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astrologista · 4 years

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Kristoph Gavin Character Analysis I

Part 1 of... fucking infinity, I hate this bitch so much lmao.

Well, it's Halloween time and I just thought, why not. So let's answer this question.

What makes Kristoph Gavin a scary character/villain? A soft spoken gentleman with a deadly secret... the Devil, who lives in his hand, that crazy evil scar thing, his creepy music theme... damn, he’s a scary dude. But scariest of all? His psychology, as we all know. (This is mostly gonna be headcanons. but ya know what, I have a license (hands you a piece of paper that says ‘i can do what i want’))

Kristoph seems like a person who is very aloof, particularly when it comes to personal relationships. At first he kind of just seems like the typical anime glasses guy whose main emotion is like whooa he does the glare thing with his glasses sometimes. But... what is he really about?

You know, let me digress for a moment, what's really interesting to me about the AA characters is how much depth they have in their writing. Case in point, Adrian Andrews. There's a character who you assume is just going to be the typical "anime glasses girl" who is a career woman who don't need no man, and is very aloof, cool, and as she says, not concerned with irrelevant topics or things. Later you learn about the true depths to her personality. The fact that she is codependent, that she needs other people telling her what to do in order to survive. Just because she masks these emotions doesn't mean they don't exist. I felt that really gave a lot of depth to her character and added another dimension that stories in this genre don't often address as boldly or fully (especially when it comes to a female character). So the quality of the writing is always really top notch with only a few exceptions. Take this as context...

Now getting back to Kristoph Gavin. Typical anime glasses dude, right? But no, though. One of the reasons why he's so interesting to me is how his emotional understanding of personal relationships really works. Or seems to, anyway. Based on the endgame testimony and his crimes, Kristoph Gavin is extremely dangerous because, should you get involved with him in any way, he will never, ever let go of you, ever. Once you are entangled with him he wants you to stay entangled, not unlike an overbearing parent who refuses to let you go. It's partly that he thinks he knows what's best for you (that is, to stay completely loyal to him). And also partly... because he is pretty dependent on what other people think of him. So he needs to keep them around him closely.

Kristoph's biggest fear was his lying being exposed for what it was. That Phoenix was really the honest, straightforward attorney, and not him. Kristoph would do anything to perpetuate his own false reality. He kept it going for seven years. His absolute worst fear of all was losing his reputation. Being seen for what he truly was in front of others. He could never accept that. That fear drove all of his murders. Fundamentally, he sees himself as benevolent... when nothing could be further from the truth of how he was hurting everyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path.

Kristoph has a need to perpetuate this false identity of himself above all else. A very adjacent second goal to that is to keep all of his personal associates very close and under his control in order to keep the first goal intact.

Reject him and he will stalk you until you are dead. By his hand, or otherwise. Slight him, and he will get you at the first opportunity, case in point, Zak Gramarye. (He only had to get a quick glance at the guy and his fate was sealed. Turnabout Trump is a chilling case.) Replace him, and he will tear your life and livelihood up into little itty bitty pieces. He will then continue to stalk you aggressively for seven years while pretending he is your best friend. Case in point, Phoenix Wright.

Create false evidence for him and you become a loose end. So does your daughter. Like I said, just don't get involved with him. If he feels threatened, Kristoph Gavin will not hesitate to end you. It's definitely an obsession. I mean the first word that comes to people's minds when it comes to Kristoph usually isn't "obsessed", because he gives off the aura of being calm and uninterested. But he is, he's obsessed. You have to be obsessed to do what he did. This shit consumed his every waking hour, and that's what he won't admit. That he was so sick, he completely lost the plot. Phoenix was already living in his head rent free the day he ordered the forgery. And even though Phoenix wasn't physically present at the Misham trial and was only watching everything by video camera, you can bet Kristoph was seeing Phoenix. Hallucinating him, images of him. Probably multiple images of him. That's how obsessive. Imagine letting something or someone control you to that extent. Imagine thinking that you're so important, that Phoenix taking Zak Gramarye's case at all was meant to be a slight against you personally. (It's funny because Phoenix mentions not even knowing Kristoph at all until after the disbarment. So Kristoph's own logic in thinking that Phoenix was just out to shame him absolutely doesn't track. Ob-sessed, dude.)

It's actually pretty astonishing that someone like Apollo made it out alive. On a side note, I really think Kristoph enjoyed having someone to mentor. He sought someone like Apollo out. Someone naive and new to the field for him to indoctrinate. And maybe I have a post about that later, cuz that's a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys right there. (It kind of involves Apollo’s naivete (also, daddy issues, hello.) being a huge reason why he would gravitate towards having a mentor known for having a “caring” personality. And I think Apollo genuinely liked that about him, which makes the end result so much more awful for Apollo to deal with because to him, that was real.)

But now think of Klavier, right. Being forced to grow up with that. To live with that your entire life. To have a familial relationship that is that smothering, that suffocating, that strangling. That controlling, to criticize every single thing that you do or say right down to the way you say it. And remember... He's never letting you go. I would go on a world tour as a rock star, too. Anything to be anywhere he isn't. This is horror movie tier stuff. (now im imagining a horror movie trailer for aa4 focusing on gavins stuff... eep!)

And Kristoph Gavin markets himself as someone who simply doesn't care. He's the coolest defense in the west and he doesn't care for what you may think about it. Except... he does care. It totally consumes him. Your perception, your opinion, is everything to him. He has shitty self esteem, deep down, because he knows Phoenix is better than him. And tries to mask it with narcissism as the two duke it out. Appearances are everything, evidence is everything. What people think is true is the only thing that matters, truth doesn't. And it makes sense that his closest contacts and associates are the targets for his constant narcissistic abuse and gaslighting. Their opinions matter even more than the common crowd - of course, Kristoph hates them. Which makes it even worse for him when the jury decides unanimously that Vera is innocent (and by implication, he is therefore guilty). The jury verdict was kind of like the ultimate confirmation that guess what, the evidence doesn't matter. The common and boorish masses have passed judgement, no matter how "mindless, emotional and irrational" they are, even they can see behind his crappy little facade. Even a blind woman like Lamiroir can see that insecurity; even a common person can understand it just by looking at the facts. That's what absolutely wrecks him... that his “poker face” couldn’t hold a candle to Phoenix’s. And he loses the “hand” again (because of his “hand”... get it??).

The identity that he needs to maintain is part of how he sees himself in his mind. As Phoenix's protector, not as his stalker. As Klavier's benevolent big brother, not as his abuser. As Apollo's teacher and mentor, not as someone guiding him into ruin. He lives in a false reality.

Try to bring this up in any way, shape, or form and he will write it off. You're just imagining things...

Because at some level, Mr. Black Psyche Locks himself doesn't even realize. (I feel like that might just be basically canonical fact, based on Pearl’s explanation of how black psyche locks are supposed to work.) That’s pretty freaking terrifying.

At the end of the day this is a big part of the reason I think his character is just so interesting. In a very messed up way, Kristoph is one degree away from being such a good person. He could've been obsessively protective of Klavier - the way a big brother is supposed to be - instead of abusive, could've actually been very caring of Phoenix instead of manipulative. Terrible people can have good traits, just as good people can have awful traits. His attention to detail and understanding of psychology (like getting Vera those gifts she would like so much) could've been used for genuine good. He could've been someone who cares deeply about other people because he does care deeply about other people. But only in terms of their relation to himself, what do they think of him, how are they useful to him.

Maybe this is why I kind of like his character. Intelligent, semi-neurotic protective characters are just my ish. But, no, he has to have a narcissistic bent that skews everything into complete abuse. That’s what makes him awful... that he’s devoid of a moral compass or true compassion for other human beings.

So in closing, fuck off, Kristoph Gavin.

Postscript, he's also such a good foil for Phoenix for this reason. Kristoph does everything for himself. Phoenix does everything for Trucy, because he's a dad and he understands the weight of what it means to really care for someone. Kristoph couldn’t understand motives like that. And Phoenix can't help it if he's an order of magnitude smarter and more mature than Kristoph is. He was just born like that. Classy as fuck. You know what, Kristoph Gavin is like the dollar store version of Phoenix Wright as an attorney. Has many of the same functions but actually doesn't have a leg to stand on and will fail you when you need it. And is revealed to just be a cheap knockoff of the real thing.

#kristoph gavin #aa4 #apollo justice ace attorney #im just thinkin thoughts here #dont know why im in such a creepy mood right now #maybe halloween has something to do with it #srsly i need to do some analysis on some other characters lol #and ignore this rat man #btw im totally up to analyze specific characters and interactions #lmk #maybe nahyuta?#or phoenix and trucy #or phoenix and apollo...aaa

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blissfulsaturn · 4 years

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Story time:

I don't know if anyone cares or wants to read this, but I'm gonna tell y'all when and why did i start believing in Charmie. So buckle up, who ever is reading this.

I've been a part of a lot of fandoms and they were usually about movies/TV shows/actors/actresses. I've always been a shipper of characters and not actors, I'd search their pictures by their character's names, read and write fanfics about the characters, i did everything that involved just their characters. Example : i used to ship Stiles and Derek from Teen Wolf, just them, not Dylan O'Brien or Tyler Hoechlin, same thing with the Maze runner, i shipped Newt and Thomas, and now Thomas Brodie Sanger and Dylan O' Brien (oh Dylan...lol) etc.

And then i saw Call me by your name, and i was shipping (still do) Elio and Oliver, but there was something more to it, i couldn't wrap my finger around it, something was missing, like it wasn't enough that it was just them. So i went online and watched all the interviews with Timothée and Armie.

Honestly, something you need to know about me, i was never involved in a private life of a celebrity or knew all this PR, Hollywood, fake relationships shit until i came here on Tumblr. So when i watched the interviews i was like "Aww they're such good friends, they're really close if they talk like that and touch each other like that, if they compliment each other like that etc", because i was like "You can't ship two actors, are you insane?? Armie's happily married with two kids, his wife looks good (on photoshopped pics, i never zoomed in her eyes and jaw), and Timmy's definitely straight and all that bs."

So time goes by, and I'm still shipping just Elio and Oliver, and Armie and Timothée like bros and good friends (that rolled around naked on bed, and made out for 10+ minutes).

And then TIFF happened and that was a breaking point for me. Even before TIFF when Timmy showed up after being a ghost for 6 months, and he showed up for Armie Hammer. That kind of spiked in my book, that was the first time i gave myself a permission to believe there's more to it than just friends. And then the TIFF hug and everything that happened at TIFF.

So i joined Tumblr and realized i wasn't the only one with that opinion, it was good but still wasn't enough for me. Now, I've seen Charmie being spread around and never really took it seriously, like i saw them as nothing but friends. But that hug, that hug was...everything to me. I'd think of Armie being married and then the hug, I'd think Timmy's probably straight, and then the hug. The TIFF hug undid all the doubts i had of them being just friends.

Then SSIFF happened and the rumor about Tim going to dinner with LRD and then his eyes, those sad eyes, he wasn't sick, we've seen him being sick, it wasn't the same. No, those eyes were pure sadness and anxiety, and i remember seeing him like that and all I wanted to do is fly over to Spain to hug him for whatever reason.

Fast forward to the first Central Park picture of Tim and Lily.

That's when i got very suspicious. Okay, they were at TIFF and SSIFF, there was no interaction, that rumor of them going to the same dinner was just a rumor until the black and white picture came out months later (where Timmy looked like he was holding some sort of guard), how come this relationship just sparked out of nowhere? (Lily was on the set for 2 weeks, no time to fall in love) Then Mud happened, then those pictures from the rain, then those from Central Park, and all the gossips and rumors and made up stories...everything was so suspicious to me. So i log onto Tumblr again and saw all the theories and i tried to develop my very own.

If Charmie was just a fantasy, and it was made up by couple of people on the internet, then it shouldn't bother anybody, because it was just a fantasy, and this relationship began so close to the TIFF hug that got me thinking "What if it's not just a fantasy but something real, and they're covering something up?". Because, let's face it, not in a millions of years would I ever put Timmy and Lily together in a relationship. He was Tim, and she was very problematic (from family to drugs, lbr). It got me to question either Timmy and his choice of women, or his PR team (I learned that here). But Timmy went on being his perky self and this relationship just stunk to the core.

And from that point on, everything was smooth sailing.

Maybe I've gotten far into something I shouldn't have, but the point is, the reason why i started to believe in Charmie is because of the fake relationship. It was too close to them being publicly affectionate and too far from thinking Tim would really fall for a woman like that. I'm sure Lily's okay in a closed room alone, but in public, i don't like her very much and it has nothing to do with Tim, or me being a jealous person that wants Tim all for myself (he's not my type), i wouldn't follow someone like her and her insights in the world. Simple as that.

After that, i turned the film around and realized that they've probably been "together" since CMBYN promo or so. The fact that "friendship" like Tim's and Armie's had to be covered by a fake girlfriend and a wife that was rather a control freak, then i got my thoughts straight.

Now i know what we say about Tim and Lily, and Armie and Liz, they could all be legit and really in love and happy, but...i just don't see it. And i know what we say about Tim and Armie could be false, or it could be true, we're just speculating, but my God, when all the pieces are put together, when all the videos of them gawking at each other, their body language, their eyes and compliments, just them being them...it's hard to see them as just friends and co-stars. They went through something when they were filming CMBYN, and I seriously doubt they stopped at that. I think this movie awoke something in both of them and they deepened the bond and it got them where they are now.

So, thank you PR teams for making me believe in Charmie, you did a shitty job and each time you screw up a bit, I believe in them even more, because the more you try to cover something up, the more real it gets for me. And it's not just them, it's the entire picture, this is very simple and people with logical thinking can see it also.

Conclusion : I am a Charmie, i love and support both Armie and Timmy separately and together, i don't like Lily and i think Liz is very...something. No hate, this is just my opinion on all this.

Have a great day, sorry for the long post, here's some Charmie love.❤️

#charmie

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honhonluigi · 3 years

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Hinanami is basically the bland, white-bread version of Naegiri... and so much worse. They really tried to do the whole "put the protagonist with the emotionless stoic girl" but did a terrible job

They didn’t even try to do that, though. The fans did. Chiaki and Hajime don’t have a single real conversation the entire game. He’s not her friend. He doesn’t care about her. Aside from trials and investigations, where they’re focused on solving a murder and they talk to everyone in equal measure, they never speak to each other. Nekomaru spends more time with Hajime than Chiaki does. Hinanami is not canon. Never once in the game is Chiaki implied to mean anything to Hajime at all. He never talks to her. They’re not even friends. It’s the fans who started shipping them and acting like they were best friends. Because Chiaki was a fan-favorite, and fan-favs always get shipped with protags (Ex: Rantaro and Shuichi, who haven’t had a single conversation). Chiaki was supposed to be a fan-fav. She was supposed to be Waifu-bait. But then the cash-grab shitty spinoff anime happened, and they saw how much the fans like Chiaki, so they shipped her with Hajime in the anime. But in the games? Hinanami isn’t even close to canon. Hajime spends more time with literally everyone else except maybe Peko and Hiyoko? He and Chiaki do not have a single authentic conversation.

I made a whole thesis about this. I wrote a whole god damn paper about how Hinanami isn’t canon. It’s somewhere on this blog if you dig. It’s NOT canon. People only assume that it’s canon because of the anime, which came after the games. And if you think the anime is canon? Well, I’ve got a surprise for you. The anime completely goes against the game canon of everything to do with Despair’s founding, the Kamukura Project, and Junko/Mukuro in general. The anime says Chiaki was a real student at Hope’s Peak, but the game? In the game, both Chiaki and Alter Ego say straight up that she never existed outside the Neo World Program. She wasn’t a real person. The anime isn’t canon. The anime was nothing but fan-service. A cash grab. Completely and utter shit. Would you say the How To Train Your Dragon TV show is more canon than the movies? Fuck no! Same with the anime. The games are canon, not the anime. If Hinanami happened in the animes, it doesn’t fucking matter, because Chiaki didn’t even actually exist in the games.

Point is, people only assume Hinanami is canon because of the anime. But in the game, there’s nothing to imply that they’re a couple, or even friends. Let’s take a look at DR couples, shall we? There’s three types of DR relationships. We’ll take a brief look into each.

1. Chapter One Love Interest (AKA: The Red Herring)

You’re probably familiar with this one. It’s the ‘tutorial girl’. You meet them first. They become the protag’s best friend. The MC trusts them. They show the MC around, they get introduced to everyone together, and basically you spend the whole prologue and Chapter 1 getting close to them. You’re supposed to think ‘Oh, they’ll escape with the MC and be their love interest in the end’ even though it’s totally predictable that they end up dying. They end up dying in the first trial because they betrayed the MC by getting involved with a, unsuccessful murder somehow. This was Sayaka and Kaede. (I already went over on this blog why Kaede was a red herring, not a protag. She was only ‘protag’ to avoid people predicting that she would die in chapter 1 like all the other ch 1 friends.) Sayaka is friends with Makoto but ends up trying to kill Leon and getting murdered. Kaede is friends with Shuichi but ends up being executed for trying to kill Rantaro.

What about Chiaki? Does she fit any of that? Fucking no she doesn’t. After her introduction, Hajime ignores her for all of Chapter 1. And ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5, etc etc... But anyway. She’s not his best friend in Ch 1. They don’t talk. She doesn’t get involved in an unsuccessful murder in Ch 1. Who’s Hajime’s friend then? Who shows him around? Who does he trust who ends up betraying him by getting involved in unsuccessful murder during the first trial? Oh yeah-- Nagito. He would’ve died if it wasn’t for his luck saving him. He was supposed to die in his murder, or be executed. But his luck got in the way. Nagito was the chapter 1 love interest. He literally follows the same exact beats as Kaede and Sayaka. But uhhh...Sayaka and Kaede are totally valid love interests, but Nagito isn’t! Why? (Hint: It’s because he’s gay and has a mental illness.)

2. Plot Twist Love Interest (AKA: The Shady One)

This love interest comes on after the Red Herring love interest dies in chapter 1. This love interest starts off as being someone that you don’t trust, who avoids you, who acts super shady and suspicious the whole time. They hide things, act cryptic in trials, and know way more than they let on. They act rude sometimes, but also nice and helpful sometimes, to the protag so that MC has no idea how this person feels about them. The MC is curious, but also wary of them. This person ends up disappearing towards the end of the game so that MC doesn’t have access to them anymore. We lose the option for their free-time events at some point. This person disappears because they’re hell-bent on figuring out the mystery behind the killing game. They end up getting involved in some kind of plot to reveal the truth/mastermind/traitor and then it fails, resulting in their death or the death of someone else. This person gets falsely accused of being the mastermind by the rest of the cast. This describes, to a tee, Kyoko. People acknowledge Kyoko as Makoto’s love interest (because she’s a girl!). But this describes Kokichi too. The role that Kokichi and Kyoko play is the exact same in the story. Now, I don’t think that Shuichi was at all in love with Kokichi, but I think Kokichi had a crush on him. (This is why I make a case that Byakuya shouldn’t be in the ‘unholy trinity’. Kyoko should. Byakuya hits none of the plot requirements for that. He’s just a dick. Also, by all rights, Shuichi’s second love interest probably should’ve been Maki. She was shady enough, and he actually had a chance to like her. But fuck that. They did NOT go that route. Abusive comphet KaiMaki all the way, right?)

Anyway, let’s look at Chiaki for this one, shall we? Suspicious? Well, I knew from Ch 1 investigation that she was the traitor, but no one else did. No one in the cast suspects her of a thing the entire time. They’re completely flabbergasted when she hints that she’s the traitor. They all think she’s perfect. No one ever suspects her of a thing. She doesn’t disappear mysteriously. We don’t lose access to her free-time events. She doesn’t look into the mysteries behind the killing game (because she already knew them). She may help in trials, but she’s not cryptic or mysterious about it. She acts super mega ultra fucking rude the MC, but he doesn’t care, and he’s never torn up in puzzlement over “how she really feels about him” the way that Makoto and Shuichi get frustrated with Kyoko and Kokichi. She doesn’t hatch any plot to try and expose the truth. She does everything she can to cover up the truth until Nagito forces it. Which brings me to my next point. Who does this actually describe? Oh-- Wait! It’s Nagito again!! He follows, line for line, the exact same plot that Kyoko does, and so does Kokichi. So...Why is Kyoko the only one who gets to be a love interest instead of a villain? (Hint: Because Nagito and Kokichi are gay and you could argue that both have mental illnesses.)

The only part of this that Chiaki actually fits is the “knows more than everyone else”. But she doesn’t actually. She doesn’t figure it out because she’s smart, like the other three characters. She knows already because she’s the traitor. She knows more in the way that Sakura, Tsumugi, and Mukuro “knew more”. They were given that information. They are not love interests. And yeah, Chiaki uh...’gets involved’ in a scheme to find out the truth. But not of her own plotting or fruition. It’s Nagito’s plan, and she gets involved because he planned it. In the same way that Makoto ended up taking the fall for Kyoko’s botched first attempt at revealing the truth, too. Makoto, Chiaki, and Kaito took the fall for those plans. They weren’t the cause of them. Makoto only didn’t die because his luck (+ Alter Ego) saved him, just like Nagito’s saved him in ch1.

3. Side-Character Relationships

This is the last and third type of DR relationship. The love between side characters, like Taka & Mondo, Tenko towards Himiko, K1-B0 & Miu, Sakura & Aoi, Kaito & Maki. Honestly, you can’t even compare Hinanami to this logic, because Hajime is an MC. But let’s be generous and do it anyway.

These couples are always super obvious. Since you can’t see them through the eyes of the MC all the time, they’re even more obvious than MC ships. Side-characters in love spend tons of time together outside of trials and investigations. They’re with each other in their free time. They talk about each other all the time. They’re always together. They talk openly about their ‘friendship’ and how much they mean to each other. We get cutscenes showing the love between the two. Even in KaiMaki, which I hate, all of this is present.

What about Chiaki? Nah. She never talks about Hajime, and Hajime never talks about her. He never even thinks about her at all. He never seeks her out. They never ever have a single conversation in their free time. Unless you, the player, chose to do her free time events, they never talk outside of trials. They don’t seek each other out. They don’t spend any of their free time together. They don’t talk about how much they’re friends or lovers. They’re never together. They only get 2 cutscenes when they’re alone together: one of which is investigating Nagito’s room and revealing a major hint that Chiaki is a robot; the second of which is after she dies, wrapping up the plot that she is, in fact, a robot. These cutscenes don’t serve to show how much they care about each other. These cutscenes aren’t about Hajime at all. He might as well not even be there. It’s not like they have meaningful conversations. It’s just about finishing off Chiaki’s boring story, because it’s required. Compare: Taka & Mondo, whose cutscene is them fucking in the sauna. K1-B0 and Miu, whose cutscene is them fucking in Miu’s lab. Hina and Sakura, whose cutscene is Sakura telling Hina that she loves her. Kaito and Maki, whose cutscenes are them hugging and spending time together bonding over mutual interests. Chiaki’s seem pretty fucking stale compared to those, right? Yeah, because her only cutscenes are about bare-bones investigation and trial shit. Lots of people get investigation cutscenes. Doesn’t make them love interests. Chiaki and Hajime never spend free time together. They never seek each other out, have real conversations, or bond over mutual interests. They only talk during trials and investigations. Let me say this again, because I cannot emphasize it enough: HAJIME DOES NOT EVEN EVER THINK ABOUT HER.

4. Elements of Any and All DR Relationships

Now, there are elements of relationships that all DR ships have, regardless of if they involve the MC or not. The two characters spend free time together, outside of investigations and trials. The two characters have plot-related interactions outside of trials and investigations. (This is especially true in cases with the MC. Think how many plot-related scenes we got with Kaede + Shuichi, Sayaka + Makoto, Kyoko + Makoto that happened outside of trials and investigations?) These two characters have at least one heartfelt cutscene alone together. Like I mentioned above, they talk all the time. They think about each other. They talk about each other. Someone always makes a joke about the MC being in love with them.

Like I already pointed out, Chiaki has none of this. She and Hajime spend exactly 0 free-time together, unless the player forces it to happen themselves. They don’t talk. They don’t have plot-related cutscenes, discussions, storylines, etc outside of trials/investigations. They never speak to each other outside of trials/investigations. They don’t spend time together. They don’t have plots involving each other. They don’t seek each other out. They don’t talk to each other. They don’t even think about each other. And absolutely no one in the cast makes a joke about Hajime and Chiaki getting together. Fun fact: Kazuichi makes more moves toward/thinks more about getting with Chiaki in one scene than Hajime does in the entire game. Another Fun Fact: Nekomaru spends more one-on-one time with Hajime than Chiaki does. Where’s my die-hard fans insisting that Nekomaru x Hajime is indisputably canon?

Who has all of the above criteria? Mikan. Mikan does. She’s infinitely more of a love-interest to Hajime than Chiaki.

Now I’m gonna go over some popular arguments I see for why Chiaki is a love interest, and I’m gonna destroy them.

“She’s The Helper Character.” That character doesn’t exist. That’s a fucking lie. Literally everyone talks in trials. Everyone helps in trials. Everyone helps in investigations. There is no singular ‘helper’ character. There’s no assistant. There’s no side-kick. Kaito helps Shuichi in trials. Maki does too. Are they his love interests? Byakuya helps in trials. He’s not Makoto’s love interest. Nagito helps in trials and people are pretty fucking insistent that he’s not Hajime’s love interest. Everyone helps in trials. In a trial/investigation, the MC has to talk to literally everyone. They have no choice. The fact that Hajime talks to Chiaki in an investigation, or listens to her in a trial, is not evidence of him favoring her. Chiaki talking so much in trials and investigations is supposed to be dropping hints at her being the traitor. Not her being a “helper” to Hajime.

“What About The Swimsuit Scene?” “Hajime was totally drooling over Chiaki in that scene!” Yeah, he was. Because he’s a teenage boy and she was wearing a super slutty bikini. Literally everyone, boy and girl, in that scene looked at Chiaki and went “Jeez Chiaki...That’s a...bold swimsuit.” She wore a skimpy swimsuit and Hajime thought it was hot. So did Kazuichi. Kazuichi drooled over her WAY more than Hajime. Is Kazuichi automatically Chiaki’s love interest? Hajime also drooled over Peko when she walked in. Because he’s a teenage boy, and there’s hot girls in skimpy bathing suits. Also, Hajime talks nonstop through the entire fucking game about how hot and beautiful and amazing Sonia is. And he never once even has a thought about Chiaki. But uh...Nah, Sonia’s not his love interest. It’s totally Chiaki, right?

“The ‘I’m Taking My Top Off’ Comment.” Yeah, Chiaki said that to Hajime. And Hajime freaked the fuck out. He didn’t want it to happen. He was like “WAIT WHAT!?” He wasn’t “oh fuck yeah, let me see those gamer titties!” Maybe Chiaki was flirting with him, but Hajime definitely didn’t flirt back. At the very least, it shows that he wasn’t expecting it, because he never thinks of her that way. Hajime didn’t respond to that line at all. Also, the only reason Chiaki even said that in the first place is because she was made to be fap-material for Otaku Gamer Bros. So of course they’re going to make her talk about her boobs, give her a slutty swimsuit, and make her boobs three sizes bigger when she wears it. (It’s true! I checked! Also, does this mean that Chiaki is a closet sex freak? Yikes...Well, it’s more interesting than everything else she’s got going on.) Point being, when she brought it up (and she was joking, for a reminder. She wasn’t serious.), Hajime didn’t want anything to do with it.

“Junko blackmails them about ‘The Girl You Love’.” Yeah, okay, I’ve never actually seen people make this argument. And I better never fucking see that. Because it’s so god damn obvious, and stupid. Junko’s lines are basically “you need to hurry up and make a decision, because the bodies of the girl you love and the boy you hate are in the real world wasting away.” She is talking to everyone, but specifically, she’d just been goading Fuyuhiko on about Peko. This line. Is clearly. About Peko. It’s about Peko. It’s not fucking about Chiaki. And I better never see anyone claim this. Why not? Why can’t it be about Chiaki? SHE’S NOT FUCKING REAL!!! She doesn’t have a body! She’s not wasting away! She has no body outside the Neo World Program! This line literally cannot be about her. Even if you go by the anime and say she did exist, she’s still fucking dead, and still doesn’t have a body to waste away in the first place. Chiaki and Alter Ego BOTH say that she doesn’t exist outside the Neo World Program!!!

“Then Why Did She Appear to Hajime in the Last Trial?” Because of plot convenience. That’s all. See, we’re not supposed to know she’s an AI. (Even though it’s incredibly obvious). When she is executed, we’re not supposed to know that she’s an AI programmed by the Future Foundation. We’re supposed to be like “Why did she do that? Why did she say all those weird things? Why was she the traitor?” We’re supposed to have all these unanswered questions. (I mean, I already knew all of that from ch 1, but the game clearly tries to keep you from suspecting Chiaki at all.) So, if she’s dead and executed, how can we finish her story? How are we going to get a chance to wrap up all those unanswered questions? She appears to Hajime and tells him. She reveals it all to him, answers all the viewer’s questions, and finishes her story. That’s it. She appears to him out of convenience to finishing her own plot. Why him? Why him specifically? Is it because they’re in love? Nah bitch, it’s because he’s the main character and the only way the audience could see their questions answered at all is if she appeared to him. She also appeared to Sonia, as Sonia specifically states. Is Sonia her canonical, definite, not-possibly-arguable love interest? No. Sonia’s love interest is Gundham. If seeing Chiaki had something to do with love, then why did she see her too?

“But Her Free Time Events End With Them In Love.” Yeah, so does everyone else’s. Nagito’s, Akane’s, Kazuichi’s, Mikan’s...Sayaka’s, Toko’s, Kyoko’s...Kokichi’s, Kaito’s...Everyone’s free time events end with them falling in love with the MC. That’s the point of FTEs. That’s the reason why no actual ships are explicitly canon in any DR games. Because they want the player to have the chance to get close to, and pursue a relationship with, whatever characters they choose. That can’t work if that character is dating someone. So they make all FTEs end in love confessions, and they let no ships become canon. You can choose literally any character, go through their free time events, and have them fall in love with you. It’s for the player. It’s not canon. And sure, those FTEs might not specifically end in an outright love confession (like Nagito’s does), but it’s pretty fucking obvious in every single one that you win them over and fall in love. Why do you think you get their underwear? Even Toko, canonically smitten with Byakuya, goes “I’m already in love with master, but...” Sideways glance, smile, “You can think of me if you want...” It exists for the player, and can be done with ANY character. It doesn’t speak to any special privilege for Chiaki.

And just a couple more things I have to say on this topic:

Hajime didn’t like her. Hajime doesn’t fucking like Chiaki. I’m not gonna say that he hates her, but he definitely doesn’t like her. Whenever he has to talk to her, he’s always thinking about how weird she is, how childish she’s being, and how rude she is for talking over him/falling asleep when he talks. He doesn’t enjoy talking to her. I did Chiaki’s first two FTES, and Hajime hated every god damn second of them. He thinks she’s rude, boring, weird, and childish. He thinks about that stuff any time he’s forced to talk to her. When he finds her diary, he goes “God, this is awful, it’s like a five-year-old wrote it.” Why would you think that he likes her??? (You know who Hajime really fucking despises? Gundham. God, talk to Gundham and read Hajime’s thoughts. He’s fucking brutal. This guy has a huge beef...)

So Who’s Hajime’s Actual Love Interest?

Everybody!!! This is actually a theory I cooked up. I think each MC gets a ch 1 love interest (Sayaka, Nagito, Kaede), and then a second plot-twist love interest, but it happens in different ways each time. Kyoko and Makoto get together all nice and neat. Shuichi has a second love-interest who likes him, but Shuichi absolutely does not like him back. Hajime’s second love interest? Everyone. Hajime has this kind of curse where the second someone captures his interest/gets interested in him, they die. I noticed in the game that they’d push characters on Hajime hardcore, and then kill them the next chapter. Now, this happens in every game. But in Hajime’s case, they weren’t just pushed on him as characters. They all flirted with him. One of the reasons why I think almost everyone in the class had a crush on Hajime. First, it’s Nagito, and Impostor confides in Hajime and Teruteru flirt with him too. Then, they either get killed or get taken away (and chained up for three days without food, water, or bathroom access). Next, Mahiru starts flirting with Hajime by bossing him around and always seeking him out. I don’t think Hajime liked her back, but she liked him. And then she dies. After that, Mikan flirts with Hajime, spends time with him, gets cutscenes cuddling with him, hits on him, and other people even make jokes about them fucking. Then she dies. Hajime becomes closer friends with Ibuki, then she dies. Hajime starts to get close to Nagito again. Then he goes crazy and dies. Hajime showed a ton of interest in Sonia, but then she goes for Gundham. Hajime gets close to Kazuichi, but then he goes for Sonia. Hajime is cursed. I think everyone in the game got an inkling of being Hajime’s love-interest before they died/got taken away. With the exceptions of Peko, Hiyoko, Gundham, Akane, Fuyuhiko, and Nekomaru. I think they give Hajime a person who he likes/likes him, and then immediately take them away before any relationship can be formed.

Now, I guess this is the time where you could make a case that Chiaki fits. “Well, he gets close to her, and then he loses her!” But actually, that kind of doesn’t fit. He gets close to her only after she’s already dead. And he’s only ‘close to her’ for one conversation, after she’s already dead. He doesn’t get to spend any quality time with her before she dies. Even if you wanted to make that claim, it still wouldn’t make Chiaki any more of a love interest than Mahiru or Teruteru or Impostor. She wouldn’t be the one-and-only, indisputable, only option for Hajime. Based on evidence in the game, I don’t think Hajime actually had a crush on Teruteru, Impostor, or Mahiru. I think they liked him, but I don’t think he ever would’ve liked them back. And that’s the only way I can see Chiaki being even a little bit his love interest. In this world, where pretty much everyone gets to be his love-interest at some point. In a world where she crushes on him but he doesn’t like her back. Because he doesn’t. That’s obvious in his thoughts and actions. (He reacts worse to Peko and Fuyuhiko’s execution than he does to Chiaki’s, btw.)

But I really don’t think she’s his love interest. She’s definitely not “the” love interest. She’s not the only one. She’s not the “canon” one. She’s not his canon love interest at all. That’s not at all what the evidence in the game points to.

If my crackpot theory isn’t true, then I’d say Hajime’s love interests are Nagito and/or Mikan. Maybe Sonia. They’re the ones that he actually spends time with, and have all of the criteria that are set by literally every other DR couple. He has none of that with Chiaki. Honestly, I think Nagito is the more prominent love interest. I think Mikan and Sonia definitely had their spots too, but Nagito fills the role of both first and second love-interest. He hits literally every single beat of Kaede and Sayaka, but also of Kyoko. Whether or not Hajime loved him by the end is debatable. Sometimes I doubt it. But he loved him at first, and Nagito loved Hajime the whole time. And Hajime was destroyed after Nagito’s death. But even though Nagito hits every single point of being a love interest compared to Sayaka, Kaede, and Kyoko...He’s still not allowed to be a valid love interest for Hajime. If you think Komahina is canon, then you’re just “biased”. You’re just looking “through your shipping goggles.” Even though Nagito’s story is literally both kinds of love interest mixed together. Nah, nah, nah. Who cares about evidence? Clearly I’m just biased. Clearly I’m just “using shipping goggles” to see what I want to see. Because... *looks at smudged writing on hand* Hinanami, the ship with no evidence at all, it definitely 100% canon and Komahina, the ship with all the evidence you could ask for, could never be canon at all. I’m just stupid. Right? Right. And why? Because Nagito is a gay guy with a mental illness!!!!!

I despise KaiMaki, but I still acknowledge that it’s at least partially canon because it was in the game. But I don’t acknowledged Hinanami, because it was never canon. It was never even hinted at. Nobody better come onto my blog arguing that Hinanami is canon in the fucking slightest. I can’t deal with that bullshit. It’s not canon. This is my second essay on the subject. (I wrote a huge essay listing all the reasons they weren’t canon, and yet I was still able to find MORE evidence against them for this one? Wow, that’s a lot of proof that they aren’t indisputably canon.) I’m fine if you want to ship them. You can be like “they had a lot of potential for a relationship!” You can be like “I think Chiaki had a crush on him!” or “I think Hajime would’ve liked her!” That’s fine. You can do that all you want. Like any other DR ship. But don’t go around being like “NO, it’s DEFINITELY canon!!! No other ship is canon because Hinanami is canon and it’s completely indisputable! You’re wrong and stupid!!” It’s not canon. No DR ship is canon. You can ship them but please, do it like any other DR ship. Ship them because you saw potential, but don’t cram it down everyone’s throat as ‘must be canon’.

Hinanami is the only ship that does that. It’s the only ship that is insisted to be 100% canon with no disputing evidence whatsoever. People dispute Kaede and Shuichi. People dispute Kaito and Maki. People dispute Kyoko and Makoto all the fucking time. Every other ship is flexible, except that one. “Hinanami is the only canon ship and no other ship is valid or matters, you can’t ship Hajime with anyone else, all the other ships pale in comparison because Hinanami is so canon, and you’re just a biased delusional idiot if you ever dare to imply otherwise!!!” Stop it. It’s not canon. I should be able to make a valid case for another ship without being immediately shot down because of Hinanami. No other DR ship does that. Quit. I hate seeing everyone insisting that it’s canon. Acting like it’s just “common sense” that it’s canon. It’s not. There’s no fucking evidence for it AT ALL. But it makes me feel like a crazy person whenever I see people insisting that, as if I’m the only one who missed the scene where they fucked without protection or something. If everyone is allowed to dispute literally every other ship, then it should be the same for Hinanami. The “canon” ship with absolutely -67% evidence towards it.

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Dylan is a Mary Sue

*look I know that the symbiote has a name and Venom is both it and Eddie. So I hope you don’t get annoyed when I refer to the symbiote as Venom because writing symbiote 100 times gets annoying and I hope you get what I mean when I call it that.

I’ve been trying to write this like nine times because I don’t want to bash this character. When I wrote the post about how I didn’t want Dylan Brock near Miles, I intentionally left out the reason why because I like the character. I hate the purpose and narrative mind behind him. And plus I don’t want to seem like I bash white cis het male characters when the characters I do trash on are bad because writers tend to make them intentionally bratty. I don’t like Spider-kid, Damian Wayne when written without consequence(he is white passing), Jason Todd,or Alpha. Like giving a character a shitty attitude doesn’t make him endearing especially on a male, I’m sorry. Characters like Tim Drake, Alex Power, and Dick Grayson work because there is something genuine in them that they want to be the good of the world.

Anyways, Dylan is fun to me because he has this precocious roguishness that isn’t malevolent nor out of place. His abuse is actually abuse that isn’t made to serve as his training or whatever nor does it warps his views. And his fandom in Eddie/Venom actually makes sense because he is a kid that was abandoned by his mother and left with an emotionally and physically abusive man who would cut him down. A dark passenger like Venom appeals to him because Venom is like the codifier of misguided anger for misguided teens.

But there is a reason why he is written that way: he is a Mary-Sue. Now I don’t care about the gender preconceptions of Mary Sue vs Gary Stu nor do I try to prescribe to reclaiming Mary Sue in some vain attempt at liberal feminism. Mary Sue is bad writing unless everyone gets to play(Mary Sues work in video games). Mary Sue is something writers in most mediums that tell stories should avoid if they want said character to succeed or evoke if you want said character to be disliked. And Dylan Brock is an example that doesn’t work and is largely getting away with it because he is cute.

1. The Immaculate Conception of Dylan Brock

This is when I knew some Sue shit was unleashed on Venom fans. I don’t have to google it but I can guess that Cates has a Catholic background. Whether he is one or raised one, it is apparent in whatever meaningful writing depth he provides outside of meaningless action. And it works because Eddie Brock, being anti-Peter Parker, is Catholic. Hence the brooding and self-loathing and abusive paternity and motifs of redemption and suffering and shit. But this was not only fucked up, but a little too on the nose.

Dylan wasn’t conceived naturally. In fact, Anne Weying was raped by the symbiote and impregnated with Eddie’s DNA. So Dylan is actually the child of the Venom and Eddie Brock. “But Anne is his mother.” Look, Cates didn’t actually consider Anne so I won’t either. Outside of the fact that it doesn’t make sense chronologically since Peter was like in his early 20s when he had the Symbiote and is at most 29 now, Anne is just a vehicle for Cates’ to necessitate the purity of Dylan Brock. Dylan is the pure child of Venom, born from the womb of Eddie’s first girlfriend/fiancé/wife/whatever and the first human woman to wear a symbiote, I think. I mean she didn’t even have sex with Eddie and boom, mini Eddie Brock is wrapped in cloth and left at the meager doorstep at the sacred house of Eddie. Praise Venom, y’all.

Jokes aside, I don’t know how Venom fans just didn’t go, “Iight, Imma head out” after reading this page. Just shows the conviction of fandom.

But I digress. Now let me regale you just how improbable this is which again only serves to ordain Dylan is the truest son of Venom in all the ways possible and also highlight the very unfortunate implications of this fuckery. Symbiotes bond is how they reproduce. When they reproduce with their host, the end result up to this point has always been a symbiote. For Mass Effect fans, it’s the Asari thing except with goo. Before you ask, yes Symbiotes sexually satisfy their hosts unlike the majority of human men*cough*. Point is that Dylan should be biologically impossible but somehow he is a human symbiote hybrid. And the unfortunate implications of such of incident shouldn’t go unnoticed either. Venom and Eddie have several children and prior to this, all of them have been symbiote. Cletus and Red also have children too and again symbiote. In fact, all symbiote bonds produce symbiotes as far as male hosts are concerned...except for the brief bond of Ann Weying and Venom Symbiote. Gee I wonder why she got a different result? Well there are a few female hosts and surprising none of them have spawned a symbiote child. So logically it can be assumed that woman + symbiote = forced impregnation of symbiote. Well this shit got dark. The symbiotes just became the Jeffrey Epstein alien species. But since Cates swears up and down that is not what is happening, he is going for the God/Virgin Mary angle for some reason.

It’s almost like he is the descendent of the Symbiote God. If only there was such a thing.

Welllllll shit.

2. Dylan is incorruptible and all-powerful without knowing why or how

Okay, backstory time because I never properly explained Knull, another of Cates shoddy creations. Knull is the galactic god emperor of the Symbiotes who created the Symbiotes as a weapon to rule the galaxy. Aside of the fact that his existence retconned the previous backstories of the symbiote, he has the ability to domesticate the symbiotes and make them subservient to him.

Guess who else has this ability.

Dylan is symbiote Jesus, hallelujah. This explains the Church of Carnage/Knull/Grendel/who gives a shit. He is the true son of Abraham and Carnage is the false prophet of Venom. It’s what Christianity considers Islam to be or some shit and both Dylan and Sleeper are about to nail the 95 thesis on the door of Carnage in the form of the greatest mixtape you ever heard.

Look, I too am astounded of the sentences my mind comes up with when I so thoroughly hate a writing like I hate Donnie Cates’ Venom.

Dylan goes beyond being just a special snowflake that was forcefully and crudely implemented. He is the pre-ordained established opposite of the nature of corruption that Knull created the symbiotes for. To Knull, the symbiotes are his thralls. To Dylan, the symbiotes are his pets. To Knull, the symbiotes are a tool to become omnipresent. To Dylan, the symbiotes are individuals who need to be liberated if good. To Knull, there is no such thing as a good symbiote. To Dylan, there is and it’s Venom or sleeper or what have you. Dylan is the forgotten son and the New Testament for symbiote kind.

And he doesn’t know yet.

Okay, this is a common Mary Sue trait to absolve culpability of a Mary Sue character. It’s to say that they are not to blame for being special. It’s like the writing form of don’t hate me because I’m beautiful except somehow more obnoxious. Dylan’s obliviousness to this what is essentially an entire alien species religious revelation is like trivialized because their prophet is a 12 year old. It’s like waiting for a savior only to be told he is a carpenter.

Imma let that last one just marinate for a minute.

Look, Cates did a lot of rewriting and retconning just for his self-insert to become his favorite series and hero to be the second coming. He created this lore for Venom only for his avatar to be the prophet. The intentionality of his obliviousness to how important this is just glazed over the fact like it isn’t a big deal. Just like Cates glazed over the whole rape and forced impregnation thing because somehow that doesn’t warrant a follow up.

3. Dylan Brock is fanboy Cates

Okay before I begin, self-inserts aren’t bad nor are they inherently Mary-Sues. Kong from Ultimate Spider-Man is Bendis’ self-insert. Boomerang from Amazing Spider-Man was rewritten to be Spencer’s self-insert. JJJ is a self insert for Stan fucking Lee like...self-inserts are great. To the degree that they aren’t unnatural to the narrative or overbearing.

Dylan Brock’s previously stated precociousness comes from the idea that Donnie is writing the inner teenager that he was as a kid reading Maximum Carnage for the first time. And I get it, man, live your truth and all. Like yeah, force and subjugate other fans of this series to your childlike inquiries like how Symbiotes poop, I mean it’s not like their fandom is important or anything.

First Dylan is a fanboy of Venom just like he is. And while that makes sense meta-wise, in-narrative it doesn’t because...okay Venom fans are about to tear me apart for this but it’s like someone being a fan of Ted Bundy. His heroics usually came with a body count is all I’m saying and I doubt it would be praised but then again Wolverine has an in-universe fandom so what do I know. Back on topic, Dylan’s fandom and praise of Venom to get him out of the dark place that is his father’s abusive household.

And this is why it’s so hard to hate him because of all the fucked up shit Cates put in this book, Dylan feels like the one character that is genuine and pure in that innocent kind of way. No one hates Dylan and how could you? We all get it. And it helps that Dylan has a completely different voice than every other Cates has written from every other character. Like I can hear the excitement in his voice when he pesters his hero for questions and I’m reading his words. The idolization is pure when he meets Normie, the god son of Spider-Man, and it creates this dynamic of Spider-Man fans vs Venom fans. It’s fun in a way.

But it’s just that. When Cates writes Eddie, he is not only writing to retell Cates own personal past demons but also in the lens of how he viewed Eddie as this tortured soul who just got the wrong interview from a copycat that costs his job. The second banana of a greater and more prominent hero. Born to the wrong person. That none of what happened to Eddie was his fault or really his doing even when he was at his worst wearing Venom, it was Venom who tempted him.

Dylan is that pre-teen who sees the best in everything Venom is: The dark avenger of the abused and neglected. And I don’t want to speculate whether Cates fits the category or not because that ain’t my business, I can see why Dylan would be a compelling self-insert if it weren’t compounded on top of Cates’ forceful insertion into Venom and subsequently Spider-Man lore.

Like you remember Carly Cooper? Dylan is exactly like Carly Cooper. And this is why I like to think of Cates’ run as the equivalent of One More Day. Cates’ retconned a crucial element of Venom to make Dylan necessary to the core of Venom. He retconned the one thing that made Venom and subsequently Eddie go beyond just being a twisted revenge story.

The erasure of Mary Brock, Eddie’s sister and Eddie’s cancer. One is the motivation and the sole good Eddie has ever known. It’s his motivation to move past is mistakes. And Cates then turns the one bond in the series into something...horrific.

Okay, Dylan replaced his sister and Venom itself. His being becomes Eddie’s motivation to be a better person rather the struggle to see himself as more than his upbringing. It’s like reading Spider-Man and finding out Uncle Ben was on crack. Uncle Ben didn’t die. He faked his death. Yeah, that is what this was. So he could evade taxes or some shit. This is exonerated Eddie in the worst way and turned him into a manipulated pawn of Venom. Let’s completely retcon the marriage of MJ and PeterVenom and Eddie, Cates pitches to editorial.

Dylan becomes more than just some kid who idolizes Eddie. He becomes the sole motivation of Eddie himself now. Eddie’s past is now completely erased or made irrelevant to uplift Dylan’s importance to Eddie. It’s too a point that the Symbiote kids of Venom aren’t Eddie’s kids anymore. It’s like Eddie was in an interracial relationship and the one non-brown baby with blue eyes is his one true kid and others are mulatto chocolate eugenic mishaps or some shit that his ass don’t want to deal with anymore. I mean disowning Carnage I understand but come on?

Cates’ self insert changed the entire nature of the series. And for what purpose? To give Venom a legacy just as Peter has one. And that is the problem with Dylan.

@ubernegro

#dylan brock #venom #sleeper #symbiote #eddie brock #long post #donny cates #cates run

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ultravioletsoul · 4 years

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Maybe an unpopular opinion regarding Makarov/Character Analysis (part 1)

Sometimes I read comments of CoD fans saying that Vladimir always was an asshole for apparently no reason, that he was the typical Russian cliché villain doing cliché bad things (such an original concept, I know). And while I do agree that for the most part the games didn’t do a very good job at giving him any significant depth (and he acts like a jerk, it’s true), I also have to say that he’s probably one of the most misunderstood characters in the series. Not because I think he was some poor innocent man who did nothing wrong, but because his villainous portrayal tends to take the spotlight every time he’s onscreen and we literally cannot see anything else beyond that. Which, of course, makes him look very one-dimensional since the game always has to remind you in oh-not-so-subtle ways how evil he is.

The story of MW never goes into full detail as to what drove him to do the horrible things he did. And it’s not clear unless one bothers to analyze some obscure information hidden in the loading cutscene of No Russian and does a little research on the side. In all honesty, I wish his story would have been better explained and developed by other means than just a slideshow of newspaper articles and an overview of his dossier. I would have been content with a special trailer that actually explained his background, rather than have him say some pseudo Sun Tzu lines in a few teasers and let that be the entirety of his character development but okay… I guess this was as far as Infinity Ward’s story-telling capabilities went back then.

Sure, you may think: who the hell cares about his motivations? He was an evil mofo and needed to be put down. Well, unfortunately for these people, I exist and I do care because Vladimir is one of my faves— perhaps my most favorite character in the entire MW universe. And though I like him because he’s an unapologetic baddie, that’s not the only reason.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Vladimir is this super complex character that nobody else gets, but there are definitely some elements that give him a few extra layers and they’re worthy of being analyzed.

Beware, this is going to be a long post and will contain a few historical references. This isn’t a comprehensive breakdown, and I’ll probably make a lot mistakes along the way because I’m not a history buff by any means (please, don’t yell at me ;A;), but it should be a rough explanation of what I think led Vladimir to such extremist views and why I think he’s a good antagonist in Call of Duty. Also it could be a helpful reference for anyone who wishes to write a story about him.

I’m not claiming this is the most accurate interpretation of Vladimir, or that it’s the only valid one, but if any of this information comes in handy or offers a different insight into his character then I’ll consider my mission accomplished.

Without further ado, here we go!

Tagging @sunset-and-periwinkle and @renegad3spectre because they may be interested in this post :v

1. No Russian

So one of the first recollections that come to mind when thinking about MW2 is the infamous mission of No Russian. This kind of content was so violent and crude for its time that it caused quite the controversy and it still divides the opinion between people who think videogames should push boundaries and people who believe there are things that shouldn’t be portrayed in such an offhanded way. Whether including that level in MW2 was a good or terrible choice is not the point of this post. However, I’ll share my personal experience.

Me, back when I played this mission I didn’t give it much thought. I mean… it didn’t have this serious impact on me as I’m guessing the developers intended, from what I’ve read, but that’s mainly because I wasn’t mature enough to make a proper assessment of the story-line and to me CoD games weren’t about deep narratives either. Keep in mind that I was an immature kid and I just wanted to play a game that my brother enjoyed. So yes, without much thought I breezed through No Russian, accomplished the objectives and it wasn’t until the end of the mission that I realized I’d been played like a damn fiddle.

And my first reaction to seeing Makarov killing me was “bro, I thought we were allies”. Never mind the carnage that had ensued moments ago, never mind that I had participated in it. I was more offended by this unexpected 'betrayal' and well... imagine how stupid I was for thinking Vladimir could be my friend. The fact that Allen was a CIA agent completely eluded me and I didn’t understand a freaking thing of what was going on but that was on me. I shouldn’t have been playing those games at my young age because evidently I wasn't ready to handle adult themes like that.

Replaying this mission now that I’m older made me realize how messed up it was, and maybe not for the most obvious reasons. Yeah, innocent people die all around us and that's something we cannot stop from happening, no matter what we do. However, it’s not really necessary for us to hurt civilians to complete the level (we’re not punished for not doing it) so we can be simple witnesses to the brutality ensuing in front of us, which is as equally messed up perhaps. You can even skip the whole mission altogether if you want to, so no biggie: you��re spared the nightmare fuel and you can happily head to Brazil to capture Alejandro Rojas. Heck, you’re even rewarded a glimpse of Ghost ready to torture Alejandro’s assistant and all is back to normal, yay!

However, when you think about it, from the perspective of the story, Allen wasn’t given the option to skip anything. He was pushed to commit a vile deed and ordered to follow Makarov’s lead no matter how morally questionable those actions turned out to be in the end. Shepherd told him that this mission would cost him a piece of himself and he was right about it. Had Allen survived, I’m pretty sure he would have been scarred for life after what he did. I don’t know how he could have lived with himself knowing that he slaughtered all those innocent people. Vladimir killing him off was kind of… an act of mercy in a way, though of course we know he had completely different intentions for doing so.

So people may wonder, why the heck Vladimir carried out that massacre? Some common opinions I read is because he’s an asshole, because he’s crazy, because he wants to make a statement, because he enjoys being a psychopath and hurting others. All these may be true to some extent, we’ll never know for sure, but it’d be very simplistic to just leave it at that without taking into consideration other elements of the story that were left implicit.

I’m going to say that, from my perspective, I didn’t get the impression Makarov enjoyed killing those civilians (but hear me out, neither did he regret it!). It would have been pretty easy to make him this psycho that slaughters people with a smile on his face, but that’s not what we see in No Russian… and perhaps it’s even more terrifying when you realize how casual he is about the whole affair. You really get the impression that he’s a man on a mission and he carries it out in a very no-nonsense manner, does it all with a straight face, without batting an eyelash, without any trace of doubt about what he’s doing, not even a hitch in his voice, absolutely no emotion whatsoever. His actions, his words, his whole demeanor, all scream about being a professional at what he does for better or for worse.

He didn’t know these people, he had no quarrel with them, and yet he killed them all in cold blood. Why? Because they were stepping stones to his goals and there was a very established purpose for that op. To the rest of the world, yea, it may seem like there’s no logical reason for what he did other than he’s nuts but, honestly, Vladimir could care less about that. The only thing that matters to him are the results.

Even if the whole world thinks that he’s insane, in his mind this was the most reasonable course of action. To him it had to be done, there was no other way, and he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger when the time came because he was truly convinced it was the right thing to do. The fact that he (a criminal who’s wanted by the entire world and probably cannot afford to leave himself out in the open) participated in that brutal event shows the utmost importance it had to his plans. Vladimir personally oversaw and carried out the operation, he didn’t leave anyone else in charge because of the very special meaning it had for him. He says “for Zakhaev” before engaging FSB units because this incident would mark the beginning of a new chapter in Russian history, a chapter Vladimir would write in honor of the man who was his friend and mentor— the man who started it all, who gave him a cause to believe in and fight for.

He definitely had his reasons for what he did. They were the wrong reasons of course, but Vladimir didn’t act on a whim nor did he waste his time on matters that didn’t advance his agenda. He didn’t start a war nor massacred hundreds of people at that airport for simple fun and without a solid motive (though this isn’t by any means a justification, it still was a pretty shitty thing to do). We all know that it was a false flag operation, as he wanted to put the blame on the US for the attack. His intention was sparking a war between Russia and America and he was willing to achieve that by any means necessary, even if thousands of his countrymen had to die, even if he had to make common cause with Shepherd (we don’t know under which circumstances and terms), a man who by all accounts should have been his worst enemy— a man who had set up an entire task force for the sole purpose of hunting Vladimir down. And don’t get me wrong, they weren’t buddies, they still hated each other’s guts and would kill the other in a heartbeat, but they were willing to work together towards the same goal because none of them would succeed on their own.

So, ultimately, Vladimir’s objective was riling up the public opinion to push for an invasion of America and provide the Russian government a ‘legitimate’ reason to do it. Does this have 9/11 commentary undertones? Well, I’m not gonna be the judge of that but it could be a possibility.

However, to understand this moment, we’ll have to go much further back in time.

2. His Childhood

This is going to be a huge oversimplification of Soviet history, I’m afraid, so my apologies in advance. Don’t take my word as the absolute truth, this is barely scratching the surface.

According to the information seen in No Russian, and Return to Sender, little Volodya was born on April 10th (not sure how reliable is the wiki since I was convinced he was born on October 4th *shrugs*) of 1970 in Ivanovo, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Or for those who, like me, don’t like those long names, better known as Soviet Russia.

As a curious fact, Ivanovo is known as the City of Brides because it was a very important center of textile industries in the Soviet Union that attracted many young women seeking work. It also has an important historical significance as hotbed for revolutionary activity in czarist Russia and was the city where supposedly the first Bolshevik assembly took place (earning the nickname of City of the First Soviet). During the Second War it proved invaluable as a front city, located close to enemy lines, receiving refuges and injured soldiers of the Red Army that treated their wounds in the many hospitals that were set up for that purpose. Also, in addition to producing armament and fighting in the war, the citizens made good use of their industries and donated huge quantities of fabric to make millions of uniforms.

Back to the topic, next thing we have to wonder is what Vladimir’s life was like as a child born in the 70s. We don’t know much about it and it’s never even mentioned anywhere in the game but, if we had to hazard a guess, he most likely had a relatively happy childhood— raised like any average Soviet kid at the time. His parents were maybe workers, maybe doctors, maybe engineers, maybe teachers, maybe in the military, but they surely weren’t bad people and they wanted their son to be a decent member of society. They didn’t raise him to be a criminal, they didn’t shape him into a monster. If Vladimir had at least one grandfather alive, then he would have served during the Great Patriotic War (a term used in Russia and other former Soviet republics to refer to the conflict in the Eastern Front during WWII). And as a kid, Volodya probably grew up in a typical khrushchyovka apartment with his family. It wasn’t very luxurious but, you know, it wasn’t so bad either and it was home sweet home for them.

Now you gotta imagine what growing up in the Soviet Union was like. Education was heavily influenced by the Communist party and children swam in a sea of propaganda. No, no matter what western propaganda says, they didn’t teach him to hate the west as a kid. Vladimir didn’t want to wipe out Americans from the face of the Earth or skin them alive as you probably imagined at some point, but from a young age he was taught to be proud of being born in the greatest country in the whole world and he pitied the ‘oppressed’ American workers for their lack of Soviet blessings, for being unable to stand up to their imperialist overlords. Heck, this was a popular song in the 80s, when he was about ten years old and probably every Soviet kid sang it at school, including him.

Speaking about that, at school he must have been in contact with several ethnic groups— remember that the industries attracted a lot of people to Ivanovo, particularly women, from many places all over the Soviet Union and, even to this day, Ivanovo is a multi-cultural city with over a hundred nationalities. It’s safe to say that Vladimir would have never given it much thought if someone wasn’t an ethnic Russian nor would he have cared. There weren’t nationalities or differences back then. Everyone was a Soviet citizen and everyone was equal or so it would seem at least, if you ignore the multiple genocides, mass killings, deportations and other horrors of the Stalin era before the Soviet Union adopted a more moderate domestic policy and started a process of de-stalinization after his death— eliminating his cult of personality and other institutions that allowed him to hold autocratic power.

This was also known as the Khrushchev Thaw period, and it was during this time that repression and censorship began to become more lax thanks to Nikita Khrushchev’s policies, and millions of prisoners were released from the gulags. It also opened up the Soviet Union to some economic reforms, trade with other countries, as well as educational and cultural exchanges in the form of foreign uncensored books and movies, music, dances, fashion, and new forms of entertainment in national television. So all this would seem a shift towards a more positive outlook for the Soviet citizens.

Our little Volodya shared and played with other kids in his neighborhood in the playgrounds of the apartment buildings, maybe fell off those Soviet swings and whacked his head a few times but that was okay, he still had fun and laughed and cried like any other child. He grew up listening to old pop music, synth (because people just didn’t listen to patriotic music all the time) and watching Bollywood movies which were all the rage at the time in the USSR as an alternative to western cinema. He had friends, a family that loved him. He spent weekends at the dacha (cottages outside the city) working the land with his family, growing fresh produce. He probably had an affectionate babushka that looked after him, told him many stories, and cooked hearty meals for him because she was a genius at handling finances and feeding the family. She surely was a god-believing woman despite the widespread atheism in a society where the word of Marx and Lenin had an almost religious significance, who took no shit from anyone, and who would chew Vladimir’s head off if he so much went out under-dressed in a breezy day. Even as a grown ass man, she would still intimidate him because you don’t mess with babushkas!

Like a good Soviet kid he was taught to never lie, to help his parents and respect the work of others, to have good manners and not be a spoiled brat, to be considerate and kind to his elders, encouraged to be resourceful, to do things by himself and not expect others to come to his aid, to improve his culture and intellect, to study hard and become someone who would help build the future of socialist paradise. He probably collected silly trinkets like many kids do, he spent his time learning to carve wood and other crafts, reading about the great war heroes and the communist leaders. Year after year he played zarnitsa, a war game for kids and a very popular activity in the Young Pioneers (the Soviet ‘Boy Scouts’, so to speak) that trained young generations for military life, compulsory for every man, cultivating their love for the USSR and preparing them to defend the homeland from the enemy.

Life back then could be tough at times, true, but he must have been quite happy and there was joy to be had. He was raised to be patriotic, a good communist, living in what he believed was a place of peace where all were equals and all were comrades. Having little contact with western influences, he grew up listening to a carefully woven narrative and was told of the decadence of warmonger capitalists that feared the spread of communism so much that they would wage countless wars to stop it and destroy other peace-loving nations. So much could be argued regarding this statement, sure, but this is what he was told and it was during a time when Operation Condor (the US-backed campaign of state terrorism and wave of right-wing dictatorships in Latin America during the 70s-80s) was in full swing to eradicate communism and any Soviet influence from South America. Not to mention the many proxy wars waged throughout these decades, as well.

“For years the western hypocrisy has made the world a battlefield.”

Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers were a thing and the Communist ideology was still going strong even if some started to quietly question it. Not that many did, at any rate, since the dreaded KGB kept a close eye on everyone so dissidents wouldn’t spread the wrong ideas in the Soviet society. Well, at that time maybe you wouldn’t be sent to a gulag just for saying bad things but someone would ‘talk’ some reason into you and there would be subtle threats to tone your attitude down or else your life and that of your relatives could be screwed. Don’t say this, don’t do that, the walls have ears and you’re being watched.

You have to keep in mind that he also grew up under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. And much like American kids, Vladimir would have been greatly concerned about nuclear armageddon and be familiarized with procedures to follow in case such a terrible event came to pass.

The US and Russia pointed nukes at each other for many years and the NATO military exercises of Able Archer— at the peak of Cold War hysteria— didn’t help matters. These were annual exercises but that year of 1983, new elements never seen before had been introduced, and then there was the menace of the new Pershing II nuclear missiles that had been recently deployed in Western Europe. If launched, these would be able to reach their target in less than ten minutes (faster than any other missile known until then), landing with high accuracy and virtually no warning.

Until then the only thing stopping a nuclear war was the threat of mutually assured destruction, but these missiles tipped off the scales in favor of the west, since the Soviets would have no way to retaliate if their command centers or even their own missile launch facilities were targeted. So the Soviet Politburo was very concerned about this situation, in a time when president Reagan poured great efforts to fight the Brezhnev Doctrine (which established the legitimization of military interventions in Eastern bloc states, or any country that became a threat to international socialism) and show the world that the USSR wasn’t indestructible.

The increase in realism of these exercises, the strained relationship with the US under the Reagan administration, previous psychological operations, participation of heads of government in the exercise, and recent deployment of these new ballistic missiles, made the Soviet military believe that the US and NATO were preparing for a preemptive strike and that the exercise was nothing but a ruse. In response, the Soviets readied their nukes, air forces in East Germany and Poland were put on high alert to any funny business, and Soviet intelligence monitored the situation closely for signs of an impeding attack.

After nine days, the exercises came to an end and that was probably the time both countries were the closest to nuclear annihilation since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

So in those years, Vladimir was living under the administration of Leonid Brezhnev famously known for his era of stagnation and also for his passionate kisses (the famous socialist fraternal kiss, you guys :v). Though it’s worthy of being mentioned that in the early 70s the Soviet Union had reached the peak of international power and prestige.

Nikita Khrushchev, Brezhnev’s predecessor, had promised that by the 80s communism would be a reality and maybe that wasn’t so hard to believe at the time. The economy was growing at a rate of about 3% annually and things had started off relatively well in the mid 60s when Brezhnev assumed office. There was full employment, even minimal wage was sufficient to afford basic necessities, healthcare was a given, education in all levels was free and once you finished university or a vocational course, there was a job waiting for you. Things were pretty much settled for everyone. There wasn’t a lot to worry about, not many uncertainties. It was a pleasant predictive life for the most part. Not perfect, by any means, and it had its difficulties but Vladimir’s family felt protected and safe and they had great hopes for the future.

What went wrong then?

To be continued in part 2

#vladimir makarov #call of duty #cod #call of duty modern warfare 2 #modern warfare 2 #i'm sorry for the typos and grammar mistakes #it's midnight here #and i should be going to bed ;A;

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toonstarterz · 5 years

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BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #162

Tanabata has come around once again to offer a generation of high schoolers some false hope in order to distract them from the cruel reality that is life. At least, that’s what the old Tomoko might’ve thought. While the world ultimately didn’t hand everything to her on a silver platter, Tomoko’s half-hearted hope did actually manifest into something she holds dear. The question now remains...

What does she strive for now?

Chapter 162: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Make A Wish

“I wish that Watamote would get a 2nd season!”

Ahem...moving on.

Nothing like a little friendly brooding to start the day.

In a weird, ironic way, Yuri seems to empathize with Tomoko over mutual apathy. The one constant they share is that they both like to take the path of least resistance in life. While Yuri may be a little off the mark at times, having that unspoken bond is a great point to start from.

So we knew Nemo recognized that Tomoko was a former loner, but Yuri, too? Then again, it’s been hinted at before that Tomoko is kind of an open book and that the people around Tomoko are more perceptive of her than she’d like to believe. So yeah, Yuri knew Tomoko barely had friends before she met her (a fact that likely fuels her codependency tendencies). But like any good friend, Yuri stuck around despite that history.

Still can’t get over her casually calling her Yuri-chan.

For a hardcore introvert like Yuri, doing something for the sake of being social with no practical purpose seems illogical. It makes total sense that traditions like Tanabata aren’t really her cup of tea. Just how much Yuri is aware of that is still kind of fuzzy, but no less endearing,

Reiterating a joke I made in the previous chapter, but Tomoko really ought to take a crash course in psychological projection.

Taking a stab at Yuri’s desires, now...I’d say it would be to have someone who really understands her. Or for Minami to lose her fang. Either or.

Wow, I wouldn’t have figured that Ucchi was the type to write in all caps.

I always wondered if the sugar-sweet and dragged-out way that moe anime girls yell “Senpaaai!” was actually grating by real-life Japanese standards. Looks like I was right.

Now those school fan clubs for the ridiculously attractive girl/guy that you sometimes see in manga are starting to feel pretty legit right now.

“Pfft, basic bitches,” thought Tomoko.

Smooth like butter.

You know, I think that Tomoko being unable to come up with something is a solid indication that she’s relatively satisfied with her life right now. Sure, she has career goals and whatnot, but she no longer feels troubled by material desires or short-term gratification. Like Yuri, it may be that Tomoko has more intangible, emotional desires that aren’t easy to put into words. But also like Yuri, Tomoko may have recently already gained that.

Occasionally–just occasionally–a few earnestly pure-of-heart moments from a cute manga girl is all you really need.

...Especially when it’s immediately offset by Tomoko being Tomoko.

Ohhhh, boy. That last comment by Tomoko is opening up all sorts of questions regarding her sexuality. I’ve mentioned before that Tomoko may be dealing with some sort of gender dysphoria and I think that’s becoming more apparent than ever. For one, her totally normal-not-at-all-creepy desire to NTR her kouhai assumes that only a guy could do that to Hirasawa. It also implies that Tomoko would only acknowledge liking girls if she identified as male. Not once did Tomoko consider that she, as a female, could NTR another female. All in all, there’s a bit of internalized homophobia, repressed sexuality, etc. at play here, and it’s going to take a bit of soul-searching for Tomoko to sort it all out.

Once every thousand years, we get some actual chibi art out of this series.

Bless you, Nico Tanigawa.

The best part of this Hirasawa-vision is that Tomoko is drawn exactly the same, just with lighter tones. Hirasawa’s not blind, just optimistic, which makes her heroine-worship so much more earnest.

Normally, super innocent girls like Hirasawa who get overly excited on trivial things tend to rub me the wrong way, mostly because I have a hard time thinking young girls are that simple-minded. But there’s something about Hirasawa that feels genuine. It may be because her excitement feels like its deriving from a sense of loneliness. Like an overreaction from latching onto any lure of female friendship.

It’s also just cute.

Tomoko...I’m pretty sure that’s your confirmation bias talking right there.

We don’t even need to see anything above the waist, but you can tell exactly who this is based on context alone...

I was wondering how Ucchi actually manages to do that Darth Vader thing with her mouth...

...then I remembered how her face looks and it makes perfectly no sense.

Guys, I...I think Ucchi finally broke.

Actually, Miyazaki, it may not be phrased as a wish, but it definitely is a wish...

I really enjoy the little bits of characterization in everyone’s wishes. For Yuri and Tomoko, like the BFFs they are, they have the same, most basic wish since they don’t really have any other burning desires. It’s also short and sweet, and without any fluff, as they would normally be if speaking out loud. And lastly, Yuri doesn’t leave her last name, as if she doesn’t want to attach herself onto her wish that far.

Katou, on the other hand, is all giddy and sweet, using words like “hope” and “together” when effectively making the same wish. She uses “we” without naming anyone, making it an all-inclusive wish. Just what you’d expect from the class mom.

Tomoko’s habit of “lying on reflex” actually makes a great deal of sense. She’s the type who has trouble expressing her vulnerabilities, and lying is a standard defense mechanism, just like Yuri’s noncommital attitude, Nemo’s passive aggression, and whatever Katou most certainly has.

Oh, Yuri, you precious bean. I know jokes aren’t your forte, but your emotional responses–or lack thereof–makes for a great punchline.

Did ya’ll notice how Tomoko’s second wish is exactly what Imae wished for last year? Tomoko may not always make the best decisions when comes to carrying the torch of The Great Megumi Imae, but you can’t deny that she’s making a concerted effort.

Guess Tomoko isn’t the only one with enough nerve to turn a Tanabata wish into a dirty joke...

Damn, we all knew that Fuuka was getting an unhealthy fixation over Katou and Tomoko’s “secret” relationship, but never to the point where it was affecting her studies, and by extension, her after-high school prospects. It hints that the series may be taking this misunderstanding into a direction that’s not entirely played for gags. It’s a risky move because such a development could easily come across as contrived if taken seriously, but if they keep it character-driven a la Ucchi, it could make for some really engaging moments.

C’mon, Fuuka. How did you think people were going to take that?

Of all of the people who’ve been “corrupted” by Tomoko, Fuuka may be taking the most damage out of all of them. Poor thing.

Let’s see here...

Sometimes I worry about Itou’s sense of self when she always identifies herself by her relationships with others.

Yo, Komiyama doesn’t even bother mentioning the Lottes by name because “Who else of any importance could it possibly be?”. Never lose faith, Komi.

Sweet, naïve Mike. She (and her boyfriend who’s somehow still kicking) is set up to be this series’ greatest tragedy.

This is Tomoko Kuroki, everyone. The girl who can’t see the raging emoji-faced horndog right in front of her, but will misconstrue a single misunderstanding as a pervert. Selective perception, ain’t it?

Well, it is a great opportunity to anonymously judge people’s inner desires, so Tomoko’s probably right.

Here we go again...

Nice to see that Nemo has practical, but optimistic expectations for her goal. She knows that she’s in her prime and is ready to hit the ground running.

The thing about Yoshida’s wish is that it implies that she knows she’ll be faced with resistance. Still, I gotta respect her individuality.

Okada’s wish feels like a cry for help if you look at it another way. That’s probably not the case, though. Probably.

That’s the beauty of it all, Tomoko. In the end, you really didn’t do anything. At least, not directly. What you did was make yourself into an example for Nemo to follow. One of Tomoko’s greatest attributes is that she’s unapologetically herself, which is how she eventually got noticed–and in Nemo’s case, admired–in the first place.

Quakey legs + short people problems = cute Tomoko.

Aw man, what I wouldn’t give for this to be a running gag. That in all those chapters where Tomoko was all alone, there was actually somebody she knows now that was in the scene, too. It (sort of) first happened with the dick-pics-in-class chapter and the three-legged race guy, after all. Poor Tomoko has all this baggage that can be used against her now.

For those with shitty memory like me...

“I want to lose my virginity in a year so I don’t lose track of my bigger goals.”

Of course, she’d forget about the part that actually mattered.

Well, you know, Tomoko, they do say that every joke/lie has a kernel of truth.

I noticed that a lot of (comedy) manga seems to like elevating the value of losing(or saving) one’s virginity to absurd levels, at least in the inexperienced minds of its teenaged male characters. Tomoko herself has perpetuated this notion in the past. But even so, the “in-universe” outside of Tomoko’s mind never really aggrandizes sex, and I find that it to be a very refreshing change that shows how, in reality, as Nemo suggests, losing your virginity isn’t really that big of a damn deal.

Good ol’ Tomoko logic at its finest.

Nemo looks...surprisingly serious about that. Normally that kind of talk would catch her off guard a little, but she had no hesitation with that retort. I think that’s solid evidence that Nemo has done more research into the nature of the voice acting industry, especially after Tomoko unintentionally trolled her with that eroge.

This could lead to even more intellectual (if not openly sexual) conversations between Tomoko and Nemo that go beyond their usual bantering. That’d be pretty lit.

Well, if Tomoko is a direct reflection of the author, then she probably thinks light novels are mostly for loser otaku trying to live their perverted fantasies through self-insert literature (at least, what I gathered from Write Sisters).

Well, I’m be damned if that isn’t blatant foreshadowing for where Tomoko’s future is headed.

Even though I saw it coming a mile away, it still gives me the warm fuzzies.

As fantastic as it would be for Tomoko to be an accomplished light novelist with Nemo voicing a character in her anime adaptation, I feel like that level of success would be a little out of reach for this series’ approach to realism.

If I were to look into the future, I’d say that Tomoko would write a light novel that’d be successful just enough to be greenlit for an ultimately mediocre anime adaptation. And Nemo, being a rookie, would either be not cast at all, or be given a bit part for a background character.

Of course, that’s all speculation. As Nemo says, the freedom to dream is the one thing we can count on. And if there’s one thing the mangaka has learned from doing this series, it’s that being realistic doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy ending.

I guess being considerate/decent to complete strangers is still locked out of Tomoko’s comfort zone.

I think we found a member of Rena’s family.

Man, the more we get these tidbits of Imae’s legacy affecting the school (and Tomoko), the more nostalgic I get for her. I sincerely hope we get to see her at least one last time before the series is over.

And in tried-and-true Watamote fashion, we get a little bit of Tomoko’s wisdom to end off another thought-provoking chapter.

In retrospect, there wasn’t a whole lot of “action” in this chapter that could be built upon later. It was mostly a series of gags sprinkled with some nice conversation (at least until Nemo’s part). One of the core themes that Nico Tanigawa seems to be playing with is, “Now that Tomoko has come this far, where does she go from here?” And the answer is...

They don’t know.

Legitimately, I don’t think the mangakas know exactly what Tomoko’s endgame will be. Sure, they have some strong ideas in terms of school and career, but nothing definitive. As s result, I think playing with the gags and jokes a bit more is their way of “stirring the pot” and seeing what comes out. All of Watamote’s greatest developments did originate from comedy, after all. The first Tanabata chapter is a prime example of this, and I have no reason to think that the stars of the second Tanabata chapter won’t shine over Tomoko once again.

#watamote #watamote review #chapter 162 #no matter how i look at it it's you guys' fault i'm not popular!#tomoko kuroki #yuri tamura #mako tanaka #shizuku hirasawa #emiri ucchi #asuka katou #sakaki fuuka #hina nemoto #review

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tomfooleryprime · 5 years

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I love Sarek. But he’s really not that great.

Sarek and Amanda are my favorite couple, not just in Star Trek, but ever. I’ve written more than half a million words of fanfiction about them. I’ve watched episodes featuring them so many times I secretly worry Netflix will put me on blast.

But I am not a Sarek apologist.

I’m pretty sure what draws most people to this couple is the age-old romantic notion that opposites may attract but the power of love can overcome anything. Cue cheesy instrumental music and a torrid kiss in the rain at a train station. I imagine a lot of women see themselves in Amanda, a seemingly regular woman with a regular life. Then they see a successful guy like Sarek, a dude who’s physically fit, well-educated, powerful, and absurdly intelligent, and it’s only natural that a recipe for hotness is born.

Because I’ve devoted literally years to dreaming up various ways this couple might have shacked up and vomiting the results all over AO3, I’ve also been forced to examine the personalities of both characters in great detail, and the only consistent conclusion I come to is fanon (myself included) gets it wrong most of the time.

Their marriage can’t have always been smooth sailing. If you’re not willing to believe me, then believe Amanda.

Oh sure, there are tons of one-shots where they have little spats, but they almost always end with both of them making heart eyes at each other and jumping into bed. I get that Star Trek originated in the 1960s, but that doesn’t mean Sarek and Amanda had one of those “golly gee” wholesome relationships that could put Ward and June Cleaver to shame.

Whichever version of Sarek you personally subscribe to, be it Mark Lenard, Ben Cross, or James Frain, it’s entirely possible to find the actors attractive but still think the character of Sarek could use some improvement. It’s also possible to love a character and admire their good qualities while being disappointed in their shortcomings. Maybe it makes me a shitty fangirl. Maybe it makes me realistic.

Literally decades of fanfiction and fan art have polished over Sarek’s unprettier bits, often portraying him as a hopeless romantic, a tender lover, a devoted father, and a man fiercely dedicated to his wife. I’m not going to argue each of those is patently false—hell, as a fanfiction writer, I’ve bought into some of those tropes myself—but I think some are truer than others. Let’s examine the canon.

When we first meet him in “Journey to Babel,” he’s callous and aloof. He’s Vulcan, I get it, more on that later. But seriously, the guy has a habit of summoning his wife and acts like he doesn’t even know his own damn son. No one should be standing up to enthusiastically applaud and hand the man a husband or father-of-the-year trophy. Even Amanda seems pretty resigned to the arrangement.

I already know what the pushback to this assertion will be. He’s Vulcan! You can’t judge a Vulcan by human standards! Well, his wife is human and one of his sons is half-human, so I would argue that it should at least be an option, but I wrote a whole other essay on Star Trek’s moral relativism problem.

Long story short, Star Trek glosses over a lot of moral and ethical dilemmas by using the argument, “Who are we to judge a culture we’re not part of?” I can’t answer that, but I will say someone once gave me a great piece of advice that I think applies to this idea of moral relativism: no person’s belief is inherently worthy of respect, but every person is. Maybe to understand Sarek as a person, we should look first at Sarek as a Vulcan.

Obviously Sarek subscribes to Vulcan philosophy, and while Vulcan philosophy seems pure as hell with its pacifism and its belief in embracing Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (IDIC), I’m going to assert the Vulcan adherence to that philosophy seems to be a little lunch counter in nature. Yes, they take two scoops of resting bitch face and they’ll pass on the extra helping of tolerance. Sarek hails from a culture that is ostensibly exclusionary, sexist, and xenophobic in its practices.

When we encounter Vulcans in Enterprise, they’re people who mock humans for being too volatile, go to war with their Andorian neighbors, and aggressively purge the Syrranites for wanting to get back to the true meaning of Surak. But you might say, but that was before the Federation! They got better when they put T’Pau in charge.

Really? When we meet them next in the chronological timeline in Discovery, they’re telling Sarek they’ll only admit one of his weird social science pet projects (or as Sarek calls them, his kids) to the Vulcan Expeditionary Group.

In the Discovery episode “Light and Shadows,” Amanda reveals that Spock had a learning disability as a young child, which clearly embarrassed Sarek. Sadder still? Amanda explains there didn’t seem to be any educators on Vulcan willing to help a half-Vulcan child with a human learning disability.

In the alternate timeline, when Spock applies to the Vulcan Science Academy, the admissions folks give him a pat on the back for achieving so much, despite his great disadvantage of having a human mom. Replace the word “human” with any religious, racial, or ethnic group, and see how you still feel about that sentence.

Yes, Vulcans have racists and nationalists just like the rest of us and it doesn’t seem like they’re a rare breed either. Sarek is clearly attempting to be a better Vulcan, so kudos to him. However, not being an overt racist is not synonymous with sainthood.

It’s pretty obvious throughout canon that while Sarek loves his wife, he’s uncomfortable with humanity, and he’s doubly perplexed with the humanity she imparted in their son. She even directly accuses him of never truly respecting humanity, to which he replies:

Which, let’s be honest, sounds like the rough equivalent of the “I can’t be racist because I have a black friend” defense. So many things in canon point to Sarek being utterly baffled by humans, not cutely intrigued by them as so often seen in fanon. The only time Spock and Sarek seem chummy with each other is when they’re mocking Amanda’s human emotionalism in “Journey to Babel.” Whether or not he meant to (and he definitely meant to), Sarek raised a son who saw his human half as a thing to be overcome.

Discovery has also hammered a lot of nails into the affectionate father coffin. Up until the final episode in season 1, he never called Michael his daughter and instead referred to her as his ward. It’s nice that he finally got over that technical distinction, but it doesn’t exactly conjure up the image of him tucking her into bed and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

He seems to accept her humanity because, well, she is human, but his own son’s humanity isn’t ok? Not like it matters, because his plan was to mold Michael into a Vulcan-like human anyway, which is pretty weird when you think about it. At one point, Michael tells Sarek she knows he must have considered the effect a Vulcan education and lifestyle might have on a human child, but she wants to know what he wanted Spock to learn from the experience of having a human sibling. His reply?

Which is... nice? He doesn’t say the only reason he took Michael in was for her to be his son’s empathy tutor, but he does essentially admit he was worried Spock was becoming too much of a momma’s boy. So the theory that Sarek was just scooping up orphans all over the galaxy like some kind of Vulcan Angelina Jolie doesn’t seem accurate. It gives the distinct impression that even Sarek thought of his hodge-podge brood as an experiment, at least to a degree.

Now, some may argue that Sarek never told Spock that he had to follow Surak’s teachings, which is true-ish. But that’s like telling a kid, “You don’t have to believe in Jesus” and then sending them to a Christian school in the heart of the Bible belt. What decision did he imagine his son would choose when he decided to raise him on Vulcan and stand by when other kids beat him up for not being Vulcan enough?

Seriously, Spock was almost guaranteed to turn out one of two ways: either he would just try harder to out-Vulcan everyone, which he did, or he would give logic the middle finger, which, well, is the option Sybok chose to run with.

Despite fanfiction and fanart imagining him as this really hands-on parent who changes diapers and decorates baked goods (yes, I wrote a story like this and I’m calling myself out), he admits he’s the kind of dad who works late in the evenings, not the kind that reads stories at bedtime.

It’s also no secret that as a parent, Sarek holds grudges. In “Journey to Babel,” Amanda confesses that Sarek and Spock haven’t spoken as father and son for eighteen years. In “Brother,” Michael asks Sarek when the last time he spoke to Spock was and he concedes it’s been years. In “Light and Shadows,” he’s clearly [Vulcan] pissed that Amanda is harboring a fugitive, who also just so happens to be his own son.

Is Sarek just that logical that he believes in justice even at a high personal price, or is he embarrassed that his own estranged son has been accused of murder and appears to be in the clutches of a mental breakdown? As far as I can tell, it might just be a little bit of both.

Then there’s the idea that Sarek is a caring and devoted husband. Is there actually any evidence for this in canon, other than he was married to Amanda and had a family with her? Lots of people are married and have kids and don’t have a relationship that would rival that annoying couple on This is Us.

Their relationship doesn’t seem like an equal partnership based on compromise, but rather one where Sarek does what he damn well pleases and Amanda follows along as a dutiful wife.

Amanda gave up a lot of things to be with him: her home, her culture, and potentially even her own son’s well-being. The woman went to extremes for love not even witnessed on the Bachelor, and why?

In some contexts, that sounds like the powerful kind of love and devotion that epic-poems would be based on. In other contexts, it sounds almost like a pathological self-martyrdom. Did Sarek ever fully appreciate her sacrifices? It’s hard to say, but if he did, I doubt he ever voiced his appreciation.

In his later years, when Sarek is losing his mind due to an age-related degenerative disease and he mind melds with Captain Picard, he tearfully muses (as Picard), “Amanda. I wanted to give you so much more. I wanted to show you such tenderness. But that is not our way. Spock? Amanda? Did you know?”

He's strongly implying he never told Amanda he loved her out loud. I’m sure he did love her, but it hardly bodes well for the idea that he’s a flowers and handmade cards kind of guy. And as for the notion that behind closed doors, he and Amanda had a super intimate relationship that would make even characters in Harlequin romance novels swoon, please, point me to an episode that makes you think that. I will watch it every day for the rest of my life.

In summary, between his first chronological appearance in Discovery to his death in The Next Generation, Sarek had a lot of improving to do as a person and we see evidence that he most certainly did. He came to accept Michael as his daughter. He started speaking to Spock again after wrecking his childhood and turning him over to Section 31. Even though it clearly exasperated the hell out of him, he occasionally gave into his wife’s emotional needs.

But that’s still a pretty far cry away from galaxy’s best father, husband, or lover. I think that’s what draws me to this couple so much. Sarek and Amanda didn’t live happily ever after: they did the best they could and made it work, just like the rest of us non-fictional losers.

What little we have of canon depicts them as a couple who likely got married before they really knew each other, probably should have spent their first few years of marriage in counseling, eventually figured one another out enough to raise three kids who could all probably benefit from some therapy, and loved each other no matter what, even if it wasn’t out loud.

#sarek/amanda #sarek and amanda #brother #journey to babel #light and shadows #discovery spoilers #star trek #sarek #amanda #spock #Michael burnham #sybok #Star Trek Discovery #the original series #Vulcan #parenting #sarek x amanda

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hellanoragami-blog · 5 years

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Chapter 79.2 Thoughts

Heeeey guys. I’m up really early this morning, so I’ve decided to try to dissect the chapter. There is a lot of interesting things to cover, but overall I really liked it. It has a lot of pain and worry tied to it, though. A big thanks to @fast-moon for a speedy translation!

In the continuation of chapter 79, we’ve picked up directly where we left off. Hiyori has begun to read through her journal, only to find that almost all of them relate to Yato in some way or another. (It seamlessly ties into a discussion that Ami and Yama are having behind her, lol.)

But things take a serious turn, because Yama explains that Fujisaki has simply disappeared, and so has his father, apparently. Father is--we know--currently resting and recovering from the toll taken on his body. But what about Fujisaki’s father? Where did he go, and what are his concerns about his son’s injuries? Is that why he’s suddenly disappeared?

I wonder if perhaps we’ll see Father claiming another form, soon. With Bishamon now knowing his face, and the nuisance posed in further involving Fujisaki’s family, I feel as if Father wouldn’t want to gamble the risks of keeping his current body. (It’s confusing, because we’ve never actually seen Fujisaki’s father, nor do we know much about the relationship he has with his son. It makes it hard to pin down what exactly he’d be doing in this situation regarding his child’s injuries.)

Hey, look! Tenjin’s riding an Ox! Oh, wait. It’s just his regalia? Cool! We now know what forms two of his shinki take, as well as their alternate names. I don’t have much to say about that. But his conversation with Hiyori is different. As suspected, literally everyone know about Hiyori’s feelings but her--even Tenjin! She goes on to ask him, the one who would know most out of anyone, whether it’s true or not that Gods can love humans.

I kind of already figured his answer, and I was right in thinking that their way of loving is just different than human love. But it’s not inherently a good thing for a God to love a human. As he said, they get drawn more to the near shore.

The more attached Yato gets to Hiyori, the more he’d be willing to do to ensure her happiness and safety. This includes wreaking havoc upon whatever threat to her that he sees. (Think back to the Bishamon arc, where he was fully prepared to kill a fellow God under the false assumption that she had harmed Hiyori.)

Also- pg. 25, Amaterasu’s watching. ;)

Tenjin does have a valid point, regardless if we agree with it or not. Gods aren’t inherently the same as humans; they simply take the form of man. Just as Amaterasu is the sun, and Tsukuyomi is the moon. “Is pledging (romantic) love to something that isn’t a person a particularly logical act?”

In a non-biased context, the answer is of course, no.

Even with Tenjin urging her to cut ties with Yato, it’s simply out of her hands now. Yato is the only one who could do that, and with their fates tied, they’re stuck together. Maybe it’s inevitable that Hiyori will forget Yato, but it wouldn’t be permanent. That’s hinted in the fact that she’s able to recount this tale to us.

At the end of chapter 1, Hiyori uses the words, “Soon, Yato would meet me.” This implies that everything that is currently being told has already happened. The story already has an ending, and we’re being shown the story through her narrative. Already, this is kind of obvious by the small hints throughout the manga; the most popular one being when she isn’t able to recognize Yukine as a human spirit the way Yato can.

Hiyori’s description:

Yato’s description:

Again, notice Hiyori’s usage of past tense versus Yato’s use of present tense. Although we are also being shown what she’s telling us, we’re also shown things that she personally didn’t see, and this comes from Yato. Could he also be telling the story alongside her? I’m interested to find out. It may mean that they will in fact meet again. It certainly gives me hope!

Now! Onto some (mostly) lighthearted scenes!

We shift attention to Yukine and Nora, who are playing a game of badminton. But things go horribly wrong when Nora runs right into a trash bin, and ends up getting covered in rubbish. Yukine must have had the idea to take her back to Kofuku’s for a bath, conveniently able to do so because the Goddess of poverty is away in takamagahara to strike fear into the heart of Takemikazuchi for repair costs.

Nora is completely in awe of the place, exploring things she’s never seen before. It looks like a child’s wonderland, to her. (Notice she thinks almost everything in Kofuku’s house is a toy. ...To be fair, there are a LOT of toys in Kofuku’s bathroom.)

In fact, most of what we see of her in this chapter reminds me a lot of what we see in Yato: not a lot of experience in the way of doing things age-appropriately, and having a very naive approach to some things. (Seeing her with that shower shield around her face reminded me of a frilled dragon. Cute!) We also see two names on her, one on her hip, and the other on her arm. These were identified by fast-moon to be the names belonging to Ebisu and Take.

Clue One that things are not entirely as they seem. I don’t entirely distrust her just yet, though. She drops her hitaikakushi in the bath, and she gives it a look of what appears to be contempt. Does that mean that she’s growing more and more unhappy with who/what she was before? Or is it regret over her involvement in a possible plan executed by Father? She folds it not-so-neatly in her hands, and the scene changes to show Yukine attempting to cook.

It’s obvious that he’s still struggling with his feelings over the situation. But hopefully, it’s not enough to be hurting Yato. Next, Nora rejoins Yukine for dinner. (In a very cute outfit, nonetheless. Adachitoka, are you trying to kill me with cuteness?? Lol.) Yukine next suggests they study together, and Nora says something that really seems to hit a nerve with Yukine.

“Dead people, studying? It’s pointless.”

Ahh. So it’s hinted that Yukine isn’t entirely accepting of the way things are, after all. Whether he realizes it or not, the fact that those words bothered him to that extent just shows that he knows it’s true, deep down. Trying to emulate a life that a living person would is essentially pointless, and he knows it. But it’s what makes him feel happy and fulfilled with what he has.

That texture, though.

We know by now, that when this texture overlay is used, it either foreshadows a topic resurfacing in a Big, Negative way, or when a character realizes something that could end up leading to a key event of sorts.

In short, this page felt very serious and ominous, and it kind of worries me. The word ‘promise’ is also used quite a bit here, which feels a little suspicious in itself. It’s also kind of scary, because Yukine just unintentionally showed Nora one of his biggest weak points. I hope it’s not going to be used against him later.

Nora, please. I’m beggin u girl. Have a change of heart.

It does look like she’s having a change of heart regarding Yukine learning the God’s Greatest Secret, though. Before, she wanted to destroy him with it. But now she wants to make sure he doesn’t get near it. Which he agrees to... but we know it’s going to happen, eventually. Sad to say, he’s already been inflicted with liberation. So learning about his past is inevitable.

Yukine reveals his worries about stinging Yato, which is important; at least he realizes that it’s bad to be getting his emotions involved like this. But Yato’s not around for him to talk to, and that makes all the difference. And with Yato being hit by both Yukine and Kazuma’s shitty feelings, it’s bringing him great distress and discomfort.

(Also quick note, I’m curious as to why the name plate says Iki. Iki would be Takamasa’s last name, wouldn’t it? Unless he took Sayuri’s name instead. Uncommon, but some people do it here in the US. Do people do that in Japan as well? I’m going to assume it’s the case for now anyway, since it’s Hiyori’s maternal grandmother’s house.)

Alas... Father. What are you doing in front of Hiyori’s grandmother’s house? How did you even find out where it was? (If he followed her home, that’s just creepy.) What I wanna draw attention to, though, are the blank pages of her journal. Blank pages. Blank. I hope it’s just the newest pages that haven’t been written in yet!

But... I feel very certain that Father is influencing something here, just from Hiyori’s mention of her body feeling heavy. (Yes, I think it was Hiyori’s dialogue, despite it showing Yato; particularly with the way it follows up in her POV in the next box.) Part of me is worried that the page is implying that Father is leaving, and he’s already set something into motion. I hope I’m wrong.

Hiyori... please hold on to your memories.

#nana discusses noragami #noragami #this wasn't as long as my previous analyses but I covered what I felt like I needed to #noragami spoilers

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bthump · 5 years

Note

What do you think of Griffith saying Falconia will only accept refugees if they become part of its army in the last chapter?

*refugees from his wars

I have 4 thoughts on this:

1. iirc the joining the army thing was presented as the method of integrating refugees into Falconia and combating oppression and persecution from the Midlanders.

2. This draws on a consistent theme Miura has threaded throughout the story in which he suggests that equality and acceptance can only be achieved by joining together to fight something else lol. We see this when the Kushans joining the Midlanders against Ganishka is discussed by Locus, when he tells Mule that former enemies fighting alongside each other brings them together etc. We see it when Ganishka levels up and is presented as ~the ultimate unknown~ against which humanity can unite. We see it when apostles and humans work together to fight astral plane monsters.

And we see it when Miura fails to present us with a third option between Shitty Oppressive Status Quo and Monstervania. According to Berserk, you have a choice between world full of monsters which unites humanity against them, or world full of oppressive nobles abusing their power. Obviously this is a ridiculous false dichotemy, but it’s the dichotemy we’re given in the story. There’s no 3rd option. There’s no good counterpart to Griffith who opposes the status quo and tries to end oppression without filling the world with monsters.

3. By modern standards yeah that’s fucked up lol. In the context of the story of Berserk however, I have no idea what Miura’s aiming for. It seems roughly equivalent to Kushan defectors being allowed to join Midland’s army as long as they fight on the front lines a couple of times first. This was presented as progressive enough to freak out dyed in the wool noble Midlanders, in the context of medieval warfare and societal norms in Berserk, while from a modern perspective it’s obviously pretty messed up.

And again, according to consistently shown Berserk Logic, fighting alongside people is the best way to form bonds of friendship and brotherhood and shit. We get this from Guts’ narrative a lot too, albeit in a more individual sense rather than like, polisci lol. This isn’t a concept that’s ever challenged in the story.

On the other hand if Miura is now trying to paint Falconia as more negative, maybe we’re not supposed to see a draft as like a citizenship requirement, for the sake of appeasing the anti-refugee crowd, as somewhere between not bad and comparatively progressive in the context of… fantasy medieval society. A society where our last example of refugees were ten thousand starving people being terrorized by the inquisition, whose lives were dismissed entirely by Guts. Maybe we’re supposed to condemn Griffith here from a more modern and realistic perspective.

4. And this is where it all falls apart lol, because you can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to portray refugees as a faceless monstrous crowd clamouring for blood so one character can be like, those ten thousand refugees deserve to die, fuck them, and portray him facilitating their mass deaths as heroic, and then raise the standards of morality for another character so that drafting refugees into an army in an attempt to foster acceptance and ~brotherhood, something consistently shown as valid throughout the rest of the story by its medieval action story standards, is evil.

If that’s what Miura is attempting then like… yeesh this is gonna be a wild shitshow lol. Berserk is a godawful setting for an attempt at any kind of modern day political allegory even without the monsters. Add the fact that the enemies humanity is united against are literal rape trolls and dragons and shit, and hooo boy what’s that supposed to represent if we’re drawing real world parallels and applying modern real world morality?

Oh also I have another thought so

Bonus 5. Why doesn’t NGriff have absolute power? I feel like he should be able to do whatever the fuck he wants at this point, but instead we see him asking a council of nobles for things, and like sweet talking them into agreeing to establishing schools and orphanages. Charlotte and Griffith seem to have less power than the King did, despite Charlotte having the same birthright and Griffith having saved the world and been like, ordained as a saint with his own magic city risen from the ether just for him.

If Miura wanted a morally dubious utopia he should’ve just like, had Griffith’s magical aura subtly stepford the city into being excellent to each other and letting him do whatever he wants lol. Or just kept the focus on the flooding the world with monsters thing, that adds more than enough moral dubiousness all on its own. Instead we’re shown that for whatever reason Griffith has to bargain with nobles and appease angry oppressive Midlanders in a society still rife with those regressive medieval mores we saw all the time throughout the Golden Age, Conviction, and MF arcs, and Griffith doing just that is being taken, possibly with authorial intent, as the moral dubiousness.

if Griffith had the power to enact whatever change he wants and have it accepted without inciting violence then yeah what we saw of his milquetoast ideas would be shit lol. I mean, why even fuckin remake the world and establish the only kingdom in it if you’re going to half-ass your utopian ideals?

But again, since apparently he doesn’t have the magic godlike ability to actually do a damn thing without asking a bunch of medieval nobles politely first, what do you want? From an in-universe perspective, it seems like he’s doing what he can according to the previously established and not fully overturned regressive societal restrictions of the world they live in. And from an out-of-universe perspective, I’m just baffled and unimpressed by Miura’s choice to go this route lol.

#Anonymous #ask #a #b #theme: critique #theme: falconia #chapter 358 #character: neogriffith #theme: morality

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theonyxpath · 5 years

Link

This is a preview of the Storytelling chapter from the upcoming Contagion Chronicle. The Kickstarter only has about two days remaining: if you’ve been curious about it, now’s your chance to join the infected!

The Contagion Chronicle is, by default, a crossover game. You can use anything in this book in other games, likeWerewolf or Geist, but it’s designed to enable chronicles in which the characters come from multiple game lines.

This chapter provides the Storyteller with advice on how to run the Contagion Chronicleitself, and how to run Chronicles of Darkness crossover games in general.

Running the Contagion Chronicle

This book is a game of what if: what if everything the characters trusted turned on them, and everything they took for granted flipped upside down? It’s a journey into Wonderland, if Wonderland looked like their shitty studio apartment and their clunker with the blacked-out windows, but felt like the rules they understood no longer applied and everything was what it wasn’t. Taking charge of the situation means opening themselves up to ruin and potentially letting the madness run rampant, through them and everything they love. So running this game means balancing the risk of losing everything and the threat of Armageddon with playability and ensuring the players and their characters retain agency.

Theme and Mood

The Contagion is about loss of control — control of yourself, others, your environment, and your circumstances. Imagine a dementia patient, terrified to realize he no longer remembers his own family or what year it is. He can’t function on his own anymore, and things seem to happen at random. His actions prompt the wrong reactions. People tell him the facts he knows to be true are false, and he has no way of knowing whether they’re right or just lying to take advantage of his confusion. That’s the Contagion.

Unlocking this chronicle’s core themes in play can be tricky, because you want the characters to experience loss and disorientation without letting those experiences spill over onto the players. Open communication and transparency are crucial. You can use musical cues, Clues from the investigation system on Chronicles of Darkness p. 77, and clear pathological language to alert the players that something that seems nonsensical is actually part of the Contagion, and thus they can study and fight it.

Although this book talks about “the Contagion” and “infection” like it’s a disease with observable symptoms, characters won’t know it’s a sickness until they investigate and start to understand the bigger picture. Show them what’s happening, rather than telling them. Don’t say, “this Infrastructure is infected.” Instead, describe the ripple effects and let them come to the conclusion that it’s the Contagion on their own as they dig deeper.

Loss, Change, and Chaos

Go ahead and break things — you have permission. Break smaller things on the local and personal level at tier 1, larger things across whole regions at tier 2, and fundamental things across the world at tier 3. Stop the sun from rising in the morning or setting at night. Let the Faerie lord show mercy for no good reason, and a trusted companion act like a hated enemy with no obvious explanation. Give the characters’ powers unexpected side effects and replace their beloved traditions with nonsense. To raise the stakes, pull the trigger on Chekov’s Contagion. If an outbreak that weakens the Gauntlet doesn’t result in running across a place where it crumbles entirely and the material world merges with Shadow, the players will have trouble taking the threat seriously. Make them fear what happens if they do nothing by showing it to them; it keeps them actively engaged.

Always know exactly what you’re breaking and how, and what else shatters when you do it. Don’t break random things, because then the characters have no hope of unraveling the mystery. Jot down notes on the ripples your changes make. Think about the logical conclusion to a situation in which something important changes, and don’t be afraid to go big. That said, make sure whatever you change affects the characters in some personal way, even in a tier 3 game. Monsters stepping out of portals from another realm all over the world doesn’t matter to your game unless one of those monsters steps into a crowded square and takes a bite out of the players’ favorite ally. Also, make sure you don’t break things until the characters and the players are fully invested in what they have to lose; you have to show them what their normal is before you take it away.

Paranoia and Trust

Very little is sacred when the Contagion gets involved, but that goes for characters, not for players. Characters should doubt their knowledge and senses, but players need to be able to trust you. The group builds the story together; you may control the characters’ enemies, but you yourself are not an enemy. So how do you create a paranoid mood without making players feel anxious themselves?

First, communicate with your players. Make sure they know up front what sort of chronicle they’re getting into if your whole game is the Contagion Chronicle. If you introduce it later, talk to them after the first chapter in which Contagion symptoms appear, and explain that while things are getting strange, you’re not just arbitrarily changing the rules — they have the power to investigate and oppose the madness. Try to introduce the Sworn (and/or the False) in the same chapter, although the players may not learn yet what that means, so they know options exist and a plan is in motion even if they can’t see its shape.

The characters are special: they, the Sworn and the False, are the only ones who can see reality’s sickness. Even others of their own kind act like these nonsense syndromes are the way things have always been, making the protagonists question themselves. Stress this to make the characters feel alone and vulnerable, while the players feel empowered as the only ones who can save the world.

One simple way to close the gap between character paranoia and player trust is with the investigation system. Players feel better about in-game confusion and desperation if they know dice can help them actively progress. An investigation lets them do that and puts some of the power of resolution in their hands. Giving players a participatory role in the narrative through codified rules means giving them agency and helps them feel excited instead of wary about the inexplicable bullshit their characters go through. You can also use the optional conflict resolution system in this chapter, on p. XX.

While characters should experience loss, don’t take away things the players spent Experiences or significant effort to access too often, unless the characters sacrifice them on purpose. That doesn’t mean the Contagion can’t screw around with those things — in fact, it should, because that’s a simple way to make the stakes feel high. Nothing incites a player to action faster than the threat of losing something she earned. Actually remove those things altogether only sparingly, though, unless it’s just for a scene or so. For one thing, players get resentful when you take away things they worked for without their consent. For another, it’s almost always more interesting to make things weirder than to negate them entirely. If the Contagion has an effect on certain kinds of magical powers, it’s better to give them dreaded side effects, make them interact strangely with other phenomena, alter their parameters, have them activate uncontrollably, or fail under specific circumstances. This creates story hooks, while saying such powers just don’t work tends to take story hooks away.

If a character does permanently lose something to the Contagion on which the player spent Experience points, give the Experience points back and let her spend them on something else relevant to the current story; this practice already exists in the Sanctity of Merits rule (Chronicles of Darkness pp. 43-44), but since the Contagion can theoretically mess with innate abilities, apply it across the board.

Anytime a character temporarily loses access to something important or the Contagion affects her in a way that puts her in harm’s way or imposes a significant setback, award the player a Beat or inflict a Condition (which provides a Beat when it resolves). Beats are how the system incentivizes players to accept or create narrative twists that get their characters in trouble and up the stakes, so the Contagion’s effects should always provide Beats whenever they cash in on the threatened horror of loss and paranoia. If this happens in direct service to acting against the Contagion or supporting the Sworn, make them Sworn Beats.

Don’t let the Contagion mess with Vector powers, though, because the Sworn specifically developed them as a reaction to the Contagion in the first place.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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youswiminmywater · 5 years

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reflections on past jobs, for no particular reason

for the past few days, i’ve been trying to shake off a funk, a slump, one of those holes you can fall into if you’re the depressed type. where you spend entire days in bed, or crawl out at 2pm to eat a pile of leftover mashed potatoes between a mindless barrage of youtube videos or sudoku puzzles. just drowning yourself in distractions until you finally get fed up with it and start down that familiar path of Self-Care, which is probably a little different for everybody. for me, it involves leaving the house (which i’m convinced has some paranormal draining effect on my soul, or perhaps just dust, mold, cat pee, dandruff around the house intensifies my doldrums on a base physical level), going out to eat or sitting around in a coffee shop to read. reading is always my touchstone for “getting better,” like i’m flexing some intellectual muscles that i’d been neglecting for the past few weeks, or even months. i’ve said before that i’m a terrible english major, and have a lot of trouble starting books let alone finishing them, but i just think it’s a habit that needs developing, a habit that can replace the easier, mindless ones like scrolling through tumblr or playing through a game i’ve played through a thousand times.

a friend of mine suggested the other day that reading is equally a waste of time as playing a video game, though, a comment that really kind of fucked me up and made me feel embarrassed for trying to use it to cheer myself up. i think i’ve come to a point now where i can disagree, heartily, with that comment. no video game inspires this much thought in myself, or makes me want to write. maybe it has to do with the TV screen itself. i’ve read that the blue light TVs have sort of a trance effect on you, like how the fluorescents at the supermarket make you want to browse around and lose focus, or how phone screens trick your brain into staying awake because it’s the same kind of light that comes from the sun. it does feel like a trap sometimes, an addiction. and some video games really do manipulate you to play them as much as possible, some are just designed that way. i’m not ashamed to say i’d throw video games out of my life entirely if i could, they never have made me feel better about myself. they’ve never inspired me. maybe i’ve just had some poor experiences with them, skipping homework to play games, staying up too late, getting angry at certain levels, forgetting to eat or go to the bathroom. they just command too much attention and force me to forget about myself entirely, don’t allow me to think about anything other than the game itself. the only real positive influence they’ve had on my life is that it’s something to do with other people if i can’t physically be with them. like virtual worlds to hang out in with your friends. even then, though, it’s more about spending time with people i care about in a setting that’s comfortable for me, not about the games themselves. ANYWAY that’s my argument for THAT

like i was saying, shaking off a funk. i was at this coffee shop today, maybe been there three or four times. i don’t really drink coffee, and coffee shops have never really been my scene, but they’re great places to just sit for a couple of hours to read and write, and nobody even bats an eye at you. can’t really do that at a sit down restaurant, it’s too easy to feel self-conscious, especially if there’s a waitress depending on flipping your table as efficiently as possible.

but the point of this story is to talk about the doughnuts they were selling at this particular coffee shop. big, fat doughnuts, a few with outlandish glazes, strawberry glaze, for example. one was just entirely purple. and when i say fat doughnuts, i mean like, when you see it, it’s golden brown on both sides, and then it has that pale ring around the outside that the oil just never got to when they flipped ‘em in the fryer. that ring is the sexiest part of the doughnut, it’s like a stretch mark to show you how plump and decadent that particular doughnut is gonna be. not all doughnuts have those rings either; if you go to kroger or something, their old-fashioned doughnuts? just dry brown rings. probably a lot of factory doughnuts lack that pale ring, now that i’m thinking about it. it’s really a sign of some gourmet shit happening behind the scenes, somebody hand-cut that doughnut and fried it themselves. that’s how you know you’re eating something nice. probably worth the $3.50 i paid for it. well, maybe, that’s still kinda steep.

my imagination was going like this the entire time i was at the coffee shop. i had seen them when i came in, and resolved to get out only on my way out, maybe two hours later. should i ask the cashier where they got those doughnuts from? would he even know? maybe they even made them in house, i thought. now THAT would be exciting! they did have a few food options on their menu. i think one lady next to me had some fried plantains or something. that would suggest they had a fryer, right? but then i figured, there’s no way, a coffee shop this size just wants to deal with a few baristas and that’s it, any fancy gourmet stuff would be brought in. it would be such a hassle to hire a pastry chef just to make doughnuts and scones, i don’t think the sales at a place this size would justify a batch of anything. i did daydream a little, however. made me want to work there so that i could figure out the secrets behind the counter. maybe there’s a real master doughnut-maker back there, and i could pick up at least that juicy little talent from working there, if nothing else.

this is what sent me down into a spiral. flipping through all of my past jobs, half regretful, wondering what exactly i took with me when i left. the job i have right now is the only one i’ve ever formally considered to be a real skill builder, a real job that actually means something. yet that doesn’t mean i’ve just been wasting all my career-building opportunities up until this point, does it? i always imagined that jobs through high school college were just, in general, real time wasters, real whatevers. you could literally have whatever job you wanted and not feel a tinge of regret about it, as long as it paid something. internships were for rich kids, kids that had their parents plan out their careers for them and finance it all the way through. retail jobs, cashier jobs, delivery jobs, these were there for kids who were gonna figure it all out later. normal people. looking back on it now, though, i really would do it differently. i would at least like, have a theme to the kinds of jobs i was going for, you know? jobs that logically led from one to the other, building up tips and tricks that would make you way more impressive to your coworkers down the line. this is probably also a false regret too, because there are those people that change their career paths like, really late in their lives. like they were a nurse for 30 years and now they wanna learn how to be a real estate agent, just from scratch. it’s brave, and i’m sure they sometimes wish they could have gone back and done things differently too, just started with the thing they loved before they knew they loved it. or maybe not, maybe they needed to hate something before they learned what they love...who knows.

what did i learn from my jobs then? i just wanted to go down the list and put together little stories, or sketches, rather. i know this isn’t exactly the most readable thing, and i don’t really expect anybody to read it. it’s entirely biographical and probably entirely boring, but it’s a fun exercise for me, at any rate. if you’re the kind of person that enjoys this sort of thing, i’m beaming on the inside for the both of us. anyway, here we go!

1. Goodwill Associate. Cashier, stock guy, master of all trades. Or at least the shitty ones this was my first ever job, I guess when I was 18 the summer out of high school. I had a couple of school-sanctioned volunteer roles when I was younger, but I don’t really consider those as anything in a career sense. Just an extension of school. My first actual job was here in retail, and kind of like really on the bottom of the totem pole, retail-wise. It was minimum wage. There wasn’t any real structure to the product, no departments, no red tape, no security wires on the expensive stuff. It was just bare bones, donated stuff, a little bit of a Wild West vibe, if i’m being honest. prices were determined by managers in the back. they’d just write the prices on everything in marker. anything without a price tag like that, like most of the clothing, the cashiers would just guess at what products were being handed to them and ring them up like that. looks like a unisex shirt, 1.99. pants with women’s sizes on the back tag, 3.99. customers sometimes would try to haggle, and sometimes they’d succeed! you can’t do that at sears. people would just buy fake stuff knowing it was fake and not be bothered by it. the main purpose of the employees was just to clean up the mess, and make everything look somewhat organized, keep stuff off the floor.

there were a couple of roles you could take working at a place like this. first off, everybody was a cashier, but you weren’t supposed to linger at the cash register. the primary thing you’d do is run clothes, which meant, rolling out a rack from the back full of clothes that had been already “processed” and just transfer them onto the racks out on the store floor. basically until the racks on the floor were jam-packed and you couldn’t do anymore. this was my least favorite thing, and to be honest i don’t remember doing it much. the rolling racks in the back were called “z-racks,” because the bottoms of them were held together with metal shaped like z’s. probably my first brush with industry-specific terminology. they have z-racks in culinary too, but they’re something different, still with the same z-shape on the top and bottom holding them together.

then there was “housewares,” which meant basically that you wandered around the housewares department all day, making an attempt to organize everything within reason. put everything upright with the price clearly visible. this was a real nightmare job, but a relatively stress-free one. sometimes a haitian family would stroll through and ruin your entire day’s work. the kids really just did whatever they wanted and left every toy in the middle of the floor, the parents paying absolutely no attention. it was a real thankless job, akin to hanging out in tartarus rolling rocks up a hill over and over again just to see it roll back down the next day.

cashier was the most rewarding part, i think, just because it’s the only aspect that forced interaction with the customers. that’s still my favorite part of most jobs i’ve had, i think, the opportunity to meet people and interact with someone new. of course, at a place like goodwill, you weren’t really all that excited about most of the clientele, but you could definitely walk out of there with a few stories. i was pretty young back then too, so i was prone to developing crushes on a few regulars, even attempting to flirt now and then, which became mostly nonexistent in my later jobs because it’s just, i don’t know. inappropriate, i guess. crass. unprofessional. and, in this day and age, a little creepy. but cashiering was an easy way to pick up at least a few social skills, whether you’re arguing your way through a stubborn customer who’s trying to save a dollar on some kid shoes, or shooing away a 35 year old gay man who, for whatever reason, has the hots for you. it was a nice exposure, though certainly removed from most retail experiences, just given the nature of the place.

i never worked retail behind the counter again after that, especially after i started working in a couple of malls, because ACTUAL retail cashiers, the ones who make commission on their sales and have quotas for how many credit cards they get people to sign up for, they always seemed like real prisoners to the system. that notion always scared me, and kept me looking towards the background areas, the stock rooms and employee-only hallways. when you got into REAL retail, i didn’t want to be a part of it.

2. Von Maur, “Stock and Housekeeping,” stay in my department? this whole damn place is my department!

this job was a nice one, i stayed for a whole year before moving on. that doesn’t sound like much, but i’m pretty sure it’s my second or third longest running job out of all the ones i’ve had. von maur was a department store at one of the malls around here, a store they call an “anchor” because it’s on the edge of the mall complex. malls are usually designed to have multiple anchors, big stores for general shopping like macy’s and sears, with a bunch of little stores all scattered throughout, stores with more specialized targets. you often have to walk through the anchor stores to get in and out of the mall to one of the parking lots, so they’re usually stores with multiple departments, something for everybody.

von maur is considered kind of a high-end store, more expensive than macy’s, more upscale brands, but it’s not like walking straight into a coach store. it has a very old-fashioned customer service feel to it. the cashiers are all required to dress in formal wear, suits and dresses, clean-shaven. very strict dress code. the customer service section is a long desk in the back of the store with multiple ladies there to help, tables right behind them for gift-wrapping, especially during the holiday season. the clothing racks are all shoulder height or lower, you can see every department from any part of the store, and each department has gilded gold lettering above each register area, with different colors of carpets indicating when you were leaving one section from the other. and each department had a special name too, not just “men’s” or “women’s.” it was Juniors. Traditional. Contemporary. Gifts. very classy categorizations that made you feel a certain way just standing there, albeit sometimes they were kind of arbitrary.

it seems silly to even point out these kinds of things, but i’ve grown an immense fondness for this clean kind of layout now that i’ve spent some time in a few other department stores. most places make no fucking sense whatsoever, they’re designed like mazes to get lost in. pillars everywhere, obstructions going all the way up to the ceiling, no way to determine exactly how big the entire store is or where your next stop should be. pay attention next time you go to a jc penny. it’s a real shitshow. even the employees seem like they’re just stranded and forgotten about on little islands, and only the real savvy ones know their way back to the stock rooms without getting lost. at von maur, you could wave to your pal in the “Better Sportswear” department without having to step a foot outside of your designated carpet area (which you actually weren’t allowed to do, unless you were going to the bathroom).

i did not work in any of these departments. i was in charge of cleaning the place, bathrooms and dock areas, sweeping the vast floors, spot removal, light bulbs. you name it. all the custodial stuff. i worked nights, so i had minimal involvement with the trucks, but i did collect transfers to other stores at the end of the night, and pack up trucks with this product. it was the first job i had where you could really get in hurt, or in trouble, if you didn’t follow procedures properly. had to lock up the truck a certain way. had to fill out the paperwork just right. had to get the million pound brick of cardboard out of the bale machine without getting crushed. had to make sure the trash compactor didn’t get all fucked up, had to make sure you were using the right chemicals on the carpets, had to learn the most efficient ways to clean all four bathrooms before any customer even noticed you closed them down. it was a very self-reliant, self-sufficient job. managers stayed out of your face because they didn’t really know what all it was you were responsible for. you carried a radio because you could be anywhere in the store at any given time, even on the roof. you were completely unfettered, you could run errands for the feeble sales associates who couldn’t leave their sections, but only if you really liked them that day.

it was great, and the organization of the store itself helped shape your own daily routines. i worked with a few assholes, and the pay was still minimum wage, but i had a couple of pals that i looked forward to seeing every day. it was behind the scenes, but not too behind the scenes. you didn’t have to be responsible for any of the customers because your uniform said hey, i just clean the toilets lady, buzz off. the only areas of the store that really interested me were the areas i wasn’t allowed to access, which would irk anybody who has almost complete access to any room, see rooms that most managers wouldn’t even ever see. the “other” behind the scenes groups. the alterations department. the loss prevention room. there was one room called like “display” or something, which just had all of the various props and baubles they used to decorate the store with year round. they even had an entire staff dedicated to that job, but i’d see them around pretty rarely. it fascinated me seeing people who were even more hidden away than i was, and i was the guy doing shit people just took for granted. like polishing the water fountains, or cleaning the employee lunchroom microwaves.

in the end, though, it was basically a dead-end job, i mean there’s only so much you can learn about glass cleaner before you feel like it’s time to move on. some people stay at those jobs for years, whole lives, and that just doesn’t make sense to me.

3. Pizza Delivery Guy, the famous Two-Dayer

there isn’t a whole lot to say about this one. this was when i was “between colleges,” and the first time i ever tried to have a job on college campus, a school that i was not going to and had no familiarity with. it was also my only ever “spite job.” here’s the scenario leading up to it:

i was probably like twenty years old, or 19. i was involved with this high school girl i had met through??? facebook maybe, she was a quick friend of mine. her family was a real Business Starter type family, her dad and uncle had a string of restaurants that they had tried to start up here and there, with varying success. i met her around the same time i started first cooking for myself, and it was something that brought me enjoyment, so the prospect of going to business with these guys was something that began to grow on me. her uncle had just started up a new place on campus, i think it was called Fito’s, named after her grandpa. this peruvian joint with authentic peruvian street food. the first place i had ever eaten yuca fries, and i think they had an award winning salsa at some point. anyway, the plan was for me to work there as one of the cooks, which was exciting to me! because i would have a mentor and i’d be getting into a new field that i was at least partly interested in, and i’d be developing a skill that i could apply to everyday life. i was gonna be a cook. i would pop in here and there all the time, before they actually got the place up and running, having small meetings with her dad, her uncle. i wasn’t really as involved as all that, i mean, i was still just a kid.

long story short, they hired this other guy to be the cook. whatever. i didn’t have experience anyway. they wanted me to do delivery instead. i said fine, at least i get to be involved with a place i actually kind of care about. walked me through where the delivery area was going to begin and end. hadn’t quite worked out all the kinks. come back for another meeting. i’d show up for another meeting, they weren’t there, come back tomorrow. not there again, having work done. come back later. the restaurant opens. still working on setting up the whole delivery thing, just wait on it. at some point, i got really frustrated with getting yanked around by the dick all the time, so after one failed meeting, i walked two doors down the street and landed a job as a driver at this place called New York Pizza Department the very same day. job search done, you can always find an easy job in the city. i think i even started work that very same day.

the trick to the story? never trust a place that hires you the same day they meet you. if they’re that desperate to fill the role, the role probably sucks ass. and it did. my first day was on saint patrick’s day, and i did a 12 hour shift from 6pm to 6am. i was expected to learn register and some minimal oven work, but mostly do garbage work like sweeping the floors, folding boxes, yada yada. it was all kind of vague. nobody in particular trained me. i was told to just stand over somebody’s shoulder and learn how the ordering works, which didn’t do anything for me. nobody explained a damn thing. i spilled ice all over the floor trying to refill the machine, nobody had taught me the trick to it. it was a really frustrating experience because i expected to like, shadow someone, at least for like an hour or something, but there was no guidance whatsoever. i mostly sat out by the back door and pretended like i smoked. i was never introduced to the chefs, they were all mexicans that didn’t really speak english, as far as i could tell, yet i was expected to ask them for stuff. my car was parked in a mud pit in the back, and i would ruin my pants every time i climbed in. i got two parking tickets. i used my gps for everything (the days before i had a smartphone), which was unreliable, especially when some asshole student wanted a pizza in one of the address-less school buildings. it was a real mess.

i felt kinda ashamed, especially after my second day when i delivered a pizza like 2 hours late because i couldn’t find the damn place. my dad had been a delivery guy for years, and it felt really dumb that i couldn’t pick up the job for myself. it felt like i was really, really wasting my time, and the dumb place was not worth it to begin with. i only got the job to make the other guys jealous, i think. my third shift was supposed to be a 19-hour day, so i skedaddled with my sub 100 buck paycheck, where my name was misspelled. both the peruvian place and that pizza place are gone now, replaced by something else.

honorable mention: Graeter’s Ice Cream, stealing jobs from children

barely even remember this one, but i did do an ice cream kiosk at the mall for like two weeks. i quit because scooping ice cream was making my wrist hurt pretty severely, and i wasn’t aware at the time that eventually the pain stops if you just keep at it. all of my coworkers were high school kids, even the two or three people that outranked me, and it was half humiliating, half hilarious. a lot of people there were very specific with training me properly, i think teenagers love telling older people what to do, but they all said different things. i don’t think any of them actually knew the exact details of their job duties, they were all just kind of winging it. they gossiped a lot about boys at their school, which i’m pretty sure was some isolated suburb school outside of the city proper. i was 22 or 23 at the time and had very little to contribute. i don’t think i ever took the job that seriously, and pretty much quit on a whim. it was a little bittersweet, though; the day before i left, they were just about to get a real hardass old lady manager that was about to whip the place back into shape. i regret not being around for that so that i could actually figure out what i was meant to be doing, but you can’t pretend to be a kid forever, no matter how cute and young you look with your little hat and name tag.

4. Macy’s fulfillment center, dissociation at it’s finest

this job was during a kind of sad point in my life, and it was largely a desperation move on my part. i think i had just graduated college, sent out hundreds of applications for jobs “in my field,” and heard back from none of them. i had bills piling up, from somewhere, and i really needed to get back in the saddle. malls are always reliable places to get jobs, if you ever need one quick and easy, and i just wanted to get back out into the world again. i wasn’t meeting new people anymore, didn’t have any classes to look forward to, and my education was proving to be rather useless. getting back into the mall system was kind of an eye roll at this point, but i knew it was something i could do, back of the store stock work.

this time around, i was exclusively a morning man, which comes with its own requirements and adaptions. we unloaded trucks three days a week, processed damages and transfers and returns and whatnot all the other days. broke down cardboard. the entire job was basically opening up boxes, removing plastic from copies of the same coat in multiple sizes, tearing styrofoam off of handbags, clipping security rings on the expensive stuff, and calling it a day. separate everything by department and run it out onto the floor before the store opens. usually by the time the store opens, it’s time to go home. michael kors was a bad word to us stock guys, because all of his handbags had like seventeen separate pieces of plastic, tape, and styrofoam around all the various pieces of each purse, protecting every part of the bag’s anatomy from damage, dust, whatever. it was ridiculous. there were mummification jokes somewhere in there. in any case, it was a job any idiot could do. i think i was marked as a “seasonal” employee too, so i really wasn’t given a whole lot to do, or very many hours. i did eventually get a few more duties as time went on and the dock manager grew more trustworthy of me. he was this big bald guy that listened to a lot of rock music, and didn’t put up with bullshit. he had me go around the store changing the lightbulbs a few times, which is not something you just let a dummy do. at von maur, i had to maneuver this massive industrial ladder and bring a dozen different bulbs with me, know how to mark lights that had bulbs changed and needed new ballasts, knew how to remove things from various sockets, open up skylights and reach through ceiling tiles, all while not falling to my death or getting shocked. that’s how i knew this guy trusted me.

this coincided with what i would consider a mini “internship” with the duties on the second floor, where the fulfillment offices were located. fulfillment means dealing with online orders, pulling specific products and getting them processed for delivery. and by “office” i mean a room with two computers, scanners, printers a shit ton of different sized boxes and bags, bubble wrap, packing tape, and apparently a whole lot of stress. there was a single dude working up there, and during christmas time, he was overwhelmed like crazy. i think he was actually going kind of crazy, to be honest. he knew the system pretty well, but still struggled with a lot of stuff, complained like a motherfucker, sang along to the radio but made up his own lyrics because he thought it was funnier. he was annoying but i liked having him around because he knew all the secrets to this job. like a gatekeeper. i could go to any other manager in the store and they wouldn’t really know what the fuck was going on in that office, couldn’t make sense of how or why orders showed up on those computers, couldn’t navigate them without calling another store to guide them through it, which they never did. it was really weird seeing what i thought was a polished corporate system so damn shaky beneath the foundation.

anyway, the dude quit that job before things really ramped up for the season. i was the only one in the department for a long time after that, and i barely knew what i was doing. he was the gatekeeper, and he left go back to his job at the waffle house pretty much overnight. i struggled for a while. most things got sent out ok, but i had a few “express” and “two day priority” packages that sat around for a few weeks through christmas because they required some special wizardry to get those specific labels to print off the computers. basically at the beginning of each day, you’d have a list of items to collect, and would spend the rest of the time hunting for those pieces out on the store floor, bring them back to the office, bag and box them up, and process the correct labels and gift cards for each and every one. and it was a real ball ache sometimes because certain items were just impossible to find, especially if they were returns that we didn’t normally carry in the store, clearance items, fucking women’s shoes, comforters with specific thread counts, dresses with the wrong picture, or no picture at all...

i took charge, though. i stuck around, i made uncomfortable phone calls to post offices, i got down a technique for folding and packaging shirts and dresses and all kinds of random stuff, got better at finding items that would normally be lost to the void. i could find shit in departments that people who actually worked those departments could not find. i became the epitome of efficiency. i was the new gatekeeper. at the end of every day, i’d have a blank order list, because everything would be accounted for, or passed on to another store. no bullshit. definitely the most involved i had ever been at any job. nobody at that store knew how that system worked better than me.

long story short, i was still the “seasonal” guy, and i think my bosses expected i didn’t plan on working there very long. they kept replacing the fulfillment manager with other people who barely knew what they were doing, essentially requiring me, the gatekeeper, to train my bosses, which to me was just absurd. after a few months, outraged, i quit to work at a cafe, and told my manager why i was upset that i was being shafted, not given the responsibility, the hours, the sweet sweet full-time position. she was surprised, apparently, and told me she absolutely would have given it to me if she knew i was interested. a missed communication. it was too late.

i’m glad i didn’t get promoted there, anyway, or else i would probably still be stuck there. i think that position got phased out of the system (along with the entire store, eventually), replaced by having the department managers coming in like, an hour early to pick all the orders out of their separate departments. probably more efficient. and in the end, i was really only interested in the complete and total power, not in the job itself. it’s still only retail

5. The Cornerstone Cafe, welcome to the family

this was my first actual job in the food service industry, at a cafe that i frequented pretty regularly, and this was also the first place where i properly ascended “through the ranks,” as they say. my longest lasting job to date, spanned about two and a half years, i think. it was owned by this married couple from indonesia, and i was hired on to replace one of their drivers. obviously i had to fudge the details of my previous driving gig to get this one, and i still kind of lacked confidence that i was really up to the task, but at least it was in a neighborhood that i was vaguely familiar with. i was also finally working at a place where i really cared whether or not they were successful. at someplace like macy’s, graeter’s, you’re just a cog, and not a very special one. at this place, they had maybe 5 or 6 employees in total on any given day, including one or both of the owners, and each of you had to be versatile, knowledgeable, and basically on top of your shit at all times.

even as a delivery driver, i was informed and trained on at least 3 or 4 different roles. here’s how to be a cashier. here’s how to wash the dishes in a 3 compartment sink. here’s how i need you to sweep the floors, run food to the customers, here’s how to make this drink and that drink, here’s the size of the small salad, here’s the size of the regular salad, and when you fuck up, you can be sure as hell we’re gonna get on you for it until you do it the right way. no funny business. it was the kind of direction i enjoyed, something that makes you feel secure and stable when you get it down. i memorized the menu fully in maybe two weeks, which was no small feat. on the driving side, i picked up a lot of info about how streets are laid out, which ways were east and west, which side of the street certain numbers were on, which houses tipped and which houses didn’t, which addresses were businesses, which were apartments, etc etc. every customer has a different expectation and the job trains you to adapt. think quickly. work quickly. multitask and do a dozen jobs at once. this was not a slow restaurant, folks, and if you spent too long trying to learn something, you were dead weight. a lot of dead weight got fired. a lot of dumbasses got hired, snorted coke in the bathroom, and got fired because they weren’t paying attention. even people who had been there for a few years struggled sometimes, or at least got flustered. it was hard work and really shaped my work ethic, moreso than all the nothing jobs i had before.

also the most money i’d ever made up to that point, and i felt like i was almost making like, a living? of course, i wasn’t, i just happened to be in possession of a lot of cash, like some drug dealer. delivery drivers carry a lot of cash, tips mostly, or ways to break twenties and stuff like that, and that’s what makes delivery driving one of the most dangerous jobs out there! that’s what i read, anyway. i never got mugged or anything, but i’m pretty sure i was working in a pretty pussy neighborhood. driving was the easiest part, it was easy money compared to the madness of the dish room, the front counter, the kitchen line.

it was also an intensely intimate work relationship. it was a family business. i knew every single person that worked there. i was pals with all of them. i was out of school so i could work any shift, every shift, every position. i got trained to work in the kitchen, picked it up quick. learned a lot of prep work, picked up a few dozen different ways to cut an onion or a pepper. cooked batches of hard boiled eggs like they were nothing. made sandwiches like a madman, smacked people on the hands for trying to steal a french fry, threw cashiers out of the kitchen if they were getting in my way, and made my mark as a pillar of the establishment. they really grew to depend on me, which had its positives and negatives.

the relationships grew very personal too, which also had positives and negatives. sometimes people really grated on me, personality-wise, and i endured them the same way you would an annoying uncle. others trusted me with stuff they really shouldn’t have, became incredibly comfortable giving me their secrets. i gave rides to people. took people grocery shopping, to do their laundry, mailed packages for people, made phone calls for people who weren’t confident with their english. more than once, i’ve had to drive home the guy who makes the chinese food because he would come into work mad drunk, and he only spoke spanish, so i would have to drop him off at a kroger nearby where i thought he lived. i knew a few people pretty personally, even the owners who still cheer and recognize me to this day, still let me go in the back and make my own food if there are no objections. i’m permanently a part of that family, and i worked my way into it fair and square. they still ask me to come back and work a weekend every now and then, and i always refuse.

it was one of those jobs where eventually, you just learn how to do everything, because at some point, you gotta do everything. there were days when i would both be the sandwich chef and the driver, a really sketchy balance. days when i would be covering three people at once. there is such a thing as being too dependable, too good at your job, because then people start taking advantage of you. people calling off for nothing knowing you could probably cover for them. your boss asking you to work an extra 5 hours on any given day. the head cook quitting for a month, forcing you to do his job when you really had no interest in firing fifteen dozen bagels at six in the morning, seven days a week. and being in a position like that makes it a lot harder to leave, even when you know you have to move on to bigger and better things, when you’ve learned everything and don’t want to be stuck in one place. that was really the hard part about that place, leaving your family to figure it out for themselves. in the end, though, it’s not really your family, it’s only business. i was starting to get this idea in my head about becoming a pastry chef at the time, and i was getting antsy about being stuck there.

i quit the job on the excuse that i was going back to school to study culinary, came back a few months later anyway to work 20 hour weeks. eventually made a connection or two in college that landed me a job on the pastry team at the convention center downtown, where i work now. but i think those stories are best saved for a time when i’m not like, employed by them. i’m still looking ahead, though, and again growing anxious about moving on to develop more skills.

probably why i was thinking about those damn doughnuts at that coffee place. i feel like there’s still a lot of pastry-related stuff i need to learn, stuff that i could have picked up on along the way before getting into The Big Leagues. bakeries and cafes and grocery stores i could have worked in. tricks of the trade i missed out on. granted, i am getting a lot of that now, but the job i’m currently holding is much more suited for somebody who already had a wealth of knowledge to build off of. maybe that’s why i’m taking this weird sojourn into “well, what have i actually learned so far?” trying to work at a bakery at this point feels like i’m going backwards, settling for less money to pick up skills i should already know. the next logical would be, i don’t know, a country club i guess? people always ask about starting my own bakery, and i know i’m not ready for that. sometimes i feel like i still don’t know a damn thing about food creation, how flavors go together. the more difficult techniques, decorating cakes and sugar work. even with simple techniques i’m sure i could use some refinement. and i’m always worthless when my boss comes to me for help with writing a menu. i don’t have tricks in my back pocket beyond what i’ve learned there, and i’m not as studious as i should be with trying new recipes in my personal time. depression gets in the way of that pretty regularly.

anyway, that’s all i can think to write for now. i know it’s a pretty worthless read, but sometimes you just gotta write for writing’s sake.

#blog #personal

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thedistrictsleepsalonetonight · 5 years

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There was a girl, and I accidentally fell in love Chapter 2

If I ever die I’d like these words to be written on my tombstone “Here lies Lena Luthor, an endless sufferer of shenanigans and idiocies not performed in any way, shape or form by her”. Because, dear people jobless enough to sit and listen to this sadness, that is the story of my life summed up in a few words.

A day after I’d made that deal with Lex, he started bugging me to go and quote “Woo the girl”, which I, of course refused to do, because that would be weird. Jack had the insane idea of becoming friends with her, and then casually mentioning to her that I was “Hot, into girls, and looking for somebody to date”. I shut that down right away because Jack had the subtlety of a rampaging rhino in a glass room. Sam laughed for about five minutes straight when I told her that I’d agreed with Lex’s plan, and then told me that I was screwed.

“What? Why?” I asked her, affronted “You don’t think I could convince someone to date me?”

She shrugged.

“What? I’m hot!”

“Yeah, but you’re also awkward, and kind of an idiot, and really, really gay for pretty girls.”

I glared at her until she stopped snickering, but the entire thing had gotten me thinking. My only dating experience had been a girl at some camp in Freshman Year, and that had ended when my mother had discovered us making out in my bedroom.

Ah, fun times.

Either way, she had put a stop to it, by pulling some strings and making sure we never saw each other again. It hadn’t really destroyed my life, or anything, because I hadn’t really known Dana that long or anything, but it was a major inconvenience. Mostly because it had given her much more fodder to harp on me, without reason.

“Guys,” I said slowly out loud at lunch one day to my audience of two “What if I’m not good at romance?”

Both Jack and Sam stared at me, and then simultaneously rolled their eyes.

**********

“Okay, so you go up to her, and say “Hey, how ya’ doin’?””

“You know I don’t like that stupid show, Jack!”

“Or, I can go and trip her up around you, and then you get to be the one to catch her in your arms, and grab all her books out of mid-air, and she’ll fall in love with you.”

“Sam, I’m not Spiderman.”

**********

Despite my friends’ best efforts, it wasn’t until a week later that I actually talked to her.

It was at some shitty party at some random jock’s party, and almost every person from school who was maybe slightly relevant was there, drinking and acting generally depraved. This party was a neutral one, which is why both Lex’s buddies and Clark’s theater group was there, at the same time. They just gave each other a wide berth. We walked in there, fashionably late, and had been mostly sticking together. That was, until Sam walked off to play beer pong, and Jack left with a girl who wanted to discuss the latest episode of Black Mirror with him. That left me alone at a party I didn’t even want to be. I started walking around the house, looking for something to do. Eventually, I ended up at the kitchen, and was just about to pick up a red cup.

“I hope you’ve got someone to drop you home after this,” came a voice from near the door, and I nearly dropped it in surprise.

I looked up to see Kara Danvers standing in front of me, fiddling with her hands.

“I mean,” she said in response to my raised eyebrow “I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do, of course, it’s just……my friend told me it was super strong so, I just. You know, thought I’d warn you. Or something.”

She was so awkward. I smiled at her “Hey, I’m Lena.”

**********

Did I know back then that I was talking to the girl I was going to fall in crazy stupid hopefully possibly forever love with?

No.

Did I, however, think she was one of the strangest people I’d ever met in my life?

Definitely.

**********

She fiddled with her hands a lot, I found out soon. She kept tapping her fingers in an uneven rhythm on the kitchen countertop, and would keep swaying side to side on her feet while she was listening to me. Sometimes, she would reach up and adjust her glasses, needlessly. Her hair was down that day, and she was wearing a sundressy kind of thing that made her look floaty, somehow. The entire picture was kind of adorable.

“I don’t really, like parties,” she told me, leaning forward, as though there were people around spying on us.

“I can tell,” I whispered back, just as conspiratorially.

“You’re laughing at me,” she pouted, and it was so cute it surprised me into dropping my smile right away.

“I’m not. I think parties are stupid too. Like, that’s no way to get to know somebody. If you really want to know somebody it has to be quiet, and both of you need to be comfortable, and ideally, there should be food, and it’s even better if there’s chocolate, but yeah,” I tapered off, awkwardly.

She was staring at me.

“Kara?” I asked.

She shook her head slightly, smiled at me, and then held out her hand. I just stared dumbly at it.

“What?”

“Shall we go find some chocolate?” she said, and I swear for that one moment my stomach fell several stories, and bounced upwards, jostling my heart into action.

**********

“Hey, Pride and Prejudice was awesome. But am I the only one who thought poor Mary should’ve gotten a little bit of happiness towards the end too? I mean, all she did was play the piano.”

“Did you know that we’re all basically made of stardust? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I mean, what if stars were sentient. And had high schools and everything. I bet I came from that one loser star who used to run around planet gazing, and writing poetry about the Big Bang.”

“You want to know my theory? Opposite day is basically a paradox. Because as soon as you say that it’s opposite day today, everything you say has to be the opposite of what you mean. So, by that logic, what you said was false. It’s not opposite day. But then, unless it’s opposite day, it wouldn’t be false. Gosh, I think I’m confusing you. Does that make sense? Because it’s making a lot of sense to me.”

“And that is why I firmly stand by my belief that people who like Riverdale usually have small hands and squinty eyes.”

**********

It has been six months to that day, and I still remember every word of what she said to me. I remember her talking too fast, too much, and I remember talking about everything with her. We went from books, to movies to the astrophysics, and all throughout the conversation I was mostly trying to keep up with this ridiculous person, who could rank all the food she’d ever had on basis of how color friendly they’d looked. She was shy, but had a mind that worked like lightning, and I just wanted to keep talking.

**********

Unfortunately for me, Clark Kent existed.

Just around midnight, when the party was dying down, and people were starting to pass out on the lawns where we were sitting, he walked out.

“Hey, Kara, we should……” he started, and that was when he saw me “What are you doing here?”

“Talking?” I said, sitting up straighter.

He stared at me with distrust, and held out a hand for Kara “Let’s go.”

She looked at me, then at him, evidently picking up on the tension between us, and got up. Waved awkwardly.

“I’ll…….see you around?” I called out behind her, before she disappeared into the house.

**********

“So that was it?” Lex asked me.

I shrugged “We met, we talked, Clark showed up, she went away. Not really that eventful.”

“Okay,” he stretched it out “If you say so.”

Sam and Jack kept staring at me right after he went to sleep.

“What” I deadpanned.

“That wasn’t as uneventful as you were making it out to be,” Jack said, with the confidence of an idiot who thinks he sniffs something burning in the kitchen next door.

“Um,” I looked at Sam, expecting her to start up next, but she was curiously out of it, tonight. Her mind seemed faraway “Sam? What’s up?”

She started “What? Oh. Nothing.”

“Yeah, dude,” Jack chimed in “Last I saw you were playing beer pong with Danvers, and then I totally lost track.”

“Not Alex Danvers,” I frowned. Alex and Sam had always had one of those stupid class rivalries you see in movies. They couldn’t agree on one thing in the classes they had together “Don’t you hate her?”

“I don’t hate her.”

I turned my voice shriller “Alex Danvers is an idiot with a chip on her shoulder about biology. Like chlorophyll even is that interesting.”

“I have never sounded like…….hey! This was about you and Kara. What the fuck are we talking about me for?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, guys. We talked.”

“For a whole three hours? That’s crazy.”

“She’s……..interesting,” I admitted, casually plopping onto my bed “Now, no more questions. Go to sleep, idiots.”

“No, no, no, wait!,” I heard Sam say, and suddenly both of their faces were over mine “How interesting?”

“What the fuck?”

“Tell us!” Sam exclaimed.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered, freaked out “Very. Now no more questions. Every person sleeps now. And that’s an order.

Then there was quiet for the next fifteen minutes, as both of them settled in with their mattresses and their blankets. Right when I was just about to fall asleep myself, Sam spoke up again.

“Hey, Lena?”

I mumbled something sleepily.

Even through the haze of sleep, I could hear the mischief in her voice “You totally think she’s hot, don’t you?”

“Shut up, Sam.”

#supergirl #kara x lena #fanfiction #supergirl fanfiction #romance

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inspirationallyinsane · 6 years

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March 15 2018

Hello Tumblr. I am tired. I don't really know how I feel right now. Melancholic, I think. Sad would be too strong of a word, I am not necessarily sad. I just have this empty feeling all of the time. The feeling that I lowkey want to die but like, not all the way. Days go by and I don't even notice them. I want them to go away I want the days to be over. I'm not sure what to call that feeling. I have been waking up crying every morning. I don't cry during the day, nor do I feel the urge to, but I every morning I wake up in tears. I dream of him. Every night. It is restless. He isn't even awful in all of my dreams, in a lot of them we are happy. In a lot of them we are just being us, nothing unusual or particularly dreamlike in its plot. He's just there. I can see his face and his laugh and his smile and his red jacket and I am at peace. And I wake up crying because I think even in my subconscious I know. I know it isn't real and dream me wants it to be real so badly, she wants him more than anything and she knows. She knows he isn't really there. So. I'm trying really hard not to feel that way when I'm awake. I tell myself how awful he was to me and how he broke us without any care and how awful that is. When I am awake I am resentful and so I do not feel sad, only melancholic. But in my heart I can not resent him and so when I am not awake it is hard. In moments of honesty it is hard. I am fully aware that I am living every day inside of a huge lie to myself. I know that I would break if that lie were to go away and so for now I am not living genuinely. Which I don't love. I don't want to live inside a false reality that I have created just so I can be ok. I think Monday was the worst. On Monday I had not yet created my lie and so on Monday I woke up and cried until 8:30. I had to be at work at 8:45 and I really didn't want to be so weak as to call out sick for this shit and so I made the lie. I convinced myself of it and I was not late for work. I did not cry at work and I did not break. I was, by all appearances, my normal self. It actually wasn't until today that I even got around to telling Ben, who I share everything with, that my relationship was over. So. No one knew. No one really knows. And then there are the people that do know and they have been wonderful. The people who care about me. I had a lot of old friends (and new friends) reach out to me and offer me help/condolences/sympathy. It makes me kinda want to cry thinking about it. Happy tears, of course. It is astounding to me the variation of people in the world. How some people can be so awful all of the time for no reason, people who you have given everything to. They can treat you like shit on their shoe. And then there are the people who you have given nothing to, who you have done nothing for, and yet they still extend kindness. They extend kindness without an expectation of anything in return. I am amazed by these people. I would like to think that I am like these people. I deeply admire them. I appreciate everyone who reached out to me and helped me pull my feet from the ground. I am very lucky. I am not alone. I have a date on Saturday. I don't really want to do it but I will because if I do not then my lie will have an inconsistency and it will shatter. So. I'd like to think that I have grown since high school but here we are doing the same shit. I remember replacing Austin with AG and I knew, I knew that I would never feel the same way about AG but I did it anyway and it was awful. To him and to me. And here I am jumping into another relationship when I know I will be in love with someone else for the entirety of it. And y'all might say "it's just a date it doesn't have to turn into anything" but for the most part I am the one controlling that and I know myself well enough to know that if I do this I will be dating this dude within a few weeks. I've known him for almost a whole ass year I know exactly what I'm doing. We vibe well and I could totally have another AG-esque relationship. We literally haven't even started chilling yet and we're already talking for hours on discord playing league together until midnight. Unreal honestly. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I am supposed to do. I really want to wait for him. I really want to talk to him. I want to go to Target and talk to him. Just like I did when he pulled this shit the first time. But I think at some point I have to look at myself in the mirror and come to understand that I am worth more than this. I should not need to go to Target and confront him about things just to get him to talk to me. I am worth more than that. Am I worth more than that? I don't know how to place a value on people or actions. We have been studying morality and ethics in my philosophy class. There is a philosopher who stated that a person could decide whether an action was moral based on numerical values placed on its effects. So we can take Vince's actions and place values on them. Maybe this made him feel unbelievably happy. That gives 100 positive points to it, and it made me unbelievably sad, that gives 100 negative points to it. Since Vince's actions do not extend beyond the two of us, that is all the points to give to it (basically). Therefore, the points equally cancel each other out and his action was neither moral nor immoral. But from where I am standing, his action was clearly immoral or unethical. It was wrong and it was shitty. And then you can go assign numbers to an action I might do; go to Target. Let's say that plays out positively and I fix things. Vince would be happier (that is my genuine belief based on experience) and I would be happier. That's two hundo positive points and zero negatives. However, it clearly isn't the right thing for me to do as it would be a negative representation of my self worth. So? Who tf knows. Other philosophers say to do things that make you happy, as long as you don't act in an extreme. Seeing him again would make me happy. I do not believe asking him to talk would be an extreme. Stalking him would be and I am certainly not going to do that. So. Would going to ask him to talk be the wrong action? Some philosophers say that you need to do what's best for the most amount of people. I am not really sure what that would be in my situation. I'm not sure if you can apply utilitarianism to this. I can say though that I think my family would probably be happier to see me out of this situation, maybe Vince would be happier, and definitely this guy who wants to date me would be happier, so in that case waiting around for Vince would be immoral. I like philosophy a lot and I like the idea of living a reasonable life. Making every decision intellectually and thoughtfully. But I can not come to believe that every decision can be a rational one. There is no rationale to this. On his side or on mine. This is purely emotional. I also think that a lot of philosophers would argue that since it is purely emotional it is nothing more than a distraction from rational thought and it is worthless. Maybe that is how Vince sees it, as worthless. But I do not. I put so much value in our relationship. In him, in us. I valued it more than anything. I valued my love for him. I valued him as a person. I irrationally valued it with everything that I am. I still do. And I think that is another reason I feel it is important to talk to him. I respect my relationship too much to just leave it broken on the ground like this. I have never done that in any of my relationships and I don't want to start now. That is some shit. I built something beautiful with someone and to have it smashed down and trampled and not even give it the respect it deserves? That's awful. And another thing for me is that I reallyyyyy don't do short relationships. I fucking left a dude I was fully intending on marrying for Vince. Now, granted, that was certainly not a bad decision, I should have gotten out of that relationship anyway, but, the intention was that I would have a long and happy relationship with Vince. We loved each other. I love him. I don't understand. He told me that he loved me and he said that meant forever. Unless I did something shitty like cheat on him or change entirely as a human being. I have not done either of those things. I have not changed a bit since the first day we met and he is a smart little shit so he knew me from the first day we met. It is almost embarrassing for me. I posted a picture on insta and tagged it "unconditional" that was one month ago. How tf you going to go from loving someone unconditionally to being broken up in under a month. Shit's whack. Realistically, I still love him unconditionally. I did not lie when I said that. I will love him for the rest of my life. But like, I can't. Not publically or even on here. I have another few years, tops, before I have to stop. Before I have to start living again, out of pure necessity. That fucking sucks, I think. Four months. Unreal. I love him. Four months. It's stupid. We were so serious. Talking about shit like moving in together and marriage and children. Ridiculous. It is so outside of the realm of reality. It's shit. If we were just fucking around, if he just wanted to fuck around with me that's fine but you can't go and say all that in that case. You can't go and say that you are in love with someone and then two days after decide you're never going to talk to them again. People don't behave that way. That's borderline sociopathic. Maybe he never loved me. Maybe it was all a big lie. I'm not sure what he gained from it since we never fucked or anything which is usually why a guy would lie to you about that so. I don't really understand the logic behind the idea that it was all a lie either. And if he wanted like, stuff from me, like material items, he chose a really shit time to pull this. Y'all should've seen his birthday gift like god damn that boy would've loved it. I mean it wouldn't make sense for that to be the case either. Lord. I don't even know. I'm going to start spiraling if I keep writing and keep tryna figure this out. Work has been really good. I officially got my raise and I worked 35 hours last week so my paycheck is going to be looking hella nice next Friday. I'm going to be making over 800 dollars a paycheck on my regular hours. This paycheck should be around 850-900. It's going to be so nice. Making 1600 dollars a month. I feel good about life. Lowkey though our UB quit and I wanted to take her job but they're switching it all around to where taking that job literally would have been a demotion and less pay. Lmao our universal banker makes less than the drive through teller. Wtf. So I'm not really sure how to get promoted to a 40 hour a week position but I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Also! I'm super sad because they are switching Ben to only work Mondays and Fridays so the bank is going to be super boring Tues-Thurs. What am I going to do without my work pal :( but who knows, maybe the new prime time teller will be chill af as well :) Yaaa. So. I guess that's about all. I wrote a whole lot more than I originally intended to but that's how it be sometimes I guess. Goodnight, Tumblr~

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