but if they didn’t trust them enough to even show their discomfort with the captivity, real communication would be out of reach.

They had a long way to go.

-

Remus whistled cheerily as he was carried back to the communal room, Logan’s padded fingers forming a more secure grip around him than before. He didn’t get squeezed to death or anything, so the alien probably wasn’t too angry with him. Or they were just contemplating a more painful method to murder him.

The other alien, the one with the freaky-awesome bug mouth and the rude grabby hands, was still in there, seated by the designated Gawk-At-Humans platform. They made some greeting noises at each other, a couple of which Remus imitated to himself, mangling the vowels in the back of his throat.

As Logan got closer, he could see Virgil standing surprisingly close to Grabby, and even better, the kid was all in one grumpy human-shaped piece. He jumped down from Logan’s hand before it was completely lowered and laughed as he felt his knees pop uncomfortably.

Logan made a warble-chirp of probably-disgust-maybe-concern, but Remus was swiftly distracted by the emo appearing at his side between one blink and the next, as though he’d teleported. He circled Remus like a starving wolf, his lips pulling back slightly as he took in the bruising around his shoulders. “What’d they do to you?”

“Well, he didn’t dissect me, which would normally be an automatic fail in the mad scientist gradebook, but,” Remus paused for emphasis, “I got to trash the electronic version of a horror movie corn maze, so I’m pleased as prostitutes!”

“He put you in that maze? I knew that thing was unsafe, holy shit—,” Virgil moved to put himself between Remus and Logan like he himself wasn’t just as squishable as Remus was.

“It seemed OSHA-approved to me! Before I smashed through all those walls, I mean.” He admired his scraped up hands with a cheek-stretching grin. “It’s much less boring now, with all the fun and sharp metal scarecrow sculptures I put together to jumpscare the piss out of future contenders!”

“An alien put you in a trap-filled rat race and you made modern art?” Virgil asked, successfully distracted from whatever horrific war crimes he was inventing for Logan in that little lemming brain of his.

“Can’t have anyone beating my time!” Remus confirmed cheerily.

“You— I. Ugh. Whatever!” Virgil threw his hands up, and then grabbed the front of Remus’s shirt and dragged him further from the two aliens like a bully stereotype from a low-budget teen coming-of-age movie. “Listen, the other one— Patton? They came in here earlier without Dee. I’m worried about— my hoodie.”

Remus would have made fun of the emo for his slip-up, but he was too busy imagining Dee splattered across some distant spaceship flooring. “That alien hardly even touched me,” Remus countered for both of their sakes. “For someone with so many hands, the guy sure didn’t want to get handsy.”

“You used that one already,” Virgil told him, unimpressed. “Get better hand jokes.”

“I’m better at jobs.” Remus wiggled his eyebrows, and received a muted smack on the shoulder for his efforts. He glanced back at Grabby automatically and found both aliens watching them, neither taking umbrage with Virgil smacking him like a cat annihilating a moth. “What happened with your xenomorph?”

“Terrible movie to compare us to,” Virgil muttered, but he glanced over his shoulder at Grabby without any of his earlier terror. Grabby waved at him like some kind of people-pleaser desperate for connection. “Pretty sure I just went through the same ordeal as one of those endangered birds scientists catch and release. Weighed, measured, photographed against my will.”

“Did you at least get a colorful tag to attract more bitches with?” Remus asked, lifting his ankle up in example.

“I would have bitten them first,” Virgil replied sourly. “I didn’t spend my whole adult life avoiding all government interaction to get slapped with a house arrest anklet now. Especially not a colorful one.”

“They’re not that bad as long as you can ignore the beeping,” Remus assured him, and then paused to contemplate. “...All government interaction? Did you get sold to aliens for being a tax evader?”

Halfway through Virgil’s resulting spluttering fit, Patton trotted through the doorway, Dee sitting on one of his hands looking just as untouchable as always. He stepped gracefully onto the table’s surface once Patton’s hand got close enough for a smooth dismount, and said something in the alien language, apparently fluently as all three of them worked themselves into a tizzy over it.

Dee turned to them with an expectant look, and they wandered over to meet him like peons to their tyrannical king, or rotting driftwood in a river.

“Congrats on the Klingon!” Remus grinned salaciously. “Did you know the ship name for the most homoerotic characters in Star Trek is Kock?”

“Shut up, it is not,” Virgil said, like a nerd. “But seriously, you know what they’re saying?”

“Yes, completely, I learned an entire language in one session,” Dee snarked back, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like short phrases such as ‘thank you’ are much easier for non-native speakers to pick up naturally or anything.”

Remus interrupted Virgil’s answering hiss with a very important query. “Did you teach them any swears?”

“No,” Dee’s eyes flashed in warning, “and you won’t be teaching them any either. Or any English at all. The longer we keep our conversations incomprehensible to them, the longer we’ll maintain what little privacy we have left. I’ll share the alien language with you both, naturally, so you can report to me on what they say when they think we’re not listening.”

Remus and Virgil stared at him for a long moment before exchanging glances.

“I can’t believe you accused me of tax evasion when Dee is right here,” Virgil complained, earning himself a sharp look from the man in question.

“Who told you about that?” he hissed, and then visibly remembered that they were in space and so it probably didn’t matter. He adjusted his cuffs, which looked absolutely ridiculous from a guy wearing a hoodie instead of a suit. “Ahem. Regardless, we’re learning their language, not the other way around. If they have half a brain between the three of them, though, listening to me teaching you will be enough for them to pick up on some English. We’re going to need a distraction.”

“You had me at ‘between the three of them’!” Remus announced suggestively, making Virgil fake-gag next to him. “Leave it to me!”

Dee seemed completely content to let him wreak his havoc, grabbing Virgil and sitting down near the back of the table, the side where the aliens weren’t.

Remus strode up to the three giants confidently and cleared his throat pointedly. When that didn’t work, he screamed at the top of his lungs instead. That worked no matter where he was!

“Alright, everybody sit down, quiet down, listen up,” he started brightly, spreading his arms wide. “I brought you all here to recite the annual obituaries. Like every year, we’ll start with A and we’ll end with Z…”

---

Patton blinked, absolutely entranced as Remus belted out words to an invisible tempo.

The little creature’s vocal chords were stronger than they looked, because their melody came out loud and clear, with accompanying charades that Patton could make absolutely no sense of.

Once they had wound down to the last words and then silence, Remus looked up at them expectantly.

“Wow, that was so beautiful!” Patton cheered enthusiastically.

Remus’s eyes rolled up in what was probably an exaggerated expression and not a medical condition, and they clapped their hands together pointedly. Patton hesitantly mimicked the motion, and then more confidently when Remus visibly perked up. Eventually, he was using all three sets of hands for maximum clapping.

Logan and Roman followed suit, clapping to congratulating the abrupt performance while whispering about the implications of it between each other. Remus folded over in a deep bow that was probably an accepting gesture, and then took a deep breath.

As they launched into another song, all three aliens fixated on them, one of the two humans at the other end of the table smacked a palm against their face, utterly exasperated.

#sanders sides #g/t #ts remus #ts logan #ts patton #ts janus #ts virgil #ts roman #nawts #not always what they seem #alien au #writing #my writing #mind the warnings

[caffeinatedseri]

Murakami and Ranpo

Some minor spoilers ahead for the third BSD LN, The Untold Story of the Founding of the Detective Agency." If you aren't concerned with spoilers, I did my best with summarizing the plot for anyone who hasn't read the novel.

In the third BSD LN, Fukuzawa and Ranpo are tasked with finding the culprit of an ominous death threat at a theatrical play. The threat is written as follows:

“An angel shall bring death, in the truest sense of the word, to the performer. —V.”

This threat fits perfectly with the play, which is a mystery play where each character gets killed by an "angel" who murders. However, the characters don't know if they're being killed by an angel or a regular person, because there's nothing supernatural about their causes of death (getting stabbed by a knife, poison, strangulation, etc.).

Each character was a former angel who had been banished from the celestial world, because they admired humans so much that God turned them into humans. Therefore, the characters in the play believed that an angel was sent after them to punish them for their sins.

This sets up two mysteries for us to follow:

1. The mystery of the real death threat, sent by "V" — who is the culprit behind it, who will they kill, and why?

2. The mystery within the play — is it an angel or real person killing each character, and why?

Paradoxes (and Things That Don't Make Sense)

The play is called, "The Living World is a Dream, the Nocturnal Dream is Reality," which is a quote from the real Edogawa Ranpo's work, but I couldn't find the exact source. The title proposes a paradox: reality is a dream, and dreams are reality.

Several other paradoxes present themselves in the story, but they appear most prominently in Ranpo's big speech where he solves the mystery of the play, and the murder simultaneously:

“The murder and the play’s story are connected on a deep level. This play reversed the tide of the narrative. A group of fallen angels tried to return to the heavens, but the angel of judgment tried to stop them. Meanwhile, the angel’s judgment was but a show, and the supposed victim, a human, faked it. The angel’s and humans’ roles were reversed, switching the judge and the judged. That’s the kind of play this was. "

"...the narrative is in reverse. Our structures have been swapped along with the victim and killer as well. In other words—he isn’t the killer, but a victim."

This reveal subverts the original expectation that the plot would follow two separate mysteries. Instead, the lines are blurred between reality and fiction, killer and killed, and dreams and reality because now the two mysteries are intertwined.

I think this part of the story is deliberately written to be confusing (or at least not very clearly explained) as to fit in with the themes found in Murakami's writing.

Who is Murakami?

Haruki Murakami is a famous Japanese author, and you may have read some of his famous works, "Norwegian Wood" and "Kafka on the Shore."

Since this is Bungou (Literary) Stray Dogs, Murakami makes an appearance in this light novel as the main actor of the play.

Before I go on to explain Murakami's role in the novel, I'll give a brief background on his real counterpart and explain how the theatrical play in the novel reflects the real Murakami's work.

Murakami writes in the genre of "magical realism", where the lines between fantasy and reality are blurred as magical elements are seamlessly incorporated into the story. I'll be using "Kafka on the Shore" as the main example for this point, since it's a great example of Murakami's expertise in magical realism.

In "Kafka on the Shore," there are 2 interrelated plot lines, alternating with each chapter, similar to the 2 supposed mysteries outlined at the beginning of the novel.

Like its moniker, "Kafka on the Shore" resembles a "Kafkaesque" style of writing due to its surreal elements that are bizarre and illogical in the rules of reality.

In an interview about this novel, Murakami said:

"Kafka on the Shore contains several riddles, but there aren't any solutions provided. Instead, several of these riddles combine, and through their interaction the possibility of a solution takes shape. And the form this solution takes will be different for each reader. To put it another way, the riddles function as part of the solution. It's hard to explain, but that's the kind of novel I set out to write."

The Outcome of the Play

In theme with Murakami's bizarre, magical-realism writings, several illogical events take place within the span of the LN:

1. Before the play even starts, Murakami (the character) and the rest of the cast completely disregard the death threat. Even though the logical and safe solution would be to reschedule the play, it is a very literal representation of "the play must go on" mindset.

2. Murakami gets stabbed mid-sentence, on stage by a white blade that magically disappears.

3. Murakami bleeds real blood and has no pulse, which would signify his death, but he doesn't actually die.

Despite all this, Ranpo is extremely good at observing various elements of a situation and putting them together to form a solution, much like how the interactions of "Kafka on the Shore"'s riddles form their own solution.

Ranpo appears on stage and makes an Oscar-worthy performance out of his announcement that reveals Murakami to be the culprit behind his own death. It doesn't make much logical sense that Murakami would fake his own death for a performance, but rather it's an action motivated by pure passion.

“I…,” muttered Murakami in almost a whisper. He raised his voice and continued, “I am an actor! I become someone I am not and live a life that doesn’t exist! My job is to expose what it means to be human! It doesn’t matter if I play the lead part or a minor part. It doesn’t matter if I am a villain or hero. I become them with every part of my body! There is no other job for me! This is the only way I can live!”

And here, Murakami reveals the final paradox of the play:

"But there is one thing that cannot be avoided while acting on the stage of life, and that is death! Death is not the opposite of life; it is life’s symbol and banner. However, it also provides a great paradox! Nobody alive has ever experienced it! That’s why to me, the greatest job of all would be performing the death of a person. Not death as a device or a mere convention, but real death that I could convey to the audience. That was the pinnacle of theatrical performance to me. And this is the outcome of my toil."

Murakami eventually gets arrested for the fake death threat and deceiving the police, among other things. The most notable moment after this comes in Ranpo's dialogue to Murakami:

“I thought you were amazing,” Ranpo suddenly said from behind as Murakami was being taken away. “I didn’t quite understand all of it myself, but I don’t think it’s something that just anyone could do. By the way, take a look at the audience. Look at their faces.”

1. Ranpo sees Murakami's act as something admirable, most likely because Ranpo appreciates a good mystery and had fun solving it.

2. Ranpo tells Murakami to look at the audience, to which he turns around and sees the faces of a broken audience who came to watch a play and instead witnessed a real not-so-real murder.

“You said your job was entertainment, right? But could you really call it that…when you look at their expressions?” For the first time, Murakami’s eyes showed a sign of weakness. “…I see.” A small voice, unlike what one would expect from a stage actor with a powerful voice, fell from the stage. “I was…only performing for myself.”

Murakami realizes that he traumatized his entire audience on his quest to reach the "pinnacle of theatrical performance." In his small world that consisted of just the stage, he failed to see the outside world and forgot to consider how his actions would impact others. It's also important to mention that it was Ranpo specifically who pointed it out to him.

The focus on the audience mirrors Fukuzawa's thoughts when Ranpo was giving his big speech before Murakami appeared on the stage:

Fukuzawa was at his wits’ end. From the playgoers’ point of view, the fact that people knew there was going to be a murder beforehand completely changed their view of the situation. Was it really okay to tell them that? But Ranpo showed no concern for the audience’s worries.

Ranpo, throughout the entire novel, is portrayed as this extraordinarily ordinary kid who means well but simply doesn't understand what others are thinking. He was taught that he wasn't special, but this only isolated him into his own tiny world, because the outside world was filled with things he didn't understand.

This leads to him upsetting a bunch of people by blatantly calling out things about them that shouldn't be called out, like the theater's owner Ms. Egawa, and even Fukuzawa at one point.

However, this moment when he calls out Murakami is pivotal because it shows how he's grown from this event. He's learned to be considerate of others. He's seen how he can upset other people with the things he says, and he's learned from that enough to show another person who's trapped in their own individual world.

Although Ranpo is depicted to be somewhat self-centered throughout this novel and even after it, Fukuzawa taught him that he isn't alone in this world. Because Fukuzawa showed compassion to Ranpo, a special fifteen-year-old kid who didn't know better in a world of monsters, Ranpo learned how to exist in a world where he was different from everyone else, and that was okay.

Thank you for reading! If you haven't read this LN yet, I would still highly recommend it because I didn't cover the entirety of the mystery, and it's a wonderful read to understand more about Ranpo and Fukuzawa's backstory.

#bsd #bsd meta #bsd analysis #bsd ranpo #murakami #bsd light novel #i actually read the LN a while ago #but didn't realize murakami was in it until i finished kafka on the shore

[kitkatopinions]

It feels so out of place how the narrative and the characters have always treated the Atlas military (alternatively suspicious, tyrannical or incompetent), yet when push came to shove that same military fought and died for hours against Salem's invasion to protect the tens of thousands of people trapped in Atlas BECAUSE of Ruby while Ruby sat and drank tea. How long did that battle go for? Four hours? Five? And if that wasn't enough, it only ended because Oscar was only covering the escape. 1/2

No lie, I feel like the world they invented pretty much requires the presence of a militarized force to sustain itself and it's one reason why approaching the Atlas military as 'point blank bad with no gray area' and approaching Hunters with 'point blank good with no gray area' makes no sense to me.

I've seen fans literally say that they knew Atlas, its military, and James were bad from the get go because of the use of the words army and military, and that army = bad, but ffs it's a fantasy world where the rules are one hundred percent different than the real world. The world of Remnant we're presented with is one with dark monsters thriving on negativity and attacking indiscriminately, reproducing at a fast rate, and adapting while showing intelligence and the understanding of consequences. They're known to bring down towns when something goes wrong, like a bandit raid. Single Grimm can take down whole towns. Panic stirs up Grimm activity and enough of it can bring down whole Kingdoms. The Hunter system we've been shown is A. corrupt, and B. a profession that doesn't seem to churn out a good many hunters, and many of the Hunters we see are concerned with big picture things or specific tasks, or retired or dead, due to the inherent danger level of the job. There simply aren't enough Hunters. There aren't enough Hunters to run border control, to protect the cities if they get attacked, to ferry kids back and forth from school while Grimm activity is up, to investigate suspicious activity and handle it when things go wrong, to save civilians when push comes to shove, to be parts of secret organizations while also maintaining their oaths to protect. Hunters seem more like specialists, at least from what I've seen in show. They're trained to be able to take on high level threats and go through a rigorous program, but they can't act as the only line of defense, partially due to their lack of numbers. They aren't actually the driving protective force keeping the Grimm out of the kingdoms on a day to day, hour by hour basis.

We see this over and over again in the show. Hunters get overwhelmed, towns fall, cities fall, they can't do the work of hundreds of people. Teams RWBYJNR and the Happy Huntresses never would've been able to protect Mantle from a direct attack from Salem, for example, when they couldn't even keep all the civilians safe from the Grimm that were occurring naturally due to political upheaval and unrest. In a world where demon monsters from hell will manifest and attack if too many people feel negatively at once and feelings of safety and security are needed to try and prevent the Grimm from coming in droves, an army is the only real solution here. Remnant is not the real world, the way we view armies is not automatically the way the people in Remnant view armies. And in fact, the show in the early seasons does a very strange thing; they have Ozpin express a belief that unrest and nervousness will occur due to James bringing his fleet to Vale (with every sign pointing to him having been asked there by the Vale Council,) and yet the reactions that we do see are actually the opposite, but this is still somehow heralded as foreshadowing by both the fans and seemingly the show itself. From Ruby geeking out about seeing the Atlas robots being displayed, to everyone being relieved and awed when the army showed up to protect everyone in the episode "Breach," where Atlas ships saved Ruby and she gave a grateful smile, salute, and wave, the Atlas military seems well received.

And the Atlas robotic soldiers taking down Grimm as civilians run past during the Fall is another example.

Even Oz, Qrow, and Glynda who were the only three people to express mistrust or anxiousness towards the presence of the army in Vale, are only seen either telling James to use his army (Oz,) or are seen fighting by the army's side, and then being welcoming and taking direct orders from James without being even the slightest bit suspicious of him.

We don't see the supposed anxiousness and mistrust in anyone outside of Oz, Qrow, and Glynda, who all one hundred percent trusted James anyway and were only worried that everyone else would be worried. The fact that Watts (someone everyone thought was dead) managed to hack the Atlas robots, has been the only negative effect we saw in the first three seasons, and that's not due to any corruption or mistake on the part of the Atlas army or James himself (something going horribly wrong in a way no one could expect due to the evil actions of a group of other people is not actually the fault of the person trying and succeeding to do good until the group of other people did bad.)

I could get into more reasons to not think the Atlas army is corrupt, but I don't want this post to get too long, and I want to address your very right statements about the way they portrayed their protagonists versus the army even while they were trying to push the concept that the Atlas army is corrupt and bad.

Ironwood: Desperately doing whatever he can to save lives from Salem, planning ways to bring down the Whale Grimm, trying to protect the Relics and the Maiden from Salem's grasp.

Team RWBY and co: Risking the lives of literally everyone on purpose because they don't want to be in a no win situation, preventing Ironwood from taking life saving actions because it won't save every live, expressing zero concern or grief for the hundreds dying to Salem on the battlefield.

The Ace Ops: Trying to navigate their morals while they do what they can to try and protect the civilians in Atlas who are directly in danger, trying to convince Penny to actually save people, planning to take down the whale grimm even if they have to suffer knowing a kid died in the process of protecting hundreds and likely thousands of other kids directly in danger of dying.

Team RWBY and co: Prioritizing their friends, prioritizing missions that logic says won't help people especially with the fall of Atlas making it impossible to protect everyone who's going to be in danger, picking fights with people who are trying to save others.

Team FNKI: Delving into war and battle while facing their fears, trying to protect people, trying to do the job they chose and stare floods of Grimm down.

Team RWBY and co: Drinking tea in mansions, worrying about their love lives, crying on staircases, laughing with a murderer...

Even while they were having Ironwood shoot down people that stood in his way and express that he wished he'd thought about torture and sending bomb threats, they still didn't have the protagonists actually seem like likable, convincingly good protagonists that I would want to root for. It seems like they had to try hard to make James someone people couldn't root for because they couldn't make Ruby and her team actually right, effective, and good. They really seem so selfish, immature, unprepared, and entitled. Which isn't to say that the protagonists can't have those flaws, but they're not getting treated like flaws, which is the most frustrating thing.

Before the writers needed to push their message that Ironwood is completely evil and everything he's involved with is inherently wrong, we didn't get much sign that the Atlas army was corrupted and bad, because projecting real world standards onto a fantasy world that we know is very different from ours isn't it. That's not to say that I think 'not showing us this system is corrupted early' means that there's no possible corruption, but I think it's clear that the fandom pushed narrative that the Atlas army is inherently bad and worse somehow than being a Hunter which is somehow much better is very biased, especially when we also see corruption in the Hunter profession.

Making James and the Ace Ops do vile thing didn't make the protagonists seem better. They still fell way short of adequate.

#rwde #anti rwby #rwby bashing #rwby hate #fndm hate #pro general ironwood #pro ironwood #pro james ironwood #pro IW #iw antis leave me alone

[thisizaraisu]

In/spectre vs The Detective is Already Dead: Every Masterpiece Has its Cheap Imitation

So I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. While I did only give In/spectre an 8/10 due to its admittedly weak pacing, it was also one of my favorite anime to come out last year. I love the character chemistry and banter, it was enough to make me forgive the pacing a million times over. And The Detective is Already Dead sets itself up similarly to In/spectre with some great character interaction and a main girl that reminded me a LOT of Kotoko (and you can take one look at my profile picture to know how I feel about Kotoko). But if you’ve been reading my posts, you’d have seen that The Detective is Already Dead was the first show I dropped this season. So while I was initially very interested in everything the show had set up, there was a point where it all went wrong, and admittedly I don’t think it was Episode 2. Today I wanna take a deep dive into both series, and explain why one is a masterpiece and one is a disappointment.

Structure

The Detective is Already Dead has the most screwed-up story structure I’ve ever seen in an anime... and I watched God of High School. My biggest problem with the way the show is structured is that the chronology being completely random isn’t my only issue. We gleam two major facts from episodes 1-3: Siesta has passed away, and her heart is within the body of another girl. For whatever ungodly reason, knowing this we go back to a flashback where Siesta is fighting a kaiju with toxic breath that could wipe out the entire nation of Japan. Now tell me, if Siesta were to be killed by this monster, would she have any salvageable body parts left over? Hell no. And therein lies my problem: the way that the story has already gone through its motions leaves NO room for feelings of stakes or tension in these flashback sequences. It’s not just the chronological whiplash that bogs the whole thing down, but the fact that we already know Siesta’s fate makes these “intense” flashback sequences utterly pointless (I’ll get to why “intense” was put in quotations later). I honestly did not mind the idol arc at all, but at the end of said arc, a new character was teased, only for her to not be introduced in the following episodes. There are SO many structural issues that I was baffled, it continually left me with more questions than answers and not in the way a good mystery series does so. More often than not, the question it left me with was “What the fuck were they thinking?”

In/spectre on the other hand is structurally sound. It jumps around occasionally but it covers events that are entirely relevant to the lives of our two lead characters and their relationship. Additionally, while the pacing is admittedly lackluster, it’s not confusing. We see the high-stakes war between Kotoko and Rikka unfold in real-time, with Kotoko’s plan to rid the world of Steel Lady Nanase encoutering numerous logical hurdles. Again, I’ll get into why this works down the line. But for now, I wanna talk a bit more about:

Character Chemistry

The chemistry between Kotoko and Kuro is a real saving grace for the show. I’m gonna be bringing up the term “saving grace” a few more times for In/spectre, and I do realize that the term is typically used for good qualities of bad media, but here’s where I’m coming from on this: pacing is something that I typically put a LOT of stock into for an anime. However, when the other qualities are so enjoyable that I can put weak pacing to the side, I consider those qualities a saving grace. All that being said, every interaction between Kotoko and Kuro brought a genuine smile to my face. The witty banter and innuendo shared between them is not only well-written, but reserved for the right moments. It never breaks the tension that the show has worked so hard to build up, rather it’s present in their initial meeting, their moments shared in the hotel, and after the conflicts they encounter have been resolved. There are occasionally tongue-and-cheek jokes thrown into the preludes to action sequences but they’re very quick laughs as immediately after we’re thrown right back into the action. The timing and writing in In/spectre is just top-notch and they’re a direct result of how naturally Kotoko and Kuro’s conversations flow and how well the two completely different leads compliment each other.

The only character Kimihiko had good chemistry with is fucking dead now. Moving on.

Action

In/spectre is not very heavy on the action, but two scenes in the show’s runtime did make my jaw drop: the conclusion of episode 1, and the scene where Kuro pulls his body across the I-beam impaled into his chest to punch Nanase in the face. Kotoko and Kuro have a bit of a “brains and brawn” dynamic going on. While Kuro is by no means unsmart, Kotoko is definitely more of the master strategist, while Kuro can use his immortality to keep their target at bay. This present is incredibly present in the fight with Steel Lady Nanase. Kuro is constantly knocked down, battered, bruised, impaled, yet he keeps rising back up to give Kotoko enough time to work her magic. It’s a plan that promises nothing but searing pain for Kuro, and throughout it all I was constantly wondering, at what point will Kuro break? This has been happening for numerous episodes, when will he not be able to get back up? The fact that In/spectre made me feel that there were stakes for an IMMORTAL BEING is, in hindsight, kind of amazing.

In direct contrast, The Detective is Already Dead really falls off after the first fight. While looking back on it, it is really dumb that Siesta was able to bring a gun onto an airplane, on first watch I honestly really liked what I was seeing in the fight between her and tentacle boy (I don’t remember his name and I don’t feel like looking it up). And what got me REALLY invested was the way Siesta didn’t actually kill him, rather faking his death and having him imprisoned. I was invested for a key reason: the show’s title isn’t exactly spoiler-free, but it got me wondering, is Siesta ACTUALLY dead? Is she truly gone from this world, or is her “death” in name only like Tentacle Boy’s, and do I actually get to see more of this enjoyable, In/spectre-style character dynamic? Sadly, this was thwarted by episode 2′s reveal of the girl that received Siesta’s heart. Again, a horrifically paced sequence between episodes that kills any momentum the series had built up.

Additionally, it was during the fight between Siesta and Petelguise that I felt the show had genuinely hit rock bottom, because they made a fight between a cute waifu in a mech suit and a kaiju that could wipe out all of Japan in a moment’s notice BORING. I didn’t touch on it much during my initial explanation of why I dropped the show, but I wanna elaborate a bit. First of all, as I said previously, there are no stakes to be found. We KNOW that Siesta can’t die here. Secondly, the movement is just so wooden, there’s no attempt at animating the fight in an exciting way, rather it just feels like they’re going through the motions to convey the words of the light novel without trying to get it to translate to video form. Finally, there’s WAY too much dialogue and it drags down the entire sequence by making the chase scene way longer than it needs to be, and given the show’s propensity to really over-season every scene with dialogue, I imagine this was the same for future action sequences as well. I dropped the show as soon as Siesta jumped onto the clock tower with Petelguise, because it was in that moment I realized: I feel literally nothing right now.

The last point of comparison I want to draw between these two shows is:

Bullshit

Thinking about the very different way these two shows use the art of bullshitting is honestly the reason I wanted to make this post. Kotoko’s solution to the entire Steel Lady Nanase conflict is, after all, the art of bullshitting. What makes it work is the fact that it’s the perfect solution to what the situation calls for. I know this is a bit of an odd comparison, but In/spectre is like a reverse version of Elf starring Will Ferrell. Unlike how at the end of Elf, they wanted to make everyone believe in Santa to restore his power, Kotoko’s ambition is to get the Internet to toss out their belief in Steel Lady Nanase to rid her of her power as a “monster of the imagination.” If people maintain their belief in this monster of Rikka’s imagination, there’s no realistic way to stop her. Here lies the biggest obstacle, however: the power of imagination is so strong that Nanase has become a very real entity, responsible for multiple murders. Kotoko can’t just magically find an incriminating piece of evidence that outs Nanase as superstition, so her only solution is to trick the people of the internet and convince them that she’s a myth. As she does this, her invented inference runs into skepticism and she has to continue to bullshit her way out of it until finally, she’s created an explanation for the recent string of murders with no holes in its argument. It’s an arduous process but one that does have to be drawn out as Kotoko very clearly and intentionally sets up explanations that would draw skepticism before inventing an excuse that refutes any potential counter-arguments. It’s honestly the equivalent to someone writing a 50-page college thesis with no research and successfully defending it.

Siesta, on the other hand, is the most annoying kind of supergenius character. Personally, I love Siesta. I think her character design is great, I think she’s funny and that she shares some really enjoyable dialogue with Kimihiko, so when the show isn’t butchering fight scenes I actually really enjoyed her screen time. So it’s not Siesta herself that bothers me, but it’s the way that the plot is so willing to let her make perfect deductions with the most minimal knowledge given to her. This also reminds me a bit of Sherlock in Moriarty the Patriot, with his ability to make perfect deductions from just a glance at the scene of the crime, but it works well in Holmes’ case because all of the necessary evidence is in that confined space. Siesta on the other hand is just magically able to decipher a villain’s motivation and weaknesses with a two-minute conversation... yeah I don’t buy it.

So that’s about it, I probably could have drawn up more contrasts if I had actually continued watching The Detective is Already Dead, but it became such an abject disappointment that I just ended up going back to In/spectre instead. You know, a mystery show where the writers and animators knew what they were doing.

#anime #anime review #in/spectre #kyokou suiri #tantei wa mou shindeiru #The Detective is Already Dead #Seasonal anime #winter 2020 #summer 2021

[theatresweetheart]

A Dragon’s Prince | 2

Part One

Warnings: Swearing, blood, injuries, fear, anxious thoughts, arguing.

Pairings: Platonic Prinxiety

Characters: Virgil, Roman

Word count: 5002 words

                                        ——————————

A‌ few days had passed. They had remained just as uneventful as the first one had been and Virgil watched sunset after sunset. Each and every day that brought those fading hues across the sky chipped away a little more of his resolve.

Life in the cave wasn’t…bad, necessarily. It was far from easy and certainly far from comfortable, but he was still alive, so that counted for something.

Of course, he’d still tried to escape when the dragon’s back was turned, but each attempt gifted the same response. He was snagged by the back of his tunic, hefted up and carried right back over toward the dragon’s bed. Once there, he was kept pinned in place until he quit fighting. It never took long before Virgil tired himself out and eventually ended up giving in.

The dragon was never too bothered to feel the prince’s struggles cease.

There was almost always a content rumble that followed Virgil’s relaxing. A thrum that hummed through him. The prince was left to guess that it was a soothing mechanism that the dragon would use on unruly or frightened young.

It was a demeaning thought– being treated as no better than a hatchling but, again, Virgil had to remind himself that he was indeed still alive.

The feeling of cool hard metal in his hand brought him back to the present. He was sitting back against the stone wall of the cave, idly tossing a few golden coins up in the air. He flicked his wrist, watching silently amused at the glittering pieces before catching them swiftly and tossing them up again. It was the most entertaining thing he had.

The dragon was nestled close by, eyes watching the human lazily as he amused himself. It was more of a curious glance than anything serious.

The longer the dragon looked, the more uncomfortable Virgil got.

“What?”‌ He finally snapped, turning to face the great crimson lizard, the gentle clattering of coins stilled as he held them.

The dragon only tilted its head at him, seemingly asking what the problem was.

Virgil rolled his eyes, letting his head thump against the stone wall. “I’m not going to run away,” he said sharply, before throwing a hand out in the direction of the cave’s entrance—where the dragon had not-so-subtly positioned itself in front of, just so the prince wouldn’t be able to make a break for it without having to go around the beast itself. “You’re right in my way and, believe it or not, I‌ don’t have a death wish.”

He tossed the coins up again, listening to the gold clink together. The fading colours from outside danced off the hoard. It was just another day where Virgil remained captive without the knights rescuing him.

No, he didn’t need some strong man to walk in sword-a-swinging to save him, he could save himself. This situation just made saving himself increasingly difficult.

The dragon huffed at him, looking rather distraught.

“Do you want something from me?” The prince snipped, bitterness raising in the back of his throat. He side-glanced the dragon as it crept the slightest bit closer to him. “If you want riches and gold and glittering jewels, I‌ can’t give you that.” Not here at least. He took a breath. “Look, you seem, ah, decent. Maybe even decent enough to return me home?”

The dragon—as it had softened the slightest bit—instantly shut down and snorted at him.

Hot air brushed Virgil’s dark bangs back and he sneered.‌ “Well,”‌ he said, his tone lacked mirth and amusement, “it was worth a shot, wasn’t it?”

The dragon rolled its eyes, shifting to lean back on its forearms. They were both surrounded by the soft sounds of gold clinking again as Virgil resumed tossing the coins up and down.

That relative silence was quickly broken by the prince’s stomach growling.

Pink immediately rushed to his cheeks and Virgil could feel heat creeping up the back of his neck. The dragon’s ears twitched and it lifted its head again, watching Virgil wrap his arms around his midsection, stifling the sounds.

He wasn’t entirely sure why he was embarrassed, he just was.

He turned his attention away from the dragon watching him intently now. However, that only lasted for so long. The dragon made a soft humming noise, wanting to get the prince’s attention. It succeeded after a moment, but mostly because the constant noise was annoying.

“I’m just a bit hungry,” he admitted, red dotting his face. “That’s all, it’s not a big deal.”

The dragon pushed up so it was sitting back on its hind legs. It turned around, looking over its shoulder toward the mouth of the cave. It almost seemed to be debating whether or not it should just go and get something to eat anyway. Virgil could almost see the cogs working in its head, before the dragon turned back to look at him skeptically.

It almost felt like he was being accused of faking.

“If you’re thinking about leaving me here while you go hunting,” Virgil said slowly, watching the dragon’s expressions to the best of his ability, “I won’t run.”

The dragon scrunched its snout in disbelief.

Virgil scoffed. “Come on, why would I‌ lie? You could probably literally scent me all over the forest if you tried,” he threw his hands up in exasperation. “But fine, you want to drag me along on your hunting trip and risk me getting hurt? Fine.” The reaction he got from the great beast was exactly what he had thought it would be; a soft whine as it tried to figure out the best solution. Virgil examined his nails, feigning boredom. “It would be all your fault if something happened to me.”

The dragon wasted no time in nabbed Virgil by the back of his tunic—not without a squall of surprise—and the prince was settled back down into the soft cloths and silks on the dragon’s bed. (It had been collected and piled for the prince himself, since gold and old maps weren’t comfortable for a human to sleep on.)

Virgil winced backward slightly as the dragon snarled in a warning at him, those sharp teeth making a threatening reappearance. He easily understood the dragon was telling him that if he tried to escape, the prince would just be hunted down again.

His stomach jumped at the terrifying display, before surprise painted itself across the human’s features as the dragon then pushed itself back up into a stand and stalked toward the entrance of the cave with its shoulders set. It sent a final glance over its shoulder toward the shocked prince before stepping down onto the mountainside, spreading its great wings and taking off into the night.

He sat there for a moment. The silence seemed to echo in the cave like bells and it took a moment, but he understood he was alone.

Alone.

It was the perfect opportunity to make a break for it. Did it matter if Virgil knew where the kingdom was in relative to where he was now?‌ Yes. It definitely did. But getting out of the cave was his first priority and figuring out where he was could wait.

It took no time at all before he was scrambling to his feet, stumbling down off the mount of riches and jogging toward the front of the cave. He paused a moment longer, making sure the dragon hadn’t decided to camp out and wait until Virgil made his escape to show itself again. When the coast was indeed clear, he climbed down the rocky entrance leading up to the cave itself and broke into a dead sprint the minute his boots touched dirt.

He’d never been so relieved to feel dirt again.

Night was falling quicker now, and the trees began to loom with overgrown shadows. He could hear the howling of wolves off in the distance, but it didn’t matter.

Not when he could get home.

A loud, pained and rather shrill cry suddenly bellowed over the air, seeming to shake the very trees around him.

Virgil’s blood ran cold at the sound. He had an itching feeling he knew the owner of that agonized noise.

Don’t, a small voice in his head yearned– pleaded with him, don’t go back. Don’t go and help. If you do, you know the dragon will keep you prisoner longer. You have the chance to go home!

But, another part of him said, a louder part, how will you be able to sleep at night knowing you let the creature suffer in its last moments? You’ll lie awake, haunted by the sounds, knowing that you could have changed its fate.

He turned to look over his shoulder. The sound had been close enough that he could pinpoint the general direction of it. Virgil bit his lip, fighting every urge in his body to bolt again, make a blind beeline into the woods and leave everything that had happened to him in the past.

It would never had to be spoken of. He could just pretend it had never happened in the first place and move on with his life. Get back into the humdrum of his daily life and princely duties.

“You’re fucking insane,”‌ he muttered, hands clenched to his sides.

Needless to say, the prince turned on his heel and went toward the sound.

It took awhile of searching and following. It was a mix between sitting and waiting in silence for the dragon to make another panicked and helpless cry into the night, and following it. Virgil was well aware that there were other creatures out in the forest, creatures willing enough to end the defenseless human prince where he stood.

When he’d stumbled upon the grotto where the dragon was currently hunched over, he ducked behind a tree, heart hammering in his chest. Virgil pressed his head against the bark.

You’re unbelievable. You had the perfect time to escape and look at you now.

He dipped around the tree and into plain sight. The dragon tensed instantly and its head shot up, a snarl already on its features and its eyes narrowed into distrusting slits. If Virgil hadn’t of known the dragon beforehand, he would have been terrified out of his mind at the murderous look. He also knew the beast was frightened, and defending itself by baring its teeth was one of the only things it could do.

Virgil raised his hands in surrender, heart slamming against his rib-cage, half-wondering if he’d made the wrong decision to come back and help. He was relieved when the dragon softened after a moment, taking in who was standing in front of it. It whined at him immediately afterward, shifting its entire body back to show the human prince its limb—which was caught in a series of barbed wires and sharp metal teeth.

Virgil wrinkled his nose.

Bright red blood splattered the area and continually oozed onto the ground into a puddle of crimson that shimmered dully in the cool moonlight. It was disgusting. There was just so much of it.

However, when Virgil tried to take a step toward the wounded appendage, the dragon growled at him.

He kept his hands up and halted in place. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, finding this situation the tiniest bit ironic. At this point, Virgil held all the cards. The dragon couldn’t do anything to him and they both knew it. He was the one that could decide what happened here and the dragon could only put up an angry facade to frighten away wayward travelers. “I‌’m going to help you get the trap off if you’ll allow me.”

The dragon still seemed hesitant. It watched him with keen and careful eyes, before relenting and shifting back a bit more to make its limb accessible.

Virgil approached, still slowly as the dragon was still watching him intently. The limb itself had barbs embedded into it from each and every possible side. It was such a cruel sight.

It was the work of people that wanted to cause misery to the creature they were catching, whether it was something magical and mythical or something real and powerless.

“Hunters,”‌ he mused softly to himself. Though, he must have spoken loud enough for the dragon to hear since it chirped dejectedly at him. Virgil rolled his eyes. “What?‌ I can’t say it wasn’t hunters.” He leaned forward, inspecting the trap a little more thoroughly. “Though, I don’t think you were their intended prey.” He motioned to the trap as an example. “If they wanted to catch a full grown-ass dragon, this would not be the trap to do it.”

The dragon leaned forward and nudged the prince in the back, big eyes blinking at him, almost confused as to why he knew this wouldn’t be the trap to catch something like it in.

“I‌ know what you’re thinking,” he said, reaching forward and letting his fingers drift carefully over the barbs, looking for a weakened spot. “And no, I’ve never caught a dragon before. Hell, you’re the first one I’ve ever seen. My brother has always wanted to see one, you know.” Virgil gave a halfhearted laugh at that. “Though, I don’t think having his little brother kidnapped is exactly what he meant when he said that.”

After struggling for a moment, Virgil found a weakened spot in the barbed wires and tugged. The dragon yipped, and the prince winced from the sheer volume of it. He flinched back a moment as the pale red eyes focused on him as if he’d betrayed the creature.

“Sorry,” he gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, “I’ll warn you next time, okay? That way you won’t blow out my eardrums.”

His hands found the same spot he’d just pulled at and grabbed it again. His attention drifted back up to the dragon, making it obvious he was going to pull the trap again and the dragon gave a soft nod, as if telling him to get it over with.

Virgil tugged the wire again, the barbs pulling out further from the dragon’s skin. A loud rumbling sound erupted from behind him, showing the beast’s discomfort without harming the human’s hearing. He tugged harder, seeing the little process they were getting, but the more he yanked, the more the dragon fidgeted at his back.

His hand slid, a stray barb slicing over his palm and cutting it open. Virgil flinched back with a hiss, red painting his hand as blood blossomed through the opening the laceration caused.

He grit his teeth, the stinging almost unbearable. He’d been cut before, but not to this extent. Curling his injured hand back to himself, his eyes roved back to the barbed trap embedded in the dragon’s limb. He was being a wimp, the large creature had it worse then he did. A cut on the hand, so what?‌

“Let’s try this again,” the prince said, moving to get back to the trap when the dragon snarled at him instead, shifting the injured limb away from the small human. “What are you doing? I’m gonna help!”

The dragon growled lowly back at him, but it wasn’t threatening. It was more of a warning. Its eyes flickered down to the blood dripping down Virgil’s hand. His gaze followed the dragon’s and he rolled his eyes.

“I‌ can still help,” he snapped, “it’s just a cut, it’s nothing too bad. Now move and lets get those barbs out of your foreleg.”

The dragon only reciprocated by pulling it further out of the prince’s reach.

Virgil thinned his lips. “Well, what do you suggest we do? Sit here because now we’re both injured and wait for some nice hunters to come back to their trap, kill you and ransom me for money?”

The dragon rumbled something, before snipping back at him as if giving him a sarcastic response. If Virgil had any doubt that the dragon understood human language and tone, this was the last bit of proof he needed.

“This isn’t going to work,” he finally said, settling down against the creature before tearing a strip of his tunic and beginning to tend to the laceration on his palm. He tied it tight enough to help with clotting, even as red kept dotting the cloth, quickly turning it a warm crimson. “I can’t believe I’m even arguing with you!‌ You’re a dragon, you can’t speak to me. Most you can do is answer in sarcastic rumbles. Bare your teeth at me when you’re unhappy— wait.”

After finishing with his makeshift bandage, Virgil let his eyes focus on the barbed wires wrapped around the dragon’s limb. Pulling wasn’t doing much because it was still curled around the entirety of the forearm like a snake would constrict a small animal.

“Your teeth,” Virgil raised himself up into a stand, before pushing the dragon’s snout away from him—an action which earned a displeased rumbling low in the dragon’s throat. “Shut up for a minute and listen to me.”

He knelt down beside the injured limb again and grabbed a hold of the uninjured part to keep the dragon from moving it. Virgil put all of his weight into keeping it steady, even as the large lizard looked down at him with contempt. Of course, even though Virgil was putting everything into keeping it at bay, the dragon could still very easily shake the human off and move on with its day, but he was being listened to.

His hand stung at the movements, but he shifted so he was instead sitting on the forearm instead of leaning on it. “I‌ couldn’t get it all off quick enough because it���s stuck and tied around,” he motioned to the barbed wires winding around the limb with a motion of his uninjured hand. “If you stopped fighting me for once, I can help cut the rest and pull it out afterward. I’m just going to need you to use your teeth.”

The dragon scrunched its snout, shaking its head and focusing its attention on something other than the stubborn prince and the sharp barbs digging into it.

Virgil groaned. “Stop acting like a big whiny overgrown baby, and listen to me.” Insulting the beast probably wasn’t his best idea, but the sharp words got its attention. Virgil slid his hand under the loosened part of the trap before lifting it up enough and holding it out. “Bite through it.”

The dragon gave him a look that practically said ‘you bite through it.’

The human clenched his jaw. “I can’t,” he said in retaliation, “my teeth aren’t sharp enough to bite through wire. If you want to get out, you have to trust me.”

After what seemed like forever, and the great creature debating the prince’s trustworthiness (which was fair enough, Virgil could understand the hesitation when trusting him), the dragon finally relented. It leaned down and opened its jaw enough to bare sharp teeth. Virgil’s heart jumped into his throat, realizing his vulnerable position a heartbeat too late. Just as easily as he had held all the cards, their places were swapped just as quickly.

He held the wire up as far as he could without it tugging painfully on the dragon’s foreleg, and leaned back in precaution. His wrist was thinner than a lot of those sharp teeth and, if the dragon so wished, could take his hand off without a single thought. However, the dragon took the wire impossibly gently and without taking his hand off, too. Relieved, the prince watched as the wire snapped like thread between those powerful jaws.

The wire loosened around the rest of the limb slightly in response. Feeling as if they were finally getting somewhere, Virgil fingered around more of the wire and found another place that was loose enough to lift.

They repeated the motions a couple more times, before the wires were loose enough to tug on. It was still going to be painful for the dragon, since he needed to get the barbs out, but after that, they would be home free.

Standing up, Virgil circled around the injury before accepting the loosened wire into his uninjured hand. “This is going to hurt,” he told the dragon, watching its expression. After a moment, he received another nod of approval.

As soon as he had gotten the go ahead, Virgil pulled on the wire as hard as he could. The dragon’s claws dug into the ground surrounding it. The prince had to lean most of his weight into getting it to finally budge, but after a few more agonizing moments of yanking, the barbs finally came loose with a wet shlup.

The prince gasped in surprise, tripping backward just as the dragon yelped, loudly vocalizing its pain once more. Virgil braced against the ground, protecting his injured hand by curling it into his chest. He hit the ground hard enough that his elbow stung, his shoulder ached and his ears rang.

The discarded wire trap laid off to the side, covered in fresh and dry blood, showing how much time they had spent trying to find a way out of it. His gaze shifted as the dragon pushed itself into a stand, great red wings spreading out wide enough to hide the night sky. The dragon tentatively tested its hurt limb before focusing its attention on the prince on the ground.

Virgil had almost forgotten how big and intimidating the creature could be. The initial terror he had felt at being kidnapped rushed back when it began to limp over to him, only to loom over the human, absolutely swallowing him in its shadow.

He felt the beginning of panic raising in his chest, worried that the dragon was upset with him. To be fair, the only reason Virgil was even able to help was because he had been planning to escape. He was sure the dragon knew that and had possibly been waiting for the best time to retaliate.

When the dragon leaned down, Virgil twitched away from it on instinct, turning his head away just in case it was preparing itself to injure him further. He was genuinely surprised when nothing happened. Was he not going to be punished for his escape attempt?

Instead, the dragon only trilled at him, a soft chirping sound showing true concern.

Virgil’s shoulders relaxed after a moment, more so when the dragon nudged him gently with its snout, prompting the prince to look at it with wide eyes. “You’re… not upset I‌ tried to leave?”

The dragon gave him a forlorn look, but it didn’t seem angry. It shook its head in answer, before leaning down and so very carefully nudging at the prince’s hand—the one wrapped in makeshift and bloody bandages. In all honesty, Virgil had forgotten he was hurt in the blind terror he was going to be hurt worse.

He held up the injured appendage, looking at it briefly as if it held any answers, before sighing in surrender. “You have cloth in your hoard, right?” He said, the dragon looking somewhat surprised at the question, before nodding its head in answer. The prince smiled mirthlessly. “Good,” he then said, moving so he was sitting up in a cross-legged position, his hands resting on his knees. “I’m going to need it. Besides, we should probably bandage you as well.”

The look he was getting wasn’t exactly something Virgil had expected, but it did surprise him. The dragon almost looked apologetic, in its own way, as if trying to express its feelings without being able to form human sentences. At least, human enough for Virgil to understand. He could pick up on hints, but sometimes being verbally told something was nicer than guessing for himself. It was all just one big guessing game with the fire breathing creature.

“What?” He finally said. “It’s not like you can do it yourself. Your big nose would get in the way.”

The dragon snorted at him, as if offended. However, that little jab didn’t hold the dragon’s attention very long, it instead nodded its head in the direction where civilization allegedly laid.

Virgil glanced over his shoulder, as if he would see lanterns bobbing in the darkness between the trees, the sound of armour and swords and shields. He didn’t know why the hope in him fluttered like it did, but he was rewarded with nothing but the same inky and pressing void of night as before.

He shook his head, defeat clear in his shoulders. “I wouldn’t make it far like this,” he told the dragon, staring down at the bloody bandage. “Especially not in the pitch dark. Honestly? The safest option is to go back with you.”

As insane as that statement was. Just the realization that going back to a dragon’s cave would be safer than trying to brave his way through the dark night. He’d rather stay the night in an overly warm cave with an overgrown lizard than fight off bears and wolves and whatever else laid in wait in the thick line of trees.

“Well, come on,” Virgil said, pushing himself up into a stand. He brushed his pants off before looking to the dragon expectantly. “I’m not going to walk back to your cave.”

The dragon made a low thrumming noise, the crimson eyes watching him curiously. As if it was seeing the prince in a whole new light. It seemed to brush the thoughts off a moment later and moved up onto its hind legs after a moment. The great beast checked their surroundings, before leaning down a bit further, nearly putting its neck directly against the forest floor.

It took Virgil a moment to realize what exactly the dragon was asking of him. Since its front limb was injured, it wouldn’t be able to carry him the same way it had when he’d been lifted out of the castle gardens.

He took one more glance down at his hand, scoffing as if he didn’t believe what he was about to do.

Virgil stepped up to the dragon and reached his good hand out. He found a handhold just above where the dragon’s wing connected to it’s back and he heaved himself up as best as he could one-handed. Even after he was up on the creature, it took another moment of adjusting before he actually felt comfortable enough where he was.

To be completely fair, Virgil was never sure he would ever be comfortable being on the back of a creature that was written about, mostly in tales of burning villages and kidnapping princes, while stashing gold in their hoards. The only reason he had been willing enough to try with this one particular dragon, was because it could have eaten him on countless different occasions and it almost always refused to even bare its teeth in a snarl at him.

This dragon was odd. He wished he knew why, but that was probably going to remain a mystery. However, if Virgil ever had the chance to understand the creature—really, truly understand it word for word—he would have so, so many questions.

The dragon rolled its shoulders and the prince was pulled right back from his wandering thoughts, and stood up to its entire height. Virgil could see a little further into the darkness then before, the higher up on the treeline. Just not enough to really see over the tops of them. The wings spread out beside him and the human royal ducked down the slightest bit closer to the dragon’s smooth spine.

The scales were cool beneath his touch, but shimmered dully in the moonlight.

One powerful beat of its great wings later and they were off the ground. Virgil squeezed his eyes shut in surprised, his shoulders pulled right up. He was wound tight as a spring. The cold air surprised him as they rose higher and higher into the night.

Once he found himself opening his eyes, the sight itself was astonishing. The inky darkness was no longer so suffocating. It felt like the stars were right at his fingertips and ahead, the further he looked, he could just barely make out the outline of the walls leading to his kingdom.

Virgil felt a rush of mixed emotions at the realization that they were so close and yet so far. Walking by himself would take ages. Getting back home would be impossible without the dragon’s assistance.

Though, he knew he couldn’t linger in those thoughts. Instead, he leaned back as much as he dared and let out a breath. Taking in the fresh air that stung his lungs like tiny daggers of ice. While this was completely out of the ordinary, there was just something so exhilarating about being so high up– not to mention getting to be that high up by being on the back of an incredible creature that was always told to be evil.

This was the same creature that people whispered about, told children horror stories. Dragons were the creatures of nightmares for countless people. All save for one.

In the dark of the night, in the cold air of autumn and impossibly high off the ground, Virgil laughed. The sudden sound even surprised himself, but he couldn’t stop the second one that bubbled up. Nor could he stop the third and the fourth. Not long after the sounds of joy, he could feel the dragon vibrating. It almost felt as though the creature itself was purring, showing there was contentment with it as well.

“What my brother would give to be here right now,” Virgil called over the whipping wind, the dragon showed it was listening by turning it’s head just enough.

The stinging of his hand faded into a numbness as the wind chilled it. He didn’t care.

No one would ever believe him if he ever got back to the kingdom.

But a part of him knew no one would ever have to.

-----

Taglist: @isle-of-gold  @cookiethedevil @007ardra @ao-koshka​ @sluggerbot-2-5

#Brook writes #Sanders Sides #Sanders Sides fic #Virgil Sanders #Roman Sanders #Dragon!Roman #Prince!Virgil #Human!Virgil #TSSides #Platonic Prinxiety #Prinxiety #tw swearing #tw blood #tw injuries #tw fear #tw anxious thoughts #tw arguing #ts Virgil #ts Roman

[takaraphoenix]

Sally Jackson choice safety over stability in terms of how she'd take care of her child. Both her and Percy faced years abuse by the hands of one man. Does this make her a good mother who was in over her head or an unprepared one making an impulsive decision?

You found the one hot take even I haven’t dared say aloud yet, because I think it may just be my most unpopular opinion in this fandom. One thing everyone in this fandom seems to agree on is the “universal truth” that Sally Jackson is the best mother in the history of fictional mothers. So, here’s my hot take:

Sally Jackson is not that perfect mother the fandom pretends she is.

Sally during the series? Presented as a loving and good mother. But to get to that point? Pre-series Sally is not written as a good mom; she’s written as a plot-device with the things the author needs to happen in mind and not the motivation of a good mother who prioritizes her child’s happiness and safety in mind.

And I’ll back that claim up with three ways in which Sally has failed Percy as a mother. Not just once, but repeatedly, for years.

But before we get into that, I’d like to switch what you said first. Sally Jackson chose stability over safety. Sally chose the stability of keeping her child at her side over said child’s safety. She made an inherently selfish decision that was not with her child’s best interest and overall safety in mind.

Now, the first - and most obvious one - is Smelly Gabe.

And before I can elaborate on that, I need to clarify one very important thing here, before anyone goes “don’t blame the victim!” on me: Sally Jackson is not a victim; she’s a fictional character. Fictional characters can be written as victims, but they are not autonomous people who make their own choices; their choices are very deliberately made by their author for them. And I want to look at the choices that went into writing her this way, writing her story this way.

Real abuse victims get stuck in abusive relationships for a variety of reasons and they don’t get out of them for equally various reasons. Most of the time, it’s something like “he was so sweet and kind at first, but by the time he showed his real face, it was too late” (and, as a note to that; Percy describes Gabe as having been nice to them for a total of thirty seconds before showing his real face. Now while that is, of course, and exaggeration, it still goes to say that Gabe was pretty much upfront about what kind of person he was).

I’ve never heard one start with “he was the most disgusting, grossest man I could possibly find”. Sally Jackson chose this man. Not just in the way one picks a partner. She went out there and chose the stinkiest, grossest man.

It was a deliberate choice on Riordan’s part to have Sally choose an abusive relationship over sending her son away for his own safety. And this decision did not keep Percy safe; Percy Jackson was abused in his own home, by a horribly stinking man, for six years of his life. That’s not keeping your child safe.

The choice was not made to keep Percy safe; the choice was made to keep Percy with Sally. It was inherently selfishly motivated; she didn’t want to send him away, she wanted to keep him with her.

Sally loves Percy, she loves him dearly and fiercely, I’m not arguing that. But that love led to her not wanting to let go of him. And sometimes, parenting means making tough choices, sometimes loving someone means you have to make a tough decision.

In this case, the “tough decision” is presented as Sally bravely putting up with six years of abuse at Gabe’s hand. That’s the narrative chosen by the author.

But the actual “tough decision” would have been to send Percy to Camp Half-Blood, where he would have been safe. That’s the tough choice a mother would have had to make to keep her child safe.

That’s the tough choice the parents of most of the year-rounders have made. Mister Beauregard sent his daughter all the way from Paris to New York to give her this safety. The distance alone guaranteeing he wouldn’t see her for years potentially - because flying between New York and Paris is not necessarily easily affordable for everyone. Sally’s option was to send Percy to a camp that’s literally one and a half hours away. She could have still seen him, he could have easily visited her.

But her solution was to mask Percy’s scent by marrying a stinking, gross, abusive man.

Let me just stretch once more: Sally’s choice did not keep Percy safe. Sally’s choice made their home unsafe. It brought the danger and pain into their home. It may have moderately protected Percy from monsters - until The Lightning Thief kicked in - but it did not keep Percy actually safe, because it put him into a different kind of danger and through a different kind of pain.

For six years. And, this is where the “not a real person but a fictional character” thing comes up again, because this isn’t a woman where one choice leads to a date with a man which leads to a relationship which leads to abuse that she doesn’t know how to get out of anymore. She is a fictional character whose journey was set out to end with her being in an abusive relationship.

And we also don’t know why she didn’t get out of it. She’s not a real person, we don’t know if she was so scared of Gabe that she didn’t know how to leave, if her lack of a support system is what led to her not leaving him, or if it was the motivation of not giving up Percy. The real, actual reason is that Riordan wanted to keep her in there and keep Percy out of the loop until he was twelve and The Lightning Thief could happen. Because she was able of getting rid of him as soon as the truth unravelled and Percy met camp.

And I’d like to use the way she did that to drive back home just how bad Gabe was, just how bad the situation Sally and Percy were in for six years, really was.

She murders him. She flat-out murders him. Both, her and Percy, together. This twelve-year old child who we meet and get to know as kind and not... not a murder-child, is ready to kill a man. That’s how badly Gabe abused them; both of these kind people chose murder to get rid of him.

And it’s just something I’ve never gotten over. Riordan really made the decision that his protagonist’s mom would rather get them both into an abusive home than give Percy up to camp. That was his decision; there could have been other ways. One thing that would have made this seem less like a deliberate choice would have, for example, been Sally not knowing about camp.

If she was a desperate mother, who saw no other options? That’d have made the situation different too. But we know Sally knew about camp. She knew there was a place she could send her son where he would be safe from the monsters, but she decided against that, she decided that she wanted to keep him close, at any costs - and the cost was six years of abuse.

I do not think that this decision should be framed as a heroic sacrifice, because the fact that she knew of an actually safe solution and decided against it was inherently selfish. She did not put up with six years of abuse for selfless reasons because there was “no other way”; there was, she knew that, but the author didn’t want her to take that.

Sometimes, the sacrifice is letting go of your child. And, as mentioned before, she wouldn’t have let go of him for good - camp is in the same bloody city as she is living. Literally one and a half hours away from her.

Now on to the other two ways in which I think Sally Jackson failed Percy.

For one, the lies about his father. Now, real people who are left by their partner with a baby, they can pick whatever to tell their kids whenever. But, again, this is a fictional character and the author makes the decision for her. And this, again, was a decision made solely based on the end result; Riordan needed Percy to not be in the know by the time The Lightning Thief came around, even though from a character-perspective, telling Percy the truth earlier would have been the logical and right decision.

If your kid is a demigod who is attracting real actual monsters with his scent alone? Percy started really attracting monsters when he was six years old and for the next six years, Sally didn’t disclose the truth to him; not about monsters, not about his father, not about the fact that Percy may have powers.

Percy attracted so many monsters that it led to Sally getting married to Gabe. That’s how badly he attracted monsters. Which also implies that Percy must have seen monsters. We get to see in The Lightning Thief just how much Percy thinks he’s going crazy with the things he sees. And that’s  been going on for six years too - six years and in those, his scent only got stronger.

This, again, isn’t just one decision she made. This is a decision she made every single day over and over again. The decision not to tell Percy about his father, the powers, the simple reassurance that he’s not going insane, that monsters are real. This was Percy’s reality and it would obviously only become more and more of an issue the older Percy got, but every single day, she chose not to tell him, to let him believe not just a lie but also steadily that he was going crazy.

And it’d have gone a long way if he had just known. Even with Gabe in their life, even if she hadn’t made the choice to send him to camp at age six, it’d have helped him so much to know the truth and be prepared for this life.

Because this wasn’t just an issue of “the guy left me, I don’t want to talk about it with my kid”, this was inherently about, once more, Percy’s safety. Knowing what to watch out for, knowing the thing you should watch out for is actually real, are huge factors in Percy’s safety. Having him as well-prepared as possible.

She knew his father was Poseidon. It’s not even that she had sex with some dude, not knowing who he was. She knew he was Poseidon. She knew what Percy’s parentage was, she must have observed the slow development of Percy’s powers over the years.

But again, she chose to leave him in the dark about it. He could have been well-prepared by age twelve. Read up everything on Poseidon, experimented with potential powers he may have, understanding why the fishes in the aquarium are talking to him and that he is not actually hearing voices, learning.

But that’s not useful for the author; Riordan wants an unprepared Percy who can be used to introduce this world to the reader.

The choice to not tell Percy the truth about his father and about being a demigod was made deliberately and, again, not in Percy’s best interest. And in this case, there really is no other interpretation left aside from “the author needs it to happen this way” - with Gabe, there is the legitimate argument that she may have been at one point just an abused woman stuck in a relationship with no out because we don’t know enough to know what her motivation and situation were exactly - but there is... no benefit at all in lying to Percy about this, no reason for it.

The moment he first started being in actual life-threatening danger because monsters came after him, it became a pressing matter to tell him what monsters are, that they are real and why they are after him and to prepare him for it.

Which brings me to the third instance.

She never prepared him - even just in a mortal manner. Even if we let the first two - the marriage to Gabe and the lies about his father - stand as they are, Sally could have done something very simple to prepare Percy for his life and to help keeping him safe.

Self-defense classes. Judo. Martial arts. Sword-fighting classes. Whatever.

Many parents teach their kids these kind of things from a young age. Parents whose kids aren’t in constant danger of being attacked by monsters. One of your first parental instincts should be to teach your kid to be safe; to protect themselves. Give him the means to fight back.

So, that’s it. That’s the three very vital and important instances in which I think Sally failed Percy as a mother; not just once, but repeatedly, for years.

Instead of sending him to a safe place where he could learn about his heritage and learn control of his powers as well as learning how to fight the monsters after his life, she chose to marry an abusive, smelly man whose scent would mask Percy’s. Probably. Hopefully. But it didn’t really, not all the time. As shown by The Lightning Thief and monsters coming after Percy. And Percy starts to think he’s crazy, because at no point did she tell him about the monsters, and at no point does he really know how to fight for his life, because at no point did she put the means to defend himself into his hands.

No. No, I do not think that those are the decisions a good mother would make. Those are decisions the author made because he knew the starting point of his story and he knew where Percy’s character needed to be for that.

The thing that’s glossed over are the choices Riordan implicitly made Sally make. To get to this point for Percy, at age 12, he had to make Sally repeatedly act against Percy’s best interests and deliberately not tell Percy the truth or teach him way to stay safe. So he masks those choices by putting on a framework that’s meant to make you only look at her suffering and the outcome, not the choices that led to it. That was Riordan’s choice and he framed it in a way that the fandom ate up and celebrates, when... neither Sally, nor Riordan, had do to that. There was another option on the table and, if Riordan had sat down and thought hard, I’m pretty sure there would have been more options.

The bottom line, what Sally’s parenting comes down to in the end, is that she and Percy got stuck with an abusive man for six years, because she didn’t want to send him to an actual safe place, she spent six years essentially gaslighting Percy about the things he hears/sees by not telling him the monsters are actually real and she repeatedly left him in unnecessary danger by not giving him the means to defend himself in any way whatsoever. And those are not signs of good parenting, not in my book.

But it’s just so much easier to ignore all of that and pretend that blue candy and trips to Montauk are the end all be all and that Sally’s fierce love for her son is the most defining trait of parenting. I know that. Most of the time, I’m right there with you - I love fanon!Sally, I love to pretend she’s the best mom ever and never did anything wrong, because I know the decisions are inherently made by Riordan and are a by-product; I know he wants her to be a good mother, I know throughout the series, he writes her as a good and loving mother.

But if I have to be honest and if I look at the whole text, including the implications of their past, canon!Sally isn’t that good of a mother.

#PJOverse #Riordan Critical #this is the one hot take #I always dreaded to make #because I just #that's the one character #I've never seen shit talked about #oh well #let's see what the outcome of this is #Anonymous

[c-c-cherry]

Part Four Headcanons!!

@tyriantyrant​ Father...I’m so sorry this took so long...but it is finally here. The moment has come. 

@jjadegreen​ is and always will be my headcanon buddy and she really took the reins on this one because my stupid mushy brain could barely think of ANYTHING. Go check her out. She makes good shit. If you like headcanons you’ll love her. 

Without further ado, join us on this long-awaited half-crack half-serious journey once more:

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

Okuyasu

-He swallowed a spoon. Like...one of those tiny collector spoons...

-Don’t ask me how Okuyasu managed to do this, but he did.

-He was sitting in his room trying to think of something cool he could do in front of Josuke and he was like 

”Bro what if I did some kickass spoon trick” (Yes, he did find a little collector’s spoon at an antique shop and bought it cause it was shiny)

-It did not go well

-He choked on it for like a solid 2 minutes before he FUCKING SWALLOWED IT and sat there for 15 minutes like “oh shit oh fuck-”

-His dad was just watching from the corner like ;-;

-At first he’s like “ahh it’ll be fine, right?”

-”Right?”

-Then he starts thinking about it a bit more and realizes how fucked he probably is

-He COULD call Josuke but he really doesn’t want to explain to him that he not only swallowed a tiny fucking spoon but he also did it while simultaneously trying to think of something cool to do in front of him

-So he doesn’t call Josuke

-Instead he paces around, trying to think of some solution:

Can I throw it back up or something?

Should I like...drink that stuff that makes metal dissolve? That’ll work, right? Shit wait-

Maybe it’ll just turn out okay?

-His chest is on FIRE and he’s absolutely convinced that this is the end for him

-He calls Josuke

-There are tears...many tears

-Our boy Josuke rushes over and starts freaking out because all he knows is “Oku’s hurt” and when he bursts through the door Okuyasu’s just sitting on the couch crying and Josuke’s just “???”

-He’s the most supportive bro tho and sits down on the couch and is like “oh shit bro did you need emotional healing instead? I gotchu either way” :’)

-He reaches over to hug him and Oku jumps back in a panic and screams “NO DUDE DON’T JOSTLE THE SPOON”

”...”

“..the spoon?”

-He tearily explains the spoon

-It ends with Josuke punching the spoon out of him with Crazy Diamond but he found the entire situation so fucking funny because Oku is so fucking mortified

-he swore not to tell a soul and keeps to his word but he buys Oku a tiny spoon every goddamn chance he gets

Rohan

-Most of the time, Rohan does not embarrass himself

-But sometimes our man slips up a bit and most of the time people don’t notice the dumb shit he does cause he’s always doing dumb shit

-But this is different

-Picture an almost empty house...instant ramen wrappers everywhere...alcohol has been consumed…things have been done...

-Rohan thought this was the best time to answer some of his fan’s FAQ’s (he puts them at the end of every new issue)

-He answers most of them fine but once he comes to the “how tall are you?” question his mushy stupid brain decides to put “about ten inches.” (GOD I'M BEGGING YOU IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS REFERENCE OPEN GOOGLE AND LOOK UP “how tall is Rohan Kishibe?” PLEASE PLEASE I BEG)

-Just for fun

-Because his editor will just fix it, won’t they? Even if he wakes up the next morning and forgets about it, it could never get past the other stages of publishing, right?

-Wrong.

-It manages to slip past every single stage and before he knows it, the latest issue is out and it says he’s almost a foot tall

-He’s reading the one of the newly published copies at breakfast and SPITS OUT HIS FUCKING LUKEWARM SHITTY TEA

-He calls his publisher and just like “uhhh...hey...what the actual fuck guys?” and apparently NONE Of THEM NOTICED??

-They swipe them off the shelves and re-edit them but by now its far too late

-Josuke and Okuyasu have already made jokes about squishing him

-He gets fanart of him being the size of a pencil (which he’s convinced are also done by Josuke and Okuyasu)

-The banned issue where Rohan discloses his supposed “true height” is a novelty collectors item in the manga community now

-This is Rohan’s legacy now. This is how he will be remembered

Josuke

-He wanted to be super edgy when he was around 14

-And what better way to be an edgy 14 year old than with cigarettes??

-The problem is that he’s a literal fucking dumbass and doesn’t know how they work

-Like at all

-He somehow gets his hands on a pack and tries to do it in front of his friends to impress them

-He doesn’t light it. He just...sucks on it??

-He sucks really hard on the unlit cigarette while all of his friends watch and there’s this really long silence and all of them are thinking “yeah is this actually how it works though?”

-Josuke’s like “waitwaitwait I can make smoke come out of it watch” and sucks way too hard on it and IT GETS LODGED IN HIS FUCKING WINDPIPE

-He starts choking because he really really, doesn’t wanna swallow this thing and all of his friends are like “OH SHIT SHIT”

-There’s always that one homie who knows the Heimlich maneuver and on that day, the Heimlich is maneuvered.

-He coughs up a wet cigarette covered in nasty throat juices and his mouth tastes like shit

-He’s still totally shocked about what just happened and just kinda starts laughing but everyone can tell that its forced

-Everyone forgets about it and he’s too embarrassed to tell a soul but the Heimlich kid and him make eye contact in the hallways sometimes and he’s always reminded of that fateful day

-This is the soul reason why Josuke never smoked in high school and probably never will again

Koichi

-This might seem off topic to start but please just bear with me.

-why, for any reason, does Koichi know who joseph is??? Joseph is an American Real Estate agent. Why would a 15 year old Japanese kid be like “oh yeah that famous real estate agent Joseph Joestar”???

-well I present to you the most top tier headcanon: Koichi is a real estate fanboy.

-he planned to be a real estate agent before getting wrapped up into stand shenanigans

-But, being 15 and having REAL ESTATE as one of your biggest interests is not something you really want people knowing, especially considering the fact Koichi is a huge nerdy real estate fanboy for Josuke’s DAD.

-He buys these real estate magazines made for 45 year old men like once a week. They are what he looks forward to every week.

-one time Josuke and Oku come visit and see a magazine on Koichi's bed.

-He totally panics and dives for the magazine and tries to hide it, acting all nervous.

-Josuke and Oku immediately assume it’s a… y’know, NSFW, not for kids magazine.

-Because why would koichi need to be embarrassed about any other kind of magazine?

-So antics ensue of Josuke and Oku pestering koichi about the magazine, teasing him and begging to know what he was hiding

-after a few days, Koichi begrudgingly admits that the magazine is the “SPECIAL JOSEPH JOESTAR INTERVIEW ISSUE” which he bought 3 years ago and has reread countless times.

-Okuyasu laughs really hard and Josuke is like “...you mean my dad.....” and koichi wants to DIE

-They buy him real estate merchandise for his 16th birthday and EVERYONE thinks it’s some kind of joke gift but koichi is internally grateful

Jotaro

-Jotaro is not very good during social situations. That is very obvious.

-but when he hears that Koichi got a girlfriend, he decides he wants to be a cool…uncle? Nephew? Father figure? Mentor?

-so one day, Koichi and Jotaro are chatting while they go on a walk and Yukako walks by

-Koichi blushes and waves at her, she waves too

-Jotaro thinks, ‘alright. Time to show koichi I’m a cool guy’

-as Yukako walks away, Jotaro nudges koichi and sorta smirks

-Jotaro forget a few very important things about himself and Koichi:

-first of all, Koichi is so short, attempting to nudge the kid ended in Jotaro violently jabbing his elbow into Koichi’s skull

-Jotaro is much stronger than he thinks and Koichi, while he can take a hit, is very much weaker than Jotaro

-so an attempt at a simple nudge ends in Koichi being jabbed in the skull, flung into the road by the force of the hit, and hitting his head, hard, on the cement.

-needless to say Jotaro called and ambulance and Yukako tried to literally murder Jotaro

-He ended up with a mild concussion, but no long term damage.

-Jotaro is Not Good At Words so he apologizes in weird awkward ways like buying koichi stuff, quietly handing him 5,000 yen at random times, taking him out on the town, etc...

-Koichi keeps insisting it was an accident and he’s alright, but Jotaro feels AWFUL

-He NEVER lives that moment down in his mind

-It’ll be 2008 and Jotaro is visiting and he’ll just look the newly married koichi in his tiny eyes and say “hmhghggggg is your head ok”

-and koichi is like “IT WAS 9 YEARS AGO MR JOTARO PLEASE”

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

That was a wild ride I’m so sorry

Did ya’ll have a favourite? I gotta say, real estate Koichi is just...Jade, thank you for that...

Have you seen our embarrassing part 5 headcanons yet? If not, go check that out!

#jojos's bizarre adventure #diamond is unbreakable #diu #jjba #josuke higashikata #okuyasu nijimura #koichi hirose #jotaro kujo #4taro #joseph joestar #rohan kishibe #headcanons #headcanon #jjba headcanons #crack #crack treated seriously #kinda #ask-c-c-cherry

[collectsfallenstars]

Lee Gon’s 3 Rules and How and When He Fell In Love With Jeong TaeEul: An Analysis in 2 parts

Part 1: Love like You Row

It’s pretty easy to say that Lee Gon starts off in “The King: Eternal Monarch” already in love with Jeong TaeEul and he remains in that constant state all throughout the series.  That his character is that flat, as flat as the world according to Jeong TaeEul.  While it may be true that his character remains deeply devoted to her all throughout, I’m here to show you that he isn’t a flat character.  Aside from the external struggle he has with his uncle Lee Lim, and convincing TaeEul of his identity and depth of feeling for her, loving TaeEul also forced him to confront certain things.

On their first chicken dinner together in episode 2 which felt more like an extension of his interrogation instead of a friendly dinner, Lee Gon finds out exactly what kind of person he’s dealing with with Jeong TaeEul. He had just thanked her for being the reason why he survived the last 25 years of his life after his father had been murdered.  She was tied to that one great big mystery of his life and he had wanted to find her all these years. Now she was there, eating dinner with him.  But she didn’t believe anything he said, almost canceling out his entire existence because she did not have enough proof.

We are then taken to a flashback of baby Lee Gon talking with Lady Noh about the night his father was murdered while a cute baby Maximus ran around in the background.  Lady Noh hands over the two things Lee Gon had held onto that night – half of the broken bamboo flute and Jeong TaeEul’s ID.  And then little Lee Gon asks,

“DO YOU THINK IT’S HERE, THE REASON WHY I SURVIVED THAT DAY?”

The flashback ends and we are brought back to the present time with Lee Gon asking TaeEul,

“WHY DO YOU NEVER BELIEVE ANYTHING I SAY?”

This was a very good juxtaposition of events.  As a child, the question of why he survived had been foremost in his mind. That’s him questioning the purpose of his existence and he’s tied it to these two objects – the flute and TaeEul’s ID.  One is a symbol of utter power, and the other, I suppose, is love, or his destiny.

And all his life he believed held on to the idea that his life had purpose, had meaning, and it was tied to this woman, before him, who sat there not believing anything at all.  She tells him to stay put till she gets back his DNA test and he takes it out of context and asks her,

“ANYTHING ELSE? IS THERE ANY OTHER REASON? THE REASON WHY I HAVE TO STAY IN YOUR WORLD? COULD THERE BE A REASON?”

This is him grasping at straws, a little desperately.  He’s basically asking her to  tell him, give him his purpose. He’s waiting for her to say, “I want you to stay because of me.” To hand it over to him.  But of course, TaeEul thought it was all bullshit.

In Lee Gon’s world, he’s the king. He has never needed his existence to be validated.  And he has always been sure of who he was. But one thing he was never sure of was his why he survived that night, his purpose.  So he tied his purpose to the flute and to TaeEul. He had probably hoped that he would find it if he could just find her.

And he did find her.  But she doesn’t believe he exists.  She doesn’t believe his Kingdom of Corea exists.  And the only reason, she says, that she’s helping him is just so she can send him back home and get rid of him.

He realizes two things here.  Just because he found Jeong TaeEul doesn’t mean he gets an instant answer as to what his purpose is for surviving that night.  And just because he’s spent the last 25 years attached to the idea of TaeEul doesn’t mean that the moment she sees him, she’ll come running into his arms like a long lost love.  There is no love. At least, just yet.

This must have been a lonely time for Lee Gon. After this scene, we are shown a clip of him visiting an exhibit of Korea’s last monarch.  The building occupies the same place where he and his father were attacked in the Kingdom of Corea. But that history of the royal family doesn’t even include his line.  He has no identity, no history, no purpose.

And in this world, if he wanted purpose, it wasn’t just going to be a simple find Jeong TaeEul and she’ll give you the answer.  He’ll actually have to work for it, find it by solving the mystery of the bamboo flute and work on building a real  connection with Jeong TaeEul.

He finds out exactly how to best do that on this dinner too.  When Jeong TaeEul answers his question about why she wont’ believe him, she says,

“IS THAT HOW BELIEF WORKS?  I’M THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO STILL CAN’T BELIEVE THE EARTH IS ROUND.”

It’s in this part when he realizes they don’t see the world in the same way.  I like how he doesn’t force her to believe him just because he believes it, doesn’t guilt her into seeing things his way.  You know how most people would go, this is how I see it. why cant you see it my way? Nope. He shuts up.  He listens to her and understands that she needs to see things before she can believe them, and works with that instead of trying to change her mind.

He takes on 3 tasks.  He must first convince her that he is telling the truth about his identity.  He next has to convince her that parallel worlds exist.  Once those two things are done, it will be easier for him to convince her that his feelings for her are real.   He then formulates a plan the only way a mathematician and a rower would, tailor fitting it to meet Jeong TaeEul needs.  I've written about this on a previous post, detailing how Jeaong TaeEul’s feelings for Lee Gon devloped exactly because of this method. If you’re interested, you can just scroll down my tumblr. It’s in there somewhere.

As I said, he looks at situations like a mathematical equation. If there’s a problem, there has to be a solution. A beautiful one. And his solutions are pretty simple. Patience and honesty. Every time she asks him anything about his identity and where he’s from, he will tell always tell the truth. No matter how many times she asks the same question, he will always give her the same answer.  This is why rowing is such a perfect sport for him. He makes repetitive motions, moving in a single direction and onwards until the finish line.  That’s exactly how he was with Jeong TaeEul. Keep telling the truth until she believes.  But he won’t try to force her to believe him before she’s ready and endures it every time she insults him or accuse of fictionalizing everything.

If you look at episode 3, on what’s probably their 2nd chicken and beer dinner, he tells her,  

“YOU GOT NOTHING ON MY DNA RESULTS. BUT YOU STILL CAN’T REALLY BELIEVE ME, RIGHT? SO WHO DO YOU THINK I AM? THERE IS NO INFORMATION AT ALL ABOUT ME IN THIS WORLD.”

He leans forward on the table again, making the gap between them slightly smaller. Notice that he doesn’t make the conclusion for her. He just asks her the questions. He lets her make the conclusion on her own; and gives her time until she’s ready to actually say it out loud that she believes him, which won’t be until the 5th episode.  

Having gotten no results for his DNA and fingerprints should point TaeEul towards the existence of another world where he does exist.  But keep in mind that TaeEul needs to see something before she believes it.  And no results mean no evidence. No evidence means, it’s all bullcrap form TaeEul. So when he tells her,

“I HOPE YOUR EARTH CAN BECOME ROUND SOON.”

He is saying “I know you can’t see it, but I hope you believe that my parallel world exists, and that I exist for you.”  Just like the world being round.  He’s essentially preparing her for what’s to come next. And it has nothing to do with seeing his world and him being king because those are things she will be able to see for herself.  He’s preparing her for one of the greatest leaps of faith of all time – believing in love.  It is, after all, an intangible concept. You can’t see it, you can only feel it to know it exists.

Now, when the time finally came that TaeEul got all the evidence that she needed and was finally prepared to believe him, he was still very patient with her as he answered all of her questions about her ID card that was issued exactly when he said it would be.

He goes to her, gathers her hair together in ponytail in one hand, and holds on to the side of her neck with the other, while he answered all her questions correctly, getting rid of her last excuses for not believing him.  He is literally and figuratively holding her steady, as her world kind of fell apart knowing that she had been wrong all this time.  He didn’t jump with glee or anything because he was right and she was wrong. He understood how this must have been terrifying for her and he kind of just was there for her to help her keep it together.  Then he offers her his other world, letting her decide if she wants to see it for herself.

“DO YOU WANT TO SEE FOR YOURSELF? COME WITH ME TO  MY WORLD.”

He holds her hand, pulls her to Maximus, puts both her hands on his shoulders and he puts this woman who had never watched fairy tales on a white horse fit for a prince and princess.  I swear, when snow started falling in this scene, Maximus turned into unicorn for me.  It was that magical.

Physically, you can see him become more protective of her in this instant. He closes his hand over hers. Puts her hands on his shoulders as if to tell her you can depend on me, you can trust me.  He cages TaeEul between his arms as they ride off. And even when they get to Corea, he still has her inside his arms in a protective circle, asks the guards to step back because he knows exactly how flat earther Jung TaeEul will feel in a parallel world.  

He already knows she’s a strong capable woman. But he didn’t hesitate to provide comfort and protection because he understood that even the strongest ones may need comfort and protection at times.

He does gloat here, a little.

“SEE? I WAS RIGHT, WASN’T I?”

Still on his horse, he leans closer to her, almost speaking right into her ear. His lips quite possibly less than two inches away from her earlobe.  I mean…if I was Kim Goeun I’d be shivering with want. But of course, she’s very busy taking in the fact that a parallel world exists so maybe her libido is in the backburner for now.  But when she turns her head to face him, and it was , quite possibly, the sweetest, most electrifying non kiss kiss ever.

Now at this point, he seems to have ticked off all his tasks. Convinced her he’s a king. Convinced her that a parallel world exist. Now the next thing to do is to convince her that his feelings, 25 years in the making, are real.  

Part 2: Love of a Monarch with a Scar

But how real are his feelings?  Because the Jeong TaeEul he’s now with is very different from whatever he imagined Jeong TaeEul to be when he was 8 years old! That’s actually the first thing he had to confront the moment he met TaeEul at Gwanghwamun Square.  After they bicker and he insults her intelligence by asking,

“IT SEEMS YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT A PARALLEL WORLD IS. DID YOU NOT STUDY SCIENCE?”

He finally observes something about her.  He says,

“IS THIS WHAT YOUR PERSONALITY IS LIKE? I HAVE NEVER IMAGINED IT. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE SOFTER.  THIS IS NEW.”

And this signals to the audience that he is aware that the Jeong TaeEul he had imagined and possibly loved for the last 25 years is different from the real Jeong TaeEul.  He might have arrived at the scene loving only the idea of TaeEul but as soon as the 2nd episode, he takes it upon himself to actually educate himself on all things Jeong TaeEul, setting aside all of his built up notions about her.

In the precinct, even in the midst of his interrogation, he takes the time to really look at her and come to a decision that she “LOOKED BETTER IN REAL LIFE.” So that’s great right, he prefers the 3 dimensional version of her as opposed to a picture. And then when TaeEul finally released him from jail, he reveals that he has already pumped Eunsup for information about her life.  He is making sure that he gets to know her right from the get go.  It was also on the 2nd episode that he went to the library to get to know her world’s history.  He looked up the poet  Kim SoWol and bought his book before going back to his world, just because TaeEul randomly quoted him during their conversation in the bamboo forest in episode 3.

Now he didn’t completely let go of his imagined version of a TaeEul because he did manage to get a short glimpse of a softer TaeEul during their early days together.  Time had to stop before he could see this softer side of hers because at this point, she still didn’t believe anything he said and was less likely to trust him enough to show him her softer side.  So when time stopped, that was the first time he got to see the TaeEul he had imagined all this time.  It was just there, buried underneath the hard, flat-earther exterior. He just had to wait til the 9th episode to finally see this softer, sweeter side of hers.

He also asks her important questions like, “Why did you become a detective?” which is essential when you’re trying to get to know someone. You ask them about their dreams to get an idea about the kind of person they are. Now, when TaeEeul answers,

“NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD CAN BE BRAVE.  SO I DECIDED TO BECOME BRAVE.”

it absolutely fascinated him. For someone who’s had his life set for him the moment he was born, the fact that someone can make a choice about which direction to take their lives must have amazed him. He admires this trait, that she can make a decision to be a cop just like that.

Notice also that she didn’t say, “I am brave so I joined the police force.” She said, I DECIDED TO BECOME BRAVE.”  If you look at Lee Gon, the kind of decisions he tends to make are what to do. Do I leave for my home? Do I stay a little bit more? Do I give her my name?  But the one thing TaeEul shows him is that he can make decisions on what kind of person he wants to be, just as she did.  So as he’s getting to know her, learning her, he’s also learning from her.

Why is this important? Because his identity is tied to him being a King. There’s a flashback of his time with his father on episode 4 where the father talks about the duties of a king. He asks, 

“DO YOU THINK YOU CAN FULFILL THIS CALLING, GON?” 

So it’s all about performing a duty that is attached to the title of King. CAN YOU DO IT?  It is never about what kind of King do you want to be? Which makes this part very important.

After she talks about her own dreams and what she wanted for herself, she asks him,

“SO THAT’S MY STORY. TELL ME WHAT KIND OF KING YOU ARE. A YOUNG, HANDSOME, AND RICH KING?”

This question appears to pleasure him, as much as bother him.  He answers,

“A ROWER, MATHEMATICIAN, A WELL-GROWN ORPHAN, AND THE OWNER OF THE FOUR TIGER SWORD. A KING WHO HAS NEVER BEEN ASKED SUCH A QUESTION AND TRYING HIS BEST NOT TO PANIC.”

This is her asking him, “How have you been doing as a king so far?”  How are you?  A question on his well being as a king.  Like whenever he returns to her from his world, he always asks how she has been and if she’s been well.  It appears to have the same effect on him.  It pleases him to know that she wants to know he has been doing.

But then, he also has no idea how to answer her question. And this makes him panic.

Since no one ever bothered to ask him what kind of person, what kind of King did he want to be, he never thought about it.  He just simply accepted that he was a king and had to fulfill the duties that came with it.  It probably never occurred to him that he can decide what kind of king he wanted to be.  It wasn’t just a job, which I suspect is how he sees it.  That’s why he likes escaping from time to time when it becomes too much.  But here was Jeong TaeEul, teaching him how to be a better King because being a cop is so much more than just a job for TaeEul.  Lee Gon is slowly becoming a better King, just by talking to TaeEul.  Imagine how much more glorious he would become once he gives himself fully to her, and she reciprocates that love?  

Ironically though, this love that taught him how to choose to brave is the same love that he has to give up when he finally chooses to be a brave King and save both worlds. But, we still have one more episode so that’s still up in the air.

Now, let’s go back to simpler times when their only problem was themselves and their own trust issues.  So as I said, he makes great effort to really get to know her and once he was able to tell apart the Jeong TaeEul in his imagination and the Jeong TaeEul in reality, he lets her know that he much prefers the real version of  TaeEul.   At the end of episode two, he tells her,

“YOU’RE ALWAYS BUSY AND YOU DON’T CARE MUCH FOR ME. BECAUSE OF YOU, I’M POWERLESS HERE. BUT IT’S FINE.  YOU ARE MUCH MORE AMAZING THAN I HAD IMAGINED.

This moment was especially pitiful because he said this after revealing to her that he felt hurt that she kept leaving him when she’s the only person he knows in this world.  But even through his hurt feelings, he is able to understand why she does this.  He understands that she’s busy, that she has a life, and that to her, he was simply just a stranger.  So if we jump to episode 8, when TaeEul asks him if he would have fallen for her if she had been rude and decided not to help him, Lee Gon really wasn’t lying when he said,

“I WOULD HAVE UNDERSTOOD AND THAT UNDERSTANDING WOULD HAVE LED ME TO FALL FOR YOU.”

Because he was already doing it as early as the 2nd episode.   She had just upset him and there he was, understanding why and still finding her amazing despite it all.   He tells her this in what seems like a love confession, at first, but it really isn’t.  When he compares her to the number Zero, he’s essentially saying that she alone can make him weak but at the same time, has the power to give him strength. And that whenever he felt trapped, she was the only one had the power to save him – like that night of treason.  He was seeing firsthand the effect she has on him.  And he sees that

she already has this much power and influence over him even without an established relationship.   That’s how much power he has handed to her by the simple fact that he has hung on to her existence for the last 25 years.  

This was not a confession of love but somehow, it feels heavier than that.  I appreciate how he didn’t rush to say the words I love you to her at this moment, but instead chose to show her what she meant to him.

I feel like saying I love is sometimes a cop out, you know. I’m just gonna lump all these feelings for you together and call it love.  But Lee Gon does not do that. He constantly reveals to her how she affects him. He is constant in allowing himself to be vulnerable and honest with how he feels for her.

“YOU LOOK BETTER IN REAL LIFE” is attraction.

“WHY ARE YOU TYING YOUR HAIR? DON’T TIE YOUR HAIR,” is a marked preference for the TaeEul in real life because the TaeEul in his imagination has her hair gathered in a low ponytail.

“DON’T GO. IT TOOK 25 YEARS FOR ME TO MEET YOU.  I HOPE TODAY WILL BE A LONG DAY,” is him begging, or bargaining for more time with her after having pined after her for so long. And he doesn’t hide the fact that he has pined for her for a long time.

“THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. BECAUSE YOU EXISTED SOMEWHERE, I WAS LESS LONELY FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS,” is deep gratitude.  Just the thought of her somewhere brought him comfort in his lonely life and that’s a powerful thing.  Most people depend on an actual presence of a person for them to be significant enough in their life.  But for Lee Gon, just the idea of her had been enough.

“THAT’S COOL, LT. JUNG TAE EUL,” is open admiration for her character and spirit.

But I think what really drove it home for me, and also my favorite declaration of devotion, is when he said, “I IMAGINED BRINGING YOU HERE LOTS OF TIMES BEFORE” when she asked him why he looked so calm after bringing her into the palace and the entire staff erupted in disarray.  It is a very simple line, but so naked in its honesty. And Lee MinHo delivers it with the glee of a child who opens his gift on Christmas  morning, gets exactly what he wants, and proceeds to tell his parents thank you because he’s dreamed of it all year long and now it’s his.  Except for Lee Gon, he’s dreamed of it for 25 years already.  Just the weight of that longing is flabbergasting.  Can you imagine anyone loving you this much?

However, for all of Lee Gon’s openness about how he feels for TaeEul, I don’t think he ever fully allowed her into his world until the 6th episode. And this is because of the 3 rules he has always abided by when it comes to himself and all three are rooted in his trauma from that night of treason in 1994.

He doesn’t eat food that hasn’t been tasted beforehand.

No one touches his body.

No one can call him by his name.

Now the first two are broken as early as the 1st and 2n d episode.  TaeEul cuffs him at Gwanghwamun Square and once more back in the precinct.  Then on the 3rd episode, she tapped Lee Gon on the shoulder on her way to the restroom. By this time, he’s not even protesting when she touches him, he even welcomes it now.  And this is growth for him, considering the last time someone touched him in such close proximity, he almost died.  And on their first dinner together, he actually surrenders that rule willingly, using that point to tell her what the idea of her has done to comfort him for the last 25 years.

But his last rule, the one rule he clung steadfastly to, was the one that did not allow anyone to call him by his name.  He consistently refused to give her his name in the first 4 episodes, and even when he finally did give it to her at the start of the 5th episode, he still stuck to the rule.  He gave her his name, but she is still not allowed to use it.

Now, on episodes 5 and 6, we see him on uber boyfriend mode. He’s like a kid who finally got a puppy. Here, let me take care of you. Here let me feed you. Here let me give you alcohol. Here let me kiss you. Here let me pick you up when you’re stranded. Let me play with your hand and show everyone how I feel about you. Let me pat your head to comfort you when you’re lonely.

He’s basically a giver. Let me love you. But the danger in being with someone like this is that they control what part of them you’re getting, because they pick and choose, very frequently, so you never feel like you’re lacking for any affection. But you’ll never know the full extent of what they’re giving and holding back because they won’t let you in. And he hasn’t. At least, not completely.

TaeEul had to find out the whole deal with Lee Lim and the night of treason by google searching Lee Gon and his family.  When he tells her,

“I GUESS YOU NOW KNOW WHAT ROOT YOU ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF.  IT’S MY HELL AND MY HISTORY THAT WAS ENGRAVED ON MY BODY BY THE GREED OF THE PERSON THAT KILLED MY FATHER AND STRANGLED ME.”

he simply confirms what she found out. But he didn’t offer the story himself. No matter how vulnerable he is with everything else, this source of his trauma is still something he struggles with.  And the way that he clings to the rule that his name must never be called by anyone is a manifestation of this.

Names are deeply personal and the people who are close enough to him to say it out loud are both dead.  So since he was 8, his name has never been called.  He has always existed as Pyeha to everyone and this safe distance  has guaranteed him safety.  No one will ever get close enough to try and murder him like his uncle did. But this also afforded him great loneliness. Because Pyeha is only a title but being King has swallowed up his entire existence.  That’s why he panicked when TaeEul asked him what kind of King he was.  That’s why the idea of his purpose for surviving that night still evades him.  Because if he doesn’t know who he is beyond the title of Pyeha, or King, it’s going to be hard to find out his purpose too.

And his name is his last barrier against TaeEul.  He’s given her everything, except for the right to call him by his name.  But she doesn’t wait for it. She punches right through his wall when she said,

“I WILL SEE YOU AGAIN, LEE GON.”

And he is left there, dumbfounded, because she dared.  He says,

“I THOUGHT MY NAME WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CALLED. BUT I GUESS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO CALLED ONLY BY YOU.”

And with this, by calling him by his name, she is now the person closest to him. And the impact that this had on him was huge.  He’s been an orphan since he was 8 and no one has probably called his name with love until now.  She just blasted his whole world wide open. And this, I think, must have been the moment when Lee Gon fell in love with Jeong TaeEul, completely, helplessly, and fiercely.

#the king eternal monarch #thekingeternalmonarch #lee gon #leegon #jeongtaeeul #jeong tae eul #leeminho #kimgoeun #lee min ho #kim go eun #kdrama #analysis

[darkpoisonouslove]

Erendor x Samara Headcanons

This somehow happened... even though they are literally my least favorite Winx characters. I wanted to develop them somewhat more so that I could stop despising them so much. I think it worked... even though there are some problematic things.

TW for mentions of murder and infertility.

It was a semi arranged marriage in that Erendor was the one who was having negotiations with Samara’s family since he was already king. His parents were currently residing at one of their numerous estates, however, and were as removed from the ruling of the kingdom as possible since the monarchy was hanging by a thread. Erendor had to find a way to settle the growing tension for which he needed some strong allies and it just so happened that Samara’s family was the most influential.

Samara was actually a second child but her elder sister was already promised to a nobleman from another famous lineage and pulling that apart would be bad for the monarchy as well as the other family was bound to turn against them. So Erendor was to marry Samara and have the endorsement not only of her family, but also the new house that her sister was to join soon. They had a perfunctory engagement that only served to not make it look like the situation of the monarchy was so dire that Erendor was taking desperate measures to stabilize it. They married as soon as possible to fortify the alliance and start working on continuing the royal bloodline.

Samara was extremely good at pretending and showing exactly what was expected of her. Her mother had been dragging her to beauty pageants ever since she’d had anything to show in the talent portions of the competitions and she’d learned from little to read what people expected from her and then show them just what they wanted to see. She could get under anyone’s skin and steer them into doing whatever she wanted. It was the skill she’d perfected while her sister had spent more time in education as they’d hoped for a better marriage for her. Samara’s mother had hoped exactly for that result as it gave them guarantee that Samara would be able to control her husband while they controlled her to give them even more influence and power.

Erendor was wary of Samara at first. He was way more observant back then when the future was being built on a day to day basis and he’d seen enough to know she could charm anyone, which made her the one with the real power in their marriage. He had to win her over on his side if he wanted to ever have any real control over Eraklyon and that would be a challenge since she already had everything she could want, including the crown. He could never beat her at her own game so he tried a different approach by being dangerously honest with her which threw her off every time to give him an opportunity to peek under her facade and get to know her better.

He learned that the price of her smile was a ring on her finger and the price of her heart was holding her hand in his. She was indeed used to getting everything she wanted but he hadn’t known she wanted commitment to her that her family had never shown as they’d been using her ever since she’d learned to walk and freedom that she could only get if she had more power in her grasp than her mother held. He paid enough attention to her to learn how to never disappoint her with a gift and gave her the choice of what to do with the power she held – give him equal control of it by taking his hand or keep being pulled like a doll by the strings her mother had wrapped around her until death cut them off. He gave her the decision to choose whose hands to put the control over the kingdom in and that was more than her family had ever given her.

Her mother never expected that Samara could choose her husband over them. She’d never thought that a man could win her daughter’s trust after she’d raised her to view people as means to an end because that was how they’d view her. It was too late by the time she realized she’d made a mistake by demonstrating that to Samara herself. Her daughter had all the important people in her hand and she put them in Erendor’s pocket to throw her family so out of the loop they would never be able to come back. They lost any control they had not just over the kingdom but over most of their estate and assets as well and had to leave Eraklyon before Samara bankrupted them completely. She didn’t spare the family her sister married into either in case her mother tried to make her comeback via them and all the wealth was distributed to the struggling economical branches to patch up both the holes in the kingdom’s resources and those in the people’s trust.

The monarchy was saved and the two of them were left with their blooming alliance. They got along perfectly when he asked her opinion on everything and let her handle most of the diplomacy, only ever interfering when his presence was needed. Outside of the throne room, their shared time was limited by mutual agreement. Samara liked to use her newly found freedom to choose her personal endeavors herself and Erendor could use the break on his ego (he knows he couldn’t have done it without her but sometimes it is still hard to swallow his pride even though Samara has never flaunted the fact in his face, perhaps due to her own experiences of being dependent on someone else).

Besides, it takes them both a little while to process whatever slips into one of those honest conversations they tend to have in the middle of the night–there’s always room for Samara in his bedchamber and she’s rarely refused an invitation to go as well–or early in the morning over breakfast. He still catches her off guard–and himself, too–when he admits something that requires trust that their mutually beneficial deal does not justify. Samara actually likes it because it feels like she can trust it’s real and she’s even confessed a couple of things herself on her own initiative even though the word love has never been approached by either one of them. Erendor’s honesty is always blunt and has zero romance to it but Samara prefers it that way as she’s not sure how long it will take her to trust romance.

It all seemed well until they learned that Samara had fertility issues that got in the way of conceiving an heir. Samara retreated and locked herself into her bedchamber. She wouldn’t even let Erendor in, let alone go to the throne room or even the dining hall. Erendor had to forbid all maids and other servants from going to her until she came out, steaming about him breaking their deal that they were equals and he couldn’t control her. Not the best plan to get her to talk in hindsight but he didn’t have much choice.

They talked once Erendor explained himself and she calmed down. She was upset not only over the discovery of her problem but also over the fact that all their efforts in putting the monarchy back together had been wasted. Erendor tries to reassure that nothing has changed – she is still the queen (aka indirectly reassuring her that he wouldn’t divorce her over that which not only went through her head but she was also leaning towards after he broke their deal). They can still adopt a child and the monarchy will have an heir. Samara warns him that his brother will not stand to have someone outside the bloodline take the throne from under his nose. She knows the ambition and bitterness of being a second child and her family wasn’t even in line for the throne. Erendor promised they would figure it out but, meanwhile, there was a war brewing between the Ancestral Witches and Domino and his alliance with Oritel was enough of an excuse to buy them some time to think.

As it turned out, the solution presented itself. The royal dog breeder almost lost control of the hounds as she prepared them for a hunting session. After Erendor only didn’t bite her head off in the literal sense, Samara had her turn as well which saw the woman breaking down and confessing that she’d found herself pregnant and abandoned by both the father and her family. Samara instantly pieced together the plan that could be the solution to all their problems and after Erendor agreed, they offered the woman to give her baby to them. They would make him a prince and she could see him grow with every one of his needs taken care of if she would keep her mouth shut about the deception they were pulling. They reached an agreement and brought their scheme to fruition by presenting the boy as the royal heir while the official version was that the dog breeder’s baby was stillborn.

Distrustful of the emotional goodbye the woman said to her child, Samara decided to tie up their loose ends. Erendor had already dealt with the doctor supervising the birth through semi-legal means and it was just the mother that could reveal their ruse. Samara poisoned the dogs with a mix just strong enough to drive them mad with pain but not kill them so that they would attack their breeder and tear her to shreds. It happened almost as she’d planned it but before the dogs could be put down by the guards, they slipped away, having been pulled out of the effect of the poison by the grief over killing their caretaker. The woman had an unusual gift for training the animals and immense skills to top it off that Erendor could have never rivaled even despite his time in Red Fountain spent taming dragons. She was known as a dog whisperer and the animals had all formed a bond with her that was unbreakable so when they killed her, they turned into mindless beasts with the rage and pain of betraying their own mistress like that.

The hounds got lost in the forest to spread all over the kingdom and terrorize it for years to come. With everything else that was happening, Erendor’s focus was not on getting rid of them. The alliance with Domino was broken to the result of losing an entire city and being plagued by guilt. Without their strongest ally, the kingdom was soon swallowed in wars and debates over the future of the monarchy. The hounds were yet another crisis that was pulling Eraklyon thin over all the fronts it was stretched on.

The problem only got solved once Sky signed up for Red Fountain. Along with Brandon and a handful of other soldiers, he tracked down the hounds and killed them to stop them from wrecking havoc. Curiously, they didn’t run from him or try to attack him which he found odd but shrugged off as his gift for taming dragons obviously working on other animals as well (they never had hounds in the palace again after the “accident” with the last dog breeder). The last hound was the only one that put up a fight but it turned out it was because she had a puppy she was trying to protect. Unusually for dogs, it was only one. A small white female dog. It was so little Sky could snap its neck with two fingers but he took pity on it and took it in, swearing to his parents that he could tame it and make sure it would never hurt anyone. He named her Lady to further his point as she was extremely well behaved and obeyed every one of his commands, even letting Samara pet her despite her obvious dislike of the queen.

Lady was put down after going rabid out of the blue and attacking the queen. Samara didn’t like having to worry whether the dog wouldn’t tear her to shreds if Sky weren’t there to stop it so she got rid of it as well. Over the years she’d tried to provide for Sky both the warmth and discipline he would need to turn into a good prince as she didn’t want him growing up the way she had and being a pawn in the schemes of others. There was a certain duty to be upheld as an heir to the throne (of a country falling apart no less), though, which was why she and Erendor were pushing the marriage with Diaspro on him. The girl was more than respectful towards them despite being a spoiled brat otherwise and she was a princess aka their best choice for his fiance. They could use an alliance amidst the brewing situation in the kingdom.

With the years and the state of Eraklyon going downhill after the alliance with Domino fell apart, keeping the kingdom afloat was weighing down on Erendor on top of the guilt her felt for his deal with the Ancestral Witches and he became more selfish and rudely outspoken. He didn’t care much about diplomacy when he was counting on Samara to take care of it. She herself started falling into the rabbit hole of being queen and having the power to make everyone bow to her, however, and she abandoned her persuasive way with words for more forceful approach. After the whole fiasco with the dog breeder, she had to make sure nothing else would go astray to topple their unstable thrones and she had less and less patience for coaxing people to go her way rather than coercing and even forcing them to. The image of the monarchy was falling apart once more which was why Erendor was so hasty about passing the title of king down to Sky. Their son was very well liked amongst both the high society and the commoners so they had to leave the power in his hands at least in appearance.

#winx club #winx erendor #winx samara #erendor x samara #winx sky #winx headcanons #headcanons #can you tell why she named sky sky?

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Villain Motivation and the Banality of Evil

Motivation in Fact and Fiction

As you know by now, I am a huge true crime fan. I've read books by FBI profilers and crime historians, am addicted to the Investigation Discovery channel, and have even attended a semester of my local police departments "citizens police academy". This is a professional as well as a personal interest, given that I am currently outlining a mystery WIP set in an alternate version of our world. Thus, I want to understand crime investigation, different types of evidence, and, of course, motive. It's this last one—the motivation behind a villain's acts—that many authors, not just those who write mystery—concern themselves with. And, after examining hundreds of real-life crimes, I'm here to tell you that it's not that important.

Ok, it's a little important, in that a villain needs a motive, but it's not important that it be extremely groundbreaking, or extremely relatable, or extremely anything. Motives tend to be common place, not extreme, no matter how shocking the other aspects of a crime.

For example, the excellent book The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and the Beginnings of Modern CSI, which I raved about previously, contains a number of sensational cases where the bodies were either hideously mutilated or, conversely, found without any scratch on them. To add intrigue to injury, the murders happened in the early days of forensics, when procedures for dealing with evidence were still being worked out and when more modern investigative tools like AFIS, DNA testing, and psychological profiling were still decades away. Every case was fascinating in its details and in its eventual solution. Almost every case had, as a motive, either money or getting out of an unwanted relationship. That was it. The oddities of the bodies were the killers' attempts at not being caught, but the reasons for there being bodies in the first place were as average as could be.

In fact, the three main motives, according to Lt. Joe Kenda, of ID channel fame, are money, revenge, and sex. The more headline-catching serial-killer crimes happen, it seems, due to a desire for power or a thrill. I would say these five motives sum up most murders, maybe even most crimes. Once you cut away the mystery and the gore, all you're left with are some pretty average human desires: money/stuff, vengeance/justice, sex, power/control, and thrill/excitement. When people talk about the banality of evil, this is what they mean.

Take the motive of "money". We're all familiar with the idea, in real and fictional crime, of robbing banks or killing someone for their life insurance. Writers seem to find this an acceptable plot point: villain wants a lot of money and thus does very bad things. Yet, if you watch enough crime TV, you will know that real murders happen for sums as low as $400 or even $40. There was an episode of Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda where a man was shot and almost killed over an argument about 25 cents!

It also needn't be money, but material possessions. In one of the citizen's police academy classes, we learned about a local case where three teenagers broke into a man's house and stole, among other things, his corncob pipe. This pipe was the item he was most upset about, and often discussed in subsequent weeks. So the man lured one of the teenagers out to the woods and shot him execution-style. He was planning to do the same to the other two, and blame the whole crime on his teenaged lover. So that was one life ruined—and it would have been three others, had he not been caught—with the motive of revenge for a lost corncob pipe!

The Gap Between Good and Evil

I thus wonder why it is that we, as writers, tend to overlook such commonplace motivations. There's an unspoken assumption that the motivation of a villain must scale with their actions, so while sub-bosses or henchmen might get away with being in it for the money or the thrill, the Big Bad needs a more exciting or deep motivation. There's also a more recent idea being bandied about in internet circles that the villain should think he's the hero. I think both of these concepts are flawed, but let's take them one at a time.

Although I personally love "True Believer" villains that really do believe they are doing what is right, I don't think it's fair to say that all villains must be this way. After all, a great many real-life villains don't think they're doing something good; they just don't care. They want what they want and do what they can to get it without worrying about morality. I think the reason that this second sort of villain--the thrill-killer, the evil sorcerer, the bully--get a bad rap is that people (both readers and writers), don't understand evil. Yes, a villain who only desires evil is unrealistic, because, in fact, it's impossible to desire evil. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Catholic tradition, we hold that evil doesn't exist; it has no metaphysical reality. Evil is a privation, or absence, of good, similar to how a shadow doesn't exist, but is a privation, or absence, of light. Thus, a person cannot desire evil in and of itself, because they would be desiring nothing. Every evil act is done because someone is desiring something good, but disproportionately, or in a way that removes part of the good from that thing. Again, look at the five motives for murder. Each of those is a good, in and of themselves, but none justifies violating another person.

And thus we come to the other assumption about villains, that their actions must scale with their motives. I think, in fact, the opposite tends to make a more interesting villain. The motive can be something small--wanting revenge for some slight, or a peaceful life, or to be like everyone else. These might even be the same goods that the hero desires. What makes the villain villainous, and what can make them even more interesting, is what they are willing to do to fulfill these desires. Who or what are they willing to throw away? What rules are they willing to break? That distance, between what they want and how they get it is what separates them from the hero.

Types of Villains

This principle, that a villain must desire a good, but desire it disproportionately, can work for any type of villain.

Take the True Believer types: those that believe they are doing what's right. In this category, I would put people like Thanos (Avengers: Infinity War), as well as A.I.s like Agent Smith (The Matrix), VIKI (iRobot), and the Terminators (Terminator... obviously). Thanos is widely lauded as one of Marvel's best villains because he really does think he's doing the right thing. He is willing to throw away half of all sapient beings, plus the one person who he actually cares about, in order to save the other half. What he wants--peace and prosperity--is understandable, but while the gap between that and his genocidal actions is mathematically non-existent, it is morally huge. Similarly, the three A.I.s I mentioned are trying to save either robot-kind or human-kind, but are willing to murder thousands or even billions of humans in order to do it. Essentially, these villains are doing the classic Utilitarian trolley problem, but on a massive scale. They think they are the heroes, and truly do desire a good outcome, but the actions taken to bring that about are inexcusably evil.

Similar to the True Believers are a type of villain I will call the Desperate. These people are also trying to bring about good, but know that what they are doing is wrong. Mr. Freeze (Batman) is a classic example, as he commits crimes to get money and technology to save his wife. Actually, there are a whole slew of villains, mostly in anime and JRPGs, whose entire motivation is to save or resurrect a dead wife or girlfriend. They're trying to save someone they love, but they rarely brand themselves as saviors or heroes; Desperate types hold no such illusions. Sebastian, in my own series, is such a villain, in that he is willing to betray his friends and ally himself to bad people in order to save Chiaroscuro and make up for his past sins. He's willing to do evil that good may come of it, and actually uses the "I'm a bad person anyway" excuse as a justification for his actions.

On the flip side are those who don't care about whether or not they're doing good, which I will divide into three types: Dark Lords, Thrill Killers, and Egoists.

Dark Lords, obviously, include literal Dark Lords, such as Sauron and Voldemort, but I'm also going to throw in your average serial killer into this category. Why? Because they all want the same thing: power. The books I've read by FBI profilers chronicle the most gruesome crimes with motives ranging from rage to lust, but there is an ever present need of the killers to control, whether that's controlling their victims, the situation, or the police and firefighters (in the case of arsonists). Control is related to power, and power, in and of itself, is a good. This, in fact, is why it's wrong for these villains to take away the power or freedom of their victims. While a True Believer like Thanos sought balance, Dark Lords seek an imbalance, and want everything for themselves in an attempt to prove to themselves that they are more powerful, and thus better, than everyone else. These types of villains are, sadly, very realistic, but don't lend themselves to stories requiring a strong interpersonal conflict between hero and villain. They tend to act as a force of nature the hero must work against--whether in a fantasy against a Dark Lord or in a thriller against a serial murderer--and thus don't do much in the way of interpersonal conflict.

Better, in my opinion, are the Thrill Killer types, who see the world as a game, and are willing to do whatever it takes to have fun. Example of this are The Joker (Batman) and Mr. Sato (Ajin). Though The Joker is a bank-robbing thug, he's mostly in it for the laughs, and cares very deeply about whether or not things are funny. That doesn't make him any less abusive or violent, but the gap between his humor and his barbarity is what make him an interesting character. Mr. Sato, similarly, sees the world like one huge videogame, in which he has been given extra lives. Fun and games are a normal and natural good, but his villainy stems from what he is willing to do in this "game". Mr. Sato has absolutely no concern for human life, even his own, and kills hundreds of people (including himself, on multiple occasions!). The interest in this type of villain comes from watching their crazy schemes and then trying to figure out how the hero can possibly beat them. These villains are similar to Dark Lords in that they are something like a force of nature, but different in that the hero usually has to face off against them personally, outwit them, and deal with them as an individual person.

Finally, there are those who want something personally good, but have no regard for others. Technically, this could also describe Dark Lords and Thrill Killers, but here I mean really personal, as in specific to that person. Rather than something big like power or a crazy thrill, they tend to desire the utterly ordinary. Take the robot in Ex Machina. I'm not sure everyone would classify her as a villain, though she certainly did some evil things (it's up to interpretation whether she understands good and evil, though). What was her motivation? She wanted to go watch a crowd. She was, essentially, created to gather information, so that's what she went to go do. It makes sense that that's what she wants, but it doesn't justify what she did to the main character (even if he was kind of a doofus). Or Rezo the Red Priest (Slayers), who, in my opinion, has one of the best motivations of any villain ever. He was born blind and wanted to see. That's a totally understandable motivation. But he's willing to sacrifice the entire world to a demon lord in order to get that wish. Now that is a heckofa gap between a good desire and an evil action! And yet, is it really all that different from the sort of selfishness present in a man who would murder three teenagers over a corncob pipe? Real evil motivations are banal, and real evil actions are completely disproportionate to those motivations. Art, in the case of these last villains, is simply imitating life.

Asking What the Villains Want

Obviously, there are a million different ways of combining these villain type and motivations. Some villains want money so they can save a dying loved one. Some villains desire revenge because they truly believe they have been wronged. A Thrill Killer might find excitement in killing criminals. There is no one right way to write a villain, and there is no one motivation that is the only interesting kind. To anyone trying to write a villain, I suggest reading about or watching shows on real life criminals, from the Big Bads like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to famous killers like Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy to run of the mill criminals in your local newspaper. People don't become mass murderers or even petty thieves for no reason, but they also don't just do evil because it's the evil thing to do. Even the most gruesome atrocities were rooted in the desire for misplaced revenge, or disproportionate control, or a false belief in some so-called greater good. Then, I suggest reading and watching your favorite stories and asking what makes these villains tick. Is it the same as in real life? Is it different? What makes a great villain so great? You'll may just find that it's simply a matter of proportion.

#writeblr #writelr #musings on writing #writing analysis #story analysis #villiain #villains #villain motivation #villain motives #writing villains #villain motivations #villain motive #realistic villains #how to write villains #fiction writing #fiction #character motivation #character motive #writing motivation #writing motives

[sparklyjojos]

CARNIVAL DAY recaps [2/13]

Today’s recap: Lots of monkeys and a nagging grandma figure, or: Yasha’s adventures in his hometown.

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FIFTH ILLUSION

05 Oct 1996 — 18 Oct 1996

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Yasha’s ancestor Inugami Sahei was a poor orphan, who at the age of seventeen was taken in by a Shinto priest. Later in life Sahei became a wealthy businessman known as the Silk King of Japan. His death shortly after World War II and the outrageous will he left led to a series of murders... 

The famous Inugami Family Murder Case just like the Saimon Family Murder Case was one of the Ten Great Crimes of the Showa period. It was even described in detail in Yokomizo Seishi’s book The Inugami Clan [which is an actual classic mystery. It has been translated to English and is also known under the name The Inugami Curse. This recap has a few tiny spoilers as to who survives in that book.]

The Inugamis weren’t quite as influential in 1996 as half a century earlier, but the people of their town Nasu still felt respect for them. Sometimes curious mystery fans came to see the famous tragic family’s house for themselves.

Like every other place in the world, Nasu was impacted by the Crime Olympics, the death rate in the town rapidly increasing. Several people spotted a giant person in a monkey mask walking around at night, perhaps on his way to killing townsfolk. Whether or not this Monkey Mask was actually a part of RISE, catching them would certainly put the people at ease. The mayor himself asked Yasha to investigate, and Sayo was as nagging as ever about him staying home for a while, so whether Yasha wanted it or not, he had to keep living in Nasu for now.

Juku told him on the phone that perhaps this Monkey Mask was connected to an ongoing serial killer case targeting police officers in Kyoto. Each week three victims would be murdered, the first body found without eyes, the second without tongue, and the third without ears, clearly symbolizing the three wise monkeys. Juku doubted the Monkey Mask and the Three Monkeys Killer were the same person, but Yasha should definitely check what’s going on.

The media quickly caught on to Yasha's return to town and kept talking about how the young genius was pursuing the Monkey Mask. The attention was becoming so bothersome that Yasha resorted to change his clothing style and wear sunglasses around town… which didn’t help much, as the silver hair was a dead giveaway.

All those monkey cases made Yasha think about his family’s old servant, Saruzou [the saru written with the kanji for “monkey”; the English translation of The Inugami Curse simply calls him Monkey]. Saruzou had once cared for their garden and was known for making wonderful chrysanthemum dolls. During the Inugami Family Murder Case, Saruzou saved Yasha’s grandmother Tamayo countless times, so in a way Yasha owed his very existence to the man. Saruzou disappeared some time before Yasha’s birth. Tamayo even ordered a chrysanthemum doll portraying him to be made in his honor.

One possible solution to the Monkey Mask case was that Saruzou came back and patrolled the town at night, trying to keep the Inugamis safe from potential attackers. That strongly built man even without a mask had an uncannily simian face.

Yasha kept hearing about new sightings of the Monkey Mask, so he sneaked out the window at night to walk around the town (Sayo would stop him and preach about danger if she ever saw him trying to leave normally). He honestly wondered how Juku was able to wear sunglasses at night, as they made it difficult to see anything.

When Yasha woke up from a nap one October day, he found a piece of paper tucked behind Kanaihidetaka’s collar. The message said:

Do not wander at night. Inugami house in danger.

— The Man in the Shadows

Yasha recognized this signature. During the Inugami Family Murder Case, one of the people involved wrote a certain important note and signed it as “the man in the shadows”. But if it really was the person Yasha thought of, they could have just warned him directly. Besides, not even Sayo knew about his nightly escapades. Did the message mean that Yasha’s wandering would bring danger, or that there was already a danger present and Yasha should keep watch over the family?

Yasha had no idea what was going on, but decided to keep sneaking out to investigate. That very night he spotted the Monkey Mask and tried to pursued him, soon joined by the local Shinto priest Hiyama, but the mysterious giant got away.

--

SIXTH ILLUSION

19 Oct 1996 — 01 Nov 1996

--

In the morning Yasha talked with Hiyama about the sightings. According to the priest, his trusted friend had seen the Monkey Mask head towards the shrine a few nights earlier. The friend woke Hiyama and they searched the grounds together, but found no one, as if the man simply disappeared. Last night Hiyama heard someone walking on the gravel path outside, saw the Monkey Mask and trailed him all the way to the town, where he lost sight of him for a good while. Then he walked into Yasha and they chased the suspicious man together.

News came later that a murder had taken place near where Yasha first saw the Monkey Mask. Could he have killed someone in that short time after Hiyama lost sight of him?

--

In the beginning of October, Juku called Yasha to say that Yaiba Somahito had kidnapped a boy and fled the country, an event just as surprising and shocking as all the disappearances. Tsukumo Nemu was ordered to ride the Trans-Siberian Express and catch Yaiba half-way through Russia.

Just days later, on October 5th, the ninth Billion Killer case happened to target Yaiba’s train. The ground suddenly bulged underneath the tracks breaking them, making the train fly out like from a ramp and land in Lake Baikal. Thankfully Hanto Maimu had predicted that something would happen in Russia and rescue teams were gathered near the lake at the time, so they could pull out the passengers (and a skull of the Billion Killer) from the wreckage.

A week later, on October 12th, another case happened at Loch Ness. The only surviving witness died soon after claiming they had been attacked by Nessie. Recovered video footage showed a long-necked something that attacked the gathered people and destroyed Urquhart Castle. The tenth skull of the Billion Killer was found at the scene.

On October 19th, a Robo-Ship identical to the one that had disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle suddenly appeared in the Niagara Falls. While sudden, the event didn’t kill anyone. No passengers were find inside the submarine, but the eleventh skull of the Billion Killer was recovered. This was the first time Hanto Maimu’s prediction was off, most likely because she would give birth soon.

On October 26th, thirteen people including the Cali Cartel’s boss were found shot in a hideout in the Amazon Jungle. According to a woman called Fabian who was at the scene, a strange man somehow escaped that locked room situation and took away the Billion Killer skull somewhere.

--

Thanks to contact with Juku, Yasha learned more details that the media kept quiet about.

A couple days before the Trans-Siberian Express derailed, many electric traction posts had been destroyed, forcing Yaiba’s train to switch from an electric engine to a diesel. That was the very reason why the train kept going even when the mysteriously bulging patch of ground broke the tracks. Right after the train went flying, the raised ground settled back down like nothing happened. It was possible that someone could have toppled the traction posts to force the train engine switch, but how they made the ground move remained unexplained.

The Nessie footage was found not to have been altered in any known way. It was interesting how when the monster was shot at, it didn’t seem to get wounded at all.

The Robo-Ship that showed up in the Niagara Falls was confirmed by the UN to be the very same that had gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle, an easy thing to check considering the Robo-Ships were experimental arsenal ships and very few had been made. The entire crew including Yomiko was still missing. While it was possible to steer an empty submarine remotely, getting it into Niagara Falls in that way was improbable.

As for the cartel shooting case, that man who took away the skull had used a Blue ID Card registered to Amagi Hyouma, but was apparently an imposter, as the real Hyouma had been in Japan at the time of the incident.

--

Around that time, Juku told Yasha about his plans to visit Jounosuke in Ryuuguujou. He planned to go there with Nemu and Fumonji Jouka, as well as Christmas Mizuno and Hikimiya Yuuya who were about to return from France. Yasha had to stay home, but asked to pass his regards to Jounosuke and prayed for his survival.

--

SEVENTH ILLUSION

02 Nov 1996 — 15 Nov 1996

--

Sayo had been working for the Inugamis since over a decade before Yasha’s birth. He didn’t know her age, but she had been school friends with Hiyama the priest, so she would have to be in her fifties. Most people called her Nekoma [��魔, literally “cat demon”], which Yasha suspected came from her love for neko-manma (a dish made from leftover rice), or perhaps was a joke about how a “cat demon” would work for the Inugamis, “dog gods”. Asked about her real last name, Sayo just answered that she had forgotten it.

Yasha tried stealthily asking Sayo about Saruzou, but she instantly guessed that he actually wanted to know about the possible connection with the Monkey Mask. Sayo had known Yasha since his birth and so was able to tell what he thought at all times. She claimed that when you’re as old as she was, using all the life experience you have is in itself a sort of a detective reasoning method.

Yasha tried asking his grandmother Tamayo some questions. She told him that Saruzou had passed away a few years earlier, and that there were two chrysanthemum dolls of Saruzou—one made by the man himself shortly before his disappearance and portraying him in his old age, and a later replacement portraying him in his youth.

When Yasha then found the older doll in the storage, he discovered it was lacking its monkey-like head.

--

On November 2nd, a strange case happened in Indonesia when an old blind man walking through Borobudur tripped over a skull of the Billion Killer, fell down the stairs and died. The skull was then taken away from the scene by someone. What looked like a strangely trivial incident turned out to be very complicated indeed: the man didn’t actually trip over the skull, but miscalculated his path when the stairs had somehow grown a single step more. While only one person died, the mystery was just as mind-boggling as the other Billion Killer cases.

On November 9th, an Air France Jumbo Jet suddenly disappeared both from the sky and from the radars, only to reappear right over a major Parisian street on a collision course with the Arc de Triomphe. Quick attempt at an emergency landing let some passengers escape before the impact, but the event still resulted in over a thousand dead and nearly five thousand injured. Once again a Billion Killer skull was found.

Yasha was a bit too busy with the Monkey Mask to really think about these cases, and Juku didn’t call him much because of his visit to Ryuuguujou.

--

In order to solve the Monkey Mask case, Yasha decided to use his insomnia reasoning, which required him to go several days without sleeping. It always worked the best around 90-95 hours since the last awakening. Of course staying awake for this long required a lot of training and the right physical and mental preparations, and after a certain time Yasha would inevitably have to recover by sleeping for a long time, which would both reset the insomnia timer and put him out of commission for days.

And so Yasha stayed awake for a long time, trying to deal with the impulse to fall asleep, enduring Sayo still nagging him about leaving the house at night, and also marveling at how different his face in the mirror looked with a harsher expression, sunken eyes, and a somewhat disconcerting smile. Maybe the name Yasha really fit him, considering he really looked a little demonic when not sleeping.

--

EIGHTH ILLUSION

16 Nov 1996 — 29 Nov 1996

--

After eighty hours without sleep, the time was perfect for Yasha to head back to the shrine and solve the case. Sayo was still so determined to keep him in the house at night that she moved her mattress to his room and even escorted him to the bathroom, but he finally managed to outsmart her and sneak out.

Yasha and Hiyama met up at the shrine. They waited in hiding for a good hour until the Monkey Mask showed up, and then Yasha ran towards him from behind, caught his head—actually a mask made using Saruzou’s chrysanthemum doll—and pulled it off.

The Monkey Mask slowly turned around…

--

On November 15th (so a few days and a lot of sleeping later), when Yasha explained the case at a press conference, he announced that the culprit was—no one. Monkey Mask the scary villain had never existed, and the case was mostly a mass illusion.

All those Billion Killer cases illustrated pretty well that while people would not believe a strange phenomenon without tangible proof, if a convincing proof did exist—like the Nessie recording—they would be happy to believe in the weirdest things.

There really was no proof for the Monkey Mask’s existence other than eyewitness testimonies, but the coincidentally rising crime rate was the “proof” that made people believe.

What many eyewitnesses “saw” was just an optical illusion, a game of shadows at night. Others have fallen victim to someone’s prank—here Yasha showed everyone a monkey-like mask and said he had found it on the ground by the local shrine, apparently discarded by the bored jokester. It was a weak piece of evidence, but Yasha stated that the only proof needed would be that no one would see the Monkey Mask ever again.

--

As soon as Yasha got home, he watched the entire press conference, which proud Sayo had of course diligently recorded on tape. She kept talking about how cool Yasha looked on TV and how nicely he managed to hide the truth.

The Monkey Mask that Yasha had caught a few days ago was—well, no, not quite Sayo like his reasoning had told him. Instead it was a man he’d never seen before, apparently a mutual friend of Sayo and Hiyama. Sayo had come up with the whole Monkey Mask plan, started spreading rumors around the time Yasha came back to Japan from China, created the message from “The Man in the Shadows”, and even walked around in the mask, employing her friend or Hiyama to take over her role whenever she needed to stay home at night to create an alibi. Her plan had just happened to start right before the Crime Olympics, so everyone assumed a connection.

Sayo’s entire plan was simply to make Yasha stay at home with his family for as long as possible.

--

After the Monkey Mask case was settled, Yasha finally left the town and headed towards Kyoto, where he would meet with Juku again after over two months of working separately.

--

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

#sparkly reads carnival day #maijo and jdc stuff

[bigskydreaming]

So obviously, like, I make a big deal out of Dick Grayson’s intentions when naming himself Robin in the first place, and how it was meant as an homage and tribute to his parents and the generations of Flying Graysons before them, and that’s a huge part of the reason he was so pissed when Bruce gave it away without consulting him and why its kinda messed up that everyone characterizes Tim as massively resenting Dick for making Damian Robin, etc, etc....

But okay, like....Dick Grayson was most other child heroes/sidekicks’ inspiration, not to mention Jason and Tim’s (though Tim of course was just as influenced by Jason’s turn as Robin, if not more).

And then, my problem is...whenever talk of inspirations and legacies and mantles and all that comes up, the question becomes - who inspired Dick in the first place?

Because, I mean....the answer isn’t Batman.

THAT’S why the origins of the Robin persona are so important, because like, Dick wasn’t inspired to become a hero, the KIND of hero he was, because of Bruce. He just wasn’t. He loves, respects and admires Bruce of course, sure, that’s a given. But one of the primary characterizations of Dick across ANY canon or medium is that he’s NEVER wanted to be Batman. He HATES it when he has to wear Bruce’s mantle. Not because he doesn’t respect it or what it stands for, but because its not him, and it never was.

THAT’S why he was never Batboy, never modeled himself as a younger version of his mentor like Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, Speedy, etc all did. Because he wanted to work with Bruce, sure, he wanted to be a hero like Bruce, as in a person who does heroic stuff and helps and protects people.....but not in the ways Bruce did it, and not for the reasons or with the intentions that Bruce had for his own costumed persona. Robin was specifically created to be everything Batman wasn’t, because Dick, being one of the many survivors of tragedies in Gotham who fell through the cracks and would have been left behind and swallowed up by the system if not for a hero’s intervention.....Dick was aware of how catching the bad guys and putting them away, seeing justice served, like, it was important, but it wasn’t THE most important thing. Not to everyone. 

Catching the bad guys only fixes a tiny part of what happened. It was Bruce’s solution to things - from the second the Graysons died, that was his answer, that was what he was sure was going to help Dick move on......but Bruce’s answer wasn’t Dick’s answer. Catching or killing Tony Zucco wasn’t ever going to help Dick heal or move on, because the murder of his parents was only PART of his personal tragedy. The other part was how it resulted in him being ripped away from everything he knew and everyone else he loved, never allowed to go back to the life he’d always intended to live, growing up performing and entertaining alongside his family, like all their family before them....instead forced to change basically everything about himself in order to fit into a structured life of routines he found boring and pointless and not remotely what he wanted out of life.

Robin was Dick’s answer to all that. Being Robin was the only thing that allowed Dick to heal, because it was the one and only way in which he got to take back a piece of control over his own life. If he couldn’t go back to his past, to the circus, to his family, then he’d bring all that into the present with him, carry it forward. Continue his family’s traditions in the only way he could think of now, fighting crime alongside Batman in the signature colors of the Flying Graysons, remaining true to that title by swinging from grappling lines rather than a trapeze....but still committed to the same work his family had made their livelihood for generations, the same work he’d always intended to continue in some form himself: making peoples’ lives better, just by his presence. 

Entertaining, performing, not out of insecurity or to cover things up, but because that was what he’s always seen himself as born to do. To leave people a little happier than they were when they first encountered them. Cheering up the victims of crimes with his jokes and laughter and brightness while Batman dourly scouted for clues and conferred with the police. Giving them a reason to smile even on what might have been the worst day of their lives, otherwise. Making jokes and puns while fighting the bad guys, his own way of pushing back against the darkness of Gotham - by laughing at villains of the day, by refusing to let someone like the Joker be the only one who had any reason to laugh in Gotham.

And not one bit of that came from Batman. Bruce didn’t inspire Robin, didn’t inspire Dick - Batman only gave Dick an example of how his past, his skills, his purpose in life could be adapted to allow him to continue on in the spirit of his family, to ensure they lived on through him, not just in body but in spirit as well. Zucco, the system, they could take the boy out of the circus, but he refused to let them take the circus out of him before he was damn good and ready. They could physically keep him away from a trapeze and out of the center ring of a circus, but no one was going to tell Dick Grayson when he was or wasn’t allowed to be a Flying Grayson, with everything that entailed.

Except....that’s exactly what Bruce ended up doing.

And that’s why I will always call that a greater betrayal than anything that happened with any of the Robins since, despite any of their (usually still quite valid) issues with how the mantle ended up passed on from them. Because Dick was no different from any other sidekick or child hero in that he built his identity as a hero around the heroes who inspired him to follow in their footsteps....its just that for him, those heroes were his parents. They were the ones Robin was trying to imitate, live up to, make proud. That’s why Dick always insisted on being called Bruce’s partner and not his sidekick. Sure, he absolutely loved being Bruce’s partner, but that doesn’t mean that ultimately that wasn’t just a means to an end for him....a way to ensure he was allowed to keep going out at night doing what he damn well intended to do anyway. He wanted to work WITH Bruce but he never wanted to BE Bruce. Because he already had a concrete vision of who he wanted to be like, who he wanted to be.

(And of course, this is also why I always get so annoyed with the take that Bruce didn’t bring up adopting Dick earlier in life because he didn’t want to replace his parents, he was trying to respect Dick’s feelings towards them, etc.....because uh.....that doesn’t really track, considering that co-opting the Robin identity and annexing it as part of the Batman identity, BRUCE’S to take and then dole out as he wished.....like, hello, dumbass, what did you think telling a kid that you were forbidding him from using HIS mother’s nickname, HIS family’s colors, etc, like....what the hell do you even call that other than replacing Dick’s parents and disrespecting Dick’s connection to them - you pretty much literally told him there that screw who inspired it and what his reasons for being Robin were, Robin still only existed according to Bruce’s say-so).

Anyway. And yeah, that’s also why I’m eternally grumpy at the usual fandom take that Tim does and should resent Dick for ‘taking Robin away’ and giving it to Damian, because....a) that’s not really what happened, Dick literally said that he couldn’t treat Tim like a sidekick because he saw them as equals, that it was time for Tim to figure out his own identity and see who he was outside of Robin, who he’d become thanks to his time in that role.

And also b) because.....like, it was Dick’s right, like it or not. That situation WASN’T comparable with Bruce taking it from Dick in the first place, or giving it to Jason, because the problem there wasn’t that it happened at all, it was that Robin wasn’t Bruce’s to take, or restrict, or regulate, let alone give away. Fire Dick from being his partner, yeah, sure, whatever. But telling him to hang up the last vestige of his family and former life that Dick had managed to hold onto all this time despite every attempt to take it away from him? And that’s the difference with what happened with Tim, because Dick was clear - this had nothing to do with his respect for Tim’s abilities or not thinking he was good enough to fight at his side, it was about thinking Tim was TOO good to be stuck JUST fighting at Dick’s side. 

And while Tim is completely justified in feeling any way he wants about not being Robin anymore, it was after all a huge part of his own identity.....like.....you don’t get to resent the guy who created it to preserve his own heritage and family identity, for having the nerve to think like....it should be up to him who wears it and when and why. If that doesn’t work for someone, if Jason or Tim had a problem with the idea that Dick specifically should always have more of a say in where the Robin mantle goes, like....that’s valid! BUT in the sense of like....they could’ve insisted on making their own identity/mantle in order to be Bruce’s partner/sidekick, if they didn’t want the originator of THAT particular mantle to have more of a right to it and its succession, ultimately.

Especially because the whole reason Dick made Damian Robin was he recognized that Damian needed it, in the same way he had needed it. Jason becoming Robin had nothing to do with Dick, and Tim approached Dick with his own perception of Robin and what it meant already firmly cemented in his mind - Robin was the light to Batman’s darkness, a necessary flip side of the coin that balanced Bruce out and kept him focused. Again, its totally valid for Tim to view Robin as whatever he viewed it as, for it to mean whatever it meant to him.....the problem is in acting like Dick’s perception of it should ever reflect that, or be altered to include that, or become less important than Tim or other Robins’ take on it as time went on. Not when Dick made it as a time capsule for his family and history, to make sure that WASN’T forgotten just because there were no more Flying Graysons on the trapeze anymore. 

So when you factor in that for Dick, Robin always meant family and always will mean family, his offering it to Damian was him doing the only thing he knew of that would give Damian a reason to stay, now that Bruce was dead. Robin was the only thing in the world that Dick had, that didn’t come from Bruce. As Bruce’s son, Damian was already entitled to anything that they inherited from Bruce, the same as his brothers....anything Dick gave Damian that came from Bruce originally, Damian honestly would’ve been justified in saying he had just as much right to it as Dick already. It wouldn’t have meant anything. Robin meant something though, because it was Dick making clear to Damian that he wanted him to stay, not just because Dick felt obligated to Bruce, to take care of Damian....but instead, Dick was saying he didn’t view it as obligation, he was offering Damian the one part of HIS family, Dick’s family, that Damian WASN’T already entitled to, by being part of Bruce’s.

Because Robin is a family tradition, always was. Its just not a WAYNE family tradition. Its just the latest version of the Flying Graysons, and thus all of Dick’s brothers became honorary Flying Graysons in his eyes the second he affirmed that they were Robin now, that he was okay with it, that he wanted them to be.

And you just....can’t cut out that one connection you have to the family with generations of history behind the mantle, that inspired it, that is the entire reason it exists for you to take up in the first place. Like, if you want to be part of a legacy, specifically, as in, you want to take up where a predecessor left off, you want to continue something that someone else started INSTEAD of starting something of your own, even something in a similar spirit and clearly inspired by it....well, you don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the legacy are worth acknowledging. Especially not when the person who created the mantle in the first place, specifically to carry on with his family’s legacy, is still around to have his own opinion on who currently needs it most.

Like don’t get me wrong. I love every single one of the Robins, including Stephanie, but in a comic book universe where the entire concept of legacies is given so much focus and priority, Robin ends up being a very weird outlier in that its originator and inspiration is only given as much weight as fans of his successors feel like giving at any given moment. Nobody ever writes fic or headcanons around the idea that upon Bruce coming back from the dead, he’d have just....no opinion on who should be Batman, let alone any right to have an opinion on that. Y’know? And again, its made all the more frustrating given that Robin’s the one mantle in the DC ‘verse that was created by its original holder as an homage/tribute to his family’s memory, rather than emblematic of some abstract idea or ideal.

*Shrugs* So yeah, I find myself very much in disagreement with most everyone in fandom on this one particular subject lol. Because I love Tim too! I do! And I’m definitely not saying that the other Robins weren’t just as iconic as Dick, just as deserving as the title or whatever, like I definitely don’t mean that any of them weren’t AS much Robin as Dick was.

Just that from an IN universe perspective, viewed from the POV of the characters, I think it just ends up being very skewed for any of the later Robins to act like they’re entitled to MORE say over Robin than Dick himself, when he’s the only connection any of them have or ever WILL have, to the ultimate origin and inspiration for it and everything its come to mean.....and that’s just....not Batman.

Its the Flying Graysons.

#lol this is more of a fandom inspired post than a canon inspired post #because canon has of course largely moved past all of these events and isnt even referencing them anymore #but like....again I do love Tim almost as much as I do Jason and Dick #but it gets really frustrating reading the twentieth fic in a row where Dick has to grovel for forgiveness for giving Robin to Damian #before Tim relents and decides things are okay between them again #siiiiiiiigh #and also minor related pet peeve #given that one of the other fandom takes Im most frustrated by is the almost universally accepted headcanon that Dick hated Jason pre death #and was just the worst to him #when like....no....they had a few rough interactions initially (all while Dick was brainwashed but lol NO ONE remembers that storyline) #but Dick of his own volition got over his issues with Jason within a relatively short period of time in universe #and reached out on his own to make peace with Jason and try and be a resource for him and building a relationship #Jason died before they had a chance to add much to that relationship but that doesn't mean it didnt exist #and it definitely doesnt mean Dick hated Jason and Jason believed Dick hated him #but my point is....given how everpresent in fics and headcanons the idea that Dick was a terrible brother and has a ton to make up for #with Jason #its really frustrating that nobody bats an eye at the idea that Tim is completely justified in holding a grudge for 'being replaced' by Dami #when even IF you're writing based on the take that this was a direct parallel to Bruce taking Robin from Dick and making Jason Robin #that STILL doesnt work out because in that parallel Tim would be in DICK'S original position #which should either mean he now understands and sympathizes with Dick for how hard that was for him #and why Dick initially had problems with Jason #OR it should mean Tim recognizes that he's doing the same thing EVERYONE constantly gives Dick grief for bc of Dick doing it to Jason #back then #but i mean #how does it make sense to say Tim vs Damian is exactly like Dick vs Jason #and Dick here is like Bruce was back then #only to then turn around and make Tim the sympathetic victimized party #while Dick is STILL the one who was in the wrong even back then too! #I just #I honestly dont get it

[anthonybialy]

Suffer Together

Incompetence shouldn't be limited to those in crisis. How is that impartial? Everyone has to endure hardship, if we listen to those creating it. Joining the political realm is the best way to ensure fairness by forcing everyone to obey capricious orders. Screw up the response to a crisis for an excuse.

Limiting the entire populace is how we learn to empathize. Remember that we're all in this together, according to every commercial from companies that feel the need to acknowledge current events without having anything specifically assuaging to say.

Life is communal, according to grabbier politicians. By subjecting everyone to spankings for the actions of a few, they make it so. Self-fulfilling prophecies are one way to make oneself a visionary.

Everyone suffers because some have problems. That's how we unite. Why should only some citizens cope with restrictions? Sure, the behavior of particular delinquents could be worthy of being curtailed by rules. But we don't want government enforcing morality by only bothering criminals.

Politicians have to harass all because they couldn't stop problems. They were trying to make it even for everyone along. The solution to their own putzing ineptness involves holding back everyone.

There's no way to help just those in peril, as that'd be an unjust application of ideals. Authorities could have suggested that anyone not feeling well or susceptible to infection watches out for virus-spreading situations. But they couldn't manage to think people could manage to think.

It seems unfair that only those likely to get sick have to cope with agony. The same notion of sameness through dragging everyone down informs so much of our pleasantly enlightened politics.

Discipline is only inflicted upon those who don't deserve it. Barricading everyone inside is a novel way to limit infection. Sure, it didn't help and only spread depression as people forced into uselessness were made to feel as if they were spreading an illness they didn't have. But hassling whoever dared pick up a pizza with a mouth visible will preserve health if preening prevents spreading.

You can enjoy the relaxing thrills of darkness in your domicile. A curfew is the ultimate thoughtless penalty imposed on all for the misdeeds of some. Why aren't only the bad ones grounded? Imagine stopping those commandeering protests. Instead, mayors sanctioned everyone by having to be in when the streetlights came on. Government treating people like children feels slightly more literal than usual.

I think there should be some sort of security force tasked with implementing laws. Perhaps they could focus on detaining those who exchange bricks for televisions. Those tasked with prohibiting crime couldn't have just looked for people smashing windows at Macy's. A rather unabashed variety of participants whose version of social justice featured smashing retailers are not exactly cat burglars. But why would they be subtle about stealing when nobody's noting they're not allowed?

An utter breakdown deplorably justified as anger over injustice can only occur if authorities watch limply. There must be healthier paths to vicarious thrills. The present style of brave leaders is too chicken to confront those tearing apart the byproduct of civilization. They'll save the rubble by ticketing anyone enjoying the fresh air found in a park at 8:03 p.m.

Kurt Vonnegut couldn't have imagined mandating equality more fully. Office-holders aren't clever enough to mock reality through fiction, so they create actual horrors to preempt it.

The creepy collectivist vibe behind sentencing the whole results from a lack of basic proficiency in those bothering us in the first place. Well, they have to compensate because the public wasn't smart and decent enough to obey their commands to create bliss.

Hassling everyone is nothing new. Maybe don't vote for those whose every political stance involves issuing pain on the whole. The brutish clumsiness behind making everyone comply with a limitation that should only be imposed on wrongdoers embodies big government.

All of us had rights rescinded by purported leaders because they couldn't stop a virus or looters. Take losing the right to self-defense because of murderers, which actually makes them more likely.

Perceiving health care as communal instead of as something individuals acquire makes everyone's bill skyrocket out of compassion. And some people having more is so unjust, which is why we spread out money until it vanishes.

Punishing the entire class is a childish move, as children recognize. Astute whippersnappers knew even as fourth-graders they were dealing with an insecure putz of a teacher when the entire class had to stay after because of a couple delinquents disrupting class. Everyone knows who the crummy kids are. But it's easier to presume everyone's been rotten. Now, that's how to motivate academic achievement.